This for Chris was one of the climaxes of the day’s emotions.  He was always tired out by now with the day’s work, and longing for bed, and this approach to the great Mother of Monks soothed and quieted him.  It was sung in almost complete darkness, except for a light or two in the long nave where a dark figure or two would be kneeling, and the pleasant familiar melody, accompanied softly by the organ overhead after the bare singing of Compline, seemed like a kind of good-night kiss.  The infinite pathos of the words never failed to touch him, the cry of the banished children of Eve, weeping and mourning in this vale of tears to Mary whose obedience had restored what Eve’s self-will had ruined, and the last threefold sob of endearment to the “kindly, loving, sweet, Virgin Mary.”  After the high agonisings and aspirations of the day’s prayer, the awfulness of the holy Sacrifice, the tramping monotony of the Psalter, the sting of the discipline, the aches and sweats of the manual labour, the intent strain of the illuminating, this song to Mary was a running into Mother’s arms and finding compensation there for all toils and burdens.

Finally in complete silence the monks passed along the dark cloister, sprinkled with holy water as they left the church, up to the dormitory which ran over the whole length of the chapter house, the bridges and other offices, to sleep till midnight.

* * * * *

The effect of this life, unbroken by external distractions, was to make Chris’s soul alert and perceptive to the inner world, and careless or even contemptuous of the ordinary world of men.  This spiritual realm began for the first time to disclose its details to him, and to show itself to some extent a replica of nature.  It too had its varying climate, its long summer of warmth and light, its winter of dark discontent, its strange and bewildering sunrises of Christ upon the soul, when He rose and went about His garden with perfume and music, or stayed and greeted His creature with the message of His eyes.  Chris began to learn that these spiritual changes were in a sense independent of him, that they were not in his soul, but rather that his soul was in them.  He could be happy and content when the winds of God were cold and His light darkened, or sad and comfortless when the flowers of grace were apparent and the river of life bright and shining.

And meanwhile the ordinary world went on, but far away and dimly heard and seen; as when one looks down from a castle-garden on to humming streets five hundred feet below; and the old life at Overfield, and Ralph’s doings in London seemed unreal and fantastic activities, purposeless and empty.

Little by little, however, as the point of view shifted, Chris began to find that the external world could not be banished, and that the annoyances from the clash of characters discordant with his own were as positive as those which had distressed him before.  Dom Anselm Bowden’s way of walking and the patch of grease at the shoulder of his cowl, never removed, and visible as he went before him into the church was as distractingly irritating as Ralph’s contempt; the buzz in the voice of a cantor who seemed always to sing on great days was as distressing as his own dog’s perversity at Overfield, or the snapping of a bow-string.