The sick man spoke: “I will go up on the Hills,” said he, “the Malvern Hills,” and he made as to rise; but this he might not do.
The brother gave him to drink, and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Here 's an exhortation to King Richard II.,” said the prior at the window. “But Richard 's dead.”
“Ay,” spake the sick man. “Death and Dishonour ran a race for Richard. Dishonour caught him first, but Death hath finished him. Mine exhortation came too late, wherefore I broke off in the midst. I was ever too late or too early, all my life long.”
The prior came to the bed.
“I will go up on the Hills,” said the man, and sat upright, but immediately a faintness seized him and he swooned.
“Two-score and ten year, sayst thou?” quoth the prior. “Haply Brother Owyn will know him.”
When the sick man was come out of his swoon he said again, “I will go a-wandering on the Malvern Hills. Let me forth,—the Hills. 'T is dark,—let me forth to the sun.—Dost mind how I said, 'The prior of Malvern shall not clap me in cloister'?—I am come home to the Hills.”
“Let him be borne into the cloister garth,” said the prior. “There may he fresh him in the sun.”
At noon, when there was no shadow on the face of the sun-dial, Brother Owyn came hobbling slow over the grass betwixt two young monks that guided his steps. For Brother Owyn was very old and bent and blind. He had a beard like a snowdrift.