At the "Sign of the Golden Fleece"

by Emma Leslie

It may have been that the monks thought their school might only be turned against them, if this new learning spread much further. At any rate they declined to move in the matter, and so Mistress Margery Paton undertook the task, and by the end of that winter of 1524-5, nearly a dozen of the elder boys and girls were able to read from the New Testament for themselves. Margery wanted to lend one of the copies her brother had brought from Oxford, among her scholars, that they might take it home and read it to their parents. But her brother thought it would not do to press this part of their work too rapidly. It was enough to teach them to understand what they themselves read, and to make them see that it was a book whose teaching must be put into practice in their every day life.

And Margery tried to show them what to choose, and what to reject from the Mass book, which was used at the Monastery, and by the Church all over the land.

Altogether it was a very busy season, both indoors and out; for when the weather permitted, there was work on the land to be done, to bring more into cultivation; and when this could not be done, there was work on the houses,—strengthening the walls with baulks of timber to support a properly thatched roof, and make the whole wind and water tight in the face of any storm. Then there was the weaving for those who had the aptitude for this work. The craftsman, who had been sent over from Ghent by the Cardinal's agent, was a man who could build a loom as well as use one; and having brought one with him for a pattern, he soon set the men to work to fashion the frames of others, that more workmen might be employed in weaving, when they had once mastered the difficulties of learning.

The Cardinal himself took a great interest in this experiment, and had offered to bear the cost of the trial if it should prove a failure; for the workman from Flanders asked a high rate of remuneration, being a skilful workman.

But before the close of the winter, Sir Miles felt assured that the attempt would prove very successful in the course of another year; and that, from doing their own shearing, they would be able to carry through every process in the manufacture of the cloth, and without actual waste either; for the learners' efforts, if not fit for clothing, could be used for bed-covering for the old and feeble.

So, here in the heart of England, was a self-dependent, self-supporting little colony of working folk, trying to better their condition by using the means close at hand; and if More's Utopia was not realised, as Sir Miles often felt it was not by a very long way, still, he thought he had set the feet of these people on the first rung of the ladder towards its attainment, and he could scarcely hope to do more, and must not attempt too much at once.

The following summer proved a terrible one for the nation at large. Pestilence and famine stalked through the land, as the inevitable result of the policy of the landlords. Corn had to be brought from the Continent, and sold for almost fabulous prices, so great was the demand for it, and so short was the supply.

This state of things forced Miles to take a step he never dreamed of doing when he set about bringing the land into cultivation again.

The news that they had had a plentiful harvest, brought them customers for more rye and wheat than they could possibly spare, so that at last he had to refuse to sell a peck of wheat, even for its weight in gold, for fear his own tenants should want it before the next harvest came round.

Then came rumours of a deadly sickness, known as "the Black Death." Some said it had been brought over from France by some of the troops who had returned from the war. But, however it came, it spread with awful rapidity through the length and breadth of the land. The poor creatures, who had been driven from their holdings to find shelter in the woods, were its first victims; for hunger and exposure had enfeebled them, and they died at the first touch of the plague. In their selfish panic to escape, their companions left them to lie unburied, and thus spread the contagion through the air tenfold, so that towns and villages were almost depopulated in the course of a few weeks.