Up in the castle also was company to supper. William, Lord of Montjoy,
entertained his cousin, Abbot Mark from Silver Cross, and Prior Matthew
of Westforest, a dependent House further up the Wander. Montjoy showed
a small, dark, wistful man. The Abbot had too much flesh for comfort,
a great, handsome, egg-shaped face, and a manner that oozed bland,
undoubting authority. He had long ago settled that he was good and
wise. But, strangely, was left the struggle to be happy! It took a
man’s time! Just there, something or some one perpetually interfered!
But it was something to be sure that you served God and Holy Church.
Asked how he served, he might, after cogitation, have answered that he
served by his being. Moreover, as times went, he was scrupulous, gave
small houseroom to scandal, ruled monk and tenant, beautified the great
church of Silver Cross, bought Italian altar pictures.
Matthew of Westforest was another sort. Tall and shrivelled and
reddish, he had another manner of wit.
The three supped in the castle hall, at the upper end of a table
accommodating a half-score above the salt and thrice that number below.
Beside Montjoy sat Lady Alice, his wife. There were likewise a young
girl, his daughter Isabel, and his sister, also young, married and
widowed, Dame Elenore.
Abbot Mark talked much to these three, benevolently, with gallantry
looking around corners. The Prior maintained silence here. The features
he secretly praised were the beautiful features of Outward Advancement.
Montjoy at supper talked little. After a life of apparent unconcern he
was beginning to think of soul’s life. Perhaps once a day he felt a
shift of consciousness. Now it came like a zephyr from some differing,
surely sweeter clime, and now like a clean dagger stroke. After these
events, which never took more time to happen than the winking of an
eye, he saw some great expanse of things differently. He was learning
to lie in wait for these instants. Laid one to another, they were
becoming the hub around which the day’s wheel ran. But truly they
were but instants and came but once in so often, taking him when it
pleased them. And the lightning might have showed him--perhaps did show
him--that there was an unknown number of things yet to change. They
might be very many. He knew in no wise definitely whence came the
fragrant air and the dagger strokes.
At the moment when the chronicle opens, he had turned back, in his
questing, to the broad realm of Holy Church. Holy Church said that she
sat, acquiescent, wise, at the door through which such things came. In
fact, she said, she had the keys. Montjoy, being no fool, saw, indeed,
how much of the portress was lewd and drunken. But for all that surely
she had been given the keys! Given them once, surely she could not have
parted with them! He rebuked the notion. And truly he knew much that
was good of the portress, much that was very good. He thought, “I will
better serve Religion”--conceiving that to be Holy Church’s high name.
But he was bewildered between high name and low name, between the saint
there in the portress and the evident harlot. Between the goodness and
the evil!
He was led by a longing for union and he only knew that it was not
for old unions that once had contented. He could have those at any
time if he willed them again. But he knew that they would not content.
The longing was larger and demanded a larger reciprocal. He was
knight-errant now in the interior land of romance, out to find that
reciprocal, visited with gleams from some presence, but wandering
often, turning in mistake now here, now there.
Supper ended. Abbot Mark had come to the castle for counsel, or at
the least, for intelligent sympathy. It was too general in the hall.
The withdrawing room would be better. They went to this, but still
there was play, with a fire for a cool June evening, with lights and
musical instruments, Dame Elenore’s hands upon the virginals, young
Isabel’s fresh voice singing with a young knight, man of Montjoy’s, two
gentlewomen serving Lady Alice murmuring over a tapestry frame,--and
the Abbot soothed, happy, in the great chair near Dame Elenore. Prior
Matthew shook himself. “Business! Business!” was his true motto and
inner word. He spoke in a low voice to the Abbot, deferentially, for
the Priory deduced from the Abbey, but monitory also, perhaps even
minatory. Abbot and Prior alike knew that when it came to business the
Prior had the head.
The Abbot sighed and turned from Dame Elenore to Montjoy who was
brooding, chin on fist, eyes on fire. “We must ride early to Silver
Cross, Montjoy! Counsel is good, they say, taken in the warm, still
hour before bedtime.”
Dame Elenore lifted her hands from the virginals. Montjoy’s wife spoke
to her women and, the song being done, to her daughter. “We will go,
my lord. Give you good night! Your blessing, Lord Abbot!” She kneeled
for it, as did young Isabel and Dame Elenore and the two gentlewomen
and the young knight and Gilbert the page. The Abbot blessed; the
women and the young men took their departure. Montjoy and Silver Cross
and Westforest had the room and the fire and through the window the
view, did they choose to regard it, of the town roofs and twisting,
crack-like streets, and of the river, now under the gleaming of a
rising moon, and a line that was the bridge, and a mound on the farther
side crowned by a twinkling constellation, lights of Saint Leofric’s
monks. The Abbot did so look, walking heavily the room and pausing by
the window. It was with peevish face and gesture that he returned to
the great chair “Do you hear each day, Montjoy, louder news of what
Hugh is doing?”
“Is it Prior Hugh, or is it Saint Leofric? If it be Hugh, I say that
long since we knew that he was ambitious and glory-covetous. If it be
the saint--how shall you war against him?”
“If Saint Willebrod would arise to war--”
“Would they war--two saints?”
“Would he not come to aid of St. Robert, St. Bernard, St. Stephen
and Abbey of Silver Cross? Just as Montjoy would draw blade for his
suzerain? Chivalry, loyalty and fealty must hold in heaven,” said the
Abbot.
“If there is One behind Saint Leofric--”
“Never believe it!” The Prior spoke hastily. “Moreover, my son, it is
certainly not Leofric. It is Hugh!”
Montjoy sat brooding. His guests watched him. Presently he spoke. “Two
days ago, returning from hawking in Long Fields, I met a man who had
sat and woven baskets from his youth because he could not walk, being
smitten in both feet. He was walking, he was skipping and running.
‘Saint Leofric! Saint Leofric!’ he kept crying out, and those with him
cried, ‘Saint Leofric! Saint Leofric!’ I halted one of them. ‘The right
hand and arm--the right hand and arm that were found, lord! He touched
but the little finger--and look how he leaps and runs!’”
The Abbot groaned.
“I rode on farther and I met a stream of folk on their way to the
bridge. They had made themselves into a procession and were chanting. I
remember easily and I can almost give you their chant. It ran something
like this.”
He began to chant, but not loudly.
“‘They were found through a dream,
They were shown to Brother Paul,
A saintly monk,
Where they rested
Under a stone
In a place prepared of old
In Saint Leofric’s great church!
The white bones,
The right arm and the right hand,
Miraculous!
In the monk’s dream
They shone through the stone
Making a pool of light.
Saint Leofric painted in the window
Came down and kneeled over it.’”
Again the Abbot groaned. “So saith Hugh!”
“‘Good Prior Hugh made to dig.
There in sweet earth,
In spices and linen,
The right hand and arm
At last!
Yea, it shineth forth--
Saint Leofric smileth in his window!’”
The Abbot groaned the third time. “Sathanas smileth!”
“‘Now are the bones together,
They shine with a sunny light,
Working miracles!--
From the four corners come
The sick and the sorrowful--’”
“Aye! Bringing gifts!”
“‘Saint Leofric’s name is in all mouths,
His glory encreaseth over Silver Cross!’”
“I should not have said it--I should not have said it!” cried the
Abbot. “But with the inconstant and weak generality it doth! What is it
this part England rings with--yea, that the rest of England begins to
learn? Do we not hear that a pilgrimage comes from London itself? _The
missing bones of Saint Leofric have been found!_”
“And have they not?” said Montjoy.
There followed a pause. A log cracked and fell upon the hearth. Light
and shadow leaped about the room. The Prior spoke. “It is a matter of
observation,” he said, and seemed to study his ring, “that there are
cases when acts belief as belief, whether it be correctly addressed to
a reality or squandered before a falsity.”
“I have met that witch,” answered Montjoy, “and she palsies me!” He
went to the window and stood looking out at the moon-silvered town
and river. Presently back he came. “Against what or whom do you shake
a lance? If it be against a saint and his true miracles, I lay the
quarrel down--”
Abbot Mark spoke weightily. “And so should I, Montjoy, and so should
I! But if it be against falsity? If it be against Hugh and his frauds?”
“Prove that!”
The Abbot turned toward the Prior. The latter nodded and spoke. “We
brought with us two wandering friars--Franciscans. Westforest has known
them long. They are not the idle and greedy rogues that bring us down
with the people. They are right Mendicants, travelling from place to
place to do good. Will it please you have them summoned?”
A silver bell stood upon the table. Montjoy struck it. His page
appeared, took commands and bowing vanished. Abbot Mark began to
speak of the church at Silver Cross and how he would make it so rich
and beautiful! Now Montjoy loved this church. Buried beneath it were
his parents, and buried his first young wife, the one whom he loved
as he did not love Dame Alice. It was she he had loved through and
beyond Morgen Fay, loving something of her in that sinner from whom,
in concern for his soul, he had parted. He listened to the Abbot.
Certainly Silver Cross was the highest, the most beauteous, and must be
kept so! He knew Silver Cross, church and cloister, in and out, when
he was a boy and after. He had love and concern for it--love almost of
a lover--jealous love. Prior Hugh and Saint Leofric must not go beyond
bounds!
The two friars entered, Andrew and Barnaby, honest-looking men, Andrew
the more intelligent. They stood by the door with hands crossed and
Montjoy observed them. Given permission to advance and speak they came
discreetly, with modesty, into conclave. Without preamble, they began.
The Abbot spoke. “My sons, the Lord Montjoy who hath ever been devout
toward Saint Willebrod and his Abbey of Silver Cross--yea, who hath
been, like his father before him, advocate and protector and enricher
of the same, bringing from overseas emeralds, rubies and sapphires
for that marvel the casket where lies that world’s marvel, the cross
of Saint Willebrod--the Lord Montjoy, my sons, would have from
your own lips that which you heard and saw in April, it now being
late June.--Question them, Matthew, so that they may show it forth
expeditiously.”
The Prior squared himself to the task. “Where were you, my sons, two
weeks before Easter?”
“Across the river, reverend father. The granddame of Brother Barnaby
here, living at Damson Lane, was breathing her last and greatly wishful
to see him. She died--may her soul rest--and we buried her. Then we
would go a little further, not having been upon yonder side for some
while.”
“You did not go brawling along, nor fled into every alehouse as if
Satan were after you?”
“Lord of Montjoy, we are not friars of that stripe. We are clean men
and sober, praise God and Our Lady!”
“Aye, aye, they speak truth, Montjoy.--Well, you walked in country over
there, avoiding Friary and town--if one can call that clump of mud,
pebble and thatch a town!”
“Why did you do that?”
“Brother Barnaby, lord, had had a dream. In it a Shining One plucked up
towns like weeds and threw them one by one into a great and deep pit.
There was left alive only country road, heath and field and wood. So he
awoke quaking and said, ‘I go through never a town gate this journey!’”
“That was a discomfortable dream!”
The Abbot spoke. “I interpret it. The towns, one by one, are that one
which Hugh, dreaming and dreaming again, thinks to see rise beside
his Friary, built from pilgrims’ wealth, with hostels for pilgrims
and merchants to sell them goods, and a great house for nobles who
come!--But a Shining One, Hugh! topples them into ditches, yea, into
gulfs, as fast as you build them! Ha! Go on, my son!”
“So we passed the town and we wandered, reverend father, until we came
to the chapel of Damson Hill, three miles from Saint Leofric’s, where
the dead country folk lie under green grass. Damson Wood is hard by,
where watches and prays the good hermit Gregory--”
“Aye, aye, a good man!” said Montjoy.
“By now the sun was setting. He gave us water and bread, and after
praying we lay down to sleep with only our gowns for bed and bedding.
Brother Barnaby and I slept, but on the middle of the night we waked.
Then saw we the hermit standing praying, and when he saw that we no
longer slept he said to us, ‘Misdoing is moving through this night.
Misdoing in high places!’ So he went to the door and stood a long time
looking out, then took his staff and strode forth, and Brother Barnaby
and I followed.”
“I know that he is said to have the greater vision,” said Montjoy.
“Moreover, once in my life, he told me high truth.”
“Where did the holy man go, my son?”
“He went through the black night, reverend father, to Damson Hill and
to the great and ill-kept graveyard under the shadow. Brother Barnaby
and I followed him. He walked softly and he walked swiftly and he
walked silently, and when we came there we did not stop by the chapel
which truly is a ruin, but we went on to the far slope of the yard--”
The Prior said, “Where they are buried who died long since, of the
plague that came in King Richard’s time.”
“I know the place,” said Montjoy.
“Reverend father, there are three yew trees, old, I reckon, as Damson
Hill, and thick. Like one who knows what he is about he passed within
the castle of these and we followed and made a place whence we looked
forth like eyes out of a skull. And we saw, across the dead field, a
little light burning blue and coming toward us. Arm of the hill hid it
from the road. But had any belated seen it he would most certainly have
thought, ‘A ghost among the graves!’ and taken to his heels.”
“It came toward you. Who carried it?”
“One of six, reverend father. We were there in the yew clump with
less noise than maketh a bat. They came closer and closer and at last
they came close, and now they did not shelter their lantern for they
thought, ‘The shoulder of the hill and the yew trees hide, and who
should be abroad in this place in the black and middle night, and who
should know of a villainy working?’”
The Abbot brought his finger tips together. “It is ever
discovered!--They dig a pit and fall into it; they open a grave and
lift out their own perdition!”
“They opened a grave?”
“Yes, lord. A very ancient, sunken one.”
“Some unknown,” said the Prior. “Some wretch of ancient time, seized
by the plague, dying--who knows?--unshriven, lazar mayhap or thief!
Proceed, my son!”
“Two had spades. They spread a great cloth. They lay the green turf to
one side of this, and in the middle the earth of the grave. They work
hard and they work fast, and a monk directs--”
“Monk of Saint Leofric’s?”
“Aye, lord, Dominican. White-and-black. They open the grave and they
bring forth bones--the frame of that perished one.”
The Abbot groaned. “Perished mayhap in his sins--yea, almost certainly
in his sins--and so no better than heathen or than sorcerer!”
“They spread a second cloth, and having shaken forth the earth, they
put in it the bones of that obscure--yea, right arm and hand with the
rest--”
“See you, Montjoy?”
“Then, having that which they need, they fill in the grave with
care. They put over it the sod they had taken away. Rain and sun must
presently make it whole. And probably no man hath ever gone that way to
look. So the six went away as though they had moth wings, and now with
no light--”
“Yet they give forth that right hand and arm doth shine, giving light
whereby a reading man may read! Wherefore--oh, Hugh!--shone it not by
Damson Hill?”
Said Montjoy, “All this is enough to father Suspicion, but the child
must be named Certainty.”
“Then listen further!--Proceed, my son. You two and the hermit
followed?”
“We followed, reverend father. Under Damson Hill those six parted, and
three went by divers ways, belike to their own dwellings. But the three
with the bones they had digged went Saint Leofric’s road. We followed
Blackfriar and his fellows who would be lay brethren. The moon shone
out. We followed to Friary Gate and saw them enter.”
“And then?”
“Gregory the hermit turned and went again to Damson Wood, and we with
him. When we came to his cell there was red east.”
“What did you think of what you had seen?”
“We could conceive naught, lord. We did not know that which was to
be proclaimed in Easter week. But the hermit said thrice, ‘Villainy!
Villainy! Villainy! A shepherd hath turned villain!’”
Brother Barnaby came in. “He said besides, ‘I see what you cannot see,
good brothers! But dimly, and I cannot explain to myself what I see.’”
“I had forgot that.”
“He said also. ‘Talk not, till you know of what you are talking,’ and
he took from us a promise of silence.”
“I was coming to that, brother.--We are not gabblers, reverend father.
We left Damson Wood and came down to the bridge and crossed river to
our own side. We said naught, remembering, ‘Talk not till you know of
what you are talking.’ Two days went by, and then near Little Winching,
up the Wander, down lay Brother Barnaby with a fever, and I must nurse
him for a month. He, being very sick, forgot, and I being busy and
concerned, nigh forgot Damson Graveyard and Saint Leofric’s Gate. Then,
Brother Barnaby getting well and we walking in a fair morning to Little
Winching, there meets us all the bruit!”
“And still”--Brother Barnaby came in again--“we said nothing. But it
burned our hearts. So said Brother Andrew, ‘We will go take this thing
to Prior Matthew of Westforest.’”
“And so they did, according to right inner counsel,” said the Prior. He
turned in his chair. “You may go now, my sons. But on your obedience,
speak as yet to none other of these things!”
Brother Andrew and Brother Barnaby craved blessing, received it and
vanished. There was pause, then, “If we check not Hugh,” said the
Abbot, “we shall have loss and shame, being no longer the first, the
pupil of the eye, to this part England!”
“If they spoke,” said Montjoy, “none would believe them against the
miracles. Nor do I know if I would believe. Say that one saw the robbed
grave--what then? One travels not much further! I would believe, I
think, the hermit.”
“Then will you ride, Montjoy, to Damson Wood?”
“Yes, I will go there. But my believing and yours and Gregory’s and the
friars’ make not yet the people’s believing. Here is stuff for splendid
quarrel with Hugh--but in the meantime go the folk in rivers, touch the
relics and are healed!”
“What we need,” said the Prior, and he spoke slowly and cautiously, “is
counter-miracle.”
“Yes, but you cannot order the Saints!”
“No.”
It was again the Prior who spoke and apparently in agreement. The Abbot
sighed. “Well, let us to bed!--Go to Damson Wood, Montjoy, and then
ride to Silver Cross.”
“I will do that. I see,” said Montjoy, “the mischief that this thing
does you--”
Even as he spoke he had a vision of the Abbey church of Silver Cross.
He saw the tombs and the sculptured figure of Isabel whom he had
loved, and the great altar painting of Our Lady done in Italy. Under
the breath of his mind he thought that that form and face were like
Isabel’s. So like that almost she might have been in that Italian
painter’s mind when he painted this glorified woman standing buoyant,
in carnation and sapphire, among clouds that thinned into clear blue
that passed in its turn into light that blinded. He saw the glowing
glass in the great windows; he saw the gems--the gems that he had given
among them--sparkling in the golden box that held the silver cross. He
saw the people on holy days flooding the famous church. They warmed
with eyes of life the stone mother and father, the stone Isabel. The
many people’s bended knees, their recognition, helped to assure eternal
life in the Queen of Heaven pictured in the great painting,--and surely
so in Isabel, the picture was so like her! The more people the more
life--Isabel surely safely there in the eternal Bride and Mother--and
if Isabel then surely he, too, her lover and husband, he, too,
Montjoy! The people must flow there still, recognising life when they
saw it and as it were, giving life, increasing life.
Anything that turned the people away from Silver Cross became in that
act the enemy of Montjoy; anything that kept them flowing there, that
made them more in number, the friend of Montjoy.
But Abbot and Prior, lodged in connecting chambers and speaking
together before they laid themselves to sleep in huge beds, shook their
heads over him. Or rather the Abbot did so. The Prior was not liberal
with sighs and gestures. “He’ll agree to no shift that smacks of the
lie, however slight, necessary, simply defensive, pious it be--”
“Are you sure? I am not,” answered Matthew. “But if he will not--keep
him blind like other men, blind and usable! He may indeed prove more
usable for being blind.”