Part 25 (1/2)
”You looked high, my son, by your own shewing. You loved high. Your love was worthy, for you remained faithful, when you believed you had been betrayed. Let your consolation now be the knowledge that she also was faithful, and that it is a double faithfulness which keeps her from responding to the call of your love. Seek union with her on the spiritual plane, and some day--in the Realm where all n.o.ble things shall attain unto full perfection--you may yet give thanks that your love was not allowed to pa.s.s through the perilous pitfalls of an earthly union.”
The Knight looked at the delicate face of the Bishop, with its wistful smile, its charm of extreme refinement.
Yes! Here spoke the Prelate, the Idealist, the Mystic.
But the Knight was a man and a lover.
His dark face flushed, and his eyes grew bright with inward fires such as the Bishop could hardly be expected to understand.
”I want not spiritual planes,” he said, ”nor realms of perfection. I want my own wife, in my own home; and, could I have won her there, I have not much doubt but that I could have lifted her over any perilous pitfalls that came in her way.”
”True, my son,” said the Bishop, at once gently acquiescent; for Symon of Worcester invariably yielded a point which had been misunderstood.
For over-rating a mind with which he conversed, this was ever his self-imposed penance. ”Your great strength would be fully equal to lifting ladies over pitfalls. Which recalls to my mind a scene in this day's events, which I would fain describe to you before we part.”
CHAPTER XXII
WHAT BROTHER PHILIP HAD TO TELL
The Bishop sat back in his chair, smiling, as at a mental picture which gave him pleasure, coupled with some amus.e.m.e.nt.
Ignoring the Knight's sullen silence, he began his story in the cheerful voice which takes for granted a willing and an interested listener.
”When the Prioress and myself were discussing your hopes, my son, and I was urging, in your interests, liberty of flight for Sister Mary Seraphine, I informed the Reverend Mother that the carrying out of your plans, carefully laid in order to keep any scandal concerning the White Ladies from reaching the city, would involve for Seraphine a ride of many hours to Warwick, almost immediately upon safely reaching the Star hostel. This seemed as nothing to the lover who, by his own shewing, had ofttimes seen her 'ride like a bird, all day, on the moors.' But to us who know the effect of monastic life and how quickly such matters as these become lost arts through disuse, this romantic ride in the late afternoon and on into the summer night, loomed large as a possible obstacle to the successful flight of Seraphine.
”Therefore, in order that our little bird might try her wings, regain her seat and mastery of a horse, and rid herself of a first painful stiffness, I persuaded the Reverend Mother to grant the nuns a Play Day, in honour of my visit, promising to send them my white palfrey, suitably caparisoned, in safe charge of a good lay-brother, so that all nuns who pleased, might ride in the river meadow. You would not think it,” said the Bishop, with a smile, ”but the White Ladies dearly love such sport, when it is lawful. They have an aged a.s.s which they gleefully mount in turns, on Play Days, in the courtyard and in the meadow. Therefore riding is not altogether strange to them, although my palfrey, Iconoklastes, is somewhat of an advance upon their mild a.s.s, Sheba.”
The Knight's sad face had brightened at mention of the beasts.
”Wherefore 'Iconoklastes'?” he asked, with interest. It struck him as a curious name for a palfrey.
”Because,” replied the Bishop, ”soon after I had bought him he trampled to ruin, in a fit of misplaced merriment, some flower beds on which I had spent much precious time and care, and of which I was inordinately fond.”
”Brute,” said the Knight, puzzled, but unwilling to admit it.
”Methinks I should have named him 'Devil,' for the doing of such diabolic mischief.”
”Nay,” said the Bishop, gently. ”The Devil would have spared my flower beds. They were a snare unto me.”
”And wherefore 'Sheba'?” queried the Knight.
”I named her so, when I gave her to the Prioress,” said the Bishop, ”in reply to a question put to me by the Reverend Mother. The a.s.s was elderly and mild, even then, but a handsome creature, of good breed.
The Prioress asked me whether she still had too much spirit to be easily managed by the lay-sisters. I answered that her name was 'Sheba.'”
The Bishop paused and rubbed his hands softly over each other, in gleeful enjoyment of the recollection.
But the Knight again looked blank.
”Did that content the Prioress?” he asked; but chiefly for love of mentioning her name.
”Perfectly,” replied the Bishop. ”She smiled and said: 'That is well.'