Brother Anselm had been transferred, it seemed, from Westforest to
Silver Cross. Richard Englefield found him here, and in the cell that
had been Brother Oswald’s. The latter, with Brothers Peter, Allen and
Timothy, were gone into dormitory. Only Brother Norbert was left. In
the six cells dwelled Brother Anselm, Brother Norbert and himself.
There had been other changes. A great rood was put up in his cell.
Broad and dark, a poor wooden Christ hanging thereon, it overspread
a third of one side of the cell. It stood there, shadowy against a
shadowy wall, as all the cell was shadowy,--the thin winter light
stealing in by day, the one taper by night.
Richard Englefield the goldsmith had seen many a great rood in England
and France and Italy. He had seen poor carving, rude and struggling
thought and unskilful hand, hardly attaining to truth, hardly to
strength, hardly to beauty. But beauty and strength and truth had been
longed for. This carving, this rood, showed him no such thing. “Not the
way it is done, but the dream is wrong.” It grew faintly horrible to
him.
The long winter days, the knees upon stone. “O God, O God! Where is
light, where is meaning? In me is wold and thicket and bog and the
stars put out!”
Only the picture stayed with him, made somehow significance, somehow
warmth. Now it paled and now it glowed.
He ate little, slept little. He crucified his body. Like the insistent
sweet ringing of a bell, forever, forever, Silver Cross suggested,
suggested. Surely, in some sort, heaven should descend! He was earning
it. He began to have visions, but they were pale, confused, forms
without significance or with the significance hidden. They said naught
that might lift the Abbey of Silver Cross to a height that should equal
Saint Leofric’s mount.
Twelfth night--Candlemas Day--Lent in sight--and Saint Leofric blazing
high! Not that only, but Middle Forest beginning to manifest holiness
and uncloak sin. Father Edmund of Saint Ethelred had no vision but the
vision of a rod for the wicked. But he had a preaching power! He stood
upon the steps of town cross and his white heat turned the icicles to
water. The sinner, Morgen Fay, was fled,--none knew whither. They said
likely to London town. They sacked her house, they drummed the old
woman and the youth, her servants, out of town. Both sides of river
and up Wander vale, enthusiasm gathered light in eyes, red in cheeks.
There began to be prophets and religious dancers. In Middle Forest High
Street appeared a band of flagellants. The air was taking fire. “Now,
now or never!” said Prior Matthew.
The ruined farm, that had been small and poor even before fire had half
destroyed it, stood gaunt, blackened, sunk in loneliness behind winter
forest through which few walked. Margery and David, blear-eyed and
simple, living in the part that held together, found the helper-woman,
Joan, strong but moody, now ready to laugh at a little thing and now
dark as a tempest over the wood that shut out the world. Somerville the
master had said, “Take her!” They had obeyed, and if they speculated it
was sluggishly.
Past the holly copse stretched land of Silver Cross, woodland with a
woodman’s path through. Somerville came by this. He talked with Joan or
with Morgen Fay under the hollies where the berries were so red and the
leaves so glossy and barbed. She said vehemently, “No!” and she said,
“No!” and “No!” again, but more dully, pettishly.
“It’s sin. I’ve done much, but I haven’t done that!”
“You choose then a powerful enemy--”
She raised her arms above her head. “If you will show me where the
world is not wicked--!”
“Psha! Do you remember a foggy night when we talked? Return to that
mood and say, ‘It is a play, and I can do it wonderfully!’ You
could--you can!”
“I do not see that Abbot Mark can harm me more than I am harmed!”
“Think you so? Should there come a band of monks to break the house
and hale you forth--strip you and fling you into Wander, or maybe into
fire? If Silver Cross but speaks to Saint Ethelred, Abbot Mark to
Father Edmund? If I withdraw my hand? Do not look like a queen in a
book! I mean only that in no wise can I save you further. Montjoy is
not powerful enough, even if he would, and I have here less power of
arm than has he. You must save yourself.”
“I think that your Abbot Mark and Prior Matthew are devils!”
“No. They are not. They are honest men trying to assure and increase
that which they hold to be their own. Human stuff, even as you and I!”
“Human stuff! Well, I would choose another stuff if I might!”
“No, you would not, poor Morgen Fay, by the chill Wander! You chose
this. Well, will you, or will you not?”
“I will not.”
“You think that you will not. However, you will. If you do not you are
lost.”
“Lost to what?”
“Well, to ease--to your own kind of command--finally perhaps to your
life.”
She said in a strangled voice. “As I came here to this house so will I
walk on by day or by night and come to another town.”
He turned quickly. “Try it!--or rather do not try it! You will find
that you cannot.”
The holly berries were red, the leaves glossy and barbed. She looked
at the pale winter sky. “Is it sky? It seems to me a poor tent that we
have struggled to get up--poor, mean, low, ragged. I would it might
fall and kill us!”
He smiled indulgently. “No, you do not so! Any day you could kill
yourself. But you love life. Go to, now! Look at the curious dance
of the time correctly! Mumming is no great sin. What! All the saints
and higher than the saints were on the market-place stage last Middle
Forest Fair. They talked and walked--even the Highest! Very good! It is
but Miracle Play again, and truly for no ill ends--”
Red holly berries, barbed leaves. He won her to stand and listen,
though with heaving bosom and dark brows. Pale sky and voice of Wander
and birds of winter in naked oak and beech. The ruined farm--and her
house above the river and her garden turned against her. Father Edmund
preaching at town cross against the wicked time and each remaining
sin--and they had swept up her house and garden and drummed forth
Ailsa and Tony, who were God knew where! And Montjoy nor any cared any
longer! Barbed leaves and miserable world bent on injury! He won her to
nod her head and then to break into reckless laughter.