Robert Annys had been at the Abbey of St. Dunstan for six months only, and he was still going through his novitiate, when he received the signal distinction of being appointed the chronicler of the Abbey. It was a position of great trust, and never before in the history of the monastery had it been given to a mere novitiate. To Annys there was a profound inspiration in taking up a task that had been handed down from generation to generation through an unbroken line of chroniclers of whom the Abbey was justly proud. Well he knew that the world owed a great debt to those patient, industrious monks in every land, who faithfully set down the doings of those that lived in the world. Surely if it had been left to those that spent their lives in the midst of the fray, it had never been done—not alone from lack of time, but from lack of clerkly knowledge as well. Right glad he was to take up the task done by that Gildas who had painted in fiery colors the misery of the Britons when the Romans departed; by the venerable Bede, father of Catholic history; by Ingulphus, Abbot of Croyland; by William of Malmesbury, "the Great Chronicler," fountain-head of English history, chronicler of the monastery of Malmesbury, who grew so to love his work that he refused to give it up to become Abbot of the monastery.

The great book into which the Chronicle of St. Dunstan was entered was treated with the greatest possible veneration. It lay in a conspicuous place in the scriptorium, and no one but the chronicler was permitted to make entries in it. When any great piece of news was brought to the monastery that seemed worth recording, the person giving the information wrote out his version of the story on a loose piece of parchment and slipped his communication into the book of annals for the authorized compiler to make use of in any way that seemed best to him after due examination of the evidence.

There came a day in June, a wonderful day when Nature put forth at once all her attractions in one burst of rapture after the long, hard winter. The garden in the close was one mass of brilliant color, and the air was overpoweringly languorous with the sweet fragrance. Annys went to his daily task reluctantly, so ardently did Nature woo him to remain outdoors. As he stood for a moment hesitating on the threshold of the scriptorium, the words of the poet Chaucer came to him:—

He smiled to find how perfectly the poet had expressed his own mood. He seldom found in Chaucer's joyous, buoyant nature a note that appealed to him so intimately as did the voice of the sombre wanderer among the Malvern Hills. At last he turned his back resolutely upon the picture of loveliness and entered the scriptorium. The scene that greeted his eyes was a busy one, and yet one of great charm. Not one black-robed form that was not earnestly engaged in work of some kind; here one bending closely over some old Latin text that had been destroyed almost beyond recognition; there one deftly engaged in cutting great sheets of vellum; over in a corner an artist holding his hand poised in uncertainty over several pots of color; near him was one sharpening a quill; another patiently awaited his turn for some longed-for volume; and yet two more were carefully copying a score of music with large notes, that the beginners in the choir could easily read it. Work, and no shirking of it, yet an atmosphere of perfect peace and content, for it was work done in joy, and therefore lifted to the realm of Art.

Oh, the wonderful, indescribable peace! How far off were the turmoil, the doubt, the responsibility, the unjoyful, incessant toil, the infinite woe, the weary burden of the world. Even as the pioneer monks had built their monasteries always in some hidden vale protected by high hills from the north winds that their crops might flourish, so their lives were protected from all contact with the great currents of action that swept by outside. The storm-centres of protest and unrest, the whirlwinds of revolt—all passed over and around the walls of the monastery, unknown, unfelt, unsuggested.

Robert Annys owed much to the Abbey of St. Dunstan. He had been as a helpless mariner in the fierce grip of a storm. He had been swept by tumultuous waves, his ears had been deafened by the awful voices of the warring elements, and suddenly he had drifted into a sheltered harbor, and the same winds that had beaten furiously upon him, here but peacefully rocked his bark upon the quiet waters.

Poor fool! before he had sought a haven here, how the woe of the world had weighed upon him! How foolish he had been to feel a personal responsibility in the actions of Divine Providence! There were some mortals who acted as if all the wrongs on earth were to be righted between sunrise and sunset. He had been one of those. How faintly the echoes of his past existence came to him here.

He opened the ponderous volume. He had been thinking the day before, when the daylight had faded and he had reluctantly left his work, of a new and charming device for an initial letter H, which he had been about to trace. It was to be something quite novel in the way of decoration, and he expected to receive great approbation for it. His fingers hovered in some uncertainty over the brushes before he could make up his mind which one was the very finest. Then, having made the auspicious selection, it remained for him to choose between a paint of brilliant scarlet or one with the depth of the sun-warmed strawberry in it. Finally he chose the brilliant scarlet. As he bent over the page, he noticed for the first time a slip of paper which had evidently been placed between the pages of the Chronicle during his absence.

The room swam about him for an instant. He was obliged to clutch the high desk upon which the folio rested to save himself from falling. He looked at the indifferent backs of the monks bending over their work; a great fury came over him, and he longed to strike and beat them, that they could so placidly pore over their books, while this thing was going on outside. Before his agitation was noticed, he had recovered sufficiently to ask permission to leave the scriptorium and seek the air in the close.