Sir Nigel | Page 7

Several of the more studious had brought
their illuminating work from the scriptorium, and sat in the warm
sunshine with their little platters of pigments and packets of gold-leaf
before them, their shoulders rounded and their faces sunk low over the
white sheets of vellum. There too was the copper-worker with his burin
and graver. Learning and art were not traditions with the Cistercians as
with the parent Order of the Benedictines, and yet the library of
Waverley was well filled both with precious books and with pious
students.
But the true glory of the Cistercian lay in his outdoor work, and so ever
and anon there passed through the cloister some sunburned monk,
soiled mattock or shovel in hand, with his gown looped to his knee,
fresh from the fields or the garden. The lush green water-meadows
speckled with the heavy-fleeced sheep, the acres of corn-land reclaimed
from heather and bracken, the vineyards on the southern slope of
Crooksbury Hill, the rows of Hankley fish-ponds, the Frensham
marshes drained and sown with vegetables, the spacious pigeon-cotes,
all circled the great Abbey round with the visible labors of the Order.
The Abbot's full and florid face shone with a quiet content as he looked
out at his huge but well-ordered household. Like every head of a
prosperous Abbey, Abbot John, the fourth of the name, was a man of
various accomplishments. Through his own chosen instruments he had

to minister a great estate and to keep order and decorum among a large
body of men living a celibate life. He was a rigid disciplinarian toward
all beneath him, a supple diplomatist to all above. He held high debate
with neighboring abbots and lords, with bishops, with papal legates,
and even on occasion with the King's majesty himself. Many were the
subjects with which he must be conversant. Questions of doctrine,
questions of building, points of forestry, of agriculture, of drainage, of
feudal law, all came to the Abbot for settlement. He held the scales of
justice in all the Abbey banlieue which stretched over many a mile of
Hampshire and of Surrey. To the monks his displeasure might mean
fasting, exile to some sterner community, or even imprisonment in
chains. Over the layman also he could hold any punishment save only
corporeal death, instead of which he had in hand the far more dreadful
weapon of spiritual excommunication.
Such were the powers of the Abbot, and it is no wonder that there were
masterful lines in the ruddy features of Abbot John, or that the brethren,
glancing up, should put on an even meeker carriage and more demure
expression as they saw the watchful face in the window above them.
A knock at the door of his studio recalled the Abbot to his immediate
duties, and he returned to his desk. Already he had spoken with his
cellarer and prior, almoner, chaplain and lector, but now in the tall and
gaunt monk who obeyed his summons to enter he recognized the most
important and also the most importunate of his agents, Brother Samuel
the sacrist, whose office, corresponding to that of the layman's bailiff,
placed the material interests of the monastery and its dealings with the
outer world entirely under his control, subject only to the check of the
Abbot. Brother Samuel was a gnarled and stringy old monk whose
stern and sharp-featured face reflected no light from above but only that
sordid workaday world toward which it was forever turned. A huge
book of accounts was tucked under one of his arms, while a great
bunch of keys hung from the other hand, a badge of his office, and also
on occasion of impatience a weapon of offense, as many a scarred head
among rustics and lay brothers could testify.
The Abbot sighed wearily, for he suffered much at the hands of his
strenuous agent. "Well, Brother Samuel, what is your will?" he asked.
"Holy father, I have to report that I have sold the wool to Master
Baldwin of Winchester at two shillings a bale more than it fetched last

year, for the murrain among the sheep has raised the price."
"You have done well, brother."
"I have also to tell you that I have distrained Wat the warrener from his
cottage, for his Christmas rent is still unpaid, nor the hen-rents of last
year."
"He has a wife and four children, brother." He was a good, easy man,
the Abbot, though liable to be overborne by his sterner subordinate.
"It is true, holy father; but if I should pass him, then how am I to ask
the rent of the foresters of Puttenham, or the hinds in the village? Such
a thing spreads from house to house, and where then is the wealth of
Waverley?"
"What else, Brother Samuel?"