The Gathering of Brother Hilarius

Transcribed from the 1912 John Murray edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
By MICHAEL FAIRLESS AUTHOR OF “THE ROADMENDER”
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1912
A. M. D. G.
“To those dearworthy ones to whom I owe all; I give that which is theirs already.”
Through this little book runs the road of life, the common road of men, the white highway that Hilarius watched from the monastery gate and Brother Ambrose saw nearing its end in the Jerusalem of his heart.
The book is a romance. It may be read as a romance of the Black Death and a monk with an artist’s eyes; but for the author it is a romance of the Image of God. While the Divine Face is being unveiled for Hilarius in the masque that shocks and bewilders him, and the secret of sorrow and sin, of death and life and love, is told by his speechless and dying “little maid,” we, if we choose, may hear again the Road mender’s epilogue to the story of the man of this earth, the man of the common highway:—“‘Dust and ashes and a house of devils,’ he cries; and there comes back for answer, ‘ Rex concupiscet decorem tuum .’”
Hilarius stood at the Monastery gate, looking away down the smooth, well-kept road to the highway beyond. It lay quiet and serene in the June sunshine, the white way to the outer world, and not even a dust cloud on the horizon promised the approach of the train of sumpter mules laden with meats for the bellies and cloth for the backs of the good Brethren within. The Cellarer lacked wine, the drug stores in the farmery were running low; last, but not least, the Precentor had bespoken precious colours, rich gold, costly vellum, and on these the thoughts of Hilarius tarried with anxious expectation.
On his left lay the forest, home of his longing imaginings. The Monastery wall crept up one side of it, and over the top the great trees peered and beckoned with their tossing, feathery branches. Twice had Hilarius walked there, attending the Prior as he paced slowly and silently along the mossy ways, under the strong, springing pines; and the occasions were stored in his memory with the glories of St Benedict’s Day and Our Lady’s Festivals. Away to the right, within the great enclosure, stretched the Monastery lands, fair to the eye, with orchard and fruitful field, teeming with glad, unhurried labour.