Murphy: The Early Years (Part X)

After that, there were no more visits for a long time.
And yet one day, a friar appeared, in rude monk’s robes, uninvited.
And proceeded to the courtyard (past staff too astonished to effectually protest); where the boys were glumly going through the motions of their half-hour court-ordered fun.
And beheld them and -- with a moan, fell, splat, down flat upon his face, upon the cobblestones; words failing him. He could not preach; could barely pray.
“For-give us….!” he cried; and was perhaps somehow injured in that fall: for he bled from his hands; from his feet did he bleed; and he bled from his rib, from a ripe red gash… rivulets among the stained sad stones… bleeding like brooks, like… like bubbling, trout-stocked streams… where the fishermen stride, in boots hip-high -- beaming, laughing, hoisting their catch -- like fountains, like spindrift, like waterfalls … As the boys, knowing nothing, knew something yet better than ever they’d known…
And as that small seed -- smaller than a mustard -- was planted, amid the tares, amid the trees ….