He saw very clearly how matters were with Silvius, that the monk’s zeal had turned sour, and sickened him; and that he was mad that all his astuteness should have taken, in the eyes of his little world, the motley of the fool.
“You are too hasty, my brother,” he said. “Does a man whose wife has lost her virtue, shout it from the house-tops? Come, my friend, let us consider.”
But Silvius would not be appeased. The fanatical cat had spread its claws, a beast more cruel than any creature out of the woods. Reginald of Brecon watched him, as a fat man who had dined well might watch the petulant tantrums of a child. He took to turning the ring upon his finger, a trick habitual with him when he was deep in thought.
“It is growing dark,” he said at last, glancing at the window.
Then he rose and stood awhile before the fire. Silvius had ceased to spit and to declaim.
“My cloak and hood, Brother Silvius. You will find them there in the recess.”
The monk obeyed his lord. When he returned with the cloak, Reginald held up two fingers, and spoke one word:—
“Peace.”
There was not the glimmer of a star in the sky when two dim figures climbed Mountjoye Hill. A north wind was blowing and whistled coldly into Reginald’s sleeves. Dom Silvius jerked from side to side, looking restlessly into the darkness as though his blood were still hot and bitter in him despite the cold. Reginald understood the savage impatience that possessed his monk, for he bade him wait at the gate in the hedge, and went on alone to the cell.
Silvius kept watch there, striding to and fro, blowing on his nails, and beating his arms against his body like a great black bird. He envied his Abbot the rights of an unbridled tongue, for Silvius would have been a libertine that night in the matter of godly invective and abuse. He could hear voices, the dull, half-suppressed voices of people who spoke earnestly, and yet with passion. Once he thought that something stirred in the hedge near him, for he was startled, and stood still to listen. A prowling fox might have taken fright, or a bird fluttered from its roosting place.