s languish to zero,
and everything come to a standstill. Go on, Sandy."

"And so upon a time, after year and day, the good abbot made humble
surrender and destroyed the bath. And behold, His anger was in that
moment appeased, and the waters gushed richly forth again, and even
unto this day they have not ceased to flow in that generous measure."

"Then I take it nobody has washed since."

"He that would essay it could have his halter free; yes, and
swiftly would he need it, too."

"The community has prospered since?"

"Even from that very day. The fame of the miracle went abroad
into all lands. From every land came monks to join; they came
even as the fishes come, in shoals; and the monastery added building
to building, and yet others to these, and so spread wide its arms
and took them in. And nuns came, also; and more again, and yet
more; and built over against the monastery on the yon side of the
vale, and added building to building, until mighty was that nunnery.
And these were friendly unto those, and they joined their loving
labors together, and together they built a fair great foundling
asylum midway of the valley between."

"You spoke of some hermits, Sandy."

"These have gathered there from the ends of the earth. A hermit
thriveth best where there be multitudes of pilgrims. Ye shall not
find no hermit of no sort wanting. If any shall mention a hermit
of a kind he thinketh new and not to be found but in some far
strange land, let him but scratch among the holes and caves and
swamps that line that Valley of Holiness, and whatsoever be his
breed, it skills not, he shall find a sample of it there."

I closed up alongside of a burly fellow with a fat good-humored
face, purposing to make myself agreeable and pick up some further
crumbs of fact; but I had hardly more than scraped acquaintance
with him when he began eagerly and awkwardly to lead up, in the
immemorial way, to that same old anecdote--the one Sir Dinadan
told me, what time I got into trouble with Sir Sagramor and was
challenged of him on account of it. I excused myself and dropped
to the rear of the procession, sad at heart, willing to go hence
from this troubled life, this vale of tears, this brief day of
broken rest, of cloud and storm, of weary struggle and monotonous
defeat; and yet shrinking from the change, as remembering how long
eternity is, and how many have wended thither who know that anecdote.

Early in the afternoon we over