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[Footnote 6: Trillium erythrocarpum. North America.]

Then the boy started up, saying, “If there be such a plant on the earth I will find it for thee.”

But the hermit laid his hand on him, and said, “Nay, my Son, leave me not, for I have need of thee. And the flower will come yet, and then I shall see.”

And all day long the old man murmured to himself, “Then I shall see.”

“And didst thou see me, and the garden, in thy dream, my Father?” asked the boy.

“Ay, that I did, my Son. And I meant to say to thee that it much pleaseth me that thou art grown so well, and of such a strangely fair countenance. Also the garden is such as I have never before beheld it, which must needs be due to thy care. But wherefore didst thou not tell me of those fair palms that have grown where the thorn hedge was wont to be? I was but just stretching out my hand for some, when I awoke.”

“There are no palms there, my Father,” said the boy.

“Now, indeed it is thy youth that makes thee so little observant,” said the hermit. “However, I pardon thee, if it were only for that good thought which moved thee to plant a yew beyond the rosemary bush; seeing that the yew is the emblem of eternal life, which lies beyond the grave.”

But the boy said, “There is no yew there, my Father.”

“Have I not seen it, even in a vision?” cried the hermit. “Thou wilt say next that all the borders are not set with hearts-ease, which indeed must be through thy industry; and whence they come I know not, but they are most rare and beautiful, and my eyes long sore to see them again.”

“Alas, my Father!” cried the boy, “the borders are set with rue, and there are but a few clumps of hearts-ease here and there.”

“Could I forget what I saw in an hour?” asked the old man angrily. “And did not the holy Raphael himself point to them, saying, ‘Blessed are the eyes that behold this garden, where the borders are set with hearts-ease, and the hedges crowned with palm!’ But thou wouldst know better than an archangel, forsooth.”

Then the boy wept; and when the hermit heard him weeping, he put his arm round him and said,

“Weep not, my dear Son. And I pray thee, pardon me that I spoke harshly to thee. For indeed I am ill-tempered by reason of my infirmities; and as for thee, GOD will reward thee for thy goodness to me, as I never can. Moreover, I believe it is thy modesty, which is as great as thy goodness, that hath hindered thee from telling me of all that thou hast done for my garden, even to those fair and sweet everlasting flowers, the like of which I never saw before, which thou hast set in the east border, and where even now I hear the bees humming in the sun.”

Then the boy looked sadly out into the garden, and answered,

“I cannot lie to thee. There are no everlasting flowers. It is the flowers of the thyme in which the bees are rioting. And in the hedge bottom there creepeth the bitter-sweet.”

But the hermit heard him not. He had groped his way out into the sunshine, and wandered up and down the walks, murmuring to himself, “Then I shall see.”

Now when the Summer was past, one Autumn morning there came to the garden gate a man in pilgrim’s weeds; and when he saw the boy he beckoned to him, and giving him a small tuber root, he said,

“Give this to thy master. It is the root of the Trinity Flower.”

And he passed on down towards the valley.

Then the boy ran hastily to the hermit; and when he had told him, and given him the root, he said,

“The face of the pilgrim is known to me also, O my Father! For I remember when I lay sick of the plague, that ever it seemed to me as if a shadowy figure passed in and out, and went up and down the streets, and his face was as the face of this pilgrim. But–I cannot deceive thee–methought it was the Angel of Death.”