Eusebius' gaze, which he could not evade, fell upon him with a strange smile; Correntian hated that gaze, and from that moment he remained silent as if spell-bound by the gentle power of those clear eyes.
"What do you mean, worthy brother Eusebius?" asked the Abbot, unskilled in such matters.
"He means," interpreted Wyso in Latin with an impatient yawn, "that the woman's milk will fly to her brain or turn to poison, if you torment her so. Brother Correntian may fatten the brat with an extract of his doctrines of asceticism, but he will then probably not become a man but an angel at once," he added spitefully.
Correntian trembled with rage, but the eye he feared still rested upon him and kept him within bounds.
Meanwhile the Abbot had turned to the fisherman.
"We will let justice give place to mercy--for the sake of your wife, our child's foster-mother. We stand by our first decision; till we release your wife you are banished as well as the gatekeeper who let you in. Henceforth no lay-brother shall guard the convent gate, but our brethren shall have the charge of the little gate-house in turn. Hope for nothing more and do not attempt again to penetrate our sanctuary--a second time will be your ruin."
He turned to the Superior who stood in confusion in the background, for though he was innocent of this intrusion he had good-naturedly permitted meetings outside the convent walls, and so had made the gatekeeper too lax in the performance of his duty.
"Lead the prisoner up to the moor; there hand him over to the shepherd and our lay-brethren at St. Valentine's--they can release him from his bonds. The shepherd will provide him with nourishment and other necessaries and will be answerable to me for his not quitting the moor.--Come now, brethren, we will not waste another hour of our deferred night's rest."
The brethren followed him in silence.
"I am sorry for the poor creatures," said Stiero to Wyso in an undertone. "It was Correntian who stirred up all the mischief. Why in the world can he never sleep?"