The Altar Steps by Compton MacKenzie

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I've once more got a long way from the subject of my letter, but
I've always taken advantage of your patience to air my theories,
and when I begin to write to you my pen runs away with me. The
point I want to make is that unless there is a mother house which
is going to create a reserve of spiritual energy, the active work
of the Order is going to suffer. The impulse to save souls might
easily exhaust itself in the individual. A few disappointments,
unceasing hard work, the interference of a bishop, the failure of
financial support, a long period in which his work seems to have
come to a standstill, all these are going to react on the
individual missioner who depends on himself. Looking back now at
the work done by my father, and by Rowley at Chatsea, I'm beginning
to understand how dangerous it is for one man to make himself the
pivot of an enterprise. I only really know about my father's work
at second hand, but look at Chatsea. I hear now that already the
work is falling to pieces. Although that may not justify the Bishop
of Silchester, I'm beginning to see that he might argue that if
Rowley had shown himself sufficiently humble to obey the forces of
law and order in the Church, he would have had accumulated for him
a fresh store of energy from which he might have drawn to
consolidate his influence upon the people with whom he worked.
Anyway, that's what I'm going to try to acquire from the
pseudo-monasticism of Malford. I'm determined to dry up the
critical and humorous side of myself. Half of it is nothing more
than arrogance. I'm grateful for being sent to Aldershot, but I'm
going to make my work here depend on the central source of energy
and power. I'm going to say that my work is per hominem, but that
the success of my work is ex Deo. You may tell me that any man with
the least conception of Christian Grace would know that. Yes, he
may know it intellectually, but does he know it emotionally? I
confess I don't yet awhile. But I do know that if the Order of St.
George proves itself a real force, it will not be per hominem, it
will not be by the Reverend Father's eloquence in the pulpit, but
by the vocation of the community ex Deo.

Meanwhile, here I am at Aldershot. Brother Chad, whose place I have
taken, was a character of infinite sweetness and humility. All our
Tommies speak of him in a sort of protective way, as if he were a
little boy they had adopted. He had--has, for after all he's only
gone to the Abbey to get over a bad attack of influenza on top of
months of hard work--he has a strangely youthful look, although
he's nearly thirty. He hails from Lichfield. I wonder what Dr.
Johnson would have made of him. I've already told you about Brother
Anselm. Well, now that I've seen him at home, as it were, I can't
discover the secret of his influence with our men. He's every bit
as taciturn with them as he was with me on that drive from the
station, and yet there is not one of them that doesn't seem to
regard him as an intimate friend. He's extraordinarily good at the
practical side of the business. He makes the men comfortable. He
always knows just what they're wanting for tea or for supper, and
the games always go well when Brother Anselm presides, much better
than they do when I'm in charge! I think perhaps that's because I
play myself, and want to win. It infects the others. And yet we
ought to want to win a game--otherwise it's not worth playing.
Also, I must admit that there's usually a row in the billiard room
on my nights on duty. Brother Anselm makes them talk better than I
do, and I don't think he's a bit interested in their South African
experiences. I am, and they won't say a word about them to me. I've
been here a month now, so they ought to be used to me by this time.

We've just heard that the guest-house for soldiers at the Abbey
will be finished by the middle of next month, so we're already
discussing our Christmas party. The Priory, which sounds so grand
and gothic, is really the corner house of a most depressing row of
suburban villas, called Glenview and that sort of thing. The last
tenant was a traveller in tea and had a stable instead of the usual
back-garden. This we have converted into a billiard room. An
officer in one of the regiments quartered here told us that it was
the only thing in Aldershot we had converted. The authorities
aren't very fond of us. They say we encourage the men to grumble
and give them too great idea of their own importance. Brother
Anselm asked a general once with whom we fell out if it was
possible to give a man whose profession it was to defend his
country too great an idea of his own importance. The general merely
blew out his cheeks and looked choleric. He had no suspicion that
he had been scored off. We don't push too much religion into the
men at present. We've taught them to respect the Crucifix on the
wall in the dining-room, and sometimes they attend Vespers. But
they're still rather afraid of chaff, such as being called the
Salvation Army by their comrades. Well, here's an end to this long
letter, for I must write now to Brother Jerome, whose name-day it
is to-morrow. Love to all at the Rectory.

Your ever affectionate

Mark.

Mark remained at Aldershot until the week before Christmas, when with a
party of Tommies he went back to the Abbey. He found that Brother Chad's
convalescence had been seriously impeded in its later stages by the
prospect of having to remain at the Abbey as guest-master, and though
Mark was sorry to leave Aldershot he saw by the way the Tommies greeted
their old friend that he was dear to their hearts. When after Christmas
Brother Chad took the party back, Mark made up his mind that the right
person was going.

Mark found many changes at the Abbey during the four months he had been
away. The greatest of all was the presence of Brother George as Prior.
The legend of him had led Mark to expect someone out of the ordinary;
but he had not been prepared for a personality as strong as this.
Brother George was six feet three inches tall, with a presence of great
dignity and much personal beauty. He had an aquiline nose, strong chin,
dark curly hair and bright imperious eyes. His complexion, burnt by the
Mediterranean sun, made him seem in his white habit darker than he
really was. His manner was of one accustomed to be immediately obeyed.
Mark could scarcely believe when he saw Brother Dunstan beside Brother
George that only last June Brother Dunstan was acting as Prior. As for
Brother Raymond, who had always been so voluble at recreation, one look
from Brother George sent him into a silence that was as solemn as the
disciplinary silence imposed by the rule. Brother Birinus, who was
Brother George's right hand in the Abbey as much as he had been his
right hand on the Moose Rib farm, was even taller than the Prior; but he
was lanky and raw-boned, and had not the proportions of Brother George.
He was of a swarthy complexion, not given to talking much, although when
he did speak he always spoke to the point. He and Brother George were
hard at work ploughing up some derelict fields which they had persuaded
Sir Charles Horner to let to the Abbey rent free on condition that they
were put back into cultivation. The patron himself had gone away for the
winter to Rome and Florence, and Mark was glad that he had, for he was
sure that otherwise his inquisitiveness would have been severely
snubbed by the Prior. Father Burrowes went away as usual to preach after
Christmas; but before he went Mark was clothed as a novice together with
two other postulants who had been at Malford since September. Of these
Brother Giles was a former school-master, a dried-up, tobacco-coloured
little man of about fifty, with a quick and nervous, but always precise
manner. Mark liked him, and his manual labour was done under the
direction of Brother Giles, who had been made gardener, a post for which
he was well suited. The other new novice was Brother Nicholas whom, had
Mark not been the fellow-member of a community, he would have disliked
immensely. Brother Nicholas was one of those people who are in a
perpetual state of prurient concern about the sexual morality of the
human race. He was impervious to snubs, of which he received many from
Brother George, and he had somehow managed to become a favourite of the
Reverend Father, so that he had been appointed guest-master, a post that
was always coveted, and one for which nobody felt Brother Nicholas was
suited.

Besides the increase of numbers there had been considerable additions
made to the fabric of the Abbey, if such a word as fabric may be applied
to matchboard, felt, and corrugated iron. Mention has already been made
of the new Guest-house, which accommodated not only soldiers invited to
spend their furloughs at the Abbey, but also tramps who sought a night's
lodging. Mark, as Porter, found his time considerably taken up with
these casuals, because as soon as the news spread of a comfortable
lodging they came begging for shelter in greater numbers than had been
anticipated. A rule was made that they should pay for their
entertainment by doing a day's work, and it was one of Mark's duties to
report on the qualifications of these casuals to Brother George, whose
whole life was occupied with the farm that he was creating out of those
derelict fields.

"There's a black man just arrived, Reverend Brother. He says he lost his
ship at Southampton through a boiler explosion, and is tramping to
Cardiff," Mark would report.

"Can he plough a straight furrow?" the Prior would demand.

"I doubt it," Mark would answer with a smile. "He can't walk straight
across the dormitory."

"What's he been drinking?"

"Rum, I fancy."

"Why did you let him in?"

"It's such a stormy night."

"Well, send him along to me to-morrow after Lauds, and I'll put him to
cleaning out the pigsties."

Mark only had to deal with these casuals. Regular guests like the
soldiers, who were always welcome, and ecclesiastically minded inquirers
were looked after by Brother Nicholas. One of the things for which Mark
detested Brother Nicholas was the habit he had of showing off his poor
casuals to the paying guests. It took Mark a stern reading of St.
Benedict's Rule and the observations therein upon humility and obedience
not to be rude to Brother Nicholas sometimes.

"Brother," he asked one day. "Have you ever read what our Holy Father
says about gyrovagues and sarabaites?"

Brother Nicholas, who always thought that any long word with which he
was unfamiliar referred to sexual perversion, asked what such people
were.

"You evidently haven't," said Mark. "Our Holy Father disapproves of
them."

"Oh, so should I, Brother Mark," said Brother Nicholas quickly. "I hate
anything like that."

"It struck me," Mark went on, "that most of our paying guests are
gyrovagues and sarabaites."

"What an accusation to make," said Brother Nicholas, flushing with
expectant curiosity and looking down his long nose to give the
impression that it was the blush of innocence and modesty.

When, an hour or so later, he had had leisure to discover the meaning of
both terms, he came up to Mark and exclaimed:

"Oh, brother, how could you?"

"How could I what?" Mark asked.

"How could you let me think that it meant something much worse? Why,
it's nothing really. Just wandering monks."

"They annoyed our Holy Father," said Mark.

"Yes, they did seem to make him a bit ratty. Perhaps the translation
softened it down," surmised Brother Nicholas. "I'll get a dictionary
to-morrow."

The bell for solemn silence clanged, and Brother Nicholas must have
spent his quarter of an hour in most unprofitable meditation.

Another addition to the buildings was a wide, covered verandah, which
had been built on in front of the central block, and which therefore
extended the length of the Refectory, the Library, the Chapter Room, and
the Abbot's Parlour. The last was now the Prior's Parlour, because
lodgings for Father Burrowes were being built in the Gatehouse, the only
building of stone that was being erected.

This Gatehouse was to be finished as an Easter offering to the Father
Superior from devout ladies, who had been dismayed at the imagination of
his discomfort. The verandah was granted the title of the Cloister, and
the hours of recreation were now spent here instead of in the Library as
formerly, which enabled studious brethren to read in peace.

The Prior made a rule that every Sunday afternoon all the brethren
should assemble in the Cloister at tea, and spend the hour until Vespers
in jovial intercourse. He did not actually specify that the intercourse
was to be jovial, but he look care by judicious teazing to see that it
was jovial. In his anxiety to bring his farm into cultivation, Brother
George was apt to make any monastic duty give way to manual labour on
those thistle-grown fields, and it was seldom that there were more than
a couple of brethren to say the Office between Lauds and Vespers. The
others had to be content with crossing themselves when they heard the
bell for Terce or None, and even Sext was sparingly attended after the
Prior instituted the eating of the mid-day meal in the fields on fine
days. Hence the conversation in the Cloister on Sunday afternoons was
chiefly agricultural.

"Are you going to help me drill the ten-acre field tomorrow, Brother
Giles?" the Prior asked one grey Sunday afternoon in the middle of
March.

"No, I'm certainly not, Reverend Brother, unless you put me under
obedience to do so."

"Then I think I shall," the Prior laughed.

"If you do, Reverend Brother," the gardener retorted, "you'll have to
put my peas under obedience to sow themselves."

"Peas!" the Prior scoffed. "Who cares about peas?"

"Oh, Reverend Brother!" cried Brother Simon, his hair standing up with
excitement. "We couldn't do without peas."

Brother Simon was assistant cook nowadays, a post he filled tolerably
well under the supervision of the one-legged soldier who was cook.

"We couldn't do without oats," said Brother Birinus severely.

He spoke so seldom at these gatherings that when he did few were found
to disagree with him, because they felt his words must have been deeply
pondered before they were allowed utterance.

"Have you any flowers in the garden for St. Joseph?" asked Brother
Raymond, who was sacristan.

"A few daffodils, that's all," Brother Giles replied.

"Oh, I don't think that St. Joseph would like daffodils," exclaimed
Brother Raymond. "He's so fond of white flowers, isn't he?"

"Good gracious!" the Prior thundered. "Are we a girls' school or a
company of able-bodied men?"

"Well, St. Joseph is always painted with lilies, Reverend Brother," said
the sacristan, rather sulkily.

He disapproved of the way the Prior treated what he called his pet
saints.

"We're not an agricultural college either," he added in an undertone to
Brother Dunstan, who shook his finger and whispered "hush."

"I doubt if we ought to keep St. Joseph's Day," said the Prior
truculently. There was nothing he enjoyed better on these Sunday
afternoons than showing his contempt for ecclesiasticism.

"Reverend Brother!" gasped Brother Dunstan. "Not keep St. Joseph's Day?"

"He's not in our calendar," Brother George argued. "If we're going to
keep St. Joseph, why not keep St. Alo--what's his name and Philip Neri
and Anthony of Padua and Bernardine of Sienna and half-a-dozen other
Italian saints?"

"Why not?" asked Brother Raymond. "At any rate we have to keep my
patron, who was a dear, even if he was a Spaniard."

The Prior looked as if he were wondering if there was a clause in the
Rule that forbade a prior to throw anything within reach at an imbecile
sacristan.

"I don't think you can put St. Joseph in the same class as the saints
you have just mentioned," pompously interposed Brother Jerome, who was
cellarer nowadays and fancied that the continued existence of the Abbey
depended on himself.

"Until you can learn to harness a pair of horses to the plough," said
the Prior, "your opinions on the relative importance of Roman saints
will not be accepted."

"I've never been used to horses," said Brother Jerome.

"And you have been used to saints?" the Prior laughed, raising his
eyebrows.

Brother Jerome was silent.

"Well, Brother Lawrence, what do you say?"

Brother Lawrence stuck out his lower jaw and assumed the expression of
the good boy in a Sunday School class.

"St. Joseph was the foster-father of Our Blessed Lord, Reverend
Brother," he said primly. "I think it would be most disrespectful both
to Our Blessed Lord and to Our Blessed Lady if we didn't keep his
feast-day, though I am sure St. Joseph would have no objection to
daffodils. No objections at all. His whole life and character show him
to have been a man of the greatest humility and forbearance."

The Prior rocked with laughter. This was the kind of speech that
sometimes rewarded his teasing.

"We always kept St. Joseph's day at the Visitation, Hornsey," Brother
Nicholas volunteered. "In fact we always made it a great feature. We
found it came as such a relief in Lent."

The Prior nodded his head mockingly.

"These young folk can teach us a lot about the way to worship God,
Brother Birinus," he commented.

Brother Birinus scowled.

"I broke three shares ploughing that bad bit of ground by the fir
trees," he announced gloomily. "I think I'll drill in the oats to-morrow
in the ten-acre. It's no good ploughing deep," he added reproachfully.

"Well, I believe in deep ploughing," the Prior argued.

Mark realized that Brother Birinus had deliberately brought back the
conversation to where it started in order to put an end to the
discussion about St. Joseph. He was glad, because he himself was the
only one of the brethren who had not yet been called upon to face the
Prior's contemptuous teasing. He wondered if he should have had the
courage to speak up for St. Joseph's Day. He should have found it
difficult to oppose Brother George, whom he liked and revered. But in
this case he was wrong, and perhaps he was also wrong to make the
observation of St. Joseph's Day a cudgel with which to belabour the
brethren.

The following afternoon Mark had two casuals who he fancied might be
useful to the Prior, and leaving the ward of the gate to Brother
Nicholas he took them down with him through the coppice to where over
the bleak March furrows Brother George was ploughing that rocky strip of
bad land by the fir trees. The men were told to go and report themselves
to Brother Birinus, who with Brother Dunstan to feed the drill was
sowing oats a field or two away.

"I don't think Brother Birinus will be sorry to let Brother Dunstan go
back to his domestic duties," the Prior commented sardonically.

Mark was turning to go back to _his_ domestic duties when Brother George
signed to him to stop.

"I suppose that like the rest of them you think I've no business to be a
monk?" Brother George began.

Mark looked at him in surprise.

"I don't believe that anybody thinks that," he said; but even as he
spoke he looked at the Prior and wondered why he had become a monk. He
did not appear, standing there in breeches and gaiters, his shirt open
at the neck, his hair tossing in the wind, his face and form of the soil
like a figure in one of Fred Walker's pictures, no, he certainly did not
appear the kind of man who could be led away by Father Burrowes'
eloquence and persuasiveness into choosing the method of life he had
chosen. Yes, now that the question had been put to him Mark wondered why
Brother George was a monk.

"You too are astonished at me," said the Prior. "Well, in a way I don't
blame you. You've only seen me on the land. This comes of letting myself
be tempted by Horner's offer to give us this land rent free if I would
take it in hand. And after all," he went on talking to the wide grey sky
rather than to Mark, "the old monks were great tillers of the soil. It's
right that we should maintain the tradition. Besides, all those years in
Malta I've dreamed just this. Brother Birinus and I have stewed on those
sun-baked heights above Valetta and dreamed of this. What made you join
our Order?" he asked abruptly.

Mark told him about himself.

"I see, you want to keep your hand in, eh? Well, I suppose you might
have done worse for a couple of years. Now, I've never wanted to be a
priest. The Reverend Father would like me to be ordained, but I don't
think I should make a good priest. I believe if I were to become a
priest, I should lose my faith. That sounds a queer thing to say, and
I'd rather you didn't repeat it to any of those young men up there."

The monastery bell sounded on the wind.

"Three o'clock already," exclaimed the Prior. And crossing himself he
said the short prayer offered to God instead of the formal attendance at
the Office.

"Well, I mustn't let the horses get chilled. You'd better get back to
your casuals. By the way, I'm going to have Brother Nicholas to work out
here awhile, and I want you to act as guest-master. Brother Raymond
will be porter, and I'm going to send Brother Birinus off the farm to be
sacristan. I shall miss him out here, of course."

The Prior put his hand once more to the plough, and Mark went slowly
back to the Abbey. On the brow of the hill before he plunged into the
coppice he turned to look down at the distant figure moving with slow
paces across the field below.

"He's wrestling with himself," Mark thought, "more than he's wrestling
with the soil."

CHAPTER XXVII

MULTIPLICATION

At Easter the Abbey Gatehouse was blessed by the Father Superior, who
established himself in the rooms above and allowed himself to take a
holiday from his labour of preaching. Mark expected to be made porter
again, but the Reverend Father did not attempt to change the posts
assigned to the brethren by the Prior, and Mark remained guest-master, a
duty that was likely to give him plenty of occupation during the summer
months now close at hand.

On Low Sunday the Father Superior convened a full Chapter of the Order,
to which were summoned Brother Dominic, the head of the Sandgate house,
and Brother Anselm. When the brethren, with the exception of Brother
Simon, who was still a postulant, were gathered together, the Father
Superior addressed them as follows:

"Brethren, I have called this Chapter of the Order of St. George to
acquaint you with our financial position, and to ask you to make a grave
decision. Before I say any more I ought to explain that our three
professed brethren considered that a Chapter convened to make a decision
such as I am going to ask you to make presently should not include the
novices. I contended that in the present state of our Order where
novices are called upon to fill the most responsible positions it would
be unfair to exclude them; and our professed brethren, like true sons of
St. Benedict, have accepted my ruling. You all know what great additions
to our Mother House we have made during the past year, and you will all
realize what a burden of debt this has laid upon the Order and on myself
what a weight of responsibility. The closing of our Malta Priory, which
was too far away to interest people in England, eased us a little. But
if we are going to establish ourselves as a permanent force in modern
religious life, we must establish our Mother House before anything. You
may say that the Order of St. George is an Order devoted to active work
among soldiers, and that we are not concerned with the establishment of
a partially contemplative community. But all of you will recognize the
advantage it has been to you to be asked to stay here and prepare
yourselves for active work, to gather within yourselves a great store of
spiritual energy, and hoard within your hearts a mighty treasure of
spiritual strength. Brethren, if the Order of St. George is to be worthy
of its name and of its claim we must not rest till we have a priory in
every port and garrison, and in every great city where soldiers are
stationed. Even if we had the necessary funds to endow these priories,
have we enough brethren to take charge of them? We have not. I cannot
help feeling that I was too hasty in establishing active houses both at
Aldershot and at Sandgate, and I have convened you to-day to ask you to
vote in Chapter that the house at Sandgate be temporarily given up,
great spiritual influence though it has proved itself under our dear
Brother Dominic with the men of Shorncliffe Camp, not only that we may
concentrate our resources and pay our debts, but also that we may have
the help of Brother Dominic himself, and of Brother Athanasius, who has
remained behind in charge and is not here today."

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