The Lord of Montjoy returned from his second and greater pilgrimage.
This time he had seen Jerusalem. He was palmer. Bit of palm was wrought
into his sleeve, stitched into his hat. The Lady of Montjoy held his
castle for him, his son-in-law, young Isabel’s baron, giving advice
across five leagues. Montjoy had been gone nigh three years, for once,
taken prisoner by the Turks, he had been held three months in noisome
prison, and once fever had taken him captive, and once shipwreck and a
desert strand had held him long. Now, returning, he had come through
Italy and through France, alone and afoot, for that was his pilgrimage.
Now he moved across Brittany. There were many shrines in Brittany, and
it held him while he went from the one to the other. But he neared the
sea coast and the port where he would take ship for England.
A slight dark man with earnest seeking eyes, wrapped in palmer’s grey
with palmer’s hat and staff and scrip, walked a Brittany road, and
pictures of his travels walked with him. They were many, as though a
lifetime had been spent between castle of Montjoy and Jerusalem wall
and back again. So many that they must come like a breadth of the
earth between him and the pictures of three years gone, or five years
gone, or more. That was true, but now and then breadth of earth became
cloud merely; cloud parted, and there were ancient pictures fresh again.
Now for days they were English pictures. “Because I am nearing home!
They come out to meet and greet me.” But while they were clear they
came also into company of later pictures. His castle knew thousand
other castles, his town multitude of other towns; Silver Cross and
Westforest many and many abbeys and priories. And the palmer, having
grown, could in a measure hold all together and look out upon and
through them. So with the palmer’s whole life.
Montjoy travelled seaward. The day was bright and Brittany had to him
a flavour of home. Moreover at dawn had come Isabel. She seemed now to
float by his side, her feet just above the grey road. Twice it had been
so in Italy, thrice in the Holy Land. It had been a small thought, that
holding her confined to castle there above Middle Forest, or to church
of Silver Cross where lay only her old robe, or to this or that faint
ring in time! She was everywhere and every time. She was living, she
was with him, here, now!
“For I, too, change into that space and time,” thought Montjoy.
Silver Cross, when he came to look at it, still was dear. He regarded
it tranquilly within and without. There sat Mark, yonder moved the
Brothers. The church filled, they chanted, windows became sheets of
jewels, the great picture glowed, light washed the sculptured tomb
beneath which lay, sunken into earth, that which was not Isabel. Here
moved her spirit, near him on Brittany road--enough, enough of her
spirit to make Promise into a glowing rose!
Light washed Silver Cross that was five hundred years old and might
have five hundred more to live. In a thousand years there was good
and evil, but more good than evil. Even had that strange tale of
five years agone been found to have in it some truth--had there been
canker--still, still, not always had there been canker, nor would there
be always! Canker was never the last word. If there had been canker
there at Silver Cross, or more or less? He did not know, he could
not tell if it were so. His mind, pondering long, had seen certain
things--but he did not know. He must let it alone and, anyhow, go a
pilgrimage.
Almost five years. The palmer had grown. He saw them now in a pattern,
Silver Cross and Saint Leofric and Westforest. Then light came through
the pattern and melted all into a stronger and finer thing. Just as
Isabel moved more golden, finer, more real, for all that when he put
forth hand, hand did not touch. Spirit touched. Just as in Bethlehem of
Judea, one starlight night, he had become aware that if the kingdom of
Heaven was within, then was within also the Supernal Mother and Bride,
within also the Christ.
Montjoy, a grey figure, walked the grey road and thought he heard the
sea. It was early morn, and a rose stole into the world. As he walked
the pictures lifted, stood and passed.
He had grown so that without any conscience pang at all he was glad
that Morgen Fay had not been burned there by town cross. They had
lighted the fagot pile, anyhow, for perchance it might make her suffer,
the witch flown away with the demon! It had burned away in smoke and
flame, but now for long he knew it had not harmed her. Harming and
healing were not just as men thought them! Morgen Fay. Where was she?
He saw her behind circumstance, like Isabel, like the great picture,
like herself, like Morgen Fay. And Morgen Fay, neither, had been just
as he thought her. Seeing further he might see her still more really,
as he now saw Montjoy and Silver Cross and all things else more really.
The sea sounded, and he came over white road to sight of it. Below lay
a fishing village; he saw the nets and the boats. A small, poor place
it was, but it had the salt of the sea and the rose of the morning.
Montjoy, coming down to it, found himself on clean sand and the tide
coming in. Certain boats were up and away, he saw their deep-coloured
sails standing out between sand and horizon. Others for reasons bided
this day in haven. Two or three were drawn upon the beach, and here,
too, above the tide a new boat was making. About this was gathered a
small crowd of folk, perhaps a score in all. As Montjoy came near he
saw that they were listening to one who spoke, standing upon the sand
among the shavings and chips, underneath the clean bowsprit. Some were
from other boat or from work upon the nets or from the line of houses.
A score, perhaps, seated and standing, eyes turned to the speaker.
The sea, ancient, youthful, made her everlasting song. Air breathed
salt and fresh, colour was rife. Boats, houses, the incoming wave, the
line of low cliff, fell into picture. Montjoy has seen so many! Could
he have painted he might paint forever and only begin.
He heard a voice speaking, a voice with quality, that somehow stirred
the pictures. They trembled, pushed slightly by others behind. “Love
and understand! Lay hold where you can, begin where you will!”
He asked a woman leaning against a boat near the new boat. “Who is it?”
“It is the smith Richard. He dwelleth in town a league away, but at
times he cometh this way.”
“Is he preaching?”
“No. But he talketh to us at times.”
“He uses your tongue well, but still I would say--”
“Aye, he comes from over the water.”
Montjoy moved into the ring of fisher folk. A great flapping hat of
palmer shadowed his face. Those about saw straying pilgrim and gave him
room.
Richard a smith, not Breton but English. A tall, gold-brown,
simple-seeming man, strong enough, quiet enough, loving enough of
face--and now level ray of the morning sun lighted his face.
_He did not drown in Wander!_
How much was true and how much was mistake of the much that the many
found to say? Like the thunder and murmur and waves of the sea rose
within voices and voices and yet voices. Abbot Mark’s voice Prior
Matthew’s, Prior Hugh’s, Friar Martin’s, Father Edmund’s, the Hermit
by the Old Burying Ground, Brothers Andrew and Barnaby, Anselm’s,
Norbert’s, Somerville’s voice, voice of Master Eustace Bettany and
of young Thomas Bettany, voice even of Godfrey the gaoler, voices of
pilgrims chanting, Middle Forest’s voice, voices of Silver Cross,
voices of his own squires and castle folk, voice of Westforest and
Wander vale. Voice of Morgen Fay. Further back, voice of Isabel, and
then again the heavy waves. “O God, _Thy_ voice!”
The hubbub sank away. The tide came in with a quiet rhyme. Morning sand
shone in a great golden stillness. Village and sea and boats held in
contentment. The fisher folk sat or stood, listening. The speaker was
speaking, Montjoy a pilgrim, listening, agreeing. Quiet and the salt
air and the sun. Quietness and certitude. _I am, from everlasting to
everlasting._
The gold-brown man ceased his speaking or his answering questions, for
it had been largely questioning and answering. Lifting a bundle that
lay beside him he looked to a league-distant point striking out into
the sea, where seemed more houses than were here. One of the fishermen
spoke. “I’ll take you, master, in the _Nightingale_.”
The small sailboat carried the palmer also,--the palmer and Richard the
smith and two boatmen. The latter were still for questions. “You have
been to Jerusalem? What like is it?”
“It is so and so,” answered the palmer. “But I say with this man, ‘Let
us now build the New Jerusalem!’”
The smith turned to him, “There is something in your voice, friend--”
The red sail and the blue sea, the salt, and the divine fresh morning.
“Is there?” answered Montjoy. “And there is something in yours--”
The other said in English, “Naught’s impossible ever! A long pilgrimage
from an English castle?”
“Aye, brother! At Avignon I was shown a great cup made in Paris fifteen
years ago by the English goldsmith, Englefield.”
The town in front of them was growing larger. The younger boatman had
still his questions about Galilee and Olivet. The fresh wind carried
the boat fast. Here was a long wharf and the town, and quitting the
_Nightingale_, and thanks and partings with the boatmen, then a street
and tall houses heaping toward a castle on the hill. “The lady of the
castle loveth pilgrims,” said Englefield. “And yonder is the great
house of the Franciscans.”
“If I may I would go with you.”
“As you wish, Montjoy.”
Folk were about them, voices and movement. “Is there a quiet place?”
“There is an old garden at the edge of the town, over the sea.”
“Then let us go there.”
They went. Pine trees sighed around, earth lay carpeted with purple
needles. They sat beneath a very great tree, and saw as from a window
azure ocean, and a great ship, white-sailed, making into the west.
“I have been far, far without,” spoke Montjoy, “but farther, farther
within. When I used to watch you at Silver Cross I believed in you.
Again, listening by the boat yonder, I believed. I have made a journey
and come where I was not before. And still I journey. I can listen now
to whatever you may tell me. Listen, and maybe understand.”
“I have made a journey, too, Montjoy, and come where I was not before.”
He took up a handful of purple needles and let slip quietly away while
he talked. He told their story,--his story and Morgen Fay’s.
The pine grove stood above the sea, speaking always with a
multitudinous low voice. Far and far, deep and deep, stretched Mother
Ocean. The white ship, purposeful, still and sure, sped its way from
haven unto haven. The great vault of heaven held all.
“You are together, you and Morgen Fay?”
“Aye, together.”
From the grove might be seen the high roofs of the town climbing to a
huge, four-towered castle.
“I work again as goldsmith, making for who will buy. Yonder you may
see the roof of our house. An old workman of mine, now palsied and
helpless, lives with his brother in that fishing village. On a holiday,
as this is, I walk to see him. It has come about that I may talk to
folk here and there--in that fishing village and elsewhere.”
“Is there no danger in that?”
“Perhaps! But those who have lived and suffered and learned through
living and suffering, may help. So with Morgen Fay and so with me.”
“I would see her if I might.”
“Come then and sleep this night in the smith’s house.”
They went there. A small, timbered house, one story overhanging
another, old, quiet, with the castle soaring above and the bell of the
church of the Franciscans ringing near. Within, in a dusky wide room,
rose from her book Morgen Fay, jewel-like, rose-like, flame-like.
Montjoy, looking, saw nothing that wounded Isabel, nor that wounded the
Reality behind the great picture at Silver Cross.
THE END