Part 7

‘What, pretty Peter,’ she cried to him, ‘art home again, good fellow? Thou ’rt welcome, by my troth. Come now and sup with me at the Pair of Oars. There is pretty company there, I warrant thee, Lilias Lightbody, Martha Kittlelegs, and Cicely Shakesheets and other jolly wenches and their fellows, as merry a crew as one’s heart could desire. Convey me thither, my little pigsnye, for I did ever dote on thee.’

‘Nay, good Belle, I am fast,’ quoth Peter, ‘the Devil be damned for it. I cannot stir till morning, with the cog to be berthed and the hold to be cleared.’

‘The Devil damn thee for a liar,’ cried the woman. ‘Thou couldst if thou wouldst, I warrant. Hast thou worn thy rotten carcass out in France that thou art afeared to put foot ashore, thou whoreson fish-head, thou? Thou art a radish and no man, a filthy remnant, a dead dog----’

‘What, thou old beldame,’ cursed Peter in good set terms, ‘thou scarecrow, thou bundle of rags and bones and paint, thou whited sepulchre, thou old corruption, thou waiting gravewoman. Hook thyself to some dead-drunken land lubber, for thou makest me retch to look on thee. Go to, thou art past thy trade, get thee to a hospital, thou.’

The woman replied to him with another volley of abuse, and then turning, retreated slowly into the darkness whence she came. Peter howled jeers and ribaldry after her as long as he judged her within earshot; then he settled himself once more upon his coil of rope and applied himself to his wine-stoup.

He laughed aloud. He had suddenly called to mind how he and other good fellows in the _Holy Trinity_ had pillaged the Fleming barge off Gravelines, and how, after they had rummaged the vessel from stem to stern, they had hurled the mariners into the sea to swim their way home, if so they might. He remembered one fat Fleming in especial, who had made them almost burst with laughter, such comic antics did he cut when he understood what fate was to befall him. His face had turned pasty white and his eyes yellow with fear, he had pattered prayers like a priest in mortal terror of Hell Fire, and when they shoved him overboard into the sea, and he struck the water plump like a lump of lead, he had screamed out ‘Mother!’ ’Twas truly comical to hear such a fat old devil cry out for his mother as though he had been a two-years’ child. Peter fingered the dagger, which hung round his neck on a lanyard; it was a good dagger of fine Spanish steel, it had once hung from that same Fleming’s neck.

A bell began to toll from the town solemnly and dolefully.

It was the passing bell, rung that Christian men might pray for a soul upon the threshold of the great darkness. Peter listened for the mournful strokes, mechanically he counted them up till ten, and then began from one again.

Suddenly the bell ceased.

Peter knew that the soul had gone out into the darkness, and he crossed himself and said _Pater Noster_, as he had been taught to do as a child.

Then the fat Fleming recurred to his mind, but somehow he did not make him laugh this time. ‘Poor devil,’ he thought, and said _Pater Noster_ again. He pondered silently for a long time, and his mind began to be strangely disturbed.

‘Pah!’ quoth he, shaking himself, and took another draught of wine, but the liquor had no taste and he put the tankard down. He looked upward to the sky; there was still no moon or stars to be seen, only blackness overhead and blackness all round, save for a little lightening in the East where the day would presently break. He thought of the woman who had just left him; then he thought of his mother, whom he had not seen these five years--five years which he had spent in roving, smuggling and pirating from the Hanse Ports to the Holy Land. God knows how many more sins he had piled on his conscience since the day he had last bid her farewell in the tiny apple-orchard behind the house. Then she had had a mad notion of going on a pilgrimage with him to Saint Thomas at Canterbury, and he had told her to keep her old bones safe by the fireside and to leave such junketings to young wenches. ‘Ah,’ she had answered, ‘I should be easier in my mind had thou and I made vows together at the tomb of the Holy Thomas.’ He had replied to her roughly to keep house and to say her prayers at home, and had trudged away without more ado in his ill-temper. He remembered her now standing under the trees and looking sadly after him. He thought there had been tears in her eyes, and at the time he had been fain to whistle to make his mind the easier.

Peter was an evil fellow, and he knew it. There were few knavish trades asea or ashore to which he had not turned his hand. Many were the gallows that ached for him, many were those who had vowed to have their own by him again, and many were the souls who would accuse him before the Righteous Judge at the Dreadful Doomsday. Yet his mother had taught him _Ave_, _Pater Noster_, and _Credo_ as soon as he might run and talk, and had nurtured him in all good religion. Truly she was a godly woman, this mother of his, and she had borne a graceless son. Surely she would sit with the Saints at last around Our dear Lord’s feet, while he would have his portion in the Lake which burns with fire. If only with a word he could undo five years, why, then he might start again.

Through the darkness came the glimmer of moving lights and the sound of far-off voices singing in modulation and time. He propped himself on his elbow and strained his eyes and ears. The swinging lights approached, the singing came nearer; he heard the sound of feet on the rough causeway. A band of pilgrims, having risen before it was yet light, went on their way to Saint Thomas of Canterbury with their lanterns and staves in their hands, and their mouths filled with divine songs. In Gregorian cadence they sang the penitential psalms, and Peter listened as a man in a dream to their solemn chanting growing fainter and fainter in the distance, and watched their glimmering lanterns extinguished one by one in the obscurity.

It was as though he had seen a vision of the Saints of God going up with their lamps burning to the altar of the Most High, singing ‘Holy, holy, holy.’ He gazed after them, long after they had disappeared, with wide eyes and parted lips.

‘She was right,’ he said at length, speaking slowly to himself. ‘She is a godly woman. She shall go on pilgrimage with me, though it be to Rome itself.’

He thought of the blessed Saint Godric and how he had borne his mother Romewards on his back, and how an angel had come down from Heaven to help them on their way.

He waited for the morning to break.

II

Peter was footsore and weary. For three days he had walked from sunrise to sunset, and now, at the end of the third day, his shipman’s legs were stiff and his feet blistered almost to bleeding. But he valiantly stepped forward, looking neither to left nor right, aiding himself much by his staff, and planting his feet firmly on the rough way.

He began to recognise the landmarks. There, blue-black against the red-shot sky of sunset, lay the Cow’s Back, as he had seen it so often of old, like a barrier for ever dividing darkness from intolerable splendours; there, winding down and clothing the valley as far as the eye could reach in a mantle of sombre foliage, lay the Ravens Wood, in which he had so often gone shooting with his little bow when a boy; there, wave after wave in multitudinous succession swept the grassy uplands over which he had seen the villeins drive the herds in the fresh light of so many mornings of yore; there, clad in bramble and gorse and heather, stretched the wild common where he had been wont to gather the ripe berries in autumn.

And now, as he came nearer home, there was the splintered oak which folk called ‘the Fairies,’ round which he had danced with two little village girls for good luck when a lad; there were the two huge and solitary stones, by which he had played with his dead brother through many a long summer’s day; there was the standing pool upon which he had been wont to slide with the village boys in the hard winters; there was the desolate mere where he had found the bittern’s nest.

Meanwhile the red fire had faded from the western sky, and the shadows deepened and stretched outwards from under the hills. The mist came up and hid the land like a layer of cotton wool and soaked him to the skin. He plodded on.

At the last village folk had told him, ‘A good eight mile and he were best to stay there that night, for it was a rough road and one easy to miss.’ But he had replied that he was in haste and he knew the road. In the darkness he could distinguish little, but over the hill yonder should lie the church with the graveyard, in which rested his father’s and his father’s father’s bones. In the hollow below the hill and on this side of it should lie his mother’s house; at the top of the rise he should see it if there were only light enough. He hastened and climbed the rise. Down in the valley, a tiny yellow light glimmered feebly through the blackness. There was his home, and the candles burnt for his return. He hastened on again, breaking into a shambling run. As he drew near he fell into a walking pace, for he felt a sudden shamefacedness. Besides, he did not want to alarm his mother; honest wayfarers were few at that time of night, he thought.

He reached the door and put his hand upon the latch. Suddenly he stayed. An unearthly wailing came from within, the feeble and cracked voices of old women raised in a mournful melody. Peter’s breath came thick and fast, he almost choked, and his heart thumped like a hammer against his ribs. With an effort he lifted the latch and flung open the door.

Upon a table in the middle of the room lay the dead body of his mother, laid out for burial and swathed completely except for the face in white grave-clothes. Upon her bosom was set a small platter of salt, and at each corner of the table a rushlight burnt feebly. Four old women sat round the corpse and wailed the lyke-wake dirge.

‘This ae night, this ae night, Every night and all, Fire and sleet and candle light, And Christ receive thy soul.’

Their ancient withered bodies swayed in time with the mournful air they sang, and cast fantastic shadows on the bare and plastered walls. Peter comprehended the scene in an instant.

At his entrance the hags abruptly ceased their wailing and, gazing upon him, sent up exclamations of recognition and surprise.

‘Eh, this is thy home-coming,’ quoth one.

‘Behold thy mother, thou evil son,’ cried another.

‘Art not ashamed?’ screamed the third, pointing to the corpse.

‘Thou serpent,’ cried the fourth.

Peter did not answer them. He stood uncertainly upon his feet as though he had been drunk, and trembled like a leaf. Then he went shakily across the floor and gazed upon the face of the dead.

One of the old women stole up behind him. ‘She hath gone to accuse thee before the Lord God,’ she screamed into his ear.

Peter turned and looked mournfully upon her with a face like death. ‘That she would never do,’ quoth he sadly.

Whereupon they snarled at him like she-wolves, he not answering them but standing like one sore perplexed and distressed. Then one began the dirge again, and the others held the burden. Peter turned and gazed steadily at them.

‘Go,’ he said, and pointed to the door.

They ceased wailing and looked at him dumbly. One began to utter words of abuse, but he pointed to the door again. So they gathered their rags about them and went out, muttering foully and casting spiteful glances upon him. He shut the door behind them.

Then he went and stood by the head of the dead woman and regarded her face steadfastly. It was as white as the linen which shrouded it, and the features as clear-cut and firm as they had been cunningly worked in marble; the majesty of an unutterable peace was on her countenance. Peter thought of the stone image of a holy nun he had once seen on a tomb in a great church at Bruges.

‘She was a very holy woman, although she was my mother and I am her son,’ he thought simply. ‘I am as foul as she was holy.’

He watched the dead hour after hour all through the night, and the whole of his life passed before his eyes as the life of every man will pass before the eyes of the Incorruptible Judge at Doomsday. Anon bitter tears fell like rain down his cheeks, anon his eyes were hot and dry as glowing coals; he tried to pray, but he had forgotten most of what his mother had taught him, and he had no wit to pray in his own language. Anon he passionately hated himself as Righteousness hateth Sin, anon he pitied himself with a pity nigh as great as Our Lord’s for the souls that are damned. The dead woman lying there shamed him all the while, but she could not rebuke him.

It neared the end of the last watch of the night, and the rush-lights guttered out one by one. Peter was moved with a mighty anguish and shaken like a reed from head to foot. He flung his arms round the dead woman and cried out with a loud and terrible voice, ‘Mother, forgive me, I did not know.’

The eyes of the dead woman slowly unclosed, her mouth opened and she spoke:

‘Son, keep me no longer here, nor cheat me of that everlasting rest that I have already found.’

Her eyes closed for ever, and Peter knew that of the dead there is no forgiveness.

The Fall of Castle Beaumont

Ralph of the Skeely-Eye was right wroth that night. He had drunk much of the alewife’s strongest brew, he had lost eightpence at quoits to Watkin Ploughman, and Clarice of Cock’s Lane had openly flouted him before the menfolk. Now he played at draughts with Thomas the Cordwainer, and Thomas had penned his pieces in a corner so that he could move no way without being taken. The flush on his red face deepened, he tugged at his black beard, and then with one heavy blow of his great fist sent board and draughtsmen with a crash to the floor.

‘To Hell with the game!’ he cried, rising to his feet.

Thomas the Cordwainer looked afeared; he would for a moment that he had not won that game. The sudden noise interrupted the little group round the hearth fire, where Pierce the Clerk, Watkin and Long Hugh were deep in talk with the barefooted friar. A stranger sat quietly listening by them.

‘Steady,’ cried Pierce. ‘Thou hast that same Hell so often on thy lips that I doubt but it will be thine own place at the last.’

Ralph of the Skeely-Eye swung unsteadily on his feet, and turned his fierce, bloodshot eyes on Pierce.

‘God blight thee, thou snivelling hound,’ he cried. ‘And what is it to thee if it is to Hell that I fare?’

He bared his thick hairy arm and pointed to its corded knots of muscle.

‘Seest thou this arm? Here is bone and sinew and muscle enough to knock a way through the world for me, and God help the man who comes between me and my will. While I am man of flesh and blood I will do my pleasure and play my game; when I’m dead, so-so, let the Devil have his due. ’Tis all fair enough; my day now, his day then, but let him keep his distance till the clock strikes.’

He paused, glaring fiercely round on the company. The barefoot friar caught his eye, regarding him steadily with blue and lambent orbs.

‘Thou fool,’ quoth he in deep, sad tones. ‘Thou poor fool. Knowest thou not that the Lord hath given this world into the hand of the Adversary, that he may weigh unto men according to their deserts and reap unto them after their sowing? Even now, while thou standest blaspheming, the Devil is behind thee and laugheth at thy folly till he is like to burst. When the measure of thine iniquity is heaped to the full, although thou be all unwitting of the date thereof, thou shalt straightway be borne in his fierce talons as the tares to the furnace, which burneth evermore.’

Ralph started at the mention of the Devil and cast a fearful glance behind him; then, reassured, he gave his leather girdle a hitch and answered sullenly.

‘I’ll not speak with friars. When my spell’s up, let the Devil come; till then I am neither his nor thine nor any man’s but mine own.’

The friar straightway rose from his seat and, swiftly crossing the floor, seized Ralph by the arm.

‘Come, sit thee here,’ he said, ‘and I will tell thee that which, if it melt not thy soul in utter penitence, will at least show thee the power of the Prince of Darkness and the miserable end of sinners such as thou.’

He half led and half dragged Ralph to the chimney, and forced him to sit down upon a bench. Ralph made but a feeble resistance, for he was subdued and nigh scared by the friar’s eye. Pierce, Thomas, Watkin and Long Hugh gathered eagerly round, for the deep voice of the friar charmed them like church music when it breaks upon the ear at midnight. His eyes held them and they listened to him as to a man speaking in a vision. Even from Ralph’s dull face the fumes of strong drink half dissipated. The stranger listened from his seat a little way off.

‘Listen,’ cried the friar, ‘to the tragical history of Castle Beaumont, and may Christ and the Blessed Virgin and All Hallows grant it be to the health and comfort of your souls.

‘Five days’ journey hence into the West country stood Castle Beaumont, and it was the fairest and strongest castle that any man had ever seen. It was built on the crest of a great hill so high that its towers, like those of the proud Babel, seemed to threaten the Heavens, and so stoutly of hard hewn stone, and so cunningly with barbicans, bastions and battlements and broad moats, that it might not be taken, nay, though even the Lord King himself came against it with tens of thousands of men and with mangonels, belfries, and rams. Above it was naught but the wide and naked heaven; below it, richly clothing the slopes of the great hill, lay a forest of oak and beech; below the forest lay a wide water, and a mile over the meadows, this side of the water, lay a poor village called Vill Beaumont.

‘The Lord of Beaumont was rich and mighty above all the nobles in this realm, for east and west, and south and north, as far as one might ride on a long summer’s day, one’s horse would not step on an ell of land that was not his. A score of stone castles and thirty walled towns owned him allegiance, and he milked the fatness from a hundred and fifty rich manors. When he rode forth to war there rode with him a hundred knights in full harness and five hundred men-at-arms in helmets and hauberks of twisted mail, so that there was no lord in the land who could stand against him.

‘But lo, this Lord, of whom I speak, was a man of stark and violent heart, swollen with pride and vain imagination, a fearer of neither God nor man. For him Christ and His Church might not have been; he took no thought for his soul but lived as a beast of the field, subject to his own unlawful lusts and desires. Fierce moods came upon him like lightning at midsummer, but aye more harmful, and he was more stark and terrible in his rages than a roaring lion. If one vexed him, he would gnash upon him with his teeth and strike him with his fist even to the breaking of bones, or if so be that he might not come at him, he would hurl himself down upon the rushes and bite upon them with his teeth, smiting himself upon the face and dashing his head against the floor.

‘This Lord one evening a little before sunset returned from his day’s hunting, and he was merry because he had slain much. As he rode slowly homeward (his attendants being occupied with the quarry) he spied in the great wood and not many paces from the Castle Drawbridge a strange lady. She rode upon a grey palfrey and was clad in a bright green cloak embroidered all with pearls. She was very comely. She seemed to that wicked Lord to be more fair than summer or the sweet sunlight, and he gazed on her like one smitten with sudden wonder. But he was no man to be abashed before womenfolk, so he presently saluted her and rode towards her. To him she made answer with so melodious and delicate voice (as the deceitful Sirens used towards Sir Ulysses), and with so jolly demeanour and sweet accord, that his heart was ravished within him, and he was filled with sudden desire of her. Therefore coming up close to her palfrey, without more ado he flung his arm round her waist and kissed her on the lips, she making but faint and seemingly wanton resistance. So toying with her, he led her into the castle and kept her with him that night and thereafter.

‘The Lord’s wife was a lady right devout and pious, much given to orisons and fasting and penance. Mightily had she striven to turn her husband from his evil way of life, and she had also gotten many religious men and women, far and near, to pray for his amendment, and in especial had had supplication made at the shrines of the Saints most powerful in such cases throughout the land. But so entirely was her Lord given over to the Devil that all was in vain, and the more she talked to him of repentance and the torments of the damned, the more he hardened his heart and the more fierce and hot his anger boiled against her. “Go to thy prayers, thou jade,” he would cry, “thou wert fit for a green-faced nun or a puling anchoress.” Then he would revile her grievously, saying the sight of her chapfallen face set his teeth on edge like a sour apple and was like to turn the victual on his stomach, and would blasphemously offer golden candlesticks to all the parish churches in England, would she but hang herself from the battlements or cast herself headlong into the moat. Whereupon, weeping, she would betake herself to her bower and read solitarily (but none the less in the care of Holy Angels) from her Book of Hours.

‘With the coming of the strange woman to the Castle, the Lord’s rage against his Lady was grievously increased, so that he gave over all the governance of his household to his new mistress, and forbade his true wife to look upon his face any more, lest he did her some violent injury.

‘Lo, good men all, how one sin leadeth to another, for pride, having begotten lust, now lust begot murder.

‘One day his Lady-wife, conceiving that a little religious book, which a godly man had sent her, entitled _A Little Sooth Sermon of the Seven Deadly Sins_, might aid to cleanse his filthy and impure heart, came to him as he sat on a bench in the base court singing a vain amorous song beneath the window of his wanton, and, calling him from his lightness, began forthwith to read to him from the book. She had not interrupted him long or read far, when the blood rushed madly to his impious brain, the veins knotted on his forehead, his complexion became sanguine and purple, and without more ado, drawing his dagger from his girdle, he rushed upon her and slew her with a hundred thrusts thereof, afterwards casting her martyred body into the moat.

‘Now, look ye, good men, what befell after this evil and horrid deed. The wicked Lord, after he had gone so far in iniquity, considered that the Devil would be sure to have him at the last. Therefore, like Ralph here, he determined to have his fling, and to lead his life with as much solace and mirth and gladness as might be, thus blotting out from his soul the consciousness of the eternal miseries which awaited him. But mark ye what happened in the sequel.