Читать книгу Robert Annys: Poor Priest. A Tale of the Great Uprising - Annie Nathan Meyer - Страница 8

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Where three roads from the neighboring villages met, there was formed a great open space in which a thousand or more persons could easily find room without crowding. Here had gathered together the people, eager to see and hear their beloved leader, John Ball.

While Ball was resting at the tavern, after his long tramp, the crowd amused itself welcoming vociferously the late comers, cracking jokes, and singing songs. A tall fellow made his way among them, crying:—

"Busk ye, busk ye, John Ball hath rung your bell. God do bote, for now is tyme."

"By my troth, then, it will be heard from one end of England to the other!" exclaimed a powerfully built, fierce-looking dyer, whose hands, stained a purplish red by his trade, added to his sanguinary appearance.

"'Tis fairly so. We shall yet all be free men," agreed a mild-mannered, lanky youth, with a slight halt in his speech.

"Here come John the cobbler, and Will the tinker, both as sober as owls," called out a youngster.

"Ho, John, John, thy lass will turn a cold front on thee, and thou smooth not the frown on thine ugly phiz!" cried one who was blue with the cold, and danced about first on one foot and then the other to keep his blood circulating.

A short distance from him, a long-nosed, peaked-faced chap, a bit unsteady on his legs, was haranguing a group.

"Here's a nut to crack," he was saying; "who can answer me this: What do the priests prefer over Luke, Mark, and the Book?"

"Nay, then, not I," snarled one who was in no mood for conundrums, "not I, seeing that I cannot boast thy wit, Simon Lackless."

Lackless grinned broadly and placed one lean finger to his long nose, waggishly. "Why, 'tis fair enough," he said; "the priests do prefer Lucre to Luke, Marks to Mark, and the Bag to the Book."

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the people about him, passing the joke along from one to the other.

But Lackless had not overlooked the sneer; he now pointed to the speaker and called out in a loud voice, "Poor Wat! We must forgive him, seeing he is so meek at home and must vent his cooped-up spleen on some one!"

Wat sought another part of the crowd, discomfited.

"I wot a good saw," exclaimed an old man, leaning heavily on a staff; "but there, do not ask me for it, for my sides ache with laughing a'ready."

But they would not let him off. "Come now, let's have it," they begged. Some laughed outright from sympathy with the old man's merriment.

"What think ye, what think ye—oh, Lord!" he spluttered. "What think ye they do say at Rome?"

"They do say 'Aves' in plenty, for all the good they do us," grumbled one. But no one else ventured to solve the riddle.

"Why, it is 'Give and it shall be given unto you,'" the old man said, chuckling in his high, cracked treble.

The crowd laughed heartily.

"Ay! 'and moch they take, and give but small,'" sang out an impish lad, who had jumped on the back of a comrade and was pummelling him lustily.

"Aiee! Aiee!" cried the under one.

A wrathy butcher jerked the fellow off the other's back and smacked him soundly for his pains. "Off with you! One would think a mountebank was coming instead of John Ball!"

There were others who felt as he did. Beneath all the fun there flowed an undercurrent of earnestness, and many there were who spoke no word, but gazed grimly before them, seemingly lost in thought.

Suddenly some one started a song to while away the time:—

"Earth out of earth is wonderfully wrought."

Others immediately joined in:—

"Earth from earth has got dignity of naught."

When the last stanza was reached, six hundred voices trolled it defiantly forth:—

"Earth upon earth would be a king;

But how that earth shall be earth's thinks he no thing:

Earth upon earth wins castles and towers,

Then says earth unto earth 'this is all ours.'"

Then a thin boyish treble started a mocking song on the great state of the priests. They did not suffer him to sing alone, but took it up eagerly with him:—

"Priestes high on horse willeth ride

In glitterande gold of great array,

Ipainted and portred all in pride

No common knight may go so gay;

Change of clothing every day,

With golden girdles great and small;

As boisterous as is beare at bay."

But now John Ball was seen making his way through the throng. As the people pressed together to let him pass, benedictions and glances of true affection followed him; and he, catching sight here and there of some known face, nodded cheerily, first on one side and the other. For the people loved him, and called him "Saviour"; it was only the Churchmen that spoke of him as "the mad priest of Kent."

In the centre of the square stood a great tall cross of stone with the head very beautifully carved with a crucifix in the middle of leafage work, and with wide stone steps, octagonal in shape, leading to it. When Ball reached these steps, he mounted to the very top and stood there looking down with a quiet smile upon the upturned faces before him. He stood there, a powerfully built, tall, big-boned figure in the well-known, reddish brown, coarse garb of his order, a veritable tower of strength physical as well as spiritual, and looking as if he knew his own strength and gloried in it. A ring of dark hair surrounded his priest's tonsure; his nose was big, but clean-cut and with wide nostrils; his shaven face showed a longish upper lip and a big but blunt chin; his mouth was big and the lips closed firmly. A face not very noteworthy but for the gray eyes, well opened and wide apart, at times lighting up his whole face with a kindly smile, at times set and stern, or now and then resting in that look as if they were gazing at something a long way off, as do the eyes of the poet or enthusiast.

Shout after shout broke from the throng as he stood there calmly looking down upon them. When at last there was silence, he was not suffered to speak, for of a sudden a man standing immediately next to the cross unfurled a banner which swung out in the breeze. Only a smallish banner with a peculiar device upon it: merely a picture of a man and a woman rudely clad and with bare legs and feet seen against a background of green trees, the man holding a spade, the woman a distaff and spindle, rudely enough drawn, yet with great spirit and meaning. Underneath were the written words:—

"When Adam delved and Eve span

Who was then the gentleman?"

A tremulous murmur arose that soon swelled into a great huzza. The thrill of enthusiasm ran like threads of fire from man to man. Again and again, Huzza! Huzza!

A prosperous merchant, stopping curiously on the edge of the crowd, pointed to the banner. "That comes," he said, "of putting Holy Writ 'twixt the fingers of every swineherd."

His companion, an alderman from Norwich, smiled. "Ah, can one wonder that they cry Ball with Book and Bell? If they press the gospel into daily life, there's no telling what will happen!"

Annys, coming from the dim twilight of the Cathedral, looked about him at first in bewilderment. He stood on the outer edge of the throng, apart and gazing with interest at the scene. He felt himself not yet attuned to the bright picture before him, full of color and light and life. But slowly the true significance of it all sank into him. The very brightness and color of the scene was in itself symbolic. Here all took place in the open air; the sun, although near the end of its course, yet threw into sharp contrast the dark fringe of trees that encircled the outskirts of the cross-roads. The air was pure and fresh and smelled of the sea and the salt marshes, awakening every faculty with a tingling sense of life and activity. It was so different, ah, how different, from the heavy, incense-laden air of the dim Cathedral! That was an atmosphere which dulled one's senses and soothed them to sleep. The gay mass of moving color as the people swayed this way and that, the goodly brown soil, the living green of the earth,—how good it all was! He could look up and see, from where he stood, the stately tower of Ely and the smaller tower of the Lantern etched grandly against the sky. Beautiful as the proud Minster was, even as he looked at it, he felt that its power must wane from the moment that this new religion of the poor priests took firm hold of the people. The Cathedral stood for a religion of secluded cloisters, a standard of living for monks and priests; but Ball stood for a religion for the whole broad earth, a standard of living for the men and women who did the work of the world.

And Ball spoke and said:—

"Fellow-men, a price is on my head. Well wist I that even at this moment the Archbishop's men are awaiting until I come into their power to clap me into Maidstone gaol."

A threatening murmur ran through the crowd, and many a man fingered his bow, and such as had them, clapped hand to sword or studied the points of their daggers fondly.

"Yea, that wist I—there be but little time left me to talk to you, so I must hasten. The men of Kent have sent for me, and I am on my way to them, although I doubt if I can have speech with them before the gaolers have me in irons. Yet the men have need of me, and I go. I am not the first preacher of God's word to be hunted by tyrants. Was not our dear Lord, Jesus Christ, summoned again and again to appear before the authorities to defend Himself on the charge of disturbing the public peace? Was not likewise the Apostle Paul persecuted? And there were others, but it is not of them that I came to speak to you to-day. I come to tell ye wherein I am a disturber of the public peace, wherein I am justly dubbed a 'pestilent fellow,' as Ananias the high priest dubbed Paul. Yea, verily, I am a pestilent fellow of the sect of the Nazarenes, going about the land sowing the seeds of discontent and rebellion. And I take glory unto myself for the name. For surely if ye bide content with such a lot as yours—if ye remain satisfied with homes of wattled reeds and mud, and do not rebel that oxen and horses should be better cared for than such as were made in the image of God,—then would ye not deserve the name of Men. The people are growing tired of calling upon the high priests of the Church to reform themselves. My brethren, the time hath come when Reform must come from below and not above, must come from the people and no Pope. The people are not schismatic, the people are not over-luxurious."

A sardonic grin swept over many faces, and some broke out into loud guffaws at this sally.

"The people are not covetous, nor greedy, nor lustful, nor ever grasping for new powers. Nay, verily, I ask you to listen to the words of the Apostle Paul, and tell me who come nearer to the ideal held up therein—the priests or the people?

"'And behold, we live; as chastened and not killed; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.'"

"The people, the people," they shouted lustily.

"Ha!" cried one fellow to another, "of the priests we may well say—they live, as unchaste and lively; as rich, yet making others poor; as having everything, and yet wishing more."

"In truth!" answered his companion; "but stay, he begins again."

"The people," went on Ball, "seek Christ, but they are a-weary of seeing Religion walk in the market-place, a buyer among buyers, a ruler among rulers, a tyrant among tyrants."

"That's true as Holy Writ," shouted one great fellow, enthusiastically, and many took up the cry:—

"As true as Holy Writ!"

"The people desire priests who will come among them and work among them, even as did the Apostles. Why am I put beyond the pale of the Church save that, instead of concerning myself with unravelling the tangles of canonical lore, I seek to unravel the tangles of life? Sure all that is needed to do priestly service is to love much, for hath not St. John said:—

"'He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him'?

"And what is love, I ask ye, but good-fellowship? Ah, cherish that word fellowship, my brethren, for without fellowship be assured Christ cannot enter among you: for without fellowship every one standeth for his own lusts, and the strong wax yet stronger, and the weak are pressed to the wall and grow yet weaker and die. But where fellowship entereth among you there entereth Christ also—the strong shares his strength with the weak, and the oppressed arise and lift up their heads. We are told much, fellow-men, of the states of heaven and hell, we are told of the blessings of heaven and the horrors of hell; but lay it well to heart what I tell you,—friendship is heaven and lack of fellowship is hell—fellowship is life, and lack of fellowship is death. In hell, one shall cry on his fellow to help him, and shall find that therein is no help because there is no fellowship, but every man for himself. Therefore I tell you that the proud, despiteous rich man, though he knoweth it not, is in hell already, because he hath no fellow."

And his voice sank solemnly away and the people brooded in silence over what they had heard. And perhaps there came over the speaker a sudden thought of the cold, dark dungeon where he would soon lie chained, away from his people whom he so dearly loved, away from the open air and the sunlight and the shadows of clouds sweeping over the fields. And his head sank for an instant upon his breast, and as he spoke again there was a slight tremble in his voice, though he tried hard to throw it off:—

"Had I but kept my tongue between my teeth I might have been some personage, if but a parson of a town, and men would have spoken well of me; and all this I have lost for the lack of a word here and there to some great man, and a little winking of the eyes amidst murder and wrong and unruth. Now it is too late, the hemp for me is sown and grown and heckled and spun."

"Nay, nay," a strong voice cried, "we shall march upon the gaol and demand you of the Archbishop himself. We shall come fifty thousand strong, and we shall burst down the gaol if he refuse us."

"His head shall yet decorate a post and you shall live to see it," shouted another daring soul. His remark was greeted with cheers.

Ball held up one hand for silence, a great light of love irradiating his face.

"Ay, fear not that I have wrought all these years in vain. For while the great tread down the little, and strong beat down the weak, and cruel men fear not, and kind men dare not, and wise men can not, the saints in heaven bid me not forbear. I wot well because of fellowship it will not fail, though I seem to fail when the Archbishop lays his hands on me. But in the days hereafter shall I and my work yet be alive, and men be holpen by them to strive again and yet again."

And with his voice and demeanor grown solemn once more with the thought of the long wait which must be endured before they could come together again, he uttered over them the same beautiful benediction which had arisen centuries before on the lips of Paul:—

"Now I beseech you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that there be no divisions among you. Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. Let all that ye do be done in love."

Strong men were bowed in grief, and their broad shoulders shook with sobs. The women and children straggling about the outer edge of the throng wept openly and long. But Robert Annys rushed forward and, making his way to the foot of the cross, flung himself there on his knees and cried out passionately:—

"Nay, nay, John Ball, beloved master, fear not, neither shall your work fail now, nor shall it seem to fail. For from this moment I give myself to it, body and soul. And I pledge myself to stand in your place and do whatsoever you would have me do while you are gone from us."

An astonished silence greeted these words, for it had been pretty freely rumored that the archdeaconate of Ely had been offered to the young poor priest, and that he would never be able to withstand the temptation to throw off the russet sacking and don the albe and stole. When it was realized that the bribe of high office had not caused him to desert the cause of the people, the enthusiasm knew no bounds; men wrung their neighbors' hands, and tears of joy ran down bronzed cheeks. John Ball knew well that Robert Annys was a man of great power and eloquence, and he smiled gladly when he heard his earnest words. He raised the young priest to his feet, and clasped his hands warmly, and gazed long and earnestly into his face. And the people there assembled looked up at those two strong souls standing united before the cross. And because of that sight, they bade farewell to their leader less sorrowfully than if they had none other to look to for help and guidance.