The Young Lovell: A Romance

by Ford Madox Ford

"I lately rebuked you," the Bishop said, "for meddling brutishly in things of which you knew nothing. For you cried out to me ignorant and rustic superstitions, such as it is not fitting for a religious to meditate upon. And so I rebuke you again and I command you that you ask of your confessor such a penance as he shall think fitting for one that has miserably blasphemed, and in a manner of doctrine.... Now this I tell you for your guidance.... This apparition that you have seen and I, appeareth with many faces and bodies, being the spirit that most snareth men to carnal desires. So doth she show herself to each man in the image that should snare him to sin, with a face, kind, virtuous and alluring after each man's tastes. That is the nature of such false gods. For this is a false god, such as I have discerned you never, in your black ignorance, to have heard of. But Holy Writ, which I have much studied and you very little, after the fashion of certain monks, enjoins upon us to believe in the existence of false gods. So there are ever strange and cold creatures, looking upon this world with steadfast eyes. For Lucretius says, that was a writer, pagan yet half inspired: 'The universe is very large and in it there is room for a multitude of gods.' So I rede you, believe of false gods."

"Father in God, I will," the monk said, "I perceive it to be my duty. For now I remember me the Church enjoins upon us to be constant in fighting against such, therefore they must exist."

"Then this too I command you as a duty," the Bishop said from the thick darkness, "that for the duration of his life you quit never this knight but be ever with him, seeking how you may win him from the perception of this evil being. For signing of the cross shall not do it, neither shall sprinklings with holy water such as avail with the spirits of men deceased or with Satan and such imps. For this is even a god and the only way you may prevail against it is by keeping the mind of your penitent upon the things of this world of God. If you shall perceive this form of a woman here or there you shall speak to him quickly of setting up an oratory, or charity to the poor, or riding, in the name of God, against the false Scots. This shall avail little, but somewhat it may. Do you mark me?"

"Father in God," the monk said, "you put me in much better heart than I was before. For if I may, I will tell you how once I have done."

So the monk, from the darkness, told the Bishop how for the second time he had seen that lady. This was upon the road below Eshot Hill, going to Morpeth, near the farmhouse called Helm. Here, as he rode with the Young Lovell, a little before his men, he had seen that lady come out of a little wood and mount upon a white horse with a great company of damsels upon horses about her. And so all that many, brightly clad, rode down to a little hillock and watched that lording pass them, all smiling together. So that monk for the first time had been afraid that this was no St. Katharine and no angel of God.

But the Young Lovell had gone drooping in the hot sun and thirsting within himself and had not seen that lady. And at first that monk had wished to pull out his breviary and bid the Young Lovell read a prayer in it. But in his haste he could not come upon it amongst his robes for he was riding upon a mule. So, in that same haste, he had made certain lines with his finger nail upon the saddle before him and commanded the Young Lovell to look upon them saying it was a plan of Castle Lovell that he scratched, and the White Tower. And to have money, he told the Young Lovell, that lord must go with a boat to below the White Tower where it stood in the sea. And so Richard Raket should lower him gold in baskets at the end of a rope.

And the Young Lovell had looked down upon these markings attentively and said it was a good plan and never looked up at that lady and her company who sat there, all smiling, until they were passed.

"Well, she can bide her time," the Bishop said; then he said: "Brother in God, I have never seen this Young Lovell, but I perceive that he must be fair in his body."

"He is the fairest man of his body that ever I saw," the monk answered, "And as I have heard said by servants that went to meet him and his father, to Venice, he was esteemed the fairest man that those parts, as all the world, ever saw. But how that may be I know not."

"You may say he is the fairest knight of Christendom," the Bishop said. "That is very certain. I know it that have never seen this lord.... But so it is that I see you are not so great a fool as I had thought. And it is ever in such ways that you shall deal with this Young Lovell as you did then."