p again with the keys in my own
possession, a quantity of foolscap and a fountain-pen in my hand, and
sandwiches in my pocket, to the dusty little room beneath the roof.

I repeated this series of actions, with the exception of the interview,
every day for a fortnight, and when I returned to England in April I
took with me a complete re-translation into English of the "_Vita et
obitus Dni Ricardi Raynal Heremitae_," and it is this re-translation
that is now given to the public, with the correction of many words and
the addition of notes, carried out during the last eighteen months.

* * * * *

It is necessary to give some account of the book itself, but I will not
trouble my readers with an exhaustive survey of the reasons that have
led me to my opinions on the subject: it is enough to say that most of
them are to be found in the text.

It is the story of the life of one of that large body of English
hermits who flourished from about the beginning of the fourteenth
century to the middle of the sixteenth; and was written, apparently for
the sake of the villagers, by his parish-priest, Sir John Chaldfield,
who seems to have been an amiable, devout, and wordy man, who long
outlived his spiritual son. Of all the early part of Master Richard
Raynal's life we are entirely ignorant, except of the facts that his
parents died in his youth, and that he himself was educated at
Cambridge. No doubt his early history was recorded in the one hundred
and twenty-nine pages that are missing at the beginning. It is annoying
also that the last pages are gone, for thereby we have lost what would
probably have been a very full and exhaustive list of the funeral
furniture of the sixteenth century, as well as an account of the
procession into the country and the ceremonies observed at the burial.
We might have heard, too, with some exactness (for Sir John resembles a
journalist in his love of detail) about the way in which his friend's
fame began to spread, and the pilgrims to journey to his shrine. It
would have been of interest to trace the first stages in the
unauthorised cult of one as yet uncanonised. What is left of the book is
the record of only the last week in Master Richard's life and of his
death under peculiar circumstances at Westminster in the bed-chamber
of the King.

It is impossible to know for certain who was this king, but I am
inclined to believe that it was Henry VI., the founder of Eton