Silver Cross went in procession. The Abbot with the Prior of Westforest
walked ahead and there followed chanting monks. Then came lay Brothers
and villagers and a quarter of the countryside and a half-score from
Middle Forest. The Lord of Montjoy walked. Bright was the morning, high
and crisp; white frost on ground. Rounding the hill they cried, “The
fir tree!”
They knew not how it was, but the tree, the first confirmation, seemed
to spring before them, magical, mighty, a veritable tree of life. Many
may have noted it before, through the years, standing like a sentinel
before the hill, and thought only, “A great tree, with good shade for
shepherds in hot summer tide!” But now marvel clothed it.
The wind began to play through the stretched wires of Imagination. The
harp was sounding.
It was the Prior of Westforest who cried, “Lo, the fallen earth! Not
touched from without, but pushed from within!”
It lay in truth, sod, earth and rock, to right and left, as though
Might would come forth and had done so.
The procession broke from column into a throng as of bees, eyes toward
their queen. There was the opening into the hill like a door with a
great stone for lintel. The Abbot spoke to the monk Richard. “Read
thou!” A breath of assent ran like wind through wheat. “Aye, aye, the
one she came to!”
Richard Englefield read the name cut there and gave it to the folk
as he had given in Silver Cross church the message. Tall, spare,
gold-brown, in daily seeming stripped to simplicity and quietude, but
now with that around him that made for catching of the breath, he stood
and read and turned and gave the name of the Blessed among women.
The Abbot and the Prior of Westforest entered the small cavern. The
bright sun was there; it was light enough. With them they took the monk
Richard, and Brother Oswald whom all knew for right monk and Brother
Ralph. There entered, too, the Lord of Montjoy. At first he would not.
“She saith, Take the good--” But the Abbot drew him by the hand. There
went in likewise one from Middle Forest,--Father Edmund the Preacher.
There was the well,--a little basin of clear water bubbling from the
farther rock. It was March and the world leafless. But close beside
the water lay a fresh rose, nor red nor white, of a colour like the
dawn. Stem and leaf and blossom it lay, and in the water appeared its
likeness. The Abbot stooped toward it. Montjoy laid hand on him. “No!
Let this man lift it!” He and Richard Englefield and Brothers Oswald
and Ralph saw a transfigured rose. It glowed, it beat; it was seen
through tears.
Brother Richard kneeled before it, touched it with his forehead. Then
in his two hands he bore it through the opening of the grot and showed
it, lifted, to the folk.
Out of the hushed throng rang a voice. “The cave and well of Our Lady
of the Rose!”
“That is it! That is it! Our Lady of the Rose!”
The Abbot lifted his hands. “It shall be kept for aye in reliquary.
Lord of Montjoy--”
“I will give the reliquary!” Montjoy saw in imagination the rose
blooming for aye, sending through gold and precious stones light and
fragrance to Isabel.
It seemed that the sub-prior had brought from the Abbot’s house a
silver dish and a square of fine white linen. Brother Richard laid the
rose in the silver thing that he himself had carved.
Now all that might would press into the grot. At last order was had
and like links of a massy chain in and forth passed the throng. There
was a woman from Wander Mill, dumb for years, and it was known that
she had not won healing from Saint Leofric. Now she came, she stooped,
she lifted water in her hands and drank. She rose, she turned, she
stammered, made strange sounds, then burst forth clear. “Praise God!
Praise Blessed Lady!--Oh, children, I am speaking!”
Tears were in all eyes.
One other was healed that day,--a man whose fingers were bent into his
hand so that he could not straighten them nor work at his trade.
There was a great Mass and high devotion at Silver Cross. There were
offerings for at once lining with fine stone the grotto of Our Lady of
the Rose, for providing a fair, wide basin for the well, for a glorious
image.
Earth, water and air seemed servants to bear the news. The hum of it
was like wild bees through Wander vale. Middle Forest listened at
sunset to Father Edmund. “True--true, my children! We have preached
and wrought, scourging forth evil! This country wins a new name. From
accursed, it becomes blessed!” The river heard and the bridge and Saint
Leofric’s Mount and the Friary and Prior Hugh. The bells of Saint
Ethelred rang and of the Carmelites and the Poor Clares. The castle of
Montjoy heard. Somerville Hall heard, and the house of Master Eustace
Bettany.
The ruined farm heard,--but so dull and trouble-bent were David
and Margery that they cared not. Little things only could get into
Margery’s mind, and a little thing was turning there. Joan, the
helper-woman, slept in a loft that was reached by an outside stair.
Margery had swimming in the head and feared this stair and rarely went
to loft. But this day Joan might be anywhere, but could not be found at
hand. Margery climbed the stair and peered about. Very blank up here,
with flock bed and ancient chest and some hanging things. But in the
window under the thatch, in the sunshine of a mild day, stood the tiny
rose tree that Joan had brought with her under her cloak when she came
to the ruined farm two months since. She said she brought it because
she loved it, and she begged an earthern jar and put in rich soil and
planted afresh that which she had taken from such a jar in order to
bring it so great a distance,--in short from the great port town twenty
leagues away. Now, at the ruined farm, she must have nourished it well
and kept it warm, for it was green and leafy. Margery, going over to
admire it, set herself to turn the jar that she might better see. The
jar fell and broke. The earth heaped itself on the floor, the stem and
leaves were bruised. “Alack!” cried Margery and hurried down stairs,
for she thought she heard Joan. Though in form she was the mistress
it was not so essentially. She explained volubly when, in another
hour, there confronted her Joan with a shard of the jar in her hand.
She would remember the loft and the little rose tree, but the news of
miracles at Silver Cross, brought by a straying shepherd, whistled
through like wind over grass that when the stir was gone forgot.
The March sunset flared splendid. The dusk fell like violets. The
stars, advancing, were taper flames and an angel vast as all mankind
held each. The moon would not rise till late. “Come, oh, come, come,
Rose of Heaven!” So the monk Richard Englefield in his dark cell.
He must sleep, he would sleep, he would trust, not clamor nor force. He
slept, he waked; she was there, she appeared to him. “Rose of Heaven,
Rose of Heaven--Voice of Heaven, Blessed One--My Lady!”
She was there to confirm him in worship, to say, “Well done, thus far!”
to say, “Pray thou--praise thou--live thou, humble, obedient, shedding
holiness on Silver Cross!”
“Wilt thou come again?”
The voice that was music said, “Live in memory and live in hoping! But
now, Richard, farewell!”
Darkness where had been light. The kneeling monk stretched his arms,
strained his eyes, but there was darkness. He heard no movement, but
she was not there! Empty cell, and a black cloud across the moon!