SPRING that year made battle royal with cold winds. Together they fought for the mastery. Yet where they gained in strength she gained in insistence. Driven away she yet returned again and again, till at length they were weary of the fight, and fled before her to return no more.

The victory hers she reigned supreme and triumphant, flung her snowy mantle over fruit trees, kissed to full awakening the flowers in copse and field, roused to chorus of warblings the birds’ song in the hedges. Knowing her reign late and soon to pass to that of summer she lost no moment of it once established. The south and west winds, now her subjects, sang softly among the trees and grasses at her bidding. The sun, king of all, crowned his reigning queen.

Peregrine sat in the castle garden at the foot of the white sundial which stood at the edge of the velvet grass sward. Around him were flower-beds brilliant with colour. Here were masses of small purple campanula covering the stone border between flower-bed and flagged path; clumps of anemones many-hued, named for St. Brigid; narcissi golden-eyed trembling in the soft air; forget-me-nots blue as the sky or Our Lady’s robe; scillas deeper dyed; tulips chalice-shaped, gold, crimson, and white,—a very riot of colour, gay as the sweet mad call of spring.

Beyond lay the park, the trees clean and fresh in their vesture of new leaves; and beyond that again the open spaces of the moorland. Peregrine, looking thereat, saw its freedom, remembered his own. A prisoner now, he laughed, yet without bitterness. Ten short weeks to change a man, yet he found himself changed.

Peregrine set himself to think. Yet this he found no easy task. He could see himself as he was ten weeks agone, fancied the mental image as clear-cut as a cameo, a good likeness withal. He could see himself as he was now, the outlines dimmed truly, blurred by some curious mist of thought, yet sufficiently clear to know that here was a different man from the sharp-cut cameo. To the change, the manner of its happening, he found it no easy task to bring clear thought. Once a freeman scorning all thought of thraldom, now a prisoner exulting in his bonds. That the bonds which held him differed from those that had held his sire he was very certain. Custom had bound his sire, he had his own word for it. Here was no custom to hold him, but bonds infinitely sweeter, light yet inflexible as iron. He would not be free of them if he could.

What was he? A prisoner in very sooth. Yet more,—a Jester who failed to jest; a man seeking for art, for guile, wherein to hide his heart, yet clothing it ever in truth, though truth carved to poetic fancy.

“Dogs are we!” so had cried his sire. No dog was he to fawn and cringe at the foot of his mistress, but in very sooth a man kneeling in adoration at his lady’s shrine. And as he was, so she accepted him, this Jester who could not jest. She saw the man beneath the fool, and stooping from her heights recognized his manhood. Even so might the Gracious Mother of God bend from Heaven to a suppliant son of earth. There was no hint of blasphemy in his thought; in his very manhood he was humble.

You see in him a man who had had no thought for women. Two only had held his love,—his mother, at whose knee in childhood he had prayed, and that other Mother to whom his prayers had been addressed, “Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrÆ.”

Therefore he brought to his lady a very clean heart, a very humble heart, one which in all childlikeness accepted her favours, though warm with the strength of a man’s devotion it sang a man’s praises in her honour. You must not think that he lifted his eyes one whit higher than the hem of her robe; she was to him a very queen, himself the humblest of her subjects. Yet he knew himself now as man, and no fool, his adoration clean and strong, no hint of the fawner in his attitude.

That the knowledge brought him joy you may well believe. His heart was attuned to the joyous note of spring. Sun, the flowering earth, the soft winds, all were to him but symbols of his happiness, portraying for him his lady’s praises. Looking back on his first meeting with her he still felt a flush of shame that he had momentarily doubted her truth, had spoken words that held a note of irony. For that he struck his breast, cried “Mea culpa,” saw himself the fool his garb set forth. Truth incarnate in woman, so he saw her now, loftily enshrined beside his mother, the shrine I think very near to that of the Mother of God. Kneeling afar at Mass he saw her bend her head in adoration, rejoiced to think they were at one in this great Act of Worship. The whiteness of his love we may well believe lifted him nearer God.

Having, then, some hint of his mood you will know that Peregrine sitting by the sundial found the morning very fair. Having mused, and finding it hard to say by what precise steps he had reached his present goal, he turned from musing, content merely that here he was. Light of heart he looked across the park, saw the shadows lying still and blue beneath the trees, saw the purple outline of the moorland, heard a lark pouring forth exuberant song from the cloudless sky.

At the further end of the grass sward, on a stone bench, Brigid was sitting with Mary Chester. Embroidery, as their custom was, occupied their fingers, or it would be safer to say that Mary’s were occupied thereby. Brigid for the most part held her needle idly, her eyes more often roving to the motionless figure by the sundial than bent upon her work.

“Methinks,” she said suddenly, breaking a long silence, “that the Lady Isabel favours our present Jester.” Head on one side she surveyed the distant figure meditatively, unashamedly.

“The Lady Isabel is gracious to all,” said Mary sedately, her eyes upon her embroidery.

“Hmm.” Brigid’s eyes twinkled. Elbow on knee, chin in cupped hand, she cast a side-long look at Mary. “And will you be recording that small speech at confession.”

Mary flushed. “I do not understand,” she responded.

“No?” quizzed Brigid. “Oh, Mary, methought you were a truthful woman. And here within the space of one minute you have twice—Oh, fie upon you!”

Mary, her lips folded upon each other, stitched at her embroidery.

“I wonder,” mused Brigid, unheeding her companion’s silence, “just what our dear mistress intends.”

Still Mary was silent.

“You see,” pursued Brigid, “you know her, and I know her, and methinks her present mood is dangerous for the peace of mind of our friend yonder. Just how far will she lead him? Just how far will she let him feel her power? Ah me, had I her looks instead of the half-hearted dower Dame Nature has bestowed on me, methinks willy nilly the maid would enter the field with the mistress, and should the maid gain the day I’ll warrant the awakening would be less rude to the sleeping fool. Mary, a word in your ear. Melikes that young man.”

Mary raised her eyes from her embroidery. “And that,” she remarked quietly, “is the truest word you’ve spoken.”

“A true word, verily; but I crave leave to omit the superlative. Let me show the truth of the other words, emphasise it since you hesitate to grant it. Therefore firstly, note our knowledge of the Lady Isabel; secondly, her mood dangerous to the peace of mind of our friend yonder; thirdly, the awakening less rude were it left to me. And firstly, secondly, and thirdly holds, I’ll warrant, every whit as much truth as lastly. Hence I say again, I omit the superlative, by your leave.”

For a moment Mary was still silent. Then she spoke, her voice grave. “You are barely charitable, Brigid; and, methinks, hardly loyal.”

Brigid shrugged her shoulders. “As for loyalty, I do not speak in this fashion save to you. And for charity—bah! Were I to divest my speech of all criticism methinks ’twould be as savourless as food without salt and spices, mere pap for babes.”

Mary sighed.

“You sigh, and rightly. Mary, it angers me. Man though he is, his rÔle is but that of fool,—fool by birth, heritage, and calling. She is as guarded from him as ever was Brunhilde from Siegfried by the ring of fire. He knows it, and she knows it. Yet by the syren song of her she lures him ever nearer. And, if her song continues, one day in madness he will try to pass the barrier of flame. Her song and madness alone will urge him to the attempt. Then the flame will burn him; and I know, yes, I know, she will mock at his wounds.” Low and fierce Brigid spoke the last words.

“You let imagination run away with you. You feel too deeply.” Mary’s words were calm.

Brigid looked straight before her. “Sooner feel too deeply than have a heart of stone. Mary, I’d sooner be dumb than lure men by the syren’s song. I’d sooner be featureless with leprosy than drive men mad by the fairness of my face. She is heartless as a stone image, remorseless as a Medusa, a very vampire to—.” Brigid broke off; a sidelong glance had shown her Mary’s face. “You are shocked? Small wonder. Truth is a very naked lady, and if we drag her from the bottom of her well we should at least garb her in becoming fashion. We will lower her again to the darkness of her well, and herewith change the topic of our discourse. Mark you, how blue the sky is, and look at the white butterfly resting on my anemones yonder. See the quivering of its wings, the darling! ’Tis the first I have seen this year.” Gaiety in every note of the words you could not have imagined the passionate utterance of a moment agone.

Mary was silent, tears not far from her eyes.

“What ails you?” asked Brigid solicitously.

Mary smiled wanly. “I liked not the sight of truth,” she replied.

“Nor I,” averred Brigid. “’Twas ill to drag her from her resting-place. Since she cannot be killed she is best hidden. Let us cry Deo gratias that there is a well wherein to hide her. And you and I will dance and smile at the edge thereof; since, verily, save for that or moping, which is ill, we can do nothing.”

“Nothing,” echoed Mary. “Save pray,” she added a moment later, and below her breath.

Brigid caught the words, and her eyes gave assent thereto, if not her lips.