The Hermit and the Wild Woman | Page 7

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 praise 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 reply, he said again: "If two sinners meet
they can best praise Christ by going each his own way in silence."
After that he shut his lips and continued motionless while the boy
brushed the flies from his eye-sockets; but the Hermit's heart sank, and
for the first time he felt all the weariness of the way he had fared, and

the great distance dividing him from home.
He had meant to take counsel with the Saint concerning his lauds, and
whether he ought to destroy them; but now he had no heart to say
another word, and turning away he began to descend the mountain.
Presently he heard steps running behind him, and the boy came up and
pressed a honey-comb in his hand.
"You have come a long way and must be hungry," he said; but before
the Hermit could thank him he had hastened back to his task. So the
Hermit crept down the mountain till he reached the wood where he had
slept before; and there he made his bed again, but he had no mind to