"Nay, she smiled sweetly upon him and thanked him.
I can vouch it and so can brother Porphyry."
"Canst thou?" cried the Abbot, in a high, tempestuous tone.
"Canst thou so?
Hast forgotten that the five-and-thirtieth rule of the order is that in the presence of a woman the face should be ever averted and the eyes cast down?
Hast forgot it, I say?
If your eyes were upon your sandals, how came ye to see this smile of which ye prate?
A week in your cells, false brethren, a week of rye-bread and lentils, with double lauds and double matins, may help ye to remembrance of the laws under which ye live."
At this sudden outflame of wrath the two witnesses sank their faces on to their chests, and sat as men crushed.
The Abbot turned his angry eyes away from them and bent them upon the accused, who met his searching gaze with a firm and composed face.
"What hast thou to say, brother John, upon these weighty things which are urged against you?"
"Little enough, good father, little enough," said the novice, speaking English with a broad West Saxon drawl.
The brothers, who were English to a man, pricked up their ears at the sound of the homely and yet unfamiliar speech; but the Abbot flushed red with anger, and struck his hand upon the oaken arm of his chair.
"What talk is this?" he cried.
"Is this a tongue to be used within the walls of an old and well-famed monastery?
But grace and learning have ever gone hand in hand, and when one is lost it is needless to look for the other."
"I know not about that," said brother John.
"I know only that the words come kindly to my mouth, for it was the speech of my fathers before me.
Under your favor, I shall either use it now or hold my peace."
The Abbot patted his foot and nodded his head, as one who passes a point but does not forget it.
"For the matter of the ale," continued brother John, "I had come in hot from the fields and had scarce got the taste of the thing before mine eye lit upon the bottom of the pot.
It may be, too, that I spoke somewhat shortly concerning the bran and the beans, the same being poor provender and unfitted for a man of my inches.
It is true also that I did lay my hands upon this jack- fool of a brother Ambrose, though, as you can see, I did him little scathe.
As regards the maid, too, it is true that I did heft her over the stream, she having on her hosen and shoon, whilst I had but my wooden sandals, which could take no hurt from the waver.
I should have thought shame upon my manhood, as well as my monkhood, if I had held back my hand from her."
He glanced around as he spoke with the half-amused look which he had worn during the whole proceedings.
"There is no need to go further," said the Abbot.
"He has confessed to all.
It only remains for me to portion out the punishment which is due to his evil conduct."
He rose, and the two long lines of brothers followed his example, looking sideways with scared faces at the angry prelate.
"John of Hordle," he thundered, "you have shown yourself during the two months of your novitiate to be a recreant monk, and one who is unworthy to wear the white garb which is the outer symbol of the spotless spirit.
That dress shall therefore be stripped from thee, and thou shalt be cast into the outer world without benefit of clerkship, and without lot or part in the graces and blessings of those who dwell under the care of the Blessed Benedict.
Thou shalt come back neither to Beaulieu nor to any of the granges of Beaulieu, and thy name shall be struck off the scrolls of the order."
The sentence appeared a terrible one to the older monks, who had become so used to the safe and regular life of the Abbey that they would have been as helpless as children in the outer world.
From their pious oasis they looked dreamily out at the desert of life, a place full of stormings and strivings--comfortless, restless, and overshadowed by evil.
The young novice, however, appeared to have other thoughts, for his eyes sparkled and his smile broadened.
It needed but that to add fresh fuel to the fiery mood of the prelate.
"So much for thy spiritual punishment," he cried.
"But it is to thy grosser feelings that we must turn in such natures as thine, and as thou art no longer under the shield of holy church there is the less difficulty.
Ho there! lay-brothers--Francis, Naomi, Joseph--seize him and bind his arms!
Drag him forth, and let the foresters and the porters scourge him from the precincts!"
As these three brothers advanced towards him to carry out the Abbot's direction, the smile faded from the novice's face, and he glanced right and left with his fierce brown eyes, like a bull at a baiting.
Then, with a sudden deep-chested shout, he tore up the heavy oaken prie-dieu and poised it to strike, taking two steps backward the while, that none might take him at a vantage.
"By the black rood of Waltham!" he roared, "if any knave among you lays a finger-end upon the edge of my gown, I will crush his skull like a filbert!"
With his thick knotted arms, his thundering voice, and his bristle of red hair, there was something so repellent in the man that the three brothers flew back at the very glare of him; and the two rows of white monks strained away from him like poplars in a tempest.
The Abbot only sprang forward with shining eyes; but the chancellor and the master hung upon either arm and wrested him back out of danger's way.
"He is possessed of a devil!" they shouted.
"Run, brother Ambrose, brother Joachim!
Call Hugh of the Mill, and Woodman Wat, and Raoul with his arbalest and bolts.
Tell them that we are in fear of our lives!