CHAPTER XII
Silver Cross went in procession. The Abbot with the Prior of Westforestwalked ahead and there followed chanting monks. Then came lay Brothersand villagers and a quarter of the countryside and a half-score fromMiddle Forest. The Lord of Montjoy walked. Bright was the morning, highand crisp; white frost on ground. Rounding the hill they cried, “Thefir tree!”
They knew not how it was, but the tree, the first confirmation, seemedto spring before them, magical, mighty, a veritable tree of life. Manymay have noted it before, through the years, standing like a sentinelbefore the hill, and thought only, “A great tree, with good shade forshepherds in hot summer tide!” But now marvel clothed it.
The wind began to play through the stretched wires of Imagination. Theharp was sounding.
It was the Prior of Westforest who cried, “Lo, the fallen earth! Nottouched from without, but pushed from within!”
It lay in truth, sod, earth and rock, to right and left, as thoughMight would come forth and had done so.
The procession broke from column into a throng as of bees, eyes towardtheir queen. There was the opening into the hill like a door with agreat stone for lintel. The Abbot spoke to the monk Richard. “Readthou!” A breath of assent ran like wind through wheat. “Aye, aye, theone she came to!”
Richard Englefield read the name cut there and gave it to the folkas he had given in Silver Cross church the message. Tall, spare,gold-brown, in daily seeming stripped to simplicity and quietude, butnow with that around him that made for catching of the breath, he stoodand read and turned and gave the name of the Blessed among women.
The Abbot and the Prior of Westforest entered the small cavern. Thebright sun was there; it was light enough. With them they took the monkRichard, and Brother Oswald whom all knew for right monk and BrotherRalph. There entered, too, the Lord of Montjoy. At first he would not.“She saith, Take the good--” But the Abbot drew him by the hand. Therewent in likewise one from Middle Forest,--Father Edmund the Preacher.
There was the well,--a little basin of clear water bubbling from thefarther rock. It was March and the world leafless. But close besidethe water lay a fresh rose, nor red nor white, of a colour like thedawn. Stem and leaf and blossom it lay, and in the water appeared itslikeness. The Abbot stooped toward it. Montjoy laid hand on him. “No!Let this man lift it!” He and Richard Englefield and Brothers Oswaldand Ralph saw a transfigured rose. It glowed, it beat; it was seenthrough tears.
Brother Richard kneeled before it, touched it with his forehead. Thenin his two hands he bore it through the opening of the grot and showedit, lifted, to the folk.
Out of the hushed throng rang a voice. “The cave and well of Our Ladyof the Rose!”
“That is it! That is it! Our Lady of the Rose!”
The Abbot lifted his hands. “It shall be kept for aye in reliquary.Lord of Montjoy--”
“I will give the reliquary!” Montjoy saw in imagination the roseblooming for aye, sending through gold and precious stones light andfragrance to Isabel.
It seemed that the sub-prior had brought from the Abbot’s house asilver dish and a square of fine white linen. Brother Richard laid therose in the silver thing that he himself had carved.
Now all that might would press into the grot. At last order was hadand like links of a massy chain in and forth passed the throng. Therewas a woman from Wander Mill, dumb for years, and it was known thatshe had not won healing from Saint Leofric. Now she came, she stooped,she lifted water in her hands and drank. She rose, she turned, shestammered, made strange sounds, then burst forth clear. “Praise God!Praise Blessed Lady!--Oh, children, I am speaking!”
Tears were in all eyes.
One other was healed that day,--a man whose fingers were bent into hishand so that he could not straighten them nor work at his trade.
There was a great Mass and high devotion at Silver Cross. There wereofferings for at once lining with fine stone the grotto of Our Lady ofthe Rose, for providing a fair, wide basin for the well, for a gloriousimage.
Earth, water and air seemed servants to bear the news. The hum of itwas like wild bees through Wander vale. Middle Forest listened atsunset to Father Edmund. “True--true, my children! We have preachedand wrought, scourging forth evil! This country wins a new name. Fromaccursed, it becomes blessed!” The river heard and the bridge and SaintLeofric’s Mount and the Friary and Prior Hugh. The bells of SaintEthelred rang and of the Carmelites and the Poor Clares. The castle ofMontjoy heard. Somerville Hall heard, and the house of Master EustaceBettany.
The ruined farm heard,--but so dull and trouble-bent were Davidand Margery that they cared not. Little things only could get intoMargery’s mind, and a little thing was turning there. Joan, thehelper-woman, slept in a loft that was reached by an outside stair.Margery had swimming in the head and feared this stair and rarely wentto loft. But this day Joan might be anywhere, but could not be found athand. Margery climbed the stair and peered about. Very blank up here,with flock bed and ancient chest and some hanging things. But in thewindow under the thatch, in the sunshine of a mild day, stood the tinyrose tree that Joan had brought with her under her cloak when she cameto the ruined farm two months since. She said she brought it becauseshe loved it, and she begged an earthern jar and put in rich soil andplanted afresh that which she had taken from such a jar in order tobring it so great a distance,--in short from the great port town twentyleagues away. Now, at the ruined farm, she must have nourished it welland kept it warm, for it was green and leafy. Margery, going over toadmire it, set herself to turn the jar that she might better see. Thejar fell and broke. The earth heaped itself on the floor, the stem andleaves were bruised. “Alack!” cried Margery and hurried down stairs,for she thought she heard Joan. Though in form she was the mistressit was not so essentially. She explained volubly when, in anotherhour, there confronted her Joan with a shard of the jar in her hand.She would remember the loft and the little rose tree, but the news ofmiracles at Silver Cross, brought by a straying shepherd, whistledthrough like wind over grass that when the stir was gone forgot.
The March sunset flared splendid. The dusk fell like violets. Thestars, advancing, were taper flames and an angel vast as all mankindheld each. The moon would not rise till late. “Come, oh, come, come,Rose of Heaven!” So the monk Richard Englefield in his dark cell.
He must sleep, he would sleep, he would trust, not clamor nor force. Heslept, he waked; she was there, she appeared to him. “Rose of Heaven,Rose of Heaven--Voice of Heaven, Blessed One--My Lady!”
She was there to confirm him in worship, to say, “Well done, thus far!”to say, “Pray thou--praise thou--live thou, humble, obedient, sheddingholiness on Silver Cross!”
“Wilt thou come again?”
The voice that was music said, “Live in memory and live in hoping! Butnow, Richard, farewell!”
Darkness where had been light. The kneeling monk stretched his arms,strained his eyes, but there was darkness. He heard no movement, butshe was not there! Empty cell, and a black cloud across the moon!