“Holy father, at this very moment our vessels are waiting to be gone, and all my good companions chafe and vex them for this my absence!”
“What! and dost thou start for hostile shores and bloody feuds with half thy tithes and tolls unpaid to us? Noble Earl, wert thou to meet with any mischance yonder—which Heaven prevent!—and didst thou stand ill with our exchequer in this particular, there were no hope for thee! I tell thee thou wert as surely damned if thou diedst owing this holy foundation aught of the poor contributions it asks of those to whom it ministers as if thy life were one long count of wickedness! I will not listen—I will not shrive thee until thou hast comported thyself duly in this most important particular!”
“Good father, thy warmth is unnecessary,” replied the Earl. “My worldly matters are set straight, and my steward has orders to pay thee in full all that may be owing between us; ’twas spiritual settlement I came to seek.”
“Oh!” quoth his Reverence, in an altered tone. “Then thou art free at once to follow the promptings of thy noble instinct, and serve thy King and country as thou listest. I fear this will be a bloody war you go to.”
“’Tis like to be,” said the soldier, brightening up and speaking out boldly on a subject he loved, his fine eyes flashing with martial fire—“already the yellow sun of Picardy flaunts on Edward’s royal lilies!”
“Ah,” put in the monk, “and no doubt ripens many a butt of noble malmsey.”
“Already the red soil of Flanders is redder by the red blood of our gallant chivalry!”
“Yet even then not half so red, good Earl, as the ripe brew of Burgundy—a jolly mellow brew that has stood in the back part of the cellar, secure in the loving forbearance of twenty masters. Talk of renown—talk of thy leman—talk of honor and the breaking of spears—what are all these to such a vat of beaded pleasures? I tell thee, Codrington, not even the fabled pool wherein the rhymers say the cursed Paynim looks to foretaste the delights of his sinful heaven reflects more joy than such a cobwebbed tub. Would that I had more of them!” added the bibulous old priest after a pause, and sighing deeply. As he did so an idea occurred to him, for he exclaimed, “Look thee, my gallant boy! Thou art bound whither all this noble stuff doth come from, and ’tis quite possible in the rough and tumble of bloody strife thou may’st be at the turning inside out of many a fat roost and many a well-stocked cellar. Now, if this be so, and thou wilt remember me when thou seest the gallant drink about to be squandered on the loose gullets of base, scullion troopers, why then ’tis a bargain, and, in paternal acknowledgment of this thy filial duty, I will hear thy confession now, and thy penance, I promise, shall not be such as will inconvenience thine active life.”
The knight bent his head, somewhat coldly I thought, and then they turned and went over to the oriel confessional, where the moonlight was throwing from the window above a pallid pearly transcript of the Mother and her sweet Nazarene Babe, all in silver and opal tints, upon the sacred woodwork, and as the priest’s black shadow blotted the tender picture out I heard him say:
“But mind, it must be good and ripe—’tis that vintage with the two white crosses down by the vent that I like best—an thou sendest me any sour Calais layman tipple, thou art a forsworn heretic, with all thy sin afresh upon thee—so discriminate,” and the worthy Churchman entered to shrive and forgive, and as the casement closed upon him the sweet, silent, indifferent shadows from above blossomed again upon the doorway.