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Updated: May 31, 2025
It rested everywhere, this peace of prayerful service, where the clang of the blacksmith's hammer smote the sound of the Office bell. Hilarius, at the gate, questioned the road again and again for sign of the belated train. It was vexatious; the Prior's lips would take a thinner line, for the mules were already some days overdue; and it was ill to keep the Prior waiting.
Martin, finding his bidding accomplished, turned to meet Hilarius and the Friar who were now coming slowly across the windswept common. March mists gathered and draped the sluggish river; the dry reeds rattled dismally in the ooze and sedge. Hilarius shivered, and the Friar started nervously when Martin spoke. "Friar," he said, "God comfort thee!
Hilarius looked from the dead flowers to the woman in her over- mastering beauty, and all at once the passion that lies hid in the heart of every man leapt to his lips. He desired this woman as he had never before desired aught in all the world, and he knew, to his shame, that she was his for the asking.
Then, in great impatience, she caught at the white lilies under which he lay; and, as she broke the flower-crowned stems, Hilarius stirred and cried out in his sleep, whereat she plucked the faster. Of a sudden Prior Stephen was as one set free. He strode to the woman's side: there was but one lily left.
"Methinks, Hilarius, it will be passing sweet to dwell in that Holy City." "Nay, lady," said her page tenderly, "surely thou hast had a vision even as Brother Ambrose, for thine eyes wait always, like unto his." Eleanor shook her head, and two tears crept slowly from the shadow of her eyes.
Later, the Precentor came to look at the delicate border Hilarius was setting to the page of the Nativity of Our Lady. "Now may God be good to us!" he cried with uplifted hands. "Since when did man paint the Blessed Mother with grey eyes and black hair curly too, i' faith?" Hilarius crimsoned, he was weary of limning ever with blue and gold, he faltered. It was the same in chapel.
"And then, and then?" tried Hilarius breathlessly, tears of pure pity in his eyes. "Then the Lord cared for me even as He cared for the Prophet Jonas, and sent a ship that His message might not be hindered. The shipmen were kindly folk, but we were driven out of our course by a great wind, and at last came ashore in Lincolnshire.
I saw the Plague once in Flanders, and fled against the wind, and so came out with a clean skin; now I am like to see it again; for it has landed in the south, and creeps this way. Mark my words, lad, thou wilt know Death ere the winter is out, and such as God keep thee from." Hilarius understood little of these words but the sound of them, and turned to speak of other things.
If S. Hilarius ever made sacramental communion we are not told, but we do know that he was for ever hiding himself from where were his fellow- men, in wilds and oases, and where there were no Christian churches. In the desert, times and seasons slipped away, and became confounded, so that by the first hermits neither Easter nor the Lord's Day were observed.
Hilarius assented gladly; and as they went, Martin told him of Court and King, and the wondrous doings when the Princess Isabel was wed.
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