Father Shoveller, as the good-natured monk who had received the
travellers was called, took them into the spacious but homely
chamber which served as refectory, kitchen, and hall. He called to
the lay brother who was busy over the open hearth to fry a few more
rashers of bacon; and after they had washed away the dust of their
journey at the trough where Spring had slaked his thirst, they sat
down with him to a hearty supper, which smacked more of the grange
than of the monastery, spread on a large solid oak table, and washed
down with good ale. The repast was shared by the lay brethren and
farm servants, and also by two or three big sheep dogs, who had to
be taught their manners towards Spring.

There was none of the formality that Ambrose was accustomed to at
Beaulieu in the great refectory, where no one spoke, but one of the
brethren read aloud some theological book from a stone pulpit in the
wall. Here Brother Shoveller conversed without stint, chiefly with
the brother who seemed to be a kind of bailiff, with whom he
discussed the sheep that were to be taken into market the next day,
and the prices to be given for them by either the college, the
castle, or the butchers of Boucher Row. He however found time to
talk to the two guests, and being sprung from a family in the
immediate neighbourhood, he knew the verdurer's name, and ere he was
a monk, had joined in the chase in the Forest.

There was a little oratory attached to the hall, where he and the
lay brethren kept the hours, to a certain degree, putting two or
three services into one, on a liberal interpretation of laborare est
orare. Ambrose's responses made their host observe as they went
out, "Thou hast thy Latin pat, my son, there's the making of a