t, but
first he heard the mass of remembrance and led his monks to the altar
steps, and knelt there in great humility to let the priest sign his
forehead with a cross of ashes. And on the forehead of each of the
monks the ashes were smeared in the form of a cross, and each time the
priest made the sign he repeated the words, "Remember, man, that thou
art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return."

So with the ashes still on his brow and with the remembrance of the end
of earthly days in his soul, he bent his steps towards the hermitage;
and as he was now an aged man and nowise strong, Diarmait, one of the
younger brethren, accompanied him in case any mischance should befall.

They passed through the cold forest, where green there was none, unless
it were the patches of moss and the lichens on the rugged tree-trunks
and tufts of last year's grass, but here and there the white blossoms
of the snowdrops peered out. The dead grey leaves and dry twigs
crackled and snapped under their feet with such a noise as a wood fire
makes when it is newly lighted; and that was all the warmth they had on
their wayfaring.

The short February day was closing in as they climbed among the
boulders and withered bracken on the mountainside, and at last reached
the entrance of a cavern hollowed in the rock and fringed with ivy.
This was the hermitage. The Abbot hung his bell on a thick ivy-bough
in the mouth of the cave; and they knelt and recited vespers and
compline; and thrice the Abbot struck the bell to scare away the evil
spirits of the night; and they entered and lay down to rest.

Hard was the way of their sleeping; for they lay not on wool or on
down, neither on heather or bracken, nor yet on dry leaves, but their
sides came against the cold stone, and under the head of each there was
a stone for pillow. But being weary with the long journey they slept
sound, and felt nothing of the icy mouth of the wind blowing down the
mountain-side.

Within an hour of daybreak, when the moon was setting, they were
awakened by the wonderful singing of a bird, and they rose for matins
and strove not to listen, but so strangely sweet was the sound in the
keen moonlight morning that they could not forbear. The moon set, and
still in the dark sang the bird, and the grey light came, and the bird
ceased; and when it was white day they saw that all the ground and
every stalk of bracken was hoary with frost, and every ivy-leaf was
crusted white round