very
devout. Moreover, she tells me that it had been in her mind before, for
the mother of that Maid is to be at Puy, praying for her daughter, as,
certes, she hath great need, if ever woman had. And Elliot is fain to
meet her and devise with her about the Maid. And for you, you still need
our nursing, and the sooner you win strength, the nearer you are to that
which you would win. Still, I am sorry, lad, for I remember my courting
days and the lass's mother, blessings on her!"

To all this I could make no answer but that his will was mine; and so the
day ended in a mingling of gladness and sorrow.

CHAPTER X--HOW NORMAN LESLIE WAS OUT OF ALL COMFORT

My brethren the good Benedictine Fathers here in Pluscarden Priory, are
wont betimes to be merry over my penitents, for all the young lads and
lasses in the glen say they are fain to be shriven by old Father Norman
and by no other.

This that my brethren report may well be true, and yet I take no shame in
the bruit or "fama." For as in my hot youth I suffered sorrows many from
love, so now I may say, like that Carthaginian queen in Maro, "miseris
succurrere disco." The years of the youth of most women and men are like
a tourney, or jousts courteous, and many fall in the lists of love, and
many carry sorer wounds away from Love's spears, than they wot of who do
but look on from the safe seats and secure pavilions of age. Though all
may seem but a gentle and joyous passage of arms, and the weapons that
they use but arms of courtesy, yet are shrewd blows dealt and wounds
taken which bleed inwardly, perchance through a whole life long. To
medicine these wounds with kind words is, it may be, part of my poor
skill as a healer of souls in my degree, and therefore do the young
resort to Father Norman.

Some confessors there be who laugh within their hearts at these sorrows
of lovers, as if they were mere "nugae" and featherweights: others there
are who wax impatient, holding all love for sin in some degree, and
forgetting that Monseigneur St. Peter himself was a married man, and
doubtless had his own share of trouble and amorous annoy when he was
winning the lady his wife, even as other men. But if I be of any avail
(as they deem) in the healing of hearts, I owe my skill of that surgery
to remembrance of the days of my youth, when I found none to give me
comfort, save what I won from a book that my master had in hand to copy
and adorn, namely, "The Book of On