As for Brother Emmanuel, he sat with his hands folded in his sleeves, the great book upon his knees, a slight and thoughtful smile playing around the corners of his finely-cut mouth.  His whole face was intensely spiritual in expression.  The features were delicately cut, and bore the impress of an ascetic life, as well as of gentle birth and noble blood.  He was, in fact, a scion of an ancient and powerful house; but it was one of those houses that had suffered sorely in the recent strife, and whose members had been scattered and cut off.  He had no powerful relatives and friends to turn to now for promotion to rich benefice or high ecclesiastical preferment, and he had certainly never lamented this fact.  In heart and soul he was a follower of the rules of poverty laid down by the founder of his order, and would have thought himself untrue to his calling had he suffered himself to be endowed with worldly wealth.  Even such moneys as he received from Sir Oliver for the instruction given to his sons were never kept by himself.  All were given either to the poor by his hands direct, or placed at the disposal of the Prior of Chadwater, where he had been an inmate for a short time previous to his installation as chaplain at Chad.  He had not sought this office; he would rather have remained beneath the priory walls.  He thought that it was something contrary to the will of the founders for monks to become parochial priests, or to hold offices and benefices which took them from the shelter of their monastery walls.  But such things were of daily occurrence now, and were causing bitter jealousy to arise betwixt the parochial clergy and the monks, sowing seeds of strife which played a considerable part in the struggle this same century was to see.  But it was useless to try to stem the current single-handed, and the rule of obedience was as strong within him as that of poverty and chastity.

When sent forth by his prior (who secretly thought that this young monk was too strict and ascetic and too keen-witted to be a safe inmate of a house which had long fallen from its high estate, and was becoming luxurious and wealthy and lax), he had gone unmurmuringly to Chad, and since then had become so much interested in his pupils and in his round of daily duties there that he had not greatly missed the life of the cloister.

He had leisure for thought and for study.  He had access to a library which, although not large, held many treasures of book making, and was sufficient for the requirements of the young monk.  He could keep the hours of the Church in the little chantry attached to the house, and he was taken out of the atmosphere of jealousy and bickering which, to his own great astonishment and dismay, he had found to be the prevailing one at Chadwater.

On the whole, he had benefited by the change, and was very happy in his daily duties.  He rejoiced to watch the unfolding minds of his three pupils, and especially to train Edred for the life of the cloister, to which already he had been partially dedicated, and towards which he seemed to incline.