of flowers as blue as the Flanders' glass above the altar. I had learnt
from Master Richard, though he was thirty years my younger, many
beautiful lessons, and one of them that God's Majesty speaks to us by
the works of His almighty hands. So when I saw the green light and the
gold and the blue, and the little flies that made merry in the way, I
took courage.

At the lower end of the wood, as you know, the path falls down steeply
towards the stream, and when it has left the wood there are meadows to
right and left, that were bright with yellow flowers at this time. In
front the stream runs across the road under hazels, and where the chapel
is still a-building over his body, on the left side, with its back
against the wood stood his little house.

I will tell you of all this, as I saw it then; for the pilgrims have
trampled it all about now, and the stream is all befouled and the banks
broken, and the trees cut down by the masons that came to make the
second chapel where Master Richard was wont to bathe himself, against
the fiend's temptations at first, and afterwards for cleanness' sake,
too--(for I never heard of a hermit as cleanly as was this young man,
soon, and in spite of his washings, by the prayers of our Lady and saint
Giles, to be declared among the blessed servants of God.)

The meadow was a fair circle of grass; with trees on every side but on
this where the gate stood. It sloped to the stream that ran shallow over
the stones, and down across it from the cell to the pool lay the path
trampled hard by Master Richard's feet; for he had lived there four
years at this time since his coming from Cambridge. Besides this path
there was another that circled the meadow, and it was on this that he
walked with God. I have seen him there sometimes from the gate, with his