by George Moore
Oh, my blessed convent ruined, disgraced by him whom we took to be the holiest man in Ireland, saving your Reverence’s presence He may be easily holier than I am without being the holiest man in Ireland. Go on, my sister, say what you have inside your mouth. Then, with many sobs and waving of hands, for she was one of them high-flown women, she told the story, watching the Abbot’s face out of the corners of her eyes all the while. But so distracted was he by his cough that it wasn’t till she came to telling him how she wished to benefit him that she knew for sure he’d been listening to her, for then he gave a little smile, but it soon died away and his face darkened again.
It’s the custom of our country to put ourselves into temptations, said he, so that we may be more pleasing in God’s sight. I’ve done as others have done; and with God’s grace came safely through many perils. I thank you for your heavenly thoughts of me, but I’m glad I was spared the pain of refusing the last trial, as I would have, for it’s God’s truth that it would have been no trial to me at all, as my condition makes plain to you. You’re not satisfied with what I did, my lord, said she. I am so, the Abbot answered, but I’ve often had my doubts about the wisdom and the humanity of these same trials, and wondered if they were as pleasing in the sight of God as we think they are, and if we hadn’t better accept mankind as God made it without trying to remake it for him ourselves. Let me see Marban and hear what he has to say for himself. Bring Luachet to me too; she may have a word to put in about her own transgressions. But as a stock she stood before him, having lost her wits entirely. Woman, will you be doing my bidding? And she went away, sure to find them, for hadn’t she the sinners under lock and key?
We’re greatly afeared, said the nuns one to the other, as soon as she was gone, that the news may be the undoing of the last thread of life. Now will you be looking at him dozing in his chair — wasted like the hills themselves, the monks answered. But will he be turning them into the wilderness as Abraham did Hagar? Blathnat asked, and before the monks could give her an answer the Abbess came back with the two of them — the girl crying, for she was right frightened, but Marban with a face on him grey as a stone until he caught sight of the Abbot.
I’m sorry, my Lord Abbot he began.
I’m at the end of the plank, Marban, but don’t be thinking about my cough; pay no heed to it. We pray that God will spare you to us for many years, Marban answered. There are few years in front of me if there’s a year itself, said the Abbot. But this is a bad tale they’ve been telling me about you. It is, indeed, a bad tale, so it is, in their minds, was the answer the Abbot got from Marban. Would you have me think that they have told it falsely? the Abbot whispered. Stories are told and taken the way we understand them, Marban answered, and these women look on me as an evil-doer, it being true that I’ve broken the rule. But an evil-doer by nature I’m not, as you can learn for yourself if you’ll write a letter to my own abbot. The monks beyond know me there day in and day out, and no man can be fooling a whole monastery day in and day out for ten years, as you will know, none better than yourself, my Lord Abbot; and they’ll tell you that I was decent ever since I went to live with them and that they wouldn’t take me nor make me out to be what the nuns think.
You would plead, Marban, said the Abbot, that there are temptations against which no man’s strength is enough; that the temptation might be increased till the saints themselves fall. But St Anthony I’m not comparing myself with anyone, my Lord Abbot. All I want is to tell my tale and get it out of me. The Mother Abbess has told hers, and you’ve a right to tell yours; go on with it, said the Abbot. I thank you for that, Marban answered my Lord Abbot, and as for my story, you know most of it yourself as well as I do myself: that I left this country no more than a gossoon, not knowing a word about the way they crucify the body in this place for the love of God and to win a prize in heaven. I went away knowing nothing at all of the customs of the old country, and returned as ignorant of them as the day I took ship for Bordeaux, as I told the Mother Abbess, and likewise too did I tell her that the custom of the temptations had been stopped in France in the years back, it not having been found to work well at all in France. But she told me Ireland was the land of saints and France was the land of lechers and wantons; and she said that I’d have to prove myself, and show what I was, and that, being a young man, she would let me off from the young sisters and would lie with me herself to give me an easier time.
I was shy, and that prevented me from saying no to her offer of the bed. I should have said no; but she would have thought I meant that what she said about France was true. I’ve no answer to make against the charge of cowardice nor any excuse on that head. And I’ve no answer to make against the charge of vanity, for after having proved I could stand up against the flesh and the devil in five combats I may have said to myself that I’d show these nuns how a man may live in holiness out of Ireland as well as in Ireland.
This idea of mine was helped maybe by the fact that I’ve lived a chaste life ever since I told to you, long ago, my lord, that I wanted to dedicate my life to the service of our Lord Jesus Christ. You can get the truth of it from my own monastery, and you can get the proof of it here from the nuns themselves; ask of the nuns that lay with me, and every one’ll tell you, if she doesn’t tell a lie, that our embraces were according to the rule. It’s not a small thing, my lord, and I’m telling you what you know yourself, for a young man to stand out against five women, one after the other, and all of them naked in his bed. If I’d been a bad one I’d have given in at the first go off to the lusts that every woman awakens in every man, but the nuns can tell you the same thing. I resisted the whole lot of them as well as the monks there around about you, and as well as you did yourself, my Lord Abbot. My son, said the Abbot, after he got a venomous cough up out of his throat, we have all resisted the nuns at Crith Gaille. You were all well known the one to the other, my lord, and where there’s no novelty there isn’t much temptation, for it’s novelty and strangeness is the devil’s strongest weapon against man. The women here were all new to me, but I resisted them all, though I’m younger and a lot younger than the youngest man I see in front of me, and ’tis for that I’m confident and sure that I only speak the truth when I say that last night I fell to her who was destined for my arms, for my lips, and for my usage only.
Luachet is beautiful, but it wasn’t her body altogether that drew me. Well, this much I can say with truth, that there is something beyond the lust of the eye and the desire of the flesh, something that is beyond the mind itself, and maybe that thing is the soul; and maybe the soul is love, and whosoever comes upon his soul is at once robbed of all thought and reason, and becomes like a flower. It was like that with me when my mother told me about our Lord Jesus’ appearance in Galilee, and about his suffering and his death, for you’ll remember it, my Lord Abbot, that I went to yourself and told you that the love of Jesus was in my head ever since I heard the story from my mother, and that I wanted to lose myself in love of him. And last night I was carried away just as I was on that first occasion, and I somehow cannot believe it true that my love of her will rob me of my love of Jesus, nor that her love for me will rob him of her love, for in our hearts it is all one and the same thing, and aren’t we more sure that God made our hearts than of anything else? It may be, Marban continued, after he had had a look round, that I did not know this always. It may be that yesterday I would have denied the truth of what I’m now saying to you all. All the same it is the truth I’m telling you, that when the door opened and Luachet came into the room, the light of the candle that was in her hand shining on the white scriptures The scriptures tumbled out of her hand, the old Abbot interrupted.
They did not, my lord. She gave them to me, and they made plain to me that she is herself a good part of me, my scripture for ever, as long as this life lasts in me and, if I may say it without heresy, she’ll be that for the life everlasting that’s to come with our Lord Jesus Christ. As good doctrine as I’ve heard this many a day, s
aid the Abbot, and what’s true in it God will be no doubt taking into his own consideration when the time comes, but what answer will you be making when he comes to ask you about your broken vows? God knows as well as your Reverence that the ones that put on the vows can take off the vows, and as the journey before me is a long one, I’ll be starting on it and it will hearten the pair of us to have the blessing of your hand and your voice if you will be giving it.
I can and I will give it. I’m with you both in this much that I hope the temptation that was put upon you will be put on no one else in my diocese.
My Lord Abbot, jerked in the Abbess, I’m thinking that you shouldn’t be staying longer in the air, for there’s a keenness in it, and a great draught, and your soup is ready in the house. My soup, I thank you for reminding me of it, Mother Abbess. Have you only scolding for me this day, your Reverence, and I sinking under the trouble? she said. Scolding? Have I not said, Mother Abbess, that I’m at the end of the plank, and the flesh is liable to a shiver or two when it comes to the last lep. Is it scolding you I am? I’ve this much to say, Mother Abbess, that I’ve had my doubts about these temptations for a long time, and it’s often in my mind that at the heel of the hunt some poor girl would be left on her back.
He knew, said Alec, how to speak up to her, and as small as a mouse making off through a chink in the wainscoting, she brought him up to his soup in the big room, tied a napkin round his neck, and sat watching him while he drank it. At another table the nuns were giving the monks their bit, saying: take a little piece of this, Father Bhendan; that bit won’t lie heavy on the stomach. But there was no need at all, for they were all men of fine appetites and had gathered a lot of cold air into their bellies coming down from Bregen. It was Blathnat alone that was a bit forgetful of the guests, and seeing her making off, the nuns began to ask what she was after, passing on a wink and a word and saying that she always had something in her head, but not guessing at all that Blathnat was thinking that it was a long journey from Mayo to Waterford, and a dangerous one, everybody except them in the monasteries going his own gait, and a lot of unfriendliness in the country, the same as now.
Well, she overtook them on the fringe of the forest and pushed a basket of bread over Marban’s arm. It will soon begin to weigh heavy, said she, but Luachet will take her turn at it, and turn and turn about’s fair play, and there is here within this basket what will take you to the Shannon if you’re careful about the teeth. Now I must be off with myself; good luck to you. And with that she gave them both a kiss, and away with herself on her own road.
They stood watching the glimpses of her habit flying through the trees, and they silent enough, and when there was no more of her to be seen they stepped out on their journey that would take them long weeks, long months. We’ll get to Waterford before the summer is out, said Marban, according to our luck. But Luachet, for she was no more than a child, didn’t care how long the journey lasted, she being with her sweetheart, and the quiet forest all round them. They had not gone far before Marban remembered his hounds, and he would have turned back for them but Luachet wasn’t a bit sure that the Mother Abbess would let her go with him the second time, and she said she would die of fright if he left her in the forest by herself. Marban could only listen to her pretty talk and look down into her clear, childish eyes — still childish, for up to last night she knew nothing of life at all. And so they walked and wandered in the month of May, seeing the ferns uncurling and the speedwell showing between the ground ivy; and listening to all the singing birds and eating their bread where the banks were mossy.
We still hear the squeal of the badger in these parts, Alec said, and there were many more animals in ancient Ireland — bears, I believe, and wolves in plenty for sure, and it was the thought of these same beasts, and every one of them with a jowl and a jaw, that put the shadow on Marban’s face — a shadow that distressed Luachet when she came running back to him with her hands full of ferns and wildings. You’re not sorry you came away with me? she asked. He took her in his arms then and kissed her, and walking on together through the woods, they began speaking about the trees, and I can remember to this day the wonder that rose up in me when I heard my grandfather say that while sitting under a great oak, where they were to sleep that night, Luachet said to Marban: I don’t like the oak; there’s no welcome in it. The oak doesn’t invite us to sit beneath its branches as the beech does. But Marban answered her: you mustn’t be saying anything against the oak. And she said she would never speak against the oak again when she heard from him that the ribs of the ship that had brought Marban to Ireland were cut out of an oak-tree, and that the ribs of the ship that would take them to France would likewise be made of the oak. It’s a good tree then, Luachet replied, and I shall be loving it better. But why don’t you love it now? Marban asked her, and she replied: it’s that I’m thinking that there seems to be an unfriendly spirit inside of the tree we’re sitting under. That’s a queer thing to be saying, he said, and I’m thinking that you’re saying hard things about the oak because it’s leafless in the month of May; but in the heel of the season, when the acorns do be dropping through the still air, it is a rich and hospitable tree enough. Let the oak be friendly to the pigs but I would sooner be sitting under a beech-tree, was her answer to him. Well, that is strange, for the pigs love beech mast as well as oak mast. Now, Marban, will you be telling me what tree you’re most disposed to, she said, for they must be all well known to you and you walking along through the forests from Waterford? What tree am I most disposed to? Marban said. Well, taking all in all, it’s the holly, for it sheltered me in the cold March nights. And he called her to admire one near by under whose branches they would find it hard to squeeze themselves. And Marban never said a truer word than this, Alec interjected, as I know well myself; the holly is as good as a broken house to a man on a winter’s night. Luachet thought that the leaves looked dark, and she didn’t like the thorns, and later in the evening she stopped before a birch and said: that tree is more beautiful than the holly. And Marban answered her that the birch rose up as sweetly as Luachet’s own body, and he said that the wind in the tree was as soft as her voice. It’s the most musical of trees; his very words as reported by my grandfather, who got them from a book. Now what tree is that naked one? Luachet asked. That one, Marban answered, is the ash, the last one in the forest that the summer clothes The most useful of the many that God has given us, he added, and to help the time away he told her it was the ash that furnished the warrior with fine spears. And when they came upon a hazel copse, he told her of the nuts that would be ripe for gathering in the autumn. And when they came to some poplars, he said the poplar and the aspen were useless trees, one as the other, the poplar giving but poor shade to the wayfarer, and the aspen not doing much better, a ragged, silly tree, shivering always as with ague. I like the willow better to-day than I did yesterday.
How is that? she said. And he answered her that as soon as they came to a willow he would tell her. See, he said, how faithfully they follow the brook, as faithfully as I shall follow you, Luachet, listening to your talk of your mouth, bending my ear to it, the way the willows listen to the rippling water. And she asked if there was no tree he did not love at all. He said there was one, the pine, for it sheds only a fibrous litter in which nothing grows. A pine wood is without birds or animals, the marten is the only animal one meets in a pine wood. My grandfather knew more about trees than any man I ever knew, and he’d go on telling about their qualities until you’d be tired. Alec, he’d say, you’ve been away; I’ll talk to you no more. No, no; I’ve been listening ever so hard. Then tell me the quality of the alder. I remember it all but can’t put words upon it; and then I’d tease him to tell me again of the ruined fort, in which Marban and Luachet spent the night, to be driven out of it at daybreak by the eagles, a nesting place it was for them birds, and at dawn they were screaming, frightening Luachet so that she couldn’t do else than to climb into the limb of a tree overhanging the fort. A
nd Marban was driven to follow her out by the birds.
A fine story that was to tell a boy, how, creeping out on the limb of the tree after her, she cried to him that the branch was breaking; but she cried out too late, and down the two of them tumbled, through a thicket much like the one in which I spied the Murrigan, coming down in the dry bottom all bleeding and torn; they were hardly able to drag themselves down to the brook, where they stripped themselves of what clothes was left to them; and a fair sight it was to a boy’s mind, the pair picking each other clean, or as clean as may be, for after a drop through a blackthorn thicket ’tis hard to get the last spikes out of you, as hard as it is to get the last rabbit out of a ditch. There’s always one left, and it itching somewhere and in the sorest place in your body, you may be sure.
They journeyed on and spent the next night in a sheeling by a lonely lake, but there was a friendly woman in it, who shared a couple of eels with them. But begorra I’m forgetting to tell you about the fawn they took charge of. The wolves had had the doe, and the fawn was dying in the ditch; but the woman in the sheeling milked her goat, and after that drink of milk the fawn would not leave them, but kept springing after them, jumping over the bushes in front of them, delighting them with his agility and lying down by them at night. I don’t rightly remember what became of this fawn; you’ll have to look it out for yourself, sir, when you go to Dublin, in one of the old books where my grandfather found it, and you’ll read in them some of the tales he used to be telling me of the madmen. Yourself must have known not a few of them in your childhood, for not later than fifty years ago they were common enough, the idiots going about the country with the beggars, an encouragement to the people to put their hands in their pockets. You’ve seen them, haven’t you? And I answered that I had. Well, you can easily imagine, your honour, at the time I’m relating, when there was no madhouse at all in Ireland, but a great deal of wilderness, that the mad would be going astray from their relatives, living upon soles and holly berries and nuts from the hazel-trees, and cress from the springs, and how they would be finding but little nourishment from these and would be crying about the travellers they might come across for bread and meat; and it was one of these madmen maybe that robbed the fawn from Marban and Luachet, who had come to love it, thinking of the time when they would be taking it back to France with them, and keeping it till it grew into a fine stag with horns upon it, reminding them of the eagles and the branches they had fallen through into the dry bottom, for though hurt, Luachet said herself, they would be thinking of this fawn and this journey to the day of their death. It must have been the madmen that stole the fawn from them, but I disremember.
