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It appears to me that we have all been blind and deaf adders, and with the venom of adders, too, beneath our tongues except one or two rude fellows, and my lord King who knew him for a prophet, and the ankret, who tells us we shall all be damned for what we have done, and yourself.
Now, old Master ... said mass before my lord cardinal at seven o'clock, and then went to his own chamber, but he was immediately sent for again to my lord, who appeared to be in a great agitation. My lord told him that one had come from the ankret to bid him let Master Richard go, for that it was not the young man who was afflicting the King, but God Almighty.
Again the shrill quavering voice called: "Love of God, I hunger, Love of God, I die. Blessed Peter, pray for me! Blessed Michael, defend me!" Hilarius knew now; it was the Ankret, that holy man who for sixty years had fasted and prayed in his living tomb at the corner of the cloister.
It appeared to him too as if the ankret in the cell were privy to it all, and were standing, observing and approving; for Master Richard remembered what the holy man had said as to the five wounds marked upon the linen, and how he would not need to wear them much longer.
Hilarius' grip failed; he slid to the ground bruised and sore from the unaccustomed strain, but well pleased. True, he had gained no counsel from the Ankret, but he had seen the holy man ay, even when he was visited by a heavenly messenger, and that in itself should bring a blessing. He turned to go, when a sudden thought came to him.
"Pray for me then, Sir John," said Master Richard. Then we kissed one another, and he was gone without another word along the white road. How Master Richard fared: how he heard Mass in Saint Pancras' Church: how he came to Westminster: and of his colloquy with the Ankret Abyssus abyssum invocat: in voce cataractarum tuarum. Deep calleth on deep: at the noise of Thy flood-gates. Ps. xli. 8.
"Nay, who am I that I should speak? and yet, and yet " the old man's voice grew weaker "the Bread of Heaven, that I may die in peace." He stretched out his hands again entreatingly, and Hilarius was sore perplexed. "Dost thou crave speech of the Abbat, my Father?" The Ankret looked troubled. "Blessed Michael, Blessed Michael!" he murmured entreatingly.
He was held a saint above all the ankrets before him, and wondrous wise; the King himself had sought his counsel, and the Convent held him in high esteem. Again the voice: Hilarius strove to reach up to the grated window of the cell it was too high above him. An overpowering desire came upon him to ask the Ankret of his future.
At the fourth stanza his memory failed him; but he could hear the Ankret crooning to himself the words he had sung, and crying softly like a little child. Hilarius went home with wonder in his heart, but said no word of what had befallen him; and that night the Ankret died, and the Sub- Prior gave him the last sacraments.
It was not until noon that a strange event happened to me. This day was Wednesday after Corpus Christi, the sixth day since he was gone. There was only one man that knew aught of what was passing in the interior world, and that was the ankret in the cell against the abbey, but of that you shall hear in the proper place.
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