at they are?... However, that
makes no difference, as--"

"But I can, brother. 'Blessed be God. Blessed be His--"

"But you're not Irish?"

"I know I'm not. But--"

"Are you an educated man? However, that's not my affair. What can I do
for you, sir?"

The monk seemed to take a little more interest in him, and Frank took
courage.

"Yes," he said, "I'm an educated man. My name's Frank Gregory. I've got
two friends out on the road up there--a man and a woman. Their name's
Trustcott--and the woman--"

"No good; no good," said the monk. "No women."

"But, brother, she really can't go any further. I'm very sorry, but we
simply must have shelter. We've got two or three shillings, if
necessary--"

"Oh, you have, have you?" said the monk keenly. "That's quite new. And
when did you touch food last? Yesterday morning? (Don't say 'S'elp me!'
It's not necessary.)"

"We last touched food about twelve o'clock to-day. We had beans and cold
bacon," said Frank deliberately. "We're perfectly willing to pay for
shelter and food, if we're obliged. But, of course, we don't want to."

The monk eyed him very keenly indeed a minute or two without speaking.
This seemed a new type.

"Come in and sit down a minute," he said. "I'll fetch the guest-master."

It was a very plain little room in which Frank sat, and seemed designed,
on purpose, to furnish no temptation to pilferers. There was a table,
two chairs, a painted plaster statue of a gray-bearded man in black
standing on a small bracket with a crook in his hand; a pious book, much
thumb-marked, lay face downwards on the table beside the oil lamp. There
was another door through which the monk had disappeared, and that was
absolutely all. There was no carpet and no curtains, but a bright little
coal fire burned on the hearth, and two windows looked, one up the drive
down which Frank had come, and the other into some sort of courtyard on
the opposite side.

About ten minutes passed away without anything at all happening. Frank
heard more than one gust of rain-laden wind dash against the little
barred window to the south, and he wondered how his friends were getting
on. The Major, at any rate, he knew, would manage to keep himself
tolerably dry. Then he began to think about this place, and was
surprised that he was not surprised at running into it like this in the
dark. He knew nothing at all about monasteries--he hardly knew that
there were such things in England (one must reme