there they soon joined him. At the bottom of the outer cave, a
small aperture, closed with a door of rough plank, led into the
sleeping apartment of the hermit, which was more commodious. The
floor had been brought to a rough level by the labour of the
inhabitant, and then strewed with white sand, which he daily
sprinkled with water from a small fountain which bubbled out of
the rock in one corner, affording in that stifling climate,
refreshment alike to the ear and the taste. Mattresses, wrought
of twisted flags, lay by the side of the cell; the sides, like
the floor, had been roughly brought to shape, and several herbs
and flowers were hung around them. Two waxen torches, which the
hermit lighted, gave a cheerful air to the place, which was
rendered agreeable by its fragrance and coolness.

There were implements of labour in one corner of the apartment,
in another was a niche for a rude statue of the Virgin. A table
and two chairs showed that they must be the handiwork of the
anchorite, being different in their form from Oriental
accommodations. The former was covered, not only with reeds and
pulse, but also with dried flesh, which Theodorick assiduously
placed in such arrangement as should invite the appetite of his
guests. This appearance of courtesy, though mute, and expressed
by gestures only, seemed to Sir Kenneth something entirely
irreconcilable with his former wild and violent demeanour. The
movements of the hermit were now become composed, and apparently
it was only a sense of religious humiliation which prevented his
features, emaciated as they were by his austere mode of life,
from being majestic and noble. He trod his cell as one who
seemed born to rule over men, but who had abdicated his empire to
become the servant of Heaven. Still, it must be allowed that his