" said the Abbot gently. "Who is without them?
Your going forth is a grief to us as well as to yourself. But there
is no help. I had given my foreword and sacred promise to your father,
Edric the Franklin, that at the age of twenty you should be sent out
into the world to see for yourself how you liked the savor of it. Seat
thee upon the settle, Alleyne, for you may need rest ere long."

The youth sat down as directed, but reluctantly and with diffidence.
The Abbot stood by the narrow window, and his long black shadow fell
slantwise across the rush-strewn floor.

"Twenty years ago," he said, "your father, the Franklin of Minstead,
died, leaving to the Abbey three hides of rich land in the hundred of
Malwood, and leaving to us also his infant son on condition that we
should rear him until he came to man's estate. This he did partly
because your mother was dead, and partly because your elder brother,
now Socman of Minstead, had already given sign of that fierce and rude
nature which would make him no fit companion for you. It was his desire
and request, however, that you should not remain in the cloisters, but
should at a ripe age return into the world."

"But, father," interrupted the young man "it is surely true that I am
already advanced several degrees in clerkship?"

"Yes, fair son, but not so far as to bar you from the garb you now wear
or the life which you must now lead. You have been porter?"

"Yes, father."

"Exorcist?"

"Yes, father."

"Reader?"

"Yes, father."

"Acolyte?"

"Yes, father."

"But have sworn no vow of constancy or chastity?"

"No, father."

"Then you are free to follow a worldly life. But let me hear, ere you
start, what gifts you take away with you from Beaulieu? Some I already
know. There is the playing of the citole and the rebeck. Our choir will
be dumb without you. You carve too?"

The youth's pale face flushed with the pride of the skilled workman.
"Yes, holy father," he answered. "Thanks to good brother Bartholomew, I
carve in wood and in ivory, and can do something also in silver and
in bronze. From brother Francis I have learned to paint on vellum, on
glass, and on metal, with a knowledge of those pigments and essences
which can preserve the color against damp or a biting air. Brother
Luke hath given me some skill in damask work, and in the enamelling of
shrines, tabernacles, diptychs and triptychs. For the rest, I know a
little of the making of covers, the cutting of