'Let us hope the best,' replied the Superior, 'his ignorance is the best excuse which can be made for him. He will soon know better. I will take care and inform his lord; so that he shall do penance for this slur upon St. Peter.' The conversation then turned upon the lost Latimer; the monks all agreeing that he was not an ignorant man; but one who had certainly entertained notions contrary to the ordained decrees of the Pope; one who had ventured not only to think for himself, but to argue with others, and even with the learned fraternity of Alneshborne. He was, doubtless, punished as a heretic, and his fate would be a warning to many how they dared to open their lips against St. Peter, They thought that good would come of this, even to the Lord De Freston, whose pious watch they did not fail to laud; and to praise him highly for having kept his vow through such unexampled difficulties. CHAPTER XXI. THE FATE OF THE SWIMMER. Latimer was drifting on the tide, his long straight piece of timber, very unsteady in its progress, at one time going at an angle as if it would drive to the shore of Freston Tower, at another steering with a wide course towards the Priory. Its progress was slow only when it came among those long winding weeds, fine as the smallest ribbons, and ten or twenty feet long, which would occasionally twist themselves over the board. This he felt to be his worst position, for whenever his plank was delayed, he found the greatest difficulty to keep his place upon it. The incessant spray, too, was such as to blind him, and scarcely permitted him to see the light of the tower on the Freston side, or upon that of Downham Reach. Still Latimer was thankful that he had found this friendly help in the hour of need. He looked at the light glimmering from that happy spot in which he had spent the most enlightened moments of his life, he looked and longed for that friendly shore: nor did he forget to pray both for her whom he loved, and for her father, whose superstition, even at that moment, he conceived to be the cause of the catastrophe. He could not help thinking that if that watching had not been, he should not then have been a solitary sufferer upon the waves of the Orwell. Again, he thought it might have happened, even if De Freston had been on board the boat, and a thrill of joy ran through his cold frame at the thought that he was safe.