Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/124

RV 56 (Rh) stoup of Bourdeaux. At the same instant entered Father Eustace.

He was a thin, sharp-faced, slight-made little man, whose keen grey eyes seemed almost to look through the person to whom he addressed himself. His body was emaciated not only with the fasts which he observed with rigid punctuality, but also by the active and unwearied exercise of his sharp and piercing intellect:—

He turned with conventual reverence to the lord abbot; and as they stood together, it was scarce possible to see a more complete difference of form and expression. The good-natured rosy face and laughing eye of the abbot, which even his present anxiety could not greatly ruffle, was a wonderful contrast to the thin pallid cheek and quick penetrating glance of the monk, in which an eager and keen spirit glanced through eyes to which it seemed to give supernatural lustre.

The abbot opened the conversation by motioning to his monk to take a stool, and inviting him to a cup of wine. The courtesy was declined with respect, yet not without a remark that the vesper service was past.

'For the stomach's sake, brother,' said the abbot, colouring a little—'You know the text.'

'It is a dangerous one,' answered the monk, 'to handle alone, or at late hours. Cut off from human society, the juice of the grape becomes a perilous companion of solitude, and therefore I ever shun it.'

Abbot Boniface had poured himself out a goblet which might hold about half an English pint; but, either struck with the truth of the observation, or ashamed to act in direct opposition to it, he suffered it to remain untasted before him, and immediately changed the subject.

'The Primate hath written to us,' said he, 'to make strict search within our bounds after the heretical persons denounced in this list, who have withdrawn themselves from the justice which their opinions deserve. It is deemed probable that they will attempt to retire to England by