ess a face hung all over with hair and near
as black as the hair, with red-rimmed eyes that oozed salt rheum. The
holy man asked him what he wished, and why did he hold his nostrils.

"I wish to speak with your reverence," said Master Richard, "of high
things. I hold my nostrils for that I cannot abide a stench."

The red eyes winked at that.

"I find no stench," said the holy man.

"For that you are the origin of its propagation," said Master Richard,
"and dwell in the midst of it."

It was foolish, I think, of the sweet lad to speak like that, but he was
an-angered that a man should live so. But the holy solitary was not
an-angered.

"And in God's Majesty is the origin of my propagation," he said.
"_Ergo_."

Master Richard could think of no seemly answer to that, and he desired,
too, to speak of high matters; so he let it alone, and told the holy man
his business, and where he lived.

"Tell me, my father," he said, "what is the message that I bear to the
King. It may be that our Lord has revealed it to you: He has not yet
revealed it to me."

"Are you willing to go dumb before the King?"

"I am willing if God will," said Master Richard.

"Are you willing that the King should be deaf and dumb to your
message?"

"If God will," said Master Richard again.

"What is that which you bear on your breast?"

"It is the five wounds, my father."

"Tell me of your life. Are you yet in the way of perfection?"

Then the two solitaries talked together a long while; I could not
understand all that Master Richard told to me; and I think there was
much that he did not tell me, but it was of matters that I am scarce
worthy to name, of open visions and desolations, and the darkness of the
fourth Word of our Saviour on the rood; and again of scents and sounds
and melodies such as those of which Master Rolle has written; and above
all of charity and its degrees, for without charity all the rest is
counted as dung.

_Avemaria_ rang at sunset, but they did not hear it, and at the end the
holy man within crept nearer and raised himself.

"I must see your face, brother," he said. "It may be then that I shall
know the message that your soul bears to the King."

Master Richard came out of his heavenly swoon then, and saw the face
close to his own, and what he said of it to me I dare not tell you, but
he bitterly reproached himself that he had ever doubted whether this
were a man of God or no.

As he turned his own face