‘That will I, with all my heart,’ responded the hermit, laying his long delicate hand on Hal’s head. ‘Blessed be He who has sent thee to me!’ The boy sat at the hermit’s feet, listening with the eagerness of one whose soul and mind had alike been under starvation, and how time went neither knew till there was a rustling and a step. Watch sprang up, but in another moment Simon Bunce, cap in hand, stood before the hut, beginning with ‘How now, sir?’ The hermit raised his hand, as if to make a sign, saying, ‘Thou seest I have a guest, good friend.’ Bunce started back with ‘Oh! the young Lord! Sworn to silence, I trust! I bade him not meddle with you, sir.’ ‘It was against his will, I trow,’ said the hermit. ‘He fell over the rock by the waterfall, but since he is here, I will answer for him that he does no hurt by word or deed!’ ‘Never, holy sir!’ eagerly exclaimed Hal. ‘Hob Hogward knows that I can keep my mouth shut. And may I come again?’ Simon was shaking his head, but the hermit took on him to say, ‘Gladly will I welcome thee, my fair child, whensoever thou canst find thy way to the weary old anchoret! Go thy way now! Or hast thou lost it?’ ‘No, sir; I ken the woodland and can soon be at home,’ replied Hal; then, putting a knee to the ground, ‘May I have your blessing, holy man?’ ‘Alack, I told thee I am no priest,’ said the hermit; ‘but for such as I am, I bless thee with all my soul, thou fatherless lad,’ and he laid his hand on the young lad’s wondering brow, then bade him begone, since Simon and himself had much to say to one another. Hal summoned Watch, and turned to a path through the wood, leading towards the coast, wondering as he walked how the hermit seemed to know him--him whose presence had been so sedulously concealed. Could it be that so very holy a man had something of the spirit of prophecy? He kept his promise of silence, and indeed his guardians were so much accustomed to his long wanderings that he encountered no questions, only one of Hob’s growls that he should always steal away whenever there was a chance of Master Bunce’s coming to try to make a man of him. However, Bunce himself arrived shortly after, and informed Hob that since young folks always pried where they were least wanted, and my lord had stumbled incontinently on the anchoret’s den, it was the holy man’s will that he might come there whenever he chose. A pity and shame it was, but it would make him more than ever a mere priestling, ever hankering after books and trash! ‘Were it not better to ask my lady and Sir Lancelot if they would have it so? I could walk over to Threlkeld!’ ‘No, no, no, on your life not,’ exclaimed Simon, striking his staff on the ground in his vehemence. ‘Never a word to the Threlkeld or any of his kin! Let well alone! I only wish the lad had never gone a-roaming there! But holy men must not be gainsaid, even if it does make a poor craven scholar out of his father’s son.’