The farmer's life is a very varied one, as any one who ever lived on a
farm is aware. In some seasons the work is so pressing that the people
hardly stop to eat or sleep. At other times Nature herself takes a hand,
and the farmer has a chance to mend walls, make and repair harness,
clear woodland and do some hedging and ditching while the land is
getting ready for the next harvest. This at any rate was the way in
medieval England, and the latter part of August between haying and
harvest was a holiday time.
Barty Appleby liked Saint Bartholomew's Day, the twenty-fourth of
August, best of all the holidays of the year. It was the feast of his
name-saint, when a cake was baked especially for him. Yule-tide was a
merry season, but to have a holiday of one's very own was even
pleasanter.
On the day that he was twelve years old Barty was to have a treat which
all the boys envied him. He was to go to Bartlemy Fair at Smithfield by
London. David Saumond, the stone-mason who had built their orchard-wall,
was going beyond London to Canterbury to work at the cathedral. Farmer
Appleby had a sister living in London, whom he had not seen for many
years, and by this and by that he decided to go with David as far as
London Bridge.
The Fairs held on one and another holiday during the year were great
markets for Old England. Nearly all of them were called after some
Saint. It might be because the saint was a patron of the guild or
industry which made the fair prosperous; Saint Blaize was the patron of
the wool-combers, Saint Eloy of the goldsmiths, and so on. It was often
simply a means of making known the date. People might not know when
the twenty-ninth of September came, if they could not read; but they
were very likely to know how long it was to Saint Michael's Day, or
Michaelmas, because the quarter's rent was due at that time. June 24,
the Feast of Saint John the Baptist, was Midsummer Quarter Day, and in
every month there were several saints' days which one or another person
in any neighborhood had good cause for remembering.
St. Bartholomew's Fair at London was one of the greatest of all, and its
name came about in an interesting way. Barty knew the story by heart.
The founder was Rahere, the jester of Henry I. While on pilgrimage to
Rome he had fallen ill in a little town outside the city, and being
near death had prayed to Saint Bartholomew, who was said to have been
a physician, for help. The saint, so the legend goes, appeared to him in
a vision and told him to found a church and a hospital. He was to have
no misgiving, but go forward with the work and the way would be made
clear. Coming back to England he told the story to the King, who gave
him land in a waste marshy place called Smoothfield, outside London,
where the wall turned inward in a great angle. He got the foundations
laid by gathering beggars, children and half-witted wanderers about
him and making a jest of the hard work. The fields were like the kind
of place where a circus-tent is pitched now. Horses and cattle were
brought there to market, as it was convenient both to the roads outside
and the gates of the city. The church walls rose little by little, as
the King and others became interested in the work, and in course of
time Rahere gathered a company of Augustines there and became prior
of the monastery. The hospital built and tended by these monks was the
first in London. In 1133 Rahere persuaded the King to give him a charter
for a three days' Fair of Saint Bartholomew in the last week of August,
and tradition says that he used sometimes to go out and entertain the
crowds with jests and songs. Rahere's Norman arches are still to be
seen in Saint Bartholomew's Church in London, close by the street that
is called the Cloth Fair.
The Fair grew and prospered, for it had everything in its favor. It came
at a time of year when traveling was good, it was near the horse-market,
which every farmer would want to visit, it was near London on the other
hand, so that merchants English and foreign could come out to sell their
goods, and it had close by the church and the hospital, which received
tolls, or a percentage as it would be called to-day, on the profits.
Barty had heard of the Fair ever since he could remember, for almost
every year some one in the neighborhood went. Very early in the morning
the little party set forth, and Barty kissed his mother and the younger
ones good-by, feeling very important. He rode behind David, and two
serving men came with them to take care of the horses and luggage.
Farmer Appleby was taking two fine young horses to market, and some
apples and other oddments to his sister Olive.
They trotted along the narrow lane at a brisk pace and presently reached
the high road. After that there was much to see. All sorts of folk were
wending to the Fair.
The fairs, all over England, were the goal of foreign traders and small
merchants of every kind, who could not afford to set up shop in a town.
In many cases the tolls of the Fair went to the King, to some Abbey, or
to one of the Guilds. The law frequently obliged the merchants in the
neighboring town or city to close their shops while the Fair lasted. The
townsfolk made holiday, or profited from the more substantial customers
who came early and stayed late with friends.
Barty heard his father and David discussing these and other laws as they
rode. For David, as a stranger in the country, all such matters were of
interest, although a member of the Masons' Guild could travel almost
anywhere in the days of constant building. No stranger might remain in
London more than one night. The first night he stayed in any man's house
he might be regarded as a stranger, but if he stayed a second night he
was considered the guest of the house-holder, and after that he was to
be held a member of the household, for whom his host was responsible.
Wandering tradesmen would have had a hard time of it without the Fairs.
On a pinch, a traveling merchant who sold goods at a fair could sleep in
his booth or in the open air.
The law did not affect the Appleby party. Barty's Aunt Olive was married
to Swan Petersen, a whitesmith or worker in tin, and she lived outside
the wall, close to the church of Saint Clement of the Danes. When they
reached London they would lodge under her roof.
They stayed at an inn the first night on the road, and slept on the
floor wrapped in their good woolen cloaks, for the place was crowded.
During the hour after supper Barty, perched on a barrel in the
court-yard, saw jongleurs and dancers, with bells on head and neck
and heels, capering in the flare of the torches. He heard a minstrel
sing a long ballad telling the story of Havelok the Dane, which his
mother had told him. His father and David gave each a penny to these
entertainers, and Barty felt as content as any boy would, on the way
to London with money in his pocket for fairings.
Toward the end of the next day the crowd was so dense that they had to
ride at a snail's pace in dust and turmoil, and Barty grew so tired that
he nearly tumbled off. David, with a chuckle, lifted the boy around in
front of him, and when they reached London after the closing of the
gates, and turned to the right toward the little village founded by the
Danes, they had to shake Barty awake at Swan Petersen's door.
Aunt Olive, a trim, fresh-faced, flaxen-haired woman, laughed heartily
as the sleepy boy stumbled in.
"How late you are, brother!" she said. "And this is David Saumond, by
whom you sent a message last year. Well, it is good to see you. And how
are they all at home?"
Barty was awake next morning almost as soon as the pigeons were, and
peering out of the window he saw David, already out and surveying the
street. The boy tumbled into his clothes and down the stairs, and went
with David to look about while Farmer Appleby and his sister told the
news and unpacked the good things from the country.
The Fleet River was crowded with ships of the lesser sort, and the
Thames itself was more than twice as broad as it is to-day. Barty wanted
to see London Bridge at once, but that was some distance away, and so
was London Tower. The tangle of little lanes around the Convent Garden
was full of braying donkeys, bawling drivers, cackling poultry and
confusion. In Fair-time there was a general briskening of all trade for
miles around. At Charing village David hailed a boatman, and all among
the swans and other water-fowl, the barges and sailing craft, they went
down to London Bridge.
Barty had asked any number of questions about this bridge when David
returned from London the previous year, but as often happens, the
picture he had formed in his mind was not at all like the real thing. It
was a wooden bridge, but the beginnings of stone piers could be seen.
"They've put Peter de Colechurch at that job," said David. "He has a
vision of a brig o' stanes, and swears it shall come true."
"Do you think it will?" asked Barty soberly. The vast river as he looked
to right and left seemed a mighty creature for one man to yoke.
"Not in his time, happen, but some day it will," David answered as they
shot under the middle arch. "And yon's the Tower!"
Barty felt as if he had seen enough for the day already as he gazed up
at the great square keep among the lesser buildings, jutting out into
the river as if to challenge all comers. However, there was never a boy
who could not go on sight-seeing forever. By the time they had returned
to Fleet Street he had tucked away the Tower and London Bridge in his
mind and was ready for the Fair.
The Fair was a city of booths, of tents, of sheds and of awnings. Bunyan
described the like in Vanity Fair. Cloth-sellers from Cambrai, Paris,
Ypres, Arras and other towns where weavers dwelt, had a street to
themselves, and so did the jewelers. The jewelry was made more for show
than worth, and there were gay cords for lacing bodices or shoes, and
necklaces that were called "tawdrey chains" from the fair of St.
Etheldreda or Saint Audrey, where they were first sold. There were glass
beads and perfume-bottles from Venice; there were linens of Damietta,
brocaded stuff from Damascus, veils and scarfs from Moussoul--or so they
were said to be. Shoes of Cordovan leather were there also, spices, and
sweetmeats, herbs and cakes.
Old-fashioned people call machine-sawed wooden borders on porches
"gingerbread work." The gingerbread sold by old Goody Raby looked very
much like them. She had gingerbread horses, and men, and peacocks, and
monkeys, gingerbread churches and gingerbread castles, gingerbread kings
and queens and saints and dragons and elephants, although the elephant
looked rather queer. They were made of a spicy yellow-brown dough rolled
into thin sheets, cut into shapes, baked hard and then gilded here and
there. The king's crown, the peacock's head and neck, the castle on the
elephant's back, were gilded. Barty bought a horse for himself and a
small menagerie of animals for the younger children at home.
A boy not much older than himself was selling perfume in a tiny corner.
It struck Barty that here might be something that his mother would like,
and he pulled at Aunt Olive's sleeve and asked her what she thought.
She agreed with him, and they spent some pleasant minutes choosing
little balls of perfumed wax, which could be carried in a box or bag, or
laid away in chests. There was something wholesome and refreshing about
the scent, and Barty could not make up his mind what flower it was like.
The boy said that several kinds were used in the making of each perfume,
and that he had helped in the work. He said that his name was "Vanni,"
which Barty thought a very queer one, but this name, it appeared, was
the same as John in his country. Barty himself would be called there
Bartolomeo.
Vanni seemed to be known to many of the people at the fair. A tall,
brown young fellow with a demure dark-eyed girl on his arm stopped and
asked him how trade was, and so did a young man in foreign dress who
spoke to him in his own language. This young man was presently addressed
as "Matteo," by a gayly clad troubadour, and Barty, with a jump,
recognized the young man who had been with the King when he came to look
at their dyke. One of the reasons why almost everybody came to Bartlemy
Fair was that almost everybody did. It was a place where people who
seldom crossed each other's path were likely to meet.
"Has Vanni caught anything yet?" the troubadour asked in that language
which Barty did not know.
"Not yet," the other answered, "but he will. Set a weasel to catch a
rat." And the two laughed and parted.
But it was Barty who really caught the rat they were talking about. A
man with a performing bear had stopped just there and a crowd had
gathered about him. Barty had seen that bear the night before, and he
could not see over the heads of the men, in any case. A stout elderly
merchant trying to make his way through the narrow lanes, fumed and
fretted and became wedged in. Barty saw a thin, shabby-faced fellow duck
under a big drover's arm, cut a long slit in the stout man's purse that
hung at his belt, and slip through the crowd. Just then some one raised
a cry that the bear was loose, and everything was confusion. Barty's wit
and boldness blocked the thief's game. He tripped the man up with
David's staff, and with a flying jump, landed on his shoulders. It was
a risky thing to do, for the man had a knife and could use it, but Barty
was the best wrestler in his village, and a minute later David had
nabbed the rascal and recovered the plunder.
"Thank ye, my lad, thank ye," said the merchant, and hurried away. The
boy Vanni swept all his goods into a basket and after one look at the
thief was off like a shot. Presently up came two or three men in the
livery of the King's officers.
Meanwhile Farmer Appleby and his sister came up, having seen the affair
from a little distance.
"My faith," said Aunt Olive indignantly, "he might have spared a penny
or two for your trouble. That was Gamelyn Bouverel, one of the richest
goldsmiths in Chepe."
"I don't care," laughed Barty, "it was good sport."
But that was not to be the end of it. They were on their way to the
roast-pig booth where cooked meat could be had hot from the fire, when
a young Londoner came toward them.
"You are the lad who saved my uncle's purse for him," he said in a
relieved tone. "I thought I had lost you in the crowd. Here is a fairing
for you," and he slipped a silver groat into Barty's hand.
"Now, that is more like a Christian," observed Aunt Olive. But Barty
was meditating about something, and he was rather silent all through
dinner. Besides the hot roast, they bought bread, and Barty had his
new "Bartlemy knife" with which to cut his slice of the roast. A
costard-monger sold them apples, and the seeds were carefully saved for
planting at home. Then they must all see a show, and they crowded into
a tent and saw a play acted by wooden marionettes in a toy theater,
like a Punch and Judy. In the Cloth Fair the farmer bought fine Flemish
cloth for the mother, dyed a beautiful blue, and red cloth for a cloak
for Hilda. While Aunt Olive was helping to choose this Barty slipped
across the way and looked for Vanni. He had heard Vanni tell the men
that the thief's name was Conrad Waibling. Rascals were a new thing in
Barty's experience. There was nobody in the village at home who would
deliberately hem in a man by a crowd and then rob him. Barty was sure
that the man with the performing bear was in it as well.
"Vanni," he said, "you know that thief that they caught?"
Vanni nodded.
"Do you think that the man with the dancing bear was a friend of his?"
"I know he was," said Vanni grimly. "He escaped."
Barty hesitated. "What do you think they will do to the one that they
caught?"
"He will be punished," answered Vanni coolly. "He is a poisoner. He has
sold poisoned spices--for pay. I think he failed, and did not poison
anybody, so that he has had to get his living where he could. He is
finished now--ended--no more."
Barty felt rather cold. Vanni was so matter-of-fact about it. The
Italian boy saw the look on his face.
"There is nothing," he added, "so bad as betraying your salt--you
understand--to live in a man's house and kill him secretly--to give him
food which is death. There are places where no man can trust his
neighbor. You do not know what they are like. Your father is his own
man."
Barty felt that he had seen a great deal in the world since he left
the farm in the Danelaw. He was glad to go with his father and Aunt
Olive and David into the stately quiet church. The Prior of the
monastery--Rahere had long been dead--was a famous preacher, Aunt
Olive said, and often preached sermons in rhyme. They went through the
long airy quiet rooms of the hospital where the monks were tending
sick men, or helping them out into the sun. As they came out, past the
box for offerings, and each gave something, Barty left there his
silver groat.
"I'd rather Saint Bartlemy had it," he said.