Page:Fountains Abbey.djvu/118

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strongly in those days to the heroic, and even to the religious nature of many men. But Ralph did not like it. It displeased him much. And one day, coming to Fountains, where his father had already become a monk, he consulted a lay-brother, whose name was Sunnulph, homo simplex et illiteratus but wise in the counsels of God. And presently, the soldier and the brother each had a dream in the same day. The knight dreamed that he was in a church, and that the figure on the crucifix cried saying, "Why do you not come? Why do you wait?" To which he replied with tears, "Behold, Lord, I come!" The monk, sleeping in the long dormitory over the storehouse, saw the soldier dressed in a monastic habit. So Ralph became a monk, and presently an abbot.

The possibility of that promotion brought some men into the monastery. In a world hopelessly divided into classes, the monastery was the residence

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