In Middle Forest it was market morning, high May weather and many
abroad. Country folk, town folk, folk from across river made a humming
and buzzing in High Street and the market place. The sun was an hour
up, and all thrifty marketers out of house. Saint Ethelred’s bells
rang, the Carmelites’, the Poor Clares’. Father Edmund walked about;
there were two of Leofric’s friars from over river. May sun struck
the castle, up the steep hill from market. The bells stopped. Eyes,
thoughts, turned this way and that.
A Silver Cross monk sped like an arrow through the market place. He was
at town cross, on the lower step, on the upper step. He faced around.
“Middle Forest! Ho, Middle Forest!”
They recognized him. All the countryside, flocking now to Silver Cross
church, had sought with their eyes for Brother Richard. Near or at
distance, he had been pointed out to many. A cry arose and spread.
“The monk of Silver Cross!” Those close at hand came closer; those
afar hastened to the thickening centre. He flung his arms out and up.
He seemed to appeal to Middle Forest, but also to high heaven,--or
he seemed to threaten high heaven. His voice rang and reached like
Montjoy’s trumpets. He told what he had to tell, and all those ears
drank it in and all those eyes stared and mouths gaped. He had power,
and now it was power at the top of its straining. As he told, what he
told they believed.
He paused, gasping, his face working. From the step beside him sprang
forth another voice, that of Father Edmund, master-preacher and scourge
of the vices of the time. “Who alone, in all earth around us, would
dare so to blacken the Mother of God, the Bride of Heaven? Have I not
cried that she was never gone but hidden hereabouts--the harlot and
sorceress, Morgen Fay!”
Richard Englefield heard. He knew not the name or its associations,
but his mind leaped fiercely upon it. Mind leapt like a famished wolf.
Then, straight up from a dark well, rose memory of a chance-heard talk
among the coarser sort, in the Brothers’ common room,--talk of Middle
Forest from which one had come. That day he had risen and gone away and
stopped his ears with work. So she was Morgen Fay, the harlot!
Enormous commotion rose around him. There ran and jangled a multitude
of voices. Impossible to Middle Forest to forego the present
sensation! But the good and glory now flowing from Silver Cross!
Equally impossible to question and forego that! Out of it all burst
finally the great cry, “Is there no Blessed Well, no Cavern of
Our Lady, no Rose in reliquary? But we know there are the healed!
Here’s one was healed! The monk is mad!” Came like a bolt from Saint
Ethelred’s porch one whom all knew,--Friar Martin, the Black Friar.
He, too, stood on town cross steps,--and half Middle Forest was here!
The Black Friar’s eyes gleamed and that which gleamed in them was
love of the glory of Saint Leofric. Out poured the bull voice. “The
healed? They will stay healed! They need not fear! Their faith in good
made them--makes them whole! What! The stars are above the tavern
lights! But here, verily, hath been tavern lights, pothouse lights. But
healing! You shall not lack healing while stands Saint Leofric!”
The place was grown like an angered hive. Father Edmund and Friar
Martin were a pair to change bewilderment into passion. Father Edmund
hunted sin calling itself Morgen Fay. The Black Friar had a pointing
finger for the leper spot in Silver Cross. Middle Forest grew to sound
of forest in tempest. So much swayed with Father Edmund, so much went
with Saint Leofric over Silver Cross, so much beat against the two,
asserting Silver Cross’s total innocence, save maybe for a monk’s
deceit and madness! So many held purely for self and sought out the
profit. Market place grew pandemonium.
Out came a strong citizen voice, Master Eustace Bettany’s. “Have
Brother Richard up to the castle! Let Montjoy hear!”
It was a channel and brought relief of pouring into channel. Hands were
upon the monk to urge him. “Montjoy! Yes, tell Montjoy!”
The castle hill was sunny, the castle gate was dim, the castle court
sunny, the castle hall dim. So many folk buzzed on castle road, below
wall; so many were let into court and buzzed there, so many entered
hall. From castle hill, if you looked Silver Cross way, you might see
rapidly moving dust, growing larger, coming nearer. That was Abbot Mark
and Prior Matthew.