THE SONGS OF ROWLEY THE PRIEST.
And now Bryda listened to the song of Rowley, the priest of St John, as
Chatterton poured it in her ear with almost fiery eloquence. She could
scarcely believe the apprentice taking his meals with the footboy in the
dingy kitchen at Dowry Square could be one with the young man who walked
by her side in his holiday attire.
All the latent romance in Bryda's nature was stirred by the history
which her companion told her of the old parchments, used forsooth as
covers of books, or cut up into thread papers, and yet of priceless
value--a value which he alone had discovered.
'Listen,' he said, stopping short, 'and I will recite to you an elegy or
minstrel's song from the "Tragedy of AElla," then tell me whether Rowley
the priest was not a king amongst men. A poor priest--aye, and a poor
apprentice, brought up on the charity of Colston's School, has brought
him to light, and in due time we shall see his memory receive the laurel
crown, denied him perhaps in his life. It is only these dull trading
Bristol folk who are blind as bats and deaf as adders. Curse them! I
hate Bristol and its people for Rowley's sake, and for my own. Yet I
will rise above them, and they shall find they cannot trample on me with
impunity.'
Bryda began to feel frightened at the increased vehemence of her
companion, and looking back, saw they had left Jack Henderson and Miss
Chatterton far behind.
But suddenly his manner changed, and he said,--
'No. I will not sing to you of death, you who are so full of life and
beauty. The minstrel sang in a sad refrain,--
My love is dead,
Gone to his deathbed
All under the willow tree.
Your love shall have a happier fate. Hark!' he said, 'you shall have a
song of springtime, not of the grave--the dark grave, where I wish
myself a dozen times a day.'
'Do not say so. Life is so sweet and beautiful,' Bryda exclaimed.
'Though I have many cares at this time, yet I love life, and even in
Dowry Square I think it is good to be alive.'
'Aye, to you, doubtless,' was the reply. 'But now for the verse from the
"History of Painting."
When spring came dancing on a flowery bed,
Clothed in green raiment of a changing kind,
The leaves of hawthorn budding o'er his head,
And with fair primroses waving in the wind,
Then did the shepherd his white garment spread
Upon the green bank, and danced all around,
Whilst the sweet flowerets nodded on his head,
And his fair lambs were scattered on the ground;
Beneath his foot the brooklet ran along,
Which strolleth round the vale to hear his joyous song.
'There, Miss Palmer, you have a song of spring, wrote hundreds of years
ago. I tell it to you in the language of to-day, but it is ten times
sweeter in the beauteous rhythm of the olden time.'
'It would not be sweeter to me,' Bryda said; 'for though I found the
"History of the Opening of the Bristol Bridge" full of beauty, yet it
teased me to scan the words though I made out their meaning at last. How
could you find them out--who helped you?'
Chatterton laughed.
'My dear young lady I helped myself to the Saxon language as to most
other things. If I trusted to other help I should be worse off than I
am. When first it dawned on me that the friend and confessor of Canynge
had wrote all these poems for the edifying of his patron, I toiled night
and day till I was able to interpret them for this perverse generation.
But I had my friends. Mr Catcott is one, Mr Barrett, a surgeon, another,
and now let me count as a friend one fairer than they, your sweet self.'
'As we live under the same roof, we may well be friends, but if, as you
say, you are yet but sixteen years old, you are so much younger than I
am.'
'Nay, older by a score of years,' Chatterton interrupted. 'For age is
not counted by years, but by the strife and the struggle and the misery
through which the soul passes. In this I am your senior.'
'Nay,' Bryda said gently, 'we cannot enter into each other's secret
heart. We all know our own troubles. I have mine, and I am now parted
from a sister I love, and I am, after a week's absence, hungering for
her tender care.'
And now Bryda became conscious that they were observed by a party of
girls who were returning through the meadows from a Sunday ramble with
their lovers.
Several of the girls nodded and laughed at Chatterton. One stopped and
said,--
'A new flame, Tom? Oh, fie for shame! Do you know, miss, whoever you may
be, that Master Tom is a terrible one to shoot from Cupid's bow. He
seldom misses his aim.'
'Come on,' said a gruff voice, 'and don't talk such foolery, Sally.
Leave the boy to look after his own business.'
'Or rather the girl after hers,' was the saucy reply, as the pair moved
away.
Jack Henderson began to think that Miss Chatterton purposely avoided
joining company with her brother and Bryda.
He now said,--
'Miss Palmer has a long walk to Dowry Square. I think, by your leave, I
will join her, and advise her to take advantage of Mrs Chatterton's
offer to rest a while at her house.'
'Certainly, sir, if you desire it; but my brother would fain take her
into the church, I fancy, before it is closed.'
Chatterton at once became moody and distrait when his _tete-a-tete_ with
Bryda was at an end. He had been annoyed, too, by the remarks of the
free-spoken young lady, who had rallied him on his 'new conquest,' and
when they entered the church the evil spirit was again dominant.
But Bryda forgot him, forgot Rowley the priest, and the wonderful story
of his poems, in the feeling of awe with which the noble church inspired
her.
There was in her, as I have said, a quick response to all sights and
sounds of beauty. Then, as the organ rolled its waves of melody above
her head, as the last Amen of the choir rose to the vaulted roof, her
whole soul was wrapt in that feeling which has no other name but
devotion. The unseen Presence of what was holy and pure seemed to
encompass her, and as she leaned against one of the pillars, close to
the monument of the great Canynge, her fair face wore on it an
expression those who saw it were not likely to forget.
And, as if in sharp contrast, a little in the background was seen the
grand outline of Chatterton's head, thrown back with a strangely defiant
air, his lips curled with contempt, his hands clasped at his back, and
his whole bearing that of one full of resentment and hatred against what
might or might not be imaginary foes.
There is nothing more sorrowful than the story of Chatterton's genius,
misdirected, and, as it were, preparing its own doom. The lawyer's
apprentice, who had this rare gift of poetry, was to know only broken
hopes and unfulfilled desires, and soon to fall beyond the reach of
help, of human love, or Christian charity.
There he stood, on that bright summer afternoon, as the procession of
clergy passed out and the organ pealed forth its melodious strains,
there he stood in the church, where his father had stood before him,
chafing against his lot, and conscious, who shall say how bitterly
conscious, that like the baseless fabric of a dream the poems of the
priest of St John would vanish, and he, Thomas Chatterton, the true
poet, stand exposed as an unskilful forger. Sixteen summers had barely
passed over his head, and yet in moments like these he looked as if the
storms of twice sixteen years had left their mark upon him.
Mrs Chatterton received Bryda with kindly warmth, rather overdoing her
apologies for her humble fare and poor cottage. It was evident that
Chatterton chafed at this, and he scarcely spoke a word during tea. Jack
Henderson and Chatterton's mother made an attempt at conversation, but
honest Jack was not skilled in finding subjects for small talk, and he
was, moreover, so engrossed with Bryda that he had little room for any
other thought.
When tea was over Bryda said she must return to Mr Lambert's, as Sam the
footboy was to have his turn for a holiday after six o'clock. Jack was
only too glad to get Bryda off, and as they walked away together he
said,--
'Don't have too much to say to Tom Chatterton, Bryda.'
She looked up at him and laughed.
'It was he who had so much to say to me,' she said.
'Well, he is not the man for you to make a friend of, mind that.'
'Man!' she said. 'Jack, he is only a boy--just sixteen. You did not call
yourself a man then when you were at the Grammar School at Wells. But,
Jack--' she said more seriously.
'I don't want to talk any more about the apprentice, though I pity him
just as I should pity a young eagle shut up in a close cage, and feeling
all his strength to rise to the sun of no use. Oh, yes, I do pity him,
and so ought you.'
'I shall pity myself more if you give him all your company another
Sunday and shut me out.'
'Don't be silly, Jack; I am not one to cast off old friends for new.
But, Jack, I am so frightened when I think the Squire is in Bristol.
What did he come for?'
'What was he saying to you by the orchard gate that evening I came upon
you?'
'Oh, that I could not tell you; it was all meant to flatter me, and I
hate him.'
'Why did he say he would give your grandfather a month before he sold
off?'
Bryda hesitated.
'He said something about he would have me instead of the money.'
Jack Henderson's honest face flushed with indignation.
'The villain--the cursed villain! I see what he is driving at, but I
will be quits with him.'
Bryda grew calm as Jack waxed more and more vehement, and his loud voice
attracted the passers-by.
'Hush, Jack, people are staring at you! Do you suppose I would be bought
like that? No! What would Bet say? I would sooner die than strike a
bargain like that!'
'I'd sooner see you dead,' Jack replied.
Bryda was afraid to say more that would rouse Jack's wrath, so she asked
him to be sure to let her hear any news of home.
'I sha'n't hear any news. No one ever writes to me. When the farm
produce comes in once a month on market days the old carter asks if I am
in good health--with the missus' love--that's about all.'
'I am writing to Bet, little bits every day. I have got an ink-pot and a
quill pen up in the garret, and Mr Chatterton gave me some paper from
the office, but I don't think that is quite honest, so please buy me a
little. I can give you a shilling,' she said, putting her hand in the
large pocket which was fastened to her waist under the short skirt.
Jack pushed her hand away.
'I don't want your shilling,' he said.
'Oh, Jack, why are you so cross-grained,' Bryda said, 'it is not like
you.'
'I don't feel like myself neither,' poor Jack said, 'but I'll be in a
better temper when I see you next Sunday, and don't have that mad boy at
your heels. Take care what you do in Bristol; it is full of people, and
some of them are bad enough. So take care, for you know you are--well,
you have only to look in a glass to see. Good-bye, Bryda, I won't come
up to the door.'
Bryda found Mrs Lambert only half awake in her easy-chair, with the best
china teacups and a small teapot before her. Blair's sermons and the
port wine together had caused a prolonged slumber, and Sam had brought
in the tray all unobserved at five o'clock. Mr Lambert generally spent
his Sunday afternoons with a friend at Long Ashton, and sometimes one of
Mrs Lambert's cronies looked in on her for a dish of tea and a gossip.
But no one had arrived on this afternoon, and the good lady had thus
slept on undisturbed.
'What is the time, Miss Palmer? It must be time for tea.'
'Oh, yes, madam; it is six o'clock. I will go and boil the kettle, and
make the tea; please give me the keys of the caddy.'
Bryda took the large tortoiseshell caddy from the shelf in the glass
cupboard, and Mrs Lambert solemnly unlocked it. Tea was precious in
those days, and Mrs Lambert took a teaspoon and carefully measured the
precise quantity, saying,--
'One for each person, and one for the pot.'
'I have had my tea, madam,' Bryda said.
'Oh! Well you can take another cup, I daresay,' Mrs Lambert said
graciously. 'I am getting a little faint,' she added, yawning, 'so I
shall be obliged to you to hasten to brew the tea.'
Bryda lost no time, and descending to the lower regions, set Sam at
liberty till nine o'clock, and very soon had tea and crisp toast ready
for her mistress.
All her handy ways were rapidly winning her favour, and Mrs Lambert
called her 'a very notable young person, not at all like one brought up
in a farmhouse!'
When the tea was over Bryda cleared it away, and carefully washing the
handleless cups, replaced them in the corner cupboard. Then she took a
seat by the window, at Mrs Lambert's request, and read to her--a dry
sermon first, and then Mrs Lambert told her she might go to the bookcase
and choose a book for her own reading.
Bryda's eyes kindled with delight, and she joyfully accepted the offer.
'May I choose any book, madam?'
'Any book that is not a novel. There are some there not for Sunday
reading, or indeed for workaday reading for a young person.'
'Milton's _Paradise Lost_,' Bryda said, 'may I take that?'
'Yes, but be careful not to finger the binding, and remember no book
leaves this room. I found the apprentice had dared to abstract a volume
of an old poet--which I am sure he could not read--by name Chaucer, for
the poems are wrote in old English. He had a deserved reprimand, and a
box on the ears for his pains.'
'Old English,' thought Bryda, 'old English, Tom Chatterton can read old
English, for I suppose Rowley the priest's poems are in old English.'