CHAPTER II.
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.
