III
ON the fourteenth day he came to the valley below his cliff, and saw
the walls of his native town against the sky. He was footsore and
heavy of heart, for his long pilgrimage had brought him only
weariness and humiliation, and as no drop of rain had fallen he knew
that his garden must have perished. So he climbed the cliff heavily
and reached his cave at the angelus.
But there a great wonder awaited him. For though the scant earth of
the hillside was parched and crumbling, his garden-soil reeked with
moisture, and his plants had shot up, fresh and glistening, to a
height they had never before attained. More wonderful still, the
tendrils of the gourd had been trained about his door, and kneeling
down he saw that the earth had been loosened between the rows of
sprouting vegetables, and that every leaf sparkled with drops as
though the rain had but newly ceased. Then it appeared to the Hermit
that he beheld a miracle, but doubting his own deserts he refused to
believe himself worthy of such grace, and went within doors to
ponder on what had befallen him. And on his bed of rushes he saw a
young woman sleeping, clad in an outlandish garment, with strange
amulets about her neck.
The sight was very terrifying to the Hermit, for he recalled how
often the demon, in tempting the Desert Fathers, had taken the form
of a woman for their undoing; but he reflected that, since there was
nothing pleasing to him in the sight of this female, who was brown
as a nut and lean with wayfaring, he ran no great danger in looking
at her. At first he took her for a wandering Egyptian, but as he
looked he perceived, among the heathen charms, an Agnus Dei in her
bosom; and this so surprised him that he bent over and called on her
to wake.
She sprang up with a start, but seeing the Hermit's gown and staff,
and his face above her, lay quiet and said to him: "I have watered
your garden daily in return for the beans and oil that I took from
your store."
"Who are you, and how do you come here?" asked the Hermit.
She said: "I am a wild woman and live in the woods."
And when he pressed her again to tell him why she had sought shelter
in his cave, she said that the land to the south, whence she came,
was full of armed companies and bands of marauders, and that great
license and bloodshed prevailed there; and this the Hermit knew to
be true, for he had heard of it on his homeward journey. The Wild
Woman went on to tell him that she had been hunted through the woods
like an animal by a band of drunken men-at-arms, Lansknechts from
the north by their barbarous dress and speech, and at length,
starving and spent, had come on his cave and hidden herself from her
pursuers. "For," she said, "I fear neither wild beasts nor the
woodland people, charcoal burners, Egyptians, wandering minstrels or
chapmen; even the highway robbers do not touch me, because I am poor
and brown; but these armed men flown with blood and wine are more
terrible than wolves and tigers."
And the Hermit's heart melted, for he thought of his little sister
lying with her throat slit across the altar steps, and of the scenes
of blood and rapine from which he had fled away into the wilderness.
So he said to the stranger that it was not meet he should house her
in his cave, but that he would send a messenger to the town across
the valley, and beg a pious woman there to give her lodging and work
in her household. "For," said he, "I perceive by the blessed image
about your neck that you are not a heathen wilding, but a child of
Christ, though so far astray from Him in the desert."
"Yes," she said, "I am a Christian, and know as many prayers as you;
but I will never set foot in city walls again, lest I be caught and
put back into the convent."
"What," cried the Hermit with a start, "you are a runagate nun?" And
he crossed himself, and again thought of the demon.
She smiled and said: "It is true I was once a cloistered woman, but
I will never willingly be one again. Now drive me forth if you like;
but I cannot go far, for I have a wounded foot, which I got in
climbing the cliff with water for your garden." And she pointed to a
deep cut in her foot.
At that, for all his fear, the Hermit was moved to pity, and washed
the cut and bound it up; and as he did so he bethought him that
perhaps his strange visitor had been sent to him not for his soul's
undoing but for her own salvation. And from that hour he earnestly
yearned to save her.
But it was not fitting that she should remain in his cave; so,
having given her water to drink and a handful of lentils, he raised
her up and putting his staff in her hand guided her to a hollow not
far off in the face of the cliff. And while he was doing this he
heard the sunset bells ring across the valley, and set about
reciting the _Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae_; and she joined in
very piously, with her hands folded, not missing a word.
Nevertheless the thought of her wickedness weighed on him, and the
next day when he went to carry her food he asked her to tell him how
it came about that she had fallen into such abominable sin. And this
is the story she told.
