John Storm had made one other friend at Bishopsgate Street--the dog of
the monastery. It was a half-bred bloodhound, and nobody seemed to know
whence he came and why he was there. He was a huge, ungainly, and most
forbidding creature, and partly for that reason, but chiefly because it
was against rule to fix the affections on earthly things, the brothers
rarely caressed him. Unnoticed and unheeded, he slept in the house by
day and prowled through the court by night, and had hardly ever been
known to go out into the streets. He was the strictest monk in the
monastery, for he eyed every stranger as if he had been Satan himself,
and howled at all music except the singing in the church.
On seeing John for the first time, he broadened his big flews and
stiffened his thick stern, according to his wont with all intruders,
but in this instance the intruder was not afraid. John patted him on the
peaked head and rubbed him on the broad nose, then opened his mouth and
examined his teeth, and finally turned him on his back and tickled his
chest, and they were fast friends and comrades forever after.
Some weeks after the dedication they were in the courtyard together, and
the dog was pitching and plunging and uttering deep bays which echoed
between the walls like thunder at play. It was the hour of morning
recreation, between Terce and Sext, and the religious were lolling about
and talking, and one lay brother was sweeping up the leaves that had
fallen from the tree, for the winter had come and the branches were
bare. The lay brother was Brother Paul, and he made sidelong looks at
John, but kept his head down and went on with his work without speaking.
One by one the brothers went back to the house, and John made ready
to follow them, but Paul put himself in his way. He was thinner
than before, and his eyes were red and his respiration difficult.
Nevertheless, he smiled in a childlike way, and began to talk of the
dog. What life there was in the old creature still! and nobody had
known, there was so much play in it.
“You are not feeling so well, are you?” said John.
“Not quite so well,” he answered.
“The day is cold, and this penance is too much for you.”
“No, it's not that. I asked for it, you know, and I like it. It's
something else. To tell you the truth, I'm very foolish in some ways.
When I've got anything on my mind I'm always thinking. Day and night
it's the same with me, and even work----”
His breathing was audible, but he tried to laugh.
“Do you know what it is this time? It's what you said on the roof on the
night of the vows, you remember. What you didn't say, I mean--and
that's just the trouble. It was wrong to talk of the world without
great necessity, but if you had been able to say 'Yes' when I asked if
everybody was well you would have done it, wouldn't you?”
“We'll not talk of that now,” said John.
“No, it would be the same fault as before. Still----”
“How keen the air is! And your asthma is so troublesome! You must really
let me speak to the Father.”
“Oh, that's nothing. I'm used to it. But if you know yourself what it is
to be always thinking of anybody----”
John called to the dog, and it capered about him. “Good-morning, Brother
Paul.” And he went into the house. The lay brother leaned on his besom
and drew a long sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his chest.
John had hastened away, lest his voice should betray him.
“Awful!” he thought. “It must be awful to be always thinking of
somebody, and in fear of what has happened to her. Poor little Polly!
She's not worthy of it, but what does that matter? Blood is blood and
love is love, and only God is stronger.”
A few days afterward the air darkened and softened, and snow began to
fall. Between Vespers and Evensong John went up to the tower to see
London under its mantle of white. It was like an Eastern city now under
an Eastern moonlight, and he was listening to the shouts and laughter of
people snowballing in the streets when he heard a laboured step on the
stair behind him. It was Brother Paul coming up with a spade to shovel
away the snow. His features were pinched and contracted, and his young
face was looking old and worn.
“You really must not do it,” said John. “To work like this is not
penance, but suicide. I'll speak to the Father, and he'll----”
“Don't; for mercy's sake, don't! Have some pity, at all events! If you
only knew what a good thing work is for me--how it drives away thoughts,
and stifles----”
“But it's so useless, Brother Paul. Look! The snow is still falling, and
there's more to come yet.”
“All the same, it's good for me. When I'm very tired I can sleep
sometimes. And then God is good to you if you don't spare yourself. Some
day perhaps he'll tell me something.”
“He'll tell us everything in his own good time, Brother Paul.”
“It's easy to counsel patience. If I were like you I should be counting
the days until my time was over, and that would help me to bear things.
But when you are dedicated for life----”
He stopped at his work and looked over the parapet, and seemed to be
gazing into the weary days to come.
“Have you anybody of your own out there?”
“You mean any----”
“Any relative--any sister?”
“No.”
“Then you don't know what it is; that's why you won't give me an
answer.”
“Don't ask me, Brother Paul.”
“Why not?”
“It might only make you the more uneasy if I told you what----”
The lay brother let his spade fall, then slowly, very slowly, picked it
up again and said:
“I understand. You needn't say any more. I shall never ask you again.”
The bell rang for Evensong, and John hurried away. “If it were only some
one who was deserving of it!” he thought--“some one who was worthy that
a man should risk his soul to save her!”
At supper and in church he saw Brother Paul going about like a man in a
waking dream, and when he went up to bed he heard him moving restlessly
in the adjoining cell. The fear of betraying himself was becoming
unbearable, and he leaped up and stepped out into the corridor,
intending to ask the Superior to give him another room elsewhere. But
he stopped and came back. “It's not brave,” he thought, “it's not kind,
it's not human,” and, saying this again and again, as one whistles when
going by a haunted house, he covered his ears and fell asleep.
In the middle of the night, while it was still quite dark, he was
awakened by a light on his face and the sense of some one looking down
on him in his sleep. With a shudder he opened his eyes and saw Brother
Paul, candle in hand, standing by the bed. His eyes were red and
swollen, and when he spoke his voice was full of tears.
“I know it's a fault to come into anybody else's cell,” he said, “but
I would rather do my penance than endure this torture. Something has
happened--I can see that quite well; but I don't know what it is, and
the suspense is killing me. The certainty would be easier to bear; and
I swear to you by Him who died for us that if you tell me I shall be
satisfied! Is she dead?”
“Not that,” said John by a sudden impulse, and then there was an awful
silence.
“Not dead!” said Paul. “Then would to God that she were dead, for it
must be something worse, a thousand times worse!”
John felt as if the secret had been stolen from him in his sleep; but
it was gone, and he could say nothing. Brother Paul's lips trembled, his
respiration quickened, and he turned away and smote his head against the
wall and sobbed.
“I knew it all the time,” he said. “Her sister went the same way, and I
could see that she was going too, and that was why I was so anxious. Oh,
my poor mother! my poor mother!”
For two days after that John saw no more of Brother Paul. “He is doing
his penance somewhere,” he thought.
Meanwhile the snow was still falling, and when the brothers went out to
Lauds at 6 A.M. they passed through a cutting of snow which was banked
up afresh every morning, though the day had not then dawned. On the
third day John was the first to go down to the hall, and there he met
Brother Paul, with his spade in his hands, coming out of the courtyard.
He looked like a man who was melting before a fire as surely as a piece
of wax.
“I am sorry now that I told you,” said John.
Brother Paul hung his head.
“It is easy to see that you are suffering more than ever; and it is all
my fault. I will go to the Father and confess.”
Between breakfast and Terce John carried out this intention. The
Superior was sitting before a handful of fire, in a little room that
was darkened by leather-bound books and by the flakes of snow which were
falling across the window panes.
“Father,” said John, “I am a cause of offence to another brother, and
it is I who should be doing his penance.” And then he told how he had
broken the observance which forbids any one to talk of his relations
with the world without
The Father listened with great solemnity.
“My son,” he said, “your temptation is a testimony to the reality of the
religious life. Satan's rage against the home of consecrated souls is
terrible, and he would fain break in upon it if he could with worldly
thoughts and cares and passions. But we must conquer him by his own
weapons. Your penance, my son, shall be of the same kind with your
offence. Go to the door and take the place of the doorkeeper, and stay
there day and night until the end of the year. Thus shall the evil one
be made aware that you are the guardian of our house, to be tampered
with no more.”
Brother Andrew was troubled when John took his place at the door that
night, but John himself was unconcerned. He was doorkeeper to the
household, so he began on the duties of his menial position. As the
brothers passed in and out on their mission-errands he opened the door
and closed it. If any one knocked he answered, “Praise be to God!” then
slid back the little grating in the middle panel of the door and looked
out at the stranger. The hall was a chill place, with a stone floor, and
he sat on a form that stood against one of its walls. His bed was in an
alcove which had formerly been the cloak-room, and a card hung over it
with the inscription, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord.” He had
no company except big Brother Andrew, who stole down sometimes to cheer
him with his speechless presence, and the dog, which was always hanging
about.