“I dare not, master,” replied the boy.
“Dare not, why dare not? Come boy, tell me the truth, or abide a worse punishment than would have awaited you had you not brought me any verses.”
Terrified at his master’s threats, Celestinus revealed his interview with the Devil in a human form, and his contract of service with him. Deeply grieved at the occurrence, the preceptor ceased not to talk with his pupil, until he had persuaded him, humbly and heartily, on his knees, to confess to God his grievous sin in his compact with the Devil. His confederacy with the Evil One thus renounced, Celestinus became a good and holy man, and, after a well-spent life, resigned his soul to God.
“Pray, Lathom, what moral did your old monk intend to draw from this diabolical poetry?” asked Thompson.
“His application is very recondite; the preceptor is a prelate of the Church; the mangy horse, a sinner covered with sins; the two sheep represent two preachers bound by the cord of charity; the miller’s house is the world, and the fire, detraction. I must admit that the application, in this case, is far less valuable or intelligible than the story itself.”
“In an old book of moral advice,” said Herbert, “I found a description of three madmen, that reminded me much of the five kinds described by St. Peter, as related by your old writer. The first carried a fagot of wood, and because it was already too heavy for him, he added more wood to it, in the hopes of thereby making it lighter.”
“And he,” rejoined Lathom, “was a sinner, daily adding new sins to old, because unable to bear the weight of his original errors.”
“The very same. The second madman drew water from a deep well with a sieve; his labor was incessant, and his progress just as slow. Can you explain the nature of his sin?”
“I can read the explanation,” rejoined Lathom, “for I have this moment found out the source of your extract in my old monk’s book. This madman was the man who does good, but does it sinfully, and therefore it is of no benefit. The third madman was far worse: he carried a beam in his chariot; and wishing to enter his court-yard, and finding the gate so narrow that it would not admit the beam, he whipped his horse until it tumbled both itself and its master into a deep well. The beam was worldly vanities, with which their possessor sought to enter into heaven, but by which he was cast down into hell.”
“The belief in witchcraft,” began Herbert, “is very well illustrated by a late publication of the Camden Society of London.”