absorbed in devouring a pan of browis, left there for morning use—the breakfast of the labourers about the abbey.

   During this interval matters of the deepest importance were discussed, the contents of the packet having furnished abundant materials for deliberation. When the bearer was effectually replenished, he was led into the council-chamber again, where the abbot, in a tone of deep and serious thought, thus addressed him:—

   "Who gave thee these despatches? It is plain they were not meant for our eyes; but Heaven, by the weakest instrument, often works the mightiest and most important events. Where and how came they into thy keeping?"

   Dick looked cunningly round the apartment ere he replied, surveying the floor, the walls, and the ceiling; even the groinings of the roof did not escape a minute and accurate examination; whether to give time for the contriving of a suitable reply, or merely to gratify his own peevish humour, is of little consequence that we should inquire. After a long and anxious silence on the part of his auditors, he replied—

   "I told ye when ye spiered afore." Another pause. The abbot was fearful that Dick's ideas, if not carefully handled, might get so entangled and confused that he would be unable to give any intelligible account of the matter. He therefore addressed him coaxingly as follows—

   "Nay, nay, Dickon, thou hast not; answer me now, and thou shalt have the fat from the roast to-morrow, and a sop to season it withal."

   Dick leered again at this prospective dainty, as he replied—

   "I tou'd ye, and ye heeded not, belike; and who's the fool now? Come, I'll set you my riddle again. If ye set your back to a door, see that it be tyned, or ye may get a broken head, and then"——

   Here he paused, and looked round with a vacant eye; but they wisely forbore to interrupt the current of his ideas, hoping that ere long they might trickle into the right channel.

   "There was a big room, and a bed in it," he continued, "and a priest, which the fule body has cheated. A fule's wit is worth more nor a wise man's folly."

   A vague apprehension of the truth crossed the abbot's mind. Being now on the right scent, he no longer forbore to follow up the chase, but endeavoured to hasten the development by a gentle stimulating of his pace in the required direction.

 Prev. P 74/459 next