The House of Walderne

  Chapter 13: How Martin Gained His Desire.

  While one of the two friends was thus hewing his way to knighthoodby deeds of "dering do," the other was no less steadily perseveringin the path which led to the object of his desire. The lessambitious object, as the world would say.

  He was ever indefatigable in his work of love amidst the poor andsick, and gained the approbation of his superiors most thoroughly,although in the stern coldness which they thought an essential partof true discipline, they were scant of their encomiums. Men oughtto work, they said, simply from a sense of duty to God, and earthlypraise was the "dead fly which makes the apothecary's ointment tostink." So they allowed their younger brethren to toil on withoutany such mundane reward, only they cheered them by their brotherlylove, shown in a hundred different ways.

  One long-remembered day in the summer of the year 1259, Martinstrolled down the river's banks, to indulge in meditation andprayer. But the banks were too crowded for him that day. He markedthe boats as they came up from Abingdon, drawn by horses, ladenwith commodities; or shot down the swift stream without suchadventitious aid. Pleasure wherries darted about impelled by theyoung scholars of Oxford, as in these modern days. Fishermen pliedtheir trade or sport. The river was the great highway; no, therewas no solitude there.

  So into the forest which lay between Oxford and Abingdon, now onlysurviving in Bagley Wood, plunged our novice. As the poet says:

  Into the forest, darker, deeper, grayer,His lips moving as if in prayer,Walked the monk Martin, all alone:Around him the tops of the forest treesWaving, made the sign of the CrossAnd muttered their benedicites.

  The woods were God's first temples; and even now where does onefeel so alone with one's Maker? How sweet the solemn silence! wherethe freed spirit, freed from external influences, can holdcommunion with its heavenly Father. So felt Martin. The very birdsseemed to him to be singing carols; and the insects to join, withtheir hum, the universal hymn of praise.

  Oh how the serpent lurks in Eden--beneath earthly beauty lies themystery of pain and suffering.

  A wail struck on Martin's ears--the voice of a little child, andsoon he brushed aside the branches in the direction of the cry,until he struck upon a faintly trodden path, which led to thecottage of one of the foresters, or as we should say "keepers."

  At the gate of the little enclosure, which surrounded the patch ofcultivated ground attached to the house, a young child stoodweeping. When she saw Martin her eyes lighted up with joy.

  "Oh, God has sent thee, good brother. Come and help my poor mother.She is so ill," and she tripped back towards the house; "and fathercan't help her, nor brother either. Father lies cold and still, andbrother frightens me."

  What did it mean?

  Martin saw it at once--the plague! That terrible oriental disease,probably a malignant form of typhus, bred of foul drainage, andcultivated as if in some satanic hot bed, until it had reached theperfection of its deadly growth, by its transmission from bodilyframe to frame. It was terribly infectious, but what then? It hadto be faced, and if one died of it, one died doing God'swork--thought Martin.

  So as Hubert faced his Welshmen, did Martin face his foe--"typhus"or plague, call it which we please.

  Which required the greater courage, my younger readers? But therewas no more faltering in Martin's step than in Hubert's, as he wentto that pallet in an inner room, where a human being tossed in allthe heat of fever, and the incessant cry, "I thirst," pierced theheart.

  "So did HE thirst on the Cross," thought Martin, "and He thirstsagain in the suffering members of His mystical body--for in alltheir affliction He is afflicted."

  There was no water close by in the chamber, but Martin had noticeda clear spring outside, and taking a cup he went to the fount andfilled it. He administered it sparingly to the parched lips,fearing its effect in larger quantities, but oh! the eagerness withwhich the sufferer received it--those blanched lips, that dryparched palate.

  "Canst thou hear me, art thou conscious?"

  "An angel of God?"

  "No, a sinner like thyself."

  "Go, thou wilt catch the plague."

  "I am in God's hands. HE has sent me to thee. Tell me sister--hastthou thrown thyself upon His mercy, and united thy sufferings withthose of the Slain, the Crucified, who thirsted for thee?"

  And Martin spoke of the life of love, and the death of shame, as anangel might have done, his features lighted up with love and faith.And the living word was blessed by the Giver of Life.

  Then he felt the poor child pulling him gently to another room,whence faint moans were now heard. There lay the brother, a finelad of some fourteen summers, in the death agony, the face blackalready; and on another pallet the dead body of the forester, thefather of the family.

  Martin could not leave them. The night came on. He kindled a fire,both for warmth and to purify the air. He found some cakes and verysoon roasted a morsel for the poor girl, the only one yetuntouched, partaking of it sparingly himself. He went from suffererto sufferer; moistening the lips, assuaging the agony of the body,and striving to save the soul.

  The poor boy passed into unconsciousness and died while Martinprayed by his side. The widow lingered till the morning light, whenshe, too, passed away into peace, her last hours soothed by themessage of the Gospel.

  Then Martin took the child and led her towards the city, meditatingsadly on the strange mystery of death and pain. The woods were asbeautiful as before, but not in the eyes of one whose mind was fullof the remembrance of the ravages of the fell destroyer.

  "Where are you taking me?"

  "To the good sisters of Saint Clare, who will take care of thee forChrist's sake."

  So he strove to wipe away the tears from the orphan's eyes.

  He reached Oxford, gave up his charge to the charitable sisterhood,then reported himself to his academical and ecclesiasticalsuperiors, who were pleased to express their approval of all thathe had done. But as a measure of precaution they bade him changeand destroy his infected raiment, to take a certain electuarysupposed to render a person less disposed to infection, and toretire early to his couch.

  All this he did; but after his first sleep he woke up with anaching head and intolerable sense of heat--feverish heat. Heunderstood it all too well, and lost no time in commending himselfto his heavenly Father, for he felt that he might soon loseconsciousness and be unable to do so.

  A purer spirit never commended itself to its Maker and Redeemer.But it was not in this he put his trust. It was in Him of whomSaint Francis sang so sweetly:

  To Him my heart He drewWhile hanging on the tree,From whence He said to meI am the Shepherd true;Love sets my heart on fire--Love of the Crucified.

  And ere his delirium set in, Martin made a full resignation of hiswill to God. He had hoped to do much for love of his Lord, to carrythe message of the Gospel into the Andredsweald, where the kindredof his mother yet lived, and the thought that he should never seetheir forest glades again was painful. And the blankness ofunconsciousness, the fearful nature of the black death, was initself repulsive; but it had all been ordered and settled byInfinite Love before ever he was born, probably before the worldswere framed, and Martin said with all his heart the words breathedby the Incarnate God, when groaning beneath the olive tree inmysterious agony:

  "Not my will, but thine, be done."

  And then he lapsed into delirium.

  The next sensation of which he was conscious, and which heafterwards remembered, for we have not done with our Martin yet,was one of a singular character. A glorious light, but intenselypainful, seemed before his eyes. It burnt, it dazzled, itconfounded him; yet he admired and adored it, for it seemed to himthe glory of God thus fashioning itself before him. And on thatbrilliant orb, glowing like a sun, was a black spot which seemed toMartin to be himself, a blot on God's glory, and he cried, "Oh, letme perish, if but Thy glory be unstained," when a voice seemed toreply, "My glory shall be shown in thy redemption, not in thydestruction."

 
Probably this took place at the crisis of the disease, and thephysical and spiritual sensations were in union throughout theillness. For now Martin was delirious with joy--sweet strains ofmusic were ever about him. The angels gathered in his cell and sangcarols, songs of love to the Crucified. One stormy night, whengentle but heavy rain descended, patter, patter, on the roof abovehis head, he thought Gabriel and all the angelic choir were there,singing the Gloria in Excelsis, poising themselves on wings withoutthe window, and the strain:

  Pax in terra hominibus bonoe voluntatis,

  Was so ineffably sweet that the tears rolled down his cheeks instreams.

  This was the end of the imaginary music. The next morning he wokeup conscious--himself again. His first return to consciousness wasan impression of a voice:

  "Dearest brother, thou art better, art thou not?"

  "I am quite free from pain, only a hungered."

  "What food dost thou desire to enter thy lips first?"

  "The Bread of Life."

  "But not as the Viaticum {20}, thank God. Wait awhile, I go tofetch it from the altar."

  And the successor of Adam de Maresco, the new head of the OxfordHouse, left the youth and went into their plainly-furnished chapel,where, in a silver dove, the only silver about the church, thereserved sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ was always keptfor the sick in case of need. It hung from the beams of thechancel, before the high altar.

  First the prior knelt and thanked God for having preserved the lifeof the youth they all loved.

  "Thou hast yet great things for him to do on earth ere it come tohis turn to rest," he murmured. "To Thee be all the glory."

  Then he returned and gave the young novice his communion. Martinreceived it, and said, "I have found Him whom my soul loveth. Iwill hold Him and will not let Him go."

  From that time the patient was able to take solid nourishment, andgrew rapidly better, until at last he could leave his room and sitin the sunny cloisters:

  Restored to life, and power, and thought.

  And one day he sat there, dreamily watching old Father Thames, ashe murmured and bubbled along, outside the stone boundary.

  "Onward till he lose himself in the ocean, so do flow our livestill they merge into eternity," said the prior. "Now with impetuousflow, now in gentler ripple, but ever onward as God hath ordained;so may our souls, when the work of life is accomplished, losethemselves in God."

  Martin moved his lips in silent acquiescence.

  It was intense, the enjoyment of that sweet spring day, a day whenall the birds seemed singing songs of gladness, and the air wasbalmy beyond description. Life seemed worth living.

  "My son, when thou art better thou must travel for change of air."

  "Whither?" said Martin.

  "Where wouldst thou like to go?"

  "Oh, may I go to my kindred and teach them the holy truths of theGospel?"

  "Thou shalt. Brother Ginepro shall go with thee, and ere thoustartest thou shalt be admitted to the privileges and duties of thesecond order, and be Brother Martin."

  "And when shall I be ordained?"

  "That may not be, yet. Thou art not twenty years of age. Thou maystwin many souls to Christ while a lay brother, as did Francishimself, our great master. He did not seek the priesthood also, toogreat a burden for a humble soul like his, and certes, if menunderstood what a priest is and what he should be, there would befewer but perchance holier priests than there are now."

  The reader must remember that nearly all the friars were laymen;lay preachers, as we would say; preaching was not then considered aspecial clerical function.

  Martin could not speak for joy, but soon tears were seen to startdown his cheeks.

  "I was thinking of my poor mother. Oh, that she had lived to seethis day," he exclaimed, as he saw the prior observe his emotion.

  The reader will remember that news of her death had reached Martinsoon after his arrival at Kenilworth, without which he could nothave remained all these years away from the Andredsweald. Her deathhad partially (only partially) snapped the link which bound him tohis kindred, the love of whom now began to revive in the breast ofthe convalescent.