The White Rose of Langley / A Story of the Olden Time

by Emily Sarah Holt

“Then, prithee, set about it,” said Constance, ensconcing herself in the big chair. “Sit thou on that stool, Maude.”

The old lady took her distaff, now ready, and sat down, smiling at the impatience of the capricious child.

“Once upon a time,” she began, “the ending of the realm of England was not that stide (place) which men now call the Land’s End in Cornwall. Far beyond, even as far as the Isles of Scilly, stretched the fair green plains: a kingdom lay betwixt the two, and men called it La Lyonesse. And in the good olden days, when Arthur was king, the Lyonesse had her prince, and on her plains and hills were fair rich cities, and through her forests pricked good knights on the quest of the Holy Grail, (see note 2) that none, save unsinning eyes, might ever see. For of all the four-and-twenty Knights of the Round Table, none ever saw the Holy Grail save one, and that was Sir Galahad, that was pure of heart and clean of life. Howbeit, one night came a mighty tempest. The sea raged and roared on the Cornish coast, and dashed its waters far up the rocks, washing the very walls of the Castle of Tintagel. And they that saw upon that night told after, that there came one wild flash of lightning that lightened sky and earth; and men looked and saw by its light, statelily standing, the rich cities and green forests of the Lyonesse; and then came black darkness, and a roar, and a crash, and a rending, as though all the rocks and the mountains should be torent (violently torn asunder); and then another wild flash lightened sky and earth, and men looked, and the rich cities and green forests of the Lyonesse were gone.”

Maude was listening entranced, with parted lips; Constance carelessly, as if she knew all about it beforehand, and were chiefly amusing herself by watching the rapt face of her fellow-listener.

“Long years thereafter,” resumed Dame Agnes, “ay, and even now, men said and say, that at times ye may yet hear the sound and see the sight of the drowned cities of the Lyonesse. Ever sithence that tempestuous night, the deep green sea lies heavy on the bosom of the lost land; and no man of unpure heart, nor of evil life, ne unbaptised, ne unshriven, may see nor hear. But if one of Christian blood, a christened man, pure of heart and clean in life, that is newly shriven, whether man or maid, will sail forth at midnight over the green sea, and when he cometh to the place where lieth the Lyonesse, will bend him down from the boat, and look and listen, then shall come up around his ears soft weird music from the church bells in the silver steeples of the doomed cities: yea, and there have been so pure, and our Lady hath shown them such grace, that they have seen the very self streets down at the bottom of the sea, where the dead walk and speak as they did of old—the knights and the ladies, as in the days gone by, when Arthur was King, a thousand years ago, when he held his court in the palaces of the lost land. And the Islands of Scilly, as men say, be the summits of the mountains, that towered once hoary and barren over the green forests and the rich cities.” (This story is a veritable legend of the Middle Ages.)

The story was being told to an uncritical and unchronological audience, or Dame Agnes might have received a gentle intimation that she was antedating the reign of King Arthur by the short period of two hundred years.

The silence which followed—for both the little girls were meditating on the story, and Dame Agnes’s flax was just then entangled in a troublesome knot—was broken, suddenly and very thoroughly, by the unexpected entrance, quiet though it were, of the Countess herself. Dame Agnes gave no heed to her broken thread, but rose instantly, distaff in hand, with a low reverence; Constance rubbed her sleepy eyes and slowly descended from her great chair; while Maude, recalled to the present, dropped her lowest courtesy and stood waiting.

There was a peculiar air about the Countess Isabel, which suggested to bystanders the idea of a tired, worn-out woman. It was not discontent, not irritability, not exactly even sadness; it was the tone of one who had never fitted rightly into the place assigned to her, and who never felt at home. Though it disappeared when she spoke, yet as soon as her features were at rest it came again. It was little wonder that her face wore such an expression, for she was the daughter of a murdered father and a slandered mother, and the wife of a man who valued her very highly as the Infanta of Castilla, but as Isabel his wife not at all. During her early years, she had sought rest and comfort in the world. She plunged wildly into every manner of dissipation and pleasure; like Solomon, she withheld not her heart from any good; and like Solomon’s, her verdict at the close was “Vanity and vexation of spirit.” And then—just when she had arrived at the conclusion that there was nothing upon earth worth living for—when she had “come to the end of everything, and cared for nothing,” she met with an old priest of venerable aspect, a trusted servant of King Edward, whose first words touched the deepest chord in her heart, while his second brought the healing balm. His name was John de Wycliffe. Was it any wonder that she accepted him as a very angel of God?

For he showed her where rest was, not within, but without; not from beneath, nor from around, but from above. So the tired heart rested in Jesus here, looking forward to its perfected rest in the presence of Jesus hereafter.

For so far as the world was concerned, there was no rest any longer. It was fearfully up-hill work for Isabel to aim at such a walk as should please God. Her husband did not oppose her; he was as profoundly indifferent to her new opinions and practices as he had been to her old ones, as he was to herself. So far as her life was concerned, of the two he considered that she had altered for the better. There had never been but one heart which had loved Isabel, and that heart she pierced as with a sword when she entered her new path on the narrow way.