Chapter III

It was after midnight, and the night fell as calm as on the Sea of Galilee after Our Lord had rebuked the waves and bid the waters whist. Four Lane Ends was as quiet as a grave: the countless leaves of the wood rustled not; there was no cry of any night bird or any beast, nor any sound of flowing waters. A full moon was in the heavens and rained down silver on charmed silence.

But in Gilbert’s bedchamber was a thick darkness as of pitch, only pierced by a single moonbeam that smote like a bright sword across the room from the little window. Gilbert was awake and sat up in bed; beside him his wife slept, or seemed to sleep, with her head hidden under the coverlet. Gilbert could scarcely draw breath, a fearful pressure was upon his ribs, the air tasted like a thick and poisonous syrup; it was as though the walls and the roof were closing in upon him, as though he were entombed in the deepest abysm of earth with immeasurable silences and darknesses above and around him. Entombed, yea, but not alone, for potent and terrible moved a disturbing presence, a vast agony, a gigantic and all-pervading effort. It was as though some mighty spirit strove ceaselessly with terrible and ever increasing strength to burst the narrow confines of the chamber.

Gilbert tried with staring eyes to pierce the dark, but in vain; he crossed himself and said _Pater Noster_. Almost instantly out of the blackness came a little piping cry, as though of a new-born babe. He listened intently. ‘Nay,’ thought he, ‘I must be deceived; the Lord hath never blessed this house with bairns, and there are no children nearer than the Cross.’ But anon the cry came again, a little louder than before. ‘Holy Virgin,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘this is a spirit.’

He shook Meg by the shoulder until she could not be anything else but awake.

‘What ails thee, man?’ she asked in a low strained voice.

‘Hearest thou naught?’

‘Nay.’

‘Listen.’

Anon it came again, the wail of a babe.

‘Holy Saints defend us,’ cried Gilbert, ‘what makest thou of that?’

Meg seemed to swallow something in her throat, and then she spoke in a harsh and toneless voice. ‘’Twas the cry of an owl.’

‘Nay.’

‘’Twas the shriek of a bat.’

‘Nay, it was neither. It was a babe or a spirit; a damned goblin or a soul in torment. Christ, how this air suffocates me; I choke, I swoon.’

He tore open his vest about the throat, and began to pray aloud. He stopped suddenly.

‘For the love of Our Lady, pray,’ he cried to his wife. But she did not utter one word.

A shrill wail cut through the darkness, a wail of immeasurable anguish and pleading, the sorrow of eternal ages in the cry of a chrisom child.

‘The chest, the chest,’ he whispered hoarsely.

‘O Christ,’ his wife answered, ‘’tis not that.’

‘It is, it is,’ he screamed, leaping from the bed and feeling with his hands over the surface of the wall nigh where the key of the chest was usually hung.

‘’Tis not here,’ he cried. ‘Where is it?’

‘I know not; I have not seen it many days.’

‘A light, a light,’ he moaned.

He stumbled into the other room, and presently returned with a torch he had kindled at the still glimmering house-fire.

‘Help thou to search,’ he whispered.

His wife rose mechanically from the bed, and together they searched both chambers for the key.

‘Hast thou not seen it?’ asked Gilbert.

‘Nay.’

He flung open the house door and let the cool air of the night blow upon his brow and bosom. The moon was beginning to pale and the darkness trembled before the dawn. Ever and anon from the bedchamber came the long-drawn wails. At each cry Meg shuddered anew as though at a spasm of pain that tore her entrails. Her head was sunk on her bosom and her hair fell over her face.

‘Lord have mercy upon us,’ groaned Gilbert, burying his face in his hands, ‘Christ have mercy upon us.’

His wife gave a suppressed scream; she was as a woman in travail.

‘Christ deliver us from the Powers of Hell,’ said Gilbert suddenly, ‘but with the Lord’s help will I open the chest.’

‘Nay, nay,’ implored Meg, ‘’tis some Devil.’

‘We are in the Lord’s hands,’ said Gilbert. ‘Away, woman.’

He went to the ingle nook where his axe hung and took it down. Then he stepped into the bedchamber pushing aside his wife, who would have stayed him. She followed him whimpering, and ever and anon bursting into a great dry sob. The inky darkness had given place to the wan light of earliest morning. They regarded each other in the face; their countenances were ashen grey and had aged ten years in the single night. Wailing filled the chamber.

‘It must be done,’ quoth Gilbert. ‘It must be done. In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’

He swung the great axe twice or thrice in the air. His wife cowered down on the bed and hid her face in her lap. He swung the great axe again and brought it down with all his force on the lid of the chest just above the lock. It bit a deep dent in the iron. Again, and yet again, and at the third blow the tough iron was cut clean in twain and the lock fell to pieces. Gilbert dropped the axe and, flinging himself upon his knees, flung back the heavy lid. His wife started convulsively to her feet and peered over his shoulder.

Within the chest sat a little naked Babe, clad in light and crowned with living glory. With one tiny hand it waved away a huge toad which crept poisonously towards it, and with the other it covered its eyes. It wept piteously as though its heart would break; the radiance of its body filled the chamber.

Meg fell on her husband’s shoulder, uttering shriek after shriek. ‘I have sinned, I have sinned,’ she cried. ‘Have mercy, have mercy.’

Gilbert regarded her not. He clasped his hands in prayer before him, and his eyes were fixed in deepest devotion and pity on that fair naked Babe.

‘Listen, husband, listen,’ moaned Meg desperately, clinging to her husband’s neck. ‘I have done this: I put the Holy Wafer in the chest with the toad.’

As she finished speaking there came a blinding flash of light and the Holy Babe vanished. The room filled with a sweet odour and blissful music came up from the valleys. They fell upon their faces.