ONE:The next morning the monk was summoned before the abbot; and with the same calm and dignified demeanor that generally characterized him, he obeyed the summons. The two brethren who had conducted him from Gray's cottage, stood at the table, and the abbot proceeded to say, that upon the oath of a respectable witness, he had been observed conversing with an excommunicated woman, and accompanying her to her house, and that those two brethren (pointing to the officers) were ready to avow they had beheld him leave it. "Now," continued Sudbury, "what have you to say? Did you converse with the woman?"Even in Calverley's breast, the bad passions were for a moment hushed, as he gazed upon the radiant phenomenon; but upon the more gross, and more timorous mind of Byles, the effect produced was much more striking. He seemed to imagine, that from that brilliant star, some celestial being was about to descend, and blast him with the wrath of heaven: and when a lambent flame, darting across the firmament, played for an instant around the quarry, he concluded that heaven's vengeance had, indeed, overtaken him. Rushing from the haunted spot, he stopped not in his headlong course, until he stood in the midst of a group of half-dressed neighbours near his own door, who had been aroused from their slumbers to gaze upon the comet.
TWO:"Alas! my mother, you will know it soon enough. It is said you havehavebewitchedor poisonedthe baron's son!"
ONE:Though strengthened in soul, Albert grew weaker in body, and Pete began to scamp his farm work. Even when the minister was present, he would not leave his brother. It grieved Reuben that, while outside matters prospered, indoors they should remind him of a Methodist conventicle. The house was full of hymns, they burst through the close-shut windows of Albert's bedroom and assaulted the ears of workers on Boarzell. In the evenings, when Ades was gone, Pete whistled them about the house. Reuben was ashamed; it made him blush to think that his stout churchmanship should have to put up with this. "I scarcely dare show my face in the pub, wud all this going on at h?ame," he remarked sorrowfully.
TWO:It was wonderful how soon he adapted himself to his new conditions. At first he missed Rose, but by the time he had got rid of her clothes and swept the perfume of her out of his room, he had ceased to hunger. He never heard of her againhe never knew what life she led in the new land, whether the reality of love brought her as much happiness as the game, or whether her old[Pg 332] taste for luxury and pleasure reasserted itself and ruined both love and lover."Calverley," said the baron, as Holgrave retired, and while addressing his esquire, his features assumed a peculiar expression: "What a pity it is that a yeoman should reap the reward of a service that should have been performed by you had your health permitted!"
