"And to do this—to admit his guilt when such admission meant the surrender of the fruits of that guilt—this was out of the question.
"He had stolen from Michel once, when they were boys. . . . He had taken a ring their mother had given Michel on his birthday; Michel, believing it lost, was inconsolable. Paul hid it among his things; his pride got the better of his conscience, and he pretended to himself that he had ‘found’ it, until his mother discovered it, and drew the truth from him: a type of surgery for which she had a painful aptitude. She would have attained, he often thought, just renown as a confessor. Since she could not fufill that role herself, she packed him off to the Abbé Courtot, from whom he received exceedingly short shrift.
"'You are to restore the ring to your brother. Do not merely put it back where you found it, but give it to Michel himself. Tell him that you took it and are sorry. When you have done this, return to me, and I will give you absolution: not before.'
"Would he receive other treatment in the present case, from the Abbé Courtot, or any priest to whom he made known the facts? And except he made known the facts, would he have peace of mind while he lived?
"Clearly, he must either confess his sin, or forget it. The one he would not do, the other he could not. . . .
". . . no priest living would have credited such an argument, and neither could he.
"Plainly, there was no escape from this dilemma except to cease the practice of religion, and this he did. . . ."
Michael Kent, The mass of brother Michel (Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1942), 89-90 (chap. 5 (“As the green bay tree”), iii), underscoring mine. Paul's sin was a sin of omission; he chose not to warn Michel of the approach of the boar.
The OED does not recognize this "severe mercy" as the original meaning of "short shrift" (though it's an excellent one): "originally a brief space of time allowed for a criminal to make his or her confession before execution; hence, a brief respite".
