LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 691, 6 September 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE KNIGHT’S SECRET, f Concluded .) They drank them out, and the good wine, falling upon more of the sort, made them madder and bolder. They rolled along, holding on by one another, to the porch, and there they stood and looked at the dead friar, and shuddered. But the soldier swore a great oath, and vowed he should not stay there to get them hanged. Thereupon a furious tit of recklessness succeeded to their terror : they got a suit of rusty armour and fastened it on the body ; then they saddled an old war horse that was kept in the stable only as a reminiscence, and tied the friar’s body on to him with many cords; they opened the stable door, and pricked the old war horse with their daggers, that he clattered out into the road with a bound and a great rattling of rusty armour. * * * * *■ Now, as ill luck would have it, Friar Richard and his borrowed marc were pacing demurely through the town scarce fifty yards ahead. The old horse nosed the mare, and, being left to choose his road, took very naturally after her; but when he got near her the monk looked round and saw the ghastly rider. He gave a yell so piercing it waked the whole street, and, for lack of spurs, drove his bare heels into the mare’s side : she cantered down the street at an easy pace, the fearful pageant cantered after ; the friar kept turning and yelling, the windows kept opening and heads popped out to see, and by-and-by doors opened and a few early risers joined in the pursuit, wondering and curious. The cavalcade never cleared the town of Norwich; the friar, in the blindness of despair, turned his mare up what seemed to him an open lane; but there was no exit ; his dead pursuer came up with him, and he threw himself off, and cried, ‘ Mercy! Mercy! mea culpa!—l confess it!—l confess it! only take that horrible face from me !’ and in his despair he owned that he had slain brother John. Then some led the horse and his ghastly load away, and wondered sore ; but others hauled Friar Richard to justice ; and he believing it was a miracle, and Heaven’s hand upon him, persisted in his confession, and was cast into prison to abide his trial. He had not to wait long. In those days the law did not tarry for judges of assize to come round the country now and then. Each town had its Mayor and its alderman, any one of whom could try and hang a man if need was. So Friar Richard was tried next week

By-this time he had somewhat recovered his spirits and his love of life ; he defended himself, and said that indeed he had slain his brother; hut it was by misadventure; he had thrown a stone at him in some anger, but not to do him deadly harm. This he said with many tears. But, on the other hand, it was proved that he had long hated brother John; that he had got out of the priory without passing the door, and had borrowed the maltster’s mare on a false pretence ; and finally marks of strangulation had been found on the dead man’s throat. All this amazed and overpowered the poor friar ; and, although his terror at the apparition was not easily to be reconciled with his having been the person who tied the body on the horse, and though one alderman, shrewder than the rest, said he thought a great deal lay behind that, yet upon the whole it was thought the safest and most usual course to hang him. So he was condemned to die —in three days’ time.

The friar, seeing his cud so near, struggled no more against his fate. He sent for the prior to confess him, and told the truth with deep sorrow and humility : * Mea culpa! mca culpa !’ he cried, ‘lf I had not hated my brother and broken our rule, then this had not come upon me.’ Then the prior gave him full absolution, and went away exceedingly sorrowful, and doubting the wisdom and justice of laymen, and in particular of those who were about to hang brother Kichard for wilful murder. This preyed upon his mind, and he went to Sir Richard "Erpingham to utter his misgivings, and pray the good Knight to work upon the sheriff, who was his friend, for a respite until the matter could be looked into more closely. The Knight was not at homo, but my lady saw the prior, and learned Lis errand. ‘ Alas, good father ! ’ said she, ‘ Sir Richard is not here ; he is gone to London this two days.’ The prior went home sick at heart, Even so long ago as this they hung from Norwich Castle. So the rude gallows was put up at seven o’clock, and at eight brother Richard must hang and turn in the wind like a weather-cock. But before that fatal hour a King’s messenger galloped into the city and spurred into the courtyard of the castle. Very soon , the Sheriff was reading a parchment signed by the King’s own hand : the gallows was taken down, and the people dispersed by degrees. Some felt ill used. They thought appointments should be kept, or else not made. At night Friar Richard, not reprieved, but, to the amazement of smaller functionaries, freely pardoned by his Sovereign, in a handwriting a housemaid of this day would blush for, but with a glorious seal the size of an apple-fritter, crept forth into the night and, gliding along the streets with his head down, slipped into the priory, and was lost to the world for many a long day. Indeed he was confined to his cell for a month, by order of the prior, and ordered to pray thrice a day for the soul of brother John.

When brother Richard emerged from hia cell he was a changed man. He had gathered amid the thorns of tribulation the wholesome fruit of humility, and the immortal flower of charity. Henceforth no bitter word ever fell from his lips, though for a time he had many provocations, and * Honi soit qui mal j pense’ was the rule of his heart. He made himself of little account, and outlived all enmities. He lived much in his cell, and prayed so often for the soul of brother John, that at last he got to love him dead whom he had hated living. Time rolled on. The Knight’s hair turned grey and the good prior died. Then there was a great commotion in the little priory, and three or four of the leading friars each hoped to be prior. That appointment lay with Sir Richard Erpiugham. He attended the funeral of the late prior, and then desired the subprior to convene the monks. ‘Good brothers,’ said he, ‘your prior is brother Richard. I pray you to invest him forthwith, and yield him due love and obedience.’ The Knight retired, and the monks stared at each other awhile, and then obeyed, since there was no help for it: they invested brother Richard in due form; and such is the magic of station that, in one moment, they began to look on him with different eyes. The new prior bore his dignity so meekly that he disarmed all hostility. His great rule of life was still ‘ Honi soit qui mal y pense,’ and there is no course more apt to conciliate respect and good will. The Knight showed him favour and esteem ; the monks learned to respect, and by-and-by to revere him : but he never ceased to reproach himself, and say masses for the soul of brother John. The years rolled on. The Knight’s grey hair turned white ; and one day he sent for the prior, and said to him * Good Father, I haye grave matter to entertain you withal.’ ‘ Speak, worshipful sir,’ said the prior. The Knight looked at him awhile, but seemed ill at ease, and as one that hath resolved to speak, but is loth to begin. At last he said, * Sir, there be men that waste their goods in sin, or meanly hoard them till their last hour, yet leave them freely to Mother Church, after their death, when they can no longer enjoy them. Others there be whose breasts are laden with a secret crime they ought to confess, and clear some worthy man suspected falsely ; yet they will not tell till they come to die. Methinks this is to be charitable too late, and just, when justice can neither cost a man ought, nor profit his neighbour. Therefore, not to be one of these, I will reveal to you now a deed that sits heavy on my conscience.’ ‘You would confess to me, my son?’

‘As man to man, sir, but not as penitent to his confessor ; for that were no merit in me : it would be no more than bury my secret in a fleshly grave. Nay, what I tell to you, you shall tell to all the world, if good may come of it.’ Here the Knight sighed, and seemed much distempered, like one who wrestleth with himself. Then he cast about how he should begin, and to conclude he opened the matter thus—‘Sir, please you read that letter; it was writ by brother John unto my wife.’ The prior read it, but said never a word. ‘ Sir,’ said the Knight, •do you remember a sad time when you lay in Norwich gaol accused of murder, and cast for death ? ’ ‘ I do remember it well, sir ; and the uncharitable heart that brought me to that pass. ‘ Whilst you lay there, sir, something befell elsewhere, which I will hide no longer from you. The King being at his palace in London, a Knight who had fought by his side in France sought an audience in private; it was granted him at once; then the Knight fell on his knees to the King and begged that his life and lands might be spared, though he had slain a man in heat of blood. The King was grave but gentle, and then I showed him that letter, and owned the truth, that I and my servant, in our fury, had strangled that hapless monk.’ ‘ Alas ! sir, did you take my guilt upon youself to save my life, so fully forfeit? ’Twas I who hated him, ’twas I who fluug the stone.’ ‘At a dead body. I tell thee, man, we strangled him, and set his body up where you saw it; hand in his death you had none,’ The prior uttered a strange cry, and was silent. The Knight continued in a low voice—- ‘ We set him in the yard ; and when we found him in the porch, being half mad with terror and drink together, we bound him on the horse and launched him. All this I told the King, and -he, considering the provocation, and pitying too much his old companion in arms, gave me life and lands; and gave me thine, which indeed was but justice. So uoav, sir, you know that you are iuuoccut of bloodshed, and ’tis I am guilty.’ The Knight looked at the churchman, and thought to see him break forth into thanksgivings. But it was not so. The prior was deeply moved, but not exultant. ‘Sir,’ said he, like a man that is near choking, • let me go to my cell and think over this strange tidings.’ ‘ And pray for me, I do implore you,’ said the Knight. ‘ Ay, sir, and with all my heart. ’ Some days passed, and the Knight looked to hear his own tale come round again. But no; the prior was silent as the grave. Then after a Avhile the Knight sent for him again, and said, ‘Good father, Avhat I told youAvas not under seal of confession. ‘ I know it, sir,’ said the prior. ‘ Yet will it go no further, unless 1 should outlive you by God’s Aviih Alas ! sir, you have taken from me that, which was the health of my soul, my belief that I had slain him I hated so unchristianlike. This belief it made humility easy to me, and even charity not difficult. What engine of Avholesome mortification would be left me now, Avere 1 to go aprating that 1 slew not the brother 1 hared ? May, I will never tell the truth, but carry my precious burden of humility all my days.’ ‘ Oh, saint upon earth ! ’ cried the Knight. ‘ Outlive me, and then tell the truth.’ The monk replied not, but pondered these words. And it fell out so that the Knight died three years after, and the, prior closed bis eyes, and said masses for Ids soul ; and a good while afterwards he did, for the honour of the convent, reveal this true story to two young monks, but bound them by a solemn vow not to spread it during his life. After his death the truth got abroad, and amongst churchmen the prior was much revered, for that he cured himself of an uncharitable heart, and had enforced on himself the penalty of unjust shame for so many years,