Chapter V: Act THREE (3)

FATHER BENEDICT-- None.
The hand that executes His purposes
Is hidden like the purposes themselves.
He dwelleth in the storm and in the calm,
Yet both look round and say: "Where dwelleth He?"
The sun that shines on all, shines not on Him.
He goeth forth at night and doth His will,
Yet the moon sees Him not. I rode along
Thinking upon your providential
Escape from death that night and of the work
God hath reserved for me in the great chase,
For half the glory is mine. I prayed our Lord
That if it be His will I might catch some
Glimpse of the dogs far off. I could not see
My hand before my eyes in spirit, but
With eyelids down, rode on, probing the dark,
Sounding deep in my soul the ocean of God,
And finding there bottomless waters.
The night of ebony and the golden dawn,
The deed the past holds and the future's deed,
Rose half way up the sky and called across
Fathomless spaces: "Who are you?" And I
Thought answer: "Thou art Fall; and thou, with hair
Bright with the morning and with frightened eyes
Fleeing the noise of dogs behind thee, thou
Art Resurrection and the Peace of God."
Connection I could find none. Stark and lone
They stood upon the twilight fields of air,
Strangers, each looking in the face of each,
When through the gloaming came a glittering link
Star-like with the image of our Lord
Bleeding in silver on a silver cross,
A marriage ring that married them, and I
Deep in my soul knew the Eternal and
Saw Prophesy grappling the North and heard
Heathendom hiss and coil and loose her folds;
And then a voice filling the heavens: "Well done."
Speaking to me, for the glory is mine.
Your crucifix has not been found yet?

OSWALD-- No.

FATHER BENEDICT--And will not be.

OSWALD-- It must be in the brook.
I had it in my hand just as I fell.

FATHER BENEDICT--'Tis in the hand of God where it shall be
Until the morning breaks of that great day
When Heathendom shall tumble down to hell.
Then it shall dangle bloody from the sky
While all the mountains shake.

OSWALD-- What do you mean?

FATHER BENEDICT--The mountains trembled in the tempest.

OSWALD-- When?

FATHER BENEDICT--
During the great chase. (_A pause._) Is it possible
You start upon the chase with darkened eyes?

OSWALD--I do not understand you.

FATHER BENEDICT--(_Aside._) Can it be
They have not told him of the dream? Mum, then.

OSWALD--Brother Andrew told me.

FATHER BENEDICT-- And you understand
On whom this dark calamity shall fall?

OSWALD--It has already fallen.

FATHER BENEDICT-- Already fallen!
You think the stag is down, then, do you?

OSWALD-- Stag?

FATHER BENEDICT--You think the chase is run?
(_Oswald looks at him blankly._) You seem to think
The dream has been fulfilled.

OSWALD-- I do. How not?
This last calamity fulfilled the dream.

FATHER BENEDICT--Fulfilled? Nay, nay. The chase has not begun.
The bruised stag is resting in the grove.
The hounds of Hell have yet to strike the trail,
And when they do, my feet are on the hills,
And the loud talbot's baying shall be still.

OSWALD--You speak as one whose joy is in the chase.

FATHER BENEDICT-- (_Glaring at him._)
You mean by that that I--

OSWALD-- I mean, Father,
You speak as those that chase the deer with hounds--

FATHER BENEDICT--You mean to intimate that I lead the dogs?

OSWALD--As hunters do. (_The Priest searches the monk's_
_face._) You spoke of a stag and a trail.

FATHER BENEDICT--To show you that the dream is not fulfilled.

OSWALD--Have you not heard it, then? The train is lost.

FATHER BENEDICT--The--

OSWALD-- Thrown from the cliffs.

A MAN-- The witches did it.

ANOTHER--Blue devil-fire sputtered on the crags and sulphur--

ANOTHER--Two men were struck by the hags.

ANOTHER-- The wine, too, Father,
They've poured it all out on the mountain rocks.

ANOTHER--Old Hulga did it.

SEVERAL-- And the dwarf.

THE CROWD-- The dwarf, too.

OSWALD-- (_With a nod toward the church._)
One of the men who rode in town for help
Is with the clerk. (_The Priest starts toward the church._)

JARDIN--(_Stepping forward._) Can Jardin say a word?
One night at Acre when the camps were sick,
And smells of corpses tainted every breath,
Jardin was pacing watch. Through the darkness,
Pierced by the burial torches of the Turks,
A smoke-thin shadow passed across the plain
Between the armies, blotting one by one
The drifting death-fires of old Saladin.
Nearer it came, and Jardin heard a moan,
And walking toward it found a Turkish lad
Half eaten by hunger, in a fever trance
Low-moaning piteously: "Dates, mother, dates."
Did Jardin say, Because the Turk's a boy
I'll spare him? Did Jardin give him dates? No.
He'd made a vow never to spare no foe
Of Mary's Son, so, like a starving hound,
This Christian blade, drinking his little blood,
Licked up the crumbs that Famine's jaws had left.
Did Jardin right?

FATHER BENEDICT--Our Paternoster says:
"Thy kingdom come." How could the kingdom come
If heathens were allowed to--

JARDIN-- If the young Turk,
Instead of wobbling in a fever trance
As weak as smoke a breath could blow away,
Jardin had found astride a Christian corpse
Holding his red dirk up against the moon
For Allah's eyes and laughing at the blood,
Had Jardin spared him then--?

FATHER BENEDICT-- Then the red dirk
Had hovered over your gray hairs like a hawk
Until your day of death, and when your soul,
Fresh from the holy lustral dews, had sprung
Singing toward Mary's bosom in the sky,
That red-plumed vulture swooping through the dark
Had chased it down to Hell.

JARDIN-- Line up, men.

OSWALD-- Stay!
You know not what you do.

FATHER BENEDICT-- What does this mean?

JARDIN--It means that Jardin is a soldier still,
Still fighting as a servant of the Cross,
And never, while this arm can lift a sword,
Will this sword ever spare a scoffing imp
To invocate the devils of the air,
And pointing to the gouts of holy blood
Upon the mountain rocks, say: "Aha, see!
The Master's slave bleeds as the Master bled."

(_Pointing with his sword down the street._)

The son of Satan.

A MAN-- It's the dwarf, Father.

FATHER BENEDICT-- (_Solemnly._)
God lifts the curtain and the Play is on,
Whose last act shall unfold above the clouds
With Tempest and with Earthquake that shall shake
Hell to the very bottom. Seize him.

OSWALD--(_Excitedly._) No!
No, no! The boy has done no-- (_Coughing._)

JARDIN-- Come on, men!
Shall bloody daggers drip on our gray hairs,
And chase us through the deep? Shall they? Come on!

(_The line swings off._)

Never will Jardin patch a truce with Hell
Until her towers, stormed by angels' wings,
Shall bow like Acre to the Son of God.

OSWALD--Stop them, Father! Until I tell you!

FATHER BENEDICT--(_Overcome with rage._) This,
This is the worst I ever did hear. (_Looking about him while_
_Oswald coughs with great distress._) Men,--

(_Seeing that all the men have gone, he shouts
after them._)

Pile your wood here, men! We shall have sacrifice!

(_He goes toward the church._)

OSWALD-- (_Frantically._)
Father! Father! (_He falls upon his knees._)

FATHER BENEDICT--A burnt offering. (_Oswald rises quickly,
his face full of horror, and flees in the direction of the
Abbey, coughing violently._)

FATHER BENEDICT-- (_From the steps, calling after him bitterly._)
If Benedict, whose "joy is in the chase,"
Shall "chase the deer with hounds as hunters do,"
Perhaps this devil that goes up in smoke
Will drop somewhere upon the mountain paths
And pluck your haunches from the talbot's teeth.
Pray God he may, when Benedict turns hound.

(_He enters the church and closes the door._)

_SCENE FIVE--The same street, projected to the outskirts of
the village. On the right, is a wagon bridge built of logs.
Some slabs, left over from the building of the bridge
years ago, lie in a pile at the roadside. Farther back,
across the river the course of which is marked by a line of
sycamores, the mountain rises abrupt and green, with here
and there patches of bare rocks and trees thickening as it
extends back and up. Away to the center and left, a stretch
of bottom land with cultivated fields. One gets a nearer
view of the snow-capped peaks seen from the mountain side
in the first Scene and from the courtyard of the abbey in
the second. In the foreground at the roadside, is a large
olive tree with its dark shadow lying directly beneath it,
for over the landscape is a clear light as of a noonday sun
shining from a cloudless sky._

_Under the tree, with several willow baskets strung together_
_lying upon the ground beside him, sits the dwarf, Sigurd,_
_polishing Oswald's silver crucifix upon his knee. He holds
it out in a bit of sunshine that falls through the leaves
and, after flashing the light about, resumes rubbing it
upon his trousers._

JARDIN-- (_Left, shouting as to men far off._)
Close in, men! Close in!

(_The dwarf rises to his knees and looks in the
direction of the town. Then, hiding the
crucifix in his bosom, he comes out in the
road and looks in the opposite direction as
though trying to discover who it is they are
after. Stones strike in the road and go
clattering across the bridge. A moment later
Jardin and his men come rushing in._)

ONE OF THE MEN--(_With his hands to his mouth, shouting_
_across the river._) We've got him!

ANOTHER-- Fellows!

(_He makes for the pile of slabs. Several of the
men follow him._)

ANOTHER--We can get shavings up at Bacqueur's shop.

(_They load themselves with slabs. Jardin, who with
the dwarf is in the center of the crowd,
suddenly holds aloft the silver crucifix._)

JARDIN--You know who threw him down now, don't you, eh?

A CRY OF RAGE--Devil!

JARDIN--Don't knock him, men. This is God's work.

CRIES--Down with him! Burn him!

JARDIN-- Fetch your slabs, men.

CRIES-- Come on! (_They start toward the village._)

SHOUTS-- (_From over the river._)
Look out! Look out!

(_The men carrying slabs glance back, then throw
their loads down and go fleeing toward the
village._)

CRIES-- Men! Men!

(_The crowd flees, leaving Jardin holding the dwarf
by the collar standing in the road._)

A VOICE--(_From across the bridge._) Let go that boy.

JARDIN--This is a day of miracles. (_Canzler enters._)
Heathen,
Between us is a grave. (_He lays his hand upon his sword._)

CANZLER-- Let go that boy.

JARDIN-- (_Advancing to meet him._)
With Christ in one hand, and in the other this.

(_Canzler draws his sword, and a duel ensues. The
Bailiff, protected by his armor which Canzler
has twice struck and failed to pierce, lays
his blows on as though he would end it all at
once. Canzler deliberately draws back into
the shade of the tree. Lunging madly, Jardin_
_follows him. The villagers reappear with
stones in their hands, and try to get where
they will not hit Jardin when they throw._)

CRIES--Run him through, Bailiff! Run him through!

JARDIN--(_With a lunge._) There!

A CRY-- Ha!

(_Canzler has parried the thrust, and his sword has
passed through the chain hauberk deep into
the Bailiff's breast. The latter staggers
back, his astonishment that steel armor
should be pierced by mortal sword giving way_
_to a look of chagrin, and after endeavoring to
steady himself with the blade of his sword,
falls flat, his armor clanking on the road.
The villagers drop their stones and flee
terror-stricken. Canzler stands for a moment,_
_wipes the perspiration from his brow, then
reaches down and takes up the Bailiff's sword
by the point._)

CANZLER--

(_Swinging it around his head and hurling it toward
the village._)

You men in steel!

(_He goes back under the tree and gets the baskets
and comes out into the road. The dwarf stoops
to pick up the crucifix that lies in the dirt
about a yard from the Bailiff's hand._)

Canzler-- Nay, let it lie, my boy.

(_He takes the boy by the hand and they return
across the bridge. The Bailiff stirs, lifts
himself to his elbow, and stretches his hand
toward the crucifix. He cannot reach it and
falls back and lies still._)