William the mason was the best man of his craft in Roodborough. His
father before him had been a clever craftsman, but those who best could
judge were wont to say that he had never done a better piece of work
than the begetting of his son. For William was exceeding skilful not
only in the sculpture of stone but also in the carving of wood and
the working of precious metals, and occupied himself in all branches
of his mystery, in ornament and design and in figures from the life,
such as those of men and birds and beasts and flowers. He it was who
wove delicate traceries of leaves and tendrils out of the stubborn
stone of the capitals in Blewberry Church, which were so esteemed
for their excellent beauty that craftsmen came from as far as London
merely to examine them. He also carved the rood-screen at Houghton,
wherein, upon the one side he cut lively figures of Father Adam and
Mother Eve biting upon the apple, with the devilish serpent beholding
them maliciously from the boughs of the Tree of Knowledge, and upon
the other a vigorous representation of the Blessed Archangel Michael
casting Satan into the bottomless pit. This last was such a notable
piece of work for vividness and reality, that some of the common folk
took occasion thereby to excuse themselves from attending the Divine
services with due Christian punctuality, saying that the Devil William
had carved so feared and scared them with its hideous aspect, that
they could not sleep of nights after having seen it in church. Also
he wrought the great oaken rood at Charnwood, carving Christ’s figure
thereon from the actual human body, to wit, taking John Dymock for a
model and chiselling the wooden block into his likeness limb by limb
and muscle by muscle, only altering the countenance a little. Than this
nothing more skilful was ever seen, but thereby unhappily enough the
aforesaid John Dymock got a great chill upon his lungs and liver, which
made him cough and wheeze pitifully the whole winter through until
Lammas-tide. William also worked the fair pyx of silver for the Church
of Saint Osbert, which, as it was said, was of such surpassing beauty
that the Evil One himself coveted it and, coming in the night, stole it
away. When Abbot Absalom enlarged and beautified the Abbey Church, he
employed William much in the work, and rewarded him with many precious
gifts. But of this you will hear more anon.
William’s father, besides being a skilful workman, had been no
unthrifty husbandman, so that when he departed this life (God rest
his soul) he left unto his son, not only the good dry house at the
Bridgend with its adjoining workshop, but much choice stone and timber
ready prepared for working upon, a set of carving tools of such sort
as were not known in these parts (some having been fetched from as far
as Flanders), and a great chest in the bed-chamber nigh half full of
golden coin. But although William was a better workman than his father,
he was a less thrifty husbandman, for he would not give himself to the
careful managing and sparing and putting by, which had made his father
a burgher of substance.
‘Money!’ Will was wont to say to his boon fellows at the
alehouse,--‘Money! Why, ’tis for spending! I’d as lief be an earthworm
and dwell in a midden as sweat and stint and spare to hoard up bits of
metal in an old chest. Wife, a good cup of ale for these gentlemen all,
and draw of your best. What saith Holy Writ: “Lay not up to yourselves
treasures on earth, where the moth and the rust corrupt and thieves
break through and steal”?’
Then he would run on in his old jesting vein: ‘I will give my best
cloak to the man among you who can empty yon stoup without drawing
breath, and a French crown to him who hath the reddest nose. I love a
red nose above all things, especially when ’tis past strawberry time.
What, Nicholas, thou merry devil, strike a tune!’
Whereupon merrily in the alehouse went tabor, tongues, and toes until
bedtime, when Will, who called the tune, usually paid the piper in more
ways than one. God knows he was a happy, devil-may-care fellow enough,
like the pretty painted butterflies you can see in the fields in
summertime, ready to spend right royally and to quip and to laugh with
the best and worst of folk. When he gave gifts at Saint Valentine’s
there were none so rare and fair as his in the town; when he gave alms
he scattered his silver right and left like the Lord King when he
goes up to Westminster to be crowned, and as though good coin was of
no more account than hazel-nuts in September. Twice he journeyed to
London to see some marvellous sculpture in a new church there of which
he had heard Abbot Absalom speak, and Our Lady alone knows of how much
the cozengers and lying knaves of Eastcheap cheated him. Certainly,
however, he went each time with a good fat purse at his girdle and
returned each time with it emaciated and chapfallen as one of Pharaoh’s
lean kine. But he also brought back with him two or three great bales
of rich cloths and embroideries, which he had purchased there, partly
for his own back and partly for gifts to certain wenches with whom he
kept company.
Idle though this good fellow was on occasion, yet when the fit came
upon him no Israelite in the House of Bondage would work harder than
he. ‘Ay, this is one of my working days,’ he would say to a neighbour,
who had poked his nose in at the door to ask what ailed him that he
worked so early and sang so loudly in his workshop nowadays. Then away
he would go again with his chisel and mallet, hammering, chipping, and
shaping as though ’twas all the good Lord had sent him in the world
for, and singing like the birds in spring.
‘Wert thou but in this mind always,’ his neighbour would answer, ‘there
were no more laborious Christian in England than thou.’
Whereat Will would laugh and say, ‘Thou must not muzzle the ox that
treadeth out the corn; I cannot draw in plough seven days a week.’
At such times he would go with more joy to his labour than other men to
the wassail, and such was the delight he took in shaping his figures
and forms and fruit and flowers out of the stubborn and recalcitrant
stone, that you would have said that the Almighty Himself had had no
diviner ecstasy when He hewed the world out of chaos in the first great
act of creation. But ardent and zealous as he was to make his thoughts
live in the stone and wood, he had no skill or energy in the collection
of his just dues and debts, and since folk do not generally pay what
they owe unless they are asked twice or thrice, yea, many times, it
came about that many a pretty piece of work that he had wrought came
gratis to the hands of unscrupulous men, who did not consider that the
labourer is worthy of his hire, and that a debt is a debt although it
be not importunely demanded. So it came about, that by dint of free
spending and poor managing, in less than three years from his father’s
death, William found that the oaken chest in the upper chamber had been
quite emptied of its coin, and began to be hard put to it for money
in his pocket, especially as at this time there was for a short spell
little employment of his kind to be gotten. William was not a man to go
about with an empty purse if by hook or by crook it might be avoided,
so having pondered the matter a little, he straightway bethought
himself of the Twelve Apostles, and without more ado betook himself to
the dwelling of one Master Matthew, the wealthiest and most notorious
of them all.
The Twelve Apostles were not the holy and pitiful men that their
name might seem to betoken, nay, they had been so nicknamed by some
satirical fellow out of ridicule and contempt, and were indeed little
better than Jews, being usurers. Yet the name befitted them in some
respects (although not in respects the most honourable), for there
were twelve of these ill-conditioned fellows, and they were mostly
named after the Blessed Disciples of our Lord, one being Peter, another
Matthew, another Luke, another Philip, and so on; and they lived as
close to each other as possible, cheek by jowl in a corner of the
Market Place, as though there were great affection between them, a
thing impossible to conceive of such villains. Howbeit their nickname
was commonly in men’s mouths, so that it was a common jest in the town
when any one had gone a-borrowing, that ‘he had gone to church to the
Twelve Apostles,’ and when any one paid them back that ‘Peter had had
his pence,’ or that such a one ‘had given an offering to Saint Luke’ or
‘to Saint Philip,’ as the case might be.
God knows, it was an accursed trade these extortioners drove, laying
out their money at interest, and taking bonds upon raiment, jewels,
and land, and even upon consecrated churches, reaping where they had
not sown, and taking up where they had not planted. Lo, what saith
Master Aristotle, that learned Greek? So to do, saith he, is to sin
against nature by making money to breed unnaturally and foully upon
money, and ’tis widely known that Holy Mother Church strictly forbids
such abominable traffic to all Christians. But why should I repeat all
this? These evil men knew the law of God as well as I, but it availed
nought against their accursed lust of gold, which perhaps were the
more pardonable had they been Jews and heathen, but, nay, they loudly
confessed and proclaimed themselves Christians, and were as punctual
in all the observances of the Church as any man in town. They thought
belike, that having cheated God on Week Days they might also cheat him
on Holy Days; God yield them in good measure therefor, when Satan shall
pour down their greedy maws in Hell the molten metal which they loved
so well on earth. Yea, and as much blame and punishment is due to the
Lords and powerful men, who countenanced and supported them in their
usury, whereby drawing profit to themselves from the sin of others.
Now Master Matthew, to whom William had betaken himself, was a
shrivelled-up old man, bow-legged and palsy-stricken, with a bald head
like a bladder, a long grey beard wherein the birds might have nested,
skinny loose cheeks, cunning goggling eyes, and a long sharp nose like
a quill with a big black wart growing on the side of it.
‘Good morrow, Master Matthew,’ quoth Will, bursting into the chamber
where the old usurer sat at work, casting up his debts with tallies on
a chequered board.
‘Good morrow,’ wheezed Master Matthew as though he had a peck of March
dust in his throat. He blinked cunningly at Will for one moment with
his red eyelids and then resumed his calculations.
‘Nay,’ cried Will, slapping him bravely on the shoulder till he coughed
again and his eyes seemed ready to start from their red sockets; ‘nay,
thou greedy old cock, cease scratching thy dunghill a moment and lend
me thirty crowns instanter.’
‘Lend thee “thirty crowns,”’ screamed Master Matthew. ‘“Thirty crowns?”
Holy Paul, dost thou think I am a rich man? Where am I to get thirty
crowns, or half that?’
‘Thou abominable old liar,’ cried Will merrily, slapping his back
again. ‘For shame, for shame, aged Master Matthew. Wilt thou also add
to the sin of usury the sin of lying? Consider thy bald head and grey
beard, consider thy weak joints and short breath, and at thine age heap
not up damnation on a soul already as damned as any in Roodborough.’
‘Blessed Saints, let my back alone; I tell thee I have it not to lend;
I have no such sum by me, at least not at present. Besides, what
security shall I have? What security is there, tell me that?’
‘Ah, ah, my amiable Jew, thou wilt find the thirty crowns if I find
the security? Is it not so? Well, take my house, my workshop, my
furnishings, my tools, my utensils, my cloak, my shirt upon my back.
Is not that enough, my Barrabbas?’
‘Holy Saints, I do not know, I cannot tell, I must think about it.
Perhaps ’twould do an I had the money,’ said Master Matthew eagerly,
biting his scrubby, cracked nails, and throwing quick, cunning glances
at William.
‘Perchance you might find the money an you looked carefully,’ said
Will. ‘Hast looked in the chimney, hast looked in thy sock or in thy
long beard?’
‘Nay, nay, I tell thee I have it not; but perhaps my good friend,
Master Luke, may help, or, now I think of it, perhaps to oblige thee,
Master Luke, Master Mark, and I might make up the sum between us.
Verily, I believe it might be done. Marry, good Master William Mason,
if that will serve thy turn, we should be glad to help out an honest
man at need. I will see, I will see; but do thou return hither this
afternoon, against when I may have the bond ready for thee to sign.’
Thus William got his thirty crowns upon his bond, but upon such hard
conditions were they lent that within six months (since employment
still remained scarce) he began woefully to perceive that presently the
Twelve Apostles would enter upon his house and shop, and confiscate
the very tools wherewith he earned his bread and meat, so that in the
future he might look not only for an empty purse but also for an empty
belly. Without doubt this would have come to pass, had not old Abbot
Absalom at this time taken it into his head to glorify the Blessed
Mother of God by enlarging and beautifying the Abbey Church. This
enterprise he conceived in no mean spirit, extending the nave forty
feet or more, and the aisles in proportion, and ornamenting the whole
church, both old and new, with many choice sculptures, wherein he made
much use of William, both for his excellent advice and his skill with
his hands. For which work William received many rich and generous gifts
from the Abbot, and with these he was able at length to redeem his
bond from the usurers, although only at three times the price he had
received for it. Whereat he cursed Master Matthew and his friends right
shrewdly, so that it made people rejoice to hear him, and he swore that
he would yet be avenged upon the whole pack of them. Yea, he said he
would fain be a Devil in Hell, if only for the pleasure of tormenting
Master Matthew in the Lake of Fire.