Robert Annys: Poor Priest. A Tale of the Great Uprising

by Annie Nathan Meyer

Again and again she asked herself why had her mother sinned? It was her refusal to wed either of the two fellows whom her overlord had chosen for her that brought her to the Baron's notice. On seeing her he ceased to insist upon that special prerogative. What right had her mother to shrink from the churls that had been allotted to her? Her sin was so unnecessary that Rose looked on it with bitter impatience. The thick-flowing blood of the rustics had been in her veins; she should have been well content to wed some great bullock of a fellow and bear him countless stolid, flaxen-haired children. What right had she to bring into the world a being with every taste different from those about her, with every nerve tingling with revolt? True, Rose herself felt that she would knife a man before she would mate with one of those great hulks of men who were little above the oxen they drove or the sheep they tended. But she had the right to shudder; gentle blood flowed in her veins just as truly as it did in the proud Baron yonder. Just as much as he, she had a right to feel her heart leap within her at the sight of luxury and daintiness and beauty. How her hands longed to feel the touch of soft furs and velvets and rich stuffs! Oh, again and again she wished that her mother had flung her babe also on the moat.

As she was sitting alone one day underneath the trees, near the highway, she was startled by the approach of a gay cavalcade bringing color and life and laughter into the gloomy woods. First rode the Baron, usually a superb figure on his magnificent coal-black horse, but now a most ridiculous figure with his clothes put on wrong side forward, his hat tilted over his nose, and long streamers of different colored ribands hanging from his beard, down his breast, and along his legs, where also hung numerous tiny bells tinkling with every motion. His horse was decorated as fantastically as its master, and behind him followed two score of lusty fellows decked out in motley liveries of green and yellow and covered with scarves and ribands and laces hung all over with gold. From each of these jangled and dangled countless silvern bells, heightening the din made by the pipers and drummers that followed, playing weird discords like a devil's dance. A number of ladies with their gallants, all masked and gayly costumed, now rode up, all shrieking with laughter.

As the Baron caught sight of Rose standing near the road, gazing at the unwonted sight in open bewilderment, there swept into his eyes that look with which all men greeted her beauty. He whispered a command to one of his lackeys, who instantly seized the girl and conducted her to the Baron, who gazed down on her amazed—for how could it be that he had overlooked such a rare beauty in his vicinity? For the moment he regretted the escapade that made him cut so ridiculous a figure in her eyes.

"Thou must proclaim thyself a follower of my Lord of Misrule," he said, smiling down at her and lifting up her chin with one gauntleted hand. She did not reply, but gazed on the ground in embarrassment, the color going and coming in her cheeks.

"Look, girl," spoke up one of the Baron's companions, "none may encounter us save they wear my Lord's badge," and with a leer, he attempted to fasten a knot of ribands on the girl's kerchief. She made a quick gesture of impatience and stepped back angrily, but at a low word from the Baron she paused, and turned her exquisite profile toward him.

"Wilt refuse my badge?" he asked softly. She turned her face to him and curtsied, answering readily:—

"I need not that to make me a humble servant of your Lordship;" but her lips trembled and the blood was pumping noisily about her ears, and she found she could speak only in a strained whisper.

Some of the ladies clapped their hands at her readiness, and the Baron, with a light laugh, sprang from his horse and pinned on the badge, taking as long to do so as he possibly could, while the others looked on in amusement and made audible comments, even the ladies chuckling over the coarse badinage that was bandied about.

"Two groats for the badge, girl," cried one saucy fellow as the Baron at last reluctantly took his hands from the girl, and stood off in mock admiration of his own handiwork, "two groats!"