"Exact not so heavy a fine as at last confession, good father. Would not have me close my tavern? The wine is a good wine," Michel added professionally, "and the little water added is methinks an aid to virtue." "Art so fond of water?" replied the confessor grimly. "Water you shall have. Go down now to the river, swim across, and return in like manner, and afterwards come to me again. Go now! I have lesser sinners to absolve." "The river will be villainous cold, my father. And I cannot swim." "Learn," said the inexorable priest. "Come not to me again till you have crossed the river as I have said. May you take into your evil stomach an abundance of cold water while learning." The taverner retired dissatisfied, and when outside the church rubbed his head and ruminated. "The confession was ill-timed," he muttered. "His reverence is in an evil humour. The devil shall seize me body and soul before I set one foot into that accursed river. But there is Father St Agapit. I will go forthwith and confess to him." The taverner's propitious star was in the ascendant. When he reached the chapel of Ste. Anne vespers had not concluded, for the office was there recited with greater reverence and detail than in the church of Ste. Mary Bonsecours. Michel pushed himself into a front place and hastened to make himself conspicuous by various fussy acts of outward devotion. The office over, he lingered until St Agapit came to him, and the taverner then repeated the confession which he had already made, with such disastrous consequences, to Laroche. "Since the evil nature of man drives him to drink much wine, let him partake of it as weak as may be, for his soul's health," said the sincere priest. "But, my son, it behoves you to make known to your patrons the truth." "I dare not," said Michel, rejoicing at heart because he saw a prospect of cheating the devil. "Then are you guilty of deceit," said the priest. "Mix water with your wine no more, and for your deceit you shall say the litany of St. Anthony of Padua six times before the altar of Ste. Anne. But see that you wash before approaching the holy shrine, because I perceive upon you the odour of wine-casks." Having brought his duty to an end, St Agapit drew his cloak round him and went out. While studying that day the work of a German philosopher he had been confronted by the startling theory that the brain and stomach of the human system were possibly connected by means of nerves. He desired to procure from one of the settler-soldiers a dead rabbit which he might dissect for his own enlightenment. As he went a woman met him. "Father," she cried, "a soldier lies at my house at the point of death, praying for a priest to confess him." "Follow me to the church," said St Agapit. He passed back into the little log-building, took the reserved Host and the sacred oils from an inlaid case, and wrapping these consolations of the Church in his cloak accompanied the woman.