Antigone, scornfully.
"I want all I can get," quietly responded Sarah. "Mother says (if you
don't care for it, Emma may) that discontent is the worst companion a
girl can have for making everything look miserable. You'll be a deal
happier, she says, with a dry crust and a good will to it, than with a
roast ox and a complaining temper."
"Ay, that's true!" said Emma, with a sigh.
"Poor Emma!" laughed Antigone. "You get enough of it, don't you, at the
smithy?"
"I would rather not talk over my mother and sisters, if you please,"
returned Emma.
"Oh, you don't need to take airs, my lady. I know!"
"Come, let Emma be," said Sarah. "Let's keep our tempers, if we haven't
much else. There's the vesper bell!"
Antigone's work was not likely to be improved by the hasty huddled-up
style in which it was folded, while Sarah and Emma shook theirs straight
and carefully avoided creases. They had then to give it in to the
mistress, who stood at one end of the room, putting all away in a large
coffer. When the last girl had given in her work, Mrs De la Laund
called for silence.
"On Thursday next," said she, "I shall give you a holiday after dinner.
The Queen comes to Lincoln on that day, and I wish to give as many as
are good girls the chance of seeing her enter. But I shall expect to
have no creased work like Antigone's; nor split and frayed like
Geneveva's; nor dirtied like Femiana's. Now you may go."
They had odd names for girls in those days. Among the nobles and
gentry, most were like ours; young ladies of rank were Alice, Cicely,
Margaret, Joan, Isabel, Emma, or Agnes: a strange name being the
exception. But among working women the odd names were then the rule:
they were Yngeleis, Sabelina, Orenge, Pimma, Cinelote, Argentella, and
very many more of the same high-sounding kind.
When the apprentices left the work-room, they were free to do as they
liked till seven o'clock, when they must all re-assemble there, answer
to their names called over, repeat some prayers after Mrs de la Laund,
and go to bed in a large loft at the top of the house. Characters came
out on these occasions. The majority showed themselves thoughtless and
giddy: they went to run races on the green, and to play games--the
better disposed only among themselves: but the wild, adventurous spirits
soon joined a lot of idle youths as unsteady as themselves, with whom
they spent the evening in rough play, loud laughter, and not altogether
decorous joking. The little group of sensible girls kept away from such
scenes. Most of them went to see their friends, if within reasonable
distance; those who had none at hand sat or walked quietly together.
Emma and Sarah were among these.
Any person entering Lincoln on the following Wednesday would plainly
have seen that the town was preparing for some great event. Every house
draped itself in some kind of hanging--the rich in coarse silk, the
poorer in bunting or whatever they could get. The iron hoops here and
there built into the walls for that purpose, held long pine-sticks, to
be lighted as torches after dark; and they would need careful watching,
for a great deal of the city was built of wood, and if a spark lighted
on the walls, a serious fire might be the result. In the numerous
balconies which projected from the better class of houses sat ladies
dressed in their handsomest garments on the Thursday morning, and below
in the street stood men and women packed tightly into a crowd, waiting
for the Queen to arrive. There was not much room in a mediaeval street,
and the sheriffs did not find it easy to keep a clear passage for the
royal train. As to keeping any passage for the traffic, that would have
been considered quite unnecessary. There was not much to keep it for;
and what there was could go round by back streets, just as well as not.
Few people set any value on time in the Middle Ages.
Queen Alianora was expected to arrive about twelve o'clock. She was not
the Queen Eleanor of whom we read at the beginning of the story (for
Alianora is only one of the old ways of spelling Eleanor), but her
daughter-in-law, the Lady Alianora who had been a friend to the dumb
Princess. She was a Spanish lady, and was one of the best and loveliest
Queens who ever reigned in England. Goodness and beauty are not always
found in company--perhaps I might say, not often; but they went together
with her. She was a Spanish blonde--which means that her hair was a
bright shade of golden--neither flaxen nor red; and that her eyes were a
deep, deep blue--the blue of a southern sky, such as we rarely if ever
see in an English one. Her complexion was fair and rosy, her features
regular and beautiful, her figure extremely elegant and
well-proportioned. The crowd, though good-humoured, was beginning to
get tired, when she came at last.
The Queen, who was not quite thirty years of age, rode on a white horse,
whose scarlet saddle-cloth was embroidered with golden lions and roses,
and which was led by Garcia, her Spanish Master of the Horse. She was
dressed in green samite, trimmed with ermine. On her left hand rode the
Earl of Lincoln, on her right, her eldest surviving son, the little
Prince Alphonso, who was only seven years old. He died at the age of
eleven. After the Queen rode her two damsels, Aubrey de Caumpeden and
Ermetrude; and after them and the officers of the household came a
number of lesser people, the mob of sight-seers closing in and following
them up the street. [See Note 1.] Her Majesty rode up Steephill to the
Castle, where the Countess of Lincoln and her daughter Lady Margaret--a
girl of about fifteen--received her just inside the gate. Then the mob
cheered, the Queen looked back with a smile and a bow, the Almoner flung
a handful of silver pennies among them, the portcullis was hauled down,
and the sight was over.
As Emma turned back from the Castle gate, she met her father and her
sister Eleanor, who, like her, had been sight-seeing.
"Well!" said Dan, "did thou see her?"
"Oh yes, beautifully!" answered Emma. "Isn't she handsome, Father?"
"`Handsome is as handsome does,'" philosophically returned Dan. "Some
folks looks mighty handsome as doesn't do even to it. _She_ was just
like a pictur' when I wed her. Ay, she was, so!--Where art thou going,
Emma?"
"I thought of looking in on Aunt Avice, Father. Are you and Eleanor
coming, too?"
"I'm not," said Eleanor. "I'm going to see Laurentia atte Gate. So
I'll wish you good even."
She kept straight on, while Dan and Emma turned off for Avice's house.
It was not surprising that they found nobody at home but the turnspit
dog, who was sufficiently familiar with both to wag a welcome; but
somebody sat in the chimney-corner who was not at home, but was a
visitor like themselves. When the door was unlatched, Father Thomas
closed the book he had been reading and looked up.
"Good even, Father," said Dan to the priest. "I reckon you've come o'
th' same errand as us."
"What is that, my son?"
Dan sat down on the form, and put a big hand on each knee.
"Well, it's some'at like t' shepherd comin' to count t' sheep, to see
'at none of 'em's missin'," said he. "It's so easy to get lost of a big
moor full o' pits and quagmires. And this world's some'at like it.--Ah,
Avice! folks as goes a-sight-seeing mun expect to find things of a
mixtur' when they gets home."
"A very pleasant mixture, Uncle," said Avice. "Pray you of your
blessing, holy Father."
Father Thomas gave it, and Bertha, stooping down, kissed Dan on his
broad wrinkled forehead.
"Did thou get a penny?" asked Dan.
"I got two!" cried Bertha, triumphantly. "And Aunt Avice got one. Did
you, Father?"
"Nay, lass--none o' my luck! Silver pennies and such knows better nor
to come my way. Nor they'd better not, without they'll come right
number. I should get tore to bits if I went home wi' one, as like as
not. She 'd want it, and so 'd Ankaret, and so 'd Susanna, and so 'd
Mildred; and atwixt 'em all it 'd get broke i' pieces, and _so_ should
I. And see thou, it's made i' quarters, and I amn't, so it wouldn't
come so convenient to me."
Pennies were then made with a deep cross cut athwart them, so that they
were easily broken, when wanted, into halfpence and farthings, for there
were no separate ones coined.
"Father, have one of mine!" cried Bertha at the beginning of Dan's
answer.
"Nay, nay, lass! Keep thy bit o' silver--or if thou wants to give it,
let Emma have it. She'll outlive it; I shouldn't."
The silver penny changed hands at once. Avice had meanwhile been
hanging up her hood and cloak, and she now proceeded to prepare a dish
of eggs, foreseeing company to supper. Supper was exceedingly early
to-day, as it was scarcely three o'clock; but dinner had been equally
so, for nobody wanted to be busy when the Queen came. A large dish of
"eggs and butter" was speedily on the table--the "buttered eggs" of the
north of England, which are, I believe, identical with the "scrambled
eggs" of the United States. The party sat down to supper, Father Thomas
being served with a trencher to himself.
"And how dost thou get along wi' thy Missis, my lass?" said Dan to his
daughter.
"Oh, things is very pleasant as yet, Father," answered Emma with a
smile. "There's a mixture, as you said just now. Some's decent lasses
enough; and some's foolish; and some's middlin'. There's most of the
middlin' ones."
"I'm fain to hear it," said Dan. "Lasses is so foolish, I should ha'
thought there 'd be most o' that lot. So 's lads too. Eh, it's a queer
world, this un: mortal queer! But I asked thee how thou got on with thy
Missis, and thou tells me o' th' lasses. Never _did_ know a woman
answer straight off. Ask most on 'em how far it is to Newark, and
they'll answer you that t' wind was west as they come fro' Barling."
"Thou hast not a good opinion of women, my son," said Father Thomas, who
looked much amused.
"I've seen too much on 'em!" responded Dan, conclusively. "I've got a
wife and six lasses."
"Bertha, we'd better mind our ways!" said Emma, laughing.
"Nay, it's none you," was Dan's comment. "You're middlin' decent, you
two. So's Avice; and so's old Christopher's Regina. I know of ne'er
another, without it 's t' cat--and she scratches like t' rest when she's
put out. There _is_ other decent 'uns, happen. They haven't come my
way yet."
"Why, Father!" cried Emma. "Think who you're lumping together--the Lady
Queen, and my Lady at the Castle, and Lady Margaret, and the Dean's
sister, and--"
"Thou'll be out o' breath, if thou reckons all thou'st heard tell of,"
said Dan. "There's cats o' different sorts, child: some's snowy white
(when so be they've none been i' th' ash-hole), and some's tabby, and
some's black as iron; but they all scrats. Women's like 'em.--You're
wise men, you parsons and such, as have nought to do wi' 'em. Old
Christopher, my neighbour up at smithy, he says weddin's like a bag full
o' snakes wi' one eel amongst 'em: you ha' to put your hand in, and you
may get th' eel. But if you dunna--why you've got to do t' best you can
wi' one o' t' other lot. If you'll keep your hand out of the bag you'll
stand best chance of not getting bit."
"It is a pity thou wert not a monk, my son," said the priest, whose
gravity seemed hard to keep.
"Ay, it is!" was Dan's hearty response. "I'm alway fain to pass a
nunnery. Says I to myself, There's a bonnie lot o' snakes safe tied up
out o' folkses' way. They'll never fly at nobody no more. I'm fain for
the men as hasn't got 'em. Ay, I am!"
Avice and her young cousins laughed.
"Do you think they never fly at one another, Uncle Dan?" asked the
former.
"Let 'em!" returned that gentleman with much cordiality. "A man gets a
bit o' peace then. It's t' only time he does. If they'd just go and
make a reg'lar end o' one another! but they never does,"--and the smith
pushed away his trencher with a sigh. "Well! I reckon I mun be going.
She gave me while four:--and I'm feared o' vesper bell ringing afore I
can get home. There'll be more bells nor one, if so. God be wi' ye,
lasses! Good even, Father."
And the door was shut on the unhappy husband of the delightful Filomena.
Emma took leave soon after, and Bertha went with her, to see another
friend before she returned to her employer's house. Avice and the
priest were left alone. For a few minutes both were silent; but perhaps
their thoughts were not very unlike.
"I wish, under your leave, Father," said Avice at length, "that somebody
would say a word to Aunt Filomena. I am afraid both she and Uncle Dan
are very ignorant. Truly, so am I: and it should be some one who knows
better. I doubt if he quite means all he says; but he thinks too ill of
women,--and indeed, with five such as he has at home, who can wonder at
it? He has no peace from morning to night; and he is naturally a man
who loves peace and quiet--as you are yourself, holy Father, unless I
mistake."
"Thou art not mistaken, my daughter," said Father Thomas. Something
inside him was giving him a sharp prick or two. Did he love quiet too
much, so as to interfere with his duties to his fellow-men? And then
something else inside the priest's heart rose up, as it were, to press
down the question, and bid the questioner be silent.
"I wonder," said Avice, innocently, quite unaware of the course of her
companion's thoughts, "whether, if Aunt Filomena knew her duty better,
she might not give poor Uncle Dan a little more rest. He is good, in
his way, and as far as he knows. I wish I knew more! But then," Avice
concluded, with a little laugh, "I am only a woman."
"Yet thou art evidently one of the few whom he likes and respects,"
answered the priest. "Be it thine, my daughter, to show him that women
are not all of an evil sort. Do thy best, up to the light thou hast;
and cry to God for more light, so that thou mayest know how to do
better. `Pour forth thy prayers to Him,' as saith the Collect for the
First Sunday after the Epiphany, `that thou mayest know what thy duty
requires of thee, and be able to comply with what thou knowest.' It is
a good prayer, and specially for them that are perplexed concerning
their duty." [See Note 2.]
"But when one does know one's duty," asked Avice with simplicity, "it
seems so hard to make one's self do it."
"Didst thou ever yet do that? Daughter, dost thou believe in the Holy
Ghost?"
Avice's immediate answer was what would be the instinctive unthinking
response of most professing Christians.
"Why, Father, of course I do!"
"Good. What dost thou believe?"
Avice was silent. "Ah!" said the priest. "It is easy to think we
believe: but hard to put our faith into plain words. If the faith were
clearer, maybe the words would follow."
"It is so difficult to get things clear and plain!" sighed poor Avice.
"Have one thing clear, daughter--the way between God and thine own soul.
Let nothing come in to block up that--however fair, howsoever dear it
be. And thou shalt have thy reward."
"Father, is it like keeping other things clear? The way to have the
floor clear and clean is to sweep it every morning."
"Ay, my daughter, sweep it every morning with the besom of prayer, and
every night bear over it the torch of self-examination. So shall the
evil insects not make their nests there."
"I don't quite know how to examine myself," said Avice.
"And thou wilt err," answered Father Thomas, "if thou set about that
work alone, with a torch lighted at the flame of thine own
righteousness. Light thy torch at the fire of God's altar; examine
thyself by the light of His holy law; and do it at His feet, so that
whatever evil thing thou mayest find thou canst take at once to Him to
be cleansed away. Content not thyself with brushing away thoughts, but
go to the root of that same sin in thine own heart. Say not, `I should
not have spoken proudly to my neighbour'--but, `I should not be proud in
my heart.' Deal rather with the root that is in thee than with the
branches of acts and words. There are sins which only to think of is to
do. Take to our Lord, then, thy sins to be cleansed away; but let thine
own thoughts dwell not so much on thy sins, thy deeds done and words
said, but rather on thy sinfulness, the inward fount of sin in thy
nature."
"That were ugly work!" said Avice.
"Ay. I reckon thou countest not the scouring of thy floor among thine
enjoyments. But it is needful, my daughter: and is it no enjoyment to
see it clean?"
"Ay, that it is," admitted Avice.
"I remember, my child, many years ago--thou wert but a little maid--that
holy Bishop Robert came to sup with thy grandmother Muriel. Tell me,
wouldst thou have been satisfied--I say not as a little child, since
children note not such things--but as a woman, wouldst thou have been
satisfied to receive the holy Bishop with a dirty floor, and offer to
him an uncleansed spoon to put to his lips?"
"Oh no, Father, surely not!"
"Then see, daughter, that when the Bishop of thy soul lifteth the latch
to come in and sup with thee, He find not the soiled floor and the
unclean vessel, and turn sorrowfully away, saying, `I thought to sup
with My child this night, but this is no place for Me.' Trust me, thou
wilt lose more than He, if He close the door and depart."
Avice's eyes filled with tears.
"O Father, pray for me! I cannot bear to think of that."
Father Thomas rose and laid his hand on Avice's head. His words, as
coming from a priest, rather surprised her.
"My child," he said softly, "let us pray for each other."
Avice stood looking out of the window after him as he went down the
street.
"I wonder," she said to herself, "if our Lord ever turned away thus
because Father Thomas's chamber was not clean! He seemed to know what
it was so well--yet how could such a good, holy man know anything about
it?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. Aubrey is now a man's name only, but in the earlier hall of the
Middle Ages it was used for both sexes.
Note 2. This collect was slightly altered from that in the Sarum
Missal. The form here quoted is the older one.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
AS A LITTLE CHILD.
If you put a single straw into an eddying stream, other straws and bits
of rubbish of all sorts will come and join it, until by and bye it looks
like a little island in the midst of the water. And we often see
something like this going on in men's minds. A man drops one idea,
which another man takes up and considers, till ideas of his own come to
join it, many things seen and heard contribute their help, and at last
the single sentence grows into a mountain of action.
Avice would have been astonished if any one had told her that she had
made an island. But her simple suggestion fell like an odd straw into
the stream of Father Thomas's thoughts, and grew and grew there, until a
few days later it led to decided action.
Father Thomas was by nature a quiet man. His temper was gentle and
even; he hated everything like noise and bustle, far more tumult and
quarrelling. He was not fond even of conversation, except now and then
as a pleasant variety to a quiet life, full of thinking and reading. A
man of this sort is generally an innocent man--by which I mean, a man
who does no harm to his neighbours: and considering how many men and
women spend their lives in doing their neighbours harm of one sort or
another, that is a good deal to say of any man. But there is another
point to be taken into account, namely, what good does such a man do?
Why, no more than a chrysalis. And he is a poor specimen of manhood who
is content to be of no more use in the world than a chrysalis, and to be
as little missed when he goes out of it. This was the point which
troubled Father Thomas's meditations. It was as if an angel had come
down to him, and pointed to the old smithy on the green, and said, "What
are you doing for those people? God will demand an account of their
souls, some day, and from somebody. Are you not your brothers' keeper?"
Hitherto Father Thomas had gone on very comfortably, with a reflection
which serves a great many of us to excuse our pride or our laziness--I
wish it might never be heard again from human lips--"It is not my
place." It was true, in one sense. The smithy was in Newport parish,
and Father Thomas belonged to the Cathedral. He tried to quiet the
angel--which was really his own conscience--with the thought that he had
no business to intrude into somebody else's parish. But the angel would
not be quiet.
"Will God take that answer at the Judgment Day?" he said. "You know
very well that the Vicar of Newport is an idle, careless man, who never
troubles himself about the souls of his people: that so long as you
observe the proper forms of civility, and ask his leave to visit these
people, he will give it you in a minute, and be glad enough to think he
is saved the trouble. That is the truth, and you know it."
Now, it is very unpleasant when one's conscience says in that blunt,
downright, cutting way, "You know it:" and Father Thomas found it so.
He made a few more excuses, which his conscience blew to the winds
before they were well finished: and at last it laid hold of him, as it
were, by the shoulders, and said, "Look there!"
Father Thomas looked there--at the cross which then hung in every
clergyman's room. There were two lines carved on the wood at the bottom
of this--lines which it was then not unusual to put at the bottom of
these crosses.
"This did I for thee; What dost thou for Me?"
"Look there!" cried the Angel Conscience. "Christ bore that heavy cross
for you--bore the reviling and the agony, the spitting, the scourging,
and the shame; and you won't face the Vicar of Newport for Him! You
can't walk half a mile, and ask a civil question of a man from whom you
expect a civil answer, for love of the Man who came down all the way
from Heaven to earth, and endured all the contradiction of sinners for
three-and-thirty years, and faced all the malice of the devil, for the
love of you! Are you ashamed of yourself, Thomas de Vaux, or are you
not?"
When it reached that point, Father Thomas was painting in a book. Books
in those days were often ornamented with very beautiful paintings: and
the one on which the priest was working, represented Peter denying
Christ in the High Priest's palace. He had just painted one side of
Peter's hair, but the other side was still blank. But when the Angel
asked that question, down went the brush.
"Lord, pardon Thy servant!" said Father Thomas humbly. "I am not worthy
to carry so much as the corner of Thy cross after Thee. But I will take
it up, and go forth. Indeed, I did not know I was such a selfish, lazy,
ease-loving man as I am!"
Saint Peter had to put up with only half his hair for the rest of that
day, for Father Thomas determinately washed and wiped his brush, threw a
cloth over his book and painting tools to keep them from the dust, put
on his fur cap, and went off to see the Vicar of Newport.
When a man braces himself up to do something which he does not like for
the love of God, sometimes God makes it a great deal easier and less
disagreeable than he expected to find it. The Vicar was just coming out
of his door as Father Thomas reached it.
"A fine day--peace be with thee!" said he. "Whither go you, Brother?"
"May I have your leave, Father, to visit one of your parishioners--the
smith that dwells about a mile hence, on the Newport road?"
"The saints love you! you may visit every man Jack of my parishioners,
and take my blessing with you!" said the Vicar with a hearty laugh. "I
am not over fond of that same visiting of smiths and tailors and fellows
of that sort. I never know what to say to them, save hear confession,
and they never have nought to say to me. You are cut from another
quality of stuff, I reckon. Go your way, Brother Thomas, and make
decent Christians of them if you can. There's a she-bear lives there: I
wish you luck with her."
And with a farewell nod, the careless Vicar strode away.
"And into such hands as these, men's souls are given!" thought Father
Thomas. "Lord, purify Thy Church! Ah, dear old Bishop! you might well
weep in dying."
He walked on rapidly till he came within sight of the forge. Daniel
Greensmith's ringing blows on the anvil grew more and more distinct and
at last the words he was singing as he worked came to the priest's ears: