In a Quiet Village

by S. Baring-Gould

After a while he was sent to Rome. I cannot now recall what the Order was into which he had entered.

“I got into trouble there,” said Brother Augustine. “You must know that I am passionately fond of cats, and I had not had a cat to pat and coax ever since I had become a monk. Well, one day we were walking in procession down the long street in Trastevere, when I saw a white cat, with one paw black and one ear black, sitting in a doorway of a house. I could not help myself. The sight of that puss was too much for my pent-up feelings—there was a sort of void in me that only a cat could fill. Well, I broke out of the procession and ran to the cat to catch it up. But it was frightened, and made a bolt and was gone. That set all the monks off laughing to see me after the cat. We had been singing a psalm, and they could not get on with it. I was put on bread and water for a week, all because of that cat.”

Brother Augustine was not happy in Rome, and was teased with neuralgia. After a twelvemonth he was sent back to England, and he had made up his mind not to take the vows. So on landing at London he gave the slip to the monk who was sent along with him, and found his way into some sort of refuge for runaway monks and nuns that had been set up, just as there are refuges for stray cats and dogs.

There he made acquaintance with Miss Headly Vicars, who was most kind to him, and of her he spoke with deep regard. By her advice he became a Scripture reader, or if not by her advice, with her consent.

He remained for some little while drawing a salary and doing some off-and-on work, very much against his taste, as Scripture reader, for it was a position for which he was totally unqualified. At last he became uneasy in his conscience, he felt he was earning money he did not deserve, and the work was uncongenial. Then he saw an advertisement from my predecessor at Dalton for a young man to act as man-servant, sing in the choir—(“Bray, rather,” said I to myself)—and attend to the church.

This was exactly what he wanted. He answered, was accepted; and I found him at Dalton, and kept him on.

I have said that Mr. Mills, or Brother Augustine, wore two different aspects.

Usually, about the house and at church he wore a cassock, and a little black square cap set on the back of his head.

When not engaged about the church, he was generally to be seen seated cross-legged on the kitchen table, making a suit for me, or mending or making clothes for himself.

But, when Mr. Mills was dressed to go to Thirsk, the market town, he was as though he had walked out of a bandbox—dapper, spick and span in everything; a masher one would call him now, but in 1866 the word was not invented.