“But I will,” cried Brother Chad, rising.  “Begging your pardon, Reverend Father and Brethren, if I am speaking too soon, but I cannot believe that you seriously consider closing us down.  We’re just beginning to get on well with the authorities, and we’ve a regular lot of communicants now.  We began as just a Club, but we’re something more than a Club now.  We’re bringing men to Our Lord, Brethren.  You will do a great wrong if you let those poor souls think that for the sake of your own comfort you are ready to forsake them.  Forgive me, Reverend Father.  Forgive me, dear Brethren, if I have said too much and spoken uncharitably.”

“He has not spoken uncharitably enough,” Brother Athanasius shouted, rising to his feet, and as he did so unconsciously assuming the attitude of a boxer.  “If I’d been here last year, I should have spoken much more uncharitably.  I did not join this Order to sit about playing with vestments.  I wanted to bring soldiers to God.  If this Order is to be turned into a kind of male nunnery, I’m off to-morrow.  I’m boiling over, that’s what I am, boiling over.  If we can’t afford to do what we should be doing, we can’t afford to build gatehouses, and lay out flower-beds, and sit giggling in tin cloisters.  It’s the limit, that’s what it is, the limit.”

Brother Athanasius stood there flushed with defiance, until the Father Superior told him to sit down and not make a fool of himself, a command which, notwithstanding that the feeling of the Chapter had been so far entirely against the head of the Order, such was the Father Superior’s authority, Brother Athanasius immediately obeyed.

Brother Dominic now rose to try, as he said, to bring an atmosphere of reasonableness into the discussion.

“I do not think that I can be accused of inconsistency,” he pointed out smoothly, “when we look back to our general Chapter of a year ago.  Whatever my personal feelings were about closing the Sandgate priory, I recognized at once that the Reverend Father was right.  There is really no doubt that we must be strong at the roots before we try to grow into a tall tree.  However flourishing the branches, they will wither if the roots are not fed.  The Reverend Father has no desire, as I understand him, to abandon the activity of the Order.  He is merely anxious to establish us on a firm basis.  The Reverend Brother said that we should make any sacrifice to maintain the Aldershot house.  I have no desire to accuse the Reverend Brother of inconsistency, but I would ask him if he is willing to give up the farm, which, as you know, has cost so far a great deal more than we could afford.  But of course the Reverend Brother would give up the farm.  At the same time, we do not want him to give it up.  We realize that under his capable guidance that farm will presently be a source of profit.  Therefore, I beg the Reverend Brother to understand that I am making a purely rhetorical point when I ask him if he is prepared to give up the farm.  I repeat, we do not want the farm given up.