Читать книгу The Last Abbot of Glastonbury: A Tale of the Dissolution of the Monasteries - A. D. Crake - Страница 9

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Three centuries and more have rolled away since the dissolution of the monasteries, which once rose in architectural beauty in each district of mediæval England, gladdening the eye of the wayfarer with the assurance of hospitality, and of the poor with that of help and protection.

Their pious founders built in marble—

“Built as they

Who hoped those stones should see the day

When Christ should come; and that those walls

Might stand o’er them till judgment calls.”

Alas! for such hopes; the tyrant Tudor, taking advantage of the palpable declension of the inmates from their first love, levelled them with the ground, and left the country shorn of such glorious fanes as arose over the conquerors at Battle, or the tombs of the mighty dead at Glastonbury. Yet still they had welcomed the wayfarer and the stranger, tended the sick, taught the young, found labour for the poor, were good masters to their tenants, built bridges, made roads, and were the centres of civilization in their several districts.

Two rebellions ruthlessly extinguished in blood—the pilgrimage of grace, and the later rising in Devon and Cornwall—testified to the popular sense of loss when the servile courtier, ever the tyrant at home, had succeeded to the gentle old monks.

For all that is now done for the poor, and too often in a wooden kind of way by workhouses, hospitals, and the like, was then done by the monasteries, and their suppression was a cruel wrong to the poor.

Reformed, they needed to be, or they had never fallen, but that the treasures given by their founders in trust for God and His poor should pass into the hands of Henry’s fawning courtiers was too monstrous an iniquity.

The legendary history of Glastonbury has been told by the author before,[7] its supposed foundation by S. Joseph of Arimathæa, devoutly believed in in that credulous age, and the holy thorn-tree which blossomed from the staff which he there struck into the ground; there King Arthur was buried, and his body found after the lapse of ages; there, like a city set on a hill, the lamp of faith had been kept burning for forty generations, if alas, tarnished (which we sadly own) by superstition and credulity.

Amongst other good works, they educated the young of Christ’s flock, for at Glastonbury there was a school of two or three hundred boys, who were taught by the learned Benedictines of the Abbey; for the Benedictines were the scholars of the day.

The discipline was somewhat severe, and the life hard, as modern boys would think it.

The hour of rising, summer or winter, was four; they breakfasted at five, after the service of Lauds in the chapel, upon beef and beer on ordinary days, and on a dish of sprats or herrings instead of meat on fast days.

Then to their lessons, and we shall grieve our younger readers when we tell that Solomon was held in much respect, and therefore the rod was freely used in case of idleness or insubordination; but of the latter there was very little under monastic discipline.

There was a short space for recreation before the chapter Mass at nine o’clock, which all attended, after which work was resumed until Sext, which was followed by a simple but hearty dinner.

There was again another period of work in the afternoon, after Nones, but as it was necessary that the boys should not be behind the world in physical prowess, ample leisure was afforded for exercise and rough sports.

Modern schoolboys complain of compulsory football; their remote ancestors had little choice in such matters, whether schoolboys or rustic lads on the village green. By Act of Parliament, tutors in the one case, or magistrates in the other, were bound to see that the lads under their jurisdiction, omitting idle sports, did exercise themselves in archery, the broad-sword exercise, the tilt yard, and such-like martial pastimes.

Fighting, or mock-fighting—and the imitation was not altogether unlike the reality—was alike the amusement and the chief accomplishment of life, especially in England, which had then, not without cause, the reputation of being the “fiercest nation in Europe.” “English wild beasts,” an Italian writer calls them, yet who would not prefer the manly and honest Englishman to the Italian of the day, with his poisoners and bravoes?

And our readers must imagine how the Glastonbury boys were excited by such stories as that of the four hundred London apprentices, who went out as volunteers to the garrison of Calais, and kept all the neighbouring districts of France in terror, until they were overwhelmed by six times their number, and died fighting with careless desperation to the last.

So, even in the calm atmosphere of a monastery school, the world intruded.

As for their book-lore, they learned Latin practically, for they were forced to use it during a great part of the day in conversation, while they read daily in the Fathers and classical authors. Fabyan’s Chronicles and other old English historians supplied their history, and they were fairly instructed in the rudiments of mathematics. Altogether it was a sound education which the monastic school supplied.

We will now proceed with our story, after a digression which may be easily omitted by those who dislike to understand what they read.

The reader has, we doubt not, already identified the hero of the midnight adventure in the church porch, with the babe of our prologue.

Honest old Giles Hodge had told the whole story to the Abbot, within whose jurisdiction the babe was found, and with whom he sought an early interview. Strict search had been made after the surviving parent, if perchance there was one upon whom that epithet could be bestowed.

But no trace was found; only the delicate apparel of the lady, and the fine linen in which the child was wrapped, led to the conclusion that they were members of some “gentle house.” Upon the linen there were marks: a crest which had been picked out, and two initials yet remaining, “C. R.”

“The poor little foundling shall be our care,” said the good Abbot, “but here alack, we have no nursery, and your good wife, who has so recently lost her own babe, must be his foster mother if she be willing. I will provide for his maintenance hereafter, whether in the cloister or the world, unless his friends claim him.”

“And what name shall we give him, your reverence?”

“Let me see, C must be his Christian name; let us call him Cuthbert, better patron than S. Cuthbert he could not have; the R must yet be a mystery—he will not need two names yet.”

So the years rolled by; Cuthbert grew up strong and hearty, but no one ever came to claim him. And he was still known only by one name, a peculiarity little commented upon where his story was so well known.

He grew up a general favourite, especially, it was supposed, with the Abbot; and yet the self-restrained austere old man showed little traces of such weakness, save to very observant eyes.

He loved the young, one and all, and often visited the school. He knew every face there, and it was a great delight to him to watch them at their sports, perhaps recalling his own younger days, when Henry the Seventh was King.

In time little Cuthbert was chosen to be a chorister, and soon afterwards, by the Abbot’s desire, he was made an “acolyte,”—one who served at the altar—and there his reverent and unassuming demeanour won him yet further regard.

But my readers must not think him the least bit of a milksop; they know, I trust, that the bravest lad is he who fears God, and fears nought besides. Cuthbert was not one of those lads who talked much about religion, if there were such then, nor again one who courted notice by obtrusive acts of devotion—his religion was of a manlier type.

And meanwhile, as we shall show, he gained the respect of his companions by his proficiency in manly sports and exercises; he was one of the best archers, one of the best at fencing and sword play; in the tilt yard he was always up to the mark. In the same way some of the best boys I remember at a certain school were conspicuous at football and cricket, the modern equivalents.

It was a fine evening in May, and all the lads of Glastonbury School were in the archery ground. A silver arrow had to be contended for as a prize—the prize of the year—and there were many competitors.

All Glastonbury looked on at the sport; many were there who had been great archers themselves in their youth, and who, like Nestor of old, were never tired of talking of the great things that had been done when they were young.

For full two hundred years had gunpowder been in common use, yet all that time the bow held its own; an arrow would fly much farther than the bullets of that day, nay of much later days, for it was actually ordered by Act of Parliament, in the directions to the villages, for the maintenance of “buttes,” that no person of full age should shoot with the light-flight arrow at a less distance than two hundred and twenty yards, that is a whole furlong: under that distance the heavy war arrow had to be used in all trials of skill.[8]

And now four lads of fourteen stand forth to contend for the prize; the target is a furlong off, the arrows, light ones, in regard to the age of the competitors.

We will introduce them to our readers in proper order.

There stands Gregory Bell, son of the squire of a neighbouring village, tall and slim, but tough in muscle, and very sound in wind and limb; his round face and laughing black eyes will be remembered many a day. His long-bow is long indeed—three fingers thick, and six feet long, well got up, polished, and without knots; few English boys could bend it now, it came of practice.

He draws the bow—the light arrow cleaves the air—he has struck the first circle of blue, not the bull’s-eye itself—a cheer from his schoolfellows.

“Well done, Gregory, well done, old fellow.”

“The lad will do well enough,” said an old bowman, “yet not like his father; but where be the bowmen of Crecy now? At the last bout we had with them, the French turned their backs upon us at long range, and bid us shoot, whereas had we been the men our sires were, they would have paid dearly for their fool-hardy challenge.”

Then stood up Adam Banister, a round thick-set youth, with brown hair and rosy face.

“Good luck to thee, Banister,” was the cry.

How easily he drew his ponderous bow: the arrow whizzed—alas, only the second circle was attained.

And now the third champion.

It is Nicholas Grabber. Let our readers mark him, he will often figure in these pages.

A lad of average height, with a head of very bright red hair, which seems positively to shine; his face is deeply freckled, but his appearance not altogether unprepossessing, save for a certain expression of slyness which would indicate a mixture of the fox in his character; those who believed in the transmigration of souls might recognize the retriever in Gregory, the bull in Banister, the fox in Grabber, and—well we will leave them to designate the fourth after reading his history, for it was Cuthbert.

One after the other they discharge their arrows; the first shaft strikes the bull’s-eye, but amid shouts of admiration, the second, that of Cuthbert, pierces as near the centre.

“Hurrah!” “Grabber!” “Cuthbert!” and the names were repeated again and again by the crowd.

“Move the target fifty yards further, and let them shoot yet again.”

They were rivals, these two boys, and not such good friends as they should have been. Grabber envied Cuthbert his place in the Abbot’s favour, which he had utterly failed to attain; for had he not run away, and had not his father sent him back to school, coupled between two foxhounds, under the charge of the huntsman, a story never forgotten by his schoolfellows.[9] However, he was a good shot, a ringleader in boyish mischief, and not without his friends.

Again the arrows flew, but at this distance Grabber failed the bull’s-eye, just alighting on the rim.

A few moments of breathless anticipation, and Cuthbert’s shaft, soaring through the air, attains the very centre, amidst shouts of wonder and admiration.[10]

Grabber turned away disgusted, as Cuthbert advanced to receive the silver arrow from the chief forester, who superintended the “buttes.”

Then rang out the Abbey bell for Compline, and the field was deserted to the townsfolk, who kept up the pastimes of archery, cudgel playing, bowls, and the like, till darkness set in.