ise Thee, O Lord."

All day he kept seeing it and then losing it; but toward night he came
to a cleft of the hills, and lay down in a pine-wood to sleep. He had
now been six days gone, and once and again he thought anxiously of his
herbs; but he said to himself: "What though my garden perish, if I see
a holy man face to face and praise God in his company?" So he was never
long cast down.

Before daylight he was afoot under the stars; and leaving the wood
where he had slept, began climbing the face of a tall cliff, where he
had to clutch the jutting ledges with his hands, and with every step he
gained, a rock seemed thrust forth to hurl him back. So, footsore and
bleeding, he reached a little stony plain as the sun dropped to the
sea; and in the red light he saw a hollow rock, and the Saint sitting
in the hollow.

The Hermit fell on his knees, praising God; then he rose and ran across
the plain to the rock. As he drew near he saw that the Saint was a very
old man, clad in goatskin, with a long white beard. He sat motionless,
his hands on his knees, and two red eye-sockets turned to the sunset.
Near him was a young boy in skins who brushed the flies from his face;
but they always came back, and settled on the rheum which ran from his
eyes.

He did not appear to hear or see the approach of the Hermit, but sat
quite still till the boy said: "Father, here is a pilgrim."

Then he lifted up his voice and asked angrily who was there and what
the stranger sought.

The Hermit answered: "Father, the report of your holy practices came to
me a long way off, and being myself a solitary, though not worthy to be
named with you for godliness, it seemed fitting that I should cross the
mountains to visit you, that we might sit together and speak in praise
of solitude."

The Saint replied: "You fool, how can two sit together and praise
solitude, since by so doing they put an end to the thing they pretend
to honour?"

The Hermit, at that, was sorely abashed, for he had thought his speech
out on the way, reciting it many times over; and now it appeared to him
vainer than the crackling of thorns under a pot.

Nevertheless he took heart and said: "True, Father; but may not two
sinners sit together and praise Christ, who has taught them the
blessings of solitude?"

But the other only answered: "If you had really learned the blessings
of solitude you would not squander them in idle wandering." And, the
Hermit not knowing how to rep