brother martin said matins to the sparrows who had built their nests in the thatch of the chapel, and having drunk a cup of spring water and eaten a crust of bread, he set out early to try to lose himself in the forest.
for life on the black moor was not all that it had seemed, and a young man, however devout and determined he may be, cannot satisfy his soul with prayers and the planting of seeds in a garden. martin had entered upon the life with methodical enthusiasm, tolled the chapel bell at matins and vespers, swept out his cell, set the little guest-house in order, and done to death all the weeds in father jude’s garden. but a man must be fed, and it was in a struggle with this prime necessity that martin suffered his first defeat. he started out cheerfully to bake bread, but the devil was in the business; the oven was either too hot or too cold, and there were mysteries about such a simple thing as dough that martin had not fathomed. he tore a great hole in his cassock in climbing up the woodstack to throw down fagots, and then discovered that he had no needle and thread for the mending of the rent. these trivial domestic humiliations were discouraging. he conceived a most human hatred of salt meat, herrings, and the obstinate and adhesive pulp that he produced in the place of bread. milk and eggs, fresh meat and honey! he was carnally minded with regard to such simple desires.
moreover, he was most abominably lonely—the more so, perhaps, because he had not realized his own loneliness. paradise appeared to have melted into the dim distance; there might have been a conspiracy against him; martin had not seen a human face since prior globulus had sent a servant to fetch away the mule, on the plea that the beast was needed. and martin had taken the loss of the mule most unkindly. it was a confession, but he had found the beast good company; it had been alive; it had needed food and drink; had given signs of friendship; had been a warm, live thing that he could touch. the birds were very well in their way; but he was not necessary to them, and they were wild. he saw deer moving in the distance, but they were no more than the figures of beasts worked in thread upon a tapestry.
this morning restlessness of his was a kind of impulsive pilgrimage in quest of something that he lacked—a flight from that part of himself that remained unsatisfied. he went striding over the heather toward the beech woods in the valley. they were very green, and soft, and beautiful and had seemed mysteriously alive when seen from the brow of the black moor, but even in the woods some essential thing was lacking. the great trees stood spaced at a distance, their branches rising from the huge gray trunks. the greenness and the listening gloom went on and on, promising him something that was never seen, never discovered.
more than once he came on an open glade where rabbits were feeding, and the little brown fellows went off at a scamper, showing the whites of their tails. martin felt aggrieved, even like a child who wanted playmates. he leaned against a beech tree and consoled himself with asking ridiculous questions.
“why should the beasts fear man?”
and yet he would have welcomed fresh venison!
“if the lord christ were here in my place, would not all the wild things come to him?”
his simple faith could provide him with only one answer, and that was not flattering to his self-knowledge. he had not climbed to that state of complete purity; he was no st. francis. perhaps original sin was at the bottom of everything. and yet he had always mastered his own body.
martin valliant passed some hours in the woods before turning back across the heather of the black moor. a hawk, poised against the blue, took no more notice of him than if he had been a sheep, and for a while martin stood watching the bird of prey. the hawk went boldly on with his hunting; he would have had no pity for a poor fool of a priest who was spending his powers in trying to contradict nature.
a puzzled look came into martin valliant’s eyes as he neared the chapelry. a little tuft of smoke was drifting from the chimney of his cell, and he knew that he had lit no sticks under the oven that morning.
“they have sent a servant from paradise.”
he quickened his steps, but saw no live thing moving about the place. he looked into the stable, and found it empty; but the garden hedge offered him his first surprise. certainly the thing that he saw was nothing but a shirt spread on the hedge to dry, and looking as white and clean as one of the big clouds overhead.
his own cell offered further mysteries. the oven door stood open, and a couple of nicely browned loaves were waiting to be taken out. a meat pasty that smelled very fragrant had been left on the oven shelf. his cassock, neatly mended, hung over the back of father jude’s oak chair.
martin could make nothing of these mysteries. the loaves and the pasty were real enough—so real that he remembered the cup of water and the crust of bread with which he had broken his fast soon after dawn.
he went and looked into the chapel and the guest-room, but there was no one there, nor could he see anything moving over the moor. the business puzzled him completely. it was possible that a servant had been sent from paradise; but paradise was three leagues away, and martin would have expected to find a horse or a mule in the stable. moreover it occurred to him that some one must have looked into the oven not so very long ago, lifted out the pasty, and put it on the shelf. the good creature might be hiding somewhere, but what need was there for such a game of hide-and-seek?
martin returned to the cell, set the pasty on the table, took the loaves out of the oven, and his platter and cup from the shelf. common sense suggested that the food was meant to be eaten. he pulled the stool up to the table, said grace, took the knife from the sheath at his girdle, and thrust the point of it through the pie-crust.
then he sat rigid, listening, the blade of his knife still in the pie and his hand gripping the haft. some one was singing on the moor among the yellow gorse and broom. the voice was a girl’s voice, gay and birdlike and challenging.
martin sat there with a face like a ghost’s, his heart beating fast, his eyes staring through the open doorway. for the voice seemed to speak to him of all that he had sought in the forest and had not found. it was youth calling to youth in the spring of the year.
the voice grew fainter and fainter; it seemed to be dying away over the moor. martin valliant’s eyes dilated, his knees shook together. he started up, knocking over the stool, and rushed out of the cell like a madman, his eyes full of a fanatical fire.
the voice had ceased singing. he climbed to the place where the wooden cross stood, and looked fiercely about him. but he saw nothing, nothing but the gorse and broom and heather. he went down among the green gorse banks, searched, and found nothing.
sweat stood on his forehead, and his heart was hammering under his ribs.
then he crossed himself, fell on his knees, and prayed. the first thing he did on reaching his cell was to take the loaves and the cooked meat and throw them into the fire under the oven.
