The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  July 5

  Gib heard the women from the Priory pass by before it was light. First, even before they came near, he heard their voices, then the jangle of the chains by which the wooden pails swung from the yokes they carried, last of all their footsteps, for they all went barefoot, so that they made less noise upon the road than as many sheep. They were going up to the Priory flock which the shepherd kept just now above Gawnless Wood, to milk the ewes for summer cheeses.

  When they had gone by he got up and, lighting a candle, sat down by the window to write. He had in his head many and piercing arguments against the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome; when he woke they would begin to move in his head so that he could not sleep again. So it was better to leave his bed and write.

  As he wrote the dawn came without his noticing it. Only when he heard the women coming back he raised his eyes from the page, and saw that the candle flame looked sickly in the daylight, while outside the window the shadows lay long and pointed across the fields, and the sky was delicately blue and full of brightness.

  He thought – ‘I could do well with a draught of milk,’ – but to ask a gift of anyone grated on him, and it would be worse to ask from one of that cackling crowd. He heard them laugh and call to each other, and then shriek louder to the men out in the fields.

  Gib got up and began to put on his coat, meaning to shake Wat from his bed and send him out to milk the cow. But he heard Wat stirring and opening the door below, so he sat down again.

  ‘Ho! Priest’s bastard!’ cried one of the women, and, ‘Fie on the ugly brat!’ another; then there was a squawk and a shout. ‘Drop that stone! Let me get at thee!’ and Gib saw Wat go across the road, running doubled almost like an animal. He was behind the big elmtree; a second stone flew and there was another squawk.

  Then the women began to go on again; he heard their angry voices; they spoke now not only of bastards but of heretics. He took up his pen but laid it down again when he saw that one of them was still below. She stood in the road, holding out a hand towards the tree, from which Wat danced out for long enough to fling another stone.

  It caught the woman Malle on the arm, and she gave a little cry and began to rub the place, then she held out her hand again.

  ‘Nay! Nay!’ she said, and had to dodge a clod of earth. After that she gave it up. Gib saw her shake her head, and go trudging off after the other women with the milk lipping at the edge of the swinging pails, and now and again slopping out to make blue-white patches in the dusty road.

  July 6

  Just before dinner-time an elderly serving-man in a greasy torn coat and leather hosen turned into the gate arch of the house at Mortlake which Lord Darcy had rented. He asked for my Lord and was told ‘Within,’ but when he came into the house they said, ‘Without in the garden.’ So he went straight on, though more than one tried to detain him to ask, ‘What news? Is it done?’ But he would not stay to talk, being a discreet man, nor even to shift the old coat for Darcy’s bright popinjay green livery with the Buck’s Head badge; he knew that my Lord waited for his news.

  He found his master walking in the little walled rose-garden where the fountain, forlorn and cheerless, wept softly under the grey sky into the grey water of the basin, or was flung spattering by a gusty wind that made the roses shiver and flutter. A couple of women knelt together, weeding; when they saw the servant come in under the arch they sat back on their heels to stare.

  Darcy, looking the man hard in the face, raised his eyebrows. The fellow nodded with a very grim mouth.

  ‘We’ll go beyond.’ Darcy led the way down the yew alley to the river bank. Yet when they had come there they stood in silence. Darcy’s mind was searching back into the past, thinking of this King Harry, and of his father, and of the King whose naked hacked body had been brought into Market Bosworth tied on the back of a rough-coated farmer’s pony. ‘But now,’ he thought, ‘is no man to set up his will against this King; no, not one.’

  The old serving-man at his shoulder was seeing a crowd and a scaffold. His chest tightened again at the silence that had fallen when the headsman swung up the axe above the neck of Sir Thomas More; and again he heard the blade chop down with just that sound, only louder and greater, that housewives hear unmoved as they stand by the butchers’ stalls talking of the weather and of the children’s ailments; but this time there were few, men or women, whose breath did not catch at the sound. And then, with a bump and a rustle, the head, which had been one of the wisest and wittiest in Christendom, had tumbled forward into the straw.

  ‘Did they suffer him to speak to the people?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘God’s Passion!’ Darcy shouted at him. ‘What?’

  The elderly serving-man screwed up his face and braced his shoulders as if for a heavy bit of work.

  ‘He says, leaning on the rail and speaking slow, “Good people, pray for me, and I shall pray for you whither I go. And you shall also pray God send the King good counsel. As for me, I die a loyal servant of His Grace, but God’s first.”’

  Darcy pondered on that, recollected himself to make the sign of the cross and murmur a prayer, then pondered again.

  ‘Well, it was enough. And yet – Maybe they had commanded that he should use few words.’ He was, indeed, a little disappointed. This man who had died for conscience’ sake might have left behind him words that could be passed from mouth to mouth to hearten other men, if the chance offered, for a different, armed resistance. Then he thought, ‘There’s no chance – yet – or the chance is past,’ but if past he did not know when, nor how it could have been seized. He turned away along the river bank, saying over his shoulder, ‘Go and get off those rags,’ and then halted to ask, ‘Did you know any that were there?’

  The man named the Lieutenant of the Tower, and the King’s Great Chamberlain. Darcy interrupted.

  ‘Not them. Any that were friend to Sir Thomas?’

  ‘A serving-man of my Lord Marquess, and of Lord Montague. And a man of the Emperor’s Ambassador.’

  ‘In their liveries?’

  ‘Nay,’ says the fellow, and with a sour smile plucked at his own ragged doublet. ‘Only the Ambassador’s.’

  Darcy gave an angry laugh. ‘The rest of us don’t dare show even our servants’ noses.’ He struck his staff into the ground; the sodden earth clucked and hissed as he pulled it out again. He waved his hand, to dismiss the man, and then, as the horns blew in the house for dinner, turned and followed him in.

  At table no one spoke of what had been done that morning on Tower Hill; no one spoke much at all. Darcy, observing the faces of his gentlemen, could see in them a look as of men unsure of their way; he knew how they felt. Under his own feet what had been the solid, known earth seemed now to crack and splinter like ice breaking. He could just remember times when there had been in England men marching or skulking in the lanes, charging across the quiet, familiar fields, dying on the banks of the brooks where as children they had used to fish for minnows. But this was a different thing, for there was peace, and in peace Cromwell – whose pale face, placid but for the quick eyes, was very present in Darcy’s mind – Cromwell pulled down, one by one, those who resisted the King’s will.

  After dinner, in the privacy of his bedchamber, my Lord gave instructions to the Hainault Priest for Masses to be sung, secretly, for the soul of Sir Thomas More, and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.

  ‘A very noble death – a martyr’s death,’ said the Priest, whose face showed that he had been crying. ‘God give us grace to follow such an example.’

  Darcy crossed himself. ‘God rest his soul. Miserere Domine!’

  But he thought, although he did not say, ‘How would that serve? It is not martyrs that will bring down Cromwell. If every good man died a martyr, who would profit but heretics and harlots? How would God be served?’

  When the Priest had gone he sat long on the side of the bed, considering in
his mind the power and the clogging burdens of the Emperor, the strength of French friendship for King Harry, the chance of an attack from Scotland. The longer he thought the more sure he became that, without the Emperor would move, the only thing to do was to bide the time.

  August 20

  The Nuns’ Church at Marrick was, of course, small, but since Dame Christabel had been Prioress it was very neatly kept. There were hangings of green say with a trellis pattern of flowers all round the Chancel now, and the big silver cross that had used quite often to be brown and discoloured had always in these days a high polish.

  Just now the Nuns were not in Church, as it was the time for Parlement, that is for good and religious conversation in the Cloister for the ordinary Nuns, and for the officers of the House the ordering of their particular charges. Both the doors from the Cloister into the Church – the Prioress’s door at the east end of the north Cloister wall, and the Nuns’ door at the west end – stood open, but so still was the day that no breath of wind came into the Church, only the sunshine, stained and enriched by the painted glass where it fell upon the floor, but in the air nothing more than ghostly slants of something paler than the general brown dimness of the Church.

  Julian Savage knelt at the Chancel steps telling her beads. She had already said 29 of the 50 Paternosters which were her penance for bringing Dame Margaret Lovechild’s rabbit into the Cloister, and she was keeping up a very good pace, being anxious to be done, and then perhaps the Novice Mistress would let her go out with the others into the field where the first reaping was to begin to-day among the oats.

  Then she heard the clack of the latch on the door of the Parish Church beyond the screen, and the unmistakable wheeze of the door opening, and a man’s voice said:

  ‘Sir, take an offering and sing me a Mass for the soul of the Founder of this Church and the House of the Nuns. For I’m a man of that same family, though of the younger branch.’

  After the first two words July knew the voice, and a shock of delight, and somehow of delightful dread, ran through her, so that she heard the voice only and not the words, until Master Aske said, in a different tone, ‘Why! I have seen you before.’

  ‘Since I was born in Marrick,’ Gib growled, ‘that’s not strange,’ and July, listening now with all her ears, heard the Priest go away to the vestry. As she could not hear any other footsteps she did not know what Master Aske was doing, but she guessed him to be down on his knees, as she was, and somewhere quite near.

  For a while that was enough, but then she thought, ‘I must see him.’

  She did not know how she could do it, but one thing was certain: she must be out of the Church as quickly as she could. She got up and tiptoed down to the Nuns’ door. There was no one in the west walk of the Cloister. She peeped along the north walk. Dame Bess and Dame Margaret sat with their heads close together presumably in good and religious conversation. Beyond them there was a knot of Ladies near the Prioress’s door. They also were engaged in conversation but the tone of their voices was high and sharp.

  July clutched her beads to her so that not a click should betray her, drew a long breath as though she were going to dive into deep water, and stole out into the Cloister. She knew that she must not look round, but the skin of her back prickled as if she felt the Ladies’ eyes through her habit. Then she was in the little low passage between the Cellaress’s Office and the Church tower – almost safe – then out in the Great Court, and shutting the door of the passage behind her – for the moment quite safe. But what was she to do next? She had never thought of that, but must think of it now, and the shelter of the stable opposite seemed a better place for thinking than the open Court; but while she still hesitated she heard a knocking, and his voice cried at the gate, ‘Ho! Porter!’

  She forgot all about shelter then, and came out into the middle of the Court. He stood in the shadow of the gate talking to Jankin and leaning one hand on the wattled wall. She could hear the sound of his voice, though no words, and she could look at him. Instead of the crimson and black, watchet blue and murrey which she remembered in London, he was dressed to-day in an old patched coat of the dull colours that men wore for hawking, and a hawk sat on his left hand. July learnt him all over again as she watched; yet really he was just the same, and in herself she was aware of no difference.

  After a moment Jankin left him, lifting a finger to the edge of his hood, and went across the Court to the Cloister door. Master Aske came out into the sunshine and sat down on the horse-block in the sun. For a moment there was no one else in the Great Court – only the hens picking and scratching, and on the roof of the gate-house a few pigeons which sidled, dipping their necks, or rooted with their bills under their wings, or lifted a coral-coloured foot to scratch; on the horse-block there was Master Aske, and by the stable door July, all under the warm still blue sky.

  She went quickly across the Court till she stood in front of him.

  ‘Master Aske!’ she said, and then, ‘Oh! you’ve forgotten me.’

  ‘Mistress—’ he began, puckering up his one eye against the brightness behind her head. Ought he to remember her? He did not. Then he did, and, so quick is thought, he remembered the last time he had seen her, holding a mirror for Meg, who laughed at him with her eyes over the mirror and over the girl’s head; and he remembered the last time he had seen Meg, with her hair spread all over the pillow. That recollection made his mind sick.

  July stood in front of him watching his face. If she could have gone away she would. If she could have cried she would have wailed aloud. But she could do neither, and so she simply stood and looked at him, dumb as a stone.

  A more stupid man than Robert Aske would have seen that he had hurt her, and a less kindly man would have been sorry. He struck himself a sharp slap on the brow with his open palm.

  ‘By the Rood!’ he cried, so loud that the hawk jerked and flapped on his fist. ‘It’s my other little July! I didn’t know you, grown so great a girl. But I did not know you were here neither.’

  July came to life again. ‘I knew you were here. I heard you in the Church. I was doing penance for bringing Dame Margaret’s rabbit into the Cloister. I live here. The Ladies let me feed their rabbits.’ She heard Jankin coming up behind her, and the Prioress’s door opening.

  ‘Where have you come from?’ she scrambled out quickly, determined to know. ‘Do you stay here? When did you come? For why are you here?’

  He laughed at her with the bright teasing eye she remembered.

  ‘Mistress, one at a time and that the last. I’m come to see my kinswoman, Dame Eleanor.’

  That struck July dumb. To think that she had never known. To think that she had once made a laughing-stock of his kinswoman.

  The Prioress’s voice called her by name and bade her begone to the Cloister. She went, not looking back, but she had the look of him with her, laughing, browner than she had known him, in his old stained, grey-green hood. She thought that if she had to do more penance the look of him would last her through many Paternosters.

  August 29

  July walked to Grinton with Dame Eleanor and Dame Bess; two men-servants came behind to carry for them. The day was very fair, after many days of rain, warm but with a pleasant breathing air to temper the sun’s heat. The two Ladies were pleased to have an errand to take them out on such a fair day, but July, who was in herself one of the motives for the expedition, found the sunshine as cheerless as black night, since she was going to Grinton to have a tooth pulled out.

  To step into the cottage where the deed was to be done was like stepping into prison. The Monk from Bridlington, who had the knack of drawing teeth, got up from beside the fire where the wife was busy with white puddings seething in the pot. He put his hand (he meant it kindly) on July’s shoulder, and led her to a bench under the window. The two Ladies abandoned her, as one past human help. As her knees doubled under her and she sank on the stool she could hear their voices, loud because of Dame Eleanor’s deafness, talking b
y the fire, but the sense of their words could not penetrate the terror which, like a wall of glass, enclosed her, narrowing always.

  The Father took hold of her chin; the wall of glass came so close as to suffocate her; she opened her mouth, gasping. Then he thrust into her mouth a great pair of pincers which rattled against her teeth. She struggled a little, but he had her tight. Pain shattered the wall of glass. She screamed, and the tooth was before her eyes, small, bloody, and now quite strange after years of closest companionship. When Father Richard loosened his grip on her jaw, as if he had given her face back to her, she covered it tenderly and tremblingly with her hands and sobbed.

  ‘That fellow,’ said the good Father cheerfully, ‘that fellow won’t trouble you any more, no, not till Doomsday.’

  At the words relief began to creep into her mind, but it was soon a flood of pure joy. When they came out of the cottage she saw the sunshine for the fairest that ever shone. Even Dame Eleanor’s disjointed comments upon everything they bought could not fret her this morning: there was time for them on this sweet day, there was time for anything, for time stretched ahead with nothing in it which was not pleasant to do, with no fear such as that which had stood in the way as they came to Grinton. She was so happy that she could even spurn from her the thought that though to-day was free from fear there would come another day, when another tooth must be outed. She swung the basket recklessly.

  She and Dame Eleanor were to meet Dame Bess on the bridge, but when they reached it there was no Dame Bess, and now Dame Eleanor clapped her hands together in distress. ‘There!’ she cried. ‘The linen for the Lady’s stockings. Gregory was fetching it from Richmond. And I’ve forgotten it.’ And now what was to be done?