"We waited till the third day, determined if the interruption occurred again to abandon the design of burying the deceased baron in the church he had founded. A great crowd assembled around, but only the monks dared to enter the church where the body lay. A third time we came to the same words in the office, and we who were in the choir saw the body rise in the winding-sheet, the dull eyes glisten into life, and heard the awful words for the third time, 'By the justice of God, I am condemned to Hell.'
"After a long pause, during which we all knelt, horror-struck, the prior bade us take the body from the church, and bade his friends lay it in unconsecrated ground, away from the church he had founded. So you see a man of blood cannot always bribe Heaven with gifts."
"It is no use then to found churches and monasteries; I have heard my father say the same," said Evroult.
"Yet in any case it is better than to build castles to become dens of cruelty—to torture captives and spread terror through a neighbourhood."
"It is pleasant to be the lord of such a castle," said the incorrigible Evroult, "and to be the master of all around."
"And, alas, my boy, if it end in like manner with you as with the baron whose story I have just related, of what avail will it all be?"
"Yes, brother, we are better as we are; God meant it for our good, and we may thank Him for it," said Richard quite sincerely.
Evroult only sighed as a wolf might were he told how much more nutritious grass is than mutton; inherited instinct, unsubdued as yet by grace, was too strong within him. But let us admire his truthfulness; he would not say what he did not mean. Many in his place would have said "yes" to please his brother and the kind old hermit, but Evroult scorned such meanness.
There is little question that had he escaped this scourge he would have made a worthy successor to Brian Fitz-Count, but—
"His lot forbade, nor circumscribed alone