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THE SHRINE OF ST. PATRICK'S BELL. 271
he tells us, even in the frost and snow never feeling any laziness.
At
the end of six years he escaped, made his way to the seacoast, and
finding a vessel ready to start was at length suffered to embark. They
sailed for three days and then wandered twenty days in a desert. This
item does not help us as to the locality, for the coasts either of
Brittany or Scotland, suffering as they did from the frequent visits
of the Irish, were likely enough to be deserts. Patrick's first
converts seem to have been the crew of this ship, for being on the
point of starvation they appealed to the Christian to help them, and
the Saint prayed, whereupon a drove of swine appeared, the grateful
sailors " gave great thanks to God, and I" [Patrick writes] " was
honored in their eyes."
After
a brief stay with his parents the young man impelled by his zeal set
out again for Ireland, determined to bring its pagan inhabitants into
the light of Christianity. There is some variety of opinion as to the
date of the Saint's ar-
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