“They annoyed our Holy Father,” said Mark.

“Yes, they did seem to make him a bit ratty.  Perhaps the translation softened it down,” surmised Brother Nicholas.  “I’ll get a dictionary to-morrow.”

The bell for solemn silence clanged, and Brother Nicholas must have spent his quarter of an hour in most unprofitable meditation.

Another addition to the buildings was a wide, covered verandah, which had been built on in front of the central block, and which therefore extended the length of the Refectory, the Library, the Chapter Room, and the Abbot’s Parlour.  The last was now the Prior’s Parlour, because lodgings for Father Burrowes were being built in the Gatehouse, the only building of stone that was being erected.

This Gatehouse was to be finished as an Easter offering to the Father Superior from devout ladies, who had been dismayed at the imagination of his discomfort.  The verandah was granted the title of the Cloister, and the hours of recreation were now spent here instead of in the Library as formerly, which enabled studious brethren to read in peace.

The Prior made a rule that every Sunday afternoon all the brethren should assemble in the Cloister at tea, and spend the hour until Vespers in jovial intercourse.  He did not actually specify that the intercourse was to be jovial, but he look care by judicious teazing to see that it was jovial.  In his anxiety to bring his farm into cultivation, Brother George was apt to make any monastic duty give way to manual labour on those thistle-grown fields, and it was seldom that there were more than a couple of brethren to say the Office between Lauds and Vespers.  The others had to be content with crossing themselves when they heard the bell for Terce or None, and even Sext was sparingly attended after the Prior instituted the eating of the mid-day meal in the fields on fine days.  Hence the conversation in the Cloister on Sunday afternoons was chiefly agricultural.

“Are you going to help me drill the ten-acre field tomorrow, Brother Giles?” the Prior asked one grey Sunday afternoon in the middle of March.

“No, I’m certainly not, Reverend Brother, unless you put me under obedience to do so.”

“Then I think I shall,” the Prior laughed.

“If you do, Reverend Brother,” the gardener retorted, “you’ll have to put my peas under obedience to sow themselves.”

“Peas!” the Prior scoffed.  “Who cares about peas?”

“Oh, Reverend Brother!” cried Brother Simon, his hair standing up with excitement.  “We couldn’t do without peas.”

Brother Simon was assistant cook nowadays, a post he filled tolerably well under the supervision of the one-legged soldier who was cook.

“We couldn’t do without oats,” said Brother Birinus severely.

He spoke so seldom at these gatherings that when he did few were found to disagree with him, because they felt his words must have been deeply pondered before they were allowed utterance.