"Yea," quoth the prior, "a.s.suredly! Wherefore, copy out this romance, and paint in the beginning of each part an initial letter in gold and scarlet and blue."--The prior had his gleams in the midst of his dulness.
But the tale that Brother Owyn loved best he had not yet sung to the brethren.
To-day he painted a little picture of a maiden by a river-side, where shining cliffs rose up, and a city shone golden beyond. And these cliffs might well have been the white cliffs of Wales, but they were meant for a more holy place. And the maiden was clad in a white garment with a semblance of pearls at her girdle and on her fair forehead.
"A crown that maiden wore withal bedecked with pearls, with none other stones,"
whispered Brother Owyn.
"Her look was grave, as a duke"s or an earl"s; whiter than whalebone was her hue.
Her locks shone then as bright pure gold,-- loose on her shoulders so softly they lay,"--
There was a trick of his tongue that ever betrayed him that he came out of the west,--and bending, he kissed the little picture where the paint had dried.
From the cloister floated the low, buzzing murmur of children conning a task. This, and the snip-snip of the gardener"s shears, were the only sounds. At intervals, good Brother Paul went past the cloister doorway in his slow pacing up and down behind the young scholars. Now and again a lad came out into the garth and crossed the gra.s.s to gain Brother Owyn"s approval for an illuminated letter, or to have the hexameters lopped off his Latin hymn.
Then, around three sides of the cloister swift footsteps echoed, and the dreamer strode down the school, brushed past Brother Paul, looked out into the garth, and presently stood before Brother Owyn,--the light of the vision shining in his eyes, the mist of the Malverns clinging about his damp hair.
"I go forth a pilgrimage to Truth," he said.
"And the prior withhold not his blessing," added Brother Owyn, with a smile.
But the dreamer fell on his knees,--he was past smiling. He laid his hands prayerwise upon the little painting-board; and Brother Owyn, intent upon him wholly, with the loving, expectant eyes of one to whom these raptures were no new thing, yet slipped aside the vellum from the board, lest the picture come to harm from the dew-stained russet.
"I am no monk of Malvern!" cried the dreamer; "neither shall the prior clap me in cloister. I have had a vision. I must sing it."
"I sing," said Brother Owyn; and he looked about him at the gra.s.s and the cloister walls.
"Yea, of yesterday and its glory," returned the dreamer. "A tuneful song, whereof the joy and the rightwisnesse is manifest. But to-day and to-morrow are mine to sing. I must go forth to look upon the world and live therein. I have had a vision concerning Peter the ploughman,"--Brother Owyn"s eyes laughed mockingly, and his lips curled, also he tapped his foot upon the ground. But the dreamer"s eyes were on the narcissus-flowers,--"I have seen him in the forefront of a great train of pilgrimage, of all kind people ever there were in this earth; and he their guide to Truth. He, a poor ploughman! I have seen him where he set all crooked ways straight; and the flower o"
knighthood did the bidding o" the ploughman in the vision. Now, tell me,--what abbot is he in all England will give me leave to sing this song over his abbey wall? For he holdeth the land in fee, and the villeins sweat for him.--Nay, more,"--and the dreamer bent his lips to Brother Owyn"s ear and sunk his voice,--"I have seen this Piers where he jousted in Jesus" armor, red as with blood,--and in His likeness.
Hark you, master, the day is to the poor man. For Jesus Christ, of poor men the Prince,--He saith, "I am the Truth.""
"An I knew thee not this five year," quoth Brother Owyn, "I had said thou art mad,--mad from very pride. The ploughman a leader of men!
Wilt thou bring chaos about our ears? Oh, boy, foolish and proud! G.o.d hath ordered the way of man and it is thus and so. He is Emperor of heaven and earth, and Christ is King"s Son of heaven and sitteth up on high at the right hand of the Father. Of right royal human seed he springeth, David"s seed,--born in David"s city. At His name every knee shall bow. Kings have worshipped Him a babe. What! wilt thou strike down the very immutable and fixed laws of G.o.d Himself whereby He hath ordained that kings shall reign? Prate not to me of poor men. Yea, there shall be hewers of wood and drawers of water."
Then said the dreamer: "Whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat or he that serveth?"
"The king is the perfectest servant," cried Brother Owyn, "but the king is king, he is no dullard serf. The King"s Son came to earth and put on this garment of a poor man, and for this reason wilt thou say the poor man shall wear the garment of the king? Thou art no schoolman."
"Ah, master, master, this that thou sayst I said it again and yet again to mine own self," the dreamer sighed; "for what know I of life wherein is no kings and no knighthood? Verily it is thus and so; G.o.d made the king. So did I cry to the vision, wrestling the night through on the misty hill. I cannot see clear, but whether I be convinced or no, the vision hath conquered and I must sing it. The ploughman knoweth the way to truth; the king shall crave his company."
"Nay, thou dost not see clear. I doubt me if ever thou wilt," said Brother Owyn. "Thou hast got the Malvern mist in thy head, boy. Who shall profit by a vision in a mist?"
""T is larger than life, seen thus," quoth the dreamer. "Natheless, let me go forth into a new land. How may I rid me of the mist if I dwell within it? Let me go to London, and if the vision fade, if it be proven a temptation, I "ll cast it from me. How may I know men in the wilderness? How may I touch their hearts if I know them not?"
Brother Owyn smiled and laid his hand upon the dreamer"s shoulder: "And art thou crying out for knowledge of men?--Thou that fleest into the hills if a merchant ask night"s shelter of the prior, thou that hast played truant these three days because, forsooth, the young Prince Lionel and his train are come hither to hunt in the King"s Forest?"
The dreamer hung his head: "Yet must I go," he said. "There came a little lad across the round hill yesterday,--a very manikin of wisdom with the heart of a child,--no doubt they breed such in palaces. He boasted himself a poet and would have me tell him a tale. He quarrelled with the measure, his ear being attuned to French foibles, but for that I care not; but he saith my men be no better than dolls of wood.--Master, "t is a true word. Whether the vision be false or no, G.o.d will discover to me; but this, that I am not fit to touch men"s hearts, because I am stranger to them,--thou knowest. The little lad turned away from my tale. He laughed.--Thou hast seen thy world.
Thou hast a tale to tell. But I,--what may I sing but the mist? Hark you, Brother Owyn, I shall bring naught of glory to Malvern Priory till I be let forth. Say this to the prior."
"There is wisdom in it, truly," said the monk. "Thou art not all fool, and poet. Natheless, thou canst not come at knowledge my way. What I was needs not to remember, but I was not such as thou, I climbed not upward to my present estate. But thou must climb through the church, "t is thy one way. With thy little learning what art thou fit for else? Doth it suit thee to turn ploughman?"
The dreamer looked at his scholar"s hands and wiped his scholar"s brow: "But I will not climb as a monk," he cried. "There "s work to do out-o"-doors to make the church clean. Let me go!"
Then Brother Owyn wiped his brushes on the gra.s.s and covered his little paint pots; and to a boy that came forth of the cloister he said: "I have business with the prior, keep thy task till I come again;" and rising up he made so as to lay a cloth of fair linen over the little picture.
"Who is "t?" asked the dreamer, and gazing, he minded him of the day when Brother Owyn came first to Malvern Priory. He was a knight that day; his mail was silver; he rode a white horse; in his helmet there was set a great pearl in the midst of a ringlet of gold hair, one ring, as "t were severed from the head of a babe.
"Who is "t?" quoth the dreamer.
And Brother Owyn answered him: "Neither do I write but only yesterdays. I have my vision of the morrow. "T is of a Holy City, and the Lord is King thereof. "T is a true vision, for John, the beloved, he had it afore my time."
"But this is a fair damsel," said the dreamer.
"This is my little daughter dear, that was dead at two years old. The King hath chosen her for his bride. I live seeking after her."
"Here, likewise, hast thou fellowship with thy kind," the dreamer sighed. "Little wonder thy songs touch the hearts of men. Master, thou hast my confession this five year; thou knowest me, that I am no hot man; yet, do I yearn to fathom these mysteries, for fellowship"s sake, and to help all them that seek truth. But how may a man climb to fatherhood through Holy Church?"
Brother Owyn laid his hand on the dreamer"s lip, and "Hush!" said he; "here"s question for one higher than I, and to be spoke whispering.
For all the man I am to G.o.dward, am I by the love of a little two years" child, long dead. Go; say thy prayers! I "ll come to thee in the church. Haply the prior may give thee a letter to a London priest, will see thee clerked and set to earn, thy bread."
But then Brother Owyn looked on the little picture where it lay uncovered, and he said:--
"If thou hast ever a golden-haired daughter, send her hither to tell me wherein G.o.d hath blessed thee most."
And that day the dreamer set forth on his pilgrimage.
PART I
The Malcontents
"For one Pieres the Ploughman hath inpugned us alle."
_The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman._ B. Pa.s.sUS XIII.
CHAPTER I
The Miracle
All the good people, fresh-blessed, came forth into the churchyard with a great pushing and striving. There was a Miracle Play toward, and to stand at the back of five-and-twenty score of tiptoeing Londoners was to see nothing. Sweating shopkeepers jostled and swore, women squealed, and "prentices drove their elbows into any fat paunch that was neighbourly. Here and there, above the press, a child rode on its father"s shoulder, and if "t was a merry child it kicked off the women"s headgear and tweaked the ears of Robyn and Hikke and Jack.