2d Monk. Out upon a man that cannot keep his lips! Who spake of Conrad? That quidam, however, answered nought, but--how 'to his own master he stood or fell'--how 'he laboured not for the Pope but for the Papacy'; and so forth. 1st Monk. Here is awful doctrine! Behold the fruit of your reformers! This comes of their realised ideas, and centralisations, and organisations, till a monk cannot wink in chapel without being blinded with the lantern, or fall sick on Fridays, for fear of the rod. Have I not testified? Have I not foretold? 2d Monk. Thou hast indeed. Thou knowest that the old paths are best, and livest in most pious abhorrence of all amendment. 1st Monk. Do you hear that shout? There is the procession returning from the tomb. 2d Monk. Hark to the tramp of the horse-hoofs! A gallant show, I'll warrant! 1st Monk. Time was, now, when we were young bloods together in the world, such a roll as that would have set our hearts beating against their cages! 2d Monk. Ay, ay. We have seen sport in our day; we have paraded and curvetted, eh? and heard scabbards jingle? We know the sly touch of the heel, that set him on his hind legs before the right window. Vanitas vanitatum--omnia vanitas! Here comes Gerard, Conrad's chaplain, with our dinner. [Gerard enters across the court.] 1st Monk. A kindly youth and a godly, but--reformation-bitten, like the rest. 2d Monk. Never care. Boys must take the reigning madness in religion, as they do the measles--once for all. 1st Monk. Once too often for him. His face is too, too like Abel's in the chapel-window. Ut sis vitalis metuo, puer! Ger. Hail, fathers. I have asked permission of the prior to minister your refection, and bring you thereby the first news of the pageant. 1st Monk. Blessings on thee for a good boy. Give us the trenchers, and open thy mouth while we open ours. 2d Monk. Most splendid all, no doubt? Ger. A garden, sir, Wherein all rainbowed flowers were heaped together; A sea of silk and gold, of blazoned banners, And chargers housed; such glorious press, be sure, Thuringen-land ne'er saw. 2d Monk. Just hear the boy! Who rode beside the bier? Ger. Frederic the Kaiser, Henry the Landgrave, brother of her husband; The Princesses, too, Agnes, and her mother; And every noble name, sir, at whose war-cry The Saxon heart leaps up; with them the prelates Of Treves, of Coln, and Maintz--why name them all? When all were there, whom this our fatherland Counts worthy of its love. 1st Monk. 'Twas but her right. Who spoke the oration? Ger. Who but Conrad? 2d Monk. Well-- That's honour to our house. 1st Monk. Come, tell us all. 2d Monk. In order, boy: thou hast a ready tongue.