THE ORDER OF ST. GEORGE
The Order of St. George was started by the Reverend Edward Burrowes six years before Sir Charles Horner's gift of land for a Mother House led him to suppose that he had made his foundation a permanent factor in the religious life of England.
Edward Burrowes was the only son of a band-master in the Royal Artillery who at an impressionable moment in the life of his son was stationed at Malta. The religious atmosphere of Malta combined with the romantic associations of chivalry and the influence of his mother determined the boy's future. The band-master was puzzled and irritated by his son's ecclesiastical bias. He thought that so much church-going argued an unhealthy preoccupation, and as for Edward's rhapsodies about the Auberge of Castile, which sheltered the Messes of the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers, they made him sick, to use his own expression.
"You make me sick, Ted," he used to declare. "The sooner I get quit of Malta and quartered at Woolwich again, the better I shall be pleased."
When at last the band-master was moved to Woolwich, he hoped that the effect of such prosaic surroundings would put an end to Ted's mooning, and that he would settle down to a career more likely to reward him in this world rather than in that ambiguous world beyond to which his dreams aspired. Edward, who was by this time seventeen and who had so far submitted to his father's wishes as to be working in a solicitor's office, found that the effect of being banished from Malta was to stimulate him into a practical attempt to express his dreams of religious devotion. He hired a small room over a stable in a back street and started a club for the sons of soldiers. The band-master would not have minded this so much, especially when he was congratulated on his son's enterprise by the wife of the Colonel. Unfortunately this was not enough for Edward, who having got the right side of an unscrupulously romantic curate persuaded him to receive his vows of a Benedictine oblate. The band-master, proud and fond though he might be of his own uniform, objected to his son's arriving home from business and walking about the house in a cassock. He objected equally to finding that his own musical gifts had with his son degenerated into a passion for playing Gregorian chants on a vile harmonium. It was only consideration for his delicate wife that kept the band-master from pitching both cassock and harmonium into the street. The amateur oblate regretted his father's hostility; but he persevered with the manner of life he had marked out for himself, finding much comfort and encouragement in reading the lives of the saintly founders of religious orders.
At last, after a long struggle against the difficulties that friends and father put in his way, Edward Burrowes managed at the age of twenty-seven to get ordained in Canada, whither, in despair of escaping otherwise from the solicitor's office, he had gone to seek his own fortune. He took with him the oblate's cassock; but he left behind the harmonium, which his father kicked to pieces in rage at not being able to kick his son. Burrowes worked as a curate in a dismal lakeside town in Ontario, consoling himself with dreams of monasticism and chivalry, and gaining a reputation as a preacher. His chief friend was a young farmer, called George Harvey, whom he succeeded in firing with his own enthusiasm and whom he managed to persuade—which shows that Burrowes must have had great powers of persuasion—to wear the habit of a Benedictine novice, when he came to spend Saturday night to Monday morning with his friend. By this time Burrowes had passed beyond the oblate stage, for having found a Canadian bishop willing to dispense him from that portion of the Benedictine rule which was incompatible with his work as a curate in Jonesville, Ontario, he got himself clothed as a novice. About this period a third man joined Burrowes and Harvey in their spare-time monasticism. This was John Holcombe, who had emigrated from Dorsetshire after an unfortunate love affair and who had been taken on by George Harvey as a carter. Holcombe was the son of a yeoman farmer that owned several hundred acres of land. He had been educated at Sherborne, and soon by his capacity and attractive personality he made himself so indispensable to his employer that George Harvey's farm was turned into a joint concern. No doubt Harvey's example was the immediate cause of Holcombe's associating himself with the little community: but it still says much for Burrowes' powers of persuasion that he should have been able to impress this young Dorset farmer with the serious possibility of leading the monastic life in Ontario.
When another year had passed, an opportunity arose of acquiring a better farm in Alberta. It was the Bishop of Alberta who had been so sympathetic with Burrowes' monastic aspirations; and, when Harvey and Holcombe decided to move to Moose Rib, Burrowes gave up his curacy to lead a regular monastic life, so far as one could lead a regular monastic life on a farm in the North-west.
Two more years had gone by when a letter arrived from England to tell George Harvey that he was the heir to £12,000. Burrowes had kept all his influence over the young farmer, and he was actually able to persuade Harvey to devote this fortune to founding the Order of St. George for mission work among soldiers. There was some debate whether Father Burrowes, Brother George, and Brother Birinus should take their final vows immediately; but in the end Father Burrowes had his way, and they were all three professed by the sympathetic Bishop of Alberta, who granted them a constitution subject to the ratification of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Father Burrowes was elected Father Superior, Brother George was made Assistant Superior, and Brother Birinus had to concentrate in his person various monastic offices just as on the Moose Rib Farm he had combined in his person the duties of the various hands.
The immediate objective of the new community was Malta, where it was proposed to open their first house and where, in despite of the outraged dignity of innumerable real monks already there, they made a successful beginning. A second house was opened at Gibraltar and put in charge of Brother Birinus. Neither Malta nor Gibraltar provided much of a field for reinforcing the Order, which, if it was to endure, required additional members. Father Burrowes proposed that he should go to England and open a house at Aldershot, and that, if he could obtain a hearing as a preacher, he should try to raise enough funds for a house at Sandgate as well. Brother George and Brother Birinus in a solemn chapter of three accepted the proposal; the house at Gibraltar was given up; the Father Superior went to seek the fortunes of the Order in England, while the other two remained at their work in Malta. Father Burrowes was even more successful as a preacher than he hoped; ascribing the steady flow of offertories to Divine favour, he instituted during the next four years, priories at Aldershot and Sandgate. He began to feel the need of a Mother House, having now more than enough candidates for the Order of Saint George, where the novices could be suitably trained to meet the stress of active mission work. One of his moving appeals for this object was heard by Sir Charles Horner who, for reasons he had already explained to Mark and because underneath all his ecclesiasticism there did exist a genuine desire for the glory of God, had presented the land at Malford to the Order. Father Burrowes preached harder than ever, addressed drawing-room meetings, and started a monthly magazine called The Dragon to raise the necessary money to build a mighty abbey. Meanwhile, he had to be contented with those three tin tabernacles. Brother George, who had remained all these years in Malta, suggested that it was time for somebody else to take his place out there, and the Father Superior, although somewhat unwillingly, had agreed to his coming to Malford. Not having heard of anybody whom at the moment he considered suitable to take charge of what was now a distant outpost of the Order, he told Brother George to close the house. It was at this stage in the history of the Order that Mark presented himself as a candidate for admission.
Father Burrowes arrived unexpectedly two days after the lunch at Malford Lodge; and presently Brother Dunstan came to tell Mark that the Reverend Father would see him in the Abbott's Parlour immediately after Nones. Mark thought that Sir Charles might have given a mediæval lining to this room at least, which with its roll-top desk looked like the office of the clerk of the works.
"So you want to be a monk?" said Father Burrowes contemptuously. "Want to dress up in a beautiful white habit, eh?"
"I really don't mind what I wear," said Mark, trying not to appear ruffled by the imputation of wrong motives. "But I do want to be a monk, yes."
"You can't come here to play at it," said the Superior, looking keenly at Mark from his bright blue eyes and lighting up a large pipe.
"Curiously enough," said Mark, who had forgotten the Benedictine injunction to discourage newcomers that seek to enter a community, "I wrote to my guardian a few days ago that my impression of Malford Abbey was rather that it was playing at being monks."
The Superior flushed to a vivid red. He was a burly man of fair complexion, inclined to plumpness, and with a large mobile mouth eloquent and sensual. His hands were definitely fat, the backs of them covered with golden hairs and freckles.
"So you're a critical young gentleman, are you? I suppose we're not Catholic enough for you. Well," he snapped, "I'm afraid you won't suit us. We don't want you. Sorry."
"I'm sorry too," said Mark. "But I thought you would prefer frankness. If you will spare me a few minutes, I'll explain why I want to join the Order of St. George. If when you've heard what I have to say you still think that I'm not suitable, I shall recognize your right to be of that opinion from your experience of many young men like myself who have been tried and found wanting."
"Did you learn that speech by heart?" the Superior inquired, raising his eyebrows mockingly.
"I see you're determined to find fault," Mark laughed. "But, Reverend Father, surely you will listen to my reasons before deciding against them or me?"
"My instinct tells me you'll be no good to us. But if you insist on wasting my time, fire ahead. Only please remember that, though I may be a monk, I'm a very busy man."
Mark gave a full account of himself until the present and wound up by saying:
"I don't think I have any sentimental reasons for wanting to enter a monastery. I like working among soldiers and sailors. I am ready to put down £200 and I hope to be of use. I wish to be a priest, and if you find or I find that when the time comes for me to be ordained I shall make a better secular priest, at any rate, I shall have had the advantage of a life of discipline and you, I promise, will have had a novice who will have regarded himself as such, but yet will have learnt somehow to have justified your confidence."
The Superior looked down at his desk pondering. Presently he opened a letter and threw a quick suspicious glance at Mark.
"Why didn't you tell me that you had an introduction from Sir Charles Horner?"
"I didn't know that I had," Mark answered in some astonishment. "I only met him here a few days ago for the first time. He invited me to lunch, and he was very pleasant; but I never asked him to write to you, nor did he suggest doing so."
"Have you any vices?" Father Burrowes asked abruptly.
"I don't think—what do you mean exactly?" Mark inquired.
"Drink?"
"No, certainly not."
"Women?"
Mark flushed.
"No." He wondered if he should speak of the episode of St. John's eve such a short time ago; but he could not bring himself to do so, and he repeated the denial.
"You seem doubtful," the Superior insisted.
"As a matter of fact," said Mark, "since you press this point I ought to tell you that I took a vow of celibacy when I was sixteen."
Father Burrowes looked at him sharply.
"Did you indeed? That sounds very morbid. Don't you like women?"
"I don't think a priest ought to marry. I was told by Sir Charles that you vowed yourself to the monastic life when you were not much more than seventeen. Was that morbid?"
The Superior laughed boisterously, and Mark glad to have put him in a good humour laughed with him. It was only after the interview was over that the echo of that laugh sounded unpleasantly in the caves of memory, that it rang false somehow like a denial of himself.
"Well, I suppose we must try you as a probationer at any rate," said the Superior. And suddenly his whole manner changed. He became affectionate and sentimental as he put his hand on Mark's shoulder.
"I hope, dear lad, that you will find a vocation to serve our dear Lord in the religious life. God bless you and give you endurance in the path you have chosen."
Mark reproached himself for his inclination to dislike the Reverend Father to whom he now owed filial affection, piety, and respect, apart from what he owed him as a Christian of Christian charity. He should gain but small spiritual benefit from his self-chosen experiment if this was the mood in which he was beginning his monastic life; and when Brother Jerome, who was acting novice-master, began to instruct him in his monastic duty, he made up his mind to drive out that demon of criticism or rather to tame it to his own service by criticizing himself. He wrote on markers for his favourite devotional books:
Observe at every moment of the day the good in others, the evil in thyself; and when thou liest awake in the night remember only what good thou hast found in others, what evil in thyself.
This was Mark's addition to Thomas a Kempis, to Mother Juliana of Norwich, to Jeremy Taylor and William Law; this was Mark's sprout of holy wisdom among the Little Flowers of Saint Francis.
The Rule of Malford was not a very austere adaptation of the Rule of Saint Benedict; and, with the Reverend Father departing after Mark had been admitted as a probationer and leaving the administration of the Abbey to the priority of Brother Dunstan, a good deal of what austerity had been retained was now relaxed.
The Night Office was not said at Malford, where the liturgical worship of the day began with Lauds and Prime at six. On Mark devolved the duty of waking the brethren in the morning, which was done by striking the door of each cell with a hammer and saying: The Lord be with you, whereupon the sleeping brother must rise from his couch and open the door of his cell to make the customary response. After Lauds and Prime, which lasted about half an hour, the brethren retired to their cells to put them in order for the day and to meditate until seven o'clock, unless they had been given tasks out of doors. At seven o'clock, if there was a priest in the monastery, Mass was said; otherwise meditation and study was prolonged until eight o'clock, when breakfast was eaten. Those who had work in the fields or about the house departed after breakfast to their tasks. At nine Terce was said, which was not attended by the brethren working out of doors; at twelve Sext was said attended by all the brethren, and at twelve-fifteen dinner was eaten. After dinner, the brethren retired to their cells and meditated until one o'clock, when their various duties were resumed, interrupted only in the case of those working indoors by the office of None at three o'clock. At a quarter to five the bell rang for tea. Simple silence was relaxed, and the brethren enjoyed their recreation until six-fifteen when the bell rang for a quarter of an hour's solemn silence before Vespers. Supper was eaten after Vespers, and after supper, which was finished about eight o'clock, there was reading and recreation until the bell rang for Compline at nine-fifteen. This office said, solemn silence was not broken until the response to the dominus vobiscum in the morning. The rule of simple silence was not kept very strictly at this period. Two brethren working in the garden in these hot July days found that permitted conversation about the immediate matter in hand, say the whereabouts of a trowel or a hoe, was easily extended into observations about the whereabouts of Brother So-and-So during Terce or the way Brother Somebody-else was late with the antiphon. From the little incidents of the Abbey's daily round the conversation was easily extended into a discussion of the policy of the Order in general. Speculations where the Reverend Father was preaching that evening or that morning and whether his offertories would be as large during the summer as they had been during the spring were easily amplified from discussions about the general policy of the Order into discussions about the general policy of Christendom, the pros and cons of the Roman position, the disgraceful latitudinarianism of bishops and deans; and still more widely amplified from remarks upon the general policy of Christendom into arguments about the universe and the great philosophies of humanity. Thus Mark, who was an ardent Platonist, would find himself at odds with Brother Jerome who was an equally ardent Aristotelian, while the weeds, taking advantage of the philosophic contest, grew faster than ever.
Whatever may have been Brother Dunstan's faults of indulgence, they sprang from a debonair and kindly personality which shone like a sun upon the little family and made everybody good-humoured, even Brother Lawrence, who was apt to be cross because he had been kept a postulant longer than he expected. But perhaps the happiest of all was Brother Walter, who though still a probationer was now the senior probationer, a status which afforded him the most profound satisfaction and gave him a kindly feeling toward Mark who was the cause of promotion.
"And the Reverend Father has promised me that I shall be clothed as a postulant on August 10th when Brother Lawrence is to be clothed as a novice. The thought makes me so excited that I hardly know what to do sometimes, and I still don't know what saint's name I'm going to take. You see, there was some mystery about my birth, and I was called Walter because I was found by a policeman in Walter Street, and as ill-luck would have it there's no St. Walter. Of course, I know I have a very wide choice of names, but that is what makes it so difficult. I had rather a fancy to be Peter, but he's such a very conspicuous saint that it struck me as being a little presumptuous. Of course, I have no doubt whatever that St. Peter would take me under his protection, for if you remember he was a modest saint, a very modest saint indeed who asked to be crucified upside down, not liking to show the least sign of competition with our dear Lord. I should very much like to call myself Brother Paul, because at the school I was at we were taken twice a year to see St. Paul's Cathedral and had toffee when we came home. I look back to those days as some of the happiest of my life. There again it does seem to be putting yourself up rather to take the name of a great saint like St. Paul. Then I thought of taking William after the little St. William of Norwich who was murdered by the Jews. That seems going to the other extreme, doesn't it, for though I know that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings shall come forth praise, one would like to feel one had for a patron saint somebody a little more conspicuous than a baby. I wish you'd give me a word of advice. I think about this problem until sometimes my head's in a regular whirl, and I lose my place in the Office. Only yesterday at Sext, I found myself saying the antiphon proper to St. Peter a fortnight after St. Peter's day had passed and gone, which seems to show that my mind is really set upon being Brother Peter, doesn't it? And yet I don't know. He is so very conspicuous all through the Gospels, isn't he?"
"Then why don't you compromise," suggested Mark, "and call yourself Brother Simon?"
"Oh, what a splendid idea!" Brother Walter exclaimed, clapping his hands. "Oh, thank you, Brother Mark. That has solved all my difficulties. Oh, do let me pull up that thistle for you."
Brother Walter the probationer resumed his weeding with joyful ferocity of purpose, his mind at peace in the expectation of shortly becoming Brother Simon the postulant.
What Mark enjoyed most in his personal relations with the community were the walks on Sunday afternoons. Sir Charles Horner made a habit of joining these to obtain the Abbey gossip and also because he took pleasure in hearing himself hold forth on the management of his estate. Most of his property was woodland, and the walks round Malford possessed that rich intimacy of the English countryside at its best. Mark was not much interested in what Sir Charles had to ask or in what Sir Charles had to tell or in what Sir Charles had to show, but to find himself walking with his monastic brethren in their habits down glades of mighty oaks, or through sparse plantations of birches, beneath which grew brakes of wild raspberries that would redden with the yellowing corn, gave him as assurance of that old England before the Reformation to which he looked back as to a Golden Age. Years after, when much that was good and much that was bad in his monastic experience had been forgotten, he held in his memory one of these walks on a fine afternoon at July's end within the octave of St. Mary Magdalene. It happened that Sir Charles had not accompanied the monks that Sunday; but in his place was an old priest who had spent the week-end as a guest in the Abbey and who had said Mass for the brethren that morning. This had given Mark deep pleasure, because it was the Sunday after Esther's profession, and he had been able to make his intention her present joy and future happiness. He had been silent throughout the walk, seeming to listen in turn to Brother Dunstan's rhapsodies about the forthcoming arrival of Brother George and Brother Birinus with all that it meant to him of responsibility more than he could bear removed from his shoulders; or to Brother Raymond's doubts if it should not be made a rule that when no priest was in the Abbey the brethren ought to walk over to Wivelrod, the church Sir Charles attended four miles away, or to Brother Jerome's disclaimer of Roman sympathies in voicing his opinion that the Office should be said in Latin. Actually he paid little attention to any of them, his thoughts being far away with Esther. They had chosen Hollybush Down for their walk that Sunday, because they thought that the view over many miles of country would please the ancient priest. Seated on the short aromatic grass in the shade of a massive hawthorn full-berried with tawny fruit, the brethren looked down across a slope dotted with junipers to the view outspread before them. None spoke, for it had been warm work in their habits to climb the burnished grass. It would have been hard to explain the significance of that group, unless it were due to some haphazard achievement of perfect form; yet somehow for Mark that moment was taken from time and placed in eternity, so that whenever afterward in his life he read about the Middle Ages he was able to be what he read, merely by re-conjuring that monkish company in the shade of that hawthorn tree.
On their way back to the Abbey Mark found himself walking with Mr. Lamplugh, the ancient priest, who turned out to have known his father.
"Dear me, are you really the son of James Lidderdale? Why, I used to go and preach at Lima Street in old days long before your father married. And so you're Lidderdale's son. Now I wonder why you want to be a monk."
Mark gave an account of himself since he left school and tried to give some good reasons why he was at Malford.
"And so you were with Rowley? Well, really you ought to know something about missions by now. But perhaps you're tired of mission work already?" the old priest inquired with a quick glance at Mark as if he would see how much of the real stuff existed underneath that probationer's cassock.
"This is an active Order, isn't it?" Mark countered. "Of course, I'm not tired of mission work. But after being with Father Rowley and being kept busy all the time I found that being at home in the country made me idle. I told the Reverend Father that I hoped to be ordained as a secular priest and that I did not imagine I had any vocation for the contemplative life. I have as a matter of fact a great longing for it. But I don't think that twenty-one is a good age for being quite sure if that longing is not mere sentiment. I suppose you think I'm just indulging myself with the decorative side of religion, Father Lamplugh? I really am not. I can assure you that I'm far too much accustomed to the decorative side to be greatly influenced by it."
The old priest laid a thin hand on Mark's sleeve.
"To tell the truth, my dear boy, I was on the verge of violating the decencies of accepted hospitality by criticizing the Order of which you have become a probationer. I am just a little doubtful about the efficacy of its method of training young men. However, it really is not my business, and I hope that I am wrong. But I am a little doubtful if all these excellent young brethren are really desirous . . . no, I'll not say another word, I've already disgracefully exceeded the limitations to criticism that courtesy alone demands of me. I was carried away by my interest in you when I heard whose son you were. What a debt we owe to men like your father and Rowley! And here am I at seventy-six after a long and useless life presuming to criticize other people. God forgive me!" The old man crossed himself.
That afternoon and evening recreation was unusually noisy, and during Vespers one or two of the brethren were seized with an attack of giggles because Brother Lawrence, who was in a rapt condition of mind owing to the near approach of St. Lawrence's day when he was to be clothed as a novice, tripped while he was holding back the cope during the censing of the Magnificat and falling on his knees almost upset Father Lamplugh. There was no doubt that the way Brother Lawrence stuck out his lower jaw when he was self-conscious was very funny; but Mark wished that the giggling had not occurred in front of Father Lamplugh. He wished too that during recreation after supper Brother Raymond would be less skittish and Brother Dunstan less arch in the manner of reproving him.
"Holy simplicity is all very well," Mark thought. "But holy imbecility is a great bore, especially when there is a stranger present."
Luckily Father Burrowes came back the following week, and Mark's deepening impression of the monastery's futility was temporarily obliterated by the exciting news that the Bishop of Alberta whom the brethren were taught to reverence as a second founder would be the guest of the Order on St. Lawrence's day and attend the profession of Brother Anselm. Mark had not yet seen Brother Anselm, who was the brother in charge of the Aldershot priory, and he welcomed the opportunity of witnessing those solemn final vows. He felt that he should gain much from meeting Brother Anselm, whose work at Aldershot was considered after the Reverend Father's preaching to be the chief glory of the Order. Brother Lawrence was a little jealous that his name day, on which he was to be clothed in Chapter as a novice, should be chosen for the much more important ceremony, and he spoke sharply to poor Brother Walter when the latter rejoiced in the added lustre Brother Anselm's profession would shed upon his own promotion.
"You must remember, Brother," he said, "that you'll probably remain a postulant for a very long time."
"But not for ever," replied poor Brother Walter in a depressed tone of voice.
"There may not be time to attend to you," said Brother Lawrence spitefully. "You may have to wait until the Bishop has gone."
"Oh dear, oh dear," sighed Brother Walter looking woeful. "Brother Mark, do you hear what they say?"
"Never mind," said Mark, "we'll take our final vows together when Brother Lawrence is still a doddering old novice."
Brother Lawrence clicked his tongue and bit his under lip in disgust at such a flippant remark.
"What a thing to say," he muttered, and burying his hands in his sleeves he walked off disdainfully, his jaw thrust before him.
"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 Glastonbury 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.