“Ye’ve seen nothing for a long while. She has been housed near a month--they have to carry her abroad now.” “So bad as that, then?” “Roger of Salerno will not yet say what he thinks. But----” “God pity Stephen!... Who else at table, beside thee?” “An Oxford friar. Roger is his name also. A learned and famous philosopher. And he holds his liquor too, valiantly.” “Three doctors--counting Stephen. I’ve always found that means two atheists.” Thomas looked uneasily down his nose. “That’s a wicked proverb,” he stammered. “You should not use it.” “Hoh! Never come you the monk over me, Thomas! You’ve been Infirmarian at St. Illod’s eleven years--and a lay-brother still. Why have you never taken orders, all this while?” “I--I am not worthy.” “Ten times worthier than that new fat swine--Henry Who’s-his-name--that takes the Infirmary Masses. He bullocks in with the Viaticum, under your nose, when a sick man’s only faint from being bled. So the man dies--of pure fear. Ye know it! I’ve watched your face at such times. Take Orders, Didymus. You’ll have a little more medicine and a little less Mass with your sick then; and they’ll live longer.” “I am unworthy--unworthy,” Thomas repeated pitifully. “Not you--but--to your own master you stand or fall. And now that my work releases me for a while, I’ll drink with any philosopher out of any school. And Thomas,” he coaxed, “a hot bath for me in the Infirmary before vespers.” * * * * * When the Abbot’s perfectly cooked and served meal had ended, and the deep-fringed naperies were removed, and the Prior had sent in the keys with word that all was fast in the Monastery, and the keys had been duly returned with the word: “Make it so till Prime,” the Abbot and his guests went out to cool themselves in an upper cloister that took them, by way of the leads, to the South Choir side of the Triforium. The summer sun was still strong, for it was barely six o’clock, but the Abbey Church, of course, lay in her wonted darkness. Lights were being lit for choir-practice thirty feet below. “Our Cantor gives them no rest,” the Abbot whispered. “Stand by this pillar and we’ll hear what he’s driving them at now.” “Remember all!” the Cantor’s hard voice came up. “This is the soul of Bernard himself, attacking our evil world. Take it quicker than yesterday, and throw all your words clean-bitten from you. In the loft there! Begin!” The organ broke out for an instant, alone and raging. Then the voices crashed together into that first fierce line of the “_De Contemptu Mundi_.”[5] “_Hora novissima_--_tempora pessima_”--a dead pause till, the assenting _sunt_ broke, like a sob, out of the darkness, and one boy’s voice, clearer than silver trumpets, returned the long-drawn _vigilemus_.