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I can send you to him some time, but not just yet, and I would fain keep you with me a little while, or are you weary of my sad companionship?"

Never," said Laurent, who had never loved Father Francis so well as at that moment. "Do you, indeed, care so much for me, Father?"

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"Ah, my boy," said the monk, with a smile like a pale streak of sunshine on a winter cloud, "I have taken my vows. Forget what I have said, if you can. We have all some burden to bear; and now, my dear, say over for me this confession of sins, that I may see what it is myself, and whether there is anything in it that need send a man to prison. Perhaps we can forget our own sorrows a little in those of another."

"I suppose it was because they didn't send for the Curé to hear confession and

You are very dear to me, my son. Listen, Laurent," said the Provincial, putting his arm about the boy's shoulder. "I had a dear friend once, and you are very like him, and have his name. We were parted-O! so cruelly-perform the last rites," said Laurent; when I was but a lad, but I have never forgotten him; and for his sake I have learned to love you better than a monk should love any earthly creature."

"Why should not a monk love his friends as well as another man, dear Father?" said Laurent.

"Because," said the Father, bitterly, "they take us from all sweet, natural ties-they shut us out from hope in this world, that we may obtain the next by crushing out the nature God has given us-part us even from our mother's kiss, and give us instead either a life like a whited sepulchre of hypocrisy, or more open vice, or one constant, agonizing struggle, that wears out soul and body before their time. Ah, Laurent, when you hear your friends laugh at or condemn some wretched priest whose life is a scandal, do not judge him too harshly. His temptations are greater than you can know. Nay, my son, you need not look at me with such wonder. I am not speaking of myself. My sins have been ambition and spiritual pride, mistaken for humility. God knows whether I am not more guilty than some upon whom I have sat in judgment for more open sins. Laurent, I have put my life in your hands. I have spoken wildly. Some time, perhaps, you will understand me better, but I can trust you."

"Surely," said Laurent, partly diverted from his sorrow by sympathy and wonder at this outburst of feeling, which poor Father Francis had endured and suppressed for years; "but, dear Father, if you feel and think like this, why do you stay in the order?"

"but she said he was away, but I can say the confession," and Laurent repeated the ancient form, which has existed in the Valleys time out of mind, and in which any Christian might join.

"Truly," said Father Francis, "if the poor fellow did nothing worse than that, it may be possible to help him. At all events, I will try; but, Laurent, it is much easier to use one's power for evil than for good. My son, I tried to save your father-indeed, I did but it was too late, too late. Can you forgive me?"

"For what, Reverend Father? Because you could not do what was impossible? But, at all events, I know now he is where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.'"

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"Would that we had both entered that rest," said the monk, leaning on his companion for support.

"You are worn out, Father," said Laurent, affectionately. "I think if they meant you to rest, they should not have sent you to a place where you were likely to see so many sad sights, for you are so good and kind, Reverend Father, that you take it all into your own heart. When we came away, Brother Ambrogio gave me something in a little basket, and said you were to eat if you got too tired."

"No, Laurent, it is not our rule, you know."

"But, dear Father, you are not to live according to rule, only the doctor's; and if you go home looking so tired out, they will say I took you too far, and I shall be scolded; and you ate hardly a bit this morning."

"I do not need it, dear boy," said the Provincial; "but do you take it, for you are but a lad, and you are not a Franciscan either, and I fear never will be." "But, Reverend Father," said Laurent, with affectionate persistence, “you know you are apt to faint away if you go without eating too long; and I am sure St. Francis even would not want you to kill yourself”— '—as if he were not fifty times more of a saint than ever St. Francis was, thought Laurent, whose familiarity with the founder of the great order had not bred respect for that distinguished man. "And here are these nice little cakes they sent for your especial use from the convent at Pignerol; I suppose the nuns made them; and when the good ladies took so much pains, Reverend Father, is it gracious not to taste their work?"

The Father allowed himself to be persuaded. Laurent even coaxed him into drinking some wine and water, and somewhat refreshed and strengthened, he set out on the homeward way.

When Laurent went back to his cell, after parting from his friend for the night, though he wept for his father, he did not feel entirely desolate. With all his heart he prayed for his friend and protector, and joined his name with that of his Uncle Henri, whom he had never forgotten in his morning and evening petitions. The pastor of La Tour, the friend of the Protestant champion, William of Orange, who was even then planning to defy the Pope and the King of France, by a return to the Valleys, would, indeed, have wondered had he known that the son of his martyred sister joined his name in the evening prayer with that of the powerful Franciscan Minister.

CHAPTER X.

THE SILVER-HEADED STAFF.

The next day Father Francis sent for the Curé, in order to find out the true state of the case in reference to David Chabriol, whom he wished to save if possible. But to take a so-called "relapsed heretic" out of the clutches of the

law was a thing hard to be done, and Father Francis never dreamed of representing the case exactly as it stood, and asking for the young man's pardon on any grounds of reason or humanity.

He wished to know the cause of the Cure's absence at the death-bed, and to make out, if possible, that David Chabriol, in reciting the ancient Vaudois form beside his dying brother, instead of going for the Curé, had in fact been acting as a good Catholic, and that the whole affair had been a mistake.

Father Francis was not so Utopian as to dream of justice, either for the victim of bigotry or the victimiser. He simply hoped to restore the old woman's last dependence, and save the young man from the tender mercies of the King of France, for whom Father Francis, in common with many other Piedmontese, was beginning to entertain a lively aversion.

Any one who has looked into Roman Catholic history, or been at all behind the scenes in the Church," knows that there is great jealousy existing between the secular and the monastic priesthood, and the Curé and Father Gerome had been on anything but good terms. The Curé was disposed to hate Father Francis; but when he discovered that the Provincial wished to undo what Gerome had done, he was quite ready to certify that David Chabriol since his conversion had been the best of Catholics, and that it was only by a series of remarkable accidents that he had not gone for the Cure, who besides was not at home; that he had done no more than the Church allows in the absence of a priest, and that the "confession" was in substance the same as that in the massbook, only that David, in the perturbation of his mind, and his inexperience in the faith, might have made some little mistake. Father Francis succeeded in making a very plausible statement of the case, which went to Turin. By good fortune, poor David had not yet been sent off to Marseilles, and he was returned to his grandmother's arms, as good a Catholic as could be expected under the circumstances.

The gratitude of these poor people, clearly appear, the Provincial was actutheir heartfelt blessings and thanks, ally afraid of showing before any one the seemed to give Father Francis some affection which he entertained for his little comfort, but it brought upon him a protégé. host of applications, which he was powerless to answer, and which distressed him more than his one success had pleased him.

His health, if it did not still further decline, seemed not much to improve. His days were feverish, his nights were sleepless, yet he kept himself up, received those who came to visit him with his habitual dignity and courtesy, won golden opinions from noble, priest, and peasant, and even conciliated such of the secular priesthood as came in his way, and who had at first been very jealous of the popular monk's possible influence in their affairs.

It was only when alone with Laurent or Father Paul that he drooped, and showed the effects of the inward conflict and suffering which he was enduring. He made his old teacher his confessor in the convent; but though concealment or reservation in confession is a very great sin in Roman Catholic eyes, Father Paul knew well enough that his penitent had a burden on his mind which did not enter into his confidences, and he stood in too much awe of his former pupil to remonstrate with him on the subject.

Never since auricular confession was first invented had any one a gentler spiritual director than Father Paul. The Minister's former confessor, who had died some weeks before Father Francis came to Villar, had been an ascetic bigot of the bitterest type, and he had cultivated his friend's genius for self-torment and self-abnegation, or stultification, to the utmost. The object of Father Paul's ministrations was to keep his penitent as comfortable as might be, and if the Provincial had confessed having joined in a plot to poison the Pope, Father Paul would have told him to say two paters and an ave by way of penance, given him absolution, and bade him go and sin

no more.

Laurent began to feel that there was a sort of mystery about his protector, and that for some reason, which did not so

Father Francis did not enjoy the quiet which should have been his as an invalid. Father Gerome's successor, Augustine, was not a man who could do much on his own responsibility, and instead of taking his own way, as Gerome had done, he would ask the Superior's opinion. Now, Father Bernard hated to make up his own mind about anything, and he regularly, in his turn, shifted the burden of decision and discipline to Father Francis, who was in no condition of mind or body to sustain the weight.

A friend, whose remarks I here beg pardon for stealing, says that an inflexible will is no sort of match for an inflexible won't. I doubt whether there are many people, especially those who are conscientious or earnest, who can resist the passive, persistent pressure of a determined "shirk." Sooner or later, they find themselves performing the lazy one's duty, in addition to their own. Father Bernard's placid indolence was quite sublime, and Father Francis gradually found himself acting as virtual Superior of the institution, to a much greater extent than either he or the brotherhood desired. To worship a saint. is one thing, to be guided by his ideas is another.

As Brother Augustine, acting on the Minister's decisions, tightened up in some degree the reins of discipline, the monks, some of them at least, began to feel that the honor of Father Francis' residence was more than compensated by its disadvantages.

One unfortunate consequence of Father Bernard's indolence was that the invalid could not be secure from interruption, unless, indeed, he betook himself to his inner sanctuary in the oratory, where no one dared to interrupt his devotions. Laurent, whose one object in life was to save Father Francis from annoyance, persuaded the Minister to let him pile up a heap of cushions on the floor, where, half sitting, half reclining, the priest would often pass three or four

hours with Laurent, as his only companion. Not seldom these were hours of pain and weakness, during which he could do nothing but endure in silence. The monks naturally supposed that at such times he sought to sustain himself by devotion and contemplation of the holy emblems on the altar, and the works of art aforesaid. But the real truth was that the sufferer seemed to find his only comfort in the mere paltry consolations of human love. No one could have guessed, however, without considerable spying and eavesdropping, the intimate relations that subsisted between the Franciscan and his attendant. If Laurent loved Father Francis the more, his influence, and even his example, did not tend to increase his affection for the Church of Rome or the monastic rule. On the contrary, he was constantly vexed and humiliated to see a man naturally so noble as his protector the slave of such a heartless, false, unnatural system.

During this time Father Francis, as the phrase goes, worked for Laurent's conversion; but he did it in a strange, fitful way, which would, indeed, have surprised those who thought him worthy to succeed to the title of that Franciscan who was known as the "hammer of heretics." 11* He would begin the subject of the difference between the two Churches, apparently with the determination to go to the root of the matter; but if Laurent answered, whether in agreement or in doubt, he would insensibly, as it seemed, wander away from the matter in hand into conversation about the books the boy was reading with Father Paul, or dwell with something like pleasure on those points of religious belief which they held in common.

Father Francis had penetration enough to see that there was little prospect of making a convert of his young friend. Past experience of his own, of which Laurent knew nothing, enabled him to understand the boy's character and state of mind. Laurent's own bitter memories had been too recent, his experience of

*St. Antony of Padua.

monastic tyranny too long, for Father Francis' gentle kindness to counteract their effects. Then he had from his earliest years been thoroughly imbued with the spirit and letter of the Bible. His tastes and his feelings were too deeply penetrated with its strength, sublimity, and pathos, to be much affected by the mere prettiness and sentimentality upon which Rome depends so much for her influence.

Then his reading with Father Paul had led him to notice the strong analogy subsisting between Romanism and the old idolatry; and moreover, and here lay the essential difficulty, Laurent had been taught not to depend upon any Church, but upon God and his Son, his Heavenly Father, and the one Mediator between God and man.

Laurent would have died for his friend, he would have done any one thing that would have brought his beloved Father Francis a moment's ease or comfort, but he could not surrender his faith. There are some people who hold their convictions on all subjects so loosely, that every wind of doctrine that blows scatters their principles all abroad, but such was not the case with the son of the Pastor Leidet, and Henri Arnaud's nephew. The boy had his seed in him, and Father Francis, an excellent judge of character, saw at an early stage that there was little hope of effecting his pupil's conversion, and grew more anxious than ever for his safety.

"This is a sad life for you, my son; is it not?" he said one day, when they were alone together. "It is hard that the years of your youth should pass away here, with no more cheerful companion than myself."

The Minister had been suffering cruelly almost all day. He had dragged himself down to the midday service, but he had not been able to attend vespers, and was lying back, half supported, in Laurent's arms. The extremity of pain had passed by, but he was faint and weak, and in that state when one is afraid to move lest the least motion should bring renewed torture.

"I don't feel very young," said Lau

rent, with a sigh. "I have been through so much; and I am sure, Reverend Father, so long as I can have your companionship I need no other.

"How you spoil me, Laurent," said the invalid; "but, ah, God help us, it is sweet to be loved!"

"It is rather you who spoil me, Father. You treat me more like a younger brother than like a servant."

"And who said you were a servant?" said Father Francis, a little indignant as it seemed. "You know I do not think of you in that light; but, indeed, if you choose to think so, as a younger brother. Would it, indeed, please you, Laurent, if you were?"

"I don't think I could care more for you, dear Father, if it were so, and I can hardly imagine myself a de Pianeza," said Laurent, smiling; "but I cannot help wondering sometimes how a noble gentleman like you can treat a Vaudois as you do me.'

"My son," said Father Francis, with some pride, "there are no distinctions of rank in the Church. There have been popes and cardinals whose fathers were peasants."

Laurent knew that this was in some degree true; but he had not been brought into such close relations with the Church without discovering that there, as in the world, a good deal went by favor and family influence. He did not care to argue the point with his protector, and he made no answer, only to put back the few soft curling locks, fast turning gray, which the tonsure had left around Father Francis' noble forehead.

"You are wondering what has made me an old man before my time," said the priest, who often seemed to divine, as it were by instinct, his companion's thoughts. "It all came in three days. Two years ago my hair was as dark as

yours."

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"Was it sickness, dear Father?" Aye, my dear, almost unto death," said the priest, sadly.

"I do wish I knew what would do you any good," said Laurent. "It is time for your medicine by the way, I

wish I could see that this stuff was helping you a little more-it is detestable enough, I am sure, if that were all. Brother Augustine says that if he could only get time he would go on a pilgrimage to our lady of Einsiedeln, for you— and he thinks it would help you."

"It is a most extraordinary thing," said Father Francis, with unusual irritation, "that often as I have said I wished no one to talk to you on religious subjects, they will persist in doing it. But they know how ill and weak and miserable I am, and they think they can set me at defiance. They may find themselves mistaken."

"But, Father," said Laurent, surprised, "the good man only mentioned it-that day you were so ill-and if he believed in it, where was the harm? I am sure I would go on a pilgrimage to Diana of the Ephesians, if I thought it would be of any use to you. O, Father," said the boy, distressed, as he suddenly remembered that the comparison suggested was not exactly one which should have been made to a devout Catholic-"I beg pardon, I did not mean that."

"I do not always understand you, Laurent," said Father Francis, not seeming much shocked at his friend's careless speech. "But, God forgive me my impatience and ingratitude for our good brother's kind thought. I do not know what is the matter with me; I have no more self-control than a child."

"Dear Father, you are not well; and as for your self-control, it seems to me wonderful-but how do you mean you do not understand me?"

"You hold to your own faith so, and yet you will read or recite for me whatever I wish; and I noticed yesterday how, when Brother Felix was going into the garden for flowers to dress the Virgin's altar, you bade him wait where he was and you would bring them."

"But, Father, Brother Felix is an old man, and crippled with rheumatism, and it was ever so hard work for him to get down the long steps, and I did it to save him pain and trouble. I hope one can oblige an old gentleman of eighty without committing idolatry. And as for

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