Chapter 13:  How Martin Gained His Desire.

While one of the two friends was thus hewing his way to knighthood by deeds of “dering do,” the other was no less steadily persevering in the path which led to the object of his desire.  The less ambitious object, as the world would say.

He was ever indefatigable in his work of love amidst the poor and sick, and gained the approbation of his superiors most thoroughly, although in the stern coldness which they thought an essential part of true discipline, they were scant of their encomiums.  Men ought to work, they said, simply from a sense of duty to God, and earthly praise was the “dead fly which makes the apothecary’s ointment to stink.”  So they allowed their younger brethren to toil on without any such mundane reward, only they cheered them by their brotherly love, shown in a hundred different ways.

One long-remembered day in the summer of the year 1259, Martin strolled down the river’s banks, to indulge in meditation and prayer.  But the banks were too crowded for him that day.  He marked the boats as they came up from Abingdon, drawn by horses, laden with commodities; or shot down the swift stream without such adventitious aid.  Pleasure wherries darted about impelled by the young scholars of Oxford, as in these modern days.  Fishermen plied their trade or sport.  The river was the great highway; no, there was no solitude there.

So into the forest which lay between Oxford and Abingdon, now only surviving in Bagley Wood, plunged our novice.  As the poet says: 

Into the forest, darker, deeper, grayer,
His lips moving as if in prayer,
Walked the monk Martin, all alone: 
Around him the tops of the forest trees
Waving, made the sign of the Cross
And muttered their benedicites.

The woods were God’s first temples; and even now where does one feel so alone with one’s Maker?  How sweet the solemn silence! where the freed spirit, freed from external influences, can hold communion with its heavenly Father.  So felt Martin.  The very birds seemed to him to be singing carols; and the insects to join, with their hum, the universal hymn of praise.

Oh how the serpent lurks in Eden—­beneath earthly beauty lies the mystery of pain and suffering.

A wail struck on Martin’s ears—­the voice of a little child, and soon he brushed aside the branches in the direction of the cry, until he struck upon a faintly trodden path, which led to the cottage of one of the foresters, or as we should say “keepers.”

At the gate of the little enclosure, which surrounded the patch of cultivated ground attached to the house, a young child stood weeping.  When she saw Martin her eyes lighted up with joy.

“Oh, God has sent thee, good brother.  Come and help my poor mother.  She is so ill,” and she tripped back towards the house; “and father can’t help her, nor brother either.  Father lies cold and still, and brother frightens me.”