`It is too horrible.' "`And even if it saved his life he would only have one leg.' "`Better have no legs at all,' said the young monk, `than die before his time.' "`But it would be his time,' said the old monks.
"`It would not be his time if I could save his life,' said the young monk.
"But still the old monks shook their heads, and said that no man had ever yet heard of such a thing.

It was too terrible to be thought of, and they frowned very severely upon the young monk till the prior, who had been very thoughtful, exclaimed:-- "`And cutting the limb off the apple-tree made you think that ?' "The young monk said that it was so.
"`But a man is not an apple-tree,' said the oldest monk present; and all the others shook their heads again; but, oddly enough, a few minutes later they nodded their heads, for the prior suddenly exclaimed:-- "`Our brother is quite right, and he shall try.' "There was a strange thrill ran through the monks, but what the prior said was law in those days, Grant, and in a few minutes it was known all through the priory that Brother Anselm was going to cut off the poor swineherd's leg.
"Then--I say, my boy, I wish you'd go on with your work.

I can't talk if you do not," said Old Brownsmith, with a comical look at me, and I went on busily again while he continued his story.
"When Brother Anselm had obtained the prior's leave to try his experiment he felt nervous and shrank from the task.

He went down the garden and looked at the trees that he had cut, and he felt more than ever that a man was, as the monks said, not an apple-tree.

Then he examined the places which looked healthy and well, and he wondered whether if he performed such an operation on the poor patient he also would be healthy and well at the end of a week, and he shook his head and felt nervous." "If you please, Mr Brownsmith," I said, "I can't go on till you've done, and I must hear the end." He chuckled a little, and seating himself on a bushel basket which he turned upside down, a couple of cats sprang in his lap, another got on his shoulder, and he went on talking while I thrust an arm through one of the rounds of the ladder, and leaned back against it as he went on.
"Well, Grant," he said, "Brother Anselm felt sorry now that he had leave to perform his experiment, and he went slowly back to the cell and talked to the poor swineherd, a fine handsome, young man with fair curly brown hair and a skin as white as a woman's where the sun had not tanned him.
"And he talked to him about how he felt; and the poor fellow said he felt much better and much worse--that the pain had all gone, but that he did not think he should ever be well any more.
"This set the brother thinking more and more, but he felt that he could do nothing that day, and he waited till the next, lying awake all night thinking of what he would do and how he would do it, till the cold time about sunrise, when he had given up the idea in despair.