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

by Annie Nathan Meyer

"Ay! God wot, they have little enough to make them merry," groaned Annys.

"I satisfy the cravings of their souls by the transfer of a bit of sow's ear, or a few drops of calf's blood—so be it—or a bit of riband or a bead or two, and I go my way singing. And I come not with long face to prate of the devil and hell-fire, but of jollity and pleasaunce, and if perchance they will none of my relics, I am at no loss, either, for I have here in my bag what all good wives love," and he put one pudgy hand into the huge bag which hung on his saddle, and drew forth a couple of shining knives and some bright necklaces of cheap beads and a gauntlet or two.

"If so it chance that I meet with a customer that is not likely to be caught on the side of his soul, you see I am ready at a turn of the hand to land him with the needs of his body."

There came into the poor priest's mind what was commonly rumored of these peddling pardoners, how no maid was safe with them. Even then he noted the man's lascivious mouth, which parted to show ugly, yellow fangs, and the bloated body which spoke of every excess, the small roving eyes and the heavy knot of red eyebrows that met over them, the coarse, knobby nose with red and purple veins running through it and a great wart on one side,—a face for maids to shrink from.

And this man shrived sinful souls!

"How long, how long, O Lord!" he cried, as he watched the man ride away.

But before he was quite out of sight, the fellow turned and called, "I shall see thee at the Stourbridge Fair, doubtless," and Annys nodded an impatient yes, and resumed his labors, although already he staggered from fatigue.

But to stagger from a fatigue that was purely physical was a joy to Robert Annys. Often worn and unstrung from the sense of the awful responsibility that was upon him, he would plunge recklessly into some physical labor that was severe enough to absorb his every energy. Physical labor became his anodyne to the growing unrest and despair that was in his heart. In the task which he had taken up he suffered even as the Bishop had foretold. He never questioned the righteousness of his decision, he never faltered in his work, no matter how it taxed his slight store of strength, so long as he was upheld by the knowledge that it helped the Cause to which he had given his life. It was only when discouraged by the ignorance and folly and cruelty of those whom he hoped to serve that he questioned his own power to accomplish good. During the nine months that had followed since he had stepped into Ball's place, again and again had he been utterly cast down by the terrible dread that the actual Uprising would take place before the peasants were ready for it. And two dire results were ever in his mind: the one, that whatever would be gained would be lost again through lack of wise leadership and self-restraint; the other (and this became an almost daily horror to him as he watched the humor of the rustics daily growing blacker and blacker), that the few wise and true men who were working for an Ideal would be swept aside when the Uprising came, by the fierce and unruly majority, by men who had nursed their wrongs until they were no longer of the right mind, men who would wreak a fearful vengeance when their time should come.

However, there had not been much time wasted in wondering or prophesying, for there had been much to do. The people welcomed him eagerly everywhere; and before he had done speaking at one village, he had learned of another where they awaited him anxiously. And so he had tramped manfully along the highway, his valiant spirit making him press on often when the other travellers whom he encountered gave way before floods and snows. At times, he too was forced to yield when the storms rendered the roads utterly impassable, and he had known many a slow-footed day pass over his head while he waited impatiently at some wayside tavern, and looked out with anxious eyes at the snow falling and imprisoning him far from those that looked for him and counted on him. At such moments of dreary inaction it was that his fears for the future weighed heaviest.