There was a mystery about him which heightened the charm of his surpassing sanctity, his childlike sweetness and humility.

It was whispered--when the monks seldom and cautiously did whisper together in their lonely walks--that he had been once a great man; that he had come from a great city--perhaps from Rome itself.

And the simple monks were proud to think that they had among them a man who had seen Rome.

At least, Abbot Pambo respected him.

He was never beaten; never even reproved--perhaps he never required it; but still it was the meed of all; and was not the abbot a little partial?
Yet, certainly, when Theophilus sent up a messenger from Alexandria, rousing every Laura with the news of the sack of Rome by Alaric, did not Pambo take him first to the cell of Aufugus, and sit with him there three whole hours in secret consultation, before he told the awful story to the rest of the brotherhood?
And did not Aufugus himself give letters to the messenger, written with his own hand, containing, as was said, deep secrets of worldly policy, known only to himself?
So, when the little lane of holy men, each peering stealthily over his plaiting work from the doorway of his sandstone cell, saw the abbot, after his unwonted passion, leave the culprit kneeling, and take his way toward the sage's dwelling, they judged that something strange and delicate had befallen the common weal, and each wished, without envy, that he were as wise as the man whose counsel was to solve the difficulty.
For an hour or more the abbot remained there, talking earnestly and low; and then a solemn sound as of the two old men praying with sobs and tears; and every brother bowed his head, and whispered a hope that He whom they served might guide them for the good of the Laura, and of His Church, and of the great heathen world beyond; and still Philammon knelt motionless, awaiting his sentence; his heart filled-who can tell how?
'The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy.' So thought he as he knelt; and so think I, too, knowing that in the pettiest character there are unfathomable depths, which the poet, all-seeing though he may pretend to be, can never analyse, but must only dimly guess at, and still more dimly sketch them by the actions which they beget.
At last Pambo returned, deliberate, still, and slow, as he had gone, and seating himself within his cell, spoke-- 'And the youngest said, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to my share....