The Gray Brethren

The Gray Brethren

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Grey Brethren, by Michael
Fairless (#3 in our series by Michael Fairless)
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Title: The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse
Author: Michael Fairless
Release Date: March, 1997 [EBook #835] [This file was first posted on
March 2, 1997] [Most recently updated: September 25, 2002]
Edition: 10

Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE GREY
BRETHREN ***

Transcribed from the 1911 Duckworth and Co. edition by David Price,
email [email protected]

THE GREY BRETHREN AND OTHER FRAGMENTS IN PROSE
AND VERSE

Contents
The Grey Brethren A Song of Low Degree A German Christmas Eve A
Christmas Idyll The Manifestation All Souls' Day in a German Town
By Rivers and Streams Spring A Lark's Song 'Luvly Miss' Four Stories
Told To Children: The Dreadful Griffin The Discontented Daffodils
The Fairy Fluffikins The Story of the Tinkle-Tinkle

The Grey Brethren

Some of the happiest remembrances of my childhood are of days spent
in a little Quaker colony on a high hill.
The walk was in itself a preparation, for the hill was long and steep and
at the mercy of the north-east wind; but at the top, sheltered by a copse
and a few tall trees, stood a small house, reached by a flagged pathway
skirting one side of a bright trim garden.
I, with my seven summers of lonely, delicate childhood, felt, when I
gently closed the gate behind me, that I shut myself into Peace. The
house was always somewhat dark, and there were no domestic sounds.
The two old ladies, sisters, both born in the last century, sat in the cool,
dim parlour, netting or sewing. Rebecca was small, with a nut-cracker
nose and chin; Mary, tall and dignified, needed no velvet under the net
cap. I can feel now the touch of the cool dove-coloured silk against my
cheek, as I sat on the floor, watching the nimble fingers with the shuttle,

and listened as Mary read aloud a letter received that morning,
describing a meeting of the faithful and the 'moving of the Spirit'
among them. I had a mental picture of the 'Holy Heavenly Dove,' with
its wings of silvery grey, hovering over my dear old ladies; and I doubt
not my vision was a true one.
Once as I watched Benjamin, the old gardener--a most 'stiff-backed
Friend' despite his stoop and his seventy years--putting scarlet
geraniums and yellow fever-few in the centre bed, I asked, awe- struck,
whether such glowing colours were approved; and Rebecca smiled and
said--"Child, dost thee not think the Lord may have His glories?" and I
looked from the living robe of scarlet and gold to the dove-coloured
gown, and said: "Would it be pride in thee to wear His glories?" and
Mary answered for her--"The change is not yet; better beseems us the
ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.
The 'change from glory to glory' has come to them both long since, but
it seems to me as if their robes must still be Quaker-grey.
Upstairs was the invalid daughter and niece. For years she had been
compelled to lie on her face; and in that position she had done
wonderful drawings of the High Priest, the Ark of the Covenant, and
other Levitical figures. She had a cageful of tame canary-birds which
answered to their names and fed from her plate at meal-times. Of these
I remember only Roger, a gorgeous fellow with a beautiful voice and
strong will of his own, who would occasionally defy his mistress from
the secure fastness of a high picture-frame, but always surrendered at
last, and came to listen to his lecture with drooping wings.
A city of Peace, this little house, for the same severely-gentle decorum
reigned in the kitchen as elsewhere: and now, where is such a haunt to
be found?
In the earlier part of