"It would have been well before this, to have taught these Helvetian bears a lesson!" said one. "Insolence joined to roughness does not deserve any gentler treatment."
Gunzo continued. "Bene, optime, aristotelicissime!" murmured the assembled monks, when he had ended.
"May the dish please you, Brother Akhar!" exclaimed another. "Belgian spice, to flavour the Helvetian cheese!"
The brother head-cook, embracing Gunzo, actually wept with joy. Nothing so learned, profound and beautiful, had ever gone out into the world before, from the cloister of St. Amandus. Only one of the brothers was standing immovable near the wall.
"Well?" said Gunzo interrogatively.
"And where is charity?" softly asked the brother, and after these few words he relapsed again into silence The reproach struck home.
"Thou art right, Hucbald," said he. "This want shall be supplied. Charity requires us to pray for our enemies. Therefore I will add a prayer for the poor fool, at the end. That will have a good appearance, and impress all tender minds favourably. Ay?"
But the brother did not reply. It had become very late, and they all left the cell now on tip-toe. Gunzo tried to retain him who had spoken of charity, as he cared a good deal for his opinion; but Hucbald turned away and followed the others.
"Matthew twenty-three, verse twenty-five," he murmured when his foot had crossed the threshold. Nobody heard it.
Slumber that night, however, obstinately refused to close the eyes of Gunzo the learned. So he read the production of his industry over and over again. He soon knew in what place every word stood, and yet he could not withdraw his eyes from the well-known lines. At last he seized his pen, saying: "A more pious ending,--so be it!" He reflected a while, pacing up and down his cell with slow measured steps. "It shall be done in hexametres, for who has ever before, retaliated an insult received, in so worthy a manner?"