THE KNIGHT OF THE BLOODY VEST
"Nay, I have naught for thee this morning," said Mary Antony to the
robin; "naught, that is, save spritely conversation. I can tell thee a
tale or two; I can give thee sage advice; but, in my wallet, little
Master Mendicant, I have but my bag of peas."
The old lay-sister sat resting in the garden. She had had a busy hour,
yet complicated in its busy-ness, for, starting out to do weeding, she
had presently fancied herself intent upon making a posy, and now, sat
upon the stone seat beneath the beech tree, holding a large nosegay
made up of many kinds of flowering weeds, arranged with much care, and
bound round with convolvulus tendrils.
Keen and uncommon shrewd though old Antony certainly was in many ways,
her great age occasionally betrayed itself by childish vagaries. Her
mind would start off along the lines of a false premise, landing her
eventually in a dream-like conclusion. As now, when waking from a
moment's nodding in the welcome shade, she wondered why her old back
seemed well-nigh broken, and marvelled to find herself holding a big
posy of dandelions, groundsel, plantain, and bindweed.
On the other end of the seat, stood the robin. The beech was just near
enough to the cloisters, the pieman's tree, and his own particular yew
hedge, to come within his little kingdom.
Having mentioned her bag of peas, Mary Antony experienced an
irresistible desire to view them and, moreover, to display them before
the bright eyes of the robin.
She laid the queer nosegay down upon the grass at her feet, turned
sidewise on the stone slab, and drew the bag from her wallet.
"Now, Master Pieman!" she said. "At thine own risk thou doest it; but
with thine own bright eyes thou shalt see the holy Ladies; the Unnamed,
all like peas in a pod, as the Lord knows they do look, when they walk
to and fro; but first, if so be that I can find them, the Few which I
distinguish from among the rest."
Presently, after much peering into the bag, the fine white pea, the
wizened pea, and the pale and speckled pea, lay in line upon the stone.
"This," explained Mary Antony, pointing, with knobby forefinger, to the
first, "is the Reverend Mother, Herself--large, and pure, and
noble. . . . Nay, hop not too close, Sir Redbreast! When we enter her
chamber we kneel at the threshold, till she bids us draw nearer. True,
_we_ are merely soberly-clad, holy women, whereas _thou_ art a gay,
gaudy man; bold-eyed, and, doubtless, steeped in sin. But even thou
must keep thy distance, in presence of this most Reverend Pea of great
price.
"This," indicating the shrivelled pea, "is Mother Sub-Prioress, who
would love to have the whipping of thee, thou naughty little rascal!
"This is Sister Mary Rebecca who daily grows more crooked, both in mind
and body; yet who ever sweetly smileth.
"Now will I show thee, if so be that I can find her, Sister Teresa, a
kindly soul and gracious, but with a sniff which may be heard in the
kitchens when that holy Lady taketh her turn at the Refectory reading.
And when, the reading over, having sniffed every other minute, she at
length, feels free to blow, beshrew me, Master Redbreast, one might
think our old dun cow had just been parted from a newly-born calf.
Yea, a kind, gracious soul; but noisy about the nose, and forgetful of
the ears of other people, her own necessity seeming excuse enough for
veritable trumpet blasts."
Mary Antony, half turning as she talked, peered into the open bag in
search of Sister Teresa.
Then, quick as thought, the unexpected happened.
Three rapid hops, a jerky bend of the red breast, a flash of wings----
The robin had flown off with the white pea! The shrivelled and the
speckled alone remained upon the seat.
Uttering a cry of horror and dismay, the old lay-sister fell upon her
knees, lifting despairing hands to trees and sky.
Down by the lower wall, in earnest meditation, the Prioress moved back
and forth, on the Cypress Walk.
Mary Antony's shriek of dismay, faint but unmistakable, reached her
ears. Turning, she passed noiselessly up the green sward, on the
further side of the yew hedge; but paused, in surprise, as she drew
level with the beech; for the old lay-sister's voice penetrated the
hedge, and the first words she overheard seemed to the Prioress wholly
incomprehensible.
"Ah, thou Knight of the Bloody Vest!" moaned Mary Antony. "Heaven send
thy wicked perfidy may fall on thine own pate! Intruding thyself into
our most private places; begging food, which could not be refused;
wheedling old Mary Antony into letting thee have a peep at the holy
Ladies--thou bold, bad man!--and then carrying off the Reverend Mother,
Herself! Ha! Hadst thou but caught away Mother Sub-Prioress, she
would have reformed thy home, whipped thy children, and mended thine
own vile manners, thou graceless churl! Or hadst thou taken Sister
Mary Rebecca, _she_ would have brought the place about thine ears,
telling thy wife fine tales of thine unfaithfulness; whispering that
Mary Antony is younger and fairer than she. But, nay, forsooth!
Neither of these will do! Thou must needs snatch away the Reverend
Mother, Herself! Oh, sacrilegious fiend! Stand not there mocking me!
Where is the Reverend Mother?"
"Why, here am I, dear Antony," said the Prioress, in soothing tones,
coming quickly from behind the hedge.
One glance revealed, to her relief, that the lay-sister was alone.
Tears ran down the furrows of her worn old face. She knelt upon the
grass; beside her a large nosegay of flowering weeds; upon the seat,
peas strewn from out a much-used, linen bag. Above her on a bough, a
robin perched, bending to look, with roguish eye, at the scattered peas.
To the Prioress it seemed that indeed the old lay-sister must have
taken leave of her senses.
Stooping, she tried to raise her; but Mary Antony, flinging herself
forward, clasped and kissed the Reverend Mother's feet, in an
abandonment of penitence and grief.
"Nay, rise, dear Antony," said the Prioress, firmly. "Rise! I command
it. The day is warm. Thou hast been dreaming. No bold, bad man has
forced his way within these walls. No 'Knight of the Bloody Vest' is
here. Rise up and look. We are alone."
But Mary Antony, still on her knees, half raised herself, and, pointing
to the bough above, quavered, amid her sobs: "The bold, bad man is
there!"
Looking up, the Prioress met the bright eye of the robin, peeping down.
Why, surely? Yes! There was the "Bloody Vest."
The Prioress smiled. She began to understand.
The robin burst into a stream of triumphant song. At which, old Mary
Antony, still kneeling, shook her uplifted fist.
The Prioress raised and drew her to the seat.
"Now sit thee here beside me," she said, "and make full confession.
Ease thine old heart by telling me the entire tale. Then I will pass
sentence on the robin if, true to his name, he turns out to be a thief."
So there, in the Convent garden, while the robin sang overhead, the
Prioress listened to the quaint recital; the dread of making mistake in
the daily counting; the elaborate plan of dropping peas; the manner in
which the peas became identified with the personalities of the White
Ladies; the games in the cell; the taming of the robin; the habit of
sharing with the little bird, interests which might not be shared with
others, which had resulted that morning in the display of the peas, and
this undreamed of disaster--the abduction of the Reverend Mother.
The Prioress listened with outward gravity, striving to conceal all
signs of the inward mirth which seized and shook her. But more than
once she had to turn her face from the peering eyes of Mary Antony,
striving anxiously to gather whether her chronicle of sins was placing
her outside the pale of possible forgiveness.
The Prioress did not hasten the recital. She knew the importance, to
the mind with which she dealt, of even the most trivial detail. To be
checked or hurried, would leave Mary Antony with the sense of an
incomplete confession.
Therefore, with infinite patience the Prioress listened, seated in the
sunlit garden, undisturbed, save for the silent passing, once or twice,
of a veiled figure through the cloisters, who, seeing the Reverend
Mother seated beneath the beech, did reverence and hastened on, looking
not again.
When the garrulous old voice at last fell silent, the Prioress, with
kind hand, covered the restless fingers--clasping and unclasping in
anxious contortions--and firmly held them in folded stillness.
Her first words were of a thing as yet unmentioned.
"Dear Antony," she said, "is that thy posy lying at our feet?"
"Ah, Reverend Mother," sighed the old lay-sister, "in this did I again
do wrong meaning to do right. Sister Mary Augustine, coming into the
kitchens with leave, from Mother Sub-Prioress, to make the pasties, and
desiring to be free to make them heavy--unhampered by my advice which,
of a surety, would have helped them to lightness--bade me go out and
weed the garden.
"Weeding, I bethought me how much liefer I would be gathering a posy of
choicest flowers for our sweet Lady's shrine; and, thus thinking, I
began to do, not according to Sister Mary Augustine's hard task, but
according to mine own heart's promptings. Yet, when the posy was
finished, alack-a-day! it was a posy of weeds!"
Tears filled the eyes of the Prioress; at first she could not trust her
voice to make reply.
Then, stooping she picked up the nosegay.
"Our Lady shall have it," she said. "I will place it before her
shrine, in mine own cell. She will understand--knowing how often,
though the hands perforce do weeding, yet, all the time, the heart is
gathering choicest flowers.
"Aye, and sometimes when we bring to God offerings of fairest flowers,
He sees but worthless weeds. And, when we mourn, because we have but
weeds to offer, He sees them fragrant blossoms. Whatever, to the eye
of man, the hand may hold, God sees therein the bouquet of the heart's
intention."
The Prioress paused, a look of great gladness on her face; then, as she
saw the old lay-sister still eyeing her posy with dissatisfaction:
"And, after all, dear Antony," she said, "who shall decide which
flowers shall be dubbed 'weeds'? No plant of His creation, however
humble, was called a 'weed' by the Creator. When, for man's sin, He
cursed the ground, He said: 'Thorns also and thistles shall it cause to
bud.' Well? Sharpest thorns are found around the rose; the thistle is
the royal bloom of Scotland; and, if our old white ass could speak her
mind, doubtless she would call it King of Flowers.
"Nowhere in Holy Books, is any plant named a 'weed.' It is left to man
to proclaim that the flowers he wants not, are weeds.
"Look at each one of these. Could you or I, labouring for years, with
all our skill, make anything so perfect as the meanest of these weeds?
"Nay; they are weeds, because they grow, there where they should not
be. The gorgeous scarlet poppy is a weed amid the corn. If roses
overgrew the wheat, we should dub them weeds, and root them out.
"And some of us have had, perforce, so to deal with the roses in our
lives; those sweet and fragrant things which overgrew our offering of
the wheat of service, our sacrifice of praise and prayer.
"Perhaps, when our weeds are all torn out, and cast in a tangled heap
before His Feet, our Lord beholds in them a garland of choice blossoms.
The crown of thorns on earth, may prove, in Paradise, a diadem of
flowers."
The Prioress laid the posy on the seat beside her.
"Now, Antony, about thy games with peas. There is no wrong in keeping
count with peas of those who daily walk to and from Vespers; though, I
admit, it seems to me, it were easier to count one, two, three, with
folded hands, than to let fall the peas from one hand to the other,
beneath thy scapulary. Howbeit, a method which would be but a pitfall
to one, may prove a prop to another. So I give thee leave to continue
to count with thy peas. Also the games in thy cell are harmless, and
lead me to think, as already I have sometimes thought, that games with
balls or rings, something in which eye guides the hand, and mind the
eye, might be helpful for all, on summer evenings.
"But I cannot have thee take upon thyself to decide the future state of
the White Ladies. Who art thou, to send me to Paradise with a fillip
of thine old finger-nail, yet to keep our excellent Sub-Prioress in
Purgatory? Shame upon thee, Mary Antony!" But the sternness of the
Reverend Mother's tone was belied by the merriment in her grey eyes.
"So no more of that, my Antony; though, truth to tell, thy story gives
me relief, answering a question I was meaning to put to thee. I heard,
not an hour ago, that Sister Antony had boasted that with a turn of her
thumb and finger she could, any night, send Mother Sub-Prioress to
Purgatory."
"Who said that of me?" stuttered Mary Antony. "Who said it, Reverend
Mother?"
"A little bird," murmured the Prioress. "A little bird, dear Antony;
but not thy pretty robin. Also, the boast was taken to mean poison in
the broth of Mother Sub-Prioress. Hast thou ever put harmful things in
the broth of Mother Sub-Prioress?"
Mary Antony slipped to her knees.
"Only beans, Reverend Mother, castor beans; and, when her temper was
vilest, purging herbs. Nothing more, I swear it! Old Antony knows
naught of poisons; only of mixing balsams--ah, ha!--and soothing
ointments! Our blessèd Lady knows the tale is false."
Hastily the Prioress lifted the nosegay and buried her face in bindweed
and dandelions.
"I believe thee," she said, in a voice not over steady. "Rise from thy
knees. But, remember, I forbid thee to put aught into Mother
Sub-Prioress's broth, save things that soothe and comfort. Give me
thy word for this, Antony."
The old woman humbly lifted the hem of the Prioress's robe, and pressed
it to her lips.
"I promise, Reverend Mother," she said, "and I do repent me of my sin."
"Sit beside me," commanded the Prioress. "I have more to say to
thee. . . . Think not hard thoughts of the Sub-Prioress. She is
stern, and extreme to mark what is done amiss, but this she conceives
to be her duty. She is a most pious Lady. Her zeal is but a sign of
her piety."
Mary Antony's keen eyes, meeting those of the Prioress, twinkled.
Once again the Prioress took refuge in the posy. She was beginning to
have had enough of the scent of dandelions.
"Mother Sub-Prioress is sick," she said. "The cold struck her last
evening, after sunset, in the orchard. I have bidden her to keep her
bed awhile. We must tend her kindly, Antony, and help her back to
health again.
"Sister Mary Rebecca is also sick, with pains in her bones and slight
fever. She too keeps her bed to-day. Strive to feel kindly toward
her, Antony. I know she oft thinks evil where none was meant, telling
tales of wrong which are mostly of her own imagining. But, in so
doing, she harms herself more than she can harm others.
"By stirring up the mud in a dark pool, you dim the reflection of the
star which, before, shone bright within it. But you do not dim the
star, shining on high.
"So is it with the slanderous thoughts of evil minds. They stir up
their own murkiness; but they fail to dim the stars.
"We must bear with Sister Mary Rebecca."
"Go not nigh them, Reverend Mother," begged old Antony. "I will tend
them with due care and patience. These pains in bones, and general
shiverings, are given quickly from one to another. I pray you, go not
near. Remember--_you_ were taken--alas! alas!--and _they_ were left!"
At this the Prioress laughed, gaily.
"But I was not taken decently, with pains in my bones and a-bed, dear
Antony. I was carried off by a bold, bad man--thy Knight of the Bloody
Vest."
"Oh, pray!" cried the old lay-sister. "I fear me it is an omen. The
angel Gabriel, Reverend Mother, sent to bear you from earth to heaven.
'The one shall be taken, and the other left.' Ah, if he had but flown
off with Mother Sub-Prioress!"
The Prioress laughed again. "Dear Antony, thy little bird took the
first pea he saw. Had there but been a crumb, or a morsel of cheese,
he would have left thee thy white pea. . . Hark how he sings his
little song of praise! . . . Is it not wonderful to call to mind how,
centuries ago, when white-robed Druids cut mistletoe from British oaks,
the robin redbreast hopped around, and sang; when, earlier still, men
were wild and savage, dwelling in holes and caves and huts of mud, when
churches and cloisters were unknown in this land and the one true God
undreamed of, robins mated and made their nests, the speckled thrushes
sang, 'Do it now--Do it now,' as they sought food for their young, the
blackbirds whistled, and the swallows flashed by on joyous wing. Aye,
and when Eve and Adam walked in Eden, amid strange beasts and gaily
plumaged birds, here--in these Isles--the robin redbreast sang, and all
our British birds busily built their nests and reared their young;
living their little joyous lives, as He Who made them taught them how
to do.
"And, in the centuries to come, when all things may be changed in this
our land, when we shall long have gone to dust, when our loved
cloisters may have crumbled into ruin; still the hills of Malvern will
stand, and the silvery Severn flow along the valley; while here, in
this very garden--if it be a garden still--the robin will build his
nest, and carol his happy song.
"Mark you this, dear Mary Antony: all things made by man hold within
them the elements of change and of decay. But nature is at one with
God, and therefore immutable. Earthly kingdoms may rise and wane;
mighty cities may spring up, then fall into ruin. Nations may conquer
and, in their turn, be conquered. Man may slay man and, in his turn,
be slain. But, through it all, the mountains stand, the rivers flow,
the forests wave, and the redbreast builds his nest in the hawthorn,
and warbles a love-song to his mate."
The Prioress rose and stretched wide her arms to the sunlit garden, to
the bough where the robin sang.
"Oh, to be one with God and with Nature!" she cried. "Oh, to know the
essential mysteries of Life and Light and Love! This is Life Eternal!"
She had forgotten the old lay-sister; aye, for the moment she had
forgotten the Convent and the cloister, the mile-long walk in darkness,
the chant of the unseen monks. She trod again the springy heather of
her youth; she heard the rush of the mountain stream; the sigh of the
great forest; the rustle of the sunlit glades, alive with, life. These
all were in the robin's song. Then----
Within the Convent, the Refectory bell clanged loudly.
The Prioress let fall her arms.
She picked up the nosegay of weeds.
"Come, Antony," she said, "let us go and discover whether Sister Mary
Augustine hath contrived to make the pasties light and savoury, even
without the aid of the advice she might have had from thee."
Old Mary Antony, gleeful and marvelling, followed the stately figure of
the Prioress. Never was shriven soul more blissfully at peace. She
had kept back nothing; yet the Reverend Mother had imposed no
punishment, had merely asked a promise which, in the fulness of her
gratitude, Mary Antony had found it easy to give.
Truly the broth of Mother Sub-Prioress should, for the future, contain
naught but what was grateful and soothing.
But, as she entered the Refectory behind the Reverend Mother and saw
all the waiting nuns arise, old Mary Antony laid her finger to her nose.
"That 'little bird' shall have the castor beans," she said, "That
'little bird' shall have them. Not my pretty robin, but the other!"
And, sad to say, poor Sister Seraphine was sorely griped that night,
and suffered many pangs.