If his report was satisfactory, the new foundation was to be made over to Savigny's "younger daughter" of Byland; if otherwise, Peter was to hold it as a sort of agent or trustee for the parent house. When Peter, in the presence of his friends, Brother Conan and Brother Himbert, and of Matthew, a monk of Savigny, opened the sealed letter which the Abbot of Quarera brought, and read these proposals, there was a brief consultation. Matthew advised that the estate was not sufficient for a monastery, and had better be handed over to Savigny, but Peter and his friends, after all they had gone through, would not hear of this. So the end of it was that they all came to the Abbots of Quarera and Byland in the church, and Peter said:

"Blessed be God, within a few years from our first establishment we have now five carucates under the plough, forty cows with their followers, sixteen mares with their foals, the gift of Earl Conan, five sows with their litters, three hundred sheep, about thirty hides in the tannery, wax and oil which will supply our lights for two years; and I am very certain that we shall be able to raise a competent supply of ale, cheese, bread, and butter, and to sustain a regular convent out of such beginnings, until it shall please God to provide better for them."

Fuller remarks somewhere in his Church History that the Cistercians were rather farmers than monks. The accusation is certainly too sweeping, but it is

plain that if Peter de Quincy had not been a thrifty and practical man, Jervaulx Abbey would never have existed. Though Peter and his two brethren and one conversus at once "made profession" in the church, it was not till St. Bernard himself had interposed and the decree of the Chapter of Savigny had been confirmed by a council of the order at Citeaux that the arrangement was absolutely and irrevocably clenched. Roger, Abbot of Byland, did his part by summoning a chapter, and, "with a long and deep sigh," nominating John of Kinstan as abbot of the new house; whereupon the monks raised him in their arms and carried him to the high altar, saying, "Thou art Abbot of Joreval." Soon afterward, Abbot John, having been solemnly blessed after the vigiliæ nocturnæ, set forth with twelve monks for Joreval.

Of the manner of his journey, and how he “had Christ Himself for a guide," we have left ourselves but little space to discourse. As the new abbot

rested the first night in a certain village, he had a dream. He thought he was once more starting from Byland, and as he left the cloister he saw in the midst of it a very noble woman in seemly raiment. In her left hand she led a beautiful boy, whose face shone like the moonlight. And the boy

and as they finished,

And

gathered a fair branch from a tree in the cloister, and so vanished with the lady. By and by John and his monks found themselves in a place where they were altogether shut in with thorns and great rocks, and could neither go forward nor back. Just as they were beginning to despair, and each to call on the other for help, John said, "Let us repeat the Hours and the Gospel"; suddenly the lady and, the boy appeared to them. And John said, “O fair lady, tender and sweet, what do you with your son here in the desert?" she answering that she was often in desert places, after some further speech, John begged her to be a guide to him and his monks. But the lady, saying she must not then stay, commended them to her son. So the boy guided them cheerfully, having in his hand the branch he had gathered at Byland; and the monks followed him through rough and toilsome ways, and felt it not. And countless numbers of small white birds, no larger than sparrows, hovered round the branch and sang, over and over again, the hymn, "O all ye works of the Lord!" At last they came to a very rough and neglected place, and the boy went into the midst, and, planting there the branch round which the birds were singing, said, “Here, after a certain time,