Ford Madox Ford - The Young Lovell (Chap. 2.2) lyrics

The monk Francis was a small, dark, quiet man and not overlearned. He was rising thirty and he was always at work. The monastery of Belford was one given over rather to study and learning so that he, the active one, had always much upon his hands. But all such time as he could save from his duties he devoted to praying for the soul of the cousin he had slain by mischance, taking her for a deer and slaying her with an arrow, as she came to him amongst thick underwood to tell him that the Scots were marching southwards through the Debateable Lands. That had been ten years before; nevertheless he had prayed that morning very reverently for his cousin's soul, walking up and down between the rows of haymakers and their co*ks, in the sunshine; keeping one finger between the leaves of his book of prayers and yet marking diligently that none of the bondsmen slipped away into their own gra** to use the scythe there. For it was marvellously fine weather, and such as had never in the memory of man been known in those parts for the heat of the sun and the dry clear nights. So that it was considered that the saints must be blessing that part. Nevertheless, these naughty bondsmen, owing some three, some five days' labour of themselves and their wives and children to the monastery, must needs always be seeking to slip away to their own lands and doing their scythe work there. This they would do, if no monk watched them, though by so doing they robbed the monastery and went in danger of excommunication. But those, as the learned Prior said, were evil days, so that it might almost be said, as was said aforetime of the accursed robber who came against the Abbey and Church of St. Trophime, that he proclaimed that a thousand florins would get him more soldiers than seven years of plenary absolution from the Pope at Avignon. As to whom, said the Prior, Froissart, the chronicler declared that men-at-arms do not live by pardons nor set much store thereby. And as much might be said of their bondsmen. For it was to be said for this monastery of Belford that the monks set more store by a great chronicle that they were a**isting the monk Oswald to write—all of them searching here and there—than by the work done by their bondsmen, the good estate of the lands of the monastery or even the saying of the offices. They set more store by learning than by aught else. Their lands were administered by laymen, so that they were often robbed, and when the monk Francis had come amongst them their revenues had been scarcely an hundred pounds by the year, or very little more. And, even at the time of his coming, the monks had been against receiving him, for they said that here was a man, though of piety undoubted, who could not tell the chronicle of Giraldus Cambrensis from that of the monk Florence, or Asser from Vergil and Flaccus. But, in those days, the Prior had over-ridden them, pointing out that this novice was very wealthy; that their kitchen and dinner tables were in a sad state, that they had no longer money enough to pursue, upon a princely scale, the succouring of the poor that sat upon their benches, and that they could with the greater serenity pursue their studies and sleep after meat, if they had amongst them a knight who had proven himself diligent upon his own affairs and had increased his substance in the world. For, though they had butlers and cellarers amongst their number, yet the butler thought more of Brute than of his office and the cellarer was more minded to know where lay the bones of the British Kings than where were his keys. The ungodly came in and drank their wine in the cellar, yea, and carried away the mead in black-jacks. These monks were portly, learned and somnolent, religious with a solid contempt for the unlearned—though they would upon occasion, being large men, line the walls and hew down attacking raiders with balks of timber, bars of iron and other weapons that drew no blood, those being, according to the canon, the proper arms for churchmen. These haughty monks accepted this Francis, who was known to the world as Sir Hugh Ridley, to be of their holy and learned brotherhood. But yet they regarded him as little more than a lay brother, though he wore the monk's frock, and they never voted for his advancement to any office such as sub-prior or the like. Yet that day he had said two offices for them, had watched in the hay fields and was now coming in, at noontide to check accounts with the bailiff of the Priory about the great tower that was then in building. Seventeen monks there were and twenty lay brothers who were a lazy band. Thirty men-at-arms they had for their protection under the leadership of a knight, Sir Nicholas Ewelme, and they afforded shelter and victuals for 136 poor men, each of the seventeen monks being the patron of eight of them. These poor men sat in the sun on benches, each before their patron's room and should be served by him at meals. But this was nowadays, mostly done by the lay brothers, the learned monk laying one finger beneath a dish or vessel served to the poor men, so that it would not be said that the custom had died out. The monk Francis, in his grey cloak came in by the little postern gate from the hayfields. He went to his rooms across the quadrangle; and he perceived how certain peasants in hoods of black cloth with belts of yellow leather were bringing in sacks and baskets. These sacks and baskets, as the monk Francis knew from the dress of those peasants, contained ammunition, small round balls of lead or, in the alternative, well-rounded stones from the beach. These peasants were workers in the lead mines upon the lands of the monastery and it was so they paid tribute with balls to shoot against the false Scots if they came a-raiding to Belford. And, as he was going into his room, before his benchful of poor men that stretched their legs in the sun, it happened that one of the peasant's bags burst open and all the round, leaden balls ran out under the archway. Then there was a great bustle, the guards on duty and the guards that came out of the chambers in the arch starting to pick up the balls. And the monk Francis smiled to think how universal is the desire in men to help in picking up small, round objects that fall out of a sack. So that if the false Scots had been minded to take that place, they could have done it very well then, all the guards and peasants and others being on their hands and knees, huddled together and the gate open. And it seemed to the monk Francis that that would be a very good stratagem for the taking of a tower or the gateway of a strong place. One of the poor men had been a man-at-arms at Castle Lovell, but was put out now and masterless. He came to the monk Francis as he went in at his door, and reported that it was said that the young Lord Lovell had been seen, having come out of captivity of the false Gilbert Elliott. The monk said he hoped well that that was so, for then all the men-at-arms from Castle Lovell that were there could go again to his service, and that he was a very good lording and his good friend in God. He wished to cut the matter short for that time because he knew that there awaited him in his outer room John Harbottle an esquire, and the receiver of many domains of the Earl of Northumberland. This esquire was come with the accounts for the building of the great new tower that the Earl had given to the monastery. But the former men of the Lord Lovell crowded before the monk and after him into his outer room, all bringing tidings that the Young Lovell had been seen to ride through his township. And, to the number of thirty or so, they clamoured all at once, asking for his advice as to how they should find their lord and what to do when he was found. The monk Francis was very glad to think that the Young Lovell was come back, not only because he was his true friend but also because this rabble of disemployed men-at-arms was a burden to the monastery and he had it on his conscience that he let them bide there. For that he had done, so that they might serve his friend if he came back. That monastery was rather for the relief of poor men ruined by raiders, for travellers and for criminals seeking sanctuary. He would very gladly have had news of his friend whom he loved, and have settled the disposal of these sturdy, idle and hungry men. Yet, being a man of many affairs, he thought that the day could only be got through by doing all things in order, and behind all these ragged men in grey, he perceived the esquire, John Harbottle, a portly, bearded man in a rich cloak of purple, with a green square cap that had a j**el of gold. This John Harbottle appeared not greatly pleased at the clamour, for he also was a man of many affairs, being the Percy's receiver, and a very diligent one. So, without many words, but quietly, the monk Francis drove out some of these fellows, and then, calling to a grizzled and dirty lay brother, he bade him drive out the rest and bar the door. And so he took John Harbottle by the sleeve of his purple coat and drew him through the doorway into his inner room and closed the door. Then there was peace. This inner cell was a light room with no gla** in the windows. Beside the bed head there was a shelf that had on it the water-bottle of the monk Francis, his plate, his cup, his napkin and the book of devotions in which he read during the dinner hour, his needles and bodkins, his leather book of threads and such things as he needed for the repair of his clothes. Beneath this shelf was a curtain, and this hid the spare garments of the monk, as the vestments in which he said the simpler offices, his spare breeches, stockings, braces, and belt. At the other side of the bed head was a large crucifix of painted wood, from which there hung Our Lord who was represented as crying out in a perpetual agony. Before the crucifix was a fald stool, that had across one corner, a great rosary of clumsy wooden beads, and upon it a skull whose top was polished and yellowed by this monk's hands. For he had it there the better to be reminded of what d**h is when he prayed for the soul of the cousin he had slain. When he had k**ed that woman he had been possessed rather with the idea of what he could do for her poor unhanselled soul than with agonies of ecstasy. And so, with a strong will he prayed, year in, year out, for her sooner relief from the pains of purgatory, knowing God to be a just Man and prayer most efficacious. So, having brought John Harbottle in, he sat himself down on his three-legged stool of wood before his double pulpit. This had in its side a round opening, and in the interior such books, papers, or parchments as the monk Francis had in immediate use. He was of a very orderly nature, rather like a soldier than a priest. He reached into the inside of his pulpit for his parchment that he was to peruse with John Harbottle, and that esquire stood behind him leaning over his back. Then John Harbottle said: "Meseems the Master of Lovell has come back?" "That I hear," the monk Francis answered. "I think there is heavy trouble in store for him," John Harbottle said. "I think there is but little," the monk answered. John Harbottle meant that the Earl Percy, in the Border Warden's Court, had given judgment against the Young Lovell. The monk meant that the religious of that countryside were not best pleased with the Earl Percy; they considered that sorcery was a matter for the courts ecclesiastical. But each was a man of few words, and without any more, the monk Francis unfolded his parchment. They went to their accounts, John Harbottle standing behind the monk and checking each item as he read it: "And in the like payment of money to the prior of the house of the Brethren of St. Cuthbert, within the parish of Belford, near the wood called Newlands, for this year, (as well for that part of the work of the new tower there as for the carriage of stone and other stuff by the contract, in gross) 100 shillings...." The Earl was giving the tower to the monks, they employing two contractors called Richard Chambers and John Richardson to build it for them and the Earl paying the accounts. "Just!" John Harbottle said, and the monk read on— "Carting four loads of lead, 24s. 6d.; bought eight loads of stone, 10d.; iron, with the workmanship of the same, for the doors and windows, 8s.; bought seven locks 4s. 2d., with keys; six latches 12d.; and snecks and other iron 4s. 2d...." So the monk read on, and the receiver nodded his head, saying, "Just." Once he said— "I wish I could have things so cheap for my lord." "Then," the monk answered, "you must haggle as I do and in God His high service." So they made out between them that all these things, and making the arch between the great chamber and the tower came to £10 6s. 4d., and since they owed Robert Chambers and John Richardson already £17 13s. 4d., the whole payment then to be made was £27 19s. 8d. The esquire, John Harbottle, pulled his money bag from beneath his girdle and counted out the money, throwing it on to the bed, for there was no table in that cell. Then he drew from his belt two papers and so he said: "My lord will have you buy from Christiana Paynter the armorial bearings of my lord to set up upon the tower, and that shall cost you 3s. And this you shall have carved upon the same stone: "'In the year of Xt. jhu MCCCCLXXXV This tower was builded by Sir Henry Percy The IV. Earl of Northumberland of great honour and worth That espoused Maud the good lady full of virtue and beauty ... Whose soule's God save.'" "That shall be set up," the monk said. "Then," John Harbottle said, "there is this you may do to convenience me who have been your favourer in all things. That you may the earlier come to it, read you this paper which I have written out, but in English, for I have no Latin beyond ma**-Latin." "What we may do to please you," the monk said, gravely, "that we will, if it be not to the discredit of God." "It is rather to His greater glory," the esquire said. So the monk took the paper and read: "The Prior of Belford, Patent of XX merks by yere. Henry Erle of Northumberland...." The monk glanced on, and his eye fell upon the words, "myn armytage builded in a rock of stone against the church of Castle Lovell," and, later on ... "the gate and pasture of twenty kye and a bull with their calves sukyng,"—"One draught of fisshe every Sondaie in the year to be drawen fornenst the said armytage, called the Trynete draught...." The monk looked up over his shoulder at the esquire. "I perceive," he said, "that you would have us to take over the commandment of my Lord's hermitage at Castle Lovell." John Harbottle looked down a little nervously at his hands. That was what he sought. "I have heard that the holy hermit is dead?" the monk asked. "It is even that," John Harbottle said. "I am worn with the trouble of riding over from Alnwick to Castle Lovell. It is a great burden, yet there is the hermitage that must be kept up for the honour of the Percies." "That," the monk said, "was because it was esteemed a privilege to house a holy anchoret." "Then," John Harbottle asked, "may not my lord save his soul as well by making your brotherhood a payment to watch over the holy man?" "I am not saying that he may not," the monk said. "Then of your courtesy, do this for me," John Harbottle said, "for it is a troublesome matter. This last year, once a month, news has been sent me that this holy man was dead. Then I have ridden over to Castle Lovell and lost a day, calling into the hole in his cell to see if he would answer 'Et cum spiritu tuo,' as his manner was. And, after a whole day lost, he will answer; or maybe not till the next day, and there are two days lost when I should be getting rents or going upon my lord's business. And I am not the man to have much dealing with these holy beings. A plain blunt man! It gives me a grue to be thus calling in at a little hole. And the stench is very awful. I do my duty by the blessed sacraments on Sundays and feast days. And if he be dead, I must find a successor. It will not be very easy for me to find a man to go into that kennel and be walled up. And never again to come out...." The monk looked again at the paper with the particulars of the gift. "Well, I will think of it," he said, "or rather I will commune with the worshipful Prior and Sub-Prior. But I would have you know that if they agree to do this thing it is upon me that the pain and labour will fall, for there is none else in this monastery to do it. So I must go over to Castle Lovell once by the week at least to see that the holy hermit is given bread and water. And if he be truly dead it is I that must find his successor; that will not be easy." "But twenty marks by the year for doing it," John Harbottle said, "that is a goodly sum to fall to your brotherhood." "I do not understand," the monk answered him, "for this patent is not very clear—whether that twenty marks is in addition to the gra**ground, the garden and orchard at Conygarth, the pasturage of kine, bulls, horses and the draughts of fishes. Or are the draughts of fishes and the rest to be taken as of the value of twenty marks by the year?" "It is the last that is meant," John Harbottle answered, a little dubiously. "Then it is not enough," the monk said firmly and made to roll up the paper, "I cannot advise the Prior to accept this gift. For the monastery must lose so much of my time and prayers, though, God knows, those are little worth enough; yet I, a not very holy man, am all that these saintly brothers have to care for their temporalities." John Harbottle grumbled some retort beneath his breath, and then he sighed and pushed the paper with his hand. "Then take and write," he said, and when the monk had mended his pen he dictated. "'And in addition the said stipend of XX markes by year to be taken and received of the rent and ferm of my fisshyng of Warkworth, by thands of my fermour of the same for the tyme beynge, yerly at the times there used and accustomed to, even portions. In wytnes whereof to these my letters patentes, I the said erle have set the seale of my names.' ... That," John Harbottle continued, "if you will agree to, you shall have written out fair on parchment, and so the matter ends." "I think it will end very well," the monk answered, "and the Earl of Northumberland shall have honour of it in Heaven. And, since I am about to do this thing in your service, and to relieve you of travels and the fear of a holy man, having no advantage myself and seeking none, since I am a monk, so I will take it as a kindness if you will do, for my sake, what you can at odd moments to advantage the cause of my friend, this Young Lovell, who is lately come, as I have heard, from prison amongst the false thieves of Rokehope and Cheviot." John Harbottle did not answer this, for he thought there was little love lost between his lord and that young lording. Within himself he thought that, if the religious should espouse that lording's cause it would be a good thing for the Percy to be advised to let him be, and this monk had great voice with the lower order of people whom the Earl had cause to fear, since they were sworn to have his blood because of the taxes that, in the King's name, he laid upon them. But he did not speak upon those matters, saying aloud: "It is strange, though I know it to be true, that my lord shall have honour in heaven by reason that a man be found to be walled up in a space no larger than the kennel of my hound Diccon and so live out his life." "My friend," the monk said, "I may not listen to you further, for that would come near conversing with a heretic. And the penalty for such conversation is that at every Easter and high feast I must stand beside the high altar, in a robe of penitence, having in my hand a rod or peeled wand ten foot in length and other penances, a many I must do." "God forbid!" John Harbottle said, "for I am no heretic and no more than a plain, blunt man. And surely these things are hard to understand." "My son," that monk said, and by the creasing of his tight lips John Harbottle knew that he had been pleasant with him before and had not meant in earnestness to call him a heretic. "Every day you hear of the ways of God that are hard to understand. You have heard to-day or yesterday of the miracle that was wrought on Tuesday in the Abbey of our own town of Alnwick—how that the foot of Sir Simon de Montfort, that there they have and that is incorruptible, cured a certain very wealthy burgess of Newcastle called Arnoldus Pickett. For he was not able to move his foot from his bed or put his hand to his mouth or perform any bodily function. And so, in a dream he was bidden to go to your Abbey of the Premonstratensian Brotherhood and the foot of Simon de Montfort should cure him. Which, when it was known to the canons, there serving God, in order that this merchant might approach more easily—for as yet he heavily laboured in his lameness—and lest he should suffer too much, two of them brought it reverently to him, in its silver shoe. But, before the patient was able to approach for the purpose of kissing it, and by the mere sight of the slipper, on account of the merits of Simon de Montfort, he was restored. And this, to-day, our monks are writing in their chronicle and praising God. And consider what glory there will be in this foot of Simon de Montfort when it is reunited to his whole body after the great judgment, by comparison of its efficacy before Doomsday, when such healing virtue went out of it as a dead member, concealing itself in a slipper of silver...." The monk was determined very thoroughly at once to abash and edify this minion of the Earl of Northumberland and so to bring that Lord more thoroughly to the reverence of the Church and more particularly of the Bishop Palatine with whom these monks had a great friendship. And this not only in the matter of the Young Lovell, where the Earl had sought to give judgment in a matter that was full surely ecclesiastical and not pertaining to the lay Court of the Border Warden. So that monk continued in a loud voice: "Shall you seek to understand these miracles that are of daily happening and occur all round you, God knows, often enough? For in the monastery or priory of Durham they have not only the most famous bodies of St. Cuthbert and St. Bede, but the cross of St. Margaret that is well known to be of avail to women that labour with child. And in the Cella of Fenkull they have St. Guthric, and in Newminster the zone and ma**-book of St. Robert, and in Blondeland the girdle of St. Mary the Mother of God. And all these cure, according to their marvellous faculties, the halt, the blind, those who have the shaking palsy and those with the falling sickness. And in Hexham they have the Red-book of Hexham, and at Tynemouth they have not only the body of St. Oswin, King and martyr in a feretory, but also the spur of St. Cuthbert, the finger of St. Bartholomew and the girdle of Blessed Margaret.... And all these things being under your very eyes or at a short day's journey, you will question the glory and the strangeness of God and you will set yourself up—oh, stiffnecked generation! ..." A gentle knocking came at the cell door and the old and dirty lay-brother who was in the outer room pushed it ajar. They heard immediately a great outcry from beyond and the lay brother whispered that, at the outer door stood the Young Lovell asking for admittance with all his men-at-arms around him. The monk opened a little door in the wall that gave into a pa**age leading to the church of the monastery. Through this he led John Harbottle, and at the entrance to the church he let him go. For, because John Harbottle was receiver for the Earl of Northumberland, he was not much beloved by the Lovell men-at-arms, and the monk Francis feared that they might offer him some violence now that their spirits were inflamed, and their stomachs rendered proud and rebellious by the return of their lord who should take them into his service again. And when the monk had thrown himself down before the image of the Mother of God that was in the Lady Chapel near that entrance, and had laid there long enough to say twelve "Hail Maries," he arose and went back to his cell and bade the lay brother let in Young Lovell.