The Armourers Prentices | Page 9

to be a kind of bailiff, with whom he discussed the
sheep that were to be taken into market the next day, and the prices to
be given for them by either the college, the castle, or the butchers of
Boucher Row. He however found time to talk to the two guests, and
being sprung from a family in the immediate neighbourhood, he knew
the verdurer's name, and ere he was a monk, had joined in the chase in
the Forest.
There was a little oratory attached to the hall, where he and the lay
brethren kept the hours, to a certain degree, putting two or three
services into one, on a liberal interpretation of laborare est orare.
Ambrose's responses made their host observe as they went out, "Thou
hast thy Latin pat, my son, there's the making of a scholar in thee."
Then they took their first night's rest away from home, in a small
guest-chamber, with a good bed, though bare in all other respects.
Brother Shoveller likewise had a cell to himself, but the lay brethren
slept promiscuously among their sheep-dogs on the floor of the
refectory.
All were afoot in the early morning, and Stephen and Ambrose were
awakened by the tumultuous bleatings of the flock of sheep that were
being driven from their fold to meet their fate at Winchester market.
They heard Brother Shoveller shouting his orders to the shepherds in
tones a great deal more like those of a farmer than of a monk, and they
made haste to dress themselves and join him as he was muttering a
morning abbreviation of his obligatory devotions in the oratory,
observing that they might be in time to hear mass at one of the city
churches, but the sheep might delay them, and they had best break their
fast ere starting.
It was Wednesday, a day usually kept as a moderate fast, so the

breakfast was of oatmeal porridge, flavoured with honey, and washed
down with mead, after which Brother Shoveller mounted his mule, a
sleek creature, whose long ears had an air of great contentment, and
rode off, accommodating his pace to that of his young companions up a
stony cart-track which soon led them to the top of a chalk down,
whence, as in a map, they could see Winchester, surrounded by its
walls, lying in a hollow between the smooth green hills. At one end
rose the castle, its fortifications covering its own hill, beneath, in the
valley, the long, low massive Cathedral, the college buildings and
tower with its pinnacles, and nearer at hand, among the trees, the
Almshouse of Noble Poverty at St. Cross, beneath the round hill of St.
Catherine. Churches and monastic buildings stood thickly in the town,
and indeed, Brother Shoveller said, shaking his head, that there were
well-nigh as many churches as folk to go to them; the place was
decayed since the time he remembered when Prince Arthur was born
there. Hyde Abbey he could not show them, from where they stood, as
it lay further off by the river side, having been removed from the
neighbourhood of the Minster, because the brethren of St. Grimbald
could not agree with those of St. Swithun's belonging to the Minster, as
indeed their buildings were so close together that it was hardly possible
to pass between them, and their bells jangled in each other's ears.
Brother Shoveller did not seem to entertain a very high opinion of the
monks of St. Grimbald, and he asked the boys whether they were
expected there. "No," they said; "tidings of their father's death had been
sent by one of the woodmen, and the only answer that had been
returned was that Master Richard Birkenholt was ill at ease, but would
have masses said for his brother's soul."
"Hem!" said the Augustinian ominously; but at that moment they came
up with the sheep, and his attention was wholly absorbed by them, as
he joined the lay brothers in directing the shepherds who were driving
them across the downs, steering them over the high ground towards the
arched West Gate close to the royal castle. The street sloped rapidly
down, and Brother Shoveller conducted his young companions between
the overhanging houses, with stalls between serving as shops, till they
reached the open space round the Market Cross, on the steps of which

women sat with baskets of eggs, butter, and poultry, raised above the
motley throng of cattle and sheep, with their dogs and drivers, the
various cries of man and beast forming an incongruous accompaniment
to the bells of the churches that surrounded the market-place.
Citizens' wives in hood and wimple were there, shrilly bargaining for
provision for their households, squires and grooms in quest of hay for
their masters' stables, purveyors seeking