For life on the Black Moor3 was not all that it had seemed, and a young man, however devout4 and determined5 he may be, cannot satisfy his soul with prayers and the planting of seeds in a garden. Martin had entered upon the life with methodical enthusiasm, tolled6 the chapel bell at matins and vespers, swept out his cell, set the little guest-house in order, and done to death all the weeds in Father Jude’s garden. But a man must be fed, and it was in a struggle with this prime necessity that Martin suffered his first defeat. He started out cheerfully to bake bread, but the Devil was in the business; the oven was either too hot or too cold, and there were mysteries about such a simple thing as dough7 that Martin had not fathomed8. He tore a great hole in his cassock in climbing up the woodstack to throw down fagots, and then discovered that he had no needle and thread for the mending of the rent. These trivial domestic humiliations were discouraging. He conceived a most human hatred9 of salt meat, herrings, and the obstinate10 and adhesive11 pulp12 that he produced in the place of bread. Milk and eggs, fresh meat and honey! He was carnally minded with regard to such simple desires.
Moreover, he was most abominably13 lonely—the more so, perhaps, because he had not realized his own loneliness. Paradise appeared to have melted into the dim distance; there might have been a conspiracy14 against him; Martin had not seen a human face since Prior Globulus had sent a servant to fetch away the mule15, on the plea that the beast was needed. And Martin had taken the loss of the mule most unkindly. It was a confession16, but he had found the beast good company; it had been alive; it had needed food and drink; had given signs of friendship; had been a warm, live thing that he could touch. The birds were very well in their way; but he was not necessary to them, and they were wild. He saw deer moving in the distance, but they were no more than the figures of beasts worked in thread upon a tapestry17.
This morning restlessness of his was a kind of impulsive18 pilgrimage in quest of something that he lacked—a flight from that part of himself that remained unsatisfied. He went striding over the heather toward the beech19 woods in the valley. They were very green, and soft, and beautiful and had seemed mysteriously alive when seen from the brow of the Black Moor, but even in the woods some essential thing was lacking. The great trees stood spaced at a distance, their branches rising from the huge gray trunks. The greenness and the listening gloom went on and on, promising20 him something that was never seen, never discovered.
More than once he came on an open glade21 where rabbits were feeding, and the little brown fellows went off at a scamper22, showing the whites of their tails. Martin felt aggrieved23, even like a child who wanted playmates. He leaned against a beech tree and consoled himself with asking ridiculous questions.
“Why should the beasts fear man?”
And yet he would have welcomed fresh venison!
“If the Lord Christ were here in my place, would not all the wild things come to Him?”
His simple faith could provide him with only one answer, and that was not flattering to his self-knowledge. He had not climbed to that state of complete purity; he was no St. Francis. Perhaps Original Sin was at the bottom of everything. And yet he had always mastered his own body.
Martin Valliant passed some hours in the woods before turning back across the heather of the Black Moor. A hawk24, poised25 against the blue, took no more notice of him than if he had been a sheep, and for a while Martin stood watching the bird of prey26. The hawk went boldly on with his hunting; he would have had no pity for a poor fool of a priest who was spending his powers in trying to contradict Nature.
A puzzled look came into Martin Valliant’s eyes as he neared the chapelry. A little tuft of smoke was drifting from the chimney of his cell, and he knew that he had lit no sticks under the oven that morning.
“They have sent a servant from Paradise.”
He quickened his steps, but saw no live thing moving about the place. He looked into the stable, and found it empty; but the garden hedge offered him his first surprise. Certainly the thing that he saw was nothing but a shirt spread on the hedge to dry, and looking as white and clean as one of the big clouds overhead.
His own cell offered further mysteries. The oven door stood open, and a couple of nicely browned loaves were waiting to be taken out. A meat pasty that smelled very fragrant27 had been left on the oven shelf. His cassock, neatly28 mended, hung over the back of Father Jude’s oak chair.
Martin could make nothing of these mysteries. The loaves and the pasty were real enough—so real that he remembered the cup of water and the crust of bread with which he had broken his fast soon after dawn.
He went and looked into the chapel and the guest-room, but there was no one there, nor could he see anything moving over the moor. The business puzzled him completely. It was possible that a servant had been sent from Paradise; but Paradise was three leagues away, and Martin would have expected to find a horse or a mule in the stable. Moreover it occurred to him that some one must have looked into the oven not so very long ago, lifted out the pasty, and put it on the shelf. The good creature might be hiding somewhere, but what need was there for such a game of hide-and-seek?
Martin returned to the cell, set the pasty on the table, took the loaves out of the oven, and his platter and cup from the shelf. Common sense suggested that the food was meant to be eaten. He pulled the stool up to the table, said grace, took the knife from the sheath at his girdle, and thrust the point of it through the pie-crust.
Then he sat rigid29, listening, the blade of his knife still in the pie and his hand gripping the haft. Some one was singing on the moor among the yellow gorse and broom. The voice was a girl’s voice, gay and birdlike and challenging.
Martin sat there with a face like a ghost’s, his heart beating fast, his eyes staring through the open doorway30. For the voice seemed to speak to him of all that he had sought in the Forest and had not found. It was youth calling to youth in the spring of the year.
The voice grew fainter and fainter; it seemed to be dying away over the moor. Martin Valliant’s eyes dilated31, his knees shook together. He started up, knocking over the stool, and rushed out of the cell like a madman, his eyes full of a fanatical fire.
The voice had ceased singing. He climbed to the place where the wooden cross stood, and looked fiercely about him. But he saw nothing, nothing but the gorse and broom and heather. He went down among the green gorse banks, searched, and found nothing.
Then he crossed himself, fell on his knees, and prayed. The first thing he did on reaching his cell was to take the loaves and the cooked meat and throw them into the fire under the oven.
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1
thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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2
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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3
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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4
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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5
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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6
tolled
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| 鸣钟（toll的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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7
dough
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| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
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8
fathomed
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| 理解…的真意( fathom的过去式和过去分词 )； 彻底了解； 弄清真相 | |
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9
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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10
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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11
adhesive
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| n.粘合剂；adj.可粘着的，粘性的 | |
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12
pulp
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| n.果肉，纸浆；v.化成纸浆，除去...果肉，制成纸浆 | |
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13
abominably
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| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
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14
conspiracy
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| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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15
mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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16
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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17
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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18
impulsive
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| adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的 | |
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19
beech
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| n.山毛榉；adj.山毛榉的 | |
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20
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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21
glade
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| n.林间空地，一片表面有草的沼泽低地 | |
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22
scamper
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| v.奔跑，快跑 | |
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23
aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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24
hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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25
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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26
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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27
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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28
neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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29
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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30
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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31
dilated
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| adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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