The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  When at last he and Will left Aughton it was evening. A strong, clean wind blew out of the west, and as they took the road through the village, the clouds behind them drew up in a great pomp of purple and gold about the golden sunset.

  *

  Sir George Darcy and his score of riders did not get back to Templehurst till about an hour before midnight, but the porter who let them in had word for him from my Lord to go up at once. As he spoke the porter’s eyes were wandering beyond Sir George to watch the rest of the riders come in under the gate lantern, for all in Templehurst knew what business it was that had taken Sir George off just after dark, with a coil of rope hanging at the saddle of one of the horses. But when the horsemen were in it was clear that the rope had been useless, for there was no prisoner trussed up behind any of the riders.

  My Lord’s voice, clear as ever for all his age, cried, ‘Come in,’ as Sir George knocked. When he went in the same young voice, and this time with a sort of laugh in it, asked, ‘Well, and have you him safe by the heels?’

  Sir George came round the high-backed settle and found, sitting side by side upon it, his father and Sir Robert Constable, each in his velvet and fur-lined nightgown, and each toasting his bare, hairy shins before the fire. There was a dice-board between them, and even now my Lord threw and cried out in triumph at a double-six. George, who was already ill-tempered from failure, took such levity much to heart.

  He paused just long enough for his silence to be significant, then said: ‘I have him not, for he was warned, and fled.’

  ‘God’s Bones!’ said Darcy, ‘and that’s a pity.’

  ‘How could I help—’ cried George, and began to tell how coming near to Howden he had sent scouts this way and that, to hold the roads – ‘Aye, and to the ferry to keep that. There was no way but I had it stopped. But when we came to that house where it was told us he lay – he was gone, though the bed was warm.’

  ‘By the gardens no doubt, to lie snug in some other toft till you were away.’

  Again – ‘How could I help—?’ Sir George protested angrily, and much more till my Lord told him sternly, ‘Do not speak so to me. And it’s likely that if you’d used less guile, and ridden straight ways, you’d have caught our man. Na! Na!’ he added sharply, and held up his hand, ‘If you will be so het, son George, then leave us. But if you can command yourself, sit beside Sir Robert, and let’s take counsel what next.’

  After a pause Sir George plumped down on the settle, though he could not bring himself to speak for a few moments, but listened to his father and Sir Robert discussing what were best to do next.

  ‘Where will he lie to-night?’ Darcy asked his son, and George answered gruffly that it was said he was going to Lincoln, ‘because it is bruited that the King has sent answer to the rebels’ articles.’

  ‘If that be a fair answer—’ Sir Robert began, but Darcy laughed.

  ‘That answer will be such as may set the whole North on flame, if I know the King’s Grace, and if the commons can find them leaders.’

  ‘That was why,’ Constable said, ‘I came in such haste as soon as I heard at Holme that Robert Aske was in it. I heard yesterday that there was in Lincolnshire one gentleman was very active for the commons. And then to-day, when I knew how Aske was at Aughton, and how the people flowed to him—’

  ‘Why do they so?’ Darcy was interested. ‘You know what manner of man he is. Tell us.’

  Constable tweaked at the hairs of his shin, frowning into the fire. ‘I’d not have thought him, mind you, of such ill condition as to meddle in treason. But once in he’s a man of such obstinacy and audacity as to be very dangerous. And he hath a very pregnant wit too.’

  ‘A very pestilent traitor!’ cried Sir George, and getting up, announced that he was for bed. ‘A vile villain,’ he said. ‘Even the commons speak of him as they could of no gentleman. When we left Howden they were singing in the streets a song – “Then came a worm, an Aske with one eye!”’ He pulled open the door with a jerk, grinding his teeth as he remembered how, as well as singing, there had been laughter in Howden streets as they came away, and though Sir George was spared hearing his own name in a song, yet people had called from the upper windows words that showed no due respect to their Sheriff.

  When he had gone Lord Darcy sat in silence for a little, stroking this nightgown over his knee.

  ‘Robert,’ said he at last with a little laugh, ‘by what you say of this man Aske you show me such a bold, ready man, as, were he not a traitor, I could love.’

  ‘God’s Cross!’ cried Sir Robert, ‘I do not love him. In the Percy’s Council we were always at odds. For a more positive, opinionated, obstinate fellow does not live than he.’

  ‘And if,’ thought Darcy, with an inward smile, ‘he excels in those qualities the man beside me, then indeed’ – but he knew better than to hint at such a thought. And besides there were matters of urgency to speak of. He said, ‘We must lay for him again, to take him whenever he shall come again into Yorkshire. For with one or two such taken and hanged incontinent, it’s not like the commons will stir.’

  Sir Robert nodded, but with a glum look. He stretched out his fist, clenching it so that the muscles of his forearm stood up. ‘We must needs take him,’ he said, and then, with a jerk, ‘I do not say that he is not a man of very open and honest manner of dealing.’

  ‘He should ha’ kept out of treason,’ said Darcy cheerfully.

  October 7

  July was in the kitchen, and her fingers were all bloody from gutting the smelts that Arnold the journeyman had brought in. Laurence came through, wanting hot water for a glue pot, just as she was laying them in the pan. He put the glue pot down and laid hands on her to kiss her. She turned her face from him, and pushed him away, leaving red stains on his green doublet, so he let her go and she went to the table to fetch the board on which were set out the sliced lemon, the little piles of nutmeg, ginger, mace, and chopped bay leaves.

  She knew he was watching her but she kept her eyes down. She was always expecting him to be angry with her, though as yet he had been patient. ‘I have no wine vinegar,’ she said.

  ‘Then send out.’

  ‘But, Sir, I know there are some dregs of red wine souring in a pot, ready to use.’

  ‘Well,’ he began, and then remembered that he kept the keys.

  The late Mistress Machyn had been a most abundant housekeeper when it came to feasting friends, and, to make up, the diet of days in between had often been lean. Laurence had a little grudged at that, but far more at the noise and jollity which seemed almost perpetual in the house. So, he had thought, this new wife should be curbed from the start.

  That had seemed easy enough, and July had made no objection, no comment even, but usually asked him for the keys whenever she needed them. But now, because she would not let him kiss her, and because she had not asked, he was smitten through with a pang of fear. He had offended her. She was shutting him away because she knew he distrusted her (though God knows he’d never thought whether he trusted her or no, nor thought indeed at all, only had floundered deeper and deeper in love, till he feared his feet would soon lose the bottom).

  He pulled the keys out of his pouch. They still were attached to the fine broad lace of blue and yellow that he remembered well swinging against the first Mistress Machyn’s gown. That gave him warning. He must pull himself up. He must not be a weak fool – or must not let this wife see that he was a weak fool. He said shortly, ‘Here they are.’

  July came to take them. She saw where she had smudged his coat with blood, and raised her eyes no higher than that, but held out her hand for the keys. She thought he would surely be angry when he saw the stains.

  He said suddenly, ‘Sweetheart, would it please you to keep the keys? Do not be displeased with me that I did not at first – It was because she – I feared – I did not know—’

  July took the keys and he gave up trying to find a suitable explanation.

  ‘Give me a kiss,
Sweeting,’ he said, and when she allowed it kissed her very gently, and went away, not sure if she were pleased or displeased, willing or unwilling, but sure that to deal with her, withdrawn, fugitive, almost hostile, and yet so dear, was as delicate a business as to walk on egg shells.

  When the smelts were in their bath of pickle July tied on a hat over her hood, and, taking one of the women with her, went out shopping. The keys swung from her waist, and she found the occasional jingle they made quite pleasant. She was still only playing at being Mistress Machyn, but it was a pleasant enough game for all its drawbacks. Laurence she could make little of, and their relationship was a puzzle to her, though one on which she had not spent much thought. When the serving woman said with a little laugh, ‘Anyone can see you are able to twist the Master about your finger,’ she cried, ‘How can you be so foolish?’ Such a thing was to her too new and too foreign to all her experience to be easily believed.

  They were going along towards the Stocks Market to buy meat when July’s heart jumped suddenly up into her throat. Further along, going in their direction, she saw in the crowd a man with dark hair, a dull red coat and black hosen. ‘He’s back to London,’ she thought, and then saw that it was not Master Aske, nor even very like him. She went on, feeling light and shaken, like a cloth drying on a line on a breezy day. After that it was not of the meat for tomorrow’s dinner, nor of the chink of the keys at her girdle, nor of playing at being Mrs. Machyn, nor of her husband that she thought. All those had become unimportant to her as thistledown drifting.

  October 10

  The ferryman at Burton Stather was weary of Mr. Aske’s demands to be put across into Marshland again. Surly and unwilling he came down once more to the swollen river and swung his lantern over the dark edge of the water. It still swirled by above drowned grass, but between their feet and the lip of the water there was a couple of feet of meadow, sodden, muddied, and strewn with sticks and water weeds.

  ‘See how the river has fallen since dusk,’ said Aske.

  ‘See how it has risen since last week,’ said the ferryman, and pointed to the mooring post of the barge, feet away from them across the hurrying water.

  ‘It has not rained since noon. I have listened.’ At Sawcliffe Aske had indeed listened and watched, all afternoon, ever since sunset, and ever since, in the first dark, he and Will had come to the ferryman’s door, urging him to put them over – but he would not.

  Nor would he this time. At last Aske gave it up, and went slowly over to where Will held the horses. They got to saddle and rode up the steep, brief hill, which rises above Trent here, facing west across the marshy flats opposite, and in daytime even commanding parts of the northern shore of Ouse and Humber.

  Aske was cursing the ferryman under his breath. Will, to comfort him, said there was no harm done, and he was sure that none knew where they were hiding.

  ‘God’s Passion!’ cried Aske. ‘We left Lincoln yesterday morning. To-morrow is Tuesday. Another night, and another day, lying listening and waiting, and not knowing what – not knowing—’

  They came at the top of the hill to Burton Stather village, and turned at the church to take the lane to Thealby. The night was very still, with a smell of sodden ground after the great rain that had fallen since Saturday, filling all the rivers and turning every road to deep mire. But overhead the clouds were beginning to break; here and there stars showed. In the sky to the north-east there was a red-golden star that grew huge in the hollow gulf of night; it spread to a smudgy flame. Further to the west another red star sprang and trembled.

  Aske pulled up his horse. They both sat staring. ‘They’ve lit the beacons,’ said Will. ‘That’s Yorkswold over that way.’ But Aske had swung his horse round, and was floundering back through the quaggy lane, so Will followed him.

  The ferryman, just warm in bed, stuck his head out of the window and swore at them. Aske’s face, a blur of white in the darkness, was all he could see, a little way below him.

  ‘I’ll not put ye over. And so I told you before, and a murrain on you!’

  Aske said, ‘They’ve lit the beacons along Yorkswold. If you’ll not put us over, by God! I’ll break your door down and take you out and throw you in the river.’

  Afterwards the ferryman remembered that Master Aske, though so fierce, was but a little man, his servant a mere weed, and the bar of the door amply strong to have withstood anything that they might have done. Now, however, grumbling and cursing, he turned out and led them down to the ferry, the big sweeps over his shoulder, and the lantern swinging from his hand.

  ‘I’ll take one,’ said Aske, and sat down on the thwart beside the ferryman. Will had the horses in and shoved off. ‘Ye’ll have to pull hard,’ said the ferryman.

  But in a minute he said, ‘Steady! Ye’ll jerk the guts out of you if you tug at the oar like that, besides swinging her across the river.’ Aske only grunted, but pulled less violently; above the whine of the row-locks and the swash and hiss of angry unseen water his ears were straining to catch the sound of bells. But beyond the river noises there was only a great silence, and silence when they landed in Marshland.

  They went through Aldingfleet and Ousefleet without a check, but this side of Whitgift Aske eased his horse to a walk.

  He said suddenly, ‘There’s a poor man, a fowler, that lives aside from the road by a clump of alders. You turn by a long pool.’ They went on a few yards. A faint looming in the darkness at the side of the road hinted at water. Aske pulled up his horse. ‘This is the place,’ he said, and then sat still.

  ‘But, Master—’

  Aske cried out suddenly, ‘I said I would go back, and I went. And they tried to kill me in Lincoln; whether it were gentlemen or commons matters not. You know how they would have taken me in my bed if the host of the Angel had not warned me. They would have killed me because I went back to Yorkshire to do what I might there. When I had returned, keeping my promise to them, they would have killed me.’

  When he had said that he was silent again, and Will dared not speak.

  ‘And,’ his master went on after a minute, not violently now but earnestly, as if appealing to a judge, ‘and you know how I bid Marshland wait on Howden, and Howden on Marshland. Now, when Lincolnshire is breaking to flinders like a faggot of dead wood, they light their beacons. They’ll ring their bells next. But in it I’ve no part, no word.’

  ‘Why do you say nothing?’ he cried, and then thrust his horse across Will’s, and took the little sludgy track beside the long pool, towards a darker patch in the darkness, which was a clump of alders and a cottage beside it.

  He said, as Will came up behind, ‘You shall take off the harness and hide it in the house. The man will show you a place to turn out the horses, that they be not seen. We can lie hid here till – till—’

  ‘Master,’ Will cried, when that seemed to be all that Aske would say, ‘but, Master, will you not—? Will you not—?’

  He got no answer till they stood at the door of the little, lonely, tumble-down toft. Then Aske for an instant interrupted his gentle, insistent knocking to say—

  ‘I must sleep. Four nights I have not slept. I must sleep.’

  But between his teeth, and to the door, he said, ‘I must have time.’

  The poor man, the fowler, let them in. He showed Will where to lead the horses into the fen so that they could graze unnoticed. When they came back Aske was not where they had left him, sitting beside the hearth with his head between his hands, but they heard his voice from the loft above telling them he would lie there, and none should disturb him. ‘And see to it that you tell no man where I am. D’ye hear?’

  ‘Yes, Master Robin,’ said the fowler, who remembered Aske as a lad at Wressel, for he was a man of the Percy’s.

  ‘And you, Will?’ Aske cried sharply.

  Will said, ‘Aye, Master.’

  But for Will it was a long day, and glum. The fowler went out with his net, and did not come back. At what he guessed to be about noon Will
went off softly up the ladder with a bowl of pottage, a spoon and a piece of black bread. He could just see Aske lie, with his hands behind his head, on a pile of bracken.

  ‘Put it down,’ said he, and Will put it down and went back to the fireside, to listen for the sound of his master going across the boards to take up the bowl. There was, however, no sound at all, so perhaps he slept.

  It was late afternoon, and the light waning, when Will got up at last, stood listening, and then, with infinite caution, let himself out of the toft. He would, he thought, go towards the fen to look for the fowler, but instead he turned along the track that led to the road. It could do no harm, he thought, to walk that way, if he did not go so far as the road.

  But in the end he came to Whitgift village, and found it very busy, and the smith busiest of all, for besides those men the rivets of whose harness the smith was fettling, or whose horses the smith’s man was shoeing, there was a crowd of others, hanging about the side doorway and talking to the tune of the gulping bellows and the dan-dan-dan-trinkety-dan of the hammers. Will, a small man, and not of any noticeable or distinguishing appearance, slipped quietly in among them to listen.

  But when he had had enough, and was for dodging back out of the press, someone cried out, ‘Hi! I know you,’ and laid his hand on his shoulder, crying loudly, ‘Here’s Master Aske’s man.’

  Then they all crowded round, clamouring, ‘Where is he? Is he here? Has he sent you to us?’

  ‘No,’ said Will, lying stoutly. ‘But he went to Lincoln, and left me at Sawcliffe.’

  ‘By Cock! Let him be,’ cried a big yeoman. ‘We’ll not need such as Master Aske if we follow the Buck’s Head and the popinjay green coats,’ and he jerked his head towards the road beyond the crowded smithy.

  ‘What’s that?’ Will, being so small a man, could not see what he saw.