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The Armourer's Prentices by Charlotte Mary Yonge
page 25 of 411 (06%)
scholar in thee."

Then they took their first night's rest away from home, in a small
guest-chamber, with a good bed, though bare in all other respects.
Brother Shoveller likewise had a cell to himself, but the lay
brethren slept promiscuously among their sheep-dogs on the floor of
the refectory.

All were afoot in the early morning, and Stephen and Ambrose were
awakened by the tumultuous bleatings of the flock of sheep that were
being driven from their fold to meet their fate at Winchester
market. They heard Brother Shoveller shouting his orders to the
shepherds in tones a great deal more like those of a farmer than of
a monk, and they made haste to dress themselves and join him as he
was muttering a morning abbreviation of his obligatory devotions in
the oratory, observing that they might be in time to hear mass at
one of the city churches, but the sheep might delay them, and they
had best break their fast ere starting.

It was Wednesday, a day usually kept as a moderate fast, so the
breakfast was of oatmeal porridge, flavoured with honey, and washed
down with mead, after which Brother Shoveller mounted his mule, a
sleek creature, whose long ears had an air of great contentment, and
rode off, accommodating his pace to that of his young companions up
a stony cart-track which soon led them to the top of a chalk down,
whence, as in a map, they could see Winchester, surrounded by its
walls, lying in a hollow between the smooth green hills. At one end
rose the castle, its fortifications covering its own hill, beneath,
in the valley, the long, low massive Cathedral, the college
buildings and tower with its pinnacles, and nearer at hand, among
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