‘Oh, sir, if you be not too holy to look at me or speak to me! If you would help me to some better knowledge—not only of sword and single-stick!’
‘Better knowledge, my child! Of thy God?’ said the hermit, a sweet look of joy spreading over his face.
‘Goodwife Dolly has told me of Him, and taught me my Pater and Credo, but we have lived far off, and she has not been able to go to church for weeks and years. But what I long after is to tell me what means all this—yonder sea, and all the stars up above. And they will call me a simpleton for marking such as these, and only want me to heed how to shoot an arrow, or give a stroke hard enough to hurt another. Do such rude doings alone, fit for a bull or a ram as meseems, go to the making of a knight, fair sir?’
‘They go to the knight’s keeping of his own, for others whom he ought to defend,’ said the hermit sadly; ‘I would have thee learn and practise them. But for the rest, thou knowest, sure, who made the stars?’
‘Oh yes! Nurse Dolly told me. She saw it all in a mystery play long long ago—when a Hand came out, and put in the stars and sun and moon.’
‘Knowest thou whose Hand was figured there, my child?’
‘The Hand of God,’ said Hal, removing his cap. ‘They be sparks to show His glory! But why do some move about among the others—one big one moves from the Bull’s face one winter to half-way beyond it. And is the morning star the evening one?’
‘Ah! thou shouldst know Ptolemy and the Almagest,’ said the hermit smiling, ‘to understand the circuits of those wandering stars—Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei.’
‘That is Latin,’ said the boy, startled. ‘Are you a priest, sir?’
‘No, not I—I am not worthy,’ was the answer, ‘but in some things I may aid thee, and I shall be blessed in so doing. Canst say thy prayers?’