Somerville’s quick and agreeable voice jetted on. His eye, quick as a hawk’s, marked the small erect man riding the black horse. If Montjoy in his nature had sensitive tracts, far be it from Somerville not to touch these! Do it always, though with swordly skill, keeping one’s self invisible, invulnerable!
Montjoy, it was evident, did not like Saint Leofric’s miracles. Why? Somerville, using wit, found part of it. All affairs were seesaw! You go up; I go down. Up Saint Leofric; down Saint Willebrod. Up Dominican; down Cistercian. Up Prior Hugh; down Abbot Mark, Montjoy’s kinsman. Up Friary; down Silver Cross, enriched by, linked to, the castle on the hill. Up neighbour’s glory; down my glory! If Montjoy, as apparently was the case, identified his glory with that of Silver Cross—Why, or to what extent, who cared? He did it, that was evident! His doing it answered for Somerville’s cue.
Somerville with malice dilated upon the throng at Saint Leofric’s and the mounting excitement. He had a vigour and colour of speech that lifted the scene bodily across the river and set it in the High Street. He appealed for corroboration to his cousin. The latter, though he could not guess all, guessed some motive and fell easily in with his kinsman and host. Not only the great play over there, the singing and weeping, the light in the church and the shout of joy—but he could report the stir that was spreading through England. Indeed, it was said that the Princess of Spain was coming—
Montjoy thought, “That Princess should give her presence to Silver Cross. She should smooth Isabel’s tomb with her hand. Life should come from her eyes to the picture.”
Somerville was drawing comparisons, and yet he lived this side the river, up the Wander indeed, where from any hilltop he might see Silver Cross!
“It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest!” said Montjoy, harshly.
Somerville laughed and shot across a hawk glance. “But if it is true? Look at Abbot Mark and then at Prior Hugh! The last ascetic, fired, ever praying; the first—But he is your kinsman, Montjoy, and I touch him not—”
“I want truth,” said Montjoy, and his voice had an angry croak.
“Then in truth is he one whose abbey would show miracles? Who says great sanctity shows anywhere at Silver Cross? Is it carping to cry out against sloth and indulgence? If they are near home, I believe in confessing they are near home! Has Silver Cross one monk who may stand with the Friar to whom hand and arm appeared?”
“I could tell you—,” burst forth Montjoy, then checked himself. “I know not of the monks,” he said, “though there be two or three—I know not in these days of any place more or less slothful than another. We are all drunken and dazed, we have sinned so long! But of old Silver Cross was a saintly place!”