“Brother Martin—Brother Martin!”
Old Holt squeaked at him imperiously.
“Brother Martin, a word with you.”
Martin passed the felling ax that he had been swinging to one of the men, and crossed over to Father Holt.
“The prior has been asking for you. Get you back at once. Brother Jude has been taken sick, and is lying in the infirmary.”
Martin glanced up at old Holt’s wrinkled, crab-apple of a face.
“Who has gone to the Black Moor in Jude’s place?”
“I did not ride here to gossip, brother. See to it that you make haste home.”
Martin let old Holt’s testiness fly over his shoulders, and went and put on his black frock. The cellarer pushed his mule deeper into the wood where the men were barking one of the fallen trees, and Martin left him there and started alone for Paradise. The great oaks were just coming into leaf, the golden buds opening against the blue of the sky. The young bracken fronds were uncurling themselves from the brown tangle of last year’s growth, and here and there masses of wild hyacinth made pools of blue. The gorse had begun to burn with a lessened splendor, but the broom had taken fire, and waved its yellow torches everywhere.
Martin found Prior Globulus in his parlor, sitting by a window with a book in his lap. The prior had been dozing; his eyes looked misty and dull.