“AND a certain unaccustomed and incomparable joy besides [he went on] spread abroad in my heart, which of a sudden consoles me in a wonderful way, and so greatly gladdens me that I can remember sadness no more, labour no more. Aye! and the load, albeit heavy, which I am carrying on my back is so much lightened that I do not feel that I am bearing any burden.”

What more shall I say? So all the harvest workers one by one declare that they had felt exactly as this one of them who had first spoken, and one and all together on bended knees besought St Baithene that he would let them know, ignorant as they were, the cause and origin of that wondrous consolation. To whom, thereupon, he gave this answer saying: “Ye know that our senior, Columba, mindful of our toil, thinks anxiously about us and grieves that we come to him so late; and by reason that he comes not in body to meet us, his spirit meets our steps, and that it is which so much consoles and makes us glad.”