The Miracle at St. Bruno's

The monks told my father that they were Brother Clement and Brother Eugene and they had worked respectively in the Abbey's bake and brew houses. Now they were bewildered and did not know where to go. There was an unworldliness about the pair which moved me deeply; to turn them into the world would be like sending two lambs among wolves.

My father immediately offered them work in our kitchens and brewhouse. When they wore fustian doublets and trunk hose they would look exactly like other servants, he said, and it would be wise not to mention whence they had come.

Simon Caseman was alarmed. He assured my father that taking in dispossessed monks might be construed as an act of treachery to the King. My father was aware of this but he demanded to know how he could turn such men away. I believe that he would have taken in all the monks as he had tried to take in John and James, if they had not all scattered before he was able to do so.

It was later the same day that Bruno appeared. I was walking with nay father in the garden and we were talking of the terrible debacle and what it would mean to those men who had passed the greater part of their lives in the Abbey suddenly to be thrust out into the world.

"There may well be more of them to join Clement and Eugene," he was saying when we saw Bruno.

"Bruno!" I cried. "Oh, I am so relieved to see you. I have been thinking of you all the time.”

My father looked surprised and with a little shock I realized that he did not know Bruno.

I said: "Father, this is he who was found in the Christmas crib.”

"My poor boy," cried my father. "And where will you go now?”

Bruno replied: "I must find a roof to shelter me until a time when I no longer need it.”

I thought it a strange reply but nothing Bruno did had ever been ordinary.

My father said: "You have your roof. You will stay here.”

"Thank you," replied Bruno. "I shall make sure that you do not regret this day.”

I was happier than I had been for a long time as we took Bruno into the house. He was given a room. We could not expect him to sleep in the servants' quarters, I told my father, and when we were alone I explained my acquaintance with Bruno and told him about the ivy-covered door.

"You did wrong," said my father, "but perhaps there was a purpose in it. Damask, that boy still believes that there is a divinity within him.”

He was right. No one could treat Bruno as a servant. My father told the household that he came to us from people who were his friends. He was to share lessons with us.

He accepted this; he had lost none of that arrogance which overawed both Kate and me and exasperated her so much.

He insisted that Keziah had lied under torture and so had Ambrose. Everything that had happened, he said he had foreseen. It was all part of a divine plan and we should see it unfold in time; and although when I was alone I believed that he reasoned thus because he could not endure to do otherwise, when I was with him I half-believed him.

The King's men left and because they had taken the lead from the church roof owls and bats began to nest there. The rotting corpses were removed from the gibbets by my father's orders and given decent burial. We trembled for several weeks after that for fear it should be construed as an act of treason while we waited for someone to come and claim the Abbey and its lands. But no one came.

The Abbey remained, like the skeleton of some great monster, to remind us of a way of life that had now passed and gone forever.

LORD REMUS

THERE WAS change everywhere. It was unsafe to go out after dark because the lanes and woods abounded with robbers who would not hesitate to maim or even kill for the sake of a little money. Beggars and vagabonds had in the past been sure of a meal and often shelter under the monastic roofs; these benefits no longer existed. Added to the beggars were those monks who had been deprived of the only life they understood.

They must either beg or starve. It was true that some could work but few wished to take monks into their household as my father had done, for Simon Caseman was right when he said this could be construed as an act of treason.

Brother Clement settled in easily and one would not have guessed that he had lived the greater part of his life in the Abbey. Sometimes he would burst into song in a rich baritone voice as he worked; and we had never tasted such cob loaves or manchets as came from his oven. Brother Eugene was equally content in the brewhouse; he made sloe gin and dandelion and elder flower wine; and was constantly experimenting with berries to improve his brew. When they discovered that Bruno was in the house they could not hide their delight; and I knew his identity could not be kept a secret.