"A—ach so!" intoned Mr. Isidore, and at the sound of his appalling guttural Babel hushed itself, unable to compete. He inquired what was going forward; was told; and within five minutes had the children moving through their parts in perfect discipline, while with a fire of cross-questions he shook Mr. Simeon back to his senses and rapidly gathered the outline of the play. He terrified all.

"Bardon my interference, ma'am!" he barked, addressing Miss Champernowne. "I haf a burbose."

The scene engaging the children was that of the youthful St. Meriadoc's first school-going; where his parents (Duke and Duchess of Brittany) call with him upon a pedagogue, who introduces him to the boys and girls, his fellow scholars. For a sample of Mr. Simeon's version—

Pedagogue—

"Children look on your books. If there be any whispering It will be great hindering, And there will be knocks."

First Scholar (chants)—

"God bless A, Band C! The rest of the song is D: That is all my lore. I came late yesterday, I played truant by my fay! I am a foul sinner. Good master, after dinner I will learn more."

Second Scholar—

"E, s, t, that is est, I know not what comes next—"

Whilst the scholars recited thus, St. Meriadoc's father and mother— each with a train of attendants—walked up and down between the ranks 'high and disposedly,' as became a Duke and Duchess of Brittany.

Mr. Isidore of a sudden threw all into confusion again. He shot out a forefinger and screamed—yes, positively screamed—

"Ach! zat is ze child—ze fourt' from ze end! I will haf her and no ozzer—you onderstandt?" Here he swung about upon the Chaplain. "Ob-serf how she walk! how she carry her chin! If I haf not her for ze May Queen I will haf non. . . . Step vorwards, liddle one. Whad is your name?"

"Corona."

Seeing that Mr. Isidore's finger pointed at her, she stepped forward, with a touch of defiance in her astonishment, but fearlessly. The touch of defiance helped to tilt her chin at the angle he so much admired.

"Cohrona—zat must mean ze chrowned one. Cabital! . . . You are not afraid of me, hein?"

"No," answered Corona simply, still wondering what he might mean, but keeping a steady eye on him. Why should she be afraid of this comic little man?

"So? . . . I engage you. You are to be ze May Queen in ze great Merchester Bageant. . . . But you must be goot and attend how I drill you. Ozzerwise I dismees you."

It appeared that Mr. Isidore had spent the afternoon with Mr. Colt, hunting the schools of Merchester in search of a child to suit his fastidious requirements. He had two of the gifts of genius— unwearying patience in the search, unerring swiftness in the choice.

Mr. Simeon, the rehearsal over, walked home heavily. On his way he paused to study the pit, and look up from it to the threatened mass of masonry. 'Not in my time, O Lord!'

And yet—

"From low to high doth dissolution climb, And sink from high to low along a scale Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail . . . Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear The longest date . . . drop like the tower sublime Of yesterday, which royally did wear His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain Some casual shout that broke the silent air, Or the unimaginable touch of Time."

But Corona, breaking away from her playfellows and gaining the road to St. Hospital, skipped as she ran homeward, treading clouds of glory.



CHAPTER XX.

NAUGHTINESS, AND A SEQUEL.

"She has behaved very naughtily," said Brother Copas.

"I don't understand it at all," sighed Brother Bonaday.

"Nor I."

"It's not like her, you see."

"It was a most extraordinary outburst. . . . Either the child has picked up some bad example at school, to copy it (and you will remember I always doubted that her sex gets any good of schooling)—"

"But," objected Brother Bonaday, "it was you who insisted on sending her."

"So I did—in self-defence. If we had not done our best the State would have done its worst, and put her into an institution where one underpaid female grapples with sixty children in a class, and talks all the time. Now we didn't want Corona to acquire the habit of talking all the time." Here Brother Copas dropped a widower's sigh. "In fact, it has hitherto been no small part of her charm that she seldom or never spoke out of her turn."

"It has been a comfort to have her company," put in Brother Bonaday, eager to say a good word for the culprit.

"She spoke out of her turn just now," said Brother Copas sternly. "Her behaviour to Nurse Turner was quite atrocious. . . . Now either she has picked this up at school, or—the thought occurs to me—she has been loafing around the laundry, gossiping with the like of Mrs. Royle and Mrs. Clerihew, and letting their evil communications corrupt her good manners. This seems to me the better guess, because the women in the laundry are always at feud with the nurses; it's endemic there: and 'a nasty two-faced spy' smacks, though faintly, of the wash-tub. In my hearing Mrs. Clerihew has accused Nurse Branscome of 'carrying tales.' 'A nasty two-faced spy'—the child was using those very words when we surprised her, and the Lord knows what worse before we happened on the scene."

"Nurse Turner would not tell, and so we have no right to speculate."

"That's true. . . . I'll confine myself to what we overheard. Now when a chit of a child stands up and hurls abuse of that kind at a woman well old enough to be her mother, two things have to be done. . . . We must get at the root of this deterioration in Corona, but first of all she must be punished. The question is, Which of us will undertake it? You have the natural right, of course—"

Brother Bonaday winced.

"No, no—" he protested.

"I should have said, the natural obligation. But you are frail just now, and I doubt if you are equal to it."

"Copas! . . . You're not proposing to whip her?" Brother Copas chuckled grimly. But that the child was in the next room, possibly listening, he might have laughed aloud.

"Do they whip girls?" he asked. "I used to find the whipping of boys disgusting enough. . . . I had an assistant master once, a treasure, who remained with me six years, and then left for no reason but that I could not continue to pay him. I liked him so much that one day, after flogging a boy in hot blood, and while (as usual) feeling sick with the revulsion of it, I then and there resolved that, however much this trade might degrade me, this Mr. Simcox should be spared the degradation whilst in my employ. I went to his class-room and asked to have a look at his punishment-book. He answered that he kept none. 'But,' said I, 'when you first came to me didn't I give you a book, and expressly command you, whenever you punished a boy, to write an entry, giving the boy's name, the nature of his offence, and the number of strokes with which you punished him?' 'You did, sir,' said Simcox, 'and I have lost it.' 'Lost it!' said I. 'You but confirm me in my decision that henceforth, when any boy in this school needs caning, I will do it with my own hands.' 'Sir,' he replied, 'you have done that for these five years. Forgive me, but I was pleased to find that you never asked to see the book; for I really couldn't bring myself to flog a boy merely for the sake of writing up an entry.' In short, that man was a born schoolmaster, and almost dispensed with punishments, even the slightest."

"He ruled the boys by kindness, I suppose?"

"He wasn't quite such a fool."

"Then what was his secret?"

"Bad temper. They held him in a holy terror; and it's all the queerer because he wasn't even just."

Brother Bonaday shook his head.

"I don't understand," he said; "but if you believe so little in punishment, why are we proposing to punish Corona?"

"Obviously, my dear fellow, because we can find no better way. The child must not be suffered to grow up into a termagant—you will admit that, I hope? . . . Very well, then: feeble guardians that we are, we must do our best."

He knocked at the bedroom door and, after a moment, entered. Corona sat on the edge of her bed, dry-eyed, hugging Timothy to her breast.

"Corona!"

"Yes, Uncle Copas?"

"You have been extremely naughty, and probably know that you have to be punished."

"I dare say it's the best you can do," said Corona, after weighing this address or seeming to do so. The answer so exactly tallied with the words he had spoken a moment ago that Brother Copas could not help exclaiming—

"Ah! You overheard us, just now?"

"I may have my faults," said Corona coldly, candidly, "but I am not a listener."

"I—I beg your pardon," stammered Brother Copas, somewhat abashed. "But the fact remains that your behaviour to Nurse Turner has been most disrespectful, and your language altogether unbecoming. You have given your father and me a great shock: and I am sure you did not wish to do that."

"I'm miserable enough, if that's what you mean," the child confessed, still hugging her golliwog and staring with haggard eyes at the window. "But if you want me to say that I'm sorry—"

"That is just what I want you to say."

"Well, then, I can't. . . . Nurse Turner's a beast—a beast—a BEAST!"

Corona's face whitened, and her voice shrilled higher at each repetition.

"—She hates Branny like poison, and I hate her. . . . There! And now you must take and punish me as much as you please. What's it going to be?"

She rocked her small body as she looked up with straight eyes, awaiting sentence.

"You are to go to bed at once, and without any supper," said Brother Copas, keeping his voice steady on the words he loathed to utter.

Again Corona seemed to weigh them.

"That seems fair enough," she decided. "Are you going to lock me in?"

"That had not occurred to me."

"You'd better," she advised. "And take the key away in your pocket. . . . Is that all, Uncle Copas?"

"That is all, Corona. But as for taking the key, you know that I would far sooner trust to your honour."

"You can trust to that, right enough," said she, getting off the edge of the bed. "I was thinking of daddy. . . . Good night, Uncle Copas!—if you don't mind, I am going to undress."

Brother Copas withdrew. He shut and locked the door firmly, and made a pretence, by rattling the key, of withdrawing it from the lock. But his nerve failed him, and he could not actually withdraw it. "Suppose the child should be taken ill in the night: or suppose that her nerve breaks down, and she cries for her father. . . . It might kill him if he could not open the door instantly. Or, again, supposing that she holds out until he has undressed and gone to bed? He will start up at the first sound and rush across the open quadrangle—Lord knows if he would wait to put on his dressing-gown— to get the key from me. In his state of health, and with these nights falling chilly, he would take his death."

So Brother Copas contented himself with turning the key in the wards and pointing to it.

"She is going to bed," he whispered. "Supperless, you understand. . . . We must show ourselves stern: it will be the better for her in the end, and some day she will thank us."

Brother Bonaday eyed the door sadly.

"To be sure, we must be stern," he echoed. As for being thanked for this severity, it crossed his mind that the thanks must come quickly, or he would probably miss them. But he muttered again, "To be sure— to be sure!" as Brother Copas tiptoed away and left him.

On his way back to his lonely rooms, Brother Copas met and exchanged "Good evenings" with Nurse Branscome.

"You are looking grave," she said.

"You might better say I am looking like a humbug and a fool. I have just been punishing that child—sending her to bed supperless. Now call me the ass that I am."

"Why, what has Corona been doing?"

"Does it matter?" he snarled, turning away. "She has been naughty; and the only way with naughty children is to be brutal."

"I expect you have made a mess of it," said Nurse Branscome.

"I am sure I have," said Brother Copas.

Corona undressed herself very deliberately; and, seating herself again on the edge of the bed, as deliberately undressed Timothy and clothed him for the night in his pyjamas.

"I am sorry, dear, that you should suffer. . . . But I can't tell what isn't true, not even for your sake; and I can't take back what I said. Nurse Turner is a beast, if we starve for saying it—which," added Corona reflectively, "I don't suppose we shall. I couldn't answer back properly on Uncle Copas, because when you say a thing to grown-ups they look wise and ask you to prove it, and if you can't you look silly. But Nurse Turner is a beast. . . . Oh, Timmy! let's lie down and try to get to sleep. But it is miserable to have all the world against us."

She remembered that she was omitting to say her prayers, and knelt down; but after a moment or two rose again.

"It's no use, God," she said. "I'm very sorry, and I wouldn't tell it to anyone but You—and perhaps Uncle Copas, if he was different: but I can't say 'forgive us our trespasses' when I can't abide the woman."

She had already pulled down the blind. Before creeping to bed she drew the curtains to exclude the lingering daylight. As she did so, she made sure that her window was hasped wide. Her bedroom (on the ground floor) looked out upon a small cabbage-plot in which Brother Bonaday, until warned by the doctor, had employed his leisure. It was a wilderness now.

As a rule Corona slept with her lattice wide to the fullest extent: and at any time (upon an alarm of fire, for example) she could have slipped her small body out through the opening with ease. To-night she drew the frame of the window closer than usual, and pinned it on the perforated bar; so close that her small body could not squeeze through it even if she should walk in her sleep. She was a conscientious child. She only forbore to close it tight because it was wicked to go without fresh air.

She stole into bed and curled herself up comfortably. For some reason or other the touch of the cold pillow drew a tear or two. But after a very little while she slept, still hugging her doll.

There was no sound to disturb her; no sound but the soft dripping, now and again, of a cinder in the grate before which Brother Bonaday sat, with misery in his heart.

"Corona!"

The voice was low and tremulous. It followed on the sound of a loud sneeze. Either the voice or the sneeze (or both) aroused her, and she sat up in bed with a start. Like Chaucer's Canace, of sleep "She was full mesurable, as women be."

"Corona!"

"Is that you, Daddy?" she asked, jumping out of bed and tiptoeing to the door.

What the hour was she could not tell: but she knew it must be late, for a shaft of moonlight fell through a gap in the window-curtains and shone along the floor.

"Are you ill? . . . Shall I run and call them up at the Nunnery?"

"I was listening. . . . I have been listening here for some time, and I could not hear you breathing."

"Dear Daddy . . . is that all? Go back to your bed—it's wicked of you to be out of it, with the nights turning chilly as they are. I'll go back to mine and try to snore, if that's any comfort."

"I haven't been to bed at all. I couldn't . . . Corona!"

"You are not to turn the key!" she commanded in a whisper, for he was fumbling with it. "Uncle Copas pretended he was taking it away with him: or that was what I understood, and if he breaks an understanding it's his affair."

"I—I thought, dear, you might be hungry."

"Well, and suppose I am?"

Corona, now she came to think of it, was ravenous.

"I've a slice of bread here, and a cold sausage. If you'll wrap yourself up and come out, we can toast them both: the fire is still clear."

"As if I should think of it! . . . And it's lucky for you, Daddy, the key's on your side of the door. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, out of bed at—what is the time?"

"Past ten o'clock."

"You are not telling me a fib, I hope, about keeping up a clear fire?" said Corona sternly.

"If you like, I will open the door just a little: then you can see for yourself."

"Cer—tainly not. But if you've been looking after yourself properly, why did you sneeze just now?"

"'Sneeze'? I never sneezed."

Silence, for a moment—

"Somebody sneezed . . . I 'stinctly heard it," Corona insisted. "Now I come to think, it sounded—"

There was another pause while, with a question in her eye, she turned and stared at the casement. Then, as surmise grew to certainty, a little laugh bubbled within her. She stepped to the window.

"Good night, Uncle Copas!" she called out mischievously.

No one answered from the moonlit cabbage-plot. In fact, Brother Copas, beating his retreat, at that moment struck his staff against a disused watering-can, and missed to hear her.

He objurgated his clumsiness and went on, picking his way more cautiously.

"The question is," he murmured, "how I'm to extort confession from Bonaday to-morrow without letting him suspect . . ."

While he pondered this, Brother Copas stumbled straight upon another shock. The small gate of the cabbage-plot creaked on its hinge . . . and behold, in the pathway ahead stood a woman! In the moonlight he recognised her.

"Nurse Branscome!"

"Brother Copas! . . . Why, what in the world are you doing—at this hour—and here, of all places?"

"Upon my word," retorted Copas, "I might ask you the same question. . . . But on second thoughts I prefer to lie boldly and confess that I have been stealing cabbages."

"Is that a cabbage you are hiding under your gown?"

"It might be, if this place hadn't been destitute of cabbages these twelve months and more. . . . Pardon my curiosity: but is that also a cabbage you are hiding under your cloak?"

"It might be—" But here laughter—quiet laughter—got the better of them both.

"I might have known it," said Brother Copas, recovering himself. "Her father is outside her door abjectly beseeching her to be as naughty as she pleases, if only she won't be unhappy. And she— woman-like—is using her advantage to nag him."

'But if ne'er so fast you wall her—'

"Danae, immured, yet charged a lover for admission. Corona, imprisoned, takes it out of her father for speaking through the keyhole."

"You would not tell me what the child did, that you two have punished her."

"Would I not? Well, she was abominably rude to Nurse Turner this afternoon—went to the extent of calling her 'a nasty two-faced spy.'"

"Was that all?" asked Nurse Branscome.

"It was enough, surely? . . . As a matter of fact she went farther, even dragging your name into the fray. She excused herself by saying that she had a right to hate Nurse Turner because Nurse Turner hated you."

"Well, that at any rate was true enough."

"Hey?"

"I mean, it is true enough that Nurse Turner hates me, and would like to get me out of St. Hospital," said Nurse Branscome quietly.

"You never told me of this."

"Why should I have troubled to tell? I only tell it now because the child has guessed it."

Brother Copas leaned on his staff pondering a sudden suspicion.

"Look here," he said; "those anonymous letters—"

"I have not," said Nurse Branscome, "a doubt that Nurse Turner wrote them."

"You have never so much as hinted at this."

"I had no right. I have no right, even now; having no evidence. You would not show me the letter, remember."

"It was too vile."

"As if I—a nurse—cannot look at a thing because it is vile! . . . I supposed that you had laid the matter aside and forgotten it."

"On the contrary, I have been at some pains—hitherto idle—to discover the writer. . . . Does Nurse Turner, by the way, happen to start her W's with a small curly flourish?"

"That you can discover for yourself. The Nurses' Diary lies in the Nunnery, in the outer office. We both enter up our 'cases' in it, and it is open for anyone to inspect."

"I will inspect it to-morrow," promised Brother Copas. "Now—this Hospital being full of evil tongues—I cannot well ask you to eat an al fresco supper with me, though"—he twinkled—"I suspect we both carry the constituents of a frugal one under our cloaks."

They passed through an archway into the great quadrangle, and there, having wished one another good night, went their ways; she mirthfully, he mirthfully and thoughtfully too.

Next morning Brother Copas visited the outer office of the Nunnery and carefully inspected the Nurses' Diary. Since every week contains a Wednesday, there were capital W's in plenty.

He took tracings of half a dozen and, armed with these, sought Nurse Turner in her private room.

"I think," said he, holding out the anonymous letter, "you may have some light to throw on this. I have the Master's authority to bid you attend on him and explain it."

He fixed the hour—2 p.m. But shortly after mid-day Nurse Turner had taken a cab (ordered by telephone) and was on her way to the railway station with her boxes.



CHAPTER XXI.

RECONCILIATION.

"I am not," said the Bishop, "putting this before you as an argument. I have lived and mixed with men long enough to know that they are usually persuaded by other things than argument, sometimes by better. . . . I am merely suggesting a modus vivendi—shall we call it a truce of God?—until we have all done our best against a common peril: for, as your Petition proves you to be earnest Churchmen, so I may conclude that to all of us in this room our Cathedral stands for a cherished monument of the Church, however differently we may interpret its history."

He leaned forward in his chair, his gaze travelling from one to another with a winning smile. All the petitioners were gathered before him in the Master's library. They stood respectfully, each with his hat and staff. At first sight you might have thought he was dismissing them on a pilgrimage.

Master Blanchminster sat on the Bishop's right, with Mr. Colt close behind him; Mr. Simeon at the end of the table, taking down a verbatim report in his best shorthand.

"I tell you frankly," pursued the Bishop, "I come rather to appeal for concord than to discuss principles of observance. If you compel me to pronounce on the points raised, I shall take evidence and endeavour to deal justly upon it: but I suggest to you that the happiness of such a Society as this is better furthered by a spirit of sweet reasonableness than by any man's insistence on his just rights."

"Fiat Caelum ruat justitia," muttered Brother Copas. "But the man is right nevertheless."

"Principles," said the Bishop, "are hard to discuss, justice often impossible to deal. . . . 'Yes,' you may answer, 'but we are met to do this, or endeavour to do it, and not to indulge in irrelevancy.' Yet is my plea so irrelevant? . . . You are at loggerheads over certain articles of faith and discipline, when a sound arrests you in the midst of your controversy. You look up and perceive that your Cathedral totters; that it was her voice you heard appealing to you. 'Leave your antagonisms and help one another to shore me up—me the witness of past generations to the Faith. Generations to come will settle some of the questions that vex you; others, maybe, the mere process of time will silently resolve. But Time, which helps them, is fast destroying us. You are not young, and my necessity is urgent. Surely, my children, you will be helping the Faith if you save its ancient walls.' I bethink me," the Bishop went on, "that we may apply to Merchester that fine passage of Matthew Arnold's on Oxford and her towers: 'Apparitions of a day, what is our puny warfare against the Philistines compared with the warfare which this queen of romance has been waging against them for centuries, and will wage after we are gone?'" He paused, and on an afterthought succumbed to the professional trick of improving the occasion. "It may even be that the plight of our Cathedral contains a special lesson for us of St. Hospital: 'If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand'"

"Tilly vally!" muttered Brother Copas, and was feeling for his snuff-box, but recollected himself in time.

"You may say that you are old men, poor men; that it is little you could help. Do not be so sure of this. I am informed, for instance, that the proceeds of our forthcoming Pageant are to be devoted to the Restoration Fund, and not (as was originally intended) to missionary purposes."

Here Mr. Simeon, bending over his shorthand notes, blushed to the ears. It was he, good man, who had first thought of this, and suggested it to Mr. Colt; as it was Mr. Colt who had suggested it to the Committee in the presence of reporters, and who, on its acceptance, had received the Committee's thanks.

"I am further told"—here the Bishop glanced around and caught the eye of the Chaplain, who inclined his head respectfully—"that a—er—representation of the Foundation Ceremony of St. Hospital may be included among the—er—"

"Episodes," murmured Mr. Colt, prompting.

"Eh?—yes, precisely—among the Episodes. I feel sure it would make a tableau at once impressive and—er—entertaining—in the best sense of the word. . . . So, you see, there are possibilities; but they presuppose your willingness to sink some differences and join heartily in a common cause. . . . Or again, you may urge that to re-edify our Cathedral is none of your business—as officially indeed it is none of mine, but concerns the Dean and Chapter. I put it to you that it concerns us all." Here the Bishop leaned back in his chair, on the arms of which he rested his elbows; and pressing his finger-tips together, gazed over them at his audience. "That, at any rate, is my plea; and I shall be glad, if you have a spokesman, to hear how the suggestion of a 'truce of God' presents itself to your minds."

In the pause that followed, Brother Copas felt himself nudged from behind. He cleared his throat and inclined himself with a grave bow.

"My lord," he said, "my fellow-petitioners here have asked me to speak first to any points that may be raised. I have stipulated, however, that they hold themselves free to disavow me here in your lordship's presence, if on any point I misrepresent them."

The Bishop nodded encouragingly.

"Well then, my lord, it is peculiarly hard to speak for them when at the outset of the inquiry you meet us with a wholly unexpected appeal . . . an appeal (shall I say?) to sentiment rather than to strict reason."

"I admit that."

"As I admit the appeal to be a strong one. . . . But before I try to answer it, may I deal with a sentence or two which (pardon me) seemed less relevant than the rest? . . . If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. True enough, my lord: but neither can it aspire."

The Bishop lifted his eyebrows. But before he could interpose a word Brother Copas had mounted a hobby and was riding it, whip and spur.

"My lord, when a Hellene built a temple he took two pillars, set them upright in the ground, and laid a third block of stone a-top of them. He might repeat this operation a few times or a many, according to the size at which he wished to build. He might carve his pillars, and flourish them off with acanthus capitals, and run friezes along his architraves: but always in these three stones, the two uprights and the beam, the trick of it resided. And his building lasted. The pillars stood firm in solid ground, into which the weight of the cross-beam pressed them yet more firmly. The whole structure was there to endure, if not for ever, at least until some ass of a fellow came along and kicked it down to spite an old religion, because he had found a new one. . . . But this Gothic—this Cathedral, for example, which it seems we must help to preserve—is fashioned only to kick itself down."

"It aspires."

"Precisely, my lord; that is the mischief. When the Greek temple was content to repose upon natural law—when the Greek builder said, 'I will build for my gods greatly yet lowlily, measuring my effort to those powers of man which at their fullest I know to be moderate, making my work harmonious with what little it is permitted to me to know'—in jumps the rash Christian, saying with the men of Babel, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; or, in other words, 'Let us soar above the law of earth and take the Kingdom of Heaven by storm.' . . . With what result?"

"'Sed quid Typhoeus et validus Mimas Contra sonantem Palladis aegida . . . ?'"

"The Gothic builders, like the Titans, might strain to pile Pelion on Olympus. Vis consili expers, my lord. From the moment they take down their scaffolding—nay, while it is yet standing—the dissolution begins. All their complicated structure of weights, counterweights, thrusts, balances, has started an internecine conflict, stone warring against stone, the whole disintegrating—"

"Excuse me, Brother—"

"Copas, my lord."

"Excuse me, Brother Copas," said the Bishop with a smile, "if I do not quite see to what practical conclusion we are tending."

"There is a moral ahead, my lord. . . . Thanks to Mr. Colt's zeal, we have all begun to aspire along our different lines, with the result that St. Hospital has become a house divided against itself. Now, if I may say it modestly, I think your lordship's suggestion an excellent one. We are old poor men—what business have we, any longer, with aspiration? It is time for us to cease from pushing and thrusting at each other's souls; time for us to imitate the Greek beam, and practise lying flat. . . . I vote for the truce, my lord; and when the time comes, shall vote for extending it."

"You have so odd a way of putting it, Brother—er—Copas," his lordship mildly expostulated, "that I hardly recognise as mine the suggestion you are good enough to commend."

Brother Copas's eye twinkled.

"Ah, my lord! It has been the misfortune of my life to follow Socrates humbly as a midwife of men's ideas, and be accused of handing them back as changelings."

"You consent to the truce, at any rate?"

"No, no!" muttered old Warboise.

Copas turned a deaf ear.

"I vote for the truce," he said firmly, "provided the one condition be understood. It is the status quo ante so far as concerns us Protestants, and covers the whole field. For example, at the Sacrament we receive the elements in the form which life-long use has consecrated for us, allowing the wafer to be given to those Brethren who prefer it. Will the Master consent to this?"

Master Blanchminster was about to answer, but first (it was somewhat pitiful to see) turned to Mr. Colt. Mr. Colt bent his head in assent.

"That is granted," said the Master.

"Nor would we deny the use of Confession to those who find solace in it—"

"Yes, we would," growled Brother Warboise.

"—Provided always," pursued Copas, "that its use be not thrust upon us, nor our avoidance of it injuriously reckoned against us."

"I think," said the Master, "Brother Copas knows that on this point he may count upon an honourable understanding."

"I do, Master. . . . Then there is this new business of compulsory vespers at six o'clock. We wish that compulsion removed."

"Why?" snapped Mr. Colt.

"You would force me to say, sir, 'Because it interferes with my fishing.' Well, even so, I might confess without shame, and answer with Walton, that when I would beget content and increase confidence in the power and wisdom and providence of Almighty God I will walk the meadows by Mere, 'and there contemplate the lilies that take no care, and those very many other various little living creatures that are not only created but fed (man knows not how) by the goodness of the God of nature, and therefore trust in Him.' . . . But I am speaking here rather on behalf of Brother Warboise—if he will leave off nudging me in the small of the back. It happens that for a number of years Brother Warboise has daily, at this hour, paid a visit to a sick and paralysed friend—"

"He is not a friend," rasped out Brother Warboise. "On the contrary—"

"Shall we," interposed the Master, "agree to retain the service on the understanding that I am willing to hear any reasonable plea for non-attendance? I need hardly say, my lord, that visiting the sick would rank with me before any formal observance; and," he added, with the hint of a smile which Brother Copas caught, "even to less Christian excuses I might conceivably be willing to listen."

So, piece by piece, the truce was built up. . . . When the petitioners had thanked his lordship and withdrawn, and Mr. Simeon, having gathered up his notes, presently followed them out, the Bishop, the Master, and the Chaplain sat for half an hour talking together.

The time came for Mr. Colt to take his leave, being due at a Pageant rehearsal. When he was gone the Bishop suggested a quiet stroll in the home-park, and the two old divines fared forth to take the benediction of evening, still keeping good grave converse as they paced side by side.

"My dear Eustace," said the Bishop (they were friends of long standing, and in private used Christian names in place of titles), "confess, now that this business is over, it was not so bad as you feared."

The Master respired the cool air with a quiet sigh.

"No, Walter, it was not so bad as I feared. But having ruled all these years without question, you understand—"

"You have certainly not ruled all these years for nothing. They were honest fellows, and made it pretty plain that they loved you. It does not rankle, I hope?"

"No." Master Blanchminster drew another deep breath and emitted it as if expelling the last cloudy thought of resentment. "No," he repeated; "I believe I may say that it rankles no longer. They are honest fellows—I am glad you perceived that."

"One could read it in all of them, saving perhaps that odd fellow who acted as spokesman. Brother—er—Copas? . . . He lectured me straightly enough, but there is always a disposition to suspect an eccentric."

"He was probably the honestest man in the room," answered Master Blanchminster with some positiveness.

"I am the more glad to hear it," said the Bishop, "because meeting a man of such patent capacity brought so low—"

"I assure you, he doesn't even drink—or not to excess," the Master assured him.

They were passing under the archway of the Porter's Lodge.

"But hallo!" said the Bishop, as they emerged upon the great quadrangle, "what in the world is going on yonder?"

Again, as the Master had viewed it many hundreds of times, the sunset shed its gold across the well-kept turf between long shadows cast by the chimneys of the Brethren's lodgings. As usual, in the deep shadow of the western front were gathered groups of inmates for the evening chat. But the groups had drawn together into one, and were watching a child who, solitary upon the grass-plot, paced through a measure before them 'high and disposedly.'

"Brayvo!" shrilled the voice of Mrs. Royle, champion among viragoes. "Now, at the turn you come forward and catch your skirts back before you curtchey!"

"But what on earth does it all mean?" asked the Bishop, staring across from the archway.

"It's—it's Bonaday's child—he's one of our Brethren: as I suppose, rehearsing her part for the Pageant."

Corona's audience had no eyes but for the performance. As she advanced to the edge of the grass-plot and dropped a final curtsey to them, their hands beat together. The clapping travelled across the dusk of the quadrangle to the two watchers, and reached them faintly, thinly, as though they listened in wonder at ghosts applauding on the far edge of Elysian fields.



CHAPTER XXII.

MR. SIMEON MAKES A CLEAN BREAST.

"I won't say you sold the pass," snarled Brother Warboise, "though I might. The fact is, there's no trusting your cleverness. You see a chance of showing-off before the Bishop, and that's enough. Off you start with a lecture on architecture (which he didn't in the least want to hear), and then, when he finds a chance to pull you up, you take the disinterested line and put us all in the cart."

"You hit it precisely," answered Brother Copas, "as only a Protestant can. His eye is always upon his neighbour's defects, and I never cease to marvel at its adeptness. . . . Well, I do seem to owe you an apology. But I cannot agree that the Bishop was bored. To me he appeared to listen very attentively."

"He affected to, while he could: for he saw that you were playing his game. His whole object being to head off our Petition while pretending to grant it, the more nonsense you talked, within limits, the better he was pleased."

Brother Copas pondered a moment.

"Upon my word," he chuckled, "it was something of a feat to take a religious cock-pit and turn it into an Old Men's Mutual Improvement Society. Since the Wesleyans took over the Westminster Aquarium—"

"You need not add insult to injury."

"'Injury'? My good Warboise, a truce is not a treaty: still less is it a defeat. . . . Now look here. You are in a raging bad temper this evening, and you tell yourself it's because the Bishop, with my artless aid, has—as you express it—put you in the cart. Now I am going to prove to you that the true reason is a quite different one. For why? Because, though you may not know it, you have been in a raging bad temper ever since this business was broached, three months ago. Why again? I have hinted the answer more than once; and now I will put it as a question. Had Zimri peace, who slew his Master?"

"I do not understand."

"Oh yes, you do! You are in a raging bad temper, being at heart more decent than any of your silly convictions, because you have wounded for their sake the eminent Christian gentleman now coming towards us along the river-path. He has been escorting the Bishop for some distance on his homeward way, and has just parted from him. I'll wager that he meets us without a touch of resentment. . . . Ah, Brother, you have cause to be full of wrath!"

Sure enough the Master, approaching and recognising the pair, hailed them gaily.

"Eh? Brother Copas—Brother Warboise—a fine evening! But the swallows will be leaving us in a week or two."

For a moment it seemed he would pass on, with no more than the usual nod and fatherly smile. He had indeed taken a step or two past them as they stood aside for him in the narrow path: but on a sudden thought he halted and turned about.

"By the way—that sick friend of yours, Brother Warboise. . . . I was intending to ask about him. Paralysed, I think you said? Do I know him?"

"He is not my friend," answered Brother Warboise gruffly.

"His name is Weekes," said Brother Copas, answering the Master's puzzled look. "He was a master-printer in his time, an able fellow, but addicted to drink and improvident. His downfall involved that of Brother Warboise's stationery business, and Brother Warboise has never forgiven him."

"Dear, dear!" Master Blanchminster passed a hand over his brow. "But if that's so, I don't see—"

"It's a curious story," said Brother Copas, smiling.

"It's one you have no right to meddle with, any way," growled Brother Warboise; "and, what's more, you can't know anything about it."

"It came to me through the child Corona," pursued Brother Copas imperturbably. "You took her to Weekes's house to tea one afternoon, and she had it from Weekes's wife. It's astonishing how these women will talk."

"I've known some men too, for that matter—"

"It's useless for you to keep interrupting. The Master has asked for information, and I am going to tell him the story—that is, sir, if you can spare a few minutes to hear it."

"You are sure it will take but a few minutes?" asked Master Blanchminster doubtfully.

"Eh, Master?" Brother Copas laughed. "Did you, too, find me somewhat prolix this afternoon?"

"Well, you shall tell me the story. But since it is not good for us to be standing here among the river damps, I suggest that you turn back with me towards St. Hospital, and where the path widens so that we can walk three abreast you shall begin."

"With your leave, Master, I would be excused," said Brother Warboise.

"Oh, no, you won't," Brother Copas assured him. "For unless you come too, I promise to leave out all the discreditable part of the story and paint you with a halo. . . . It began, sir, in this way," he took up the tale as they reached the wider path, "when the man Weekes fell under a paralytic stroke, Warboise took occasion to call on him. Perhaps, Brother, you will tell us why."

"I saw in his seizure the visitation of God's wrath," said Warboise. "The man had done me a notorious wrong. He had been a swindler, and my business was destroyed through him."

"Mrs. Weekes said that even the sight of the wretch's affliction did not hinder our Brother from denouncing him. He sat down in a chair facing the paralytic, and talked of the debt: 'which now,' said he, 'you will never be able to pay.' . . . Nay, Master, there is better to come. When Brother Warboise got up to take his leave, the man's lips moved, and he tried to say something. His wife listened for some time, and then reported, 'He wants you to come again.' Brother Warboise wondered at this; but he called again next day. Whereupon the pleasure in the man's face so irritated him, that he sat down again and began to talk of the debt and God's judgment, in words more opprobrious than before. . . . His own affairs, just then, were going from bad to worse: and, in short, he found so much relief in bullying the author of his misfortunes, who could not answer back, that the call became a daily one. As for the woman, she endured it, seeing that in some mysterious way it did her husband good."

"There was nothing mysterious about it," objected Brother Warboise. "He knew himself a sinner, and desired to pay some of his penance before meeting his God."

"I don't believe it," said Copas. "But whether you're right or wrong, it doesn't affect the story much. . . . At length some friends extricated our Brother from his stationery business, and got him admitted to the Blanchminster Charity. The first afternoon he paid a visit in his black gown, the sick man's face so lit up at the sight that Warboise flew into a passion—did you not, Brother?"

"Did the child tell you all this?"

"Aye: from the woman's lips."

"I was annoyed, because all of a sudden it struck me that, in revenge for my straight talk, Weekes had been wanting me to call day by day that he might watch me going downhill; and that now he was gloating to see me reduced to a Blanchminster gown. So I said, 'You blackguard, you may look your fill, and carry the recollection of it to the Throne of Judgment, where I hope it may help you. But this is your last sight of me.'"

"Quite correct," nodded Copas. "Mrs. Weekes corroborates. . . . Well, Master, our Brother trudged back to St. Hospital with this resolve, and for a week paid no more visits to the sick. By the end of that time he had discovered, to his surprise, that he could not do without them—that somehow Weekes had become as necessary to him as he to Weekes."

"How did you find that out?" asked Brother Warboise sharply.

"Easily enough, as the child told the story. . . . At any rate, you went. At the door of the house you met Mrs. Weekes. She had put on her bonnet, and was coming that very afternoon to beseech your return. You have called daily ever since to talk about your debt, though the Statute of Limitations has closed it for years. . . . That, Master, is the story."

"You have told it fairly enough," said Warboise. "Now, since the Master knows it, I'd be glad to be told if that man is my friend or my enemy. Upon my word I don't rightly know, and if he knows he'll never find speech to tell me. Sometimes I think he's both."

"I am not sure that one differs very much from the other, in the long run," said Copas.

But the Master, who had been musing, turned to Warboise with a quick smile.

"Surely," he said, "there is one easy way of choosing. Take the poor fellow some little gift. If you will accept it for him, I shall be happy to contribute now and then some grapes or a bottle of wine or other small comforts."

He paused, and added with another smile, still more penetrating—

"You need not give up talking of the debt, you know!"

By this time they had reached the gateway of his lodging, and he gave them a fatherly good night just as a child's laugh reached them through the dusk at the end of the roadway. It was Corona, returning from rehearsal; and the Chaplain—the redoubtable William the Conqueror—was her escort. The two had made friends on their homeward way, and were talking gaily.

"Why, here is Uncle Copas!" called Corona, and ran to him.

Mr. Colt relinquished his charge with a wave of the hand. His manner showed that he accepted the new truce de bon coeur.

"Is it peace, you two?" he called, as he went past.

Brother Warboise growled. What hast thou to do with peace? Get thee behind me, the growl seemed to suggest. At all events, it suggested this answer to Brother Copas—

"If you and Jehu the son of Nimshi start exchanging roles," he chuckled, "where will Weekes come in?"

Master Blanchminster let himself in with his latchkey, and went up the stairs to his library. On the way he meditated on the story to which he had just listened, and the words that haunted his mind were Wordsworth's—

"Alas! the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning."

A solitary light burned in the library—the electric lamp on his table beside the fire-place. It had a green shade, and for a second or two the Master did not perceive that someone stood a pace or two from it in the penumbra.

"Master!"

"Hey!"—with a start—"Is it Simeon? . . . My good Simeon, you made me jump. What brings you back here at this hour? You've forgotten some paper, I suppose."

"No, Master."

"What then?"

By the faint greenish light the Master missed to observe that Mr. Simeon's face was deadly pale.

"Master, I have come to make confession—to throw myself on your mercy! For a long time—for a year almost—I have been living dishonestly. . . . Master, do you believe in miracles?"

For a moment there was no answer. Master Blanchminster walked back to an electric button beside the door, and turned on more light with a finger that trembled slightly.

"If you have been living dishonestly, Simeon, I certainly shall believe in miracles."

"But I mean real miracles, Master."

"You are agitated, Simeon. Take a seat and tell me your trouble in your own way—beginning, if you please, with the miracle."

"It was that which brought me. Until it happened I could not find courage—"

Mr. Simeon's eyes wandered to this side and that, as though they still sought a last chance of escape.

"The facts, if you please?"

The Master's voice had of a sudden become cold, even stern. He flung the words much as one dashes a cupful of water in the face of an hysterical woman. They brought Mr. Simeon to himself. His gaze shivered and fixed itself on the Master's, as in a compass-box you may see the needle tremble to magnetic north. He gripped the arms of his chair, caught his voice, and went on desperately.

"This afternoon it was. . . . On my way here I went around, as I go daily, by the Cathedral, to hear if the workmen have found any fresh defects. . . . They had opened a new pit by the south-east corner, a few yards from the first, and as I came by one of the men was levering away with a crowbar at a large stone not far below the surface. I waited while he worked it loose, and then, lifting it with both hands, he flung it on to the edge of the pit. . . . By the shape we knew it at once for an old gravestone that, falling down long ago, had somehow sunk and been covered by the turf. There was lettering, too, upon the undermost side when the man turned it over. He scraped the earth away with the flat of his hands, and together we made out what was written."

Mr. Simeon fumbled in his waistcoat, drew forth a scrap of paper, and handed it to the Master.

"I copied it down then and there: no, not at once. At first I looked up, afraid to see the whole building falling, falling upon me—"

The Master did not hear. He had unfolded the paper. Adjusting his spectacles, he read: "God have Mercy on the Soul of Giles Tonkin. Obiit Dec. 17th, 1643. No man can serve two masters."

"A strange text for a tombstone," he commented. "And the date—1643? That is the year when our city surrendered in the Parliament wars. . . . Who knows but this may have marked the grave of a man shot because he hesitated too long in taking sides . . . or perchance in his flurry he took both, and tried to serve two masters."

"Master, I am that man. . . . Do not look at me so! I mean that, whether he knew it or not, he died to save me . . . that his stone has risen up for witness, driving me to you. Ah, do not weaken me, now that I am here to confess!"

And leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands spread to hide his face, Mr. Simeon blurted out his confession.

When he had ended there was silence in the room for a space.

"Tarbolt!" murmured the Master, just audibly and no more. "If it had been anyone but Tarbolt!"

There was another silence, broken only by one slow sob.

"For either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. . . Simeon, which was I?"

Mr. Simeon forced himself to look up. Tears were in his eyes, but they shone.

"Master, can you doubt?"

"I am sorry to appear brutal," said Master Blanchminster, coldly and wearily, "but my experiences to-day have been somewhat trying for an old man. May I ask if, on taking your resolution to confess, you came straight to me; or if, receiving just dismissal from my service, you yet hold Canon Tarbolt in reserve?"

Mr. Simeon stood up.

"I have behaved so badly to you, sir, that you have a right to ask it. But as a fact I went to Canon Tarbolt first, and said I could no longer work for him."

"Sit down, please. . . . How many children have you, Mr. Simeon?"

"Seven, sir. . . . The seventh arrived a fortnight ago—yesterday fortnight, to be precise. A fine boy, I am happy to say."

He looked up pitifully. The Master stood above him, smiling down; and while the Master's stature seemed to have taken some additional inches, his smile seemed to irradiate the room.

"Simeon, I begin to think it high time I raised your salary."



CHAPTER XXIII.

CORONA'S BIRTHDAY.

The May-fly season had come around again, and Corona was spending her Saturday—the Greycoats' holiday—with Brother Copas by the banks of Mere. They had brought their frugal luncheon in the creel which was to contain the trout Brother Copas hoped to catch. He hoped to catch a brace at least—one for his sick friend at home, the other to replenish his own empty cupboard: for this excursion meant his missing to attend at the kitchen and receive his daily dole.

There may have been thunder in the air. At any rate the fish refused to feed; and after an hour's patient waiting for sign of a rise— without which his angling would be but idle pains—Brother Copas found a seat, and pulled out a book from his pocket, while Corona wandered over the meadows in search of larks' nests. But this again was pains thrown away; since, as Brother Copas afterwards explained, in the first place the buttercups hid them, and, secondly, the nests were not there!—the birds preferring the high chalky downs for their nurseries. She knew, however, that along the ditches where the willows grew, and the alder clumps, there must be scores of warblers and other late-breeding birds; for walking here in the winter she had marvelled at the number of nests laid bare by the falling leaves. These warblers wait for the leaves to conceal their building, and Winter will betray the deserted hiding-place. So Brother Copas had told her, to himself repeating—

"Cras amorum copulatrix inter umbras arborum Inplicat casas virentes de flagello myrteo...."

Corona found five of these nests, and studied them: flimsy things, constructed of a few dried grasses, inwoven with horsehair and cobwebs. Before next spring the rains would dissolve them and they would disappear.

She returned with a huge posy of wild flowers and the information that she, for her part, felt hungry as a hunter. . . . They disposed themselves to eat.

"Do you know, Uncle Copas," she asked suddenly, "why I have dragged you out here to-day?"

"Did I show myself so reluctant?" he protested; but she paid no heed to this.

"It is because I came home here to England, to St. Hospital, just a year ago this very afternoon. This is my Thanksgiving Day," added Corona solemnly.

"I am afraid there is no turkey in the hamper," said Brother Copas, pretending to search. "We must console ourselves by reflecting that the bird is out of season."

"You didn't remember the date, Uncle Copas. Did you, now?"

"I did, though." Brother Copas gazed at the running water for a space and then turned to her with a quick smile. "Why, child, of course I did! . . . And I appreciate the honour."

Corona nodded as she broke off a piece of crust and munched it.

"I wanted to take stock of it all. (We're dining out of doors, so please let me talk with my mouth full. I'm learning to eat slowly, like a good English girl: only it takes so much time when there's a lot to say.) Well, I've had a good time, and nobody can take that away, thank the Lord! It—it's been just heavenly."

"A good time for all of us, little maid."

"Honest Indian? . . . But it can't last, you know. That's what we have to consider: and it mayn't be a gay thought, but I'd hate to be one of those folks that never see what's over the next fence. . . . Of course," said Corona pensively, "it's up to you to tell me I dropped in on St. Hospital like one of Solomon's lilies that take no thought for to-morrow. But I didn't, really: for I always knew this was going to be the time of my life."

"I don't understand," said Copas. "Why should it not last?"

"I guess you and I'll have to be serious," she answered. "Daddy gets frailer and frailer. . . . You can't hide from me that you know it: and please don't try, for I've to think of—of the afterwards, and I want you to help."

"But suppose that I have been thinking about it already—thinking about it hard?" said Brother Copas slowly. "Ah, child, leave it to me, and never talk like that!"

"But why?" she asked, wondering.

"Because we old folks cannot bear to hear a child talking, like one of ourselves, of troubles. That has been our business: we've seen it through; and now our best happiness lies in looking back on the young, and looking forward for them, and keeping them young and happy so long as the gods allow. . . . Never search out ways of rewarding us. To see you just going about with a light heart is a better reward than ever you could contrive for us by study. Child, if the gods allowed, I would keep you always like Master Walton's milkmaid, that had not yet attained so much age and wisdom as to load her mind with any fears of many things that will never be, as too many men too often do. But she cast away care—"

"I think she must have been a pretty silly sort of milkmaid," said Corona. "Likely she ended to slow music while the cows came home. But what worries me is that I'm young and don't see any way to hurry things. Miss Champernowne won't let me join the cookery class because I'm under the age for it: and I see she talks sense in her way. Even if I learnt cookery and let down my skirts, who's going to engage me for a cook-general at my time of life?"

"Nobody, please God," answered Brother Copas, copying her seriousness. "Did I not tell you I have been thinking about all this? If you must know, I have talked it over with the Master . . . and the long and short of it is that, if or when the time should come, I can step in and make a claim for you as your only known guardian. My dear child, St. Hospital will not let you go."

For a moment Corona tried to speak, but could not. She sat with her palms laid on her lap, and stared at the blurred outline of the chalk-hills—blurred by the mist in her eyes. Two great tears welled and splashed down on the back of her hand.

"The years and years," she murmured, "before I can begin to pay it back!"

"Nay"—Brother Copas set down his half-filled glass, took the hand and gently wiped it with the sleeve of his frayed gown; and so held it, smoothing it while he spoke, as though the tear had hurt it—"it is we who are repaying you. Shall I tell you what I told the Master? 'Master,' I said, 'all we Brethren, ever since I can remember, have been wearing gowns as more or less conscious humbugs. Christ taught that poverty was noble, and such a gospel might be accepted by the East. It might persevere along the Mediterranean coast, and survive what St. Paul did to Christianity to make Christianity popular. It might reach Italy and flame up in a crazed good soul like the soul of St. Francis. It might creep along as a pious opinion, and even reach England, to be acknowledged on a king's or a rowdy's death-bed—and Alberic de Blanchminster,' said I, '(saving your presence, sir) was a rowdy robber who, being afraid when it came to dying, caught at the Christian precept he has most neglected, as being therefore in all probability the decentest. But no Englishman, not being on his death-bed, ever believed it: and we knew better—until this child came along and taught us. The Brethren's livery has always been popular enough in the streets of Merchester: but she—she taught us (God bless her) that it can be honoured for its own sake; that it is noble and, best of all, that its noblesse oblige' . . . Ah, little maid, you do not guess your strength!"

Corona understood very little of all this. But she understood that Uncle Copas loved her, and was uttering these whimsies to cover up the love he revealed. She did better than answer him in words: she nestled to his shoulder, rubbing her cheek softly against the threadbare gown.

"When is your birthday, little one?"

"I don't know," Corona confessed. "Mother never would tell me. She would get angry about birthdays, and say she never took any truck with them. . . . But, of course, everyone ought to have a birthday, of sorts, and so I call this my real one. But I never told you that—did I?"

"I heard you say once that you left a little girl behind you somewhere in the States, but that you only came to yourself the day you reached England."

"Yes; and I do feel sorry for that other little girl sometimes!"

"You need not. She'll grow up to be an American woman: and the American woman, as everybody knows, has all the fun of the fair. . . . To-day is your birthday, then; and see! I have brought along a bottle of claret, to drink your health. It isn't—as the Irish butler said—the best claret, but it's the best we've got. Your good health, Miss Corona, and many happy returns!"

"Which," responded Corona, lifting her cupful of milk, "I looks towards you and I likewise bows. . . . Would you, by the way, very much object if I fetched Timothy out of the basket? He gets so few pleasures."

For the rest of the meal, by the clear-running river, they talked sheer delightful nonsense. . . . When (as Brother Copas expressed it) they had "put from themselves the desire of meat and drink," he lit a pipe and smoked tranquilly, still now and again, however, sipping absent-mindedly at his thin claret.

"But you are not to drink more than half a bottle," Corona commanded. "The rest we must carry home for supper."

"So poor a vintage as this, once opened, will hardly bear the journey," he protested. "But what are you saying about supper?"

"Why, you wouldn't leave poor old Daddy quite out of the birthday, I hope! . . . There's to be a supper to-night. Branny's coming."

"Am I to take this for an invitation?"

"Of course you are. . . . There will be speeches."

"The dickens is, there won't be any trout at this rate!"

"They'll be rising before evening," said Corona confidently. "And, anyway, we can't hurry them."

From far up stream, where the grey mass of the Cathedral blocked the vale, a faint tapping sound reached them, borne on 'the cessile air.' It came from the Pageant Ground, where workmen were hammering busily at the Grand Stand. It set them talking of the Pageant, of Corona's 'May Queen' dress, of the lines (or, to be accurate, the line and a half) she had to speak. This led to her repeating some verses she had learnt at the Greycoats' School. They began—

"I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds and bowers."

And Corona was crazy over them, because (as she put it) "they made you feel you were smelling all England out of a bottle." Brother Copas told her of the man who had written them; and of a lovelier poem he had written To Meadows—

"Ye have been fresh and green, Ye have been filled with flowers, And ye the walks have been Where maids have spent their hours.

"You have beheld how they With wicker arks did come To kiss and bear away The richer cowslips home. . . .

"But now we see none here—"

He broke off.

"Ah, there he gets at the pang of it! Other poets have wasted pity on the dead-and-gone maids, but his is for the fields they leave desolate."

This puzzled Corona. But the poem had touched her somehow, and she kept repeating snatches of it to herself as she rambled off in search of more birds' nests. Left to himself, Brother Copas pulled out book and pencil again, and began botching at the last lines of the Pervigilium Veneris—

"Her favour it was filled the sail of the Trojan for Latium bound; Her favour that won her AEneas a bride on Laurentian ground; And anon from the cloister inveigled the Vestal, the Virgin, to Mars, As her wit by the wild Sabine rape recreated her Rome for its wars With the Ramnes, Quirites, together ancestrally proud as they drew From Romulus down to our Ceesar—last, best of that bone and that thew.— Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew!"

Brother Copas paused to trim his pencil, which was blunt. His gaze wandered across the water-meadows and overtook Corona, who was wading deep in buttercups.

"Proserpine on the fields of Enna!" he muttered, and resumed—

"Love planteth a field; it conceives to the passion, the pang, of his joy. In a field was Dione in labour delivered of Cupid the Boy: And the field in its fostering lap from her travail receiv'd him: he drew Mother's milk from the delicate kisses of flowers; and he prospered and grew.— Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew!"

"Why do I translate this stuff? Why, but for the sake of a child who will never see it—who if she read it, would not understand a word?"

"Lo! Behold ye the bulls, with how lordly a flank they besprawl on the broom! —Yet obey the uxorious yoke and are tamed by Dione her doom. Or behear ye the sheep, to the husbanding rams how they bleat to the shade! Or behear ye the birds, at the Goddess' command how they sing unafraid!— Be it harsh as the swannery's clamour that shatters the hush of the lake; Be it dulcet as where Philomela holds darkling the poplar awake, So melting her soul into music, you'd vow 'twas her passion, her own, She chanteth—her sister forgot, with the Daulian crime long-agone. Hush! Hark! Draw around to the circle . . . Ah, loitering Summer, say when For me shall be broken the charm, that I chirp with the swallow again? I am old: I am dumb: I have waited to sing till Apollo withdrew. —So Amyclae a moment was mute, and for ever a wilderness grew.— Now learn ye to love who loved never—now ye who have loved, love anew!"

"Perdidi musam tacendo," murmured Brother Copas, gazing afield. "Only the young can speak to the young. . . . God grant that, at the right time, the right Prince may come to her over the meadows, and discourse honest music!"

Splash!

He sprang up and snatched at his rod. A two-pound trout had risen almost under his nose.



CHAPTER XXIV.

FINIS CORONAT OPUS.

The great day dawned at last: the day to which all Merchester had looked forward for months, for which so many hundreds had been working, on which all must now pin their hopes: the opening day of Pageant Week.

I suppose that never in Merchester's long history had her citizens so frequently or so nervously studied their weather-glasses.

"Tarbolt, of all people!" murmured Brother Copas one afternoon in the Venables Free Library.

He had just met the Canon coming down the stairs, and turned to watch the retreating figure to the doorway.

"I am suffering from a severe shock," he announced five minutes later to Mr. Simeon, whom he found at work in Paradise. "Did you ever know your friend Tarbolt patronise this institution before?"

"Never," answered Mr. Simeon, flushing.

"Well, I met him on the stairs just now. For a moment I knew not which alternative to choose—whether your desertion had driven him to the extreme course of reading a book or two for himself, or he had come desperately in search of you to promise that if you returned, all should be forgiven. . . . No, you need not look alarmed. He came in search of a newspaper."

"But there are no newspapers in the Library."

"Quite so: he has just made that discovery. Thereupon, since an animal of that breed cannot go anywhere without leaving his scent behind him, he has scrawled himself over half a page of the Suggestion' Book. He wants this Library to take in The Times newspaper, 'if only for the sake of its foreign correspondence and its admirable weather-charts.' Signed, 'J. Tarbolt.' What part is the humbug sustaining, that so depends on the weather?"

"He takes Bishop Henry of Blois in the Fourth Episode. He wears a suit of complete armour, and you cannot conceive how much it—it—improves him. I helped him to try it on the other day," Mr. Simeon explained with a smile.

"Maybe," suggested Brother Copas, "he fears the effect of rain upon his 'h's.'"

But the glass held steady, and the great day dawned without a cloud. Good citizens of Merchester, arising early to scan the sky, were surprised to find their next-door neighbours already abroad, and in consultation with neighbours opposite over strings of flags to be suspended across the roadway. Mr. Simeon, for example, peeping out, with an old dressing-gown cast over his night-shirt, was astounded to find Mr. Magor, the contiguous pork-seller, thus engaged with Mr. Sillifant, the cheap fruiterer across the way. He had accustomed himself to think of them as careless citizens and uncultured, and their unexpected patriotism gave him perhaps less of a shock than the discovery that they must have been moving faster than he with the times, for they both wore pyjamas.

They were kind to him, however: and, lifting no eyebrow over his antiquated night-attire, consulted him cheerfully over a string of flags which (as it turned out) Mr. Magor had paid yesterday a visit to Southampton expressly to borrow.

I mention this because it was a foretaste, and significant, of the general enthusiasm.

At ten in the morning Fritz, head waiter of that fine old English coaching-house, "The Mitre," looked out from the portico where he stood surrounded by sporting prints, and announced to the young lady in the bar that the excursion trains must be "bringing them in hundreds."

By eleven o'clock the High Street was packed with crowds that whiled away their time with staring at the flags and decorations. But it was not until 1.0 p.m. that there began to flow, always towards the Pageant Ground, a stream by which that week, among the inhabitants of Merchester, will always be best remembered; a stream of folk in strange dresses—knights in armour, ladies in flounces and ruffs, ancient Britons, greaved Roman legionaries, monks, cavaliers, Georgian beaux and dames.

It appeared as if all the dead generations of Merchester had arisen from their tombs and reclaimed possession of her streets. They shared it, however, with throngs of modern folk, in summer attire, hurrying from early luncheons to the spectacle. In the roadway near the Pageant Ground crusaders and nuns jostled amid motors and cabs of commerce.

For an hour this mad medley poured through the streets of Merchester. Come with them to the Pageant Ground, where all is arranged now and ready, waiting the signal!

Punctually at half-past two, from his box on the roof of the Grand Stand, Mr. Isidore gave the signal for which the orchestra waited. With a loud outburst of horns and trumpets and a deep rolling of drums the overture began.

It was the work of a young musician, ambitious to seize his opportunity. After stating its theme largely, simply, in sixteen strong chords, it broke into variations in which the audience for a few moments might read nothing but cacophonous noise, until a gateway opened in the old wall, and through it a band of white-robed Druids came streaming towards the stone altar which stood—the sole stage "property"—in the centre of the green area. Behind them trooped a mob of skin-clothed savages, yelling as they dragged a woman to the sacrifice. It was these yells that the music interpreted. The Pageant had opened, and was chanting in high wild notes to its own prelude.

Almost before the spectators realised this, the Arch-Druid had mounted his altar. He held a knife to the victim's throat. But meanwhile the low beat of a march had crept into the music, and was asserting itself more and more insistently beneath the disconnected outcries. It seemed to grow out of distance, to draw nearer and nearer, as it were the tramp of an armed host. . . . It was the tramp of a host. . . . As the Arch-Druid, holding his knife aloft, dragged back the woman's head to lay her throat the barer, all turned to a sudden crash of cymbals; and, to the stern marching-tune now silencing all clamours, the advance-guard of Vespasian swung in through the gateway. . . .

So for an hour Saxon followed Roman, Dane followed Saxon, Norman followed both. Alfred, Canute, William—all controlled (as Brother Copas cynically remarked to Brother Warboise, watching through the palings from the allotted patch of sward which served them for green-room) by one small Jew, perspiring on the roof and bawling orders here, there, everywhere, through a gigantic megaphone; bawling them in a lingua franca to which these mighty puppets moved obediently, weaving English history as upon a tapestry swiftly, continuously unrolled. "Which things," quoted Copas mischievously, "are an allegory, Philip."

To the waiting performers it seemed incredible that to the audience, packed by thousands in the Grand Stand, this scolding strident voice immediately above their heads should be inaudible. Yet it was. All those eyes beheld, all those ears heard, was the puppets as they postured and declaimed. The loud little man on the roof they saw not nor heard.

"Which things again are an allegory," said Brother Copas.

The Brethren of St. Hospital had no Episode of their own. But from the time of the Conquest downward they had constantly to take part in the moving scenes as members of the crowd, and the spectators constantly hailed their entry.

"Our coat of poverty is the wear to last, after all," said Copas, regaining the green-room and mopping his brow. "We have just seen out the Plantagenets."

In this humble way, when the time came, he looked on at the Episode of Henry the Eighth's visit to Merchester, and listened to the blank verse which he himself had written. The Pageant Committee had ruled out the Reformation, but he had slyly introduced a hint of it. The scene consisted mainly of revels, dances, tournays, amid which a singing man had chanted, in a beautiful tenor, Henry's own song of Pastime with good Companye.—

"Pastime with good Companye, I love and shall until I die: Grudge who lust, but none deny, So God be pleased, thus live will I. For my pastance, Hunt, sing and dance, My heart is set. All goodly sport For my comfort Who shall me let?"

With its chorus—

"For Idleness Is chief mistress Of vices all. Then who can say But mirth and play Is best of all?"

As to the tune of it their revels ended, Henry and Catherine of Aragon and Charles the Emperor passed from the sunlit stage, one solitary figure—the blind Bishop of Merchester—lingered, and stretched out his hands for the monks to come and lead him home, stretched out his hands towards the Cathedral behind the green elms.

"Being blind, I trust the Light. Ah, Mother Church! If fire must purify, If tribulation search thee, shall I plead Not in my time, O Lord? Nay let me know All dark, yet trust the dawn—remembering The order of thy services, thy sweet songs, Thy decent ministrations—Levite, priest And sacrifice—those antepasts of heaven. We have sinn'd, we have sinn'd! But never yet went out The flame upon the altar, day or night; And it shall save thee, O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!"

"And I stole that straight out of Jeremy Taylor," murmured Brother Copas, as the monks led off their Bishop, chanting—

"Crux, in caelo lux superna, Sis in carnis hac taberna Mihi pedibus lucerna—

"Quo vexillum Dux cohortis Sistet, super flumen mortis, Te, flammantibus in portis!"

—"While I wrote that dog-Latin myself," said Brother Copas, musing, forgetful that he, the author, was lingering on the stage from which he ought to have removed himself three minutes ago with the rest of the crowd.

"Ger' out! Get off, zat olt fool! What ze devil you mean by doddling!"

It was the voice of Mr. Isidore screeching upon him through the megaphone. Brother Copas turned about, uplifting his face to it for a moment with a dazed stare. . . . It seemed that, this time, everyone in the Grand Stand must have heard. He fled: he made the most ignominious exit in the whole Pageant.

The afternoon heat was broiling. . . . He had no sooner gained the green-room shade of his elm than the whole of the Brethren were summoned forth anew; this time to assist at the spousals of Queen Mary of England with King Philip of Spain. And this Episode (Number VII on the programme) was Corona's.

He had meant—and again he cursed his forgetfulness—to seek her out at the last moment and whisper a word of encouragement. The child must needs be nervous. . . .

He had missed his chance now. He followed the troop of Brethren back into the arena and dressed rank with the others, salaaming as the mock potentates entered, uttering stage cheers, while inwardly groaning in spirit. His eye kept an anxious sidewise watch on the gateway by which Corona must make her entrance.

She came. But before her, leading the way, strewing flowers, came score upon score of children in regiments of colour—pale blue, pale yellow, green, rose, heliotrope. They conducted her to the May Queen's throne, hung it with wreaths, and having paid their homage, ranged off, regiment by regiment, to take their station for the dance. And she, meanwhile? . . . If she were nervous, no sign of it betrayed her. She walked to her throne with the air of a small queen. . . . Vera incessu patuit—Corona; walked, too, without airs or minauderies, unconscious of all but the solemn glory. This was the pageant of her beloved England, and hers for the moment was this proud part in it. Brother Copas brushed his eyes. In his ears buzzed the verse of a psalm—

She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needle-work: the virgins that be her fellows shall bear her company . . .

The orchestra struck up a quick-tripping minuet. The regiments advanced on curving lines. They interwove their ranks, making rainbows of colour; they rayed out in broadening bands of colour from Corona's footstool. Through a dozen of these evolutions she sat, and took all the homage imperially. It was not given to her, but to the idea for which she was enthroned; and sitting, she nursed the idea in her heart.

The dance over—and twice or thrice as it proceeded the front of the Grand Stand shook with the clapping of thousands of hands, all agitated together as when a wind passes over a wheatfield—Corona had to arise from her throne, a wreath in either hand, and deliver a speech before Queen Mary. The length of it was just a line and three-quarters—

"Lady, accept these perishable flowers Queen May brings to Queen Mary. . . ."

She spoke them in a high, clear voice, and all the Grand Stand renewed its clapping as the child did obeisance.

"First-class!" grunted Brother Warboise at Copas's elbow. "Pity old Bonaday couldn't be here to see the girl!"

"Aye," said Copas; but there was that in his throat which forbade his saying more.

So the Pageant went on unfolding its scenes. Some of them were merely silly: all of them were false to fact, of course, and a few even false to sentiment. No entry, for example, received a heartier round of British applause than did Nell Gwynn's (Episode IX). Tears actually sprang to many eyes when an orange-girl in the crowd pushed forward offering her wares, and Nell with a gay laugh bought fruit of her, announcing "I was an orange-girl once!" Brother Copas snorted, and snorted again more loudly when Prebendary Ken refused to admit the naughty ex-orange-girl within his episcopal gates. For the audience applauded the protest almost as effusively, and again clapped like mad when the Merry Monarch took the rebuke like a sportsman, promising that "the next Bishopric that falls vacant shall be at this good old man's disposal!"

Indeed, much of the Pageant was extremely silly. Yet, as it progressed, Brother Copas was not alone in feeling his heart lift with the total effect of it. Here, after all, thousands of people were met in a common pride of England and her history. Distort it as the performers might, and vain, inadequate, as might be the words they declaimed, an idea lay behind it all. These thousands of people were met for a purpose in itself ennobling because unselfish. As often happens on such occasions, the rite took possession of them, seizing on them, surprising them with a sudden glow about the heart, sudden tears in the eyes. This was history of a sort. Towards the close, when the elm shadows began to stretch across the green stage, even careless spectators began to catch this infection of nobility— this feeling that we are indeed greater than we know.

In the last act all the characters—from early Briton to Georgian dame—trooped together into the arena. In groups marshalled at haphazard they chanted with full hearts the final hymn, and the audience unbidden joined in chorus—

"O God! our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast And our eternal home!"

"Where is the child?" asked Brother Copas, glancing through the throng.

He found her in the thick of the press, unable to see anything for the crowd about her, and led her off to a corner where, by the southern end of the Grand Stand, some twenty Brethren of St. Hospital stood shouting in company—

"A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone, Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun."

"She can't see. Lift her higher!" sang out a voice—Brother Royle's.

By happy chance at the edge of the group stood tall good-natured Alderman Chope, who had impersonated Alfred the Great. The Brethren begged his shield from him and mounted Corona upon it, all holding it by its rim while they chanted—

"The busy tribes of flesh and blood, With all their hopes and fears, Are carried downward by the flood And lost in following years.

"Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.

"O God! our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come; Be Thou our guard while troubles last And our perpetual home!"

Corona lifted her voice and sang with the old men; while among the excited groups the swallows skimmed boldly over the meadow, as they had skimmed every summer's evening before and since English History began.



CONCLUSION.

Brother Copas walked homeward along the river-path, his gaunt hands gathering his Beauchamp robe behind him for convenience of stride. Ahead of him and around him the swallows circleted over the water-meads or swooped their breasts close to the current of Mere. Beside him strode his shadow, and lengthened as the sun westered in a haze of potable gold. In the haze swam evening odours of mints, grasses, herbs of grace and virtue named in old pharmacopoeias as most medicinal for man, now forgotten, if not nameless.

The sunset breathed benediction. To many who walked homeward that evening it seemed in that benediction to enwrap the centuries of history they had so feverishly been celebrating, and to fold them softly away as a garment. But Brother Copas heeded it not. He was eager to reach St. Hospital and carry report to his old friend.

"Upon my word, it was an entire success. . . . I have criticised the Bambergers enough to have earned a right to admit it. In the end a sort of sacred fury took hold of the whole crowd, and in the midst of it we held her up—Corona—on a shield—"

Brother Bonaday lay panting. He had struggled through an attack sharper than any previous one—so much sharper that he knew the end to be not far distant, and only asked for the next to be swift.

"—And she was just splendid," said Brother Copas. "She had that unconscious way of stepping out of the past, with a crown on her head. My God, old friend, if I had that child for a daughter—"

Brother Bonaday lay and panted, not seeming to hear, still with his eyes upturned to the ceiling of his narrow cell. They scanned it as if feebly groping a passage through.

"I ought to have told you," he muttered.—"More than once I meant— tried—to tell you."

"Hey?"

Brother Copas bent lower.

"She—Corona—never was my child. . . . Give me your hand. . . . No, no; it's the truth, now. Her mother ran away from me . . . and she, Corona, was born . . . a year after . . . in America . . . Coronation year. The man—her father—died when she was six months old, and the woman . . . knowing that I was always weak—"

He panted, very feebly. Brother Copas, still holding his hand, leaned forward.

"Then she died, too. . . . What does it matter? Her message. . . . 'Bluff,' you would call it. . . . But she knew me. She was always decided in her dealings . . . to the end. I want to sleep now. . . . That's a good man!"

Brother Copas, seeking complete solitude, found it in the dusk of the garden beyond the Ambulatory. There, repelling the benediction of sunset that still lingered in the west, he lifted his face to the planet Jupiter, already establishing its light in a clear space of sky.

"Lord!" he ingeminated, "forgive me who counted myself the ironeist of St. Hospital!"