The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  ‘Who is – that one – and that one?’ she asked and nodded her head to the picture of the baby in the hay, and then lifted her wide, vague eyes towards the Rood.

  He cried ‘Mass!’ angrily, and told her, ‘God,’ but when she murmured after him ‘God?’ he was not so much angry as amazed at the vacancy of her simplicity. It was not even, he thought, like pouring knowledge into the little cup of a child’s understanding, but into a pail that had holes in it. How could such a one learn to know the incomprehensible? What in her twilight mind was God?

  ‘The living God,’ he said, and he spoke aloud, but more to himself than her, the words that came into his mind. ‘“I am the first and the last, and am alive and was dead, and behold I am alive for ever more.”’

  She stared at him, with something of light in her look that was usually as vague and dim as the colourless, half-transparent jelly fishes that bob about in the clear fringes of the tide as it slides in over a sandy shore.

  ‘Sir,’ she mumbled, ‘what for did he this thing? What for?’

  Of course she could not understand, and he pushed past her as he said, ‘To shew us the face of God. To brast the chain of sin. To be the glory of his people Israel.’

  But at the door she was beside him. ‘Where is he – now?’

  He lifted his arm and pointed up to the sky beyond the steep woods, and beyond the edge of the fells where a huge white cloud stood in the blue, leaning its head towards the Dale.

  She did not follow him any further, but when he looked back from the gate of the churchyard she was staring up under her hand towards Gawnless Wood where a woodcutter was working. The ringing of the axe on the tree came faint but clear in the summer silence.

  July 15

  Master William Cowper had come to Marrick Priory to buy wool. Last night he had supped with the Prioress and been pleasant with her and those Nuns that were her guests; but to-day was for business; he must weigh the Priory wool-clip and be off to the next seller up the Dale.

  He had begun the day by a brief, and, he had reason to believe, a private, interview with the Priory bailiff. At nine, just as the bell began to ring for Chapter Mass, he came into the wool-barn where the scale-beam hung from the roof and the wool fells lay in piles ready for weighing. His man came after him with the two seven-pound weights slung over his shoulder by a leathern strap, and the other odd weights in a bag. The inevitable knot of little boys closed in from the wide-open doors; a grey goose approached, stared about with haughty disapproval and went away into the sunshine.

  ‘Now,’ said Will Cowper, speaking very short and brisk, ‘to work, Master Bailiff. Where’s your stone for the weighing?’

  But the bailiff had forgotten to bring his book in which to write the tally of the convent’s wool, so his man had to be sent to fetch it, and consequently only Will and the bailiff were at the weighing of the big fourteen-pound block of stone against Will Cowper’s two weights; the stone was that same which had been used in wool weighing for longer than any could remember. It was but a form to weigh it, so they two did it while the two Priory servants went to fetch the fleeces to the scales.

  When the bailiff’s man came back Will and the bailiff stood opposite each other, watching the scales swing under the first tod. The wool scale dipped, so Will put into the weight-pan a two-pound weight from those in the bag, and,—

  ‘Two to the wool,’ said he as the scales steadied; the bailiff nodded, and they went on with the next lot of fleeces.

  The bell in the church tower rang faster, so they knew it was nearly time for Mass, and that all the Ladies would soon be piously occupied in church. The bell rang on. Will sang out, ‘Five pounds less three due to the wool leaves two pounds to the weights.’

  Just then the Prioress came into the barn. She had on a riding hat above her hood, and gloves on her hands.

  Will and the bailiff turned. They stood so still that the two men loading fleeces on the scales turned too, and stood, and stared. There was a short but pregnant silence, during which they heard the after-song of the last stroke of the bell hum through the sunny air and die away.

  Will Cowper stammered, ‘Not – not at Mass, sister?’

  The Prioress looked from one to the other of them; she smiled.

  ‘I thought this morning when I saw your heads so close laid together that it were well I came to the weighing.’

  ‘You saw.’ Will looked at his sister in dismay and dislike; but there was respect in his glance too.

  ‘Well, no – I should not say I saw you. But I saw your shadows on the stable wall, and your chins wagging. So I said to myself – “It is time my father’s wool weights were brought to the sheriff for assay, seeing that they are old.”’

  No one said anything, until the Prioress asked Will would he not go with her. Then he began to bluster, asking her did she think the weights were loaded?

  ‘Why,’ said she, ‘whether loaded to my loss, or over light to yours, brother, neither thou nor I would be willing to defraud other.’

  ‘No!’ cried Will, ‘No!’ and swore it by Cock’s Bones.

  ‘Well then—’

  ‘Well then,’ Will wiped his brow. ‘A God’s Name, if you have other weights—’

  ‘There’s weights in the kitchen.’

  ‘Then we’ll use those for this time. It’s true that these are old, and may be not – not—’ He picked up the seven-pound weights by their strap, and slung them away into a dark place beside the wall. When weights had been fetched from the kitchen they settled again to the weighing. The Prioress sat at one end of the bench by the door, Will at the other; each had a book to enter in the number of fleeces weighed. Will’s man stood by the scale calling the weights; the bailiff sweated carrying the fleeces from the pile to the scale, and away again. No one had said that he should do his man’s job, but he did it. No one spoke all through the weighing except the necessary words, as when Will’s man would call, perhaps, ‘Two to the wool,’ if the fleeces weighed heavier than the 28 pounds of a tad, or ‘Three to the weights’ if the three-pound weight was needed to bring the fleeces down to the level. When they had weighed this year’s wool clip the bailiff began to bring out last year’s, and, when that was weighed, yellowed fleeces from the year before. Will fidgeted with his feet and scowled over his book, but he said nothing. When the Prioress said, ‘All at one price,’ he said ‘Aye.’

  Will and his man went away, after they had all, the bailiff as well, drunk a cup of ale together. The Prioress turned back from the gate. The bailiff’s man and the two servants, still goggle-eyed from the events of the morning, took themselves off; the Prioress nodded her head cheerfully to the bailiff.

  ‘All the old wool sold, and at the price of this year’s clip. That was good.’

  The bailiff, crimson from heat already, managed to colour deeper.

  ‘Madame, – I – I—’

  The Prioress went on as if he had not spoken.

  ‘Since we have sold so well I look to do a thing I have some while intended. Know you of a good craftsman who could wainscot my chamber fairly?’

  The bailiff, though unable at once to credit and understand so strange an oblivion, could tell the Prioress of a good Richmond craftsman, a right worthy man.

  ‘An honest workman?’

  The bailiff choked, and said, ‘Yea, honest,’ and would have said more but that he realized in time that the Prioress was that rare woman, one who will let facts work in silence. She did not even tell him what he knew very well, that she would watch him like a hawk, and the next trick he tried to play her, if ever he should try, would be the last. She only bade him look to the scythes in good time for the harvesting, and then went up to her chamber with the wool-book, which he had used to keep, under her arm.

  The story of the bailiff’s excursion into double dealing leaked out, but not through the Prioress. It spread like damp on a wall, upwards, from the bailiff’s man. So it was the Ladies who last heard it, and more than a week after Will Cowper had
gone. Among them, when the topic had been privately but exhaustively discussed, there were two schools of thought. The more timorous were shaken to their very souls by the knowledge that such wolves as Master Cowper and their own bailiff wore doublet and hosen and walked the earth on two legs, but ravening. One or two even said, but erroneously, that they would not sleep easy in their beds, knowing that wickedness prowled so near. The others, more adventurous, triumphed in the triumph of their Prioress. ‘Mass! If we could but have seen the bailiff’s face!’ they cried, ‘down on his knees clutching at the Lady’s habit, praying for mercy!’ ‘And Master Cowper, he wept they say.’

  So they relished the affair, each after her own manner. But there was about it something not one of them could understand. Neither soon nor late did their Prioress speak a word of blame, either of her brother or of the bailiff. Indeed, to deepen their incomprehension, it was whispered, on the authority of Dame Anne Ladyman, that Dame Christabel had said ‘Perdy! she loved Will for it, the rascal!’ That was beyond them.

  August 3

  Robert Aske had just parted from a client after walking and talking with him a while in Paul’s, when he came up against Sir John Bulmer, whom he had not seen since April, and who was the last man on earth he wanted to see. He regretted now that he had stayed for the summer vacation lectures at Gray’s; Hal had gone off weeks ago; Clifton last Thursday. However, he neither would nor could run away from Sir John, so they turned and walked together out of the Cathedral into the sunshine of a day of heavy, thundery heat.

  ‘One told me that I should find you here,’ Sir John began. ‘Often I have meant to seek you out, but never—’

  Aske interrupted him by standing still.

  ‘Well, you’ve found me. What would you have of me?’

  Sir John, facing him but not looking at him at all, pulled off his cap and began to fidget with the brooch in it, a pretty thing of Europa riding on a golden bull. He began to talk in starts, jerks and half sentences. ‘None of the servants will tell, but maybe – not even Mother Judde, not a word, and she, if any of them – by God’s Death, I don’t trust her. Only the boy spoke clear enough, yet he’s only a child.’ He put up a hand to tug at his hair, and then cried, ‘Did you come to the house and lie with her that night I rid to Dorking the first time?’ and he looked Aske in the face at last.

  Aske did not pretend he did not know who ‘she’ was, but he was by no means so simple as to answer such a question either with yea or nay.

  ‘And what night was that?’

  ‘Lady Day night.’

  ‘And other times you rid to Dorking, you say. What of them?’

  ‘The lad – he says you ever said nay but that first time he was sent. Besides I had set watch.’

  ‘And what,’ Aske fenced, playing for time as he wondered whether, if put to it, he could speak a flat lie – ‘And what did I say to the lad that one time?’

  ‘He says you gave him a groat.’

  ‘I see,’ said Aske, ‘that I must beware how I give groats to boys,’ and he began to walk again; for a moment he thought he had shaken off Sir John, but he came up behind and caught him by the elbow.

  ‘Wait a minute, for I need counsel. I must go home northwards soon. I have thought much of how my wife will bear the matter of a bawd. So I consider whether to take her with me or fairly turn her off here in London.’

  Aske could have laughed aloud at such a simple cunning, though indeed laughter, in this nasty business, was a dismal thing.

  He said: ‘I’m a bachelor. I’ve neither wife nor bawd. Go you to others for counsel.’

  ‘Well,’ Sir John watched him narrowly, ‘I think I shall turn her off.’

  ‘Since,’ said Aske steadily, ‘I am kinsman to your wife, though distantly, I think you would do well.’

  It was a comfort to be able to speak the exact truth, and he could see that whatever answer he had expected, Sir John had not expected that, and was now at a loss, for he put up his hand again to tug at his hair, dropped his cap, stooped for it and came up very red.

  ‘No, by God’s Blood,’ he cried, ‘I’ll not believe it of you,’ and he caught Aske’s hand and wrung it, crying, ‘Forgive me, but I think I’m crazed with loving her. You do not understand, she—’ and he ran on, doing his best to make Aske understand.

  When he could escape from those undesired confidences Aske set off alone, and at a great pace, for the river, though not with any other purpose than to keep moving. It was noon, and the dogs lay panting in the shade; Aske felt the sweat run down his back and his shoulders prick at the touch of the hair shirt he had worn since Lady Day.

  October 14

  Sir John and his household started for the North early in the morning in a cold downpour of rain. They came along Holborn towards Newgate because they must strike the road for Highgate and the North, and so they passed the end of Gray’s Inn Lane.

  July, riding behind one of the servants, peered through the driving shower; she could see the tops of the trees tossing in the garden of the Inn; she could see the smoke of the kitchen chimneys driven aside by the rain. Master Aske was there, asleep yet perhaps; or drinking his ale and eating his breakfast before going off to the Courts at Westminster. But she was being taken away to the North Country, and she supposed she should never see him again. He had not been to the house for months now; no one had told her why, but July knew: it was because Master Aske had at last found out the things that Meg did. She thought, as they rode out from the gate into the slanting cold rain and the drowned countryside, that she could not endure to be so unhappy. All the same she had to endure it.

  October 18

  Sir John Bulmer held the Manor of Pinchinthorpe, eight miles or so from his house at Wilton. There was a little house at Pinchinthorpe, but old and in disrepair, for it had not been used for some time. However it was a convenient distance from Wilton; neither too far for Sir John to ride easily between one and the other, nor yet scandalously close. Meg mocked at him, but angrily, when he told her why he would leave her at Pinchinthorpe. She could not move him though in this; he said that it should be so. ‘My son is at Wilton,’ he told her.

  ‘Lord! and what of that?’

  ‘I will not put him to shame,’ he said, and scowled at her.

  They came to Pinchinthorpe at dusk and rode into the little grassy courtyard where brambles sprawled in the corners. The Hall itself was opposite them; they could see winking lights in all the windows, for the servants whom Sir John had sent forward had got the fire lit there.

  Yet when they went in the Hall was very cold. There was no furniture but trestle tables and a few benches, and in a corner a heap of teazles and some sickles and a little painted cupboard, in which they found two cracked earthen pots.

  Sir John was surly, because now that he was so nearly home he could not but be thinking what he would say to his wife, Dame Anne, when he saw her; whether to tell of Meg or leave her to find out he could not decide. Meg was angry because she was tired, and because Pinchinthorpe was such a poor and rustic place. ‘Goodman John,’ she called Sir John, as if he were a farmer, jeering at him. ‘Shall I brew and bake and milk the kine?’ she asked him. ‘Jesu! had I known before I came with you I’d have gone—’

  He struck her then and she snatched at his dagger and tried to draw it against him. July left them, creeping out quietly into the chill and now dark night. She was hungry, but it was better to be quiet than to eat. She felt her way up the outside stair to the room where they would sleep, and found that the servants had set up the beds, though not the sparvers and curtains to them. She crept into one in the further small chamber where she supposed she would lie with Meg’s woman. She was too tired and too cold to sleep at once, and the strange nakedness of sleeping without curtains kept her waking long, watching the slant of moonlight that edged across the floor. To all her old and usual fears of Meg, of Sir John, of the devil, had been added a new one – the fear of Sir John’s wife. Meg laughed at Sir John’s discomfort, but Jul
y could not laugh, being herself in the grip of a shame more disabling than Sir John’s own. As she lay cowering in bed she said over and over, ‘Oh! we should not be here. We should not be here.’ For Dame Anne was kinswoman to Master Aske; he had told her so on that evening when he had found her at the Cross in Cheap; and if Dame Anne was angry and all her kinsfolk angry, July was undone. She could not distinguish in blame, and did not expect any other to distinguish, between herself and Meg.

  1533

  February 24

  Lord Darcy sat in the house at Stepney reading a book of devotion by the light of the branch of wax candles which stood behind his chair. He kept his eyes on the page faithfully enough, but his mind wandered. Thoughts about Templehurst mingled with his meditations on mortality: the roof of the great chamber that needed mending, the young fawns that should be fed in the lower close; or there would come clear and near before the eye of his mind a glance of the chequer chamber window, of the steps going down to the Chapel, of the trees beyond the distant river, sleeping on a summer evening with the light dying behind them.

  At last he dropped the book beside the chair and went over to the window. Outside the rain fell, steady and dark; it leaked through the casements, running in heavy drops along the iron bars of the windows and splashing down on the sill. In places it bubbled and spat upwards from the corner of the window frames. The gentlemen who were with him in the room watched him, then turned back to their occupations.

  ‘By the Rood!’ said Darcy, half aloud, ‘I would I were at home in the North Country.’

  He did not turn when someone knocked at the door, supposing it to be the servants with more lights; but as well as the lights they brought in his brother-in-law, Lord Sandys of the Vine, who slung off his heavy red felt coat which was dark across the shoulders where the rain had soaked in, and below that all silvery with the standing drops. He shook it before he tossed it to one of the gentlemen, and the wet flew off it and spattered the dogs that had run forward to greet him, so that they backed away.