CHAPTER VIII
Richard Englefield listened to the Abbot’s assertion that making ofinner vessels of gold for heaven’s use was of more import than weredishes for abbot’s table and for gifts. He agreed, but his mind said,“Since when did you find that out?”
Moreover, he would miss his work. He missed it.
When he came to confession he met another change,--namely, severity inpenance. Heretofore he had been the severe one with himself. Now hisspiritual fathers took it over. “Why?” asked his mind, but his hungerfor holiness and his will harnessed to that hunger rebuked his mind.“Have we not agreed that they are our masters in heavenly law? Thenlearn the lessons they give! Cease to cavil and question! Did you sowith Godfrey the Master Smith?”
He accepted penance, watched, fasted, scourged himself. He grew verythin, less strong of frame than he had been. Sleeplessness, even whenhe was given or gave himself leave to sleep, fastened itself upon him.It was as though his soul ceaselessly walked a dungeon. “O God, whereis thy heaven? If I might see it or feel it!”
The great picture in the church lost its mystery and enchantment andpower. It was a dead canvas to him. “O my soul, come thou forth!”
He was kept solitary in his cell. Solitude did not appal him, seeingthat he had ever been artist, able to people it. But one day when astrong sunbeam came through the window his mind said loudly, and as itwere it shook him by the shoulders. “Why this straitness with thee?What are they about?”
But he was afraid to listen,--Richard Englefield, fearing for his soul.Fear, casting about for aid, found Vanity in a small hidden chamber,sitting there with closed lids, somewhat faint and unnourished. Hebrought her forth and sent her up, strengthening as she came. “It isseen that I begin to light this monastery! They would trim the lamp.”
Fear, Vanity, Pride and Old Credulity!
At Martinmas the Abbot sent him to Westforest. It was heavy penance formonk to go to Westforest that was small, hard and bare beside SilverCross, that had rude living, that owned a Prior could give tasks, setone to heavy and distasteful work. Brother Richard Englefield was notput to handwork, but again to watching, fasting, cries to all theSaints, to Jesu and Mary Mother and God the Father.
He fell ill at Westforest. He was not laid in hospital but left inthe Westforest penitential cell, though they spread a pallet for himwhere had been bare stone. Prior Matthew visited him here. He came inthe day, and he came, taper in hand, by night. He had a medicine whichhe gave Brother Richard. He himself dropped a few dark drops intoa cup of water or of milk and held it to the monk’s lips. “Drink!”After the first time Richard Englefield tried to put it away. “On yourobedience!” said the Prior sternly. The monk drank.
He began to recover from the illness that had prostrated him. Butsomething seemed to have gone from his life and something seemed tohave come into it. One night in this cell he heard a voice. “Richard!Richard!” it cried. He could not tell whence it came; it seemedabove him. He sat up. “Who speaks?” But when it said “Willebrod, whowas martyred,” he stared incredulous. Sunshine and mind and his oldworkshop in the old high-roofed town flooded back to him. “Is voicefrom heaven twin pea to voice of earth? I have even heard better voicesof earth!” He seemed again to be working in the red, pleasant light ofhis old furnace, knowing good and not-so-good when he met them. Hethought, “If I do not go to sleep I shall be seeing, hearing, like anymadman!” He turned, drew the scant covering over him and slept.
But the next day Prior Matthew said that he was not so well, and, onhis obedience he drank again the dark medicine. The taste of it wasstronger, there was more of it. Again he heard voices. “Are they truevoices--or what?” But he was dull to them, uncaring of them. “Surely Iwould know the ring of gold!”
He grew better, rose from his pallet and moved about the cell, waspermitted now to go, when rang the bell, into church. Sent there forpenance one winter eve between vespers and compline, he suddenly, ata turn of the stone corridor, dark, chill and deserted, saw what hemust suppose to be a vision. There was a great patch of light and init a man standing who must be Saint Willebrod because he was dressedand coloured and more or less featured like Saint Willebrod in thepainting on the wall, and he carried a silver cross. Brother Richardstood still. Then, making to advance, his foot struck some obstruction.Weakened as he was, he stumbled and fell. When he could rise the visionwas gone.
Only Vanity could explain why the Prior should become his confessor.The fact of the voices and the vision was drawn forth. “You aregreatly honoured, my son! If greater favour yet comes to you, forgetnot humility--”
But he told of his own honesty how cold voices and vision left hisheart, how unamazed his mind, and that he could but think them dreamsof his sickness somehow bodied forth. The Prior looked sternly andshook his head. “They come truly, we hold! But it is seen that thou artas dull as ditch water--black ember that will not respond--tongue thathath lost taste--soul that will not be fervent! Scourge thyself intomeekness to heaven--into that glow that will take whatever cometh!”
Richard Englefield plied the scourge. He was weak now and his eyesdazzled, and truly phantasies pageanted before him in sound and lineand colour. He saw images, and sometimes they were beautiful andsometimes deadly. He heard sounds, and some were honey-sweet and othersgrating or mocking. But still said his being, “They come from no HighReality. Have I not, being artist, always in some sort heard and seen?O God, O God! help thou me who am dead!”
Prior Matthew regarded him darkly. Westforest rode one day to SilverCross, talked there with Abbot Mark. “There has been mistake! He is notyour Friar Paul kind!”
The Abbot’s pride arose. “For three years Silver Cross hath seen himone apart!”
“Perhaps! He would not,” said Matthew sourly, “have far to go, asmonks are in these days, to stand apart and above. My point is thatyou cannot make him ecstatic. So far it is beyond me to set the millrunning! He hath been ill, and his body hath arrived at emaciation.I have given him that elixir you wot of. Usually it sets the fancyskipping, brews a kind of wild readiness at seeing, hearing! And, if Iread him aright, he wants heaven to descend upon him. I provided him tohear and see one who told him he was Saint Willebrod. Brother Anselm,you know, whom I took from among the players, and is--God pardonus!--as dog to my hand--” He spread out his hands.
The Abbot groaned. “The end that we propose is good!”
“Assuredly it is! It all goes into the homely bag of homely deceitsnecessary in this poor world. But the end is that as yet we have donenaught!”
The Abbot sighed. “Could we take him into counsel?”
“No!”
“Then what shall we do? You have heard that Saint Leofric healed theFrench Knight? He gave candlesticks of pure gold. Shall we give it allup, Matthew?”
“Not yet. If I could find his true heart and mind--then might we beckonappearances that corresponded. He seems interested in a far land andin somehow going there--and going has to be bodily, all of him! Whatappears will have to strike him down, like Saint Paul on Damascusroad--clean him of doubt, be a blaze to him, a burning bush!”
The Abbot sighed. Prior Matthew sat fixed, with cloudy brows, seekinginspiration.
He returned to Westforest. The next day, sitting in Prior’s stall inthe cold, small church, he kept his eyes fast upon the monk Richard. Henoted his turning, he noted his uplifted, now bloodless face, and hiseyes directed to the copy of the Silver Cross picture. Prior Matthewhalf closed his own eyes, covered, as was his wont when he was playingchess, his mouth with his hand.
Again the Prior sat as confessor. The kneeling monk met gatheredsubtlety and old skill. Deep, recessed matters, loves and longings,must come forth.
The Prior listened, questioned, listened, and at both was skilfull. Heimposed penance, and in part it was to be performed at Silver Cross,“--returning there as you do, my son, this week.”
The monk bowed his head. He had not known when, or indeed if ever,he should return to Silver Cross. I
t was among his efforts atself-crucifixion not to care. As it was his effort here and at SilverCross to withdraw attention from outward happenings, outward talk. Noother of his brethren knew so little as he of the flare and clang aboutSaint Leofric.
He returned to Silver Cross. The bell rang for the noon office.He went into church with his brethren. With them he bowed, stood,chanted, kneeled. It was nigh to Christmas tide, a clear winter day.The sun dwelled in each jewel pane of the windows and shot thencearrows of love. The sun blessed nave and aisles and high groinedroof. The candles stood like angels, the great picture glowed. It wasa home-coming. Warmness wrapped his heart that had been naked anddesolate. All grew fair, honest, friendly. He was glad to see theBrothers, even those he had most distasted, glad to see Abbot Mark,cloister and church, all things! Out of topaz and amber a beam touchedthe carven tomb of Montjoy’s wife. It warmed the Lady Isabel, lyingin robe and mantle with a half smile upon her face. Not Montjoy only,but also Richard Englefield thought stone form and face had strangelikeness to those of the Glorified in the picture. Now the light warmedher, too, the pale, golden lady, so still, so still, waiting for theResurrection.
Amber light, topaz light. But on the great picture every heart-red,every heavenly blue, every rose and every lily, the upward flowingamethyst and the diamond light above, where no more might be seen. Hisheart bowed, his heart grew alive. “Ah, Blessed among women, I am comeback!”