In 1537, says Froude, while the harbours, piers, and fortresses were rising in Dover, "an ancient hermit tottered night after night from his cell to a chapel on the cliff, and the tapers on the altars before which he knelt in his lonely orisons made a familiar beacon far over the rolling waters. The men of the rising world cared little for the sentiment of the past. The anchorite was told sternly by the workmen that his light was a signal to the King's enemies" (a Spanish invasion from Flanders was expected), "and must burn no more; and when it was next seen, three of them waylaid the old man on his way home, threw him down, and beat him cruelly." [Footnote: "History of England," vol. iii. p. 256.]
The following notice appeared in the Daily Express of 9th June 1910. "A subterranean chamber with a spiral staircase at one end and a Gothic roof has been discovered at Greenhithe. It is believed to have been a hermit's cell."
The hermit left a pleasant memory behind him when he disappeared from England, perhaps just in time before complete degeneration set in as in France and Germany, Italy and Spain. Shakespeare, whenever he introduces him, does so in a kindly spirit, and represents him as a consoler of the afflicted and a refuge to the troubled spirit. By Spenser also he is treated with affection.
"Towards night they came unto a plaine
By which a little hermitage there lay,
Far from all neighbourhood, the which annoy it may.
And nigh thereto a little chappel stoode,
Which being all with ivy overspred
Deckt all the roofe, and, shadowing the roode,
Seem'd like a grove faire braunched over hed:
Therein the hermit, which his life here led
In streight observance of religious vow,
Was wont his hours and holy things to bed;
And therein he likewise was praying now,
Whenas these knights arrived, they wist not where nor how."
[ILLUSTRATION: CHÂTEAU DE RIGNAC. A renaissance château on the
Vézère, built partly into and partly out of the overhanging cliff.
Since the sketch was made a portion of the first archway has fallen.]
[ILLUSTRATION: ROYSTON CAVE. A section. The entrance with steps at the side is a modern addition.]
I do not recall any harsh words spoken of the departed hermit. After the Reformation it was felt that a factor in life was gone that could be ill spared.
In these days when we live in a hurricane of new ideas, in the stress of business, we cannot understand the attractiveness of the peace of a cell away from the swirl of the storm, or the value of the hermits as guides of life. When the hermit was swept away, into his place as counsellor of the troubled stepped the witch, and to her those had recourse who had previously sought the eremite. The influence of the witch was always for evil, that of the hermit was usually good. The troubled soul desires a confidant and an adviser. The parish priest is not always spiritually minded, and is not always disinterested. What is hid from the wise and prudent is revealed to babes, and for the guidance of distracted consciences, the healing of wounded spirits, the words of the childlike hermit were a boon. However, he is gone past recall, and into his room have stepped the lawyer who demands six-and- eightpence for a word of advice, and the doctor whose charges are proportionate to the rental of our houses.