ential practices; but she replied that her weakness was not due to
an excess of discipline, but that she had brought back from her labours
among the sick a heaviness of body which the intemperance of the season
no doubt increased. The evil rains continued, falling chiefly at night,
while by day the land reeked with heat and vapours; so that lassitude
fell on the Hermit also, and he could hardly drag himself down to the
spring whence he drew his drinking-water. Thus he fell into the habit
of going down to the glen before cockcrow, after he had recited Matins;
for at that hour the rain commonly ceased, and a faint air was
stirring. Now because of the wet season the stream had not gone dry,
and instead of replenishing his flagon slowly at the trickling spring,
the Hermit went down to the waterside to fill it; and once, as he
descended the steep slope of the glen, he heard the covert rustle, and
saw the leaves stir as though something moved behind them. As he looked
silence fell, and the leaves grew still; but his heart was shaken, for
it seemed to him that what he had seen in the dusk had a human
semblance, such as the wood-people wear. And he was loth to think that
such unhallowed beings haunted the glen.

A few days passed, and again, descending to the stream, he saw a figure
flit by him through the covert; and this time a deeper fear entered
into him; but he put away the thought, and prayed fervently for all
souls in temptation. And when he spoke with the Wild Woman again, on
the feast of the Seven Maccabees, which falls on the first day of
August, he was smitten with fear to see her wasted looks, and besought
her to cease from labouring and let him minister to her in her
weakness. But she denied him gently, and replied that all she asked of
him was to keep her steadfastly in his prayers.

Before the feast of the Assumption the rains ceased, and the plague,
which had begun to show itself, was stayed; but the ardency of the sun
grew greater, and the Hermit's cliff was a fiery furnace. Never had
such heat been known in those regions; but the people did not murmur,
for with the cessation of the rain their crops were saved and the
pestilence banished; and these mercies they ascribed in great part to
the prayers and macerations of the two holy anchorets. Therefore on the
eve of the Assumption they sent a messenger to the Hermit, saying that
at daylight on the morrow the townspeople and all the dwellers in the
valley would c