University of Virginia Library

Scene V.—The porch of Canterbury Cathedral.

Herbert of Bosham, John of Salisbury; near them attendants, waiting the arrival of Becket.
Her.
Here stood we on his consecration feast:
The long years dragged: to-day they seem but weeks,
A dove-flight of white weeks through vernal air.

John of Sal.
Herbert, you jar me with your ceaseless triumphs
And hope 'gainst hope. You are like a gold leaf dropped
From groves immortal of the Church triumphant
To mock the rough wave of our Church in storm:
I pray you, chafe at times! The floods are out!
I say the floods are out! This way and that
They come a-sweeping.

Her.
Wheresoe'er they sweep
The eye of God pursues them, and controls:
That which they are to Him, that only are they:
The rest is pictured storm.

John of Sal.
How sped your journey?

Her.
From first to last De Broc with wrong assailed us;
But on us, like a passionate south wind, blew
The greetings of the loyal and the just.
We rode two days. London's old tower in sight,
We met the citizens; for miles forth streamed they
To meet their citizen—for so they hailed him.
The poor came first; then merchants and their wives;
Next, clad in gold, the mayor and aldermen;
And, lastly, priests intoning Benedictus
Scarce heard amid the pealing of the bells.
On London Bridge the houses at each side
That topped with their quaint gables every arch,
Hung tapestries forth, their roofs o'erswarmed with gazers;
The ships were purpled o'er with flags that waving
Painted the crystal bosom of the Thames—
More swayed by popular ecstasies, it seemed,
Than shiftings of the wind.

John of Sal.
How looked our Thomas?

Her.
Passing, he gave the blessing with still smile.
One time he laughed: 'twas when a crazy beldam
Cried from the crowd, ‘Beware the knife, archbishop!’
Sighed once—'twas when he passed his parents' door
Flower-garlanded; the gayest in Cheapside.

John of Sal.
Where lodged he?

Her.
At my Lord of Winton's palace.
At eve he paced the gardens, by his side
Saint Albans' abbot, Simon. I was near:
I marked him draw the right hand of the abbot
Within his robe;—then heard, ‘My friend, my friend,
Things are not what they seem!’

John of Sal.
Saw he his pupil?

Her.
At ten next morning Joceline of Louvaine
Sent by that pupil rudely sought the primate:
The boy-king bade him back to Canterbury!
‘Shall I not barely see the royal face?’
Thus answered he—no more. If ever grief
Cast shadow on man's face, I saw it then.
He sat till noon had struck; then bade to horse.

John of Sal.
Your homeward way was hardest?

Her.
Hardest thrice;
The news had gone abroad, and many shunned us;
Aggression hourly wore a fiercer front;
More contumelious brows were on us bent:
Here lay the bridge a ruin; shafts assailed us;
The dyke was cut; the road in water drowned:
We heard, one time, the spleenful horn of knaves
That hunted in his Grace's woods: as yet
They dared no more. The Council sought De Luci:
The strong man thus made answer to their suit;
‘I am this kingdom's High Justiciary,
And not your faction's hangman. Four years since
I deemed the Legate wrought 'gainst England's laws,
And acted on that thought. The Legate banned me:

Richard de Luci ‘founded the Abbey of Lesnes in Kent, in honour of the martyr [Becket], and became a canon there after his resignation’ (Professor Stubbs's ‘Constitutional History,’ vol. i. p. 469).

I deemed his censures dealt “errante clave”
And put them from my mind. Now ye wrong him:
I run not with your pack.’

John of Sal.
Brave man and true!
How few know friend from foe! Now hear my tale:
Go where I might, except among the poor,
'Twas all one massed conspiracy of error,
Close-woven, and labyrinthed, millions in one;
Conspiracy, and yet unconscious half;
For, though, far down, there worked one plastic mind,
The surface seemed fortuitous concurrence,
One man the hook supplying, one the eye,
Here the false maxim, there the fact suborned,
This the mad hope, and that the grudge forgotten.
The lawyer wrote the falsehood in the dust
Of mouldering scrolls; with sighs the Court-priest owned it;
The minstrel tossed it gaily from his strings;
The witling lisped it, and the soldier mouthed it.
These lies are thick as dust in March—

Her.
Which galls us,
Yet clothes the expectant harvest fields with gold.

John of Sal.
(After a pause)

Her.
That dust, good John,
Is more illusive than my dreams and visions
So oft your sport. Our hope is otherwhere.
The primate bade that old man house at home
A white head, England's pride. Hark, hark, a hymn!
Saint Stephen's feast comes soon. The good choir-master
Rehearses some sweet anthem in his praise.
There's not a saint in heaven dearer to Thomas!

A man in a mask
(coming up rapidly).
A troop of horse makes way through the south gate:
Richard de Humet sent them—he who left
The king at Bayeux late.

A man
(disguised as a cripple, detaching himself from the crowd and joining them).
Flee while ye may!—the primate helped me once:
Unless he 'scape to-night, he sees not Tuesday.

[Rejoins the revellers.
[Becket approaches at the head of a procession.
Her.
Lo, the procession comes!

John of Sal.
The primate walks
As one that died, and rose, and dies no more.

Her.
I note in him one strength the world detects not:
The Church for others hath seven sacraments;
For him she keeps an eighth—the poor of Christ!
Lo there! As often as he gives them alms
He lay on them his hands.

John of Sal.
As one that loves them?

Her.
As one that, touching them, draws strength from God;
Wins more than he bestows. He stops; he stands;—
The exile gazes on his church again:
He kneels with arms outstretched, like holy Andrew
When venerating from afar his cross!
[As Becket enters the cathedral Herbert goes up to him.
Now die if thus God wills! I never spake
That word before. In thee Christ's Church hath conquered.
Now die whene'er God wills. We die together.

[Becket looks at him fixedly, and passes on.