As he was going off, the Abbe Plomb called him back and said, laughing,—­

“In your future cathedral you have forgotten to reserve a nook for Saint Columba, if, indeed, we can find some ascetic plant native, or at any rate common, to Ireland, the land where this Father was born.”

“The thistle, figurative of mortification and penance and a memento of asceticism, is conspicuous as the badge of Scotland,” replied Durtal.  “But why Saint Columba?”

“Because of all saints he is the most neglected, the least invoked by those of our contemporaries who ought to be most assiduous; since he is regarded in the attributions of special virtues as the patron saint of idiots.”

“Pooh!” cried the Abbe Gevresin.  “Why, if ever a man revealed a magnificent comprehension of things human and divine, it was that great Abbot and founder of monasteries!”

“Oh! there is no suggestion implied that Saint Columba was feeble of brain; and as to why the mission was trusted to him rather than another of protecting the greater part of the human race, I do not know.”

“Perhaps he may have cured lunatics and healed those possessed?” the Abbe Gevresin suggested.

“At any rate,” said Durtal, “it would be vain to erect a chapel to him, since it would always be empty; no one would come to entreat him, poor saint! for the essential mark of an idiot is not to think himself one!”

“A saint out of work!” remarked Madame Bavoil.

“And who is not likely to find any,” said Durtal, as he left them.

CHAPTER XI.

Durtal had begged his housekeeper, Madame Mesurat, to serve his coffee in his study.  He thus hoped to escape having her constantly standing in front of him, as she did all through his meal, asking him if his mutton-cutlet were good.

And though that meat had a taste of flannel, Durtal had nodded a sketchy affirmative, knowing full well that if he ventured on the least comment he would have to endure an incoherent harangue on all the butchers in the town.

As soon as this woman, at once servile, despotic, and obsequious, had placed his cup on the table, he buried his nose in a book, and by his repellent attitude compelled her to fly.

He knew the book he was turning over almost by heart, for he had often read it between the hours of service at the cathedral.  It was so entirely sympathetic to him, with its artless faith and ingenuous enthusiasm, that it was to him like the familiar speech of the Church itself.

The little volume contained the prayers composed in the fourteenth century by Gaston Phoebus, Comte de Foix.  Durtal had it in two editions, one printed in the original form of his authentic words and antiquated spelling, by the Abbe de Madaune; the other modernized, but with great skill and taste, by Monsieur de la Briere.