The Miracle at St. Bruno's

They have tended the sick. They have employed people, brought them up in the ways of God. But now that the King has become Supreme Head of the Church and a man can lose his head for denying this is so, Cromwell seeks to enrich the King by suppressing the monasteries and transferring their wealth from church to state. And since the miracle St. Bruno's has become one of the richest in the land. I tremble. Brother John tells me the Abbot has had to take to his bed. He is a very sick man and a fearful one, and Brother John fears he could not survive the loss of St. Bruno's and I verily believe he could not.”

"Oh, Father, let us hope the King's men do not come to our Abbey.”

"We will pray for it, but it will be a miracle if they do not.”

"There was a miracle once before," I said.

My father bowed his head.

I tried to comfort him and I believe I did to some extent. But what uneasy days they were!

My mother had sent me out to take a basket of fish and bread to old Mother Garnet who was bedridden. She lived in a tiny cottage with but one room and relied on our house for sustenance. She had lost her husband and six children through plague and sweat but nothing, it seemed, could remove Mother Garnet. Everyone had forgotten how old she was and so had she, but it was a ripe age. My mother used to send one of the maids down with clean rushes for her floor every now and again and herbs and unguents would be taken too. One of my tasks was to make sure that there was always something in her larder and on this occasion Keziah came with me to carry a basket.

Keziah was full of the tales she had heard about the goings-on of monks and nuns.

In fact it was the main topic with everyone. Each day there seemed to be a new and more shocking tale.

We had been to the cottage, heard Mother Garnet tell us the story she told us every time of how she had buried all her children, and were on our way back when in the lane we heard the sound of horses' hooves approaching and there came into sight a party of about four men led by a man on a big black horse.

He hailed us.

"Hey!" he cried. "Pray direct us to St. Bruno's Abbey.”

His manner was arrogant, insolent almost, but Keziah did not seem to notice.

"Why, Master," she cried, bobbing a curtsy, "you're but a stone's throw from it.”

I noticed his eyes on Keziah; his tight mouth slackened a little and his little black eyes seemed to disappear into his head as his lids came down over them.

He walked his horse forward. Briefly his eyes swept over me; then he was looking at Keziah again.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm from the big house and this is my little mistress.”

The man nodded again; he leaned forward in his saddle and taking Keziah's ear in his finger pulled her toward him by it. She shrieked in pain and the men in the party laughed.

"What's your name?" he said.

"I'm Keziah, sir, and the young lady is...”

"I'll make a bet that you're a fine wench, Keziah," he said. "Sometime we'll put it to the test." Then he released her and went on: "A stone's throw, eh? And this is the road.”

As they rode off I looked at Keziah, whose ear was scarlet where he had nipped it.

"He was all of a man, did you think, Mistress?" said Keziah with a giggle.

"All of a beast," I replied vehemently.

I was shivering from the encounter for there was something bestial about the man which had horrified me. It had appeared to have the opposite effect on Keziah. He had excited her; I could hear that familiar trill in her voice.

"He hurt you," I cried indignantly.

"Oh, it was a friendly kind of hurt," said Keziah happily.

Later I discovered that the man was a Rolf Weaver, the leader of a band of men who had come to assess the treasures of the Abbey.

My father was deeply distressed. "Cromwell's men are at the Abbey," he said. "This will kill the Abbot.”

What it did mean was that this was the beginning of the end of St. Bruno's as we had known it. Its sanctity was immediately destroyed. Weaver's men made the cloisters noisy; they raided the Abbey cellars and were often drunk; they took girls in and forced them to lie with them on the monks' pallets and took a profane delight in defiling the cells. The girls' stories were that they went because they daren't disobey Cromwell's men; and I knew it not be long before Keziah was there; and when I pictured her with Rolf Weaver I felt sick.

Brother John came alone to see my father; he told him that the Abbot had been so grievously stricken that he had had a seizure and was unable to move from his bed.

"I fear his end is near," said my father. "This will kill him.”

When the following day neither Brother John nor Brother Tames came to the house my father went to the Abbey in an attempt to see them. His way was barred and one of Rolf Weaver's men demanded to know his business and when my father told him that he had come to see two lay brothers he was told that no one was allowed into the Abbey and no one out.

"How is the Abbot?" asked my father. "I heard he was very ill.”