He was now but a weak and infirm old man, yet of many good brethren the best;—“small in stature, in figure venerable, in countenance dignified, in manner most modest, in eloquence most sweet, in chastity without stain; not without that austerity of expression which we often notice in the portraits of these great mediæval ecclesiastics.”
“My son,” he said, “I have somewhat to say to thee ere perchance I be taken from thee.”
“Taken from me, Father?”
“Yes, the clouds are gathering thick around our devoted house, and the shelter thou hast long received may fail thee and all others here, ere long.”
Cuthbert looked amazed.
“Tidings have reached me, my child, that I must be taken to London, there to answer to certain treasons of which they falsely accuse me; the bolt may fall at any moment, and I have to discharge two duties, the first towards thee.”
The Abbot took up a little chest from the sideboard.
“Thou hast long been my son, and hast not needed thy natural parents, but dost thou not oftentimes wonder who they were?”
“They come to me in dreams.”
“And as yet only in dreams, my child; perchance thou art an orphan, but in that chest are the few relics of thy poor mother, which we possess; these are the little clothes which swathed thee when thou wast found in Avalon forest—there a ring which encircled thy mother’s finger, and a full description of the circumstances of thy arrival here.”