"A man who governs his passions is master of the world. We must either command them or be enslaved to them. It is better to be the hammer than the anvil."
All very admirable, yet they were but words, words, words. Excellent counsellings, wise reasonings, they were, but could they master one wild throb of his veins leaping in her presence? Could they make the vision of her one whit less radiant and compelling? Had he created the world? Was it his fault or the fault of the Creator of all things that this great longing for her held him in subjection, and that until that was satisfied there was no peace for him in all the wide, wide world? The wildest thoughts ran through his mind at times. It was not too late, he would recant, and go back and enter the Church, and become a great and powerful prelate. He could yet live in a palace and offer her a fitting setting for her glorious beauty. If he closed his eyes he never failed to see himself in magnificent robes seated at the centre of the great table with her at his side. He could see the gleam of jewels as they rose and fell on her white bosom; he could see the light in her eyes as she turned toward him; he could feel the thrill from the touch of her soft white hands.
Yes, it was best to go and strive with all his might to forget Rose Westel, and return to the Bury with his honor unstained, return to keep his troth with Matilda.
He had promised to return immediately after the Fair. This great Fair of Stourbridge had for over a year been looked to as an important meeting place before the final rendezvous at Blackheath. It lacked now but a few days before its opening, for over a fortnight past it had been officially proclaimed by officers going about the country forbidding any merchant to sell or exhibit for sale any goods in any place for a distance of seven leagues about, except inside the gates of the Fair.
Inside these gates there would be gathered people from leagues away on every side. It would be a precious opportunity, for in no wise else might the people gather together in great numbers without exciting suspicion. Here at the Fair, under the pretence of buying and trading, the most important conferences could take place, final arrangements for the great gathering be talked over, and the march on to the Maidstone gaol with ten thousand of men as Ball had foretold could be planned. Here minstrels could go about singing the songs that set the blood of the rustics a-tingling, so that they might be heartened for the long hard winter that yet lay before them.
XVIII
The morning of the opening of the Fair found Annys, together with hundreds of others, tramping along the road to Stourbridge. From the very earliest sign of dawn the highway had bustled with life. The people poured in from all sides,—from as far north as Norwich and Kings Lynn and Marham, and from Colchester and Mile End in the east, and Oxford in the west, and Maidstone and Tunbridge and Guildford in the south, and even from the great city of London they came. For weeks the whole southeast corner of England had been in a turmoil of preparation. The harbors of the seaport towns, Blakeney and Colchester and Lynn and Norwich, had been filled with foreign vessels, swarming with swarthy-faced sailors from the Mediterranean and tow-haired sailors from the North Sea. All these were doubly welcome, for not only they brought trade to the towns, but news, news of far-off lands and far-off peoples. The relation of man to man had a freshness, a piquancy in those days, for one told the other of what was happening in the world, and so each man was then a bearer of news, and not a mere commentator on news already known.
Walking along the highway and jostling one another, there were to be found belated merchants, with heavy hearts hurrying to plead for a place in the Fair; bailiffs bent on their masters' business, securing more canvas or the best millstones from the south of France, or horses for the field, or any of the thousand things that it was their duty to see were on hand; nobles themselves travelling in great state to select a fine war-horse from Spain, or from the same land some rich, rare wine with the sun taken prisoner in it; some knight to try curiously wrought armor from Milan; ladies on palfreys with their hearts set on some jewels or fine robes; monks telling their beads; nuns with eyes modestly cast down; smiths seeking for iron; pardoners and pedlers seeking for profit, acrobats and showmen all after the careless penny of the loiterer; beggars in plenty; scholars from the Universities;—as the poet sang,—