many chief
men. Now he was on his way to the great house of Glastonbury oversea,
to bring back with him, if he might be so fortunate, the body of the
saint of his city who had helped our Lord to bear His cross on the Way
Dolorous; or, if that were an issue beyond his skill, at least some
precious memorial of that saint.

Many things worthy of remembrance he told of what he had seen and
heard; and no small marvel did it seem to speak with one who had stood
on Mount Sinai in the wilderness. From the top of that mountain, he
said, one looked down on a region stretching to the Red Sea, and in the
midst of the plain there is a monastery of saintly recluses, but no man
can discover any track that leads to it. Faint and far away the bells
are heard tolling for prime, it may be, or vespers, and it is believed
that now and again some weary traveller has reached it, but no one has
ever returned. The Ishmaelites, who dwell in the wilderness, have
ridden long in search of it, guided by the sound of the bells, but
never have they succeeded in catching a gleam of its white walls among
the palm-trees, nor yet of the green palms. The Abbot of that house,
it is said, is none other than the little child whom our Lord set in
the midst of His Disciples, saying, "Except ye become as little
children," and he will abide on the earth till our Lord's return, and
then shall he enter into the kingdom with Him, without tasting death.

Speaking of the holy places, Calvary, it might be, or the Garden of
Olives and the sepulchre of the Lord, and of the pilgrims who visited
these, he repeated to us the saying of the saintly Father Hieronymus:
"To live in Jerusalem is not a very holy thing, but to live a holy life
in Jerusalem." And walking with many of our brethren on the shore of
the sea and seeing the sails of the ships as they went by, he
questioned us of the wonders of the great waters, and of sea-faring,
and of the last edge of the living earth, and he said: "Tell me, you
who abide within sight of so many ships, and who hear continually the
song of the great creature Sea, how would it fare with one who should
sail westward and keep that one course constantly?"

We said that we knew not; it were like he would perish of famine or
thirst, or be whelmed in the deep.

"Ay," he said, "but if he were well provisioned, with no lack of food
and water, and the weather held fair?"

That we could not answer, for it seemed to us that such a one wou