Brother Geraint made his way through the dusk to Widow Greensleeve’s house at Cherry Acre. It was a warm, still night, and the scent of the white thorn blossom in the hedges hung heavy on the air.
He came to the gate and stood listening. There was no sound to be heard save the rush of the river through the sluices of the mill.
Geraint pushed the gate open and peered about under the apple trees.
“Good evening to you, holy sir.”
Some one was laughing close to him in the dusk.
“Who’s there?”
“What, not know my voice?”
“It is you?”
“Come and see. Have you forgotten the seat by the hedge?”
He thrust the apple boughs aside, and saw the white kerchief that covered her shoulders.
“Where is the girl?”
“Saying her prayers somewhere. I have not seen her since noon. She is touched in the head, and goes wandering for hours together.”
Geraint sat down on the bench beside the dame. He was in a sullen mood, and very bitter.
“The fool! Send her back to the moor.”
“She swears she will not go.”
“This Martin Valliant is the devil. She could make nothing of him?”
“Why, my good man, it was he who made a Magdalene of her. She came back crying, ‘He is a saint. There is no man in Paradise fit to lace his shoes!’ ”
Geraint cursed under his breath.
“A pest take both of them!”
She rapped his shoulder sharply with her knuckles.
“A word of warning, Dom Geraint. If the man is dangerous, the girl may prove more so. I tell you he has worked a miracle with her, and women are strange creatures. She says openly, ‘Some day Martin Valliant will come down from the moor, and make an end of the wickedness in Paradise.’ ”
“She says that!”
“Aye, and dreams of it. I tell you women are strange creatures when love has its way. She is all for turning anchoress, and praying all day to St. Martin. For half a cup of milk she would go running through the valley, screaming the truth. Be very careful, Dom Geraint.”
He leaned forward, glowering and biting his nails.
“We have made a poor throw, dame. And here is that pestilent pedant of an abbot threatening us with a visitation. We have heard of the storm he raised at Birchhanger; he trampled on the whole priory there, had one of the brothers hanged by the judge on circuit. Privilege of clergy, forsooth! The Church is to be regenerated!”
He rocked to and fro.
“And this Martin Valliant, the very man to play the holy sneak! A pretty pass indeed! A cub we took in and nurtured!”
The woman touched his sleeve.
“Some men are too good for this world. They are so much in love with the next world——”
He laughed discordantly.
“That they should be kicked into it! By my bones, there’s truth in that! It had entered my head, dame. And after all it is but doing a saint a service to help him to a halo.”
“Tsst—you are too noisy! Have a care.”
They drew closer together on the bench till their heads were nearly touching.
“Kate is not about?”
“She’ll come back singing a litany. We shall hear her.”
Yet the girl was nearer than either of them dreamed. She had come wandering silently along the path soon after Geraint had entered the garden, and their voices had warned her. She was standing on the other side of the hedge within two yards of the bench, her hands clenched, her face white and sharp.
She could hear all that they said to each other, and it was sufficient to make her wise as to what was in Geraint’s heart. She realized how his brethren at Paradise hated Martin, and how they wished him out of the way.
Kate heard Geraint stirring at last. There were sounds from the other side of the hedge, sounds that made her wince. She crept away, step by step, till a turn of the path hid her from view.
The gate shut with a clatter. She heard the monk give a great yawn, and then his heavy steps dying away beyond the orchard.
Kate stood very close to the hedge and shivered. Life had so changed for her; she was horrified at things that she had hardly understood before; men seemed contemptible creatures. She was thinking of what she had overheard, and of the treachery that threatened Martin Valliant.
Kate had kept her promise, and the very keeping of it had strengthened her heart; but that night she was persuaded to break it, nor could her conscience find fault with her.
There would be a moon in an hour. She crept around to the stable that stood some way from the house, put a halter on the old gray donkey, and got the beast out with scarcely a sound. He was as stubborn as any ass could be in most people’s hands, but he had a liking for humoring Kate. She led him down the orchard, through the slip gate into the dame’s meadow, and so away over the open country to the bridge at the mill. No one saw her cross the river, though the miller nudged his wife when he heard the donkey’s hoofs on the timber of the bridge.
“Now who would you guess that to be?”
The good wife ran to the window, but saw nothing, since the moon was not up.
“An ass, by the sound.”
“Two of them, more likely. And supposing it were Kate Succory, where would she be going?”
“It is best to mind one’s business, John, when we live at the prior’s mill.”
“Remember it, dame, by all means,” he said, somewhat sullenly, “there is not an honest man among them now that Martin Valliant is away on the moor.”
His wife clapped her hands.
“Maybe that ass travels as far as the moor.”
“Get you to bed. A woman’s tongue stirs up too much mire.”
Kate did not trouble her head as to whether anyone had seen her from the mill. She set the donkey’s nose for the Forest, and helped him with her heels. Luckily, she knew the way, and soon the moon came over the hill to help her.
“A blessing on you, Master Moon,” she said quite solemnly, looking over the donkey’s tail.
The clock at Paradise was striking midnight when Kate saw the Black Moor lying dim and mysterious under the moon. More than once she had been shrewdly frightened in the deeps of the woods; but old Jock was the most stolid of mokes, and the beast’s steadiness had comforted her. She had stretched herself on his back, her arms about his neck, her face close to his flopping ears, and had talked to him.
“Who’s afraid, Jock? I can say a Mater Maria and a Pater. Besides, we are on a good errand, and the saints will watch over us.”
Jock, by his silence, most heartily agreed with her.
“Dom Geraint is a treacherous villain. The lean, black rat! Some day Abbot Hilary will send for Martin Valliant and will make him prior.”
She sat up straight on Jock’s back as the donkey climbed the moor. The place had a magic for her. She could imagine all sorts of miraculous things happening where Martin Valliant lived.
“Assuredly he will be a very great saint,” she said to herself, “and people will come to him to be healed.”
Presently she saw the cross standing out against the sky, and it stirred her almost to passionate tears. She slipped off Jock’s back, fastened him to a stunted thorn, and went on alone.
Everything was very still. In the far south the sea glimmered under the moon. Kate went forward with a strange, exultant awe in her heart. Martin would pardon her for breaking her promise when he knew why she had come.
The buildings were black and solemn, though a faint ray of light shone from the window of the chapel. It was the vigil of St. Florence, and Martin had left two candles burning on the altar while he slept for an hour.
Kate looked into the chapel and found it empty. She knelt on the threshold, put her hands together, and said a prayer.
Martin Valliant was sound asleep in his cell, but he awoke to the sound of some one knocking. He sat up on his pallet, and listened.
“Martin Valliant—Martin Valliant!”
He knew her voice, and for a moment he would not answer her.
“Martin Valliant, be not angry with me. I am not breaking my vow to you; no, not in the spirit. I have come to warn you.”
“Child, what mean you?”
“Beware of Brother Geraint, beware of the monks of Paradise. They go about to do you a great wrong.”
He rose to his knees.
“How should you know?”
“Listen. I speak what is true.”
She told him of the things she had heard Geraint whisper in the garden.
“They are evil men, and mean treachery toward you. I could not rest, Martin Valliant, because you are a good man, and taught me to see the Christ.”
There was silence.
Then she said, “Pray for me, Martin Valliant,” and was gone.
Martin rose up and opened the door of the cell, but she was out of sight over the edge of the moor.
He stood there a long while, rigid, wide-eyed, a young man amazed that older men should be so base.