handle.

The horse drew off, glared with wonder and fury at this masterful
man, and then trotted round in a circle, with mane bristling, tail
streaming and ears on end, snorting in its rage and pain. The
man, hardly deigning to glance at his fell neighbor, passed on to
the wounded forester, raised him in his arms with a strength which
could not have been expected in so slight a body, and carried him,
groaning, to the wall, where a dozen hands were outstretched to
help him over. Then, at his leisure, the young man also climbed
the wall, smiling back with cool contempt at the yellow horse,
which had come raging after him once more.

As he sprang down, a dozen monks surrounded him to thank him or to
praise him; but he would have turned sullenly away without a word
had he not been stopped by Abbot John in person.

"Nay, Squire Loring," said he, "if you be a bad friend to our
Abbey, yet we must needs own that you have played the part of a
good Christian this day, for if there is breath left in our
servant's body it is to you next to our blessed patron Saint
Bernard that we owe it."

"By Saint Paul! I owe you no good-will, Abbot John," said the
young man. "The shadow of your Abbey has ever fallen across the
house of Loring. As to any small deed that I may have done this
day, I ask no thanks for it. It is not for you nor for your house
that I have done it, but only because it was my pleasure so to
do."