There was not one face among them that he knew. One of the
brothers saw him and came toward him, and he said: 'Brother, why have
all these changes been made here since this morning? And who are all
these whom I do not know? I scarcely know my own monastery.'
"And the other answered: 'Who are you that ask this, and why do you
come here? For you wear the dress of our order, but you are a
stranger. You speak as if you knew the place, yet I myself have lived
here for fifty years and I have never seen you before.'
"Then the monk told his name and told how he had been at mass in the
chapel in the morning and had then gone into the garden to read. And
he told how he had read in the Psalms, 'A thousand years in thy sight
are as yesterday, which is past,' and how, while he was thinking of
these words, he had heard the bird singing. He told how he had
followed the bird, till he saw that night was coming, and then had
come back to the monastery.
"And the other said: 'I remember now that when I first came into this
place they told me of a legend that a monk of your name had gone out
of this monastery a hundred and fifty years before, and had never come
back and had never been heard of again.
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