omed them. Michael looked anxiously at
Chator to see if he followed any precise ritual of salutation, but Dom
Cuthbert solved the problem by shaking hands at once and motioning them
to wicker chairs beside the empty hearth.

"Pleasant ride?" enquired Dom Cuthbert.

"Awfully decent," said Michael. "We heard the Angelus a long way off."

"A lovely bell," murmured Dom Cuthbert. "Tubular. It was given to us by
the Duke of Birmingham. Come along, I'll show you the Abbey, if you're
not too tired."

"Rather not," Michael and Chator declared.

The Abbot led the way into the book-lined hall.

"This is the library. You can read here as much as you like. The
brethren sit here at recreation-time. This is the refectory," he went
on, with distant chimings in his tone.

The two boys gazed respectfully at the bare trestle table and the raised
reading-desk and the picture of St. Benedict.

"Of course we haven't much room yet," Dom Cuthbert continued. "In fact
we have very little. People are very suspicious of monkery."

He smiled tolerantly, and his voice faded almost out of the refectory,
as if it would soothe the harsh criticism of the world, hence infinitely
remote.

"But one day"--from worldly adventure his voice came back renewed with
hope--"one day, when we have some money, we shall build a real Abbey."

"This is awfully ripping though, isn't it?" observed Michael with
sympathetic encouragement.

"I dare say the founder of the Order was never so well housed," agreed
the Abbot.

Dom Cuthbert led them to the guest-chamber, from which opened three
diminutive bedrooms.

"Your cells," the monk said. "But of course you'll feed in here," he
added, indicating the small bare room in which they stood with so wide a
sweep of his ample sleeve that the matchboarded ceiling soared into vast
Gothic twilights and the walls were of stone. Michael was vaguely
reminded of Mr. Prout and his inadequate oratory.

"The guest-brother is Dom Gilbert," continued the Abbot. "Come and see
the cloisters."

They passed from the guest-room behind the main building and saw that
another building formed there the second side of a quadrangle. The other
two sides were still open to the hazel coppice that here encroached upon
the Abbey. However, there was traceable the foundations of new buildings
to complete the quadrangle, and a mass of crimson hollyhocks were
shining with rubied chalices in the quiet sunlight. For all its
incompleteness, this