Gathering of Brother Hilarius Part 3

"Ay, marry I have more times than I count years. But see, here comes one who knows little enough of hunger or love." Round the bend of the road came a man in hermit's dress carrying a staff and a well-filled wallet. His carriage seemed suddenly to become less upright, and he leaned heavily on his stick as he besought an alms from the two travellers.

Hilarius felt for his purse, but Martin stayed him.

"Nay, lad, better have left thy money with the pick-purses than help to fill the skin of this lazy rogue; 'tis not the first time we have met. See here," and with a dexterous jerk he caught the hermit's wallet.

This one was too quick for him; with uplifted staff and a mouthful of oaths, sorely at variance with his habit, he s.n.a.t.c.hed it back, flung the bag across his shoulder, and made off at a round pace down the road, while Martin roared after him to wait an alms laid on with a cudgel.

Hilarius gazed horrified from the retreating figure to his laughing companion, who answered the unspoken question.

"A rascal, lad, yon carrion, and no holy father. They are the pest of every country-side, these lazy rogues, who never do a hand's turn and yet live better than many a squire. I warrant he has good stuff in that larder of his to make merry with."

Hilarius walked on for some time in silence with bent head.

"I fear the world is an ill place and far from G.o.dliness," he said at last.

"It will look thus to one cloister-bred, and 'tis true enough that G.o.dliness is far from most men; but if a hermit's robe may cover a rascal, often enough a good heart lies under an ill-favoured face and tongue. See, lad," as another turn in the road brought them in sight of Westminster, "there lies thy new world, G.o.d keep thee in it!"

He pointed to a grey-walled city rising from the water's edge, with roof and pinnacle, gable and turret, aflame in the light of the western sky; in front flowed the river like a stream of molten gold.

Hilarius gave a little cry.

"'Tis like the New Jerusalem!" he said, and Martin smiled grimly.

An hour later they stood within the walls of Westminster city, and Hilarius, amazed and weary, clung close to Martin's side. Around him he saw russet-clad archers, grooms, men on horseback, pedlars, pages, falconers, scullions with meats, gallant knights, gaily dressed ladies; it was like a tangled dream. The gabled fronts of the houses were richly blazoned or hung with scarlet cloth; it was a shifting scene of colour, life, and movement, and to Hilarius'

untutored eyes, wild confusion. Outside the taverns cl.u.s.tered all sorts and conditions of men, drinking, gossiping, singing, for the day's work was done. In the courtyard of the "Black Boar" a chained bear padded restlessly to and fro, and Hilarius crossed himself anxiously--was the devil about to beset him under all guises at once? He raised a fervent Ora pro me to St Benedict as he hurried past. A string of pack-horses in the narrow street sent folk flying for refuge to the low dark doorways, and a buxom wench, seeing the pretty lad, bussed him soundly. This was too much, only the man in him stayed the indignant tears. "Martin, Martin!" he cried; but the minstrel was on his own ground now, and was hailed everywhere with acclamations, and news given and demanded in a breath. Hilarius, shrinking, aghast, his ears scourged with rough oaths and rude jests, his eyes offended by the easy manners round him, his cheek hot from the late salute, took refuge under a low archway, and waited with anxious heart until the minstrel should have done with the crowd.

Martin did not forget him.

"Hola, lad!" he cried, "see how they welcome the King's bird back to his cage! As for thee, thou hast gone straight to thy cot like a homing pigeon; through that archway, lad, lies thy journey's end." Then, apprehending for the first time Hilarius' white face and piteous eyes, Martin strode across, swept him under the archway into a quiet courtyard where a fountain rippled, and, having handed him over to Sir John's steward, left him with a friendly slap on the back and the promise of speedy meeting.

Hilarius delivered the Prior's letter, and followed the steward into a rush-strewn hall where scullions and serving-men were busy with preparations for the evening meal; and sat there, lonely and dejected, his curiosity quenched, his heart sore, his whole being crying out for the busied peace and silent orderliness of his cloister home. The servants gibed at him, but he was too weary to heed; indeed he hardly noticed when the household swept in to supper, until a page-boy tweaked him slyly by the ear and bade him come to table. He ate and drank thankfully, too dazed to take note of the meal; and the pages and squires among whom he sat left him alone, abashed at his gentleness. At last, something restored by the much-needed food, Hilarius looked round the hall.

It reminded him of the Refectory at home, save that it was far loftier and heavily timbered. The twilight stealing in through high lancet windows served but to emphasize the upper gloom, which the morrow's sun would dissipate into cunningly carved woodwork--a man's thought in every quaintly wrought boss and panel, grotesque beast and guarding saint. A raised table stood at the upper end of the hall, and here gaily dressed pages waited on the master of the house and his honoured guests. Hilarius rightly guessed the tall, careworn man of distinguished presence to be no other than Sir John himself, and he liked him well; but his eyes wandered carelessly over the rest of the company until they were caught and held by a woman's face. It was Eleanor, the fairest of the knight's three fair daughters; and when Hilarius saw her he felt as a weary traveller feels who meets a fellow citizen in a far-off land.

"Even such a face must the Blessed Agnes have had," he thought, his mind reverting to his favourite Saint; "she is like the lilies in the garth at home."

It was a strange comparison, for the girl was extravagantly dressed in costly materials and brilliant colours, her hair coifed in the foolish French fashion of the day; and yet, despite it all, she looked a nun. Her face was pale, her brows set straight; her eyes, save when she was much moved, were like grey shadows veiling an unknown soul; her mouth, delicately curved, was scarcely reddened; her head drooped slightly on her long, slender neck, a gesture instinct with gracious humility. She was like a pictured saint: Hilarius' gaze clung to her, followed her as she left the hall, and saw her still as he sat apart while the serving men cleared the lower tables and brought in the sleeping gear for the night. He lay down with the rest, and through the high, lancet windows the moonlight kissed his white and weary face as it was wont to do on bright nights in the cloister dormitory. Around him men lay sleeping soundly after the day's toils; there was none to heed, and he sobbed like a little homesick child, until his tired youth triumphed, and he fell asleep, to dream of Martin and the Prior, the lady at the raised table, and the pale, sweet lilies in the cloister garth.

PART II--THE FLOWER

CHAPTER I--THE CITY OF PURE GOLD

"Blind eyes, blind eyes!" sang the dancer.

Hilarius woke with a start. He had fallen asleep on a bench in the sunny courtyard and his dream had carried him back to the forest.

He sat rubbing his eyes and only half-awake, the sun kissing his hair into a halo against the old grey wall. A falcon near fretted restlessly on her perch, and a hound asleep by the fountain rose, and, slowly stretching its great limbs, came towards him.

It was four o'clock on a warm day in September; the courtyard was deserted save for a few busied serving men, and the knight and his household, were at a tilting in the Outer Bailey, all but the Lady Eleanor, Hilarius' mistress, for, as Martin had foreseen, Sir John had so appointed it.

It was now two months since Hilarius had come to the city which had seemed to him in the distance as the New Jerusalem full of promise; but he had found no angels at the gates, nor were the streets full of the righteous; nay, the place seemed nearer of kin to the Babylon of Blessed John's Vision--with a few holy ones who would surely be caught up ere judgment fell, amongst them Sir John and Lady Eleanor.

A good knight and a G.o.d-fearing man was Sir John, tender to his children, gentle with his people, a faithful servant to G.o.d and King Edward; shrewd withal, and an apt reader of men. Therefore, and because of the love he bore to Prior Stephen, he set Hilarius to attend his eldest daughter, who seemed to belong as little to this world as the lad himself; and felt that in so doing he had achieved the best possible for his old friend, according to his asking.

Hilarius for his part served the Lady Eleanor as an acolyte tends the chapel of a saint, only she was further removed from him than a saint, by reason of her pale humanity. He soon perceived, as he watched her at banquet, tourney, or pageant, that she went to a revel as to the Sacrament, and sat at a mummers' show with eyes fixed on the Unseen. She moved through the gay vivid world of Court gallants and joyous maidens like a shadow, and the rout grew graver at her coming.

It was much the same with her lover, Guy de Steyning--brother of that Hugh de Steyning men wot of as Brother Ambrosius--a gentle knight with mild blue eyes, a peaked red beard, and great fervour for heavenly things. The pair liked one another well; but their time was taken up with preparation for Paradise rather than with earthly business, and their speech lent itself more readily to devout phrases than to lovers' vows. It was small wonder, therefore, that another year saw them both by glad consent in the cloister, he at Oxford, and Eleanor in the Benedictine House of which her aunt was Prioress.

Hilarius had written of his saintly mistress to Prior Stephen just as he had written of the wondrous beauty of St Peter's Abbey: "With all its straight, slender, upstanding pillars, methinks 'tis like the forest at home" (forgetting that his more intimate knowledge of the forest partook of the nature of sin). "The Lady Eleanor, my honoured mistress," he wrote, "is a most saintly and devout maiden, full of heavenly lore, and caring nought for the things of this world;" and he added, "'tis beautiful to see such devotion where for the most part are sinful and light-minded persons."

The Prior laid the script aside with a smile and a sigh; and when Brother Bernard asked news of the lad, answered a little sadly, "Nay, Brother, he still sleeps;" and indeed there seemed no waking him to a world of men--living, striving, sorely-tried men.

He dwelt in a land of his own making--a land of colour and light and shadow in which much that he saw played a part; only the gorgeous pageants turned to hosts of triumphant saints heralded by angels; while the knights at a tourney in their brave armour pictured St George, St Michael, or St Martin in his dreams.

It was a limner he longed to be, far away from the stir and stress, not a page attending a great lady to the Court functions. He yearned ever after the Scriptorium, with its busied monks and stores of colour and gold. It lay but a stone's throw away behind the jealous Monastery walls, but it was no part of Prior Stephen's plan that the lad should go straight from one cloister to another.

To Hilarius sitting on the bench in the sun, came one of Eleanor's tirewomen to bid him wait on her mistress. He rose at once and followed her through the hall and up the winding stair, along a gallery hung with wondrous story-telling tapestry, to the bower where Eleanor sat with two of her women busied with their needle.

Hilarius found his mistress, her hands idle on her knee. He louted low, and she bade him bring a stool and sit beside her.

"I am weary," she said; "this life is weariness. Tell me of the Monastery and the forest--stay, tell me rather of the New Jerusalem that Brother Ambrose saw and limned.'

Hilarius, nothing loth, settled himself at her feet, elbow on knee, and chin on his open hands, his dreamy blue eyes gazing away out of the window at the cloud-flecked sky above the Abbey pinnacles.

"The Brother Ambrose," he began, "was ever a saintly man, approved of G.o.d and beloved by the Brethren; ay, and a crafty limner, save that of late his eyesight failed him. To him one night, as he lay a-bed in the dormitory, came the word of the Lord, saying: "Come, and I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb's wife." And Brother Ambrose arose and was carried to a great and high mountain, even as in the Vision of Blessed John. 'Twas a still night of many stars, and Brother Ambrose, looking up, saw a radiant path in the heavens; and lo! the stars gathered themselves together on either side until they stood as walls of light, and the four winds lapped him about as in a mantle and bore him towards the wondrous gleaming roadway.

Then between the stars came the Holy City with roof and pinnacle aflame, and walls aglow with such colours as no earthly limner dreams of, and much gold. Brother Ambrose beheld the Gates of Pearl, and by every gate an angel, with wings of snow and fire, and a face no man dare look on, because of its exceeding radiance.

"Then as Brother Ambrose stretched out his arms because of his great longing, a little grey cloud came out of the north and hung between the walls of light, so that he no longer beheld the Vision, but heard only a sound as of a great mult.i.tude crying, 'Alleluia'; and suddenly the winds came about him again, and lo! he found himself in bed in the dormitory, and it was midnight, for the bell was ringing to Matins; and he rose and went down with the rest; but when the Brethren left the choir, Brother Ambrose stayed fast in his place, hearing and seeing nothing because of the Vision of G.o.d; and at Lauds they found him and told the Prior.

"He questioned Brother Ambrose of the matter, and when he heard the Vision, bade him limn the Holy City even as he had seen it; and the Precentor gave him uterine vellum and much fine gold and what colours he asked for the work. Then Brother Ambrose limned a wondrous fair city of gold with turrets and spires; and he inlaid blue for the sapphire, and green for the emerald, and vermilion where the city seemed aflame with the glory of G.o.d; but the angels he could not limn, nor could he set the rest of the colours as he saw them, nor the wall of stars on either hand; and Brother Ambrose fell sick because of the exceeding great longing he had to limn the Holy City, and was very sad; but our Prior bade him thank G.o.d and remember the infirmity of the flesh, which, like the little grey cloud, veiled Jerusalem to his sight."

There was silence. Lady Eleanor clasped her shadowy blue-veined hands under her chin, and in her eyes too was a great longing.

"It seemeth to me small wonder that Brother Ambrose fell sick," she said, at length.

Hilarius nodded:

"He had ever a patient, wistful look as of one from home; and often he would sit musing in the cloister and scarce give heed to the Office bell."

"Methinks, Hilarius, it will be pa.s.sing sweet to dwell in that Holy City."

"Nay, lady," said her page tenderly, "surely thou hast had a vision even as Brother Ambrose, for thine eyes wait always, like unto his."