He turned to the pictures of the Tarasps. "Give him your blessing, noble and glorified masters, whose memory we this day keep holy." The conclave was over, they all crossed themselves before the pictures, and then went up into the light of day. They hastened to the sacristy to baptise the child, for the solemn tolling of the big bell was already calling the inhabitants of the valley to high-mass.
The morning-sun shot its bright beams through the tall arched windows, and scattered the mists and shadows that Correntian, the sinister friar, had conjured up.
"The light must be victorious!" This was the happy promise with which it filled all hearts.
The folding doors sprang open; the Prior entered with the child. It was prettily wrapped in the Lady Uta's white linen, and lay there flooded in a ray of morning sun-shine as if transfigured. And drawn by a strange and tender human emotion the younger monks gathered round the tiny brother that Heaven had sent them, and pressed a kiss of welcome on his sweet and innocent lips. And the celestial Mother of Sorrows smiled down on them from the wall as if she were indeed the mother of them all, and rejoiced to see her elder sons welcoming the new-born child as a brother.
No--this is no gift of hell--this heart-winning, sun-lighted child that rouses so pure and harmless a joy in every breast; and the Abbot lifts his hands in blessing, and says, "Donatus we will call him, my brethren, for he is given to us, and his name shall mean a gift."
"Yes, yes--he shall be called Donatus," cried the monks in delight.
"And now swear to me," continued the Abbot, "before we proceed to the sacred ceremony--swear to me on the innocent head of this infant--that you will help to preserve him for Heaven; that you will watch over the boy at every hour, and protect him from every temptation that may alienate him from us--and above all from that which is the devil's most dangerous weapon, to which many a youth has fallen a victim--from earthly love."
The brethren raised their hands in solemn asseveration and, like a pillar of sacred sacrificial incense, the steamy cloud from thirty throats rose to Heaven in one united breath, "We swear it!"
The brethren gathered round the child like a wall--stronger than those walls of stone of which brother Stiero had spoken, and brother Correntian towered above the rest like an invincible bulwark. But brother Eusebius silently shook his head and said to himself, "And yet it must come."