Chapter V: A Lucky Escape

OUR three friends presented a sorry spectacle in the streets of Oxford, but Miles was known at a small hostelry near his college, and to this he took Rankin and Reuben, bidding the landlord supply them with a good meal, and the means of making themselves decent.

He then went in search of some of his own friends, and, as it was still early, had little difficulty in finding them.

They laughed at his sorry appearance, and his story of falling among thieves on his way, but they were ready enough to help him, for he was very popular, both with students and teachers, and they were glad enough to see him back among them.

In the quiet of his own room, however, Miles began to think of the graver difficulty that beset him now, for he feared his father would not send him any money; and, as he had not entered the college as a poor student, money was needed at every turn.

Fortunately the robbers had not taken his Greek New Testament, but had put it back into the inner pocket when they took his money, probably thinking it was safest there and of no value to them; and as Miles laid this precious treasure on the table while he changed his clothes, it suddenly occurred to him that he might perhaps earn a little money by translating this, or some portion of it, into English. Many of the students, who were not sufficiently masters of the Greek tongue, had openly wished that someone would translate it into English for them, and as he was a pretty good Greek scholar he thought he might be able in his leisure time to translate one or two of the Gospels, and, having made one fair copy, it would not take long to copy it again, and he resolved to sit down to his task that very day and try what he could do, before mentioning it to any of his friends.

Then he had to consider what was to be done for Reuben and Rankin. Without money to help himself, it was a sore perplexity to know what to do for them. Reuben would go back to Woodstock, of course, and tell his father what had happened, and the sooner he set out the better. But there was also the farmer, who had risked his life to save him, he also must be thought for, and, if possible, provided for, though how it was to be done it was hard to say; and Miles was so long considering the subject that two of his friends came in search of him an hour or two later.

"Why did you not come to the lecture?" said one. "We made sure we should see you there."

"Well, I must go and see my tutor, and ask him a few questions before I can do anything," said Miles, "and I was hardly fit for lecture this morning, having had no sleep all night." And then by degrees he told these friends something of the difficulties in which he found himself placed, and the uncertainty whether his father would send him any more money, even when his servant got back to Woodstock.

"Why, you are trying to work out More's 'Utopia,'" said one of his friends, laughing.

"What is that?" asked Miles. "Another new book from the Greek?"

"Oh, no; it is in simple English that anyone can read, and so I suppose it is beneath the notice of you Greek scholars."

"But you said I had been trying to practice it."

"Well, it seems like it from what you say, for the dwellers in 'Nowhere'—More's grand republic—must all have set to work in your way, and tried to do to others as they would be done by."

"But, man alive, that is not in the 'Utopia,' but in the New Testament, and one of the commands of Christ Himself," said Miles, quickly. "That is why it would be such a good thing if we could get the New Testament translated into English, that men may learn what the mind of Christ is in such matters. That was why Dean Colet was so anxious that all Oxford students should study Greek—that each might find for himself a rational and practical basis for religion—one fit to help a man in the every-day concerns of life, and not for a monastery. Monasteries might have been all very well a few hundred years ago, but we want a religion for farmers, and landlords, and workpeople, in this year of grace and new light 1520."

"So you've begun the practice of it as a landlord's son," said one of his friends, a little derisively. "I think I should have done my father's bidding, and let him take the responsibility," he added.

"But none could take that for me when I had once learned the truth of the Gospel in such matters," answered Miles. "It is my father who cannot take the responsibility, because he has not learned what I have. The light of the new learning had not dawned when he was at Oxford, and so he can but walk in the old darkness, as it seems to me. But for me to follow, because the light makes my path a little harder, is to brand myself as a coward, and unworthy of the new learning. Could I be a true Grecian, do you think, and not do what I can to save the poor from further wretchedness?"

"Oh! you are one of More's Utopians. I will bring you the book and let you read it," he said, laughing, "if you can condescend to read anything so simple as English."

Miles felt a little disturbed by this talk with his friend, for there was a touch of irony in his tone, and a want of sympathy that hurt the lad's sensitiveness, and he wondered whether his tutor would pour ridicule on his proposed plan to help himself.

But before going to see this older and more experienced friend he went in search of Reuben, whom he found still at the hostelry. But Rankin had been too impatient to go in search of work, to stay longer than was necessary to make himself look more like a decent workman.

"Well, you must abide here to-night, and then set off on your journey to Woodstock early in the morning. It may be you will find travellers going in the same direction, and who will be glad for you to join them. My father will be angry over the loss of the horses, I am sure, but you must do what you can to smooth matters for me, Reuben. And for the rest, tell my father I was very sorry to depart from home in such haste, but his commands left me no choice. If he will send me such moneys to Oxford as I need, to pay the cost of my learning, I shall be truly thankful; but if he will not, then I must seek such employment as I can get, to enable me to finish that which has been well begun. Give my reverent love to my mother, and assure her that I shall not do anything to disgrace the name of my father and mother. If you can obtain speech of my sister, or her maid, ask her to send me somewhat from her store, by the hand of any faithful messenger, that I may be able to pay your score here, for the rogues left me without a penny, and I shall have to sell some of my books to supply my own wants until I can earn a little money."

He bade Reuben farewell, rather ruefully, and then decided to walk round the town, and see how the new college was progressing.

"I wonder what name they will give it when it is finished?" he said, half aloud, as he paused in front of the building that was now well on its way to completion.

"Oh, it will be 'Cardinal College' or 'Wolsey College,' of course, as it is being built for the honour and glory of our great Chancellor," remarked a stranger who stood near.

But before Miles could reply he was pushed aside by a party of workmen, bearing some heavy slabs of stone, which they seemed to be very careful should not be damaged, and to his great surprise he recognised Rankin as one of the party.

The man was too intent upon preserving from damage the stone that he was carrying to notice Miles, but he saw that already the man's whole aspect had undergone a change, and he followed until the stone was set down, and Rankin was free to stretch himself and say a word as he walked back to fetch the next load.

"Why, Rankin, how is this?" asked Miles, in a tone of pleased surprise.

"Aye, Master Miles, you may well say, 'How is this?' God and the Blessed Virgin be thanked! for I never expected such good luck would come to me, I can tell you."

"Aye, you have got work I can see. But will it last beyond the day?"

"Oh, yes, I hope so. You see they are pulling down the monastery away yonder to build this new college, and some of the stones they are moving now are delicately carved, and need careful handling, as well as a strong man to do it. This morning there was an accident—one of the stones got damaged, and one of the men hurt, and, as I was near, I lent a hand to save the poor fellow from being crushed. One of the master masons saw me do it, and when the injured man had been carried to the convent for the monks to nurse him, he asked if I would take his place, as I seemed a strong man and able to handle the stones. So here I am, and I hope I shall stay here, and be able to help my poor wife and children to something better than a home in a cave before the winter quite settles down upon us."

"Aye, that would be a blessing indeed," said Miles, warmly, "worth being taken prisoner and robbed," laughed he. "I wonder you have not tried to get work before, Rankin," he added.

"Tried! Master Miles, I have almost gone down on my knees when I have been asking for work," said the man, earnestly. "I suppose the Lord sent it just now, because He knows I can't go back to the woods for a living. But there's my poor wife to be thought of still."

"Yes, but I thought she had gone to stay with her sister for a few weeks," said Miles. "Now, couldn't Reuben take a message to her on his way back to Woodstock? Let him carry the good news that you have found work at last, and it may be she can stay where she is for the present, as you will be able to pay something of her charges when a messenger can be found to carry it; or one of us can journey thither ourselves."

"Master Miles, that is a wise thought, and if Reuben will only carry the news I shall be thankful. I cannot stay to talk longer," he added, and he ran off after his fellow-workmen, for fear he should be thought to be idling if he was not ready with the rest to shoulder the slab that should be given into his charge.

It was heavy work, but the landlord of the hostelry had given him a good meal, and he could pay for the next himself, and hope gave him strength and courage too.

It also cheered Miles, and, as he took his way to his tutor's room, he thought his mischance of being taken prisoner was not such a grievous calamity after all if it helped poor Rankin into a settled mode of living.

He was so full of this that he told his friend all about this first, and then spoke of his own changed prospects unless his father would forgive him and send him the needful means to continue his studies until he could take his degree.

"You are a very good Greek scholar I know, Paton, but whether you could earn anything by translating is another matter. There is also the law of the Church to be considered, for what you propose to do is in direct contravention of it. We have this beautiful Testament of Erasmus, and we cannot be too thankful for it, but although our present Archbishop Warham, and many others, approve of it, many see in it a great danger to the Church, and what they would say or do, if it was known that anyone dared to do it into English, I cannot tell."

Miles opened his eyes in astonishment. "If it is so good for us who have learned the Greek tongue, why should it not be good for those who can only read English, but yet desire to find a rational practical religion such as the New Testament teaches?"

"Because it is not considered safe to put the Bible into the hands of the unlearned. While it is in Greek and Latin only it is safe from the simple folk; but, if it is rendered into English, they would be able to read it for themselves."

"And wherefore should they not have this great gift for which, you say, we ought to be thankful?"

But his friend only smiled, and shook his head cautiously. He would not encourage the lad in such a dangerous project, and he told him so, at the same time warning him that if he did undertake such a task he must go about it very carefully, or he would involve himself and his friends in a good deal of trouble.

Poor Miles went back to his rooms feeling very much perplexed. Here was the great Chancellor Wolsey building a new college to extend the new learning, which everybody extolled, and for the want of which his father was acting so unjustly towards his poor, helpless tenants. And yet when he proposed to extend the most notable outcome of this, by translating the Greek New Testament into English, he was told that he should be breaking one of the fundamental laws of the Church! And the Church itself was believed to be founded on the very truths and doctrines he wanted to make known to the unlearned, as well as those who could read Greek, that they might form their lives upon the truth of Christ Himself!

Life was a dreadful puzzle, he thought, as he sat down in his little room to try and think out the problem that had been forced upon him.

He had enrolled himself among the Grecians of his college without thinking much about it, beyond its being a good rallying cry when there was a fight among the students and the town lads, or among the students themselves over some knotty point that could not be solved by logic, and until he went home and saw the depopulated village this had satisfied him.

There, however, while his injured ankle compelled him to keep within the shelter of his own room, he had time to think of many things, and what he heard and saw during this last visit to his home had brought him face to face with the stern realities of life in a fashion he had never dreamed of before. Now, for the first time, his public profession of being a "Grecian"—a follower of the new learning—had brought him into conflict with that which, to his mind, the word "Trojan" represented; and he clung most tenaciously to the thought that if his father had only had the opportunity of learning Greek, and reading the New Testament in that language, he would never have turned Rankin and the rest of the poor folks off the land as he had done.

This being so, was it not the duty of those who had been enlightened to do what they could to extend its influence, so that men like his father, who were too old to learn a new language, or Rankin, who would never have time to do so, might yet be able to learn these all-important truths, which, if carried out, would make life for all mankind a fairer, sweeter, holier thing than men had ever dreamed it could be?

In the midst of these reflections his friend came in who had promised to lend him a book written in English by an Englishman; and he was almost as eager to hear about it as his friend was to tell him of its wonders.

Sir Thomas More, it seemed, on one of his journeys abroad, had met with a sailor who had seen the new world beyond the great sea, and this had set Sir Thomas More thinking of what this new land of "Nowhere" or "Utopia" ought to be.

"Let me read you a little bit about the houses in 'Utopia,'" said his friend, after he had related some of its wonders. "'The houses in the beginning were very low,'" he read, "'and like homely cottages, or poor shepherd huts, made at all adventures of every rude piece of timber that came first to hand, with mud walls and ridged roofs thatched over with straw.'"

"Oh! we can see them any day here in Oxford or Woodstock," interrupted Miles.

"Yes, of course, but wait a minute; whoever saw houses like these?" And he read on, "'The streets were twenty feet broad; the houses backed by spacious gardens and curiously builded, after a gorgeous and gallant sort, with their stories one after the other. The outsides of the walls be made either of hard flint, or of plaster, or of bricks, and the inner sides be well strengthened with timber work. The roofs be plain and flat, covered over with plaster that be so tempered that no fire can hurt or perish it, and withstanding the violence of the weather better than any lead. They keep the wind out of their windows with glass, for it is there much used, and sometimes also with fine linen cloth dipped in oil or amber, and that for two commodities, for by this means more light cometh in, and the wind is better kept out.'"

"Then he would have us all live in palaces," remarked Miles. "But I do not see how that is to make us better Grecians," he added.

"Oh, just hear what he says we are constantly trying to do at the present time," said his friend, turning the pages of his book, "'The rich are ever striving to pare away something further from the daily wages of the poor by private fraud, and even by public law, so that the wrong already existing (for it is a wrong that those from whom the State derives most benefit should receive least reward) is made yet greater by the law of the State. The rich devise every means by which they may, in the first place, secure to themselves what they have amassed by wrong, and then take to their own use and profit, at the lowest possible price, the work and labour of the poor, and so soon as the rich decide on adopting these devices in the name of the public they then become law.'"

"I don't know whether it is as bad as that," said Miles, thoughtfully, "but what does he propose should be the remedy for this state of things?" he asked, eagerly.

"Listen—'In "Nowhere" the aim of legislation is to secure the welfare, social, industrial, intellectual, religious, of the community at large, and of the labour class, as the true basis of a well-ordered Commonwealth. The aim of its labour laws was the benefit of the labourer.'"

"Then in 'Nowhere' all men must be true Grecians," said Miles, after a pause, "for if they were not they would not pass such laws, and they would not be fit to live in its palaces. I wonder whether the new learning will ever change our Merry England into such a kingdom as this Utopia."

"Ah! I wonder," said his friend, and then the two young men began talking of other matters, but he left his "Utopia" for Miles to read. And Miles sat up until far into the night devouring this most fascinating book, that gathered into itself all the hopes and dreams of such men as Colet, Erasmus, More, Warham, and others like-minded with them, and which he now fondly hoped he should see become a reality.