Now, as I turned from the drawbridge at the moat-house of Blanchelande to go homewards the remembrance came to me of those men that I guessed were pirates digging their storehouse in mother earth in the midst of the wood.  And thinking on it, though I feared them not, I had no taste to return to the vale that way.  So, instead, I followed the path rugged and uneven as it was, along the side of the cliff to the northward.  First along the gorge of the Bay of Saints I went by the side of the stream that ran singing from Blanchelande, and then I cut straight up the cliff amid the heather, and so came into sight of Moulin Huet, where an ugly craft, that I liked not the sight of lay at anchor, right under the nose of Jerbourg Castle, wherein our abbot had a small corps of men, even as at the Vale.  I stood a moment looking down on her riding deep in the sky-blue water, and presently I saw a boat put out from shore with men on board that rowed towards her.  I could not tell if they were the same I saw up by the chateau, but I guessed they were, as I saw them climb into the bark.  And then I journeyed on, clinging here and there to the cliff or the green stuff that grew thereon, like a very cat of the woods, past Fermain Bay, and through the little township of St. Pierre Port, and I wondered, since the pirate bark was so near at hand, that naught was stirring in the street or on the jetty.  Now, St. Pierre Port was a pleasant place to me.  A little world of its own, for every man of St. Pierre Port was a soldier, and could draw bow and slash with his broadsword, and pirates meddled not much with St. Pierre Port, for its men were tough and stern and loved their homes right well.

I stayed not to chatter with fishermen or priest to-day; but hasted on, and at length the little tower of St. Sampson arose before me, and ere long I was at the abbot’s lodging.

The abbot paced up and down his orchard and garden of flowers.

“Thou art late, my son,” said he.  “Did my lord detain you?”

“My lord,” I said, “was very kind and gentle, far beyond that I dreamed possible, and kept me with good entertainment and choice converse far into the day.”

“And my lord was pleasing to thy taste?” said Abbot Michael, with a strange smile, not like his own, that I knew not.

“How may I, holy Father,” answered I, “speak aught but well of him, who did me no ill, but good only?  And, indeed, my lord spake to me out of his store of knowledge, as to one not ignorant and young; but, indeed, like himself in age and state.  And yet, in good faith, he pleased me not at first.”

“And how was that?”

“There seemed indeed, Father, somewhat that I distrusted, and then his passion at the opening of thy scroll was terrible to see.”

“Ay, was he moved?  And what said he when he perceived that inner scroll?” inquired the abbot.

“Moved, Father!  I thought he might have done some deadly deed.  But he calmed himself at length.”