wont to be our gentlest novice, of lowly carriage in chapter, devout in
psalmody and strict in the cloister. Pull your wits together and answer
me straightly. In what form has the foul fiend appeared, and how has he
done this grievous scathe to our brethren? Have you seen him with your
own eyes, or do you repeat from hearsay? Speak, man, or you stand on the
penance-stool in the chapter-house this very hour!"

Thus adjured, the frightened monk grew calmer in his bearing, though his
white lips and his startled eyes, with the gasping of his breath, told
of his inward tremors.

"If it please you, holy father, and you, reverend sacrist, it came about
in this way. James the subprior, and Brother John and I had spent our
day from sext onward on Hankley, cutting bracken for the cow-houses. We
were coming back over the five-virgate field, and the holy subprior was
telling us a saintly tale from the life of Saint Gregory, when there
came a sudden sound like a rushing torrent, and the foul fiend sprang
over the high wall which skirts the water-meadow and rushed upon us
with the speed of the wind. The lay brother he struck to the ground and
trampled into the mire. Then, seizing the good subprior in his teeth, he
rushed round the field, swinging him as though he were a fardel of old
clothes.

"Amazed at such a sight, I stood without movement and had said a credo
and three aves, when the Devil dropped the subprior and sprang upon me.
With the help of Saint Bernard I clambered over the wall, but not before
his teeth had found my leg, and he had torn away the whole back skirt of
my gown." As he spoke he turned and gave corroboration to his story by
the hanging ruins of his long trailing garment.

"In what shape then did Satan appear?" the Abbot demanded.

"As a great yellow horse, holy father--a monster horse, with eyes of
fire and the teeth of a griffin."

"A yellow horse!" The sacrist glared at the scared monk. "You foolish
brother! How will you behave when you have indeed to face the King of
Terrors himself if you can be so frightened by the sight of a yellow
horse? It is the horse of Franklin Aylward, my father, which has been
distrained by us because he owes the Abbey fifty good shillings and can
never hope to pay it. Such a horse, they say, is not to be found betwixt
this and the King's stables at Windsor, for his sire was a Spanish
destrier, and his dam an Arab mare of the very breed which Saladin,
whose soul now reeks in