He felt at ease sitting at a small desk surrounded by the paraphernalia so beloved of any industrious clerk: inkhorns; finely honed quills, thin cutting knives and small grey stones of pumice for smoothing the white scrubbed parchment. Corbett chattered to the monks, he could not understand their native tongue but many were fluent in Latin or French. They informed Corbett of the divisions in their country, the difference between the Highlands held by the ancient Celts and the South Lowlands dominated by the Anglo-Norman families such as the Bruces, Comyns, Stewarts and Lennoxes, very similar in their ways to the great families of England who served the great King Edward I. Indeed, as the Prior, a tall, austere man with a dry, sardonic sense of humour, pointed out, many of the monks in birth, education and tradition were really no different from Corbett. The clerk could only agree and soon felt at home in Holy Rood, offering to help the brothers in their scriptorium, exchanging ideas and constantly praising what he saw.

Corbett was tactful enough never to draw comparisons or appear to criticise. Privately, he was more than aware of the deep differences between the two countries. There was more wealth in England and so greater sophistication, whether it be in the use and treatment of parchment or the building of castles and churches. He remembered the soaring purity of Westminster Abbey with its pointed arches, trellised stonework, large windows and coloured glass and realised the contrast as he looked at the primitive rather dark simplicity of the Abbey of Holy Rood with its stout round columns, small, deep splayed windows and dog-tooth stone carving above a simple square nave and chancel. Nevertheless, there was an energy and openness about the monks which cut through Corbett's jaded outlook and soft sophistication. Moreover, the monks like those in England, loved to talk, chatter and discuss. The Abbey kept its own chronicle and it was easy for Corbett to turn the conversation to the recent happenings in Scotland and so glean useful information, even though it was based on the gossip of a monastic library.