Part 11

It chanced that he officiated at the churching of Robert’s wife of Haydock, and after the churching he was asked to the ale, whither many gossips had repaired to celebrate the occasion with plenty that was fit both to eat and to drink. Being, as has been said, no enemy of honest mirth, Simon courteously consented to drink somewhat with them for good fellowship’s sake, and being much importuned remained with the company until late that evening. But after it had grown dark, and the moon was gotten up and most of the guests had well drunken, he took his leave with some haste, saying that he had bethought him of certain devotions he was bound to make that night. About an hour after, three others took their leave also, going the same way to town as the good Simon had gone before them. These three fellows had not gone more than a mile from Haydock, making their way along the road with arms lovingly linked for friendship’s sake, when one of them spied something dark lying by the wayside. They made their way slowly toward it, and, when they had gazed upon it for some time, they recognised Master Simon lying peacefully upon his back as though absorbed in a deep meditation. His face was turned upward towards the bright moon and his feet lay in a great pool of water. They took him by the shoulder and shook him with all the force they might, saying, ‘Rise, Master Parson, or thou wilt perish from wet and cold.’

The good Simon stirred uneasily, opened his eyes slowly, and blinked solemnly at the moonlight.

‘Put some more clothes on my feet,’ quoth he in a full soft and broken voice, ‘and blow out the light and leave me to the contemplation of God.’

Whereat these three men, after much contention and sagacious deliberation, concluding that he was absorbed in divine meditation, left him anon and brought each other home in safety.

The same night it came on heavily to rain.

Next morning an old woman going to drive pigs, found the holy man dead, exactly as he had been left the night before, his eyes rapt and fixed upon the Heavens as though in the last and greatest of his visions.

Then folk called to mind his last words, how he had asked to be left alone to the contemplation of God, and they knew that he had foretold his own death, albeit to dull and uncomprehending ears. Also they called to mind divers others of his prophecies and wonderful works and said one to another, ‘Surely there has been a Saint among us.’ After his interment many sick folk were miraculously healed of their diseases at his tomb.

Thus it is that when you go through Roodborough market-place on a fair day, you will hear Blewberry folk swear never by Saint George or Saint Peter or Saint Thomas of Canterbury, but by Saint Simon, and this Saint Simon, as I have told you, is a Blewberry Saint born and bred.

The Lie of the Flesh

I

Friar Gregory ceased reading, and looked round the little room. A low truckle-bed occupied one side, two other walls were lined with oaken book-cases quaintly carved, and on the fourth hung a few articles of simple clothing. The bookshelves were full of large books, bound, some in vellum, some in leather. The Friar sat on a wooden chair at a low table whereon flared a bronze lamp. _Intrate per angustam portam, quia lata porta est quae ducit ad perditionem._ As he looked up from the minuscule of the parchment, the guttering flame of the lamp hurt his tired eyes and a yellow mist surged before them. Little beads of moisture hung upon the stone wall and the air was close. _Quam angusta porta, et arcta via est quae ducit ad vitam._ His vision cleared and his eyes wandered among the books which he knew so well and the pages of which he had turned so often, and as scholars said, to such good account: _Homilia Sancti Augustini_, _Origen de Virginitate_, _Divi Lanfranci Liber de Corpore et Sanguine Domini Nostri_, _Joannis Scoit de_ _Eucharista_, and the rest of the abstruse works in Theology, Logic, and Music upon which he had spent the vigour of his manhood.

His eyes were wont to glow with affectionate reverence when they lighted on the books, the Noble Masters whom he had followed these thirty years with more zeal and enthusiasm than a lover his mistress. But to-night the Friar’s spirit was heavy; his eyes ached, his brain comprehended only with difficulty the sense of the written words; hope and self-belief seem to have been suddenly extinguished in his breast. The faith in his labours, which had made them labours of desire to him, seemed suddenly departed, and his life looking forward, looking backward, appeared a blank, a desert, a precious period in the endless and remorseless procession of time, irrevocably wasted in misdirected effort. This state of mind had come upon him in a moment as it were, or rather, he had only apprehended it the instant he had raised his eyes from his book.

He sat motionless a few minutes. Outside, the bell of St. Mary the Virgin tolled eight o’clock. The Friar sighed and raised his hand to his head. That day his lecture in the Schools had been exceptionally well received. Never before had Bradwardine and St. Augustine been so acutely elucidated in the University, and as he finished his exposition the scholars had risen to their feet and had clapped and cheered him. Many learned Doctors and Professors had crowded round to applaud and congratulate him. Yet the _doctissimus frater_, the _erudissimus lector_ had lost heart. Learning is a bitter-sweet fruit.

The Friar rose to his feet, and threw open the little lattice window. The cool night struck on his brow. The moon glowed large and fair over the city of spires and towers; in the distance the river lay a band of silver. A light wind stirred the branches of a neighbouring poplar. A girl passed humming a popular tune, and the distant shout of some hilarious scholar came through the air like the cry of a lonely ghost. The Friar breathed deeply of the pure air and loathed the confines of his narrow room. His eye regarded the great silent moon and glanced from spire to spire and tower to tower, silvered in the floods of light that poured from the heavens; his mind suddenly reverted to a similar scene of his boyhood. He remembered the night when his father had brought him, after travelling all day, to the monastery where he was to live henceforth and receive instruction, and how descending the hill-path they had first sighted the monastery on the other side of the valley, clothed in a vivid moonlight which revealed every detail of its exquisite architecture. As it broke upon his vision, it had seemed to the boy a mystic shrine of God, an exquisite casket wherein the Holy of Holies had His dwelling in the midst of chaste splendours and mildly luminous glories. Hence the Friar’s mind wandered back to earlier memories, to the house built of wattles and mud beneath the little hill, to the couple of oxen kept in the stall which he used to feed, to his sisters Peronelle and Alice, and his brothers Robert and Adam, with whom he used to play in the long water-meadows, and to his mother feeding, as was her accustomed task, the poultry on the headland. His eyes grew misty as he thought of them. He remembered the foresters bringing the dead deer up to the Manor, the shouting villeins driving the great plough through the furrows, and the festivals at Easter and Harvest. He called to mind his young days, before Sir John the parish priest had picked him out and had him instructed in good learning, when he ran like a greyhound through the wild wood, climbed the trees like a squirrel, swam like an otter in the swift river, and could shoot with his bow and play his quarterstaff with any boy in town. Then life was a real thing, a vivid enjoyment; physical activities and elemental emotions made up the sum of his careless, happy being.

But now he had drunk deep of learning; he had wandered widely in the mazes of theology and philosophy. The heedless certainty of those untrammelled days had gone by for ever; he was now endlessly immersed in doubt and argument; a subtle logic was his, powerful to destroy but very weak to build. His learning had brought him to a land of shadows. Truth and reality, that had environed his youth, now the more escaped him the more he pursued them.

This was the fruit of many books and of many teachers. He turned from the window to survey his room. He saw his books piled up in the gloom of their shelves, his nostrils caught the smell of warm leather and parchment, and a great loathing of them and the life to which they belonged rose up in his heart.

Oh for Life, Life, real Life--away from books, away from disputations, away from endless reflectings and researchings.

Oh for Life, the Life of the free spirit, moving of itself, uncontrolled, self-expressive.

He glanced once more out of the open window; the moon poured down her silvery floods. The lamp was dying on the table; the room grew darker and closer. He took his wallet and staff and went out.

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.