The dogs of the monks of St Bernard go
   To pick little children out of the snow,
   And around their necks is the cordial gin
   Tied with a little bit of bob-bin.

I should like to have written that, and I did try, but I couldn’t.  I didn’t quite like the last line, and tried to mend it, but I couldn’t.”

I fancied I could see traces of bitterness against the instructors of his youth in Ernest’s manner, and said something to this effect.

“Oh, no,” he replied, still laughing, “no more than St Anthony felt towards the devils who had tempted him, when he met some of them casually a hundred or a couple of hundred years afterwards.  Of course he knew they were devils, but that was all right enough; there must be devils.  St Anthony probably liked these devils better than most others, and for old acquaintance sake showed them as much indulgence as was compatible with decorum.

“Besides, you know,” he added, “St Anthony tempted the devils quite as much as they tempted him; for his peculiar sanctity was a greater temptation to tempt him than they could stand.  Strictly speaking, it was the devils who were the more to be pitied, for they were led up by St Anthony to be tempted and fell, whereas St Anthony did not fall.  I believe I was a disagreeable and unintelligible boy, and if ever I meet Skinner there is no one whom I would shake hands with, or do a good turn to more readily.”

At home things went on rather better; the Ellen and Mother Cross rows sank slowly down upon the horizon, and even at home he had quieter times now that he had become a praepostor.  Nevertheless the watchful eye and protecting hand were still ever over him to guard his comings in and his goings out, and to spy out all his ways.  Is it wonderful that the boy, though always trying to keep up appearances as though he were cheerful and contented—­and at times actually being so—­wore often an anxious, jaded look when he thought none were looking, which told of an almost incessant conflict within?

Doubtless Theobald saw these looks and knew how to interpret them, but it was his profession to know how to shut his eyes to things that were inconvenient—­no clergyman could keep his benefice for a month if he could not do this; besides he had allowed himself for so many years to say things he ought not to have said, and not to say the things he ought to have said, that he was little likely to see anything that he thought it more convenient not to see unless he was made to do so.

It was not much that was wanted.  To make no mysteries where Nature has made none, to bring his conscience under something like reasonable control, to give Ernest his head a little more, to ask fewer questions, and to give him pocket money with a desire that it should be spent upon menus plaisirs . . .

“Call that not much indeed,” laughed Ernest, as I read him what I have just written.  “Why it is the whole duty of a father, but it is the mystery-making which is the worst evil.  If people would dare to speak to one another unreservedly, there would be a good deal less sorrow in the world a hundred years hence.”