OVE is leche of lyf."
The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman.
B. Passus I.
EPILOGUE
N the cloister of Malvern Priory schoolboys hummed and buzzed. The sick man heard them.
“I have had a vision,” he said, “I must sing it.” And after: “Nay,—I had forgot. 'T was long ago.”
He lay on a pallet in the midst of the cloister garth, close by the sun-dial. At dusk of the day past he had knocked at the gate and fallen in the arms of the porter. All night a brother watched beside him, and after Lauds the prior came to the door of the cell.
“'T is not the Black Death, or such-like malady?” he queried.
“Nay, Father, but a bodily weakness only. Hath scaped the dawn, but I doubt not his spirit will flit at sunset.”