The Forest Lovers

To him now spoke the Abbot Richard after this fashion. "Galors," he

said, "I will speak to you now as to my very self, for if you are not

myself you may be where I sit some day. A young monk who is almoner

already may go far, especially when he is young in religion, but in

years ripe. If you prove to be my other self, you shall go as far as

myself can push you, Galors. Rest assured that the road need not stop

at a mitred abbey. In the hope, then, that you may go further, and I

with you, it is time that I speak my full mind. We have our charter,

as you have seen--and at what cost of sweat and urgency, who can tell

so surely as I? But there, we have it: a great weapon, a lever whereby

we may raise Holy Thorn to a height undreamed of by the abbots of this

realm, and our two selves (perched on the top of Holy Thorn) yet

higher. Yet this charter, gotten for God's greater glory (as He

knoweth who readeth hearts!), may not work its appointed way without

an application which poor and frail men might scarcely dare for any

less object. There is abroad, Galors, dear brother, a most malignant

viper, lurking, as I may say, in the very bosom of Holy Church; warmed

there, nesting there, yet fouling the nest, and grinding her tooth

that she may strike at the heart of us, and shiver what hath been so

long a-building up. Of that viper you, Galors, are the chosen

instrument--you and the charter--to draw the tooth."

The Abbot spoke in a low voice, and was breathless; it was not hard to

see that he was uncommonly in earnest. Galors turned over in his mind

all possible plots against an Abbey's peaceful being--tale-bearing to

the Archbishop, a petition for a Papal Legate, a foreshore trouble, a

riot among the fishermen of Wanmouth, some encroachment by the ragged

brethren of Francis and Dominic--and dismissed them all as not serious

enough to lose breath about.

"Who is your viper, father?" was what he said.

"It is the girl Isoult of Matt-o'-the-Moor; Isoult whom they call La

Desirous," replied his spiritual father. The heart of Galors gave a

hot jump; he knew the girl well enough--too well for her, not well

enough yet for himself. It was precisely to win the woeful beauty of

her that he had set his snares and unleashed his dogs. Did the Abbot

know anything? Impossible; his reference forbad the fear. Was the girl

something more than a dark woodland elf, a fairy, haggard and

dishevelled, whose white shape shining through rags had made his blood

stir? The mask of his face safeguarded him through this maze of

surmise; nothing out of the depths of him was ever let to ruffle that

dead surface. He commanded his voice to ask, How should he find such a

girl? "For," said he, "in Malbank girls and boys swarm like dies on a

sunny wall." The deceit implied was gross, yet the Abbot took it in

his haste.