Chapter II

It was broad noonday on the highway which led like a ragged ribbon over the wide Berkshire downs. The smell of gorse and brambleberry drowsed in the warm air. Twenty miles behind lay the towers and cloisters of Oxford. The sun was hot upon the road; a squat, diminutive shadow clung fantastically beneath the Friar’s sandals. The Friar was tired, the Friar was hungry, the Friar was thirsty, but he tramped doggedly on, aiding himself with his staff. At a turn of the road a man in a blue kirtle came in sight, leading an emaciated horse with a large bale upon its back. An iron bell hung down from the horse’s shoulder and clanked dully against the beast’s projecting ribs. The Friar knew the man for a travelling merchant.

‘Save thee, Father,’ cried the Pedlar.

‘Bless thee, my son,’ answered the Friar. Then he added, ‘I think thou sellest garments.’

‘That I do,’ said the Pedlar. ‘Vair and grey for lordings; jerkins and hosen for fellows; gowns, brocades, and ribbons for the belles amies of every vill.’

‘Show me thy ware, honest man.’

The Pedlar took the bale from the horse’s back, unfastened the rope wherewith it was tied, and spread out its contents upon a cloth upon the ground. The Friar chose hosen and jerkin and hood and shoes, all of a sober, comely colour, and a purse of rich, red velvet, tied with a golden cord.

‘How much, honest man?’

‘Thirty pence.’

Friar Gregory remembered that Our Lord was sold for thirty pieces of silver.

‘By Our Blessed Lady, I will give thee twenty-five,’ he cried.

‘Doubtless the holy Father desires these garments for the purposes of religion. Nicholas Brainford was never the man to refuse to God the things that are God’s. I will take twenty-five pennies, but of thy charity, holy Father, say ten masses for the soul of my mother, who departed this life five months ago this very day, and now lies in the churchyard of Saint Ethelreda, Eastcheap, God rest her soul.’

‘I will say twenty masses for her soul,’ said the Friar, and counted out twenty-five pennies.

‘Gramercy, holy Father, and may God in Heaven, and Christ His Son and the Blessed Virgin and all Saints keep thee on thy way.’

The Pedlar packed his bale again, loaded his horse, and departed. The dull clang of his bell sounded in the Friar’s ears long after he was lost to sight in the windings of the road.

Friar Gregory walked on another mile, when he came to a thick wood. He entered it, fighting his way through the undergrowth of hawthorn and blackberry, until he came to a place where a clear stream murmured coolly over the round stones. He drank heartily of the limpid waters, and, presently divesting himself of the brown habit of his order, clad himself in the clothes he had bought. He hid his habit in a hollow by the stream and covered it over with bracken and stones. Then regaining the highroad he walked on.

When he had journeyed for a couple of hours more, he saw on his left hand, a little removed from the road and half hidden in a thick grove of oaks, a little village, lying under the shadow of quiet, green hills. Now the grey church tower caught his eye and now thatched roofs, scattered here and there among the trees. So he turned from the highway and went through a lane to the village. As he approached he heard the sound of merry making, and the doorways of the cottages he passed were decorated with flowers, and green branches had been placed upright along the way. Then the Friar remembered it was the Feast of Corpus Christi, and he instinctively crossed himself.

He came to an inn, and entering, he called for meat and drink. The alewife brought him fresh fish, peas and ryebread, and a great tankard of beer, and he ate till he was filled.

‘By our Lady,’ said the alewife, ‘’tis not thou that lackest appetite.’

‘I have travelled far,’ he answered, and she brought him some more ale.

Before the inn lay a wide green, and beyond the green lay the churchyard, and beyond the churchyard lay a little Priory. The alehouse was full of wenches and fellows in their bright holiday clothes. Some played at dice and others at quoits; some told merry tales and others listened to them. A minstrel sang a lay to a group of village folk, who lay stretched out at ease on the green.

‘A good day, Master Traveller,’ cried Long Hugh. ‘Thou hast travelled far from the dust on thy shoes and hose. But a long drink caps a long journey best.’

‘Ay, and therefore do I drink,’ returned the Friar, ‘and therefore do thou drink with me.’

‘God’s blessing on thee,’ said Long Hugh. ‘I would drink with any man in Christendom, and so would my wench here.’

Alice, the Miller’s daughter, laughed.

‘Before God I am dry,’ she said.

So they all three drank together, and the Friar grew merry in heart.

‘Drink, drink, good fellows all,’ he cried, and they all drank, Long Hugh, Brown Alice, Watkin the Ploughman, Purnel of the Hollow-way, Thomas the Cobbler, Clarice of Cock Lane, William the Hackneyman, Rose the Hedger, Pierce the Clerk, Nicholas the Waggoner, Kate Coil, and Clement the Cuckold.

‘God in Heaven,’ cried the Friar, ‘let us drink again. And they all drank again. And the Friar threw the dice, and they all threw the dice; and the longer they played the more the Friar won, until he had a long score against them all chalked up on the wall.

‘Thou’st won twelve pence of me,’ said Watkin the Ploughman. ‘For the love of Our Lady, I would not that my wife, Tyb, heard thereof.’

‘For my part,’ said Clement the Cuckold, ‘I care no more what my wife should say than the heel of my left boot, although Master Traveller has won sixteen good pennies of me.’

‘Fy, fy, Clement Carry-Lie,’ cried Clarice of Cock’s Lane.

‘This fellow has the luck of Ragman Roll,’ said Thomas the Cobbler.

‘That cursed quean must score me up on the door with her chalk,’ said Long Hugh, ‘for I shall have no more pennies for ale till next market-day.’

‘What, good fellows all,’ cried the Friar, ‘do you vex yourselves for a little coin? Why, take this and share it amongst you,’ and he threw on the board a handful of silver pennies.

‘Why, this is a good master,’ they cried as they shared the coin among them. ‘This cock crows in the right sort.’

Then came a jolly company of musicians on the green outside the alehouse door, and made a merry noise with pipes and tabors and drums and cymbals. The tune they played ran through the head like a Devil’s own canticle, sighing and skirling by turns through the secret cells of the brain, where all the desires of the sweet flesh are locked up and whence they only escape when they brim over their narrow confines, or are charmed forth by sweet music, or some other cunning allurement.

‘Tira-la-lee, tira-la-lee,
Down in the meadows so early;
Tira-la-lee, tira-la-lee,
And the green wheat and the barley.’

For an instant the Friar thought of his narrow room, of his books, of his studies, of the hourglass, the solemn bell, the dim organ, the divine services; the panorama of that other life passed through his brain like the swift shadow on the green grass.

‘Oh, a Carol, a Carol!’ cried Brown Alice. ‘I love a Carol of all things.’

‘Where got ye your trouble, my dear?
Where got ye it, plain to be seen?
Oh, I got it St. John’s, a-dancing Carols,
At night on our village green.

Who gave you your trouble, my dear?
Who gave you it, plain to be seen?
Oh, I cannot tell how I got it myself,
That night on our village green.’

The wanton words of Brown Alice set the Friar’s heart on fire. All the sweet bells in Christendom began to ring in his ears, the merry music played in his toes, in his arms, in his head, in his trunk, in his whole body. He leapt to his feet and waved his arms fantastically round his head, whilst his toes beat the floor in time.

‘A round dance, a round dance,’ he cried.

‘A Carol, a Carol,’ cried Clarice of Cock’s Lane.

‘A Ballad, a Ballad,’ cried Watkin the Ploughman and Nicholas the Waggoner together.

‘Play up, minstrels, play up,’ cried Pierce the Clerk, Rose the Hedger, and William the Hackneyman.

‘Tira-la-lee, tira-la-lee,’ went the musicians.

‘Join hands,’ cried Friar Gregory.

‘Join hands,’ echoed Brown Alice.

‘Join hands,’ echoed Kate Coil and Purnel of the Hollow-way.

‘In and out, in and out,’ cried Friar Gregory.

‘In and out, in and out,’ they all cried together.

‘Up and down, up and down,’ cried Friar Gregory.

‘Up and down, up and down,’ they all cried together.

Then in and out, up and down they went over the green grass; nimble feet and ready hands keeping time to the music.

‘Tira-la-lee, tira-la-lee,’ light as wind and quick as thought; now to the middle, now to the rear, now under arm, now over head; lithe as kittens, swift as harts in springtime.

‘Tira-la-lee, tira-la-lee,’ dancing, laughing, singing, kissing; was there never such a Carol on the green before, was there never such jolly music played, was there never such a leader as the merry stranger.

And the sun went down over the green hills, the stars came up and the noise of their merrymaking went up to the quiet heavens.

‘Drink, drink, more drink, tapster,’ cried the Friar. He felt the hot blood throb through his whole body; it seemed as though the veins and arteries must burst with the rebellious pulsation. This was Life, Reality at last. To follow out the brave imaginings of the spirit with the eager flesh and the nimble limbs, to forget the austere and crushing will that chains up the realisation of self, as Death the bodies of the departed, to give every thought its act and every whim its gratification,--this was Life indeed, and Pleasure, poignant, if you like, to madness and pain, but still the pure expression of the nature within him.

‘The Churchyard grass is shorter and smoother,’ cried Long Hugh.

‘To the Churchyard, to the Churchyard,’ cried the Friar. ‘Drink, my friends, drink.’

So they drank, and some brought lanterns and placed them on the stones in the Churchyard, and some hung lights among the boughs of the yew trees, for it was now quite dark except for the stars.

‘Tira-la-lee, tira-la-lee.’ They danced on the smooth turf of the Churchyard, up and down, in and out, by the carved stones and in the shadow of the tower; and the Friar danced with Clarice of Cock’s Lane. Now he held her in his arms, now she slipped away; now he grasped her hands, now she clasped his neck, now he knelt to her, now she knelt to him.

‘Tira-la-lee.’ Round and round they went, now they embraced, now they parted. In the night, Clarice was very fair to look upon. Her eyes were like dewy stars, hair like the raven’s wing, lips of liquid laughter, her face an Eastertide lily. Her bare arms and neck glanced snowily in the darkness.

‘Tira-la-lee’; now he implored, now she refused, now she consented, now he pursued, now she fled.

‘Tira-la-lee, tira-la-lee’; over the gravestones, round the yew trees, over the half-made graves, round the church buttresses.

‘Tira-la-lee, tira-la-lee’; the music grew fainter in his ears, he was giddy with dancing, the strong ale weighted down his brain. He stumbled towards her, his arms open to embrace her; he slipped and fell heavily, senseless in a drunken swoon.

* * * * *

Friar Gregory awoke. The sky was pale. The stars were fading into the chill light of breaking day. Above his head rose the Church tower, clad in mist. A heavy dew mantled the Churchyard grass. The Friar was chilled to the bone; his head and limbs ached; his soul was numb within him. Slowly he recollected the Feast of Corpus Christi, the alehouse, the Carol dance, the Churchyard and the woman. He moaned and rested his head between his hands. A bitter remorse overcame him. He seemed alone in the midst of desolation, in the darkness of a great pit.

He had left the hard and certain way; he had tired of that life of noble austerities and forsaken it like a child for painted flowers; he had eaten the deceitful fruit of the Dead Sea, and the dust and ashes were yet bitter in his mouth. He loathed the gross world into which he had flung himself with rash madness; he loathed the nature within him which had betrayed him to such grossness. He had wished more room, more scope for the surging activities and desires of his nature; he had not remembered that he was shapen in wickedness and in sin conceived.

Now there was nowhere he could go. He could not sit with the holy Fathers again; he could not converse with them, he could not pray with them; to their holy conversation he could not come again. Nor could he accustom himself to that gross and bestial world with which he had madly mingled himself the night before.

His soul was homeless from this time forth. Two heavy tears rolled down his cheeks.

Suddenly from the little Priory beyond the Churchyard floated forth, clear and strong upon the morning air, the chant of the monks singing at Mass.

‘Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy
upon us:
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, give
unto us peace.’

Friar Gregory listened, and his lips began to move in unison with the sweet words. The tears fell down his face like rain.

* * * * *

The next Saturday, Father Gregory was in his place in the Schools and lectured on the mysteries of fate and free will.

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press

Transcriber's Notes:

Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

Perceived typographical errors have been changed.