When Robert Annys was announced, a message was sent to him, bidding him be a guest at dinner, which was just on the point of being served, and promising him private audience immediately after. So he waited in one of the stately apartments of the superb palace, and looked on the walls and ceilings, all wainscoted with oak so carefully chosen that the better part of a forest must have been sacrificed to it, and on the rich tapestries and hangings, and wondered that those calling themselves servants of God should be housed in palaces of brick and stone with ten windows to a front and three stories, one on the other, while those to whom they ministered in the name of Christ were huddled together in miserable huts of clay with roofs of moss or turf.

His host did not keep him waiting long. Almost immediately after he had cordially greeted his guest, the maÎtre d'hÔtel announced dinner, and the strangely mated couple made their way to the Great Hall. The Bishop staked a good deal upon the surroundings in which Annys now found himself. He counted upon a certain refined delicacy that he noted in the poor priest, a sensitiveness to environment that would make him respond to the luxury and elegance about him. He hoped that Annys might reflect that all this power and wealth might be his if he would but stretch forth his hand, and that thereby the influence of the scene at the cross-roads might yet be overcome. But the Bishop was too late; a few hours before, and it might have seemed a goodly thing to Robert Annys to entertain in this lordly fashion, it might have seemed a Christly thing to toss discarded crusts and broken pieces of meat into a jewelled bowl that its contents might be thrown to the beggars clamoring before the gate; but now a higher conception of Christliness mastered him. He had been too profoundly moved at the cross-roads, the whole scene had come to him too directly as the answer of God to his prayer, for him to respond readily to what went on about him. Instead, a profound disgust seized upon him, a bitter contempt for this kind of Christianity, so that he could scarce restrain himself from rising and openly rebuking the Bishop for all this unseemly pomp and splendor.

They sat at the raised, or great table as it was called, facing the other tables, which were set longitudinally, and which were only boards laid upon trestles so that they could easily be removed to permit the floor to be spread with fresh rushes after the evening meal. These rushes served as a bed for all who assembled there, for the hospitality of my Lord Bishop was never questioned. Let merchants, priests, jesters, clerks, scholars from Oxford, or mummers, all lie there and welcome; to-morrow the tables would be set up again with plenty for all.

Before anything was brought in to eat, a liveried fellow knelt before each guest at the high table, holding a beautiful silver ewer filled with scented water into which to dip the hands, followed by another fellow similarly liveried who passed a soft linen napkin upon which to dry them. Then came trenchers of fresh white bread on which to place their meat, the folk below at the long tables receiving only the ordinary trenchers of wood which could be scraped to serve for many meals. Looking at these trenchers, Annys thought sadly of the miserable, coarse, black bread made of beans or coarsely pounded oats that must answer for the poor. And he thought of the sweat with which even such poor stuff must be earned. Pondering over all this, the delicate sole, found only on the tables of the great, the fine almonds, the roasted figs, and colored sugar-plums seemed to choke him. His Piers must content himself with a dish of herrings and onions, and perhaps an infrequent bit of cheese, or still less frequent scrap of meat. He bethought him of how that great-hearted poet of the Malvern Hills had cried out that all mischief proceeds from the clergy, who ought to set an example of holy poverty, and who rather emulated the splendor of knighthood:—

The Bishop, reading nothing of what was going on in the poor priest's mind, now bent toward him courteously and sought to fix his attention upon the luxury and elegance of the banquet. He deprecated to him the fact that, as it was a fast-day, he was unable to offer more bountiful hospitality. Annys could scarce restrain a smile at the ingenuity of the cook, who certainly might well have shone in a clerkly career, so well did he know how to obey the letter and ignore the spirit.

For, first there was served to each guest, on being seated, a quarter of a pint of grenache. Then came roast apples with white sugar-plums on them, roasted figs, sorrel, watercress, and rosemary. Then a soup made of trout, tenches, white herring, fresh-water eels, whiting, almonds, ginger, saffron, cinnamon powder, and sweetmeats. This was followed by soles and salmon for salt-water fish; and pike with roe, carps, and breams for fresh-water fish should they be preferred. Besides all this there were side dishes of oranges and apples, and rice with fried almonds upon it.

Fast-day forsooth! Was there not epitomized herein the very condition into which the Church of Christ had fallen, its true life blighted in the killing frost of ritualism?

When the last sugar-plum had been passed by the servitors, and the chairs and benches were shoved somewhat back from the boards, and all sat about in easy postures, the harpist up in the beautiful oriole played sweet music. A youth with a treble of thrilling sweetness sang to them of the uncertainty of this life, for the Bishop permitted no ribald love songs to be sung in his hall. Then there followed a hymn to Jesus Christ:—

After this came a psalm of David, set to a quaint and plaintive air; but the Bishop, now perceiving that his guest was ill at ease, summoned a servant, and throwing him a purse of gold to be divided among the minstrels, bade Annys follow him to his solar.

Annys did so with Piers' complaint of the great Churchmen of the day ringing in his ears:—

When they reached the Bishop's private chamber, Thomas of Ely laid his hand kindly upon the young man's head.

"My son," he said, "I have heard. Would to God it were otherwise, but I hear that thou hast seen a light and must follow it."

Annys bowed his head gravely. Then, suddenly throwing himself upon his knees before the Bishop, he exclaimed in a broken voice:—

"Father, I have chosen the difficult way. Help me that my feet do not falter."

The old man was deeply moved, and stooped and embraced the young priest, who began:—

"After the Mass in the Cathedral, I lay a long while before the altar in prayer. I knew not whither to turn. All that you had said to me with such powerful eloquence I argued over again and again. All that had drawn me to the work of my master John Wyclif also passed again and again through my mind. I do not know how long I lay there on the cold stones, I know only that when I went out into the open, the tops of the pines were draining the last dregs of the red sun."

He paused for an instant, and then, looking earnestly into the prelate's face, "I preached a goodly sermon, did I not so?" he asked abruptly.

"Never before did I listen to one more timely, nor one that stirred me more profoundly."

"Yea, I felt that. See, I hide naught from you. Yet, Father, I did not feel glad that it was given me to help others that heard me, rather was I puffed up with pride that I could so speak, that I could so touch and sway others. There stirred within me all the forces of Pride, and Love of Power for its own sake, which are the favorite minions of Satan."

"Ah! my son, my son!"

"The mighty Minster with all its wealth of associations, with all its noble and splendid beauty, the pageantry and glory of the Mass, Father, the pulsations of the glorious organ,—all overpowered me with a flood of self-worship. The future rose before me full of pomp and glory. I saw myself rise step by step within the Church until not one step remained above me. Not one step. I saw myself enthroned on the chair of the Apostle, I saw before me as in a vision the waiting throng in the vast plaza before St. Peter's, I heard the chanting of the Papal choir, I caught sight even of the glittering troops lining the plaza, I heard the boom of the cannons of St. Angelo firing their grand salute, and I rose up and blessed the great concourse that knelt before me. Oh, at that moment I cared naught for those people, naught for their spiritual needs; I cared only for my own aggrandizement, my own overwhelming power. Surely, then, if ever, were the spirits battling for my soul—the powers of darkness and the powers of light. The evil spirits whispered to me that I was born for power, that I was able to sway and lead men; but the gentle spirits asked me wherefore had I forsaken Christ Jesus.

"And then, Father, I prostrated myself and put my whole soul into a prayer for guidance. I implored God to grant me a sign to show me the Way of Everlasting Life."

"Would to God I might have been with thee, that I might have proved to thee the Way led within the Church."

"Father, that sign was vouchsafed me."

"Ah!"

"Yea, faintly there came borne in upon me, kneeling there, the sound of singing. At first I took it for the sound of angels' voices, but as it grew in strength I knew it to be the sound of many men singing, and at last I could make out the words, and I hearkened with all my heart, for clearly it was the voice of the Lord speaking through the people."

"And what was it that you heard?"

"Ay!" cried the Bishop, "the song of the followers of John Ball." For a moment both remained in silence, thinking over the words of the song, and then the poor priest went on with his recital:—

"I sprang to my feet, scarce offering more than a hurried prayer of thanks that the answer had been vouchsafed me, and dashed out and followed the people who were running to the cross-roads, and there I did witness a wonderful sight—nigh unto a thousand men with some women and children gathered there to hear this John Ball, who spake to them from the steps of the stone cross."

"And what spake he?"

"Of fellowship, always of fellowship. He spake of the injustice of the rich and powerful, yet he did not try to set the poor against the rich as his enemies say he doth, but rather he told them that the rich should envy the poor, for to the poor is given fellowship which is denied the rich."

"Yea!" exclaimed the Bishop, "I doubt not that this Ball is sincere enough. He thinks he hath right on his side, yet once let the gold of the rich pour into the laps of the poor, and they will see that not only do they not use it better, but less well. My son, many are the virtues praised and glorified by men like Ball, which are, after all, but the virtues that come with poverty, which is a state of far less temptation than that of great riches. Have a care, have a care, my son, lest the poor are roused to grasp the sceptre from the rich before they are trained to wield it worthily. Have a care, if this evil day arise; it is what thy master John Wyclif hath warned thee against."

The pupil of the great scholar of Balliol for an instant hung his head, then he raised it and looked full at the Bishop. "I know well there is danger," he said gravely, "and it will be my solemn duty to preach temperance and control to these people, to show the world that we are united in love of justice and not greed for wealth and high estate. Yet, Father, it is now clear to me that, did our Lord come to earth to-day, He would be found on the side of the rustics."

The Bishop had no doubt of it. He did not care, however, to give expression just then to his innermost conviction, that, had not the Holy Catholic Church wandered afar from the teachings and example of its Founder, there had been no Church Universal.

So it befell that when Robert Annys set out on his mission the blessing of the Bishop went with him:—

"Go, my son, and may the grace of God be with you and the spirit of the Holy Ghost!"