Part 9

‘Nay then, ’tis worth nothing,’ said the Bailey, ‘for Hob of the Cross and Sim of the Wry-Mouth and the rest of the upland fellows yonder are selling as good as thine for tenpence.’

‘Tenpence,’ screamed Meg. ‘Thou art a liar.’

‘No liar, little Meg,’ laughed the Bailey. ‘Go thou and look.’

So Meg went and looked, and there was Hob of the Cross and Sim of the Wry-Mouth and the rest of the upland folk selling fine corn at tenpence the bushel. She grinned with rage and ground her teeth. An evil, black cloud came over her fierce face.

‘’Twas pity thou didst not let it go at twelvepence when thou hadst the chance,’ said John the Miller.

Meg turned towards the Church and shook her fist passionately; she strove to blaspheme but her wrath choked her.

‘Nay, nay,’ said the Bailey. ‘Be a wise wench. Lo, here are thirty pennies; give me the three bushels and get thee to the ‘Three Arrows’ and take a bite and a sup to sweeten thy sour heart, for thou art indeed a bitter herb and grown little in God’s grace, despite thy inches. Thou shalt not get a better price in the whole market, I warrant thee.’

‘Give me the thirty pennies,’ snarled Meg. The Bailey counted them out in her hand. She put them without a word of thanks into her leathern purse. Then pushing her way through the throng of people she crossed over to the Church again. She entered and went up to the Altar. Christ stretched out His little arms lovingly towards her as before. But she gnashed upon Him with her teeth, wrinkled her nose at Him and shook her great fist at Him with fierce vehemence.

‘O little Christ,’ she whispered, trembling with rage, ‘hast Thou indeed done this to me? I might have had twelvepence at the first and I would not, but asked Thine aid instead, and now I cannot get but tenpence. Thou shalt get no penny candle at Eastertide of me, but I will pay Thee out for this, even at Thine Own Holy Season. Lo, now, thou little Jesu, as much shame and evil as Thou hast done to me will I do also unto Thee and more also.’

With that she flung herself out of the Church and hied sullenly homewards to Four Lane Ends.

II

Upon Easter Sunday Meg and Gilbert, her husband, having risen early, washed themselves well as was fitting, put on such new garments as they had, and, taking their walking-sticks into their hands, set out while yet it was dark to go to Mass at the Town Church.

As they went by the way and the Easter sun rose up red as a great fire upon their left hands, Gilbert began to talk in right cheerful and Christian fashion, for, albeit he was somedeal rough in his manners and no hypocrite to talk religion in matters secular, nevertheless he was a true son of the Church, and the sound of the Easter bells coming through the calm air of early morning filled him with much delight.

‘Hearken,’ quoth he, ‘never have I heard a sweeter sound of bells; needs must they ring so from here to Jerusalem, which is the middle of the world, and all the souls in Heaven and on Earth rejoice this day, yea, and those in Hell also, for as good Master Parson saith, on this day the very damned have respite from their pains. Is not the sound of these salvation bells sweet to thine ears, Meg, my wife?’

‘I did not know thou wert a religious,’ quoth Meg sneeringly.

‘Nay, no religious am I, good Meg, a plain man and a lay, but a Christian betimes, as all men must be, and especially on a jolly Easter Day like this. Methinks I could almost make a vow to go to the alehouse less often hereafter, except I am no hypocrite. Look how the sun rises through yon wood. He cometh up all glorious like the sweet Christ from the tomb. Folk say that he danceth upon this day for very joy that our Lord is risen.’

‘Yea,’ quoth Meg and no more.

‘To-day,’ continued Gilbert, ‘the Pope will stand in his great church at Rome before the True Cross of Christ and bless all Christian folk from East to West. Yea, Meg, my wife, it is a blessed thing that we lived not of old ere this great salvation came in, else we should have altogether perished with the just heathen, whereas now I may go to the alehouse or the dice as often as I will, and have more joy hereafter than Master Virgil or Master Cato or any of those righteous ancients of whom we hear so much from Master Parson, and who never saw the true light or heard of Our Lady or Christ.’

‘Yea,’ quoth Meg and no more.

‘Upon Holy Day, look thou,’ went on Gilbert, ‘we Christian folk go up to the Altar and eat the very Body and Blood of Christ, and thereby become partakers with Him in everlasting joy; so being deceased and shoved into our graves, we shall yet rise again like Him and live in delight and bliss for ever and ever. For these blessed privileges, being a plain man as I am, and of no great merits in myself, I am bound to say “Deo Gratias,” and therefore should we this morning creep on our knees to the Cross and kiss it for a jewel, for it bore Christ’s Body to our boot. Is it not so, Meg, my wife?’

‘Yea,’ quoth Meg.

By this time they were gotten near the village and could see the Town Church.

‘Look now,’ quoth Gilbert, ‘how the people throng; they pour through the doorway like water over a mill-dam. Marry, but I have not seen such crowds this seven year; there is that good fellow Hob of the Cross and the Bailey’s wife and John the Miller, who would not give thee more than tenpence the bushel for thy corn.’

So they came into the Church and were fain to stand during the Blessed Sacrament of the Mass owing to the thick press of people. The Church was decked with fair flowers from the fields, a hundred white tapers burnt like stars before the Altar, a sweet smoke of incense went curling up among the rafters, and little clergy boys with faces like unto angels’ sang loudly and clearly the Easter Hymn:

‘Alleluia, alleluia, O filii et filiae. Rex coelestis, Rex gloriae, Morte surrexit hodie. Alleluia.’

Lit by candleshine, with white lilies round her feet, stood God’s Mother clasping her little Son, and He stretched His little arms out and smiled towards them through the odorous mist. Gilbert’s eyes filled with happy tears, and he said to himself as Master Parson had taught him to say whenever he entered the Church, ‘I am glad in these things that are said to me; let us go in the House of the Lord: Our feet shall stand within thy walls, O thou Jerusalem.’ But Meg said no word nor joined in the holy responses.

Then they went up in order to receive the Blessed Host, and Gilbert received it first, kneeling with due reverence. Then Meg knelt in her turn, but when the Priest put the Host upon her tongue instead of swallowing it forthwith as Holy Church commands, she put it into her cheek with her tongue and kept it there. Afterwards, while Gilbert greeted in kindly fashion the folk at the Church door, she found means privily to convey it into a kerchief and so into the pocket of her kirtle. Having exchanged greetings with many folk, they went their way homewards, Gilbert talking cheerfully as before but Meg moody and silent.

When they reached Four Lane Ends, quoth Gilbert to his wife, ‘I’ faith, good Meg, I am clammed. For the love of Christ, Who this morning rose from the dead for our sakes, hasten thee about dinner.’

‘Thou shalt have it shortly,’ answered Meg, ‘for here is some bacon and young greenstuff. But do thou meanwhile go to the Halfacre and look to the swine.’

‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘but see it be ready when I return.’

Meg watched him going until he turned the corner by the Red Headland. Then quickly she ran behind the house and, bringing hence a leathern bucket, hastened with it to the inner room where stood their bed. In the corner of the room was a strong oak chest, bound with iron strips, studded with heavy nails and locked with a great lock, wherein was a great key. She threw herself on her knees before it, turned the key with both hands, and with an effort flung open the heavy lid. She laughed loudly and long. Then she rose to her feet and brought out from her pocket a doubled-up kerchief. She unfolded it and turned the contents into her hand with scrupulous care. She held her hand up high to the light of the little window; there rested the Holy Wafer, the Body and Blood of Christ. A beam of golden light shot suddenly through the window slit and rested upon it like a sign out of heaven or a ray from the eye of God. The woman laughed to see her Creator lie there so white and still in the hollow of the palm of the thing that He had made.

‘Ah, little Jesus,’ she cried stridently, gloating like a Devil of Hell,--‘Ah, little Jesus, that didst mock me and despise me and cozen me, when I prayed to Thee at the market; now shall I mock Thee and despise Thee and cozen Thee much more than ever Thou didst to me. I asked Thee for twopence more a bushel, for six little stingy pennies, and Thou wouldst not give me a single one from all Thy infinite store, nay, Thou tookest away even that which I might have had. Now all the pennies in the world shall not save Thee from my vengeance. I was hot, and wayworn, and famished, and thirsty, and Thou hadst no pity on me; now Thou art alone and helpless, and I will have no pity on Thee.’

She laughed like a wild woman and ran her free hand through her hair, until the red locks fell over her cruel blue eyes. Then she burst into a frenzied song of sorcery.

‘Seven smiths sat working, Working spears of hate; Seven men came riding, Riding, riding late. Seven smiths sat working, Working spears of woe; Seven men came riding, Riding never mo. So in and about, When the moon’s put out, Under rain, under snow Must my little boy go.’

Kneeling, she carefully put the Holy Wafer in the bottom of the chest, and taking the bucket in her hand, emptied therefrom a full hideous toad with warty body and yellow eyes, black and terrible to gaze upon. O shame, O horror, O deadly sin! The poisonous beast fell with a dull thud beside the Most Holy Body of Our Lord. The daughter of Hell slammed to the heavy lid and locked the chest. She ran and hid the key in the bucket behind the house.

III

It was after midnight, and the night fell as calm as on the Sea of Galilee after Our Lord had rebuked the waves and bid the waters whist. Four Lane Ends was as quiet as a grave: the countless leaves of the wood rustled not; there was no cry of any night bird or any beast, nor any sound of flowing waters. A full moon was in the heavens and rained down silver on charmed silence.

But in Gilbert’s bedchamber was a thick darkness as of pitch, only pierced by a single moonbeam that smote like a bright sword across the room from the little window. Gilbert was awake and sat up in bed; beside him his wife slept, or seemed to sleep, with her head hidden under the coverlet. Gilbert could scarcely draw breath, a fearful pressure was upon his ribs, the air tasted like a thick and poisonous syrup; it was as though the walls and the roof were closing in upon him, as though he were entombed in the deepest abysm of earth with immeasurable silences and darknesses above and around him. Entombed, yea, but not alone, for potent and terrible moved a disturbing presence, a vast agony, a gigantic and all-pervading effort. It was as though some mighty spirit strove ceaselessly with terrible and ever increasing strength to burst the narrow confines of the chamber.

Gilbert tried with staring eyes to pierce the dark, but in vain; he crossed himself and said _Pater Noster_. Almost instantly out of the blackness came a little piping cry, as though of a new-born babe. He listened intently. ‘Nay,’ thought he, ‘I must be deceived; the Lord hath never blessed this house with bairns, and there are no children nearer than the Cross.’ But anon the cry came again, a little louder than before. ‘Holy Virgin,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘this is a spirit.’

He shook Meg by the shoulder until she could not be anything else but awake.

‘What ails thee, man?’ she asked in a low strained voice.

‘Hearest thou naught?’

‘Nay.’

‘Listen.’

Anon it came again, the wail of a babe.

‘Holy Saints defend us,’ cried Gilbert, ‘what makest thou of that?’

Meg seemed to swallow something in her throat, and then she spoke in a harsh and toneless voice. ‘’Twas the cry of an owl.’

‘Nay.’

‘’Twas the shriek of a bat.’

‘Nay, it was neither. It was a babe or a spirit; a damned goblin or a soul in torment. Christ, how this air suffocates me; I choke, I swoon.’

He tore open his vest about the throat, and began to pray aloud. He stopped suddenly.

‘For the love of Our Lady, pray,’ he cried to his wife. But she did not utter one word.

A shrill wail cut through the darkness, a wail of immeasurable anguish and pleading, the sorrow of eternal ages in the cry of a chrisom child.

‘The chest, the chest,’ he whispered hoarsely.

‘O Christ,’ his wife answered, ‘’tis not that.’

‘It is, it is,’ he screamed, leaping from the bed and feeling with his hands over the surface of the wall nigh where the key of the chest was usually hung.

‘’Tis not here,’ he cried. ‘Where is it?’

‘I know not; I have not seen it many days.’

‘A light, a light,’ he moaned.

He stumbled into the other room, and presently returned with a torch he had kindled at the still glimmering house-fire.

‘Help thou to search,’ he whispered.

His wife rose mechanically from the bed, and together they searched both chambers for the key.

‘Hast thou not seen it?’ asked Gilbert.

‘Nay.’

He flung open the house door and let the cool air of the night blow upon his brow and bosom. The moon was beginning to pale and the darkness trembled before the dawn. Ever and anon from the bedchamber came the long-drawn wails. At each cry Meg shuddered anew as though at a spasm of pain that tore her entrails. Her head was sunk on her bosom and her hair fell over her face.

‘Lord have mercy upon us,’ groaned Gilbert, burying his face in his hands, ‘Christ have mercy upon us.’

His wife gave a suppressed scream; she was as a woman in travail.

‘Christ deliver us from the Powers of Hell,’ said Gilbert suddenly, ‘but with the Lord’s help will I open the chest.’

‘Nay, nay,’ implored Meg, ‘’tis some Devil.’

‘We are in the Lord’s hands,’ said Gilbert. ‘Away, woman.’

He went to the ingle nook where his axe hung and took it down. Then he stepped into the bedchamber pushing aside his wife, who would have stayed him. She followed him whimpering, and ever and anon bursting into a great dry sob. The inky darkness had given place to the wan light of earliest morning. They regarded each other in the face; their countenances were ashen grey and had aged ten years in the single night. Wailing filled the chamber.

‘It must be done,’ quoth Gilbert. ‘It must be done. In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’

He swung the great axe twice or thrice in the air. His wife cowered down on the bed and hid her face in her lap. He swung the great axe again and brought it down with all his force on the lid of the chest just above the lock. It bit a deep dent in the iron. Again, and yet again, and at the third blow the tough iron was cut clean in twain and the lock fell to pieces. Gilbert dropped the axe and, flinging himself upon his knees, flung back the heavy lid. His wife started convulsively to her feet and peered over his shoulder.

Within the chest sat a little naked Babe, clad in light and crowned with living glory. With one tiny hand it waved away a huge toad which crept poisonously towards it, and with the other it covered its eyes. It wept piteously as though its heart would break; the radiance of its body filled the chamber.

Meg fell on her husband’s shoulder, uttering shriek after shriek. ‘I have sinned, I have sinned,’ she cried. ‘Have mercy, have mercy.’

Gilbert regarded her not. He clasped his hands in prayer before him, and his eyes were fixed in deepest devotion and pity on that fair naked Babe.

‘Listen, husband, listen,’ moaned Meg desperately, clinging to her husband’s neck. ‘I have done this: I put the Holy Wafer in the chest with the toad.’

As she finished speaking there came a blinding flash of light and the Holy Babe vanished. The room filled with a sweet odour and blissful music came up from the valleys. They fell upon their faces.

IV

Easter fell full early the year following, and it was a cruel, bitter season. Then it was that Sir Geoffrey’s new barn was levelled to the earth by weight of snow, and there was a great flood in the village by reason of the swelling of the stream.

All the year preceding, Master Parson had come often to Four Lane Ends, and he comforted Meg as much as he might, bidding her earnestly to trust in the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and to cease not from importuning the Blessed Virgin that she would intercede for her at the Throne of Grace. Moreover, he said that though her sins were as scarlet yet might they be whiter than snow, and that our God was a God of mercy and not of vengeance, and would abundantly pardon such as returned to Him with weeping and amendment.

‘Nay,’ quoth Meg sadly, ‘I have sinned the unpardonable sin for which there is no forgiveness.’

‘Tush, tush, woman,’ cried Master Parson, ‘thou talkest nonsense. To sin against the Holy Ghost were indeed to be in evil case, but thou hast sinned against Christ alone, and He is full soft and kind and forgiving.’

By this time Meg was so infirm of her body that she could only walk with difficulty, and it was sore trouble for her to do about the house, much more to go hoeing and weeding in the fields as she was wont to do. When the sun shone brightly on the Red Headland she would sit in the doorway of the cottage sadly regarding the green-budding hawthorns and the early violets that grew under the bank, and at whiles her lips moved as though she prayed. Much she thought in those days of her former wild words and deeds, and many bitter tears she shed therefore.

‘My sins are too black for even Christ to forgive,’ she would say.

‘’Twould much ease her heart,’ quoth Gilbert to Master Parson, ‘if she could but think she was forgiven.’

Towards Easter she grew more feeble, weakening as the year strengthened, and when the earth began to put on its robe of green she began to strip off, as it were, her robe of mortality. About a week before Easter Day her husband came in from his work in the fields to see how she fared. She was sitting deep in thought at the doorway.

‘I have been thinking, husband,’ quoth she, ‘that I would above all things partake of the Blessed Sacrament in the Town Church this Easter. But I am unworthy and that I know. The Lord hath taken the strength out of my joints. Pray for me, dear husband.’

‘Why, Meg,’ quoth he. ‘Hob of the Cross would gladly lend me a hand and we two could right easily carry thee to Church, an there were need, the Holy Day.’

‘Thou art indeed a kind man and a good to me,’ said his wife. ‘If the Lord granted me to partake once more of His precious Body and Blood, I should die happy, for I should know that He had forgiven my sin and done away mine iniquity.’

On Easter day Gilbert looked from the little window. The air was chill as death, and a soft darkness brooded dumbly over a waste of snow. The branches of the trees bowed under their burden; the ways were choked. Tears came into his eyes.

‘It lies thick with snow,’ he said sadly.

Meg bowed her head. ‘The Lord is not willing. How can He forgive me?’ she said simply.

But anon and in the good time he had promised came Hob of the Cross, his round face like a glowing coal, his breath going up like a white cloud from his mouth.

‘What, Meg,’ quoth he, stamping the snow from his shoes before the hearth fire and clapping his hands noisily together. ‘Art ready for Church? We shall fetch thee there right readily, I warrant thee.’

A faint colour tinged her faded cheeks and a light flickered in her eyes. Gilbert stood doubtfully by.

‘Would God it were possible,’ she said.

‘It lies three feet deep in places, I guess, good Hob?’ said Gilbert.

‘Yea, neighbour, but if thy wife here be ready, it might be done.’

‘’Twould do her mortal harm, I’m feared,’ said Gilbert.

‘When I have partaken of the Blessed Sacrament this Easter Day,’ quoth Meg, ‘happy will I die straightway.’

Then, turning from one to another with more alacrity than she had used this many a long day, she said, ‘Good husband mine and kindest neighbour Hob, do ye but take me in your arms this morning to the Town Church and leave the rest to the Lord. Fear not for the snow or the foul ways; I must die and that soon, and I might die the happier for your kindness.’

Hob looked at Gilbert.

‘We will do as she wishes,’ said Gilbert.

They joined hands with crossed arms and took Meg upon their wrists, she staying herself thereon by clasping their shoulders. Thus they carried her forth between them in the twilight of the early morning. Their feet sank deeply into the snow even to their knees, and much ado they had to keep their footing on the rough way under such a burden and going in such a fashion. Often they stayed by the way to get their breath and to rest a while, when Meg stood leaning heavily upon her husband. Once as they stood thus she spied a dead bird that had dropped frozen upon the snow from the branches overhead.

‘Alas,’ quoth she, ‘thou poor bird.’

As they got nearer the town the morning lightened.

‘Are we far off yet?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Nay, not far,’ quoth Gilbert.

A little while after they caught a glimpse of the smoking roofs of the town lying down in the hollow, and with that they heard the first merry peal of Easter bells chiming up over the snow.

‘Jesus be praised,’ cried Meg faintly.

‘Hold fast, good Meg,’ panted Hob. ‘We shall win through at last. Holy Virgin, how I sweat.’

Then they saw the Town Church itself and the people streaming through the porch.

‘Jesus, Jesus, for but a little while longer,’ murmured Meg.

Gilbert and Hob hastened their toilsome steps. So at last they came to the Church and, the folk courteously making way for them, they bore her to a stool by the rood-screen.

The Church was decked with fair flowers, white tapers burnt like stars before the Altar, a sweet smoke of incense went up to the rafters, the clergy boys sang loudly and clearly ‘Alleluia.’ Lit by candleshine, with white lilies round her feet, stood God’s Mother clasping her Little Son, and He stretched His little arms out and smiled towards her through the odorous mist. Meg had been overcome by faintness once or twice by the way, but now all her mortal powers concentrated themselves on the act of devotion. As she listened to the words of the Priest her eyes closed, and she turned her face upwards to Heaven like as she had been one born blind. Her lips moved at the responses but made no sound, except, when the sacring bell rang, a deep sob burst from her and shook her weakened frame from head to foot. In her turn she would have gone toward the Altar to receive the Blessed Sacrament but for her bodily weakness she might not, so her husband aided her upon the one side and Hob upon the other, and the three of them knelt together thus side by side. Then came the Priest and said, ‘This is the cup of My Blood which is shed for you,’ and placed the Sacred Wafer upon her tongue. As she received and swallowed it a blissful light as of a great peace shone out of her countenance; she lifted up her hands joined together towards Heaven, and cried in a clear joyful voice that all might hear, ‘Jesu!’ She fell back into Gilbert’s arms, and the Priest, gazing upon her face, knew she was dead.

They began to bear her away, and, as they did so, Gilbert saw that Hob of the Cross wept. He turned to him with a right steadfast and glad countenance and cried in a joyful voice, ‘Weep not, dear Hob, the Lord hath judged His servant worthy to depart in peace.’

The Life and Death of Saint Simon of Blewberry