Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/249

Rh —if they had done so the same arrangement would have been made without police intervention—it appears that they claimed everything I had removed, even the clothes I wore, which they expected me to ask of them as an alms. The claim was ostensibly based on my vow of poverty or abdication of the right of property; the fact that the college was just as incapable of ownership as I (on their peculiar theory) was ignored, and the new rector, F. David, claimed them in the name of the college. They were books and instruments which friends had given me on various occasions (every friar accumulates a quantity of such presents, which remain his, for all practical purposes): legally (for canon law is happily not authoritative in England) they were my property, and I had no hesitation in thinking myself morally justified after my conscientious labours, and, especially, since most of the donors were hardly aware of the college’s existence.

In the afternoon the police-sergeant appeared and claimed the property which had been ‘stolen from St. Bernardine’s College.’ I believe that his proceedings were entirely incorrect, though I was unfortunately not sure of it at the time. However, we disputed the ownership of the property, and he at once collapsed. Then, in order to avoid litigation, I promised to surrender a large number of books if F. David would come to claim them.

Father David came, again bringing, to the