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They’ve made short work of much of the new growth before I
could get them out. And neither I nor John of Longwood can tell how they got
through so narrow a gap, but you know if the matron ewe takes a notion into her
head there’s no stopping her, and the others will follow. It seems to me my
forest is bewitched.”
    “Far
more like,” suggested Prior Robert, looking severely down his long nose, “that
there has been plain human negligence, either on your part or your
neighbour’s.”
    “Father
Prior,” said Eilmund, with the bluntness of one who knows his value, and knows
that it is equally well known to the only superior he needs to satisfy here,
“in all my years in the abbey’s service there has never yet been complaint of
my work. I have made my rounds daily, yes, and often nightly, too, but I cannot
command the rain not to fall, nor can I be everywhere at once. Such a spate of
misfortunes in so short a time I’ve never before known. Nor can I blame John of
Longwood, who has always been as good a neighbour as any man needs.”
    “That
is the truth,” said Abbot Radulfus with authority. “We have had cause to be
thankful for his good will, and do not doubt it now. Nor do I question your
skill and devotion. There has never been need before, and I see none now.
Reverses are sent to us so that we may overcome them, and no man can presume to
escape such testings for ever. The loss can be borne. Do what you can, Master
Eilmund, and if you should feel in need of another helper, you shall have one.”
Eilmund, who had always been equal to his tasks and was proud of his
self-sufficiency, said thanks for that somewhat grudgingly, but declined the
offer for the time being, and promised to send word if anything further should
happen to change his mind. And off he went as briskly as he had come, back to
his cottage in the forest, his daughter, and his grievance against fate, since
he could not honestly find a human agency to blame. By some mysterious means
young Richard got to know of the unusual purport of Eilmund’s visit, and
anything to do with his grandmother, and all those people who had their labour
and living about the manor of Eaton, was of absorbing interest to him. However
wise and watchful his guardian the abbot might be, however competent his
steward, it behoved him to keep an eye on his estate for himself. If there was
mischief afoot near Eaton, he itched to know the reason, and he was far more
likely than was the Abbot Radulfus to attribute mischief, however
incomprehensibly procured, to the perversity or malice of humanity, having so
often found himself arraigned as the half-innocent agent of misrule. If the
sheep of Eaton had made their way into the ash coppice of Eyton not by some
obscure act of God, but because someone had opened the way for them and started
them towards their welcome feast, then Richard wanted to know who, and why.
They were, after all, his sheep.
    Accordingly,
he kept a sharp eye open for any new comings and goings about the hour of
chapter each morning, and was curious when he observed, two days after
Eilmund’s visit, the arrival at the gatehouse of a young man he had seen but
once before, who asked very civilly for permission to appear at chapter with an
embassage from his master, Cuthred. He was early, and had to wait, which he did
serenely. That suited Richard very well, for he could not play truant from
school, but by the time the chapter ended he would be at liberty, and could
ambush the visitor and satisfy his curiosity.
    Every
hermit worth his salt, having taken vows of stability which enjoin him to
remain thenceforth within his own cell and closed garden, and having gifts of
foresight and a sacred duty to use them for his neighbours good, must have a
resident boy to run his errands and deliver his admonitions and reproofs.
Cuthred’s boy, it seemed, had arrived already in his service, accompanying him
in his recent