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And after all," he went on talking to the wide grey sky rather than to Mark, "the old monks were great tillers of the soil. It's right that we should maintain the tradition. Besides, all those years in Malta I've dreamed just this. Brother Birinus and I have stewed on those sun-baked heights above Valetta and dreamed of this. What made you join our Order?" he asked abruptly.
Augustine began his work in Kent late in the sixth century, and Birinus, who was sent independently direct from Rome, had undertaken the conversion of the West Saxons fifteen years before the middle of the succeeding century. But neither by these missionaries nor their brethren was the territory of the South Saxons affected.
Here now was Brother Birinus throwing away as useless the bundle of palms that lacked the blessing of a priest, throwing them away like dead flowers. Sir Charles Horner, who had been in town, arrived at the Abbey on the Tuesday, and announced that he was going to spend Holy Week with the Community. "We have no chaplain," Mark told him. "No chaplain!" Sir Charles exclaimed.
There was some debate whether Father Burrowes, Brother George, and Brother Birinus should take their final vows immediately; but in the end Father Burrowes had his way, and they were all three professed by the sympathetic Bishop of Alberta, who granted them a constitution subject to the ratification of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Brother Birinus, who was Brother George's right hand in the Abbey as much as he had been his right hand on the Moose Rib farm, was even taller than the Prior; but he was lanky and raw-boned, and had not the proportions of Brother George. He was of a swarthy complexion, not given to talking much, although when he did speak he always spoke to the point.
The men were told to go and report themselves to Brother Birinus, who with Brother Dunstan to feed the drill was sowing oats a field or two away. "I don't think Brother Birinus will be sorry to let Brother Dunstan go back to his domestic duties," the Prior commented sardonically. Mark was turning to go back to his domestic duties when Brother George signed to him to stop.
The priest who received Cynegil into the Church was one Birinus, an Italian, and perhaps a Milanese; he appears, from his first presence in Dorchester, to have fixed the seat of a bishopric in that village. His reasons for choosing the spot are as impossible to discover as are the origins of any other of the characteristics of the place.
We only had one sister, Bertha, and she has married the Thane Herstan of Clifton, near Dorchester, the seat of our good bishop Aelfhelm, and the shrine of holy Birinus. My father and mother both sleep the sleep of the just. They lived to see their children happy and prosperous, and then departed amidst the lamentations of all who had known and loved them.
After the death of Birinus, the zeal of his successors failed to evangelise the southeastern districts of Wessex, until, at length, came Wilfrid, fervent in zeal, and, stationing himself at Selsey, near Chichester, evangelised both Sussex and Wessex, sending out missionaries like-minded with himself, even into the most inaccessible wilds.
"Peas!" the Prior scoffed. "Who cares about peas?" "Oh, Reverend Brother!" cried Brother Simon, his hair standing up with excitement. "We couldn't do without peas." Brother Simon was assistant cook nowadays, a post he filled tolerably well under the supervision of the one-legged soldier who was cook. "We couldn't do without oats," said Brother Birinus severely.
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