There are no chronicles of the House left to tell if this lamentable lapse ever happened. So, on the other side, did the chanting of the monks, the rolling of the organ, awaken no thought of repentance in the rude soldiers? We know not; for, again, no chronicles survive of the men who followed the King and had bouche of Court. In the course of time even these temptations ceased to assail the young monk. Brother Ambrosius became like his brethren; he mechanically chanted the Psalms and the responses; his chief joy was in Refectory; he sat in the cloisters and whispered the small talk of the day; he went to Misericorde for indulgence permitted; as for scholarship, he had no turn for it. His whole life was worked out according to formula and by repetition. Just as the laborer goes forth every day with his spade for twelve hours’ digging without a murmur or any discontent, so did Brother Ambrosius every morning rise at two to begin the many hours spent in the services of the day. They were his work. And for the ordinary monk, of no more than average intellect, it was quite enough work for the day. Brother Ambrosius was never advanced to any post of honor or dignity in the House. A certain rusticity, perhaps a certain dullness produced by the discipline acting on a mind of only ordinary intelligence, prevented his advance. But he presently became not only learned in the minor points of the Rule, but also a great stickler for forms. He knew everything: the exact time and manner of changing clothes, putting on shoes, taking knife in hand, lifting the cup to drink, holding the hands in the Chapter, and other important points. He knew them all: he watched his Brethren; he insisted on observance; he was so jealous for these things that the Sub-Prior once rebuked him, saying that the Rule must be obeyed indeed, but that he who thinks too much of his brothers’ obedience in small things is apt to forget his own obedience in great things. Perhaps this Brother at one time may have entertained ambitions. There were many offices of honor in the House. Might not he, too, aspire to rise? Who would not wish to be an Abbot, and especially a mitered Abbot? Besides ruling the House and the Brethren, the mitered Abbot had the rank of a peer; he rode abroad, hawk in hand, his mule equipped with cloth of gold, followed by a retinue of a hundred persons; he created knights; he could coin money; he received the children of noble families among his pages; he administered enormous estates. Or, if he could not be Abbot, he might be Prior. The privileges and duties and powers of the Prior are bewildering to read: to go first after the Abbot; to sit in a certain stall; to put on his hood before the others,--in the [Illustration: DOOR TO THE CHAPEL OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR; NOW PYX OFFICE.]