The Treasures of Glaston 16

xvi. The Great Fire

IN SPITE of his downheartedness Hugh urged on his horse whenever he showed a tendency to slacken his speed. A strange feeling of haste was upon him, though he knew not why, and he was glad when at long last he galloped into the little village, which straggled upon the outskirts of the abbey grounds. It looked quite deserted, as it had upon that other occasion which now returned vividly to his mind, the time when he had come upon Jacques de Raoul fleeing from the hue and cry that was raised hotly after everyone connected with his father's house­hold. He wondered what had happened to Jacques. It was good to know that his sisters were safe in France and his father in the Holy Land. Hugh thought of the king and was surprised to find how completely his feeling of resentment and hatred had vanished. Those short glimpses of the monarch when his remorse had been so apparent, and then his sorrow and hurt pride at the rumoured rebellion of his son, had somehow shown the boy very convincingly that the king was an erring human being who suffered for his mistakes and wrongs as intensely as ordinary folk. Evidently he worried about his children, felt disappointment and regret for them and, per­haps, just because he was king, he knew greater loneliness than other people and found little sympathy and less honest friendly affection to lean on. Hugh not only forgave him in his heart for all the tragedy and pain in his own life and family that the king's impulsive words had been at least partly responsible for, but he thought of him with a pity that was almost akin to affec­tion.

Strange that the little town through which he was riding should be so completely deserted. Hugh roused himself from his wandering thoughts as he spied an old peasant sitting in the sun before his cottage door. He was the only human being about and, as the boy rode closer, he recognised him as the ancient gaffer who had hobbled along beside him that day he had found Jacques and helped him on his way to sanctuary on the Galilee Porch of the abbey. He drew rein and greeted the old fellow with a friendly smile.

"How comes it that there be no folk about the village, saving yourself, good neighbour?" he said.

"Gone to the fire," answered the old man briefly. "I couldna go; legs be stiff and unsteady these days."

"Fire!" exclaimed Hugh. "Where?"

"Abbey grounds. Hours and hours now they be a-burning." The boy waited for no further word but dug his heels into his horse's side, urging, shouting, and beating him, tired though he was, into a gallop again. Before long he could see smoke rising in great clouds, then flames, like angry red tongues shooting through them. Half the monastic buildings must be ablaze! He raced on; his horse seemed to catch the sense of disaster and redoubled his speed. They reached the south gate, which was crowded with peasant folk. Unable to force his way through on horseback, Hugh slid off and, leaving the beast to take care of himself, rushed into the grounds.

A scene of desolation and confusion met his eyes. Already the dorter, chapter house and several other buildings, all of wood, was a mass of smouldering ruins. A great wave of smoke, heat, and cinders blew toward him from the Church of St. Mary, which was a blazing furnace. He skirted it, running around to the west. There he found the brothers gathered in a body on the lee side of the suffocating flames and smoke, watching it burn. Hugh joined them, but no one seemed aware of him. They all stood or knelt with tragic, white faces turned toward the fire. Some were praying, others weeping; the faces of many were black with grime and cinders, their habits torn and scorched. Some still held buckets half filled with water, useless utterly in the magnitude of the blaze; some clenched helpless hands, wringing them in despair. St. Joseph's Chapel was burning, too, though the flames there had not yet got such a start. Hugh watched in agonised helplessness with the others.
Suddenly someone clutched at his sleeve. Turning, he saw Dickon, his eyes wild, his face chalk white, his whole frame trembling.

"Brother John!" he said, raising his voice almost to a shriek to be heard above the roaring and crackling of the flames. "Brother John! He is in the Old Church! I saw him go in a few moments ago and he hasn't come out! He can't get out! See, the wooden walls are blazing all around it now, and the door has fallen in!"

A hoarse cry from one of the brothers standing near enough to hear; exclamations, shouts from others; half articulated, half-sobbing groans and sentences that died on the lips. Hugh rushed nearer the blazing building, Dickon following him.

"He must be trapped inside there," he cried through clenched teeth. "Dickon, quick! Get people with picks to go to the cleft near the old north gate and dig! Make the entrance bigger—you know—the entrance to our passageway, so they can get to us that way or we can get out! I'm going to try to go through the flames here, through the door, and show Brother John the underground way out."

Dickon gasped but had no time to reply. Already Hugh was halfway across the ground that separated them from the door of St. Joseph's Chapel. He paused only for a moment to watch breathlessly as his friend reached the doorway which was belch­ing forth heavy smoke and flame, leapt through it and was gone. Others beside Dickon had seen him go, but it all hap­pened so quickly they had no time to realise what the boy was about until he had vanished into the burning building. Then a shout rose up, a shout that ended in a groan of anguish. The roof and the inner walls of the chapel were of lead. When the heat grew great enough, they would fall, molten and searing, destroying utterly anything they fell upon.

Hugh had only one thought, Brother John. If he were indeed inside that fiery furnace he must be got out. Perhaps he was already overcome with smoke and, for that reason, had not at least tried to come out again through the door. Perhaps he had tried and been beaten back by the heat and flames which were growing worse every moment. In that case only the trap door and the underground passage would save him, and of these the boy was certain, he knew nothing.

Once inside the building, he instinctively threw himself upon the stone floor where the air was less dense and choking with smoke. His eyes were blind with tears from the stinging soot, the heat from the burning walls was almost intolerable, but he crept along toward the sanctuary, stopping every few moments to wipe his streaming eyes and peer about. No sign of Brother John. Perhaps he had already found and lifted the stone above the passageway. He must himself get to that, and quickly, for there was no going back now, the way he had come.

The low wall that separated the nave from the chancel offered some protection from the heat of the flames behind him and, when Hugh had crept through the arch of it, he found he could stand upright, though breathing was still difficult. The cloud of smoke was thinner also; he could see the sanctuary steps and rail. And behold! There, kneeling upright before the altar were two figures, one slight, tonsured, in the black Bene­dictine robe—Brother John. The other towered, even in his kneeling posture—Bleheris the hermit, with shaggy beard and matted long white hair, dressed in his customary grey-white mantle, girdled with a rope. They knelt, the two of them, as tranquil and still as if they were in some quiet lovely spot with naught in all the world to threaten danger or disturbance. All about them heaped high on the chancel steps and at the foot of the altar itself, was a strange assortment of articles. Hugh gasped in astonishment and then remembered what Dickon had told him and realised what they were; the treasures from the black chest in the hermit's hut, all the antique things the old man had found and cherished, loved so passionately and called his own. Glimpsed through the smoke was the shine of gold and silver and bronze. The old-fashioned chain armour of King Arthur's day lay heaped there, with Excalibur in a place apart, as if singularly precious. The pectoral staff with its jewelled crook was there, the chalice and paten and the odd castle-like reliquary. And directly in front of the old man kneeling in such rapt absorption, lay a broken book. Hugh started for­ward with an instinctive motion to catch it up, for he knew at once what it was—The Book of the Seynt Graal! And all around it were piles of loose parchment pages, the very ones that he had laboured over so long and lovingly. Perhaps the ones Brother John had deciphered were there also. He must seize them, all of them, and carry them out, safe. But at that moment heat and flame suddenly wrapped the boy about, making him realise anew the peril of his position. Though the smoke had been less dense, the fire less menacing at this end of the church, they were rapidly encroaching upon him. There was not a moment to be lost, yet still the two men knelt motionless before the altar, their heads raised, their eyes fixed, completely ob­livious of everything around them.
Hugh lifted his eyes to see what it was the gaze of the two rested upon so intently. The ancient wooden altar with its stone altar top stood before them unadorned, as always. A cloud of smoke hung low over it, obscuring its surface and then, un­accountably, the heavy, opaque smoke thinned and grew lucent like a mist. Flame shot through it, shone within it and round about it, and yet not flame so much as light. Light rested on the surface of the altar, diffused at first, then contracting into a central spot of intense white radiance. It seemed now to stand upon the altar, now to float above it. Then it took form and substance in the semblance of a Cup; a Chalice covered with a shining white cloth. Brighter and brighter grew the light streaming from it until Hugh's eyes could no longer bear to look upon it, and he covered them with his sleeve. When he looked again the intense white radiance and that which con­tained it were gone. Only red, angry, leaping flames darted from the wall behind the altar and dense black smoke billowed and settled above it.

At that moment a rumble and then a crash sounded behind. him; the ground shook and the blinding black smoke became thick with soot and flying dust. The ancient lead roof of the Old Church had sagged and fallen in over the nave. Only the part directly over the chancel still held.

"Quick!" shouted Hugh, coming to his senses as out of a dream. "Brother John! Master Bleheris! The trap door over the passageway!" He fought his way through the blanket of smoke, coughing and choking, toward the sanctuary steps.

Another crash and roar; charred and burning wood and hot pieces of lead fell all about him. One of the walls had given way. Blindly, forced to his knees more than once, with one arm over his eyes and face to protect them, he struggled forward amidst the searing flames and falling debris.

Brother John lay crumpled on the sanctuary steps. Hugh could just make out the form of the hermit lying prone just beyond him. For a moment smoke and flames veered away and he could see more clearly. Across the body of the old man lay a heavy beam. Hugh ran to him and struggled to lift it, strain­ing with all his might till the sweat poured from him, but he could not. For a long, trembling moment he bent, sobbing, over Master Bleheris with his hand upon his heart. No flutter of life; the old man was dead. But there was a look on the white face that the boy would remember as long as he lived. It held no sign of pain or terror, no expression of confusion and discon­tent and longing such as had so often rested upon it in life. Even in that moment of great danger Hugh forgot his fears, noting only that large quiet face, how radiantly glad it was.

But Brother John! There was not a second to be lost! Hugh turned from the dead to the living. Brother John still breathed, though he was unconscious. With a whispered prayer for strength, the boy leaned over him and, half lifting, half dragging, managed to carry the inert form down the steps and around behind the altar. With a mighty wrench, straining every nerve and muscle, he pulled up the marked stone that concealed the passageway. A draft of musty smelling air rushed up, bringing momentary relief to his stinging throat and smart­ing eyeballs. A strange, almost supernatural power seemed to surge through him as he bent again over Brother John, grasped him under the arms and dragged him down the rough stone stairs into the black darkness of the cave below. Feeling his way step by step he found the broken wall of the well and gently laid the still unconscious monk on the rough earth floor beside it. Then he tore off a piece of the hem of his tunic and, soaking it in the well water, bathed Brother John's face. Slowly the warmth of life came back into the cold hands, Hugh felt the eyelids flutter and heard a long trembling sigh.

"Art thou all right, Brother John?" said he, his own voice un­steady.

"Aye," said the other shortly.

Hugh knelt back on his heels. He was still breathing hard from his enormous exertion, and now that
the greatest of his terrors was over, as if in reaction, he began to tremble violently, his teeth chattering. Above them the sound of crackling flames and falling timbers was muted; the air, though smoky, seemed clear by comparison, and felt cool and damp on his hot skin. For several moments they remained motionless and silent, Brother John lying on the ground breathing more regularly now, but not yet venturing to stir. Hugh crouched beside him, the trembling of his body growing less. A quiet of infinite re­lief, an inexplicable sense of security and peace gradually came over him. He forgot the danger they were still in, the difficulties they must yet meet in getting out of the pitch black cave, his old friend, Bleheris, dead, and the enormous tragedy of Glaston burning so ruinously over his head. His mind held only one thought, one image, that shining Chalice that he had seen stand­ing upon the plain square altar of the Old Church. Brother John's mind must have been filled with the same thought, for his voice came at length out of the darkness, filled with awe and wonder and exaltation and no fear at all.

"Sanctum Gradalis!" he said, "the Holy Grail! 0 God in heaven receive my thanks, for I have beheld a miracle! And thou, too, boy, thou didst see it, didst thou not? Strange—pass­ing strange! Truly the ways of God are not to be compre­hended by mortal minds! The mad hermit of Beckery, the lad without name or family, and old Brother John who had no wish in all the world save to fashion beauty in books, and look with the inner eye on things that are lovely. To think that we three have been vouchsafed that glorious vision! The Lord be praised! The Lord be praised!"

"Vision!" Hugh caught up the word. "Vision? It was really there, Brother John, was it not? Bleheris must have found it at last and placed it there upon the altar with all those treasures of his that lay upon the steps below it."

"Nay," said Brother John, "he did not find it, and it hath been borne in upon my mind that the Holy Grail is never found by seeking. The sight of it, the vision, is given by God to whom He will. Why He gives it and when, no man can tell; that is a deep and sacred mystery."

"But Bleheris did seek the Holy Grail," continued Hugh after a few moments' silence. "You said no one ever found the Grail by seeking; he must have found it!"

"Nay, he did not find it! All his seeking was in vain; it was shown to him, as to us. Mark my words, lad, not to seekers but to givers do the visions and the gifts of God come. Bleheris gave himself and all he had, before his eyes were clear enough to see the thing he longed for."

"But I didn't give anything," said Hugh, wondering.

"Lad! Lad!" Brother John's voice was warm with affection. "Hast thou not even now offered thy life for poor old Brother John? And thou hadst naught else to offer! It is I who am fain to wonder why the vision was vouchsafed to me."

They fell silent again except for the coughing that wracked them with increasing frequency, as the smoke in the close air of the cave grew thicker. Another thundering crash shook the earth above them and a faint glow issued from the stairs behind the well. Evidently the fire above was raging more fiercely than ever. Hugh peered uneasily about him wondering whether the roof of the cave above their heads might fall through. He im­agined that the heat of the place was increasing. Sweat broke out on his forehead. The light of the flames beyond the pas­sageway and stairs pierced the blackness about him sufficiently ~ for him to discern dimly the form of the monk lying at his ~ feet, and to make out the walls of the cave.

"Brother John," said he, standing up, "if I could get you to the other side of the cave, I think I could find the stone slab ~ over the secret passageway and then we could go through it into the treasure vault. It would be safer there, and Dickon must come soon. I can't see why it takes so long for them to make that cleft in the moor wider and get through to us!"

"There is nothing to fear, lad," said the brother tranquilly. "But go thou, alone, if thou wilt. The others will come anon, and if they come not—faith! I am more content to die now than I am ever like to be again!"

"Of course I am not going without thee!" cried Hugh in­dignantly. "See now, if I support thee, very gently—" He put his arms under the monk's shoulders and slowly and with great tenderness got him to his feet.

A groan escaped Brother John in spite of his efforts to make no sound. "It is my leg, boy; I fear me 'tis broken, here at the thigh. But no matter, it will mend in time. I will lean upon thee, but not too heavily."

Very slowly they made their way across the cave. The slight lightening of the dark caused by the
flames above disappeared, leaving them groping in a deeper blackness than ever. But some­how Hugh managed to feel his way to the right slab of stone and pull it open. With the monk leaning now against the wall and now upon him again, they managed to get through the pas­sage to the bolted doors of the aumbry which stood across the entrance to the treasure vault. It seemed as if the bolts would never draw and Hugh struggled with them until the sweat poured down his face, but at last they slid back and the two almost fell through the opening into the room beyond. The air was distinctly clearer there and they could wait in safety until rescue came from the other direction.

Nor had they long to wait. Soon they heard voices and steps coming toward them, and a faint light issued from the arched doorway across the room, growing brighter as the rescuers drew close. At last they were upon them; Dickon first, with a lantern, then two of the brothers, their faces full of wonder as they gazed around at the chests and aumbry in the treasure chamber.

There was no time then for explanations. Tenderly and care­fully, in spite of the immense difficulty, they carried Brother John between them, while Hugh and Dickon followed, down the twisting underground way to the cleft in the moor. This had been dug out so that it was broader and they all passed through at last into the open air. Then came the long way back to the abbey grounds.

Hugh groaned within himself as he drew near and beheld the devastation. The churches were gone, both St. Mary's and the little old Chapel of St. Joseph. A few charred and blackened walls still stood, though most had fallen, and the interiors of both lay open and roofless, a smouldering mass of ruin. Refectory and dormitory buildings were in a similar condition; the green garth was trampled and black, the cloister walks were charred and broken; guesthouse and almonry still flamed internally like belching furnaces. Only the new bell tower and the chapel that Abbot Henry had left unfinished and Abbot Robert had planned to complete stood untouched and whole. Some vagrant shifting of the wind had spared them, and a portion of the kitchen building. Toward the former the two brothers, carry­ing Brother John, and Hugh and Dickon following after, now turned their steps.

Inside this building the old and infirm monks had already gathered and the infirmarian moved restlessly among them, filled with anxiety for the ailing ones, too disheartened and despairing himself to give much comfort and encouragement to any. When Brother John was brought in, he gave his atten­tion at once to the injured leg. Yes, it was broken but, miracu­lously enough, the bones seemed to be in place. With skilled and accustomed hands he bound the leg upon a stiff board and placed the brother upon a makeshift bed in a corner, where he would be as much out of the way as possible. Brother John's face was white and drawn with pain but he smiled up at Dickon and Hugh as they bent anxiously over him.

"Praise God, my children," said he in a whisper. "Let us praise Him and thank Him with all our hearts! I have never known such joy, such gladness, in all my life!"

Then he shut his eyes with a little sigh of contentment as if he would sleep.

"Joy!" said Dickon bitterly; "Joy! he can talk of joy when our Glaston—" the boy's lips trembled so that he could not finish.

Hugh said nothing, but put an arm awkwardly about Dickon's shoulders and the two moved through the growing crowd of monks out into the desolate grounds again. They had walked thus together for a number of yards when Dickon sud­denly thrust Hugh from him, staring at him in round-eyed astonishment.

"Run!" he exclaimed unaccountably. "Hugh, run over yon­der and back again!"

Hugh stared back. "Are you crazy?" said he. "What do you want me to run for?"

"Never mind, do it, please! Run out into the grounds. I want to see you!"

Completely at a loss, but willing to humour his friend, Hugh dashed off across the trampled green and returned. He found Dickon laughing and crying at the same time. "Whatever is the matter?" he cried, shaking Dickon's shoulders, irritated as well as puzzled.

"You walk—you run—straight! Hugh, you aren't limping any more! Not the least bit! I could feel the difference when you were leaning on me! You are healed!"

Hugh started in astonishment, then looked down at his erst­while dragging foot as if he did not believe it was truly his. In all the excitement and exertion of the fire and his rescuing Brother John, he had not given himself a single thought. Yet something must have happened to him; a miracle! He had been lame almost all his life—at least as far back as he could remem­ber—and now he stood and walked firm and steady, on two legs so like each other in strength and wholeness that, by the feel of them alone, he could not have told which had been the ailing one! When had it happened? The vision in the flame-swept Chapel of St. Joseph flashed before his mind's eye. That had been it! Healing had come in the presence of the Holy Grail! Wonder flooded the boy's mind. He did not understand; it was all too big for him. Perhaps all one could do about it was what Brother John had done, praise God and be glad. He turned to Dickon who was still staring at him, speechless with amazement.

"Hugh, you have seen something!" he cried, finding his voice at last. "You've been somewhere or done something that has made you different! What is it? What happened? Tell me! Tell me!"

Hugh found it hard to begin. Somehow, dearly as he loved this friend, this sworn brother of his, he knew he could never make it clear to him. Something had indeed happened that had changed him, made a new and different person of him in more ways than just in curing his lameness. But no one could really understand that experience who had not lived through it. Yet he could not turn from Dickon's eager, questioning face and not try at least to tell him.

"I—I don't know how to explain about it," he began hesi­tantly. "In the Old Church, in the smoke and flames, I saw it for a minute—and I think just seeing it must have worked a miracle and cured my lameness."

"Saw what?" interrupted Dickon.

"The Holy Grail."

"The Cup itself?" cried the other in an awed voice. "By all the saints! What was it made of? What did it look like? How did it get there? Couldn't you have brought it out with you?"

Hugh shook his head. "I don't even know for sure whether it was real or not. Oh, I saw it all right, as surely as I am see­ing you now, as surely as I saw all those treasures of Master Bleheris's at the foot of the altar. But the Holy Grail was not the same as those things—it was different. I don't think anyone could ever hold that in his mortal hands."

"No one could ever hold anything again that was in that blazing furnace, that is certain!" Dickon's voice grew suddenly bitter. "Seems as if the fire has taken all that we have, and that everything, every single treasure of Glaston is gone now— forever."

The enormity of the loss came over Hugh more appallingly than it had before. "Aye," said he, his voice also growing tense with emotion. "And the book, Dickon, our precious broken Book of the Seynt Graal, that is gone, too. Bleheris had taken that in there with him, and all our pages."

"But why?" interrupted Dickon again, "just to be burned up? I never knew he was that crazy!"

"He couldn't have known they would be burned," Hugh defended him. "I think I understand a little the way he was thinking. He loved those things, and he had the feeling he wanted to give something he loved; offer a sort of sacrifice— the way he did Excalibur, don't you remember?"

Dickon grunted. "Whatever he thought or was trying to do, it is fixed now so nobody in all the world knows about the Holy Grail, or how it came to our Glaston, or any of those won­derful things that happened long ago."

"I do," said Hugh quietly. "Everything that was in that book and in the loose, recovered pages, too, are in my mind now. And the story was almost complete. And the tales, too, that Bleheris told now and then about it, the fire hasn't de­stroyed those either. They are all here." The boy touched his forehead meaningf3llly.

"A lot of good that will do anybody," Dickon turned his back on the desolate waste of smoking ruins that had been Glastonbury, unable to endure the sight any longer. But in a moment he resolutely faced them again. "Guess I'll see if Brother Symon needs any help," said he. "One has got to keep going, somehow."

Hugh cast a wistful look toward the cloister walks. They were a mass of smouldering debris; the
Painted Aumbry must be among the ashes, and the books he had brought from his old home. They were gone too. The guest house over by the south gate where he and his father had come that stormy March night, a year and more ago, stood stark and empty, its roof fallen in, its walls blackened with smoke, its interior a heap of wreckage. Glaston, thought Hugh, a great lump rising in his throat, his Glaston that had opened its friendly arms to him in his hour of greatest need, was now a thing of naught, a dead place of meaningless ashes. He had not realised how dear Glaston had become to him in the short time he had dwelt within its walls.

Disconsolately and silently he and Dickon made their way between the charred skeleton buildings to the one remaining chapel with its incompleted bell tower. The place was crowded with monks, a sombre, desolated company who stood or moved about, saying nothing, doing nothing, held in an apathy of despair. Dickon elbowed his way through the crowd until he found Brother Symon, while Hugh sought out the corner where Brother John's makeshift bed had been laid. Uncon­sciously the two lads derived a measure of security from the presence of the men under whom they were in the habit of working.

After a while there came a stir among the brothers and all eyes turned to the doorway through which Abbot Robert had just entered. His face was pale and there were dark shadows under his eyes, but the eyes themselves were full of life and fire. His lips had a determined look and he moved with assur­ance and confidence. Silence fell upon the crowded room as he mounted the chancel steps at the far end of it, and lifted his hands in blessing.

"My children," said he, "let not your hearts be troubled. Our Glaston is not gone or destroyed, even though scarce one stone be left standing upon another. For the real Glaston is not made of stone and wood and mortar, which fire can destroy, but lives, indestructible and forever, in the minds and hearts of men. Over and over again in the long history of our abbey, its outward frame and structure have been laid low, broken, burned to ashes, by accident as in fire and flood, by evil intent at the hand of enemies. And in the future it will happen again and yet again; the walls of our Glaston will be thrown down, its noble buildings will become as now, heaps of rubble. Yet out of its ashes Glaston has always risen anew, it will always rise anew. On these charred and smoking ruins will be built a yet more lovely Glaston, more beautiful perhaps than we have ever dreamed. To build and build and never be cast down though every outward evidence of our labour perish; to give and give no matter what the cost, to serve with all our hearts, no matter how little or how great the service we can render—it is that which makes the life blood of our Glaston, it is that spirit that will ensure for our Glaston an eternal life."

A little sigh ran through the listening group of monks, as when a breath of wind moves among fog and mist, dispelling it and letting the sunlight through. Faces that had been dark and haggard took on an expression of light and of new life. Heads lifted, hands moved involuntarily, brother touching the sleeve of brother in reassurance and affection. Heads nodded, and then, after a little pause, voices began again.

"There be some of the gold leaf rescued from the cloister aumbry."

"Praise be the saints! The cook house hath scarce been touched! We shall have enough to eat."

"It is marvel truly, that of all our people only poor old Bleheris, the hermit, hath met his death, and none has sustained ought but minor injuries, save our good armarian."

"And Brother John will mend apace! You shall see!" It was Brother John himself who spoke thus cheerfully from his straw bed in the corner. His eyes were shining, his face radiant.

Hugh bent over him to straighten the covering and ease his position somewhat.

"Lad! Lad!" whispered Brother John in his ear. "Didst thou hear—'to build and build, to give and give'—that is the soul of our Glaston! And to the builders and the givers will come the vision—when God so wills it!"