comfort. I do not know that she cared much for anything else. The Lord
King was the one for gathering curious animals of all sorts. He had
three leopards in the Tower, and a white bear, which was taken out to
fish in the Thames; the citizens of London paid fourpence a day for the
bear's keep, and had to provide a chain and muzzle for it, and a long
cord whereby it was held when it fished in the river. And in the
spring, before the coming of the Lady Alianora, the French King sent to
our King a very strange animal, the like of which was never before seen
in England. It had scarcely any eyes that man might see, and not much
of a tail; but great flapping ears, and a most extraordinary thing that
hung down from its face, which was hollow like a pipe, and it could pick
things up with it as thou dost with thy fingers. It was a lead-coloured
beast, and ate nought but grass and hay and such-like; it would not
touch meat nor bones. They called it an oliphant,"--for so in old time
people pronounced elephant. "The Lord King thought great things of this
beast, and had a house built for it, forty feet by twenty, at the Tower:
it was made very strong, lest the great beast should break forth and
slay men. But truly it seemed a peaceable beast enough.
"We dwelt much more quietly at Windsor, after the departure of the Lady
Alianora. For she went abroad with the Lord Edward her husband, and
Mariot de Ferrars, who had been there for some time--she went too; and
the King's son Edmund was made King of Sicily by the Lord Pope, and he
and the other lads were taken away; our little Lady and her cousin
Alianora de Montfort alone were left. The King thought to have made
money by Edmund his son; he was a fair boy in very truth, and he clad
him in Sicilian dress, which was graceful and comely, and showed him
before the Parliament, entreating them to find him money for all these
many expenses. But the Parliament did not seem disposed to pay for
seeing the young Lord. And, indeed, I heard Master Russell say that he
thought it strange the Lord King should make merchandise of his child's
beauty, as though he were some curious animal to be seen in a show. But
Bertha, my dear heart! we clean forgot to buy any honey--and only this
minute is it come to my mind. Tie on thine hood, I pray thee, and run
to the druggist for an half-dozen pounds."
When it is understood that honey held in Avice's cookery and diet the
place that sugar does in ours, the necessity of remedying this mistake
will be seen. Sugar was much too expensive to be used by any but
wealthy people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. The robes provided for Agnes and Avice are the sole imaginary
items in this account. Sendal was a very thin silk.
CHAPTER SIX.
SET FREE.
As Bertha came back, carefully carrying her jar of honey, she heard a
considerable tumult in a street on her left hand, which led to the Jews'
quarter of the city. In every town, the Jews were shut up in a
particular part of it; and after London itself, the towns in which the
greatest number of Jews lived were Lincoln, York, Norwich, Oxford, and
Northampton. Since the dreadful persecution arising from the (real or
supposed) murder of little Hugh, Lincoln had been comparatively quiet
from such tumults; and Bertha was too young to know anything about it
but from hearsay. Wondering if some fresh commotion was going to arise,
and anxious to be safe at home before it should begin, Bertha quickened
her steps. There were only three more streets to cross, one of which
was a dark, narrow alley leading directly to the Jews' quarter. As
Bertha crossed this, she heard a low, frightened call upon her name, and
a slight figure crept out and crouched at her feet.
"O Bertha!" said a girl's voice, broken by sobs and terrified catching
of the breath, "you are kind-hearted; I know you are. You saved a
little dog that the dreadful boys were trying to drown. Will you save
me, though I am beneath a dog in your eyes?"
"Who are you?" asked astonished Bertha.
"I am Hester, the daughter of Aaron," said the girl, "and there is a
deadly raid on our quarter. They accuse us of poisoning the wells. O
Bertha, they lay things to us that we never do! Save me, for my
womanhood's sake!"
"Poor soul!" said Bertha, looking down at her. "Come with me to Aunt
Avice. Maybe she will let thee tarry in some corner till the tumult is
over. I dare say it will not be much."
Bertha spoke in rather contemptuous tones, though they were not wanting
in pity. Everybody in England was taught then to rank Jews with vermin,
and to look upon it as a weakness to show them any kindness.
The two girls reached the door in safety, and Bertha led Hester in.
"Aunt Avice," she said, "there is a commotion in the Jews' quarter, and
here is a Jew maiden that wants to know if we will shelter her. I
suppose she won't hurt us much, will she?"
The very breath of a Jew was fancied to be poisonous.
Avice looked at the pale, terrified face and trembling limbs of the girl
who had cast herself on her mercy.
"Well, I dare say not," said she; "at any rate, we will risk it.
Perhaps the good Lord may not be very angry; or if He is, we must say
more prayers, and beg our Lady Saint Mary to intercede for us. Come in,
child."
Poor Avice! she knew no better. She had been taught that the Lord who
died for her was a stern, angry Judge, and that all the mercy rested in
His human mother. And the Jews had crucified Christ; so, thought Avice,
He must hate them! Perhaps, of such Christians as she was, He may have
said again, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
Hester came in quietly. "May God bless you!" she said. "I will try not
to breathe on you, for I know what you think." And she sat down meekly
on the floor, in a dark corner, not daring to offer any help, lest they
should imagine that she would pollute anything she touched. Avice threw
her a cake of bread, as she might have done to a dog; and Hester knew
that it was a kinder act than she would have received from most of the
Christians around.
It was not yet quite bed-time, and Bertha sat down again to her work,
begging her aunt to finish the tale. They took no notice of Hester.
"It is almost finished," said Avice; "there is little more to tell. The
winter got over, but spring was scarcely begun when our little Lady's
health failed again. The Lord King was so anxious about her that when
he was away from Windsor, he bade the Lady Queen to send him a special
messenger with news of her; and so delighted was he to hear of her
recovery, that he commanded a good robe to be given to the messenger,
and offered in thanksgiving an image of silver, wrought in the form of a
woman, to the shrine of Saint Edward."
"Then she did recover, Aunt?"
"Ay, but it was for the last time. As the summer drew on, the Lady
Queen asked Master Thomas if he thought it well that the little Lady
should have change again, and be sent into the country till the heat was
past. Master Thomas answered that he reckoned it unnecessary; and the
Lady Queen departed, well pleased. But as soon as she was gone, Master
Thomas said to me and Julian the Rocker, who were tending our little
Lady--`She will have a better change than to Swallowfield.' Quoth
Julian, `Say you so, Master? Whither do you purpose sending her?' And
he said, looking sadly on the child, `_I_ purpose sending her? Truly,
good Julian, no whither. But ere long time be over, the Lord our God
will send for her, by that angel that taketh no bribe to delay execution
of His mandate.' And then I knew his meaning: my darling was to die.
But the steps of the angel were very slow. The autumn came and went.
The child seemed languid and dull, and the Lord King offered a chasuble
of samite to the blessed Edmund of Pontigny at his altar at Canterbury."
Edmund Rich, afterwards called Saint Edmund of Pontigny, was an
Archbishop of Canterbury with whom King Henry the Third was at variance
as long as he lived, much in the same way as Henry the Second had been
with Becket. Now he was dead, a banished man, the Pope had declared him
a saint, and King Henry made humble offerings at his shrine. But it is
amusing to find that with respect to this offering at least, his
Majesty's instructions were to buy the samite of the lowest price that
could be found!
"It was all of no use," pursued Avice sorrowfully. "The angel had
received the mandate. Great feasts were held at Easter--there were
twenty beeves and fifty muttons, fifteen hundred pullets, and six
hundred shillings' worth of bread, beside many other things--but ere one
month was over, the feast became a fast. When Saint Philip's day dawned
my darling lay in her bed, with her fair eyes turned up to heaven and
her hands folded in prayer; and who may know what she said to God, or
yet more what He told to her? She had never been taught to pray; she
could not be." Avice's only notion of prayer was repeating a form of
words, and keeping time by a string of beads. "But I shall always think
that in some way beyond our comprehension, my darling could speak to
God. And on the evening of the Invention of the Cross"--which is May
3rd--"she spoke to Him in Heaven."
"And did the Lady Queen sorrow very much, Aunt? I suppose, though,
great ladies like her would not care as much as poor people."
"Wouldst thou, child? Ah, a mother is a mother, let her be a cottager
or a queen. And she sorrowed so sorely that for weeks afterwards she
lay ill, and all the skill of her physicians could avail nothing. The
Lord King, too, fell sick of a tertian fever, which held him many days,
and I believe it was out of sheer anguish for his dearest child. He
commanded a brass image of her to be placed on the tomb, but ere it was
finished he would have one of silver: and he gave fifty shillings a year
to the hermit of Charing, for a priest to pray daily for her in the
chapel of the hermitage."
"Do you think she is still in Purgatory, Aunt?"
Avice's religion, as taught not by the Word of God, but the traditions
of men, led her to be doubtful on that point. But her heart broke its
way through the bonds.
"What, my white dove? my little unspotted darling, that never wilfully
sinned against God and holy Church? Child, if our holy Father the Pope
were to tell me himself that she was there, I would not believe him. Do
the angels go to Purgatory? Nay, I do verily believe that, seeing her
infirmity, Christ our Lord did all the work of salvation for her, and
that she sings now before our Father's face."
Poor Avice! she could get no further. But we, who know God's Word, know
that there is but one Mediator between God and man, and that He has
offered a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the
whole world. Before Bertha could reply, an answer came unexpectedly
from the dark corner.
"Your God must be hard to propitiate," said the young Jewess. "In old
times, after the sacrifice was offered, a man was cleansed from sin. He
had not to cleanse himself by his own pain."
"But you are heathens," said Avice, feeling it a condescension to argue
with a Jew. "Our religion is better than yours."
"How?" was Hester's rejoinder.
"Because we have been redeemed by our Lord, who died to save us from
Hell."
"It does not sound like it. Then why had the little child to go there?"
"She did not go there! She went to Purgatory."
"She went to pain, if I understood you rightly. Why did your Messiah
not finish His work, and keep her from going to pain altogether?"
"I cannot answer such wicked questions," said Avice. "The Church
teaches that God's love purifies His servants in Purgatory, and as soon
as their souls are clean they go to Heaven."
"Our God does better for us than that," was Hester's quiet answer. "I
do not know what `the Church' is. But I suppose God's love is not for
Gentiles."
And she relapsed into silence. Avice sat and span--and thought. Both
of them were terribly ignorant; but Avice did honestly desire to know
God's will, and such truth as was in Hester's words troubled her. And
as she thought, other words came to her, heard years ago from the pulpit
of Lincoln Cathedral, and from the long silent lips of that holy Bishop
Grosteste whom she so deeply revered.
"By leaning on Christ," the Bishop had said, "every true Christian rises
into true life, peace, and joy; he lives in His life, sees light in His
light, is invigorated with His warmth, grows in His strength, and
leaning on the Beloved, his soul ascends upwards."
Then for those who loved Christ and leaned on Him, either He must be
with them in Purgatory, and then it would be no pain at all: or--Avice
shrank from the alternative that perhaps there was no Purgatory at all!
It is hard to break free from trammels in which we have been held all
our lives. Bertha did not follow the course of her aunt's thoughts, and
wondered why she said, after long silence--
"Methinks God is enough for His people, wherever they are."
Hester also had been thinking, and to as much purpose.
"It is written, `In His name shall the Gentiles trust,'" she said. "And
I think, if He can love any Gentiles, it must be kindly and merciful
hearts like yours. Perhaps the Great Sacrifice--the Messiah Himself--is
meant for all men. But I think He will finish His work, and not leave
it incomplete, as your priests seem to teach you."
"He will do right by all men, if thou meanest our Lord," replied Avice
gently. "And what was right for all, and best for us, we shall know
when we come to Him."
"Then the little Lady knows it now, Aunt," said Bertha.
"Yes, my darling knows it now. It may be she knows why her ears were
sealed and her tongue bound, now that they are unstopped and loosed.
And I marvel if any voice in the choirs of the angels can be so sweet as
hers."
There was silence for a little while. Then Hester rose.
"I thank you very much for your kindness," she said. "I think I might
go home. The streets seem quieter now."
Avice went to the door, unlatched it, and peered forth into the night.
"Yes, there seems to be no noise in the direction of your quarter now.
I think you will be safe. But if you feel uneasy, you can stay the
night in this room."
"No, thank you," replied Hester gratefully. "I will not put you to that
trouble. You have been very good to me. May the God of Israel bless
you with His blessing!"
Avice felt rather uneasy. She had always been taught that Jews were
idolaters, and she never imagined that Hester could be blessing her in
the name of the one living God. She fancied that the benediction of
some horrible Moloch was being called down upon her, and feared it
accordingly. But she answered kindly, for unkindness was not in her
simple, loving, God-fearing heart. Hester went out, and latched the
door behind her.
"I am glad she is gone," said Bertha. "I could not feel easy while she
was here. Yet I could not have borne to turn her away without asking
you if you would take her in, Aunt. I hope we have not done wrong!"
"I hope not, indeed," replied Avice, who was not quite easy in her own
mind. "I wonder why it should be so wrong to pity Jews, and be kind to
them. It looks so different from all the other commands of our Lord."
Different, most truly! But such causes for wonder were likely to be
frequent enough, so long as men allowed the traditions of men to run
alongside of the infallible Word of God. And they had no power to read
for themselves the real words of the Lord, who had said to the father of
all Israel, "I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that
curseth thee."
But the influx of visitors was not yet over for the evening. Hester had
not been gone long when a heavy rap came on the door. "Come in!" said
Avice; and Uncle Dan appeared.
"Could you spare a chap a seat, think ye?" said he. "I've come for a
bit o' peace. We've got thunder and lightning and rain up at smithy.
_She's_ thunder, and Ankaret's lightning, and Mildred's rain, for she's
a-crying: and El'nor and me, we 're wet to skin wi' 't. So I put my cap
on and come here to dry me a bit."
Avice laughed. "You're always welcome, Uncle Dan, and I hope you know
it," said she. "Bertha, my maid, bake a short-cake for thy father.
There's enough warmth in the bake-stone."
"Short-cake's good," said Dan, "and I'll not go to deny it; but love and
peace are better. _She_ can make short-cake wi' anybody. It's th' jam
as goes wi' 't I don't like. She makes it so tart, and puts so much on.
Sure, if th' fire had went out, she'd easy bake a cake a-top of her
temper, and so could Ankaret. Eh, it do take a whole hive of honey to
sweeten some folks. There's bees in this world, for sure; but there's
many a waps to every bee."
In the present day, "waps" is considered a vulgar way of pronouncing the
word; but it was correct English at the time of which I am writing.
"Wasp" is really the corrupt pronunciation. In the same way, they said
"claps" where we say "clasp."
"Uncle Dan, I sometimes wonder you do not come and live in Lincoln
town."
"Dost thee? Think I haven't noise enough at smithy?"
"But I think you would make friends here, and find things pleasanter."
"Humph!" said Dan, laying a big, hardened brown hand upon each knee.
"It's very plain to me, Avice, as thou doesn't live in a house where
everything thou does turns to hot water. Me make friends! She'd have
'em out o' th' door afore they'd a-comed in. They wouldn't come twice,
I reckon--nay, they wouldn't. That'd be end o' my friend-making,
Avice."
"Uncle Dan, did you never try standing up to Aunt Filomena?"
"Did I never try _what_? Ay did I, once--and got knocked down as sharp
as ninepins. Standing up! I'd love to see thee try it. Thou'd not be
right end up long."
Bertha had gone upstairs, or Avice perhaps would not have spoken so
plainly, though the smith himself had long passed the stage of ignoring
his wife's failings in the presence of her children.
"But you are her husband, Uncle Dan."
"I reckon I know that Thou would, if she'd plucked as much of thy
whiskers out as she has o' mine."
"And wives ought to obey their husbands."
"Thou'll oblige me by saying so to her, and I'll be glad to know if thou
likes what thou'll get."
"You think she cannot be managed?"
"Not without one o' th' archangels likes to try. I'll not say he
wouldn't be sorry at after."
"It does seem such a sad way for you to live," said Avice pityingly.
"Grin and bide," said Dan philosophically. "Grin while I can, and bide
when I can't. But I'll tell thee what--if some o' them fighting fellows
as goes up and down a-seeking for adventures, 'd just take off Ankaret
and Mildred--well, I don't know about El'nor: she's been better o'
late--and eh, but they couldn't take Her, or I'd ha' given th' cow into
th' bargain, and been right glad on't--and if me and Emma and Bertha
could ha' settled down in a bit of a house somewhere, and been
peaceable--Come, it's no use hankering over things as can't be.
Elsewise, I'd ha' said a chap might ha' had a bit o' comfort then."
"Uncle Dan, did you ever think of praying that Aunt Filomena might have
a better temper?"
"Ever think of what?" demanded Uncle Dan in the biggest capitals ever
seen on a placard.
"You know God could make her temper sweet, Uncle Dan."
"Thou believes that, does thou?"
"I do."
"So will I--when I see't. I reckon I'll have a rare capful o' larks by
th' sky falling, first."
"The sky will fall some day, my son," said the voice of Father Thomas,
behind Dan. His soft rap had been unheard through Dan's bass voice, and
he had entered unperceived.
"Well, Father, you should know the rights on't," was Dan's answer, with
a pull at his hair. "Being a priest, I reckon you're good friends wi'
th' angels and th' sky and all that sort of thing; but--I ask your
pardon, Father, but She belongs to t'other lot, and you don't know her.
Eh, you don't, so!"
And with an ominous shake of his head, and a good-night to Avice and
Bertha, Dan passed out.
"Our Lord could do that, Father?" said Avice softly.
"Certainly, my daughter. `Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He--in
the heavens, and in the earth, and in the sea, and in all depths.'"
Father Thomas had not much of the Bible--only one Gospel and a Book of
Psalms--but what he had he studied well. And one page of the Word of
God will do a great deal for a man, with the Spirit of God to bring it
home to a willing ear and a loving heart.
"May I pray for Aunt Filomena? I am so sorry for Uncle Dan. He is not
a bad man, and she makes his home unbearable."
"God forgive her! By all means pray for both."
CHAPTER SEVEN.
A SPICE OF PHILOSOPHY.
While Dan was thus detailing his troubles in Avice's kitchen, his
daughter Emma was finishing her day's work. She was apprenticed to an
embroideress; for all kinds of embroidery were in much greater use then
than now. There was no sort of trimming except embroidery and fur;
there were no such things as printed cottons; and not only ladies'
dresses, but gentlemen's, and all kinds of curtains and hangings, were
very largely ornamented with the needle. Mrs De la Laund kept eighteen
apprentices, and they worked in a long, narrow room with windows at each
end--not glass windows, but just square openings, where light, wind, and
rain or snow, came in together. It was about half an hour before it
would be time to stop work. There was no clock in the room, and there
were only three in all Lincoln. Clocks such as we have were then
unknown. They had but two measures of time--the clepsydra, or
water-clock, and the sun-dial. When a man had neither of these, he
employed all kinds of ingenious expedients for guessing what time it
was, if the day were cloudy and the sun not to be seen. King Alfred had
invented the plan, long before, of having candles to burn a certain
time; the monks knew how long it took to repeat certain psalms. Mrs De
la Laund stopped work when the cathedral bell tolled for vespers--that
is, at four o'clock.
"You look tired, Antigone," said Emma to her nearest neighbour, a pale
girl of eighteen.
"Tired? Of course I'm tired," was the unpromising answer. "Where's the
good? One must go on."
"She does not like the work," said the girl on the other side of her.
"Do you?" responded Antigone, turning to her.
The girl gave a little laugh. "I don't think whether I like it or not,"
she said. "I like being taught what will get me a living some day."
"I hate it!" answered Antigone. "Why should I have to work for my
living, when Lady Margaret, up at the Castle, never needs to put a
needle in or out unless she pleases?"
"Nay, you're wrong there. My sister Justina is scullion-maid at the
Castle, and I am sure, from what she tells me, you wouldn't like to
change with Lady Margaret."
"My word, but I would!"
"Why not, Sarah?" asked Emma.
"Well," replied Sarah with a smile, "Antigone likes what she calls a bit
of fun when the day's work is over; and she would not get nearly so much
as she does, if she were in Lady Margaret's place. She dwells in three
chambers in her mother's tower, and never comes down except to hall,"
(namely, to meals,) "with now and then a decorous dance under the eyes
of the Lady Countess. No running races on the green, nor chattering
away to everybody, nor games--except upstairs in her own room with a few
other young damsels. Antigone would think she was in prison, to be used
like that. And learning!--why, she has to learn Latin, and surgery, and
heraldry, and all sorts of needlework--not embroidery only; and cooking,
and music, and I do not know what else. How would you like it,
Antigone?"
"Well, at any rate, she has a change!" said Antigone, with some
acerbity.
"Not quite the same thing as no work at all, for which I thought you
were longing. And no liberty, remember."
"But her gowns, Sarah, her gowns!--and her hoods, and cloaks, and
everything else! Did you see her last Saint Michael? I'd have given a
bit of liberty for that orange samite and those lovely blue slippers!"
Sarah laughed and gave a little shake of her head.
"I know who is fond of Hunt the Slipper," said she. "A pretty figure an
orange samite gown would cut after an evening of it! I think, too, I
would rather be free to go about on my feet than even to wear lovely
blue slippers. Nay, Antigone, you may depend upon it, there are less
pleasant things in Lady Margaret's life than orange gowns and blue
slippers. We can have a say about our weddings, remember: but she will
be handed over to somebody she never saw, as like as not. I'd rather be
as I am. Mother says folks' lots are more even than they like to think.
Poor folks fancy that rich ones have nothing to trouble them worth
mention; and a sick man thinks, if he were only well, he would not mind
being poor; and a man in prison says that if he could but be free, he
could bear both illness and poverty. The truth is, everybody thinks his
own trouble the worst; and yet, if we had our neighbours' instead, nine
times out of ten we should be glad to get back to our own. We know the
worst of them, and often we don't of the others. So that is why I say,
I'd rather be as I am."
"But people look down on you!" said Antigone.
"Well, let them. _That_ won't hurt me," answered Sarah.
"Sarah, I do believe you've not a bit of spirit!"
"I'd rather keep my spirit for what it is good for--to help me over hard
places and along weary bits of road. All women have those at times.
Mother says--"
"Where's the good of quoting old women? They have outlived their
youth."
"Well, at any rate they lived through it, and some of them picked up a
bit of wisdom by the way."