away
with a soft padding of hoofs; but the Hermit feared neither wild beasts
nor evil-doers, nor even the fauns and satyrs who linger in unhallowed
forest depths where the Cross has not been raised; for he said: "If I
die, I die to the glory of God, and if I live it must be to the same
end." Only he felt a secret pang at the thought that he might die
without seeing his lauds again. But the third day, without
misadventure, he came out on another valley.

Then he began to climb the mountain, first through brown woods of beech
and oak, then through pine and broom, and then across red stony ledges
where only a pinched growth of lentisk and briar spread in patches over
the rock. By this time he thought to have reached his goal, but for two
more days he fared on through the same scene, with the sky close over
him and the green valleys of earth receding far below. Sometimes for
hours he saw only the red glistering slopes tufted with thin bushes,
and the hard blue heaven so close that it seemed his hand could touch
it; then at a turn of the path the rocks rolled apart, the eye plunged
down a long pine-clad defile, and beyond it the forest flowed in mighty
undulations to a plain shining with cities and another mountain-range
many days' journey away. To some eyes this would have been a terrible
spectacle, reminding the wayfarer of his remoteness from his kind, and
of the perils which lurk in waste places and the weakness of man
against them; but the Hermit was so mated to solitude, and felt such
love for all things created, that to him the bare rocks sang of their
Maker and the vast distance bore witness to His greatness. So His
servant journeyed on unafraid.

But one morning, after a long climb over steep and difficult slopes,
the wayfarer halted suddenly at a bend of the way; for beyond the
defile at his feet there was no plain shining with cities, but a bare
expanse of shaken silver that reached away to the rim of the world; and
the Hermit knew it was the sea. Fear seized him then, for it was
terrible to see that great plain move like a heaving bosom, and, as he
looked on it, the earth seemed also to heave beneath him. But presently
he remembered how Christ had walked the waves, and how even Saint Mary
of Egypt, who was a great sinner, had crossed the waters of Jordan
dry-shod to receive the Sacrament from the Abbot Zosimus; and then the
Hermit's heart grew still, and he sang as he went down the mountain:
"The sea shall pra