Oldmeadow

“ Antonio answered, more quietly still.
It seemed no more than a few feverish months since their parting. The boulder, the stepping-stones, the pool, the cascade, the rapids, the palms, the mimosas, the tree-ferns, the cypresses—all seemed unchanged. He raised his eyes and gazed steadily at Isabel. Time had not filched away her loveliness. Indeed, the nun's head-dress served even better than the golden ringlets of old to frame her beautiful features and to heighten both the blueness of her eyes and the whiteness of her brow. ”

“ There was enough moonlight in the salon to show him the blue ottoman whereon she had so often sat. He hurried out of the room with a heart ready to burst.
At the foot of the stairs he paused. They led to her chamber. Could he bear to cross its threshold, to lean out of the window as she had leaned out after the thunder, and to look at the bed where she had lain sobbing for his sake? He knew he could not bear it. But his intellect had ceased to govern him and he ascended the stairs.
A broad moonbeam lit up every corner of her chamber. Like a man dazed he lurched to the window. ”

“ Come to the pedler,
Money's a meddler,
That doth utter all men's ware-a."
As he sauntered singing down the hill-road the thoughts of Jean François were in Oldmeadow. This was for more reasons than one. His mood called for friends, and there were to be found his truest. Also the village in the valley below him, with its inviting streets and old hotel, recalled certain pleasant features of the home of Nance and Charles and Doctor Longstreet. More than all else, less than two weeks and once more [Pg 101] he would be camping on his friendly common by the river. ”

“ Not one stone or slate gave way; but she heard a sound a thousand times more fearful. It was a voice, a mumbling voice which seemed to prolong the worn-out rumblings of the thunder; a voice deep and rich; the voice of a man; a voice somewhere in the chapel.
Her heart nearly stopped beating. She strained terrified eyes into the furthest darkness. And she did not strain them in vain. In close succession four or five white beams of lightning lit up the choir.
A monk, in black, was kneeling before the altar.
Isabel's piercing scream was louder than the thunder and the rain. ”

“ Finally he said:
"Home is not built in a day. I myself was not bred and born in this part of Portugal. At first every face was strange. But it is home now. This torrent is the stream that runs through the kitchen of the abbey where I used to work. It is the brook that refreshes my little farm. Once it was no more to me than so many gallons of water. Now it talks and sings to me like a friend. Little by little you will learn to love this place."
"I loved it as soon as I saw it," she retorted. "But I don't love it now. ”

“ Even the fine linen sheet was too hot and heavy to be endured. She flung it aside and lay with nothing to cover her save a plain night-robe of the thinnest Indian silk. At first she tossed from side to side; but so much exertion soon exhausted her, and she lay still, gasping for breath.
At length the heat became unendurable. She rose and went to the window. Two or three miles away, over the woods, over the abbey, beyond Antonio's farm, the surly Atlantic was growling his muffled growl through the sultry air. Quite near at hand the shrunken torrent was rumbling down through the underwoods. ”

“ To his surprise and relief the viscount found the bed empty and the Abbot throned upon one of the high-backed chairs. But his fears returned when a lay-brother set eight candles, in a bronze candelabrum, upon the painted table. By their light he saw a face which seemed to gaze on him from beyond the grave. To the old man's right and left stood the Prior and Father Isidore, supporting him. They had vested the Abbot in a cope stiff with gold embroidery, and they had placed his miter on his head and his crozier in his hand. ”

“ Antonio sat down on the cork bench where he had mused on the night of his ordination, just before he heard the chink of steel. The November moonlight was not less gracious than the May dusk. The cross in the monks' graveyard uprose as white and slender as a taper on an altar, and all the earth seemed consecrated ground. And there the young priest sat for a long time, without moving, while he recalled, beginning with the march to Navares, the motley events which had filled the one-and-forty months of his exile. Finally he lived over again his last night in the abbey. ”

“ From a cork bench on the flat roof of the cloister, the monk Antonio gazed over dim orange-groves and vineyards toward the quiet Atlantic. For many a day no wind had vexed the waters, and the ocean swell, as it searched the creeks and caves, hummed no loudlier than a bee mining deeply in the bells of flowers. Overhead thousands of stars burned mildly. The May night's soft airs were rich with scents of lemon-blossom and honeysuckle: and, like a perfume from a great hidden lily, peace filled earth and heaven. ”

“ Emitte lucem tuam, said Antonio in fervent prayer and thanksgiving, as he breasted the weed-grown slope. "Send forth thy light and thy truth: they shall lead me to thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles, and I will go unto the altar of God." And when an opening in the trees once more showed him the glistening chapel his mind swung from the Psalter to the Apocalypse, and he thought once more of Saint John's vision of the Bride habentem claritatem Dei: "having the clear-shining of God, and her light like a precious stone's, like a jasper's, like crystal." ”

“ It seemed to the half-stifled, heart-sick Isabel that if she could escape from the house unheard by Jackson and Mrs. Baxter she might find life and healing in those ampler spaces. She did not admit to herself that the broad path and, especially, the paved space in front of the abbey attracted her because they were rich in unembittered memories of hours with Antonio. Room, more room; air, more air: she thought she wanted nothing besides. ”

“ Antonio ended it by starting on a new line.
"Those tiles," he said, "are not mere curiosities, to be carted about from one museum to another. I feel as if they are alive—as if your illustrious father will be flaying a living thing when he tears them from the wall. They were not ordered from a shop, and unpacked, and stuck all over the chapel like so much wallpaper from Paris. They represent the life and miracles and martyrdom of a saint of this Order—a saint of the Portuguese Benedictine congregation who spent ten years in this monastery. ”

“ Across the courtyard a light was burning in the room where the Abbot still lay in unnatural sleep. Antonio drew near and gazed through the glass. The old man's hands were clasped on his breast, and his garment fell into stiff folds like the alabaster draperies of a mitered effigy on a tomb. Antonio breathed towards the frail body the prayer he had heard at the beginning of Compline, Noctem quietam et finem perfectum: "May the Almighty Lord grant him a quiet night and a perfect end." ”

“ Since then I have dwelt in three religious houses; and every one of them has been suppressed."
"Can it be," asked Antonio uneasily, "that the Orders are themselves to blame, as men say? Here we dwelt in simplicity and piety, living by our own labor and feeding the poor. But was this house an exception? Had the majority of other monks indeed sunk into gluttony and sloth?"
"In every monastery from which I have been driven," said Sebastian, "our evictors poured regrets and compliments upon us. It was always the misdeeds of 'others,' for which we had to suffer. ”

“ As soon as horse and men were out of sight, Antonio hurried up the hill and made his way into the abbey. It was his hope and prayer that Sir Percival would be restrained by lack of cash from interfering with the monastery and that he would live quietly and cheaply in the more modern and airy little guest-house. But the monk knew that the sacred pile was menaced by a thousand perils; and therefore he spent nearly an hour in wandering from kitchen to refectory, from library to calefactory, from cell to cell, from cloister to chapel. ”

“ When the monk awoke day was dawning. For a while memory failed him. But as soon as he understood that he was in Isabel's room he leaped up and hastened downstairs.
He knew that he ought to go straight home. But his feet, despite their soreness, turned towards the stepping-stones. He retraced the path by which she had left him, hardly thirty-six hours before. Past the cypresses, through the mimosas, he went; and before the sun rose he was standing in the icy spray of the thunderous waterfall. He longed to plunge into the crystal pool ”

“ Would he find the brook-side farm as trim as the old cura's presbytery, with a new master tending the orangery and the vineyard? And what of the monastery? Perhaps children were playing in and out of the cells, while beasts chewed maize-leaves in the cloisters. For more than two years Antonio had lacked news of the abbey's fate. ”

“ With burning earnestness he recited Vespers in his old stall.
Rising from his knees, Antonio paid a visit to a useless-looking door in the outer wall of the cloisters. Like all the other doors of the building, it was so well plastered over with official seals on the outer side that José and Antonio had never dared to use it. Yet Antonio knew its secret well. A massy bolt appeared to secure it, like the gate of a castle; but there was a tiny green-painted stud of iron hidden in the masonry outside which controlled the whole. ”

“ I see it every time you pour out a drop of wine or touch a flower. You would rejoice in exquisite things more than any woman."
"Shall I offend you, Isabel?" he asked, coloring up, "if I remind you that this talk is to be short? We are not getting on."
"Yes, we are getting on fast," she retorted. "I say that I hate the way you are living. To save money and to buy back this place for the Benedictines is all very well; but I say that your sacrifices are overdone, and that God must be grieved by your excesses. He has shown that you are not meant to be a monk. ”

“ A saint! If the sacred vestments had not been hanging from his shoulders he would have cried, "No, good people, no! Pray for me. I am the poorest sinner of you all."
The crucifer cleared a passage through the kneeling, murmuring, weeping people, and the procession moved on, picking a way among the broad-brimmed hats and wallets of provisions which lay on the pavement. After making five or six yards of progress it came to a halt again. His pious preoccupation could not wholly blind Antonio's eyes to the picturesqueness of the sight. ”

“ The bright green meadows were enameled with myriads of white and pink and blue and yellow flowers, and the wanton hedgerows wore long streamers of convolvulus and honeysuckle. High in the giant elms rooks cawed steadily with a raucous but homely sound.
"Never mind," chaffed Mr. Crowberry, "you'll see her again soon."
"Her?" echoed Antonio, starting.
"Yes. Her. Teresa or Dolores or Maria or Luiza or Carmen. Don't be down in the dumps. You'll see her again before long."
"I think not," said Antonio. But he winced as he realized how nearly the wine-merchant had interpreted his mood. ”

“ My mother liked her poor friends more than her rich ones; but Mrs. Baxter was not her friend. Nor is Mrs. Baxter's name Clara. It is plain Jane."
Antonio smiled. "Anyhow, I've got it over," he said. "It had to come, some time or other. But where are your clouds that are going to drench me to the skin?"
"Over there," answered Isabel, pointing to one tiny milk-white cirrus adrift in the clear blue lake of heaven. "It's as large as a man's hand. You think I'm irreligious; but I've read the Bible, and I remember something about a cloud no bigger than a man's hand which worked some miracle." ”

“ Everybody was gazing curiously at the mysterious Senhor Francisco Manoel Oliveira da Rocha, the man who had trod the golden streets of London, the man who caused bottles of wine to be worth three milreis each by standing them upon their heads, and, above all, the man who was going to marry Margarida dos Santos Rebolla.
The counting began. To the blindfolded man it had an uncanny sound; for nine-tenths of the onlookers were chanting the numbers with Luiz in a subdued, expectant sing-song. But he kept his senses about him. ”

“ He was swept into the chapel by Mrs. Baxter, who suddenly filled the doorway like a wave bursting through an arch on a limestone coast. Behind Mrs. Baxter could be heard the loud voice of Mr. Crowberry. Antonio advanced to greet the lady and to express his hope that she was well.
"No, Signor Da Rocha, I am not well," responded Mrs. Baxter tartly. "Since you asked me, I am very ill indeed. But who cares? I have long ceased to look for gratitude; but it seems that I must no longer expect common humanity." ”

“ Under an old lime-tree they sat down, beside a plashing fountain, and the monk waited for the others to speak.
"It is a matter of money," stinted Theophilo, "and it is not with my consent that Luis troubles your Worship about it."
"Before my father died," Luis began, "he called me to him and said: 'Luis, you and your brothers and sister have health and a little wealth, but I can't expect that you won't have troubles. When troubles come, be men and fight them as I have fought mine. But, if ever they are too strong for you, go to Manoel da Rocha up at the old abbey. ”