EPILOGUE
In the cloister of Malvern Priory schoolboys hummed and buzzed. The sick man heard them.
"I have had a vision," he said, "I must sing it." And after: "Nay,--I had forgot. "T was long ago."
He lay on a pallet in the midst of the cloister garth, close by the sun-dial. At dusk of the day past he had knocked at the gate and fallen in the arms of the porter. All night a brother watched beside him, and after Lauds the prior came to the door of the cell.
""T is not the Black Death, or such-like malady?" he queried.
"Nay, Father, but a bodily weakness only. Hath scaped the dawn, but I doubt not his spirit will flit at sunset."
"A friar?" "T would seem as the word stank in the nostrils of the good Father.
"Nay,--a clerk,--belike a priest secular."
"A Wyclifite preacher?" the prior questioned sharply. "We may not harbour these Worcester Lollards."
"Hath a breviary, with prayers for the dead well thumbed. Likewise a parchment. "T is here."
The prior unrolled the parchment beneath the window. The sky was a-flush with the coming up of the sun.
"Nay," quoth he presently, ""t is naught harmful. A poem."
The brother was peering over his prior"s shoulder:--
"Here "s Holy Writ," said he.
"In Latin, brother, as is meet."
""T is very bad Latin," the brother made answer.
The sick man spoke: "I will go up on the Hills," said he, "the Malvern Hills," and he made as to rise; but this he might not do.
The brother gave him to drink, and wiped the sweat from his brow.
"Here "s an exhortation to King Richard II.," said the prior at the window. "But Richard "s dead."
"Ay," spake the sick man. "Death and Dishonour ran a race for Richard.
Dishonour caught him first, but Death hath finished him. Mine exhortation came too late, wherefore I broke off in the midst. I was ever too late or too early, all my life long."
The prior came to the bed.
"I will go up on the Hills," said the man, and sat upright, but immediately a faintness seized him and he swooned.
"Two-score and ten year, sayst thou?" quoth the prior. "Haply Brother Owyn will know him."
When the sick man was come out of his swoon he said again, "I will go a-wandering on the Malvern Hills. Let me forth,--the Hills. "T is dark,--let me forth to the sun.--Dost mind how I said, "The prior of Malvern shall not clap me in cloister"?--I am come home to the Hills."
"Let him be borne into the cloister garth," said the prior. "There may he fresh him in the sun."
At noon, when there was no shadow on the face of the sun-dial, Brother Owyn came hobbling slow over the gra.s.s betwixt two young monks that guided his steps. For Brother Owyn was very old and bent and blind. He had a beard like a snowdrift.
"Two-score and ten year," he mumbled, "and a poet, sayst "ou?"
They sat him down beside the sick man"s pallet, and one brought a cushion for his feet, and the other drew his hood over his head, lest the wind harm him,--howbeit "t was June. Then they went away and left him with the stranger.
"Two-score and ten year," said the old man, "and "t is as yesterday.--I go forth a pilgrimage to Truth, said he,--I have had a vision concerning Peter the Ploughman."
The sick man opened his eyes. "The ploughman knoweth the way to Truth," quoth he.
Brother Owyn lifted up his face to the sunlight, as he were listening:--
"Will Langland, art thou there?" he asked.
At the sound of his own name the sick man"s wandering wits came back.
He was "ware of the old monk beside him.
"Thou canst not see?" he questioned.
"Nay, I do see very clear," said Brother Owyn, in that high, protesting voice of age. "I see a river, shineth as the sun, and on the farther side my daughter awaiteth me.--Her locks shine as bright pure gold,--loose on her shoulders so softly they lie."
"My daughter hath likewise golden hair," murmured Long Will, "and my granddaughter."
"The Lord, the King of Heaven, hath ta"en my daughter, my pearl, to be his bride," said the old man. He held his head upright, very proud, but then it began to shake and shake, till it dropped again, and his chin was sunk in his breast.
"My daughter is wife to truest man in England; might have been courtier to the King; but he "s a shepherd in Yorkshire,--and his son "s a shepherd. They be free labourers, no villeins," cried Will.
One in the cloister heard him and came running.
"Ay," a.s.sented Brother Owyn, his head ever a-nod, "the King"s Son of Heaven, he is the Good Shepherd."
The other monk poured wine between the sick man"s white lips and smoothed his pillow. Then he drew aside Brother Owyn"s cowl and shouted in his ear, "Dost know him, brother, dost remember him?"
"Hath a daughter," the old man answered, "but so have I. Her name "s Margaret,--which is to mean a pearl."
"Calote is my daughter called," the sick man made known very clear.
The young monk shrugged his shoulders and went back to the cloister.
After a little while Brother Owyn spoke:--
"Will Langland had a daughter called Calote. She stood t" other side the brook, and the light o" the sun blinded mine eyen. Methought "t was mine own daughter come to take me home. I mind it as "t were yesterday. "In the city where the wall is jasper and the gates are twelve pearls," quoth she, "will there be any villeins to labour while other men feast?" I mind it as "t were yesterday."
"I am Will Langland," said the sick man.