No More Learning

'

'Because it is red, like fire, and fire burns up everything, and where
there is nothing, there is God. '

The child sank into silence, but presently sat up and said, 'There is
somebody outside. '

'No,' replied the Brother. 'It is only the wolves; I have heard them
moving about in the snow for some time. They are growing very wild, now
that the winter drives them from the mountains. They broke into a fold
last night and carried off many sheep, and if we are not careful they
will devour everything. '

'No, it is the footstep of a man, for it is heavy; but I can hear the
footsteps of the wolves also. '

He had no sooner done speaking than somebody rapped three times, but
with no great loudness.

'I will go and open, for he must be very cold. '

'Do not open, for it may be a man-wolf, and he may devour us all. '

But the boy had already drawn back the heavy wooden bolt, and all the
faces, most of them a little pale, turned towards the slowly-opening
door.

'He has beads and a cross, he cannot be a man-wolf,' said the child,
as a man with the snow heavy on his long, ragged beard, and on the
matted hair, that fell over his shoulders and nearly to his waist, and
dropping from the tattered cloak that but half-covered his withered
brown body, came in and looked from face to face with mild, ecstatic
eyes. Standing some way from the fire, and with eyes that had rested at
last upon the Abbot Malathgeneus, he cried out, 'O blessed abbot, let
me come to the fire and warm myself and dry the snow from my beard and
my hair and my cloak; that I may not die of the cold of the mountains
and anger the Lord with a wilful martyrdom. '

'Come to the fire,' said the abbot, 'and warm yourself, and eat the
food the boy Olioll will bring you. It is sad indeed that any for whom
Christ has died should be as poor as you.
'

The man sat over the fire, and Olioll took away his now dripping cloak
and laid meat and bread and wine before him; but he would eat only of
the bread, and he put away the wine, asking for water. When his beard
and hair had begun to dry a little and his limbs had ceased to shiver
with the cold, he spoke again.

'O blessed abbot, have pity on the poor, have pity on a beggar who has
trodden the bare world this many a year, and give me some labour to do,
the hardest there is, for I am the poorest of God's poor. '

Then the Brothers discussed together what work they could put him to,
and at first to little purpose, for there was no labour that had not
found its labourer in that busy community; but at last one remembered
that Brother Bald Fox, whose business it was to turn the great quern in
the quern-house, for he was too stupid for anything else, was getting
old for so heavy a labour; and so the beggar was put to the quern from
the morrow.

The cold passed away, and the spring grew to summer, and the quern
was never idle, nor was it turned with grudging labour, for when any
passed the beggar was heard singing as he drove the handle round. The
last gloom, too, had passed from that happy community, for Olioll, who
had always been stupid and unteachable, grew clever, and this was the
more miraculous because it had come of a sudden. One day he had been
even duller than usual, and was beaten and told to know his lesson
better on the morrow or be sent into a lower class among little boys
who would make a joke of him. He had gone out in tears, and when he
came the next day, although his stupidity, born of a mind that would
listen to every wandering sound and brood upon every wandering light,
had so long been the byword of the school, he knew his lesson so well
that he passed to the head of the class, and from that day was the best
of scholars. At first Brother Dove thought this was an answer to his
own prayers to the Virgin, and took it for a great proof of the love
she bore him; but when many far more fervid prayers had failed to add a
single wheatsheaf to the harvest, he began to think that the child was
trafficking with bards, or druids, or witches, and resolved to follow
and watch. He had told his thought to the abbot, who bid him come to
him the moment he hit the truth; and the next day, which was a Sunday,
he stood in the path when the abbot and the Brothers were coming from
vespers, with their white habits upon them, and took the abbot by the
habit and said, 'The beggar is of the greatest of saints and of the
workers of miracle. I followed Olioll but now, and by his slow steps
and his bent head I saw that the weariness of his stupidity was over
him, and when he came to the little wood by the quern-house I knew by
the path broken in the under-wood and by the foot-marks in the muddy
places that he had gone that way many times. I hid behind a bush where
the path doubled upon itself at a sloping place, and understood by the
tears in his eyes that his stupidity was too old and his wisdom too new
to save him from terror of the rod. When he was in the quern-house I
went to the window and looked in, and the birds came down and perched
upon my head and my shoulders, for they are not timid in that holy
place; and a wolf passed by, his right side shaking my habit, his left
the leaves of a bush. Olioll opened his book and turned to the page
I had told him to learn, and began to cry, and the beggar sat beside
him and comforted him until he fell asleep. When his sleep was of the
deepest the beggar knelt down and prayed aloud, and said, "O Thou Who
dwellest beyond the stars, show forth Thy power as at the beginning,
and let knowledge sent from Thee awaken in his mind, wherein is nothing
from the world, that the nine orders of angels may glorify Thy name";
and then a light broke out of the air and wrapped Aodh, and I smelt the
breath of roses. I stirred a little in my wonder, and the beggar turned
and saw me, and, bending low, said, "O Brother Dove, if I have done
wrong, forgive me, and I will do penance.