CHAPTER IV.
I must now introduce the reader to a scene then very common in England, but which would now be sought for in vain--although, to some of the habits of those times a large class of people have a strong tendency to return. Round a little village green, having, as usual, its pond--the merry-making place of ducks and geese--its two or three clumps of large trees, and its two roads crossing each other in the middle, were erected several buildings of very different look and magnitude. Nearly three sides of the green were occupied by mere hovels or huts, the walls of mud, the roofs rudely thatched, and the windows of so small a size as to admit very little light into a dwelling, which, during the working hours of each weary day, saw very little of its laborious tenants. Amongst these were two larger houses, built of stone, richly ornamented, though small in size, having glazed windows, and displaying all the signs and tokens of the ecclesiastical architecture of the day, though neither of them was a church or chapel, but simply the dwelling-places of some secular priests, with a small following of male choristers, who were not permitted to inhabit any portion of the neighbouring abbey. Along the fourth side of the green, where the ground rose considerably, extended an enormously high wall, pierced in the centre with a fine old portal with two battlemented turrets, one on either side. From the middle of the green, so high was this wall and portal that nothing could be seen beyond it. But, from the opposite side, the towers and pinnacles of the abbey itself peeped up above the inclosure.
If one followed the course of the wall, to the left as one looked towards the abbey, passing between it and the swine-herd's cottage, one came to a smaller door--a sort of sally-port, we should have called it, had the place been a fortress--from which a path wound away, down into a valley, with a stream flowing through it; and then, turning sharp to the right at the bottom, the little footway ascended again towards a deep old wood, on the verge of which appeared a small Gothic building with a stone cross in front. The distance from the abbey to St. Magdalen's cell, as it was called, was not in reality very great in a direct line; but the path wound so much, in order to avoid a steep rise in the ground and a deep ravine through which in rainy weather flowed a torrent of water, that its length could not be less than three quarters of a mile.
The little door in the abbey wall, which I have mentioned, was strong and well secured, with a loop-hole at each side for archers to shoot through, in case of need. Over the door, too, was a semicircular aperture, in which hung an enormously large bell, baptized in former years, according to the ordinary custom, but which, whatever was the name it received at its baptism, was known amongst the peasantry as the "Baby of St. Clare." Now, whether St. Clare, whoever she was, had, during the time of her mortal life, a baby or none, I cannot pretend to say; but certain it is, that the good nuns were as angry at the name which had been bestowed upon the bell, as if the attributing an infant to their patroness had been a direct insult to each of them individually.
This bell was used only upon special occasions, the ordinary access to the abbey being through the great gates; but, if any danger menaced in the night, if any of the peasantry were taken suddenly ill after sunset, if any of the huts in the hamlet caught fire--which was by no means unusual--or any other business of importance occurred during the hours of darkness, the good people of the neighbourhood applied to the Baby of St. Clare, whose loud voice soon brought out one of the inferior sisters to inquire what was the matter. Passing on from this doorway, and leaving the path towards St. Magdalene's cell on the left, one could circle round the whole extent of the walls, which contained not less than five or six acres of ground. But no other doorway was to be seen, till the great portal was again reached. The walls themselves were of exceeding thickness, and had a walk all round them on a sort of platform at the top. It would have required cannon indeed to have effected a breach at any point; but, at the same time, their great extent rendered them indefensible against the means of escalade, by any force which the good sisters could call to their aid.
Within the great portal was a large open court, flanked on three sides by habitable buildings. To the right, was what was called the visitors' lodging, where a very considerable number of persons could be accommodated, in small rooms very tolerably furnished according to the mode of the day. There, too, a large dining-hall afforded space for the entertainment to the many guests who from time to time partook of the abbey's hospitality. The opposite side was devoted to offices for the lay sisters and servants of the abbey; and the space in front of the great gates was occupied by the chapel, into one part of which the general public was admitted, while the other, separated by a richly-wrought stone screen, was assigned to the nuns themselves. A small stone passage closed by an iron gate ran between the offices and the chapel, and extended, round the back of the former and along the north-western wall to the little doorway which I have mentioned; while, on the other hand, an open door and staircase led to the parlour, which I have mentioned in a preceding chapter, as that in which friends or relatives might converse with any of the recluses, through the grate which divided the room into two. Behind the chapel was another court, cloistered all round, and beyond that the main body of the building.
All these arrangements would seem to show, and, indeed, such was the intention, that the sisterhood were cut off from all immediate communication with the male part of the race; but yet, in truth, neither the order nor the abbey was a very strict one--so little so that, twenty or thirty years before, the sisterhood had not altogether escaped scandal. All occasion for gossiping tongues, however, had been taken away by the conduct of the existing abbess, whose rule was firm though mild; but, at the same time, she neither scrupled to indulge her nuns in all innocent liberty, such as going out once or twice in the year in parties of six or seven together, nor to use her own powers of free action in receiving, even in the interior of the building, during the day time, any of the officers of the abbey, whether lay or clerical, with whom she might wish to speak, and in going out mounted on her mule, and accompanied by several attendants, to inspect the several estates of the foundation, or visit any of the neighbouring towns. This just medium between extreme severity and improper license secured her against all evil tongues; and the abbey was in high repute at the time of which I speak.
About one o'clock, on the day after the woodman's visit, which I have described, some twenty or thirty people were gathered together on the green just before the great portal. But this was no well-dressed and splendid assemblage, no meeting of the high, the rich, and the lordly. It was a very motley band, in which rags and tatters greatly predominated. The most aristocratic of the crowd was probably an itinerant piper, who, with an odd-shaped cap on his head, somewhat like the foot of an old stocking, but spreading out at the edges in the fashion of a basin, had a good coarse brown cloth coat on his back, and hosen on his legs, which, though not new, were not in holes. He kept his bag tight under his arm, not venturing to regale the devout ears of the nuns with the sounds of his merry minstrelsy; but he promised himself and his fellows to cheer their hearts with a tune after their daily dole had been distributed, to receive which was the object of their coming.
They were not kept long waiting, indeed; for one of the elder sisters soon appeared, followed by two stout serving women, dressed in grey gowns, with white hoods and wimples, each carrying an enormous basket filled with large hunches of bread and fragments of broken meat. The contents of these panniers were distributed with great equity, and savoured with a few words, sometimes of ghostly advice, sometimes of reproach, and sometimes of consolation.
Thus it was, "There Hodge, take that, and do not grumble another time as thou didst yesterday. A contented heart makes food wholesome; and you, Margery Dobson, I do wonder that you do not think it shame to live upon the abbey dole, with those good stout hands of yours."
"Ah, dear mother," replied the person she addressed, in a whining tone; "that is always the way. Everything goes by seeming. I vow I am dropsical all over; and then folks say it is all fat. I could no more do a day's work like another, than I could take up the abbey tower and carry it off."
The good sister shook her head, and went on to another, saying--
"Ah! Jackson, if you would but quit your vile drunken ways, you need never come here for the dole. Two hours' work each day would furnish you with as much food as you get here in a week. Ah, Janet Martin, my poor thing," she continued, addressing a woman, who had contrived to add some little scraps of black to the old gown which she wore, "there were no need to give you any of the dole, for the lady abbess will send down to you by and by; but here, as there is plenty for all to-day, take this for yourself and the babes. I dare say they'll eat it."
The woman made a melancholy gesture with her head, replying merely--
"They have not tasted a morsel since last night, sister Alice."
"Well, take heart, take heart," answered the nun in a kindly tone. "You can't tell what may be coming. We are all very sorry for you and for your poor children; and your good husband who is no more, rest his soul, has our prayers night and morning."
"Blessings upon you, sister Alice, and upon the house," replied the poor widow; and the nun turned to the itinerant musician.
"What, Sam the piper come back from Tamworth. I trust, brother, you remembered all your promises, and did not get drunk at the fair."
"Never was drunk once," replied the piper boldly; but the next moment, he turned his head partly over his shoulder, and winked shrewdly with his eye, adding, "The ale was so thin that a butt of it would not have tipsied a sucking lamb. So I have little credit; for my well-seasoned staves would have drunk the whole beer in the town without rolling. But nevertheless, I was moderate, very moderate, and drank with due discretion--seeing that the liquor was only fit to season sow's meat. Well, I wot, they got very little grains out of each barrel; and I hope he that brewed it has had as bad a cholic as I have had ever since."
"Well, get you each to the buttery, one by one as you are served; and there you will get a horn of ale which won't give you the cholic, though it won't make you drunk," said the good sister; and then, beckoning to the piper, she enquired in an easy tone: "What news was stirring at Tamworth, Sam Piper? There's always something stirring there, I think."
"Bless your holy face," answered the piper; "there was little enough this time. Only, just as the fair was over, some gay nobles came in--looking for King Richard, I wot; and a gorgeous train they made of it; but if it was the King they sought, they did not find him, for he has gone on to Nottingham with his good Queen."
"But who were they? Who were they?" asked the nun, who was not without her share of that curiosity so common among recluses. "And were they so very splendid? How many had they in their following?"
"Why, first and foremost, lady," replied the piper, with a tone and air of secrecy and importance, "there was the young earl of Chartley. Marry, a gay and handsome gentleman as ever you set eyes on. I saw him come up to the inn door, and speak to mine host; and every other word was a jest, I'll warrant. What a wit he has, and how he did run on. It was nothing but push and thrust, from beginning to end. Then, as for his dress, it might have suited a prince, full of quaint conceits and beautiful extravagance. Why his bonnet was cut all round in the Burgundy fashion, for all the world like the battlements of a castle made in cloth, and a great white feather lolling down till it touched his left shoulder."
"Oh, vanity, vanity!" cried the nun. "How these young men do mock Heaven with their vanities! But what more, good brother?"
"Why then there were the sleeves of his gown," continued the piper; "what they were intended for I can't tell, unless to blow his nose with; but they were so long and fell so heavy with the sables that trimmed them, that I thought every minute the horse would set his feet on them. But no such thing; and though somewhat dusty he seemed fresh enough."
"Well, well," said the nun. "Come to the point, and tell us no more about dress, for I care not for such vanities."
"Good faith, but there were some pieces of it would have made you care," replied the piper. "However, I do not know what you mean by the point."
"Who were the other people; for you said there were many?" demanded the nun sharply.
"So there were, so there were," replied the wandering musician. "There was Sir Edward Hungerford, a gay gallant of the court, not so handsome as the other, but as grandly dressed; and then there was Sir Charles Weinants, a very reverend and courtly gentleman, with comely grey hair. There--talking of reverencies--there was a godly friar with a grey gown and shaven crown."
"That speaks well for the young lords," observed the nun. "They cannot be such idle little-thrifts as you make them out, if they travel accompanied by a holy man."
"Nay, Heaven forbid that I should make them out idle little-thrifts," replied the piper. "I think them serious sober-minded gentlemen; for, besides the friar, they had with them, I wot, a black slave, that is to say not quite black, for I have seen blacker, but a tawny Moor, with silver bracelets on his arms, and a turban on his head."
"How does that show them serious sober-minded gentlemen?" asked the nun.
"Because I fancy they must have been to the Holy Land to fetch him," answered the piper; "but what is more to their credit than all else, they love minstrels, for the young lord at their head gave me a York groat, which is more than I had taken in all the fair."
"Minstrels!" cried the nun, with a toss of her head. "Marry! call'st thou thyself a minstrel, piper?"
But before her companion could reply, three men rode into the little circle, formed by the houses upon the green, and approached the great portal of the abbey. One of these, by his dress and appearance, seemed to be a principal servant in the house of some great man. Another was an ordinary groom; but the third was altogether of a different appearance, being a man of almost gigantic stature, dressed in oriental costume, with which, his brown skin, strongly-marked features, and large deep black eyes, were in perfect harmony. He wore a crooked scimitar by his side, a short cane spear was in his hand, and his seat in the saddle of the beautiful black horse he rode would have distinguished him at once as the native of another land. He was magnificently dressed, as was usually the case with the eastern slaves, of which not a few were to be found in Europe, even at that time; for although the epidemic madness of the crusades was over, yet the malady from time to time attacked a number of individuals, and we find that towards the end of the fifteenth century, between two and three hundred thousand persons were assembled from different countries in Rome, with the professed object of making war upon the infidels. They were without leaders, undertook little, and executed less; but if one of the noblemen or gentlemen, who set out upon those wild enterprises, could bring home with him two or three Mahommedan slaves, he thought he had performed a great feat, and judged himself worthy of the name of a crusader.
The very approach of a follower of Mahound, however, was an abomination to the good nun, who had never seen such a thing before; and, taking a step back at the aspect of the Moor, she crossed herself devoutly. "Sancta Clara, ora pro nobis," she uttered devoutly, and seemed to derive both consolation and courage from the ejaculation; for she maintained her ground, although the Moor rode close up to her with his companions--nay, she even examined his garb with a critical eye, and internally pronounced the yellow silk, of which his gabardine was composed, the most beautiful she had ever seen in her life.
She was not subjected to the shock of any conversation with the infidel however; for the person who addressed her was the good-looking elderly man, dressed as one of the principal servants of a high family. Dismounting from his horse with due decorum, he presented a letter for the lady abbess, and requested that it might be conveyed to her immediately, saying, that he would wait there for an answer.
The nun pressed him to enter the court and take some refreshment in the visitors' lodging, looking askance at the Moor all the time, and seeming to doubt whether she ought to include him in the invitation. The steward, or whatever he might be, declined, however, stating that he must return immediately when he had received an answer, as to whether the lady abbess would extend her hospitality to his lord; and the nun, usurping the function of the porteress, carried in the letter herself. An answer was soon brought, by word of mouth, that the Lord Chartley and his friends were right welcome; and the servants departed on the road by which they came. Cooks and scullions were immediately put in requisition, and all the good things which the woodman had sent up were speedily being converted into delicate dishes for the table of the guests.
Such a scene had not been displayed in the kitchen of the abbey since the visitation of the bishop; but hour after hour passed by without the arrival of the expected company, till the cooks began to fear that the supper would be spoilt; and the beggars, who had lingered about the gate, in the hope of alms, grew weary of waiting, and dropped off one by one. It was not till the sun had set, and the whole sky was grey, that a distant trumpet was heard, and the sacristan of the chapel, from one of the highest towers, perceived a dark and indistinct mass which might be men and horses coming up the slope of the hill.