The Serf. Thorne Guy

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СКАЧАТЬ was chill and damp, and the air struck unpleasantly upon him.

      He went up to the altar to find his missal. Sleeping always in a filthy little cell with no ventilation, and generally seeking his bed in a state of intoxication, had afflicted the priest with a chronic catarrh of the nose and throat – as common a complaint among the priesthood then as it is now in the country districts of Italy and southern France. Quite regardless of his environment, he expectorated horribly even as he bowed to the presence of Christ upon the altar.

      It is necessary for an understanding of those times to make a point of things, which, in a tale of contemporary events, would be unseemly and inartistic. Dom Anselm saw nothing amiss with his manners, and the fact helps to explain Dom Anselm and his brethren to the reader.

      With a small key the priest opened a strong box banded with bronze, and drew from it the vessels.

      Among the contents of the box were some delicate napkins which Lady Alice had worked – some of those beautiful pieces of embroidery which were known all over Europe as "English work."

      When the silver vessels were placed upon the altar, and everything was ready for the service, the thirst of the morning got firm hold upon Dom Anselm's throat.

      He left the chapel, and summoned a theow who was passing the door with a great bundle of cabbages in his arm.

      "Set those down," he said, "and ring the bell for Mass;" and while the man obeyed, and the bell beat out its summons to prayer – very musical in the morning air – he strode across the courtyard to the mint.

      By this time, in the long, low buildings, the fires were banked up, the tools lay ready upon the benches, and the men were greasing the moulds with bacon fat.

      The priest went through the room with two raised fingers, turning quickly and mechanically towards the toil-worn figures who knelt or bowed low for his blessing. He walked towards an inner room, the door of which was hung with a curtain of moth-eaten cat-skin – the cheapest drapery of the time. Pushing this curtain aside, he entered with a cheery "Good-day!" to find, as he expected, Lewin, the mint-master.

      The Jew was a slim man of middle size, clean-shaven, and with dark-red hair. His face was handsome and commanding, and yet animal. The wolf and pig struggled for mastery in it. He was engaged in opening the brass-bound door of a recess or cupboard in the wall, where the dies for stamping coin were kept in strict ward.

      The mint-master straightway called to one of the men in the outer room, who thereon brought in a great horn of ale in the manner of use. Every morning the priest would call upon the Jew, so that they might take their drink together. Each day the two friends conveniently forgot – or at any rate disregarded – the rule which bids men fast before the Mass. Lewin attended Church with great devotion, and, like many modern Israelites, was most anxious that the fact of his ancient and honourable descent should be forgotten.

      Though he himself was a professing Christian, and secure in his position, yet his brethren, who nearly always remained staunch to their ancient faith, were in very sad case in the Twelfth Century. Vaissette, in his history of Languedoc, dwells upon a pleasing custom which obtained at Toulouse, to give a blow on the face to a Jew every Easter. In some districts of England, from Palm Sunday to Easter was regarded as a licensed time for the baiting of Jews, and the populace was regularly instigated by the priests to attack Jewish houses with stones. Yet, at the same time, it was possible for a Jew to obtain a respectable position if he avoided the practice of usury, and Lewin the minter was an example of the fact.

      "This is the best beer of the day," said the priest, "eke the beer at noon meat. My belly is so hot in the morning, and all the pipes of my body burn."

      Lewin poured out some ale from the horn into a Saxon drinking-glass with a rounded bottom like a modern soda-water bottle – the invariable pattern – and handed the horn back to Dom Anselm. They drank simultaneously with certain words of pledge, and clinked the vessels together.

      "It's time for service," said the clergyman, when the horn was empty. "Lady Alice will be upon arriving and in a devilish temper, keep I her waiting."

      "Lord Geoffroi," said Lewin, "will he be at Mass?"

      The priest grinned with an evil smile. "What do you think, minter?" he chuckled. "Geoffroi never comes to Mass when he sins a mortal sin o'er night; no, nor young Fulke either."

      Lewin looked enquiringly at him.

      "Two of the men-at-arms brought the daughters of one Hyla into the castle last night before curfew."

      "He works for me here," said the minter.

      "I am sorry for him," said the priest, "and I do not like this force, for the girls were screaming as they took them to Outfangthef. Lord Christ forbid that I should ever take from a maiden what she would not give. It will mean candles of real wax for me from Geoffroi, this will."

      "The master is a stern man," said Lewin as they entered the chapel door.

      Lady Alice was already in the chapel, kneeling on the altar steps, and behind her were two or three maids also kneeling.

      On the eyelids of one of these girls the tears still stood glistening, and a red mark upon her cheek showed that Lady Alice had not risen in the best of tempers. The chatelaine frowned at Anselm when she heard his footsteps, and, turning, saw him robing by the door.

      Many of the workmen and men-at-arms crowded into the chapel, all degrees mingling together. Some of the villein farmers had come in from the village, sturdy, open-featured men, prosperously dressed in woollen tunics reaching to the knees, fastened with a brooch of bone. The serfs knelt at the back, and as the deep pattering Latin rolled down the church every head was bent low in reverence.

      Although among nearly all of them there was such a contrast between conduct and belief, yet, at the daily mystery and miracle of the Mass, every evil brain was filled with reverence and awe. When the Host was raised – the very body of Christ – to them all, you may judge how it moved every human heart.

      The system which held them all was a very easy and pleasant system. Unconditional submission to the Church, and belief in her mysteries, ensured the redemption of sins and the joys of heaven hereafter. To the popular mind, my Lords the Saints and the Blessed Virgin were great, good-humoured people, always approachable by an Ave and a little private understanding with the priest. It was, indeed, the pleasantest and easiest of all religious systems.

      This, then, was the ordinary attitude of men and women towards the unseen, and it helps to explain the wickedness of the time. Yet it must not be thought that in this dark tapestry there were no lighter threads. The saints of God were still to be found on earth. Bright lines of gold and white and silver ran through the warp and woof, and we shall meet with more than one fine and Christian character in this story of Hyla.

      The stately monotone went on. Huber and John, the two men-at-arms who had hurried the poor serf girls into the castle the night before, knelt in reverence, and beat their breasts.

      "The Lord is debonair," Huber muttered to himself. Alice de la Bourne forgot her ill temper and petty dislike of pretty Gundruda, her maid, and fervently made the sign of the cross. Lewin alone, of all that kneeling throng, was uninfluenced by the ceremony and full of earthly thoughts.

      After Mass was over, Anselm remained kneeling, repeating prayers, while the congregation filed out into the sunlight. A little significant incident happened on the very threshold. A poor serf had become possessed of a rosary made from the shells of a pretty little pink and green snail which was found – not too frequently – in the marshes below. This possession of his he valued, and, as he СКАЧАТЬ