This man was well born, as you may guess from his
speech."
I told the hermit what Bertric needed, and he laughed, saying that
the whole brotherhood would come and help at once. And then he bade
us follow him. We went across the moorland for about half a mile,
to the foot of the hill or nearly, and then came on a little valley
amid the rising ground, where trees grew, low and wind twisted, but
green and pleasant; and there I saw a cluster of little stone huts
for all the world like straw beehives, built of stones most
cunningly, mortarless, but fitting into one another perfectly.
The huts were set in a rough circle, and each had its door toward
the sun, and a little square window alongside that, and a
smoke-blackened hole in the top of the roof. Doubtless it was from
one of these that Bertric had seen the smoke from the sea, though
there was none now. From the hill and down the valley across the
space between the huts ran a little brook, crossed in two or three
places by wandering paths, some with a stepping stone, and others
with only a muddy jumping place. The stream was dammed into a deep,
stone-walled pool in the midst of the space, and close to the brink
of this stood a tall, black stone cross, which was carved most
wonderfully with interlacing patterns, and had a circle round its
arms.
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