“Come in, sir,” said the poet. “Let us sit down and talk. Truly I have much to say. A man cannot discourse with the rabble of the Sanctuary. My patron, the Abbot, is oppressed with cares of state; the monks, the good monks, the holy men,”—he smiled, he chuckled, he broke into a laugh,—“they have little learning outside the Psalms which they intone so well, and for poetry they have no love, or they might sing mine.”
He began to troll out, with a voice that had once been lusty:
“Ye holy caterpillars,
Ye helpe your well willers
With prayers and psalmes,
To devour the almes
That Christians should give,
To meynteyne and releve
The people poore and needy;
But youe be greedy,
And so grete a number
The world ye encumber.
By Saynt Luke and secundum Skeltonida,” he concluded, with another laugh. “Sir, let us drink before we go on.”
Whereupon he went out, and presently returned carrying a black jack which held three quarts or so, and singing:
“I care right nowghte,
I take no thowte
For clothes to keep me warme.
Have I good dryncke,
I surely thyncke
Nothing can do me harm.
For truly than
I fear no man,
Be he never so bolde,
When I am armed
And throwly warmed
With joly good ale and olde.”
So he lifted the black jack to his lips, took a long draught, and handed it to his companion. ’Twas right October, strong and mellow.
The room was small and the furniture was scanty, yet with no suggestion of poverty; there was a strong table of oak, the legs well carven; there was a chair also of good workmanship, high backed, with arms and a cushion; in the fireplace were two andirons and a pile of wood against the cold weather; books were on the table, both printed books from the press of Caxton hard by, and written books; there were writing materials; there was a candlestick of latone; in the corner stood a wooden coffer; there was a curtain, to be drawn across the door in cold weather; a silver mazer stood on the table; a robe of perset, furred, hung over the back of the chair, and another of cloth, also furred, but the fur much eaten of moths, hung upon the wall. It was the room of a scholar. There was a long and broad seat in the window, which was glazed above with diamond panes and provided with a shutter below to keep out rain and cold; but the day was warm, and so the shutter was up, and they sat down in the noonday sunshine—John Skelton at one end of the seat and his guest at the other, and the black jack between. And one listened while the other talked.
“It is now,” said the poet, “five years since I fled hither to escape the revenge of my Lord Cardinal Wolsey—Son of the Wolf, I call him. Well, he may compass my destruction, but my verses can he not destroy, for they are imprinted, and now fly here and there about the land, so that no one knows who they are that read them; and wherever the Cardinal goeth, there he may find that my verses have gotten there before him. Nay, he will die, and after death not only the Lord, but man will sit in judgment upon him; and my verses will be there for all to read. Ha! what said I?
“He is set so hye
In his ierarchy
Of franticke frenesy
And folishe fantasy
That in the Chamber of Starres
All matters there he marres:
Clapping his rod on the borde,
No man dare speke a worde,
For he hath all the sayenge,
Without any renayinge.
He rolleth in his recordes;
He sayth, ‘How saye ye, my Lordes?’
Some say yes, and some
Syt styll as they were dumbe,
He ruleth all the roste
With braggynge and with boste,
Borne up on every syde
With pompe and with pryde.