The Candlemass Road. George Fraser MacDonald

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      They cried out with scorn that between the enemies before and Attila at their back, it was all one, they should have nothing but evil at the hands of either.

      “Not so,” says I, and bade them look in the chronicles, “for there you shall read that the Scythian and the Mungul both, though in their conquests they were monsters of cruelty that put whole nations to the sword, yet in their private and domestic ways were zealous for good order and discipline of law, being such as would not suffer weak or poor folk to be despoiled or hurt by thieves and ravishers. Aye, of that Chingis was it said that while he carpeted all Asia with bones, yet might a virgin with a bag of gold walk the length of his dominions without harm, so perfect was his governance. So, again I say, who shall better serve you in time of peril, the philosophers who wish you well but cannot front the murderers save with words, or the bloody ravagers of empires who are yet ready to turn their weapons against common spoilers?”

      At this they fell to babbling and dispute, and one fell down drunk crying “Paradox! Paradox!” while another said that for all he knew Aristotle might be a right swashing boy when it came to a fray. I asked would he wager on him with sword and buckler against my two savages, let roaring Francis give what aid he might, and he said, no, not at any odds. And while a few of them held that such as Attila and Chingis would do no good service to any, the more held that I had made my case, and should not be fined or insulted, but pressed more drink upon me that I durst not refuse for fear of their rough merriment, and called me a jolly old Pope, and how I came home I know not, for they found me sodden among the cabbages in the almshouse garden, and I was two weeks abed thereafter with the sciatica.

      And lying there, and not able to read more than a little for the infirmity of mine eyes that are worn with looking on the world’s wickedness four score years, I fell to meditating on the good that evil men may do, by design or more commonly by chance, and was vexed that I had not told the Clare fellows how this same Attila, through his ravaging of Lombardy, had caused the folk to flee to those lagoons where they made the town of Venice, which is now surely a great state that hath given much of commerce and art to mankind, and all because of Attila his wickedness! Which I doubt not would have confused their debate that was confused enough already with their bowsing. Howbeit, I say, I thought on the good of evildoers, and concluded to my satisfaction that it is not one-thousandth of the evil that good and wise men do with their blundering, well as they intend.

      Thinking on this wise, and looking to mine own past, I remembered sundry instances that I had seen, and in especial the man Waitabout, that I knew only for a little season, yet it changed my life’s course, and indeed had been like to lose my poor life for me, yet was I spared, “by God’s grace”, a phrase I speak now but by habit and long use, for if He hath any grace (or indeed any being at all save in men’s minds only) I have long been removed from it. Which is a blasphemy, as they say, yet I have known worse. No, I am no priest, nor ever was except to the outer eye, for what priest ever doubted, and with long doubting, gave over his belief at last?

      As to the Waitabout, he was no Attila yet had done ill enough in his time, and if he did good it was upon compulsion and for a brief hour only, and still I know not whether it was good or no. But certain it is he was no common man, though common seeming, a robber and slayer and broken wanderer that had in him, I think, the making of a sage if not a saint. He read me a lesson, aye, and so too did my Lady Dacre, though what it was I can hardly tell even now. Yet I would tell of them both that have been out of my mind these many years, saving that visit my lady paid me five years agone, fair and smiling still and brought me a gift of candles of fine Italian wax, though not scented, “for we shall burn no incense between us, nor make graven images neither,” as she said, which was an old jest between us. “A remembrance of Candlemass,” says she, “aye, of the Candlemass road,” and told me they had made a ballad of it, and of what befell betwixt the fires at Triermain, which I marvelled to hear her speak of so lightly. But of Waitabout she spake not at all.

      If I am to tell of that road, I cannot come to it direct, for that would be to begin in medias res, as we clerks say when we mean in the midst of things but wish to awe the commonalty with our learning (give us a fourth tassel, good Lord, for vanity!), but must needs give some preamble, about myself, and then come in proper order to Waitabout, or Archie Noble as his name was, called Lang Archie, or Wait-about-him, or Master Noble as my lady styled him once or twice, I think to his content, for broken men are not used to such courtesies. Of myself first then, not out of pride, but for your better understanding of that which follows. And it is right, too, that the gown should take precedence of the renegado.

      I, Luis Guevara, once a priest and ever a sinner, was born in Portugal, and came to England by a long road which it would weary you as much to hear as me to travel. It took me to the Americas, and the coasts of Barbary and Africa, in the service of God, and at last to London, no matter why, in the twenty-fourth year of the old Queen’s reign, where chance took me in the way of Ralph, Lord Dacre. We were as little like as could be, he the great noble, favoured of the Queen, with the honours of soldiery upon him and all trappings of wealth and power, which he carried like a conqueror, for he was a terrible man – and I, the little foreign priest that feared for my very life in a land where priests were welcome as the plague. It was the time of the great bill against the Jesuits, when to be a Roman priest was treason, and the harbouring of us a felony; there were many then burned for the Faith.

      “A poor candle you would make,” says my lord. “Why, man, ye would not light me up the stair!” And laughed at me, a great bull of a man as he was, all in crimson save for the blue charge upon his breast that bare a bull indeed, the red bull of his house, and stood on legs like tree trunks, grinning from a face great as a ham, bald of crown with white hair to his shoulders. “Aye, we are tonsured, the two of us, but you can say Mass and I cannot nor would not, but since the half of my folk are recusant and will not be turned, needs must I a priest, go to!”

      I told him it was treason, and that if he sheltered me, let alone gave employ, he would be liable before the law.

      “The law! Pish on the law!” and put his head on one side. “Have ye heard o’ the Leges Marchiarum, priest – the Law of the Marches? No? It is the only law in my whereabouts, and says naught of religion. Let be, I make my own law, and if I take the Pope himself into my house to minister to my silly poor folk, not the Queen’s Grace herself shall say cheep! No, nor all the bishops. For I am Dacre. Will fifty shillings a year content you?”

      I trembled to hear him, but asked sixty shillings and a chapel decently kept, whereon he laughed till he shook and said I should have them for my boldness. And gripped my hand in a hard clasp, looking narrowly on me, and said we would do well together being of a middle age and not loth to speak our minds one to the other, “but not of your old faith, for I’ll none of it. Keep it for my vassals.” Which I did and have ever done, without fear of the law, for all that he said was true. He had done such service against Scotch invaders and English rebels, and was in such fair regard of my Lord Burleigh and the Queen, who called him “cousin Dacre” and “my red steer”, there being some kinship through the Grays, I believe, that he might do as he pleased in his barony far off on the border. They had need of him yonder, and my Lord Cecil was wont to jest on the words of the King of France, that the Scotch frontier was worth a Mass so it was said quietly.

      My Lord Ralph was down to London only to put his grandchild into the Court as ward of Her Grace. I saw the little maid but once, a sweet pretty child of four years, proper and toward and well grown, straight in her petty gown and proud of her kerchief of French point. “See my kercher,” says she. “’Tis white, and I keep it clean. You are my grandad’s Italian man, but you must not sing at me.” To her all Romans were Italians. She passed by with her head in air, playing with her kerchief.

      So my lord went north to his estate in Cumberland hard by the border line, taking in his train his “Portingale preacher”, as he pleased to call me.

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