The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  She went towards the gate-house, meaning to look out and along the Dale – much as the dormouse may look out, to taste more sweetly the comfort of his security. One of the women was feeding the hens. She tossed the good corn out in handfuls, then emptied out the last of it from the wooden measure; it rattled on the stiff wing feathers of the nearer birds. They were all dipping and dabbing at it on the ground; fussing, quarrelling, clucking, gobbling as quick as they might. Among the hens a few pigeons sidled, swinging their tails.

  The Prioress came to the gate-house arch and saw, striding along outside on his way back from Grinton, with a full poke slung from a stick on his shoulder, Sir Gilbert Dawe.

  Because, if she spoke to him, it must be to rebuke him for letting the altar linen get dirty and also spotted with damp, and because to-night all should be peace, she turned hastily back as if she had not seen him and went in and up to her chamber.

  But Gib knew she had seen him, and snorted aloud with indignant laughter. Had she let him come up with her he would have denounced her: her tyranny, her love of money, her easy living, her cruelty to the poor creature Malle. But she feared him. She had fled from him.

  The triumph of that thought warmed him. He refused to consider what the presence of Malle in his house did indeed mean. It meant that there was a woman to do the woman’s work, but it meant a woman’s tongue too. It had never entered his head – even if he had stayed to think it never would have entered his head – that the woman would speak except to answer him when he chose to speak to her.

  But she talked to Wat, cheerfully, foolishly, endlessly.

  September 26

  On the evening before his wedding Master Laurence Machyn dressed himself in his best doublet of yellow cloth faced with grey sarcenet, and taking with him the brother of his late wife, he went to greet his bride, who had been brought to London by Sir John Bulmer, and left in the charge of Sir John Uvedale and his lady.

  It was Laurence’s brother-in-law who shouted to the servants at the Cardinal’s Hat to find Sir John Uvedale; and his brother-in-law who so took the lead in conversation with Sir John’s lady, that she thought for several minutes that he was the groom. Even when she learnt that he was not she tended to address to him all the complexity of her explanations: – how her husband and Sir Rafe Bulmer were acquainted because both had been in the Household of the poor little Duke of Richmond, that sweet child, alas! too early taken – and so Sir John Bulmer had entrusted the young gentlewoman to her, but, alas! to-day is the poor young maid sick—

  ‘Sick!’ Laurence’s brother-in-law boomed, so that both Laurence and the lady jumped; and she explained hastily that it was no contagious sickness, but merely a disordered stomach, ‘but she retches so sore I would not bid her come down to greet ye.’

  ‘No. No,’ said Laurence hastily, speaking almost for the first time.

  ‘Jesu!’ the lady ran on, ‘it is but the weariness of the journey and her fears maybe, and time will mend all. Yet perhaps it was enough to scare the child, to be brought so suddenly to her marriage. But Sir John could not wait, and there was but two days for her to prepare, and so here she is with no more than six good shifts of her own, and a bundle of her sister’s gowns that’s far too big for her, but that was all there was time to provide, and they can be cut down. Not that the shifts aren’t good and fine, and I told her a husband loved better that his wife should bring to her marriage good shifts that he alone should see, rather than great plenty of outward gear that other men should admire, and nothing but patches and rents beneath. So I said to comfort her, but—’

  She had to stop there because Laurence’s brother so slapped his thigh and roared out a laugh crying, ‘Marry! but that’s good counsel for a bride. Marry! but that’s good.’

  They did not stay long after that, and Master Laurence’s brotherin-law was still laughing as they took their leave; his laughter and his big voice filled the courtyard of the Cardinal’s Hat, so that men and maids turned from their work to look at him. Sir John Uvedale’s lady’s gentlewoman looked too, peeping out from the window of the room upstairs where July lay limp and abject.

  ‘Hark, there he goes, your groom,’ she cried, and opened the casement to watch the better. ‘Such a big man,’ she told July, ‘with black hair that bristles on his head. And that’s his voice – great as a bull’s. Do you hear it?’

  July said faintly, yes, she heard it.

  ‘But who is it goes with him? Is he a widower? Hath he a son?’

  July murmured that she had been told that he was a widower, but of a son she knew nothing.

  ‘Well,’ said the woman, shutting the window, ‘you must rest you now, and sleep well while you may, for such a man will give you no rest to-morrow’s night.’

  July shut her eyes. She felt ill enough to die, but had no hope to be so lucky. It was a few moments later that she drove herself to ask, ‘What manner of man is he?’

  ‘Big. Black – as I told you.’

  ‘But of countenance and favour?’

  The gentlewoman had not seen more than his back so could not say. July was left to picture an ogre, huge as a bull, and black-bristled, yet with the gleaming, thin malevolence of a friend of William Cheyne.

  September 28

  Master Laurence Machyn lived in Knightrider Street, almost next door to the Church of St. Andrew in the Wardrobe. The house from the front looked very small, because Laurence’s grandfather, who had built it, had squeezed it in between a fishmonger’s house on one side and on the other a much older house of stone, which had belonged to the Black Prince, but which now had a shoemaker’s sign – the Cow & Garland – hung over its stately but half-ruinous gate.

  Inside, the Machyns’ house was larger than it looked. You came, by the door from the street, to the passage beside the screens, with the great chamber opening off on the right. There had been no room to build the kitchen and offices opposite the screens in the usual way, so these – a kitchen, a little buttery and a pantry – lay at the back of the house through a door opposite the street door. Upstairs there was quite a big solar over the great chamber, and leading off that the bedroom in which Laurence Machyn had been born, and in which last night he and his bride had been bedded. Above there were smaller rooms where two of Laurence’s men and three serving-women slept, and one little empty attic where an old chest and a couple of trussing coffers were stored.

  Behind the house, opposite the kitchen, stood the long workshop where the men made the coffins, for Laurence, who belonged to the Guild of the Merchant Taylors, furnished forth burials. A woodstore opened out of it, and above was a dark loft, where the candles, big and little, were stacked, some as stout as flails, some no thicker than ash twigs. In presses there, kept under lock and key, there were palls of rich stuff which Laurence hired out; being for rich dead men they were very fine, woven with gold among the colours; lesser folk would hire a pall from their parish church, but those, of course, were not so splendid. Sometimes the loft was gay with the painted buckram shields that Laurence had had painted to be carried after the dead, and always, hanging on pegs, there were black gowns worn by poor men who followed the dead, carrying the lighted candles and banners.

  Pinched in between the buttery and the workshop, and enclosing a little yard where there were flowers, mixed up with parsley, thyme, sage, penny-royal and other kitchen stuff, there was a brewhouse, and if you went past that by a covered passage you came to a little garden. Most of it was taken up by an old mulberry-tree, but along one wall there was an alley built with poles and planted with honeysuckle and with a vine that bore tiny grapes like green beads.

  July wakened in the big bed in the room off the solar. The curtains were drawn close but she could see that there was daylight beyond them. She started up, then, because of a sick faintness, lay down again, and buried her face in the pillow and cried.

  Yet that she could cry at all meant that the worst had not come upon her. If it had been as she had feared she must have hardened herself t
o stone or to cold iron. As it was she could cry. For when they had brought her to church and she had made as if to give her hand to the big, black-bristled man, it had been taken by another, not indeed very attractive to look at, since he was lean and light, with pale brown sparse hair, and a thin face with a ridiculously large mouth. When he smiled his smile was more gentle than merry, and he showed very black and bad teeth, which made his breath unpleasant to her when he kissed her. But at least he was not alarming like the other, and nothing at all like William Cheyne.

  Yet even so, and though during the feasting and the dancing she caught him sometimes looking at her with a kind look, the day had been a nightmare of fears and sickness, and then came the night. Now she lay with her face hidden. She did not realize how great his forbearance had been, but, as she thought of that night, she believed she had not slept at all till the light came, for even when he slept she had lain awake hearing the bells from the Black Friars’ Church ring so loud that they might have been in the room.

  Now they rang again, and other bells, more distant, on this side and that, with a sweet, wandering music. But since the hour was so late she must get up quickly. Why had he not roused her? He – they all – would be angry. Where were her clothes? And what must she do when she had them on? Call the women? Go to look for him?

  Trembling and clumsy, she began to dress. But she could not put on the gown she had worn yesterday; that was for feasts only. She had to tumble out all Meg’s gay stuff upon the floor to find one of her own, and at last was ready to go down, in her old brown gown and grey petticoat.

  It was absurd, and also acutely embarrassing, to be creeping about the house like this, an intruder, and yet one who might not go away. And she began to know that she was terribly, achingly hungry. She thought that if she found the kitchen one of the women might give her bread and perhaps a drink of ale. She came down into the great chamber. It was yet in disarray after yesterday’s company: dishes and cans on the table, and a cat crunching delicately at a chop bone under a bench. It occurred to her that she too might find something to eat fallen among the rushes, and so stay her stomach. But if they caught her so employed, or asked her after how she had breakfasted—? She could not risk it.

  Yet where were the kitchens? Confused, she opened a door, and found herself looking out upon the street. She came to the other door opposite, and had her hand on the latch to open it when it swung in suddenly, so that she had to spring back as her husband came in hastily.

  He stepped back too, and they stared at each other, in an equal embarrassment. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked, not being able to think of anything to say, and at that she began to stammer excuses in so palpable a fright that it helped him to recover himself

  He looked down at her, small, thin, and dressed as meekly as any night-flying moth in grey and brown. And she feared him. For a moment he thought to take her hand and say, ‘Sweetheart, I left you to sleep.’ But no. He must be sure of his foothold before he encouraged her to take liberties. He looked grave.

  ‘No matter, wife,’ he said; and then, ‘Shall I – I shall call Marget to show you the house.’

  ‘If you will, Sir.’

  She looked utterly miserable. ‘But you’ve not breakfasted,’ he cried, and, forgetting that he must at all costs make himself master in these early days, he left her hurriedly to call on the women in the kitchen to be quick – ‘Be quick and bring your mistress breakfast.’

  When one came in with it he came back too, and pushed aside the cups and platters from the end of the table in the great chamber by which July had sat herself down forlornly. While she ate he sat opposite her, not saying much and keeping, when he remembered, a solemn and even a frowning countenance, and when he did not remember, looking at her with gentleness, pity, curiosity, and lessening apprehension.

  On the whole he felt greatly reassured by her appearance and behaviour. He thought that it was impossible she should prove to be such another wife as his first. The late Mistress Machyn had been five years older than he, and a widow when he took her. She was, besides, a great hearty creature, with a complexion like a farmer’s wife, and a voice like an usher in the courts. You would have thought that she would have outlasted half a dozen such as Laurence Machyn, and when she died of the sweating sickness he had been so amazed that he had quite forgotten to fear that he might die of it himself.

  So he watched July, noting with approval that she ate most daintily. But, he thought, if she’s too dainty how shall I ensure that she well orders the house? And he began to foresee troubles other than those which he had already suffered.

  But when, having finished eating, she looked up at him with a little colour in her cheeks and life in her eyes, he smiled at her and began to fumble in his pouch.

  ‘See, Sweeting,’ he said, ‘there’s four angels for you to spend as you will,’ and then he coughed, and told her sternly that the women must be set to clear out the chamber before dinner-time – ‘And that’s not long,’ said he, ‘for it must be near ten of the clock, and look at all this!’ He swept his hand about to direct her attention to the confusion on the tables, as though it was all her fault. ‘I shall send you old Marget,’ he said, and left her.

  September 30

  Will Wall said, as he held Aske’s stirrup this morning, ‘You did ought to have let me take the mare to be shod. That off fore is working loose.’ And then, as though it were all part of the same reproach, ‘They’re turning forth the Canons from North Ferriby this morning.’

  ‘It’ll last me to-day,’ Aske said cheerfully, as if he had heard only Will’s warning about the loose shoe.

  But when the mare dropped it, and Aske lost the rest of the hunt, instead of going back to the smith at Swanland he began to walk her downhill towards where the tower of North Ferriby stood up amongst the trees of the village.

  The smith told him that all the Canons had gone away early this morning – ‘except Dom Philip Cawood,’ said he, ‘and you’ll find him, I doubt not, at the ale-house.’ But Aske was only too glad to hear that he need not see any of those who were turned out; and if one of them were to seek solace in drinking himself silly Aske did not blame him. He left his horse at the smithy, and walked along the empty street of the village towards the Priory: only the ducks and the hens were about, but already he could hear the sound of voices which told him where were all the absent villagers.

  In front of the Priory gate-house a row of carts was drawn up; three men were already loading up a big iron-bound coffer, and as Aske went past them another came out with a bundle of woven hangings on his back. Inside the first court a group of women stood close, peering in through the doorway that led into the Canons’ offices. They fell back when they saw Aske, and let him go by in silence; he looked over his shoulder, and they had come a few paces after him and then stood again, silent and staring.

  But in the Church itself there was no silence, but a great noise of voices, and the shouts of children skylarking up and down the Canons’ night stairs. There was a sound of hammering too, and wrenching of wood, as wainscoting was stripped from the walls of a vestry beyond. Now and again there came a louder outcry when one of the villagers was caught pilfering from among all that which was now the King’s, and which the Receiver’s men were collecting in great piles in the Church and Cloister. Aske stuck his hands through his belt and stood watching it for a long time; until, in fact, the fellow in charge turned all out of the Church and locked the door behind him. He gave Aske good day politely, and then looked curiously at him, before he went to his dinner. Aske took his horse again at the smith’s and started off in the direction of Ellerker, but at the lane that led to the Manor he did not turn; instead he rode on along the old Roman Road northward.

  It was dark when he came again to Ellerker, and so late that as he approached the house he could see no light at all. Yet he had hardly knocked when the gate was opened by Will.

  Aske rode in and dismounted stiffly. The mare had had enough too. Will swept his l
antern over her and then lifted it so that he could see his master’s face.

  ‘Have you – Sir,’ he cried, ‘have you been over the water?’

  ‘Over Humber? Why should you think I went over Humber?’

  Will did not say, and Aske did not care enough to press him. Of all fruitless journeys and foolish, surely his had been the most fruitless, most foolish. ‘But at least,’ he thought, ‘I have seen with mine own eyes what it is that is done.’ He had seen, as at Ferriby, so at Pocklington, and at York, the emptied shells of what had been Houses of Religious. He had even been so near home as Thicket, and in the last glimmer of dusk had felt his way into the little Church where, Will had said, the rain was coming in upon the altar. It was too dark for him to see, but certainly the place smelt of damp, and already of decay.

  Will brought him some supper now from the kitchen and put it down at the end of a table in the Hall where Aske already sat, with a rushlight making only a small and faint island of light in the darkness.

  ‘Master,’ said Will, ‘they do not guess where you have been.’

  Aske looked at him dully. How could they guess?

  ‘I said you had sent word by a pedlar that came. I said you had met one of the gentlemen from Gray’s Inn that was going to Hull and that you had gone thither to dine with him.’

  Aske said, ‘Will, go to bed. What are you talking about?’ But he did not in the least want to know, and Will went off without answering.