"I will not;" he said, "I bear it with me wherever I go."
Then he took me by the arm, carrying his shod staff in his other hand,
and led me to the gate, for I was so blinded that I stumbled as I went.
Once only did I speak as we passed upwards through the dark wood.
"And what will be your message," I asked, "when you come to the King?"
"Our Lord will tell it me when I come thither," he said.
We went through the village that lay dark and fast asleep. I wished him
to go to some of the houses, and bid the folks good-bye, but he would
not.
"I bear them, too, wherever I go," he said.
After we had adored God Almighty in the church, [That is, God present in
the Blessed Sacrament.] and I had shriven the young man and blessed him,
we went out and stood under the lychgate where his body afterwards
rested.
It was a clear night of stars and as silent as was once heaven for the
space of half-an-hour. The philomels had given over their singing near a
month before, and it was not the season for stags to bray; and those,
as you know, are the principal sounds that we hear at night.
We stood a long time listening to the silence. I knew well what was in
my heart, and I knew presently what was in his. He was thinking on his
soul.
He turned to me after a while, and I could see the clear pallour of his
face and the line of his lips and eyes all set in his heavy hair.
"Do you know the tale of the Persian king, Sir John?"
I told him No; he had many of such tales. I do not know where he had
read them.
"There was once a king who had the open eyes, and he looked into heaven
and hell. He saw there two friends whom he had known in the flesh; the
one was a hermit, and the other another king. The hermit was in hell,
and the king in heaven. When he asked the reason of this, one told him
that the hermit was in hell because of his consorting with the king, and
the king in heaven because of his consorting with the hermit."