When they had reached the little moonlight glade, having in front the reverend, though ruinous chapel, and the rude hermitage, so well suited to ascetic devotion, Wamba whispered to Gurth, “If this be the habitation of a thief, it makes good the old proverb, The nearer the church the farther from God.⁠—And by my coxcomb,” he added, “I think it be even so⁠—Hearken but to the black sanctus which they are singing in the hermitage!”

In fact the anchorite and his guest were performing, at the full extent of their very powerful lungs, an old drinking song, of which this was the burden:⁠—