CHAPTER XXXI
The Lord of Montjoy returned from his second and greater pilgrimage.This time he had seen Jerusalem. He was palmer. Bit of palm was wroughtinto his sleeve, stitched into his hat. The Lady of Montjoy held hiscastle for him, his son-in-law, young Isabel’s baron, giving adviceacross five leagues. Montjoy had been gone nigh three years, for once,taken prisoner by the Turks, he had been held three months in noisomeprison, and once fever had taken him captive, and once shipwreck and adesert strand had held him long. Now, returning, he had come throughItaly and through France, alone and afoot, for that was his pilgrimage.Now he moved across Brittany. There were many shrines in Brittany, andit held him while he went from the one to the other. But he neared thesea coast and the port where he would take ship for England.
A slight dark man with earnest seeking eyes, wrapped in palmer’s greywith palmer’s hat and staff and scrip, walked a Brittany road, andpictures of his travels walked with him. They were many, as though alifetime had been spent between castle of Montjoy and Jerusalem walland back again. So many that they must come like a breadth of theearth between him and the pictures of three years gone, or five yearsgone, or more. That was true, but now and then breadth of earth becamecloud merely; cloud parted, and there were ancient pictures fresh again.
Now for days they were English pictures. “Because I am nearing home!They come out to meet and greet me.” But while they were clear theycame also into company of later pictures. His castle knew thousandother castles, his town multitude of other towns; Silver Cross andWestforest many and many abbeys and priories. And the palmer, havinggrown, could in a measure hold all together and look out upon andthrough them. So with the palmer’s whole life.
Montjoy travelled seaward. The day was bright and Brittany had to hima flavour of home. Moreover at dawn had come Isabel. She seemed now tofloat by his side, her feet just above the grey road. Twice it had beenso in Italy, thrice in the Holy Land. It had been a small thought, thatholding her confined to castle there above Middle Forest, or to churchof Silver Cross where lay only her old robe, or to this or that faintring in time! She was everywhere and every time. She was living, shewas with him, here, now!
“For I, too, change into that space and time,” thought Montjoy.
Silver Cross, when he came to look at it, still was dear. He regardedit tranquilly within and without. There sat Mark, yonder moved theBrothers. The church filled, they chanted, windows became sheets ofjewels, the great picture glowed, light washed the sculptured tombbeneath which lay, sunken into earth, that which was not Isabel. Heremoved her spirit, near him on Brittany road--enough, enough of herspirit to make Promise into a glowing rose!
Light washed Silver Cross that was five hundred years old and mighthave five hundred more to live. In a thousand years there was goodand evil, but more good than evil. Even had that strange tale offive years agone been found to have in it some truth--had there beencanker--still, still, not always had there been canker, nor would therebe always! Canker was never the last word. If there had been cankerthere at Silver Cross, or more or less? He did not know, he couldnot tell if it were so. His mind, pondering long, had seen certainthings--but he did not know. He must let it alone and, anyhow, go apilgrimage.
Almost five years. The palmer had grown. He saw them now in a pattern,Silver Cross and Saint Leofric and Westforest. Then light came throughthe pattern and melted all into a stronger and finer thing. Just asIsabel moved more golden, finer, more real, for all that when he putforth hand, hand did not touch. Spirit touched. Just as in Bethlehem ofJudea, one starlight night, he had become aware that if the kingdom ofHeaven was within, then was within also the Supernal Mother and Bride,within also the Christ.
Montjoy, a grey figure, walked the grey road and thought he heard thesea. It was early morn, and a rose stole into the world. As he walkedthe pictures lifted, stood and passed.
He had grown so that without any conscience pang at all he was gladthat Morgen Fay had not been burned there by town cross. They hadlighted the fagot pile, anyhow, for perchance it might make her suffer,the witch flown away with the demon! It had burned away in smoke andflame, but now for long he knew it had not harmed her. Harming andhealing were not just as men thought them! Morgen Fay. Where was she?He saw her behind circumstance, like Isabel, like the great picture,like herself, like Morgen Fay. And Morgen Fay, neither, had been justas he thought her. Seeing further he might see her still more really,as he now saw Montjoy and Silver Cross and all things else more really.
The sea sounded, and he came over white road to sight of it. Below laya fishing village; he saw the nets and the boats. A small, poor placeit was, but it had the salt of the sea and the rose of the morning.Montjoy, coming down to it, found himself on clean sand and the tidecoming in. Certain boats were up and away, he saw their deep-colouredsails standing out between sand and horizon. Others for reasons bidedthis day in haven. Two or three were drawn upon the beach, and here,too, above the tide a new boat was making. About this was gathered asmall crowd of folk, perhaps a score in all. As Montjoy came near hesaw that they were listening to one who spoke, standing upon the sandamong the shavings and chips, underneath the clean bowsprit. Some werefrom other boat or from work upon the nets or from the line of houses.A score, perhaps, seated and standing, eyes turned to the speaker.
The sea, ancient, youthful, made her everlasting song. Air breathedsalt and fresh, colour was rife. Boats, houses, the incoming wave, theline of low cliff, fell into picture. Montjoy has seen so many! Couldhe have painted he might paint forever and only begin.
He heard a voice speaking, a voice with quality, that somehow stirredthe pictures. They trembled, pushed slightly by others behind. “Loveand understand! Lay hold where you can, begin where you will!”
He asked a woman leaning against a boat near the new boat. “Who is it?”
“It is the smith Richard. He dwelleth in town a league away, but attimes he cometh this way.”
“Is he preaching?”
“No. But he talketh to us at times.”
“He uses your tongue well, but still I would say--”
“Aye, he comes from over the water.”
Montjoy moved into the ring of fisher folk. A great flapping hat ofpalmer shadowed his face. Those about saw straying pilgrim and gave himroom.
Richard a smith, not Breton but English. A tall, gold-brown,simple-seeming man, strong enough, quiet enough, loving enough offace--and now level ray of the morning sun lighted his face.
_He did not drown in Wander!_
How much was true and how much was mistake of the much that the manyfound to say? Like the thunder and murmur and waves of the sea rosewithin voices and voices and yet voices. Abbot Mark’s voice PriorMatthew’s, Prior Hugh’s, Friar Martin’s, Father Edmund’s, the Hermitby the Old Burying Ground, Brothers Andrew and Barnaby, Anselm’s,Norbert’s, Somerville’s voice, voice of Master Eustace Bettany andof young Thomas Bettany, voice even of Godfrey the gaoler, voices ofpilgrims chanting, Middle Forest’s voice, voices of Silver Cross,voices of his own squires and castle folk, voice of Westforest andWander vale. Voice of Morgen Fay. Further back, voice of Isabel, andthen again the heavy waves. “O God, _Thy_ voice!”
The hubbub sank away. The tide came in with a quiet rhyme. Morning sandshone in a great golden stillness. Village and sea and boats held incontentment. The fisher folk sat or stood, listening. The speaker wasspeaking, Montjoy a pilgrim, listening, agreeing. Quiet and the saltair and the sun. Quietness and certitude. _I am, from everlasting toeverlasting._
The gold-brown man ceased his speaking or his answering questions, forit had been largely questioning and answering. Lifting a bundle thatlay beside him he looked to a league-distant point striking out intothe sea, where seemed more houses than were here. One of the fishermenspoke. “I’ll take you, master, in the _Nightingale_.”
The small sailboat carried the palmer also,--the palmer and Richard thesmith and two boatmen. The latter were still for questions. “You havebeen
to Jerusalem? What like is it?”
“It is so and so,” answered the palmer. “But I say with this man, ‘Letus now build the New Jerusalem!’”
The smith turned to him, “There is something in your voice, friend--”
The red sail and the blue sea, the salt, and the divine fresh morning.“Is there?” answered Montjoy. “And there is something in yours--”
The other said in English, “Naught’s impossible ever! A long pilgrimagefrom an English castle?”
“Aye, brother! At Avignon I was shown a great cup made in Paris fifteenyears ago by the English goldsmith, Englefield.”
The town in front of them was growing larger. The younger boatman hadstill his questions about Galilee and Olivet. The fresh wind carriedthe boat fast. Here was a long wharf and the town, and quitting the_Nightingale_, and thanks and partings with the boatmen, then a streetand tall houses heaping toward a castle on the hill. “The lady of thecastle loveth pilgrims,” said Englefield. “And yonder is the greathouse of the Franciscans.”
“If I may I would go with you.”
“As you wish, Montjoy.”
Folk were about them, voices and movement. “Is there a quiet place?”
“There is an old garden at the edge of the town, over the sea.”
“Then let us go there.”
They went. Pine trees sighed around, earth lay carpeted with purpleneedles. They sat beneath a very great tree, and saw as from a windowazure ocean, and a great ship, white-sailed, making into the west.
“I have been far, far without,” spoke Montjoy, “but farther, fartherwithin. When I used to watch you at Silver Cross I believed in you.Again, listening by the boat yonder, I believed. I have made a journeyand come where I was not before. And still I journey. I can listen nowto whatever you may tell me. Listen, and maybe understand.”
“I have made a journey, too, Montjoy, and come where I was not before.”He took up a handful of purple needles and let slip quietly away whilehe talked. He told their story,--his story and Morgen Fay’s.
The pine grove stood above the sea, speaking always with amultitudinous low voice. Far and far, deep and deep, stretched MotherOcean. The white ship, purposeful, still and sure, sped its way fromhaven unto haven. The great vault of heaven held all.
“You are together, you and Morgen Fay?”
“Aye, together.”
From the grove might be seen the high roofs of the town climbing to ahuge, four-towered castle.
“I work again as goldsmith, making for who will buy. Yonder you maysee the roof of our house. An old workman of mine, now palsied andhelpless, lives with his brother in that fishing village. On a holiday,as this is, I walk to see him. It has come about that I may talk tofolk here and there--in that fishing village and elsewhere.”
“Is there no danger in that?”
“Perhaps! But those who have lived and suffered and learned throughliving and suffering, may help. So with Morgen Fay and so with me.”
“I would see her if I might.”
“Come then and sleep this night in the smith’s house.”
They went there. A small, timbered house, one story overhanginganother, old, quiet, with the castle soaring above and the bell of thechurch of the Franciscans ringing near. Within, in a dusky wide room,rose from her book Morgen Fay, jewel-like, rose-like, flame-like.Montjoy, looking, saw nothing that wounded Isabel, nor that wounded theReality behind the great picture at Silver Cross.
THE END
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