The White Ladies of Worcester | Page 4

wanted
the tasty morsels which he knew lay concealed in Sister Mary Antony's
leathern wallet. So he stayed on the bough and sang.
The old face, peering up from between the pillars, softened into
tenderness at the robin's song.
"I cannot let thy little grace return unto thee void," she said, and
fumbled at the fastenings of her wallet.
A flick of wings, a flash of red. The robin had dropped from the bough,
and perched beside her.

She doled out crumbs, and fragments of cheese, pushing them toward
him along the parapet; leaving her fingers near, to see how close he
would adventure to her hand.
She watched him peck a morsel of cheese into five tiny pieces, then fly,
with full beak, on eager wing, to the hidden nest, from which five
gaping mouths shrieked a shrill and hungry welcome. Then, back
again--swift as an arrow from the archer's bow--noting, with bright eye,
and head turned sidewise, that the hand resting on the coping had
moved nearer; yet brave to take all risks for the sake of those yellow
beaks, which would gape wide, in expectation, at sound of the beat of
his wings.
"Feed thyself, thou little worldling!" chuckled old Antony, and covered
the remaining bits of cheese with her hand. "Who art thou to come here
presuming to teach thy betters lessons of self-sacrifice? First feed
thyself; then give to the hungry, the fragments that remain. Had I five
squealing children here--which Heaven forbid--I should eat mine own
mess, and count myself charitable if I let them lick the dish. The holy
Ladies give to the poor at the Convent gate, that for which they have no
further use. Does thy jaunty fatherhood presume to shame our saintly
celibacy? Mother Sub-Prioress did chide me sharply because, to a poor
soul with many hungry mouths to feed, I gave a good piece of venison,
and not the piece which was tainted. Truth to tell, I had already made
away with the tainted piece; but Mother Sub-Prioress was pleased to
think it was in the pot, seething for the holy Ladies' evening meal; and
wherefore should Mother Sub-Prioress not think as she pleased?
"'Woman!' she cried; 'Woman!'--and when Mother Sub-Prioress says
'Woman!' the woman she addresses feels her estate would be higher
had God Almighty been pleased to have let her be the Man, or even the
Serpent, so much contempt does Mother Sub-Prioress infuse into the
name--'Woman!' said Mother Sub-Prioress, 'wouldst thou make all the
Ladies of the Convent ill?'
"'Nay,' said I, 'that would I not. Yet, if any needs must be ill, 'twere
easier to tend the holy Ladies in their cells, than the Poor, in humble
homes, outside the Convent walls, tossing on beds of rushes.'

"'Tush, fool!' snarled Mother Sub-Prioress. "'The Poor are not easily
made ill.'
"Tush indeed! I tell thee, little bright-eyed man, old Antony, can 'tush'
to better purpose! That night there were strong purging herbs in the
broth of Mother Sub-Prioress. Yet she did but keep her bed for one day.
Like the Poor, she is not easily made ill! . . . Well, have thy way; only
peck not my fingers, Master Robin, or I will have thee flogged through
the Tything at the cart-tail, as was done to a certain pieman, whose
history I will now relate.
"Once upon a time, when Sister Mary Antony was young, and fair to
look upon--Nay, wink not thy naughty eye----"
At that moment came the sound of a key turning slowly in the lock of
the door at the bottom of the steps leading from the crypt to the cloister.
CHAPTER III
THE PRIORESS PASSES
A key turned slowly in the lock of the oaken door at the entrance to the
underground way.
The old lay-sister seized her wallet and pulled out the bag of peas.
Below, the heavy door swung back upon its hinges.
Mary Antony dropped upon her knees to the right of the steps, her
hands hidden beneath her scapulary, her eyes bent in lowly reverence
upon the sunlit flagstones, her lips mumbling chance sentences from
the Psalter.
The measured sound of softly moving feet drew near, slightly shuffling
as they reached the steps and began to mount, up from the mile-long
darkness, into the sunset light.
First to appear was a young lay-sister, carrying a lantern. Hastening up

the steps, she extinguished the flame, grown sickly in the sunshine,
placed the lantern in a niche, and, dropping upon her knees, opposite
old Mary Antony, sought to join in the latter's pious recitations.
"Adhaesit pavimento anima mea," chanted Mary Antony. "Wherefore
are the holy Ladies late to-day?"
"One fell to weeping in the darkness," intoned the young lay-sister,
"whereupon Mother Sub-Prioress caused all to stand still while she
strove, by