112 THE HERON OF CASTLE CEEEK 



Ceredigion to dress a few trout from the prize- 

 winning dish, and lo ! in the gullet of each 

 speckled beauty were found some round smooth 

 pebbles, while the heaviest} fish of all had 

 swallowed a fair-sized piece of lead — such as 

 the builders had used to cover the abbey roof — 

 rolled up neatly, like a '' sinker " for the capture 

 of the ravenous pike. 



Brother Gruifydd, however, soon had cause 

 to rue his proof of vulgar appetites in lorwerth's 

 fish, for when the trout that he himself had 

 caught were dressed, the monks around him 

 with one voice exclaimed that they would forth- 

 with net each pond and stream, lest the abbey 

 roof might disappear. The abbot, prompt in 

 discipline, extended Friday's fast to Saturday 

 and Sunday for the ingenious sinners, and, as 

 part of their penance, caused them to read, once 

 every hour, the chapter of the miracle of the 

 loaves and the fishes, and furthermore instructed 

 Gruff ydd, whom he judged to be the greater 

 rogue, to take for a text the words " five small 

 fishes," and preach therefrom a sermon to the 

 brotherhood on Sunday morn. This, according 

 to the friar, had Gruff ydd done, but with such 

 little eloquence that all the listeners, from abbot 

 to novice, dropped fast asleep, and the sound of 

 snoring was loud and deep when the friar, re- 

 turning from a visit to a sick member of the 



