"As for that," quoth Hereward (who had remounted his horse from prudential
motives, and set him athwart the gateway, so that there was no chance of
the doors being slammed behind him), "if either of you will lend me
sixteen pence, I will pay it back to you and St. Peter before I die, with
interest enough to satisfy any Jew, on the word of a gentleman and an
earl's son."

The Abbot burst again into a great laughter. "Come in, thou graceless
renegade, and we will see to thee and thy horse; and I will pray to St.
Peter; and I doubt not he will have patience with thee, for he is very
merciful; and after all, thy parents have been exceeding good to us, and
the righteousness of the father, like his sins, is sometimes visited on
the children."

Now, why were the two ecclesiastics so uncanonically kind to this wicked
youth?

Perhaps because both the old bachelors were wishing from their hearts that
they had just such a son of their own. And beside, Earl Leofric was a very
great man indeed; and the wind might change; for it is an unstable world.

"Only, mind, one thing," said the naughty boy, as he dismounted, and
halloed to a lay-brother to see to his horse,--"don't let me see the face
of that Herluin."

"And why? You have wronged him, and he will forgive you, doubtless, like a
good Christian as he is."

"That is his concern. But if I see him, I cut off his head. And, as Uncle