X

"'To seek silver to the king I my seed sold.'""'Wherefore my land lieth fallow and learneth to sleep,'"

"'To seek silver to the king I my seed sold.'"

"'Wherefore my land lieth fallow and learneth to sleep,'"

joined in another voice.

"'Since they fetched my fair cattle in the fold:When I think of my old wealth, well-nigh I weep.Thus breedeth many beggars bold.'"

"'Since they fetched my fair cattle in the fold:

When I think of my old wealth, well-nigh I weep.

Thus breedeth many beggars bold.'"

By the time the last line was reached the whole room took it up, and the walls shook with the song:—

"'And there wakeneth in the world dismay and woeFor as good is death anon as so far to toil.'"

"'And there wakeneth in the world dismay and woe

For as good is death anon as so far to toil.'"

At the close of the song, Rugge looked about him, and singled out from a dark corner, where he had been quietly looking on, a shy lad in the garb of a minstrel, who, hugging his rebec under his arm, shambled awkwardly up to his leader.

"Hither, my brave boy," cried Rugge, presenting him to Annys; "this is Jack Nicol, a better friend to the Cause than those who swing a broad axe or train an arrow against those who live only by labor of tongue. This youth never opens his lips but he risks a broken pate, and indeed he is very like to find himself clapped into gaol for his bold songs which do stir the people up to ask for their freedom."

"Good!" cried Annys, clapping the boy upon his back; "we shall know each other better before long, for I shall have need of thee."

"I am ready," replied the boy, yet rubbing his head somewhat ruefully on the spot where the sheriff's stick had been all too familiar with it.

"Yea, these minstrels do wot well how to reach the heart of the people," said Rugge, "and a good stirring rime can do more in a moment than much preaching can do in many months."

"A rime, a rime, give us one now," they called to the minstrel.

"Yea, a rime, a rime, a geste!" ran through the room.

The boy hung back for an instant, and then, putting his rebec tenderly to his chin, launched forth upon the song that of all others stirred the blood the quickest, the song so dear to the people that scarce any gathering would disperse until the rafters rang with its well-conned words:—

"'Lithe and lysten, gentylmen,That be of freebore blode;I shall you tell of a good yeman,His name was Robyn Hode.'"

"'Lithe and lysten, gentylmen,

That be of freebore blode;

I shall you tell of a good yeman,

His name was Robyn Hode.'"

The roisterers looked up and left their hands from the tankards, the nodding heads first stiffened and then kept time to the rhythm, the soddenfaces brightened, while the young minstrel, in a peculiarly sweet voice, sang on of Robyn's men asking for orders before they should set out through the green woods:—

"'Where we shall take, where we shall leve,Where we shall robbe, where we shall reve?'"

"'Where we shall take, where we shall leve,

Where we shall robbe, where we shall reve?'"

Whereupon the good chief instructs his loyal followers, and closes with the admonition which went a great ways to account for his peculiar popularity with the people:—

"'But loke ye do no housbonde harmeThat tylleth with his plough.No more ye shall no good yemanThat walketh by grene wode shawe.These bysshoppes, and these archebysshoppesYe shall them bete and bynde.'"

"'But loke ye do no housbonde harmeThat tylleth with his plough.

"'But loke ye do no housbonde harme

That tylleth with his plough.

No more ye shall no good yemanThat walketh by grene wode shawe.

No more ye shall no good yeman

That walketh by grene wode shawe.

These bysshoppes, and these archebysshoppesYe shall them bete and bynde.'"

These bysshoppes, and these archebysshoppes

Ye shall them bete and bynde.'"

Each verse met with its full measure of praise, and certainly none was more heartily applauded than the last, which commended to mercy the soul of the brave Robyn:—

"'Cryst have mercy on his soule,That dyed on the rodeFor he was a good outlaweAnd dyde pore men moch god.'"

"'Cryst have mercy on his soule,

That dyed on the rode

For he was a good outlawe

And dyde pore men moch god.'"

"Help, help, save me, hide me for the love of Christ!" All looked up startled as this cry came from outside, and at the same time the door was flung open and there was blown into the room, with the gusty wind, a man who, after casting a swift, appealing glance at the faces about the table, sank exhausted to the floor. Even without the sudden cry for help, the wild appearance of the fellow would have been sufficient to startle them. He was dressed as a pilgrim, and the long gown was rent here and there, as if torn in some struggle. The pilgrim's staff, although still tightly grasped by one hand, was broken off short, the vernicle had been wrenched from his cap by violent hands, and now hung by a thread, swaying and bobbing with every move of his head. The fellow's cheeks were hollow, his sunken temples throbbed tumultuously, his lips were dry and pallid, his eyes were wild, his hair and beard matted and unkempt.

Here was before them one of the very pretended pilgrims of whom they had spoken. Doubtless the sheriffs had seen through his disguise, and were even then hot upon his heels.

The fellow had sunk at the feet of Tim the needle-maker. He opened his eyes feebly, and murmured one more "Help me!"

"Ten pounds fine for the harboring of such," muttered Tim, as he took to his heels and closed the door behind him.

Others became alarmed.

"Ten pounds! 'tis more than I possess in the whole world!"

"Ten pounds! Mother Mary!"

Annys rose indignantly. "Cowards!" he hissed. "Is this your boasted fellowship? Is this the way ye succor your brother?"

But, before he had done, Richard Meryl had quickly risen, lifted the fallen man, and guided him through the door. He knew a hiding-place where all such refugees were welcomed for the sake of one who had died in the same desperate attempt to win a decent living.

The following morning Annys sought out Richard Meryl to learn more of the refugee. As he was conducted to the hiding-place, young Meryl related something of the women who were risking so much for a stranger.

"I am bringing you to old Dame Westel and her granddaughter Matilda," he said. "When Matilda was but a babe in arms, her father, tempted by the bait of large wages in Suffolk, was returned by the sheriffs, branded. But his wife being big with child, and he watching her cheeks grow hollow day by day, he grew desperate and made a second attempt. For this he was thrown into gaol and suffered to lie there and rot. He died of gangrene of both feet while his wife slowly starved to death, and her babe within her."

"Horrible, horrible!" exclaimed Annys; "there is more justice done to kine than to man made in the image of God. O my God! how long can this be endured?"

"Ay! thy cry of patience burns on thy tongue, doth it not?"

"Ay, so. But tell me some more."

"You will see for yourself. The poor old woman lives only for two things—to hide others who should pass through, and to pore over a torn and dog-eared copy of the Bible which a poor priest did leave with her."

Annys was much interested. "Ah, she will get much comfort and peace from the Holy Book."

The young man laughed. "As to that, I wot not; rather she does suck the vengeance and wrath from its pages e'en as a babe sucks its mother's milk."

"Say you so? 'Tis ill, indeed. I shall change all that, and bring speedy comfort to her."

"Well, thou hast a bold heart, then. I wish thee joy of thy task."

"Lives she all by herself?"

Richard colored. "Nay, her granddaughter, Matilda, is an angel if ever one walked this earth. She does devote herself to the old woman, and yet never is word of complaint suffered to pass her lips."

"And that is all?"

"Oh," he replied, with a shrug of his shoulders, "no one counts the other granddaughter, a sullen,proud beauty, the illegitimate daughter of the old Baron de Leaufort, uncle of the present one, and long since gone to Hell if ever sinner went there."

"Poor woman! she seems to have had trouble enough."

"Trouble! Ay! And yet, alas, the tale is not a rare one. It is hard to have faith in the goodness of God when one sounds all the misery on earth."

"The works of God are hidden among men," replied Annys, gravely, as they came to one of the humblest of the wattled huts that made up the village, and paused before it.

"'They shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.' The poor shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Ha! ha!"

The voice came from within.

Outside on a low stool, engaged in her spinning, sat a lovely young girl, in whose sweet, open countenance, touched with a gentle gravity beyond her years, the poor priest recognized Matilda Westel.

He inquired after the refugee and was told that he was resting, and that at daybreak he was to be taken to the highway and instructed how to make the next town before nightfall. His garb hadbeen neatly repaired, and a new staff found for him. Annys offered to give him a rosary.

"Would thy grandmother care to see me?" he asked.

A quick look passed from the girl to Richard, who stood by her side.

"Tell him," she begged the young man, who seemed to hesitate how to begin.

"In what way can I serve thee?" Annys asked.

"Matilda's grandmother," began Richard, "can read only very little. She has picked up enough to read only a few texts which that poor priest of whom I spake to you taught her by heart. It has ever been her desire to read further in the Book."

"And if it be not too much trouble," continued the girl, "I had hoped perhaps that I might be taught also to read, that my eyes might save grandmother's old and tired ones."

"Yea, that she might be her eyes, as she has been for years her head and feet and hands," exclaimed Richard, heartily, and Annys caught the look of love that illumined his face as his eyes rested on her. It heartened the poor priest to be in the presence of an affection which was so far removed from the morbid hysterical emotionof the monks and saints, whose confessions had always disgusted rather than edified him.

"Shall we go in?" ventured Annys, and, receiving the young girl's permission, he entered the low door and discovered a wrinkled old dame seated on a low stool poring over a copy of Wyclif's Vulgate, crooning over to herself certain lines which she had evidently learned by heart.

"'They shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.' The poor of this earth shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Is it not so, Sir Poor Priest?"

On his entrance, she had risen, and almost shrieked this in her thin, cracked treble.

"Yea, surely, surely," answered the poor priest soothingly, "the good Book hath it so."

She looked up into his face eagerly, and searched it with her dim eyes.

"Robert Annys, they tell me that you do learn poor folk to read—see, I wot well what is here, 'Give none occasion to a man to curse thee, for if he curse thee, in the bitterness of his soul, he that made him will hear his supplication.'

"And here," she continued, seating herself and bending low over the book as she rapidly turned the pages with her trembling fingers, "here Solomon saith, 'that no king had other beginning, but all men have one entrance into life anda like departure.' Oh, that I wot right well, but there is more, there is more, that I would read for myself; there is a part which ever I seek which tells that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Show me that, and if canst help me read the wonderful Book, then shall a poor woman's blessing follow thee all the days of thy life."

Annys regarded her pityingly. "Right gladly will I help thee. And I shall tell thee of other parts of Holy Writ that speak of Love and Forgiveness, and teach thee that part which saith, 'Love your enemies and forgive those that trespass against you.'"

But the old woman flung the book straightway at his head in a passion, crying, "I will none of thy book; and it says that, I want none of it. Not for that would I toil and wear out mine eyes reading it. Nay, nay, thou art wrong. Thou dost seek to pull the wool over mine eyes. For doth not the good Book say:—

"'Woe unto you that are rich. Woe unto you, ye that are full now, for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you, ye that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep'?"

And, quite exhausted by her tirade, she sankback again on her stool. Annys bent over her, greatly shocked, and took one of her hands in his and stroked it tenderly.

"Yet, my good woman," he said, in low, gentle tones, "yet is there not more comfort in love and forgiveness, than in revengeful wrath and hate?"

The old woman snatched away her hand and swayed to and fro, beating the floor with one foot and moaning softly.

"Oh, these priests, these priests," at last she broke out fiercely, "they wot not a tenth part of our woes, or they could not find it in their hearts to prate ever of love and forgiveness."

"I but seek to bring peace to thy heart," remonstrated Annys, "for peace can never enter save through love. Besides, how canst thou say the Lord's prayer? Doth it not say: 'Forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that have misdone against us'?"

"Nay!" returned the old woman, stubbornly, "I do pray to that God who said, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.'"

He was about to touch on his favorite theme, the new spirit of Charity and Love that the Christ had brought into the sterner religion of the Old Testament, but now she burst forth evenmore vehemently, rising and tossing her arms high over her head.

"What is thy boasted religion that would take from an old woman her sole comfort?

"'Love mine enemies,' indeed! Does good God expect me to love that Baron de Leaufort—now suffering the torments of hell-fire, if ever sinner doth—who made merry within his castle, while my daughter, my beautiful, merry Rose, lay forgotten on the moat, brought there through him? And am I to love those lawmakers at Westminster who say that no man may move hand or foot to seek an honest living, but must stay rooted in the earth where he happened to grow, like a rotting trunk? Oh, yes, one may wander from Lincoln to London if it be but for merrymaking and foolishness; but no man may travel to the next county if it be to place bread between the teeth of his children. Bah! a fig care I for thy kind of religion! Begone, begone, with thy smooth tongue and thy sleek face, begone!"

But Annys did not go. Sighing heavily, he said: "My poor woman, take such comfort as is left to thee. I shall come again to-morrow and I shall teach thee such texts as thou wilt have. Indeed, I shall teach also thy granddaughter thatshe may aid thee. Be comforted, I pray thee," and, with a warm pressure of the hand, he was gone.

His heart was heavy that night. Was this, then, to be the end of placing the Bible in the hands of the people? Was their God to be a God of Vengeance and Wrath instead of Charity and Love? Instead of coming nearer Christ Jesus, were they to be further from Him than ever?

During the next few months, Annys made his way to the Bury whenever he could. No sacrifice was too great if it could give him a few hours with his new-found friends, Richard and Matilda. To him there was quite a new sense of belonging to some one place, of having a home where his friends awaited him. He had led a lonely life. At Oxford he had been a close student and had never joined in the riotous gatherings and bouts of the students; his master he had adored, but no man had he called friend. Later, during his wandering life as poor priest, many a heartfelt blessing had been poured upon him and many a sombre face brightened at the sight of him, but he had had no real comrade.

Richard Meryl had been as strongly drawn to Annys as the poor priest to him, and, under his influence, gradually the Uprising appealed to Meryl as far more than a longing for a full stomach. Before Annys had come, he had been one of the unruly ones, anxious to storm castles andmanors if need be to better their horrible condition. But now he worked ardently with the poor priest to instil into the people a noble patience, an idealism that would enable them to hold forever whatever success they would gain.

The men did not take Meryl's change of heart very kindly. He, one of the most eager, now to be holding them back!

"Every yonker hath become a seer," sneered one of the older men, as Meryl was admonishing them in the poor priest's absence.

The blood rose swiftly to the young man's cheeks.

"One is never too young to learn. It seems that one may be too old," he said angrily.

"Bah! a fig for thy dreaming poor priest. Give us a torch, say I, and march upon all the castles and abbeys in the land—the sooner the better. The more we delay the more the Barons will laugh and call us but idle boasters."

"Ay," retorted Meryl, "go thou and a handful of others. For a while ye will think yourselves the masters of the earth. Yet it will be as a drop in the bucket compared to what shall be gained if ye bide in patience till the men of every county be ready to rise. Then all the nobles of the land cannot withstand us."

"There is something in his counsellings, after all," murmured the old man. "Yet it is bitter biding the time, and patience and an eager belly go ill together."

Meanwhile Robert Annys led a busy life, making frequent trips to the neighboring towns and hamlets, and preaching before great gatherings. The excommunication bore little fruit. Even Annys was astonished to find how few men cared. For there were many reasons why men still continued to hold fellowship with him. First, they needed him, they found that he brought them what they craved. Also, at no time had the Papacy been held in such scant reverence. How could the spectacle of two rival, quarrelling Popes struggling and wrangling over the chair of Peter as two dogs snarling over a bone, fail to hold up the sacred office to ridicule? Moreover, little by little the figure of the Pope, albeit that he wore upon his head a mitre whose three jewelled crowns cost over five hundred thousand pieces of gold, was waning in majesty and power before that simple figure of a man upon whose forehead rested only a crown of thorns. At a different period, earlier or later, Annys would have found himself in terrible isolation; men would have shrunk from the slightest contactwith him, and he would have suffered keenly, even for the ordinary necessities of life. But now so little heed was paid to his excommunication, that a second Papal Bull was launched forth, anathematizing even such as should listen to the heretical and incendiary preaching of this poor priest, Robert Annys.

And still the rustics continued to gather about him whenever he appeared, in the fields, or at the cross-roads, or at the very thresholds of the Church that banished him. Men sent for him to speak with them when they were disheartened; they sent for him when they wished for tidings of the Great Uprising; they sent for him to shrive their souls when they faced the awful journey through eternity, forgetting that it was denied him to perform the offices of Holy Church, remembering only the strong grip of his hand and the love-light in his eyes that somehow seemed to make the great journey less terrible. Dimly struggling through the hierarchical, conventional conception of the priestly office, was coming the recognition of the priest as just a human brother with the sorrows and temptations of all men, and just a little more spirituality and helpfulness than is given to all.

Once, when Annys returned from a long journey,he was more exhausted than usual. Matilda was frankly frightened. Indeed, Richard had of late questioned in his heart if her interest in the poor priest were not growing more intense than mere friendship would warrant. He had watched them together over their Bible with a terrible foreboding in his heart. He had noted, also, the swift illumination of her face whenever Annys returned to them. He was not really betrothed to Matilda, and yet since he had first known her as a little girl he had never thought of marrying another woman. Their friendship had been constant and devoted, but as yet no words of love had been spoken on either side.

"Thou dost look worn and weary," exclaimed Matilda, tenderly, as she laid out for Annys such simple refreshment as she could offer. "It is more than human strength can bear, such work as thine. Take a rest now with us," she added solicitously.

Annys looked into her kind eyes and smiled. He passed one thin hand wearily over his brow. Ah, if it were only the body that was weary. He raised some food mechanically to his lips.

Matilda wondered if he was conscious of the fact that he was eating. There was a hunted look in his eyes as he exclaimed suddenly:—

"God wot, what strange hocus-pocus planted me in Ball's shoes. The devil himself could not have made a stranger misfit."

"How canst say so?" exclaimed Meryl, indignantly. "Have I not heard it said that not even John Ball himself can sway men to his will as Robert Annys can? Do not men wait for thy coming from Norfolk to Sussex?"

"Ay! well enough can I sway them to my will when it does not go contrary to theirs," he murmured. And then he smiled to think that he should be trying to explain to these simple friends all the intricate workings of his heart. And yet there was something soothing in their ready sympathy, there was something calming in voicing his innermost dread, so that he continued more in soliloquy than conversation.

"Ah! it is not that I do not have great power over the men; rather is it that I have so much power, and fear to use it ill. 'Twould be easier far to fail than to succeed with a question ever eating into one's vitals. It is a curse for a leader of men to be possessed of imagination. It is to see the furthermost end to which our own words and deeds take us. No sage could endure to see the effect of his own teachings. Either his heart would break or his reason be unseated. Whatwould have been the agony of St. Francis could he have looked into the future and seen the powerful Franciscan monasteries actually condemned for their great properties. Could Christ have seen the Church of His disciples straying farther from His teachings than ever had the Church of the Jews, then well might He have cried,—

"'Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani?' 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'"

Matilda had sunk to the floor during this impassioned speech, and looked up into the poor priest's noble, sensitive face with a rapt gaze in which Meryl read the confirmation of his suspicions. His own face grew sombre and gloomy as Annys continued.

"Ah, such agonies, my friends, have I endured, passing among men and trying to plant the seed of good-fellowship among them, and seeing but the weeds of envy and hatred spring up in their stead; trying to awaken in their hearts pity for the sufferings of their brethren, and stirring up only vengeance against the rich. What have I not suffered in trying to arouse self-sacrifice and self-control and a steadfastness to noble ideals, and finding only bitterness of spirit and rapaciousness and self-seeking!"

He pushed his low stool away from the table,and paced about the room rapidly, sometimes his hands striking one another in fierce energy, and again at times stretched out appealingly to heaven, while his auditors sat in silence, full of their own thoughts. "Oh, how I have poured forth love and sympathy upon you, my brethren! How have I dreamed, awake and asleep, of the Great Uprising! How have I pictured the orderly, majestic march of hundreds of thousands of men, the wonderful gathering together of men from all parts of the realm, the coming before the King with their just grievances, ever orderly and self-respecting, and upheld by the consciousness of right-doing. And then how I have wept tears of joy to think that the King could not but give heed, and that he would make of them all free men, free, no longer serfs and villeins, but free as good God created them.

"And what do I see?" he cried wildly, as he cast himself down on a settle and bowed his face in his hands. "What do I see? I see England swept from north to south, from Lincoln to Kent, by the flames of infuriated incendiaries. I see castles sacked, abbeys ruined. I see the people, my people, God's people, drunk with power, blind with rage, going madly into the trap the nobles have set for them. My eyes areblinded night and day by the glare of the conflagration, my ears are deafened by the shrieks of the victims, there is blood upon everything. There is blood upon this settle, there is blood upon this table, there is blood upon this goblet. Sometimes I fear that I shall go mad. I see decapitated heads on the gates of the town, they glare at me and make grimaces at me, and cry out, 'This is thy work, thine, O minister of Hell!' Fatherless babes and widowed mothers curse me and cry out against me. O my God, they say 'This is all thy work—thine!'" For an instant he sat brooding over his thoughts in silence.

Then with a sudden, swift transformation which was characteristic of the man, his mood changed, and, springing up, he threw one arm affectionately about Meryl and smiled brightly.

"Yet with such friends about me, how can I fail?"

To his surprise, Meryl flung away his arm with a passionate movement and started back.

The poor priest's sensitive face quivered.

"What have I done? Richard, what is it?" he cried.

"Nay, nay, 'tis nothing, believe me," Meryl exclaimed, abashed instantly at his action. "I was but startled and wist not what I did. Forgive me!"

But, when Annys was gone, Matilda had not forgiven him.

"To act so rudely to our Robert Annys!" she cried reproachfully.

The young man did not reply at once, but stood with dogged sullenness regarding her fixedly.

"Why, what has come over thee, Richard? I do not know thee."

"You love him," he blurted out, awkwardly.

The blood rushed to the girl's face, even reddening her ears. For an instant she looked at him speechless, her breast heaving tumultuously and great tear-drops running down her cheeks. He was frightened at the effect of his brutal words.

"Forgive me," he stammered. "I meant not to hurt thee, but, Matilda, dear heart, there has never been other maid in the world for me."

"Oh, Richard, Richard," she sobbed, "he is a priest, a priest of God, and thou canst speak to me like this!"

"So, then, you wot not that the poor priests do marry."

At this she started violently, and all the color sped quickly from her cheeks.

"How—a priest wed!"

"Ay!" he said bitterly, seeing how it was with her. "Ay, John Ball hath preached for many a day that all priests should be as other men, even to the taking of a wife."

"Oh, Richard, I wist not, I wist not. I thought a priest was above other men—I never thought of him as—as—" and she turned from him and flung her face in her arms on the table. And there he left her, for he had not that within him to comfort her, seeing that his own heart was broken.

With his friends, Richard and Matilda, Annys continued the same frank intercourse, entirely ignorant of what had taken place between them.

Yet there were others besides Richard Meryl who had eyes to read Matilda's secret. Some there were that thought it a pity to see the unselfish devotion of a lifetime go so ill rewarded. For it was a question how the Westels could have lived had it not been that young Meryl had worked their tiny tenure of land, and rendered service in their stead, giving his lord two days' ploughing for himself and two for them, and in the same way doubling his days of sowing and reaping, digging and carting, that the women might keep their modest holding. In this Matilda had given him such help as had been in her power; nevertheless to her and hers he had been father, son, brother, lover, and day laborer, all in one. Others there were that, holding Matilda to be the ideal poor priest's wife, saw in it the hand of God.

Among those that read Matilda's heart was her cousin, Rose Westel, she whose mother hadthrown herself in her despair into the moat of Ely Castle. She had never encountered the poor priest. She was not fond of long, sanctimonious faces. It was just like Matilda, she thought, to fall in love with a russet cloth saint.

As Rose was about to start off one afternoon to her favorite haunt in the woods, where she could indulge in her day-dreams and for a brief space at least forget a reality that she hated, her grandmother stopped her.

"Why dost not stay at home and read the Scriptures with us?" she asked.

The girl turned and laughed merrily. "Oh, grandmother, for shame! Hast not said again and again that I am selfish and tread ever upon the feelings of others? And wouldst now have me interfere with Matilda and her devoted priest? Nay, then, 'twould be too cruel to come between them when they make such beautiful love over their 'Thus saith the Lords,' and their 'Holy, Holy, Holies.'"

Matilda sprang up with cheeks all aflame and fled into the house, vowing that she would never forgive her, never, never. But the old dame only chuckled slyly, in a manner that took away all the sting from the harsh words that she flung after Rose.

"Get thee gone, thou hussy! Get thee gone! Thou art fit only for saucy flings and idle noonings. Get thee gone before thy cousin's head is filled with the nonsense that is in thine empty pate!"

And when the girl had gone, she kept mumbling to herself with twinkling eyes, "The hussy!To take a priest and maid at Holy Scriptures and call it love-making!"

During the lesson that followed, Matilda for the first time was a dull pupil. Her grandmother, for a wonder, did not chide her for being so careless. Her sharp eyes had read the cause of the girl's confusion.

"Art tired, dear Matilda?" asked Annys kindly, seeing her hesitate over a simple word. "Thou art not thy usual quick self to-day."

For answer the girl burst into tears and sped quickly away.

"Heed not the lass," began the old woman, "she is not herself to-day. It seems that she and Richard have had a falling out, for after all these years that he has wooed her, she will have none of him. Yet he is a likely-looking chap, too, and I have scraped and pinched and at last laid by enough to pay the fine."

"What! Matilda not wed Richard!" exclaimedAnnys, astounded. "It's impossible! Sure, 'tis but some lover's quarrel that soon will be made up. Or else," he suggested, "belike she cares not to leave her grandmother."

Now who can tell what arouses the humors of old folk? Surely a smooth enough word, and kindly enough meant, yet the old woman sprang up with a red spot on either cheek, and cried harshly, "Hoity-toity, hoity-toity, Sir Poor Priest, indeed, indeed! And what should such a fine wench do but marry, quotha! Nay, nay, let not such foolish maggots get into the child's head."

Annys could not bring himself to believe that Matilda had refused to wed Richard Meryl. The two friends were as good as married in his eyes, for he could not think of one without the other. Surely some foolish lovers' quarrel must be at the bottom of it. So he took leave of the old woman and sought out Richard, bent upon being a peacemaker, and bringing the two together again.

He found his friend in the fields, up to his knees in a trench which he was digging. Richard laughed.

"How came you to think we were lovers?" he asked. He spoke carelessly, but the veins over his forehead stood out like whip-cords and hisgreat fists circled the spade handle so that the knuckles shone like polished wood.

"Dost mean to tell me thou hast no idea of wedding Matilda Westel?" asked Annys, in astonishment.

Richard shrugged his huge shoulders. "Nay, there is a clear field for thee, hast thou the mind to."

"Why, man, no sweeter woman draws breath."

The other drew a long breath between his clenched teeth.

"So says every swain of his sweetheart."

The words were indifferent, but the thick handle of the spade snapped in two.

Annys looked at it in surprise.

"'Twas cracked yestere'en," stammered Meryl, hastily looking down on it in some confusion.

For an instant the two men looked steadily into each other's eyes.

"I wot not how it is with thee," at last began Annys, gravely. "I had given my life that thou didst love the maid. I never looked on her sweet, gentle face that I did not see it in fancy bending over thy child's cradle. She was so wholly thine to me, that until this very day I wist not how dear she was to me."

His friend grasped his hand. "Ay, RobertAnnys, I cannot deceive thee. I had thought rather to see any other man dead than that he should possess her. Yet she loves thee, and the power to make her happy hath passed from me to thee. Only," he added, with a touch of sternness in his face, "only see that thou dost make her happy."

"Happy!" he said, "she will be happy if indeed it is as thou sayst and I can make her so. But I am bewildered. I cannot understand it that she should love me, and with thee before her. Thou art better favored than I, thou art younger and stronger. It cannot be; nay, there is some mistake."

"I tell thee there is no mistake. She loves thee."

"Did she tell you so?"

"Yea, that she did."

Then a hundred little scenes rushed back to him, her eyes fastened on his face, her interest in his work, her eager greeting on his return, all lived again for him for a brief moment. And now he knew.

"I am still dazed," he said. "I can scarce credit it, but I think it is true."

Then the thought of his friend's grief came to him.

"Ah, would that this had not come to thee, Richard, my lad. Would I could undo what I have wrought, even that I had never seen thee both."

"Nay, nay, say not that!" broke out Meryl, with strong pain in his voice. "Nay, it is worth all to have called thee friend. Sure there is a tie between man and man that may be stronger than that between man and maid."

"Ah well," sighed Annys, laying one hand tenderly on the young man's shoulder, "mayhap 'tis the Cross thou must bear for Christ's sake. For surely with such a woman by my side, it will be given me to prove that a wedded priest need not be taken up with worldly matters and thoughts of the flesh. Indeed, I shall be perfected in the work of the Lord. With her help I shall be a more useful servant to my people, a kindlier comforter and a wiser adviser. Indeed, I promise thee that she will be to me as a direct gift from God."

Just at this time Rose Westel met with an adventure. She was paying a long-promised visit to some distant relatives at Ely. It was a great event in her life, for it was the first time she had left her home. Any change from the dull routine at the Bury was welcome, and yet, after the first excitement died down, she found herself unhappier than ever. The sight of Ely Castle proudly rearing its towers over the lowlands awakened in her a bitter discontent. The great grim pile stirred curious passions within her breast; there were times when she looked on it with an icy dread at her heart, for behind those curving walls rippled the waters of the moat—her mother's deathbed; there were moments when she looked on it with a secret pride that she should be descended from one of its haughty rulers. Then she would give way to frantic rage that she should not be there presiding as its mistress. It was common talk that the present Baron was only the illegitimate son of her father's brother. Why,then, had he been chosen instead of her, who stood nearer in the succession?

No one suspected her of these outbursts, for she indulged in them only where she was unobserved. This habit had grown on her since she was a little tot, and her pride had kept her from showing how keenly she felt the shrugs and significant glances of the former companions of her mother. Their prophecies concerning her future were obvious, her own idleness and wilfulness being thrown into high relief by the contrasting industry and self-sacrifice of her cousin Matilda. There had been times when she had tried her best to hate Matilda, who was always being held up to her as a model, but Matilda's own love and admiration for her made it impossible.

So for many years she had alternated between tempestuous fits of determination to fulfil the kind prophecies of her mother's generation—to be out and out wicked and have done with it—and sullen resolutions to take the veil and enter the neighboring convent. The grewsome picture of her mother's waterlogged body floating on the moat had kept her from the one, a certain leer on the Father Confessor's face had kept her from the other. She never explained to any one why she had left off going to confession, for whatwould have been the use? They would have said that she had inherited her mother's wickedness, so that even saints were tempted by her. She would never be judged as other maids.

Again and again she asked herself why had her mother sinned? It was her refusal to wed either of the two fellows whom her overlord had chosen for her that brought her to the Baron's notice. On seeing her he ceased to insist upon that special prerogative. What right had her mother to shrink from the churls that had been allotted to her? Her sin was so unnecessary that Rose looked on it with bitter impatience. The thick-flowing blood of the rustics had been in her veins; she should have been well content to wed some great bullock of a fellow and bear him countless stolid, flaxen-haired children. What right had she to bring into the world a being with every taste different from those about her, with every nerve tingling with revolt? True, Rose herself felt that she would knife a man before she would mate with one of those great hulks of men who were little above the oxen they drove or the sheep they tended. But she had the right to shudder; gentle blood flowed in her veins just as truly as it did in the proud Baron yonder. Just as much as he, she had a right tofeel her heart leap within her at the sight of luxury and daintiness and beauty. How her hands longed to feel the touch of soft furs and velvets and rich stuffs! Oh, again and again she wished that her mother had flung her babe also on the moat.

As she was sitting alone one day underneath the trees, near the highway, she was startled by the approach of a gay cavalcade bringing color and life and laughter into the gloomy woods. First rode the Baron, usually a superb figure on his magnificent coal-black horse, but now a most ridiculous figure with his clothes put on wrong side forward, his hat tilted over his nose, and long streamers of different colored ribands hanging from his beard, down his breast, and along his legs, where also hung numerous tiny bells tinkling with every motion. His horse was decorated as fantastically as its master, and behind him followed two score of lusty fellows decked out in motley liveries of green and yellow and covered with scarves and ribands and laces hung all over with gold. From each of these jangled and dangled countless silvern bells, heightening the din made by the pipers and drummers that followed, playing weird discords like a devil's dance. A number of ladies with their gallants, all maskedand gayly costumed, now rode up, all shrieking with laughter.

As the Baron caught sight of Rose standing near the road, gazing at the unwonted sight in open bewilderment, there swept into his eyes that look with which all men greeted her beauty. He whispered a command to one of his lackeys, who instantly seized the girl and conducted her to the Baron, who gazed down on her amazed—for how could it be that he had overlooked such a rare beauty in his vicinity? For the moment he regretted the escapade that made him cut so ridiculous a figure in her eyes.

"Thou must proclaim thyself a follower of my Lord of Misrule," he said, smiling down at her and lifting up her chin with one gauntleted hand. She did not reply, but gazed on the ground in embarrassment, the color going and coming in her cheeks.

"Look, girl," spoke up one of the Baron's companions, "none may encounter us save they wear my Lord's badge," and with a leer, he attempted to fasten a knot of ribands on the girl's kerchief. She made a quick gesture of impatience and stepped back angrily, but at a low word from the Baron she paused, and turned her exquisite profile toward him.

"Wilt refuse my badge?" he asked softly. She turned her face to him and curtsied, answering readily:—

"I need not that to make me a humble servant of your Lordship;" but her lips trembled and the blood was pumping noisily about her ears, and she found she could speak only in a strained whisper.

Some of the ladies clapped their hands at her readiness, and the Baron, with a light laugh, sprang from his horse and pinned on the badge, taking as long to do so as he possibly could, while the others looked on in amusement and made audible comments, even the ladies chuckling over the coarse badinage that was bandied about.

"Two groats for the badge, girl," cried one saucy fellow as the Baron at last reluctantly took his hands from the girl, and stood off in mock admiration of his own handiwork, "two groats!"

"I have no money," exclaimed Rose, sullenly. The interruption had jarred upon her. For a brief space she had fancied herself and the Baron alone in the world. De Leaufort turned angrily upon the fellow. "Who speaks of payment to a comely maid," he demanded.

"Ay, by St. Clara, a beauty like her needs no groat in her pocket, for she carries payment everin her face," spoke up another fellow, who had been watching the scene with considerable amusement. "I see the end of poor Lillian's reign," he muttered in his beard.

The Baron threw an arm about Rose's waist, and, drawing her to him, pressed a quick hot kiss on her lips. "I am richly paid," he cried, as she sprang from him and bounded off through the woods.

"Richly indeed!" echoed a couple of envious ones.

"And doubtless the treasury is not yet exhausted," laughed one who knew the Baron was not one to let such a beauty lightly slip through his fingers.

For an instant de Leaufort looked ruefully after the girl. She had not seemed to him a girl that would resent a kiss. At a whisper from a companion, however, he smiled, nodded his head, sprang into the saddle, and a moment later nothing but a cloud of dust rose where the gay cavalcade had rested. On they proceeded with a great din and racket, bringing out from every door they passed heads that shook with disapproval over the light-hearted gayety of the rich folks, and their careless misusing of fineries and good clothes, while the poor had to groan andsweat even for such poor rags as they could find to cover their nakedness.

With the queer contradictions of maidenhood, which yearns and spurns all of a breath, Rose fled to her friends only to announce her sudden determination to return to the Bury the very next day. To all their pleas to persuade her to remain, she was obdurate, although a voice deep down within her pleaded their cause with even far greater eloquence than they could command. Indeed, no one could have been more surprised than herself at the sudden resolution. She had passed hours before the castle picturing all sorts of wild, impossible situations with herself as the heroine and the Baron as the hero, and yet, now that something had really happened, she ran away. There was a certain look in the Baron's eyes as his beard had swept across her cheek that told her with unfailing instinct that he would not lightly let her go from him. An exultant subconsciousness told her that, until he found her, there would be no woman in the world for him. And yet she was fleeing from him even as the startled stag at the scent of danger throws back its antlers and leaps through the forest. She questioned her own decision as impatiently as did her friends. She did not quite understand herself. Was theredeep down a desire to show her power, to heighten her charm, by giving him a little trouble in finding her? She could not say. She was not sure that she was not playing with her conscience and making a pretence of saving her soul. She knew only that a wild desire to run away possessed her, one too strong to be withstood. She merely obeyed her reigning impulse as she had done all her life. With the morrow a new one might come and then there would be plenty of time to yield to that.

The day following his interview with Meryl, Annys was obliged to answer an urgent call from the men of a hamlet outside of the See of Ely. These people had refused to pay the tithes due to the Church, seeing that the rector was a man who had never seen those parts, and who had long since rented the church building to a precious couple who conducted there a highly profitable tavern.

Notwithstanding the strong case which the people surely had, the Church prepared to wage a bitter struggle to enforce its rights. For it would never do in the world to admit the principle that the people but paid for service rendered. Indeed, such an admission would end in the bankruptcy of many an entire diocese. The people craved the help and advice of Robert Annys. There was no doubt on which side he would be found. Meryl accompanied him part of the distance on his way to Gloucester to confer with the men of that neighborhood. He had asked forsome work to do that would help him forget his keen disappointment and that at the same time would take him from Matilda's presence. As the two men separated, they clasped hands warmly, and Meryl promised to do his utmost to gain strength and courage to take up again his life at the Bury. He was determined, however, not to return until Matilda and the poor priest were wedded.

Directly on the line of the hamlet where Annys was awaited, lay Colchester, in the county of Essex, on the outskirts of which dwelled the wife of the refugee who had been saved by the devotion of the Westels. Annys found her on the point of giving birth to a child, and kept from actual starvation only by the generosity of those who had but little more than she. When she learned from the poor priest that not alone her husband was safe, but that he was earning fair wages, a portion of which Annys bore for her in his wallet, her pinched face brightened. He was strangely touched by her broken murmurs of gratitude; never before had an expectant mother appealed to him in the same way. His heart warmed even toward the three-year-old fellow who peered at him dubiously from his mother's skirts. The knowledge that before long he would take untohimself a wife was a leaven that leavened every thought and every act.

Although he endured great hardship tramping along the highway, with little rest and less food, although he bore with him always the heavy responsibilities he had assumed, nevertheless his fortnight of absence sped by as in a dream. He seemed to move in a new and strange world. His heart leapt within him because he experienced a totally new and more intimate sense of fellowship with the rest of mankind. There was given him a keener and profounder insight into their hearts. Scarce could he keep his eyes from the laborers who returned at nightfall from the fields and swung their tots over their heads. He followed funeral cortèges as they wound over hill and dale with tears dimming his eyes. A new understanding of the agony of separation came upon him. He thought much of his mother, who was but a beautiful memory to him. He wondered where she was buried, and resolved to discover her grave, if possible, and visit it to whisper to her his new-found happiness.

For there had long been growing within him the conviction that the Church could not truly be brought to the people until the clergy becamemore a part of the people. The clergy could not truly minister to the people until they understood the people, until they shared the same hopes and joys, the same fears and sorrows. The great emotions that come with family life and family affections must be brought back to those that served men. He felt that the very completeness of the self-surrender that had been demanded by the early Fathers of the Church had struck a false note that had rung down the centuries,—the note of a cold egoism and isolation of spirit. With all the strength of his soul he rebelled against the cruel mandate of St. Jerome, which was responsible for much that was abnormal in the lives of the saints:—

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