Occasionally hunters—the neighbouring barons—broke the silence with hound and horn. They generally avoided the hermit's glen—conspicuously devoted to the peace of God; but once a poor flying stag, pursued by the hounds, came tearing down the vale. Evroult glistened with animation: he would have rushed on in the train of the huntsmen, but the hermit restrained him.
"They would bid their dogs tear you," he said, "when they saw you were a leper." Then he continued, "Ah, my child, it is a sad sight: sin brought all this into the world,—God's creatures delighting to rend each other; so will the fiends hunt the souls of the wicked after death, until they drive them into the lake of fire."
"Ah, here comes the poor deer," said Richard, who had caught the hermit's love of all that moved. "See, he has turned: open the door, father."
The deer actually scaled the plateau, wild with terror,—its eyes glaring, the sweat bedewing its limbs; and it rushed through the opened door of the cave.
"Close the door—the dogs will be here."
The dogs came in truth, and raved about the closed door until the huntsmen came up, when the hermit emerged upon a ledge above.
"Where is our deer? hast thou seen it, father?"
"It has taken sanctuary."
They looked at each other.
"Nay, father, sanctuary is not for such creatures: drive it forth."