Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/76

 be brought to account for his horrid crimes and notorious iniquities. Which petitions were received by the Prior in full chapter after High Mass had been sung on the Festival of St. Benedict, the said Prior being pleased to use great courtesy toward the petitioners, promising to consider their desires, and finally sending them away with his benediction. And after this you may conceive what a stir and work there was amongst the ecclesiastics, what letters passed between the Prior and the Bishop of Llandaff, the Abbot of Tintern, the Abbot of Caerleon, the Abbot of Grace-Dieu, and the Priors of Uske, and Estrighoil and Llanthony; what questions were put to the Canonists and grave Doctors of the Church; for Dom. Hadrian de Mortuo Mari had sworn a great oath to do the business thoroughly and to leave no stone unturned. At last when St. Petronilla de Clochasterio her feast day came round everything had been settled, matters were in trim, and if Sir Jenkin had had an ounce of brains under his helmet he would have got down from his habitacle on the tower for good and all, and gone in search of Dom. Maria or the Freemason or the Devil or whomsoever was his responsible author. But then you see he had nothing inside his head or his belly either but brass wheels and cogs, and it seems that though these contrivances were sufficient to plague a lot of harmless quiet people, they were not clever enough to let Sir Jenkin know that he was in a nasty scrape and stood a decent chance of being burned. But on St. Petronilla's vigil, the convent and the castle and the city