Robert Annys: Poor Priest. A Tale of the Great Uprising

by Annie Nathan Meyer

XXIV

When the note reached Matilda, telling of his decision to become a Benedictine monk, and imploring her to forget him and to wed Richard Meryl, who was far worthier of her than he, her tears flowed, not at her own loss, for that she had long since schooled herself to bear, but at the people's loss in their leader.

Robert Annys, her Robert Annys, a Benedictine! Impossible! How often in the sweet days of their companionship had he railed bitterly against those so-called Christians that buried their noses in ponderous tomes of Meditations on the Future Life, while Satan grimly did his work on the life going on about him. How his impatience had flashed out against those that shut their eyes to Christ's true mission in the world, and continued in the even tenor of their way within the sheltered cloister, while without the cold north winds blew, and crops failed, and sheep died by the hundred, and gaunt men looked into each other's eyes and saw there, not hope and good-fellowship, but only hunger and despair and a thirst for vengeance. What answer would such have ready—he used to say—at the Tribunal of the Great Judge, when asked after the workers of the world? Would their answers differ any from that made by baron or bailiff, the same miserable palliation that trembled on the lips of guilty Cain?

Robert Annys, her Robert Annys, a Benedictine! He who had always translated religion into helpfulness, had he, then, after all, lowered his colors and aligned himself with the good but impotent dreamers of the earth? Now she regretted that her pride had let him go from her without one plea for Piers. That would not have been a plea for herself. And perhaps she could have saved him this defeat. Yet she comforted herself with the thought that it could not last. Some day—she hoped before he would take the vows of his order—some day, amid the peace and calm of the cloisters, the voice of the down-trodden people, his once-beloved, ever-beloved people, would reach him, and he would fling off the cowl, to place himself again at their head.

For indeed their need of him was great. As the time drew near for the march on to Blackheath, it was impossible to restrain their impatience. Everywhere slumbered fires that needed but a puff to burst into instant flame. Here it was a quarrel of long standing with an abbey for the right to grind one's own corn; there it was the insolence of a poll-tax collector; again it was a bailiff seeking a runaway serf: any pretext served to fan the smouldering embers. Matilda was too loyal a pupil of Robert Annys not to watch anxiously the constantly increasing outbursts of violence. She knew how much depended on the orderliness and self-control of those who were to demand their freedom of their King.

During these days she prayed much, and pored for long hours at a time over her Bible. Whatever unhappiness her love for Robert Annys had caused her, at least it had brought her the joy of reading for herself in the Wonderful Book. It was everything to her, her one beloved companion, for now she lived utterly alone. Her grandmother was no more. When Rose went from her, she became a helpless paralytic, only speaking a minute before her death, when she uttered some wild curses in which two generations of de Leauforts—uncle and nephew—were strangely blended. Meryl had not yet returned from his mission. Matilda lived in a blessed companionship with her Saviour, sharing in every act of His life, letting every precious word that had fallen from His lips sink deeply into her heart. It was a marvellous experience, which broadened and developed her receptive nature. She burned with a passionate desire to make His Presence real to those about her. She resolved to take up that part of Robert's work—the bringing of the Gospel to the people. There could be no greater service on earth, and there was comfort in the consciousness of continuing his work. She was sure the people needed no other guidance than the Bible in their hands. For what knew the untutored peasant girl of history, of the slow, painful steps by which Christianity was won for the world? of the contamination in the very forces that it conquered? She knew only the beautiful simplicity of Christ's mandates, and felt a growing horror for the intricacies of ritualistic worship. What knew she of Donations of Constantine, of the slow, steady growth of the temporal dominions of the Papacy? She filled her heart to overflowing with His words of peace and charity, and gazed with growing scorn at the bickerings and warfare waged by the Head of Holy Church.

She knew that in Rome there stood the Church of St. Peter's. It had twenty-nine steps leading up to its doors. When you go up or down, if you say a prayer, you shall have seven years' pardon for every step. Inside there are seven principal altars. At each of these you can obtain seven years' pardon. At the high altar pardon is given for twenty years. If you time your visit between Maunday and Lammas, you obtain fourteen thousand years' pardon. What could this all mean to her? What knew she of the need to encourage pilgrimages to Rome, to fasten the eyes of the world upon it? What knew she of the magnificent statesmanship that could hold the Holy City in the imagination of all—believer and pagan alike—glorious, impregnable, supreme?

She knew only that Jesus granted absolution through much suffering and great faith, a real change of heart. A small detail which, in the calculation of the shrewd Pope, had been relegated to comparative unimportance.

So, in the same way, she looked about her on the condition of the serfs, and saw nothing of the slow upbuilding of the feudal system, of the service that once had meaning, but only the apostolic equality of all men and the nobility of labor.

All men were created in the image of God, and she wanted to see all men free and equal. Nevertheless, she had a horror of violence. She was fearful of the spectre of the wild beast that stalked ever behind the noble purposes of the Uprising.