Transcribed from the 1912 John Murray edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
First Edition,
October 1901.
Reprinted,
January 1902.
Reprinted,
January 1903.
Reprinted,
January 1905.
Reprinted,
August 1908.
Reprinted,
August 1910.
Popular Edition, (1/-)
February 1912.
THE GATHERING OF BROTHER HILARIUS
By MICHAEL FAIRLESS AUTHOR OF “THE ROADMENDER”
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1912
A. M. D. G.
“To those dearworthy ones to whom I owe all; I give that which is theirs already.”
PREFACE
Through this little book runs the road of life, the common road of men, the white highway that Hilarius watched from the monastery gate and Brother Ambrose saw nearing its end in the Jerusalem of his heart.
The book is a romance. It may be read as a romance of the Black Death and a monk with an artist’s eyes; but for the author it is a romance of the Image of God. While the Divine Face is being unveiled for Hilarius in the masque that shocks and bewilders him, and the secret of sorrow and sin, of death and life and love, is told by his speechless and dying “little maid,” we, if we choose, may hear again the Road mender’s epilogue to the story of the man of this earth, the man of the common highway:—“‘Dust and ashes and a house of devils,’ he cries; and there comes back for answer, ‘Rex concupiscet decorem tuum.’”
CONTENTS
PART I THE SEED
CHAP.
PAGE
I.
Blind Eyes in the Forest
II.
