Father Johannes watched this attempt at diversion with a glitter of stealthy malice, and, seeming to be absorbed in contemplation, broke out again exactly where he had left off on the unwelcome subject.

“I mind me now, Brother Anselmo, that, when you came out of your cell to prayers, the other night, your utterance was thick, and your eyes heavy and watery, and your gait uncertain.  One would swear that you had been drunken with new wine; but we knew it was all the effect of fasting and devout contemplation, which inebriates the soul with holy raptures, as happened to the blessed Apostles on the day of Pentecost.  I remarked the same to our holy father, and he seemed to give it earnest heed, for I saw him watching you through all the services.  How blessed is such watchfulness!”

“The Devil take him!” said Father Anselmo, suddenly thrown off his guard; but checking himself, he added, confusedly,—­“I mean”—­

“I understand you, brother,” said Father Johannes; “it is a motion of the old nature not yet entirely subdued.  A little more of the discipline of the lower vaults, which you have found so precious, will set all that right.”

“You would not inform against me?” said Father Anselmo, with an expression of alarm.

“It would be my duty, I suppose,” said Father Johannes, with a sigh; “but, sinner that I am, I never could bring my mind to such proceedings with the vigor of our blessed father.  Had I been Superior of the convent, as was talked of, bow differently might things have proceeded!  I should have erred by a sinful laxness.  How fortunate that it was he, instead of such a miserable sinner as myself!”

“Well, tell me, then, Father Johannes,—­for your eyes are shrewd as a lynx’s,—­is our good Superior so perfect as he seems? or does he have his little private comforts sometimes, like the rest of us?  Nobody, you know, can stand it to be always on the top round of the ladder to Paradise.  For my part, between you and me, I never believed all that story they read to us so often about Saint Simon Stylites, who passed so many years on the top of a pillar and never came down.  Trust me, the old boy found his way down sometimes, when all the world was asleep, and got somebody to do duty for him meantime, while he took a little something comfortable.  Is it not so?”

“I am told to believe, and I do believe,” said Father Johannes, casting down his eyes, piously; “and, dear brother, it ill befits a sinner like me to reprove; but it seemeth to me as if you make too much use of the eyes of carnal inquiry.  Touching the life of our holy father, I cannot believe the most scrupulous watch can detect anything in his walk or conversation other than appears in his profession.  His food is next to nothing,—­a little chopped spinach or some bitter herb cooked without salt for ordinary days, and on fast days he mingles this with ashes, according to a saintly rule.  As for sleep, I believe he does without it; for at no time of the night, when I have knocked at the door of his cell, have I found him sleeping.  He is always at his prayers or breviary.  His cell hath only a rough, hard board for a bed, with a log of rough wood for a pillow; yet he complains of that as tempting to indolence.”