‘Imps of Satan and Spawn of Hell, I am told that ye grievously vex and torment these boys’ bodies whenever they strive to go to the Abbey Church, to their book learning or any other labour which it is meet for them to perform. Now, give heed to my solemn words and mark me well. Much as ye grieve their bodies, mayhap I shall grieve them still more.’ (Here he brought forth from under his cassock a birch rod, such as schoolmasters use, but huge in size and cunningly wrought, and indeed most painful and terrible to behold, and bared his hairy and muscular right arm to the shoulder.) ‘The first boy whom ye cause to quiver, to dance, to vomit, to squeal, nay even to tremble a hair’s-breadth, shall I beat with this birch rod until he is black and blue from head to foot, and there is no more life left in his miserable body than there is in a stone. Yea, I will do it an there be forty thousand devils in his body.’ The holy man waved the birch three times in the air with religious fervour and cried, ‘Boys, loosen the hinder points of your hose so they may fall the more easily if there should be need.’ Anon trembling, the clergy boys did as he commanded. ‘Now,’ quoth he, ‘we will go into the Church.’ Thereat the boys walked into the Church as soberly and staidly as the Lord Abbot himself. At the sound of the Blessed Simon’s voice the devils had slunk away out of them, defeated and ashamed, neither dared they trouble the boys any more after that, for they knew that the man of God was more powerful than they. By this miracle the Saint’s fame was enlarged in all corners of the realm, so that people came from afar to see and converse with him, often bringing with them gracious gifts for the Church at Blewberry, and to these, under God, he was able to give much spiritual assistance and comfort. But now, even while the holy man was in the prime of his years and labours, and long before he had fulfilled the natural term of man’s life, it pleased the Lord in his Providence to call him from this vale of tears to Himself, and it was sweet and comfortable to the lovers and admirers of the Saint to reflect that the summons came to him even as he was engaged in the actual discharge of his sacred functions. The manner of his decease was in worthy keeping with the manner of his life, and it is hard to write of it without tears.