Questions and answers in excited
voices sounded from one side of the ambulatory to the other.
Sacrist and Abbot were gazing at each other in amazement at such a
breach of the discipline and decorum of their well-trained flock,
when there came a swift step upon the stair, and a white-faced
brother flung open the door and rushed into the room.
"Father Abbot!" he cried. "Alas, alas! Brother John is dead, and
the holy subprior is dead, and the Devil is loose in the five-
virgate field!"
III. THE YELLOW HORSE OF CROOKSBURY
In those simple times there was a great wonder and mystery in
life. Man walked in fear and solemnity, with Heaven very close
above his head, and Hell below his very feet. God's visible hand
was everywhere, in the rainbow and the comet, in the thunder and
the wind. The Devil too raged openly upon the earth; he skulked
behind the hedge-rows in the gloaming; he laughed loudly in the
night-time; he clawed the dying sinner, pounced on the unbaptized
babe, and twisted the limbs of the epileptic. A foul fiend slunk
ever by a man's side and whispered villainies in his ear, while
above him there hovered an angel of grace who pointed to the steep
and narrow track. How could one doubt these things, when Pope and
priest and scholar and King were all united in believing them,
with no single voice of question in the whole wide world?
Every book read, every picture seen, every tale heard from nurse
or mother, all taught the same lesson.
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