His instinct when he saw an altar being to say his prayers, he knelt
down then and there, facing the image, yet a little remote from it. A
very soft tread behind him broke in upon his exercises; some one was
coming, whence or how he did not then know. The comer was a young girl
clothed in a white woollen garment, which was bound about her waist
with a green cord; she was bareheaded; on her feet were thick sandals,
bound also with thongs of green. Prosper watched her spread a white
cloth upon the altar-slab, and set a Mass-book upon a stand; he saw
her go and return with two lighted tapers for the sockets, he saw a
silver crucifix shine between them. The girl, when all this business
was done, stepped backwards down the steps, and stood at the foot of
the altar with hands clasped upon her bosom and head bent lowly. "By
the Saints," thought Prosper, "Morgraunt is a holy place, it seems.
There is to be a Mass."
So it was. An old priest came out of the thicket in a vestment of
yellow and gold thread, bearing in his hands the Sacrament under a
green silk veil. The girl knelt down as he passed up the steps; he
began his Mass, but in so low a voice that it hardly touched the
forest peace.
Rabbits came creeping out of bush and bracken, a wood-dove began her
moan, two or three deer stood up. Then Prosper thought--"If the beasts
come to prayers, it behoves me as a Christian man to hear Mass also.
Moreover, it were fitting that adventure should begin in that manner,
to be undertaken in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." He went
forward accordingly, flush with the girl, and knelt down by her. When
it was the time of Communion, both drew nearer and received Christ's
body. Prosper, for his part, did not forget the soul of the dead man,
De Genlis or another, whose body he had buried in Cadnam Wood, but
commended it to God together with the sacrifice of the altar. The
woman came into his mind. "No, by God," thought he; "she is the devil,
or of him; I will never pray for her," which was Prosper all over.
Mass done, he remembered that he had the honour to be uncommonly
hungry. The priest had gone back into the wood, the girl was removing
the altar furniture, and seemed unconscious of his presence; but
Prosper could not afford that.
"My young gentlewoman," he said with a bow, "you will see before you,
if you turn your head, a very hungry man."
"Are you hungry, sir?" she said, looking and smiling at him, "then in
three minutes you shall be filled." Whereupon she went away with her
load, and quickly returned with another more to Prosper's mind. She
gave him bread and hot milk in a great bowl, she gave him a dishful of
wild raspberries, and waited on him herself in the prettiest manner.
Without word said she watered his horse for him; and all the while she
talked to him, but of nothing in the world but the birds and beasts,
the falling of the leaf, and the thousand little haps and chances of
her quiet life. Prosper suited his conversation to her book. He told
her of the white bird's rescue, and she opened her blue eyes in
wonder.