The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  ‘Then why—?’

  July gave her a glance, dark and sullen seeming.

  ‘Because my sister would not let me bide.’

  Mistress Holland remembered Margaret Cheyne, since the good Master Holland was merchant of that same Worshipful Company of Vintners as William Cheyne; her remembrance of Margaret had indeed weighed heavy in the scale against July, although Mistress Holland was too honest a creature not to own to herself that there seemed to be nothing in this sister of the other, except it were her pride – which might be shyness.

  So now, knowing by July’s tone that there was one subject on which they agreed, she put her arm quickly about the girl’s waist, hugging her, and at once letting her go. The less the young wench liked her sister the better would Mistress Holland like her.

  ‘Yet,’ she said, answering July’s words and speaking as became a good wife, and a happy one, ‘now you are wedded you would not be a nun there.’

  ‘I would. I would I were there. I would I might have bided there always.’

  Mistress Holland was startled by her vehemence. She could not know that Marrick, in July’s mind, was a place enclosed, protected, inviolate. There, forever, Master Aske went about, carrying his fishing rod through the rain, loitering at ease across Grinton Bridge. Mistress Holland, not knowing this, must suppose that Laurence Machyn’s wife had either a cruel, unfeeling husband, or a great devotion to the holy state of chastity. Mistress Holland knew Laurence too well to think the first. Therefore it must be the second. She looked at July, still gazing straight before her with a pinched mouth, and was filled with a sudden almost awed compassion. This was enough to account for the girl’s distance, silence, strangeness. Mistress Holland, who was very devout, put July at once into the category of those holy and religious women who long for no earthly bridegroom.

  So she shook her head, and was silent. Beside her July brooded, passing and repassing, light as air and quick as thought, through the fields, ways and chambers of Marrick. The woman with whom Mistress Holland had conferred went off to fetch onions from the larder; the other opened the door on the street and stepped outside to look for the men who, every morning, came selling water from the conduit. Mistress Holland and July were alone.

  ‘And to think,’ said Mistress Holland, ‘that the King, following the counsel of that man Cromwell – no, I’ll not call him Lord nor nothing but his unchancy name – that the King would have pulled down and destroyed all such Houses of Religious, had not these brave commons of the North letted him.’

  ‘But,’ July turned on her with a look so startled as to be almost wild, ‘but I hear them say that the Northern men are surrendered, and that now there will be – be an end.’ She could not say the words she had heard spoken, ‘That now there will be hanging of the wretches that led them, and there an end.’

  Mistress Holland tossed up her chin.

  ‘Benedicite!’ she said, ‘let them wait till they have sure news before they say so much. For my husband saith—’ (she brought her mouth near to July’s headkerchief, and murmured softly) ‘he saith there is other news; that the King must send the Duke of Norfolk to treat with them, so great an host as they are, being all the North parts, gentlemen, lords and commons, in arms for the sake of the Church.’

  July, staring at her, could only whisper, ‘Is it so?’

  ‘And besides that and better,’ said Mistress Holland, ‘I say that God will be their surety, who venture their lives in His service. He will be found at the last to be beside them in need.’

  July looked at her again, with caution this time; almost with suspicion. But Mistress Holland did not speak defensively, hardily, but almost, as it were, comfortably. It was not as if she clung with toes and fingers on the face of the naked scar at Fremington Edge, desperate and trembling like the boy who fell from there when he was taking an eagle’s nest. July had dreamed, waking, of that boy many and many a time, feeling as he felt when his hand slipped, and the air rushed up past him, and he knew he was falling. No, when Mistress Holland spoke it was as if she sat on the warm turf of the sunny fell side, leaning, at ease, upon the safe kind bosom of the wide earth. Suddenly, unbelievably, July’s heart, for a time at least, laid down its load.

  ‘Where is this place Marrick?’ Mistress Holland asked idly.

  ‘In Yorkshire.’

  ‘Nay then, have you acquaintance with any of these noble gentlemen?’

  ‘No,’ said July. ‘No.’

  Mistress Holland glanced at her and saw a smile shining, gentle, rapt.

  October 26

  Malle and Wat were burning garden rubbish; the heap was crackling merrily; below the busy flames were sliding their quick fingers about the dry wizened stalks, feeling along, licking up; above, smoke, reeking of rottenness, poured out, leaned sideways, swirled wide and swept over half the garden. Malle and Wat, casting down fork and rake, tied out of it to the clear air to breathe, and leaned together upon the wall.

  ‘Wat,’ said Malle, ‘have you thought that He has stained Himself, soiled Himself, being not only with men, but Himself a man. What’s that, to be man? Look at me. Look at you.’

  They looked at each other, and one saw a dusty wretched dumb lad, and the other saw a heavy slatternly woman.

  Malle said: ‘It’s to be that which shoots down the birds out of the free air, and slaughters dumb beasts, and kills his own kind in wars.’

  She looked away up the Dale towards Calva, rust-red with dead bracken, smouldering under the cold sky.

  ‘And it wasn’t that He put on man like a jacket to take off at night, or to bathe or to play. But man He was, as man is man, the Maker made Himself the made; God was un-Godded by His own hand.’

  She put her hands to her face, and was silent, till Wat pulled them away.

  ‘He was God,’ she said, ‘from before the beginning, and now never to be clean God again. Never again. Alas!’ she said, and then, ‘Osanna!’

  October 27

  The whole host of the commons lay on the north bank of the Don, the King’s on the other side of the river, and Doncaster between them. Early this morning thirty of the King’s lords and thirty of the commons’ leaders had come together upon the bridge on the north side of the town, the commons to speak their grievances, the Lords to answer them, that, in the end, some appointment might be made between them.

  It was growing dusk now, and still the conference on the bridge went on. Earlier it had been possible for the commons to see, from where their ranks were drawn up, the crowd on the bridge, thirty lords and gentlemen from their party, and thirty from the King’s host. But now, though lights were pricking out in the town beyond, the bridge was drowned from them in the twilight.

  Robert Aske had half turned his horse, to ride again across the front line of the commons’ host. This was what he and other Captains had been doing at intervals since late afternoon, and he knew only too well how necessary it was, and how increasingly the commons were breaking line to clog into companies that muttered with their heads together, and only fell apart when one of the Captains drew near. By now it was almost a good sign if any man of them would call angrily to know ‘when will they on the bridge be done with talking?’

  He heard a horseman coming up fast behind him; so he did not turn, but waited. Will Monkton ranged alongside.

  ‘The Bishopric men are saying “Treason”. They say, “Let’s run upon them that are betraying us to the King’s lords, and kill them.”’

  Aske swung his horse about. ‘No – slowly, Will,’ he said, so they rode slowly across the face of the host, till they came to the midst where the banner of St. Cuthbert stood, the crimson dulled to shadow in the dusk, the white velvet and the gold of the embroidery still faintly bright. But the banner was now the centre of a jam of men who shouted at each other, waving their arms. Aske said: ‘One is better than two here. Stay, unless I raise my hand.’ Then he rode into the crowd.

  It was longer than Monkton liked that he had to wait, but after a while th
e voices dropped; there were times, and more times, when only Aske was speaking; at last he came back and together the two continued to ride along the line.

  ‘Phew!’ said Monkton, and then, ‘We’ll not hold them much longer.’

  ‘But if we must, we shall.’

  Monkton shook his head. Then he said, leaning over to speak low:

  ‘Robin, would they betray the commons?’

  He could only see Aske’s face dimly as he turned, but he knew all the same that he was angry.

  ‘Would I? Would you? If it had been our part to go to the parley?’

  The clock struck six from the Friars’ Church, and at last the appointment between my Lords of Norfolk and Shrewsbury on the one side, and the leaders of the commons on the other, was concluded. Now the servants brought torches, and the men began to move about stamping their cold feet.

  Lord Darcy found himself for a moment alone in the diminishing crowd by the side of the bridge; then someone pressed his arm and he turned.

  ‘Ha! Talbot!’ he cried, and the two stood in a momentary silence till Shrewsbury said he was sorry to see my Lord Darcy on that side which he had chosen.

  Darcy turned to lean on the bridge. Shrewsbury leaned beside him; in the torchlight Darcy could see his face, thin, long, infinitely wrinkled, and set on a neck as lank as that of a plucked chicken. Beyond Shrewsbury’s head he saw also two of the gentlemen who had spoken for the Pilgrims. So he chose his words carefully.

  ‘All the world knows (if there is justice) why I am of that party.’ He bent his head as if to peer over the bridge to where the current made a slight lisping sound against the piers; further off flames of the torches showed on the dark water in smooth oily undulations, becoming there wavering peacocks’ feathers of gold, each with a dimpled eye of darkness.

  ‘I must needs join with them to save my life,’ he said softly; Shrewsbury, he knew, was not one to be easy with words of double meaning.

  As it was the Earl frowned for a moment before he said doubtfully, ‘Yet you will not now join yourself with us.’

  ‘Talbot,’ Darcy with his forefinger tapped the back of the Earl’s hand as it lay on the stonework of the bridge – ‘Talbot, hold up thy long claw and promise me that I shall have the King’s favour, and my case be indifferently heard, and I will come back with you to Doncaster this night.’

  Shrewsbury pulled at his ear for a minute; at last he shook his head: ‘Well then, my Lord Darcy, you shall not come.’

  Darcy laughed softly and scornfully.

  ‘And so I thought. He that will lay his head on the block may have it soon stricken off.’ He held out his hand, and Shrewsbury took it; they had known each other many years and had always been good friends.

  October 30

  Robert Aske was sitting on a stool beside the great bed of the Earl of Northumberland at Wressel Castle. He looked not at the Earl, but at the embroidered curtains of the bed, rich old embroidery in silks and silver thread, but the silver was tarnished and the silks fraying. His clenched hands were thrust between his knees; he looked down at them now, and, as he unclasped them, learnt by the stiffness of his fingers what a pressure he had put on them. He drew a deep breath, meaning to let it out in a sigh, but Earl Henry mistook the significance of the sound.

  ‘No,’ he cried, ‘it’s no use to say more. You shall not move me. My brothers shall have nothing of me. And I care not to die. I can die but once. Strike off my head, and you will but rid me of much pain.’

  He was crying by now, and Aske jumped up. ‘Sir!’ he said, ‘Sir! I pray you – have done. I’ll speak no more of it.’ He went over to the window and stood there, trying not to hear the Earl’s whimpering, and wishing he might be able to recall some of the words he had flung at the wretched man in the bed – words that should have stormed him, or scourged or mocked him into consent. Yet for all the force and bitterness, aye – and cruelty, he had put into it, Earl Henry had not consented, but had answered over and over, wretchedly and obstinately, that his word was given unto the King; so Aske, who had begun long before this to be ashamed, was now very much ashamed indeed.

  He heard a noise from the bed that was not a whimper. There was a silence, and then Earl Henry groaned again. Aske went quickly back and stood close to him; the Earl turned his head, but very stiffly and cautiously, and as if all his mind was waiting, watching, listening for something which should arrive. Aske saw his face change, and could not take his eye away from it, though he wished to look away; yet he knew that the Earl did not care whether he looked or no, being now quite cut off from him in the privacy of extreme pain.

  It lasted but a few minutes. When it was over Aske sat down again till he saw the Earl lift his face a little from the pillow, looking for him. Then he asked, speaking almost in a whisper—

  ‘Is it like this?’

  ‘Sometimes bad, as now, and longer. Sometimes not so bad.’ Aske said, ‘I should not have spoken. Yet—’ He checked himself abruptly and said, ‘Forgive me.’

  Earl Henry gave him a little smile. ‘You are very earnest in this business, Robin.’

  It was a long time before Aske spoke. Then he said—

  ‘Sir, I have thought of myself sometimes in this as a horse set to lug timber in the woods in deep mire of winter. There’s the weight to move, that’s one thing, and for another the wheels will not turn. So the horses must haul as to break their hearts, if they will shift the tree. But,’ he said, ‘I shall shift it.’

  The Earl said softly, ‘It’d be a great load, Robin, that you did not shift.’

  ‘Surely,’ said Aske, ‘I shall see reformation done, or I shall die for it. But,’ he muttered too low and hastily for the Earl to be certain of his words, ‘but I’ll not be taken and judged as a traitor. I’ll die on the field.’

  Then he began to tell of the course of the negotiations, and how at Doncaster it had been appointed that Robert Bowes and Rafe Ellerker should go with the Duke of Norfolk to Windsor, to carry to the King’s Grace the grievances of the North, while both hosts should disperse until the King’s answer came. ‘But surely,’ his face and voice kindled, ‘surely I think that if we would have chosen battle rather than to send our petition we should have had the better of them. For those gentlemen and commons that went with them went unwilling; but in our host I saw neither gentleman nor commons willing to depart, but to proceed in the quarrel, yea, and that to the death,’ and he drove his clenched hand down on his knee. And then, speaking in a hurry, ‘I would with all my heart, Sir, that you were with us, for before God I do know our cause is just. How can a secular Prince—’

  He broke off because the Earl had moved sharply, and certainly this was to begin all over again. So they were silent until the Earl began to talk about that stuff of his which the commons had seized, and Aske had saved from spoil. ‘You shall have it,’ said he, ‘and I would it were of more worth,’ and then he said, ‘And – yea, you shall have my great spice plate that lies in the keeping of the brethren at Watton.’

  So, as the spice plate was worth £40, and money was needed by the commons, Aske kissed the Earl’s hand and thanked him. Then he made up the fire, pressed and strained the juice of some oranges that were in the livery cupboard, and sprinkled rose-water about the room to sweeten the staleness of the air. It pleased them both that he should do this old accustomed, long-discontinued service.

  After the close, scented room the air in the dark court tasted strangely clean. Aske stood for a few minutes letting the wind stir his hair, and looking round about at the lights in the windows. From the tower where the kitchens were came not only light but noise, for the servants were washing dishes after supper. He could hear them shouting to one another. ‘Yet they always shout,’ he thought, ‘even when they stand side by side at the same kneading trough.’ A woman in wooden shoes went clattering down the flagged passage to the dairy; he knew the way she went, and how the great bowls of cream would stand all along the stone benches; many a time he had stolen in to ladle o
ut cream for himself, and come skulking out wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Through an arched passage just beside him lay the herb garden of the castle; if it had been light he could have seen from where he now stood the trim beds of herbs edged with clipped box; but it did not need daylight for him to see it all quite clearly in his mind. And as he saw it, so he remembered how angry the old Earl had been when he found out that the cooks had been buying herbs at Howden and Hemmingburgh. He had started off into the garden to see for himself if there were not herbs enough, with the sulky chief cook on one side of him, and on the other a gardener to show him where every herb grew that a cook might need. When they found the herb the cook got a rating, and when they found it not, the gardener, so neither could crow over the other. When he had seen all the Earl came back and had it written down in the Great Book of the Household:

  ‘That from henceforth that there be no herbs bought seeing that the Cooks may have herb enow in my Lord’s Gardens.’

  Aske smiled as he remembered it, and he remembered it well for he himself had written it, being just then in the office of the clerk of the kitchen in the Earl’s Household.

  He went across the court, loitering, as his mind was loitering through past times. Then he turned into the Spicery, and calling a servant, asked for a pricket of wax; he had a mind to go up to the chamber that was called Paradise because in that pleasant, peaceful, sunny room the old Earl kept his books; there they stood about in their presses, and in the midst of the room for convenience in reading, there were the hinged, latticed desks, which he had been so proud of. ‘For a little while,’ Aske thought, ‘I’ll read there.’ But the truth was that he did not want to meet Sir Thomas Percy just yet, to tell him that the Earl had utterly refused, and to hear what he would say about his brother.