Life in the monastery thus has a strict routine which soon becomes a perfect habit with most of the inmates. Of course, monks working in the fields are not required to come in for all the daytime offices--they can drop their tools when the great bell rings and pray in silence reverently standing. In nunneries about the same divisions of time are applied, although chaplains have to come in to say mass. The one thing impressing every visitor to a well-ruled monastery is the intense sense of order as compared with the tumult and coarse informality characteristic of even the better castle. To a certain type of mind this regularity is indescribably fascinating apart from any question of its advantages in religion.
To ask how the different brethren of St. Aliquis come to enter its portals is to ask as many individual questions. The abbot is typical of many companions, who were placed there because worldly prospects were small and because they were decently urged by their relatives. Sometimes the pressure was not mild. There are a few brethren who seem discontented men without vocation, chafing against irrevocable vows taken practically under compulsion, and yearning to be back in the world. There is also one coarse, scar-visaged old man who was a robber knight. "Tonsure or the scaffold?" so the duke had put the question. To such a person the monastery is nothing but an honorable prison. There are, however, two or three other elderly ex-cavaliers here for a better reason--they have been overwhelmed with a consciousness of their crimes and are genuinely anxious to redeem their souls. A considerable proportion of the monks are gentle, although the majority are non-nobles. If of the latter class, however, they have been subjected to searching scrutiny before entrance, to make sure they will be useful members of the community. If they are mere clownish peasants, they are often taken only as _conversi_ (lay brethren), who learn a few prayers, but spend most of their time on the abbey farms and who do not sleep in the dormitory.
The greater number of the monks have apparently joined voluntarily in early manhood--because they are repelled by the confusion and grubbing hardships of the world, because they have a hankering for an intellectual life, and because they are genuinely anxious to deliver their souls. After a round of fêtes, tournaments, and forays, many a young knight has suddenly turned from them all, announced to his companions: "What profit? Where will I spend eternity?" said farewell to his beloved destrer, and knocked at the convent door. Sometimes he has sickened too late of his choice. More often in this new world of chants, solemn offices, books, honest toil, gently spoken words, and quietness he has discovered a satisfaction not possessed by his brother who is still messire the seigneur.