This is the story written in the chronicle of the Priory of Kilgrimol,
which is in Amounderness. It tells of the ancient years before that
great inroad of the sea which broke down the high firs of the western
forest of Amounderness, and left behind it those tracts of sand and
shingle that are now called the Blowing Sands. In those days Oswald
the Gentle was Prior of Kilgrimol, and he beheld the inroad of the sea;
and afterwards he lived through the suffering and sorrow of the great
plague of which people now speak as the Black Death.
Of all monks and men he was the sweetest and gentlest, and long before
he was chosen Prior, when he had charge of the youths who wished to be
monks, he never wearied of teaching them to feel and care for all God's
creatures, from the greatest to the least, and to love all God's works,
and to take a great joy even in stones and rocks, and water and earth,
and the clouds and the blue air. "For," said he, "according to the
flesh all these are in some degree our kinsfolk, and like us they come
from the hands of God. Does not Mother Church teach us this, speaking
in her prayers of God's creature of fire, and His creature of salt, and
His creature of flowers?"
When some of the brotherhood would smile at his gentle sayings, he
would answer: "Are these things, then, so strange and childish?
Rather, was not this the way of the Lord Jesus? You have read how He
was in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan, and how He was with
the wild beasts? All that those words may mean we have not been
taught; but well I believe that the wild things came to Him, even as
very little children will run to a good man without any doubt of his
goodness; and that they recognised His pitifulness and His power to
help them; and that He read in their dumb pleading eyes the pain and
the travail under which the whole creation groaneth; and that He
blessed them, and gave them solace, and told them in some mysterious
way of the day of sacrifice and redemption which was drawing near."
Once when the brethren spoke of clearing out the nests from the church
tower, because of the clamour of the daws in the morning and evening
twilight, the Novice-master--for this was Oswald's title--besought them
to remember the words of the Psalmist, King David: "The sparrow hath
found an house and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay
her young, even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts."
As for the novices, many a legend he told them of the Saints and holy
hermits who had loved the wild creatures, and had made them companions
or had been served by them in the lonely places of the hills and
wildwood. And in this, he taught them, there was nothing strange, for
in the book of Hosea, it was written that God would make, for those who
served Him, a treaty of peace and a league of love with the beasts and
the birds of heaven and the creeping things of the earth, and in the
book of Job it was said that even the stones of the field should be in
friendship with them.
"And this we see," he would say, "in the life of the blessed Bishop
Kieran of Saighir, who was the first Saint born in green Erinn. For he
wandered away through the land seeking the little well where he was to
found his monastery. That well was in the depths of a hoary wood, and
when he drew near it the holy bell which he carried rang clear and
bright, as it had been foretold him. So he sat down to rest under a
tree, when suddenly a wild boar rushed out of its lair against him; but
the breath of God tamed it, and the savage creature became his first
disciple, and helped him to fell small trees and to cut reeds and
willows so that he might build him a cell. After that there came from
brake and copse and dingle and earth and burrow all manner of wild
creatures; and a fox, a badger, a wolf, and a doe were among Kieran's
first brotherhood. We read, too, that for all his vows the fox made
but a crafty and gluttonous monk, and stole the Saint's leather shoes,
and fled with them to his old earth. Wherefore Kieran called the
religious together with his bell, and sent the badger to bring back the
fugitive, and when this was done the Saint rebuked the fox for an
unworthy and sinful monk, and laid penance upon him."
When the novices laughed at this adventure, Father Oswald said:
"These things are not matters of faith; you may believe them or not as
you will. Perhaps they did not happen in the way in which they are now
told, but if they are not altogether true, they are at least images and
symbols of truth. But this I have no doubt is true--that when the
blessed Columba was Abbot in Iona, he called one of the brethren to him
and bade him go on the third day to the western side of the island, and
sit on the sea-shore, and watch for a guest who would arrive, weary and
hungry, in the afternoon. And the guest would be a crane, beaten by
the stormy winds, and it would fall on the beach, unable to fly
further. 'And do thou,' said Columba, 'take it up with gentle hands
and carry it to the house of the guests, and tend it for three days and
three nights, and when it is refreshed it will fly up into the air, and
after scanning its path through the clouds it will return to its old
sweet home in Erinn; and if I charge thee so earnestly with this
service, it is because the guest comes from our dear land.' And the
Brother obeyed; and on the third day the crane arrived, storm-beaten
and weary, and three days later it departed. Have you not also heard
or read how our own St. Godrich at Whitby protected the four-footed
foresters, and how a great stag, which had been saved by him from the
hunters, came year after year at a certain season to visit him?"
Many legends too he told them of birds as well as beasts, and three of
these I will mention here because they are very pleasant to listen to.
One was of St. Malo and the wren. The wren, the smallest of all birds,
laid an egg in the hood which St. Malo had hung up on a branch while he
was working in the field, and the blessed man was so gentle and loving
that he would not disturb the bird, but left his hood hanging on the
tree till the wren's brood was hatched.
Then there was the legend of St. Meinrad, who lived in a hut made of
boughs on Mount Etzel, and had two ravens for his companions. Now it
happened that two robbers wandered near the hermitage, and foolishly
thinking that some treasure might be hidden there, they slew the Saint.
After a long search, in which they found nothing, they went down the
mountain to Zurich; but the holy man's ravens followed them with fierce
cries, whirling about their heads and dashing at their faces, so that
the people in the valley wondered at the sight. But one of the
dalesmen who knew the ravens sent his son to the hermitage to see if
all was well, and followed the fellows to the town. There they took
refuge in a tavern, but the ravens flew round and round the house,
screaming and pecking at the window near which the robbers had seated
themselves. Speedily the lad came down with the news of the cruel
murder; the robbers were seized, and, having confessed their crime,
they suffered the torture of death on the wheel.
And lastly there was the legend of St. Servan, who had a robin which
perched on his shoulder, and fed from his hand, and joined in with
joyful twittering when the Saint sang his hymns and psalms. Now the
lads in the abbey-school were jealous of the Saint's favourite pupil,
Kentigern, and out of malice they killed the robin and threw the blame
on Kentigern. Bitterly the innocent child wept and prayed over the
dead bird; and behold! when the Saint came from singing nones in the
minster, the robin fluttered up and flew away to meet him, chirruping
merrily.
"A thoughtless thing of little blame," said the Novice-master, "was the
wickedness of these boys compared with that of the monks of the Abbot
Eutychus. The Abbot had a bear to tend his sheep while he was absent
and to shut them in their fold at sunset, and when the monks saw that
marvel, instead of praising God they were burned up with envy and
ill-will, and they killed the bear. Ah, children, it is still possible
for us, even in these days, to kill a Saint's robin and an abbot's
bear. Let us beware of envy and jealousy and uncharitableness."
In those years when Father Oswald was thus teaching his novices
gentleness and compassion, he had but one trouble in his life, and that
was the remembrance of a companion of his youth, who had fled from the
Priory and disappeared in the noise and tumult of the world's life. As
scholars they had been class-mates, and as novices they had been so
closely drawn together that each had pledged to the other that whoever
died first should, under God's permission, appear to the one still left
alive, and reveal to his friend all that may be told of the state of
the departed. Now hardly had they been professed monks more than a
year when this brother broke his vows and deserted his habit, and fled
away under cloud of night. Oswald had never forgotten his friend, and
had never ceased to grieve and pray for him. It was the great hope and
desire of his heart that, having at last proved the vanity of all that
the world can give, this Lost Brother would one day return, like the
Prodigal Son, to the house of his boyhood.
As the years went by Prior Anselm grew old and sickened, and at length
what was mortal of him fell as the leaf that falls and is trodden in
the clay; and the Novice-master was elected Prior in his stead.
Now one of the first great works which the new Prior set his hand to
was the making of two large fish-ponds for the monastery. "And so,"
said he, "not only shall we have other than sea-fish for our table, but
in case of fire we shall have store of water at hand. Then, too, it is
a pleasant thing to look on sweet water among trees, and to watch the
many sorts of silvery fish playing in their clear and silent world.
And well it becomes our state of life that we should have this, for of
our Lord's Disciples many were fishermen, and fish and bread were the
last earthly food our dear Master ate. Now of these ponds let the
larger be our Lake of Gennesaret, and surely it shall some time happen
to us that we shall see the Lord when the bright morning has come, and
that our hearts shall be as a fire of coals upon the shore."
Of the earth dug out of the fish pools he piled up a high mound or
barrow, and stocked it well with saplings of oak and beech, ash and
pine, and flowering bushes; and about the mound a spiral way wound to
the top, and from the top one saw to the four winds over the high woods
of Amounderness, and on the west, beyond the forest, the white sands of
the shore and the fresh sea. When the saplings grew tall and stout,
the green leaves shut out all sight of the Priory; even the tower of
the church; and above the trees in the bright air it was as though one
had got half-way to heaven.
Now after a little while the Prior reared on the high summit a vast
cross of oak, rooted firmly amid huge boulders, and the face of our
Lord crucified was turned to the west, and His arms were opened wide to
the sea and to the passing ships. And beneath the flying sails, far
away, the mariners and fisher-folk could see the cross in the sky, and
they bared their heads to the calvary of Kilgrimol. So the name of our
house and our Christ was known in strange waters and in distant havens.
All that climbing greenwood of the mound was alive with wild creatures,
winged and four-footed, and no one was suffered to disquiet or annoy
them. To us it seemed that the Prior was as well known to all the wild
things far and near as he was to us, for the little birds fluttered
about him, and the squirrels leaped from tree to tree along the way he
went, and the fawns ran from the covert to thrust their noses into his
hand. And in the winter time, if the snow lay deep and there was any
dearth, food was made ready for them and they came in flocks and troops
to the Priory, knowing well, one would think, that the Prior would be
their loving almoner.
Bee-hives, too, he set up, and grew all manner of flowers, both for the
use of the little brown toilers and for the joyance of the brethren;
and of the flowers he spoke deep and beautiful parables too many to be
told of in this book.
Now in the third year of his rule the Prior heard tidings of the
companion he had never forgotten, and he took into his confidence one
of the religious named Bede, in whom he had great trust, and he told
him the story of their friendship. "And now, Bede," he said, "I would
have thee go on a long journey, even to the golden city of London, and
seek out my friend. He will easily be found, for men know his name,
and he hath grown to some repute, and the good things of this world
have not been denied him. And in this I rejoice, for when he hath won
all his heart may desire, he will the sooner discover how little is the
joy and how fleeting the content. And tell him that so long as I am
Prior of this house, so long shall this house be a home waiting for his
home-coming. Bid him come to me--if but for a little while, then for a
little while be it; but if he longs for rest, this shall be the place
of his rest until the end. And if these things cannot be now, then let
them be when they may be."
And Bede went on his long wayfaring and found the Lost Brother, a man
happy and of fair fame, and blessed with wife and child. And the monk
sat with the little maid on his knee, and even while he prayed for her
and her father, he understood how it might be that the man was well
content, and how that neither to-day nor to-morrow could he return to
that old life of the Priory in the forest.
"Yet," said he, "tell the Prior that surely some day I shall see his
face again, if it be but for mere love of him for well I know there be
among the monks those who would more joyfully rend me or burn me at the
stake than give the hand of fellowship to one who has cast aside the
cowl."
When he heard of these things the Prior only prayed the more earnestly
for the home-coming of his friend.
Now it was in the autumn of that year, at the season when the days and
nights are of one length, that the great inroad of the sea befell. The
day had been stormy, with a brackish wind clamouring out of the sea,
and as the darkness closed in it was with us as it is with blind men
who hear and feel the more keenly because of their blindness and all
that we heard was the boom of billows breaking on the long shore and
the crying and groaning of the old oaks and high firs in the forest.
Then in the midmost of the night we were aroused by so terrible a
noise, mingled with shrieking and wailing, that we crowded to the
Prior's door. Speedily he rose, and we followed him out of doors,
wondering what disaster had happened. The moon was shining brightly;
shreds of cloud were flying across the cold sky; the air was full of
the taste of salt.
As we gazed about us we saw that the cloisters and the garth and all
the space within the walls were crowded with wild birds--sea-fowl and
crows, pheasant and blackcock, starlings and thrushes, stonechats and
yellow-hammers, and hundreds of small winged creatures cowering for
shelter. And when the Prior bade us throw open the monastery gates,
out of the sombre gloom of the forest the scared woodlanders came
crowding, tame and panting. No one had ever realised that so many
strange creatures, in fur and pelt, housed in the green ways. Even the
names of many of them we did not know, for we had never set eyes on
them before; but among those that were within our knowledge were coneys
and hares, stoats and weasels, foxes and badgers, many deer with their
does and fawns, and one huge grey creature of savage aspect which we
took to be an old wolf.
The Prior ordered that the gates should be left open for any fugitives
that might seek refuge, and he went among the wild beasts, calming them
with a touch of his hand and blessing them. Then there came a woman,
with a child at her bosom and a little lad clinging to her dress, but
she was so distracted with fright that she was unable to say what had
happened.
When he had given directions for the care of all these strange guests,
the Prior climbed up the mound through the tossing trees, and when he
had reached the summit he saw to his amazement that the sea had risen
in a mighty flood and poured for miles into the forest. The huge oaks
and pines of centuries had gone down in thousands, and over their
fallen trunks and broken branches the white billows were tumbling and
leaping in clouds of spray in the moonlight. Happily the land sloped
away to the north, so that unless the wind changed and blew against us
the Priory seemed to be in no present danger. Overhead the great cross
vibrated in the storm, and the face of the Christ gazed seaward, and
the holy arms were opened wide. The sight of that divine figure filled
the Prior's heart with peace and confidence. "Whether to live or to
die," he murmured, "in Thee, O Lord, have we placed our trust."
Such was the terrible inroad of the sea which broke the western forest
of Amounderness. For many a day the land lay in salt swamp till the
sands were blown over it and buried the fallen timber; and afterwards
the very name of Forest was forgotten, and the people called all that
part the Field-lands.
Now it was in this same year that the grievous pestilence named the
Black Death raged in England; but it was not till the winter had gone
by that it reached Amounderness. Then were seen those terrible days
when ships sailed the seas with crews of dead men, and when on land
there was burying without sorrow and flight without safety, for though
many fled they could not escape the evil, and so many died that the
wells of sorrow ran dry. And because of the horror of so many deaths,
it was forbidden to toll the bells any longer lest men should go mad.
Often no hand could be got for love or for gold to touch the sick or to
carry the departed to their graves. When the graveyards were filled,
thousands were buried, without a prayer or a last look, in deep
trenches salted with quicklime, on the commons or in an open field.
Many a street in many a town fell suddenly silent and deserted, and
grass grew between the stones of the causeway. Here and there fires
were kept burning night and day to purify the air, but this availed
little. In many a thorpe and village all the inhabitants were swept
away and even robbers and desperate vagrants were too greatly in fear
of infection to enter the ownerless houses. Sometimes in the fields
one saw little children, and perchance an aged woman, trying to manage
a plough or to lead a waggon.
When this trouble fell upon the people the Prior sent out various of
the brethren to aid the suffering and to comfort the bereaved; but when
many of the monks themselves were stricken down and died within the
hour, a great dread took hold of the others, so that they were
unwilling to expose themselves to danger.
The Prior rebuked them for their lack of faith and the coldness of
their charity. "When the beasts and wild creatures suffered we had
compassion on them," he said; "what folly is this that we shall have
care for them and yet feel no pity for men and women in their misery!
Do you fear that you too may be taken off by this pestilence? Who,
then, has told you that you shall not die if only you can escape the
pestilence? Daily you pray, 'Thy kingdom come,' and daily you seek
that it shall not come to-day."
He went abroad himself unweariedly with one or other of the brethren,
doing such good as he was able, and when he had returned home and taken
a little rest he set out once more. Now one night as he and Brother
Bede returned belated through the forest, they were startled as they
approached the gate to hear the weeping and moaning of one who lay
forsaken on the cold earth; and when the Prior called out through the
darkness, "Be of good cheer, Christian soul, we are coming to your
aid," the sufferer replied by rattling the lid of his clap-dish, and at
once they knew it was some poor leper who had fallen helpless by the
way.
"Patience, brother," said the Prior; and bidding his companion open the
wicket, he lifted the wretched outcast from the ground and carried him
in his arms into the great hall. "Rest here a little," he said, "till
we can bring you light and fire and food."
The Prior and Bede hastened to call the brethren who had charge of
these matters, but when they returned with the other monks they found
the great hall shining with a wonderful light and filled with a
marvellous fragrance of flowers, and on the seat where the leper had
been placed there lay a golden rose, but the leper himself had vanished.
Then a great joy cast fear out of the hearts of the brotherhood, and
they laboured without ceasing in the stricken villages. Many of them
died, but it was without sorrow or repining, and the face of each was
touched with the golden rose ere he was laid to his rest.
Now the pestilence of that year was stayed by a bitter winter, and snow
lay deep even in the forest, and great blocks of ice littered the shore
of the bleak sea. And in the depth of the winter, when it drew near
the Nativity, there came riding to the monastery a stranger, who asked
to see the Prior. When the Prior looked into the man's face the tears
started and ran down his own, and he opened his arms to him, and drew
him to his breast and kissed him. For this was indeed the Lost
Brother. And when he had thus given him welcome, the Prior said: "I
ask no questions; what you can tell me you shall tell when the fitting
time comes. But this is your home to have or to leave, for you are as
free as the winds of heaven."
And the Lost Brother replied: "Wise are you no less than good. The
plague has bereft me of the child, and of the mother of the child.
More I cannot tell you now."
Thus to the Priori great happiness the companion of his youth returned
from wandering the ways of the world.
When the weeks passed, and still he remained a silent and solitary
stranger, the religious spoke sharply among themselves of the presence
of one who had broken vows and revelled in the joys of life, and had
been received without censure or reproof. Then the Prior, wrathful now
even on account of his gentleness, rebuked them once again: "O eyes of
stone and hearts of water, are you so slow to learn? Have you who
sheltered the wild creatures no thought for this man of much sorrow?
Have you who buried the dead no prayer and no tenderness for this soul
of the living?"
More than once the Lost Brother seemed to awake from a dream, and spoke
of going forth again from this home or quiet, saying: "Truly this is
great peace and solace to me, but I am not of you; my thoughts are not
your thoughts, nor is yours my way of life. Indeed, though I were to
will it never so, I could not repent of what I have done. Let me go;
why should I be an offence and a stone of stumbling to those who are
righteous among you?"
But the Prior silenced him, asking gently: "Do we distress you with any
of these things? God has His times and seasons, and will not be
hastened. At least so long as you find peace and rest here, remain
with us."
"You are strangely wise and gentle," the Lost Brother answered. "God,
I doubt it not, has His times and seasons; but with me I know not at
all what He will do."
It was no long while after this that the Prior fell into a grievous
illness; and when he knew that his hour was drawing nigh, he besought
the monks to bear him up to the foot of the cross on the mound. There,
as he looked far abroad into the earth over the tree-tops, he smiled
with lightness of heart and said: "If the earth be so beautiful and so
sweet, what must the delight of Paradise be?"
And behold! a small brown squirrel came down a tree, and ran across and
nestled in the holy man's bosom, and its eyes were full of tears. The
Prior stroked and caressed it, and said: "God bless thee, little
woodlander, and may the nuts never fail thee!"
Then, gazing up into the blue sky and the deep spaces of air above, he
murmured in a low voice, "It is a very awful and lonely way to go!"
"Not so awful for you," replied the companion of his youth. "That blue
way has been beaten plain by the Lord Christ, and the Apostles, and
many holy men from the beginning."
A long while the Prior lay musing before he spoke again, and then he
said: "I remember me of an ancient saying which I had long forgotten.
A year for the life of a--nay, I know not what any longer. But after
that it runs, And three for the life of a field; and thrice the life of
a field for the life of a hound; and thrice the life of a hound for the
life of a horse; and thrice the life of a horse for the life of a man;
and thrice the life of a man for the life of a stag; and thrice the
life of a stag for the life of an ouzel; and thrice the life of an
ouzel for the life of an eagle; and thrice the life of an eagle for the
life of a salmon; and thrice the life of a salmon for the life of a
yew; but the Lord God liveth for ever--the Lord God liveth for ever!"
That same night the alabaster box was broken and the precious ointment
poured out. And on the Prior's breast they placed the golden rose, and
under the great red hawthorn in the midst of the cloister-garth they
laid him, O Lord, beneath the earth which is Thy footstool.
At the same hour in which he was taken from us there was a great crying
and lamentation of the wild creatures in the forest, and the tall stags
bellowed and clashed their antlers against the gates of the monastery.
In the place of Prior Oswald, Father Bede was made Prior.
Whether the spirit of Prior Oswald ever returned to earth the book does
not tell, but the Lost Brother, the companion of his youth, lived in
the house of Kilgrimol to old age, and in the days of Bede's rule he
made a good end.