Silver Cross E-Book

Johnston Mary

• Herausgeber: Mary Johnston
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The town of Middle Forest had long since pushed the forest from all sides. Its streets, forked as lightning, ran up to the castle and down to the river. The river here was near its mouth, and wide. The bridge that crossed it had many arches. Below the bridge quite large craft, white and brown and dull red, sailed or dropping sail, came to anchor. Answering to hour and weather the water spread carnation, gold, sapphire, jade, opal, lead and ebony. Now it slept glassy, and now wind made of it a fretful, ridged thing. The note of the town was a bleached grey, but with strong splashes of red and umber. A sharp, steep hill upheld the castle that was of middle size and importance, built by the lords Montjoy and held now by William of that name.

Leseprobe

Silver Cross

By

Mary Johnston

CHAPTER I

Henry the Seventh sat upon the throne.

The town of Middle Forest had long since pushed the forest from all sides. Its streets, forked as lightning, ran up to the castle and down to the river. The river here was near its mouth, and wide. The bridge that crossed it had many arches. Below the bridge quite large craft, white and brown and dull red, sailed or dropping sail, came to anchor. Answering to hour and weather the water spread carnation, gold, sapphire, jade, opal, lead and ebony. Now it slept glassy, and now wind made of it a fretful, ridged thing. The note of the town was a bleached grey, but with strong splashes of red and umber. A sharp, steep hill upheld the castle that was of middle size and importance, built by the lords Montjoy and held now by William of that name.

Behind the town a downward sloping wood tied the castle hill to fields and meadows. The small river Wander ran by these on its way to join the greater stream. Up the Wander, two leagues or so, in a fertile vale couched the Abbey of Silver Cross. Materially speaking, a knot of stone houses for monks—Cistercians, White Monks—a stately stone house for God and his Son and Mary; near-by a quite unstately hamlet, timber, daub and thatch, grown haphazard by church and cloister; many score broad acres, wood and field, stream and pasture, mill, forge, weirs, and a tenant roll of goodly length,—such was Silver Cross. So far as physical possessions went what in this region Montjoy did not hold Silver Cross did and what the two did not hold Middle Forest had managed to wrest from them in Henry Sixth’s time. Silver Cross had, too, immaterial possessions. But once she had been wealthier here than she was now. That time had been even with a time of material poverty. Now she had goods, but she did not have so much sanctity. Yet there were values still, marked with that other world’s seal; it is useless to doubt that.

The thorn in Silver Cross’ flesh was not now Montjoy nor Middle Forest, with both of whom she had for years lived in amity. The thorn was the Friary of Saint Leofric—Dominican—across the river from Middle Forest, but tied to it by the bridge, holding its lands well away from Montjoy and Silver Cross, but rival nevertheless, with an eye to king’s favour, cardinal’s favour, and bidding latterly, with a distinctness, for popular favour. That was the wretched, irritating thorn, likely to produce inflammation! Prior Hugh of Saint Leofric—ah, the ambitious one!

Silver Cross possessed in a splendid loculus the span-long silver cross that the lips of Saint Willebrod, the martyr, had kissed after head and trunk were parted. In ancient times it had worked many miracles, but in this modern day the miraculous was grown drowsy. Saint Leofric had the bones of Saint Leofric,—all, that is, save the right hand and arm. That is, once and for ages these had lacked. But now—this very Easter—the missing members had been found: miraculously pointed out, miraculously found! There had been long pause in working miracles, but now Saint Leofric was working them again. Middle Forest talked more of Saint Leofric who was, as it were, a foreigner, being across the river, lord of nothing on this side—than it talked of Silver Cross that was its own. Not alone Middle Forest, but all this slice of England. Silver Cross found the mounting bruit discordant, a very peacock scream. Silver Cross slurred the fresh miracles of Saint Leofric and detested Prior Hugh. Silver Cross’s own abbot, Abbot Mark, said that Apollyon made somewhere a market.

The river lay stretched and still, red with the sunset, deep blue where the blue summer sky yet abided. “Like the Blessed Virgin’s robe and cloak!” said Morgen Fay. “The bridge is her gemmed girdle.”

Morgen Fay’s house was a river-side one, built up sheer indeed from the river so that one might take welcomes, flung toys, from passing boats. Morgen Fay took them, leaning from her window. Her voice floated down in return; sometimes she flung a flower. She had a garden, large as a kerchief, beside the house, hidden almost by a jut of the old town wall. Here she gathered the flowers she flung. Sometimes he who had been in the boat came again, walking, to her door that was discreet, in the shadow of the wall. But he only gained entry if he were somehow friend of a friend. And all alike must be armiger, or at least not the least in the burgher world. And, logically, only those of these entered who could be friends and pay. Would you have love for nothing? She had an answer always ready to that. “I must live!”

The sunset spread. There was more red than blue. “She is so close wrapped in her mantle that you can hardly see the heavenly blue core of her.—Oh, Mother and Mother and Mother—where are we and what are we?”

Morgen Fay went into her garden. Company was coming for supper. Best break a few more flowers. The flowers were June flowers, roses and yellow lilies, larkspur and pinks. They had the sunset hues. The owner of the garden broke them, tall herself as the lilies, white and vermeil like the roses.

The sunset died out and the river stretched first pearl and then lead and then ebony.

Morgen Fay had a little oaken room where boards were laid upon trestles and covered with a fringed cloth, and dishes and flasks and goblets set upon this. An old woman, large but light upon her feet, spread the table, Morgen helping. The old woman’s son kept the street door. He was a lazy lout but obedient, strong, too, of his fists and with a voice that could summon, if need were, not the dead but the watch. His name was Anthony, the old woman’s Ailsa, and Morgen Fay had known them since she was a young child. Now they were in her employ.

Said Ailsa, “’Tis Somerville’s company?”

“Yes. You know that. How many candles? You’d best bring three more.”

“Yes, I will. Is that the gown you’re going to wear?”

“Yes. It’s my best.”

“It’s not the one you like the best—so ’t isn’t your best after all, is it? You don’t like Somerville as well as you did last Lady Day.”

“What does it matter if I like him or don’t like him?”

“Oh, you won’t keep him if you don’t like him! He’ll go as others have gone. ‘Keep!’ Lord! With most of blessed women it’s the other way ’round!”

She brought the candles. “Do you like Master Bettany?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s richer than the knight—just as he’s younger. I say that Somerville’s holding a light for his own house’s sacking!”

“I say that I am tired. I like neither man nor woman, I nor thou.”

“Are you cold? Will you have a little fire? Here, take wine!”

“Joy from wine is falseness like the rest. Give it to me!”

Morgen drank. “I’ll have just time to put on the other dress if you think it sets me better.”

She went and put it on, returning to the oak room. Ailsa regarded results with eyes of a friendly critic. “It does! Montjoy knows how to choose—learned it, I reckon, in France!” She stood with her hands on her hips. She, too, had taken wine and now she loosed tongue, regarding all the time the younger woman with a selfish and unselfish affection, submitting to the wonder of her, but standing up for the right by prescription of half-ruling the wonder. Morgen had a voice of frankincense and music with a drop of clear oil. Ailsa had more of the oil and a humbler music. “Say you ‘Falseness?’ Say you ‘Coldness?’ Say you ‘Darkness!’ You’re a bright fool, Morgen-live-by-the-river!”

“Granted I am a fool,” said Morgen, and kneeled on the window seat.

The older woman’s voice rose. “Doesn’t fire warm you, and good sweet sack? Don’t you lie soft? Don’t you have jewels and gold work and silk of Cyprus? Don’t gentlemen and rich merchants come for your stroking? Haven’t you got a garden where you can walk and a tight house, and a pearl net for your hair, and a velvet shoe? Doesn’t Montjoy protect you for old time’s sake—even though now the fool goes off after religion? Religion! Don’t you go to Mass and give candles—wax ones—and doesn’t Father Edwin, your cousin, make all safe for you in that quarter? Oh, the Saints! There’s king’s power, and there’s priest’s power, and there’s woman’s power! World slurs you and world loves you, Morgen and Morgen! Go to! Fie on you! Shorten your long face! Where’s falseness—anything to speak of, that is? Where’s coldness and darkness? The world’s been a good world to you, mistress, ever since you danced at the Great Fair here, and Warham House saw you and took you and taught you! A pretty good world!”

“As worlds go—poor, dumb things! Yes, I say they are poor, dumb things! Light the candles!”

The large woman drew close the curtains over the window that gave upon the street and lighted the candles. There was wood laid within the fireplace. She regarded this. “It’s a cool June—and, Our Lady! We seem to need mirth here to-night! Fire and wine—wine and fire!”

She left the room for the kitchen, and returning with a flaming brand, struck it amid the cold wood. All took fire. “Better, isn’t it? I hear company’s footfall!”

The company thought the oak room shining to-night. They thought Morgen Fay fair and joyous. Sir Robert Somerville was yet in love,—none of her old loves went wholly out of love. But he was not so fathoms deep in love as once he had been. He had left the miser stage and now he was at the expansive, willing to feed pride by showing his easy wealth. He moved a tall man of forty-odd, with a quick, odd grimacing face, not unpleasing. He had a decisive voice and more gesture than was the country’s custom. With him came a guest in his house to whom he wished to show the oak casket and the gem it contained, a cousin from the other side of England, Sir Humphrey Somerville, to wit,—and Master Thomas Bettany, son and heir of the richest merchant in Middle Forest. They kissed Morgen Fay who put on magic and welcomed them. It was as though the river outside, that had been lead to ebony, ran now through faint silver back to rose.

There was a settle by the fire and Morgen sat here, and by her Sir Robert, and Sir Humphrey opposite, and Master Bettany in a poorer chair in front of the flames. Master Bettany was the youngest there,—a great, blond boy with blue eyes of daring, with enormous desire for adventure, experience, plots and mysteries. Salt and sugar must be elaborately planned for, approached with a delicate, shivering sense of danger, of play and play again and something to risk, or truly life was not sugared nor salted! He was for islands said to be danger-circled and with a witch for queen! He was likewise modest and kind-hearted, and as he could not devise evil, the evil he believed in was highly artificial. Sir Humphrey Somerville was as large for man as Ailsa was for women. He had brown hair and a beak of a nose and the eyes of a wag, but behind the waggery something formidable in his face.

Such as they were, they had a merry evening, when the food was brought and the wine was poured; and Morgen, too, turned merry, though, as ever, she kept measure, for that was the way she ruled.

CHAPTER II

Up in the castle also was company to supper. William, Lord of Montjoy, entertained his cousin, Abbot Mark from Silver Cross, and Prior Matthew of Westforest, a dependent House further up the Wander. Montjoy showed a small, dark, wistful man. The Abbot had too much flesh for comfort, a great, handsome, egg-shaped face, and a manner that oozed bland, undoubting authority. He had long ago settled that he was good and wise. But, strangely, was left the struggle to be happy! It took a man’s time! Just there, something or some one perpetually interfered! But it was something to be sure that you served God and Holy Church. Asked how he served, he might, after cogitation, have answered that he served by his being. Moreover, as times went, he was scrupulous, gave small houseroom to scandal, ruled monk and tenant, beautified the great church of Silver Cross, bought Italian altar pictures.

Matthew of Westforest was another sort. Tall and shrivelled and reddish, he had another manner of wit.

The three supped in the castle hall, at the upper end of a table accommodating a half-score above the salt and thrice that number below. Beside Montjoy sat Lady Alice, his wife. There were likewise a young girl, his daughter Isabel, and his sister, also young, married and widowed, Dame Elenore.

Abbot Mark talked much to these three, benevolently, with gallantry looking around corners. The Prior maintained silence here. The features he secretly praised were the beautiful features of Outward Advancement. Montjoy at supper talked little. After a life of apparent unconcern he was beginning to think of soul’s life. Perhaps once a day he felt a shift of consciousness. Now it came like a zephyr from some differing, surely sweeter clime, and now like a clean dagger stroke. After these events, which never took more time to happen than the winking of an eye, he saw some great expanse of things differently. He was learning to lie in wait for these instants. Laid one to another, they were becoming the hub around which the day’s wheel ran. But truly they were but instants and came but once in so often, taking him when it pleased them. And the lightning might have showed him—perhaps did show him—that there was an unknown number of things yet to change. They might be very many. He knew in no wise definitely whence came the fragrant air and the dagger strokes.

At the moment when the chronicle opens, he had turned back, in his questing, to the broad realm of Holy Church. Holy Church said that she sat, acquiescent, wise, at the door through which such things came. In fact, she said, she had the keys. Montjoy, being no fool, saw, indeed, how much of the portress was lewd and drunken. But for all that surely she had been given the keys! Given them once, surely she could not have parted with them! He rebuked the notion. And truly he knew much that was good of the portress, much that was very good. He thought, “I will better serve Religion”—conceiving that to be Holy Church’s high name. But he was bewildered between high name and low name, between the saint there in the portress and the evident harlot. Between the goodness and the evil!

He was led by a longing for union and he only knew that it was not for old unions that once had contented. He could have those at any time if he willed them again. But he knew that they would not content. The longing was larger and demanded a larger reciprocal. He was knight-errant now in the interior land of romance, out to find that reciprocal, visited with gleams from some presence, but wandering often, turning in mistake now here, now there.

Supper ended. Abbot Mark had come to the castle for counsel, or at the least, for intelligent sympathy. It was too general in the hall. The withdrawing room would be better. They went to this, but still there was play, with a fire for a cool June evening, with lights and musical instruments, Dame Elenore’s hands upon the virginals, young Isabel’s fresh voice singing with a young knight, man of Montjoy’s, two gentlewomen serving Lady Alice murmuring over a tapestry frame,—and the Abbot soothed, happy, in the great chair near Dame Elenore. Prior Matthew shook himself. “Business! Business!” was his true motto and inner word. He spoke in a low voice to the Abbot, deferentially, for the Priory deduced from the Abbey, but monitory also, perhaps even minatory. Abbot and Prior alike knew that when it came to business the Prior had the head.

The Abbot sighed and turned from Dame Elenore to Montjoy who was brooding, chin on fist, eyes on fire. “We must ride early to Silver Cross, Montjoy! Counsel is good, they say, taken in the warm, still hour before bedtime.”

Dame Elenore lifted her hands from the virginals. Montjoy’s wife spoke to her women and, the song being done, to her daughter. “We will go, my lord. Give you good night! Your blessing, Lord Abbot!” She kneeled for it, as did young Isabel and Dame Elenore and the two gentlewomen and the young knight and Gilbert the page. The Abbot blessed; the women and the young men took their departure. Montjoy and Silver Cross and Westforest had the room and the fire and through the window the view, did they choose to regard it, of the town roofs and twisting, crack-like streets, and of the river, now under the gleaming of a rising moon, and a line that was the bridge, and a mound on the farther side crowned by a twinkling constellation, lights of Saint Leofric’s monks. The Abbot did so look, walking heavily the room and pausing by the window. It was with peevish face and gesture that he returned to the great chair “Do you hear each day, Montjoy, louder news of what Hugh is doing?”

“Is it Prior Hugh, or is it Saint Leofric? If it be Hugh, I say that long since we knew that he was ambitious and glory-covetous. If it be the saint—how shall you war against him?”

“If Saint Willebrod would arise to war—”

“Would they war—two saints?”

“Would he not come to aid of St. Robert, St. Bernard, St. Stephen and Abbey of Silver Cross? Just as Montjoy would draw blade for his suzerain? Chivalry, loyalty and fealty must hold in heaven,” said the Abbot.

“If there is One behind Saint Leofric—”

“Never believe it!” The Prior spoke hastily. “Moreover, my son, it is certainly not Leofric. It is Hugh!”

Montjoy sat brooding. His guests watched him. Presently he spoke. “Two days ago, returning from hawking in Long Fields, I met a man who had sat and woven baskets from his youth because he could not walk, being smitten in both feet. He was walking, he was skipping and running. ‘Saint Leofric! Saint Leofric!’ he kept crying out, and those with him cried, ‘Saint Leofric! Saint Leofric!’ I halted one of them. ‘The right hand and arm—the right hand and arm that were found, lord! He touched but the little finger—and look how he leaps and runs!’”

The Abbot groaned.

“I rode on farther and I met a stream of folk on their way to the bridge. They had made themselves into a procession and were chanting. I remember easily and I can almost give you their chant. It ran something like this.”

He began to chant, but not loudly.

“‘They were found through a dream,

They were shown to Brother Paul,

A saintly monk,

Where they rested

Under a stone

In a place prepared of old

In Saint Leofric’s great church!

The white bones,

The right arm and the right hand,

Miraculous!

In the monk’s dream

They shone through the stone

Making a pool of light.

Saint Leofric painted in the window

Came down and kneeled over it.’”

Again the Abbot groaned. “So saith Hugh!”

“‘Good Prior Hugh made to dig.

There in sweet earth,

In spices and linen,

The right hand and arm

At last!

Yea, it shineth forth—

Saint Leofric smileth in his window!’”

The Abbot groaned the third time. “Sathanas smileth!”

“‘Now are the bones together,

They shine with a sunny light,

Working miracles!—

From the four corners come

The sick and the sorrowful—’”

“Aye! Bringing gifts!”

“‘Saint Leofric’s name is in all mouths,

His glory encreaseth over Silver Cross!’”

“I should not have said it—I should not have said it!” cried the Abbot. “But with the inconstant and weak generality it doth! What is it this part England rings with—yea, that the rest of England begins to learn? Do we not hear that a pilgrimage comes from London itself? The missing bones of Saint Leofric have been found!”

“And have they not?” said Montjoy.

There followed a pause. A log cracked and fell upon the hearth. Light and shadow leaped about the room. The Prior spoke. “It is a matter of observation,” he said, and seemed to study his ring, “that there are cases when acts belief as belief, whether it be correctly addressed to a reality or squandered before a falsity.”

“I have met that witch,” answered Montjoy, “and she palsies me!” He went to the window and stood looking out at the moon-silvered town and river. Presently back he came. “Against what or whom do you shake a lance? If it be against a saint and his true miracles, I lay the quarrel down—”

Abbot Mark spoke weightily. “And so should I, Montjoy, and so should I! But if it be against falsity? If it be against Hugh and his frauds?”

“Prove that!”

The Abbot turned toward the Prior. The latter nodded and spoke. “We brought with us two wandering friars—Franciscans. Westforest has known them long. They are not the idle and greedy rogues that bring us down with the people. They are right Mendicants, travelling from place to place to do good. Will it please you have them summoned?”

A silver bell stood upon the table. Montjoy struck it. His page appeared, took commands and bowing vanished. Abbot Mark began to speak of the church at Silver Cross and how he would make it so rich and beautiful! Now Montjoy loved this church. Buried beneath it were his parents, and buried his first young wife, the one whom he loved as he did not love Dame Alice. It was she he had loved through and beyond Morgen Fay, loving something of her in that sinner from whom, in concern for his soul, he had parted. He listened to the Abbot. Certainly Silver Cross was the highest, the most beauteous, and must be kept so! He knew Silver Cross, church and cloister, in and out, when he was a boy and after. He had love and concern for it—love almost of a lover—jealous love. Prior Hugh and Saint Leofric must not go beyond bounds!

The two friars entered, Andrew and Barnaby, honest-looking men, Andrew the more intelligent. They stood by the door with hands crossed and Montjoy observed them. Given permission to advance and speak they came discreetly, with modesty, into conclave. Without preamble, they began.

The Abbot spoke. “My sons, the Lord Montjoy who hath ever been devout toward Saint Willebrod and his Abbey of Silver Cross—yea, who hath been, like his father before him, advocate and protector and enricher of the same, bringing from overseas emeralds, rubies and sapphires for that marvel the casket where lies that world’s marvel, the cross of Saint Willebrod—the Lord Montjoy, my sons, would have from your own lips that which you heard and saw in April, it now being late June.—Question them, Matthew, so that they may show it forth expeditiously.”

The Prior squared himself to the task. “Where were you, my sons, two weeks before Easter?”

“Across the river, reverend father. The granddame of Brother Barnaby here, living at Damson Lane, was breathing her last and greatly wishful to see him. She died—may her soul rest—and we buried her. Then we would go a little further, not having been upon yonder side for some while.”

“You did not go brawling along, nor fled into every alehouse as if Satan were after you?”

“Lord of Montjoy, we are not friars of that stripe. We are clean men and sober, praise God and Our Lady!”

“Aye, aye, they speak truth, Montjoy.—Well, you walked in country over there, avoiding Friary and town—if one can call that clump of mud, pebble and thatch a town!”

“Why did you do that?”

“Brother Barnaby, lord, had had a dream. In it a Shining One plucked up towns like weeds and threw them one by one into a great and deep pit. There was left alive only country road, heath and field and wood. So he awoke quaking and said, ‘I go through never a town gate this journey!’”

“That was a discomfortable dream!”

The Abbot spoke. “I interpret it. The towns, one by one, are that one which Hugh, dreaming and dreaming again, thinks to see rise beside his Friary, built from pilgrims’ wealth, with hostels for pilgrims and merchants to sell them goods, and a great house for nobles who come!—But a Shining One, Hugh! Topples them into ditches, yea, into gulfs, as fast as you build them! Ha! Go on, my son!”

“So we passed the town and we wandered, reverend father, until we came to the chapel of Damson Hill, three miles from Saint Leofric’s, where the dead country folk lie under green grass. Damson Wood is hard by, where watches and prays the good hermit Gregory—”

“Aye, aye, a good man!” said Montjoy.

“By now the sun was setting. He gave us water and bread, and after praying we lay down to sleep with only our gowns for bed and bedding. Brother Barnaby and I slept, but on the middle of the night we waked. Then saw we the hermit standing praying, and when he saw that we no longer slept he said to us, ‘Misdoing is moving through this night. Misdoing in high places!’ So he went to the door and stood a long time looking out, then took his staff and strode forth, and Brother Barnaby and I followed.”

“I know that he is said to have the greater vision,” said Montjoy. “Moreover, once in my life, he told me high truth.”

“Where did the holy man go, my son?”

“He went through the black night, reverend father, to Damson Hill and to the great and ill-kept graveyard under the shadow. Brother Barnaby and I followed him. He walked softly and he walked swiftly and he walked silently, and when we came there we did not stop by the chapel which truly is a ruin, but we went on to the far slope of the yard—”

The Prior said, “Where they are buried who died long since, of the plague that came in King Richard’s time.”

“I know the place,” said Montjoy.

“Reverend father, there are three yew trees, old, I reckon, as Damson Hill, and thick. Like one who knows what he is about he passed within the castle of these and we followed and made a place whence we looked forth like eyes out of a skull. And we saw, across the dead field, a little light burning blue and coming toward us. Arm of the hill hid it from the road. But had any belated seen it he would most certainly have thought, ‘A ghost among the graves!’ and taken to his heels.”

“It came toward you. Who carried it?”

“One of six, reverend father. We were there in the yew clump with less noise than maketh a bat. They came closer and closer and at last they came close, and now they did not shelter their lantern for they thought, ‘The shoulder of the hill and the yew trees hide, and who should be abroad in this place in the black and middle night, and who should know of a villainy working?’”

The Abbot brought his finger tips together. “It is ever discovered!—They dig a pit and fall into it; they open a grave and lift out their own perdition!”

“They opened a grave?”

“Yes, lord. A very ancient, sunken one.”

“Some unknown,” said the Prior. “Some wretch of ancient time, seized by the plague, dying—who knows?—unshriven, lazar mayhap or thief! Proceed, my son!”

“Two had spades. They spread a great cloth. They lay the green turf to one side of this, and in the middle the earth of the grave. They work hard and they work fast, and a monk directs—”

“Monk of Saint Leofric’s?”

“Aye, lord, Dominican. White-and-black. They open the grave and they bring forth bones—the frame of that perished one.”

The Abbot groaned. “Perished mayhap in his sins—yea, almost certainly in his sins—and so no better than heathen or than sorcerer!”

“They spread a second cloth, and having shaken forth the earth, they put in it the bones of that obscure—yea, right arm and hand with the rest—”

“See you, Montjoy?”

“Then, having that which they need, they fill in the grave with care. They put over it the sod they had taken away. Rain and sun must presently make it whole. And probably no man hath ever gone that way to look. So the six went away as though they had moth wings, and now with no light—”

“Yet they give forth that right hand and arm doth shine, giving light whereby a reading man may read! Wherefore—oh, Hugh!—shone it not by Damson Hill?”

Said Montjoy, “All this is enough to father Suspicion, but the child must be named Certainty.”

“Then listen further!—Proceed, my son. You two and the hermit followed?”

“We followed, reverend father. Under Damson Hill those six parted, and three went by divers ways, belike to their own dwellings. But the three with the bones they had digged went Saint Leofric’s road. We followed Blackfriar and his fellows who would be lay brethren. The moon shone out. We followed to Friary Gate and saw them enter.”

“And then?”

“Gregory the hermit turned and went again to Damson Wood, and we with him. When we came to his cell there was red east.”

“What did you think of what you had seen?”

“We could conceive naught, lord. We did not know that which was to be proclaimed in Easter week. But the hermit said thrice, ‘Villainy! Villainy! Villainy! A shepherd hath turned villain!’”

Brother Barnaby came in. “He said besides, ‘I see what you cannot see, good brothers! But dimly, and I cannot explain to myself what I see.’”

“I had forgot that.”

“He said also. ‘Talk not, till you know of what you are talking,’ and he took from us a promise of silence.”

“I was coming to that, brother.—We are not gabblers, reverend father. We left Damson Wood and came down to the bridge and crossed river to our own side. We said naught, remembering, ‘Talk not till you know of what you are talking.’ Two days went by, and then near Little Winching, up the Wander, down lay Brother Barnaby with a fever, and I must nurse him for a month. He, being very sick, forgot, and I being busy and concerned, nigh forgot Damson Graveyard and Saint Leofric’s Gate. Then, Brother Barnaby getting well and we walking in a fair morning to Little Winching, there meets us all the bruit!”

“And still”—Brother Barnaby came in again—“we said nothing. But it burned our hearts. So said Brother Andrew, ‘We will go take this thing to Prior Matthew of Westforest.’”

“And so they did, according to right inner counsel,” said the Prior. He turned in his chair. “You may go now, my sons. But on your obedience, speak as yet to none other of these things!”

Brother Andrew and Brother Barnaby craved blessing, received it and vanished. There was pause, then, “If we check not Hugh,” said the Abbot, “we shall have loss and shame, being no longer the first, the pupil of the eye, to this part England!”

“If they spoke,” said Montjoy, “none would believe them against the miracles. Nor do I know if I would believe. Say that one saw the robbed grave—what then? One travels not much further! I would believe, I think, the hermit.”

“Then will you ride, Montjoy, to Damson Wood?”

“Yes, I will go there. But my believing and yours and Gregory’s and the friars’ make not yet the people’s believing. Here is stuff for splendid quarrel with Hugh—but in the meantime go the folk in rivers, touch the relics and are healed!”

“What we need,” said the Prior, and he spoke slowly and cautiously, “is counter-miracle.”

“Yes, but you cannot order the Saints!”

“No.”

It was again the Prior who spoke and apparently in agreement. The Abbot sighed. “Well, let us to bed!—Go to Damson Wood, Montjoy, and then ride to Silver Cross.”

“I will do that. I see,” said Montjoy, “the mischief that this thing does you—”

Even as he spoke he had a vision of the Abbey church of Silver Cross. He saw the tombs and the sculptured figure of Isabel whom he had loved, and the great altar painting of Our Lady done in Italy. Under the breath of his mind he thought that that form and face were like Isabel’s. So like that almost she might have been in that Italian painter’s mind when he painted this glorified woman standing buoyant, in carnation and sapphire, among clouds that thinned into clear blue that passed in its turn into light that blinded. He saw the glowing glass in the great windows; he saw the gems—the gems that he had given among them—sparkling in the golden box that held the silver cross. He saw the people on holy days flooding the famous church. They warmed with eyes of life the stone mother and father, the stone Isabel. The many people’s bended knees, their recognition, helped to assure eternal life in the Queen of Heaven pictured in the great painting,—and surely so in Isabel, the picture was so like her! The more people the more life—Isabel surely safely there in the eternal Bride and Mother—and if Isabel then surely he, too, her lover and husband, he, too, Montjoy! The people must flow there still, recognising life when they saw it and as it were, giving life, increasing life.

Anything that turned the people away from Silver Cross became in that act the enemy of Montjoy; anything that kept them flowing there, that made them more in number, the friend of Montjoy.