But at least if these brothers ate and drank merrily, they were not therefore the better watchers.  They had smiled a little scornfully as he contrasted their good feeding and deep drinking and subsequent visible sleepiness with the spare and frugal meal always taken by Brother Emmanuel, to be followed as often as not by a long night vigil in the chantry.  There was small look of watchfulness about these men.  Any vigil kept by them would be but a mockery of the term.  It was all they could do to stumble through the office of compline when the meal was ended and the household about to retire, and there was no suggestion on their part of wishing to remain to keep vigil.

But Edred resolved that he would watch again that night.  He had done so the previous night with Brother Emmanuel, both thinking that it might be the last watch they would ever hold together.  Now the boy felt that he could not sleep, at least for many hours; and since their mother had whispered to them that Brother Fabian was to share their room, since he said it was his duty to keep watch upon the boys till next morning, it seemed well to leave his bed for the drowsy monk, aid keep vigil himself in the silent chantry.

The brother looked puzzled when he heard what one of his young charges proposed to do.  Edred looked him full in the face as he answered: 

“Brother Emmanuel taught us that it were not well that all within the house should be sleeping.  We know not when the Lord may appear—­at midnight, at cock crowing, or in the morning; and methinks whenever He may come, He would gladly find one soul holding vigil and waiting for His appearing.  Lock the door of the chantry upon me, my father.  Thou canst see that there is but the one door by which we may come or go.  If thou fearest to leave me here, lock the door upon me until such time as it pleases thee to release me.”

The brother regarded the boy with perplexed looks, and slowly shook his head, as though such an attitude of mind were wholly incomprehensible.  But he did not oppose his resolve.  It would not do to appear astonished at the idea of keeping vigil.  He passed out of the chantry muttering to himself, and Edred prostrated himself before the altar, above which the solitary lamp burned clear and bright, and offered up most earnest prayers for the safety of Brother Emmanuel, for the failure and discomfiture of his foes, and for his safe escape when the time was ripe into some country where his enemies were not like to find him.

How the hours of the night passed he scarcely knew.  He might perhaps have slept at his post awhile, or have remained in a dreamy and passive state; for it did not seem long before the morning sun came glinting in at the eastern window, and the boy saw that the day had come which was to be a momentous one to Chad.

Before very long, sounds of life about, and later on within the house, warned him that he was not the only watcher now; and feeling very drowsy and weary, he resolved to creep upstairs and share Julian’s couch for the remaining hours before the working day should commence.