The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  When July had listened to the bell for quite a time she suddenly began to bestir herself, bundling the rue into its washing water, and from that, with scant care, into the pot. Calling to one of the women, to have an eye on it, she went upstairs for her cloak and hood, and then to the workshop. It was empty except for young Dickon, who had been left behind with plenty to do in cleaning of brushes and grinding of paints. But when July came in he pocketed a pair of dice, and jumped up. ‘Get the basket,’ said July, ‘and come with me.’

  But she was not going shopping – at least, not yet, and she told Dickon, ‘I shall go first to church.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the boy, politely though without enthusiasm; but when he understood that she would go to St. Andrew’s to see them bring in the corpse of Sir William Laxton, Knight and Grocer and Alderman of London, it was a very different matter.

  And even as they came to the church door they could see the procession moving towards them up the street. ‘Ooh!’ cried Dickon, jumping up and down to see better, and then climbing up on the plinth of the church porch, and clinging to the stone like a tomtit to a tree. ‘Ooh! here they come! See the escutcheons nid-nodding. And the candles, so many!’ July looked back from the steps. The crowded escutcheons of arms upon their poles were bright as a garden of flowers, and beyond them the great candles moved close as a thicket, but the flames of these, borne backward as the procession moved, made but a pale show against the sunshine. She gave one glance and then went on into the church.

  Here, when the door swung to behind her, there was sudden darkness and quiet, with a sour and solemn smell of old incense, damp, and stale rushes. Two priests moved about in the sanctuary; they looked round as they heard her lift the latch, but she slipped away behind a pillar and knelt down out of sight.

  Only when all the train of choirmen and boys, bearers and mourners, had brought the dead Grocer into church and set him down below the painted Rood, did July shuffle out cautiously from where she lurked. Now, in the dimness of the church, the colours of the escutcheons showed only gloomily, but the candle flames, winkling and fluttering, were warm gold and very bright. In the midst, where the light was brightest from the clustered candles set on the hearse, she could just see the crimson and cloth of gold pall which covered the coffin.

  ‘Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis.’

  The voices rose and fell in the chant, answering each other in words which she did not understand, yet knew, as she knew, mistily, the intent of them.

  ‘In diebus illis: Audivi vocem de caelo: dicentem mihi, Scribe. Beati mortui: qui in Domine moriuntur. Amodo jam dicit Spiritus: ut requiescant a laboribus suis... ’

  ‘Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis... ’

  ‘Give him rest eternal... Give him light... A voice from heaven saying, “Blessed are the dead, for they rest... Rest, and light.”’

  So the words went by in July’s mind, yet less akin to words than to musical sounds, disembodied, piercing home beyond the reach of words.

  For her it was not the body of that prosperous Knight and Grocer which lay under the crimson, golden-gleaming pall. It was Robert Aske’s body, and it was his spirit that waited now its dismissal among all lovely and loving shows, lights, singing and the presence of friends and lovers. For surely now he must be dead; and if he was dead, then at peace. And perhaps, thought July, death is the best thing, and I need not have feared, because there is always death, and it will not have hunt him long. And surely he must be dead.

  She got up from her knees, and was surprised to find Dickon at her elbow, for she had forgotten him.

  ‘Where do we go now, Mistress?’ he asked, skipping along beside her, but whispering because of the solemnity of the church.

  ‘To buy some cucumbers,’ said July.

  *

  On that same day, and at about the same time that July was in church, Robert Aske made his confession, and received absolution. He heard Dr. Curwen, the Priest, finish the Office, leave the altar, and come near. Yet he knelt for a moment longer in the little chapel of the Keep at York. When he stood up he must go up to the top of the tower to his hanging.

  He found himself upon his feet.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I am ready. And I pray God bless the King’s Grace for letting me pass without those pains which—’

  He stopped, not because Dr. Curwen had said anything, or even moved. Yet he stopped, and waited for the Priest to speak.

  Dr. Curwen cleared his throat. He looked at the altar, he looked at the floor. He said: ‘Aske, it is the King’s will, that since you think it a religion to keep hidden between God and you the names of those traitorous persons whom you know of in the South parts – it is his will that you shall hang in chains until you die.’

  Aske felt his cheek grow cold and his heart begin to jump, before, it seemed, his brain understood what it was that Curwen had said. Then he understood it fully.

  ‘God!’ he whispered, and cried again, ‘God!’ so loud that his voice cracked on the word.

  Jack Aske, and the other Yorkshire gentlemen bidden to York by the Duke of Norfolk, and now waiting on top of the Keep, heard the cry. More than one of them started, looked aside at his neighbour, and then as quickly away. Jack shut his eyes, and hoped not to fall. In the silence that followed they heard the soft purr of the wind against the battlement, and except for that nothing but the sounds (and they were very slight sounds) of the crowd below. Yet it was a great crowd, York being full for market day, and all the market now deserted for this business of the hanging of the Great Captain of the Pilgrims.

  There was a stir at the open door of the stair which came out on the roundway. The Duke’s foot soldiers came up, and among them, but alone, the prisoner. Jack shrank back, but even so if he had reached out a hand he could have touched Robin as he passed by with a blank face, and his blank eye socket (‘Thank God!’ thought Jack) on this side.

  Then up came the Duke of Norfolk, whom Jack and all those other gentlemen must salute, as he saluted them with a grave but courteous air. And all the time, as Robin’s brother uncovered, and as he received the Duke’s greeting, he was in an agony lest Robin should see him there.

  He need not have feared. Robert Aske had no wits just now to see anyone. He stood, dumb and still, while they fixed the irons about him, brought him to the ladder, and helped and hauled him up it. He heard Dr. Curwen’s voice saying the prayers that he knew, and by some compulsion in him, when the Doctor’s voice stopped, he made the necessary responses. But all his mind and will were bent upon one thing only, and that was so to rule his body that when he was cast off it should neither struggle nor scream.

  He could not altogether rule it. When he swung out, and the irons bit him, he did struggle, because he must. One of his shoes came off, and it seemed to him a frightful thing that he should have to go short of a shoe, until he remembered that he would not ever again tread upon anything but the empty air.

  He was alone now. Close beside him the roundway was empty, but when he glanced down into the sickening depth below his feet, he could see that the green space was full of white faces turned up to him.

  With a groaning of iron upon iron, he was turning slowly round. The Minster came into sight just as the bells sounded, tossing out their bubbles of sweet sound upon the air. Still he turned; now he saw Fishergate Bar, half ruinous since it had been blocked up for so long, now the wide country beyond, patched golden with harvest, and far away the low hills beyond Aughton.

  The hours wore on, and pain grew. Towards evening he began to suffer from thirst.

  July 18

  July was in Mistress Holland’s parlour upstairs when the Vintner brought in another man of his mystery, but a stranger, and not of the London Guild. He was a fine old man, with a handsome, kind, quiet face; his name was Master Oldroyd. He and Master Holland sat down in the window seat, and when they all had wine and wafers and cherries ready to hand, the two men talked of men’s affairs in low
voices, and it seemed sadly, and Mistress Holland continued her interrupted account of the qualities of a new serving-woman. In a few minutes she got up and went out to fetch a new coif to show July, and July sat, not listening nor looking towards the men till she caught a word that Master Oldroyd spoke.

  ‘York?’ she said then. Mr. Oldroyd turned to her.

  ‘Do you know York, Mistress?’ said he, leaning forward towards her, because he liked young things.

  She nodded, though indeed she knew nothing of York but that she had passed through it, once to go north with Meg, once to come to London to her wedding – that, and a fact that filled the earth – that Master Aske had been hanged there.

  Master Holland heaved up his hand, let it fall on his thigh with a great clap, and sighed deeply.

  ‘Alas!’ said he. ‘Tell her what you’ve told me. It will be sad news for her, for Mistress July knows him, and brought him once here to us, and there he sat.’

  He pointed, and July followed his finger to the place where Master Aske had sat on a settle beside the hearth which was full now of green boughs for summer. Then her eyes came back to Master Oldroyd’s face.

  ‘God have mercy on him,’ said he, ‘and send him death soon. I tell you it struck me through the heart the other morning when I came by under the Keep, and saw him move – as, poor soul, he will move yet for many a day.’

  ‘Move yet?’ said July.

  ‘It was but the day after his hanging, for they hanged him last market day, and men that are hanged in chains live longer, much longer, God help him, than that.’

  July looked down at her hands as they lay on her lap, but she did not see them or anything else in this room. She only heard the King say, ‘Surely he shall hang till he be full dead.’

  Master Oldroyd sighed. ‘God help him,’ he said again. ‘But did you indeed know him, Mistress?’

  ‘Since I was a young child,’ July said out of a dead body.

  She did not leave at once. Mistress Holland came back with the coif, and turned it about to show it off, and July said it was pretty. Master Oldroyd got up, and took his leave, and he and Master Holland went away. Mistress Holland peered at July, patted her hands and said that indeed she looked but poorly yet.

  It was then that July said that she must go, and followed Mistress Holland downstairs. It seemed to her to be ages of years after the time that Master Oldroyd had come into the room.

  She said good-bye to Mistress Holland, was kissed, was given – and said thanks for – a basket of cherries. There was no hurry. Master Oldroyd had said that he would live a long time yet.

  But once she had parted from the Vintner’s wife haste devoured her and she fled through the streets, seeing nothing, hearing nothing; needing, before she dared to think, one thing – to be alone.

  *

  That morning Malle and Wat had to carry a big pannier of clean, washed linen to the Hostess of the Dolphin. They came back along Bishopgate, Malle going in front and Wat keeping warily off, a few paces after. But just before the gate Malle turned.

  ‘Wat!’ she said. ‘Wat!’ and though it was broad day her hands went out as though she felt about for him in a dark place.

  He slipped away, so as to put a man with a barrow-load of fresh lettuce between them. Then he made as if to run, yet turned and came again to her, though shrinkingly.

  She said: ‘Darkness, and God moving nigh-hand in the darkness.’

  Wat seized a handful of her gown and dragged her with him till they were out of the busy street and upon one of the little paths that led, vagrant as sheep tracks, among the thorn bushes in the narrow space between the houses here and the Town Ditch. There was no one about except two old men fishing, a few children, and some tethered goats. Wat pushed Malle down on a little bank where butter-and-eggs and pale vetch grew; he went a little way from her and crouched down, keeping his eyes on her face, as still as a rabbit before a stoat.

  Malle said: ‘Darkness is made over all the earth, deep as the sea, hissing bitter and black with pain, salted sharp with all men’s sins. And He drowns there, hanging from the nails they have stricken through His hands.’

  Wat moaned and grumbled in his throat, and below them beside the water one of the old men swept up his float and cast it back again with a little plop.

  Malle said: ‘So is He gone down under those waves.’ She lifted her head and her eyes widened. ‘Look!’ she said. ‘The Dale’s full of light. He has set on fire the sea. Not even the deep waters can quench Him, but He comes again, flaming and shining, with the bitter sea itself to be His new coat. Hurt and harm are His coat, and a glory that the young stars didn’t know. Light has licked up the dark water. Love has drunk sorrow, rejoicing, and the great Angel of Pain is redeemed.’

  She stood up.

  ‘Come, little knave,’ she said, ‘there’s one at the Manor that needs must be told.’

  But when they found July, hurrying through the streets, and Malle went along with her, telling her what she had seen, and pulling now and again at July’s arm to make sure she heard, July only struck her off.

  *

  Indeed July marked her no more than one passing through the woods in summer marks the tower of gnats that swims above his head as he goes.

  When she came into the house, having slammed the door upon Malle, there was no one in the Hall, so she stood a moment, looking down into the hearth, filled with green boughs for summer, but blackened by fire. She was alone at last; yet now she found that to be alone gave Master Oldroyd’s words more room to swell, and swell.

  One of the serving-maids came in and asked her a question. What the words meant July could not tell. She said, ‘I do not know. You must see to it,’ and the answer seemed to fit, because the woman went away. But that had shown July that she could not endure to be found again, and spoken to, especially to be found by Laurence, with his piercing, anxious love.

  Then she remembered, as if it had been a thing told her many years ago, that he would be out all this morning, and the men too, preparing a great burial, so that the workshops would be empty. She went out into the yard. The young dog, which was lying in the sun, leapt up, wagging and fawning. He followed her to the door, but she shoved him from it with her foot and shut him out, and stood a moment, staring, but blindly, about the workshop, with its litter of brushes, spilt, powdered colours, and clean cold smell of the lime tempering over all. Yet because she had not gone far enough till she had gone as far as she could, she went on, and climbed the ladder to the loft above, where there was nothing but dust, dust and cobwebs, some odd bits of rope lying about, and one long length hanging from the truss of the roof timbers.

  The rope hung dangling before her eyes. It hung.

  *

  Laurence found the dog scratching and yelping at the workshop door. It was an eager ratter, so he said to it, ‘Good dog. Rats!’ and let it in. But it rushed to the foot of the ladder, floundered up a few rungs, and when it slipped back, lifted its head and howled.

  So he went up and found July. He shouted till one of the men came, and they were able to get her down. Then, in the thick dust, they worked on her. When they had almost given up hope, she breathed.

  The first thing July knew was the sparver of the bed above her as she lay on her back. She heard, and seemed for a long time to have heard, a little regular clicking noise. She turned her head with a sudden huge pain, and saw that Laurence sat on a stool beside the bed; he slipped his beads briskly through his fingers but his eyes were on her face.

  It was as he got up and leaned over her that she remembered, and she whispered before he could speak—

  ‘He hangs alive in chains. He is not dead.’

  Laurence sat down again. Now she did not even hear the click of his beads, and again she lay, simply staring upwards.

  ‘Wife,’ said Laurence suddenly, ‘we must pray God for him.’

  She cried, so that it tore her throat – ‘No. He made pain, He chose it for Himself.’ That was all she could say, a
nd Laurence must guess the rest. God who had made pain, so that all the universe was corrupt with it, God would do nothing to help one who, hanging in chains, moved yet.

  Laurence stood up, and again bent over her. But this time he took her hands in his and held them closely.

  ‘You do not understand,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to fear in pain. Love makes it all different. I love you. If I might suffer for you I would be glad.’

  Her eyes came to him, startled, staring wide, and her face changed as she slipped back from him into unconsciousness. Seeing that change he thought she was slipping right away from him into death, and he rushed to the door and shouted for the women.

  The Chronicle of Julian Savage ends here.

  July 20

  Gib had just birched one of the bigger boys, thereby obtaining a silence, sudden, uneasy and charged with rebellion. But at least it was a silence, for which he was thankful, especially when Master Hawkes opened the door and walked in. He was pleased also to see Master Hawkes, who was a Mercer, a man of substance and a great favourer of the Gospel. ‘He knows me,’ thought Gib, ‘for what I am – he sees that I am a man of parts.’ ‘He is my fellow-Christian, like-minded with me and with all who care for God’s honour.’ That was the second thought which he substituted for the first, yet not so quickly but that he was aware, and ashamed of the other.

  ‘Now,’ said he to the boys, ‘con your books,’ and he brought Master Hawkes away to his own chair, and sitting him down there led him into conversation of this Commission that had been set up to determine beliefs. Now and again he had to scowl over his shoulder as the tide of noise began again to flow. At first it was only a rustling. Soon one of the youngsters yelped like a puppy as someone jabbed his seat with a knife point; someone else dropped a book and there was a scuffling of feet and sound of hard breathing and stifled laughter, as they covertly fought over it. That was the worst of children; you could never be free of the care of them as long as they were with you. Shallow-witted, idle and frivolous themselves, so that a man must be always straining to dwarf himself to their littleness, they would never allow him to be at peace to speak with another man. So Gib could have only half his mind upon these Articles of the Bishops, which were to bring all England to a conformity in belief, and of which Master Hawkes was discoursing; it fretted him the more that this was so, because Master Hawkes had private knowledge of what went on behind closed doors, he having a cousin in the Household of Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester.