The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  ‘Quick,’ said the Queen. ‘Bring me pen and ink. Quick. And one of you find Charles. He must ride to London at once.’

  They had thought her ill. Now they almost thought her mad.

  ‘Go! Go!’ she stormed at them. ‘Don’t stand staring. Pen – ink – paper.’ She began to walk up and down the room and to bite her nails. But before any of them came back she had drawn out a crucifix from her breast, and sitting herself down at the table, bowed over it. When the eldest of her ladies came in, shutting the door softly, the Queen looked up at her with a grey face, but calmly.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that he does not dare to go to my daughter because he fears there is poison given her, and that if she – if she die, they will lay it at his door.’

  The elderly lady cried out at that, but the Queen hushed her with a word, and began to write to M. Chapuys, Ambassador of the Emperor’s Majesty.

  For a while there was no sound in the room but the complaint of the driven pen. When that stopped for a minute the lady-in-waiting looked round, and caught a glimpse of the Queen’s face. It was less like a living face than a carving in stone, chiselled to represent, changelessly and for years on years, the uttermost of woe. She did not look again.

  So [wrote the Queen], because it appears to me that what I ask is just, and for the service of God, I beg you will speak to His Highness, and desire him on my behalf to do such charity as to send his daughter and mine where I am; because treating her with my own hands, and by the advice of other physicians and of my own, if God please to take her from this world my heart will rest satisfied; otherwise in great pain.

  You shall also say to His Highness that there is no need of any other person but myself to nurse her; that I will put her in my own bed where I sleep, and will watch her when is needful.

  I have recourse to you, knowing that there is no one in this kingdom who dare say to the King my Lord that which I desire you to say; and I pray God reward you for the diligence that you will make.

  She signed it then, ‘Katherine the Queen’, and dated it, ‘Kimbolton, the first Friday in Lent’.

  May 4

  The King sat in his study at York Place in Westminster with a small harp on his knee and music on a desk before him. His hands, white, fat, yet at once both nimble and powerful upon the strings, plucked out from the instrument its voices of trembling sweetness. He played first a love-song, then a Nunc Dimittis – very gentle and slow; he swayed his head to the plaintive measure and his face was calm and purged.

  Someone knocked at the door, and without pausing in his playing he bade, ‘Enter.’ But when he saw Mr. Norris come in he set down the harp so roughly that the strings tingled in one soft discord.

  ‘It is done?’

  Mr. Norris shut the door. ‘It is done,’ he said. Then he tittered. ‘There are four fewer Carthusian brethren in the realm to refuse Your Grace’s Supremacy and hold by the Pope. Four fewer alive, that is, but if every piece of every monk of these four were to count a whole monk then hath Your Grace increased the sum to—’ he reckoned on his fingers, ‘four quarters each, and their arms torn off, and every man his bowels and his heart—’ He began to laugh noisily.

  The King pressed the lips of his small mouth close and his eyes roamed about with the lowering hot glance of a boar. He said, ‘And they lived yet when they were cut down?’

  ‘One of them lived even till both arms were off. But all while they were opened and drawn.’

  The King bowed his head. He seemed to consider with attention a diamond on his finger.

  ‘The executioner did his work with a will?’ he asked.

  ‘With a will. He rubbed their very hearts, hot and steaming, over their mouths.’

  ‘Ah!’ said the King, and after a while stood up. ‘Shall we make a match at the butts?’ He went to the window and opened it. The day was more like April than May, with a racing wind, blue sky and light flying clouds. Just now one covered the sun, and it was as though he had shut an eye. The King said, ‘The wind’s strong, but steady. I’ll use that new great bow.’ Yet he stood still staring out of the window.

  ‘Did they cry for mercy?’ he asked suddenly.

  Norris said that they did. It was a lie, but the King nodded as if pleased and that was what Norris cared for.

  *

  This evening Robert Aske came late into the room where Clifton and Hatfield sat over a flagon of wine. When they asked him where had he been he said only, ‘Riding.’ He would not drink with them, but sat down on a bench and took a book on his knee, but after a little Hal nudged Wat and motioned with his head towards Aske, and Wat saw that the book lay upside-down.

  Presently Wat said:

  ‘If you have ridden out into the country you may not know that the Brothers of the Charterhouse were executed this morning.’ Aske moved so sharply that the book fell between his knees. ‘I do know,’ said he. And then with a jerk, ‘I was there.’

  ‘Mass! You were there!’

  Aske’s face twisted into a sort of grin. ‘I was not the only one. Many of the Court were there to see the brave sight.’

  ‘Tell us the truth then,’ said Wat. ‘Were they hanged in monks’ frocks – not degraded from their clergy?’

  ‘They—’ Aske began, but instead of answering the question he said, huddling the words together, ‘Let them tell you who were not there. I cannot say it.’

  He put down his hand to take up the book again and then stopped, and they saw him stare down at his wrist where the sleeve had drawn back as he stretched his arm; there was a dark brown stain on it. He looked up at them with a sick face.

  ‘I did not know I was spattered with it. But I stood so near as that.’ He got up hastily. ‘I must wash it off.’

  At the door he stopped and they saw him draw the fingers of one hand across his eye and shake them as if he would shake off something which clung like a cobweb. ‘I can wash it from my wrist,’ he muttered, and then went away.

  May 7

  Gib went up the stair from the houseplace to the chamber that was above. There he prised up a board in one corner and took out a book. This was his latest hiding-place for his lastest purchase – a small old manuscript of Wycliffe’s Testament; it had painted initial letters of red and blue, but the back was shabby, and besides that scorched right through the leather to the board beneath in one place.

  Gib did not intend to read indoors; both discretion and the fair morning urged him out. When he came downstairs again he laid the Testament in a basket, put a handful of hay over it, and called to his mother that he was away to Kexwith to fetch the sitting of eggs that one of the Burleymen up there had promised him.

  It was a morning of brisk wind, warm sun, and bright sailing cloud that might darken and gather later. Just now the sun was pleasant, and more than one of the old women of Marrick stood at the doors, each with the distaff tucked under one arm, and the spindle swinging and whirling at the end of the lengthening thread. Gib gave them good-day sternly, and was glad to be through the village. These ignorant old souls were, he knew well, irrevocably sunken in superstition; he could do nothing with them.

  Beyond the last fields he reached the crest of the rise and suddenly all the fells were open before him, blue and green like the sea, with grape purple shadows of the clouds lying here and there; for miles on every side but one there was nothing but wave after wave, with Mozedel rising higher yet in the far distance; only nearby, ahead and to the left, the ground fell away to the trees and the profound sheltered peace of the Dale.

  The Nuns’ bailiff and his man came into sight near Langshaw Cross on the road from Owlands. Gib knew the bailiff even from this distance by his white horse and the big brown dog that ran alongside. He did not wish to meet him or anyone else, so he left the road for the turf, taking the green track that joined the way up from Grinton. When he was out of sight beyond the swell of the ground he sat down, and took his book from the basket, secure in the austere emptiness of the fells, and in a great quiet, for
here the wind passed in silence and of all the birds only the larks had confidence to fly strongly and sing aloud; the rest made short flights close to the ground, and spoke with small stony twitterings and chinkings. Nor were there any flowers up here, other than the tiniest sort among the grasses, except where the golden wild pansies were spilt upon a sunny bank.

  Gib opened the book and began to read.

  He entered into a synagogue and a man was there and his right hand was dry. And the Pharisees espied him if he should heal him in the Sabbath, that they should find cause to accuse him. Soothly he wist the hearts of them.

  ‘Black hearts,’ Gib thought, who saw the Pharisees as a row of Abbots, sitting in their carved stalls, each man different in face, yet each with the same air of command and confidence.

  He saith to the man that had a dry hand, Rise up into the middle and stand.

  Gib smiled at the thought of the discomforture of that rank of grave and scornful prelates; his imagination increased their number now by two or three Bishops.

  Soothly Jesus saith to them, I ask of you if it is lawful for to do well in the Sabbath or to do evil, for to make a soul safe, or for to loose? And all men looked about—

  At that Gib gave a small sharp laugh; he could see their proud yet shifty eyes glancing from the rushes on the floor to the brass eagle that carried the Gospel Book on its wings, and then up to the painted vault of the roof, not one of them daring to catch His eyes, not one with a word to answer.

  He said to the man, Hold forth thy hand, and he held forth, and his hand is restored to health.

  ‘Hah!’ said Gib half aloud, and then jerked his head up because a shadow had slid across the grass beyond his feet. Malle, the Priory servant, had come near and now stood, red-faced and puffing; she had a very young calf in her arms; its ears flapped, and the long, heavily jointed legs dangled helplessly.

  ‘This one,’ said Malle, and dumped the creature on the grass, ‘this one ran away. He came out of the ox-house only to-day, and the world frightened him. So when he found a hole in the wattles he broke through, and ran, and never left running till he had no breath left. But at last I caught him.’

  The calf, after trembling and quaking for a moment, flopped down, its forelegs doubled under it; it looked softly at them with its large, shining eyes, and swept a thick tongue over its nose; it lowered its head and they heard the gentle sound of its breathing as it nuzzled at the turf.

  Gib frowned at the little beast, and frowned at Malle’s bare feet; he had his hand over the page, yet knew it was not hidden, and was angry to know that he feared lest it should be seen; he looked up at her face, and saw that her eyes were on the book.

  ‘Sir,’ she cried, and came close. ‘Is yon the book in which you find news of Him?’

  He shut it then, shuffling it between his knees before he remembered that Greek, Latin, Hebrew or English, it was all one to her who could read no letters. He said, the more harshly because of his fear, and the shame it left behind, ‘The book is not for such as you to read in.’ He said that, and suffered at once from a sharper twinge. It was of the very breath of the New Learning that it should be open to all; yet, he told himself, not to this woman, who was utterly a fool.

  She laid her hand across the two tight knobbed curls on the calf’s brow which would be horns later, and he could not be sure if it were she who sighed or the creature who breathed a deeper breath in the turf. Then she smiled.

  ‘Perhaps He will come again,’ she said, and then, ‘Up, little one!’ and gathered up the calf into her arms, and lumbered on.

  Gib opened the book again.

  ‘And it is done afterwards,’ he read, ‘that Jesus made journey by cities and castles—’, but he could not keep his mind to the words. He looked after Malle, trudging along with her head-kerchief flapping in the wind; he even drew his breath to shout after her and bid her come back, but then he saw beyond her, and quite a long way off, the Marrick flock of sheep and lambs, like the white edge of a wave lapping towards him over the green turf; the shepherd walked before them; his dog, restless and quiet as the shadow of a moving leaf, slid beside them, now on this flank, now on that. Gib picked up his basket, and huddled the book under the hay; when the shepherd came alongside, five minutes later, Gib was beating with a stone at a nail in his shoe. He waved his hand, put on the shoe again, and stood up. They walked along together then, the sheep following them, the dog circling on noiseless feet, but the whole air full of the plaintive bleating of the flock as that above sea cliffs is of the gulls’ yelping.

  Gib said he was going to Kexwith for a sitting of eggs. He said that a nail in the sole of his shoe had galled his toe. The shepherd, walking alongside, with his pipe to his mouth and fingers moving but playing only a soundless tune, bowed his head and made no answer. He was a very silent man and so used to thinking his own thoughts that often he forgot to listen to what others said; sometimes too, when he did speak, he seemed not to know if others listened.

  ‘How many lambs this year?’ Gib asked, and got no answer. ‘Most white. That’s right,’ said Gib, ‘but black ones enough for black hosen too.’

  Shepherd nodded. Then he said:

  ‘She said she saw Him. Yet it’s strange – Here – In these days.’

  When Gib asked who ‘he’ was, and who had seen ‘him’, the shepherd did not answer, but stopped, and turned to look back the way he had come. Malle was by now out of sight, but as they looked the bailiff rode over the crest of the rise, and disappeared, going down into the village.

  Then, leaning on his long hooked staff, with his wind-puckered eyes looking into the light of the sun which had even yet not risen very high, Shepherd said:

  ‘I was over to Harkerside Moor t’other day, and coming back I saw yon wench hoving by the roadside. I thought ’twas far forth of her way, so I stopped and asked what she did there.’

  After that he let so long a space of silence pass that Gib felt himself forced to ask, ‘Well, what did she?’

  Shepherd’s eyes came to him, and then seemed to look through him.

  ‘Quod she, “He hath gone by below,” and she pointed at the corpse-road going towards Keld. “A young man,” quod she, “with twelve other young men, all talking merrily and walking fast this shining afternoon. But He went ahead of them all; I heard the iron shoe of his staff clack on the stones of the road. And the birds,” quod she, “sang Osanna fit to brast their throats.”’

  Gib said something, hardly a word indeed, but it brought back Shepherd’s eyes to his face. ‘And then?’ cried Gib.

  ‘Naught else. Except she said: “They know not yet with whom they walk, but only have great joy to be with Him.” I thought,’ said Shepherd after a moment, ‘that a Priest’d know if such a thing could be. But there—’ He met Gib’s stern look, and sighed.

  Gib turned away. He would not let Shepherd see how mightily this thing had moved him. But surely here was a sign from God, spoken and shown to his very soul. Those young men, following that other young man up the Dale, they were going forth into the world to preach. Well – and if he could not go after them, could he not write? And did not books, coming fast now from printing presses, speak to more – aye, and more surely – than the words of a preacher? His heart went up like thistledown floating in autumn, and he heard in his mind, as if someone had spoken – ‘There is much ripe corn, and few workmen; therefore pray ye the Lord of the ripe corn that he send workmen into his ripe corn.’

  He said, in his harshest voice, ‘I will call the woman, and inquire further of this matter. The truth shall be proven.’

  They walked on together a little way, but then Gib said he must make haste so as to be back at noon. So he left Shepherd moving slowly, his shadow and the shadows of the sheep slipping smoothly over the short turf in front of them. As all good shepherds do, he would lead the flock westward till the noon sun stood high; in the afternoon, when it had a little declined, he would turn and bring them home again, so that always the sun shone from
behind them, never in their faces.

  Gib swung on again at a great pace; he was a fast, impatient walker, and besides that, the way was far. Yet he walked faster even than usual, so buoyed up was he with that which Shepherd had told him.

  Sweating, with his face harshly red, he came to Nungate Top, and began to go down towards Dales Beck. A couple of small children stumped along just ahead, carrying a bag of flour on a pole between them. They were not ill-looking children like Wat, but fair and sturdy; he noted himself taking pleasure in watching them, and that confirmed his confidence. ‘Jesu Mary!’ he thought to himself. ‘If I may be free to proclaim His word, I shall love all His creatures, every one.’ But something trembled in his mind when he thought – ‘Even Wat.’

  Yet he went to Kexwith and back in very good cheer, in a settled mood of confidence, too exalted for any grip of fear. Only in one matter did his mind change. When he came to think it over he decided he would speak no word of this vision to the woman Malle. What Shepherd had told him was enough. ‘If I speak with her,’ he thought, ‘it may puff her up to believe that this seeing comes to her by cause of holiness. Thus shall she lose her humble meekness which, manifestly, is that in her which is pleasing to God.’ So he told himself, but he knew that he could not endure to ask her of her seeing – as if she, the poor fool, stood closer to God than he who was Priest, and God’s chosen messenger.

  May 10

  Summer had not yet come to Yorkshire. To-day was cold, with cloud, strong wind, and occasional flaws of sunshine. When the sun shone the river winked with light, and far up the Dale you could see a bright white flicker come and go upon the water. Gib met the Nuns’ Priest near the East Close. He was walking with his head bent against the wind, and pinching his hood tight under his chin with one hand to keep it on and to keep his ears warm; so he did not see Gib. But Gib, who was bringing his two cows back to the milking, held out his arms across the track, and the Nuns’ Priest jerked up his head with a start when he felt someone in front of him, and came to a stand. The cows slewed to the right and left and maundered on towards home with their swinging, dilatory gait.