He did not know what time it was when he awoke and found one by his bed, looking down on him, he thought, compassionately.  It was growing towards evening, for it way darker, or else his eyes were heavy and confused with sickness, but he could not see very clearly the face of the man who stood by him.

The man presently kneeled down by the bed, murmuring with pity as it seemed, and Master Richard felt himself raised a little, and then laid down again, and there was something soft at the nape of his neck over the wooden pillow and against his torn shoulders.  There was something, too, laid across his body and legs, as if to keep him from chill.

He said nothing for a while; he did not know what to say, but he looked steadily at the face that looked on him, and saw that it was that of a young man, not five years older than himself, shaven clean like a clerk, and the eyes of him seemed pitiful and loving.

“Laudetur Jesus Christus!” said Master Richard presently, as his custom was when he awoke.

“Amen,” said the man beside the bed.

That comforted Master Richard a little—­that the man should say Amen to his praise of Jesu Christ, so he asked him who he was and what he did there.

The young man said nothing to that, but asked him instead how he did, and his voice was so smooth and tender that Master Richard was further encouraged.

“I do far better than our Lord did,” he answered.  “He had none to minister to Him.”

It seemed that the young man was moved at that, for he hid his face in his hands a moment.

Then he began to pity Master Richard, saying that it was a shame that he had been so evilly treated, and that Master-Lieutenant should smart for it if it ever came to his grace’s ears.  But he said this so strangely that Master Richard was astonished.

“And how does the King do?” he asked.

“The King is at the point of death,” said the young man solemnly.

“It is no more than the point then,” said Master Richard confidently, “and a point that will not pierce him, else what of the passion that he must suffer?”

The young man seemed to look on him very steadily and earnestly at that.

“Why do you look at me like that?” he asked him.  “I have done nothing to his grace save give my tidings.”

“Master Hermit,” said the young man very gravely, “I entreat you not to speak like that.”

“How should I speak then?” he asked.

The young man did not answer immediately, but he moved on his knees a little closer to the bed, and took Master Richard’s hand softly between his own, and so held it, caressing it.  Master Richard told me that this action moved him more than all else; he felt the tears rise to his eyes, and he gave a sob or two.  It is always so with noble natures after great pain. [Sir John relates here the curious history of a girl who was nearly burned as a witch, and that when she was reprieved she yielded at once to the solicitations of marriage from a man whom she had always hated, but who was the first to congratulate her on her escape.  But the story sadly interrupts the drama of the main narrative, and therefore I omit it.]....