Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
Our Little Lady--Six Hundred Years Ago, by Emily Sarah Holt.
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This is one of the approximately thirty books by Emily Holt about life
in the Middle Ages. The language of the book is basically English as
we would understand it, strongly flavoured with words and phrases from
the Middle Ages. The other thing that comes across strongly is how
different the attitudes to life were in those days.
Avice, one of the elder women in the book, tells the story of how she
had become a nursery-maid in the Royal Palace, first at Windsor, and
then later at Westminster. One of the princesses she had to look after
was a most beautiful child, but had been born deaf and dumb. She had
various gestures with which she communicated, but the sadness was, that
they never could teach her to pray. Yet they were sure she spoke to
Christ in her own way. The poor child died young. This all took place
at the end of the thirteenth century, hence the six hundred years of the
title.
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OUR LITTLE LADY, SIX HUNDRED YEARS AGO, BY EMILY SARAH HOLT.
CHAPTER ONE.
SIX HUNDRED YEARS AGO--WHAT THINGS WERE LIKE.
The afternoon service was over in Lincoln Cathedral, and the
congregation were slowly filing out of the great west door. But that
afternoon service was six hundred years ago, and both the Cathedral and
the congregation would look very strange to us if we saw them now.
Those days were well called the Dark Ages, and how dark they were we can
scarcely realise in the present day. Let us fancy ourselves coming out
of that west door, and try to picture what we should have seen there,
six hundred years ago.
The Cathedral itself is hardly to be known. It is crowded with painted
images and embroidered banners, and filled with the smoke and scent of
burning incense. The clergy are habited, not in white surplices or in
black gowns, but in large stiff cloaks--copes they are called--of
scarlet silk, heavy with gold embroidery. The Bishop, who is in the
pulpit, wears a cope of white, thick with masses of gold, and on his
head is a white and gold mitre. How unlike that upper chamber, where
the disciples gathered together after the crucifixion of their Master!
Is it better or worse, do you ask? Well, I think if the Master were to
come in, it would be easier to see Him in the quiet upper chamber, where
there was nothing else to see, than in the perfumed and decorated
Cathedral where there was so much else!
But now let us look at the congregation as they pass out. Are they all
women? for all alike seem to wear long skirts and thick hoods: there are
neither trousers, nor hats, nor bonnets. No, there is a fair sprinkling
of men; but men and women dressed more alike then than they do now. You
will see, if you look, that some of these long skirts are open in front,
and you may catch a glimpse of a beard here and there under the hood.
This is a poor woman who comes now: she wears a serge dress which has
cost her about three-halfpence a yard, and a threadbare hood for which
she may have given sixpence.
Are things so cheap, then? No, just the other way about; money is so
dear. The wages of a mason or a bricklayer are about sixpence a week;
haymakers have the same; reapers get from a shilling to half-a-crown,
and mowers one and ninepence. The gentlemen who wait on the King
himself only receive a shilling a day.
Here comes one of them, in a long green robe of shining silky stuff,
which is called samite; round his neck is a curiously cut collar of dark
red cloth, and in his hand he carries a white hood. Men do not confine
themselves to the quiet, sober colours that we are accustomed to see;
they are smarter than the ladies themselves. This knight, as he passes
out, throws his gown back, before mounting his horse, and you see his
yellow hose striped with black--trousers and stockings all in a piece,
as it were--with low black shoes, and gilt spurs.
But who follows him?--this superbly dressed woman in rich blue
glistening samite, with a black and gold hood, under which we see her
hair bound with a golden fillet, and a necklace of costly pearls clasped
round her throat--for it is a warm day, and she has not tied her hood.
She must be somebody of consequence, for a smart gentleman leads her by
the hand, and one with a long staff walks in front, to keep the people
from pressing too close on her. She is indeed somebody of consequence--
the Countess of Lincoln herself, by birth an Italian Princess; and she
is so grand, and so rich, and so beautiful and stately--and I am sorry
to add, so proud--that people call her the Queen of Lincoln. She has
not far to go home--only through the archway, and past Saint Michael's
Church and the Bull Gate, and then the great portcullis of the grim old
Castle lifts its head to receive its lady, and she disappears from our
sight.
Do you notice that carpets are spread along the streets for her?--not
carpets like ours, but the only sort they have, which are a kind of
rough matting. And indeed she needs them, if those purple velvet shoes
of hers are not to be quite ruined by the time she reaches home. For
there are no pavements, and the streets are almost ankle-deep in mud,
and worse than mud. Dead cats, rotten vegetables, animal refuse, and
every kind of abominable thing that you could see or think of, all lie
about in heaps, in these narrow, narrow streets, where the sun can
hardly get down to the ground, and two people might sometimes shake
hands from opposite windows in the upper stories, for they come farther
out than the lower ones. Everybody throws all his rubbish into the
street; all his slops, all his ashes, all his everything of which he
wants to get rid. The smells are something dreadful, as soon as you
come out of the perfumed churches. It is pleasanter to have the
churches perfumed, undoubtedly; but it would be a good deal healthier if
they kept the streets clean.
Quietly following the grand young Countess, at a respectful distance,
come two women who are evidently mother and daughter. Their dress shows
that they are not absolutely poor, but it tells at least as plainly that
they are not at all rich. Just as they reach the west door, a little
girl of ten comes quickly after them, dressed just like themselves, a
woman in miniature.
"Why, Avice, where hast thou been?" says the elder of the two women.
"I was coming, Grandmother," explains little Avice, "and Father Thomas
called me, and bade me tell you that the holy Bishop would come to see
you this afternoon, and sup his four-hours with you."
Four-hours, taken as its name shows at four o'clock, was the meal which
answered to our tea. Bishops do not often drink tea with women of this
class, but this was a peculiar Bishop, and the woman to whom he sent
this message was his own foster-sister.
"Truly, and I shall be glad to see him," says the Grandmother; and on
they go out of the west door.
The carpets which were spread for the Countess have been rolled away,
and our three humble friends pick their steps as best they may among the
dirt-heaps, occasionally slipping into a puddle--I am afraid Avice now
and then walks into it deliberately for the fun of the splash!--and
following the road taken by the Countess as far as the Bull Gate, they
then turn to the left, leaving the frowning Castle on their right, and
begin to descend the steep slope well named Steephill.
They have not gone many yards when two people overtake them--a man and a
woman. The man stops to speak: the woman marches on with her arms
folded and her head in the air, as if they were invisible.
"Good morrow, Dan," says the old lady.
"Good morrow, Mother," answers Dan.
"What's the matter with Filomena?"
"A touch of the old complaint, that's all," answers Dan drily. "We'd a
few words o' th' road a-coming--leastwise she had, for she got it pretty
much to herself--and for th' next twelve hours or so she'll not be able
to see anybody under a squire."
"Is she often like that, Dan?"
"Well, it doesn't come more days than seven i' th' week."
"Why, you don't mean to say it's so every day?" said Agnes, the younger
woman of our trio.
Dan shook his head. "Happen there's an odd un now and then as gets let
off," said he. "But I must after her, or there'll be more hot water.
And it comes to table boilin', I can tell you. Good morrow!"
Dan runs rather heavily after his incensed spouse, and our friends
continue to pick their way down Steephill. For rather more than half
the way they go, and when just past the Church of Saint Lawrence, they
turn into a narrow street on the left, and in a few yards more they are
at home.
Home is one of the smallest houses you ever saw. It has only two rooms,
one above the other; but they are a fair size, being about twenty-five
feet by sixteen. The upper, of course, is the bedroom; the lower one is
kitchen and parlour; and a ladder leads from one to the other. The
upper chamber holds a bed, which is like a box out of which the bottom
has been taken, filled with straw, and on that is a hard straw mattress,
two excessively coarse blankets, and a thick, shaggy, woollen rug for a
counterpane. There are not any sheets or pillow-cases; but a thick,
hard bolster, stuffed like the mattress with straw, serves for a pillow.
At the foot of the oak bedstead is a large oak chest, big enough to hold
a man, in which the owners keep all their small property of any value.
There are no chairs, but the deep windows have wooden seats, and two
wooden stools are in the corners. As to wardrobes, chests of drawers,
dressing-tables, and washstands, nobody knows of such things at that
day. The chest serves the purpose of all except the washstand, and they
find that (as much as they have of it) at the draw-well in the little
back yard. The window is just a square hole in the wall, closed with a
wooden shutter, so that light and air--if not wind and rain--come in
together. A looking-glass they have, but a poor makeshift it is, being
of metal and rounded; and those who know what a comical aspect your face
takes when you see it in a metal teapot, can guess how far anybody could
see himself rightly in it. It is nailed up, too, so high on the wall
that it is not easy to see anything. This is all the furniture of the
bedroom.
Downstairs there is more though there are no chairs and tables, unless a
leaf-table in the wall, which lets down, can go by that name. There are
two or three long settles stretching across the wall--the settle was
called a bench when it had a back to it, and a form if it had not.
There is a large bake-stone in one corner; the bread is put on the top
to bake, with the fire underneath, and when there is no fire, the top
can be used as a table, a moulding board, or in many other ways. But it
must not be supposed that such bread is in large square or cottage
loaves like ours. It is made in flat cakes, large or small, thick or
thin. By the side of the bake-stone is the sink, or rather that which
answers to one, being a rough brick basin, with a plug in the bottom,
and just beneath it is a little channel in the brick floor, by which,
when the plug is pulled up, the dirty water finds its way out into the
street under the house door. People who live in this way need--and
wear--short gowns and stout shoes.
The opposite corner holds the pine-torches and chips; they burn nothing
but wood, for though coal is known, it is very little used. This is
partly because it is expensive; but also because it is considered
shockingly unhealthy. The smoke from wood or turf is thought very
wholesome; but that from coal is just the reverse. Opposite the
bake-stone is the window; a very little one, much wider than it is high,
and rilled with exceedingly small diamond-shaped panes of very poor
greenish glass set in lead, there being so much lead and so little glass
that the room is but dark in the brightest sunshine. Indeed, it is
decidedly a sign of gentility that the house has any window at all,
beyond the square hole with the wooden shutter.
Up and down the room there are several stools, high and low; the high
ones serve when wanted as little movable tables. In the third corner is
a bread-rack, filled with hard oat-cake above, and the soft flat cakes
of wheat flour below; in the fourth stand several large barrels
containing salt fish, salt meat, flour, meal, and ale. From the top of
the room hang hams, herbs in canvas bags, strings of smoked fish, a few
empty baskets and pails, and anything else which can be hung up. The
rafters are so low that when the inmates move about they have every now
and then to courtesy to a ham or a pail, which would otherwise hit them
on the head. A door by the window leads into the street, and another
beyond the barrels gives access to the back yard.
How would you like to go back, gentle reader, to this style of life?
This was the way in which your forefathers lived, six hundred years
ago--unless they were very grand people indeed. Then they lived in a
big castle with walls two or three feet thick, and ate from gold or
silver plates, and had the luxury of a chimney in their dining-rooms.
But even then, there were a good many little matters in respect of which
I do not fancy you would quite like to change with them! Would you like
to eat with your fingers, and to find creeping creatures everywhere, and
to have _no_ books and newspapers, and no letters, and no shops except
in great towns, and no way of getting about except on foot or horseback,
and no lamps, candles, clocks or watches, china, spectacles, nor carpets
on the floor? Yet this was the way in which kings and queens lived, six
hundred years ago.
In respect of clothes, people were much better off. They dressed far
more warmly than we do, and used a great deal of fur, not only for
trimming or out-door wear, but to line their clothes in winter. But
their furs comprised much commoner and cheaper skins than we use;
ordinary people wore lambskins, with the fur of cats, hares, and
squirrels. Such furs as ermine and miniver were kept for the great
people; for there were curious rules and laws about dress in those days.
It was not, as it is now, a question of what you could afford to buy,
but of what rank you were. You could not wear ermine or samite unless
you were an earl at the lowest; nor must you sleep on a feather bed
unless you were a knight; nor might you eat your dinner from a metal
plate, if you were not a gentleman. Such notions may sound ridiculous
to us; but they were serious earnest, six hundred years ago. We should
not like to find that we had to go before a magistrate and pay a fine,
if our shoes were a trifle too long, or our trimmings an inch too wide.
But in the time of which I am writing, this was an every-day affair.
In the house, women wore an odd sort of head-dress called a wimple,
which came down to the eyebrows, and was fastened by pins above the
ears. When they went out of doors, they tied on a fur or woollen hood
above it. The gown was very loose, and had no particular waist; the
sleeves were excessively wide and long. But when women were at work,
they had a way of tucking up their dresses at the bottom, so as to keep
them out of the perpetual slop of the stone or brick floor. Rich people
put rushes on their floors except in winter, and as these were only
moved once a year, all manner of unspeakable abominations were harboured
underneath. In this respect the poor were the best off, since they
could have their brick floors as clean as they chose: as, even yet,
there are points in which they have the advantage of richer people--if
they only knew it!
But our picture is not quite finished yet. Look out of the little
window, and notice what you see. Can this be Sunday afternoon in a good
street? for every shop is open, and in the doorways stand young men
calling out to the passers-by to come in and look at their goods. "What
lack you? what lack you?"
"Cherry ripe!"
"Buy my fine kerchiefs!"
"Any thimbles would you, maids?" Such cries as these ring on every
side.
Yes, it is Sunday afternoon--"the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the
Lord." But look where you will, you can see no rest. Everywhere the
rich are at play, and the poor are at work. What does this mean?
Think seriously of it, friends; for it will be no light matter if
England return to such ways as these again, and there are plenty of
people who are trying to bring them back. What it means is that if
holiness be lost from the Sabbath, rest will never stay behind. Play
for the few means work for the many. And let play get its head in, and
work will soon follow.
If you want to walk the road of happiness, and to arrive at the home of
heaven, you must follow after God, for any other guide will lead in the
opposite direction. The people who tell you that religion is a gloomy
thing are always the people who have not any themselves. And things are
very different, according to whether you look at them from inside or
outside. How can you tell what there may be inside a house, so long as
all you know of it is walking past a shut door?
Ever since Adam hid himself from the presence of the Lord God among the
trees of the garden, men and women have been prone to fancy that God
likes best to see them unhappy. The old heathen always used to suppose
that their gods were jealous of them, and they were afraid to be too
happy, lest the gods should be vexed! But the real God "takes pleasure
in the prosperity of His people," and "godliness hath the promise of the
life that now is, as well as of that which is to come."
What language are our three friends talking? It sounds very odd. It is
English, and yet it is not. Yes, it is what learned men call "Middle
English"--because it stands midway between the very oldest English, or
Anglo-saxon, and the modern English which we speak now. It is about as
much like our English as broad Scotch is. A few words and expressions
through the story will give an idea how different it is; but if I were
to write exactly as they would have spoken, nobody would understand it
now.
And how do they live inside this tiny house? Well, in some respects, in
a poorer and meaner way than the very poorest would live now. Look up,
and you will see that there is no chimney, but the smoke finds its way
out through a hole above the fire, and when it is wet the rain comes in
and puts the fire out. They know nothing about candles, but burn long
shafts of pine-wood instead. There are such things as wax candles,
indeed, but they are only used in church; nobody dreams of burning them
in houses. And there are lamps, but they are made of gold and silver,
and are never seen except in the big castles. There is no crockery; and
metal plates, as I said, are only for the grand people. The middle
classes use wooden trenchers--our friends have two--hollowed out to keep
the gravy in; and the poor have no plates at all beyond a cake of bread.
Their drinking-glasses are just cows' horns, with the tip cut off and a
wooden bottom put in. They have also a few wooden bowls, and one
precious brass pot; half a dozen knives, rough unwieldy things, and four
wooden spoons; one horn spoon is kept for best. Forks? Oh dear, no;
nobody knows anything about forks, except a pitchfork. Table-linen?
No, nor body-linen; those luxuries are only in the big castles. Let us
watch Avice's mother as she sets the table for four-hours, remembering
that they are going to have company, and therefore will try to make
things a little more comfortable than usual.
In the first place, there will be a table to set. If they were alone,
they would use one or two of the high stools. But Agnes goes out into
the little yard, and brings back two boards and a couple of trestles,
which she sets up in the middle of the room. This is the table--rather
a rickety affair, you may say; and it will be quite as well that nobody
should lean his elbow on it. Next, she puts on the boards four of the
cows' horns, and the two trenchers, with one bowl. She then serves out
a knife and spoon for each of four people, putting the horn spoon for
the Bishop. Her preparations are now complete, with the addition of one
thing which is never forgotten--a very large wooden salt-cellar, which
she puts almost at one end, for where that stands is a matter of
importance. Great people--and the Bishop is a very great person--must
sit above the salt, and small insignificant folks are put below. We may
also notice that the Bishop is honoured with a horn and a trencher to
himself. This is an unusual distinction. Husband and wife always share
the same plate, and other relatives very frequently. As to Avice, we
see that nothing is set for her. The child will share her mother's
spoon and horn; and if the Bishop brings his chaplain, he will have a
spoon and horn for himself, but will eat off the Grandmother's plate.
Our picture is finished, and now the story may begin.
CHAPTER TWO.
HOW THINGS CHANGED.
"Open the door, Avice, quick!" said Agnes, as a rap came upon it.
"Yonder, methinks, must be the holy Bishop."
Avice ran to the door, and opened it, to find two priests standing on
the threshold. They entered, the foremost with a smile to the child,
after which he held up his hand, saying, "Christ save all here!" Then
he held out his hand, which both Agnes and her mother kissed, and sat
down on one of the forms by the table. Every priest was then looked
upon as a most holy person. Some of them were a long way from holiness.
But there were some who really deserved the title, and few deserved it
so well as Robert Copley, Bishop of Lincoln, whom, according to the
fashion of that day, people called Grosteste, or Great-head.
For surnames were then only just beginning to grow, and very few people
had them--I mean, very few had received any from their fathers. They
had, therefore, to bear some name given to them. Sometimes a man was
named from his father--he was Robert John-son, or John Wil-son.
Sometimes it was from his trade; he was Robert the Smith, or John the
Carter. Sometimes it was from the place where he lived; he was Robert
at the Mill, or John by the Brook. But sometimes it was from something
about himself, either as concerned his person or his ways; he was Robert
Red-nose, or John White-hood, or William Turn-again. This is the way in
which all surnames have grown. Now, as Bishop Copley's soul lodged well
(as Queen Elizabeth said of Lord Bacon), in a large head and massive
brow, people took to calling him Great-head or Grosteste; and it is as
Bishop Grosteste, not as Bishop Copley, that he has been known down to
the present day.
I have said that he was a peculiar man. He was much more peculiar, at
the time when he lived, than he would have been if he had lived now.
Saint Peter told bishops that they were not to be lords over God's
heritage, but to be ensamples to the flock; but when Bishop Grosteste
lived, most bishops were very great lords, and very poor examples.
Bishops, and clergymen too, were fond of going about in gay clothes of
all colours, playing at games, and even drinking at ale-houses. Many of
them were positively not respectable men. But Bishop Grosteste and his
chaplain were dressed in plain black, and they were of the few who walk
not according to the course of this world. To them, "I like" was of no
moment, and "I ought" was of great importance. And what other people
would say, or what other people might be going to do, was a matter of no
consequence whatever.
Such men are scarce in this follow-my-leader world. If you are so
fortunate as to be related to one of them, take care you make much of
him, for you may go a long way before you see another. With most people
"I like" comes up at the top; and "What will people say?" comes next,
and often pretty near; but "What does God tell me to do?" is a long way
off, and sometimes so far off that they never come to it at all!
Bishop Grosteste lived in one of the darkest days of Christianity.
Thick, dense ignorance, of all kinds, overwhelmed the masses of the
people. Books were worth their weight in gold, there were so few of
them; and still worse, very few could read them. When we know that
there was a law by which a man who had been sentenced to death could
claim pardon if he were able to read one verse of a Psalm, it gives us
an idea how very little people can have known, and what a precious thing
learning was held to be. Even the clergy were not much wiser than the
rest, and they were generally the best educated of any. Most of them
could just get through the services, not so much by reading them as by
knowing what they had to say; and they often made very queer blunders
between words which were nearly alike. A few, here and there, were
really learned men; and Bishop Grosteste was one of them. He had
learned "all that Europe could furnish," and he knew so much that the
poor ignorant people about him fancied he must have obtained his
knowledge by magic. But far better than all this, Bishop Grosteste was
taught of God. His soul was like a plant which grew up towards the
light, and Jesus Christ was his Sun.
In this day of full, brilliant Gospel light, we can hardly imagine the
state of affairs then. Perhaps one fact will help us to do it as well
as many. In every house there was an image set up before which all
prayers were said. Sometimes it was a crucifix, sometimes an image of
the Virgin Mary, sometimes of some other saint--for the saints, male and
female, were a great crowd. But the crucifix or the Virgin Mary were
generally preferred; and why? Because the poor worshippers fancied that
the crucifix had more power than the image of a saint, and that the
Virgin was able to look after her own candle! A torch, or in later
times a candle, was always burning in front of the image; and of course
if the image could keep it alight, it was much less trouble to the
worshipper!
But had they no common sense in those days? Well, really, it looks
sometimes as if they had not. When men once turn aside from God's Word,
it is impossible to say to what folly or wickedness they will not go.
"The entrance of Thy words giveth light; yea, it giveth understanding
unto the simple."
Very few bishops then living would have taken any notice of the humble
foster-sister who lived in that tiny house, and worked: for her living--
she and her daughter being both widows, and the child dependent on them.
It was hard work then, as now, for such people to get along. It is
often really harder for them than for the very poor.
The guests being now come, Agnes dished up the four-hours--if that can
be called dishing up when there were no dishes! She lifted a great pan
off the hook where it hung over the fire--for it must be remembered
there were no bars, and pans had to be hung over the fire by a handle
like that of a kettle--and poured out into the bowl a quantity of soup.
She then served out a cake of white bread to the Bishop--a rare dainty--
black bread to the chaplain and her mother, and hard oat-cake for
herself and Avice. They then began to eat, after the Bishop had made
the sign of the crossover the bowl, which answered to saying grace; all
the spoons going into the one bowl, the Bishop being respectfully
allowed to help himself first.
"And how goes it now with thee, my sister Muriel?" asked the Bishop.
The Grandmother gave a little shake of her head, though she answered
cheerfully enough.
"Things go pretty well, holy Father, I thank you. Work is off and on,
as it may be; but we manage to keep a roof over our heads, as you see,
and we can even find a bowl of broth and a wheat-cake for our friends.
The Lord be praised for all His mercies!"
"Well said, my sister. And what do you intend to make of your little
maid here?"
"Marry, I intend to make a good worker of her," said Agnes in her turn,
"and not an idle giggling good-for-nought, as most of the lasses be.
She shall spin, and weave, and card, and sew, and scour, and wash, and
bake, and brew, and churn, and cook, and not let the grass grow under
her feet, or else I'll see!"
"Truly a goodly list of duties for one maid," replied the Bishop, with a
smile. "And yet, good Agnes, I am about to ask if thou canst find room
for another on the top of them."
"Verily, holy Father, I am she that should work my fingers to the bone
to pleasure you," was the hearty answer.
"I thank thee, good my daughter. How shouldst thou like to go to
London?"
"To London, Father!" And Agnes's eyes grew as round as shillings.
To go to London was then looked on as a very serious matter. People
made their wills before they started. And to ignorant Agnes, who had
never in her life been ten miles from Lincoln, it sounded almost as
tremendous an idea as being asked to go to the moon.
The Bishop smiled. He had been to Paris and Lyons.
"Ay, even to London town. I do indeed mean it, my daughter. There is,
methinks, a career open to thee, which most should reckon rare
preferment, and good success. Ah, what is success?" he added, as if to
himself. "Howbeit, thou shalt hear. The Lady Queen lacketh nurses for
her children, and reckoning thou shouldst well fill such a place, I made
bold to speak for thee. And she thus far granted me, that thou shouldst
go up to Windsor, where the King's children are kept, and she herself is
at this present, there to talk with her, and let her see if thou art fit
for the post. If on further acquaintance she be pleased with thee, then
shalt thou be made nurse to one of the children; and if not, then the
Lady Queen will pay thy charges home. What sayest, my daughter?--and
thou also, Muriel, my sister?"
Both Muriel and Agnes felt as if their breath were taken away. As to
Avice, she was listening with those large ears for which little pitchers
are proverbial. The Bishop had spoken quietly, as if it were an
every-day occurrence, of this enormous change which would affect their
whole lives.
"Verily, Father, you are too good to us," said Muriel gratefully.
"And I will try to thank you, Father," added Agnes, "when I get back my
senses, and can find out whether I am on my head or my heels."
The Bishop and his chaplain laughed; and Agnes, recalled to her duties
by seeing the soup-bowl empty, jumped up and took down the spit on which
a chicken was roasting at the fire. Chickens were dear just then, and
this one had cost three farthings, having been provided in honour of
company. People helped themselves in those days in a very rough and
simple manner. Agnes held the chicken on the spit to the Bishop, who
cut from it with his own knife the part he preferred; then she served
the chaplain and Muriel in the same way, and lastly cut some off for
herself and Avice. Finally, when little was left beside the carcase,
she opened the back door, and bestowed the remains on Manikin the
turnspit dog, a little wiry, shaggy cur, which, released from his
labours, had sat on the hearth licking his lips while the process of
helping went on, knowing that his reward would come at last. Manikin
trotted off into the yard with his treasure, and Agnes came back to the
table and the subject.
"Truly, holy Father, I know not how to thank you. But indeed I will do
my best to deserve your good word, should it please God so to order the
same."
"I doubt not thou wilt do well, my daughter. Bear thou in mind that
Christ our Lord is thy Master, and thy service must be good enough to be
laid at His feet. Then shalt thou well serve the Queen."
Agnes was a very ignorant woman. Bishop Grosteste, being himself a wise
man, could not at all realise how ignorant she was. She knew very
little how to serve God, but she did really wish to do it. And that,
after all, is the great thing. Those who have the will can surely,
sooner or later, find out how.
When the guests were gone, Agnes threw another log of wood upon the
fire, and came and stood before it. "Well, Mother, what must we do
touching this matter? Verily I am all of a tumblement. What think
you?"
"I think, my daughter," said old Muriel calmly from the chimney-corner,
"that we are not going to set forth for London within this next
half-hour."
"Nay, truly; yet we must think well on it."
"We shall do well to sleep on it, and yet better to ask counsel of the
Lord."
"But we must go, Mother! It would never do to offend the holy Bishop!"
"Bishop Robert my brother is not he that should be angered because we
preferred God's counsel to his. But it may be that we shall find, after
prayer and thought, that his counsel is God's."
It was to that conclusion they came the next day.
After the Bishop's departure, for a long time all was bustle and
confusion. Agnes declared that she did not know where her head was, nor
sometimes whether she had any. Avice was at the height of enjoyment.
Old Muriel went quietly about her work, keeping at it, "doing the next
thing," and got through more work than either.
The Bishop did all he could to help them. He found them a tenant for
the house, lent them money--all his money not spent on real necessaries
was either lent or given to such as needed it more than he did; and at
last he sent them southwards on his own horses, and in charge of three
of his servants. From Lincoln to Windsor was a five days' journey of
rather long stages; and when at last they reached the royal borough,
simple--minded Agnes had begun to feel as if no further power of
astonishment were left in her mind.
"Dear, I never thought the world was so big!" she had said before they
left Grantham; and when they arrived at Aylesbury, her cry was--"Eh,
what a power of folks be in this world!"
Old Muriel took her journey, as she did everything, calmly. She, like
Bishop Grosteste himself, lived too much with God to be easily startled
or overawed by the grandeur of man. Avice was in a state of excitement
and delight through the whole time.
They slept at a small inn; and the next morning, one of the Bishop's
servants, who had received his orders beforehand, took up to the Castle
a letter from his master, and waited to hear when it would please the
Queen to see them. He came back in an hour, with the news that the
Queen would receive them that afternoon.
Agnes was in a condition of restless flutter till the time came. Then
they dressed themselves in their very best, and Luke, the Bishop's
servant, took them up to the Castle.
If Agnes had felt confused at the mere idea of her interview, she found
the reality still more overwhelming than she expected. The first thing
she realised was that she stood in an immense hall, surrounded by what
seemed to her a crowd of very smart gentlemen. Then they were led
through passages and galleries, upstairs and downstairs, till Agnes felt
as though she could never hope to find her way back; and at last, in a
very handsome room, where the walls were covered with painting, and the
furniture upholstered in silk, they came into the midst of a second
crowd of very grand ladies. By this time poor Agnes had quite lost her
head; and when one of the fine ladies asked her what she wanted, she
could only drop a succession of courtesies and look totally bewildered.
Old Muriel managed better.
"Under your leave, Madam, we have been sent for by my Lady the Queen."
"Oh, are you the people who come about the nurses' place?" said the
young lady, who looked good-natured enough. "Follow me, and I will lead
you to the Queen's chamber."
How many more chambers can there be? was the wonder uppermost in the
mind of Agnes. But they walked through several more, each to her eyes
grander than the last, painted, with stained glass windows, and
silk-covered furniture. At length the young lady desired them to wait a
moment where they were, while she took in their names to the Queen. She
drew back a crimson silk curtain, and disappeared behind it; and the
three--for they had never thought of leaving Avice behind--stood looking
round them in admiring astonishment. They were not left to wonder long.
The curtain was drawn back, and the voice of some unseen person bade
them go forward.
They found themselves in a smaller room than the last, beautifully
decorated. The walls were painted a very pale blue, and large frescoes
ornamented each side of the chamber. Thick marble columns, highly
polished, jutted out into the room, and in the recess between each pair
was a marble bench, with cushions of crimson samite. Two walnut-wood
chairs, furnished with crimson samite cushions, stood in the middle of
the room. Small leaf-tables were fixed to the walls here and there.
The floor was of waxed wood, very slippery to tread upon. At the
farther side of the room two doors stood open, side by side, the one
leading to a little oratory in the turret, the other to a balcony which
ran round the tower. In one corner a young lady sat at an embroidery
frame, and in another a little girl of seven years old, who deeply
interested Avice, was feeding her pet peacock. In one of the chairs,
with some fancy work in her hand, sat a lady whose age was about
twenty-eight, and whose rich dress of gold-coloured samite, and the gold
and pearl fillet which bound her hair, divided Avice's attention with
the child and the peacock. Agnes was dropping flurried courtesies to
everybody at once. Muriel, who seemed to have a much better notion of
what she ought to do, took a step forward, and knelt before the lady who
sat in the chair.
"Lady," she said, "we are the Queen's servants."
Queen Eleanor, for it was she, looked up on them with a smile. She was
a beautiful brunette, lively and animated when she spoke, but with an
easy-going, lazy expression when she did not. It struck Avice, who had
eyes for everything, and was making good use of them, that her Majesty
might have brushed her rich dark hair a little smoother, and have
fastened her diamond brooch less unevenly than she had done.
It was the pleasanter side of Queen Eleanor which was being shown to
them. She could be very pleasant when she was pleased, and very kind
and affable when she liked people. But she could be very harsh and
tyrannical to those whom she did not like; and she was one of those many
people with whom out of sight is out of mind. Let her see a suffering
child, and she would be sorry and anxious to help; but a thousand
suffering people whom she did not see, even if something which she did
had made them suffer, were nothing at all to her.
The Queen liked her visitors. She thought old Muriel looked reliable;
she was amused with the bewildered reverence of Agnes; and as to Avice,
a child more or less in Windsor Castle mattered very little. She would
do to feed the peacock when Princess Margaret did not choose to attend
to it. So the bargain was soon struck; and almost before she had
discovered what was going to happen to her, Agnes found herself the
day-nurse of the Lord Richard, the little Prince who was then in the
cradle. Muriel was made mistress of the nurses; and even little Avice
received a formal appointment as waiting-damsel on the Princess
Margaret, the little girl who was feeding the peacock. They were then
dismissed from the royal presence.
"Thou hadst better go with them, Margaret Bysset," said the Queen, with
a rather amused smile, to the young lady who had brought them in;
"otherwise they may wander about all day."
Guided by Margaret Bysset, they retraced their steps through the suite
of rooms, down winding stairs, and across the hall, to the great door
which led into the courtyard of the Castle.
"Can you find your way now?" asked the young lady.
"Nay, we can but try!" said Agnes. "Pray you, my mistress, how many
chambers be there in this Castle?"
"Truly, I have not counted them," was the laughing answer.
"Eh, dear, but I marvel if I can ever find mine own when we come to
dwell here!"
"That will you soon enough. Look, here cometh your serving-man. Give
you good morrow!"
A few days saw them safely housed in the Castle, where two of them were
to dwell for ten years before they returned to their own home at
Lincoln. But old Muriel was never to return. She lived through half
that time, just long enough to hear of the death of Bishop Grosteste,
who passed away on the ninth of October 1253. He literally died weeping
for the sins of his age.
"Christ came into the world to save souls," were the words uttered with
his last breath. "He who takes pains to ruin them, shall he not be
called Antichrist? God built the universe in six days; but it took Him
thirty years to redeem fallen man. The Church can never be delivered
but by the sword from the Egyptian bondage in which the Popes hold her."
The good old Bishop could say no more. His voice broke down in tears;
and with one great sob for England he yielded up his soul.
CHAPTER THREE.
AT UNCLE DAN'S SMITHY.
The royal baby for whose benefit Muriel and Agnes had been engaged did
not live long; but he was succeeded by his brother Prince William, and
before he was old enough to do without nurses, a little Princess came
upon the scene. She was the last of the family, and she lived three
years and a half. After her death, the services of the nurses were no
longer needed. Queen Eleanor dismissed them with liberal wages and
handsome presents, and the two who were left--Agnes and Avice--
determined to go back to Lincoln. Avice was now a young woman of
twenty.
But when they reached their old home, they found many changes. The good
Bishop Grosteste was gone, but his chaplain, Father Thomas, had looked
after their interests, and Agnes found no difficulty in recovering her
little property. Happily for them, their tenants were anxious to leave
the house, and before many days were over, they had slipped quietly back
into the old place.
There were no banks in those days. A man's savings bank was an old
stocking or a tin mug. Agnes disposed of the money she had left from
the Queen's payment, partly in the purchase of a cow, and partly in a
stocking, which was carefully locked up in the oak chest. They could
live very comfortably on the produce of the cow and the garden, aided by
what small sums they might earn in one way and another. And so the
years went on, until Avice in her turn married and was left a widow; but
she had no child, and when her mother died Avice was left alone.
"I can never do to live alone," she said to herself; "I must have
somebody to love and work for."
And she began to think whom she could find to live with her. As she sat
and span in the twilight, one name after another occurred to her mind,
but only to be all declined with thanks.
There was her neighbour next door, Annora Goldhue: she had three
daughters. No, none of them would do. Joan was idle, and Amy was
conceited, and Frethesancia had a temper. Little Roese might have done,
who lived with old Serena at the mill end; but old Serena could not
spare her. At last, as Avice broke her thread for the fourth time, she
pushed back the stool on which she was sitting, and rose with her
determination taken, and spoke it out--
"I will go and see Aunt Filomena."
Aunt Filomena lived about a mile from Lincoln, on the Newport road. Her
husband was a greensmith: that is to say, he worked in copper, and
hawked his goods in the town when made. Avice lost no time in going,
but set out at once.
As she rounded the last turn in the lane, she heard the ring of Daniel
Greensmith's hammer on the anvil, and a few minutes' more walking
brought her in sight of the smith himself, who laid down his hammer and
shaded his eyes to see who was coming.
"Why, Uncle Dan, don't you know me?" said Avice.
"Nay, who is to know thee, when thou comes so seldom?" said old Dan,
wiping his hot face with his apron. "Art thou come to see me or my
dame?"
"I want to see Aunt Filomena. Is she in, Uncle Dan?"
"She's in, unless she's out," said Dan unanswerably. "And her tongue's
in, too. It's at home, _that_ is. Was this morning, anyhow. What dost
thou want of her?"
"Well," said Avice, hesitating, "I want her advice--"
"Then thou wants what thou'lt get plenty of," said Dan, with a comical
twist of his mouth, as he turned over some long nails to find a suitable
one. "I'll be fain if thou'lt cart away a middling lot, for there's
more coming my way than I've occasion for at this present."
Avice laughed. "I daresay Aunt is overworked a bit," she said.
"Perhaps I can help her, Uncle Dan. Folks are apt to lose their tempers
when they are tired."
"Some folks are apt to lose 'em whether they are tired or not," said the
smith, with a shake of his grizzled head. "I've got six lasses, and
four on 'em takes after her. I could manage one, and maybe I might
tackle two; but when five on 'em gets a-top of a chap, why, he's down
afore he knows it. I'm a peaceable man enough if they'd take me
peaceable. But them five rattling tongues, that gallops faster than Sir
Otho's charger up to the Manor--eh, I tell thee what, Avice, they do
wear a man out!"
"Poor Uncle Dan! I should think they do. But are all the girls at
home? I thought Mildred and Emma were to be bound apprentices in
Lincoln."
"Fell through wi' Mildred," said the smith. "Didn't offer good enough;
and She"--by which pronoun he usually designated his vixenish
wife--"wouldn't hear on it. Emma's bound, worse luck! I could ha' done
wi' Emma. She and Bertha's the only ones as can be peaceable, like me."
"Mildred's still at home, then?"
"Mildred's at home yet. And so's El'nor, and so's Susanna, and so's
Ankaret; and every one on 'em's tongue's worse nor t'other. And"--a
very heavy sigh--"so's She!"
Avice knew that Uncle Dan was usually a man of fewer words than this.
For him to be thus loquacious showed very strong emotion or irritation
of some sort. She went round to the back door, and before she reached
it, she heard enough to let her guess the sort of welcome she might
expect to receive.
Just inside the open door stood Aunt Filomena, a thin, red-faced,
voluble woman, with her arms akimbo, pouring out words as fast as they
could come; and in the yard, just outside the door, opposite to her,
stood her daughter Ankaret, in exactly the same attitude, also thin,
red-faced, and voluble. The two were such precise counterparts of one
another that Avice had hard work to keep her gravity. Inside the house,
Susanna and Mildred, and outside Eleanor, were acting as interested
spectators; the funniest part of the scene being that neither of them
listened to a word said by the other, but each ran at express speed on
her own rails. The youngest daughter, Bertha, was nowhere to be seen.
For a minute the whole appearance of things struck Avice as so
excessively comical that she could scarcely help laughing. But then she
realised how shocking it really was. What sort of mothers, in their
turn, could such daughters be expected to make? She waited for a
moment's pause, and when it occurred, which was not for some minutes,
she said--
"Aunt Filomena!"
"Oh, you're there, are you?" demanded the amiable Filomena. "You just
thank the stars you've got no children! If ever an honest woman were
plagued with six good-for-nothing, sluttish, slatternly shrews of girls
as me! Here's that Ankaret--I've told her ten times o'er to wash the
tubs out, and get 'em ready for the pickling, and I come to see if they
are done, and they've never been touched, and my lady sitting upstairs
a-making her gown fine for Sunday! I declare, I'll--"
Her intentions were drowned in an equally shrill scream from Miss
Ankaret. "You never told me a word--not once! And 'tain't my place to
scour them tubs out, neither. It's Susanna as always--"
"Then I won't!" broke in Susanna. "And you might be ashamed of
yourself, I should think, to put such messy work on me when Eleanor--"
"You'd best let me alone!" fiercely chimed in Eleanor.
"Oh dear, dear!" cried Avice, putting her hands over her ears. "My dear
cousins, are you going to drive each other deaf? Why, I would rather
scour out twenty tubs than fight over them like this! Are you not
Christian women? Come, now, who is going to scour the tubs? I will
take one myself if you will do the others. Who will join me?"
And Avice began to turn up her sleeves in good earnest. "No, Avice,
don't you; you'll spoil your gown," said Eleanor, looking ashamed of her
vehemence. "See, I'll get them done. Mildred, won't you help?"
"Well, I don't mind if I do," was the rather lazy answer.
But Ankaret and Susanna declined to touch the work, the latter cynically
offering to lend her apron to Avice.
As Avice scrubbed away, she began to regret her errand. To be afflicted
with such a lifelong companion as one of these lively young ladies would
be far worse than solitude. But where was the youngest?--the quiet
little Bertha, who took after her peaceable father, and whom Avice had
rarely heard to speak? She asked Eleanor for her youngest sister.
"Oh, she's somewhere," said Eleanor carelessly.
"She took her work down to the brook," added Mildred. "She's been
crying her eyes out over Emma's going."
"Ay, Emma and Bertha are the white chicks among the black," said
Eleanor, laughing; "they'll miss each other finely, I've no doubt."