The King's Achievement Part 44

It was that evening that Ralph for the first time since the quarrel met his brother face to face.

He was pa.s.sing through the cloister on his way to Dr. Layton's room, and came past the refectory door just as the monks were gathering for supper. He glanced in as he went, and had a glimpse of the clean solemn hall, lighted with candles along the panelling, the long bare tables laid ready, the Prior's chair and table at the further end and the great fresco over it. A lay brother or two in ap.r.o.ns were going about their business silently, and three or four black figures, who had already entered, stood motionless along the raised dais on which the tables stood.

The monks had all stopped instantly as Ralph came among them, and had lowered their hoods with their accustomed courtly deference to a guest; and as he turned from his momentary pause at the refectory door in the full blaze of light that shone from it, he met Chris face to face.

The young monk had come up that instant, not noticing who was there, and his hood was still over his head. There was a second's pause, and then he lifted his hand and threw the hood back in salutation; and as Ralph bowed and pa.s.sed on he had a moment's sight of that thin face and the large grey eyes in which there was not the faintest sign of recognition.

Ralph's heart was hot with mingled emotion as he went up the cloister.

He was more disturbed by the sudden meeting, the act of courtesy, and the cold steady eyes of this young fool of a brother than he cared to recognise.

He saw no more of him, except in the distance among his fellows; and he left the house the next day when the business was done.

Matters in the rest of England were going forward with the same prompt.i.tude as in Suss.e.x. Dr. Layton himself had visited the West earlier in the autumn, and the other Visitors were busy in other parts of the country. The report was current now that the resources of all the Religious Houses were to be certainly confiscated, and that those of the inmates who still persisted in their vocation would have to do so under the most rigorous conditions imaginable. The results were to be seen in the enormous increase of beggars, deprived now of the hospitality they were accustomed to receive; and the roads everywhere were thronged with those who had been holders of corrodies, or daily sustenance in the houses; as well as with the evicted Religious, some of whom, dismissed against their will, were on their way to the universities, where, in spite of the Visitation, it was thought that support was still to be had; and others, less reputable, who preferred freedom to monastic discipline. Yet others were to be met with, though not many in number, who were on their way to London to lay complaints of various kinds against their superiors.

From these and like events the whole country was astir. Men gathered in groups outside the village inns and discussed the situation, and feeling ran high on the movements of the day. What chiefly encouraged the malcontents was the fact that the benefits to be gained by the dissolution of the monasteries were evident and present, while the ill-results lay in the future. The great Religious Houses, their farms and stock, the jewels of the treasury, were visible objects; men actually laid eyes on them as they went to and from their work or knelt at ma.s.s on Sundays; it was all so much wealth that did not belong to them, and that might do so, while the corrodies, the daily hospitality, the employment of labour, and such things, lay either out of sight, or affected only certain individuals. Characters too that were chiefly stirred by such arguments, were those of the noisy and self-a.s.sertive faction; while those who saw a little deeper into things, and understood the enormous charities of the Religious Houses and the manner in which extreme poverty was kept in check by them,--even more, those who valued the spiritual benefits that flowed from the fact of their existence, and saw how life was kindled and inspired by these vast homes of prayer--such, then as always, were those who would not voluntarily put themselves forward in debate, or be able, when they did so, to use arguments that would appeal to the village gatherings. Their natural leaders too, the country clergy, who alone might have pointed out effectively the considerations that lay beneath the surface had been skilfully and peremptorily silenced by the episcopal withdrawing of all preaching licenses.

In the course of Ralph's travels he came across, more than once, a hot scene in the village inn, and was able to use his own personality and prestige as a King's Visitor in the direction that he wished.

He came for example one Sat.u.r.day night to the little village of Maresfield, near Fletching, and after seeing his horses and servants bestowed, came into the parlour, where the magnates were a.s.sembled.

There were half a dozen there, sitting round the fire, who rose respectfully as the great gentleman strode in, and eyed him with a sudden awe as they realised from the landlord's winks and whispers that he was of a very considerable importance.

From the nature of his training Ralph had learnt how to deal with all conditions of men; and by the time that he had finished supper, and drawn his chair to the fire, they were talking freely again, as indeed he had encouraged them to do, for they did not of course, any more than the landlord, guess at his ident.i.ty or his business there.

Ralph soon brought the talk round again to the old subject, and asked the opinions of the company as to the King's policy in the visitation of the Religious Houses There was a general silence when he first opened the debate, for they were dangerous times; but the gentleman's own imperturbable air, his evident importance, and his friendliness, conspired with the strong beer to open their mouths, and in five minutes they were at it.

One, a little old man in the corner who sat with crossed legs, nursing his mug, declared that to his mind the whole thing was sacrilege; the houses, he said, had been endowed to G.o.d's glory and service, and that to turn them to other uses must bring a curse on the country. He went on to remark--for Ralph deftly silenced the chorus of protest--that his own people had been buried in the church of the Dominican friars at Arundel for three generations, and that he was sorry for the man who laid hands on the tomb of his grandfather--known as Uncle John--for the old man had been a desperate churchman in his day, and would undoubtedly revenge himself for any indignity offered to his bones.

Ralph pointed out, with a considerate self-repression, that the ill.u.s.tration was scarcely to the point, for the King's Grace had no intention, he believed, of disturbing any one's bones; the question at issue rather regarded flesh and blood. Then a chorus broke out, and the hunt was up.

One, the butcher, with many blessings invoked on King Harry's head, declared that the country was being sucked dry by these rapacious ecclesiastics; that the monks encroached every year on the common land, absorbed the little farms, paid inadequate wages, and--which appeared his princ.i.p.al grievance--killed their own meat.

Ralph, with praiseworthy tolerance, pushed this last argument aside, but appeared to reflect on the others as if they were new to him, though he had heard them a hundred times, and used them fifty; and while he weighed them, another took up the tale; told a scandalous story or two, and asked how men who lived such lives as these which he related, could be examples of chast.i.ty.

Once more the little old man burst into the fray, and waving his pot in an access of religious enthusiasm, rebuked the last speaker for his readiness to pick up dirt, and himself instanced five or six Religious known to him, whose lives were no less spotless than his own.

Again Ralph interposed in his slow voice, and told them that that too was not the point at issue. The question was not as to whether here and there monks lived good lives or bad, for no one was compelled to imitate either, but as to whether on the whole the existence of the Religious Houses was profitable in such practical matters as agriculture, trade, and the relief of the dest.i.tute.

And so it went on, and Ralph began to grow weary of the inconsequence of the debaters, and their entire inability to hold to the salient points; but he still kept his hand on the rudder of the discussion, avoided the fogs of the supernatural and religious on the one side towards which the little old man persisted in pushing, and, on the other, the blunt views of the butcher and the man who had told the foul stories; and contented himself with watching and learning the opinion of the company rather than contributing his own.

Towards the end of the evening he observed two of his men, who had slipped in and were sitting at the back of the little stifling room, hugely enjoying the irony of the situation, and determined on ending the discussion with an announcement of his own ident.i.ty.

Presently an opportunity occurred. The little old man had shown a dangerous tendency to discourse on the suffering souls in purgatory, and on the miseries inflicted on them by the cessation of ma.s.ses and suffrages for their welfare; and an uncomfortable awe-stricken silence had fallen on the others.

Ralph stood up abruptly, and began to speak, his bright tired eyes shining down on the solemn faces, and his mouth set and precise.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "your talk has pleased me very much. I have learned a great deal, and I hope shall profit by it. Some of you have talked a quant.i.ty of nonsense; and you, Mr. Miggers, have talked the most, about your uncle John's soul and bones."

A deadly silence fell as these startling words were p.r.o.nounced; for his manner up to now had been conciliatory and almost apologetic. But he went on imperturbably.

"I am quite sure that Almighty G.o.d knows His business better than you or I, Mr. Miggers; and if He cannot take care of Uncle John without the aid of ma.s.ses or dirges sung by fat-bellied monks--"

He stopped abruptly, and a squirt of laughter burst from the butcher.

"Well, this is my opinion," went on Ralph, "if you wish to know it. I do not think, or suspect, as some of you do--but I _know_--as you will allow presently that I do, when I tell you who I am--I _know_ that these houses of which we have been speaking, are nothing better than wasps'-nests. The fellows look holy enough in their liveries, they make a deal of buzz, they go to and fro as if on business; but they make no honey that is worth your while or mine to take. There is but one thing that they have in their holes that is worth anything: and that is their jewels and their gold, and the lead on their churches and the bells in their towers. And all that, by the Grace of G.o.d we will soon have out of them."

There was a faint murmur of mingled applause and dissent. Mr. Miggers stared vacant-faced at this preposterous stranger, and set his mug resolutely down as a preparation for addressing him, but he had no opportunity. Ralph was warmed now by his own eloquence, and swept on.

"You think I do not know of what I am speaking? Well, I have a brother a monk at Lewes, and a sister a nun at Rusper; and I have been brought up in this religion until I am weary of it. My sister--well, she is like other maidens of her kind--not a word to speak of any matter but our Lady and the Saints and how many candles Saint Christopher likes. And my brother!--Well, we can leave that.

"I know these houses as none of you know them; I know how much wine they drink, how much they charge for their ma.s.ses, how much treasonable chatter they carry on in private--I know their lives as I know my own; and I know that they are rotten and useless altogether. They may give a plateful or two in charity and a mug of beer; they gorge ten dishes themselves, and swill a hogshead. They give a penny to the poor man, and keep twenty n.o.bles for themselves. They take field after field, house after house; turn the farmer into the beggar, and the beggar into their bedesman. And, by G.o.d! I say that the sooner King Henry gets rid of the crew, the better for you and me!"

Ralph snapped out the last words, and stared insolently down on the gaping faces. Then he finished, standing by the door as he did so, with his hand on the latch.

"If you would know how I know all this, I will tell you. My name is Torridon, of Overfield; and I am one of the King's Visitors. Good-night, gentlemen."

There was the silence of the grave within, as Ralph went upstairs smiling to himself.

Ralph had intended returning home a week or two after the Lewes visitation, but there was a good deal to be done, and Layton had pointed out to him that even if some houses were visited twice over it would do no harm to the rich monks to pay double fees; so it was not till Christmas was a week away that he rode at last up to his house-door at Westminster.

His train had swelled to near a dozen men and horses by now, for he had acc.u.mulated a good deal of treasure beside that which he had left in Layton's hands, and it would not have been safe to travel with a smaller escort; so it was a gay and imposing cavalcade that clattered through the narrow streets. Ralph himself rode in front, in solitary dignity, his weapon jingling at his stirrup, his feather spruce and bright above his spare keen face; a couple of servants rode behind, fully armed and formidable looking, and then the train came behind--beasts piled with bundles that rustled and clinked suggestively, and the men who guarded them gay with sc.r.a.ps of embroidery and a cheap jewel or two here and there in their dress.

But Ralph did not feel so gallant as he looked. During these long country rides he had had too much time to think, and the thought of Beatrice and of what she would say seldom left him. The very harshness of his experiences, the rough faces round him, the dialect of the stable and the inn, the coa.r.s.e conversation--all served to make her image the more gracious and alluring. It was a kind of worship, shot with pa.s.sion, that he felt for her. Her grave silences coincided with his own, her tenderness yielded deliciously to his strength.

As he sat over his fire with his men whispering behind him, planning as they thought new a.s.saults on the rich nests that they all hated and coveted together, again and again it was Beatrice's face, and not that of a shrewd or anxious monk, that burned in the red heart of the hearth.

He had seen it with downcast eyes, with the long lashes lying on the cheek, and the curved red lips discreetly shut beneath; the ma.s.ses of black hair shadowed the forehead and darkened the secret that he wished to read. Or he had watched her, like a jewel in a pig-sty, looking across the foul-littered farm where he had had to sleep more than once with his men about him; her black eyes looking into his own with tender gravity, and her mouth trembling with speech. Or best of all, as he rode along the bitter cold lanes at the fall of the day, the crowding yews above him had parted and let her stand there, with her long skirts rustling in the dry leaves, her slender figure blending with the darkness, and her sweet face trusting and loving him out of the gloom.

And then again, like the p.r.i.c.k of a wound, the question had touched him, how would she receive him when he came back with the monastic spoils on his beasts' shoulders, and the wail of the nuns shrilling like the wind behind?

But by the time that he came back to London he had thought out his method of meeting her. Probably she had had news of the doings of the Visitors, perhaps of his own in particular; it was hardly possible that his father had not written; she would ask for an explanation, and she should have instead an appeal to her confidence. He would tell her that sad things had indeed happened, that he had been forced to be present at and even to carry out incidents which he deplored; but that he had done his utmost to be merciful. It was rough work, he would say; but it was work that had to be done; and since that was so--and this was Cromwell's teaching--it was better that honourable gentlemen should do it. He had not been able always to restrain the violence of his men--and for that he needed forgiveness from her dear lips; and it would be easy enough to tell stories against him that it would be hard to disprove; but if she loved and trusted him, and he knew that she did, let her take his word for it that no injustice had been deliberately done, that on the other hand he had been the means under G.o.d of restraining many such acts, and that his conscience was clear.

It was a moving appeal, Ralph thought, and it almost convinced himself.

He was not conscious of any gross insincerity in the defence; of course it was shaded artistically, and the more brutal details kept out of sight, but in the main it was surely true. And, as he rehea.r.s.ed its points to himself once more in the streets of Westminster, he felt that though there might be a painful moment or two, yet it would do his work.

He had sent a message home that he was coming, and the door of his home was wide as he dismounted, and the pleasant light of candles shone out, for the evening was smouldering to dark in the west.

A crowd had collected as he went along; from every window faces were leaning; and as he stood on the steps directing the removal of the treasure into the house, he saw that the mob filled the tiny street, and the cobbled s.p.a.ce, from side to side. They were chiefly of the idling cla.s.s, folks who had little to do but to follow up excitements and shout; and there were a good many cries raised for the King's Grace and his Visitors, for such people as these were greedy for any movement that might bring them gain, and the Religious Houses were beginning to be more unpopular in town than ever.

One of the bundles slipped as it was shifted, the cord came off, and in a moment the little s.p.a.ce beyond the mule before the door was covered with gleaming stuff and jewels.

There was a fierce scuffle and a cry, and Ralph was in a moment beyond the mule with his sword out. He said nothing but stood there fierce and alert as the crowd sucked back, and the servant gathered up the things.