nd no tenderness for this soul
of the living?"

More than once the Lost Brother seemed to awake from a dream, and spoke
of going forth again from this home or quiet, saying: "Truly this is
great peace and solace to me, but I am not of you; my thoughts are not
your thoughts, nor is yours my way of life. Indeed, though I were to
will it never so, I could not repent of what I have done. Let me go;
why should I be an offence and a stone of stumbling to those who are
righteous among you?"

But the Prior silenced him, asking gently: "Do we distress you with any
of these things? God has His times and seasons, and will not be
hastened. At least so long as you find peace and rest here, remain
with us."

"You are strangely wise and gentle," the Lost Brother answered. "God,
I doubt it not, has His times and seasons; but with me I know not at
all what He will do."

It was no long while after this that the Prior fell into a grievous
illness; and when he knew that his hour was drawing nigh, he besought
the monks to bear him up to the foot of the cross on the mound. There,
as he looked far abroad into the earth over the tree-tops, he smiled
with lightness of heart and said: "If the earth be so beautiful and so
sweet, what must the delight of Paradise be?"

And behold! a small brown squirrel came down a tree, and ran across and
nestled in the holy man's bosom, and its eyes were full of tears. The
Prior stroked and caressed it, and said: "God bless thee, little
woodlander, and may the nuts never fail thee!"

Then, gazing up into the blue sky and the deep spaces of air above, he
murmured in a low voice, "It is a very awful and lonely way to go!"

"Not so awful for you," replied the companion of his youth. "That blue
way has been beaten plain by the Lord Christ, and the Apostles, and
many holy men from the beginning."

A long while the Prior lay musing before he spoke again, and then he
said: "I remember me of an ancient saying which I had long forgotten.
A year for the life of a--nay, I know not what any longer. But after
that it runs, And three for the life of a field; and thrice the life of
a field for the life of a hound; and thrice the life of a hound for the
life of a horse; and thrice the life of a horse for the life of a man;
and thrice the life of a man for the life of a stag; and thrice the
life of a stag for the life of an ouzel; and thrice the life of an
ouzel for the life of an eagle; and thrice the life of