The room in which I had studied and now slept was that to the right hand as you entered the door of the Manor-house. It was lined stoutly with oak, and it was dark because, though it had two fair windows, they were much obscured by the myrtles my lord had planted, which had thriven exceedingly in this mild air.
This room, as I have said, my lord used for a dining-hall. Else when he was within doors he sat in the oriel of the pleasant room overhead; and it was there that he and Master Spenser would sit and smoke or be silent; and there, which is not to be forgotten, Sir Walter listened to The Faëry Queen.
For some reason or another this dining-hall, despite its purpose, seemed a place of little cheer. The Manor-house had belonged to the warden of the college, and owed its construction to him; and it was built after the English manner, which need not be surprising, since the progenitors of those church and abbey builders, the Munster Geraldines, were of English blood and race. Not only was the dining-hall in itself low and somewhat forbidding of aspect, but it smelt of earth and new graves, for all the generous wine and meats that had been consumed within it. The cause of the same my lord had never been able to determine, and it stayed, although the chimney roared with logs of ships’ timber, and the brightness, the good cheer, the wit and gayety that met there were enough to scare away any thought of death or the earth that shall receive us.
I slept, I have said, and while I slept the moon had arisen. The low light of it filled the chamber when I awoke with a start, smelling the graves, and feeling very cold. On the myrtle tree without an owl hooted. The rushlight had gone out, but this I hardly knew, only that an earthy wind, smelling of damp and mildews, blew about my face, and I was stiff from lying asleep upon my book.
But this I noticed vaguely, for as soon as my eyes were well open a strange appearance in the room drew my gaze upon it. I was by this time a stout lad of some sixteen years, and accustomed to fear nothing, yet I will confess that the hair of my head stood up. The figure of a monk was in the further corner from me. I knew it to be a monk, because of the effigies, images, and [pg!24] portraits in St. Mary’s Church and the library of the college. Further, I knew the apparition to be of a white friar. The cowl was over the face; the head was bent; a fold of white cloth hid the hands. The stature of the monk was exceedingly tall, and of a great leanness, as I could see where the belt of brown leather clasped the white gown about the middle.
All this I saw clearly by the light of the moon, or was it by some unearthly light of which the figure stood the centre? I know not, only that I saw everything clear: and still the odor of graves was in my nostrils.
While I stood stammering and staring a lean finger was pointed at me, so lean that I know not if flesh covered it, or if it were the fleshless finger of a skeleton. A voice, hollow and strange, came forth of the cowl.
“Son of the Geraldines,” it said, “why art thou here among their murderers and despoilers?”
The voice constrained me to answer.
“Alas,” I said, “I know not what you mean. I am a nameless boy, a dead leaf drifted in the forests. Why do you call me a son of the Geraldines, unless it be that I come of the humblest of the clan?”