The brothers gathered about him and examined him with a curiosity which was more than personal. To this group of men, detached from life, the arrival of some one from the outer world was an event of interest. He knew what wars had been waged, what epidemics were raging, what Governments had risen and fallen. He might not speak of these things in casual talk, for it was against rule to discuss, for its own sake, what had been seen or heard outside, but they were in the air about him, and they were happening on the other side of the wall. And he on his part also examined his housemates, and; tried to guess what manner of men they were and what had brought them to that place. They were men of all ages, and nearly every school of the Church had sent its representatives. Here was the pale face of the ascetic, and there the guileless eyes of the saint. Some were keen and alert, others were timid and slow. All wore the long black cassock of the community, and many wore the rope with three knots. They spoke little of the world outside, but it was clear that they could not dismiss it from their thoughts. Their talk was cheerful, and the Father told stories of his preaching expeditions which provoked some laughter. They had no newspapers (except one well-known High-Church organ) and no games, and there was no smoking. The bell rang for supper, and they went down to the refectory. It was a large apartment in the basement, and it still bore the emblems of its ancient service. Over the great kitchen ingle there was yet another card with the inscription, “Neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.” A table, scoured white, ran round three sides of the room, the seats were forms without backs, and there was one chair--the Superior's chair--in the middle. The supper consisted of porridge and milk and brown bread, and it was eaten out of plates and cans of pewter. While it lasted one of the brothers, seated at a raised desk, read first a few passages of Scripture, and then some pages, of a secular book which the religious were thus hearing at their meals. The supper was hardly over when the bell rang again. It was time for Compline, the last service of the day, and the brothers formed in procession and passed out of the house, across the courtyard, into the little church.