"There is the chapel bell ringing, now, and I must be off. The abbot will not be present at this service, Father; and if you will, you can see him now. I doubt not that he will grant your request, for I know that I anger him, every time I am in chapel. I am fond of music, and I have a voice like a bull; and, do what I will, it will come out in spite of me; and he says that my roaring destroys the effect of the whole choir." So saying, he strode away. "Do you wait outside the gates, my son," the priest said. "I shall be only a few minutes with the abbot; who, as Friar Roger says, will, I doubt not, be glad enough to grant him leave to abstain from attendance at the services." In a short time, indeed, he rejoined Oswald at the gate. "That matter was managed, easily enough," he said. "The abbot has, himself, a somewhat warlike disposition, which is not to be wondered at, seeing that he comes from a family ever ready to draw the sword; and he has, therefore, a liking for Friar Roger, in spite of his contumacies, breaches of regulations, and quarrels with the other monks. He is obliged to continually punish him, with sentences of seclusion, penance, and fasting; but methinks it goes against the grain. He said, at once, that he was delighted to hear that he had voluntarily undertaken some work that would keep him out of trouble, and that he willingly, and indeed gladly, absolved him from attendance in chapel, during the hours that he was occupied with you. "'He is not without his uses,' he said. 'He is in special charge of the garden, and looks after the lay brothers employed in it. I will put someone else in charge, while he is busy, though I doubt if any will get as much work out of the lay brothers as he does; and indeed, he himself labours harder than any of them. With any other, I should say that tucking his gown round his waist, and labouring with might and main was unseemly; but as it works off some of his superabundant energy, I do not interfere with him.'" "How ever did he become a monk, Father?" "It seems that he was a somewhat sickly child, and his father sent him to the monastery to be taught, with a view to entering the Church. He was quick and bright in his parts, but as his health improved he grew restless, and at fifteen refused to follow the vocation marked out for him, and returned home; where, as I have heard, he took part in various daring forays across the border. When he was five-and-twenty, he was wounded well-nigh to death in one of these, and he took it as a judgment upon him, for deserting the Church; so he returned here, and became a lay brother. He was a very long time, before he recovered his full strength, and before he did so he became a monk, and I believe has bitterly regretted the fact, ever since.