e home all of us justified, I think.

1st Monk. How? Is there scandal among us?

2d Monk. Ask not--ask not. Even a fool, when he holds his peace,
is counted wise. Of all sins, avoid that same gossiping.

1st Monk. Nay, tell me now. Are we not like David and Jonathan?
Have we not worked together, prayed together, journeyed together,
and been soundly flogged together, more by token, any time this
forty years? And now is news so plenty, that thou darest to defraud
me of a morsel?

2d Monk. I'll tell thee--but be secret. I knew a man hard by the
convent [names are dangerous, and a bird of the air shall carry the
matter], one that hath a mighty eye for a heretic, if thou knowest
him.

1st Monk. Who carries his poll screwed on over-tight, and sits with
his eyes shut in chapel?

2d Monk. The same. Such a one to be in evil savour--to have the
splendour of the pontifical countenance turned from him, as though
he had taken Christians for Amalekites, and slain the people of the
Lord.

1st Monk. How now?

2d Monk. I only speak as I hear: for my sister's son is chaplain,
for the time being, to a certain Archisacerdos, a foreigner, now
lodging where thou knowest. The young mail being hid, after some
knavery, behind the arras, in come our quidam and that prelate. The
quidam, surly and Saxon--the guest, smooth and Italian; his words
softer than butter, yet very swords: that this quidam had 'exceeded
the bounds of his commission--launched out into wanton and lawless
cruelty--burnt noble ladies unheard, of whose innocence the Holy See
had proof--defiled the Catholic faith in the eyes of the weaker
sort--and alienated the minds of many nobles and gentlemen'--and
finally, that he who thinketh he standeth, were wise to take heed
lest he fall.

1st Monk. And what said Conrad?

2d Monk. Out upon a man that cannot keep his lips! Who spake of
Conrad? That quidam, however, answered nought, but--how 'to his own
master he stood or fell'--how 'he laboured not for the Pope but for
the Papacy'; and so forth.

1st Monk. Here is awful doctrine! Behold the fruit of your
reformers! This comes of their realised ideas, and centralisations,
and organisations, till a monk cannot wink in chapel without being
blinded with the lantern, or fall sick on Fridays, for fear of the
rod. Have I not testified? Have I not foretold?

2d Monk. Thou hast indeed. Thou knowest that the old paths are
best, and livest in most pio