Great Britain -- History -- Henry VII, 1485-1509 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
He tried to make a plan, but it was hard to plan out of this! Best
still trust Success. He took a pebble and tossed it, then followed
it. Narrow road little travelled. He walked upon this some way and
saw a horseman coming. Out of track into a hazel brake, wait and see
what like he might be! Sun glinted, boughs waved, birds sang, over all
things lay a pearly moisture after storm.
Young Thomas Bettany, riding from town because town oppressed him,
taking idle way and ancient road because to-day bustle liked him not,
errandless and leaving John Cobb at home, rode through the old forest
with hanging head. He would mend the world if he knew how, but he did
not know how.
Coming to brake his horse started aside. Thomas crossed himself. A monk
was standing there, seemed to have stepped forth from it. “Is it a
ghost? By Saint John, Brother! you look it and you do not look it!”
He knew him now, having seen him at Silver Cross thrice, maybe, since
the finding of Holy Well. Thomas Bettany felt himself tremble a little.
_Brother Richard_--_if he were mad_--but then he remembered himself
that he was hardly so! They said he was mad, an Abbot and a Prior whose
deeds might not be scanned. Brother Richard! Though some were guilty
the monk was not. Again he saw things “in a flash.” The monstrous
disappointment--Heaven’s boon companion, then fall--fall--fall! How
sharp the stones and black the land!
He spoke in a whisper. “Did you break last night from Westforest?” All
the countryside knew that Brother Richard, now alas! utterly mad, was
to be hidden there in a grated cell.
Richard Englefield knew not why Success was here. He said, “You know me
then? Who are you?”
“Thomas Bettany, merchant’s son.”
“I greatly need,” said the man by the hazels, “burgher’s dress, a purse
of money, and to reach some ship in river that presently makes sail.”
Having spoken, he waited again upon Success.
“I shall have to ride to Middle Forest and back,” said Thomas Bettany.
“Over yonder a mile lies a ruined farm. No one goes by wood that way.
Walk till you see the house through trees, then lie close till I come.”
Few words more and he turned horse and presently disappeared down the
leafy road.
Englefield moved off into deep forest toward the ruined farm. It was
Success. It was of a piece with breaking free from Priory. Maybe there
were gods who said, “Thou touchedst nadir, now we let thee rise!” Maybe
it was the Will, so fulfilled and potent that it became magician. Trust
far enough, and the bird comes flying! But not trust like that at
Silver Cross--no!
Deep wood, beech and ash and oak, very silent, very lonely. At last
it thinned and he saw through trees an old, small, ruinous farmhouse,
broken, neglected, haunted maybe. He made out a man slowly working in
a field. A grey horse grazed, a cock crew, but there seemed no dog to
bark.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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