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In thy most need to go by thy side.
This is No. 328 of Everyman's Library. A list of authors and their
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EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
FICTION
LONG WILL
BY FLORENCE CONVERSE
_All rights reserved_
_Made in Great Britain
at The Temple Press Letchworth
and decorated by Eric Ravilious
for
J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
Aldine House Bedford St. London_
_First Published in this Edition 1908_
_Reprinted 1911, 1917, 1919, 1923, 1926
1929, 1933_
EDITOR'S NOTE
This story forms a very tempting by-way into the old English life and
the contemporary literature which gave us Chaucer's _Canterbury
Tales_ and Langland's _Vision of Piers Plowman_. It deals with
those poets and with many figures of the fourteenth century whose
names still ring like proverbs in the twentieth--Wat Tyler and Jack
Straw, John Wycliff, John of Gaunt, and Richard II.--and it summons
them to real life in that antique looking-glass of history which is
romance. It begins in its prologue very near the evil day of the Black
Death, when the fourteenth century had about half run its course; and
in its epilogue it brings us to the year when the two poets died,
barely surviving the century they had expressed in its gaiety and its
great trouble, as no other century has ever been interpreted. To read
the story without wishing to read Chaucer and _Piers Plowman_ is
impossible, and if a book may be judged by its art in provoking a new
interest in other and older books, then this is one of an uncommon
quality. First published in 1903, it has already won a critical
audience, and it goes out now in a second edition to appeal to a still
wider public here and in America.
_April 1908._
To ..........
_Lo, here is felawschipe:
One fayth to holde,
One truth to speake,
One wrong to wreke,
One loving-cuppe to syppe,
And to dippe
In one disshe faithfullich,
As lamkins of one folde.
Either for other to suffre alle thing.
One songe to sing
In swete accord and maken melodye.
Right-so thou and I good-fellowes be:
Now God us thee!_
"Why I move this matere is moste for the pore,
For in her lyknesse owre lord ofte hath ben y-knowe."
_The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman._
B. PASSUS XI.
Contents
PROLOGUE
PAGE
I. _The Lark and the Cuckoo_ 3
II. _The Hills_ 11
III. _Kingdoms Not of This World_ 17
PART I. The Malcontents
I. _The Miracle_ 27
II. _The Rose of Love_ 31
III. _They That Mourn_ 39
IV. _A Vow_ 46
V. _A Disciple_ 48
VI. _Food for Thought_ 61
VII. _A Progress to Westminster_ 65
VIII. _An Embassage_ 75
IX. _The King's Secret_ 80
X. _Plot and Counterplot_ 94
XI. _Midsummer Eve_ 107
XII. _Sanctuary_ 114
XIII. _The Man o' Words_ 121
PART II. The Pilgrimage
I. _In the Cloisters_ 131
II. _In Malvern Chase_ 137
III. _By a Burn's Side_ 147
IV. _A Boon_ 156
V. _The Adventure in Devon_ 164
VI. _The Adventure in Cheshire_ 180
VII. _The Adventure in Yorkshire_ 196
VIII. _The Believers_ 217
IX. _The Adventure in Kent_ 228
X. _The Poets Sing to Richard_ 242
PART III. The Rising
I. _The Beginning_ 265
II. _Blackheath_ 271
III. _In the City_ 280
IV. _In the Tower_ 286
V. _Mile End_ 296
VI. _Free Men_ 307
VII. _Reaction_ 315
VIII. _The Friday Night_ 319
IX. _Smithfield_ 324
X. _The Old Fetters_ 338
XI. _The Prisoner_ 349
XII. _Y-Robed in Russet_ 358
EPILOGUE 369
PROLOGUE
"'I am Ymagynatyf,' quod he, 'idel was I nevere.'"
_The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman._
B. PASSUS XII.
I
The Lark and the Cuckoo
There were a many singers on the hill-top. They twittered in the
gorse; they whistled from the old hawthorn tree, amid the white may;
they sprang to heaven, shaking off melody in their flight; and one,
russet-clad, lay at his length against the green slope, murmuring
English in his throat.
"'T was in a May morning," he said, "'T was in a May morning,"--and he
loitered over the words and drew out the "morwening" very long and
sweet. Then, because there was a singing mote of a lark in the misty
blue above him, his own song dropped back into his breast, and he
waited.
He was young and lank, and his hair was yellow-red. He followed the
lark up into the bright heaven with wide, unblinking eyes. The bird
fell to earth; somewhere unseen a cuckoo chanted. Three sheep on the
brow of the hill moved forward, slowly feeding.
"'T was on a May morning, on the Ma'vern Hills," whispered the singer,
"on the Ma'vern Hills;" and he fell in a dream.
The Great Hill of the Malverns stood over against the dreamer, a bare,
up-climbing majesty, a vasty cone, making its goal in long green
strides. Below, a wrinkle hinted a pass, and on the high flat saddle
between the Great Hill and the Small, the grass was trodden, albeit
not worn away. A bell called softly from a valley hidden eastward; and
up from the southwest, slantwise across a corner of the hill, a child
came running into the dream, a gay lad in scarlet hosen and a green
short coat, and shoes of fine leather. His eyes made a wonderment in
his face, but his lips curled a smile at the wonder. A dark elf-lock
danced on his forehead.
The dreamer moved no whit, but waited, level-eyed.
"What be these tricks?" cried the child in a voice betwixt a laugh and
a gasp. "I saw thee from yonder hill, and thou wert distant a day's
journey. Then the bell rang, and lo! I am here before the clapper 's
swung to rest."
He in the russet smiled, but answered nothing.
The little lad looked down and studied him. "I 've missed my way," he
said.
"What is thy way?"
"'T was the way o' the hunt, but marry, now 't is the way of a good
dinner,--and that 's a short road to the Priory. I am of Prince
Lionel's train."
"Ay," returned the other, as who should say, "No need to tell me
that;" and he added presently, "The hunt is below in the King's
Forest; how art thou strayed? Thou 'rt midway the top o' the Great
Hill."
The child laughed, but, though his eyes were merry, yet were they shy,
and the red mounted to his brow. He came a pace nearer.
"I made a little rondel to my lady; and it must be as my thought flew
up, so clomb my feet likewise, and I was not aware."
He plaited his fingers in his belt and flushed a deeper red, half
proud and half dismayed of his confession. "I trust thee for a secret
man, shepherd," he added.
The eyes of the dreamer laughed, but his lips were circumspect. He sat
up and nursed his knee with his two long arms.
"Ay, of a truth, a secret man, young master; but no shepherd," he
answered.
The little lad eyed him, and questioned with a child's simplicity,
"What art thou, then?"
The youth looked onward to the Great Hill. "I know not, yet," he said.
So for a little space he sat, forgetful of his questioner, until the
child came close and sat beside him, laying one hand upon his arm and
looking up to his face thoughtfully.
"Thou long brown man, it may be thou 'rt a poet," he said at last.
"It may well be," the dreamer acquiesced, and never turned his eyes
from the green hill.
"In London, at the court of the king, there be poets," the child
continued; "but thou art of quite other fashion. Who is thy
lady-love?"
"Saint Truth," the brown boy answered gravely.
"Saint--Truth!" repeated the child; "and is she dead, then?"
"Nay, I trow not; God forbid!"
"I marvel that thy lady chide thee not for thy mean apparel. In London
is not a friar plays his wanton lute beneath a chamber window but he
goeth better clad than thou."
"Hark you, young master, I follow not the friars!" the dreamer cried
with a stern lip. "And for my lady, she careth for naught but that my
coat be honestly come by. So far as I may discover, she hath not her
abode in the king's palace."
"Forsooth, a strange lady!" said the child; and then, leaning his head
against that other's shoulder, "Poet, tell me a tale."
"I pipe not for lordings, little master," the youth returned, anger
yet burning in his eyes.
"Nay, then, I 'm no lord," laughed the child; "my father is a vintner
in London. He hath got me in Prince Lionel's household by favour of
the king; for that the king loveth his merchants of the city; and well
he may, my father saith. There be others, lordings, among the children
of the household; but I am none. I am a plain man like to thee, poet."
The dreamer shook his head with a mournful smile. "Not so close to the
soil, master merchant, not so close to the soil. I smell o' the
furrow."
"Nay, I 'm no merchant, neither," the lad protested. "Hark in thine
ear, thou long brown stranger,--and I 'll call thee brother! My lady
saith I 'll be a poet. She 's a most wise and lovely lady. Come,--tell
me a tale!"
"I am no troubadour," sighed the brown youth; "I know one tale only,
and that is over long for a summer day."
But the child was angered; his eyes flashed, and he clenched one hand
and flung it backward, menacing:--
"I 'll believe thou mockest me," he cried. "Lying tongue! No poet
thou, but a lazy hind."
Then the gray, smouldering eyes of the dreamer shot fire, and a long
brown arm jerked the lad to his knees.
"I tell no lies. My lady is Saint Truth," the dreamer said. "Poet or
no poet, as thou wilt, I 'll not gainsay thee. But a truthteller
ever."
A little lamb that strayed near by looked up with startled face, and
scampered down the hill, crying "Ba-a-a!" The huntsman's note came
winding up from the green depths. The child arose and dusted his
knees.
"There be poets that yet lie amazingly,--and boast thereof," he
observed shrewdly; "but now I rede thy riddle of Saint Truth. 'T is a
sweet jest. I love thee for it, and by that I know thee for a poet.
Tell me thy tale, and we 'll be friends again. Of a surety thou art no
hind; Prince Lionel's self is not more haughty of mien than thou. Sing
then, poet,--smile!"
The dreamer cleared his brow but half unwillingly: "Who could not
choose but smile on such a teasing lad?" he asked; and then, "My tale
is but begun, and what the end shall be, or whether there be an
end,--who shall say? Hearken!
In a summer season when soft was the sun,
I set me in a shepherd's coat as I a shepherd were;
In the habit of a hermit, yet unholy of works,
Wandered I wide in this world wonders to hear.
But in a May morning on Malvern Hills
There befel me a wonder, wonderful methought it;
I was weary of wandering and went me to rest
Under a broad bank by a burn side,
And as I lay and leaned and looked on the waters,
I slumbered in a sleep"--
"No, no! not thus, not thus!" cried out the child on a sudden; "never
thus! An thou come to court they 'll not hearken thy long slow
measures. Thou shalt make thy verses the French way, with rhyme. Needs
must thou learn this manner of the French ere thou come to court."
"I have no mind to come to court," the dreamer answered. "I have no
mind to learn the manner of the French. There be a many souls in
England that know not such light songs. It is for them I sing,--for
the poor folk in cots. Think you that a poet may sing only for kings?"
"Nay, I trow he singeth neither for kings, nor for any manner wight,
but for his own soul's health," quoth the child right solemnly; "and
yet, 't were well for him if he have the good will of a king. My
rhymes will not match an my belly be empty. But tell on thy tale. I
like thine old fashion of singing."
And he listened the while the poet told of a high tower called Truth,
and an evil place to the north, where the devil dwelleth,--and a great
plain between. And here foregathered all kind of people that ever were
in this world,--pardoners, and merchants, and knights, and friars, and
cooks crying "Hot pies--hot!"--and fine ladies. And all these listened
to Repentance that preached them a sermon.
The child laughed out aloud. "Thy men are puppets, O poet!" he cried.
"Where is the breath of life in them? Didst never see a man, that thou
canst make him so like to a wooden doll? The stone abbot down yonder,
on his tomb in the Priory, is more alive than these. Hast seen the
Miracle Play in Paul's Churchyard at Whitsuntide? There will be a
crowd alive for thee. Hast never seen the 'prentices breaking each
other his pate of a holiday in London streets? There be men! Thine are
a string o' names my lord Bishop might be a-reading before the altar
to shame their owners."
"Men be but little more than names for me, young master. I dwell among
the hills. I know the sheep, the birds I know,--and Brother Owyn in
the Priory, that learned me to sing."
Again the child laughed. "And wilt thou sing o' the bare hill-tops,
and the sheep? Poets must sing of a fair launde where flowrets
blossom,--of a green pleasaunce,--of my lady's garden. But here 's a
waste! What wilt find for a song? And under, in the King's Forest, 't
is a fearsome place at nightfall. Come thou to court, to London,
brother. I 'll show thee the king's gardens. I 'll show thee men! I
'll teach thee the French manner."
A lark ran up the sky a-caroling, and the child and the dreamer waited
with their two heads thrown backward, watching. Then, when the bird
was nested, the child leaped up and waved his little arms, his eyes
shone, and "I 'll sing like to that one," he cried; "I 'll soar very
high, and sing, and sing, the world beneath me one ear to hearken. Let
us be larks, brother!"
But the dreamer shook his head. "I am the cuckoo. I sing but two
notes, and them over and over," he answered mournfully.
The little lad caught up the fantasy and played with it betwixt his
ripples of sweet laughter. "A brown bird, and it singeth hid,--two
soft and lovely notes. Nay, come thou to London and turn nightingale."
"Alas!" said the dreamer, and again, "Alas!"
And the Priory bell rang soft in the valley, ten clear strokes.
"Dinner!" exclaimed the child, "and my lady's rondel lacking of three
rhymes!"
"Yon 's the pass," said the dreamer, "between the two hills. 'T is a
straight road."
"Ay, and a long one, is 't? And the monks feed fast, and clean the
platter."
"Nay, 't is nearer than thou deem'st. Thy legs will carry thee to the
gate ere the first dish is empty. The mist that is ever on Ma'vern
Hills, even though the sun shine, maketh a near thing stand afar off.
Haste thee! And hearken; to-night, an thou 'lt have a merry tale of a
Green Knight and Sir Gawaine of Arthur's Court, see thou beseech
Brother Owyn. Himself hath been a knight one while."
The lad was twinkling down the pass, when he turned about, and "God
keep thee, cuckoo!" quoth he.
"God keep thee, little lark!" said the dreamer.
II
The Hills
There are four chief hills of the Malverns: a round hill, a high hill,
a long hill, and a green deep-furrowed stronghold whither the
desperate Britons withdrew them once on a time, shrinking within the
greedy clutch of Rome. And here they beaconed the warning to their
fellows in the plain; and here they fought the losing battle, and
here, in the grassy upward-circling trenches, they laid them down to
sleep their last sleep.
But of these and their well-nigh forgotten defeat the dreamer recked
little as he lay on the sun-warmed slope of the Round Hill. He looked
inward, as dreamers will; and onward, as dreamers should; but
backward, not yet. The past was a bit of yellow parchment at the
bottom of an oak chest in the scriptorium of Malvern Priory. The
dreamer had touched it reverently, as one touches a dead thing, and
laid it away again. And Brother Owyn, looking on, had sighed. He too
had his dreams, but they came out of the joy and the sorrow that lay
at his back. Brother Owyn had chosen to live as one dead, but he could
not slay his past.
"I will sing of life that is, and is to come. I will prophesy!" said
the dreamer to Brother Owyn; and he went forth on the hills to wait
for the Still Small Voice. But a little child came upon him and
convicted him of his youth; and he was left on the hillside troubled,
discomfited, uncertain.
So, presently, he arose and skirted the slope to the flat saddle, and
set his face toward the summit of the Great Hill, and climbed up
thither with the long steady stride of one who knows the ground
beneath his feet. Straight up he went, a smooth green way for the most
part, with bare bones of rock breaking through here and there. He had
his world before him at the top, his little world of hill and river
and plain, all misty dim about the edges, or where the edges must have
been, all blue with the haze, and something like the sea. Close under
the hill the brown church of the Priory stood up proudly, out of the
midst of its lesser halls, its kitchen and guesten house. And all
round and about the King's Forest billowed away into the mist, east
and south. Neglected tillage, here and there a farm cut out of
woodland, bubbled up on little low near hills to westward; and in the
north,--its roof a sun-glance and its tower a shadow,--the cathedral
of Worcester rose, very far, very faint behind the veil of Malvern
mist,--and yet, a wonder in the plain.
The dreamer looked to east and west and north, and down the ridge of
the little range to the south; and then, because it was given him to
know that he should go away and leave all this, and mayhap never look
on it again, he lay down with his face in the short grass, shutting
out all; and so was silent a long while.
The wind blew strong from the northeast, lifting his heavy hair; the
Priory bell rang eleven; and the dreamer arose and went onward along
the ridge, Hereford way. He did not cease to speak in a low brooding
voice as he strode, for that was his solitary hill-fashion; and if
ever he was at pause in the way he cast out his arms to right and to
left, or clasped them on his breast; or he would lift up his young
troubled face to the sky.
"O my lady, Saint Truth," he murmured, "I am not afraid,--but of
myself only." And he went more slow, sinking his head on his breast.
"There be two kind of poets: and one dwelleth in monastery and maketh
long tales of saints, or it may be he furbisheth old matter of
history. But this is not my place. And another sort abideth in a
king's palace; he is a jongleur, and deviseth merry tales of love, and
adventure of war, to please the ladies in hall. But I am not of these
neither."
Then after a little space the dreamer flung out his right hand and
spoke aloud with a great passion, saying:--
"The people are dead of the pestilence, and they that live will die,
for they starve and the lord of the manor refuseth them bread. But how
shall one man drive three ploughs? His wife hungers and his sons are
born dead. Who shall help him?"
And hereupon he smiled, but a sound as of tears was in his voice,
and--
"Lo! here is matter for a new song!" cried he; "Shall I sing it, Dame
Truth,--shall I sing it? Yea, the little lad spake well. For my soul's
health I will."
He drew his arm across his eyes, as who should clear away a mist. "Now
lead me down into the valley, O Truth, where the world dwelleth! I
will follow. I will come down from the hill-top. Men shall be more
than a name for me before I am done. A child hath found me out."
He had gone over upon the west side of the ridge a little way, and
between him and the pearl-tinged rampart of the Welsh mountains were
many little hills and cup-like valleys; and in a valley of these a
single ploughman ploughed. And the midday sun was hot.
The dreamer drew in his breath a long way, a-gazing; but then he
lifted an arm straight out and pointed with his finger. "Yon 's a
man," he said, "no name only, but a very man; my bloody brother. Now
answer for me, Peter, that I do know thee, body and soul. Have I not
dwelled with thee? Did I not cover up thy face when thou wert dead?
Oh, here 's a very simple and true piece of God's handicraft I 've
watched in the making. Little lad, an I chose to sing o' the ploughman
thou 'lt never say puppet! An' I chose--An' I chose?--A-ah! Here 's no
choosing! I see! I see!"
And anon, in the glory of that vision, he forgot himself, and cried
out: "Lord, send a great singer to sing this song!"
He stood with both his arms flung up to heaven, and his head went
backward as at that other time when he had watched the lark. The
brightness of the noonday sky, and something inward, made his face to
shine. So, for a moment, he rested, and then plunged upward, forward,
on the ridge again, swiftly, with a flying motion in his skirts. But
for the rest of that day, until the hour came when he kneeled down to
pray, his lips were sealed; only his wide, unwavering eyes spake the
vision.
The sky thickened toward afternoon, and the dreamer, wandering in the
valley to the southwest of the Long Hill, had got beyond the sound of
the Priory bell. In the wood where he lay the ground was blue with
hyacinths; the cuckoo called, and called, and called again; and the
thrush quavered. When he came out into the open the sun hung low in
the west, a dull red ball, mist-swathed; and presently it was snuffed
out and the dreamer was circling up and up in the green trenches of
the British camp. Night, and a struggling, cloud-baffled moon found
him at the summit, on his knees, facing east; and now he prayed very
earnestly.
"Lord Jesus, Prince of poor men, let me be thy jongleur, for all poor
men's sake! With their misfortune am I right well acquaint. I have
dwelled in their cots. I have eat of their hard bread of pease. How
shall the king know this, that sleepeth within silken curtains? But
kings give ear to a poet; ladies weep over a sad tale in hall. Who
shall sing this song if not I? Lord, I will go forth and learn a way
to set these matters straight. I will sing this in my song: how to
live well, so that poor men be not so cast down, as now they are.
Sweet Jesu, I will not cease to sing this one song. I will tell my
tale, and the king shall find a way to succour his poor men. Now glory
be to God, and praise and thanksgiving, that He hath given me a
vision. For my brother's sake I sing; he is dumb; he is so fast in
prison that he cannot get forth; but I will sing beneath his window,
and the Lord shall show him a way. The poor man shall kiss the king
and eat at his high table. Thanks be to God, and glory and praise! O
Jesu, God the Word, make my whisper a mighty voice! Bless me, Lord;
bless thy singer!"
And now the dreamer crossed himself and went down over the edge and
lay in a trench, sleeping and waking the night through.
III
Kingdoms Not of This World
Brother Owyn sat in the cloister-garth in the shadow of the sun-dial,
his little colour-pots on a flat stone beside him, his vellum on a
board across his knees. A ring of narcissus-flowers, close-planted
round the sun-dial, starred the edge of his black gown.
Brother Owyn was a poet, and the prior of Malvern had found this out.
When less favoured brothers grumbled the abbot chid them with, "What
need hath a copy-clerk of sunshine and fair flowers to fresh his
wit,--that hath no wit? But how may a true poet, and a right true
romancer, make his melody with the din of a dozen schoolboys knocking
at his ear?" And for this cause did Brother Owyn sit with his feet
among the narcissus-flowers.
Here he had written at the bidding of the prior--but this prior was a
dull man--two homilies: the one concerning Chastity, which was a
virtue wherein Brother Owyn excelled,--and this the prior knew, for he
had confessed him; the other concerning Patience, wherein Brother Owyn
excelled not at all, and none knew this better than himself,--albeit
he passed for a patient man. But, indeed, there was little known of
Brother Owyn among the brethren. They said that no man might so tell
the stormy mishap of Jonah, except he had sailed the sea; and no man
might so sing Belshazzar's Feast except he had dined in a king's
palace; and when they had heard the tale of Sir Gawaine and the Green
Knight, they averred that haply Brother Owyn came of Arthur's family,
and some said that he was own great-grandson to Sir Gawaine. But
Brother Owyn never said so. He was abashed that the brethren would
hear this tale more often than the homilies.
"I will do penance," said Brother Owyn, "for that I divert the
brethren."
"Yea," quoth the prior, "assuredly! Wherefore, copy out this romance,
and paint in the beginning of each part an initial letter in gold and
scarlet and blue."--The prior had his gleams in the midst of his
dulness.
But the tale that Brother Owyn loved best he had not yet sung to the
brethren.
To-day he painted a little picture of a maiden by a river-side, where
shining cliffs rose up, and a city shone golden beyond. And these
cliffs might well have been the white cliffs of Wales, but they were
meant for a more holy place. And the maiden was clad in a white
garment with a semblance of pearls at her girdle and on her fair
forehead.
"A crown that maiden wore withal
bedecked with pearls, with none other stones,"
whispered Brother Owyn.
"Her look was grave, as a duke's or an earl's;
whiter than whalebone was her hue.
Her locks shone then as bright pure gold,--
loose on her shoulders so softly they lay,"--
There was a trick of his tongue that ever betrayed him that he came
out of the west,--and bending, he kissed the little picture where the
paint had dried.
From the cloister floated the low, buzzing murmur of children conning
a task. This, and the snip-snip of the gardener's shears, were the
only sounds. At intervals, good Brother Paul went past the cloister
doorway in his slow pacing up and down behind the young scholars. Now
and again a lad came out into the garth and crossed the grass to gain
Brother Owyn's approval for an illuminated letter, or to have the
hexameters lopped off his Latin hymn.
Then, around three sides of the cloister swift footsteps echoed, and
the dreamer strode down the school, brushed past Brother Paul, looked
out into the garth, and presently stood before Brother Owyn,--the
light of the vision shining in his eyes, the mist of the Malverns
clinging about his damp hair.
"I go forth a pilgrimage to Truth," he said.
"And the prior withhold not his blessing," added Brother Owyn, with a
smile.
But the dreamer fell on his knees,--he was past smiling. He laid his
hands prayerwise upon the little painting-board; and Brother Owyn,
intent upon him wholly, with the loving, expectant eyes of one to whom
these raptures were no new thing, yet slipped aside the vellum from
the board, lest the picture come to harm from the dew-stained russet.
"I am no monk of Malvern!" cried the dreamer; "neither shall the prior
clap me in cloister. I have had a vision. I must sing it."
"I sing," said Brother Owyn; and he looked about him at the grass and
the cloister walls.
"Yea, of yesterday and its glory," returned the dreamer. "A tuneful
song, whereof the joy and the rightwisnesse is manifest. But to-day
and to-morrow are mine to sing. I must go forth to look upon the world
and live therein. I have had a vision concerning Peter the
ploughman,"--Brother Owyn's eyes laughed mockingly, and his lips
curled, also he tapped his foot upon the ground. But the dreamer's
eyes were on the narcissus-flowers,--"I have seen him in the forefront
of a great train of pilgrimage, of all kind people ever there were in
this earth; and he their guide to Truth. He, a poor ploughman! I have
seen him where he set all crooked ways straight; and the flower o'
knighthood did the bidding o' the ploughman in the vision. Now, tell
me,--what abbot is he in all England will give me leave to sing this
song over his abbey wall? For he holdeth the land in fee, and the
villeins sweat for him.--Nay, more,"--and the dreamer bent his lips to
Brother Owyn's ear and sunk his voice,--"I have seen this Piers where
he jousted in Jesus' armor, red as with blood,--and in His likeness.
Hark you, master, the day is to the poor man. For Jesus Christ, of
poor men the Prince,--He saith, 'I am the Truth.'"
"An I knew thee not this five year," quoth Brother Owyn, "I had said
thou art mad,--mad from very pride. The ploughman a leader of men!
Wilt thou bring chaos about our ears? Oh, boy, foolish and proud! God
hath ordered the way of man and it is thus and so. He is Emperor of
heaven and earth, and Christ is King's Son of heaven and sitteth up on
high at the right hand of the Father. Of right royal human seed he
springeth, David's seed,--born in David's city. At His name every knee
shall bow. Kings have worshipped Him a babe. What! wilt thou strike
down the very immutable and fixed laws of God Himself whereby He hath
ordained that kings shall reign? Prate not to me of poor men. Yea,
there shall be hewers of wood and drawers of water."
Then said the dreamer: "Whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat or
he that serveth?"
"The king is the perfectest servant," cried Brother Owyn, "but the
king is king, he is no dullard serf. The King's Son came to earth and
put on this garment of a poor man, and for this reason wilt thou say
the poor man shall wear the garment of the king? Thou art no
schoolman."
"Ah, master, master, this that thou sayst I said it again and yet
again to mine own self," the dreamer sighed; "for what know I of life
wherein is no kings and no knighthood? Verily it is thus and so; God
made the king. So did I cry to the vision, wrestling the night through
on the misty hill. I cannot see clear, but whether I be convinced or
no, the vision hath conquered and I must sing it. The ploughman
knoweth the way to truth; the king shall crave his company."
"Nay, thou dost not see clear. I doubt me if ever thou wilt," said
Brother Owyn. "Thou hast got the Malvern mist in thy head, boy. Who
shall profit by a vision in a mist?"
"'T is larger than life, seen thus," quoth the dreamer. "Natheless,
let me go forth into a new land. How may I rid me of the mist if I
dwell within it? Let me go to London, and if the vision fade, if it be
proven a temptation, I 'll cast it from me. How may I know men in the
wilderness? How may I touch their hearts if I know them not?"
Brother Owyn smiled and laid his hand upon the dreamer's shoulder:
"And art thou crying out for knowledge of men?--Thou that fleest into
the hills if a merchant ask night's shelter of the prior, thou that
hast played truant these three days because, forsooth, the young
Prince Lionel and his train are come hither to hunt in the King's
Forest?"
The dreamer hung his head: "Yet must I go," he said. "There came a
little lad across the round hill yesterday,--a very manikin of wisdom
with the heart of a child,--no doubt they breed such in palaces. He
boasted himself a poet and would have me tell him a tale. He
quarrelled with the measure, his ear being attuned to French foibles,
but for that I care not; but he saith my men be no better than dolls
of wood.--Master, 't is a true word. Whether the vision be false or
no, God will discover to me; but this, that I am not fit to touch
men's hearts, because I am stranger to them,--thou knowest. The little
lad turned away from my tale. He laughed.--Thou hast seen thy world.
Thou hast a tale to tell. But I,--what may I sing but the
mist? Hark you, Brother Owyn, I shall bring naught of glory to Malvern
Priory till I be let forth. Say this to the prior."
"There is wisdom in it, truly," said the monk. "Thou art not all fool,
and poet. Natheless, thou canst not come at knowledge my way. What I
was needs not to remember, but I was not such as thou, I climbed not
upward to my present estate. But thou must climb through the church,
't is thy one way. With thy little learning what art thou fit for
else? Doth it suit thee to turn ploughman?"
The dreamer looked at his scholar's hands and wiped his scholar's
brow: "But I will not climb as a monk," he cried. "There 's work to do
out-o'-doors to make the church clean. Let me go!"
Then Brother Owyn wiped his brushes on the grass and covered his
little paint pots; and to a boy that came forth of the cloister he
said: "I have business with the prior, keep thy task till I come
again;" and rising up he made so as to lay a cloth of fair linen over
the little picture.
"Who is 't?" asked the dreamer, and gazing, he minded him of the day
when Brother Owyn came first to Malvern Priory. He was a knight that
day; his mail was silver; he rode a white horse; in his helmet there
was set a great pearl in the midst of a ringlet of gold hair, one
ring, as 't were severed from the head of a babe.
"Who is 't?" quoth the dreamer.
And Brother Owyn answered him: "Neither do I write but only
yesterdays. I have my vision of the morrow. 'T is of a Holy City, and
the Lord is King thereof. 'T is a true vision, for John, the beloved,
he had it afore my time."
"But this is a fair damsel," said the dreamer.
"This is my little daughter dear, that was dead at two years old. The
King hath chosen her for his bride. I live seeking after her."
"Here, likewise, hast thou fellowship with thy kind," the dreamer
sighed. "Little wonder thy songs touch the hearts of men. Master, thou
hast my confession this five year; thou knowest me, that I am no hot
man; yet, do I yearn to fathom these mysteries, for fellowship's sake,
and to help all them that seek truth. But how may a man climb to
fatherhood through Holy Church?"
Brother Owyn laid his hand on the dreamer's lip, and "Hush!" said he;
"here's question for one higher than I, and to be spoke whispering.
For all the man I am to Godward, am I by the love of a little two
years' child, long dead. Go; say thy prayers! I 'll come to thee in
the church. Haply the prior may give thee a letter to a London priest,
will see thee clerked and set to earn, thy bread."
But then Brother Owyn looked on the little picture where it lay
uncovered, and he said:--
"If thou hast ever a golden-haired daughter, send her hither to tell
me wherein God hath blessed thee most."
And that day the dreamer set forth on his pilgrimage.
PART I
The Malcontents
"For one Pieres the Ploughman hath inpugned us alle."
_The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman._
B. PASSUS XIII.
CHAPTER I
The Miracle
All the good people, fresh-blessed, came forth into the churchyard
with a great pushing and striving. There was a Miracle Play toward,
and to stand at the back of five-and-twenty score of tiptoeing
Londoners was to see nothing. Sweating shopkeepers jostled and swore,
women squealed, and 'prentices drove their elbows into any fat paunch
that was neighbourly. Here and there, above the press, a child rode on
its father's shoulder, and if 't was a merry child it kicked off the
women's headgear and tweaked the ears of Robyn and Hikke and Jack.
"Stand off,--stand off, a four-foot space from Hell Mouth!" cried
Beelzebub, coming to earth unexpected; "there be sparks! I 'll not
answer for 't if ay one take fire."
"Look ye, look ye!" roared Sathanas, thrusting up his head, "here's
some thieving fellow hath filched my tail while I was to Mass. 'T is a
poor jest. Now, by St. Christopher, I swear I say no word o' my part
if the tail lack."
There went up a laugh from the company, and one cried: "Give the dumb
beast his tail that he may speak!" And, on a sudden, flew over the
heads of the people a something red, in shape like an eel, and fell
upon Sathanas' head, whereat he grunted and withdrew head and tail
together.
And now Hell Mouth opened and spat fire, and after tumbled forth a
rout of devils, big and little, that pranced and mowed, the while the
people laughed and cast them back jest for jest. Was one brawny fiend,
a blacksmith by trade, that came to the edge of the stage and, looking
backward, with chin uppermost, through his squatted legs, set his
fingers in the corners of his mouth and his eyes, and did so make of
himself a monster that a little maid which stood in the forefront of
the multitude must needs shriek and start, so that her kerchief fell
awry.
Saith a yeoman, blinking on her ruffled hair: "I cannot see for the
sun in my eyen," and laid his great hand on her fair head that
perforce she must turn her face would she or no.
"By St. Jame!" cried the man, thereupon; "here's no ba'rn, but a maid,
with a mouth ripe for kissing!" And so bent to taste her lips. But she
cried out and struggled to be free, and swift, a gloved hand thrust
the yeoman's face aside, and a voice that had a twist of French in it
rated him so that he shrank backward glowering.
The blacksmith, meanwhile, being set right side forward, stood nodding
a genial horned approval:
"An I had not been so be-twisted, I had given him a crack!" he said,
and, turning rueful, added: "Dost not know me, child? I be Hobbe Smith
that dwell two doors below thee. I did but mean to make thee merry."
And the maid gave him a pale smile.
"If thou stand o' this side, out of the press, still mayst thou see,"
said he of the gloved hand.
"I came not so close to see the devils," answered the maid, blushing,
"but for that cometh after;" and she followed him apart.
Then come Mercy and Truth across the middle stage, and are met
together, and Peace and Rightwisnesse, that kissed the one the other,
prating sweetly of Christ risen from the dead. And the devils are
begun to make moan, and they have locked Hell Mouth with a great key
and laid a bar across. And said this squire that stood beside the
maid:--
"By 'r Lady!--who writ this is no common patcher o' miracles, but a
true poet!"
"'T is my father," quoth she.
And he: "Nay, then, I knew thee for a poem. Is thy name Guenevere?
Such eyes had Guenevere,--such hair."
"I am Will Langland's daughter; I am Calote," she said.
There had lately come two men through the crowd. By their aspect they
were not Londoners, yet they seemed acquainted well enough with what
they saw. Now one of these, a black-browed fellow with thin, tight
lips, large nose, and sallow visage, spoke to the squire, saying:--
"All poets of England do not pipe for John o' Gaunt. This one hath
chose to make music for the ears of common folk."
"Natheless 't is tuned to ears more delicate," the squire made answer,
looking always on the maiden; and then, "Calote, thou sayst? 'T is
Nicolette in little, is 't not?" And presently after, "Nicolette had a
squire.--I would I were thy squire."
But Calote had turned her to the Miracle, and the youth saw only a
flushing cheek.
"'T is a long while that Mercy and Truth are not met together in
England, Jack," said the countryman to his fellow, sourly.
"Yea, Wat," the other answered; "and afore Peace cometh War."
"And afore Rightwisnesse"--said he of the black brows, and paused, and
looked about him meaningly, and cast his arms to right and left. And
now the Miracle was done, and Christ had narrowed Hell, and sat on
high with the Trinity.