“Give it to me.  I will keep it as a talisman of safety, and as a memorial of our friar.  Poor fellow!” continued Lady Mabel, “I suppose the best wish I can return him is, that enthusiasm may carry him, in sincerity and purity, through the path others have chosen for him.”

“He is an impudent fellow!” growled out old Moodie.  “You set too great store, my lady, by this young vagabond!”

“Vagabond!” she exclaimed, with a look and tone of grave rebuke, “I am afraid, Moodie, if you had met St. Paul wandering through Macedonia without staff or scrip, or the cloak he left behind at Troas, you would have found no better title for him.”

“Is this man like St. Paul?” asked Moodie, startled at the profane supposition.

“I do not say so.  But the whole order of friars, renouncing worldly objects, devote themselves to the imitation of the seventy disciples in Scripture, who were sent out by two and two to evangelize the Jews.”

“I never expected, my lady, to hear you liken these lazy monks to our Lord’s disciples.”

“They are not monks, but friars,” said Lady Mabel quietly, “and, without answering for their practice, I cannot but approve of what they profess.  They do not shut themselves up from the world, like the monks, under pretence of escaping contamination, but devote themselves to the mission of traveling about in apostolic poverty from house to house, and, by prayer and preaching, by inculcating charity, and receiving alms, sow every where the seeds of the faith they profess.”

“The words old Chaucer puts into the mouth of his friar,” said L’Isle, “well express the objects of the order: 

  “In shrift, in preaching is my diligence,
   And study in Peter’s words and in Paul’s;
   I walk and fish Christian men’s souls,
   To yield my Lord Jesu his proper rent;
   To spread his word is set all mine intent.”

“A truly apostolic aim!” Lady Mabel exclaimed, looking triumphantly round on her old follower.

The descending road here narrowed suddenly, and Moodie reined back his horse, silent in the sad conviction that Lady Mabel had already got beyond that half-way house between the region of evangelical purity and idolatrous Rome.

In the narrow valley, overgrown with shrubs and brushwood at the foot of the hill, they came suddenly on a large number of swine luxuriating in the cool waters, or on the shady banks of a brook.  The swine vanished instantly amidst the thickets, though hundreds were still heard grunting and squealing around them, and the travelers might have taken them for wild denizens of the wilderness, had not a fierce growl attracted their attention, and they saw on the opposite bank a man reclining under a carob tree, one hand resting on the neck of a huge dog, who yet showed two savage rows of teeth, and fixed his vigilant and angry eyes on the intruders.  The wild air of the master delighted Lady Mabel, for there was mingled with it a savage dignity as he stretched his manly form on the wolf-skin spread out under him, and gazed calmly on the party drawing near.  While their horses stopped to drink at the stream, they observed him narrowly—­he receiving this attention with stoic indifference.  A long gun lay on the ground beside him, and his garments, made chiefly of the dressed skins of animals, defied brier or thorn.