"Can he plough a straight furrow?" the Prior would demand.
"I doubt it," Mark would answer with a smile. "He can't walk straight across the dormitory."
"What's he been drinking?"
"Rum, I fancy."
"Why did you let him in?"
"It's such a stormy night."
"Well, send him along to me to-morrow after Lauds, and I'll put him to cleaning out the pigsties."
Mark only had to deal with these casuals. Regular guests like the soldiers, who were always welcome, and ecclesiastically minded inquirers were looked after by Brother Nicholas. One of the things for which Mark detested Brother Nicholas was the habit he had of showing off his poor casuals to the paying guests. It took Mark a stern reading of St. Benedict's Rule and the observations therein upon humility and obedience not to be rude to Brother Nicholas sometimes.
"Brother," he asked one day. "Have you ever read what our Holy Father says about gyrovagues and sarabaites?"
Brother Nicholas, who always thought that any long word with which he was unfamiliar referred to sexual perversion, asked what such people were.