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"Yes, it is all true, is it not? It is in the Flores Sancti Francisci." The earl smiled. "Come, my boy, I forgive thee. "My good brother of Leicester, the lad is made for a Franciscan; don't spoil a good friar by making him a warrior." "And Franciscan he shall be. "Say, my boy, wouldst thou like to go to Oxford and study under my worthy friend, Adam de Maresco?"
Then he sought the good prior, Adam de Maresco, and obtaining an audience after the dejeuner or breakfast, poured out all his sorrows and sin. The good prior almost smiled at the earnestness of the self rebuke. He was not at all shocked. It was just what he had expected; he was only too delighted to find that the young prodigal loathed so speedily the husks which the swine do eat.
I will send thee two good hounds in the place of poor Bruno. Dost thou not see the lad has sat in the school of Saint Francis, who pitied and loved everything, great and small, as Adam de Maresco, my good friend at Oxford, tells me, and so all God's creatures loved him, and came at his call the birds, nay, the fishes?" "Dost thou believe all this, my boy?" said he of Warwick.
"Fighting, dicing, drinking," and then came to Martin's mind the words of Adam de Maresco, uttered that very morning, and now he determined to go at once at any cost, and turned to the door. "Nay, we are all going to see thee safe home. The boves boreales may be grazing in the streets." "I hear them! Burr! burr! burr!" Down the stairs they all staggered.
At length Martin arrived at the house of the Franciscans, where he was eventually to lodge, but they had no room for him at this moment, hence he had been sent to a hostelry, licensed to take lodgers; much to the regret of Adam de Maresco. But he could not show partiality. Each newcomer must take his turn, according to the date of the entry of his name.
My patron lying at home longer than usual without fitting out his ship, which, as I heard, was for want of money, he used constantly, once or twice a week, sometimes oftener if the weather was fair, to take the ship’s pinnace and go out into the road a-fishing; and as he always took me and young Maresco with him to row the boat, we made him very merry, and I proved very dexterous in catching fish; insomuch that sometimes he would send me with a Moor, one of his kinsmen, and the youth—the Maresco, as they called him—to catch a dish of fish for him.
And after a few months his zealous tutor thought him prepared for the important step in his life, and wrote to the great master of scholastic philosophy already mentioned, Adam de Maresco, to bespeak admission into one of the Franciscan schools or colleges then existing at Oxford. There was no penny or other post a special messenger had to be sent.
Many a man in that day would have thought it a less sin to cut a throat than to omit such an act of devotion. But Martin recognised the priest. It was Adam de Maresco in his gray Franciscan robes, and he thought the father recognised him. He turned crimson with shame at being found in such company. At last they reached home, and sick at heart he knocked at the door.
Under their teaching a new school of theology had arisen at Oxford; the great Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste, was its first lecturer, the most enlightened prelate of the day; and now Adam de Maresco, a warm friend of Earl Simon, was at its head. To his care the earl determined to commend young Martin.
Wait awhile, I go to fetch it from the altar." And the successor of Adam de Maresco, the new head of the Oxford House, left the youth and went into their plainly-furnished chapel, where, in a silver dove, the only silver about the church, the reserved sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ was always kept for the sick in case of need.
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