Chapter II

I remember that we had that day finished cutting the corn in the Long Field. It was evening, and a large moon had just come up. I had been to see John the Smith about four horse-shoes, which he had promised me, and I was returning by the bridge, having them hitched in my belt. As I came by the great oak, which grows by the bridge, I became aware of a man lurking there in the shadow, and looking narrowly I knew him for a stranger. I was at first minded to give the hue and cry, and to bring the whole village about his ears, but yet there was something familiar to me in the man’s figure, so putting my hand to my knife, I came a little out of my way to pass nearer to him. Blessed God, how cold my heart turned when of a sudden I recognised him. It was Thomas the Freeman, home from the Holy Land. I thought of his dead wife and babes up at Hart Hill, and I was fain to pass him as if I knew him not, but my knees failed under me, and I stood shaking like a leaf as he came towards me.

‘What, Nicholas man,’ he said, ‘dost not know me, Thomas the Freeman?’

‘Holy Virgin,’ I said, and took his outstretched hands.

‘How go things with Katherine and the children? How are they?’ he asked.

I was silent, being troubled as to how I should answer him, for my heart bled at the thought of the news he must have. I turned my face to the ground.

‘What; are they not well? What’s to do? For the love of God, answer me.’

At that I turned to him full heavily and said sadly, ‘If to be at peace is to be well, they are well, for they rest with the Blessed Saints in Christ.’

He swayed to and fro like a drunken man.

‘They are dead?’ he asked, in a hoarse gasping voice.

I nodded, and he gave a low cry and sank to the earth as one dead. I halloaed loudly, and John the Smith and his big son came running from their house with bills in their hands. But I told them what had befallen, and John’s son fetching water from the brook, we bathed Thomas’s face therewith; so after a time he came to himself, though moaning a little as though he were sore hurt. We half led and half carried him to the Smith’s house, where they sat him on a great chair by the fire. It was a long time before he spoke, and we stood apart from him, the womenfolk and the children gazing curiously and pityingly at him from the corner. Then he said, ‘How did they die?’ and we told him shortly that the men of William of Beeston had slain them.

‘Kat and all my little ones; they did not leave a single one,’ he said, and his head dropped slowly upon his breast and a single tear welled from each of his eyes.

After that he was quiet again, and we knew not what to say to comfort him, so after a little time I went my way home, and he stayed with John the Smith that night.

The next morning I went to see how he fared. He was still sitting on the great chair by the fireside where I had left him overnight, and indeed they told me he had never moved or spoken a single word since. He sat with his head on his bosom and his eyes half closed, fidgeting with his fingers like a little boy who has been shamed for tardiness at school. John greeted him as I entered, and asked him to break his fast on bacon and beer, but he denied him and asked for a cup of water, which they brought him. When he saw me he rose unsteadily.

‘I will go to my house,’ he said, and went towards the door.

‘Go not to-day,’ cried the Smith’s wife. ‘Sit and rest thee a while.’

‘Nay, good wife, but I will go,’ he said.

‘Ay, but the man is as weak as a sick dog,’ she cried. ‘Prithee, good husband, if he will go, go thou with him.’

The Smith took his staff, and we both of us went together after Thomas. It is a stiff uphill road to Hart Hill, and Thomas was forespent so that we had to help him over the rough and steep places, going always side by side in perfect silence. So we came to the little forest path, and it was now half grown over and obstructed by the branches of the trees, and so on to the stone wall that ran round the steading, and there we stopped, for thence could all be seen of what was Thomas’s house. In the midst of a wide open space, overgrown with rough hill grass and ragwort and young gorse and blackberry, were a few charred rafters and some baked and crumbling plaster. The September morning was mellowing into perfect brightness, the dew had fallen heavily the night before and glistened mistily on every blade and leaf. A great stillness hung over the place; only a single crow flapped its black wings in the blue sky, cawing its way to the woods. In three years the busy homestead had become a wilderness and the spear-grass waved where Thomas had dandled his babies. Thomas sighed heavily as he gazed, then crossing himself he turned away.

‘This is a hard home-coming for a man like me,’ he said, ‘God knows I had not looked for this at His hands.’

‘We are all in His hands, Thomas,’ I said, ‘and your wife and children no less than we.’

So we came back in silence to town, and as we came to the Market we had to catch Thomas between us or he would have fallen with his weakness. When he had revived somewhat he said, ‘Now I must go to the Abbey at Roodborough, for so I swore to myself when we were up yonder at Hart Hill.’

‘Roodborough,’ I cried. ‘Why, Thomas, it is seven miles, and thou couldst hardly walk the length of the Market Place.’ But he answered, ‘I must go,’ and actually tried to set forward. Then seeing he would not be stayed, and wondering why he should wish to go thither, I bethought myself of a certain business of my Lord’s, which I had with the Cellarer of the Abbey, and I offered right willingly to bring him there. I took him and led him to my house, where he ate a little fresh fish and bread, and then we took cart and came two hours after noon to Roodborough.

There I had much talk with Simon the Cellarer. Meanwhile, as I heard, Thomas accosted certain of the monks as they stood in the Guest House administering to the wants of the poor, and prayed them with vehemence and insistence to lead him to the Abbot. So earnest was his countenance and so strange and convincing his manner, that they knew not how to deny him, especially as Abbot Gregory had notable bowels of compassion, and never denied himself to the poor and afflicted, and they weened he might be wroth if they sent the man away. So they brought him to the Abbot, and he told the Abbot all those things which had happened to him since his going forth overseas, and humbly asked to be admitted to their Order. Then the Abbot sent for me, and partly from the confirmation of my lips, and partly from common rumour, knowing Thomas to have spoken truly, he commanded that he should be taken into the Abbey. So I returned home by myself, and a week or two later Thomas was admitted to the Order as he had asked.

But he was very feeble and ill from the time that he came within the Abbey walls. They put him in a bed in their Infirmary, attending him night and day. All through his illness he was very devout in the exercises of religion, as far as the weakness of his body and the strict commands of the Abbot would allow, continually recommending himself to his Maker through the merits of Christ Jesus, Our Lord, and ceaselessly imploring the intercession of Our Lady and All Saints for the remission of his sins. The good Abbot, being filled with pity for the man on account of the grievous trials, with which it had seemed meet to the Lord to try him, had him oftentimes carried from his cell in the Infirmary of the Choir to assist at the Holy Sacrament of the Mass. On the warm days of the late autumn, they would open the little window of his cell and place his bed so that he could gaze towards Hart Hill and Garstang, which he loved above all things. For there in the mellow distance he could watch the white mists swirl round the familiar peaks and woods and fill the remembered valleys as though with fine wool. He watched the wind bend the trees upon the slopes and drive the clouds like a flight of wild geese across the grey sky. Nearer at hand in the Abbey orchard the last red leaves came fluttering down, and he knew that the winter was hard by. Then his stricken face grew bright with some faint foreshining of the joy to come, and his lips moved in prayer.

‘What prayer dost thou pray?’ the Brother who had charge of the Infirmary asked him one day.

‘Good brother, I am thanking God,’ he replied.

He grew feebler day by day, his life quietly flowing hence, like a still river that flows through secret valleys to the sea, until as days grew sharp and chill, at the beginning of Advent, the Brethren doubted whether God would not call him to Himself before Christmas Day came. But hearing two of the Brethren whispering somewhat to this effect, when they thought that he slept, he called to them, and said, ‘Dear Brethren, have no fear for me; I shall live till Christmas Day.’

When the bell rang for Midnight Mass on Christmas Day, and he still lay on his bed a living man, the Brethren knew that God must have made him a promise. But even while Mass was singing in the Church, he grew on a sudden weaker; he twice failed to catch his breath, and he became very cold, so that they could not warm him by rubbing his limbs. So they sent to warn the Abbot, as he had straitly charged them, and he hastening brought the Blood and Body of Christ, and having shriven him without delay, administered it to him, who received it with trembling humility, but with tears of joy in his eyes.

Then he asked that he might die in the manner which is customary with the Order, if he were so far thought worthy. So having spread a cross of ashes on the floor, they laid him thereon. Then, whispering to the Abbot, who knelt beside him, he asked that the window might be opened, that he might see the sun rise upon Christmas Day.

It was still very dark and very quiet; only the wind rustled among the grass and bare branches, and ever and anon the passing bell tolled from the great tower. The kneeling Brethren prayed, and the dying man fixed his eyes on that spot in the darkness where, in morning light, the valley between Hart Hill and Garstang was wont plainly to be seen. The bitter cold air entered the cell.

They watched an hour and then another. Blue vivid bands streaked the east, a luminous haze spread from the hilltops down into the valleys; the cloak of thick darkness slowly lifted and a grey light filled the earth. Over Hart Hill and Garstang grew and blossomed an intense radiance, a burning white rose; slant beams of splendour fell athwart the smoking hillsides; the mists rose in purple and scarlet and gold before the rising sun. From the red-roofed town below came the joyful ringing of many bells. It was Christmas morning.

Thomas the Freeman stretched out his arms towards the East; a great splendour, as of the smoke of incense, and a wondrous music as of a vast symphony filled the earth and sky.

‘Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus,’ he said, and fell back upon his cross.

GLOSS

[Added in a different and later hand.]

The meaning of this true relation is most clear. The man Thomas did not come to church as he should, and thus despised God’s holy ordinances and commands. Therefore God avenged Himself of him and struck him even where he had most offended--in his wife and children. How marvellously just and true are all His ways. Blessed be His Name for ever. Amen.

How William the Mason avenged Himself on the Twelve Apostles

William the mason was the best man of his craft in Roodborough. His father before him had been a clever craftsman, but those who best could judge were wont to say that he had never done a better piece of work than the begetting of his son. For William was exceeding skilful not only in the sculpture of stone but also in the carving of wood and the working of precious metals, and occupied himself in all branches of his mystery, in ornament and design and in figures from the life, such as those of men and birds and beasts and flowers. He it was who wove delicate traceries of leaves and tendrils out of the stubborn stone of the capitals in Blewberry Church, which were so esteemed for their excellent beauty that craftsmen came from as far as London merely to examine them. He also carved the rood-screen at Houghton, wherein, upon the one side he cut lively figures of Father Adam and Mother Eve biting upon the apple, with the devilish serpent beholding them maliciously from the boughs of the Tree of Knowledge, and upon the other a vigorous representation of the Blessed Archangel Michael casting Satan into the bottomless pit. This last was such a notable piece of work for vividness and reality, that some of the common folk took occasion thereby to excuse themselves from attending the Divine services with due Christian punctuality, saying that the Devil William had carved so feared and scared them with its hideous aspect, that they could not sleep of nights after having seen it in church. Also he wrought the great oaken rood at Charnwood, carving Christ’s figure thereon from the actual human body, to wit, taking John Dymock for a model and chiselling the wooden block into his likeness limb by limb and muscle by muscle, only altering the countenance a little. Than this nothing more skilful was ever seen, but thereby unhappily enough the aforesaid John Dymock got a great chill upon his lungs and liver, which made him cough and wheeze pitifully the whole winter through until Lammas-tide. William also worked the fair pyx of silver for the Church of Saint Osbert, which, as it was said, was of such surpassing beauty that the Evil One himself coveted it and, coming in the night, stole it away. When Abbot Absalom enlarged and beautified the Abbey Church, he employed William much in the work, and rewarded him with many precious gifts. But of this you will hear more anon.

William’s father, besides being a skilful workman, had been no unthrifty husbandman, so that when he departed this life (God rest his soul) he left unto his son, not only the good dry house at the Bridgend with its adjoining workshop, but much choice stone and timber ready prepared for working upon, a set of carving tools of such sort as were not known in these parts (some having been fetched from as far as Flanders), and a great chest in the bed-chamber nigh half full of golden coin. But although William was a better workman than his father, he was a less thrifty husbandman, for he would not give himself to the careful managing and sparing and putting by, which had made his father a burgher of substance.

‘Money!’ Will was wont to say to his boon fellows at the alehouse,--‘Money! Why, ’tis for spending! I’d as lief be an earthworm and dwell in a midden as sweat and stint and spare to hoard up bits of metal in an old chest. Wife, a good cup of ale for these gentlemen all, and draw of your best. What saith Holy Writ: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where the moth and the rust corrupt and thieves break through and steal”?’

Then he would run on in his old jesting vein: ‘I will give my best cloak to the man among you who can empty yon stoup without drawing breath, and a French crown to him who hath the reddest nose. I love a red nose above all things, especially when ’tis past strawberry time. What, Nicholas, thou merry devil, strike a tune!’

Whereupon merrily in the alehouse went tabor, tongues, and toes until bedtime, when Will, who called the tune, usually paid the piper in more ways than one. God knows he was a happy, devil-may-care fellow enough, like the pretty painted butterflies you can see in the fields in summertime, ready to spend right royally and to quip and to laugh with the best and worst of folk. When he gave gifts at Saint Valentine’s there were none so rare and fair as his in the town; when he gave alms he scattered his silver right and left like the Lord King when he goes up to Westminster to be crowned, and as though good coin was of no more account than hazel-nuts in September. Twice he journeyed to London to see some marvellous sculpture in a new church there of which he had heard Abbot Absalom speak, and Our Lady alone knows of how much the cozengers and lying knaves of Eastcheap cheated him. Certainly, however, he went each time with a good fat purse at his girdle and returned each time with it emaciated and chapfallen as one of Pharaoh’s lean kine. But he also brought back with him two or three great bales of rich cloths and embroideries, which he had purchased there, partly for his own back and partly for gifts to certain wenches with whom he kept company.

Idle though this good fellow was on occasion, yet when the fit came upon him no Israelite in the House of Bondage would work harder than he. ‘Ay, this is one of my working days,’ he would say to a neighbour, who had poked his nose in at the door to ask what ailed him that he worked so early and sang so loudly in his workshop nowadays. Then away he would go again with his chisel and mallet, hammering, chipping, and shaping as though ’twas all the good Lord had sent him in the world for, and singing like the birds in spring.

‘Wert thou but in this mind always,’ his neighbour would answer, ‘there were no more laborious Christian in England than thou.’

Whereat Will would laugh and say, ‘Thou must not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn; I cannot draw in plough seven days a week.’

At such times he would go with more joy to his labour than other men to the wassail, and such was the delight he took in shaping his figures and forms and fruit and flowers out of the stubborn and recalcitrant stone, that you would have said that the Almighty Himself had had no diviner ecstasy when He hewed the world out of chaos in the first great act of creation. But ardent and zealous as he was to make his thoughts live in the stone and wood, he had no skill or energy in the collection of his just dues and debts, and since folk do not generally pay what they owe unless they are asked twice or thrice, yea, many times, it came about that many a pretty piece of work that he had wrought came gratis to the hands of unscrupulous men, who did not consider that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and that a debt is a debt although it be not importunely demanded. So it came about, that by dint of free spending and poor managing, in less than three years from his father’s death, William found that the oaken chest in the upper chamber had been quite emptied of its coin, and began to be hard put to it for money in his pocket, especially as at this time there was for a short spell little employment of his kind to be gotten. William was not a man to go about with an empty purse if by hook or by crook it might be avoided, so having pondered the matter a little, he straightway bethought himself of the Twelve Apostles, and without more ado betook himself to the dwelling of one Master Matthew, the wealthiest and most notorious of them all.

The Twelve Apostles were not the holy and pitiful men that their name might seem to betoken, nay, they had been so nicknamed by some satirical fellow out of ridicule and contempt, and were indeed little better than Jews, being usurers. Yet the name befitted them in some respects (although not in respects the most honourable), for there were twelve of these ill-conditioned fellows, and they were mostly named after the Blessed Disciples of our Lord, one being Peter, another Matthew, another Luke, another Philip, and so on; and they lived as close to each other as possible, cheek by jowl in a corner of the Market Place, as though there were great affection between them, a thing impossible to conceive of such villains. Howbeit their nickname was commonly in men’s mouths, so that it was a common jest in the town when any one had gone a-borrowing, that ‘he had gone to church to the Twelve Apostles,’ and when any one paid them back that ‘Peter had had his pence,’ or that such a one ‘had given an offering to Saint Luke’ or ‘to Saint Philip,’ as the case might be.

God knows, it was an accursed trade these extortioners drove, laying out their money at interest, and taking bonds upon raiment, jewels, and land, and even upon consecrated churches, reaping where they had not sown, and taking up where they had not planted. Lo, what saith Master Aristotle, that learned Greek? So to do, saith he, is to sin against nature by making money to breed unnaturally and foully upon money, and ’tis widely known that Holy Mother Church strictly forbids such abominable traffic to all Christians. But why should I repeat all this? These evil men knew the law of God as well as I, but it availed nought against their accursed lust of gold, which perhaps were the more pardonable had they been Jews and heathen, but, nay, they loudly confessed and proclaimed themselves Christians, and were as punctual in all the observances of the Church as any man in town. They thought belike, that having cheated God on Week Days they might also cheat him on Holy Days; God yield them in good measure therefor, when Satan shall pour down their greedy maws in Hell the molten metal which they loved so well on earth. Yea, and as much blame and punishment is due to the Lords and powerful men, who countenanced and supported them in their usury, whereby drawing profit to themselves from the sin of others.

Now Master Matthew, to whom William had betaken himself, was a shrivelled-up old man, bow-legged and palsy-stricken, with a bald head like a bladder, a long grey beard wherein the birds might have nested, skinny loose cheeks, cunning goggling eyes, and a long sharp nose like a quill with a big black wart growing on the side of it.

‘Good morrow, Master Matthew,’ quoth Will, bursting into the chamber where the old usurer sat at work, casting up his debts with tallies on a chequered board.

‘Good morrow,’ wheezed Master Matthew as though he had a peck of March dust in his throat. He blinked cunningly at Will for one moment with his red eyelids and then resumed his calculations.

‘Nay,’ cried Will, slapping him bravely on the shoulder till he coughed again and his eyes seemed ready to start from their red sockets; ‘nay, thou greedy old cock, cease scratching thy dunghill a moment and lend me thirty crowns instanter.’

‘Lend thee “thirty crowns,”’ screamed Master Matthew. ‘“Thirty crowns?” Holy Paul, dost thou think I am a rich man? Where am I to get thirty crowns, or half that?’

‘Thou abominable old liar,’ cried Will merrily, slapping his back again. ‘For shame, for shame, aged Master Matthew. Wilt thou also add to the sin of usury the sin of lying? Consider thy bald head and grey beard, consider thy weak joints and short breath, and at thine age heap not up damnation on a soul already as damned as any in Roodborough.’

‘Blessed Saints, let my back alone; I tell thee I have it not to lend; I have no such sum by me, at least not at present. Besides, what security shall I have? What security is there, tell me that?’

‘Ah, ah, my amiable Jew, thou wilt find the thirty crowns if I find the security? Is it not so? Well, take my house, my workshop, my furnishings, my tools, my utensils, my cloak, my shirt upon my back. Is not that enough, my Barrabbas?’

‘Holy Saints, I do not know, I cannot tell, I must think about it. Perhaps ’twould do an I had the money,’ said Master Matthew eagerly, biting his scrubby, cracked nails, and throwing quick, cunning glances at William.

‘Perchance you might find the money an you looked carefully,’ said Will. ‘Hast looked in the chimney, hast looked in thy sock or in thy long beard?’

‘Nay, nay, I tell thee I have it not; but perhaps my good friend, Master Luke, may help, or, now I think of it, perhaps to oblige thee, Master Luke, Master Mark, and I might make up the sum between us. Verily, I believe it might be done. Marry, good Master William Mason, if that will serve thy turn, we should be glad to help out an honest man at need. I will see, I will see; but do thou return hither this afternoon, against when I may have the bond ready for thee to sign.’

Thus William got his thirty crowns upon his bond, but upon such hard conditions were they lent that within six months (since employment still remained scarce) he began woefully to perceive that presently the Twelve Apostles would enter upon his house and shop, and confiscate the very tools wherewith he earned his bread and meat, so that in the future he might look not only for an empty purse but also for an empty belly. Without doubt this would have come to pass, had not old Abbot Absalom at this time taken it into his head to glorify the Blessed Mother of God by enlarging and beautifying the Abbey Church. This enterprise he conceived in no mean spirit, extending the nave forty feet or more, and the aisles in proportion, and ornamenting the whole church, both old and new, with many choice sculptures, wherein he made much use of William, both for his excellent advice and his skill with his hands. For which work William received many rich and generous gifts from the Abbot, and with these he was able at length to redeem his bond from the usurers, although only at three times the price he had received for it. Whereat he cursed Master Matthew and his friends right shrewdly, so that it made people rejoice to hear him, and he swore that he would yet be avenged upon the whole pack of them. Yea, he said he would fain be a Devil in Hell, if only for the pleasure of tormenting Master Matthew in the Lake of Fire.