Long Will Part 31

"Haply he 'll dance, or leap, or twirl swords on his finger tip?"

G.o.diyeva averred. "We 're so dull; hath been no minstrel nor jongleur, nor bearward even, at our gate for nigh on three moons."

"Canst thou do any of these things?" Calote asked the peddler; but he shook his head.

"Natheless, mesdames, he 's as hungry as I be. Prythee let him dine,"

she pleaded.

"Let him labour, forsooth," answered Eleyne. "A carl so st.u.r.dy, so young, and a beggar? For shame!"

"I 'll gladly sing for two," Calote protested.

"N-nay, mistress, g-go in," said the peddler; "I-I-I 'll linger hereabout."

So the three damsels and the page clattered over the drawbridge, which was now let down, and Calote followed on her feet.

These three maids were daughters of a certain Sir Austin, the lord of the manor, a fat, red old man, a glutton and a widower. Even now, he stood in the hall a-fuming for his dinner, which the steward brought in hot from the kitchen so soon as the ladies came through the door.

He rated them harshly for their tardiness, and they pa.s.sed him by with sullen, haughty faces, stepping to the dais; only the youngest clipped him round the neck and set her lips to his with a loud smack and a merry laugh, so that he was fain to smile at her, and stint his grumbling.

Calote sat below the dais at the long board, betwixt a waiting-woman and a friar; over against her sat the bailiff, and leered at her, and would have fed her sweet morsels on the end of his dagger but she drew backward; whereat they all laughed loud, and the bailiff turned purple and ugly, and the friar twisted on the bench to have a long look at her. This was the first time ever Calote had dined in a great house.

She could not but marvel at the strange dishes all spiced and covered over with sauces. When she had drunk to the bottom of her cup of ale, the friar filled it up again to the brim. When she would have eaten her trencher bread, the waiting-woman, with a snort, jerked it from her and tossed it into a basket where were other sc.r.a.ps of broken food. After, when Sir Austin and his daughters had dipped their fingers in water, and wiped them on a white linen towel, a page boy came to Calote and bade her go sing her song. So she went and sat on the dais step, and the youngest daughter, Custance, who sat now on her father's knee a-munching sweets, leaned down smiling, and said she:--

"Whence art thou, not out o' the north, I trow, by thy tongue?"

"I live in London, fair lady," Calote made answer; and with that all three cried out:--

"London! then haply thou hast a tale o' that poet, Dan Chaucer; he 's in favour with the great Duke."

"Ay, mesdames; there 's one tale of his I know," said Calote, and thereupon she told them of the Life of Saint Cecyle, and how she was wedded to a young man, and an angel came down from heaven to twine them with garlands of roses.

"Oh!" and "Ah!" said the damsels, smiling one on another; "a sweet tale!"

And how the governor of the city cut off Cecyle's head, for that she was a Christian. But she had a stubborn neck, would not break in three blows o' the sword.

And "Oh!" and "Ah!" shrieked the damsels, clasping their white throats with their soft fingers. "Tell on, tell on! A grisly tale!"

This was one of those jewels that Dan Chaucer after set in the chain that he called the Canterbury Tales; nevertheless, at that time 't was already cut in the rough, albeit not yet polished for the setting, and Calote had heard it.

"Anon, anon!" cried Custance, when the tale was ended; and her father being asleep, she slipped off his knee and sat down on the dais step by the side of Calote, her chin in her hand.

"Nay, let them clear the hall," said Eleyne. "'T is late; I 've a gown to mend. What say ye, if we keep the maid and hearken to but one tale each day? So we 'll wile our tediousness."

So Calote stayed in the manor-house and slept of nights on a sheepskin at the foot of Custance's bed.

The third day after her coming, Sir Austin held his court in the hall.

The bailiff was there and the reeve, and certain villeins that would make complaint, or be complained against. And the peddler also was there, set twixt the reeve and the bailiff. Sir Austin sat in his great chair on the dais, and in the other end of the hall, against the lancet windows, Eleyne, and G.o.diyeva, and Custance sat, sewing a seam.

Calote knelt at Custance's elbow, and they all four babbled soft of Sir Gawaine, and drew their needles in and out, and lifted an eye now and again to mark what was toward in the other end of the hall.

When first the peddler came in, he looked about him hastily, as one seeking, but when he saw Calote, 't would seem as he sighed and stood at his ease.

"Yon 's thy beggar, is 't not?" asked Custance of Calote.

And Calote answered her: "Yea, lady!" and henceforth was mindful of him, and of the business.

There was one villein who craved leave to give his daughter in marriage,--and he had brought the money to pay. There was another who would be quit of his service of ploughing the lord's land, and he also brought his pence and counted them out in his hand, and the lord took them and gave him quittance for that time. In Yorkshire there were many villeins might commute service thus, and welcome. There was another had fought with his fellow in a tavern brawl, and both these the lord sent to the stocks. There was a young shepherd come to ask that he might have a lad with him to help him keep his flock; 't was a great flock and strayed over the wolds.

"Hast thou such a lad, bailiff?" growled Sir Austin. There was gold in wool,--'t were best keep it safe.

"Haply, Sir Austin," said the bailiff, and thrust forward the peddler.

"Here 's an idle fellow hath dawdled twixt the manor and the village these three days. He will not go, he will not stay; knoweth not his own mind. There 's enough idlers among them that make pretence to labour, and shall I countenance sloth that 's avowed open?"

"I-I-I 'm a free man," said the peddler.

"A pox o' free men!" shouted Sir Austin. "No man is free to eat his head off in idleness o' my land. Wilt begone?"

"I-I-I," stammered the peddler, looking on Calote, who had drawn nigh the better to learn what was going forward.

"Wilt stay?" roared Sir Austin.

Again the peddler looked on Calote.

"'T is a kind man," said she, going up to the dais. "Hath done me much service in my wanderings. 'S tongue 's slow."

Sir Austin smiled on her.

"A man plougheth not with his tongue, wench," said he. "Neither hath he need of 's tongue to mind sheep, but if he whistle. Hark ye, rogue, I 'll give thee another day to gather together thy slow wits; thereafter thou 'lt labour, or get thee gone,--else I 'll make thee free o' the stocks."

The villeins and other servitors were now lagging forth of the hall, and mid the noise and stir the peddler said to Calote, hastily:--

"D-dost thou bide long i-in this place?"

"How can I tell?" she answered.

"Wh-when thou art ready to begone, thou 'lt find me sh-shepherding on the wolds. Meanwhile, k-keep thy dagger loose in its sheath."

Then he left her and went to the edge of the dais.

"S-sir Knight, I-I 'll make shift to aid thy sh-shepherd," he said.

And presently he was gone out with the villeins.

Calote walked down the hall to the windows, pondering. She had kept her dagger secret even from this peddler. How should he know? Yet, 't were a simple thing, no doubt; her gown was ragged. But at night, when she lay on the sheepskin a-turning over the day in her mind, she asked herself why the peddler should stay for her.

"Alas,--wehl awey!" she sighed, and her face burned in the dark.

After a little she said again: "Wehl awey!"

The heather was not in blossom, but the breath of spring sweetened the wolds. Diggon the shepherd gave his new man a sheepskin to warm him in, and together they two kept the flock. Out in the lonely open the peddler forsook his stammer as much as he might, for the nonce; yet now and again 't would master him against his will, and so did all his life after. If a man hold his unruly member halting two year, 't will take revenge.

This Diggon, shepherd, was a gentle being, with a mind like to the Yorkshire wolds, filled full of s.p.a.ce, and sky and silence. Whiles, likewise, was his mind purple-clad; then he 'd speak slow words concerning G.o.d, and the creatures, and life. Last Christmas Eve he heard the angels singing in heaven, he said. The night of Good Friday, three weeks past, he had a vision of the Rood.--The peddler crossed himself.--One day he lost a lamb, and when he had searched from noon till sunset, and the sea mist was coming in, he met a man larger than life, carried the young lamb in his arm.