Richard Englefield listened to the Abbot’s assertion that making of
inner vessels of gold for heaven’s use was of more import than were
dishes for abbot’s table and for gifts. He agreed, but his mind said,
“Since when did you find that out?”
Moreover, he would miss his work. He missed it.
When he came to confession he met another change,--namely, severity in
penance. Heretofore he had been the severe one with himself. Now his
spiritual fathers took it over. “Why?” asked his mind, but his hunger
for holiness and his will harnessed to that hunger rebuked his mind.
“Have we not agreed that they are our masters in heavenly law? Then
learn the lessons they give! Cease to cavil and question! Did you so
with Godfrey the Master Smith?”
He accepted penance, watched, fasted, scourged himself. He grew very
thin, less strong of frame than he had been. Sleeplessness, even when
he was given or gave himself leave to sleep, fastened itself upon him.
It was as though his soul ceaselessly walked a dungeon. “O God, where
is thy heaven? If I might see it or feel it!”
The great picture in the church lost its mystery and enchantment and
power. It was a dead canvas to him. “O my soul, come thou forth!”
He was kept solitary in his cell. Solitude did not appal him, seeing
that he had ever been artist, able to people it. But one day when a
strong sunbeam came through the window his mind said loudly, and as it
were it shook him by the shoulders. “Why this straitness with thee?
What are they about?”
But he was afraid to listen,--Richard Englefield, fearing for his soul.
Fear, casting about for aid, found Vanity in a small hidden chamber,
sitting there with closed lids, somewhat faint and unnourished. He
brought her forth and sent her up, strengthening as she came. “It is
seen that I begin to light this monastery! They would trim the lamp.”
Fear, Vanity, Pride and Old Credulity!
At Martinmas the Abbot sent him to Westforest. It was heavy penance for
monk to go to Westforest that was small, hard and bare beside Silver
Cross, that had rude living, that owned a Prior could give tasks, set
one to heavy and distasteful work. Brother Richard Englefield was not
put to handwork, but again to watching, fasting, cries to all the
Saints, to Jesu and Mary Mother and God the Father.
He fell ill at Westforest. He was not laid in hospital but left in
the Westforest penitential cell, though they spread a pallet for him
where had been bare stone. Prior Matthew visited him here. He came in
the day, and he came, taper in hand, by night. He had a medicine which
he gave Brother Richard. He himself dropped a few dark drops into
a cup of water or of milk and held it to the monk’s lips. “Drink!”
After the first time Richard Englefield tried to put it away. “On your
obedience!” said the Prior sternly. The monk drank.
He began to recover from the illness that had prostrated him. But
something seemed to have gone from his life and something seemed to
have come into it. One night in this cell he heard a voice. “Richard!
Richard!” it cried. He could not tell whence it came; it seemed
above him. He sat up. “Who speaks?” But when it said “Willebrod, who
was martyred,” he stared incredulous. Sunshine and mind and his old
workshop in the old high-roofed town flooded back to him. “Is voice
from heaven twin pea to voice of earth? I have even heard better voices
of earth!” He seemed again to be working in the red, pleasant light of
his old furnace, knowing good and not-so-good when he met them. He
thought, “If I do not go to sleep I shall be seeing, hearing, like any
madman!” He turned, drew the scant covering over him and slept.
But the next day Prior Matthew said that he was not so well, and, on
his obedience he drank again the dark medicine. The taste of it was
stronger, there was more of it. Again he heard voices. “Are they true
voices--or what?” But he was dull to them, uncaring of them. “Surely I
would know the ring of gold!”
He grew better, rose from his pallet and moved about the cell, was
permitted now to go, when rang the bell, into church. Sent there for
penance one winter eve between vespers and compline, he suddenly, at
a turn of the stone corridor, dark, chill and deserted, saw what he
must suppose to be a vision. There was a great patch of light and in
it a man standing who must be Saint Willebrod because he was dressed
and coloured and more or less featured like Saint Willebrod in the
painting on the wall, and he carried a silver cross. Brother Richard
stood still. Then, making to advance, his foot struck some obstruction.
Weakened as he was, he stumbled and fell. When he could rise the vision
was gone.
Only Vanity could explain why the Prior should become his confessor.
The fact of the voices and the vision was drawn forth. “You are
greatly honoured, my son! If greater favour yet comes to you, forget
not humility--”
But he told of his own honesty how cold voices and vision left his
heart, how unamazed his mind, and that he could but think them dreams
of his sickness somehow bodied forth. The Prior looked sternly and
shook his head. “They come truly, we hold! But it is seen that thou art
as dull as ditch water--black ember that will not respond--tongue that
hath lost taste--soul that will not be fervent! Scourge thyself into
meekness to heaven--into that glow that will take whatever cometh!”
Richard Englefield plied the scourge. He was weak now and his eyes
dazzled, and truly phantasies pageanted before him in sound and line
and colour. He saw images, and sometimes they were beautiful and
sometimes deadly. He heard sounds, and some were honey-sweet and others
grating or mocking. But still said his being, “They come from no High
Reality. Have I not, being artist, always in some sort heard and seen?
O God, O God! help thou me who am dead!”
Prior Matthew regarded him darkly. Westforest rode one day to Silver
Cross, talked there with Abbot Mark. “There has been mistake! He is not
your Friar Paul kind!”
The Abbot’s pride arose. “For three years Silver Cross hath seen him
one apart!”
“Perhaps! He would not,” said Matthew sourly, “have far to go, as
monks are in these days, to stand apart and above. My point is that
you cannot make him ecstatic. So far it is beyond me to set the mill
running! He hath been ill, and his body hath arrived at emaciation.
I have given him that elixir you wot of. Usually it sets the fancy
skipping, brews a kind of wild readiness at seeing, hearing! And, if I
read him aright, he wants heaven to descend upon him. I provided him to
hear and see one who told him he was Saint Willebrod. Brother Anselm,
you know, whom I took from among the players, and is--God pardon
us!--as dog to my hand--” He spread out his hands.
The Abbot groaned. “The end that we propose is good!”
“Assuredly it is! It all goes into the homely bag of homely deceits
necessary in this poor world. But the end is that as yet we have done
naught!”
The Abbot sighed. “Could we take him into counsel?”
“No!”
“Then what shall we do? You have heard that Saint Leofric healed the
French Knight? He gave candlesticks of pure gold. Shall we give it all
up, Matthew?”
“Not yet. If I could find his true heart and mind--then might we beckon
appearances that corresponded. He seems interested in a far land and
in somehow going there--and going has to be bodily, all of him! What
appears will have to strike him down, like Saint Paul on Damascus
road--clean him of doubt, be a blaze to him, a burning bush!”
The Abbot sighed. Prior Matthew sat fixed, with cloudy brows, seeking
inspiration.
He returned to Westforest. The next day, sitting in Prior’s stall in
the cold, small church, he kept his eyes fast upon the monk Richard. He
noted his turning, he noted his uplifted, now bloodless face, and his
eyes directed to the copy of the Silver Cross picture. Prior Matthew
half closed his own eyes, covered, as was his wont when he was playing
chess, his mouth with his hand.
Again the Prior sat as confessor. The kneeling monk met gathered
subtlety and old skill. Deep, recessed matters, loves and longings,
must come forth.
The Prior listened, questioned, listened, and at both was skilfull. He
imposed penance, and in part it was to be performed at Silver Cross,
“--returning there as you do, my son, this week.”
The monk bowed his head. He had not known when, or indeed if ever,
he should return to Silver Cross. It was among his efforts at
self-crucifixion not to care. As it was his effort here and at Silver
Cross to withdraw attention from outward happenings, outward talk. No
other of his brethren knew so little as he of the flare and clang about
Saint Leofric.
He returned to Silver Cross. The bell rang for the noon office.
He went into church with his brethren. With them he bowed, stood,
chanted, kneeled. It was nigh to Christmas tide, a clear winter day.
The sun dwelled in each jewel pane of the windows and shot thence
arrows of love. The sun blessed nave and aisles and high groined
roof. The candles stood like angels, the great picture glowed. It was
a home-coming. Warmness wrapped his heart that had been naked and
desolate. All grew fair, honest, friendly. He was glad to see the
Brothers, even those he had most distasted, glad to see Abbot Mark,
cloister and church, all things! Out of topaz and amber a beam touched
the carven tomb of Montjoy’s wife. It warmed the Lady Isabel, lying
in robe and mantle with a half smile upon her face. Not Montjoy only,
but also Richard Englefield thought stone form and face had strange
likeness to those of the Glorified in the picture. Now the light warmed
her, too, the pale, golden lady, so still, so still, waiting for the
Resurrection.
Amber light, topaz light. But on the great picture every heart-red,
every heavenly blue, every rose and every lily, the upward flowing
amethyst and the diamond light above, where no more might be seen. His
heart bowed, his heart grew alive. “Ah, Blessed among women, I am come
back!”