Chapter 16 - Page 2

Saint Pacomius. After trotting a full ten miles, a man needs a
softer seat than has fallen to my hard lot."

With sympathizing faces, the Sacristan and the Refectioner ran to
raise the Lord Abbot, and to adjust his seat to his mind, which was at
length accomplished in some sort, although he continued alternately to
bewail his fatigue, and to exult in the conscious sense of having
discharged an arduous duty. "You errant cavaliers," said he,
addressing the knight, "may now perceive that others have their
travail and their toils to undergo as well as your honoured faculty.
And this I will say for myself and the soldiers of Saint Mary, among
whom I may be termed captain, that it is not our wont to flinch from
the heat of the service, or to withdraw from the good fight. No, by
Saint Mary!--no sooner did I learn that you were here, and dared
not for certain reasons come to the Monastery, where, with as good
will, and with more convenience, we might have given you a better
reception, than, striking the table with my hammer, I called a
brother--Timothy, said I, let them saddle Benedict--let them saddle my
black palfrey, and bid the Sub-Prior and some half-score of attendants
be in readiness tomorrow after matins--we would ride to
Glendearg.--Brother Timothy stared, thinking, I imagine, that his ears
had scarce done him justice--but I repeated my commands, and said, Let
the Kitchener and Refectioner go before to aid the poor vassals to
whom the place belongs in making a suitable collation. So that you
will consider, good Sir Piercie, our mutual in commodities, and
forgive whatever you may find amiss"

"By my faith," said Sir Piercie Shafton, "there is nothing to
forgive--If you spiritual warriors have to submit to the grievous
incommodities which your lordship narrates, it would ill become me, a
sinful and secular man, to complain of a bed as hard as a board, of
broth which relished as if made of burnt wool, of flesh, which, in its
sable and singed shape, seemed to put me on a level with Richard
Coeur-de-Lion,--when he ate up the head of a Moor carbonadoed, and of
other viands savouring rather of the rusticity of this northern
region."

"By the good Saints, sir," said the Abbot, somewhat touched in point
of his character for hospitality, of which he was in truth a most
faithful and zealous professor, "it grieves me to the heart that you
have found our vassals no better provided for your reception--Yet I
crave leave to observe, that if Sir Piercie Shafton's affairs had
permitted him to honour with his company our poor house of Saint
Mary's, he might have had less to complain of in respect of
easements."

"To give your lordship