The Seven Years of Seeking

Here begins the chapter of the Seven Years of Seeking.

For, trying greatly to win sight of that blessed isle, the Earthly

Paradise, the monk Serapion and his eleven companions hoisted sail; and

for seven years they continued in that seeking, wandering with little

respite under cloud and star, in all the ways of the sea of ocean which

goeth round the world.

[Now this chapter was read of evenings in the refectory at supper, in

the winter of the Great Snow. While the drifts without lay fathom-deep

in sheltered places, and the snow was settling on the weather-side of

things in long slopes like white pent-houses, the community listened

with rapt attention, picturing to themselves the slanting ship, and the

red sail of skins with its yellow cross in the midst, and the

marvellous vision of vast waters, and the strange islands. Then

suddenly the Prior would strike the table, and according to the custom

the reader would close his book with the words, "Tu autem, Domine--But

do Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us!" and the monks would rise, with

interest still keen in the wanderings of the Sea-farers.

Seeing that it would be of little profit to break up the reading as the

Prior was wont to break it up, I will give the story here without pause

or hindrance, as though it had all been read in a single evening at

supper, and keep my "Tu autem" for the end of all. And truly it is at

the end of all that most there is need of that prayer. So without more

ado.]

Serapion and his companions were, all save one, monks of the Abbey of

the Holy Face. Not the first Abbey of that name, in the warm green

woods in the western creek of Broce-Liande, but the second, which is

nearer to the sunrise. For the site of the first Abbey was most

delightful, and so sheltered from the weary wind of the west, and so

open to the radiance of the morning, that, save it were Paradise, no

man could come at a place so gracious and delectable. There earliest

broke the land into leaf and blossom; and there the leaf was last to

fall; and there one could not die, not even the very aged. Wherefore,

in order that the long years of their pilgrimage might be shortened,

the brethren prevailed on the Abbot to remove to another site, nearer

the spring of the day; and in this new house, one by one in due season,

they were caught up to the repose of the heavens, the aged fathers

dying first, as is seemly.

This then was the second Abbey of the Holy Face, and its pleasant woods

ran down to the shore of the sea. And going east or going west, where

the green billow shades into blue water, the ships of the mariners kept

passing and repassing day after day; and their sails seemed to cast an

enchanted shadow across the cloister; and the monks, as they watched

them leaning over to the breeze, dreamed of the wondrous Garden of

Eden, which had not been swallowed up by the Deluge, but had been saved

as an isle inviolate amid the fountains of the great deep; and they

asked each other whether not one of all these sea-farers would ever

bring back a fruit or a flower or a leaf from the arbours of delight in

which our first parents had dwelt. They spoke of the voyage of Brendan

the Saint, and of the exceeding loveliness of the Earthly Paradise, and

of the deep bliss of breathing its air celestial, till it needed little

to set many of them off on a like perilous adventure.

Of all the brethren Serapion was the most eager to begin that seeking.

And this was what brought him to it at last.

There came to the Abbey on a day in spring that youthful Bishop of

Arimathea who in after time made such great fame in the world. Tall

and stately was he, and black-bearded; a guest pleasant and wise, and

ripe with the experience of distant travel and converse with many chief

men. Now he was on his way to the great house of Glastonbury oversea,

to bring back with him, if he might be so fortunate, the body of the

saint of his city who had helped our Lord to bear His cross on the Way

Dolorous; or, if that were an issue beyond his skill, at least some

precious memorial of that saint.

Many things worthy of remembrance he told of what he had seen and

heard; and no small marvel did it seem to speak with one who had stood

on Mount Sinai in the wilderness. From the top of that mountain, he

said, one looked down on a region stretching to the Red Sea, and in the

midst of the plain there is a monastery of saintly recluses, but no man

can discover any track that leads to it. Faint and far away the bells

are heard tolling for prime, it may be, or vespers, and it is believed

that now and again some weary traveller has reached it, but no one has

ever returned. The Ishmaelites, who dwell in the wilderness, have

ridden long in search of it, guided by the sound of the bells, but

never have they succeeded in catching a gleam of its white walls among

the palm-trees, nor yet of the green palms. The Abbot of that house,

it is said, is none other than the little child whom our Lord set in

the midst of His Disciples, saying, "Except ye become as little

children," and he will abide on the earth till our Lord's return, and

then shall he enter into the kingdom with Him, without tasting death.

Speaking of the holy places, Calvary, it might be, or the Garden of

Olives and the sepulchre of the Lord, and of the pilgrims who visited

these, he repeated to us the saying of the saintly Father Hieronymus:

"To live in Jerusalem is not a very holy thing, but to live a holy life

in Jerusalem." And walking with many of our brethren on the shore of

the sea and seeing the sails of the ships as they went by, he

questioned us of the wonders of the great waters, and of sea-faring,

and of the last edge of the living earth, and he said: "Tell me, you

who abide within sight of so many ships, and who hear continually the

song of the great creature Sea, how would it fare with one who should

sail westward and keep that one course constantly?"

We said that we knew not; it were like he would perish of famine or

thirst, or be whelmed in the deep.

"Ay," he said, "but if he were well provisioned, with no lack of food

and water, and the weather held fair?"

That we could not answer, for it seemed to us that such a one would

lose heart and hope in the roofless waste, with never a stone or tree,

nor any shadow save a cloud's, and turn back dismayed; but Serapion

replied: "To me it appears, your Discretion, that so bold a mariner, if

years failed him not, might win to the Earthly Paradise."

"So have I heard," said the Bishop. "Yet here would you be sailing

into the west, and for a certainty the Paradise of God was in the east.

How would you give a reasonable account of this?"

But we could make no reply, for we knew not; nor Serapion more than we.

"Now, watching the sea," said the Bishop, "you have marked the ships,

how they go. When they come to you, they first show the mast-top, then

the sail, and last the body of the ship, and perchance the sweep of the

oars, reverse-wise when they depart from you, you first fail to see the

body of the ship, and then the sail, but longest you hold in sight the

mast-top, or it may be a bright streamer flying therefrom, or a cross

glittering in the light--though these be but small things compared with

the body of the ship. Is it not so?"

We answered, readily enough, that so it was.

"Is it not then even as though one were to watch a wayfarer on

horse-back, going or coming over the green bulge of a low hill? Were

he coming to you, you would first see the head of the rider, and last

the legs of the horse, and were he riding away the horse would first go

down over the hill, but still, for a little, you would see the man

waving his hand in farewell as he sank lower and lower."

Such indeed, we said, was the fashion of a ship's coming and going.

"Does it not then seem a likely thing," said his Discretion, "that the

sea is in the nature of a long low hill, down which the ships go? So

have I heard it surmised by wise men, sages and scholars of the lights

of heaven, in the cities of Greece and Egypt. For the earth and the

ocean-sea, they teach, is fashioned as a vast globe in the heights of

heaven. And truly, if indeed it be the shadow of the world which

darkens the face of the moon in time of eclipse, the earth may well be

round, for that shadow is round. Thus, then, one holding ever a

westward course might sail down the bulge of the sea, and under the

world, and round about even unto the east, if there be sea-way all

along that course."

Silently we listened to so strange a matter, but the Bishop traced for

us on the sand a figure of the earth. "And here," said he, "is this

land of ours, and here the sea, and here the bulge of ocean, and here a

ship sailing westward; and here in the east is the Earthly Paradise;

and mark now how the ship fareth onward ever on the one course

unchanged, till it cometh to that blessed place."

Truly this was a wondrous teaching; and when we questioned how they who

sailed could escape falling out and perishing, they and indeed their

ship, when they came so far down the round sea that they hung heads

nethermost, his Discretion laughed: "Nay, if the sea, which the wind

breaketh and lifteth and bloweth about in grey showers, fall not out,

neither will the ship, nor yet the mariners; for the Lord God hath so

ordered it that wheresoever mariners be, there the sea shall seem to

them no less flat than a great grass-meadow when the wind swings the

grass; and if they hang head downward they know not of it; but rather,

seeing over them the sun and the clouds, they might well pity our evil

case, deeming it was we who were hanging heads nethermost."

Now this and suchlike converse with the Bishop so moved Serapion that

he lost the quietude of soul and the deep gladness of heart which are

the portion of the cloister. Day and night his thought was flying

under sail across the sea towards the Earthly Paradise, and others

there were who were of one longing with him. Wherefore at last they

prayed leave of the Abbot to build a ship and to try the venture.

The Abbot consented, but when they besought him to go with them and to

lead them, he shook his head smiling, and answered: "Nay, children, I

am an aged man, little fitted for such a labour. Wiser is it for me to

lean my staff against my fig-tree, and have in mind the eternal years.

Moreover, as you know, many are the sons in this house who look to me

for fatherly care. But if it be your wish, one shall go with you to be

the twelfth of your company. In hours of peril and perplexity and

need, if such should befall you, you shall bid him pray earnestly, and

after he has prayed, heed what he shall say, even as you would heed the

words of your Abbot. No better Abbot and counsellor could you have,

for he hath still preserved his baptismal innocence. It is Ambrose,

the little chorister."

Serapion and the others wondered at this, but readily they accepted the

Abbot's choice of a companion.

Think now of the ship as built--a goodly ship of stout timber frame

covered two-ply with hides seasoned and sea-worthy, well found in

provisions against a long voyage, fitted with sturdy mast of pine and

broad sail. And think of the Mass as sung, with special prayer to Him

who is the confidence of them that are afar off upon the sea. And

think of the leave-taking and blessing as over and done, and of the

Sea-farers as all aboard, eleven brethren and Ambrose the chorister, a

little lad of nine summers.

Now all is cast loose, and the red sail is drawn up the mast and set

puffing, and the ship goes out, dipping and springing, into the deep.

On the shore the religious stand watching; and Serapion is at the

rudder, steering and glancing back; and the others aboard are waving

hands landward; and on a thwart beside the mast stands the little lad,

and at a sign from Serapion he lifts up his clear sweet voice, singing

joyfully the _Kyrie eleison_ of the Litany. The eleven join in the

glad song, and it is caught up by the voices of those on shore, as

though it were by an organ; and as he sings the lad Ambrose watches the

white ruffled wake-water of the ship, how it streams between the

unbroken green sea on either hand, and it seems to him most like the

running of a shallow brook when it goes ruffling over the pebbles in

the greenwood.

To those on ship and to those on shore the song of each grew a fainter

hearing as the distance widened; and the magnitude of the ship

lessened; and first the hull went down the bulge of the ocean, and next

the sail; and long ere it was sunset all trace of the Sea-farers had

vanished away.

Now is this company of twelve gone forth into the great waters; far

from the beloved house of the Holy Face are they gone, and far from the

blithesome green aspect of the good earth; and no man of them knoweth

what bane or blessing is in store for him, or whether he shall ever

again tread on grass or ground. A little tearfully they think of their

dear cloister-mates, but they are high of heart nothing the less.

Their ship is their garth, and cloister, and choir, wherein they praise

God with full voices through all the hours from matins to compline.

Of the bright weather and fresh wind which carried them westward many

days it would be tedious to tell, and indeed little that was strange

did they see at that time, save it were a small bird flying high

athwart their course, and a tree, with its branches and green leaves

unlopped, which lay in the swing of the wave; but whither and whence

the bird was flying, or where that tree grew in soil, they could not

guess.

Of what happened to them in the course of their seeking, even of that

the telling must be brief, flitting from one event to another, even as

the small Peter-bird flits from the top of one wave to the top of

another, nor wets foot or feather in the marbled sea between; else

would the story of the seeking linger out the full seven years of the

seeking.

The first trial that befell them was dense wintry fog, in the dusk of

which they lay with lowered sail on a sullen sea for a day and a night.

When the change came, it brought with it the blowing of a fierce gale

with a plague of sleet and hail-stones, and they were chased out of the

fog, and driven far into the south.

Great billows followed them as they ran, and broke about the stern of

the ship in fountains of freezing spray which drenched them to the

skin. Little ease had they in their sea-faring in that long race with

the north wind, for every moment they looked to have the mast torn up

by the root and the frame-work of the ship broken asunder. The salt

surf quenched their fire and mingled their bread with bitterness.

Aching they were and weary, and sorrowful enough to sleep, when the

tempest abated, and the sun returned, and the sea rolled in long glassy

swells.

As the sun blazed out, and the sea glittered over all his trackless

ways, Serapion said to the chorister: "Ha, little brother, 'tis good,

is it not? to see the bright sun once more. His face is as the face of

an Angel to us."

The lad looked at him curiously, but made no answer.

"Art thou ailing, or sad, or home-sick, little one, that thou hast

nought to say?" asked Serapion.

"Nay, father, I was but thinking of thy words, that the face of the sun

is as the face of an Angel."

"Ay! And is it not so?"

"Nay, father. When I have seen the sun at sunrise and at sunset I have

ever seen a ring of splendid Angels, and in the midst of the ring the

snow-white Lamb with his red cross, and the Angels were moving

constantly around the Lamb, joyfully glittering; and that was the sun.

But as it rose into the heavens the Angels dazzled mine eyes so that I

could see them no more, nor yet the Lamb, for very brightness. Is the

sun then otherwise than what I see?"

Then was it Serapion's turn to muse, and he answered:

"To thy young eyes which be clear and strong--yet try them not

overmuch--it is doubtless as thou sayest; but we who are older have

lost the piercing sight, and to us the sun is but a great and wonderful

splendour which dazzles us before we can descry either the Angels or

the Lamb."

Meanwhile the Sea-farers ate and drank and spread their raiment to dry,

and some were oppressed by the memory of the hardships they had

endured; but Serapion, going among them, cheered them with talk of the

Earthly Paradise, and of the joy it would be, when they had won

thither, to think of the evil chances through which they had passed.

In a low tone he also spoke to them of their small companion and his

vision of the sun.

"Truly," he said, "it is as our Father Abbot told us--he has not lost

his baptismal innocence, nor hath he lost all knowledge of the heaven

from which he came."

As he was speaking thus, one of the brethren rose up with a cry, and,

shading his eyes with his hand, pointed into the west. Far away in the

shimmer of the sea and the clouds they perceived an outline of land,

and they changed their course a little to come to it. The wind carried

them bravely on, and they began to distinguish blue rounded hills and

ridges, and a little later green woodland, and still later, on the edge

of twilight, the white gleam of waters, and glimpses of open lawns

tinged with the colour of grasses in flower.

With beating hearts they leaned on the low bulwark of the ship,

drinking in the beauty of the island.

Then out of a leafy creek shot a boat of white and gold; and though it

was far off, the air was so crystalline that they saw it was garlanded

with fresh leaves, and red and yellow and blue blossoms; and in it

there were many lovely forms, clothed in white and crowned with wreaths

rose-coloured and golden.

When the Sea-farers perceived that the boat glided towards them without

sail or oar, they said among themselves, "These are assuredly the

spirits of the Blessed;" and when suddenly the boat paused in its

course, and the islanders began a sweet song, and the brethren caught

the words and knew them for Latin, they were fain to believe that they

had, by special grace and after brief tribulations, got within sight of

the shore they sought.

The song was one of a longing for peace and deep sleep and dreamful joy

and love in the valleys of the isle; and it bade the Sea-farers come to

them, and take repose after cold and hunger and toil on the sea. Tears

of gladness ran down the cheeks of several of the Seekers as they

listened, and one of them cried aloud: "O brothers, we have come far,

but it is worth the danger and the suffering to hear this welcome of

the Blessed."

Now the small chorister, who was standing by Serapion at the helm,

touched the father's sleeve, and asked in a low voice: "Have I leave to

sing in answer?"

"Sing, little son," Serapion replied.

Then, ringing the blessed bell of the Sea-farers, the child intoned the

evening hymn:

_Te lucis ante terminum--_

_Before the waning of the light._

The instant his fresh young voice was heard singing that holy hymn, the

flower-garlands about the boat broke into ghastly flames, and wreathed

it with a dreadful burning; and the radiant figures were changed into

dark shapes crowned with fire; and the song of longing and love became

a wailing and gnashing of teeth. The island vanished away in rolling

smoke; and the boat burned down like a darkening ember; and the

Sea-farers in their ship were once more alone in the wilderness of

waters.

Long they prayed that night, praising God that they had escaped the

snares and enchantments of the fiends. And Serapion, drawing the lad

to him, kissed him, saying: "God be with thee, little brother, in thy

uprising and thy down-lying! God be with thee, little son!"

After this they were again driven into the south for many a day, and

saw no earthly shore, but everywhere unending waters. A great

wonderment to them was this immensity of the sea of ocean, wherein the

land seemed a little thing lost for ever. And ever as they drove

onward, the pilot star of the north was steadfast no longer, but sank

lower and still lower in the heavens, and many of the everlasting

lights, which at home they had seen swing round it through the livelong

night, were now sunken, as it were, in the billows.

"Truly," said Serapion, "it is even as his Discretion the Bishop told

us; whether east we sail or west, or cross-wise north and south, the

earth is of the figure of a ball. In a little while it may be that we

shall see the pilot star no more;" and he was sorely troubled in his

mind as to how they should steer thereafter with no beacon in heaven to

guide them, and how they would make their way back to the Abbey of the

Holy Face.

In their wandering they set eyes on a thing well-nigh

incredible--nothing less than fishes rising from the depths of the sea,

and flying like birds over the ship, and diving into the sea again, and

yet again rising into the air and disporting themselves in the sun. At

night, too, they beheld about the ship trails of fire in the sea,

crossing and re-crossing each other, and the fire marked the ways of

huge blue fishes, swift and terrible; and the Sea-farers prayed that

these malignant searchers of the deep might not rise into the air and

fall ravening upon them while they slept. In the darkness strange

patches and tangles of light, blue and golden and emerald, floated past

them, and these they discovered were living creatures to which they

could give no names. Often also the sea was alive with fire, which

flashed and ran along the ridges of the waves when they curled and

broke, and many a night the sides of the ship were washed with flame,

but this fire was wet and cold, and nowise hurt a hand of those who

touched it.

At last on a clear morning the little chorister came hastily to

Serapion and said: "Look, father, is not yon a glimmer of the heavenly

land we seek?"

"Nay, little son, it is but grey cloud that has not yet caught the

sun," replied Serapion.

"That, indeed, is cloud; but look higher, father. See how white and

sharp it shines!"

Then Serapion lifted up his eyes above the cloud, and in mid heaven

there floated as it were a great rock of pointed crystal, white and

unearthly. Serapion's eyes brightened with eagerness, and the

Sea-farers gazed long at the peak, which rather seemed a star, or a

headland on some celestial shore, so bright and dreamlike was it and so

magically poised in the high air.

All day they sailed towards it, and sometimes it vanished from their

view, but it returned constantly. On the third day they came to that

land. Bright and beautiful it was to their sea-wearied eyes; and of a

surety no land is there that goes so nearly to heaven. For it rose in

green and flowery heights till it was lost in a ring of dusky

sea-cloud; and through this vast ring of cloud it pierced its way, and

the Sea-farers saw it emerge and stand clear above the cloud, bluish

with the distance. And higher still it rose, and entered a second

great cloud-ring, but this ring was white; and once more it emerged

from the cloud-ring, and high over all towered the pyramid of shining

stone.

"Well might it be that Angels often alight on this soaring mountain,"

said Serapion, "and leave it glittering with their footprints. If life

and strength be given us, thither we also shall climb, and praise God

in the lofty places of the earth which He has made."

They steered the ship into a sunny bay, and Serapion having blessed the

sea and the shore, they landed right joyfully. Drawing the ship high

on the beach, they chose a little grove of palm-trees beside a shallow

stream for their church and cloister; but they had not been long in

that spot before they saw the islanders gliding through the wood and

peering out at them in great amaze. Serapion went forth to them,

smiling and beckoning them to approach, but they fled and would not

abide his coming. So Serapion returned, and the Sea-farers made

themselves such a home as they might, and rested a little from their

toiling.

When the day had come to evening, and the brethren were chanting

vespers, the islanders returned, many hundreds of them, men and women,

dusky of skin but comely and bright-eyed, and for all their raiment

they wore garlands of blossoms and girdles of woven leaves. Close they

came to the Sea-farers, and gazed at them, and the boldest touched

them, as though to assure themselves that these were living mortals

like unto themselves. But when they saw the little chorister, with his

fair white face and childish blue eyes and sunny hair, they turned to

each other with exclamations and uncouth gestures of pleasure and

wonderment. Then they hurried away and brought strange and delightful

fruit--berries, and fruit in a skin yellow and curved like a sickle

moon, and big nuts full of water sweet and cool, and these they laid

before the lad. Wreaths of flowers, too, they wove for him, and put

them on his head and about his neck, as though they were rejoiced to

see him and could not make too much of him. The brethren were light of

heart that they had come to an isle so gracious and a folk so simple

and loving.

Sleep, sweet as dews of Paradise, fell upon their weariness that night,

and they rose refreshed and glad for matins, which they chanted by the

light of large and radiant stars flashing down through the palms. What

happened that day, however, the Sea-farers did not wholly understand

till long afterwards, when they had learned the speech of the people;

but out of their later knowledge I shall here make it plain.

Now in the olden time the mighty mountain of this island had been a

burning mountain, and even now, in a huge craggy cup beneath the

glittering peak, there was a vast well of fire and molten rock; and the

peak and well were the lair of an evil spirit so strong and terrible

that each year the island folk gave him a child to appease him, lest in

his malignant mood he should let the well overflow and consume them

with its waters of fire.

Wherefore, as this was the season of the sacrifice, the islanders

seeing the little chorister, how fair and beautiful he was, deemed he

would be a more acceptable offering to the spirit of evil than one of

their children, whom they were heart-sick of slaying. On this day,

therefore, they came at dawn, and with many gestures and much strange

speech led away the lad, and with gentle force kept the brethren apart

from him, though they suffered them to follow.

In a little while the child was clothed with flowers and leaves like

one of themselves, and in the midst of a great crowd singing a

barbarous strain, he was borne on a litter of boughs up the ascent of

the mountain. Many times they paused and rested in the heat, and the

day was far spent when they reached the foot of the lofty peak. There

they passed the night, but though the brethren strove to force their

way to the lad, they were restrained by the strength of the multitude,

and they knew that violence was useless. Again in the twilight before

dawn the islanders resumed the journey and came to the edge of the

craggy cup, in the depths of which bubbled the well of fire.

Silently they stood on the brink, looking towards the east; but the

Sea-farers, who now deemed only too well that their little brother was

about to be sacrificed to Moloch, cast themselves on their knees, and

with tears running down their faces, raised their hands in supplication

to heaven. But with a loud voice Serapion cried: "Fear not, dear son;

for the Lord can save thee from the mouth of the lion, and hear thee

from the horns of the unicorns." The little chorister answered: "Pray

for my soul, Father Serapion; for my body I have no fear, even though

they cast me into the pit."

In the streaming east the rays of light were springing ever more

brilliantly over the clear sea; two strong men held the lad and lifted

him from the ground; an aged islander--a priest, it seemed, of that

evil spirit--white-haired and crowned with flowers, watched the sky

with dull eyes; and as the sun came up with a rush of splendour, he

called aloud: "God of the mountain-fire, take this life we give thee,

and be good and friendly to us."

Then was little Ambrose the chorister swung twice to and fro, and

hurled far out into the rocky cup of the well of fire. And a wild cry

arose from the crowd: "Take this life, take this life!"--but even as

that cry was being uttered the lad was stayed in his fall, and he stood

on the air over the fiery well, as though the air had been turned to

solid crystal, and he ran on the air across the abyss to the brethren,

and Serapion caught him in his arms and folded him to his breast.

Then fell a deep stillness and dread upon the people, and what to do

they knew not; but the aged priest and the strong men who had flung the

boy into the gulf came to the brethren, and casting themselves on their

faces before the chorister, placed his foot on their heads. Wherefore

Serapion surmised that they now took him for a youthful god or spirit

more powerful than the evil spirit of the fire. Touching them, he

signed to them to arise, and when they stood erect he pointed to the

abyss, and gathering a handful of dust he threw it despitefully into

the well of fire, and afterwards spat into the depths. This show of

scorn and contumely greatly overawed the people, and (as was made known

afterwards) they looked on the Sea-farers as strong gods, merciful and

much to be loved.

Thrice did the Sea-farers hold Easter in that island, for there they

resolved to stay till they had learned the island speech, and freed the

people from the bondage of demons, and taught them the worship of the

one God who is in the heavens.

Now though the wind blew with an icy mouth on that high peak, in the

rocks of the crater it was sheltered, and warm because of the inner

fires of the mountain. So it was ordered that in turn one brother

should abide on the peak, and one in a cave midway down the mountain,

and one on the slopes where the palms and orange-trees are rooted among

the white-flowered sweet-scented broom. And each of these had a great

trumpet of bark, and when the first ray of light streamed out of the

east in the new day, the brother of the peak cried through his trumpet

with a mighty voice:

_Laudetur Jesus Christus,_

_May Christ Jesus be praised,_

and the brother of the cave, having responded,

_In saecula saeculorum,_

_World without end,_

cried mightily to the brother of the palms, "May Christ Jesus be

praised!"--and thus from the heights in the heavens to the shore of the

sea. So, too, when the last light of the setting sun burned out on the

western billows.

Thus was the reign of the spirit of evil abolished, and the mountain

consecrated to the praise of Him who made the hills and the isles of

the sea.

In the strong light of the morning sun the shadow of that mountain is

cast over the great sea of ocean further than a swift ship may sail

with a fair wind in two days and two nights; and a man placed on the

peak shall see that shadow suddenly rise up from the sea and stand over

against the mountain, dark and menaceful, like the lost soul of a

mountain bearing testimony against its body before the judgment-seat of

God; and this is a very awful sight.

Now, having preached the Gospel, the Sea-farers strengthened their ship

and launched into the deep after the third Eastertide, and having

comforted the people, because they were grieved and mournful at their

departure, they left them in the keeping of the risen Lord, and

continued their seeking.

After this Brother Benedict, the oldest monk of their company, fell ill

with grievous sickness, and sorely the Sea-farers longed for some shore

where he might feel the good earth solid and at rest beneath him, and

see the green of growing things, and have the comfort of stillness and

silence.

With astonishing patience he bore his malady, at no time repining, and

speaking never a word of complaint. When he was asked if he repented

him of the adventure, he smiled gently. "Fain, indeed," he said,

"would I be laid to rest beneath the grass of our own garth, where the

dear brethren, passing and repassing in the cloister, might look where

I lay and say an 'Our Father' for my soul. Yet in no way do I repent

of our sailing, for we have seen the marvellous works of God; and if

the Lord vouchsafe to be merciful to me, it may be that I shall see the

Heavenly Paradise before you find the Earthly." "God grant it, dear

brother," said Serapion.

On an afternoon they came to a small island walled about with high

cliffs, red and brown, and at the foot of the cliffs a narrow beach of

ruddy sand; but on the rocks grew no green thing, lichen or moss or

grass or shrub, and no sweet water came bickering down into the sea.

On landing they discovered a gully in the cliffs which led inland, and

straightway explorers were sent to spy what manner of land it was

whereon they had fallen. Within the very mouth of the narrow pass they

came upon a small ship hollowed out of a tree gigantic, but it was

rotten and dry as touchwood, and wasting into dust. Within the ship

lay the bones of a man, stretched out as though he had died in sleep.

Outside the ship lay the bones of two others. The faces of these were

turned downward to the stones whereon they lay, but the man in the ship

had perished with his eyes fixed on the heavens. The oars and sails

and ropes were all dry and crumbling, and the raiment of the men had

mouldered away.

In the length of that narrow pass between the lofty cliff-walls the

Sea-farers found no vestige of grass or weed, either on the cliff-sides

or on the stones and shingle. Neither was there any water, save where

in the hollows of some of the boulders rain had lodged and had not yet

been drunk up by the sun. No living creature, great or small, lived in

that ghyll.

Within the round of the sea-walls the island lay flat and low, and it

was one bleak waste of boulder and shingle, lifeless and waterless save

for the rain in the pitted surfaces of the stones; but in the midst of

the waste there stood, dead and leafless, a vast gaunt tree, which at

one time must have been a goodly show. When the Sea-farers reached it,

they found lying on the dead turf about its roots the white bones of

yet four other men.

Much they questioned and conjectured whence these ill-starred wanderers

had come to lay their bones on so uncharitable a soil, and whether they

had perished in seeking, like themselves, for the Earthly Paradise.

"What," sighed one, "if this were the Earthly Paradise, and yon the

Tree of Life!" But the others murmured and would not have it so.

Yet to the sick man even this Isle of the Stones of Emptiness was a

place of rest and respite from the sea,--"It is still mother-earth," he

said, "though the mother be grown very old and there be no flesh left

on her bones"--and at first it seemed as though he was recovering in

the motionless stillness and in the great shadow of the cliffs.

Something of this Serapion said to the little chorister, but the lad

answered: "Nay, father, do you not see how the man that used to look

out of his eyes has become a very little child--and of such is the

kingdom of heaven?"

"Explain, little brother," said Serapion.

"Why," said the lad, "is it not thus with men when they grow so old or

sick that they be like to die--does one not see that the real selves

within them look out of window with faces grown younger and smaller and

more joyous, till it may be that what was once a strong man, wise and

great, is but a babbling babe which can scarce walk at all?"

"Who told thee these things?" asked Serapion.

"No one has told me," replied the lad, "but seeing the little children

thus gazing out, and knowing that all who would enter into heaven must

become as they are, I thought it must needs be in this manner that

people change and pass away to God when the ending of life is come."

On this isle the Sea-farers kept a Christmas, and they made such cheer

as they might at that blessed time, speaking of the stony fields

wherein the Shepherds lay about their flocks, but no fields were ever

so stony as these which were littered with stones fathom-deep, with

never a grain of earth or blade of grass between. And in this isle it

was that Brother Benedict died, very peaceful, and without pain at the

close. On the feast of the Three Kings that poor monk was privileged

even more than those Kings had been, for not only was the Babe of

Heaven made manifest to him, but his soul, a little child, went forth

from him to be with that benign Babe for evermore. Under the dead tree

the Sea-farers buried him, and on the trunk of the tree they fastened a

crucifix on the side on which he reposed.

The bones, too, of the dead men they gathered together and covered with

stones in a hollow which they made.

So they left the island, marvelling whence all those stones had come,

and how they had been rained many and deep on that one place. Said

one, "It may be that these are the stones wherewith our Lord and the

prophets and the blessed martyrs were stoned, laid up as in a treasury

to bear witness on the day of doom." "It may be," said another, "that

these are the stones which Satan, tempting the Lord, bade Him turn into

bread, and therefore are they kept for an evidence against the

tempter." "Peradventure these be the stony places," said another,

"whereon the good seed fell and perished in its first upspringing, and

so they be kept for the admonishment of rash Sea-farers and such as

have no long-continuance in well-doing." But no man among them was

satisfied as to the mystery of that strange isle.

On many other shores they set foot. Most were fruitful and friendly;

and they rested from their seeking, and repaired the ship, and took in

such stores as they might gather during their sojourn. Though often it

befell that while they were still afar the wind wafted them the

fragrance of rare spices so that their eyes brightened and their faces

reddened with joyful anticipation, yet ever when they landed they found

that not yet, not yet had they reached the island garden of their

quest. Men, too, of the same fashion as themselves they met with on

shores far apart, but strange were these of aspect and speech and

manner of life. With them they tarried as long as they might, gaining

some knowledge of their tongue, and revealing to them the true God and

the Lord crucified.

In the latter time of their sea-faring they were blown far over the

northern side of the great sea, in such wise that the pilot star burned

well-nigh overhead in the heavens. Here they descried tall islands of

glittering rock, white and blue, crowned with minsters and castles and

abbeys of glass, but they heard no sound of bells or of men's voices or

of the stir of life.

Once as they were swept along in near peril of wreck, through flying

sea-smoke and plagues of hail, they heard a strange unearthly music

rising and falling in the blast. Some said it was Angels sent to

strengthen them; others said it was wild birds which they had seen

flying past in flocks; but Serapion said, "If it be Angels, blessed be

God; if it be birds, yet even they are God's Angels, lessoning us how

we shall praise Him, and sing Him a new song from the ends of the

earth." Then he raised his voice, singing the psalm

_Laudate Dominum de caelis,_

_Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise Him in the heights,_

and the Sea-farers sang it with earnest voices and with hearts lifted

up, and they were greatly encouraged.

It was in these latitudes stormy and cold that, to their thinking, the

Sea-farers won nearest to the Earthly Paradise. For, far in the sides

of the north as, in the red sunlight, they coasted a lofty land white

with snow-fields and blue with glacier ice, they entered a winding

fjord, and found themselves in glassy water slumbering between green

slopes of summer.

Down to the water's edge the shores were wooded with copses of dwarf

birch and willow, and the slopes were radiant with wild

flowers--harebell and yellow crowfoot, purple heath and pink azalea and

starry saxifrage. A rosy light tinged the snow on the wintry heights;

and over the edge of a cliff, far up the fjord, a glacier hung, and

from beneath the ice a jet of water burst forth and fell foaming down

the precipice to the shore. When they landed they found the ground

covered thick with berries dark and luscious, and while they gathered

these, a black and white snow-bunting flitted about them on its long

wings.

A miraculous thing was this garden of summer in the icy bosom of

winter, but a greater marvel still was the undying sunshine on sea and

shore.

"In very truth," said Serapion, "of all places we have yet seen is not

this most like to have been the blessed land, for is not even 'the

night light about us,' and is it not with us as it is written of the

Heavenly Jerusalem, 'there shall be no night there'?"

The Sea-farers took away with them many of the leaves and flowers of

this country, and afterwards the scribes in the Scriptorium copied them

in beautiful colours in the Golden Missal of the Abbey.

This was the last of the unknown shores visited by the Sea-farers.

Seven years had they pursued their seeking, and there now grew on them

so strong a craving for home that they could gainsay it no longer.

Wherefore it fell out that in the autumn-tide, when the stubble is

brown in the fields and the apple red on the bough; on the last day of

the week, when toil comes to end; in the last light of the day, when

the smoke curls up from the roof, they won their long sea-way home.

[Illustration: _They won their long sea-way home_]

O beloved Abbey of the Holy Face, through tears they beheld thy walls,

with rapture they kissed thy threshold!

"In all the great sea of ocean," said Serapion, when he had told the

story of their wandering, "no such Earthly Paradise have we seen as

this dear Abbey of our own!"

"Dear brethren," said the Abbot, "the seven years of your seeking have

not been wasted if you have truly learned so much. Far from home have

I never gone, but many things have come to me. To be ever, and to be

tranquilly, and to be joyously, and to be strenuously, and to be

thankfully and humbly at one with the blessed will of God--that is the

Heavenly Paradise; and each of us, by God's grace, may have that within

him. And whoso hath within him the Heavenly Paradise, hath here and

now, and at all times and in every place, the true Earthly Paradise

round about him."

Here ends the chapter of the Seven Years of Seeking.

["But do Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us," chanted the Lector, as he

closed the book. And the Prior struck the board, and the brethren

arose and returned God thanks for the creatures of food and drink, and

for that Earthly Paradise, ever at their door, of tranquil and joyous

and strenuous and thankful and humble acceptance of God's will.]