Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers. Various

then things were so apt to be misrepresented—in short, she would leave the whole affair to St. Austin, who being a gentleman, could interfere with propriety, avenge her affront as well as his own, and leave no loop-hole for scandal. St. Austin himself seems to have had his scruples, though of their precise nature it would be difficult to determine, for it were idle to suppose him at all afraid of the Baron's boots. Be this as it may, the mode which he adopted was at once prudent and efficacious. As an ecclesiastic, he could not well call the Baron out—had his boots been out of the question; so he resolved to have recourse to the law. Instead of Shurland Castle, therefore, he repaired forthwith to his own magnificent monastery, situate just without the walls of Canterbury, and presented himself in a vision to its abbot. No one who has ever visited that ancient city can fail to recollect the splendid gateway which terminates the vista of St. Paul's street, and stands there yet in all its pristine beauty. The tiny train of miniature artillery which now adorns its battlements is, it is true, an ornament of a later date; and is said to have been added some centuries after by a learned but jealous proprietor, for the purpose of shooting any wiser man than himself, who might chance to come that way. Tradition is silent as to any discharge having taken place, nor can the oldest inhabitant of modern days recollect any such occurrence. [Footnote: Since the appearance of the first edition of this Legend "the guns" have been dismounted. Rumor hints at some alarm on the part of the Town Council.] Here it was, in a handsome chamber, immediately over the lofty archway, that the Superior of the monastery lay buried in a brief slumber, snatched from his accustomed vigils. His mitre—for he was a mitred Abbot, and had a seat in parliament—rested on a table beside him: near it stood a silver flagon of Gascony wine, ready, no doubt, for the pious uses of the morrow. Fasting and watching had made him more than usually somnolent, than which nothing could have been better for the purpose of the Saint, who now appeared to him radiant in all the colors of the rainbow.

      "Anselm!" said the beatific vision,—"Anselm! are you not a pretty fellow to lie snoring there when your brethren are being knocked at head, and Mother Church herself is menaced?—It is a sin and a shame, Anselm!"

      "What's the matter?—Who are you?" cried the Abbot, rubbing his eyes, which the celestial splendour of his visitor had set a-winking. "Ave Maria! St. Austin himself! Speak, Beatissime! what would you with the humblest of your votaries?"

      "Anselm!" said the saint, a "brother of our order, whose soul Heaven assoilzie! hath been foully murdered. He had been ignominiously kicked to the death, Anselm; and there he lieth check-by-jowl with a wretched carcass, which our sister Bridget has turned out of her cemetery for unseemly grinning. Arouse thee, Anselm!"

      "Ay, so please you, Sanctssime!" said the Abbot. "I will order forthwith that thirty masses be said, thirty Paters, and thirty Aves."

      "Thirty fools' heads!" interrupted his patron, who was a little peppery.

      "I will send for bell, book, and candle—"

      "Send for an inkhorn, Anselm. Write me now a letter to his Holiness the Pope in good round terms, and another to the Sheriff, and seize me the never-enough-to-be anathematized villain who hath done this deed! Hang him as high as Haman, Anselm!—up with him!—down with his dwelling place, root and branch, hearth-stone and roof-tree,—down with it all, and sow the site with salt and sawdust."

      St. Austin, it will perceived, was a radical reformer.

      "Marry will I," quoth the Abbot, warming with the Saint's eloquence: "ay, marry will I, and that instanter. But there is one thing you have forgotten most Beatified—the name of the culprit."

      "Robert de Shurland."

      "The Lord of Sheppey! Bless me!" said the Abbot, crossing himself, "won't that be rather inconvenient? Sir Robert is a bold baron, and a powerful: blows will come and go, and crowns will be cracked and—"

      "What is that to you, since yours will not be of the number?"

      "Very true, Beatissime!—I will don me with speed and do your bidding."

      "Do so, Anselm!—fail not to hang the Baron, burn his castle, confiscate his estate, and buy me two large wax candles for my own particular shrine out of your share of the property."

      With this solemn injunction, the vision began to fade.

      "One thing more!" cried the Abbot, grasping his rosary.

      "What is that?" asked the Saint.

      "O Beate Augustine, ora pro nobis!"

      "Of course I shall," said St. Austin. "Pax vo-biscum!"—and Abbot

      Anselm was left alone.

      Within an hour all Canterbury was in commotion. A friar had been murdered,—two friars—ten, twenty; a whole convent had been assaulted, sacked, burnt,—all the monks had been killed, and all the nuns had been kissed! Murder! fire! sacrilege! Never was city in such an uproar. From St. George's gate to St. Dunstan's suburb, from the Donjon to the borough of Staplegate, it was noise and hubbub. "Where was it?"—"When was it?"—"How was it?" The Mayor caught up his chain, the Aldermen donned their furred gowns, the Town Clerk put on his spectacles. "Who was he?"—"What was he?"—"Where was he?"—He should be hanged,—he should be burned,—he should be broiled,—he should be fried,—he should be scraped to death with red-hot-oyster-shells! "Who was he?"—"What was his name?"

      The Abbot's Apparitor drew forth his roll and read aloud:—'Sir Robert de Shurland, Knight banneret, Baron of Shurland and Minster, and Lord of Sheppey.

      The Mayor put his chain in his pocket, the Aldermen took off their gowns, the Town Clerk put his pen behind his ear. It was a county business altogether;—the Sheriff had better call out the posse comitatus.

      While saints and sinners were thus leaning against him, the Baron de Shurland was quietly eating his breakfast. He had passed a tranquil night, undisturbed by dreams of cowl or capuchin; nor was his appetite more affected than his conscience. On the contrary, he sat rather longer over his meal than usual; luncheon-time came, and he was ready as ever for his oysters: but scarcely had Dame Martin opened his first half-dozen when the warder's horn was heard from the barbican.

      "Who the devil's that?" said Sir Robert. "I'm not at home, Periwinkle.

      I hate to be disturbed at meals, and I won't be at home to anybody."

      "An't please your lordship," answered the Seneschal, "Paul Prior hath given notice that there is a body—"

      "Another body!" roared the Baron. "Am I to be everlastingly plagued with bodies? No time allowed me to swallow a morsel. Throw it into the moat!"

      "So please you my lord, it is a body of horse,—and—and Paul says there is a still large body of foot behind it; and he thinks, my lord— that is, he does not know, but he thinks—and we all think, my lord, that they are coming to—to besiege the castle!"

      "Besiege the castle! Who? What? What for?"

      "Paul says, my lord, that he can see the banner of St. Austin, and the bleeding heart of Hamo de Crevecoeur, the Abbot's chief vassal; and there is John de Northwood, the sheriff, with his red cross engrailed; and Hever, and Leybourne, and Heaven knows how many more: and they are all coming on as fast as ever they can."

      "Periwinkle," said the Baron, "up with the draw-bridge; down with the portcullis; bring me a cup of canary, and my nightcap. I won't be bothered with them. I shall go to bed."

      "To bed, my lord!" cried Periwinkle, with a look that seemed to say,

      "He's crazy!"

      At this moment the shrill tones of a trumpet were heard to sound thrice from the champaign. It was the signal for parley; the Baron changed his mind; instead of going to bed, he went to the ramparts.

      "Well, rapscallions! and what now?" said the Baron.

      A herald, two pursuivants, and a trumpeter, occupied the foreground of the scene; behind them, some three hundred paces off, upon a rising ground, was drawn up in battle-array the main body of the ecclesiastical forces.

      "Hear you, Robert de Shurland, Knight, Baron of Shurland and Minster, and Lord of Sheppey, and know all men, by these presents, that I do hereby attach you,