Ralph of the Skeely-Eye was right wroth that night. He had drunk much
of the alewife’s strongest brew, he had lost eightpence at quoits
to Watkin Ploughman, and Clarice of Cock’s Lane had openly flouted
him before the menfolk. Now he played at draughts with Thomas the
Cordwainer, and Thomas had penned his pieces in a corner so that he
could move no way without being taken. The flush on his red face
deepened, he tugged at his black beard, and then with one heavy blow of
his great fist sent board and draughtsmen with a crash to the floor.
‘To Hell with the game!’ he cried, rising to his feet.
Thomas the Cordwainer looked afeared; he would for a moment that he had
not won that game. The sudden noise interrupted the little group round
the hearth fire, where Pierce the Clerk, Watkin and Long Hugh were deep
in talk with the barefooted friar. A stranger sat quietly listening by
them.
‘Steady,’ cried Pierce. ‘Thou hast that same Hell so often on thy lips
that I doubt but it will be thine own place at the last.’
Ralph of the Skeely-Eye swung unsteadily on his feet, and turned his
fierce, bloodshot eyes on Pierce.
‘God blight thee, thou snivelling hound,’ he cried. ‘And what is it to
thee if it is to Hell that I fare?’
He bared his thick hairy arm and pointed to its corded knots of muscle.
‘Seest thou this arm? Here is bone and sinew and muscle enough to knock
a way through the world for me, and God help the man who comes between
me and my will. While I am man of flesh and blood I will do my pleasure
and play my game; when I’m dead, so-so, let the Devil have his due.
’Tis all fair enough; my day now, his day then, but let him keep his
distance till the clock strikes.’
He paused, glaring fiercely round on the company. The barefoot friar
caught his eye, regarding him steadily with blue and lambent orbs.
‘Thou fool,’ quoth he in deep, sad tones. ‘Thou poor fool. Knowest
thou not that the Lord hath given this world into the hand of the
Adversary, that he may weigh unto men according to their deserts and
reap unto them after their sowing? Even now, while thou standest
blaspheming, the Devil is behind thee and laugheth at thy folly till he
is like to burst. When the measure of thine iniquity is heaped to the
full, although thou be all unwitting of the date thereof, thou shalt
straightway be borne in his fierce talons as the tares to the furnace,
which burneth evermore.’
Ralph started at the mention of the Devil and cast a fearful glance
behind him; then, reassured, he gave his leather girdle a hitch and
answered sullenly.
‘I’ll not speak with friars. When my spell’s up, let the Devil come;
till then I am neither his nor thine nor any man’s but mine own.’
The friar straightway rose from his seat and, swiftly crossing the
floor, seized Ralph by the arm.
‘Come, sit thee here,’ he said, ‘and I will tell thee that which, if
it melt not thy soul in utter penitence, will at least show thee the
power of the Prince of Darkness and the miserable end of sinners such
as thou.’
He half led and half dragged Ralph to the chimney, and forced him
to sit down upon a bench. Ralph made but a feeble resistance, for
he was subdued and nigh scared by the friar’s eye. Pierce, Thomas,
Watkin and Long Hugh gathered eagerly round, for the deep voice of
the friar charmed them like church music when it breaks upon the ear
at midnight. His eyes held them and they listened to him as to a man
speaking in a vision. Even from Ralph’s dull face the fumes of strong
drink half dissipated. The stranger listened from his seat a little way
off.
‘Listen,’ cried the friar, ‘to the tragical history of Castle Beaumont,
and may Christ and the Blessed Virgin and All Hallows grant it be to
the health and comfort of your souls.
‘Five days’ journey hence into the West country stood Castle Beaumont,
and it was the fairest and strongest castle that any man had ever
seen. It was built on the crest of a great hill so high that its
towers, like those of the proud Babel, seemed to threaten the Heavens,
and so stoutly of hard hewn stone, and so cunningly with barbicans,
bastions and battlements and broad moats, that it might not be taken,
nay, though even the Lord King himself came against it with tens of
thousands of men and with mangonels, belfries, and rams. Above it was
naught but the wide and naked heaven; below it, richly clothing the
slopes of the great hill, lay a forest of oak and beech; below the
forest lay a wide water, and a mile over the meadows, this side of the
water, lay a poor village called Vill Beaumont.
‘The Lord of Beaumont was rich and mighty above all the nobles in this
realm, for east and west, and south and north, as far as one might
ride on a long summer’s day, one’s horse would not step on an ell
of land that was not his. A score of stone castles and thirty walled
towns owned him allegiance, and he milked the fatness from a hundred
and fifty rich manors. When he rode forth to war there rode with him a
hundred knights in full harness and five hundred men-at-arms in helmets
and hauberks of twisted mail, so that there was no lord in the land who
could stand against him.
‘But lo, this Lord, of whom I speak, was a man of stark and violent
heart, swollen with pride and vain imagination, a fearer of neither God
nor man. For him Christ and His Church might not have been; he took
no thought for his soul but lived as a beast of the field, subject to
his own unlawful lusts and desires. Fierce moods came upon him like
lightning at midsummer, but aye more harmful, and he was more stark and
terrible in his rages than a roaring lion. If one vexed him, he would
gnash upon him with his teeth and strike him with his fist even to the
breaking of bones, or if so be that he might not come at him, he would
hurl himself down upon the rushes and bite upon them with his teeth,
smiting himself upon the face and dashing his head against the floor.
‘This Lord one evening a little before sunset returned from his day’s
hunting, and he was merry because he had slain much. As he rode slowly
homeward (his attendants being occupied with the quarry) he spied in
the great wood and not many paces from the Castle Drawbridge a strange
lady. She rode upon a grey palfrey and was clad in a bright green cloak
embroidered all with pearls. She was very comely. She seemed to that
wicked Lord to be more fair than summer or the sweet sunlight, and he
gazed on her like one smitten with sudden wonder. But he was no man
to be abashed before womenfolk, so he presently saluted her and rode
towards her. To him she made answer with so melodious and delicate
voice (as the deceitful Sirens used towards Sir Ulysses), and with so
jolly demeanour and sweet accord, that his heart was ravished within
him, and he was filled with sudden desire of her. Therefore coming up
close to her palfrey, without more ado he flung his arm round her waist
and kissed her on the lips, she making but faint and seemingly wanton
resistance. So toying with her, he led her into the castle and kept her
with him that night and thereafter.
‘The Lord’s wife was a lady right devout and pious, much given to
orisons and fasting and penance. Mightily had she striven to turn
her husband from his evil way of life, and she had also gotten many
religious men and women, far and near, to pray for his amendment, and
in especial had had supplication made at the shrines of the Saints
most powerful in such cases throughout the land. But so entirely was
her Lord given over to the Devil that all was in vain, and the more she
talked to him of repentance and the torments of the damned, the more he
hardened his heart and the more fierce and hot his anger boiled against
her. “Go to thy prayers, thou jade,” he would cry, “thou wert fit for
a green-faced nun or a puling anchoress.” Then he would revile her
grievously, saying the sight of her chapfallen face set his teeth on
edge like a sour apple and was like to turn the victual on his stomach,
and would blasphemously offer golden candlesticks to all the parish
churches in England, would she but hang herself from the battlements
or cast herself headlong into the moat. Whereupon, weeping, she would
betake herself to her bower and read solitarily (but none the less in
the care of Holy Angels) from her Book of Hours.
‘With the coming of the strange woman to the Castle, the Lord’s rage
against his Lady was grievously increased, so that he gave over all
the governance of his household to his new mistress, and forbade his
true wife to look upon his face any more, lest he did her some violent
injury.
‘Lo, good men all, how one sin leadeth to another, for pride, having
begotten lust, now lust begot murder.
‘One day his Lady-wife, conceiving that a little religious book, which
a godly man had sent her, entitled _A Little Sooth Sermon of the Seven
Deadly Sins_, might aid to cleanse his filthy and impure heart, came to
him as he sat on a bench in the base court singing a vain amorous song
beneath the window of his wanton, and, calling him from his lightness,
began forthwith to read to him from the book. She had not interrupted
him long or read far, when the blood rushed madly to his impious brain,
the veins knotted on his forehead, his complexion became sanguine and
purple, and without more ado, drawing his dagger from his girdle, he
rushed upon her and slew her with a hundred thrusts thereof, afterwards
casting her martyred body into the moat.
‘Now, look ye, good men, what befell after this evil and horrid deed.
The wicked Lord, after he had gone so far in iniquity, considered that
the Devil would be sure to have him at the last. Therefore, like Ralph
here, he determined to have his fling, and to lead his life with as
much solace and mirth and gladness as might be, thus blotting out from
his soul the consciousness of the eternal miseries which awaited him.
But mark ye what happened in the sequel.
‘Vill Beaumont was utterly given over to all kinds of wretchedness and
distress, for it lay close under the castle, and the men-at-arms were
wont often to come down thither and despoil the villagers, slaying the
sheep and cattle in the fields, trampling the standing rye and corn,
devouring the bread and meat which God sent for the bellies of His
poor, and wantonly and in derision spilling the thin ale from their
barrels. Yea, twice or thrice, when these insolent men of war were
in their cups, they had fired the village and burnt down the better
half of it, whereby some poor souls, being chiefly babes and old and
infirm persons, were sent to their account, unshriven and unanointed,
with their sins upon them, Christ have mercy. When the villeins came
and made complaint to their Lord, he would cry out upon them fiercely,
“What, ye swine, ye cattle, is there not ploughing? Is there no
ditching? Away, ye beasts,” and he would drive them headlong from his
presence with curses and buffets, and then call to his Bailey to put
more work upon them, that they should have no leisure to waste in
grumbling and tale-bearing.
‘Many villeins would not abide longer in the vill but fled into the
greenwood to drive the hart and the doe instead of the plough and the
cart, and to sustain the heat, the cold, the snow, the frost, the
rain of God’s heaven, rather than the inhumanity of Christian men.
Corn, flesh, cheese, and butter were so scarce and dear that few had
wherewith to keep them from starving, for where there was so little
hope of harvest, men would not trouble to sow or plant or plough. Some
fled to foreign boroughs where they were not known, to live as freemen,
and some, who erstwhile had been men of substance, left the village
secretly to go on alms. Never elsewhere was more wretchedness seen.
‘Hither to this village came one morning a wandering minstrel. Lo, good
fellows all, he was the pitifullest figure a man might conceive, his
hosen and jerkin all torn, his hair sticking out from the holes in his
cap, his toes projecting from his bursten shoes, and white with dust
from head to foot as though he had walked many miles between Matins and
Prime. He seemed half pined for lack of food, there was no flesh on his
bones, and I ween you might have counted his ribs. His face was like a
pale flower, his faint blue eyes wandered when he spoke to any, so that
folks easily judged him to be one of God’s innocents. Around his neck
upon a cord he bore a fiddle, and the bow thereof swung by a string
from his shoulder. Of these he took great care, as though they had been
treasures of worth.
‘He came to the folk who sat idly by the watermill, and looked vacantly
upon them with his lustreless eyes.
‘“Will ye have any mirth?” he asked, fingering his fiddle and speaking
in a thin, sad voice, like a sick child’s.
‘They were silent at first. Then they began to speak in bitter jest, as
desperate men will do.
‘“We are merry devils enough without thy mirth,” said one.
‘“Hast _thou_ any mirth?” asked another. “I wot thou hadst been Death
himself.”
‘“We have done nothing but sing and play here the last half-score of
years,” said another. “I am sick of mirth; hast thou no bread?”
‘“I had rather use my teeth than my ears,” said another.
‘But one of the women, casting her eyes upon him, cried, “Nay, thou
art but a child and half dead at that, poor knave. Sit thee down and
rest awhile. Thou art a true foreigner, else thou wouldst know that
the villeins of Beaumont have naught to put into their own bellies,
much more to give away. But stay; God forbid that one of His innocents
should perish by the wayside.”
‘So saying she went into her hovel and presently returned with a cup
of sheep’s milk and a thin cake of rye-bread. (Verily, as saith the
Evangelist, few but the poor shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.) The
minstrel smiled sadly at her and took the cup and the cake, saying
“Merci.” Folk watched him curiously while he ate, for he seemed fragile
as a young girl and unhappy as a bird that has lost her mate. When he
had finished he took his fiddle and bow and began to play. Certainly he
was a skilful musician, and he played many strange songs in which they
had great delight, but after a while they bid him stay.
‘“Thou art a right cunning minstrel,” they said, “and right woe are
we that we have naught wherewith to repay thee for thy sweet music;
’twould be shame to keep thee here playing for nothing, when thou
mightest earn rich gifts for thyself up at the castle. The Lord has
a feast toward, and though he is full stark and cruel to such poor
labouring folk as we, he loves music and mirth, and belike would pay
thee dearly for thy skill.
‘“My good Lord loved to hear me play once,” said the minstrel, “but he
is dead, and sleepeth with the saints in Christ.”
‘“Come, little knave,” said the woman. “Get thee to the great castle
thou seest yonder. There at least thou shalt get broken victuals to
fill thy poor, empty maw.”
‘They went with him, leading him to the end of the village and showing
him the track thence up to the castle. They wished him Godspeed and a
good journey.
‘The minstrel slowly descended the hillside, crossed the broad meadows
and came to the still water and thence climbed upward through the
great wood. Bright beams pierced the thick leafage overhead and shot
the cool rich shadows with patches of brilliant emerald. The moss
yielded like a carpet to his feet. On either side of the narrow track
waved the lush bracken, high to his waist. The undergrowth in the
odorous glades was besnowed with flowering bramble and starred with
golden honeysuckle. Bright toadstools lit gorgeously the secret glooms.
Now and then a squirrel rustled lightly among the branches, and ever
and anon a coney started from beneath his feet, but in all that green
wilderness sounded no voice of a bird.
‘After a toilsome climb he came to the castle and stood doubtfully
at the Drawbridge. The warden spied him from his place under the
portcullis and, noting the fiddle he carried, called to him lustily to
enter, for the Lord was at meat and dearly loved to hear minstrels.
So the minstrel crossed the bridge, and the warden, gripping him by
the arm, delivered him over with a leer and a wink to a sewer. The
sewer grinning spitefully, linked arms with him and so brought him,
willy-nilly, to the great hall.
‘Never was there a hall half so magnificent and stately as that of
Castle Beaumont. Words cannot describe it; ’tis past mortal cunning to
speak of it justly. Its walls were twice as high as the steeple of
your parish church and its length was two good bowshots. It was hung
round about with gorgeous tapestries, whereon were worked figures of
men and horses and trees and palaces in fresh and lively colours; the
oak-ribbed vault was coloured as an azure heaven in which burnt an
infinite multitude of golden stars. The floor was carpeted with cloth
of indigo and silver.
‘The tables, which ran down the hall from end to end, and the high
table upon the Lord’s dais, shone with precious vessels of silver and
gold, wrought cunningly in fantastic shapes, delicately chiselled and
chased, and set with flaming rubies and whitest pearls. Left and right
against the walls were sideboards laden with the remains of rich and
delicate dishes, with cygnet, peacock, and venison, with pies, custards
and jellies, and flanked with great tuns of beer and wine.
‘Never were men and women so richly arrayed as the guests that sat
at board, each with the value of a fat manor to cover the dainty
skin; some in cloth of tars, some in sendal, some in pall and some in
corduroys, many-hued like the rainbow. Round their proud necks they
wore chains of the purest gold; on their fingers sparkled precious
stones worth a king’s ransom. Never, nay, not in the King’s hall
royal, were gathered such pomp and prodigality, such wealth and such
splendour. Lo, this world passeth away to nothingness and maketh
haste unto its end, yet men still vainly boast themselves in the
clothes that hide and the meat that feeds corruption, making themselves
laughingstocks to God and His holy angels.
‘When the poor minstrel shambled into the hall, he was utterly abashed
and so smitten with shame that his knees turned to water under him, and
he was fain to bow his head to hide the tears which suddenly filled his
eyes. A sea of many colours surged before him, with rows of flushed
cruel faces of men, with here and there the sheen of a woman’s white
shoulder. A great blare of trumpets went suddenly soaring up to the
roof. He looked round pitifully like a lost child, starting this way
and that like a hare caught in a net. The guests burst into a roar of
laughter at the sight of him.
‘The Lord of Beaumont sat at the high table on the dais, with his
wanton leman by his side. When he saw the minstrel he stared hard, then
he laughed loudly with the rest. Then he brought his heavy fist down
with a crash on the board to command silence. There was a sudden hush.
‘“Bring the Ragman here,” quoth he harshly.
‘The lady by his side laughed lightly in clear cold tones.
‘The sewer led the minstrel before the dais and left him trembling
there before the Lord. The Lord of Beaumont was as huge as an ox, and
held his two fists clenched on the table before him as though he were
an angered. His broad bearded face was like a fire, and his fierce
bloodshot eyes rolled evilly round the hall. But as for his leman, not
Helen nor Guinivere, long since dead, but ever famous for excellent
beauty, could well compare with her, so wanton, so white, so debonair.
I ween she was well fitted to draw the hearts of all men unto her. Folk
who had gazed on her might say “I have seen the fairest of created
flesh.”
‘“What, thou starveling,” cried the Lord, “art thou come hither to make
us merry; methought thou wert a skeleton from the graveyard, walking at
noonday.”
‘Then he called to his musicians, who sat with their trumpets, nakers,
and cymbals in their hands, smiling disdainfully, “Look, ye knaves,
here is a fellow come to teach you your trade. He can many a merry note
and jolly stave, he can many a wanton song and sly ballad. God’s foot,
I see it in his cunning eye, though to look at his lean ribs a man
might not think it.”
‘The guests in the hall laughed loudly at their Lord’s mirth.
‘“If he cannot make good mirth,” quoth the lady in a hard cruel voice,
“it were best he were whipped till the blood come, for his lantern
chaps and staring eyes. Ugh, my gorge rises to look on the fellow; he
looks worse than a spitted lark and smells of death.”
‘One of the musicians rose from his place beside the dais and went and
whispered in the Lord’s ear. The Lord laughed hoarsely. “God’s fist,”
he said, “’tis a good jest, let it be done.”
‘Whereupon the musician approached the minstrel.
‘“Good Master Minstrel,” quoth he with cunning pleasantry, “what rare
instrument hast thou in thy hands? Blessed Virgin, ’tis no wonder thou
claspest it so closely to thy bosom. And what an excellent piece of
work is thy bow! Verily I believe they must have been Apollo’s, the god
of music’s. Prithee let me and my poor fellows behold it more closely.”
‘The minstrel did not answer, but held his fiddle the more tightly to
him, shrinking away.
‘“Nay, for courtesy’s sake,” said the musician.
‘“God’s eyes, thou wert best, thou scarecrow,” thundered the Lord from
the dais.
‘In great dread the minstrel released his hold upon the fiddle; his
hands fell awkwardly by his sides; he gazed foolishly at the floor. The
musician took the instrument and the bow and passed them round among
his fellows. Many were the mocking commendations they made upon it,
but at the last they returned it to him with satirical compliments and
courtesy.
‘“Play,” cried the Lord,--“Play, for thy hide’s sake, minstrel,” and he
thumped the board again.
‘The minstrel held his fiddle and bow ready to play. He closed his eyes
and swayed a little to and fro; the riot of colour and noise faded from
his eyes and ears, it grew very silent. He felt himself alone on a
far hillside; a small, still rain fell out of the clouds and murmured
upon multitudinous leaves; a rainbow spanned the heavens and its misty
radiance was reflected in watery meadows far away. Blue smoke went
slowly up from the chimney of his mother’s cottage. Then the songs of
his own country came to his heart and filled his eyes with tears. His
fingers lovingly sought the keyboard, one moment he paused, then drew
the bow over the strings.
‘A discordant shriek stridently echoed through the hushed hall: they
had greased his bow.
‘A roar of laughter went up from the benches. He opened his eyes in
agonized bewilderment and gazed uncomprehendingly at his fiddle.
‘“A right minstrel indeed,” shouted the guests.
‘“An ass to bray thus,” cried some.
‘“A beast to beard us thus,” cried others; and yet again, “Pelt him,
pelt him!”
‘Some spat at him, some slung the wine from their goblets at him,
others pelted him with broken piecrust and gobbets of custard and
jelly and cake, and with apples and pears and nuts. Half-dazed he stood
stock-still awhile, until at length an apple struck him full on the
forehead and nearly brought him to the ground. The men guffawed till
they cried and the women screamed with delight.
‘“Again, again,” they shrieked. “Bring the little devil down,” “Break
his skull,” “Knock his eye out,” “A crown that I break his fiddle,”
“Under the ear this time.” The lady at the dais drew a dagger from her
girdle and, leaning over the table, aimed it with all her force at the
minstrel. She snarled like a cat when she saw she had missed her aim.
The noise of Hell went up from the hall.
‘With a sudden cry, the minstrel, clasping his fiddle and bow to
his side, turned like a hunted hare, and, before any of the drunken
feasters could stagger to their feet to stay him, had rushed through
the hall and out at the great door. Lo, the Lord held this innocent
in the hollow of His hand, for as he sped across the courtyard and
drawbridge there was none to let him. Down the forest path he went,
and down and down and down, leaping the great roots of oak and
beech, bursting through the tall bracken, diving through the tangled
undergrowth, falling headlong down the dry watercourses and gullies,
and down and down and down until he came to the still water. Then
up and up and up over the broad meadows, and up and up and up the
hillside, with never a moment’s stay for breath, never a moment’s
looking backward, up, up to Vill Beaumont cowering in the hollow of
the ridge. At the top of the hill he ran full tilt into a group of
villeins. They stood gazing toward the Castle, their countenances
smitten with amazement and horror. They crossed themselves devoutly and
uttered many a broken prayer.
‘“Look, look,” they cried, “Jesu! look,” and they pointed upwards.
‘The minstrel turned and gazed.
‘“Christ be merciful to me, a sinner,” cried a man hoarsely from the
crowd.
‘“Amen.”
‘“The Lord deliver us from evil.”
‘“Amen.”
‘Castle Beaumont had disappeared. The great hill on which it had stood
was covered with ancient trees even to its summit; a clear, still sky
lay over it, against which a dozen black rooks flapped lazily homewards
to their nests. The wide water reflected sky and hill and ancient
forest as though in a quiet and eternal mirror. The minstrel fell upon
his knees and sobbed as though his heart would break.’
* * * * *
‘Ah-h-h,’ said Watkin, drawing a long breath as the Friar concluded.
‘’Tis certain,’ said Long Hugh solemnly, after a long pause, ‘that the
ways of the Lord are wonderful and not to be scanned.’
‘Good fellows all,’ said the Friar, ‘and you in especial, Ralph of the
Skeely-Eye, we see by this true and notable ensample----’
‘Ah,’ interrupted Ralph, recovering from a fit of stupid
amazement,--‘Ah, but be it true, Master Friar, be it true?’
‘As true as Holy Writ,’ said the Friar.
‘Didst thou know the castle?’ asked Ralph.
‘Nay, but the man who told me the tale swore to its truth by the bones
of the Holy Saint Thomas.’
‘’Tis Gospel truth,’ quoth the stranger from the corner, where he
sipped his warmed ale, and breaking in on the conversation for the
first time. ‘I knew the castle well, and have been therein often
myself.’