How William the Mason avenged Himself on the Twelve Apostles

WILLIAM THE MASON was the best man of his craft in Roodborough. His father before him had been a clever craftsman, but those who best could judge were wont to say that he had never done a better piece of work than the begetting of his son. For William was exceeding skilful not only in the sculpture of stone but also in the carving of wood and the working of precious metals, and occupied himself in all branches of his mystery, in ornament and design and in figures from the life, such as those of men and birds and beasts and flowers. He it was who wove delicate traceries of leaves and tendrils out of the stubborn stone of the capitals in Blewberry Church, which were so esteemed for their excellent beauty that craftsmen came from as far as London merely to examine them. He also carved the rood-screen at Houghton, wherein, upon the one side he cut lively figures of Father Adam and Mother Eve biting upon the apple, with the devilish serpent beholding them maliciously from the boughs of the Tree of Knowledge, and upon the other a vigorous representation of the Blessed Archangel Michael casting Satan into the bottomless pit. This last was such a notable piece of work for vividness and reality, that some of the common folk took occasion thereby to excuse themselves from attending the Divine services with due Christian punctuality, saying that the Devil William had carved so feared and scared them with its hideous aspect, that they could not sleep of nights after having seen it in church. Also he wrought the great oaken rood at Charnwood, carving Christ’s figure thereon from the actual human body, to wit, taking John Dymock for a model and chiselling the wooden block into his likeness limb by limb and muscle by muscle, only altering the countenance a little. Than this nothing more skilful was ever seen, but thereby unhappily enough the aforesaid John Dymock got a great chill upon his lungs and liver, which made him cough and wheeze pitifully the whole winter through until Lammas-tide. William also worked the fair pyx of silver for the Church of Saint Osbert, which, as it was said, was of such surpassing beauty that the Evil One himself coveted it and, coming in the night, stole it away. When Abbot Absalom enlarged and beautified the Abbey Church, he employed William much in the work, and rewarded him with many precious gifts. But of this you will hear more anon.

William’s father, besides being a skilful workman, had been no unthrifty husbandman, so that when he departed this life (God rest his soul) he left unto his son, not only the good dry house at the Bridgend with its adjoining workshop, but much choice stone and timber ready prepared for working upon, a set of carving tools of such sort as were not known in these parts (some having been fetched from as far as Flanders), and a great chest in the bed-chamber nigh half full of golden coin. But although William was a better workman than his father, he was a less thrifty husbandman, for he would not give himself to the careful managing and sparing and putting by, which had made his father a burgher of substance.

‘Money!’ Will was wont to say to his boon fellows at the alehouse,—‘Money! Why, ’tis for spending! I’d as lief be an earthworm and dwell in a midden as sweat and stint and spare to hoard up bits of metal in an old chest. Wife, a good cup of ale for these gentlemen all, and draw of your best. What saith Holy Writ: “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where the moth and the rust corrupt and thieves break through and steal”?’

Then he would run on in his old jesting vein: ‘I will give my best cloak to the man among you who can empty yon stoup without drawing breath, and a French crown to him who hath the reddest nose. I love a red nose above all things, especially when ’tis past strawberry time. What, Nicholas, thou merry devil, strike a tune!’

Whereupon merrily in the alehouse went tabor, tongues, and toes until bedtime, when Will, who called the tune, usually paid the piper in more ways than one. God knows he was a happy, devil-may-care fellow enough, like the pretty painted butterflies you can see in the fields in summertime, ready to spend right royally and to quip and to laugh with the best and worst of folk. When he gave gifts at Saint Valentine’s there were none so rare and fair as his in the town; when he gave alms he scattered his silver right and left like the Lord King when he goes up to Westminster to be crowned, and as though good coin was of no more account than hazel-nuts in September. Twice he journeyed to London to see some marvellous sculpture in a new church there of which he had heard Abbot Absalom speak, and Our Lady alone knows of how much the cozengers and lying knaves of Eastcheap cheated him. Certainly, however, he went each time with a good fat purse at his girdle and returned each time with it emaciated and chapfallen as one of Pharaoh’s lean kine. But he also brought back with him two or three great bales of rich cloths and embroideries, which he had purchased there, partly for his own back and partly for gifts to certain wenches with whom he kept company.

Idle though this good fellow was on occasion, yet when the fit came upon him no Israelite in the House of Bondage would work harder than he. ‘Ay, this is one of my working days,’ he would say to a neighbour, who had poked his nose in at the door to ask what ailed him that he worked so early and sang so loudly in his workshop nowadays. Then away he would go again with his chisel and mallet, hammering, chipping, and shaping as though ’twas all the good Lord had sent him in the world for, and singing like the birds in spring.

‘Wert thou but in this mind always,’ his neighbour would answer, ‘there were no more laborious Christian in England than thou.’

Whereat Will would laugh and say, ‘Thou must not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn; I cannot draw in plough seven days a week.’

At such times he would go with more joy to his labour than other men to the wassail, and such was the delight he took in shaping his figures and forms and fruit and flowers out of the stubborn and recalcitrant stone, that you would have said that the Almighty Himself had had no diviner ecstasy when He hewed the world out of chaos in the first great act of creation. But ardent and zealous as he was to make his thoughts live in the stone and wood, he had no skill or energy in the collection of his just dues and debts, and since folk do not generally pay what they owe unless they are asked twice or thrice, yea, many times, it came about that many a pretty piece of work that he had wrought came gratis to the hands of unscrupulous men, who did not consider that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and that a debt is a debt although it be not importunely demanded. So it came about, that by dint of free spending and poor managing, in less than three years from his father’s death, William found that the oaken chest in the upper chamber had been quite emptied of its coin, and began to be hard put to it for money in his pocket, especially as at this time there was for a short spell little employment of his kind to be gotten. William was not a man to go about with an empty purse if by hook or by crook it might be avoided, so having pondered the matter a little, he straightway bethought himself of the Twelve Apostles, and without more ado betook himself to the dwelling of one Master Matthew, the wealthiest and most notorious of them all.

The Twelve Apostles were not the holy and pitiful men that their name might seem to betoken, nay, they had been so nicknamed by some satirical fellow out of ridicule and contempt, and were indeed little better than Jews, being usurers. Yet the name befitted them in some respects (although not in respects the most honourable), for there were twelve of these ill-conditioned fellows, and they were mostly named after the Blessed Disciples of our Lord, one being Peter, another Matthew, another Luke, another Philip, and so on; and they lived as close to each other as possible, cheek by jowl in a corner of the Market Place, as though there were great affection between them, a thing impossible to conceive of such villains. Howbeit their nickname was commonly in men’s mouths, so that it was a common jest in the town when any one had gone a-borrowing, that ‘he had gone to church to the Twelve Apostles,’ and when any one paid them back that ‘Peter had had his pence,’ or that such a one ‘had given an offering to Saint Luke’ or ‘to Saint Philip,’ as the case might be.

God knows, it was an accursed trade these extortioners drove, laying out their money at interest, and taking bonds upon raiment, jewels, and land, and even upon consecrated churches, reaping where they had not sown, and taking up where they had not planted. Lo, what saith Master Aristotle, that learned Greek? So to do, saith he, is to sin against nature by making money to breed unnaturally and foully upon money, and ’tis widely known that Holy Mother Church strictly forbids such abominable traffic to all Christians. But why should I repeat all this? These evil men knew the law of God as well as I, but it availed nought against their accursed lust of gold, which perhaps were the more pardonable had they been Jews and heathen, but, nay, they loudly confessed and proclaimed themselves Christians, and were as punctual in all the observances of the Church as any man in town. They thought belike, that having cheated God on Week Days they might also cheat him on Holy Days; God yield them in good measure therefor, when Satan shall pour down their greedy maws in Hell the molten metal which they loved so well on earth. Yea, and as much blame and punishment is due to the Lords and powerful men, who countenanced and supported them in their usury, whereby drawing profit to themselves from the sin of others.

Now Master Matthew, to whom William had betaken himself, was a shrivelled-up old man, bow-legged and palsy-stricken, with a bald head like a bladder, a long grey beard wherein the birds might have nested, skinny loose cheeks, cunning goggling eyes, and a long sharp nose like a quill with a big black wart growing on the side of it.

‘Good morrow, Master Matthew,’ quoth Will, bursting into the chamber where the old usurer sat at work, casting up his debts with tallies on a chequered board.

‘Good morrow,’ wheezed Master Matthew as though he had a peck of March dust in his throat. He blinked cunningly at Will for one moment with his red eyelids and then resumed his calculations.

‘Nay,’ cried Will, slapping him bravely on the shoulder till he coughed again and his eyes seemed ready to start from their red sockets; ‘nay, thou greedy old cock, cease scratching thy dunghill a moment and lend me thirty crowns instanter.’

‘Lend thee “thirty crowns,”’ screamed Master Matthew. ‘“Thirty crowns?” Holy Paul, dost thou think I am a rich man? Where am I to get thirty crowns, or half that?’

‘Thou abominable old liar,’ cried Will merrily, slapping his back again. ‘For shame, for shame, aged Master Matthew. Wilt thou also add to the sin of usury the sin of lying? Consider thy bald head and grey beard, consider thy weak joints and short breath, and at thine age heap not up damnation on a soul already as damned as any in Roodborough.’

‘Blessed Saints, let my back alone; I tell thee I have it not to lend; I have no such sum by me, at least not at present. Besides, what security shall I have? What security is there, tell me that?’

‘Ah, ah, my amiable Jew, thou wilt find the thirty crowns if I find the security? Is it not so? Well, take my house, my workshop, my furnishings, my tools, my utensils, my cloak, my shirt upon my back. Is not that enough, my Barrabbas?’

‘Holy Saints, I do not know, I cannot tell, I must think about it. Perhaps ’twould do an I had the money,’ said Master Matthew eagerly, biting his scrubby, cracked nails, and throwing quick, cunning glances at William.

‘Perchance you might find the money an you looked carefully,’ said Will. ‘Hast looked in the chimney, hast looked in thy sock or in thy long beard?’

‘Nay, nay, I tell thee I have it not; but perhaps my good friend, Master Luke, may help, or, now I think of it, perhaps to oblige thee, Master Luke, Master Mark, and I might make up the sum between us. Verily, I believe it might be done. Marry, good Master William Mason, if that will serve thy turn, we should be glad to help out an honest man at need. I will see, I will see; but do thou return hither this afternoon, against when I may have the bond ready for thee to sign.’

Thus William got his thirty crowns upon his bond, but upon such hard conditions were they lent that within six months (since employment still remained scarce) he began woefully to perceive that presently the Twelve Apostles would enter upon his house and shop, and confiscate the very tools wherewith he earned his bread and meat, so that in the future he might look not only for an empty purse but also for an empty belly. Without doubt this would have come to pass, had not old Abbot Absalom at this time taken it into his head to glorify the Blessed Mother of God by enlarging and beautifying the Abbey Church. This enterprise he conceived in no mean spirit, extending the nave forty feet or more, and the aisles in proportion, and ornamenting the whole church, both old and new, with many choice sculptures, wherein he made much use of William, both for his excellent advice and his skill with his hands. For which work William received many rich and generous gifts from the Abbot, and with these he was able at length to redeem his bond from the usurers, although only at three times the price he had received for it. Whereat he cursed Master Matthew and his friends right shrewdly, so that it made people rejoice to hear him, and he swore that he would yet be avenged upon the whole pack of them. Yea, he said he would fain be a Devil in Hell, if only for the pleasure of tormenting Master Matthew in the Lake of Fire.

II

When Abbot Absalom was on his way from Rome, from seeing our Father the Pope, he had been shown in a certain place in France a church porch of such exquisite proportions and workmanship as filled him with admiration. When, therefore, he enlarged the Abbey Church, he determined to build the great West door in a similar fashion, and while the work was yet in hand he sent for William and asked him to carve some religious figures for ornament upon the upper projection of the porch. William gladly agreed to do all that he wished, and hied him joyfully home and set straightway to work. He laboured diligently and without remission for very many weeks, and with such secrecy, covering up and removing each piece of sculpture as he finished it, as folk had never seen in him before, so that no one knew what subjects he had chosen to illustrate in his work. A few days before Easter Sunday, together with his men Abel and Geoffrey, he took the great stones he had carved, all swathed in old cloths so that none should see them, and fitted them in their places upon the porch, giving out to all that his work should be seen for the first time fully unveiled on Easter Sunday.

On Easter Sunday, as is the custom, nigh all the townsfolk in their best raiment flocked to the Morrow Mass in the Abbey Church, but first and earliest of all went William himself with many of his gossips, as Nicholas the Piper, Tom the Fletcher, Ned Arrowsmith and Sim the Hayward, and his two men Abel and Geoffrey. With them also went Master Brereton and his good wife, and fat Mistress Slopstone, Kate of the Cross Roads, bonny Gilly Hedgerow, and a score more of good wenches. They walked in great glee, and by the way there was talk of William’s piece of work to be seen that day.

‘Marry,’ said Nick, ‘now we shall see this handiwork of thine, which thou hast kept as secret as a priest his bastard.’

‘By Our Lady,’ quoth Mistress Slopstone, ‘it should be a bonny loaf that has been so long in the baking.’

‘Nay, nay,’ answered Will, ‘’tis a poor thing enough, I warrant you, a few holy figures to call folk to a better mind, nothing more.’

So they came to the church, and when they cast their eyes up at Will’s carvings, now plain to be seen, and perceived what manner of thing it was he had done, they burst into sudden laughter that they could not contain, until the tears ran down their cheeks, their sides heaved as though they would crack, and their knees began to give way under them. Even good Master Brereton, usually solemn as an owl, laughed until he was fain to bend double and grip his knees with his hands. As for Nick, he tumbled on the grass upon his back and laughed until he was weak as water or a six months’ child.

‘Thou witty devil, ha, ha,’ laughed Tom Fletcher.

‘Ah, ah, thou whoreson clever knave,’ gasped fat Mistress Slopstone, her fat old sides quivering and shaking until her stomacher burst.

‘Thou naughty—he, he, he’ laughed Mistress Kate, covering her great open mouth with her huge bony hand, while her bones rattled up and down in their skinny case.

‘Verily, William,’ said Mistress Brereton smiling heartily, ‘thou art the cunningest rogue and the best mason in England. I see a man is a right fool to fall out with thee.’

‘A few figures of religion, figures of religion,’ quoth William, taking off his bonnet and bowing right low and gallantly.

By this time other folk had come up, and shortly there was a great crowd staring and laughing at Will’s handiwork, and so loath were they to leave looking thereon, that there were few but the gravel-blind that were punctual to Mass that morning.

Will had taken a shrewd revenge on the Twelve Apostles. Above the porch he had carved with wonderful mastery, as though from the very act of life itself, a representation of Devils carrying usurers to Hell, to each of twelve usurers a couple of hideous Devils, and each usurer an exact and speaking likeness of one of these cursed Twelve Apostles. In the middle of the piece, especially plain to be seen, was Master Matthew despairingly resisting two shaggy Devils who were lugging him from his money-bags. One grisly Devil, all be-hoofed and be-horned, had twined his foul legs around him and forced his bald pate downward with his bony claw, fastening his teeth in a great bite in his naked neck. The other had grasped Master Matthew’s waist with one arm with such violence and force that his talons sank deeply into the belly and chest; with his other claw he tugged with right good will at Master Matthew’s beard. Nor was there any mistaking Master Matthew; there might you see his bald head, his little eyes goggling out of his head, his loose hanging cheeks (down which round stony tears had now been made to course), his bandy legs; yea, all so done to the life that you might discern even the wart with which God had punished him upon the side of his long nose.

To the right and left of this group were the other Apostles, done with an equal energy and faithfulness, so that folk regarding them were fain to burst into laughter of recognition, although Will had distorted their faces with grotesque grimaces of agony and dismay.

‘Holy Mary, there is Master Mark with the patch in his cloak he hath had this many a long year,’ cried one of the crowd. ‘Yea, but it is wonderful; and does the old miser intend to take that to Hell with him also?’

‘Saints,’ cried another, ‘he hath gotten the hump on Master Philip’s back to a wonderment. Eh, but I am woe to look upon that Master Philip’s face, it is that adread and afeared.’

‘Yea, neighbour,’ answered another, ‘but look upon Master John’s withered hand; I could swear to it among a thousand.’

All unwitting came the Twelve Apostles amongst the crowd to see what this star-gazing should mean, mayhap thinking, avaricious hypocrites, that a Blessed Saint had come down from Heaven to borrow a hundred crowns. The people cheered and laughed when they saw them, and did not spare their quips and quirks, casting their eyes up at the carven figures and crying, that ‘Hell must indeed be a fearsome place, where such naughty fellows went,’ and that ‘sin was written on their faces,’ and much more to that effect. Whereat the Twelve gnashed their teeth and snarled at them like dogs, and crept off homeward as fast as they might.

Thereafter, when they met William in the Market or upon the way, they glared at him with spiteful eyes and cursed him under their breath. But he, being quit of them and having gotten his revenge, smiled sweetly upon them in return and wished them ‘Good-day.’ Honest folk, seeing them go to the Abbey Church as before and nothing amend their ways, said it was a wonder that God did not make the carven images fall upon them and thus slay them in their hypocritical wickedness.

III

A few months afterwards, when the savour of the jest had become somewhat stale in the nostrils of the town, it happened that old Master Matthew, looking out of an upper chamber at the backside of the house early one morning, spied a certain maid washing out her smocks in a little green and private garden, and his mind was so perturbed at the view of her pretty cheeks, fair white arms and full bosom, that his evil old frame began to shake with desire from head to foot. He spied upon her secretly for some days, and then, unable to contain any longer, he went incontinently to her father (who was a poor man of the town) and obtained the girl in marriage, offering largely for her and buying her with money as though she had been a cow or a sheep instead of a Christian woman.

When the news got about the town that old Master Matthew was minded to marry a young wench, great was the talk thereof. Some asked what an old wretch, who had enough to do with cordials and powders to keep the flicker of life in his withered carcass, could want with a wife. Others said that there was not heat enough in his heart to warm his own body in bed of a winter’s night, and that he had better be thinking of burying instead of marrying; others that he had been better minded to patch up his old soul for the next world than to meddle with womankind, with much more that was true of the same sort. Even his infamous companions in sin, the Apostles (or the Apostates as they might have been more rightly called), came and reasoned with him against his intention, saying that a young wife would be wanton, fickle, and wasteful, spending and squandering on rich garments for her back and rare dainties for her belly, and wasting in a few months what he had hardly gotten in so many years, and that she would make his life a Hell or at least a Purgatory so as to bundle him as quickly as might be into his grave, that she might enjoy his goods and fortune with a lusty young husband of her own choosing after his decease. But old men are violent and headstrong in their fancies, and Master Matthew in his sudden heat seemed to love the wench even more than his gold and silver, so that all their persuasions were of no effect.

On the bridal day, therefore, away he crept to Church in a shabby green jerkin, which he had had from Nick the Piper in pawn, with a favour in his bosom and a stick in his hand. Holy Virgin, but a pretty couple the jolly young Margot and he made, she fresh and fair as a mead in May when it is all be-starred with flowers, he like a figure of Old Time on a monument. He tottered along clinging to her arm like a brat to his mother’s gown, stumbling and coughing and wheezing and spitting as though he would shatter his old frame to pieces. She looked straight before her, and the tears stood in her bonny blue eyes.

So they came to the threshold of the Church, and lo, just as the wretched old man put forth his quivering foot to touch consecrated ground, the Lord showed full mightily that He does not sleep or slumber, for He touched the stone whereon William had carved the carrying hence of Master Matthew by Devils with His finger and it fell suddenly from its place and smote the usurer on his bald and shining skull, crushing him to the ground. When they ran to him and raised him up, he was dead. Truly, when William carved that stone, God inspired him more than he thought, so that his chisel carved not only symbols but also prophecies.

When the news of this event became known in the town, folk said that it was a judgment of God upon Master Matthew, because he had practised the sin of usury, and they began to ask how long the remaining eleven Apostles would be suffered to live in their wickedness. Many thought that each in his turn would be slain in precisely the same manner, each by his own carven stone as he went through the great West porch to offer hypocrisy at the altar of the Most High. When men met any of them walking abroad, they would stand and jeer at them with cunning words.

‘Nay, I know not, Master Luke,’ would Nick the Piper say, ‘but if I were one of you fellows, who live in the corner of the Market, I would never go into the Church unless it were by the windows.’

‘Is Master Mark alive yet?’ would ask the Fletcher. ‘I wot he had been killed by a shrewd blow on the pate days ago.’

‘Hast thou heard?’ quoth Sim. ‘An angel sat watching all last Holy Day on the great porch. I marvel, Master Mark, that thou and thy fellows come not to Church. Surely thou hast been instructed and knowest what is fit for a Christian man?’

‘Has Master Philip’s stone fallen from the Church porch yet?’ asked the Arrowsmith. ‘Methinks it seemed perilously loosened last time I saw it.’

Robert the Carpenter, meeting three of the Apostles in the Market Place, stopped them and roundly declared in the hearing of all that he would build eleven good oak coffins for such as might be in need of them as cheaply as might be, were they only bespoken at once and in that quantity.

By reason of so many quips and dry bobs the Apostles were in a few weeks brought to a misery and humiliation befitting their state of sin. They scarcely dared poke their noses from their lattices into the street but folk would begin to cry out upon them and to wonder loudly that they were still alive. None of them dared go to Church; Master Mark, taking his courage in both hands, set out one Holy Day, but when he came in sight of the church porch, and caught sight of the gap in the upper projection thereof, whence Master Matthew’s stone had fallen, his heart failed him and he turned back, and that although many good men standing within the porch, encouraged him to enter, calling to him that it were better to be damned as a usurer than as a heretic. This saying, getting passed from mouth to mouth, gave new matter to the people, who now stood about in their idle moments under the Apostles’ houses in the corner of the Market Place, and cried to each other that the Abbot had written a letter to the Archdeacon of the Diocese that there were eleven men in the town, who came to none of the Divine Services, and were esteemed either heretics or Jews, and that the Archdeacon had sent word in reply that he would shortly come with his clerks and purge the town of heresy as though with a raging fire, and further inquiring whether there were any known and notorious practisers of usury in the Borough.

At which words the eleven Apostles, who stood each one listening beside his lattice, quaked with dread and crept away silently to the back of the house, being too afeared to listen to any more of such talk.

IV

One night, about an hour after sundown, William returned from dancing on the green. It had turned in chill with a heavy dew falling, so he sat awhile before the fire to warm himself before going to his bed. As he sat humming to himself a jolly tune he had gotten from Nick the Piper, there came a sort of scratching or rustling at the door.

‘Beshrew me,’ he said half aloud, ‘but rats are as plentiful as blackberries in this house,’ and he hurled a log at the place whence the sound came. But instead of the noise ceasing, it came again a little louder than before, and Will then understood that it was some one fumbling at the latch outside.

‘In God’s name,’ he cried lustily, ‘come in, thou old bat.’

With that the latch was hesitatingly lifted and Master Mark cautiously poked his red pate inside and peered suspiciously around.

‘What,’ cried Will, ‘Master Mark? Mine ancient friend of the patched cloak, mine honest acquaintance the Prince of the Jews? Enter, my worthy usurer, out of the night dew and warm thy cold heart against the fire.’

‘For the love of Mary, good Master Will, speak more quietly,’ stuttered Master Mark, half dead with fear. ‘If these town devils hear thee, they will slay me.’

‘Oh, oh,’ thought Will. ‘“Good Master Will,” forsooth. Sits the wind in that quarter i’ faith?’

Master Mark insinuated himself through the doorway and, shutting the door behind him with exceeding great quietness, shuffled into the room.

‘Sit down, my Master,’ quoth Will courteously, ‘though why thou thus honourest my poor dwelling, I cannot tell, since I have no need or mind to go a-borrowing again.’

Master Mark subsided heavily upon a chair, blew a great sigh of relief from his gross carcass, and blinked ponderingly at the fire with his beady black eyes. Then he turned to William and, with his harsh voice for the nonce tuned to entreaty, said, ‘Good Master William Mason, I know thou hast a mild and compassionate heart, albeit thou art fond of quips and laughter.’

‘Yea, I am a mild man,’ quoth William, ‘as mild as curds and whey.’

‘Yea, yea, and so say all men, so therefore when my friends and I took counsel together.’

‘Thy friends. Prithee, and who are they?’

‘Why, Master Luke and Master Philip and Master——’

‘Ay, now I take thee, the Apostles?’

‘Ay, so men blasphemously miscall us, who are indeed good Christian men. When we had taken thought together, it seemed best to us all, seeing that thou wert a man with bowels of compassion, that one of us should come and tell thee that we cast ourselves utterly on thy misericord and mercy.’

‘“Mercy?” “Misericord?” Master Mark, thou jestest. Are ye not rich? Have ye not gold? Have ye not houses? Have ye not lands? Who are ye, to cast yourselves on the mercy of a poor fellow that lives by the sweat of his brow?’

‘Ah, sir, jest not with miserable and broken men, that are as worms under thy heel. Hast thou not wrought satirical sculptures of us over the Church porch, and filled the dead stones with a devilish cunning and malice, that they lie, as it were, in wait, to precipitate themselves upon us when we pass underneath, so that we are afeared for our lives to fulfil our pious desires and devoirs to Holy Church, which we duly owe as Christian men?’

Master Mark snuffled in his nose and rubbed his dirty sleeve across his gingery eyebrows.

‘“Christian men”?’ said Will. ‘I had thought ye were Jews.’

‘Nay, gentle Master Will, no Jews, but as good Christians as any in Roodborough. Yea, and have not thy sculptures brought upon us the hatred and contempt of the whole town, so that we daily go in fear of violence even to murder? Ay, and besides; whereas we dare not for thy spiteful carvings go to Church to Mass or Confession, do not the people say openly that we are heretics and Jews, and threaten to present us to the Archdeacon that we may be delivered to the torment and the fire?’

‘’Twas the finger of God that hurled the stone on the head of old Master Matthew, and none can stand before His wrath. Thou wert best, Master Mark, to get to thy prayers, for I doubt whether thou wilt live over long.’

‘Good Master Will,’ whined Master Mark, ‘we do indeed pray hourly and daily to the Blessed Virgin and all Saints to intercede for us, miserable sinners. But thou art a good, kindly man, and perchance in this case more powerful than they, and we would ask thee, we would entreat thee, to take down—of course for a payment—for a good substantial sum—to take down these carven figures, that we may worship in the Church again like good Christian men, as we did heretofore.’

‘Holy Saints of God, and wouldst thou have the artist destroy his artistry, desecrate the Blessed Church and meddle with the wrath of God? Blessed Mary forbid.’

‘Nay, nay, we would not have thee destroy thy work, which is indeed exceeding rare and cunning, but only to remove it from its present place, so that we might go to Mass in safety. Doubtless if thou take it down, thou couldst sell it again at great profit. Besides, good Master William, remember that it hath been defaced already with the fall of Master Matthew’s stone, and with each one of us that crosses the threshold of the porch, it will deface itself more, until it be entirely destroyed, and that with lamentable shedding of blood.’

‘Of a surety, Master Mark, each stone will have its man.’

‘Ah, Master William, have mercy upon us broken men. We will pay thee, I warrant thee, if thou wilt but remove them, and that right liberally.’

William lit a taper at the fire, and going to his workshop door, flung it open. He peered within, holding the taper high above his head so that the light fell on the shattered image of Master Matthew struggling in the hands of the demons.

‘’Tis piteously shattered,’ he thought, ‘I doubt beyond redemption. Lo, the old man is dead now and doubtless in Hell; I should be loath to set his figure up again thus. Yet without it my work is defaced, yea, and every Apostle that ventures into Church will deface it more.’

Then his eye fell on certain parchments, whereon he had but yesterday sketched out a fair design and had sighed to himself to think that there was no other porch like that at the Abbey Church to ornament. He had thought that, were it to be done again, he would do it thus, and better so. He turned to Master Mark, who watched him with cunning eyes like a pig’s.

‘And what wilt thou pay me for taking down the carvings?’ he asked.

‘Marry,’ cried Mark joyfully, ‘we are no skinflints, good sir; we are honest men and will pay. For each stone thou removest we will give thee ten crowns.’

‘Ten crowns. Thou jestest, my gentle usurer. Hast thou bethought that the carvings have not only to be removed but also to be replaced by others as beautiful? Thou hast best home again.’

‘Oh Mary, ten crowns. Wilt thou not take ten crowns? Oh, the hard hearts of men. Not ten crowns? Nay then, fifteen. Nay? Not fifteen? Then twenty, twenty crowns; say twenty crowns for each stone, Master William, eleven twenties, two hundred and twenty crowns in all, or say two hundred, two hundred in all.’

‘Hast thou considered, Master Mark, that maybe there is the Abbot to placate for taking liberties with his new Porch? Is not even a usurer’s life worth thirty crowns? Say thirty crowns for each stone and I will close with thee, nay, for three hundred crowns in all I am thine. Dost agree? Otherwise, home again to thy prayers, mine ancient penitent.’

‘Oh,’ groaned Master Mark, ‘oh Mary, that such a young man should have such a hard heart, and should be so covetous. Three hundred didst thou say?’

‘Yea, no less.’

‘Mary, Mary, ’tis too much.’

‘Good even, then, Master Mark.’

‘Nay, nay, if thou must, then thou shalt have it, three hundred crowns. But thou wilt take away every single stone?’

‘Yea, and replace every single one.’

‘Swear then.’

‘Nay, my word is my bond.’

‘Promise then.’

‘Ay, I promise.’

‘Agreed then, and I take thy promise. But when wilt thou do it?’

‘As soon as I have carved the stones wherewith to replace thee and thy brethren. But do thou bring the three hundred crowns here this time to-morrow evening.’

‘Yea, I will bring two hundred and the other hundred after the work is finished.’

‘If it please thee, good night.’

‘Good night.’

Master Mark crept forth from the house like a rat from his hole.

For three months afterwards Will was seldom to be seen at the Market, at the Green, or at the Alehouse, but was ever in his shop singing like a thrush and working like a Trojan. When folk asked what kept him so busy these days he would answer that he was carving a wondrous fine memorial for Master Matthew’s grave, whereat they laughed and called him a mad wag.

When he had finished the work, having called his two faithful men, Abel and Geoffrey, to him, he swore them to secrecy. Then he told them all that he was about and desired them to help him, to which they agreed right willingly. That night after Vespers they went privily forth by a back way to the Church, bearing with them a ladder and mallets and chisels. Climbing the porch, they worked there the best part of the night, breaking away the mortar and cement which held the carved stones in their places, so that in the end they rested loosely in their sockets and might be carried easily away. The next night came in very misty and dark, so that for lack of light they could not go and finish their work, but the night following they stole forth again and this time brought down the Apostles from their places on the porch and replaced them by the stones which William had newly worked, in such sort that the upper part of the porch was all remade as he had designed it afresh.

Early next morning the people coming to Mass were filled with great astonishment to see that the Apostles had disappeared and in their place were carvings the most beautiful imaginable of the Adoration of Our Lord by the Three Magi. Many and loud were their expressions of wonder and admiration, and, ever as the news spread, the crowd of those gazing increased, until nigh half the town stood round the West Porch. All agreed that cunning as William’s work had been, it was naught compared with this. ‘Nay,’ they said among themselves, ‘William doth well enough, but this is beyond him; this is plainly the hand of God. Glory be to the Blessed Virgin, that we should live to see such a great miracle worked, and in this our town too.’

Then up spake a certain cordwainer, ‘Now I call to mind somewhat I saw late last night, as I came from Mistress Woolcomb’s churching-ale.’

‘And what was that?’ they asked him.

‘Marry, ’twas full moon,’ said he, ‘and wondrous bright, and casting my eyes on the Abbey Church as I came down the Abbey hill, ’twas as though I saw three great fellows hard at work on yon porch. I had drunk full heavy of Mistress Woolcomb’s strong ale, and I weened I had been deceived, else had I spoken before, but now methinks they were wondrous large for mortal men and had each a glory round his head very sweet and comfortable to see.’

‘Yea,’ quoth another, ‘and I saw them too as I came with the cordwainer, and I dared not speak either, for I had drunk full heavily and weened that they might not be there after all, and they had mighty wings all feathery on their shoulders and a great light was going forth out of them.’

‘Doubtless,’ said the people, ‘these were three angels, and they it is who have wrought this beautiful work.’

Whereupon it straightway went through the town that the three Archangels had visited the Abbey Church in the night and had carved thereon the Adoration of the Magi in the stead of William’s usurers. This tale cast the whole place into a turmoil and, spreading into the country districts, caused the upland folk to come into Roodborough in hundreds in order to see the angelic handiwork. For many days the town was like a fair with so many people coming and going, with such selling of meat and beer and bread, such cryings for lodging and stabling, such companies of pilgrims, so many monks and friars and so many minstrels and tumblers. Never before had the alehouses and hostelries been so full, and never before had so much good coin flowed into them in so short time.

Meanwhile William, and Abel and Geoffrey, played mum-budget and held their tongues, privily laughing and girding one another, saluting each other by ‘Blessed Archangel Michael,’ or ‘Good Sir Raphael,’ or ‘My Lord Gabriel.’ William said that never before had folk so fully owned to his skilful craftsmanship, and he should without doubt be able to sell the Apostles elsewhere for a good round sum.

But at the end of a couple of weeks came old Abbot Absalom riding down from London, from the King’s holding of Parliament. Being told of the great miracle which the Blessed Archangels had worked on his Church porch, he went in hot haste to behold it. He examined it carefully and critically.

‘Marry,’ quoth he at length in a dry decided voice, ‘if this be the work of the Blessed Archangels, then have Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael been to school at that knave William’s.’

Then he pointed with his staff to the figure of Our Blessed Lady, carved to the life, holding the Holy Infant on her lap for the Wise Men to adore. ‘God’s foot,’ quoth he, ‘I have seen that Virgin’s face somewhere before.’

They all began to stare at the carven Virgin; then some began to titter and then to laugh, and at last one cried out, ‘Beshrew me, if it is not bonny Gilly Hedgerow from the Crutched House.’

Now at the time William was amorous of this wench.

When the Abbot had dined he sent a messenger for William, and had him brought forthwith into his presence.

‘Right noble and celestial sire,’ said the Abbot, bowing satirically as low as his fat paunch would let him, ‘I have spoken with many a great lord and noble, with our Lord the King and with His Holiness the Pope, but never have I had the honour of meeting an Archangel before.’

Whereupon William fell down upon his knees and told the Abbot all that had happened, how the Twelve Apostles had cheated him of a hundred crowns, and how he had made them repay him three times as much. In the end he asked forgiveness, humbly submitting that although he had indeed taken down the Apostles he had put a better piece of work in their place.

Then the Abbot laughed heartily at the story and, raising William to his feet, sent for a cup of wine wherein he pledged him merrily as the wittiest cogging knave in England, and forced him also to pledge him in return.

‘I freely forgive thee,’ quoth he, ‘for thou hast not only given me a good jest to tell to my Lord Abbot of Saint Alban’s, but an excellent exchange against the Apostles, which, however, I will buy from thee again for the Chapter House.’

So saying he gave Will the cup with twenty crowns in it to boot, and afterwards told the story of Will’s revenge upon the usurers with great applause at the King’s Court at Westminster. When the townsfolk got to hear of it, they laughed as heartily thereat as the Abbot had done, and for a long time afterwards William and his two men were commonly known as the Archangels. Further, they said that Roodborough was indeed a town favoured by God, for whereas it had long possessed a famous goodly Abbey and the Twelve Apostles, now also it had the three Archangels into the bargain.