brethren, he employed his leisure with quite other matters.
Many have been the jests levelled at the higher clergy of the Church of
Rome, rich, cloistered, and celibate, in their relations to the other
sex.

But all such jests, good against even certain holy popes of Rome and
their nephews, fell harmless against the triple brass of the reputation
of Don Baltasar, present head of the great Monastery of Montblanch.

Things might be whispered against the practice of divers of the brethren
of the Order. But out of the sphere of his immediate jurisdiction, Don
Baltasar concerned himself not with other men's matters.

"To his own God he standeth or falleth," quoth Don Baltasar, and washed
his hands of the responsibility.

But there were one or two offences which Don Baltasar did not treat in
this manner, and of these anon.

Meantime the Abbot talked with his confessor, and in the security of his
chamber was another man to the genial host, the liberal and well-read
churchman, the courteous man of the world who had listened so
approvingly to the wild talk of Rollo the Scot, and so condescendingly
clinked glasses with Brother Hilario, the rich young recruit who had
come from his native province to support the cause of _el Rey Absoluto_,
Don Carlos V. of Spain.

The chamber itself was different. It contained one chair, plain and rude
as that of any anchorite, in which the Abbot sat, a stool for the father
confessor, a pallet bed, a rough shelf with half a dozen worn volumes
above it, two great books with locked clasps of metal--these composed
the entire furniture of the chamber of one of the most powerful princes
of Holy Church in the world.

"It is no use, Anselmo," said the Abbot, gravely toying with the clasp
of one of the open books, in which a few lines of writing were still
wet, "after all, we are but playing with the matter here. The cure lies
elsewhere. We may indeed keep our petty bounds intact, sheltering within
a dozen of leagues not one known unfaithful to the true King, and the
principles of the Catholic religion; but we do not hold even Aragon with
any certainty. The cities whelm us in spite of ourselves. Zaragoza
itself is riddled with sedition, rottenly Jacobin to the core!"

"An accursed den of thieves!" said the gloomy monk. "God will judge it
in His time!"

"Doubtless--doubtless. I most fully agree!" said the Abbot, softly, "but
meantime it is His will that we use such means as we have in our hands
t