Chapter Four.
In the Scriptorium.
“There are days of deepest sorrow
In the season of our life;
There are wild, despairing moments,
There are hours of mental strife;
There are times of stony anguish,
When the tears refuse to fall;
But the waiting time, my brothers,
Is the hardest time of all.”
Sarah Doudney.
Beside a Gothic window, and under a groined stone roof, that afternoon sat a monk at his work. The work was illumination. The room was bare of all kinds of furniture, with the exception of a wooden erection which was chair and desk in one. On the desk lay a large square piece of parchment, a future leaf of a book, in which the text was already written, but the illuminated border was not yet begun. There was a pen in the monk’s hand, with which he was about to execute the outline; but the pen was dry, and the old man’s eyes were fixed dreamily upon the landscape without.
“‘In wisdom hast Thou made them all,’” he murmured half audibly. “O Lord, ‘the earth is full of Thy riches!’”
It was early morning, for the illuminator was at work betimes. From a little cottage visible across the green, he saw a peasant go forth to his daily work, his wife watching him a moment from the door of the hut, and two little children calling to him lovingly to come back soon.
“And life also is full of Thy riches,” whispered the solitary monk. “This poor hind hath none other riches than what Thine hand hath given him. Is he in truth the poorer for it? We live on Thy daily bounty even more than he; for like Thy lilies, we toil not, neither do we spin. Yet Thou hast given to him, as sweetening to his toil, solace denied by Thy holy will to us. Wherefore denied to us? Because we are set apart for Thee. So were Thy priests of old, in Thy Temple at Jerusalem: yet it was not denied to them. Why should we love Thee less for loving little children?”
The monk turned back abruptly to his work.
“Ah me! these be problems beyond mine art. And whatso be the solving of the general matter, I have no doubt as to Thy will for me. The joys of earth be not for me; but Thou art my portion, O Lord! And I am content—ay, satisfied abundantly. Maybe, on the golden hills of the Urbs Beata, we shall find joys far passing the sweetest here, kept for that undefouled company which shall sue the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. And could any joy pass that?”