the novices may give due reverence. And now, benedicite, brethren! The cellarer will bestow on each a grace-cup and a morsel as ye pass the buttery, for ye have been turmoiled and anxious, and dangerous it is to fall asleep in such case with empty stomach.'
'Gratias agimus quam maximas, Domine reverendissime,' replied the brethren, departing in their due order.
But the sub-prior remained behind, and falling on his knees before the abbot as he was about to withdraw, craved him to hear under the seal of confession the adventures of the day. The reverend lord abbot yawned and would have alleged fatigue; but to Father Eustace, of all men, he was ashamed to show indifference in his religious duties. The confession, therefore, proceeded, in which Father Eustace told all the extraordinary circumstances which had befallen him during the journey. And being questioned by the abbot, whether he was not conscious of any secret sin through which he might have been subjected for a time to the delusions of evil spirits, the sub-prior admitted, with frank avowal, that he thought he might have deserved such penance for having judged with unfraternal rigour of the report of Father Philip the sacristan.
'Heaven,' said the penitent, 'may have been willing to convince me, not only that he can at pleasure open a communication betwixt us and beings of a different and, as we word it, supernatural class, but also to punish our pride of superior wisdom, or superior courage, or superior learning.'
It is well said that virtue is its own reward; and I question if duty was ever more completely recompensed, than by the audience which the reverend abbot so unwillingly yielded to the confession of the sub-prior. To find the object of his fear, shall we say, or of his envy, or of both, accusing himself of the very error with which he had so tacitly charged him, was a corroboration of the abbot's judgement, a soothing of his pride, and an allaying of his fears. The sense of triumph, however, rather increased than diminished his natural good humour; and so far was Abbot Boniface from being disposed to tyrannize over his sub-prior in consequence of this discovery, that in his exhortation he hovered somewhat ludicrously betwixt the
