‘Your follower, Deodatus,’ said the abbot presently, ’begs each day for permission to see you.  The good fellow has not lived in idleness; he is a brave worker in wood, and by chance we much needed one of his craft.  Not many things of this world give me more pleasure than to watch a cunning craftsman as he smooths timber, and fits the pieces together, and makes of them something that shall serve the needs of men.  Is it not, in some sort, to imitate the great Artificer?  Would, O Basil, that our country had more makers and fewer who live but to destroy.’

‘Would it were so, indeed!’ sighed Basil, in a low, fervent voice.

‘But the end is not yet,’ pursued Benedict, his eyes gazing straight before him, as if they beheld the future.  ’Men shall pray for peace, but it will not be granted them, so great are the iniquities of the world which utters the name of Christ, yet knows Him not.’

He paused with troubled brow.  Then, as if reminding himself that his hearer had need of more encouraging words, he said cheerfully: 

’To-morrow, perchance, you will have strength to leave your room.  Deodatus shall come to you in the morning.  When you can walk so far, I will pray you to visit me in my tower.  You knew not that I inhabit a tower?  Even as the watchman who keeps guard over a city.  And,’ he added more gravely, as if to himself rather than to the listener, ‘God grant that my watch be found faithful.’

Thereupon the abbot rose, and gently took his leave; and Basil, through all the rest of the day, thought of him and of every word he had uttered.

Not long after sunrise on the morrow, Deodatus was allowed to enter.  This man, whose age was something more than thirty, was the son of a serf on Basil’s land, and being of very peaceful disposition, had with some reluctance answered the summons to arm himself and follow his lord to the wars.  Life in the monastery thoroughly suited his temper; when Basil encouraged him to talk, he gave a delighted account of the way in which his days were spent; spoke with simple joy of the many religious services he attended, and had no words in which to express his devotion to the abbot.

‘Why, Deodatus,’ exclaimed his master, smiling, ’you lack but the cowl to be a very monk.’

‘My duty is to my lord,’ answered the man, bending his head.

’Tell me now whether any news has reached you, in all this time, of those from whom my sickness parted us.’

But Deodatus had heard nothing of his fellows, and nothing of Venantius.

‘It may be,’ said Basil, ’that I shall send you to tell them how I fare, and to bring back tidings.  Your horse is at hand?’

As he spoke he detected a sadness on the man’s countenance.  Without more words, he dismissed him.