him to do his best, and he took his few belongings from the alumnate, and went out through the Abbey gates with a little sadness of heart, as being no more one of them, and yet with a strange and exulting sense of freedom and expectancy, as having at least stepped over, once for all, the threshold of the great world.

The two years that he had lived with Budd, the granger, had added maturity to his form and bearing. He had been faithful to his brother's wishes and to the Abbot's commands; regular and painstaking in his studies; and he had made considerable progress in them all. But it had not been all books and studies. He had found time, too, to roam about the woods. and along the streams, to ride far up past Holne by the bridle tracks that led across the sky-girt moorland, to race, with his great deerhound-a gift to him from Sir Guy-from Buckfast to the still black pool that lies, silent and mysterious, under the overhanging branches of its solemn trees, a mile above the Abbey, and throw himself, the dog following him, into its refreshing coolness. Budd had taught him how to snare the rabbits that had their warrens in the waste ground over the river, and showed him how to bait the otter traps with fish. He had learnt the habits of many of the moorland creatures and knew how to lie full-length on the bank of the stream, his arm plunged shoulder deep in the cool water, his fingers moving gently under the belly of some great trout that lay, all unsuspecting of his danger, with his head pointed up stream.

As he stood, this bright spring morning, bending low over the silvery salmon pool, he was a perfect picture of health and strength. Lithe and agile, with muscles hardened by healthy exercise, face, throat, and arms tanned to a deep brown, he looked much older than his eighteen years. His head was bare, and his dress, of some loosely fitting homespun, open at the throat, reached only to his knees. He bore a curious resemblance to his kinsman the Abbot, save that his brown hair was long and straight, carelessly thrown back from his broad forehead, whereas the Abbot's head was shaved in the monastic fashion, so that only a crown of short, curling hair was left above his ears. But the features were the same; large gray eyes that looked out frankly and fearlessly from under strongly marked brows, a regularly formed, but rather prominent, nose, and a squarely cut chin that spoke of resolution and courage.

The expression of his face in repose was, perhaps, a trifle too serious. Only when he spoke he habitually smiled, and his parted lips showed two pearly rows of regular teeth.

'Well, there's no getting another," he said to himself, as he saw the great bar of silver he was watching flash up to the head of the pool, "and Father Abbot must be contented with one. But it's the finest fish taken this year, and fit for the table of the Lord Pope himself."

He lifted aside a little heap of bracken as he spoke, and discovered a noble salmon, fresh run and still palpitating with life, beneath it.

"A fine fish, indeed," he went on, as he lifted it and turned to go towards the abbey, "and worthy of St. Benet's Feast. The Abbot will eat you, my beauty; and the nobles sitting at the high table will eat you; and the Bishop will lift up his two fat hands and declare he never saw so fine a fish; and he will eat you, too. That's worth living for, isn't it-and worth going down to the sea and up to the moor and growing and fattening for, and being caught, too-to be eaten on the Feast Day of St. Benet and to be praised by the Bishop?"

As he neared the cluster of buildings, outhouses, barns, and workshops, that crowded about the gateway of the Abbey, he saw the first-comers straggle in, and, taking his fish straight to the kitchen, he gave it to the cook, with express injunctions as to how it was to be dished and served at the repast. Then, retracing his steps, he sat down beside the porter's lodge and watched the stir and bustle of the gathering crowd. First came the cotters and grangers, peasants from the outlying districts and brethren from the moorland farms and folds-on foot for the most part, though some of them rode astride shaggy ponies; peasants coming singly, or in groups of three or four, some of them with their wives and daughters-the kerchiefs of the women lending further color to the assembly; peasants in black and gray and green; and monks in their habits of brown. and white; Cistercians and black-robed Benedictines; and there were two Franciscans who had been preaching a pardon nearby, with bare feet and knotted ropes about their waists. The approaches to the monastery and the space within the gates took on the appearance of a fair. A pedlar stood just outside the gates chaffering and bargaining over his wares. Buxom maidens smiled and blushed at their bashful swains, who nudged each

Cider was

other and blushed and grinned back in their turn. flowing already, and hydromel, that sweet, stinging drink that the old monks knew so well how to make. Brother Gregory tramped up, hot and dusty from his long walk, though he had set out from the cell on Brent well before the sun appeared over the eastern hills. Little Brother Peter was at his side, dusty, too, but as fresh and cool as ever. The lines about his pursed up little mouth were cut deep as with a chisel, and his eyes danced and twinkled as they fell upon the motley crowd. Arnoul knew most of the newcomers well. He had lived among these simple folk since he was a child, and had a kindly word and jest for all.

Then the knights and nobles began to arrive to the tune of jangling bits and trampling hoofs. Pomeroys and Cliffords and Tracys-all had some brother or nephew professed at St. Mary's, and came to grace the feast and do honor to the Lord Abbot. There rode Sir Robert de Helion, bland and smiling as ever, one of the greatest friends and benefactors of the house; and there, on his great black war-horse, Sir Sigar Vipont, Knight of Moreleigh, his brow contracted and his thin lips pressed closely together; beside him rode his only child, Sibilla; the Sheriff of Devon, with his lady; Guy de Briteville and his sonin-law, Ralph de Chalons, of Challonsleigh, were there; Sir William Hamlyn of Deandon, who for twenty years had never missed riding in to the feast from his home up by Widdecombe on the great moor; and who, with his customary generosity to the Abbey, was even now providing the greater part of the cost of enlarging the church, already crowded by the growing community, brought with him his near neighbor, Michael de Spitchwick. Knights and nobles with their ladies, squires with their dames-Arnoul knew them all and named them all but Vipont, against whom he had a grudge; for the knight, quick tempered as he was handsome, had beaten him sorely years before for some boyish trespass in the woods of Moreleigh. Sibilla he had not seen since first he had come to the monastery; but now she burst upon his sight like a vision, and he thought he had never looked upon anything half so beautiful before. Forgetful of his dislike of Vipont, he turned and followed them with his gaze into the courtyard of the Abbey. It was involuntary, unconscious. He hardly knew what he did, or doubtless his former monastic training would have brought the quick

blushes to his brow. But he saw the gracefully poised head, a mass of dark chestnut hair held in by a simple fillet, the smiling brown eyes and the happy, sunburnt face of a maiden not much younger than himself; and he stood and gazed through the vaulted gateway, until a hand upon his shoulder and a rough voice in his ear brought his mind back from the land of visions. "How now, lad? Have you no voice to speak to a comrade, that you stand there moonstruck? Here have I and Budd been calling to you these two minutes, and all you do is to gape, gape, gape, through yonder gateway, as though you had caught sight of a ghost in the broad daylight!"

"Roger! and so it is!" cried Arnoul. here away from your boats and nets? brother ?

And-and-and-"

"And what do you

And where is my

"Softly, lad," replied the man. "One question at a time, an't please you! Your brother, Sir Guy, is well and had his Mass to read at Woodleigh ere he could set out for Buckfast. He will be here anon. He was on his way to church before I set out. I have traveled through the breaking of the mornin good company, too, i' faith! A palmer I picked up on the road, and two vinegar-faced ruffians in brown, with cords about their waists and books in their hands. I have just got rid of them. Never a village did we enter to quaff a cup of sweet Devon cider for the house's good, but they straightway opened their jaws by the roadside and were droning away at their psalms. At every halt they warned me of the wrath to come; and they so frightened the good palmer that he nearly caught the palsy from overmuch crossing of himself. And all, forsooth, because I drink the good juice that God gives to Devon men and speak, as I was taught, without benedicite or ave."

Why did they journey with you then, good Roger, if they thought so hardly of you?" asked Arnoul.

'Faith, they thought it wiser to walk with the devil, than to risk a cracked pate by themselves. 'Twixt here and Woodleigh there be many making merry; and But, soft! out of the way there! Here is my Lord Bishop and his train."

Comparative silence fell upon the crowd. Even the pedlar stopped crying his wares as the Bishop rode forward on his white palfrey. Preceded by four men mounted on stout beasts, wearing livery and carrying arms, a sort of cross between bodyservants and soldiers, he was the central figure in a little group,

made up, save one, of ecclesiastics. The white-robed Premonstratensian prior of Torre, with whom he had lodged the previous night, and his own chancellor, Lodoswell, rode upon his left. To the right was Walter de Bathe, Lord of Colnbrooke, with whom his lordship was engaged in deep and animated conversation. Behind them rode a canon and the Bishop's chaplain, with two or three lesser clerics carrying a cross and books. These were followed by three pack-mules, on whose backs were strapped and bound huge cases and bundles. And lastly, finishing as it began, the cavalcade came to an end with four of my Lord of Exeter's liveried men-of-arms riding abreast. My Lord Bishop himself was a plump, rosy-cheeked man apparently about fifty years old. Clad in the purple robes of his high station, and wearing on his breast a golden cross, he jogged along slowly on his white steed, interrupting his evidently pleasant talk now and then to stretch out his jewelled hand in copious blessings over the monks and peasants who devoutly fell on their knees as he passed.

As he reached the gateway he caught sight of Arnoul, and leant from his saddle, stretching out a podgy hand, over the glove of which glistened an enormous ring, to be kissed. It was a somewhat difficult feat to perform; for, as has been said, the Bishop was portly, and the beast he strode, the fattest of its kind, gave evidence clear and indisputable of the richness of its pasture and the excellence of the fare provided in the episcopal stables. His effort made the good cleric purple in the face; but he managed to capture the young man's hand in his own and bring himself into the perpendicular once more.

"And how is my brother Poacher, my brother Bird-snarer ?" he questioned, his smile-wreathed visage beginning to assume its normal color again. "My Lord Abbot has a brave handful in you, Sirrah! By'r Lady, you are as like him as the one tower of my cathedral is like the other! And what is the last mischief you have been up to? By the Mass, Sir Walter, the last time I was here, the young rascal had the whole refectorium in an uproar by reason of the wasp's nest he hung up at the kitchen window for grubs! For grubs, mark you! He had the impudence to hang it up for grubs! But that is a long story, and 'twill bear telling another time."

The chaplain, the canon, and the clerics, as was their bounden duty, tittered in chorus. If they had heard it once, they had