The Young Lovell Page 6

  II

  The monk Francis was a small, dark, quiet man and not overlearned. Hewas rising thirty and he was always at work. The monastery of Belfordwas one given over rather to study and learning so that he, the activeone, had always much upon his hands. But all such time as he could savefrom his duties he devoted to praying for the soul of the cousin he hadslain by mischance, taking her for a deer and slaying her with an arrow,as she came to him amongst thick underwood to tell him that the Scotswere marching southwards through the Debateable Lands.

  That had been ten years before; nevertheless he had prayed that morningvery reverently for his cousin's soul, walking up and down between therows of haymakers and their cocks, in the sunshine; keeping one fingerbetween the leaves of his book of prayers and yet marking diligentlythat none of the bondsmen slipped away into their own grass to use thescythe there. For it was marvellously fine weather, and such as hadnever in the memory of man been known in those parts for the heat of thesun and the dry clear nights. So that it was considered that the saintsmust be blessing that part. Nevertheless, these naughty bondsmen, owingsome three, some five days' labour of themselves and their wives andchildren to the monastery, must needs always be seeking to slip away totheir own lands and doing their scythe work there. This they would do,if no monk watched them, though by so doing they robbed the monasteryand went in danger of excommunication. But those, as the learned Priorsaid, were evil days, so that it might almost be said, as was saidaforetime of the accursed robber who came against the Abbey and Churchof St. Trophime, that he proclaimed that a thousand florins would gethim more soldiers than seven years of plenary absolution from the Popeat Avignon. As to whom, said the Prior, Froissart, the chroniclerdeclared that men-at-arms do not live by pardons nor set much storethereby. And as much might be said of their bondsmen.

  For it was to be said for this monastery of Belford that the monks setmore store by a great chronicle that they were assisting the monk Oswaldto write--all of them searching here and there--than by the work done bytheir bondsmen, the good estate of the lands of the monastery or eventhe saying of the offices. They set more store by learning than byaught else.

  Their lands were administered by laymen, so that they were often robbed,and when the monk Francis had come amongst them their revenues had beenscarcely an hundred pounds by the year, or very little more. And, evenat the time of his coming, the monks had been against receiving him, forthey said that here was a man, though of piety undoubted, who could nottell the chronicle of Giraldus Cambrensis from that of the monkFlorence, or Asser from Vergil and Flaccus. But, in those days, thePrior had over-ridden them, pointing out that this novice was verywealthy; that their kitchen and dinner tables were in a sad state, thatthey had no longer money enough to pursue, upon a princely scale, thesuccouring of the poor that sat upon their benches, and that they couldwith the greater serenity pursue their studies and sleep after meat, ifthey had amongst them a knight who had proven himself diligent upon hisown affairs and had increased his substance in the world. For, thoughthey had butlers and cellarers amongst their number, yet the butlerthought more of Brute than of his office and the cellarer was moreminded to know where lay the bones of the British Kings than where werehis keys. The ungodly came in and drank their wine in the cellar, yea,and carried away the mead in black-jacks.

  These monks were portly, learned and somnolent, religious with a solidcontempt for the unlearned--though they would upon occasion, being largemen, line the walls and hew down attacking raiders with balks of timber,bars of iron and other weapons that drew no blood, those being,according to the canon, the proper arms for churchmen. These haughtymonks accepted this Francis, who was known to the world as Sir HughRidley, to be of their holy and learned brotherhood. But yet theyregarded him as little more than a lay brother, though he wore themonk's frock, and they never voted for his advancement to any officesuch as sub-prior or the like.

  Yet that day he had said two offices for them, had watched in the hayfields and was now coming in, at noontide to check accounts with thebailiff of the Priory about the great tower that was then in building.Seventeen monks there were and twenty lay brothers who were a lazy band.Thirty men-at-arms they had for their protection under the leadership ofa knight, Sir Nicholas Ewelme, and they afforded shelter and victualsfor 136 poor men, each of the seventeen monks being the patron of eightof them. These poor men sat in the sun on benches, each before theirpatron's room and should be served by him at meals. But this wasnowadays, mostly done by the lay brothers, the learned monk laying onefinger beneath a dish or vessel served to the poor men, so that it wouldnot be said that the custom had died out.

  The monk Francis, in his grey cloak came in by the little postern gatefrom the hayfields. He went to his rooms across the quadrangle; and heperceived how certain peasants in hoods of black cloth with belts ofyellow leather were bringing in sacks and baskets. These sacks andbaskets, as the monk Francis knew from the dress of those peasants,contained ammunition, small round balls of lead or, in the alternative,well-rounded stones from the beach. These peasants were workers in thelead mines upon the lands of the monastery and it was so they paidtribute with balls to shoot against the false Scots if they camea-raiding to Belford.

  And, as he was going into his room, before his benchful of poor men thatstretched their legs in the sun, it happened that one of the peasant'sbags burst open and all the round, leaden balls ran out under thearchway. Then there was a great bustle, the guards on duty and theguards that came out of the chambers in the arch starting to pick up theballs. And the monk Francis smiled to think how universal is the desirein men to help in picking up small, round objects that fall out of asack. So that if the false Scots had been minded to take that place,they could have done it very well then, all the guards and peasants andothers being on their hands and knees, huddled together and the gateopen. And it seemed to the monk Francis that that would be a very goodstratagem for the taking of a tower or the gateway of a strong place.

  One of the poor men had been a man-at-arms at Castle Lovell, but was putout now and masterless. He came to the monk Francis as he went in at hisdoor, and reported that it was said that the young Lord Lovell had beenseen, having come out of captivity of the false Gilbert Elliott. Themonk said he hoped well that that was so, for then all the men-at-armsfrom Castle Lovell that were there could go again to his service, andthat he was a very good lording and his good friend in God.

  He wished to cut the matter short for that time because he knew thatthere awaited him in his outer room John Harbottle an esquire, and thereceiver of many domains of the Earl of Northumberland. This esquire wascome with the accounts for the building of the great new tower that theEarl had given to the monastery. But the former men of the Lord Lovellcrowded before the monk and after him into his outer room, all bringingtidings that the Young Lovell had been seen to ride through histownship. And, to the number of thirty or so, they clamoured all atonce, asking for his advice as to how they should find their lord andwhat to do when he was found.

  The monk Francis was very glad to think that the Young Lovell was comeback, not only because he was his true friend but also because thisrabble of disemployed men-at-arms was a burden to the monastery and hehad it on his conscience that he let them bide there. For that he haddone, so that they might serve his friend if he came back. Thatmonastery was rather for the relief of poor men ruined by raiders, fortravellers and for criminals seeking sanctuary. He would very gladlyhave had news of his friend whom he loved, and have settled the disposalof these sturdy, idle and hungry men. Yet, being a man of many affairs,he thought that the day could only be got through by doing all things inorder, and behind all these ragged men in grey, he perceived theesquire, John Harbottle, a portly, bearded man in a rich cloak ofpurple, with a green square cap that had a jewel of gold. This JohnHarbottle appeared not greatly pleased at the clamour, for he also was aman of many affairs, being the Percy's receiver, and a very
diligentone.

  So, without many words, but quietly, the monk Francis drove out some ofthese fellows, and then, calling to a grizzled and dirty lay brother, hebade him drive out the rest and bar the door. And so he took JohnHarbottle by the sleeve of his purple coat and drew him through thedoorway into his inner room and closed the door. Then there was peace.

  This inner cell was a light room with no glass in the windows. Besidethe bed head there was a shelf that had on it the water-bottle of themonk Francis, his plate, his cup, his napkin and the book of devotionsin which he read during the dinner hour, his needles and bodkins, hisleather book of threads and such things as he needed for the repair ofhis clothes. Beneath this shelf was a curtain, and this hid the sparegarments of the monk, as the vestments in which he said the simpleroffices, his spare breeches, stockings, braces, and belt. At the otherside of the bed head was a large crucifix of painted wood, from whichthere hung Our Lord who was represented as crying out in a perpetualagony. Before the crucifix was a fald stool, that had across onecorner, a great rosary of clumsy wooden beads, and upon it a skull whosetop was polished and yellowed by this monk's hands. For he had it therethe better to be reminded of what death is when he prayed for the soulof the cousin he had slain.

  When he had killed that woman he had been possessed rather with the ideaof what he could do for her poor unhanselled soul than with agonies ofecstasy. And so, with a strong will he prayed, year in, year out, forher sooner relief from the pains of purgatory, knowing God to be a justMan and prayer most efficacious.

  So, having brought John Harbottle in, he sat himself down on histhree-legged stool of wood before his double pulpit. This had in itsside a round opening, and in the interior such books, papers, orparchments as the monk Francis had in immediate use. He was of a veryorderly nature, rather like a soldier than a priest.

  He reached into the inside of his pulpit for his parchment that he wasto peruse with John Harbottle, and that esquire stood behind him leaningover his back. Then John Harbottle said:

  "Meseems the Master of Lovell has come back?"

  "That I hear," the monk Francis answered.

  "I think there is heavy trouble in store for him," John Harbottle said.

  "I think there is but little," the monk answered. John Harbottle meantthat the Earl Percy, in the Border Warden's Court, had given judgmentagainst the Young Lovell. The monk meant that the religious of thatcountryside were not best pleased with the Earl Percy; they consideredthat sorcery was a matter for the courts ecclesiastical. But each was aman of few words, and without any more, the monk Francis unfolded hisparchment. They went to their accounts, John Harbottle standing behindthe monk and checking each item as he read it:

  "And in the like payment of money to the prior of the house of theBrethren of St. Cuthbert, within the parish of Belford, near the woodcalled Newlands, for this year, (as well for that part of the work ofthe new tower there as for the carriage of stone and other stuff by thecontract, in gross) 100 shillings...." The Earl was giving the tower tothe monks, they employing two contractors called Richard Chambers andJohn Richardson to build it for them and the Earl paying the accounts.

  "Just!" John Harbottle said, and the monk read on--

  "Carting four loads of lead, 24s. 6d.; bought eight loads of stone,10d.; iron, with the workmanship of the same, for the doors and windows,8s.; bought seven locks 4s. 2d., with keys; six latches 12d.; and snecksand other iron 4s. 2d...." So the monk read on, and the receiver noddedhis head, saying, "Just."

  Once he said--

  "I wish I could have things so cheap for my lord."

  "Then," the monk answered, "you must haggle as I do and in God His highservice."

  So they made out between them that all these things, and making the archbetween the great chamber and the tower came to L10 6s. 4d., and sincethey owed Robert Chambers and John Richardson already L17 13s. 4d., thewhole payment then to be made was L27 19s. 8d.

  The esquire, John Harbottle, pulled his money bag from beneath hisgirdle and counted out the money, throwing it on to the bed, for therewas no table in that cell.

  Then he drew from his belt two papers and so he said:

  "My lord will have you buy from Christiana Paynter the armorial bearingsof my lord to set up upon the tower, and that shall cost you 3s. Andthis you shall have carved upon the same stone:

  "'In the year of Xt. jhu MCCCCLXXXV This tower was builded by Sir Henry Percy The IV. Earl of Northumberland of great honour and worth That espoused Maud the good lady full of virtue and beauty ... Whose soule's God save.'"

  "That shall be set up," the monk said.

  "Then," John Harbottle said, "there is this you may do to convenience mewho have been your favourer in all things. That you may the earliercome to it, read you this paper which I have written out, but inEnglish, for I have no Latin beyond mass-Latin."

  "What we may do to please you," the monk said, gravely, "that we will,if it be not to the discredit of God."

  "It is rather to His greater glory," the esquire said.

  So the monk took the paper and read:

  "The Prior of Belford, Patent of XX merks by yere. Henry Erle ofNorthumberland...." The monk glanced on, and his eye fell upon thewords, "myn armytage builded in a rock of stone against the church ofCastle Lovell," and, later on ... "the gate and pasture of twenty kyeand a bull with their calves sukyng,"--"One draught of fisshe everySondaie in the year to be drawen fornenst the said armytage, called theTrynete draught...."

  The monk looked up over his shoulder at the esquire.

  "I perceive," he said, "that you would have us to take over thecommandment of my Lord's hermitage at Castle Lovell."

  John Harbottle looked down a little nervously at his hands. That waswhat he sought.

  "I have heard that the holy hermit is dead?" the monk asked.

  "It is even that," John Harbottle said. "I am worn with the trouble ofriding over from Alnwick to Castle Lovell. It is a great burden, yetthere is the hermitage that must be kept up for the honour of thePercies."

  "That," the monk said, "was because it was esteemed a privilege to housea holy anchoret."

  "Then," John Harbottle asked, "may not my lord save his soul as well bymaking your brotherhood a payment to watch over the holy man?"

  "I am not saying that he may not," the monk said.

  "Then of your courtesy, do this for me," John Harbottle said, "for it isa troublesome matter. This last year, once a month, news has been sentme that this holy man was dead. Then I have ridden over to CastleLovell and lost a day, calling into the hole in his cell to see if hewould answer 'Et cum spiritu tuo,' as his manner was. And, after awhole day lost, he will answer; or maybe not till the next day, andthere are two days lost when I should be getting rents or going upon mylord's business. And I am not the man to have much dealing with theseholy beings. A plain blunt man! It gives me a grue to be thus callingin at a little hole. And the stench is very awful. I do my duty by theblessed sacraments on Sundays and feast days. And if he be dead, I mustfind a successor. It will not be very easy for me to find a man to gointo that kennel and be walled up. And never again to come out...."

  The monk looked again at the paper with the particulars of the gift.

  "Well, I will think of it," he said, "or rather I will commune with theworshipful Prior and Sub-Prior. But I would have you know that if theyagree to do this thing it is upon me that the pain and labour will fall,for there is none else in this monastery to do it. So I must go over toCastle Lovell once by the week at least to see that the holy hermit isgiven bread and water. And if he be truly dead it is I that must findhis successor; that will not be easy."

  "But twenty marks by the year for doing it," John Harbottle said, "thatis a goodly sum to fall to your brotherhood."

  "I do not understand," the monk answered him, "for this patent is notvery clear--whether that twenty marks is in addition to the grassground,the garden and orchard at Conygarth, the pasturage of kin
e, bulls,horses and the draughts of fishes. Or are the draughts of fishes andthe rest to be taken as of the value of twenty marks by the year?"

  "It is the last that is meant," John Harbottle answered, a littledubiously.

  "Then it is not enough," the monk said firmly and made to roll up thepaper, "I cannot advise the Prior to accept this gift. For themonastery must lose so much of my time and prayers, though, God knows,those are little worth enough; yet I, a not very holy man, am all thatthese saintly brothers have to care for their temporalities."

  John Harbottle grumbled some retort beneath his breath, and then hesighed and pushed the paper with his hand.

  "Then take and write," he said, and when the monk had mended his pen hedictated. "'And in addition the said stipend of XX markes by year to betaken and received of the rent and ferm of my fisshyng of Warkworth, bythands of my fermour of the same for the tyme beynge, yerly at the timesthere used and accustomed to, even portions. In wytnes whereof to thesemy letters patentes, I the said erle have set the seale of my names.'... That," John Harbottle continued, "if you will agree to, you shallhave written out fair on parchment, and so the matter ends."

  "I think it will end very well," the monk answered, "and the Earl ofNorthumberland shall have honour of it in Heaven. And, since I am aboutto do this thing in your service, and to relieve you of travels and thefear of a holy man, having no advantage myself and seeking none, since Iam a monk, so I will take it as a kindness if you will do, for my sake,what you can at odd moments to advantage the cause of my friend, thisYoung Lovell, who is lately come, as I have heard, from prison amongstthe false thieves of Rokehope and Cheviot."

  John Harbottle did not answer this, for he thought there was little lovelost between his lord and that young lording. Within himself he thoughtthat, if the religious should espouse that lording's cause it would be agood thing for the Percy to be advised to let him be, and this monk hadgreat voice with the lower order of people whom the Earl had cause tofear, since they were sworn to have his blood because of the taxes that,in the King's name, he laid upon them. But he did not speak upon thosematters, saying aloud:

  "It is strange, though I know it to be true, that my lord shall havehonour in heaven by reason that a man be found to be walled up in aspace no larger than the kennel of my hound Diccon and so live out hislife."

  "My friend," the monk said, "I may not listen to you further, for thatwould come near conversing with a heretic. And the penalty for suchconversation is that at every Easter and high feast I must stand besidethe high altar, in a robe of penitence, having in my hand a rod orpeeled wand ten foot in length and other penances, a many I must do."

  "God forbid!" John Harbottle said, "for I am no heretic and no more thana plain, blunt man. And surely these things are hard to understand."

  "My son," that monk said, and by the creasing of his tight lips JohnHarbottle knew that he had been pleasant with him before and had notmeant in earnestness to call him a heretic. "Every day you hear of theways of God that are hard to understand. You have heard to-day oryesterday of the miracle that was wrought on Tuesday in the Abbey of ourown town of Alnwick--how that the foot of Sir Simon de Montfort, thatthere they have and that is incorruptible, cured a certain very wealthyburgess of Newcastle called Arnoldus Pickett. For he was not able tomove his foot from his bed or put his hand to his mouth or perform anybodily function. And so, in a dream he was bidden to go to your Abbey ofthe Premonstratensian Brotherhood and the foot of Simon de Montfortshould cure him. Which, when it was known to the canons, there servingGod, in order that this merchant might approach more easily--for as yethe heavily laboured in his lameness--and lest he should suffer too much,two of them brought it reverently to him, in its silver shoe. But,before the patient was able to approach for the purpose of kissing it,and by the mere sight of the slipper, on account of the merits of Simonde Montfort, he was restored. And this, to-day, our monks are writingin their chronicle and praising God. And consider what glory there willbe in this foot of Simon de Montfort when it is reunited to his wholebody after the great judgment, by comparison of its efficacy beforeDoomsday, when such healing virtue went out of it as a dead member,concealing itself in a slipper of silver...."

  The monk was determined very thoroughly at once to abash and edify thisminion of the Earl of Northumberland and so to bring that Lord morethoroughly to the reverence of the Church and more particularly of theBishop Palatine with whom these monks had a great friendship. And thisnot only in the matter of the Young Lovell, where the Earl had sought togive judgment in a matter that was full surely ecclesiastical and notpertaining to the lay Court of the Border Warden. So that monkcontinued in a loud voice:

  "Shall you seek to understand these miracles that are of daily happeningand occur all round you, God knows, often enough? For in the monasteryor priory of Durham they have not only the most famous bodies of St.Cuthbert and St. Bede, but the cross of St. Margaret that is well knownto be of avail to women that labour with child. And in the Cella ofFenkull they have St. Guthric, and in Newminster the zone and mass-bookof St. Robert, and in Blondeland the girdle of St. Mary the Mother ofGod. And all these cure, according to their marvellous faculties, thehalt, the blind, those who have the shaking palsy and those with thefalling sickness. And in Hexham they have the Red-book of Hexham, andat Tynemouth they have not only the body of St. Oswin, King and martyrin a feretory, but also the spur of St. Cuthbert, the finger of St.Bartholomew and the girdle of Blessed Margaret.... And all these thingsbeing under your very eyes or at a short day's journey, you willquestion the glory and the strangeness of God and you will set yourselfup--oh, stiffnecked generation! ..."

  A gentle knocking came at the cell door and the old and dirtylay-brother who was in the outer room pushed it ajar. They heardimmediately a great outcry from beyond and the lay brother whisperedthat, at the outer door stood the Young Lovell asking for admittancewith all his men-at-arms around him.

  The monk opened a little door in the wall that gave into a passageleading to the church of the monastery. Through this he led JohnHarbottle, and at the entrance to the church he let him go. For, becauseJohn Harbottle was receiver for the Earl of Northumberland, he was notmuch beloved by the Lovell men-at-arms, and the monk Francis feared thatthey might offer him some violence now that their spirits were inflamed,and their stomachs rendered proud and rebellious by the return of theirlord who should take them into his service again. And when the monk hadthrown himself down before the image of the Mother of God that was inthe Lady Chapel near that entrance, and had laid there long enough tosay twelve "Hail Maries," he arose and went back to his cell and badethe lay brother let in Young Lovell.