The Secret Rose

r had brought the brotherhood together in the little wooden house under the shadow of the wooden chapel; and Abbot Malathgeneus, Brother Dove, Brother Bald Fox, Brother Peter, Brother Patrick, Brother

e in the roof, through which the smoke went, and watching the stars appearing and disappearing in the smoke with mild eyes, like the eyes of a beast of the field. He turned presently to the Brother who wrote in the big book, and whose duty was to teach the children, and said, ‘Brother Dove, to what are the stars fastened?’ The Brother, rejoicing to see so much curiosity in the stupidest of his scholars, laid down the pen and said, ‘Th

the child. ‘There is nothing

great ruby was gleaming in the light of the fire, and he said,

symbol of the

y a symbol of t

fire burns up everything, and whe

but presently sat up and said

time. They are growing very wild, now that the winter drives them from the mountains. They broke into

for it is heavy; but I can hear

than somebody rapped three ti

open, for he mu

ay be a man-wolf, and

den bolt, and all the faces, most of them a litt

tattered cloak that but half-covered his withered brown body, came in and looked from face to face with mild, ecstatic eyes. Standing some way from the fire, and with eyes that had rested at last upon the Abbot Malathgeneus

eat the food the boy Olioll will bring you. It is sad indeed

before him; but he would eat only of the bread, and he put away the wine, asking for water. When his b

has trodden the bare world this many a year, and give me some labou

its labourer in that busy community; but at last one remembered that Brother Bald Fox, whose business it was to turn the great quern in the que

took the abbot by the habit and said, ‘The beggar is of the greatest of saints and of the workers of miracle. I followed Olioll but now, and by his slow steps and his bent head I saw that the weariness of his stupidity was over him, and when he came to the little wood by the quern-house I knew by the path broken in the under-wood and by the footmarks in the muddy places that he had gone that way many times. I hid behind a bush where the path doubled upon itself at a sloping place, and understood by the tears in his eyes that his stupidity was too old and his wisdom too new to save him from terror of the rod. When he was in the quern-house I went to the window and looked in, and the birds came down and perched upon my head and my shoulders, for they are not timid in that holy place; and a wolf passed by, his right side shaking my habit, his left the leaves of a bush. Olioll opened his book and turned to the page I had told him to learn, and began to cry, and the beggar sat beside him and comforted him until he fell asleep. When his sleep was of the deepest the beggar knelt down and prayed aloud, and said, “O Thou Who dwellest beyond the stars, show forth Thy power as at the beginning, and let knowledge sent from Thee awaken in his mind, wherein is nothing from the world, that the nine orders of angels may glorify Thy name;” and then a light broke out of the air and wrapped Aodh, and I smelt the breath of roses. I stirred a little in my wonder, and the beggar turned and saw me, and, be

tudded with precious stones, in the midst of the incense; and came before the quern-house and knelt down and began to pray, awaiting the moment when th