[17] "In Italy," he said to me once, "one is welcomed back with an embrace and a cordial 'Ben ritornato, signore!' but coming back here to Oxford, I call to pay my respects to the good Jesuit Fathers; and the old brother who opens the door only grumbles out, 'Well, Mr. Grissell, here you are, back again, _like sixpenn'orth of bad halfpennies!_'" {208} CHAPTER XII 1911 Our brothers had good success this year with the spring salmon-netting in Loch Ness; and I myself witnessed the landing one afternoon of nine clean fish, all scaling between fifteen and thirty pounds. We had always enjoyed the privilege of netting a certain number of salmon during Lent; and I think it was this year that Lovat proposed, at a meeting of the syndicate of riparian owners and tenants who had recently assumed the control of the fishing, that this right should be conceded to us as heretofore. It was agreed to with but one dissentient voice, that of a rather cantankerous neighbour of ours who was only, I believe, an honorary member of the syndicate, having pleaded that he was too poor to pay his subscription. "Certainly," said a noble duke who had leased for some years the best spring water in the vicinity; "by all means let the poor monks (or was it "poor devils"?) have their salmon: it's probably all they get to eat!" Lovat was kind enough to tell me, when he came down about this salmon-fishing question, that he and others (unnamed) were "pulling strings" in various quarters to get me appointed chaplain at Oxford in succession to our dear old Kennard, who (after numerous unheeded cries of "Wolf!") was, {209} it seemed, really resigning, and preparing to retire for life to a dull seaside town in Somerset. I told him, however, that I was sure there was no chance of any monk or other "regular" being appointed: moreover I had heard that a priest hailing from Brighton, with the patent and obvious qualification of possessing £1,000 a year of his own, had been already chosen; and, finally, I hoped and expected to be allowed to return to Brazil, unless I received some very clear and unmistakable indication that I was more wanted at home. Meanwhile the work immediately in front of me was organizing the Bishop Hay centenary celebrations, which were to be kept at our abbey in the autumn on a considerable scale, and of which I had been named general secretary. Before tackling this business I was enabled to spend Holy Week and Easter, as so often before, happily at Arundel, where my visit this year coincided with the anniversary of Duchess Mora's death. I officiated at the memorial service for her in the FitzAlan chapel, always an impressive function among the venerable monuments--some of them more than five centuries old--of bygone FitzAlans and Howards, touched by the chequered light from the great east window, in which the Duke and his little son are depicted in prayer before the altar.