During the next few months, Annys made his way to the Bury whenever he
could. No sacrifice was too great if it could give him a few hours with
his new-found friends, Richard and Matilda. To him there was quite a
new sense of belonging to some one place, of having a home where his
friends awaited him. He had led a lonely life. At Oxford he had been
a close student and had never joined in the riotous gatherings and
bouts of the students; his master he had adored, but no man had he
called friend. Later, during his wandering life as poor priest, many
a heartfelt blessing had been poured upon him and many a sombre face
brightened at the sight of him, but he had had no real comrade.
Richard Meryl had been as strongly drawn to Annys as the poor priest
to him, and, under his influence, gradually the Uprising appealed to
Meryl as far more than a longing for a full stomach. Before Annys had
come, he had been one of the unruly ones, anxious to storm castles
and manors if need be to better their horrible condition. But now he
worked ardently with the poor priest to instil into the people a noble
patience, an idealism that would enable them to hold forever whatever
success they would gain.
The men did not take Meryl's change of heart very kindly. He, one of
the most eager, now to be holding them back!
"Every yonker hath become a seer," sneered one of the older men, as
Meryl was admonishing them in the poor priest's absence.
The blood rose swiftly to the young man's cheeks.
"One is never too young to learn. It seems that one may be too old," he
said angrily.
"Bah! a fig for thy dreaming poor priest. Give us a torch, say I, and
march upon all the castles and abbeys in the land--the sooner the
better. The more we delay the more the Barons will laugh and call us
but idle boasters."
"Ay," retorted Meryl, "go thou and a handful of others. For a while
ye will think yourselves the masters of the earth. Yet it will be as
a drop in the bucket compared to what shall be gained if ye bide in
patience till the men of every county be ready to rise. Then all the
nobles of the land cannot withstand us."
"There is something in his counsellings, after all," murmured the old
man. "Yet it is bitter biding the time, and patience and an eager belly
go ill together."
Meanwhile Robert Annys led a busy life, making frequent trips to the
neighboring towns and hamlets, and preaching before great gatherings.
The excommunication bore little fruit. Even Annys was astonished to
find how few men cared. For there were many reasons why men still
continued to hold fellowship with him. First, they needed him, they
found that he brought them what they craved. Also, at no time had the
Papacy been held in such scant reverence. How could the spectacle of
two rival, quarrelling Popes struggling and wrangling over the chair
of Peter as two dogs snarling over a bone, fail to hold up the sacred
office to ridicule? Moreover, little by little the figure of the Pope,
albeit that he wore upon his head a mitre whose three jewelled crowns
cost over five hundred thousand pieces of gold, was waning in majesty
and power before that simple figure of a man upon whose forehead
rested only a crown of thorns. At a different period, earlier or
later, Annys would have found himself in terrible isolation; men would
have shrunk from the slightest contact with him, and he would have
suffered keenly, even for the ordinary necessities of life. But now so
little heed was paid to his excommunication, that a second Papal Bull
was launched forth, anathematizing even such as should listen to the
heretical and incendiary preaching of this poor priest, Robert Annys.
And still the rustics continued to gather about him whenever he
appeared, in the fields, or at the cross-roads, or at the very
thresholds of the Church that banished him. Men sent for him to
speak with them when they were disheartened; they sent for him when
they wished for tidings of the Great Uprising; they sent for him
to shrive their souls when they faced the awful journey through
eternity, forgetting that it was denied him to perform the offices
of Holy Church, remembering only the strong grip of his hand and the
love-light in his eyes that somehow seemed to make the great journey
less terrible. Dimly struggling through the hierarchical, conventional
conception of the priestly office, was coming the recognition of the
priest as just a human brother with the sorrows and temptations of all
men, and just a little more spirituality and helpfulness than is given
to all.
Once, when Annys returned from a long journey, he was more exhausted
than usual. Matilda was frankly frightened. Indeed, Richard had of late
questioned in his heart if her interest in the poor priest were not
growing more intense than mere friendship would warrant. He had watched
them together over their Bible with a terrible foreboding in his heart.
He had noted, also, the swift illumination of her face whenever Annys
returned to them. He was not really betrothed to Matilda, and yet
since he had first known her as a little girl he had never thought of
marrying another woman. Their friendship had been constant and devoted,
but as yet no words of love had been spoken on either side.
"Thou dost look worn and weary," exclaimed Matilda, tenderly, as she
laid out for Annys such simple refreshment as she could offer. "It is
more than human strength can bear, such work as thine. Take a rest now
with us," she added solicitously.
Annys looked into her kind eyes and smiled. He passed one thin hand
wearily over his brow. Ah, if it were only the body that was weary. He
raised some food mechanically to his lips.
Matilda wondered if he was conscious of the fact that he was eating.
There was a hunted look in his eyes as he exclaimed suddenly:--
"God wot, what strange hocus-pocus planted me in Ball's shoes. The
devil himself could not have made a stranger misfit."
"How canst say so?" exclaimed Meryl, indignantly. "Have I not heard it
said that not even John Ball himself can sway men to his will as Robert
Annys can? Do not men wait for thy coming from Norfolk to Sussex?"
"Ay! well enough can I sway them to my will when it does not go
contrary to theirs," he murmured. And then he smiled to think that he
should be trying to explain to these simple friends all the intricate
workings of his heart. And yet there was something soothing in their
ready sympathy, there was something calming in voicing his innermost
dread, so that he continued more in soliloquy than conversation.
"Ah! it is not that I do not have great power over the men; rather
is it that I have so much power, and fear to use it ill. 'Twould be
easier far to fail than to succeed with a question ever eating into
one's vitals. It is a curse for a leader of men to be possessed of
imagination. It is to see the furthermost end to which our own words
and deeds take us. No sage could endure to see the effect of his own
teachings. Either his heart would break or his reason be unseated. What
would have been the agony of St. Francis could he have looked into the
future and seen the powerful Franciscan monasteries actually condemned
for their great properties. Could Christ have seen the Church of His
disciples straying farther from His teachings than ever had the Church
of the Jews, then well might He have cried,--
"'Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani?' 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?'"
Matilda had sunk to the floor during this impassioned speech, and
looked up into the poor priest's noble, sensitive face with a rapt gaze
in which Meryl read the confirmation of his suspicions. His own face
grew sombre and gloomy as Annys continued.
"Ah, such agonies, my friends, have I endured, passing among men and
trying to plant the seed of good-fellowship among them, and seeing but
the weeds of envy and hatred spring up in their stead; trying to awaken
in their hearts pity for the sufferings of their brethren, and stirring
up only vengeance against the rich. What have I not suffered in trying
to arouse self-sacrifice and self-control and a steadfastness to noble
ideals, and finding only bitterness of spirit and rapaciousness and
self-seeking!"
He pushed his low stool away from the table, and paced about the
room rapidly, sometimes his hands striking one another in fierce
energy, and again at times stretched out appealingly to heaven, while
his auditors sat in silence, full of their own thoughts. "Oh, how I
have poured forth love and sympathy upon you, my brethren! How have I
dreamed, awake and asleep, of the Great Uprising! How have I pictured
the orderly, majestic march of hundreds of thousands of men, the
wonderful gathering together of men from all parts of the realm, the
coming before the King with their just grievances, ever orderly and
self-respecting, and upheld by the consciousness of right-doing. And
then how I have wept tears of joy to think that the King could not but
give heed, and that he would make of them all free men, free, no longer
serfs and villeins, but free as good God created them.
"And what do I see?" he cried wildly, as he cast himself down on a
settle and bowed his face in his hands. "What do I see? I see England
swept from north to south, from Lincoln to Kent, by the flames of
infuriated incendiaries. I see castles sacked, abbeys ruined. I see the
people, my people, God's people, drunk with power, blind with rage,
going madly into the trap the nobles have set for them. My eyes are
blinded night and day by the glare of the conflagration, my ears are
deafened by the shrieks of the victims, there is blood upon everything.
There is blood upon this settle, there is blood upon this table, there
is blood upon this goblet. Sometimes I fear that I shall go mad. I
see decapitated heads on the gates of the town, they glare at me and
make grimaces at me, and cry out, 'This is thy work, thine, O minister
of Hell!' Fatherless babes and widowed mothers curse me and cry out
against me. O my God, they say 'This is all thy work--thine!'" For an
instant he sat brooding over his thoughts in silence.
Then with a sudden, swift transformation which was characteristic
of the man, his mood changed, and, springing up, he threw one arm
affectionately about Meryl and smiled brightly.
"Yet with such friends about me, how can I fail?"
To his surprise, Meryl flung away his arm with a passionate movement
and started back.
The poor priest's sensitive face quivered.
"What have I done? Richard, what is it?" he cried.
"Nay, nay, 'tis nothing, believe me," Meryl exclaimed, abashed
instantly at his action. "I was but startled and wist not what I did.
Forgive me!"
But, when Annys was gone, Matilda had not forgiven him.
"To act so rudely to our Robert Annys!" she cried reproachfully.
The young man did not reply at once, but stood with dogged sullenness
regarding her fixedly.
"Why, what has come over thee, Richard? I do not know thee."
"You love him," he blurted out, awkwardly.
The blood rushed to the girl's face, even reddening her ears. For an
instant she looked at him speechless, her breast heaving tumultuously
and great tear-drops running down her cheeks. He was frightened at the
effect of his brutal words.
"Forgive me," he stammered. "I meant not to hurt thee, but, Matilda,
dear heart, there has never been other maid in the world for me."
"Oh, Richard, Richard," she sobbed, "he is a priest, a priest of God,
and thou canst speak to me like this!"
"So, then, you wot not that the poor priests do marry."
At this she started violently, and all the color sped quickly from her
cheeks.
"How--a priest wed!"
"Ay!" he said bitterly, seeing how it was with her. "Ay, John Ball hath
preached for many a day that all priests should be as other men, even
to the taking of a wife."
"Oh, Richard, I wist not, I wist not. I thought a priest was above
other men--I never thought of him as--as--" and she turned from him and
flung her face in her arms on the table. And there he left her, for he
had not that within him to comfort her, seeing that his own heart was
broken.