He went aside then out of the road to find a hazel thicket, and by the special guidance of God found one with a may-tree beside it.  There he groped together the dead leaves, took off his burse and his hat and his girdle and his brown habit, and laid the habit upon the leaves, unpinning the five wounds, and fastening them again upon his white kirtle.  Then he knelt down by the may-tree, and said his prayers, beginning as he always did: 

"Totiens glorior, quotiens nominis tui, JESU, recordor." ["I glory, so often as I remember Thy Name, JESU.”]

Then he repeated the Name an hundred times, and his heart grew so hot and the sweetness in his month so piercing that he could scarce go on.  Then he committed himself to the tuition of the glorious Mother of Christ, and to that of saint Christopher, saint Anthony, hermit, and saint Agnes, virgin, and lastly to that of saint Giles and saint Denis, remembering me.  Then he said compline with paternoster, avemaria, and credo, signed himself with the cross, and lay down on his kirtle—­specialissimus, darling of God—­and drew the second kirtle over his body for fear of the dews and the night vapours; and so went to sleep, striving not to think of where he had slept last night. (He told me all this, as I have told you.)

He awoke at dawn in an extraordinary sweetness within and without, and as he walked in his white habit beneath the solemn beech-trees, his soul opened wide to salute the light that rose little by little, pouring down on him through the green roof.  The air was like clear water, he said, running over stories, brightening without concealing their colours; and he drank it like wine.  He had that morning in his contemplation what came to him very seldom, and I do not know if I can describe it, but he said it was the sense that the air he breathed was the essence of God, that ran shivering through his veins, and dropped like sweet myrrh from his fingers.  There was the savour of it on his lips, piercing and delicate, and in his nostrils.

He set out a little later after he had washed, following the road, and came to a timber chapel standing by itself.  I do not know which it is, but I think it must have been the church of saint Pancras that was burned down six years after.  The door was locked, but he sat to wait, and after an hour came a priest in his gown to say mass.  The priest looked at him, but answered nothing to his good-day (there be so many of these idle solitaries about that feign to serve God, but their heart is in the belly).  I do not blame the priest; it may be he had been deceived often before.

There was a fellow who answered the mass, and Master Richard knelt by himself at the end of the church.

When mass was over the two others went out without a word, leaving him there.  He said ad sextam then, and was setting out once more when the priest came back with a jug of ale and a piece of meat and bread which he offered him, telling him he would have given him nothing if he had begged.