“I am well pleased to hear such good testimony,” returned the prior, who was regarding his visitor with a scrutiny not altogether agreeable to the knight.  “At the same time, it is not always well for a monk to remain too long away from the cloister, and a change of instructor is ofttimes better for the young.  I have been thinking that it might be well to recall Brother Emmanuel, and send in his place Brother Fabian, in whom I repose the greatest confidence.  How would such a change meet your good pleasure?  If Brother Emmanuel is in need of penance, it can better be imposed here than elsewhere—­and by all I hear it seems to me that he stands something in need of the discipline of the monastery; and Brother Fabian would make an excellent substitute as an instructor for the lads.”

Whilst the prior was speaking, thought had been rapid with Sir Oliver, and something in the prior’s look—­a subtlety and almost cruelty about the lines of the mouth—­warned him that there was in this proposition that which boded evil to someone.

It flashed across him that Brother Emmanuel was perhaps to be made a victim of ecclesiastical tyranny and cruelty.  He knew that the ascetic young monk had been no favourite with his brethren at Chadwater; and if they could bring against him some charge of heresy, however trifling, it was like enough that he might be silently done to death, as others of his calling had been for less fearful offences.  Monastic buildings held their dark secrets, as the world was just beginning to know; and only a short while back he had heard a whisper that it was not wise for a monk to be too strict in his hours and in his living.  Then again, Brother Fabian was a coarse, illiterate man, utterly unfit to be the guide and instructor of youth.  Sir Oliver had not dined at the prior’s table and spent hours in his company for nothing, and he knew many of the monks tolerably well.  Brother Fabian was the one he liked the least; indeed he had a strong dislike and distrust of the man, and was well aware that the ecclesiastical habit was the only thing about him that savoured of sanctity or the monastic life.  He would not have allowed the contaminating presence of such a man near his sons, even had he been indued with the needful learning for the task of instructor.  As it was, he knew that the monk could barely spell through his breviary, and it was plain that the prior must have another reason for wishing to induct him into the house.

Nor was the reason difficult to divine.  It was not as an instructor but as a spy that Brother Fabian was to come.  The whispers abroad—­doubtless spread industriously by his vengeful foe—­had not been without effect, and men had begun to suspect that his household was tainted with heresy.  Brother Emmanuel was suspected, his sons were probably suspected as being his pupils, and possibly some other members of his household too.  Brother Fabian was to be sent to act as spy, and if bribed (as was most probable) by the Lord of Mortimer, would doubtless find some cause of offence which could be twisted into an accusation of heresy against someone there.