The Prior squared himself to the task. “Where were you, my sons, two weeks before Easter?”
“Across the river, reverend father. The granddame of Brother Barnaby here, living at Damson Lane, was breathing her last and greatly wishful to see him. She died—may her soul rest—and we buried her. Then we would go a little further, not having been upon yonder side for some while.”
“You did not go brawling along, nor fled into every alehouse as if Satan were after you?”
“Lord of Montjoy, we are not friars of that stripe. We are clean men and sober, praise God and Our Lady!”
“Aye, aye, they speak truth, Montjoy.—Well, you walked in country over there, avoiding Friary and town—if one can call that clump of mud, pebble and thatch a town!”
“Why did you do that?”
“Brother Barnaby, lord, had had a dream. In it a Shining One plucked up towns like weeds and threw them one by one into a great and deep pit. There was left alive only country road, heath and field and wood. So he awoke quaking and said, ‘I go through never a town gate this journey!’”
“That was a discomfortable dream!”
The Abbot spoke. “I interpret it. The towns, one by one, are that one which Hugh, dreaming and dreaming again, thinks to see rise beside his Friary, built from pilgrims’ wealth, with hostels for pilgrims and merchants to sell them goods, and a great house for nobles who come!—But a Shining One, Hugh! topples them into ditches, yea, into gulfs, as fast as you build them! Ha! Go on, my son!”