my father," he said, though I had not spoken one word.

Then he turned and went into the hut, and left me to look upon the green
woods through my tears, and to listen to a mavis that had begun to sing
in one of the may-trees. I knew he was gone to make ready.

* * * * *

The sun had quite gone down before he came out again, and the shadows
were like a veil over the land; only the yellow flowers burned hot like
candle flames before me.

He had four books in his hand and a little bottle, his hat on his
shoulders, and the wooden sandals on his feet that he had worn to walk
in four years before when he came to us. His little linen picture of the
five wounds was fastened over his breast with thorns. He carried across
his arm the second white-sleeved kirtle that he had, and his burse was
on his girdle. He held out two of the books to me.

"These are for you, my father," he said; "the book of hours and the
_Regula Heremitarum_ I shall take with me, and all the rest of the
mobills and the two other books I shall leave at our Lord's disposal,
except the bottle of Quintessence."

I took the two books and looked at them.

There was Master Hoveden's _Philomela_, and a little book he had made on
Quinte Essence.

"But you will need them!" I cried.

"I carry _Philomela_ in my heart," he said, "and as for the Quinte
Essence I shall have enough if I need it, and here is the bottle that
holds that that has been made of blood.--The fifth--being of gold and
silver I have not. _Argentum et aurum non est mihi_." ["Silver and gold
I have none." (Acts iii. 6.)]

(That was the little bottle that I have told you of before. It was
distilled of his own blood, according to the method of Hermes
Trismegistus.)

"If I do not return," he said, "I bequeath all to you; and I wish six
masses to be said; the first to be sung, of _Requiem_; the second of the
five wounds; the third of the assumption; the fourth of all martyrs with
a special memory of saint Christopher; the fifth of all confessors with
a special memory of saint Anthony, hermit, and saint Giles, abbot; the
sixth of all virgins with a special memory of saint Agnes."

You understand, my children, that he knew what would come to him, and
that he had foreseen all; he spoke as simply as one who was going to
another village only, looking away from me upon the ground. (I was glad
of that.)

I begged of him to bid good-bye to his meadow.

"I will not;"