Part 4

A sardonic grin swept over many faces, and some broke out into loud guffaws at this sally.

"The people are not covetous, nor greedy, nor lustful, nor ever grasping for new powers. Nay, verily, I ask you to listen to the words of the Apostle Paul, and tell me who come nearer to the ideal held up therein--the priests or the people?

"'And behold, we live; as chastened and not killed; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.'"

"The people, the people," they shouted lustily.

"Ha!" cried one fellow to another, "of the priests we may well say--they live, as unchaste and lively; as rich, yet making others poor; as having everything, and yet wishing more."

"In truth!" answered his companion; "but stay, he begins again."

"The people," went on Ball, "seek Christ, but they are a-weary of seeing Religion walk in the market-place, a buyer among buyers, a ruler among rulers, a tyrant among tyrants."

"That's true as Holy Writ," shouted one great fellow, enthusiastically, and many took up the cry:--

"As true as Holy Writ!"

"The people desire priests who will come among them and work among them, even as did the Apostles. Why am I put beyond the pale of the Church save that, instead of concerning myself with unravelling the tangles of canonical lore, I seek to unravel the tangles of life? Sure all that is needed to do priestly service is to love much, for hath not St. John said:--

"'He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him'?

"And what is love, I ask ye, but good-fellowship? Ah, cherish that word fellowship, my brethren, for without fellowship be assured Christ cannot enter among you: for without fellowship every one standeth for his own lusts, and the strong wax yet stronger, and the weak are pressed to the wall and grow yet weaker and die. But where fellowship entereth among you there entereth Christ also--the strong shares his strength with the weak, and the oppressed arise and lift up their heads. We are told much, fellow-men, of the states of heaven and hell, we are told of the blessings of heaven and the horrors of hell; but lay it well to heart what I tell you,--friendship is heaven and lack of fellowship is hell--fellowship is life, and lack of fellowship is death. In hell, one shall cry on his fellow to help him, and shall find that therein is no help because there is no fellowship, but every man for himself. Therefore I tell you that the proud, despiteous rich man, though he knoweth it not, is in hell already, because he hath no fellow."

And his voice sank solemnly away and the people brooded in silence over what they had heard. And perhaps there came over the speaker a sudden thought of the cold, dark dungeon where he would soon lie chained, away from his people whom he so dearly loved, away from the open air and the sunlight and the shadows of clouds sweeping over the fields. And his head sank for an instant upon his breast, and as he spoke again there was a slight tremble in his voice, though he tried hard to throw it off:--

"Had I but kept my tongue between my teeth I might have been some personage, if but a parson of a town, and men would have spoken well of me; and all this I have lost for the lack of a word here and there to some great man, and a little winking of the eyes amidst murder and wrong and unruth. Now it is too late, the hemp for me is sown and grown and heckled and spun."

"Nay, nay," a strong voice cried, "we shall march upon the gaol and demand you of the Archbishop himself. We shall come fifty thousand strong, and we shall burst down the gaol if he refuse us."

"His head shall yet decorate a post and you shall live to see it," shouted another daring soul. His remark was greeted with cheers.

Ball held up one hand for silence, a great light of love irradiating his face.

"Ay, fear not that I have wrought all these years in vain. For while the great tread down the little, and strong beat down the weak, and cruel men fear not, and kind men dare not, and wise men can not, the saints in heaven bid me not forbear. I wot well because of fellowship it will not fail, though I seem to fail when the Archbishop lays his hands on me. But in the days hereafter shall I and my work yet be alive, and men be holpen by them to strive again and yet again."

And with his voice and demeanor grown solemn once more with the thought of the long wait which must be endured before they could come together again, he uttered over them the same beautiful benediction which had arisen centuries before on the lips of Paul:--

"Now I beseech you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that there be no divisions among you. Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all that ye do be done in love."

Strong men were bowed in grief, and their broad shoulders shook with sobs. The women and children straggling about the outer edge of the throng wept openly and long. But Robert Annys rushed forward and, making his way to the foot of the cross, flung himself there on his knees and cried out passionately:--

"Nay, nay, John Ball, beloved master, fear not, neither shall your work fail now, nor shall it seem to fail. For from this moment I give myself to it, body and soul. And I pledge myself to stand in your place and do whatsoever you would have me do while you are gone from us."

An astonished silence greeted these words, for it had been pretty freely rumored that the archdeaconate of Ely had been offered to the young poor priest, and that he would never be able to withstand the temptation to throw off the russet sacking and don the albe and stole. When it was realized that the bribe of high office had not caused him to desert the cause of the people, the enthusiasm knew no bounds; men wrung their neighbors' hands, and tears of joy ran down bronzed cheeks. John Ball knew well that Robert Annys was a man of great power and eloquence, and he smiled gladly when he heard his earnest words. He raised the young priest to his feet, and clasped his hands warmly, and gazed long and earnestly into his face. And the people there assembled looked up at those two strong souls standing united before the cross. And because of that sight, they bade farewell to their leader less sorrowfully than if they had none other to look to for help and guidance.

VI

Into the Bishop's chamber the Legate entered, smiling. There were many things in the turn of events that went to make up his scarce concealed satisfaction. To be sure, the times were troublous, and a grave uneasiness was over the land, yet to Pietro Barsini the end in view ever justified the means, and there was no denying that the old enemies of the Church, the Barons, were becoming wonderfully meek and approachable under the pressure of their present difficulties.

The discontent and threatened rising of the people against their overlords had thrown the Aristocracy--Bishops and Barons--into a union, or semblance of union. Both were landowners, and were absorbed in the problem of putting a man behind the plough and keeping him there. Untilled lands and rotting corn became of more importance than Rights of Mortmains, Spiritualities, Peter's Pence, Rights of Investiture, or other trifling matters over which Churchmen and Barons had quarrelled.

Thus it came about that at that time for a brief instance the lion lay down with the lamb. A true Churchman, such as was Pietro Barsini, could find much indeed to relish in the situation. Not only was the mighty English Baronage turned from an enemy into an ally, but there was the unregenerate past to do penance for. Therefore rich gifts and many altars and chantries and noble additions to cathedrals began to find their way to the Church from the repentant sinners. Many and profitable were the Plenary and Special Indulgences granted to undo the direful Past; and if perchance to the contrite purchaser redemption seemed to come a trifle high, a sight of his rotting corn, or bleating sheep, or distressed kine, speedily brought him to terms.

The Cardinal could find it in his heart almost to love some of those hardy, obstinate Barons, his new-found friends, but for the Bishop of Ely he had only unmitigated scorn. He could understand an out and out enemy, but these half enemies and half friends, these Churchmen who are ever prating of reform from within, and who one minute are as fiercely denouncing the head of the Church, as the next they are anathematizing the heretics and would-be robbers of the Church,--these he frankly could not understand at all. Thomas of Ely was his special detestation; he had no patience with his absurd strictures regarding the conferring of benefices only on worthy and pious Churchmen. The Hierarchy in the eyes of the Nuncio was a vast and powerful machine of intricate workings. If one delicate part of the machine refused to work, there must be plenty of oil to lubricate it,--oil in the shape of emoluments was vastly more important to the usefulness of the machine than such abstract qualities as piety or chastity. There were certain crowned heads to be soothed, certain fierce Barons to be placated, certain wily Counts to be won over, here and there a Queen to be flattered, or a rival to be disposed of at a safe distance; therefore there must be benefices to bestow with wise discrimination, here one in Sicily, there one in Burgundia, there one in Flanders or in France, or maybe in England.

The Cardinal inquired most considerately into the Bishop's state of health. His greeting was as smooth and affable as ever, yet the Bishop could read the malicious triumph that bubbled beneath the calm surface.

"Too bad, too bad," began his visitor, in suave tones, "that a hempen rope should be the end of so promising a youth."

"How say you?" exclaimed the Bishop, startled.

"I say that, though we thought so cannily to have put salt on the tail of our bird, yet having left him alone in the gilded cage, he hath found it in his power to fly away."

The Bishop's dream-structure in which he had just been wandering fell to the ground with a crash. The thought of that beautiful youth by his side, enthusiastic, eloquent, fearless, assisting him, brightening his declining years, had been very sweet. Momentarily he had been expecting his arrival to be announced. And this was the end of his hopes! He was too profoundly chagrined not to show it.

"H'm!" he said, half to himself, "I had thought to bring him home with me."

"Doubtless," insinuated the Cardinal Barsini, "had he come to my Lord Bishop's hospitable mansion, he would have found the cage altogether too heavily gilded to have stirred his wings."

"He was deep in prayer. What could I?"

"Ill it behooves me to suggest. However it might have been, since it is true that he hath slipped from between our fingers, Holy Church will have to limp along as best she can without his valuable aid."

His listener winced at the irony, but returned it with interest.

"Tell me all about it, _you know all_," he said, with quiet emphasis. For well it was known that nothing happened in all the length and breadth of the land without the cognizance of the Legate. The "Pope's spy" the people nicknamed him.

"I know only that the mad priest whom you have refused to place in irons, John Ball, appeared yestere'en at the cross-roads, and as he had but just arrived and never has been known to keep his tongue long between his teeth, he straightway gave one of his seditious, incendiary harangues (though he doth call them sermons), urging his hearers to hold together against the just decrees of Parliament and the King's--"

"I know, I know," interrupted the Bishop, impatiently, "I know all you would say against this Ball, for I have heard it many times; but tell me what did take place that concerns this young Annys."

The Legate's beady eyes snapped. "And it befell that the young protégé of your Reverence was among those that listened," he concluded.

"Ah!" exclaimed the Bishop, with a long-drawn-out sigh. Well he knew how strong an influence such a man as Ball would have upon the high-spirited young priest just at that point in his career.

"And then just as Ball bade them all farewell, and announced that he was walking straight into the arms of the Archbishop's men at Kent, this hot-head of ours boldly flings himself from out the crowd, and throwing himself at Ball's feet, proclaims himself Ball's successor, and swears eternal allegiance to the Cause."

The Bishop groaned aloud: "Why are they so misguided as to persecute this Ball? It will cost Sudbury his head, this action, mark my words. If they clap him into gaol he will but come forth stronger than ever. Can they not or will they not see that their methods of repression are but heaping fuel on the fire? Can they not or will they not see that all may yet come well without violence, if their leaders are not suppressed, if there be talkings and gatherings, ay! and marchings if they will? The people have some just grievances, though, to be sure, they are greatly and criminally exaggerated; but let them talk of them, and, mark me, they will not bite near so deep. Let me tell you, and the Primate of England, ay! and the King himself, that the people are now in a mood to accept small concessions; let this go farther, and persecute them more, and thrones may tremble ere they cry 'Enough!'"

"What concessions?" asked the Legate, angrily. "Make concessions to the wild, turbulent mob that, given its way, will yet plant a burning torch on every palace and castle in the land!"

"Nay," gently interposed the Bishop, "it is to prevent such a rebellion that I would make just concessions _now_."

"_Just_ concessions, indeed! Basta!"

"Ay," reiterated the Bishop, "_just concessions_! For it is true that the wages doled to the workers are scarce enough to keep body and soul together, and the Poll Tax, which hath been taken three times these past four years, falls heavier upon the very poor than any others. For well is it known that the rich have an argument in their purse that goeth straightway to the heart of the tax-gatherer. And mark me, my friend, you may think the people get used to the raping of their women by these same insolent tax-gatherers and sheriffs and King's men, as eels get used to being skinned. But, after all, praise to the Most High, man made in the image of God is not an eel. The nobles cannot hope to go on with impunity treading down the most sacred rights of human beings. For the spark of divinity in man cannot let him remain long at the level of beasts; and it is a spark that neither you nor Baron can quite stamp out, because it is from God."

The old man paused, and rested for a moment with his head on his hands as if weary and discouraged; but the Legate paced up and down angrily, holding his arms tightly folded before his breast, as if to shut in the bitter words that rose within him. When the old man spoke again it was at first gently, and slowly, and then, as his indignation voiced itself, the words came bubbling up hot from him, faster and faster.

"Do you not see," he said, "that the greatest danger is to be apprehended from a martyr? It was the worship of the martyrs in the secret Catacombs that knit firmly together the bones of young Christianity. Could the Holy Catholic Church ever have grown into the most powerful body in the world, had it from the very first been fed on opulence and power?"

"Yea, I have heard," sneered the Legate, trying hard to hide his rage, "that the Bishop of Ely holds it Christlike to stir up the people against all authority."

The Bishop's face grew cold and hard. "On the contrary," he began severely, "I deprecate the teachings of Ball just so far as they give rise to rebellion and disorder. I hold that the people are not ready to rule themselves; I firmly believe that were the mandates of Ball to be obeyed there would follow disruption and chaos, for I remember the words of Paul:--

"'I fed you with milk, not with meat, for ye were not yet able to bear it; nay, not even now are ye able; for ye are yet carnal, for there is among you jealousy and strife.'

"I hold that the people should be fed for yet a while with milk. I hold that they are not yet ready to bear meat; yet, Pietro Barsini, that is precisely what Ball is feeding them with. He is giving them strong meat whether they can bear it or no. Beware, Pietro Barsini, beware, for the time is coming when, once having tasted of the meat, they shall no longer remain satisfied with the milk, and, when it is held to their lips, they shall turn from it. When that time comes, look you, look you to it well, for the foundations on which such as you rest will crumble away, and not so much as one stone shall remain."

Exhausted by his vehemence, the old man's head fell wearily on his breast, and the Italian stole noiselessly away.

VII

When Robert Annys was announced, a message was sent to him, bidding him be a guest at dinner, which was just on the point of being served, and promising him private audience immediately after. So he waited in one of the stately apartments of the superb palace, and looked on the walls and ceilings, all wainscoted with oak so carefully chosen that the better part of a forest must have been sacrificed to it, and on the rich tapestries and hangings, and wondered that those calling themselves servants of God should be housed in palaces of brick and stone with ten windows to a front and three stories, one on the other, while those to whom they ministered in the name of Christ were huddled together in miserable huts of clay with roofs of moss or turf.

His host did not keep him waiting long. Almost immediately after he had cordially greeted his guest, the _maître d'hôtel_ announced dinner, and the strangely mated couple made their way to the Great Hall. The Bishop staked a good deal upon the surroundings in which Annys now found himself. He counted upon a certain refined delicacy that he noted in the poor priest, a sensitiveness to environment that would make him respond to the luxury and elegance about him. He hoped that Annys might reflect that all this power and wealth might be his if he would but stretch forth his hand, and that thereby the influence of the scene at the cross-roads might yet be overcome. But the Bishop was too late; a few hours before, and it might have seemed a goodly thing to Robert Annys to entertain in this lordly fashion, it might have seemed a Christly thing to toss discarded crusts and broken pieces of meat into a jewelled bowl that its contents might be thrown to the beggars clamoring before the gate; but now a higher conception of Christliness mastered him. He had been too profoundly moved at the cross-roads, the whole scene had come to him too directly as the answer of God to his prayer, for him to respond readily to what went on about him. Instead, a profound disgust seized upon him, a bitter contempt for this kind of Christianity, so that he could scarce restrain himself from rising and openly rebuking the Bishop for all this unseemly pomp and splendor.

They sat at the raised, or great table as it was called, facing the other tables, which were set longitudinally, and which were only boards laid upon trestles so that they could easily be removed to permit the floor to be spread with fresh rushes after the evening meal. These rushes served as a bed for all who assembled there, for the hospitality of my Lord Bishop was never questioned. Let merchants, priests, jesters, clerks, scholars from Oxford, or mummers, all lie there and welcome; to-morrow the tables would be set up again with plenty for all.

Before anything was brought in to eat, a liveried fellow knelt before each guest at the high table, holding a beautiful silver ewer filled with scented water into which to dip the hands, followed by another fellow similarly liveried who passed a soft linen napkin upon which to dry them. Then came trenchers of fresh white bread on which to place their meat, the folk below at the long tables receiving only the ordinary trenchers of wood which could be scraped to serve for many meals. Looking at these trenchers, Annys thought sadly of the miserable, coarse, black bread made of beans or coarsely pounded oats that must answer for the poor. And he thought of the sweat with which even such poor stuff must be earned. Pondering over all this, the delicate sole, found only on the tables of the great, the fine almonds, the roasted figs, and colored sugar-plums seemed to choke him. His Piers must content himself with a dish of herrings and onions, and perhaps an infrequent bit of cheese, or still less frequent scrap of meat. He bethought him of how that great-hearted poet of the Malvern Hills had cried out that all mischief proceeds from the clergy, who ought to set an example of holy poverty, and who rather emulated the splendor of knighthood:--

"Now is religion a rider, a buyer of land as though he were a lord."

The Bishop, reading nothing of what was going on in the poor priest's mind, now bent toward him courteously and sought to fix his attention upon the luxury and elegance of the banquet. He deprecated to him the fact that, as it was a fast-day, he was unable to offer more bountiful hospitality. Annys could scarce restrain a smile at the ingenuity of the cook, who certainly might well have shone in a clerkly career, so well did he know how to obey the letter and ignore the spirit.

For, first there was served to each guest, on being seated, a quarter of a pint of grenache. Then came roast apples with white sugar-plums on them, roasted figs, sorrel, watercress, and rosemary. Then a soup made of trout, tenches, white herring, fresh-water eels, whiting, almonds, ginger, saffron, cinnamon powder, and sweetmeats. This was followed by soles and salmon for salt-water fish; and pike with roe, carps, and breams for fresh-water fish should they be preferred. Besides all this there were side dishes of oranges and apples, and rice with fried almonds upon it.

Fast-day forsooth! Was there not epitomized herein the very condition into which the Church of Christ had fallen, its true life blighted in the killing frost of ritualism?

When the last sugar-plum had been passed by the servitors, and the chairs and benches were shoved somewhat back from the boards, and all sat about in easy postures, the harpist up in the beautiful oriole played sweet music. A youth with a treble of thrilling sweetness sang to them of the uncertainty of this life, for the Bishop permitted no ribald love songs to be sung in his hall. Then there followed a hymn to Jesus Christ:--

"With noble meat He nourished my kind for with His flesh He would me feed. A better food may no man find, for to lasting life it will us lead."

After this came a psalm of David, set to a quaint and plaintive air; but the Bishop, now perceiving that his guest was ill at ease, summoned a servant, and throwing him a purse of gold to be divided among the minstrels, bade Annys follow him to his solar.

Annys did so with Piers' complaint of the great Churchmen of the day ringing in his ears:--

"With change of many manner meats, With song and solos sitting long, And after meat with harpe and song And each man mote him lords call."

When they reached the Bishop's private chamber, Thomas of Ely laid his hand kindly upon the young man's head.

"My son," he said, "I have heard. Would to God it were otherwise, but I hear that thou hast seen a light and must follow it."

Annys bowed his head gravely. Then, suddenly throwing himself upon his knees before the Bishop, he exclaimed in a broken voice:--

"Father, I have chosen the difficult way. Help me that my feet do not falter."

The old man was deeply moved, and stooped and embraced the young priest, who began:--