paid a little visit to Kelburn, where I found my poor brother-in-law in bed with a broken crown (having fallen downstairs!) but my nephew the flying-man apparently quite recovered, I was glad to see, from _his_ more serious knock on the head at Bournemouth. I was pleased to hear from my gunner brother, who was staying at Kelburn, of his appointment--an excellent berth--as A.A.G. at the War Office. The closing weeks of our long northern winter were exceptionally bleak and stormy this year; but constant occupation made them pass quickly enough. February 10 (St. Scholastica's Day), on which our good nuns kept high festival, and I officiated at their solemn services, was also the opening day of our salmon-fishing; and in the first haul we landed fifteen fish weighing just 250 pounds, the heaviest a beautiful 26-pounder. A salmon was always an acceptable present to a kind friend in the south: some we ate fresh (a welcome variation of our Lenten fare), and the rest we tried to kipper.[11] February 10 was otherwise memorable this year, as on that day I learned that our community was to elect its abbot a month later. We voted first on the important question whether the election should be for life, as provided in our Constitutions, {239} or (by special indult of Rome) for a fixed term of years, which was the usual practice in the other houses of the Congregation. The votes--some sent by post and telegraph--were almost equally divided; and it was finally settled that the election should be for eight years. Nearly all our absentee monks arrived from missions, chaplaincies, and elsewhere, for the _tractatus_, or discussions preliminary to the election, which was fixed for Thursday in Passion Week, under the presidency of the abbot of Ampleforth. It took place after the customary mass of the Holy Spirit, and turned out a very brief affair, as I was elected by more than the requisite number of votes at the first "scrutiny," as it was called.[12] My confirmation and installation followed immediately--and then the letters and telegrams began pouring in, all requiring to be answered; but the roads and railways were providentially blocked for some days before Easter, by a March snowstorm of almost unprecedented violence, and our mail service was entirely suspended; so I got a little breathing time! Thus undistracted, I officiated at all the services of the season, celebrating on Easter Sunday amid rain, hail, and driving easterly gales that made the text of my Paschal sermon--"Jam hiems transiit, imber abiit et recessit,"[13] sound ironical enough. I spent an Eastertide Sunday at Keir, where spring had really set in, and while there made an expedition or two with an archæological {240} enthusiast who was of our party: to Stirling Castle, much finer and more spacious than I had imagined; to the scanty remains--only the massive church tower and the old monastic dove-cot!--of the grand old abbey of