Many years ago there was a very religious and holy man, one of the
monks of a convent, and he was one day kneeling at his prayers in the
garden of his monastery, when he heard a little bird singing in one of
the rose-trees of the garden, and there never was anything that he had
heard in the world so sweet as the song of that little bird.
And the holy man rose up from his knees where he was kneeling at his
prayers to listen to its song; for he thought he never in all his life
heard anything so heavenly.
And the little bird, after singing for some time longer on the
rose-tree, flew away to a grove at some distance from the monastery,
and the holy man followed it to listen to its singing, for he felt as
if he would never be tired of listening to the sweet song it was
singing out of its throat.
And the little bird after that went away to another distant tree, and
sung there for a while, and then to another tree, and so on in the
same manner, but ever further and further away from the monastery, and
the holy man still following it farther, and farther, and farther,
still listening delighted to its enchanting song.
But at last he was obliged to give up, as it was growing late in the
day, and he returned to the convent; and as he approached it in the
evening, the sun was setting in the west with all the most heavenly
colours that were ever seen in the world, and when he came into the
convent, it was nightfall.
And he was quite surprised at everything he saw, for they were all
strange faces about him in the monastery that he had never seen
before, and the very place itself, and everything about it, seemed to
be strangely altered; and, altogether, it seemed entirely different
from what it was when he had left in the morning; and the garden was
not like the garden where he had been kneeling at his devotion when
he first heard the singing of the little bird.
And while he was wondering at all he saw, one of the monks of the
convent came up to him, and the holy man questioned him, "Brother,
what is the cause of all these strange changes that have taken place
here since the morning?"
And the monk that he spoke to seemed to wonder greatly at his
question, and asked him what he meant by the change since morning?
for, sure, there was no change; that all was just as before. And then
he said, "Brother, why do you ask these strange questions, and what is
your name? for you wear the habit of our order, though we have never
seen you before."
So upon this the holy man told his name, and said that he had been at
mass in the chapel in the morning before he had wandered away from the
garden listening to the song of a little bird that was singing among
the rose-trees, near where he was kneeling at his prayers.
And the brother, while he was speaking, gazed at him very earnestly,
and then told him that there was in the convent a tradition of a
brother of his name, who had left it two hundred years before, but
that what was become of him was never known.
And while he was speaking, the holy man said, "My hour of death is
come; blessed be the name of the Lord for all his mercies to me,
through the merits of his only-begotten Son."
And he kneeled down that very moment, and said, "Brother, take my
confession, for my soul is departing."
And he made his confession, and received his absolution, and was
anointed, and before midnight he died.
The little bird, you see, was an angel, one of the cherubims or
seraphims; and that was the way the Almighty was pleased in His mercy
to take to Himself the soul of that holy man.
[Footnote 55: _Amulet_, 1827. T. C. Croker wrote this, he says, word
for word as he heard it from an old woman at a holy well.]