Mark found many changes at the Abbey during the four months he had been away.  The greatest of all was the presence of Brother George as Prior.  The legend of him had led Mark to expect someone out of the ordinary; but he had not been prepared for a personality as strong as this.  Brother George was six feet three inches tall, with a presence of great dignity and much personal beauty.  He had an aquiline nose, strong chin, dark curly hair and bright imperious eyes.  His complexion, burnt by the Mediterranean sun, made him seem in his white habit darker than he really was.  His manner was of one accustomed to be immediately obeyed.  Mark could scarcely believe when he saw Brother Dunstan beside Brother George that only last June Brother Dunstan was acting as Prior.  As for Brother Raymond, who had always been so voluble at recreation, one look from Brother George sent him into a silence that was as solemn as the disciplinary silence imposed by the rule.  Brother Birinus, who was Brother George’s right hand in the Abbey as much as he had been his right hand on the Moose Rib farm, was even taller than the Prior; but he was lanky and raw-boned, and had not the proportions of Brother George.  He was of a swarthy complexion, not given to talking much, although when he did speak he always spoke to the point.  He and Brother George were hard at work ploughing up some derelict fields which they had persuaded Sir Charles Horner to let to the Abbey rent free on condition that they were put back into cultivation.  The patron himself had gone away for the winter to Rome and Florence, and Mark was glad that he had, for he was sure that otherwise his inquisitiveness would have been severely snubbed by the Prior.  Father Burrowes went away as usual to preach after Christmas; but before he went Mark was clothed as a novice together with two other postulants who had been at Malford since September.  Of these Brother Giles was a former school-master, a dried-up, tobacco-coloured little man of about fifty, with a quick and nervous, but always precise manner.  Mark liked him, and his manual labour was done under the direction of Brother Giles, who had been made gardener, a post for which he was well suited.  The other new novice was Brother Nicholas whom, had Mark not been the fellow-member of a community, he would have disliked immensely.  Brother Nicholas was one of those people who are in a perpetual state of prurient concern about the sexual morality of the human race.  He was impervious to snubs, of which he received many from Brother George, and he had somehow managed to become a favourite of the Reverend Father, so that he had been appointed guest-master, a post that was always coveted, and one for which nobody felt Brother Nicholas was suited.