‘No, sir; I ken the woodland and can soon be at home,’ replied Hal; then, putting a knee to the ground, ’May I have your blessing, holy man?’

‘Alack, I told thee I am no priest,’ said the hermit; ’but for such as I am, I bless thee with all my soul, thou fatherless lad,’ and he laid his hand on the young lad’s wondering brow, then bade him begone, since Simon and himself had much to say to one another.

Hal summoned Watch, and turned to a path through the wood, leading towards the coast, wondering as he walked how the hermit seemed to know him—­him whose presence had been so sedulously concealed.  Could it be that so very holy a man had something of the spirit of prophecy?

He kept his promise of silence, and indeed his guardians were so much accustomed to his long wanderings that he encountered no questions, only one of Hob’s growls that he should always steal away whenever there was a chance of Master Bunce’s coming to try to make a man of him.

However, Bunce himself arrived shortly after, and informed Hob that since young folks always pried where they were least wanted, and my lord had stumbled incontinently on the anchoret’s den, it was the holy man’s will that he might come there whenever he chose.  A pity and shame it was, but it would make him more than ever a mere priestling, ever hankering after books and trash!

’Were it not better to ask my lady and Sir Lancelot if they would have it so?  I could walk over to Threlkeld!’

‘No, no, no, on your life not,’ exclaimed Simon, striking his staff on the ground in his vehemence.  ’Never a word to the Threlkeld or any of his kin!  Let well alone!  I only wish the lad had never gone a-roaming there!  But holy men must not be gainsaid, even if it does make a poor craven scholar out of his father’s son.’

And thus began a time of great contentment to the Lord Clifford.  There were few days on which he did not visit the hermitage.  It was a small log hut, but raised with some care, and made weatherproof with moss and clay in the crevices, and there was an inner apartment, with a little oil lamp burning before a rough wooden cross, where Hal, if the hermit were not outside, was certain to find him saying his prayers.  Food was supplied by Simon himself, and, since Hal’s admission, was often carried by him, and the hermit seemed to spend his time either in prayer or in a gentle dreamy state of meditation, though he always lighted up into animation at the arrival of the boy whom he had made his friend.  Hal had thought him old at first, on the presumption that all hermits must be aged, nor was it likely that age should be estimated by one living such a life, but the light hair, untouched with grey, the smooth cheeks and the graceful figure did not belong to more than a year or two above forty.  And he had no air of ill health, yet this calm solitary residence in the wooded valley seemed to be infinite rest to him.