Part 39 (1/2)
”You travel much then!”
”To Winchester, Linn mart, Bristol fair, Stourbridge, and Bartholomew's in London Town. The rest of the year you may ever find me five doors from the church of Our Lady, where I would from my heart that I was at this moment, for there is no air like Norwich air, and no water like the Yare, nor can all the wines of France compare with the beer of old Sam Yelverton who keeps the 'Dun Cow.' But, out and alack, here is an evil fruit which hangs upon this chestnut-tree!”
As he spoke they had ridden round a curve of the road and come upon a great tree which shot one strong brown branch across their path. From the centre of this branch there hung a man, with his head at a horrid slant to his body and his toes just touching the ground. He was naked save for a linen under s.h.i.+rt and pair of woollen drawers. Beside him on a green bank there sat a small man with a solemn face, and a great bundle of papers of all colors thrusting forth from the scrip which lay beside him. He was very richly dressed, with furred robes, a scarlet hood, and wide hanging sleeves lined with flame-colored silk. A great gold chain hung round his neck, and rings glittered from every finger of his hands. On his lap he had a little pile of gold and of silver, which he was dropping, coin by coin, into a plump pouch which hung from his girdle.
”May the saints be with you, good travellers!” he shouted, as the party rode up. ”May the four Evangelists watch over you! May the twelve Apostles bear you up! May the blessed army of martyrs direct your feet and lead you to eternal bliss!”
”Gramercy for these good wishes!” said Sir Nigel. ”But I perceive, master alderman, that this man who hangs here is, by mark of foot, the very robber-knight of whom we have spoken. But there is a cartel pinned upon his breast, and I pray you, Alleyne, to read it to me.”
The dead robber swung slowly to and fro in the wintry wind, a fixed smile upon his swarthy face, and his bulging eyes still glaring down the highway of which he had so long been the terror; on a sheet of parchment upon his breast was printed in rude characters;
ROGER PIED-BOT.
Par l'ordre du Senechal de Castelnau, et de l'Echevin de Cahors, servantes fideles du tres vaillant et tres puissant Edouard, Prince de Galles et d'Aquitaine.
Ne touchez pas, Ne coutez pas, Ne depechez pas
”He took a sorry time in dying,” said the man who sat beside him. ”He could stretch one toe to the ground and bear him self up, so that I thought he would never have done. Now at last, however, he is safely in paradise, and so I may jog on upon my earthly way.” He mounted, as he spoke, a white mule which had been grazing by the wayside, all gay with fustian of gold and silver bells, and rode onward with Sir Nigel's party.
”How know you then that he is in paradise?” asked Sir Nigel. ”All things are possible to G.o.d, but, certes, without a miracle, I should scarce expect to find the soul of Roger Clubfoot amongst the just.”
”I know that he is there because I have just pa.s.sed him in there,”
answered the stranger, rubbing his bejewelled hands together in placid satisfaction. ”It is my holy mission to be a sompnour or pardoner. I am the unworthy servant and delegate of him who holds the keys. A contrite heart and ten n.o.bles to holy mother Church may stave off perdition; but he hath a pardon of the first degree, with a twenty-five livre benison, so that I doubt if he will so much as feel a twinge of purgatory. I came up even as the seneschal's archers were tying him up, and I gave him my fore-word that I would bide with him until he had pa.s.sed. There were two leaden crowns among the silver, but I would not for that stand in the way of his salvation.”
”By Saint Paul!” said Sir Nigel, ”if you have indeed this power to open and to shut the gates of hope, then indeed you stand high above mankind.
But if you do but claim to have it, and yet have it not, then it seems to me, master clerk, that you may yourself find the gate barred when you shall ask admittance.”
”Small of faith! Small of faith!” cried the sompnour. ”Ah, Sir Didymus yet walks upon earth! And yet no words of doubt can bring anger to mine heart, or a bitter word to my lip, for am I not a poor unworthy worker in the cause of gentleness and peace? Of all these pardons which I bear every one is stamped and signed by our holy father, the prop and centre of Christendom.”
”Which of them?” asked Sir Nigel.
”Ha, ha!” cried the pardoner, shaking a jewelled forefinger. ”Thou wouldst be deep in the secrets of mother Church? Know then that I have both in my scrip. Those who hold with Urban shall have Urban's pardon, while I have Clement's for the Clementist--or he who is in doubt may have both, so that come what may he shall be secure. I pray you that you will buy one, for war is b.l.o.o.d.y work, and the end is sudden with little time for thought or shrift. Or you, sir, for you seem to me to be a man who would do ill to trust to your own merits.” This to the alderman of Norwich, who had listened to him with a frowning brow and a sneering lip.
”When I sell my cloth,” quoth he, ”he who buys may weigh and feel and handle. These goods which you sell are not to be seen, nor is there any proof that you hold them. Certes, if mortal man might control G.o.d's mercy, it would be one of a lofty and G.o.d-like life, and not one who is decked out with rings and chains and silks, like a pleasure-wench at a kermesse.
”Thou wicked and shameless man!” cried the clerk. ”Dost thou dare to raise thy voice against the unworthy servant of mother Church?”
”Unworthy enough!” quoth David Micheldene. ”I would have you to know, clerk, that I am a free English burgher, and that I dare say my mind to our father the Pope himself, let alone such a lacquey's lacquey as you!”
”Base-born and foul-mouthed knave!” cried the sompnour. ”You prate of holy things, to which your hog's mind can never rise. Keep silence, lest I call a curse upon you!”
”Silence yourself!” roared the other. ”Foul bird! we found thee by the gallows like a carrion-crow. A fine life thou hast of it with thy silks and thy baubles, cozening the last few s.h.i.+llings from the pouches of dying men. A fig for thy curse! Bide here, if you will take my rede, for we will make England too hot for such as you, when Master Wicliff has the ordering of it. Thou vile thief! it is you, and such as you, who bring an evil name upon the many churchmen who lead a pure and a holy life. Thou outside the door of heaven! Art more like to be inside the door of h.e.l.l.”
At this crowning insult the sompnour, with a face ashen with rage, raised up a quivering hand and began pouring Latin imprecations upon the angry alderman. The latter, however, was not a man to be quelled by words, for he caught up his ell-measure sword-sheath and belabored the cursing clerk with it. The latter, unable to escape from the shower of blows, set spurs to his mule and rode for his life, with his enemy thundering behind him. At sight of his master's sudden departure, the varlet Watkin set off after him, with the pack-mule beside him, so that the four clattered away down the road together, until they swept round a curve and their babble was but a drone in the distance. Sir Nigel and Alleyne gazed in astonishment at one another, while Ford burst out a-laughing.
”Pardieu!” said the knight, ”this David Micheldene must be one of those Lollards about whom Father Christopher of the priory had so much to say.
Yet he seemed to be no bad man from what I have seen of him.”
”I have heard that Wicliff hath many followers in Norwich,” answered Alleyne.