Chapter Chapter 2 · HOW ALLEYNE EDRICSON CAME OUT INTO THE WORLD.

. HOW ALLEYNE EDRICSON CAME OUT INTO THE WORLD.

Never had the peaceful atmosphere of the old Cistercian house been so

rudely ruffled. Never had there been insurrection so sudden, so short,

and so successful. Yet the Abbot Berghersh was a man of too firm a grain

to allow one bold outbreak to imperil the settled order of his great

household. In a few hot and bitter words, he compared their false

brother's exit to the expulsion of our first parents from the garden,

and more than hinted that unless a reformation occurred some others of

the community might find themselves in the same evil and perilous case.

Having thus pointed the moral and reduced his flock to a fitting state

of docility, he dismissed them once more to their labors and withdrew

himself to his own private chamber, there to seek spiritual aid in the

discharge of the duties of his high office.

The Abbot was still on his knees, when a gentle tapping at the door of

his cell broke in upon his orisons.

Rising in no very good humor at the interruption, he gave the word to

enter; but his look of impatience softened down into a pleasant and

paternal smile as his eyes fell upon his visitor.

He was a thin-faced, yellow-haired youth, rather above the middle size,

comely and well shapen, with straight, lithe figure and eager, boyish

features. His clear, pensive gray eyes, and quick, delicate expression,

spoke of a nature which had unfolded far from the boisterous joys and

sorrows of the world. Yet there was a set of the mouth and a prominence

of the chin which relieved him of any trace of effeminacy. Impulsive

he might be, enthusiastic, sensitive, with something sympathetic and

adaptive in his disposition; but an observer of nature's tokens would

have confidently pledged himself that there was native firmness and

strength underlying his gentle, monk-bred ways.

The youth was not clad in monastic garb, but in lay attire, though his

jerkin, cloak and hose were all of a sombre hue, as befitted one who

dwelt in sacred precincts. A broad leather strap hanging from his

shoulder supported a scrip or satchel such as travellers were wont to

carry. In one hand he grasped a thick staff pointed and shod with metal,

while in the other he held his coif or bonnet, which bore in its front a

broad pewter medal stamped with the image of Our Lady of Rocamadour.

“Art ready, then, fair son?” said the Abbot. “This is indeed a day of

comings and of goings. It is strange that in one twelve hours the Abbey

should have cast off its foulest weed and should now lose what we are

fain to look upon as our choicest blossom.”

“You speak too kindly, father,” the youth answered. “If I had my will I

should never go forth, but should end my days here in Beaulieu. It hath

been my home as far back as my mind can carry me, and it is a sore thing

for me to have to leave it.”

“Life brings many a cross,” said the Abbot gently. “Who is without them?

Your going forth is a grief to us as well as to yourself. But there

is no help. I had given my foreword and sacred promise to your father,

Edric the Franklin, that at the age of twenty you should be sent out

into the world to see for yourself how you liked the savor of it. Seat

thee upon the settle, Alleyne, for you may need rest ere long.”

The youth sat down as directed, but reluctantly and with diffidence.

The Abbot stood by the narrow window, and his long black shadow fell

slantwise across the rush-strewn floor.

“Twenty years ago,” he said, “your father, the Franklin of Minstead,

died, leaving to the Abbey three hides of rich land in the hundred of

Malwood, and leaving to us also his infant son on condition that we

should rear him until he came to man's estate. This he did partly

because your mother was dead, and partly because your elder brother,

now Socman of Minstead, had already given sign of that fierce and rude

nature which would make him no fit companion for you. It was his desire

and request, however, that you should not remain in the cloisters, but

should at a ripe age return into the world.”

“But, father,” interrupted the young man, “it is surely true that I am

already advanced several degrees in clerkship?”

“Yes, fair son, but not so far as to bar you from the garb you now wear

or the life which you must now lead. You have been porter?”

“Yes, father.”

“Exorcist?”

“Yes, father.”

“Reader?”

“Yes, father.”

“Acolyte?”

“Yes, father.”

“But have sworn no vow of constancy or chastity?”

“No, father.”

“Then you are free to follow a worldly life. But let me hear, ere you

start, what gifts you take away with you from Beaulieu? Some I already

know. There is the playing of the citole and the rebeck. Our choir will

be dumb without you. You carve too?”

The youth's pale face flushed with the pride of the skilled workman.

“Yes, holy father,” he answered. “Thanks to good brother Bartholomew, I

carve in wood and in ivory, and can do something also in silver and

in bronze. From brother Francis I have learned to paint on vellum, on

glass, and on metal, with a knowledge of those pigments and essences

which can preserve the color against damp or a biting air. Brother

Luke hath given me some skill in damask work, and in the enamelling of

shrines, tabernacles, diptychs and triptychs. For the rest, I know a

little of the making of covers, the cutting of precious stones, and the

fashioning of instruments.”

“A goodly list, truly,” cried the superior with a smile. “What clerk of

Cambrig or of Oxenford could say as much? But of thy reading--hast not

so much to show there, I fear?”

“No, father, it hath been slight enough. Yet, thanks to our good

chancellor, I am not wholly unlettered. I have read Ockham, Bradwardine,

and other of the schoolmen, together with the learned Duns Scotus and

the book of the holy Aquinas.”

“But of the things of this world, what have you gathered from your

reading? From this high window you may catch a glimpse over the wooden

point and the smoke of Bucklershard of the mouth of the Exe, and the

shining sea. Now, I pray you, Alleyne, if a man were to take a ship and

spread sail across yonder waters, where might he hope to arrive?”

The youth pondered, and drew a plan amongst the rushes with the point

of his staff. “Holy father,” said he, “he would come upon those parts

of France which are held by the King's Majesty. But if he trended to the

south he might reach Spain and the Barbary States. To his north would be

Flanders and the country of the Eastlanders and of the Muscovites.”

“True. And how if, after reaching the King's possessions, he still

journeyed on to the eastward?”

“He would then come upon that part of France which is still in dispute,

and he might hope to reach the famous city of Avignon, where dwells our

blessed father, the prop of Christendom.”

“And then?”

“Then he would pass through the land of the Almains and the great Roman

Empire, and so to the country of the Huns and of the Lithuanian pagans,

beyond which lies the great city of Constantine and the kingdom of the

unclean followers of Mahmoud.”

“And beyond that, fair son?”

“Beyond that is Jerusalem and the Holy Land, and the great river which

hath its source in the Garden of Eden.”

“And then?”

“Nay, good father, I cannot tell. Methinks the end of the world is not

far from there.”

“Then we can still find something to teach thee, Alleyne,” said the

Abbot complaisantly. “Know that many strange nations lie betwixt there

and the end of the world. There is the country of the Amazons, and the

country of the dwarfs, and the country of the fair but evil women who

slay with beholding, like the basilisk. Beyond that again is the kingdom

of Prester John and of the great Cham. These things I know for very

sooth, for I had them from that pious Christian and valiant knight, Sir

John de Mandeville, who stopped twice at Beaulieu on his way to and from

Southampton, and discoursed to us concerning what he had seen from the

reader's desk in the refectory, until there was many a good brother who

got neither bit nor sup, so stricken were they by his strange tales.”

“I would fain know, father,” asked the young man, “what there may be at

the end of the world?”

“There are some things,” replied the Abbot gravely, “into which it was

never intended that we should inquire. But you have a long road before

you. Whither will you first turn?”

“To my brother's at Minstead. If he be indeed an ungodly and violent

man, there is the more need that I should seek him out and see whether I

cannot turn him to better ways.”

The Abbot shook his head. “The Socman of Minstead hath earned an evil

name over the country side,” he said. “If you must go to him, see at

least that he doth not turn you from the narrow path upon which you have

learned to tread. But you are in God's keeping, and Godward should you

ever look in danger and in trouble. Above all, shun the snares of women,

for they are ever set for the foolish feet of the young. Kneel down, my

child, and take an old man's blessing.”

Alleyne Edricson bent his head while the Abbot poured out his heartfelt

supplication that Heaven would watch over this young soul, now going

forth into the darkness and danger of the world. It was no mere form for

either of them. To them the outside life of mankind did indeed seem to

be one of violence and of sin, beset with physical and still more with

spiritual danger. Heaven, too, was very near to them in those days.

God's direct agency was to be seen in the thunder and the rainbow,

the whirlwind and the lightning. To the believer, clouds of angels and

confessors, and martyrs, armies of the sainted and the saved, were

ever stooping over their struggling brethren upon earth, raising,

encouraging, and supporting them. It was then with a lighter heart and

a stouter courage that the young man turned from the Abbot's room, while

the latter, following him to the stair-head, finally commended him to

the protection of the holy Julian, patron of travellers.

Underneath, in the porch of the Abbey, the monks had gathered to give

him a last God-speed. Many had brought some parting token by which he

should remember them. There was brother Bartholomew with a crucifix of

rare carved ivory, and brother Luke with a white-backed psalter

adorned with golden bees, and brother Francis with the “Slaying of the

Innocents” most daintily set forth upon vellum. All these were

duly packed away deep in the traveller's scrip, and above them old

pippin-faced brother Athanasius had placed a parcel of simnel bread and

rammel cheese, with a small flask of the famous blue-sealed Abbey wine.

So, amid hand-shakings and laughings and blessings, Alleyne Edricson

turned his back upon Beaulieu.

At the turn of the road he stopped and gazed back. There was the

wide-spread building which he knew so well, the Abbot's house, the long

church, the cloisters with their line of arches, all bathed and mellowed

in the evening sun. There too was the broad sweep of the river Exe, the

old stone well, the canopied niche of the Virgin, and in the centre of

all the cluster of white-robed figures who waved their hands to him. A

sudden mist swam up before the young man's eyes, and he turned away upon

his journey with a heavy heart and a choking throat.