But he had that hermitage for his charge and he would let no man lead him away. So, in that darkness, whilst the wind sighed furiously in the trees and the rain was in all their faces, they buried that holy man as best they might, saying that they would hold a fairer ceremony upon another day, for they were all affrighted and cast down by the events of that day and the heavy disasters that might follow. Then, as the lay brothers were bearing away the stretcher upon which they had carried that coffin, one of them cried out like a scream. Against the steely light of the North he had perceived a great cloak tossing out, over the churchyard wall. Then all heard a voice calling to them to send a religious there. So the abbot bade an old monk go, for that might be some sinner that desired to become an eremite in place of that holy man now dead. For thus God works in His wondrous way. And so indeed it proved. They all stood there in the rain whilst the old monk talked to that form of darkness. The monk Francis was on his knees. Then that old monk came back to them and said that here indeed was come one that desired to go into that little hermit’s kennel and there end his days. He was one that had been a good knight, but had sinned so grievously that until he was shriven he would not come upon the holy ground of that churchyard, and he desired the monk Francis to come to him and shrive him! Then that monk cried out with fear, but afterwards he went without the wall and stayed there. The tossing form had disappeared; for the man had kneeled down for his confession. In the thick darkness the monk Francis came back to those that stayed and said that he approved that that man should be the eremite. It all passed in the black night. That shape passed in at the little hole the masons had made, and an old mason, so skilled that he could do his work in the dark, put again those stones in their places. Then those monks sang as best they could the canticle "Ad te clamavi," and all men went away to talk under their beaten roofs of these fearful things. Upon all that place the black night came down, whipped by the fell and chilly rain, and all over that churchyard the water gurgled and washed, for it lay very low and all the gutters of the church poured down their invisible floods.