Martin had gone down the valley to watch the woodmen felling oaks in the Prior’s Wood when old Holt rode out on a mule¹ in search of him. He found Martin stripped like the men and working with them, for he loved laboring² with his hands.  
“Brother Martin—Brother Martin!”
 
Old Holt squeaked³ 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 Moor⁴ 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 testiness⁵ 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 fronds⁶ were uncurling themselves from the brown tangle⁷ 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 lessened⁸ splendor⁹, but the broom had taken fire, and waved its yellow torches everywhere.
 
Martin found Prior Globulus in his parlor¹⁰, sitting by a window with a book in his lap. The prior had been dozing¹¹; his eyes looked misty¹² and dull.
 
“You have sent for me, sir.”
 
“Come you here, Brother Martin. Assuredly—I have been asleep. Yes—I remember. Brother Jude has been taken sick. He rode in two hours ago, with a sharp fever. I have chosen you to take his place, my son.”
 
His dull eyes watched Martin’s face.
 
“The chapel¹³ on the Black Moor must have a priest. There are people, my son, who would not pardon us if we left that altar unserved even for a day. Get you a mule and ride there. To-morrow I will send two pack mules¹⁴ with food and wine and new altar cloths and vestments. No cell of ours shall be served in niggardly¹⁵ fashion. And remember, my son, that it is part of our trust to serve all wayfarers¹⁶ with bread and wine, should they ask for bread and wine. Holy St. Florence so ordered it before she died. And there is the little hostelry where wayfarers may lodge¹⁷ themselves for the night. All these matters will be in your keeping.”
 
He groped in a gypsire that lay on the window seat.
 
“Here is the key of the chapel, Brother Martin. Now speed you, and bear my blessing¹⁸.”
 
Martin kissed the ring on the old man’s hand, and went forth¹⁹ to take up his trust.
 
The Forest was the great lord of all those parts. From Gawdy Town, by the sea, to Merlin Water it stretched ten leagues or more, a green, rolling wilderness²⁰, very mysterious and very beautiful. There were castles, little towns and villages hidden in it, and a stranger might never have known of them but for the sound of their bells. In the north the Great Ridge²¹ bounded the Forest like a huge vallum, and on one of the chalk hills stood Troy Castle, its towers gray against the northern sky. Gawdy Town, where the Rondel river reached the sea, held itself in no small esteem²². It was a free town, boasted its own mayor and jurats, appointed its own port reeve, sent out its own ships, and hoarded²³ much rich merchandise in its storehouses and cellars.
 
The day had an April waywardness when Martin mounted his mule and set out for the Black Moor. Masses of cloud moved across the sky, some of them trailing rain showers from the edges, and letting in wet floods of sunlight when they had passed. The Forest was just breaking into leaf; the birch trees had clothed themselves; so had the hazels; the beeches²⁵ were greener than the oaks, whose domes²⁶ varied²⁷ from yellow to bronze; the ash buds were still black, promising²⁸ a good season. The wild cherries were in flower. The hollies²⁹ glistened³⁰ after the rain, and the warm, wet smell of the earth was the smell of spring.
 
Not till Martin reached Heron Hill did the Forest show itself to him in all its mystery. The Black Moor hung like a thunder-cloud ahead of him, splashed to the south with sunlight after the passing of a shower. He could see the sea, covered with purple shadows and patches of gold. Below him, and stretching for miles, the wet green of the woods lost itself in a blue gray haze²⁴, with the Rondel river a silver streak³¹ in the valleys. Here and there a wood of yews³² or firs made a blackness in the thick of the lighter³³ foliage³⁴. Martin saw deer moving along the edge of Mogry Heath. Larks³⁵ were in the air, and the green woodpecker laughed in the woods.
 
The sun was low in the west when the mule plodded³⁶ up the sandy track that led over the Black Moor. The gorse had lost its freshness, but the yellow broom and the white of the stunted³⁷ thorns lightened the heavy green of the heather. The chapelry stood on the top-most swell³⁸ of the moor, marked by a big oak wayside cross, its heather-thatched roofs clustering close together like sheep in a pen. There were a chapel, a priest’s cell, a little guest-house, a stable, a small lodge or barn, and a stack of fagots standing³⁹ together in a grassy⁴⁰ space. Father Jude was a homely⁴¹ soul, a man of the soil; he had fought with the sour soil, made a small garden, and hedged it with thorns, though the apple trees that he had planted were all blown one way and looked stunted and grotesque⁴². He had cut and stacked bracken for litter, and there was a small haystack in the hollow over the hill.
 
Martin stabled the mule, carried his saddle-bags into the cell, and took stock of his new home. He went first to the little chapel, unlocked the door, and saw that the holy vessels⁴³ were safe in the aumbry beside the altar, and that no one had been tampering⁴⁴ with the iron-bound alms-box that was fastened to the wall close to the holy water stoup. The chapel pleased him with its stone walls and the rough forest-hewn timber in its roof. He knelt down in front of the altar and prayed that in his lonely place he might not be found wanting.
 
There was the mule to be watered and fed, and Martin saw to the beast before he thought of his own supper. Father Jude’s larder⁴⁵ suggested to him that hunger was an excellent necessity. He found a stale loaf of bread, a big earthen jar full of salted meat, half a bowl of herrings, a pot of honey, a paper of spices, and the remains⁴⁶ of a rabbit pie. Obviously Father Jude had been something of a cook, and Martin stared reflectively at the brick oven in the corner of the cell. Cooking was an art that he had not studied, but on the top of the Black Moor a man had a chance of completing a thoroughly⁴⁷ practical education. For instance, there was the question of bread. How much yeast⁴⁸ went to how much flour, and how long had the loaves to be left in the oven? Martin saw that life was full of housewifely problems. A man’s body might be more importunate⁴⁹ than his soul.
 
When he had made a meal and washed his hollywood cup and platter, he found that dusk was falling over the Forest like a purple veil. The wayside cross spread its black arms against a saffron afterglow. The world was very peaceful and very still, and a heavy dew was falling.
 
Martin went and sat at the foot of the cross, leaning his broad back against the massive post. His face grew dim in the dusk, and a kind of a sadness descended⁵⁰ on him. There were times when a strange unrest stirred in him, when he yearned⁵¹ for something—he knew not what. The beauty of the earth, the wet scent⁵² of the woods, the singing of birds filled him with a vague emotion that was near to pain. It was like the spring stirring in his blood while a wind still blew keenly out of the north.
 
But Martin Valliant’s faith was very simple as yet, and crowned with a tender severity.
 
“The Devil goeth about cunningly to tempt⁵³ men.”
 
His thoughts wandered back to Paradise, and set him frowning. He was not so young as not to know that all was not well with the world down yonder.
 
“Our Lord was tempted⁵⁴ in the wilderness.”
 
He stared up at the stars, and then watched the yellow face of the moon rise over Heron Hill.
 
“It is good for a man to be alone, to keep watch and to know his own heart. God does nothing blindly. When we are alone we are both very weak and very strong. There are voices that speak in the wilderness.”
 
He felt comforted, and a great calm descended on him. Those taunting⁵⁵ lights had died out of the western sky; the beauty of the earth no longer looked slantwise at him like a young girl whose eyes are tender and whose breasts are the breasts of a woman.
 
The pallet bed in the cell had a mattress⁵⁶ of sacking filled with straw. It served Martin well enough. He slept soundly and without dreams.
 
But at Paradise Geraint had gone a-prowling through the orchards⁵⁷. He loitered outside Widow Greensleeve’s gate till some one came out with smothered⁵⁸ laughter and spoke⁵⁹ to him under the apple boughs⁶⁰.
 
“The pan is on the fire, dame⁶¹. Brother Martin has gone to the Black Moor.”
 
“And the fat is ready for frying, my master.”
 
“A few pinches of spice—eh!”
 
“And a pretty dish fit for a king.”