Before long the lay-brother appeared.
"Now Brother Philip is an excellent teller of stories. He does not
need to mar them by additions, because his quickness of observation
takes in every detail, and his excellent memory lets nothing slip. He
has a faculty for recalling past scenes in pictures, and tells a story
as if describing a thing just happening before his mental vision: the
sole draw-back to so vivid a memory being, that if the picture grows
too mirth provoking, Brother Philip is seized with spasms of the
diaphragm, and further description becomes impossible. On this
occasion, I saw at once that the good brother's inner vision teemed
with pictures. I settled myself to listen.
"Aye, it had been a wonderful scene, and more merriment, so the
lay-sisters afterwards told Brother Philip, than ever known before at
any Play Day.
"Icon was led in state from the courtyard, down into the river meadow.
"At first the great delight was to crowd round him, pat him, stroke his
mane, finger his trappings; cry out words of ecstatic praise and
admiration, and attempt to feed him with all manner of unsuitable food.
"Icon, I gather, behaved much as most males behave on finding
themselves the centre of a crowd of admiring women. He pawed the
ground, and swished his tail; arched his neck, and looked from side to
side; munched cakes he did not want, winking a large and roguish eye at
Brother Philip; and finally, ignoring all the rest, fixed a languorous
gaze upon the Prioress, she being the only lady present who stood
apart, regarding the scene, but taking no share in the general
adulation.
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