man, in the ordinary dress of a priest, with a square cap on his
head. He looked spare, sickly, and wrinkled, but the furrows traced
lines of sweetness, his mouth was wonderfully gentle, and there was
a keen brightness about his clear grey eye. Every one rose and made
obeisance as he passed along to the stone stair leading to a pulpit
projecting from one of the columns.

Ambrose saw what was coming, though he had only twice before heard
preaching. The children of the ante-reformation were not called
upon to hear sermons; and the few exhortations given in Lent to the
monks of Beaulieu were so exclusively for the religious that
seculars were not invited to them. So that Ambrose had only once
heard a weary and heavy discourse there plentifully garnished with
Latin; and once he had stood among the throng at a wake at
Millbrook, and heard a begging friar recommend the purchase of
briefs of indulgence and the daily repetition of the Ave Maria by a
series of extraordinary miracles for the rescue of desperate
sinners, related so jocosely as to keep the crowd in a roar of
laughter. He had laughed with the rest, but he could not imagine
his guide, with the stern, grave eyebrows, writhen features and
earnest, ironical tone, covering--as even he could detect--the
deepest feeling, enjoying such broad sallies as tickled the slow
merriment of village clowns and forest deer-stealers.

All stood for a moment while the Paternoster was repeated. Then the
owners of stools sat down on them, some leant on adjacent pillars,
others curled themselves on the floor, but most remained on their
feet as unwilling to miss a word, and of these were Tibble Steelman
and his companion.