as nothing
pleasing to him in the sight of this female, who was brown as a nut and
lean with wayfaring, he ran no great danger in looking at her. At first
he took her for a wandering Egyptian, but as he looked he perceived,
among the heathen charms, an Agnus Dei in her bosom; and this so
surprised him that he bent over and called on her to wake.

She sprang up with a start, but seeing the Hermit's gown and staff, and
his face above her, lay quiet and said to him: "I have watered your
garden daily in return for the beans and oil that I took from your
store."

"Who are you, and how do you come here?" asked the Hermit.

She said: "I am a wild woman and live in the woods."

And when he pressed her again to tell him why she had sought shelter in
his cave, she said that the land to the south, whence she came, was
full of armed companies and bands of marauders, and that great license
and bloodshed prevailed there; and this the Hermit knew to be true, for
he had heard of it on his homeward journey. The Wild Woman went on to
tell him that she had been hunted through the woods like an animal by a
band of drunken men-at-arms, Lansknechts from the north by their
barbarous dress and speech, and at length, starving and spent, had come
on his cave and hidden herself from her pursuers. "For," she said, "I
fear neither wild beasts nor the woodland people, charcoal burners,
Egyptians, wandering minstrels or chapmen; even the highway robbers do
not touch me, because I am poor and brown; but these armed men flown
with blood and wine are more terrible than wolves and tigers."

And the Hermit's heart melted, for he thought of his little sister
lying with her throat slit across the altar steps, and of the scenes of
blood and rapine from which he had fled away into the wilderness. So he
said to the stranger that it was not meet he should house her in his
cave, but that he would send a messenger to the town across the valley,
and beg a pious woman there to give her lodging and work in her
household. "For," said he, "I perceive by the blessed image about your
neck that you are not a heathen wilding, but a child of Christ, though
so far astray from Him in the desert."

"Yes," she said, "I am a Christian, and know as many prayers as you;
but I will never set foot in city walls again, lest I be caught and put
back into the convent."

"What," cried the Hermit with a start, "you are a runagate nun?" And he
crossed himself, and again thought o