And then a notice came from the Minnesota State Highway Department starting that the Wisconsin State Highway Department had reported a station wagon — Rambler, brown, registered in ownership of Order of St Clement, Duesterhaus, Minnesota — parked at Chicago & North Western R.R. Station, Ashland, Wisconsin. Keys, found in car, in possession of Police Department, Ashland, Wisconsin.
“What a man!” said Wilf. “He forgot all about it!”
When Father Urban heard the news, his heart gave a little leap, and a little voice said, “All is not lost!” But another little voice said, “Aw, shut up!”
The next morning, Brother Harold was dispatched to Ashland by bus. He was carrying his lunch and a letter for the Chief of Police, a letter in which Wilf explained everything.
And that morning Father Urban joined Jack in the garden where they toiled at getting in the “swedes” and other root crops. Father Urban, who hadn’t set foot in the garden since his picture was taken for the brochure, was trying to lick his cold, trying to sweat it away. His cold had hung on, and lately it had descended into his chest from which, from time to time, there now came odd noises, as if he were digesting his lungs. Soon after he began working in the garden, he realized how weak he was, and was ready to quit, but he didn’t, and presently he swooned dead away.
When he came to, Jack walked him to his room. Wilf called the doctor. That afternoon, Father Urban was admitted to the hospital in Great Plains and placed in an oxygen tent. That was the last he saw of himself for a while. Crazy dreams — his father raking a sand trap that wouldn’t stay raked, his mother playing the square piano by the light of the swan’s-head gas jet that had been in the kitchen, over the pump. He spent a great deal of time back in Illinois, in a land of pumps, cisterns, grape arbors, outhouses, lush cemeteries, and rain. The rain went on and on, and then it stopped. When he came to, though, it was there outside his window.
“No,” said Monsignor Renton, his first visitor. “We haven’t had any rain to speak of until today. Actually, it began late last night. I’d say you missed the best week of the year. You won’t see another like it until next year.”
“If then,” said Father Urban. That was how he felt.
Four days later, he was strong enough to return to the Hill, but he was still pretty weak. His headaches were still with him, and had joined forces with whatever ailed him gastrically, so that they were now sick headaches. He had no appetite for food, or anything. Even reading was too much for him. When he was up — he was in and out of bed all day — he just sat in his chair (again on loan to him from the Rec Room) and watched the wind and the rain strip the trees, all but the red oak, and wondered how many old paupers before him had watched the coming of winter from that window.
There hadn’t been much mail for him when he got out of the hospital, a bill (forty-two dollars) from Henn’s Haven, with a note at the bottom, “Just a friendly hello from the north woods, and that goes double for Mother. Deer season starts Nov. 11 but still time to make reservations if you hurry. Get up a party. Group rates. As always, Dad Henn”; a letter from Father Excelsior saying he’d written, as advised, to the address in Des Moines, but had received no reply — any other suggestions?; and a ballot from the Novitiate.
Father Urban tried to discuss the election with Jack, who, with Rex, visited him in the evening, but it wasn’t easy. About all Jack would say was that Wilf seemed to think it would be Father Boniface again. “He would,” said Father Urban. “Or,” said Jack, “Father Siegfried.” “Yeah?” said Father Urban. “I’d say we need more of a change than that. An older man, I’d say. Look at the job Pope John’s doing.” Father Urban, in a futile gesture, marked his ballot for Father August, and would’ve advised Jack to do likewise if he hadn’t already voted. “I hope you didn’t go for Boniface.” Jack didn’t respond at all to this, and thus adhered to the letter of the Rule. The Holy Founder, who had lived for some years in Rome, and had seen plenty of dirty pool in his day, was very strict on that point — no politicking, fratres.
When the weather turned clear and cold — it was now late in October — Wilf got out his devil’s-food coat, Brother Harold put discount-house anti-freeze in the pickup truck and station wagon, and Father Urban plugged in the electric heater. “I’m afraid there’s another overshoe down there somewhere,” he told Wilf.
“Run it on low, will you?” said Wilf. He was busy with retreatants these days, and only stopped in to see Father Urban for a few minutes in the evening. If Jack and Rex happened to be there, Wilf, when he left, took Rex with him. “Heat’s bad for a dog like this.” There was more to it than that, though. Rex had become attached to Jack, and Wilf was jealous. “C’mon, boy!” and “Here, boy!” he’d cry, with a dubious look in his eye. Rex and Wilf would go away together, but Rex soon returned to Father Urban’s room and Jack. There wasn’t much Wilf could do about it. He’d read about a rabid skunk in the Farmer, and didn’t care to have the dog out at night, unattended, or to be out very long himself. “You know where that wind’s coming from, don’t you? Hudson Bay.”
Jack brought his manuscript to Father Urban’s room in the evening, and worked on it there, in comfort. The first time Father Urban got a look at it, he was alarmed. A huntress, chasing a deer, had shot an arrow into Sir Launcelot by mistake, the arrow going into him past the barb, “in such a place,” Jack had written, “that he might not sit in no saddle.”
“Hey,” said Father Urban. “What kind of English is that?”
“Malory kept the double negative to preserve the spirit of the original French,” Jack said. “And that’s what Mr Thwaites wants to do — to preserve the spirit of the original English.”
“Should be great for children.”
“We’ll have an explanatory note, of course.”
“‘That he might not sit in no saddle’! Let’s face it, Jack. It sounds like hell.”
“It did to me at first.”
Father Urban was pretty sure that Jack was wasting his time with Sir Launcelot — as Jack called him. Father Urban called him Lancelot. “Have you heard from Dickie lately?”
“Mr Thwaites? No, not lately.”
“Have you done anything with St Adalbert?”
“I still have some way to go with this, and this comes first.” Poor Jack!
There were five hundred seven chapters in Malory, and even those dealing directly with Sir Launcelot were too many for the planned edition. It was necessary, too, to treat of such events as the coming of Arthur, and the founding of the Round Table, and such characters as Merlin, Guenever, Morgan le Fay, Sir Gawaine, and Sir Galahad. Jack regarded Sir Galahad as the real hero of the book, and had given him the full treatment. He had wished to do more for Sir Percival and Sir Tristram, whom he rated next to Sir Galahad in holiness, but this was impossible, for reasons of space. The biggest problem for Jack, though, was Sir Launcelot.
“There are times when I don’t know where I am with him,” Jack told Father Urban. “He’s the Hamlet of the book.” Jack could find no evidence that Sir Launcelot and Lady Elaine had been married before a priest. Sir Launcelot had been under a spell when he begat the child of their union, but the same could not be said for Lady Elaine. Why hadn’t their union been regularized later? With another Elaine, the fair maid of Astolat, Sir Launcelot had been chaste enough — she had literally died as a result. What Sir Launcelot had to say, by way of explanation, was certainly to his credit: “She would none other ways be answered but that she would be my wife, outher else my paramour; and of these two I would not grant her, but I proffered her, for her good love that she showed me, a thousand pounds yearly to her, and to her heirs, and to wed any manner knight that she could find best to love in her heart… I love not to be constrained to love; for love must arise of the heart, and not by no constraint.” This, though, was no help where the first Elaine was concerned. Young Galahad, through the negligence of both parents, relatives on both sides, and the clergy, too, it would appear, had been born a bastard.