Jasper Nye made a disapproving sort of noise in his throat, as though he didn’t think a monk ought to sing minstrel songs to gather the people he was going to preach to; and Nicky said, ‘Didn’t his Abbot mind?’
‘No,’ said Jonathan, and though Hugh could not see his face clearly, he knew that he was smiling, by the sound of his voice. ‘The Abbot was a wise man, who knew that if it is good to carve in stone or make church music or paint in azure and vermilion to the Glory of God, it is just as good to juggle with coloured balls or sing minstrel songs to the Glory of God, if you do that better. So Aldhelm was left to gather his crowds in his own way.
‘The years went by, and Aldhelm became an Abbot himself – abbot of Malmesbury – and he did not go out singing and preaching any more, because he had too many other things to do.
‘And more years went by, and Aldhelm grew old. Then one day King Ina of Wessex sent for him to Winchester, which was the capital in those days; and that night they ate the evening meal together in the King’s Great Hall, among his house-thegns and with his hunting-dogs crouching under the table for scraps.
‘And afterwards, as they sat comfortably over their ale-horn, the King said to Aldhelm, “Aldhelm, you know that I have made a new Bishopric of Sherbourne?”
‘And Aldhelm said, “Yes, and a very unruly Bishopric it is, if all I hear be true.”
‘ “It is quite true,” said Ina. “The people are a stiff-necked crew, from the richest thegn to the poorest serf, and many of them hold to the old gods, with all the faith and loyalty that is in them.”
‘ “And for that very reason, they are the more worth winning over,” said Aldhelm. “For the more stubbornly a man keeps faith once, the more likely he is to keep faith again. Besides, that sort makes the best fighting men,” said he. “And I ever loved a good fighting man.”
‘Ina leaned forward across the table to look at the Abbot, with his chin cupped between his fists. “You’re something of a fighting man yourself, in your own way, I reckon,” says he. “How would you like to fight Thor and Odin in the Bishopric of Sherbourne?” (Thor and Odin were the old gods.)
‘Aldhelm didn’t answer at once, and Ina pressed him eagerly. “Well – will you be the first Bishop of Sherbourne?”
‘Still Aldhelm went on thinking. He was an old man, and tired; he thought of his great Abbey of Malmesbury, the shady cloisters and the quiet life, the peach trees in the high-walled garden; and the part of him that was old and tired longed to go back there and end his days in peace; but another part of him was eager for the fight and the adventure. “Aye,” he said, “I’ll do it.” And he went out from the King’s Hall, Bishop of Sherborne.
‘But he did not go with his mitre on his head and his crozier in his hand, to take possession of his bishopric. Instead he put on the gay, shabby clothes of a wandering minstrel, and set out, carrying his harp. It was just as it had been when he was young, you see. Many years had gone by since he sang in the market-places, but he had not lost the knack, and he could still charm the heart out of those who heard him. So for a long while he lived the life of a strolling minstrel, up and down his bishopric, singing in the houses of Christian and Pagan alike. If people asked him who he was, he told them, otherwise he never spoke of it. Folks thought he was crazed, of course; a Bishop strolling up and down the countryside, singing the songs of the ordinary folk and the deeds of ancient heroes; but they liked his songs and they liked him, and they welcomed the Minstrel in to sit by their fire and eat at their table – those stiffnecked thegns, and the poor folk too – when they wouldn’t have let the Bishop across the door-sill. So little by little, he won their trust and friendship, and when the time was ripe for it, he began to build his church . . .
‘And people said, “Well, he do sing a masterfine song, to be sure. Us’ll go and hear if he can preach as fine a sermon.” So they went.
‘It was only a little church, that first one; no tall tower, no Great Tom. I think St Aldhelm would have liked Great Tom for his splendid voice; there would have been a fellow-feeling betwixt those two.’
For a while nobody said anything, and then Hugh said, ‘You know a tremendous lot about the Abbey and the Vale, don’t you?’
And Jonathan said, ‘Why, you see, all this country is home to me. I was born and bred up yonder towards Bulbarrow Down.’
Hugh looked round at him in surprise. Somehow he had never thought of Jonathan being born and bred anywhere, only of being Jonathan, the Strolling Player; and he wondered suddenly about Jonathan’s home, and why he had left it, and if perhaps he would go back one day. If they had been alone, he might have asked, but they were not, and anyway there was no time, for at that moment Master Pennifeather got up and stretched until the small muscles cracked behind his shoulders. ‘Time we were at our rehearsing,’ he said. ‘You’ve not the least notion how to play that tavern scene, Ben, and you’ll get it right before we seek our couches for the night, if I have to break your neck and my own, to teach you.’
On their second day in Sherborne the Company acted the play about Sir Huon of Bordeaux, which was a particularly nice one really, funny in places and exciting in other places, with a lot of magic in it, and a happy ending. Most of the plays about saints ended sadly, so it made a nice change. Hugh played Esclaremond, the Emir of Babylon’s daughter, in a green kirtle with hanging sleeves of rose-pink taffeta, and a wig of long golden hair. The kirtle had a long rent in the skirt where Hugh had caught it on a nail, but Jonathan (who played Oberon the Fairy King, in scarlet tights with a fantastic crown instead of the horns that usually went with them) had mended it so that it was as good as new. It was the most lovely colour, like the deep moss that grows under beech trees.
When they were changing for the performance, and more and more people were arriving every moment, Jasper Nye found that he had got the wrong stockings; brown when they should have been purple. So Hugh, who was still in his ordinary clothes, because Esclaremond did not appear until quite late in the play, was sent across to the stable where the costume baskets were, to fetch the right ones. It took Hugh rather a long time to find the purple stockings, because Argos was being helpful, as usual; and by the time he came out into the courtyard again it was as full as ever it could be. There were craftsmen and prentices, farm folk from the country round with soil caked on their boots, and merchant folk and gentlefolk, and lads from Sherborne School, who were not really supposed to be there at all, and a horse being edged through the crowd (that was one of the drawbacks of acting in inn-yards – horses having to be got in and out). It was a most glorious crush, people jostling and pushing and craning their necks for a better view, and the sunshine slanting down on all the colours of a summer flower-plot mingling and swaying together as the throng shifted, and in the midst of it all, the rush-strewn stage, empty and waiting.
Hugh dived into the crowd and began to butt and edge and sidle his way through, with Argos at his heels. He was close under one of the crowded galleries when he heard a small, imperious voice above his head, calling, ‘Hi! Boy! – Boy-boy-boy!’
He stopped so suddenly that Argos bumped into him from behind, and looked up; and there, hanging so far over the carved gallery rail that she looked as if she might come down into the courtyard on her head at any moment, was a little girl. Just for a moment Hugh thought she might be a Pharisee, because she looked like one; a small brown sparkling Pharisee in a leaf-green kirtle. But then he saw that there was a tall brown man just behind her, who was laughing, with a hand twisted in the back folds of her skirt to make sure she did not fall on her head; and no one would do that to the Fairy-kind, because it would be disrespectful.
‘Boy,’ said the little girl, ‘are you in the play?’
‘Yes, little mistress,’ said Hugh. ‘I’m the heroine.’
Then somebody bumped into him, and he remembered Jasper waiting for his purple stockings, and went butting on through the crowd to the dim little room behind the stage, without ever noticing that the brown man had bent
forward quickly, and was looking after him, rather as though he thought he knew him and wanted to make sure.
Hugh thought about the little girl and the brown man all the time he was putting on Esclaremond’s green kirtle and yellow wig; and he went on thinking about them while he sat on his heels, listening to the others on the stage outside and waiting until it was time to join them. And when at last he climbed on to the stage, gathering the folds of his kirtle elegantly in one hand and carrying a white clove carnation in the other, he saw that the little girl was still hanging over the gallery rail. She waved to him, but of course he couldn’t wave back, and she looked dreadfully hurt until a lady standing beside her bent down to whisper in her ear; and then she understood, and stopped looking hurt.
As the play went on, Hugh had quite a lot of chances to glance at the little girl and her family, and the more he glanced at them, the nicer they seemed. There were four of them, and you could tell that they were a family, because they had the look of people who belong together. The little girl had just the starry look that wind-flowers have, only that wind-flowers look as though they could not be naughty if they tried, and the little girl looked as though she could be very naughty indeed without having to try at all. The brown man, who must be her father, had eyes that crinkled up into dancing slits, in the nicest way, when they came to the funny bits of the play; and the lady, who must be her Mammy, looked as though she would smell nice – of clove carnations, perhaps, or some other flower whose smell was warm and cosy. There was a boy, too; a dark boy in a crimson doublet, a bit older than Hugh, who looked just the sort of person it would be nice to have adventures with.
There were so many, many people in the courtyard, but those four stood out from among them all, or at least it seemed to Hugh that they did; and he wished and wished that he knew them.
When the play was over, and the Players had changed back into their dusty workaday clothes and come out into the yard again, and all the people were gone. Hugh felt quite forlorn for a moment, because the family had gone too, and the big courtyard seemed very empty without them. Quite suddenly he thought how nice it would be to have a family of his own. Then Jonathan turned in the inn doorway below the long-winged angel, and called to him; and he forgot about not having a family, because having Jonathan was just as good, and they went in to their supper together.
13
The Parting of the Ways
The next evening the brown man with the crinkly eyes was in the gallery again, and the boy was with him, but not the little girl or her mother. All through the play the man watched Hugh very closely – leaning forward with his brown hands on the carved rail – in a way that made him feel prickly up the back of his neck. And afterwards, when they were changing, Will the stable-man suddenly appeared in the doorway, looking very disapproving (he didn’t like nasty dirty Players all over his nice clean stable) and said, ‘I wants the young ’un. He’m to come with me d’rectly.’
Everybody looked at Hugh, and then at each other, and Jonathan asked, ‘What do you want him for?’
‘’Tisn’t me as wants him,’ said the stable-man, with a sniff. ‘Gentleman in the Mistress’s garden wants him most particular; don’t ask me why.’
Suddenly Hugh had the queerest feeling inside, a kind of tingling ‘something-is-going-to-happen’ feeling; and he didn’t want to go. But Jonathan punted him gently towards the door.
‘Go along with you, Dusty,’ he said.
And Hugh went. The surly stable-man grabbed the back of his neck-band, and marched him across the yard rather as though he was a beadle and Hugh was under arrest, and thrust him in through the inn doorway.
‘Yere ’ee be, Missis,’ said the man, while Hugh rubbed the back of his neck and glared.
Then the mistress of the house, who was large and billowy and much kinder than her stable-man, bounced out from an inner room, and said, ‘Dear heart alive! What have you been doing to the child? Here, pull your neck-band straight, my chuck, it’s half-way down your back. That’s right. Now come along with me. Mr Heritage is in my private garden.’
Mr Heritage! That was the name of the friend his father had served at Oxford! Hugh felt as though he must be dreaming and would wake up at any moment. ‘Here! mistress!’ he gasped, as they scurried along through the crowded common room into the family’s private rooms beyond. ‘Is it – Mr Anthony Heritage?’
‘Aye, that’s him, Mr Anthony Heritage from Prior’s Caundle,’ said the inn-wife, and she opened yet another door, and pushed Hugh out into a long, narrow strip of garden between high yew hedges, and shut the door behind him with a determined little slam.
It was a nice garden, with a straight strip of camomile lawn like a green riband leading down it instead of a path, and on either side a lovely drift of snapdragon and sweet-smelling yellow musk all humming with brown velvet bees. Right at the far end was a shady green vine-arbour; and in the arbour sat the crinkly-eyed man and the dark boy who looked as if he would be nice to have adventures with.
They got up when they saw Hugh, and stood waiting for him. They both looked very clean; their ruffs were crisp and fresh and their doublets fitted them beautifully; and as he looked at them, Hugh felt how brown and dusty he was, and how patched and ragged his clothes were, and how his shoes were stuffed with rags because their soles were worn out. But he couldn’t keep Mr Heritage waiting; so he pushed back his shoulders and straightened his legs as the Players had taught him, and marched down the green riband to the arbour.
‘You sent for me, sir,’ he said.
The man said, ‘Yes, I sent for you.’ And he put his hands on Hugh’s shoulders, and looked down at him, very searchingly, but so kindly that Hugh forgot about his dust and the holes in his shoes. ‘What is your name?’ asked the brown man.
‘Hugh,’ said Hugh. ‘Hugh Copplestone.’
‘I thought so,’ said the man. ‘You’re very like your father. Mine is Anthony Heritage.’
‘The inn-wife told me that,’ said Hugh.
‘Have you ever heard my name before?’
Hugh nodded. ‘My father used to talk about you often. He was your servitor at Oriel.’
Mr Heritage sat down again, and looked at him without a trace of his crinkly smile. ‘And how comes Peter Copplestone’s son to be trapesing about the country with a band of Strolling Players?’
Hugh took a deep breath and explained – about his father having died, and about Aunt Alison, and about Argos. ‘And I couldn’t let her have Argos knocked on the head; so we ran away.’
‘Bravo!’ said the dark boy, who had stood quite still all this while. ‘Oh, bravo, Hugh!’
‘And we hadn’t got any friends, or anywhere to go, so I thought we’d go to Oxford. Father used to tell me about Oxford, and Master Bodley’s lectures and – and everything; he always meant me to go to Oriel; he said we’d manage somehow. So I thought if we went to Oxford, perhaps we’d make our fortunes somehow; and then on the second day we met Master Pennifeather and the others, and they took us on with them.’
‘I see.’ Mr Heritage stuck his arms akimbo, and watched one of the Abbey pigeons flying overhead with the evening sunlight under its wings. ‘Poor old Peter! I wish I’d kept in touch with him,’ he said in a raw, regretful voice. Then he stopped watching the pigeon, and looked down at Hugh again. ‘My son Martin, here, is just home from Oriel for the summer holidays,’ he said. ‘When he goes back, would you like to go with him?’
Hugh simply gazed at him, with mouth wide enough open, as Master Pennifeather would have said, to catch a cuckoo in it. ‘You mean – go to Oriel? – Properly?’ he stammered at last. ‘Be his servitor like my father was yours – and go to lectures and things?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Heritage. ‘Take your time.’
Hugh looked at Martin, and Martin looked back, and they liked each other with a quick, strong liking. Then Hugh looked down at his own feet, and went on looking at them very hard indeed, without seeing them at all. It was a long time since he had r
eally thought about going to Oxford, except in a dreamy sort of way that people think about places afar off, where they would like to go one day before they are old. But he had never quite forgotten; and now, when Mr Heritage spoke about it, all his old longing to read books and have his share in the New Learning flamed up bright inside him, and he wanted most desperately to go with Martin. And then he remembered the Players, Jonathan more than all the rest, and he wanted just as desperately to stay with them and go on strolling the roads of England. Besides, they were his friends, and he couldn’t leave them just because he had got a chance that they had not.
When you want to do two different things with a great and terrible wanting, and you can only do one of them, it isn’t easy to make up your mind, especially when things like loyalty come into it. Hugh found that. On one side was his loyalty to the Players, who had been true friends to him; and on the other was a queer kind of loyalty to his father, who had told him about the New Learning, and meant him to go to Oxford. That made the choice even harder than it would have been otherwise, and by the time he had made up his mind, he felt as though something deep inside him had been torn in two. But he did make it up.
‘Thank you very much, sir, but – I can’t,’ he said huskily.
‘Why not, Hugh?’ asked Mr Heritage.
‘Well, you see, there’s Argos,’ said Hugh.
‘Argos would come too, of course. You couldn’t take him to Oxford with you, but we would be very kind to him while you were away, and you would be together in the holidays.’
Hugh shook his head without a word.