This had given Mark
deep pleasure, because it was the Sunday after Esther's profession, and
he had been able to make his intention her present joy and future
happiness. He had been silent throughout the walk, seeming to listen in
turn to Brother Dunstan's rhapsodies about the forthcoming arrival of
Brother George and Brother Birinus with all that it meant to him of
responsibility more than he could bear removed from his shoulders; or to
Brother Raymond's doubts if it should not be made a rule that when no
priest was in the Abbey the brethren ought to walk over to Wivelrod, the
church Sir Charles attended four miles away, or to Brother Jerome's
disclaimer of Roman sympathies in voicing his opinion that the Office
should be said in Latin. Actually he paid little attention to any of
them, his thoughts being far away with Esther. They had chosen Hollybush
Down for their walk that Sunday, because they thought that the view over
many miles of country would please the ancient priest. Seated on the
short aromatic grass in the shade of a massive hawthorn full-berried
with tawny fruit, the brethren looked down across a slope dotted with
junipers to the view outspread before them. None spoke, for it had been
warm work in their habits to climb the burnished grass.
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