head, so that he beheld its pink muzzle, bristly upper and hanging lower
lip in disagreeable profile, regarded him with malevolent contempt out of
its one sound eye, as who should say:

"What's the silly fellow trumpeting like this about? Doesn't the veriest
noodle contrive to keep a quiet tongue in his head out on the highway?"

Sensible of a snub, Mr. Verity jerked at the reins and clapped his heels
into the creature's sides, as smartly as fatigue and native civility
permitted, sending it forward at a jog-trot. Nevertheless his
soliloquy--a silent one now--continued, and that with notable
consequences to others besides himself.

For his thought still dallied with the subject of the monastic life, as
lived by those same pious Benedictines here in England long ago. Its
reasoned rejection of mundane agitations, its calm, its leisure, its
profound and ardent scholarship were vastly to his taste,--A man touching
middle-age might do worse, surely, than spend his days between worship
and learning, thus?--He saw, and approved, its social office in offering
sanctuary to the fugitive, alms to the poor, teaching to the ignorant,
consolation to the sick and safe passage heavenward to the dying. Saw,
not without sympathy, its more jovial moments--its good fellowship,
shrewd and witty conversation, well salted stories--whereat a man laughs
slyly in his sleeve--its good cheer, too, with feasts on holy-days and
high-days, rich and succulent.--And in this last connection, as he
reflected, much was to be said for the geographical position of
Marychurch; since if river mists and white dullness of sea fog, drifting
in from the Channel, were to hand, so, also, in their season, were fresh
run salmon, snipe, wood-cock, flocks of wild duck, of plover and other
savoury fowl.