The Secret Rose eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 79 pages of information about The Secret Rose.

The Secret Rose eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 79 pages of information about The Secret Rose.
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 footmarks 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.  It was my pity moved me”; but I was afraid and I ran away, and did not stop running until I came here.’  Then all the Brothers began talking together, one saying it was such and such a saint, and one that it was not he but another; and one that it was none of these, for they were still in their brotherhoods, but that it was such and such a one; and the talk was as near to quarreling as might be in that gentle community, for each would claim so great a saint for his native province.  At last the abbot said, ’He is none that you have named, for at Easter I had greeting from all, and each was in his brotherhood; but he is Aengus the Lover of God, and the first of those who have gone to live in the wild places and among the wild beasts.  Ten years ago he felt the burden
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The Secret Rose from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.