vestments and incense were used, and plainsong sung. There were about
fourteen Brothers.

Hugh was obviously and delightfully happy at Mirfield. I remember well
how he used to describe the pleasure of returning to it from a Mission,
the silence, the simplicity of the life, the liberty underlying the
order and discipline. The tone of the house was admirably friendly and
kindly, without gossip, bickering or bitterness, and Hugh found himself
among cheerful and sympathetic companions, with the almost childlike
mirthfulness which comes of a life, strict, ascetic, united, and free
from worldly cares. He spent his first two years in study mainly, and
extended his probation. It illustrates the fact that he was acquainting
himself strangely little with current theological thought that the cause
of his delay was that he was entirely taken aback by a sermon of Dr.
Gore's on the Higher Criticism. The whole idea of it was completely
novel to Hugh, and upset him terribly, so that he thought he could
hardly recover his balance. Neither then nor later had he the smallest
sympathy with or interest in Modernism. Finally he took the vows in
1901; my mother was present. He was installed, his hand kissed by the
Brethren, and he received the Communion in entire hopefulness and
happiness. I was always conscious, in those days, that Hugh radiated an
atmosphere of intense rapture and ecstasy about him: the only drawback
was that, in his rare visits to home, he was obviously pining to be back
at Mirfield.

Then his work began; and he says that refreshed and reinvigorated as
they were before going on a Mission, by long, quiet, and careful
preparation, they used to plunge into their work with ardent and eager
enthusiasm. The actual mission work was hard. Hugh records that once
after a Mission in London they spent four days in interviewing people