At first he could not bear to think of what he had left behind him--his
little quiet house and meadow and the stream where he washed, and the
beasts and men that loved him; and he threw himself upon the other
happiness for strength. By the time that he had arrived at the ford he
was so much penetrated by this better joy that he was able to look
back, and tell himself, as he had told me, that he bore with him always
wherever he went all that he had left behind him. It was ever his
doctrine that we lose nothing of what is good and sweet in the past, and
that we suck out of all things a kind of essence that abides with us
always, and that every soul that loves is a treasure-house of all that
she has ever loved. It is only the souls that do not love that go empty
in this world and _in saecula saeculorum_. He thought much of this on
his road, and by the time that he had come so far that he thought it
best to sleep by the wayside, the warmth had come back that had left him
for four days.

He went aside then out of the road to find a hazel thicket, and by the
special guidance of God found one with a may-tree beside it. There he
groped together the dead leaves, took off his burse and his hat and his
girdle and his brown habit, and laid the habit upon the leaves,
unpinning the five wounds, and fastening them again upon his white
kirtle. Then he knelt down by the may-tree, and said his prayers,
beginning as he always did:

_"Totiens glorior, quotiens nominis tui, JESU, recordor."_ ["I glory, so
often as I remember Thy Name, JESU."]

Then he repeated the Name an hundred times, and his heart grew so hot
and the sweetness in his month so piercing that he could scarce go on.
Then he committed himself to the tuition of the glorious Mother of