The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  ‘“Indeed?” Yea, indeed. Indeed it is you, always, all the time, spoiling my works, making mock of me behind my back.’

  ‘Dear, dear, dear!’ the master mason lamented softly and distressfully as Kit went limping away from them. ‘Would I had not done it, but I thought—’

  ‘Think no more of it. It is nothing,’ Robert said in a loud and cheerful voice, so that Kit should hear.

  For he was angry too, and that which he called ‘nothing’ was to him, as to Kit, all the past rolled into a ball – all their bickerings, emulations, angers, grudgings – present with them again; for these, like wood-lice under a stone, needed only a touch to wake and set them squirming and busy.

  After he had talked a while, to hearten and console the master mason, he went off, not to the house, being too sorely out of temper for that, but round about to the workshops. He was thinking that all the sins that Kit must be hoarding against him, and he could remember quite a string of them, going back and forth through the years – a broken bow, a page torn in a book, a gold button borrowed and lost – all these, he thought to himself, don’t amount to the price of a man’s eye.

  He found Will Wall at work in the carpenter’s shop sharpening a knife on the grindstone. He nodded to him, then went over to a corner where there was an iron pot containing an ill-looking black mixture; he croodled down on his heels by it, to see the better, and picking up a chip of wood from the floor, lifted the lock of hair, taken from Jack Aske’s white horse’s tail, out of the mixture of strong ale and soot in which it was steeping. It had lain in soak for a day and a night but yet it was not dark enough to twist into a line fit for fishing in the black cloudy waters of the marsh land.

  He was staring at it moodily, when the slithering, petulant hiss of the grindstone ceased, and Will spoke.

  ‘Master,’ said he, ‘I was over to Thicket yesterday.’

  Aske did not turn his head or answer.

  ‘They’ve been stripping the lead off the Nuns’ Church, and the rain’s come through something cruel.

  ‘There’s puddles all about the altar,’ he said.

  Aske got up and went over to the bench. He began to root about in the litter there.

  ‘Where’s that whoreson quarrel needle?’ he muttered, and having found it, began to work the bellows of the little fire till the soft ash flew about.

  ‘God’s Body!’ he cried suddenly, and let the bellows die on a long breath. ‘What of it then? So I suppose will it be in many a church these days.’

  Will came over to him, and taking the horn-tipped handle of the bellows, began to blow gently and persuasively, till the tiny heart of red in the fire had spread through the whole. Aske gave him a quick glance, and then set the quarrel needle between the tongs and thrust it into the fire. They watched in silence while the little black thing changed and brightened till it was indistinguishable from the glowing charcoal. Aske drew it out and began to work on it with a knife. ‘I want a small fish-hook,’ he said gruffly to Will, and left him, to quench the quarrel in a pail of water.

  It was not till it was again glowing and sparkling, and Aske was bending it to a hook, that he spoke again.

  ‘Why do you say this to me?’

  ‘Because – Is it—? Master, in your conscience, do you think it is right?’

  Aske stopped his work with the hammer. He took a long while to answer. Then he said, ‘In my conscience, I think it is not right.’

  ‘Then—?’

  This time Aske did not give Will time to finish.

  ‘It is the great lords temporal that must bear the blame. It was for them to take such order that this should not have come to pass. It’s for them to amend it.’

  ‘But, Master, will they amend it?’

  Aske laughed shortly. ‘God knows what they will do.’

  ‘And if they do not?’ Will watched him with an under-look, then said, ‘They’re saying that if none else dare, then the gentlemen and the poor commons must amend it.’

  Aske tossed down the hammer on the bench and stood staring out of the window, but knowing nothing of what he saw.

  ‘That,’ said he at last, ‘would be rebellion against the King.’

  ‘But,’ Will mumbled, ‘there’s the King’s King, Master, to think on.’

  Aske turned to him with a look that seemed startled, and went away out of the workshop as if he had not heard.

  But it was this chiefly, of all that Will had said, which was in his mind that evening when Jack, Kit and he were standing about with Nell and Master Thomas Rudston and his wife, who were staying at Aughton. They had their wine cups in their hands, and the candles stood lit and ready on the sideboard to carry up to bed. But there they stood disputing, as they had disputed for the past hour, and, like dogs in a fight, not one of them would break away for long enough to let the dispute stop.

  What they were arguing was all the same that Will had meant, and yet was totally different. For on the one side they spoke of the poverty of the North, and how the King’s taxes were too heavy and might not be paid, and how much of the relief of the poor commons was in the Abbeys, who would suffer sorely by their suppression – such was the line which Jack, Master Rudston and Robert Aske took. But Kit spoke of how the King’s will must be done or the realm fall into confusion, and that there was much to be reformed among the spiritual men, and that heretics would before long be put down, and nothing but the lordship of the Pope broken in England, and that perhaps only for a time. Of the two ladies Mistress Rudston said nothing, but Nell Aske cried Kit on, and now and again gave Robert glances of fury.

  ‘Furthermore,’ said Mr. Rudston, ‘there is this Statute by which the King may bequeath the Crown to whom he will. That’s no good thing,’ and he turned to Aske as to another lawyer, for they were both men of Gray’s Inn. Aske shook his head.

  ‘And on the other hand,’ Mr. Rudston continued, ‘there’s a Statute to forbid us willing our lands to any but our heirs, which is injustice manifest.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Robert Aske, seduced once more into the argument by the fascinating complexities of the law – ‘Aye, but, as I think, as there are now more ways than there were before this Statute to defeat the King of his right—’ and he plunged into a subtle and ingenious exposition to which even Nell Aske listened with respect, and all the others, saving Kit, with approbation. But Kit broke into it—

  ‘Lord!’ he cried. ‘Hark to Mr. Justice Aske declaring the law,’ and he slammed his wine cup down on the sideboard and snatched up his candle and went away upstairs.

  In a few minutes the rest came after, Nell first with her chin high and a stiff, flushed look on her face, the Rudstons next, and Jack and Robert last. Robert, stealing a glance at his eldest brother, could smile, though sourly, to think that the Rudstons alone would find peace in their bed, for Jack must go to Nell, and he and Kit were sharing a room together.

  Kit was already in shirt and hosen when Robert came into the room. He said he’d sent away Mat, his servant. ‘And that’s a pity,’ thought Robert, setting his candle down.

  ‘I always think,’ Kit said behind him, in a soft, unpleasant voice, ‘that with you, Robin, it matters little what’s right or wrong, what’s good or ill, so that you can play on it to show your wit.’

  Robert swung round.

  ‘Oh! That’s what you think?’

  ‘So you will egg on Jack and others to talk treason enough to hang us all.’

  ‘God’s Blood!’ Robert threw back at him, with equal unpleasantness. ‘And if any hang it will be that you have informed against them. For, but yourself, there was none that thought other than as I said.’

  And then they were standing in the middle of the room shouting at each other, while their shadows crawled up the walls and shrank down as the flames of the candles were flung by their furious gestures.

  At last Robert tried to get a hold on himself—

  ‘Mass!’ he said, ‘Kit, let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘Aye,’ Kit sneere
d, ‘because you can’t deny but it is treason against the King you have been saying.’

  Robert threw his hands wide, as if to ask an invisible witness to bear him out that he had tried to disengage from the quarrel.

  ‘But I can deny it. And if it were true there’s a worse thing than treason. Hark you, Kit, it was a poor man of the commons said to me but to-day, “There’s the King’s King, Master, to think on.’”

  ‘A poor man of the commons?’ cried Kit. ‘You give such fellows leave to come and grudge and mutter to you? Why? Shall they rise, and chose you to be their leader forsooth?’

  Robert had his fist clenched. He was glad indeed to find that Will had come into the room and was standing behind them. How much Will had heard he did not know, and anyway it did not matter. The great thing was that the interruption had come in time to prevent him striking Kit.

  ‘Be off with you, Will,’ said he, and, turning from Kit, sat down on the bed and began to take off his shoes and unlace the gussets of his hosen. Kit went on talking, but Robert kept his face like wood, and after a while Kit gave it up and they got to bed in silence.

  September 17

  Four men, Will Wall, the Miller from Ellerton, an Aughton yeoman and a stranger, a man out of Lincolnshire, were hanging with their elbows over the gate of Goose Green Close where a dozen of the Askes’ horses were grazing; these had been brought up out of the ings earlier in the day, because all three Aske brothers, and Master Hob too, were leaving to-morrow, early, for Ellerker, to get a fortnight’s cub-hunting with the cousins there, before Robert Aske and his nephews, Hob Aske and young Jack Ellerker, started for London to keep the law term.

  As the four leaned on the gate it was the Lincolnshire man who was talking. He was a thin fellow, red as a fox, with quick eyes, and quick wits in his narrow head. He had come, he said, from Louth (they’d heard of Louth?), and he came to Yorkshire, said he, because brothers and neighbours should help each other. ‘For now there be things devised against the commons too grievous to be borne, as that every man shall be sworn what goods he hath, and if he have more than so much all his goods shall be taken away. Likewise there is a Statute made that none shall eat white bread, goose nor capon, but if he pay pennies to the King. Likewise another that none shall be christened, wedded nor buried but at the price of a noble. For these days there is a sort of Lollards and traitors that rule about the King, and have brought him to such a covetous mind that if the Thames flowed with gold and silver it would not quench his thirst.’

  The Miller and the Aughton yeoman could only murmur approval, but Will Wall, as one who knew London, and moved in learned circles there, was more forward. He had, he said, heard his master declare that the Statute of the King’s Supremacy was an evil Statute because by it came division from the Church Catholic, and that no king before this king had had the cure of souls. ‘And I have heard other gentle-men too—’

  The Lincolnshire man interrupted impatiently, ‘Fie on your gentlemen! For what will they do but talk? I’d have none of them. There are in Lincolnshire who say “We must have gentlemen to lead us”. But I say “Nay”. For if they would lead us it should be for no longer than serves their own purses and purposes, and then they will fall away, betraying us so that they can save their necks, while ours stretch in a halter.’

  Will cried, ‘That’s not my master!’ and the Miller and the yeoman backed him up, and they began to tell the Lincolnshire man stories about Master Robin, all trifling, but to them these trifles had significance. He listened, fidgeting, and waiting to take up the word again. But it was Will who interrupted by jerking the Miller in the ribs and muttering, ‘Here he comes.’

  They all turned at that. Robert Aske was coming towards them over the sharp, springing stubbles that showed yellow and shining in the new deep green of the reaped fields; he had a capful of corn in his hand. He nodded to them as they made way for him, cast a sharp glance on the Lincolnshire man, and opened the gate. They watched him in silence, and as though he were a strange sight, and because he gave them no second look, and no word at all, they felt that somehow, though he could not have heard what they said, he must know the subject of the Lincolnshire man’s discourse. They let him go half-way across the field towards the horses and then slunk away along the hedge.

  It was not that, however, which had made Aske keep his mouth shut, and pass them with only a nod. It was because he saw that the Lincolnshire man was a stranger and of no stranger did he want to ask, ‘What news?’ since in these days all was bad news. So he went on to where the young mare moved slowly, switching her tail against flies as she cropped, and keeping a soft, wild eye on him as he drew near. When he reached her she lifted and shook her pretty head, whinneying, and then nuzzled in his cap for the corn. He stood for quite a long time, smoothing his hand down her neck till his fingers were dusty and sticky from the warm, dusty hide. When he looked back to the gate there was no one there. He was relieved; then he thought, with a sharp misgiving, ‘Had that fellow news?’ and then, ‘Mass! I shall put it all by for this fortnight at the least.’

  When the Aughton men and the stranger left the gate of Goose Green Close one of them suggested that they should drink together before they set the man from Lincolnshire on his way. But as they went they began to jangle, so that they parted before the door of the ale-house was reached. The cause of their disagreement was that Will had begun again on the subject of Master Robin.

  ‘And if you had him to your leader,’ said he, ‘in the stead of this one you call the Cobbler—’

  ‘Pooh!’ the stranger interrupted. ‘Him! A little man like that with but one eye, and too proud withal to speak to common men!’

  The Miller put him right on the last point. ‘It’s not his way to pass without a word. Most times he’d have come and set his shoulder to the bar of the gate and stood among us to talk. But if he’d wind of your business—’

  ‘Fie then—’ the Lincolnshire man began, but thought best to leave the rest unsaid. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘by your leave I may say he’s a man of no great station nor worship, and of a name unknown.’

  They told him, angrily, that if Master Aske were not known in his country, ‘yet there’s many in Yorkshire knows him; all this countryside, and by Wressel to Beverley and south to Humber. And in Swaledale too.’

  ‘Aye,’ says Will grandly, ‘and further north yet, to the Border itself, and wherever the Percy’s name runs. For in his young years my master was of the Earl’s Council, and for all he was young the old Earl leant much on him.’

  ‘So,’ the Miller summed it all up, ‘though he’s a little man, and one-eyed, a lawyer and no knight, we’d sooner go out behind his back than any other’s, and we’d know that he’d die with us if it came to the pass.’

  ‘How’d ye know that?’ the Louth man sneered.

  They could not say how they knew, only that they did know.

  ‘And,’ said one of them, ‘it’s my belief you could hack Master Robin into gobbets, and everyone of them’d tell the same tale, and that’d be the truth. And you couldn’t make them gobbets hold their tongues neither.’

  September 24

  There was a sharp knocking on the door of the Prioress’s Chamber and one that she did not know, though she knew the manner in which every one of the Ladies, or of the servants, would knock. When she cried out to come in, in came Piers, Sir Rafe’s elder page. He pulled his cap off, shut the door behind him and stood against it, his eyes and cheeks very bright; it was plain that he had been running.

  ‘I could not steal the pony. So – I ran,’ he said with gasps, and she stood up, crying out, ‘What is it? Is it news?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I heard Sir Rafe say it to my lady when he had read the letter. He’ll send a message to you but I came out to tell you quick.’

  ‘What was it you overheard?’ Now she would know whether Marrick should stand or fall.

  ‘I was waiting upon them. I did not overhear it. They knew I was there,’ he corr
ected her.

  She did not care for that, although he did. ‘What—?’ she cried.

  ‘Sir Rafe said, “Here’s from my brother. He hath done the Lady’s business for her. The King hath given licence that Marrick shall continue. There’s his seal.”’

  ‘Ah,’ cried the Prioress on a deep breath, and then, ‘The King’s Seal? You’re sure?’

  ‘Sure!’ said the lad, and he grinned at her, friendly and impudent, and the bearer of these tidings. For a second she thought to kiss him, and he knew it. She saw how he stiffened and flushed, and instead she held out her hand. ‘No. Not to kiss, but to take you by the hand for a good true friend,’ she said, as he ducked his head with an awkward bob to kiss it. So they shook hands together, smiling at each other, and she smiled inwardly with amusement and with pleasure.

  ‘I am glad,’ he said, out of his young simplicity. ‘I’m all for the monasteries to stand, and I think it shame that the King should be in the hands of such a rascal as Cromwell. They say, and indeed I think it’s full likely, that there’ll be rebellion soon if he should continue about the King. The great lords, they say, will take up arms to compel the King to put him away. That would be a thing to see,’ and he looked at her, gaily as a robin.

  ‘Aye,’ said the Prioress. She did not want rebellion, since Marrick was to continue, but she was not going to damp the boy’s anticipations. She let him talk, in a very grown-up strain, and with his eyes dancing, of how this lord and that was said to have harnessed men ready in his lands. She said, very gravely from time to time, ‘Truly?’ and, ‘You think even so?’

  At last he remembered how time was passing, and gave a whistle, and said he’d get a box on the ear if he didn’t get back quick. She kept him while she got out from the coffer a bag of money, and putting two angels into her own little silk purse, gave it to him – ‘For bringing me good news.’

  He kissed her hand this time, and went out. She heard him go whooping down the outer stair in two bounds.

  After a little while she followed him. The evening was coming in still and overcast, with the fells showing damson-blue through the rainy air. Summer had gone by. There was over all a sense of returning, of withdrawing, of coming home, so that even the poached mud of the Great Court seemed to speak of quiet. Winter was to come, but the world was ready; like a dormouse it was curling itself up. And the little world of the Priory would light its fires, bar its shutters and snuggle down safe at home. Even though gales tore through the gaping doors and empty rooms of other less fortunate Houses of Religious, Marrick would snuggle down, safe and permanent.