CHAPTER XXXI

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The Lord of Montjoy returned from his second and greater pilgrimage. This time he had seen Jerusalem. He was palmer. Bit of palm was wrought into his sleeve, stitched into his hat. The Lady of Montjoy held his castle for him, his son-in-law, young Isabel’s baron, giving advice across five leagues. Montjoy had been gone nigh three years, for once, taken prisoner by the Turks, he had been held three months in noisome prison, and once fever had taken him captive, and once shipwreck and a desert strand had held him long. Now, returning, he had come through Italy and through France, alone and afoot, for that was his pilgrimage. Now he moved across Brittany. There were many shrines in Brittany, and it held him while he went from the one to the other. But he neared the sea coast and the port where he would take ship for England.

A slight dark man with earnest seeking eyes, wrapped in palmer’s grey with palmer’s hat and staff and scrip, walked a Brittany road, and pictures of his travels walked with him. They were many, as though a lifetime had been spent between castle of Montjoy and Jerusalem wall and back again. So many that they must come like a breadth of the earth between him and the pictures of three years gone, or five years gone, or more. That was true, but now and then breadth of earth became cloud 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 they came also into company of later pictures. His castle knew thousand other castles, his town multitude of other towns; Silver Cross and Westforest many and many abbeys and priories. And the palmer, having grown, could in a measure hold all together and look out upon and through them. So with the palmer’s whole life.

Montjoy travelled seaward. The day was bright and Brittany had to him a flavour of home. Moreover at dawn had come Isabel. She seemed now to float by his side, her feet just above the grey road. Twice it had been so in Italy, thrice in the Holy Land. It had been a small thought, that holding her confined to castle there above Middle Forest, or to church of Silver Cross where lay only her old robe, or to this or that faint ring in time! She was everywhere and every time. She was living, she was 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 regarded it tranquilly within and without. There sat Mark, yonder moved the Brothers. The church filled, they chanted, windows became sheets of jewels, the great picture glowed, light washed the sculptured tomb beneath which lay, sunken into earth, that which was not Isabel. Here moved her spirit, near him on Brittany road—enough, enough of her spirit to make Promise into a glowing rose!

Light washed Silver Cross that was five hundred years old and might have five hundred more to live. In a thousand years there was good and evil, but more good than evil. Even had that strange tale of five years agone been found to have in it some truth—had there been canker—still, still, not always had there been canker, nor would there be always! Canker was never the last word. If there had been canker there at Silver Cross, or more or less? He did not know, he could not tell if it were so. His mind, pondering long, had seen certain things—but he did not know. He must let it alone and, anyhow, go a pilgrimage.

Almost five years. The palmer had grown. He saw them now in a pattern, Silver Cross and Saint Leofric and Westforest. Then light came through the pattern and melted all into a stronger and finer thing. Just as Isabel moved more golden, finer, more real, for all that when he put forth hand, hand did not touch. Spirit touched. Just as in Bethlehem of Judea, one starlight night, he had become aware that if the kingdom of Heaven 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 the sea. It was early morn, and a rose stole into the world. As he walked the pictures lifted, stood and passed.

He had grown so that without any conscience pang at all he was glad that Morgen Fay had not been burned there by town cross. They had lighted the fagot pile, anyhow, for perchance it might make her suffer, the witch flown away with the demon! It had burned away in smoke and flame, but now for long he knew it had not harmed her. Harming and healing 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 just as 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 lay a fishing village; he saw the nets and the boats. A small, poor place it 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 tide coming in. Certain boats were up and away, he saw their deep-coloured sails standing out between sand and horizon. Others for reasons bided this 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 a small crowd of folk, perhaps a score in all. As Montjoy came near he saw that they were listening to one who spoke, standing upon the sand among the shavings and chips, underneath the clean bowsprit. Some were from 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 breathed salt and fresh, colour was rife. Boats, houses, the incoming wave, the line of low cliff, fell into picture. Montjoy has seen so many! Could he have painted he might paint forever and only begin.

He heard a voice speaking, a voice with quality, that somehow stirred the pictures. They trembled, pushed slightly by others behind. “Love and 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 at times 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 of palmer shadowed his face. Those about saw straying pilgrim and gave him room.

Richard a smith, not Breton but English. A tall, gold-brown, simple-seeming man, strong enough, quiet enough, loving enough of face—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 many found to say? Like the thunder and murmur and waves of the sea rose within voices and voices and yet voices. Abbot Mark’s voice Prior Matthew’s, Prior Hugh’s, Friar Martin’s, Father Edmund’s, the Hermit by the Old Burying Ground, Brothers Andrew and Barnaby, Anselm’s, Norbert’s, Somerville’s voice, voice of Master Eustace Bettany and of young Thomas Bettany, voice even of Godfrey the gaoler, voices of pilgrims chanting, Middle Forest’s voice, voices of Silver Cross, voices of his own squires and castle folk, voice of Westforest and Wander vale. Voice of Morgen Fay. Further back, voice of Isabel, and then again the heavy waves. “O God, Thy voice!”

The hubbub sank away. The tide came in with a quiet rhyme. Morning sand shone in a great golden stillness. Village and sea and boats held in contentment. The fisher folk sat or stood, listening. The speaker was speaking, Montjoy a pilgrim, listening, agreeing. Quiet and the salt air and the sun. Quietness and certitude. I am, from everlasting to everlasting.

The gold-brown man ceased his speaking or his answering questions, for it had been largely questioning and answering. Lifting a bundle that lay beside him he looked to a league-distant point striking out into the sea, where seemed more houses than were here. One of the fishermen spoke. “I’ll take you, master, in the Nightingale.”

The small sailboat carried the palmer also,—the palmer and Richard the smith and two boatmen. The latter were still for questions. “You have been to Jerusalem? What like is it?”

“It is so and so,” answered the palmer. “But I say with this man, ‘Let us 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 pilgrimage from an English castle?”

“Aye, brother! At Avignon I was shown a great cup made in Paris fifteen years ago by the English goldsmith, Englefield.”

The town in front of them was growing larger. The younger boatman had still his questions about Galilee and Olivet. The fresh wind carried the boat fast. Here was a long wharf and the town, and quitting the Nightingale, and thanks and partings with the boatmen, then a street and tall houses heaping toward a castle on the hill. “The lady of the castle loveth pilgrims,” said Englefield. “And yonder is the great house 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 purple needles. They sat beneath a very great tree, and saw as from a window azure ocean, and a great ship, white-sailed, making into the west.

“I have been far, far without,” spoke Montjoy, “but farther, farther within. 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 journey and come where I was not before. And still I journey. I can listen now to 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 while he talked. He told their story,—his story and Morgen Fay’s.

The pine grove stood above the sea, speaking always with a multitudinous low voice. Far and far, deep and deep, stretched Mother Ocean. The white ship, purposeful, still and sure, sped its way from haven 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 a huge, four-towered castle.

“I work again as goldsmith, making for who will buy. Yonder you may see the roof of our house. An old workman of mine, now palsied and helpless, 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 to folk 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 through living 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 overhanging another, old, quiet, with the castle soaring above and the bell of the church 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 the Reality behind the great picture at Silver Cross.

THE END





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