se summer holidays betake yourself to a monastery?
I will write to the Lord Abbot, to your lady mother, and if you consent,
to the voluble Chator's lady mother, humbly pointing out and ever
praying, etc., etc."

"You're not ragging?" asked Michael suspiciously. "Besides, what sort of
a monastery?"

"Oh, an Anglican monastery; but at the same time Benedictines of the
most unimpeachable severity. In short, why shouldn't you and Mark Chator
go to Clere Abbas on the Berkshire Downs?"

"Are they strict?" enquired Michael. "You know, saying the proper
offices and all that, not the Day Hours of the English Church--that
rotten Anglican thing."

"Strict!" cried Mr. Viner. "Why, they're so strict that St. Benedict
himself, were he to abide again on earth, would seriously consider a
revision of his rules as interpreted by Dom Cuthbert Manners, O.S.B.,
the Lord Abbot of Clere."

"It would be awfully ripping to go there," said Michael
enthusiastically.

"Well then," said Mr. Viner, "it shall be arranged. Meanwhile confer
with the voluble and sacerdotal Chator on the subject."

The disappointment of the ungranted certificate, the ineffable tedium of
endless school, seaside lodgings and all the weighty ills of Michael's
oppressed soul vanished on that wine-gold July noon when Michael and
Chator stood untrammelled by anything more than bicycles and luggage
upon the platform of the little station that dreamed its trains away at
the foot of the Downs.

"By Jove, we're just like pilgrims," said Michael, as his gaze followed
the aspiring white road which rippled upward to green summits quivering
in the haze of summer. The two boys left their luggage to be fetched
later by the Abbey marketing-cart, mounted their bicycles, waved a
good-bye to the friendly porter beaming among the red roses of the
little station and pressed energetically their obstinate pedals. After
about half a mile's ascent they jumped from their machines and walked
slowly upwards until the station and clustering hamlet lay breathless
below them like a vision drowned deep in a crystal lake. As they went
higher a breeze sighed in the sun-parched grasses, and the lines and
curves of the road intoxicated them with naked beauty.

"I like harebells almost best of any flowers," said Michael. "Do you?"

"They're awfully like bells," observed Chator.

"I wouldn't care if they weren't," said Michael. "It's only in London I
want things to be like other things."

Chat