Buckingham is as pleasant a shire as a man shall see on a seven days’
journey. Neither was it any less pleasant in the days of our Lord
King Edward, the third of that name, he who fought and put the French
to shameful discomfiture at Crecy and Poitiers and at many another
hard-fought field. May God rest his soul, for he now sleeps in the
great Church at Westminster.
Buckinghamshire is full of smooth round hills and woodlands of hawthorn
and beech, and it is a famous country for its brooks and shaded
waterways running through the low hay meadows. Upon its hills feed a
thousand sheep, scattered like the remnants of the spring snow, and it
was from these that the merchants made themselves fat purses, sending
the wool into Flanders in exchange for silver crowns. There were many
strong castles there too, and rich abbeys, and the King’s Highway ran
through it from North to South, upon which the pilgrims went in crowds
to worship at the Shrine of the Blessed Saint Alban. Thereon also
rode noble knights and stout men-at-arms, and these you could follow
with the eye by their glistening armour, as they wound over hill and
dale, mile after mile, with shining spears and shields and fluttering
pennons, and anon a trumpet or two sounding the same keen note as that
which rang out dreadfully on those bloody fields of France. The girls
used to come to the cottage doors or run to hide themselves in the
wayside woods to see them go trampling by; for Buckinghamshire girls
love a soldier above all men. Nor, I warrant you, were jolly friars
lacking in the highways and the by-ways and under the hedges, good
men of religion, comfortable of penance and easy of life, who could
tip a wink to a housewife, and drink and crack a joke with the good
man, going on their several ways with tight paunches, skins full of
ale and a merry salutation for every one. A fat pleasant land was this
Buckinghamshire; always plenty to eat and drink therein, and pretty
girls and lusty fellows; and God knows what more a man can expect in a
world where all is vanity, as the Preacher truly says.
There was a nunnery at Maids Moreton, two miles out from Buckingham
Borough, on the road to Stony Stratford, and the place was called Maids
Moreton because of the nunnery. Very devout creatures were the nuns,
being holy ladies out of families of gentle blood. They punctually
fulfilled to the letter all the commands of the pious founder, just
as they were blazoned on the great parchment Regula, which the Lady
Mother kept on her reading-desk in her little cell. If ever any of the
nuns, by any chance or subtle machination of the Evil One, was guilty
of the smallest backsliding from the conduct that beseemed them, they
made full and devout confession thereof to the Holy Father who visited
them for this purpose. This good man loved swan’s meat and galingale,
and the charitable nuns never failed to provide of their best for him
on his visiting days; and whatsoever penance he laid upon them they
performed to the utmost, and with due contrition of heart.
From Matins to Compline they regularly and decently carried out the
services of Holy Mother Church. After dinner, one read aloud to them
from the Rule, and again after supper there was reading from the life
of some notable Saint or Virgin, that thereby they might find ensample
for themselves on their own earthly pilgrimage. For the rest, they
tended their herb garden, reared their chickens, which were famous for
miles around, and kept strict watch over their haywards and swineherds.
If time was when they had nothing more important on hand, they set
to and made the prettiest blood bandages imaginable for the Bishop,
the Bishop’s Chaplain, the Archdeacon, the neighbouring Abbot and
other godly men of religion round about, who were forced often to
bleed themselves for their health’s sake and their eternal salvation,
so that these venerable men in process of time came to have by them
great chests full of these useful articles. If little tongues wagged
now and then as the sisters sat at their sewing in the great hall, who
shall blame them, _Eva peccatrice_? Not I; besides, some of them were
something stricken in years, and old women are garrulous and hard to be
constrained from chattering and gossiping. But being devout women they
could have spoken no evil.
One evening after Vespers all these good nuns sat at supper, the Abbess
on her high dais and the nuns ranged up and down the hall at the long
trestled tables. The Abbess had just said ‘_Gratias_’ and the sisters
had sung ‘_Qui vivit et regnat per omnia secula seculorum, Amen_,’ when
in came the Manciple mysteriously, and, with many deprecating bows and
outstretchings of the hands, sidled himself up upon the dais, and,
permission having been given him, spoke to the Lady Mother thus:
‘Madam, there is a certain pilgrim at the gate who asks refreshment and
a night’s lodging.’ It is true he spoke softly, but little pink ears
are sharp of hearing, and nuns, from their secluded way of life, love
to hear news of the great world.
‘Send him away,’ said the Abbess. ‘It is not fit that a man should lie
within this house.’
‘Madam, he asks food and a bed of straw lest he should starve of hunger
and exhaustion on his way to do penance and worship at the Holy Shrine
of the Blessed Saint Alban.’
‘What kind of pilgrim is he?’
‘Madam, to speak truly, I know not; but he appears of a reverend and
gracious aspect, a young man well spoken and well disposed. Madam knows
it waxeth late, and the ways are dark and foul.’
‘I would not have a young man, who is given to pilgrimages and good
works, to faint and starve by the wayside. Let him sleep with the
haywards.’
‘But, Madam, he is a young man of goodly appearance and conversation;
saving your reverence, I would not wish to ask him to eat and sleep
with churls.’
‘He must sleep without. Let him, however, enter and eat of our poor
table.’
‘Madam, I will strictly enjoin him what you command. He hath with him,
however, an instrument of music and would fain cheer you with spiritual
songs.’
A little shiver of anticipation ran down the benches of the great
hall, and the nuns fell to whispering.
‘Take care, Sir Manciple, that he be not some light juggler, a singer
of vain songs, a mocker. I would not have these quiet halls disturbed
by wanton music and unholy words. God forbid.’ And she crossed herself.
‘Madam, I will answer for it.’
The Manciple bowed himself from the dais and went down the middle of
the hall, his keys rattling at his belt. A little buzz of conversation
rose from the sisters and went up to the oak roof-trees, like the
singing of bees. The Abbess told her beads.
The hall door opened and in came the pilgrim. God knows what manner of
man he was; I cannot tell you. He certainly was lean and lithe like a
cat, his eyes danced in his head like the very devil, but his cheeks
and jaws were as bare of flesh as any hermit’s that lives on roots and
ditchwater. His yellow-hosed legs went like the tune of a May game, and
he screwed and twisted his scarlet-jerkined body in time with them. In
his left hand he held a cithern, on which he twanged with his right,
making a cunning noise that titillated the backbones of those who heard
it, and teased every delicate nerve in the body. Such a tune would have
tickled the ribs of Death himself. A queer fellow to go pilgrimaging
certainly, but why, when they saw him, all the young nuns tittered
and the old nuns grinned, until they showed their red gums, it is hard
to tell. Even the Lady Mother on the dais smiled, though she tried to
frown a moment later.
The pilgrim stepped lightly up to the dais, the infernal devil in his
legs making the nuns think of the games the village folk play all night
in the churchyard on Saint John’s Eve.
‘Gracious Mother,’ he cried, bowing deeply and in comely wise, ‘allow
a poor pilgrim on his way to confess and do penance at the shrine of
Saint Alban to take food in your hall, and to rest with the haywards
this night, and let me thereof make some small recompense with a few
sacred numbers, such as your pious founder would not have disdained to
hear.’
‘Young man,’ returned the Abbess, ‘right glad am I to hear that God has
moved thy heart to godly works and to go on pilgrimages, and verily I
wish it may be to thy soul’s health and to the respite of thy pains
hereafter. I am right willing that thou shouldst refresh thyself with
meat and rest at this holy place.’
‘Madam, I thank thee from my heart, but as some slight token of
gratitude for so large a favour, let me, I pray thee, sing one or two
of my divine songs, to the uplifting of these holy Sisters’ hearts.’
Another burst of chatter, louder than before, from the benches in the
hall. One or two of the younger Sisters clapped their plump white hands
and cried, ‘Oh!’ The Lady Abbess held up her hand for silence.
‘Verily, I should be glad to hear some sweet songs of religion, and I
think it would be to the uplifting of these Sisters’ hearts. But, young
man, take warning against singing any wanton lines of vain imagination,
such as the ribalds use on the highways, and the idlers and haunters
of taverns. I have heard them in my youth, although my ears tingle to
think of them now, and I should think it shame that any such light
words should echo among these sacred rafters or disturb the slumber
of our pious founder, who now sleeps in Christ. Let me remind you of
what saith Saint Jeremie, _Onager solitarius, in desiderio animae suae,
attraxit ventum amoris_; the wild ass of the wilderness, in the desire
of his heart, snuffeth up the wind of love; whereby that holy man
signifies that vain earthly love, which is but wind and air, and shall
avail nothing at all, when this weak, impure flesh is sloughed away.’
‘Madam, such songs as I shall sing, I learnt at the mouth of our holy
parish priest, Sir Thomas, a man of all good learning and purity of
heart.’
‘In that case,’ said the Abbess, ‘sing in God’s name, but stand at
the end of the hall, for it suits not the dignity of my office a man
should stand so near this dais.’
Whereon the pilgrim, making obeisance, went to the end of the hall,
and the eyes of all the nuns danced after his dancing legs, and their
ears hung on the clear, sweet notes he struck out of his cithern as he
walked. He took his place with his back against the great hall door, in
such attitude as men use when they play the cithern. A little trembling
ran through the nuns, and some rose from their seats and knelt on the
benches, leaning over the table, the better to see and hear him. Their
eyes sparkled like dew on meadowsweet on a fair morning.
Certainly his fingers were bewitched or else the devil was in his
cithern, for such sweet sounds had never been heard in the hall since
the day when it was built and consecrated to the service of the
servants of God. The shrill notes fell like a tinkling rain from the
high roof in mad, fantastic trills and dying falls that brought all
one’s soul to one’s lips to suck them in. What he sang about, God only
knows; not one of the nuns or even the holy Abbess herself could have
told you, although you had offered her a piece of the True Cross or a
hair of the Blessed Virgin for a single word. But a divine yearning
filled all their hearts; they seemed to hear ten thousand thousand
angels singing in choruses, Alleluia, Alleluia; Alleluia; they floated
up on inpalpable clouds of azure and silver, up through the blissful
paradises of the uppermost heaven; their nostrils were filled with the
odours of exquisite spices and herbs and smoke of incense; their eyes
dazzled at splendours and lights and glories; their ears were full of
gorgeous harmonies and all created concords of sweet sounds; the very
fibres of being were loosened within them, as though their souls would
leap forth from their bodies in exquisite dissolution. The eyes of the
younger nuns grew round and large and tender, and their breath almost
died upon their velvet lips. As for the old nuns, the great, salt tears
coursed down their withered cheeks and fell like rain on their gnarled
hands. The Abbess sat on her dais with her lips apart, looking into
space, ten thousand thousand miles away. But no one saw her and she
saw no one; every one had forgotten every one else in that delicious
intoxication.
Then with a shrill cry, full of human yearnings and desire, the
minstrel came to a sudden stop--
‘Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
And the small rain will down rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.’
Silence!--not one of the holy Sisters spoke, but some sighed; some put
their hands over their hearts, and one put her hand in her hood, but
when she felt her hair shorn close to her scalp, drew it out again
sharply, as though she had touched red-hot iron, and cried, ‘O Jesu.’
Sister Peronelle, a toothless old woman, began to speak in a cracked,
high voice, quickly and monotonously, as though she spoke in a dream.
Her eyes were wet and red, and her thin lips trembled. ‘God knows,’
she said, ‘I loved him; God knows it. But I bid all those who be maids
here, to be mindful of the woods. For they are green, but they are deep
and dark, and it is merry in the springtime with the thick turf below
and the good boughs above, all alone with your heart’s darling--all
alone in the green wood. But God help me, he would not stay any more
than snow at Easter. I thought just now that I was back with him in the
woods. God keep all those that be maids from the green woods.’
The pretty Sister Ursula, who had only just finished her novitiate, was
as white as a sheet. Her breath came thickly and quick as though she
bore a great burden up hill. A great sigh made her comely shoulders
rise and fall. ‘Blessed Virgin,’ she cried. ‘Ah, ye ask too much; I did
not know; God help me, I did not know,’ and her grey eyes filled with
sudden tears, and she dropped her head on her arms on the table, and
sobbed aloud.
Then cried out Sister Katherine, who looked as old and dead as a twig
dropped from a tree of last autumn, and at whom the younger Sisters
privily mocked, ‘It is the wars, the wars, the cursed wars. I have
held his head in this lap, I tell you; I have kissed his soul into
mine. But now he lies dead, and his pretty limbs all dropped away into
earth. Holy Mother, have pity on me. I shall never kiss his sweet lips
again or look into his jolly eyes. My heart is broken long since. Holy
Mother! Holy Mother!’
‘He must come oftener,’ said a plump Sister of thirty, with a little
nose turned up at the end, eyes black as sloes and lips round as a
plum. ‘I go to the orchard day after day, and gather my lap full of
apples. He is my darling. Why does he not come? I look for him every
time that I gather the ripe apples. He used to come; but that was in
the spring, and Our Lady knows that is long ago. Will it not be spring
again soon? I have gathered many ripe apples.’
Sister Margarita rocked herself to and fro in her seat and crossed her
arms on her breast. She was singing quietly to herself.
‘Lulla, lullay, thou tiny little child,
Lulla, lullay, lullay;
Suck at my breast that am thereat beguiled,
Lulla, lullay, lullay.’
She moaned to herself, ‘I have seen the village women go to the well,
carrying their babies with them, and they laugh as they go by on the
way. Their babies hold them tight round the neck, and their mothers
comfort them, saying, “Hey, hey, my little son; hey, hey, my sweeting.”
Christ and the blessed Saints know that I have never felt a baby’s
little hand in my bosom--and now I shall die without it, for I am old
and past the age of bearing children.
‘Lulla, lullay, thou tiny little boy,
Lulla, lullay, lullay;
To feel thee suck doth soothe my great annoy,
Lulla, lullay, lullay.’
‘I have heard them on a May morning, with their pipes and tabors and
jolly, jolly music,’ cried Sister Helen; ‘I have seen them too, and
my heart has gone with them to bring back the white hawthorn from the
woods. “A man and a maid to a hawthorn bough,” as it says in the song.
They sing outside my window all Saint John’s Eve so that I cannot say
my prayers for the wild thoughts they put into my brain, as they go
dancing up and down in the churchyard; I cannot forget the pretty words
they say to each other, “Sweet love, a kiss”; “Kiss me, my love, nor
let me go”; “As I went through the garden gate”; “A bonny black knight,
a bonny black knight, and what will you give to me? A kiss, and a kiss,
and no more than a kiss, under the wild rose tree.” Oh, Mary Mother,
have pity on a poor girl’s heart, I shall die, if no one love me, I
shall die.’
‘In faith, I am truly sorry, William,’ said Sister Agnes, who was gaunt
and hollow-eyed with long vigils and overfasting, for which the good
father had rebuked her time after time, saying that she overtasked
the poor weak flesh. ‘I am truly sorry that I could not wait. But the
neighbours made such a clamour, and my father and mother buffeted me
too sorely. It is under the oak tree, no more than a foot deep, and
covered with the red and brown leaves. It was a pretty sight to see the
red blood on its neck, as white as whalebone, and it neither cried nor
wept, so I put it down among the leaves, the pretty poppet; and it was
like thee, William, it was like thee. I am sorry I did not wait, and
now I’m worn and wan for thy sake, this many a long year, and all in
vain, for thou never comst. I am an old woman now, and I shall soon be
quiet and not complain any more.’
Some of the Sisters were sobbing as if their hearts would break; some
sat quiet and still, and let the tears fall from their eyes unchecked;
some smiled and cried together; some sighed a little and trembled
like aspen leaves in a southern wind. The great candles in the hall
were burning down to their sockets. One by one they spluttered out.
A ghostly, flickering light fell upon the legend over the broad dais,
‘_Connubium mundum sed virginitas paradisum complet_’--‘Marriage
replenisheth the World, but virginity Paradise.’
‘Dong, dong, dong.’ Suddenly the great bell of the Nunnery began to
toll. With a cry the Abbess sprang to her feet; there were tear stains
on her white cheeks, and her hand shook as she pointed fiercely to the
door.
‘Away, false pilgrim,’ she cried. ‘Silence, foul blasphemy! _Retro me,
Sathanas._’ She crossed herself again and again, saying _Pater Noster_.
The nuns screamed and trembled with terror. A little cloud of blue
smoke arose from where the minstrel had stood. There was a little
tongue of flame, and he had disappeared. It was almost dark in the
hall. A few sobs broke the silence. The dying light of a single candle
fell on the form of the Lady Mother.
‘To-morrow,’ she said, ‘we shall fast and sing _Placebo_ and _Dirige_
and the _Seven Penitential Psalms_. May the Holy God have mercy upon us
for all we have done and said and thought amiss this night. Amen.’