THE CALL OF THE CURLEW
For the last time, the Knight waited in the crypt.
The men-at-arms, having deposited their burden before the altar, leaned
each against a pillar, stolid and unobservant, but ready to drop to
their knees so soon as the chanting of Vespers should reach the crypt
from the choir above.
The man upon the stretcher lay motionless, with bandaged head; yet
there was an alert brightness in his eyes, and the turn of his head
betokened one who listened. A cloak of dark blue, bordered with
silver, covered him, as a pall.
Hugh d'Argent stood in the shadow of a pillar facing the narrow archway
in the wall from which the winding stairs led up to the clerestory.
From this position he could also command a view of the steps leading up
into the crypt from the underground way, and of the ground to be
traversed by the White Ladies as they passed from the steps to the
staircase in the wall.
Here the Knight kept his final vigil.
A strange buoyancy possessed him. He seemed to have left his
despondence, like a heavy weight, at the bottom of the river. From the
moment when, his breath almost exhausted, he had seen and grasped the
Bishop's stone, bringing it in triumph to the surface, Hugh had felt
sure he would win. Aye, even before Symon had flung the stone; when,
in reply to the doubt cast by him on our Lady's smile, the Knight had
said: "I keep my trust in prayer," a joyous confidence had then and
there awakened within him. He had stretched out the right hand of his
withered faith, and lo, it had proved strong and vital.
Yet as, in the heavy silence of the crypt, he heard the turning of the
key in the lock, his heart stood still, and every emotion hung
suspended, as the first veiled figure--shadowy and ghostlike--moved
into view.
It was not she.
The Knight's pulses throbbed again. His heart pounded violently as,
keeping their measured distances, nine, ten, eleven, white figures
passed.
Then--twelfth: a tall nun, almost her height; yet not she.
Then--thirteenth: Oh, blessèd Virgin! Oh, saints of God! Mora! She,
herself. Never could he fail to recognize her carriage, the regal
poise of her head. However veiled, however shrouded, he could not be
mistaken. It was Mora; and that she should be walking in this central
position meant that she might with comparative safety, step aside.
Yet, even this----
But, at that moment, passing him, she turned her head, and for an
instant her eyes met the eyes of the Knight looking out from the
shadows.
Another moment and she had vanished up the winding stairway in the wall.
But that instant was enough. As her eyes met his, Hugh d'Argent knew
that his betrothed was once more his own.
His heart ceased pounding; his pulses beat steadily.
The calm of a vast, glad certainty enfolded him; a joy beyond belief.
Yet he knew now that he had been sure of it, ever since he came up from
the depths of the Severn into the summer sunshine, grasping the white
stone.
"I keep my trust in prayer. . . . Give her to me! Give her to me!
Blessèd Virgin, give her to me! 'A sculptured smile'? Nay, my lord.
I keep my trust in prayer!"
The solemn chanting of the monks, stole down from the distant choir.
Vespers had begun.
The Knight strode to the altar, and knelt for some minutes, his hands
clasped upon the crossed hilt of his sword.
Then he rose, and spoke in low tones to his men-at-arms.
"When a thrush calls, you will leave the crypt, and guard the entrance
from without; allowing none, on any pretext, to pass within. When a
blackbird whistles you will return, lift the stretcher, and pass with
it, as heretofore, from the Cathedral to the hostel."
Next the Knight, returning to the altar, bent over the bandaged man
upon the stretcher.
"Martin," he said, speaking very low, so that his trusted
foster-brother alone could hear him. "All is well. Our pilgrimage is
about to end, as we have hoped, in a great recovery and restoration.
When the call of a curlew sounds, leap from the stretcher, leave the
bandages beside it; go to the entrance, guarding it from within; but
turn not thy head this way, until a blackbird whistles; upon which lose
thyself among the pillars, letting no man see thee, until we have
passed out. After which, make thy way out, as best thou canst, and
join me at the hostel, entering by the garden and window, without
letting thyself be seen in the courtyard."
The keen eyes below the bandage, smiled assent.
Stooping, the Knight lifted the cloak, fastened it to his left
shoulder, and drew it around him, holding the greater part of it in
many folds in his right hand. Then he moved back into the shadow of
the pillar.
Above, the monks sang _Nunc Dimittis_.
By and by the voices fell silent.
Vespers were over.
Careful, shuffling feet were coming down the stairs within the wall.
One by one the white figures reappeared.
The Knight stood back, rigid, holding his breath.
As each nun stepped from the archway in the wall, on to the floor of
the crypt, and moved toward the steps leading down to the subterranean
way, she passed from the view of the nun following her, who was still
one turn up the staircase. It was upon this the Knight had counted,
when he laid his plains.
Six
Seven
Eight
Blessèd Saint Joseph! How slowly they walked!
Nine
Ten
Eleven
The Knight gripped the cloak and moved a step further back into the
shadow.
Twelve
Were all the pillars rocking? Was the great new Cathedral coming down
upon his head?
Thirteen
The Prioress was beside him in the shadow.
She had stepped aside.
The twelfth White Lady was moving on, her back toward them.
The fourteenth was shuffling down, but had not yet appeared.
Hugh slipped his left arm about the Prioress, holding her close to him;
then flung the folds of the cloak completely around her, and over his
left shoulder, pressing her head down upon his breast.
Thus they stood, motionless; her face hidden, his eyes bent upon the
narrow archway in the wall.
The fourteenth White Lady appeared; evidently noted a wider gap than
she expected between herself and the distant figure almost at the
steps, and hastened forward.
The fifteenth also hastened.
The sixteenth chanced to have taken the stairs more quickly and,
appearing almost immediately, noticed no gap.
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Not one had turned her head in the direction of the pillar. The
procession was moving, with stately tread, along its accustomed way.
A delicious sense of security enveloped Hugh d'Argent.
The woman he loved was in his arms; she was his to shield, to guard, to
hold for evermore.
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
She had come to him--come to him of her own free will. Holding her
thus, he remembered those wondrous moments at the entrance to the
crypt. How hard it had been to loose her and leave her. Yet how glad
he now was that he had done so.
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
When all these white figures are gone, safely started on their
mile-long walk, the door shut and locked behind them--then he will fold
back the cloak, turn her sweet face up to his, and lay his lips on hers.
Twenty-five
Praise the holy saints! The last! But what an old ferret!
Yes; Mother Sub-Prioress gave the Knight a moment of alarm. She peered
to right and left. Almost she saw the glint of the silver on the blue.
Almost, yet not quite.
Sniffing, she passed on, walking as if her feet were angry, each with
the other for being before it. She tweaked at her veil, as she turned
and descended the steps.
Hugh glowed and thrilled from head to foot.
At last!
Almost----
The sound of a closing door.
Slowly a key turned, grated in the lock, and was withdrawn.
Then--silence.
But at sound of the turning key, the woman in his arms shivered, the
slow, cold shudder of a soul in pain; and suddenly he knew that in
coming to him she had chosen that which now seemed to her the harder
part.
With the first revulsion of feeling occasioned by this knowledge, came
a strong impulse to put her from him, to leap down the stairway, force
open the heavy door, thrust her into the passage leading to her
Nunnery, and shut the door upon her; then go out himself into the world
to seek, in one wild search, every possible form of sin and revelry.
But this ungoverned impulse lasted but for the moment in which his
passionate joy, recoiling upon himself, struck him a blinding, a
bewildering blow.
In ten seconds he had recovered. His arms tightened more securely
around her.
She had come to him. Whatever complex emotions might now be stirring
within her, this fact was beyond question. Also, she had come of her
own free will. The foot which had dared to stamp upon the torn
fragments of the Pope's mandate, had, with an equal courage, stepped
aside from the way of convention and had brought her within the compass
of his arms.
He could not put her from him. She was his to hold and keep. But she
was his also to shield and guard; aye, to shield not from outward
dangers only, but from anything in himself which might cause her pain
or perplexity, thus making more difficult her noble act of
self-surrender.
Words spoken by the Bishop, in the banqueting hall, came back to him
with fuller significance.
A joy arose within him, deeper far than the rapture of passion; the joy
of a faithful patience, of a strong man's mastery over the strongest
thing in himself, of a lover's comprehension, by sure instinct, of that
which no words, however clear and forcible, could have succeeded in
making plain.
His love arose, a kingly thing, crowned by her trust in him.
As he folded back the cloak, he stood with eyes uplifted to the arched
roof above his head. And the vision he saw, in the dim pearly light,
was a vision of the Madonna in his home.
The shelter of the cloak removed, the Prioress looked around with
startled eyes, full of an unspeakable shrinking; then upward to the
face of her lover, and saw it transfigured by the light of holy purpose
and of a great resolve.
But, even as she looked, he took his arm from about her, stepped a pace
forward, leaving her in the shadow, and whistled thrice the _Do-it-now_
call of the thrush.
Instantly the men-at-arms leapt to their feet, and making quickly for
the entrance to the Cathedral from the crypt, stood to hold it from
without, against all comers.
As their running feet rang on the steps, softly there sounded through
the crypt the plaintive call of the curlew.
The man lying upon the stretcher rose, leaving his bandages behind;
and, without glancing to right or left, passed quickly in and out
amongst the forest of columns, and was lost to view. The entrance he
had to guard from within, was out of sight of the altar. To all
intents and purposes, the two who still stood motionless in the shadow,
were now alone.
Then the Knight turned to the Prioress, took her right hand with his
left, and led her forward to the altar.
There he loosed her hand as they knelt side by side; he clasping his
upon the crossed hilt of his sword; she crossing hers upon her breast.
Presently the Prioress drew the marriage ring from the third finger of
her left hand, and gave it to the Knight.
Divining her desire, he rose, laid the ring upon the altar, then knelt
again.
Then rising, he took the ring, kissed it reverently, and slipped it
upon the little finger of his own left hand.
The sad eyes of the Prioress, watching him, said to this neither "yea"
nor "nay."
Rising she waited meekly to know his will for her. The Knight, the
blue cloak over his arm, turned to the stretcher, picked up the
bandages, then, spoke, very low, without looking at the Prioress.
"Lay thyself down thereon," he said. "I grieve to ask it of thee,
Mora; but there is no other way of taking thee hence, unobserved."
The Prioress took two steps forward, and stood beside the stretcher.
It was many years since she had lain in any human presence. Standing,
walking, sitting, kneeling, she had been seen by the nuns; but
lying--never.
Though her cross of office and sacred ring were gone, her dignity and
authority seemed still to belong to her while she stood, stately and
tall, upon her feet.
She hesitated. The apologetic tone the Knight had used, seemed warrant
for her hesitancy, and rendered compliance more difficult.
Each moment it became more impossible to place herself upon the
stretcher.
"Lie down," said the Knight, sternly.
At the curt word of command, the Prioress shuddered again; but, without
a word, she laid herself down upon the stretcher, closing her eyes, and
crossing her hands upon her breast. So white she was, so still, so
rigid; as Hugh d'Argent, the bandages in his hand, stood looking down
upon her, she seemed the marble effigy of a recumbent Prioress, graven
upon a tomb; save that, as the Knight looked upon that beautiful, proud
face, two burning tears forced their way from beneath the closed lids
and rolled helplessly down the pale cheeks.
She did not see the look of tender compunction, of adoring love, in
Hugh's eyes.
Her shame, her utter humiliation, seemed complete.
Not when she took off her jewelled cross, and placed it upon our Lady's
hand; not when she stepped aside and allowed herself to be hidden by
the cloak; not even when she removed her ring and handed it to Hugh,
did she cease to be Prioress of the White Ladies of Worcester; but when
she laid herself down before the shrine of Saint Oswald, full length
upon the stretcher, at her lover's feet.
Hugh stooped, and hid the bandages beside her. He could not bring
himself to touch or to disguise that lovely head. Instead, he covered
her completely with the cloak; saying, in deep tones of infinite
tenderness:
"Our Lady be with thee. It will not be for long."
Then, shrill through the silent crypt, rang the dear call of the
blackbird.