I took the two books and looked at them.

There was Master Hoveden’s Philomela, and a little book he had made on Quinte Essence.

“But you will need them!” I cried.

“I carry Philomela in my heart,” he said, “and as for the Quinte Essence I shall have enough if I need it, and here is the bottle that holds that that has been made of blood.—­The fifth—­being of gold and silver I have not. Argentum et aurum non est mihi.” ["Silver and gold I have none.” (Acts iii. 6.)]

(That was the little bottle that I have told you of before.  It was distilled of his own blood, according to the method of Hermes Trismegistus.)

“If I do not return,” he said, “I bequeath all to you; and I wish six masses to be said; the first to be sung, of Requiem; the second of the five wounds; the third of the assumption; the fourth of all martyrs with a special memory of saint Christopher; the fifth of all confessors with a special memory of saint Anthony, hermit, and saint Giles, abbot; the sixth of all virgins with a special memory of saint Agnes.”

You understand, my children, that he knew what would come to him, and that he had foreseen all; he spoke as simply as one who was going to another village only, looking away from me upon the ground. (I was glad of that.)

I begged of him to bid good-bye to his meadow.

“I will not;” he said, “I bear it with me wherever I go.”

Then he took me by the arm, carrying his shod staff in his other hand, and led me to the gate, for I was so blinded that I stumbled as I went.

Once only did I speak as we passed upwards through the dark wood.

“And what will be your message,” I asked, “when you come to the King?”

“Our Lord will tell it me when I come thither,” he said.

We went through the village that lay dark and fast asleep.  I wished him to go to some of the houses, and bid the folks good-bye, but he would not.

“I bear them, too, wherever I go,” he said.

After we had adored God Almighty in the church, [That is, God present in the Blessed Sacrament.] and I had shriven the young man and blessed him, we went out and stood under the lychgate where his body afterwards rested.

It was a clear night of stars and as silent as was once heaven for the space of half-an-hour.  The philomels had given over their singing near a month before, and it was not the season for stags to bray; and those, as you know, are the principal sounds that we hear at night.

We stood a long time listening to the silence.  I knew well what was in my heart, and I knew presently what was in his.  He was thinking on his soul.

He turned to me after a while, and I could see the clear pallour of his face and the line of his lips and eyes all set in his heavy hair.

“Do you know the tale of the Persian king, Sir John?”

I told him No; he had many of such tales.  I do not know where he had read them.