CHAPTER XXIII.

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 arborumInplicat 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 courseI 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 takethataway, 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 theafterwards, 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 keepingthemyoung 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 atmytime 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 itsnoblesse 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 Idofeel 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.…Wouldyou, by the way,verymuch 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 writtenTo Meadows—

"Ye have been fresh and green,Ye have been filled with flowers,And ye the walks have beenWhere maids have spent their hours."You have beheld how theyWith wicker arks did comeTo kiss and bear awayThe 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 thePervigilium Veneris—

"Her favour it was filled the sail of the Trojanfor Latium bound;Her favour that won her Æneas a bride onLaurentian ground;And anon from the cloister inveigled theVestal, the Virgin, to Mars,As her wit by the wild Sabine rape recreatedher Rome for its warsWith the Ramnes, Quirites, togetherancestrally proud as they drewFrom Romulus down to our Ceesar—last,best of that bone and that thew.—Now learn ye to love who loved never—now yewho 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 thepassion, the pang, of his joy.In a field was Dione in labour delivered ofCupid the Boy:And the field in its fostering lap from hertravail receiv'd him: he drewMother's milk from the delicate kisses offlowers; and he prospered and grew.—Now learn ye to love who loved never—now yewho 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 aflank they besprawl on the broom!—Yet obey the uxorious yoke and are tamedby Dione her doom.Or behear ye the sheep, to the husbandingrams 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 thatshatters the hush of the lake;Be it dulcet as where Philomela holdsdarkling the poplar awake,So melting her soul into music, you'd vow'twas her passion, her own,She chanteth—her sister forgot, with theDaulian crime long-agone.Hush! Hark! Draw around to the circle…Ah, loitering Summer, say whenFor me shall be broken the charm, that Ichirp with the swallow again?I am old: I am dumb: I have waited tosing till Apollo withdrew.—So Amyclæ a moment was mute, and forever a wilderness grew.—Now learn ye to love who loved never—now yewho 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.

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 inThe Timesnewspaper, '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.… Itwasthe 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 alingua francato 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 ofPastime 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 sportFor my comfòrtWho shall me let?"

With its chorus—

"For IdlenessIs chief mistressOf vices all.Then who can sayBut mirth and playIs 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 pleadNot in my time, O Lord? Nay let me knowAll dark, yet trust the dawn—rememberingThe order of thy services, thy sweet songs,Thy decent ministrations—Levite, priestAnd sacrifice—those antepasts of heaven.We have sinn'd, we have sinn'd! But never yet went outThe 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 cælo lux superna,Sis in carnis hac tabernaMihi pedibus lucerna—"Quo vexillum Dux cohortisSistet, 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 orminauderies, 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 flowersQueen 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 "Iwas 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. Thiswashistory 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 blastAnd 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 sightAre like an evening gone,Short as the watch that ends the nightBefore 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 floodAnd lost in following years."Time, like an ever-rolling stream,Bears all its sons away;They fly forgotten, as a dreamDies at the opening day."O God! our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come;Be Thou our guard while troubles lastAnd 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.

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 pharmacopœias 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 ironëist of St. Hospital!"

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