Brother Michael and the little fat friar proposed to be his guides.

The proposal was courteously accepted, and they set out together, leaving Sir Ralph's followers at the abbey.

The knight was mounted on a spirited charger; brother Michael on a large heavy-trotting horse; and the little fat friar on a plump soft-paced galloway, so correspondent with himself in size, rotundity, and sleekness, that if they had been amalgamated into a centaur, there would have been nothing to alter in their proportions.
"Do you know," said the little friar, as they wound along the banks of the stream, "the reason why lake-trout is better than river-trout, and shyer withal ?" "I was not aware of the fact," said Sir Ralph.
"A most heterodox remark," said brother Michael: "know you not, that in all nice matters you should take the implication for absolute, and, without looking into the FACT WHETHER, seek only the reason why?
But the fact is so, on the word of a friar; which what layman will venture to gainsay who prefers a down bed to a gridiron ?" "The fact being so," said the knight, "I am still at a loss for the reason; nor would I undertake to opine in a matter of that magnitude: since, in all that appertains to the good things either of this world or the next, my reverend spiritual guides are kind enough to take the trouble of thinking off my hands." "Spoken," said brother Michael, "with a sound Catholic conscience.

My little brother here is most profound in the matter of trout.

He has marked, learned, and inwardly digested the subject, twice a week at least for five-and-thirty years.