he intimate
responses and the severe Compline hymn. He liked, too, the swift
departure to bed without chattering good-nights to spoil the solemnity
of the last Office. Even Chator kept all conversation for the morning,
and Michael felt he had never lain down upon a couch so truly
sanctified, nor ever risen from one so pure as when Dom Gilbert knocked
with a hammer on the door and, standing dark against the milk-white
dawn, murmured 'Pax vobiscum.'

Chapter VII: _Cloven Hoofmarks_

In the first fortnight of their stay at Clere Abbas Michael and Chator
lived like vagabond hermits rejoicing in the freedom of fine weather.
Mostly they went for long walks over the downs and through the woodlands
of the southern slope. To the monks at recreation time they would
recount their adventures with gamekeepers and contumacious farmers,
their discoveries of flowers and birds and butterflies, their
entertainment at remote cottage homes and the hospitalities of gipsy
camps. To be sure they would often indulge in theological discussions,
and sometimes, when caught by the azure-footed dusk in unfamiliar lanes,
they would chant plainsong to the confusion of whatever ghostly
pursuers, whether Dryads or mediaeval fiends or early Victorian
murderers, that seemed to dog their footsteps. So much nowadays did the
unseen world mingle with the ordinary delights of youth.

"Funny thing," said Michael to Chator. "When I was a kid I used to be
frightened at night--always. Then for a long time I wasn't frightened at
all, and now again I have a queer feeling just after sunset, a sort of
curious dampness inside me. Do you ever have it?"

"I only have it when you start me off," said Chator. "But it goes when
we sing 'Te lucis ante terminum' or chant the Nicene Creed or anything
holy."

"Yes, it goes with me," Michael agreed dubiously. "But if I drive it
away it comes back in the middle of the night. I have all sorts of queer
feelings. Sometimes I feel as if there wasn't any me at all, and I'm
surprized to see a letter come addressed to me. But when I see a letter
I've written, I'm still more surprized. Do you have that feeling? Then
often I feel as if all we were doing or saying at a certain moment had
been done or said before. Then at other times I have to hold on to a
tree or hurt myself with something just to prove I'm there. And then
sometimes I think nothing is impossible for me. I feel absolutely great,
as if I were Shakespeare. Do yo