They were fair, with rock and olive, with gray and creamy and rose-hued towns, and over the towns sky that was heart of blue, and in the towns Italian life. He must tell in confession how all that was coming of late to haunt him. When he plunged into these towns the hunger vanished for a time. But it came again. And in his heart he knew that he wished it to come. “O All-Knowledge and All-Beauty, let me not cease to be driven and to be drawn until I find thee--until I find thee!” The bell rang for the office of the night. He rose and presently stood chanting, with his brother monks, in the church of Silver Cross. The candles burned, the windows were lead against the starry sky. He knew the stars that were behind them, he saw them in their clusters. The candles showed in part the great painting of the Blessed among women. He could piece out here also what they did not show. There was splendour in the figure and face, a magic of beauty, and he loved it. The chanting filled the dark hollow of the church. The Abbot had dispensation from the night office. The sub-prior was in his place. Moreover, the Abbot was away, having ridden on his white mule, with attendants, to Middle Forest, to the castle of Montjoy. The office ended, the cell again and sleep. Dawn. Lauds. Breakfast. The reader for the day reading from the life of a saint. “And an angel came nightly to his cell and showed him the scenery of heaven and the Blessed moving there. And his brethren began to know of this, for the light shined out of his cell.” Brother Richard Englefield did not work in field or garden. He had worked so for two years. Then Abbot Mark making discoveries, there had been given him a stone room with a furnace, goldsmith’s tools and two Brothers for helpers. If you had a master maker among your monks waste him not in digging, sowing, weeding and gathering! Now he made lovely things for the church, and for the Abbot’s table. He made presents for the Abbot to send prelates and princes. The Abbot bragged of his work. When great visitors came they were shown him in his smithy. Not only so, but because he was silent--brown-blond, tall and still, like King David in the picture--and evidently a hunter after God, and scrupulous to do all the Rule demanded, and all that it allowed of austerity supererogative--he had fame as monk. Some of his brethren wished him well and leaned upon his presence, taking as it were his sunlight, valuing him in and for Silver Cross. Two or three who also hunted God met him and understood him. Others found in him a reproach, and others were indifferent or secretly laughed. Silver Cross was much like the world. Brother Richard continued his struggle and his hunting, under an exterior still as the church, stripped and simple.