The Altar Steps Part 38

"Like a cow-catcher," Mark thought with a smile.

The Bishop of Alberta was a dear old gentleman with silvery hair and a complexion as fresh and pink as a boy's. With his laced rochet and purple biretta he lent the little matchboarded chapel an exotic splendour when he sat in a Glas...o...b..ry chair beside the altar during the Office. The more ritualistic of the brethren greatly enjoyed giving him reverent genuflexions and kissing his episcopal ring. Brother Raymond's behaviour towards him was like that of a child who has been presented with a large doll to play with, a large doll that can be dressed and undressed at the pleasure of its owner with nothing to deter him except a faint squeak of protest such as the Bishop himself occasionally emitted.

CHAPTER XXV

SUSCIPE ME, DOMINE

Brother Anselm was to arrive on the vigil of St. Lawrence. Normally Brother Walter would have been sent to meet him with the Abbey cart at the station three miles away. But Brother Walter was in a state of such excitement over his near promotion to postulant that it was not considered safe to entrust him with the pony. So Mark was sent in his place. It was a hot August evening with thunder clouds lying heavy on the Malford woods when Mark drove down the deep lanes to the junction, wondering what Brother Anselm would be like and awed by the imagination of Brother Anselm's thoughts in the train that was bringing him from Aldershot to this momentous date of his life's history. Almost before he knew what he was saying Mark was quoting from _Romeo and Juliet_:

_My mind misgives_ _Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,_ _Shall bitterly begin his fearful date_ _With this night's revels._

"Now why should I have thought that?" he asked himself, and he was just deciding that it was merely a verbal sequence of thought when the first far-off peal of thunder muttered a kind of menacing contradiction of so easy an explanation. It would be raining soon; Mark thumped the pony's angular haunches, and tried to feel cheerful in the oppressive air.

Brother Anselm did not appear as Mark had pictured him. Instead of the lithe enthusiast with flaming eyes he saw a heavily built man with blunted features, wearing powerful horn spectacles, his expression morose, his movements ungainly. He had, however, a mellow and strangely sympathetic voice, in which Mark fancied that he perceived the power he was reputed to wield over the soldiers for whose well-being he fought so hard. Mark would have liked to ask him about life in the Aldershot priory; perhaps if Brother Anselm had been less taciturn, he would have broken if not the letter at any rate the spirit of the Rule by begging the senior to ask for his services in the Priory. But no sooner were they jogging back to Malford than the rain came down in a deluge, and Brother Anselm, pulling the hood of his frock over his head, was more unapproachable than ever. Mark wished that he had a novice's frock and hood, for the rain was pouring down the back of his neck and the threadbare ca.s.sock he wore was already drenched.

"Thank you, Brother," said the new-comer when the Abbey was attained.

It was dark by now, and, with nothing visible of the speaker except his white habit in the gloom, the voice might have been the voice of a heavenly visitant, so rarely sweet, so gentle and harmonious were the tones. Mark was much moved by that brief recognition of himself.

The wind rose high during the night; listening to it roaring through the coppice in which the Abbey was built, Mark lay awake for a long time in mute prayer that Brother Anselm might find peace and felicity in his new state. And while he prayed for Brother Anselm he prayed for Esther in Sh.o.r.editch. In the morning when Mark went from cell to cell, rousing the brethren from sleep with his hammer and salutation, the sun was climbing a serene and windless sky. The familiar landscape was become a mountain top. Heaven was very near.

Mark was glad that the day was so fair for the profession of Brother Anselm, and at Lauds the antiphon, versicle, and response proper to St.

Lawrence appealed to him by their fitness to the occasion,

_Gold is tried in the fire: and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity._

_V. The Righteous shall grow as a lily._ _R. He shall flourish for ever before the Lord._

Mark concerned himself less with his own reception as a postulant. The distinction between a probationer and a postulant was very slight, really an arbitrary one made by Father Burrowes for his own convenience, and until he had to decide whether he should pet.i.tion to be clothed as a novice Mark did not feel that he was called upon to take himself too seriously as a monk. For that reason he did not change his name, but preferred to stay Brother Mark. The little ceremony of reception was carried through in Chapter before the brethren went into the Oratory to say Terce, and Brother Walter was so much excited when he heard himself addressed as Brother Simon that for a moment it seemed doubtful if he would be sufficiently calm to attend the profession of Brother Anselm at the conventual Ma.s.s. However, during the clothing of Brother Lawrence as a novice Brother Simon quieted down, and even gave over counting the three knots in the rope with which he had been girdled. Ordinarily, Brother Lawrence would have been clothed after Ma.s.s, but this morning it was felt that such a ceremony coming after the profession of Brother Anselm would be an anti-climax, and it was carried through in Chapter.

It took Brother Lawrence all he had ever heard and read about humility and obedience not to protest at the way his clothing on his own saint's day, for which he had been made to wait nearly a year, was being carried through in such a hole in the corner fas.h.i.+on. But he fixed his mind upon the torments of the blessed archdeacon on the gridiron and succeeded in keeping his temper.

Mark felt that the profession of Brother Anselm lost some of its dignity by the absence of Brother George and Brother Birinus, the only other professed members of the Order apart from Father Burrowes himself. It struck him as slightly ludicrous that a few young novices and postulants should represent the venerable choir-monks whom one pictured at such a ceremony from one's reading of the Rule of St. Benedict. Moreover, Father Burrowes never presented himself to Mark's imagination as an authentic abbot. Nor indeed was he such. Malford Abbey was a courtesy t.i.tle, and such monastic euphemisms as the Abbot's Parlour and the Abbot's Lodgings to describe the matchboarded apartments sacred to the Father Superior, while they might please such ecclesiastical enthusiasts as Brother Raymond, appealed to Mark as pretentious and somewhat silly.

In fact, if it had not been for the presence of the Bishop of Alberta in cope and mitre Mark would have found it hard, when after Terce the brethren a.s.sembled in the Chapter-room to hear Brother Anselm make his final pet.i.tion, to believe in the reality of what was happening, to believe, when Brother Anselm in reply to the Father Superior's exhortation chose the white cowl and scapular (which in the Order of St.

George differentiated the professed monk from the novice) and rejected the suit of dittos belonging to his worldly condition, that he was pa.s.sing through moments of greater spiritual importance than any since he was baptized or than any he would pa.s.s through before he stood upon the threshold of eternity.

But this was a transient scepticism, a fleeting discontent, which vanished when the brethren formed into procession and returned to the oratory singing the psalm: _In Convertendo_.

_When the Lord turned again the captivity of Sion: then were we like unto them, that dream._

_Then was our mouth filled with laughter: and our tongue with joy._

_Then said they among the heathen: The Lord hath done great things for them._

_Yea, the Lord hath done great things for us already: whereof we rejoice._

_Turn our captivity, O Lord: as the rivers in the south._

_They that sow in tears: shall reap in joy._

_He that now goeth on his way weeping, and beareth forth good seed: shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him._

The Father Superior of the Order sang the Ma.s.s, while the Bishop of Alberta seated in his Glas...o...b..ry chair suffered with an expression of childlike benignity the ritualistic ministrations of Brother Raymond, the ceremonial doffing and donning of his mitre. It was very still in the little Oratory, for it was the season when birds are hushed; and even Sir Charles Horner who was all by himself in the ante-chapel did not fidget or try to peep through the heavy brocaded curtains that shut out the quire. Mark dared not look up when at the offertory Brother Anselm stood before the Altar and answered the solemn interrogations of the Father Superior, question after question about his faith and endurance in the life he desired to enter. And to every question he answered clearly _I will_. The Father Superior took the parchment on which were written the vows and read aloud the doc.u.ment. Then it was placed upon the Altar, and there upon that sacrificial stone Brother Anselm signed his name to a contract with Almighty G.o.d. The holy calm that shed itself upon the scene was like a spell on every heart that was beating there in unison with the heart of him who was drawing nearer to Heaven. Prostrating himself, the professed monk prayed first to G.o.d the Father:

_O receive me according to thy word that I may live; and let me not be disappointed of my hope._

The hearts that beat in unison with his took up the prayer, and the voices of his brethren repeated it word for word. And now the professed monk prayed to G.o.d the Son:

_O receive me according to thy word that I may live; and let me not be disappointed of my hope._

Once more his brethren echoed the entreaty.

And lastly the professed monk prayed to G.o.d the Holy Ghost:

_O receive me according to thy word that I may live; and let me not be disappointed of my hope._

For the third time his brethren echoed the entreaty, and then one and all in that Oratory cried:

_Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

Amen._

There followed prayers that the peace of G.o.d might be granted to the professed monk to enable him worthily to perform the vows which he had made, and before the blessing and imposition of the scapular the Bishop rose to speak in tones of deep emotion:

"Brethren, I scarcely dared to hope, when, now nearly ten years ago, I received the vows of your Father Superior as a novice, that I should one day be privileged to be present at this inspiring ceremony. Nor even when five years ago in the far north-west of Canada I professed your Father Superior and those two devoted souls who will soon be with you, now that their work in Malta is for the time finished, did I expect to find myself in this beautiful Oratory which your Order owes to the generosity of a true son of the Church. My heart goes out to you, and I thank G.o.d humbly that He has vouchsafed to hear my prayers and bless the enterprise from which I had indeed expected much, but which Almighty G.o.d has allowed to prosper more, far more, than I ventured to hope. All my days I have longed to behold the restoration of the religious life to our country, and now when my eyes are dim with age I am granted the ineffable joy of beholding what for too long in my weakness and lack of faith I feared was never likely to come to pa.s.s.

"The profession of our dear brother this morning is, I pray, an earnest of many professions at Malford. May these first vows placed upon the Altar of this Oratory be blessed by Almighty G.o.d! May our brother be steadfast and happy in his choice! Brethren, I had meant to speak more and with greater eloquence, but my heart is too full. The Lord be with you."

Now Brother Anselm was clothed in the blessed habit while the brethren sang:

_Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,_ _And lighten with celestial fire._

The Father Superior of the Order gave him the paternal kiss. He begged the prayers of his brethren there a.s.sembled, and drawing the hood of his cowl over his head prostrated himself again before the Altar. The Ma.s.s proceeded.

If the strict Benedictine usage had been followed at Malford, Brother Anselm would have remained apart from the others for three days ofter his profession, wrapped in his cowl, alone with G.o.d. But he was anxious to go back to Aldershot that very afternoon, excusing himself because Brother Chad, left behind in charge of the Priory, would be overwhelmed by his various responsibilities. Brother Dunstan, who had wept throughout the ceremony of the profession, was much upset by Brother Anselm's departure. He had hoped to achieve great exaltation of spirit by Brother Anselm's silent presence. He began to wonder if the newly professed monk appreciated his position. Had himself been granted what Brother Anselm had been granted, he should have liked to spend a week in contemplation of the wonder which had befallen him. Brother Dunstan asked himself if his thoughts were worthy of a senior novice, of one who had for a while acted as Prior and been accorded the address of Reverend Brother. He decided that they were not, and as a penance he begged for the nib with which Brother Anselm had signed his profession. This he wore round his neck as an amulet against unbrotherly thoughts and as a pledge of his own determination to vow himself eternally to the service of G.o.d.

Mark was glad that Brother Anselm was going back so soon to his active work. It was an a.s.surance that the Order of St. George did have active work to do; and when he was called upon to drive Brother Anselm to the station he made up his mind to conquer his shyness and hint that he should be glad to serve the Order in the Priory at Aldershot.

This time, notwithstanding that he had a good excuse to draw his hood close, Brother Anselm showed himself more approachable.

"If the Reverend Father suggests your name," he promised Mark, "I shall be glad to have you with us. Brother Chad is simply splendid, and the Tommies are wonderful. It's quite right of course to have a Mother House, but. . . ." He broke off, disinclined to criticize the direction of the Order's policy to a member so junior as Mark.

"Oh, I'm not asking you to do anything yet awhile," Mark explained. "I quite realize that I have a great deal to learn before I should be any use at Aldershot or Sandgate. I hope you don't mind my talking like this. But until this morning I had not really intended to remain in the Order. My hope was to be ordained as soon as I was old enough. Now since this morning I feel that I do long for the spiritual support of a community for my own feeble aspirations. The Bishop's words moved me tremendously. It wasn't what he said so much, but I was filled with all his faith and I could have cried out to him a promise that I for one would help to carry on the restoration. At the same time, I know that I'm more fitted for active work, not by any good I expect to do, but for the good it will do me. I suppose you'd say that if I had a true vocation I shouldn't be thinking about what part I was going to play in the life of the Order, but that I should be content to do whatever I was told. I'm boring you?" Mark broke off to inquire, for Brother Anselm was staring in front of him through his big horn spectacles like an owl.

"No, no," said the senior. "But I'm not the novice-master. Who is, by the way?"