"My boy, you will be better without it--it nourishes all sorts of bad passions, pride, cruelty, impurity, all are born of the flesh; and _see_, it is not needed. I am well and strong and never ill."
"Nay, I like cakes, nuts, and blackberries better," said Richard.
"Quite right, my son; now go and play in the valley beneath, until noonday, when you may take your noon meat."
They lay in the shade of a tree. It was one of the last days of summer, and all seemed pleasant--the murmur of the brook and the like.
"I can never bear this long," said Evroult.
"I think it very pleasant," said Richard; "do not ask me to go away."
"It is no use, brother," said Richard, "_no_ use; we can never be knights and warriors unless we recover of our leprosy; and so the good God has given us a home and a kind friend, and it is far better than the lazar-house."
"He has forsaken us, cast us off. We should never get out with his permission. No! be content, let us stay here--yesterday frightened me--we should never reach Wallingford alive."
And so Evroult gave way, and tried his best to be content--tried to learn of Meinhold, tried to do without meat, to love birds and beasts, instead of shooting them, tried to learn his catechism; yes, there was always a form of catechetical instruction for the young, taught generally _viva voce_, and the good hermit gave much time to the boys and found delight therein.
Richard consented to learn to read and write; Evroult disdained it, and would not learn.
So the year passed on; autumn deepened into winter. There was plenty of fuel about, and the boys suffered little from cold; they hung up skins and coverings over the entrances to the caves, and kept the draught out.
There was a mystery about those inner caves; the hermit would never let them enter beyond the two or three outer ones--those dark and dismal openings were, he assured them, untenanted; but their windings were such that the boys might easily lose their way therein, and never get out again--he thought there were precipitous gulfs into which they might fall.
But sometimes at night, when all things were still, the strangest sounds came from the caves, like the sobbings of living things, the plaintive sigh, the hollow groan: and the boys heard and shuddered.