Gilbert lived, and the desperate wound slowly healed, for he was strong
and young, and his blood was untainted; but when at last he was allowed
to stand upon his feet, he seemed to be little more than a fine-drawn
shadow. They dressed him first in a novice's frock, because it was
easier for him to wear, and at last he was well enough to be carried
down from his room, and to sit for an hour upon the stone bench in the
cloister. One of the brothers sat down beside him and slowly fanned his
face with a stiff sheet of yellow parchment, such as the monks used for
binding their books; the other went away to his work. Gilbert leaned
back and closed his eyes, drinking in the sun-sweetened air and the
scent of the flowers that grew in the cloister garden; and the
indescribable sense of peace descended upon his body and soul which
comes to men wrested from death, when danger is passed and their
strength is slowly growing again within them.
It is impossible for any young man of sensitive and believing mind to
spend two months in a great religious institution of his own faith
without feeling himself drawn to the religious life. Lying in his room,
alone for many hours of the day, alone in waking watches of the night,
though a brother was always within call, Gilbert had followed with a
sick man's second sight the lives of the two hundred monks who dwelt in
Sheering Abbey. By asking questions, he knew how they rose at dawn, and
trooped into the dim abbey church to early mass, and went to their
daily work, the lay-brethren and novices in the field, the learned
fathers in the library and the writing-room.
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