I went down by the cloister walk and sat upon a bench and thought
of it all. The stork had built its nest there on the stump of a
broken tree, and was hatching its young. The big bird stood on one
leg and looked down upon me out of its grave, unblinking eye as it
did forty years ago when we children sang to it in the street the
song about the Pyramids and Pharaoh's land. The town lay slumbering
in the sunlight and the blossoming elders. The far tinkle of a
bell came sleepily over the hedges. Once upon a time it called the
monks to prayers. Ashes to ashes! They are gone and buried with the
dead past. To-day it summons the Latin School boys to recitations.
I shuddered at the thought. They had at the school, when the bell
called me with the rest, a wretched tradition that some king had
once expressed wonder at the many learned men who came from the
Latin School. And the rector told him why.
[Illustration: The Ancient Bellwoman.]
"We have near here," he said, "a little birch forest. It helps,
your Majesty, it helps." Faithfully did it play its part in my day,
though I cannot bear witness that it helped.
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