"No, my son," said Meinhold, "when a man fills himself with flesh, straightway the great vices bubble out. I remember a monk who one Lent went secretly and bought some venison from a wicked gamekeeper, and put it in his wallet; when lo! as he was returning home, the dogs, smelling the flesh, fell upon him, and tore him up as well as the meat."
"Why is it wrong to eat meat? The Chaplain at Byfield told me that the Bible said it was lawful at proper times, and this is not Lent."
"It is always Lent here,—in a hermit's cell,—and it is a duty to be contented with one's food. I knew a monk who grumbled at his fare and said he would as soon eat toads; and lo! the just God did not disappoint him of his desire. For a month and more his cell was filled with toads. They got into his soup, they jumped upon his plate, they filled his bed, until I think he would have died, had not all the brethren united in prayer that he might be free from the scourge."
Evroult laughed merrily at this, and forgot his craving. In short, the old man was so loving and kind, and so transparently sincere, that he could not be angry long.
Another fault Evroult had was vanity. Once he was admiring himself in the mirror of a stream, for he really was, but for the leprosy, a handsome lad. "Ah, my child," said Meinhold, "thou art like a house which has a gay front, but the thieves have got in by the back door."
"Nay," said poor Evroult, putting his hand to his hollowed cheek, "they have broken through the front window."
"Ah, what of that; the house shall be set in order by and by, if thou art a good lad."
He meant in Heaven. But Evroult only sighed. Heaven seemed to him far off: his longings were of the earth.
And Richard: well, that supernatural influence we call "grace" had found him in very deed. He grew less and less discontented with his lot; murmured no more about the lost fingers; scarcely noticed the fact that the others were going; but drank in all the hermit's talk about the life beyond, with the growing conviction that there alone should he regain even the perfection of the body. One effect of his touching resignation was this, that the hermit conceived so much love towards him, that he had to pray daily against idolatry, as he fancied the affection for an earthly object must needs be, and so restrained it that there was little fear of his spoiling the boy.
The hermit, who, as we have seen, was a priest, had hitherto been restrained by the canons from saying Mass alone, and had sought some rustic church for Communion. Of course he could not take the young lepers there, so he celebrated the Holy Mysteries in a third cave, fitted up as best it might be for a chapel, and the boys assisted. One would think Nature had designed this third cave for a chapel. There was a natural recess for the altar; there were fantastic pillars like those in a cathedral, only more irregular, supporting the roof, which was lofty; and stalactites, graceful as the pendants in an ice-cavern, hung from above.