He was of a swarthy complexion, not given to talking much, although when
he did speak he always spoke to the point. He and Brother George were
hard at work ploughing up some derelict fields which they had persuaded
Sir Charles Horner to let to the Abbey rent free on condition that they
were put back into cultivation. The patron himself had gone away for the
winter to Rome and Florence, and Mark was glad that he had, for he was
sure that otherwise his inquisitiveness would have been severely
snubbed by the Prior. Father Burrowes went away as usual to preach after
Christmas; but before he went Mark was clothed as a novice together with
two other postulants who had been at Malford since September. Of these
Brother Giles was a former school-master, a dried-up, tobacco-coloured
little man of about fifty, with a quick and nervous, but always precise
manner. Mark liked him, and his manual labour was done under the
direction of Brother Giles, who had been made gardener, a post for which
he was well suited. The other new novice was Brother Nicholas whom, had
Mark not been the fellow-member of a community, he would have disliked
immensely. Brother Nicholas was one of those people who are in a
perpetual state of prurient concern about the sexual morality of the
human race.
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