"So you read Horace, do you?" he asked, in quite another tone of voice.
"But a little, your reverence," returned Jack. "I had but just begun it when I left school; and I fear I shall find it too hard without some help."
"How far had you gone?" was the next question.
"I am just at the eleventh ode, but I do not understand it very well," said Jack, not less pleased than surprised at his catechiser's change of tone and manner.
"Find your place, and I will explain it to you," said Father Barnaby. "I have bestowed much study upon it—too much, some might say, for a churchman; and I can, no doubt, help you."
For more than two hours, till the lay brother he had sent to the Hall returned with his message, did Father Barnaby expound to his willing and attentive pupil, divers different and disputed passages in his favorite author, delighted to find that Jack understood and appreciated him. Then bestowing his blessing, and promising to send Jack a copy of his own treatise, he rode away in high good humor, and was half way back to the convent where he lived before he remembered that he had forgotten after all to question Jack as to his theology.
"But I can do it another time," he said to himself. "I dare say the lad is sound enough. How cleverly he understood the points in dispute between myself and Brother Thomas of Glastonbury, and how clearly he perceived that I was right. I will certainly send him the treatise."
"Well, the saints be praised!" said Father John, when his visitor was out of hearing. "He has for once gone away in a good humor. How glad I am that I thought of the book! I am sure I never cared so much for a book before. He was a heathen, I doubt, this Horace," he added, looking dubiously at Jack.
"Yes, your reverence," replied Jack, suppressing a smile. "He lived before our Lord was born into the world."
"Ah, well, then he could not be blamed, poor man. He has done us a good turn this day, at any rate."