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"It's only the wind," he murmured, with that half of his mind which was awake. "March is going out like a dragon." After Mass next day, when Mark was giving the chaplain his breakfast, the latter asked who kept the key of the tabernacle. "Brother Birinus, I expect. He is the sacristan." "It ought to have been given to me before Mass. Please go and ask for it," requested the chaplain.
It so happened, moreover, that the sacristan had forgotten to wind up the great town clock. The agreement with the party first entering and making their way to the opposite end of the city, had been that at the striking of a certain hour after midnight they should attack simultaneously and with a great outcry all the guardhouses, so that the garrison might be simultaneously butchered.
His own words written that fateful day before he died at the Cote Dorion came to him: "Sacristan, acolyte, player, or preacher, Each to his office, but who holds the key? Death, only Death, thou, the ultimate teacher, Wilt show it to me!" He was suddenly startled from his reverie, through which the procession was moving a cloud of witnesses.
When it grew dark, a strong impulse urged him to go to the city, seek brawls, and forget himself at the gaming-table; but he did not yield, and to escape the temptation, fled to the church, where he spent whole hours, till the sacristan put out the lights.
The Sacristan left and, with a gasp of horror, the priest thought of the galleries emptying into the little vestibule and meeting a rush of the people from the church. Father Collins took off his chasuble and maniple and placed them upon the altar. He wondered at his own coolness. He advanced to the front of the altar platform, opening his book; but he closed it again coolly.
Although hating all men, the devil has a special hatred for the priests, and he delights in bringing them to fall. It is evident from this story that the popular belief that the devil avoids holy edifices is not based on facts. Here the devil not only enters the church, but even performs the duties of a sacristan at the foot of the altar.
Handsome lads of sixteen were chosen for acolytes, the torch-bearers were selected from the smallest boys, the office of censer was filled by John Norton, and he was also the chief sacristan, and had charge of the altar plate and linen and the vestments.
"A Confession" is the story of a restless soul who untiringly searches for the God of truth and goodness. Found as a child in a village of central Russia, Matvey was first taken by a sacristan, and, after his death, by Titov, the inspector of the domain. In order to debase Matvey, whose superiority irritates him, Titov asks him to participate in his extortions.
Then he has been as great, said my uncle, in the field, as in the cabinet I dare say he has been a gallant soldier He was a monk said the sacristan.
The credulous sacristan, unless his face deceived us, believed that this effigy perspires every Friday; that it actually bleeds at certain times; and that it has performed miracles. The beard and hair are the natural article, and so are the brows and eyelashes, giving a disagreeable effect to the image.
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