“I’m Brother Ambrose,” said the porter, a stubby man with a flat pock-marked face whose ugliness was redeemed by an expression of wonderful innocence. “Dom Cuthbert is expecting you in the Abbot’s Parlour.” Michael and Chator followed Brother Ambrose through a pleasant book-lined hall into the paternal haunt where the Lord Abbot of Clere sat writing at a roll-top desk. He rose to greet the boys, who with reverence perceived him to be a tall dark angular man with glowing eyes that seemed very deeply set on either side of his great hooked nose. He could scarcely have been over thirty-five years of age, but he moved with a languid awkwardness that made him seem older. His voice was very remote and melodious as he welcomed 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.”