"It is no use, brother," said Richard, "no use; we can never be knights and warriors unless we recover of our leprosy; and so the good God has given us a home and a kind friend, and it is far better than the lazar-house."
"But our father?"
"He has forsaken us, cast us off. We should never get out with his permission. No! be content, let us stay here—yesterday frightened me—we should never reach Wallingford alive."
And so Evroult gave way, and tried his best to be content—tried to learn of Meinhold, tried to do without meat, to love birds and beasts, instead of shooting them, tried to learn his catechism; yes, there was always a form of catechetical instruction for the young, taught generally viva voce, and the good hermit gave much time to the boys and found delight therein.
Richard consented to learn to read and write; Evroult disdained it, and would not learn.
So the year passed on; autumn deepened into winter. There was plenty of fuel about, and the boys suffered little from cold; they hung up skins and coverings over the entrances to the caves, and kept the draught out.
There was a mystery about those inner caves; the hermit would never let them enter beyond the two or three outer ones—those dark and dismal openings were, he assured them, untenanted; but their windings were such that the boys might easily lose their way therein, and never get out again—he thought there were precipitous gulfs into which they might fall.
But sometimes at night, when all things were still, the strangest sounds came from the caves, like the sobbings of living things, the plaintive sigh, the hollow groan: and the boys heard and shuddered.
"It is only the wind in the hollows of the earth," said Meinhold.
"How does it get in?" asked the boys.