“You promise this? — you promise it? Say the word — say you promise it!”

“I do promise it.”

“Then will I have the first bath myself!

Go — get ye to your work. Tarry not, tarry not, but go.”

I and my boys were at work, straight off. The ruins of the old bath were there yet in the basement of the monastery, not a stone missing. They had been left just so, all these lifetimes, and avoided with a pious fear, as things accursed. In two days we had it all done and the water in — a spacious pool of clear pure water that a body could swim in. It was running water, too. It came in, and went out, through the ancient pipes. The old abbot kept his word, and was the first