The Abbot sighed deeply. “All this,” he said, “is soon spoken by him who hath to act it not; but—” He was interrupted by the entrance of Bennet rather hastily. “The mule on which the Sacristan had set out in the morning had returned,” he said, “to the convent stable all over wet, and with the saddle turned round beneath her belly.”
“Sancta Maria!” said the Abbot, “our dear brother hath perished by the way!”
“It may not be,” said Eustace, hastily—“let the bell be tolled—cause the brethren to get torches—alarm the village—hurry down to the river—I myself will be the foremost.”
The real Abbot stood astonished and agape, when at once he beheld his office filled, and saw all which he ought to have ordered, going forward at the dictates of the youngest monk in the convent. But ere the orders of Eustace, which nobody dreamed of disputing, were carried into execution, the necessity was prevented by the sudden apparition of the Sacristan, whose supposed danger excited all the alarm.
Chapter the Seventh.
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
Cleanse the foul bosom of the perilous stuff
That weighs upon the heart.
MACBETH.
What betwixt cold and fright the afflicted Sacristan stood before his Superior, propped on the friendly arm of the convent miller, drenched with water, and scarce able to utter a syllable.
