The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  By the time the servant had finished his talk with Shepherd, and gone on after the others to the Manor, and was ready to bring July down to the Priory, the sun had set, though the sky was still bright and warm over towards the west. But as they dropped down the hill twilight met them; soon all the air was washed through with a kind of clear darkness. The earth was turning back from day towards its nightly privacy, and man, who had during the light been master, now moved as a stranger, ignored rather than unwelcome, upon whom, departing, doors were softly closed. July, riding pillion behind the silent servant, lifted her eyes and saw the first star prick out among the bare sharp branches of an ash tree, in a sky as green as it was blue. Another light, nearer and warmer, caught her eye, and when she turned she could see the lit windows of the Priory. Candles burned in the upper rooms with a clear, twinkling flame, but the painted windows of the Church were lit with a coloured steady glow.

  She looked back down the Dale, and would have been glad to stay hidden there, unnoticed in the deep tranquillity, and covered by the rising dark. But the servant rode on to the gate-house.

  He sat awhile with Jankin the Nuns’ porter, while July went in to wait on the Prioress in the Parlour. He told Jankin a great deal about July’s sister; Jankin would not believe that she was so beautiful as he said, but did not doubt that she was as bad. As to July the Bulmers’ man admitted that one said this and another that; but Jankin was always happy to believe the worst.

  February 18

  Robert Aske shifted some crumbs on the table one way and another with the curve of his hand; he made them into a neat pile, and scattered them again with his finger. The Hall of Gray’s Inn was full of Barristers and Benchers at table, of the good smell from their supper, of the sound of their talking, and of the trembling flames of many candles.

  For once Aske himself was not talking but listening, his heavy brows drawn together, his big mouth pouted forward and very tight at the corners. His neighbours were disputing as to how that clause had come into Magna Charta by which Ecclesia Anglicana libera sit, and what was meant by it. Those round about him spoke of the words as words written in ink upon parchment, which, like pieces in a game of chess, would be set against other words; to move words thus against each other made a very good game. It was a game too that Aske liked well to play, but not to-night, not with these words, because these meant something too real to play with. If Parliament should give, as Parliament was busy giving, all power over the Church in England into the hands of the King, how should the Church in England be free?

  Aske covered the crumbled bread with his hand, and stared unseeing at the thin grey beard on a Bencher’s chin that wagged between him and a candle flame as the old man talked. These new laws that were being made overshadowed his mind with something of the unease and oppression that goes before a thunder-storm. And away down below that and almost out of hearing there was a voice that asked a question – ‘If these things were done, what should a man do?’ But that meant, ‘What shall I do?’

  When supper was over and all stood up he shook his shoulders as if he shrugged off a cloak, and went away to his own chamber. Will Wall was there, turning some clothes out of a chest. He had in his hands an old velvet coat of his master’s, and as he looked up, his long, dark, melancholy face was so full of trouble that Aske cried out to know what was wrong.

  ‘Perdy!’ said Will, ‘the pile of this velvet is so rubbed as a rye-field beat down with rain. I don’t like to see you go so poorly, Master Robin, as to wear such a thing.’

  Aske laughed, and, on his way to the bench by the fire, flicked Will’s shoulder lightly with his hand, feeling a sudden warmth of relief and assurance in the old and close tie that bound the two of them. Parliament nor the King could not change Will, nor change all the settled faithfulness between man and man – so settled that you forgot about it till you found yourself stand in the midst of change.

  He said, as he got down his book from the shelf, ‘Then take it for yourself, Will. It’ll trim your grey camlet gown.’

  Will’s face lit, but he hesitated. ‘It’d trim that red doublet of yours, Master.’

  ‘Lord!’ Aske said, ‘I’m beautiful enough without any such adorning,’ and grinned at him, and began to read. Will went away with the velvet coat over his arm, to get his supper.

  After a while Aske laid the book on his knee and reached for a bundle of parchments, the evidences of the Kentish squire who had briefed him lately, – charters and chirographs all tied together by a hawk’s creance, and kept in a soiled bag of white leather. He had forgotten the troubles of the times and now was whistling through his teeth, for he saw the way he could plead, to establish his own case and undermine the other; argument and counter-argument came so trippingly to his mind that suddenly he drove his fist down upon the end of the bench, swearing, ‘By God’s Passion, I’ll have them there!’ and felt power, like a shiver, go right down his spine.

  April 16

  The Benchers and Barristers of the Inns were called to Lambeth this day, to take the oath. There was a great crowd in the Hall of the Archbishop’s Palace, mostly of men of law, but also of other gentlemen; those of them who stood near the fire steamed like a wet washing day, for the rain had beat on them as they crossed the river, and now it rattled upon the windows of the Hall, and hissed in the swirling flames of the fire.

  At the upper end of the room the Archbishop, the Chancellor, and the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk sat behind the table. They took no part in what was going on, except that at times one or another of them would lift his hand to his cap in answer to a greeting from some Bencher or Sergeant-at-Law among the crowd. For the most part the Lords talked softly together; the Archbishop did not talk but seemed to watch each man’s face as he came up to take the oath; there was a pewter pot in front of him with daffodils and sprigs of rosemary in it, and now and then his fingers fidgeted with the flowers. In front of the table two clerks stood; each had a book in one hand and a copy of the oath in the other; not that they needed any copy by now, so well they had the words by heart after having repeated them to so many.

  Hal Hatfield and Wat Clifton found themselves at the head of the slowly moving line. The clerks bent their heads, listening, then made a motion with their hands, and the two Barristers passed on towards the door. Aske had come in with them, but the three had got separated in the crowd. He had just now come to stand before one of the clerks; Hatfield and Clifton muttered, ‘Stay a moment,’ each without hearing what the other said; their eyes were on Aske,

  The clerk repeated the oath, phrase by phrase, as he had done for each man; Aske said it after him; they could hear his voice over the shuffling of feet and the subdued sound of talking. He joined them at the door and together they went out.

  The shower was taking off as they came slowly from under the gate-house. Hal drew in a great breath of rain-sweetened air. ‘There are,’ he said, ‘many good reasons – many good reasons in law why no man should scruple to swear.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Clifton. ‘Many.’

  Hal ran through a few of them; they were at his tongue’s end, for at Gray’s Inn the matter had been fully debated ever since Parliament had, more than a fortnight ago, ordered that every man and woman in the kingdom should take the oath to uphold the King’s second daughter for his lawful heir, born of a lawful marriage. That meant that his first marriage was no marriage at all, and that, again, that the Pope’s dispensation for the marriage was nothing. Matters such as these, of great moment and of as great complexity, had provided ample material for argument.

  ‘I,’ said Clifton, glancing at Aske who was silent, ‘I took the oath adding “so far as the law of Christ allows”.’

  ‘They did not stickle at it?’ Clifton shook his head. Hal turned to Aske. ‘Did you the same, Robin?’

  ‘No,’ said Aske, and they looked away from him.

  But next moment he had put his arms so roughly about their necks that he bobbed their heads together.

  ‘Com
e,’ he said loudly. ‘Let’s drink! This taking of oaths makes me thirsty.’

  They sat in front of their pint pots till it was past noon, with not another thing said of the business that had brought them to Lambeth. When they went down to the river to take a boat they were arguing about fishing, each extolling that fly or bait which above all others, so he said, was beloved of trout and grayling. They came down to the Hard which, as the tide was low, stretched a long way out through the washed, smooth sands. The wind had dropped, the rain was over, and against the grey, quiet sky the gulls showed coldly white. Aske brought the dispute to a sudden and tame conclusion.

  ‘Oh! well, maybe you will take them as well with one fly as with another. Though,’ he muttered, ‘in our fenny waters—’ He broke off there, shrugged and let it alone.

  He was silent for a minute and then said, as if he were in a hurry to have it spoken before they stepped into the wherry, ‘Sir Thomas More and the Bishop of Rochester lie this day in the Tower. Yet is their conscience clean.’

  April 20

  When Chapter was over and everyone back in the Cloister the two other novices, good little girls who had not received correction in Chapter, drew themselves away from July. They had known that she told lies, and mimicked the Ladies behind their backs, but now that everybody knew it and July had been birched before all the House they did not wish to be seen associating with her.

  So July stood alone, smiling, because that was the way to hide anything that hurt. But it is difficult to maintain a smile for a long time, especially when it is only for the sake of defence; the smile became a grin, then a grimace. She was very glad when the bell rang for Terce and they must all go into Church.

  When they came out from Chapter Mass lessons began again. July, crouching within herself, did not for some time observe that her companions seemed to have forgotten that she had on her something which she had supposed to be indelible as the mark of Cain. But when the Novice Mistress dropped her book, and almost overset her chair as she bent to recover it, the other two novices, confining their giggles by hands pressed over their mouths, turned their eyes, shining with laughter, upon her, to share the fun. And a little later the Novice Mistress, who had laid on the birch, commended July’s reading.

  At first July was incredulous. Yet it was true. These people here were as kind as happy. And that evening old Dame Eleanor Maxwell, deaf as a post, slow as a cow, and sweet as new-made bread, gave July a little carved box. Dame Eleanor had been one of those whom July had mimicked, and when the old lady put the box into her hands she almost dropped it, and blushed up to her veil for shame. But Dame Eleanor, muttering, ‘To keep your bobbins in. To keep your bobbins tidy,’ patted July’s hand and closed her fingers round the box. July went away, still with a very hot face, glad that Dame Eleanor had missed that part of the accusations in Chapter, and dreading lest someone should now tell her.

  She went away to the room where she slept and took out from the trussing coffer her bobbins and her thimble and laid them in Dame Eleanor’s box. The twilight was coming in very quietly, and here and there in the woods birds were singing which had felt the first motion of the spring this sweet still day. July lingered. There was a doubt in her mind; it was vaguer than a question, but yet it was there. Was there any need to tell lies and to mock in this quiet place? The doubt, even though she did not try to resolve it, brought a kind of ease like that which the quiet evening had brought to the Dale; outside the windows, as dusk gathered, fields and trees turned to sleep too softly even for the release of a sigh.

  May 14

  The ostler of the White Horse at Cambridge tossed up the saddle of the bay mare onto the peg and looped the irons over it. Then he came back to take off the bridle, but his mind was not on that but on the argument that had risen between him and Mr. Patchett’s servant, who now leaned against the door prodding at the cobbles with a faggot-stick he had picked up in the yard, and declaring that the Pope should put all right, and make King Harry take his own wife again.

  ‘There is no Pope,’ cried the ostler, and jagged at a buckle so sharply that the bay threw up her head and laid back her ears. He left her and went to the doorway. ‘There is no Pope,’ he repeated, ‘but only a Bishop of Rome.’ A few loiterers outside, hearing the note of controversy, came nearer to listen.

  Mr. Patchett’s servant ground the end of the faggot-stick into the crack between two cobbles. ‘There is a Pope,’ said he, ‘and they that hold the contrary are strong heretics.’

  ‘Hah!’ cried the ostler. ‘If I am a heretic yet I have the King’s Grace who holds of my part.’

  ‘Then are both you a heretic and the King another. And this business never would have been if the King had not married that strumpet Nan Boleyn.’

  ‘Fie!’ cried the ostler, who was a little man but stringy and tough, whereas Mr. Patchett’s servant was a large, soft man.

  The loiterers outside closed in; a dog came and skulked about round the outside of the group. In the midst the two were arguing ever more hotly. ‘Knave!’ the ostler called his opponent and then Mr. Patchett’s servant raised the faggot-stick and broke the ostler’s head.

  At that moment a company of grave gentlemen were coming out of the door of the White Horse; most of them were Doctors of the University, but among them was the Mayor. He stopped, and then crossed the yard.

  ‘What’s this?’

  The ostler with his hands to his head clamoured, ‘Master Mayor! Master Mayor!’ When the Mayor had heard his story he looked very grim. ‘For it smelleth to me of treason what you, fellow, have said,’ and he frowned on Mr. Patchett’s servant.

  ‘Mass!’ said he, being a man of temper and courage for all his fat look. ‘Mass! then is half the realm in treason with me; for as I say, they think.’

  June 2

  ‘Now,’ said the Novice Mistress, ‘we shall read again in the “Revelation of Love” of Dame Julian of Norwich. The First Revelation – the Fourth Chapter. Take you the book.’ She gave the book to the eldest novice, who began to read.

  ‘And in this, suddenly I saw the red blood running down from under the garland, hot and freshly, plenteously and lively, right as it was in the time that the garland of thorns was pressed on his blessed head, right so both God and man the same that suffered for me.’

  July leaned her elbows on her knees and slid her hands up inside her veil so that she could press her fingers into her ears to keep out the words. She succeeded so well that she nearly got herself into trouble, because when it came to her turn to read, Bridget had to jog her arm, and, even when she took the book, she had no idea of the place, for instead of following over Bridget’s shoulder she had shut her eyes tight too.

  ‘Where?’ she whispered urgently, and Bridget’s finger came down on the page—

  ‘Notwithstanding, the bleeding continued till many things were seen and understanded,’

  she began breathlessly, but Bridget jogged her again, and pointed.

  ‘The plenteousness is like to the drops of water that fall off the eavesing of an house after a great shower of rain, that fall so thick that no man may number them with any bodily wit. And for the roundness, they were like to the scale of herring in the spreading of the forehead.

  ‘These three things came to my mind in the time: pellets, for the roundness in the coming out of the blood; the scale of herring, for the roundness in the spreading; the drops of the eavesing of an house, for the plenteousness unnumerable.

  ‘This showing was quick and lively, and hideous and dreadful, and sweet and lovely.’

  July gabbled on as fast as she could, trying not to understand what she read. To her the showing was hideous and dreadful indeed, but it was nothing else.

  When the Novice Mistress said, ‘Enough,’ July shut the book with alacrity. ‘Now it is time,’ said the Novice Mistress, ‘that ye should turn to your broidering. But in your minds ponder that ye have read.’

  They sat thereafter in a demure silence. The Cloister was empty of
the Ladies, who, this fine, warm day, were gone out to the daleside to sit among the young bracken and in the shade of the thorn bushes, spinning and sewing. Only the Sacrist’s big striped cat lay at ease in the sunshine on the paving of the North Cloister walk. From the Great Court came voices of servants, men and women, and sometimes the soft gabbling of ducks. There was also a steady hum of bees in the flowers of the Cloister garth.

  July, glancing up sharply from her work, tried to read the Novice Mistress’s face. It was absorbed and serene as she stooped over a little purse of scarlet silk. July did not understand how it could be serene after the horror of pain that the book had laid bare. She grew angry with the Novice Mistress – did she not understand what she was doing, to make them read such things? The little Priory between the Dale-side and the quick-running Swale had become for Julian a lodge of leafy branches built on a summer day, so pleasant, so flimsy as that. She did not want the woven branches torn open to let in the sight of God suffering. She wanted not to know – or rather to un-know – that there was suffering everywhere.

  July 12

  Early in the morning the hay-makers set out from the Priory to carry in from the last and farthest of the Priory closes. The Cellaress went a little later, and with her the three novices, and the mother of the youngest of them. It was only because she had asked it of the Prioress that the three were allowed the treat of spending the day in the hay-field. Jane’s mother knew what little girls liked; she was young herself, and pretty, and plump; not heavily plump, but with something of the soft, airy roundness of a dandelion clock.

  So with bread and meat, cheese and beer, and a pannier of cherries, they set off from the Priory gate across the open field to the gate at the foot of Marrick Steps. Here and there in the grass at their feet there shone a soft blink of wet gold, where the sun caught a dewy cobweb. But in the woods the shade was thick, and the air damp and green. Jane, who lived in her own private world of marvels, heroisms, and holinesses, walked behind the others with her finger on her lips and treading softly because someone, she was sure, had said ‘Hush!’ to the trees, and there was somewhere under a great stone a monstrous fairy toad, with a gold crown on his head. If the trees kept quiet long enough he might look out from under the stone. Her mother and the Cellaress talked pleasantly of grown-up matters. July and the eldest novice forged ahead to reach the hay-making quickly.