So Finikin trudged on alone to the good old man’s cell where he found him making medicine from herbs he had gathered in the forest.
“Good hermit,” said Finikin eagerly, “will you not give me some of your medicine for my sick father?”
“I will, indeed,” said the old man. “But my child there is something more than these herbs needed to cure your father; and it must be fetched from a long distance.”
“I will go anywhere for it,” declared Finikin, quickly.
“Then my son,” replied the hermit, “you must go to a garden five or six miles off. None but little children like yourself can enter; therefore, it would be of no use if I or any other grown person attempted to go with you. This garden is situated on top of a cluster of high rocks. Should you have the perseverance to reach it, you will find it full of trees, bearing all kinds of fruit which several little boys always keep gathering. You must ask them to give you some golden pippins for your father. If they consent all will be well; but if they try to keep you to play with them, you must not stay, for the hours would pass so quickly, that your father might die before you returned.”
Finikin listened very carefully. “Please tell me the way to this wonderful garden,” he said.
The hermit opened the door at the back of his cell, which led to a small piece of ground where he grew his vegetables. He showed Finikin a kind of tunnel hollowed out in a grotto through which he could see a distant view of green meadows and blue mountains, and told him that way would lead him in the right direction. He then described carefully all the objects the lad was to pass on the road, and told him above all things neither to idle as he went along nor listen to anyone who should offer to show him a shorter way. Finikin promised he would not, and thanking the hermit, lost no time in starting off to find the wonderful garden where the golden pippins grew.
Winikin, meanwhile, after losing at least half an hour talking to the old huntsman, and playing with his dog, suddenly thought how heartless he had been, and asked Roger to tell what he had better do to help his father to get well.
“Do not stand idling here, youngster, for one thing,” said Roger; “and next go and ask advice of the hermit, who knows better than anyone else what can be done to save your father!”
“Oh! but my brother has gone there, so it is of no use for me to go too,” said Winikin; “and he is too far for me to catch him, so please tell me something else I can do instead!”