When Abbot Absalom was on his way from Rome, from seeing our Father
the Pope, he had been shown in a certain place in France a church
porch of such exquisite proportions and workmanship as filled him
with admiration. When, therefore, he enlarged the Abbey Church, he
determined to build the great West door in a similar fashion, and while
the work was yet in hand he sent for William and asked him to carve
some religious figures for ornament upon the upper projection of the
porch. William gladly agreed to do all that he wished, and hied him
joyfully home and set straightway to work. He laboured diligently and
without remission for very many weeks, and with such secrecy, covering
up and removing each piece of sculpture as he finished it, as folk had
never seen in him before, so that no one knew what subjects he had
chosen to illustrate in his work. A few days before Easter Sunday,
together with his men Abel and Geoffrey, he took the great stones he
had carved, all swathed in old cloths so that none should see them, and
fitted them in their places upon the porch, giving out to all that his
work should be seen for the first time fully unveiled on Easter Sunday.
On Easter Sunday, as is the custom, nigh all the townsfolk in their
best raiment flocked to the Morrow Mass in the Abbey Church, but first
and earliest of all went William himself with many of his gossips,
as Nicholas the Piper, Tom the Fletcher, Ned Arrowsmith and Sim the
Hayward, and his two men Abel and Geoffrey. With them also went Master
Brereton and his good wife, and fat Mistress Slopstone, Kate of the
Cross Roads, bonny Gilly Hedgerow, and a score more of good wenches.
They walked in great glee, and by the way there was talk of William’s
piece of work to be seen that day.
‘Marry,’ said Nick, ‘now we shall see this handiwork of thine, which
thou hast kept as secret as a priest his bastard.’
‘By Our Lady,’ quoth Mistress Slopstone, ‘it should be a bonny loaf
that has been so long in the baking.’
‘Nay, nay,’ answered Will, ‘’tis a poor thing enough, I warrant you, a
few holy figures to call folk to a better mind, nothing more.’
So they came to the church, and when they cast their eyes up at Will’s
carvings, now plain to be seen, and perceived what manner of thing it
was he had done, they burst into sudden laughter that they could not
contain, until the tears ran down their cheeks, their sides heaved as
though they would crack, and their knees began to give way under them.
Even good Master Brereton, usually solemn as an owl, laughed until he
was fain to bend double and grip his knees with his hands. As for Nick,
he tumbled on the grass upon his back and laughed until he was weak as
water or a six months’ child.
‘Thou witty devil, ha, ha,’ laughed Tom Fletcher.
‘Ah, ah, thou whoreson clever knave,’ gasped fat Mistress Slopstone,
her fat old sides quivering and shaking until her stomacher burst.
‘Thou naughty--he, he, he’ laughed Mistress Kate, covering her great
open mouth with her huge bony hand, while her bones rattled up and down
in their skinny case.
‘Verily, William,’ said Mistress Brereton smiling heartily, ‘thou art
the cunningest rogue and the best mason in England. I see a man is a
right fool to fall out with thee.’
‘A few figures of religion, figures of religion,’ quoth William, taking
off his bonnet and bowing right low and gallantly.
By this time other folk had come up, and shortly there was a great
crowd staring and laughing at Will’s handiwork, and so loath were they
to leave looking thereon, that there were few but the gravel-blind that
were punctual to Mass that morning.
Will had taken a shrewd revenge on the Twelve Apostles. Above the porch
he had carved with wonderful mastery, as though from the very act of
life itself, a representation of Devils carrying usurers to Hell, to
each of twelve usurers a couple of hideous Devils, and each usurer an
exact and speaking likeness of one of these cursed Twelve Apostles.
In the middle of the piece, especially plain to be seen, was Master
Matthew despairingly resisting two shaggy Devils who were lugging him
from his money-bags. One grisly Devil, all be-hoofed and be-horned,
had twined his foul legs around him and forced his bald pate downward
with his bony claw, fastening his teeth in a great bite in his naked
neck. The other had grasped Master Matthew’s waist with one arm with
such violence and force that his talons sank deeply into the belly and
chest; with his other claw he tugged with right good will at Master
Matthew’s beard. Nor was there any mistaking Master Matthew; there
might you see his bald head, his little eyes goggling out of his head,
his loose hanging cheeks (down which round stony tears had now been
made to course), his bandy legs; yea, all so done to the life that you
might discern even the wart with which God had punished him upon the
side of his long nose.
To the right and left of this group were the other Apostles, done with
an equal energy and faithfulness, so that folk regarding them were fain
to burst into laughter of recognition, although Will had distorted
their faces with grotesque grimaces of agony and dismay.
‘Holy Mary, there is Master Mark with the patch in his cloak he hath
had this many a long year,’ cried one of the crowd. ‘Yea, but it is
wonderful; and does the old miser intend to take that to Hell with him
also?’
‘Saints,’ cried another, ‘he hath gotten the hump on Master Philip’s
back to a wonderment. Eh, but I am woe to look upon that Master
Philip’s face, it is that adread and afeared.’
‘Yea, neighbour,’ answered another, ‘but look upon Master John’s
withered hand; I could swear to it among a thousand.’
All unwitting came the Twelve Apostles amongst the crowd to see what
this star-gazing should mean, mayhap thinking, avaricious hypocrites,
that a Blessed Saint had come down from Heaven to borrow a hundred
crowns. The people cheered and laughed when they saw them, and did
not spare their quips and quirks, casting their eyes up at the carven
figures and crying, that ‘Hell must indeed be a fearsome place, where
such naughty fellows went,’ and that ‘sin was written on their faces,’
and much more to that effect. Whereat the Twelve gnashed their teeth
and snarled at them like dogs, and crept off homeward as fast as they
might.
Thereafter, when they met William in the Market or upon the way, they
glared at him with spiteful eyes and cursed him under their breath. But
he, being quit of them and having gotten his revenge, smiled sweetly
upon them in return and wished them ‘Good-day.’ Honest folk, seeing
them go to the Abbey Church as before and nothing amend their ways,
said it was a wonder that God did not make the carven images fall upon
them and thus slay them in their hypocritical wickedness.