CHAPTER VI

THE PRIOR

The afternoon was well advanced when the children awoke. Montague was horrified to see Modestine standing over Mavis, but the child merely laughed and stretched a lazy hand to tickle Modestine's nose.

"She likes to be near us," she explained. "'Sides, she feels she had to look after us, you see."

Montague thought it a somewhat dangerous way of looking after anybody, but nobody else seemed to agree with him.

Once again they set out, Mavis riding. For a mile or so the road stretched along the top of the low ridge, then it began to descend inland. The belt of trees was no longer there to hide the view, and hills and valleys, sometimes wooded, sometimes with houses scattered about them, were revealed to their delighted eyes. Near the foot of the ridge they were descending, they could see a small village.

"We can buy something to eat there," said Nancy, "and I think we'll see if there's a nice cottage to stay at--just for the first night," she added apologetically.

For, somehow, the long rest in the afternoon did not seem to have been enough, and a comfortable bed seemed more inviting than the hard ground. Such a pity one had to get tired, such a trial that one's body would not let one do as much as one would like to do.

There were so many twists and curves in the road that they found the village was much further off than they had imagined. It was a pretty road, prettier even than the road that had so delighted them in the morning, and always now there were the great shoulders of the higher hills beckoning them. Yet, somehow, prettiness did not seem as important as it had done earlier in the day--even the hills were beginning to lose a little of their charm. Sleep and a clean white bed for to-night, and to-morrow a re-awakened enthusiasm.

At last they drew near the village. At the entrance was a huge saw-mill, and beyond it a few cottages and one small general shop. Here they bought their bread and butter.

The woman who served them looked at them curiously, but she asked no questions. They hesitated whether to enquire here about sleeping accommodation.

"Does--where does that road opposite lead to, please?" Nancy asked.

"That? Oh, that's just a private road to the Priory," the woman replied.

"The Priory!"

The children looked at each other and hurried out of the shop.

A Priory! Why, surely, this was the very place for them to seek a night's rest at. A monastery, of course, would have been the correct thing, but a Priory surely would do.

"Let's go and enquire," Nancy said. "I don't s'pose monks or priors would charge very much."

They hurried eagerly up the road, and very soon saw in front of them a pair of huge iron gates, and through some tall beech trees, the chimney-pots of the Priory. The Priory itself was hidden by a high wall, and until they reached the gates they were unable to see it.

They stood with their faces pressed against the gates, staring with admiration, mingled with nervousness. It was the most beautiful building they had ever seen--except the cathedral--the windows and the great front door looked, they thought, as though they belonged to a church. But it was so large, almost as large, Montague admitted, as the place with the turrets in Suffolk. Would it be too bold to seek a lodging here? No monks or priors were to be seen--were they all at their prayers? If only the place were not quite so imposing, if it were not so silent, if a monk would only appear!

"There's a man!" whispered Montague. "Over there, across the lawn."

The others looked and saw an elderly man coming up a little winding path beyond a lawn in front of the house. They studied him anxiously. They were a little surprised that he was not wearing the kind of dressing-gown affair that they supposed monks usually wore. Perhaps, however, he was the prior and could dress as he liked. And _if_ he was the prior could they summon up courage to speak to him? Nancy noticed that his beard was soft and curly, and that he was bronzed; but what attracted her were his eyes.

"They're like two brown fires," she thought, "dancing fires."

His walk, too, re-assured her. It was so intensely alive, so young.

"He's kind," Nancy whispered, "I'll go and speak to him."

But the sharp eyes had already found the little group at the gates. For just one second their owner hesitated, then, with eager interest he darted towards them.

"Don't forget to raise your hat, Billy," Nancy reminded him hastily.

"You, too, Monty," Mavis whispered. For a moment Montague felt rebellious at the idea of raising his hat to a man, it was bad enough to have to do it to women; but when a little person _trusts_ you to do a thing, well, you simply have to give in.

The man opened the gates, and, to Montague's amazement, raised his hat as courteously as though they had been grown-ups in a car instead of four travel-stained children with a donkey.

"You are wanting something? Tell me!" His voice and smile were so encouraging that immediately they felt at their ease.

Nancy was the spokesman.

"Please, we are travellers," she explained, "an' we are too tired to sleep out of doors to-night, and we were going to look for a nice cottage, but a Priory is better. It _should_ be a monastery really, but we thought a Priory would be about the same. And so _could_ you let us be boarders, do you think? We're quite respectable--it's only travelling that's made us a little untidy."

At first the stranger looked a little astonished, then a kind of waiting-to-hear-what-would-come-next expression settled on his face.

"How long would you want to stay?" he enquired.

"Oh, only one night, 'cos we're going on again to-morrow--we haven't time to stay long in one place." She hesitated. She wanted to enquire how much they would have to pay, yet somehow it seemed difficult to mention money to this distinguished-looking man. _Would_ he understand that if you're only children you could not afford to stay at expensive places? "Could you--would you mind telling me what the charge is, please?" she faltered, flushing a little. "We should only just want some tea and a bed, and we'd be leaving before breakfast 'cos we've really got our tea in the basket, but it can be breakfast instead."

The Prior, if he was the prior, made a wide, sweeping gesture as though to push their breakfast-basket miles away.

"No visitor leaves the Priory without breakfast," he said emphatically. "It's one of the rules and can't be broken. Can you obey rules?" he asked abruptly.

"Yes, sir," Billy replied, not without some inward trepidation. The rules at a Priory might be terribly severe.

"Good. Well then, all visitors are requested to retire at seven o'clock and to attend matins behind the nuns' screen at 8.45 the following morning. After matins a collection will be taken and each visitor is expected to put in the bag exactly the amount he or she would put in the offertory bag on Sundays at home. _Exactly_, mind--neither more nor less."

The children breathed freely when the Prior got to the end of the rules. After all, there was nothing terrible for them to do. They _might_ have had to sleep on stone floors or rise in the middle of the night for prayers. Nevertheless, one of the rules troubled Nancy, and she spoke of it to the Prior. Did he know, she enquired, that children only put a _little_ money in the offertory bag? Should they put what they would give at Harvest Festival?

The Prior shook an admonishing finger at her.

"Not a penny more or a penny less than the usual Sunday offering," he said. "That is the rule."

His voice certainly was stern, but the children were not in the least afraid of him, for he beamed kindness upon them and Nancy was sure she saw flashes of fun in his eyes.

"But what about Modestine? What shall we give for her?" Billy enquired.

"Modestine! Modestine!" The Prior's quick eyes searched the children's anxious, upturned faces. Then he laughed. "Capital--capital!" he cried. "A donkey with so classical a name must receive free board and lodging. It is an honour to have her under one's roof--or rather one's stable-roof. I take off my hat to Modestine!" With that he took off his hat and made the little animal a sweeping bow. Modestine was unimpressed, but the children were delighted. "And now," continued the Prior, "come, my dears. There's a good woman here of the name of White, into whose hands I will put you to have those travel-stains (he looked whimsically at the earth that still clung to Montague's knickers) removed. And then for tea!"

"Oh, but can we just see to Modestine before we wash?" Billy asked. "She's dreadfully thirsty, and we must rub her down and give her a feed."

"Don't worry about Modestine, my boy," said the Prior. "There's a man of the name of Monk hanging about the stables with nothing particular to do. Time will hang less heavily on his hands with Modestine to occupy it."

"But would he do it properly?" Nancy enquired anxiously.

"Have no fears, my dear," said the Prior. "Monk has had a good deal of experience of donkeys in Egypt."

"Well," Billy replied, "if he finds he can't manage her I'll come and help him. It all depends on her mood, you see."

"Exactly. I'll tell Monk what you say. Ah, there he is. I'll take Modestine to him. Wait here one moment."

Modestine suffered herself to be led away, though nothing would induce her to allow the Prior to indulge in his quick, eager stride.

The children looked at the man called Monk with interest. So that was a monk. He looked quite ordinary; he was even wearing ordinary clothes, but perhaps, they decided, they were allowed not to wear a robe when they were working.

The Prior came dashing back across the lawn to them.

"Now, my children, come!" He held out a hand to each of the girls, and with confidence they took it. The boys followed.

"Does he wear his gown when he tells his beads?" Mavis enquired.

"Who?" For just the fraction of a second there was bewilderment in the Prior's eyes, but it quickly vanished. "Probably, my child," he replied.

"But don't you _know_?" Nancy asked. "Aren't you the head of the Priory, and don't they have to do what you tell them?"

The Prior laughed.

"Oh, yes, I'm the head of the place," he replied. "But I'm not a very strict person. I allow them all a certain amount of freedom. Freedom is good for the soul, you know. It helps it to expand--restriction contracts."

The children did not quite understand, but they thought it sounded nice.

"_I_ should like to be a monk here," Montague rumbled. "_I'd_ like freedom--if Mavis and the others could be here, too," he added.

The Prior pricked up his ears at the volcanic note in Montague's voice, and, pausing, turned to look at the boy. What he saw in the love-starved face hurt him. He dropped Nancy's hand and waved his own impetuously as though to push something painful away.

"Restriction and starvation of soul written all over the boy," he thought indignantly. Aloud he said, "You shall all live here for ever if you like," and the smile he gave Montague warmed the boy's heart towards him.

"I'm glad Mavis made me raise my hat to him," he thought.

Ah, but, Nancy said in reply to the Prior, though they would love him there were other people they loved, too--people who wanted them.

"There's nobody wants me at Riversham," Montague growled, "and nobody _I_ want--'cept when my Guardian comes--so _I_ could stay here."

They had reached the house now, and the Prior pushed open the great door, the most beautiful door they had ever seen. The children, with thrills of excitement running through them, followed him into a vast hall. Now, all four of them, Montague in his Suffolk home, the others in their dear old Nestcombe home were used to spacious, beautiful halls, yet, large though they were, both of them could have been put inside the one they had entered. It was paved with great slabs of stone, and the rugs and skins that were scattered about in profusion looked like little islands. A carriage might easily have been driven up the wide staircase, which wound its way to a gallery above; a beautiful staircase it was, too, with its carvings of the heads of many different saints. In a distant corner of the hall was some armour, and all the walls were hung with portraits--dozens of them, every period for centuries back being represented. Nancy thought they looked like ancestors, yet she was puzzled to find them here in a Priory, expecting rather that there would have been only madonnas and other sacred pictures.

The Prior had gone in search of Mrs. White, and presently he returned with a grand person in a rustling silk dress. He introduced her to them.

"And now," he said, "I am going to hand these little people over to you, Mrs. White. Just a little cleansing and brushing, you know--then tea on the lawn."

"Very good, sir," Mrs. White replied.

"Oh, and Mrs. White, will you see that Master Lionel's room is ready by seven o'clock? Put another small bed in there. The boys will like to share a room, I'm sure. And for the little girls----" He hesitated and his eyes swept the two little faces turned expectantly towards him, "prepare Miss Dorothy's room."

Mrs. White knew her master thoroughly. Nothing that he did, as a rule, surprised her, but at the mention of "Miss Dorothy's room" her surprise was visible. "Miss Dorothy's room," that had not been slept in since the "blessed lamb" had become an angel! Surely these little girls were very special friends of her master, for such a thing to happen. However, she pulled herself together, and assuring her master that everything should be as he wished, conducted the children upstairs.

Who, the children wondered as they followed Mrs. White, were Lionel and Dorothy? Were they the Prior's children? But _did_ priors marry? And why was he here alone, and why did they not see more monks?

What a huge, huge house this was; how easily one could get lost here--what a ripping place for hide-and-seek! Ah, here were the pictures that should have been in the hall; saints and madonnas and holy families, all of them wearing the shiny plates round their heads that people called "halos." What lots of them, and what a lovely picture gallery, and what delightful window-seats. Nancy simply had to stop to scramble into one of them and gaze at the view of the hills. If they were beautiful seen from outside, how much more so looking through these wonderful mullioned windows that seemed to radiate green and gold lights. A feeling of worship swept over Nancy's impressionable young soul; depths that, so far, only the sound of the organ at the cathedral had touched, were stirred. But Mrs. White was waiting and she must follow.

The boys were left at a huge bathroom, and Mrs. White conducted Nancy and Mavis to her own room--a room that surely was made for no other person than Mrs. White, for everything about it was just as neat and sedate and unsurprised-looking as Mrs. White herself. Hats and hair ribbons must not be flung about here!

After supplying them with towels and hot water she left them for a few moments. They hoped she would not be long away, for the big, silent place somewhat overawed them. Such lots and lots of doors they had passed. Were they the cells, Mavis wondered; was a monk praying silently in each, and weren't they themselves going to sleep in cells? It seemed not, from what the Prior had said, yet were there ordinary rooms in a priory?

"I can't make things out a bit," Nancy replied. "It doesn't seem nice to ask lots of questions when you're kind of guests, but I _would_ like to know about Dorothy. D'you s'pose she's a nun? P'raps she's at another priory or convent now."

"Couldn't we ask just that?"

"No, I think not, but p'raps we'll find out later. Let's wait and see, 'cos, after all, it's awfully exciting, isn't it? We don't know _what_ will happen next! An' if we don't see the monks to-night we shall have to see them at matins to-morrow."

Two perfectly clean and tidy little girls awaited Mrs. White on her return. At the bathroom they picked up two passably clean boys, and Mrs. White led the whole party to the Prior, who was awaiting them under a great beech tree of beautiful proportions on the lawn.

"And now for tea!" said the Prior, beaming on the children. "A good substantial tea for hungry travellers."

He led them to a tea-table that was heaped with good things. A tall and solemn-looking man was hovering near it.

"That's all, Monk, thank you. We'll manage alone to-day, eh, children?"

Another monk, they thought with interest, as they gathered round the table, and again an ungowned one! Well, of course, the Vicar did not wear his cassock in private life; perhaps the same rule applied to monks. Yet why was there a kind of twinkle in the Prior's eyes when they questioned him as to why he called each one "Monk" and not "Brother so-and-so"? And why did he evade the question?

The tea was a delightful one. Chicken in aspic, cold ham, honey, and scones. "Grown-up" cake, too, with lots of currants in it, and raspberries and cream. Each of them you may be sure did ample justice to it. The Prior insisted that Nancy should act as hostess. The honour of it! To pour out with a grown-up there and such a distinguished grown-up, too; one, moreover, who treated you with as much deference as though you had been a duchess seated there behind the beautiful tea equipage instead of just a small girl. Nancy found herself trying to live up to the position; she thrilled to the importance of it, so that her hands moved gracefully amongst the tea-things, and she felt that she really was a hostess sharing the responsibilities of that tea with the Prior.

And while they ate the Prior talked. There was nothing religious about his conversation; it was mostly stories of travels. Yes, and that was another curious thing. He seemed to have lived abroad far more than at the Priory, but, perhaps, they thought, he had other priories out there, for apparently he was a kind of head-person always. Governor was the word he used, probably that was what they called priors abroad.

And yet he did not seem to have to shut himself up in any of these priories. Also he had parties there, children's parties with no other grown-up person there. He wanted the children to himself, he said; other grown-ups spoilt things.

And then there were stories of big game shooting that thrilled the boys. Stories, too, of snakes. They regarded with respect and admiration the man who had actually found a snake popping up through a hole in a bedroom floor; who had lived in a house haunted by vampire bats--crowds of them, and you heard weird flapping sounds, he said, when you were alone at night and suddenly--sizz! out would go the lamp and you were in darkness alone with that horrible dark flying thing!

Thrillingly interesting stories, all of them, but now tea was finished, and the Prior suggested that they should sit in the Sunk Garden till bedtime. The children followed him willingly along a broad walk on the further side of the house, where masses of flowers were blazing in the hot sunshine. Two youths and a man were at work, and they touched their caps as the Prior and the children passed.

"And are they monks?" Mavis asked, and again the Prior twinkled as he replied in the affirmative.

"And are they too busy to pray in the day-time?" asked Nancy. "I s'pose they have to pray longer at night to make up for it? They must be awfully tired doing both."

"I don't think," the Prior replied, "that they any of them spend long enough over their prayers for them to become a burden to them. Besides," he added. "there's nothing to prevent them doing the two things together. A man who can grow flowers such as these," he waved his hand towards the blaze of colour, "who can teach his sons to grow them, too, should have a prayer of gratitude to the good God continually in his heart and on his lips."

"Oh, are they his sons? _Can_ monks have sons?" Billy asked.

"These Monks can," the Prior replied, and again, they were mystified by the fun in his eyes.

"Do they have specially long prayers for penance?" Nancy asked.

"Pray in penance?" the Prior's eyes flashed a protest. "Certainly not--not here! Prayer should be offered from the fullness of the heart, child. Prayer should be--joy! Prayer should be, not the gabbling of a few sentences, but the act of living, living joyously. Anything less is an insult to the good God. But my tongue is running away with me," he added with a smile. "You will think that I am going to preach."

Well, if this was preaching, the children thought, it was much more interesting than the dull sermons the Vicar preached on Sundays. They felt a little uncomfortable, however, when they remembered their own gabbled prayers. Had they insulted God? They hadn't meant to, of course, but it was not always easy to realize that God was listening to them. Certainly, the Prior's way of praying sounded much nicer--so alive and _real_.

They passed another youth who was busy hoeing. Montague eyed him with interest.

"When I'm a man," he growled, "I shall have a son an' a daughter. An' the daughter shall be fifteen, and she shall cotton peas all day, and the son _he_ shall hoe and weed and pick up sticks. An' if he doesn't, well, he'll be _sorry_. An' he'll be sorry lots of other times, too--sorry all the time. If he fights with the village boys, or if he plays with them, or gives himself and them the best strawberries, and leaves none for the grown-ups' tea, _then_ he won't like it--he'll wish he'd never seen a strawberry." Evidently something connected with strawberries rankled, for his voice was particularly bitter as he spoke of them. "And there will be a great-aunt to look after him," he continued, "an' _I_ shall stay here and be a monk--_not_ a gardening one--or live with my wife in a house by a wood, or p'raps go and kill lions by myself. And while I'm away the aunt will see if the boy wants punishing; she'll know how to do it, 'cos," and here his voice sank to a scarcely audible rumble, "she'll have had lots of experience."

He paused, but something in the curiously intent way in which the Prior was listening spurred him on.

"Well, if in a little while that boy forgets what happened about the strawberries and gives himself and the blacksmith's son a raspberry tart and a jug of cream that was meant for a dinner party an' a piece of duck each--well, _I'll_ not be there--but the aunt will!"

The Prior said nothing when, at last, Montague came to an end, but he walked thoughtfully, his hands behind his back, and there was pity and indignation, and, well, perhaps a little amusement in his eyes as he studied the boy.

But now the Sunk Garden was reached. Instinctively everyone paused at the top of the steps. Something, before entering that peaceful garden, must be put away, left behind. Something that was alien to the gentleness that seemed to play about the sun-dial and the subdued colouring of the flowers; to the quiet sunlight flickering amongst the leaves on the tall trellis-work that enclosed the garden. The Prior put his hand affectionately on Montague's shoulder and rebellion suddenly seemed a little thing, so unimportant. The scent of heliotrope, the swooping of swallows, the lazy cawing of rooks seemed all that mattered.

The Prior led them to a stone seat round the sun-dial. Nancy immediately felt the atmosphere of the place and gave herself up to it. The swallows, too, attracted her. She watched them dropping and falling down the air; against the blue of the sky; their swift shadows on sun-dial or paving. Aunt Letty once said that the soul of a swallow was in its flight. Now, as she sat in the Sunk Garden, a garden that must have had swallows' shadows flickering over it for centuries, she began to understand what Aunt Letty had meant. Every movement of the blue and white speck was graceful, whether it flashed across the garden, or slid down the air or climbed up towards the sky, all was grace and all was joy. Suddenly, she looked at the Prior and he caught her glance with a smile and a question.

"What is it, child?" he asked.

"Only----" she hesitated. "P'raps you won't like me saying it, but suddenly I thought you're like the swallows."

"I--like the swallows?" He looked at her in surprise.

"Yes! You see, they're joy, every bit of them is joy--they kind of can't go fast enough to splash it out of them, an' that's like you. You _won't_ mind, will you?" She slipped her hand into his and looked at him anxiously.

"Mind? Of course not, my darling! And do _I_ splash joy about?" he added, his eyes shining like two brown stars.

"'Yes, indeed, it's all over you, and you kind of splash it all over us and over the garden, too."

"That's the nicest compliment I've ever had paid me in my life, child," and, lifting his hat, the Prior raised Nancy's hand to his lips.

"But it's not a compliment," Nancy protested, "it's the truth. We all love you, don't we?" she added, turning to the others.

"Yes, indeed!" Mavis cried, scrambling on to the Prior's knee.

Montague looked at the happy group and sighed.

"When I am a man," he began, "I shall find a little girl with gold hair and I shall buy her a golden chair to sit in, but _sometimes_ I shall ask her not to sit in the chair, but on my knee, and I will tell her lots of lovely stories. And nobody," he continued, warming to his subject, "shall ever hurt that little girl or be unkind to her, 'cos there'll be _me_ to look after her. And she shall be like a princess, and I shall do all the work for her and not let her carry things; an' if she doesn't like lessons, well, she needn't do 'em 'cos _I_ shall say she needn't. An' if there's only _one_ nice ripe pear she shall have it, and I shall wait till she's had all she wants before I have one. An' if she's tired there'll be me to carry her, 'cos I shall be big and strong then. An' I shall earn a pound a week and give it all to her, 'cept just enough to buy the food, an' she shall _never_ have schoolroom cake or rice pudding!"

"Not boiled rice!" said Mavis. "Oh, _I_ wouldn't like to be that little girl--I love boiled rice. An' wouldn't a gold chair be awfully hard?"

Montague, whose eyes had been fixed dreamily on a bed of heliotrope during his recital, looked up at Mavis with wonder in his eyes. Was it possible that a little girl whom he regarded almost as a princess could like boiled rice?

"With jam?" Perhaps it was the jam that appealed to her.

"No. Sugar and milk."

"Well, she should have it." There was resignation in his voice. "An' she could have a cushion on the chair if it was too hard."

The Prior, meanwhile, was wearing his waiting-to-hear-what-would-come-next expression. He called Montague and drew him to his knee.

"So you are going to be a champion of little girls, are you, my boy?"

"One little girl," Montague corrected him, "with gold hair. P'raps," he added, looking at Nancy, "there could be another with brown hair."

"What colour hair," asked the Prior, "had that unfortunate daughter who was to cotton peas?"

"Black!" Montague replied. "Thick black hair. The kind," he muttered, forgetting that he was in the Sunk Garden, "that you can pull!"

"Oh!" said the Prior, looking at him thoughtfully. "Why pull the black hair and not the gold or chestnut? Why not be a champion of them all? Why pull the hair of one and give the others golden chairs, and the best fruit? Why not let them _all_ have gold chairs? Think of it, boy, just think of it, if you gave her a gold chair how she'd love you!"

"She wouldn't," growled Montague, "she would _never_ love me, not if I was to give her a gold throne!"

"Well, try it and see the result," the Prior encouraged him.

A gold throne for Jocelyne? The Prior didn't know her or he could not have suggested it.

"And what are you going to do when you are a man, Billy?" the Prior asked.

"Me? Oh, I'm going to be a traveller like you and my Uncle Val," Billy replied unhesitatingly. "Only," he added, "there's such a long time to wait; it seems an awful waste of time going to school when you might be _doing_ things."

"Yes, yes, but make the best of it, Billy-boy. It's not quite as wasted, perhaps, as you imagine. Preparation is needed, you know, before you can attack anything as difficult as the life of a traveller. For it _is_ a hard life."

"Yes, I know. Uncle Val says if there's grit in you it brings it out, and he says you've got to have grit in you to stick to it. _He_ sticks to it, and _I_ shall stick to it too." Billy threw back his head and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. "Uncle Val and I can't help going. He says it's Sir Walter Raleigh's fault."

"Sir Walter Raleigh's?"

"Yes. You see, when Uncle Val was a little boy there was always Sir Walter Raleigh calling him, calling him to look down the river away out to sea till he couldn't wait any longer. He made him join up when he was only seventeen, and after the war he made him go abroad. And now Sir Walter Raleigh hasn't got Uncle Val, so he's calling me instead--we live in his house, you see."

The Prior looked at Billy rather strangely, as though he were trying to see something in his face.

"Where is your Uncle Val now?"

"In Egypt," Billy replied.

The Prior's eyes danced unaccountably with pleasure. He put Mavis down and rose abruptly. There was something in the library, he said, that might interest them.

The children followed readily. They returned to the house by way of the kitchen and fruit garden, beyond which were the stables. Ah, might they just go and say good-night to Modestine, they begged. The Prior remained outside while they went in to Modestine. Scraps of his conversation with the Monk who had charge of their donkey reached them, though at the time they paid but little heed to them.

"Yes, he's coming by ferry. You'll take the car--no, I can't come after all." The children appeared in the doorway. "Ah, ready, children? Now for the library."