He did not appear to hear or see the approach of the Hermit, but sat quite still till the boy said:  “Father, here is a pilgrim.”

Then he lifted up his voice and asked angrily who was there and what the stranger sought.

The Hermit answered:  “Father, the report of your holy practices came to me a long way off, and being myself a solitary, though not worthy to be named with you for godliness, it seemed fitting that I should cross the mountains to visit you, that we might sit together and speak in praise of solitude.”

The Saint replied:  “You fool, how can two sit together and praise solitude, since by so doing they put an end to the thing they pretend to honour?”

The Hermit, at that, was sorely abashed, for he had thought his speech out on the way, reciting it many times over; and now it appeared to him vainer than the crackling of thorns under a pot.

Nevertheless he took heart and said:  “True, Father; but may not two sinners sit together and praise Christ, who has taught them the blessings of solitude?”

But the other only answered:  “If you had really learned the blessings of solitude you would not squander them in idle wandering.”  And, the Hermit not knowing how to reply, he said again:  “If two sinners meet they can best praise Christ by going each his own way in silence.”

After that he shut his lips and continued motionless while the boy brushed the flies from his eye-sockets; but the Hermit’s heart sank, and for the first time he felt all the weariness of the way he had fared, and the great distance dividing him from home.

He had meant to take counsel with the Saint concerning his lauds, and whether he ought to destroy them; but now he had no heart to say another word, and turning away he began to descend the mountain.  Presently he heard steps running behind him, and the boy came up and pressed a honey-comb in his hand.

“You have come a long way and must be hungry,” he said; but before the Hermit could thank him he had hastened back to his task.  So the Hermit crept down the mountain till he reached the wood where he had slept before; and there he made his bed again, but he had no mind to eat before sleeping, for his heart hungered more than his body; and his salt tears made the honey-comb bitter.

III

On the fourteenth day he came to the valley below his cliff, and saw the walls of his native town against the sky.  He was footsore and heavy of heart, for his long pilgrimage had brought him only weariness and humiliation, and as no drop of rain had fallen he knew that his garden must have perished.  So he climbed the cliff heavily and reached his cave at the angelus.