Often he became a pieman, and once he was
a turnspit in the household of the Lord Bishop himself. But, whatever
the preliminaries, and whether baker, pieman, or turnspit, his final
catastrophe was always the same: he was hanged from a bough of the very
tree into which, impious and greatly daring, he had climbed.
This was an ancient tale. All who might vouch for it, saving the old
lay-sister, had passed away; and, of late, Mary Antony had been
strictly forbidden by the Reverend Mother, to tell it to new-comers, or
to speak of it to any of the nuns.
So, daily, she told it to the robin; and he, being neither baker's lad,
pieman, nor turnspit, and having a conscience void of offence, would
listen, wholly unafraid; then, hopping nearer to Mary Antony, would
look up at her, eager inquiry in his bright eyes.
On this particular afternoon he flew up into the very tree climbed by
the prying and ill-fated baker's lad, settled on a bough which branched
out over the Convent wall, and poured forth a gay trill of song.
"Ha, thou little vain man, in thy brown and red suit!" chuckled Mary
Antony, leaning her gnarled hands on the stone parapet, as she stood
framed in one of the cloister arches overlooking the garden. "Is that
thy little 'grace before meat'? But, I pray thee, Sir Robin, who said
there was cheese in my wallet? Nay, is there like to be cheese in a
wallet already containing five-and-twenty holy Ladies on their way back
from Vespers? Out upon thee for a most irreverent little glutton! I
fear me thou hast not only a high look, thou hast also a proud stomach;
just the reverse of the great French Cardinal who came, with much pomp,
to visit us at Easter time.
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