The Knight and the Lady.
AFTER this, the people rose to leave the church, for the service was over, and Sir John de Dalton invited the hermit to dine with him, for he desired to speak further with him. But Richard excused himself, and fled, and hid himself in an outhouse, for he was not a lover of feasts, nor of much company, but of stillness and solitude.
Sir John therefore made search for him, and when he was found, he entreated him with many courteous words to follow him into the banqueting hall. And Richard being pressed, did so; but he sate down, as the Lord had directed His disciples to do, at the lowest end of the table amongst the servants. But Sir John and his lady compelled him to come up higher, and treated him as the most honored guest. They would gladly have listened to his discourse, but strange to say, he spoke not a single word, and when he had eaten sufficiently, he rose up, and took leave of them, and departed.
The knight, however, followed him, and persuaded him to return with him to his private room, that he might talk with him alone. He inquired from whence he came, and Richard told him that he was truly the son of William Rolle, but that he had desired to give himself up entirely to the service of his Father in heaven, and he spoke with such gladness of heart and delight in God, and with such spiritual wisdom and power, that the knight was assured that he was of a sound mind, of which, during the banquet, he had been doubtful.
And he therefore told him that he would provide him with garments suitable for a hermit, instead of those he had manufactured out of his sister’s tunics, and that he would give him a cell, and provide for him his daily food. And Richard thanked God and the knight, and found much time in his cell for reading the Word of God, and for holding converse with Him.
And at other times he went forth to preach the love of Christ, and to bring sinners to Him, and he also taught and comforted the children of God. And at this point, as in all histories of that period, the story of Richard’s life becomes entangled and entwined with many wild and foolish legends, so that we must content ourselves to know merely the facts which we can unearth from the encumbering rubbish.
He lived for a while in his cell, and then roved to Richmondshire, making many preaching tours through the dales around. He then again changed his quarters and settled for a while near Doncaster, and finally he took up his abode in a cell near the Cistercian monastery of Hampole.
In these various retreats he was visited by many who came to him for comfort or counsel. He also wrote many letters and books, and though later writings of other authors have sometimes passed for his, there remain some which are evidently genuine, written in Latin, or in the Yorkshire dialect he was accustomed to use.
From his writings we can well judge of his manner of teaching, when consulted by those who, living in their homes and families, in the castles and manors around, desired to serve God. Often did the Lady de Dalton come to him for help and counsel, and such as he gave must have fully convinced the good knight, her husband, that this strange young man was of singularly sound mind. It might not be useless to some of us in days so different, and it sounds strangely solid and practical, as we gather it out of the legendary stories which meet us everywhere in the dreamland of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
For the river that makes glad the City of God, watered trees whose fruit was for meat, and the leaf for medicine—so it has ever been, and so it is still, and it is upon the banks of that river only that we gather the marvelous fruit, so unlike at all times to the wild and bitter fruit of the trees of the earth. Therefore these are words good for us to read, which fed and strengthened our forefathers five hundred years ago.
It is true that some of the temptations of our ancestors are little likely to lead their children astray. Few of us have the cravings of anchorites or crusaders, or an excessive passion for the “contemplatiff lyfe,” such as Richard Rolle describes it. Thereby in the old days were true-hearted men and women led into cells and cloisters; and there were those who set forth on that spiritual search, of which the parable of the “Holy Grail” remains as a witness.
To fewer souls in these our days will some of Richard’s counsel be a word in season. “For,” as he writes, “we are born in sin, and in the corruption of the flesh, by the which we be so blinded and overlaid, that we have neither the ghostly knowledge of God by light of understanding, nor ghostly feeling of Him by pure desire of loving. And therefore we stir not suddenly out of this mirk pit of fleshly corruption into that ghostly light. For we may not suffer it, nor bear it, for sickness of our souls, no more than we may with our bodily cen when they be sore, behold the light of the sun.”
But the miracle wrought at noonday on the road to Damascus has been repeated through the ages. And there are some who have seen enough of the “unmade light” to be blinded to the noontide splendor of the earth below.
“You may read my history in the ninth chapter of the Acts,” said a French lawyer a few days since; “if ever the Lord spoke from Heaven to Saul of Tarsus, He spoke to me, a Catholic by name an atheist in my heart.”
To him also “the light beyond the brightness of the sun” shone down, and to him also has the commission been given to open the eyes of the blind, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. He too, as regards the former things, could say with praise and gladness, “I could not see for the glory of that light.”
And some on whom such wonders had been wrought, came to Richard to ask for counsel regarding the earthly matters which now seemed to them of small account; for they desired to live a life apart, beholding continually the Face of Christ.
“Such life,” said Richard, “if ye might come sothefastly thereto, were in truth best and most speedful, and most fair, and not to be left willfully for outward works of active life, but only in great need, so that ye might comfort and relieve other men, either in body or in soul.
“But for thee” (here it would seem he spoke to one specially, it might be the Lady de Dalton, or the mistress of some castle or manor), “soothly methinks the mingled life” (of contemplation and of action) accords most to thee; for since our Lord has set thee in the place of sovereignty over others, and lent thee abundance of worldly goods for to rule and sustain specially all those that are under thy governance, and also since thou hast received grace of the mercy of our Lord God for to have somewhat knowing of thy self, and spiritual savor of His love, I hope that this mingled life is for thee the best, a time for the one, and a time for the other.
“For wit thou well, if thou leave needful business of active life, and be reckless, and take no keep of thy worldly goods, how they be spent and kept, because of desire and will that thou hast only for to give thee to spiritual occupations, weening that thou art thereby excused: if thou so do, thou doest not wisely.
“What are all thy works worth, whether they be bodily or ghostly, if they be not done rightfully and reasonably, to the honor of God, and at His bidding? Soothly they are worth right naught. Then, if thou leave that thing thou art bound to do, by way of charity, upon right and reason, and will wholly give thee to another thing, willfully as it were, for the more pleasance thereof, thou dost not render worship discreetly to Christ.
“Thou art busy to do honor to His Head and Face, and array it fair and curiously, but thou leavest His Body, His arms and feet, to be ragged and rent. And then thou worshippest Him not. It is as if a man were arrayed curiously upon his head with pearls and precious stones, and his body were left bare and in rags.
“Thou shalt understand that our Lord Jesus Christ as man, is Head of a spiritual Body which is His holy Church. The members of this Body are all Christian men. Some are arms, and some are feet, and some are other members with sundry workings. Then if thou be busy with all thy might for to array His Head, that is to worship Himself by mind of His Passion, or of His other works, by devotion and meditation of Him, and forgettest His feet, it may be thy children, thy servants, thy tenants, and thy fellow Christians; and let them be unarrayed, unkept, and dust not attend to them as thou ought for to do, thou pleasest Him not, and doest no honor to Him. Thou kissest His mouth, and treadest upon His feet. Thus think I.
“But nevertheless if thou thinkest it is not so, for that it is a fairer office to worship the Head of Him than for to go lower to other works, and make clean His feet, that is, busying thyself both in thought and deed for the help of thy fellow Christians, I think not so as thou thinkest.
“Soothly He will thank thee more for the meek washing of His feet than for all the precious painting and the arraying of His Head, for it is fair enough, and needs not mickle to be arrayed by thee. The more low service thou doest to thy Lord, for love of Him, that is, unto any of His members, when need and right ask it, and the more thou doest it with a glad and meek heart, the more thou pleasest Him.
“Thinkest thou not it were enough for thee to be at the least degree and lowest state when it is His will that it be so? Since it is He who has put thee in office that thou shouldest labor, and serve other other men. If thou hast prayed and been spiritually occupied, thou shalt after a certain time break off that, and be busily and gladly occupied in some bodily occupation for thy fellow Christians. And when thou hast been busy outwardly a while with thy servants, or with other men profitably, thou shalt break off and come again to thy prayers and thy devotion, after God gives thee grace thereto; and so shalt thou put away by the grace of our Lord sloth, idleness, and vain rest of thyself that comes under color of contemplation, and hinders thee from needful and speedful occupation in outward business.
“And therefore if thou be put from thy rest in devotion, when thou wouldst life be still thereat, by thy children, thy servants, or thy fellow Christians, for their profit, or ease of their hearts, be not angry with them, nor heavy, nor fearful as if God would be wroth with thee for that thou hast left Him for other things, but go do thy debt and thy service as readily as if our Lord Himself bade thee so to do. And suffer meekly all disturbance and trouble which come to thee thereby, for it may fall some time that the more troubled thou hast been outwardly with active works, the more burning desire shalt thou have to God, and the more clear sight of spiritual things by grace of our Lord when thou comest again to thy devotions.
“For it fares thereby as if thou hadst a little burning coal, and thou would make a fire therewith. Thou wouldst first lay to sticks, and heap them round the coal, and if it seemed as for a time that thou shouldst quench the coal with the sticks, nevertheless when thou hast waited a while and blown a little, all at once springs up a great flame of fire, for the sticks are turned to fire.
“Right so, spiritually, for the will and desire thou hast to God, is, as it were, a little coal of fire in thy soul, for it gives to thee somewhat of ghostly heat and light. But it is full little, for oft it waxes cold, and turns to fleshly rest, and sometime,’ into idleness. Therefore is it good that thou put thereto sticks, that are good works of active life. And if so be that these works seem for a time to hinder thy desire, be not therefore fearful, but suffer a while and be patient, and so blow at the fire, and then go alone to thy prayers and meditations, and lift up thy heart to God, and all shall turn into flame of fire as sticks laid upon the coal.
“So shall the fire be, as it is said in Holy Writ, that it burneth always on the altar, and never goeth out. The fire is love and desire to God in the soul, and love needs to be nourished and kept, by laying to of sticks, that it be not quenched.
“These sticks are of divers matter, some of one tree and some of another. For a man or woman who is lettered, and has understanding in Holy Writ, it is gude to gather sticks of holy ensamples and sayings of our Lord, and nourish the fire with them. Another man or woman, unlettered, may not so readily have at his hand Holy Writ and doctors’ saws, and it needs for him to do many works of service to his fellow Christians, and kindle the fire of love thereby.
“But it is good to gather the sticks one way or another, for affection of love is tender, and will lightly vanish away, if it be not well kept and continually nourished.
“I pray thee heartily, dear sister, increase this fire. The more desire thou hast to Him, the more is this fire of love in thee. But dispute not with thyself as if thou wouldst know how mickle thy desire is, but be busy for to desire as mickle as thou may, but not for to wit the measure of thy desire.” And after a time it came to pass that the lady of the Dalton manor was sick unto death, and greatly tempted by the devil. She sent therefore for Richard, who came to her bedside, and prayed to the Lord, and spoke to her of Jesus. And the devil departed from her, and she died in peace. This story comes to us adorned with legendary fables, but we can understand it simply, end can well believe that Richard did by his prayer, emit words of comfort, bring peace to the dying lady.