There was a great commotion in the Abbey, as may well be imagined. A whole monastery—from prior to sacristan—is not purged at Epiphany without religious duties suffering considerably.
Hiraux, the choir-boy, was the only one who kept his post. And it was that very attitude, the calmness of one who stands steadfast while the heavens are falling round him, that ruined Hiraux. Proserpina found an Æsculapius who declared that he had seen her eat seven pomegranate seeds. Hiraux had his Æsculapius who declared that he had seen him stealing at nightfall on tiptoe from the dispensary.
The monastery organist was his accuser.
The denunciation was credited, and when the evidence was put together everybody held Hiraux to be the true culprit. One is not brought up in a monastery, moreover, without learning to lie on occasion. Hiraux denied, protested, swore; but this only made things worse, whereas an honest confession might perhaps have smoothed matters.
Hiraux was therefore given over by the prior to the cook, that is to say, religious justice handed him over to the secular arm.
The cook condemned him to twenty-four hours' solitary confinement, accompanied by bread and water, and, to make sure that the punishment should not be mitigated by any friend of the criminal, he shut him up in the monastery cellar.
But the cook had forgotten that the cellar was well filled with wines, cider, oil, vinegar, brandy, rum, etc., etc.
All these liquids were arranged symmetrically in barrels, as becometh honest barrels, in a well-regulated cellar belonging to a Premonstratensian Monastery.
Hiraux went to all the casks and turned on all the taps, one after the other, saying at each turn of the keys: That's the wine running out, that's the cider running out, that's the oil running out, that's the vinegar running out, that's the brandy running out, that's the rum running out, etc., etc.