After a little I found that I could stand upright in the passage.
Stretching up my hands I could feel a solid roof above my head. The
walls on either side of me were of earth, held back by stout balks of
timber. If one were to give way the passage had been a grave indeed; but
so far as I could feel with my feet the clay had not fallen at all. Else
indeed there could not have been so much air in the passage as to give
me breath; and I breathed freely enough, albeit with a certain
oppression, and a loathing of the dank smells.
For a time the passage went down into the bowels of the earth as it
seemed to me. I guessed by the direction it took from the dining-hall
that it must grope under the graveyard--and thinking on this I realized
how that indeed the wind that blew from it was a wind of death. And at
that time I was too ignorant and too vain to rebuke myself by the
thought that this was a burying-place of saints.
Presently my foot stumbled against a step, and much relieved I was to
find on ascending it that there was another step and yet another; for I
liked not this burrowing among graves like the mole; and the steps
seemed to promise a speedy end to my journey. Taking them in the dark
there seemed to me a prodigious number of them; yet I was not gone very
far when I perceived agreeably a lightening and sweetening of the air. I
could have taken but a little while in coming, for I had met with no
obstacles; yet it seemed long since the time I had plunged into that pit
of blackness ere I came up against a stout door, with a grating in it,
designed no doubt to give air to the passage.
To my great joy it was held only by a latch, and even before I had made
this happy discovery I felt the sweet air of heaven blow into my face;
and I think I never before knew how sweet it tasted.
Undoing the latch and drawing the door to me I stepped within a stone
tower. The moon had arisen on the eastward side of the tower, and
looking through the crumbling lancet window I saw below me, serene and
beautiful, the quiet, terraced graveyard of St. Mary's.
I could have laughed aloud to think that the journey had seemed to me so
long. In truth it had occupied some five minutes, as I discovered,
holding my horologe to the moon, and had not occupied so long if it were
not for my groping and pausing.
But the floor was solid under my feet. I had to think a minute before I
knew where I was. I was in that blind tower of St. Mary's to the
eastward corner, in the basement whereof were deposited the brooms and
pails for cleaning of the church.
Playing hide and seek therein with a boy's irreverence I had marvelled
why, since the tower was blind--nothing but a roof of stone above the
chamber--that they should have troubled to pierce it with lancets like
any honest belfry. The upper portion of the tower was in ruins, as you
could see from the graveyard without. Ah, and so the blind tower had its
uses; as a hiding-place it might be for some one who had lived in the
Manor-house in old wild days. For, as to any manner of egress from the
tower, that I could not see at all.
The chamber where I stood was full of the drifted leaves and the nests
of birds. Except for the shaft of light from the lancet it was in
blackness, and I began to wonder if the tower went no further.
I groped about the walls, however, till I came upon a staircase, which
went up, not in the middle, as is usual in towers, but at one corner, so
that each story formed a room.
'Twas three stories' climb to the upper room. Here it was that the ruin
had befallen the tower; for where the lancet had been there was a great
gap, and somewhat of the roof had fallen away.
I was now clear of the low trees, and the half-veiled moon looked within
the chamber. Then I saw to my amazement that at the side of it, yet
roofed over, there was a bed, a chair, a table, all of the rudest. But
little of this I saw till afterwards, for on the bed lay the figure of
that monk who had spoken with me, now nearly fifteen months ago.
His face was in shadow, yet I never thought for a moment that he slept.
One lean hand dangled from his great sleeve over the side of the bed; it
hung helplessly; and young as I was I had looked on death often enough
to know that this was the hand of the dead. The habit was composed
decently about the figure. Either the monk had so composed himself for
death or he had had some companion who had fled away leaving him to the
eye of heaven.
Standing there, a great awe and compassion fell upon me. Something of
yearning and tenderness afflicted me as though the dead man had been of
my blood: the tears rushed from my eyes, and I trembled so that I was
forced to my knees; yea, as though invisible hands had bent me. I knew
little of praying, but something of wordless petition to the Great
Father of us all stirred in my dull and proud spirit. In that moment I
had indeed the heart of a child.
When I had arisen from my knees I went to the side of the pallet and
looked upon the sleeper's face. In the shadow it gleamed like polished
ivory, and as I looked the moon, climbing higher, touched the still
mouth with a sweet and sanctified light, making it as though it smiled.
I touched the hand that swung by the side of the pallet. It was scarcely
cold. I knew not how I thought of such a thing, except that I was
familiar with the knights and ladies who sleep in stone in St. Mary's
Church, but I composed the sleeper's hands in the manner of Christ's
cross upon his breast; and afterwards turned away from the patient,
smiling mouth like one who hath sinned and been forgiven.
Then I did what I believed he would have me do: I made a search for any
letters and papers he might have left; for I could not think he had left
me ignorant of what he would have me know. I searched busily; and there
were not many places wherein to look. There was nothing anywhere. But my
search was not yet over till I had examined the monk's person. I went
back to his side, and with a prayer to him for forgiveness, I groped
gently in his habit for anything in the nature of papers, and doing so I
felt his body to be by wasting scarcely greater than a child's. Yet
'twas not starvation, I knew, for a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water
stood on the table.
I had not far to seek. The papers were within the folds of his habit,
where they met upon his breast, and were confined with the claspings of
his leathern belt.
I drew them forth and went to the full flood of the moonlight. By it I
read the superscription:
"_To Walter Devereux Fitz-Hugo Fitz-Theobald Fitz-Maurice_"--
As I read it my heart leaped up. What a proud name it was, and telling
of a glorious ancestry!
"--commonly known as Walter Munster, the ward and page of Sir
Walter Raleigh."
When I had deciphered so far the tower seemed suddenly to rock. It was
the great clock in the neighboring tower striking of midnight; and I had
yet to ford the passageway between the graves! Already I might have been
missed. I read no more, but thrust the papers within my breast. Then I
bent and kissed the hands of the monk, feeling again that rush of
softness, and as I kissed the hands I noticed the great string of beads
which fell from the girdle, and that too I kissed, and the crucifix
dependent from it; and these things I did blindly, having then a hard
and ignorant heart, but being compelled I knew not how.
Then I stole from the tower-room and again down the winding staircase;
but first I had drawn the cowl over the face and hid the hands and feet
in the folds of the habit; and so left him to quietness and the night.
I made the return passage without any mishap; and though a fear assailed
me on the way lest I had locked myself within by closing the door, there
was no ground for it, for the panel opened simply enough, and was indeed
secured by a bolt on the passage side; which no doubt had prevented my
finding the opening before. For either the monk had left it undone now
by design, or being surprised by his last sickness, or else a companion
or companions of his had fled the house-way while we slept, leaving the
door unbarred. Yet I had seen no sign of any other inmate of the tower
save one; that is of visible folk, for I doubt not there were others,
ministering and invisible.
So I returned as I had come and went hastily to the banquet-hall. As I
entered my lord and the Lord Boyle were returning slowly to their
places. I caught a word of their speech. "You will remember the trust,"
said my dear lord; and I knew not it was of me they were talking. "Yea,"
said my Lord Boyle, and showed his yellow teeth; "let it be in my hands,
or else when Jamie succeeds some Scot will have it." And then he
laughed, rubbing his lean hands together.
Then my lord observed me, and calling me to him he put his hand upon my
shoulder and looked at me with surprise.
"Why, Wat," he said, "what spider's nest hath caught you?"
I looked down then at my brave apparel, and was confused to find that it
was gray with dust and cobwebs from my journey.
"He hath been ratting," said my Lord Boyle, "and hath pursued the quarry
even within their holes."
"It matters less," said my lord, "since it is the hour to put on soberer
attire. Be in good time, Wat,"--and so saying he released me. Then I
hurried to my chamber in the roof, and was right pleased that I had not
been questioned more closely. And when I had laid away my fine apparel
and all was ready for our journey, I took my paper to the candle-light
that I might decipher it.
It had been written for my hand and none other, and the writer thereof
was mine own father's brother. I was indeed of the illustrious Desmond
house, though of a younger branch; and yet in the havoc that had come
upon it I might well now be all that was living of the race. I had, it
seemed, my father being slain, been hidden with my mother in the forest
by a faithful clansman, who had provided us with what food he might; who
being out one day snaring rabbits in the forest had been caught by a
party of the enemy and borne away by them strapped to one of their
horses. He had escaped them by the mercy of God, and returned to the
place where he had left us, to find his lady dead of starvation and
myself gone. Doubtless that sweet mother of mine had starved through
giving all she had to her child. The man knew not if I had met an enemy
and been hacked or speared to death, or if the wolves had had me, or the
fierce eagles that yet infest the forest in search of tender prey. He
grieved to death not knowing. But the friar, Brother Ambrose, the last
of the White Monks of Youghall, and mine uncle, known to men as Roderick
Fitzmaurice, rested not till he had found if I were of this life, and at
last discovered me. Having written this history for mine eyes, he
wrestled with me further that I should come out from among the enemies
of my people. But to what end? I asked, having so much worldly wisdom,
since the Desmond clan was gone down in blood, and its inheritance with
strangers. Indeed, when I had come to the dead man's prayers, I folded
up the paper as one that will not listen and fears to be persuaded. Even
then there came from the harbor a ringing of bells and the shouts of the
sailors as they drew up the anchor of the Bon Aventure from its bed in
the sands. I therefore thrust my fine garments into my sea-chest and
shot the bolt; but mine uncle's message to me I put within my doublet.
As the ship swung round, and we headed her for eastward I turned my
thoughts away from the quiet sleeper in the church tower, and looked
rather to my lord's dark figure as he leant over the vessel's side,
gazing not the way she was going, but rather to westward. For though he
was the enemy of my race and my country, yet I loved him with such a
love that nothing could dissever my heart from him. And for his sake I
was not sorry even that I had not sooner discovered that poor kinsman of
mine--the very last it well might be--in his hiding-place. For no doubt
he had come many times to the room in which he had first found me, but
never found me again. And now he was dead and past caring any more.