you, my brother," he said, "and I have
desired to see you--but this sea of yours is a strange and wild monster,
and I trust it not,--though indeed it is God's handiwork. Yet King
David, your patron, was of the same mind, I think, and wrote in one of
his wise psalms how it made the heart to melt within him." David looked
at him with much attention as he spoke, and there was something in the
priest's eye, a kind of hidden fire, joined with a wise mirth, that made
him, all of a sudden, feel like a child before him. So he said, "Where
will your holiness sit? It is cold here in the wind; I have a dwelling
in the rocks, but it is hard to come by except for winged fowl, and for
men like myself who have been used to the precipices."

"Well, show the way, brother," said the priest cheerfully, "and I will
adventure my best." So David showed him the way up the crags, and went
slowly in front of him, that he might help him up; but the priest
climbed like a cat, looking blithely about him, and had no need of help,
though he was encumbered with his robe.

When they were got there, the priest looked curiously about him, and
presently knelt down before the carving, and said a little prayer to
himself.

Then he questioned David about his life, asking questions briskly, as
though he were accustomed to command; and David felt more and more every
moment that he was as a child before this masterful and wary man. He
told him of his early life, and of his visions, and of his desire to
know God, and of the light that he set in the rocks; and then he told
him of his adventure with the pirates, not forgetting the treasure. The
priest heard him with great attention, and said presently that he had
done well, and that God was with him. Then he asked him how he would
have the treasure bestowed, and David said that he had no design in his
mind. "Then that shall be my care," said the priest, "and I doubt not
that the Lord hath sent it us, that there may be a church in this lonely
place."

And then, turning to David with a wonderful and piercing look, he said,
"And this peace of spirit that you speak of, that you came here to seek,
tell me truly, brother, have you found it?"

Then David looked upon the ground a little and said, "Dear sir, I know
not; I am indeed strangely happy in this lonely place; but to speak all
the truth, I feel like a man who lingers at a gate, and who hears the
sound of joy and melody within, which rejoices his heart, but