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.

Again the Abbot groaned. “So saith Hugh!”

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

“Aye! Bringing gifts!”

“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.

But Abbot and Prior, lodged in connecting chambers and speaking together before they laid themselves to sleep in huge beds, shook their heads over him. Or rather the Abbot did so. The Prior was not liberal with sighs and gestures. “He’ll agree to no shift that smacks of the lie, however slight, necessary, simply defensive, pious it be—”

“Are you sure? I am not,” answered Matthew. “But if he will not—keep him blind like other men, blind and usable! He may indeed prove more usable for being blind.”