“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.