He became aware
the pony stood stock-still in the middle of the road; and, turning its
head, so that he beheld its pink muzzle, bristly upper and hanging lower
lip in disagreeable profile, regarded him with malevolent contempt out of
its one sound eye, as who should say:
"What's the silly fellow trumpeting like this about? Doesn't the veriest
noodle contrive to keep a quiet tongue in his head out on the highway?"
Sensible of a snub, Mr. Verity jerked at the reins and clapped his heels
into the creature's sides, as smartly as fatigue and native civility
permitted, sending it forward at a jog-trot. Nevertheless his
soliloquy--a silent one now--continued, and that with notable
consequences to others besides himself.
For his thought still dallied with the subject of the monastic life, as
lived by those same pious Benedictines here in England long ago. Its
reasoned rejection of mundane agitations, its calm, its leisure, its
profound and ardent scholarship were vastly to his taste,--A man touching
middle-age might do worse, surely, than spend his days between worship
and learning, thus?--He saw, and approved, its social office in offering
sanctuary to the fugitive, alms to the poor, teaching to the ignorant,
consolation to the sick and safe passage heavenward to the dying.
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