THE THUNDER STRIKES.
I DO not propose to go very minutely into the details of my convent
life. I remained at Dartford for several years, fairly content for the
most part, though I now and then had a great desire after more freedom.
I wearied of the trim grass plots, the orderly garden, and the orchard
shut in from the rest of the world by high walls, and longed to find
myself in the open fields, with no visible bound to my footsteps. I
remembered my uncle's house in London, and wished myself back there,
or with the family in their new home. For a time after their removal to
Antwerp, I heard from the family. At least twice a year, a packet came
with letters for me, and some valuable present for the house, of spice,
or comfits, or wonderful lace, such as they know how to make in those
parts. But after a time, these packets stopped coming, and for many a
year, I had no news of these dear ones at all.
I had one visit from my Lady Peckham during this time. She came to
London on some business about her husband's estate, which could not be
easily settled, as there was no absolute proof that Randall was dead.
The next heir was a distant relation of Sir Edward's, who lived near
London. But this gentleman was an easy-going sort of person I fancy,
or perhaps he did not care about burying himself in that wild part of
Somersetshire. Any how, he agreed, in consideration of a certain share
of the rents of the estate, to let Lady Peckham live in the house as
long as she pleased. She had brought Sir Edward a good fortune, which
was settled wholly on herself, so she was very well-to-do.
It seemed to me that she had altered very little. She had accepted
the mantle and veil, and made the vow of perpetual widowhood, and
so might be looked upon as, in some sort, a religious person as the
phrase went in those times. She staid with us a month or more, and
was, or professed to be, very much edified, though I think she was
rather scandalized at the easiness of our rule, which was, indeed,
very different from the discipline which used to be enforced at the
house to which I had been first destined at Bridgewater. I do not mean
to say that there was any disorder—far from it: but things went on in
a comfortable, business-like fashion. There were so many services to
be gone through, and they were gone through with all due gravity and
decorum. We had beautiful singing, which people came from far and near
to hear. We kept our fast days strictly enough as regards the eating
of flesh meat, but our own stews gave us abundance of fish, and our
orchard and garden supplied fruit and vegetables, so that we certainly
did not suffer from our abstinence.
However, I suppose my lady must have been well pleased on the whole,
for she tried very hard to make me consent to take the white or
novice's veil. This, however, I would not do, pleading my solemn
promise to Sir Edward and my uncle Gabriel. My lady declared that
such promises made by a child amounted to nothing, and appealed to
Father Austin. I don't know what he said to her, but it must have been
something conclusive, since she said no more to me on the matter.
I ventured to ask about my old friend and playmate, Walter Corbet.
She told me that he was still with Sir John Lambert, at Bridgewater,
assisting in the care of the parish, but that he had some prospect of a
new field of his own in Devon, not far from my old home.
"'Tis a wild and lonely place, and almost a savage people, so I am
told," said my lady. "But Walter seems to think the prospect of burying
himself among them a delightful one. Oh, if he would but have taken
the vows at Glastonbury, he might come to be abbot in time, instead of
living and dying in the gray walls of Ashcombe vicarage."
But those same gray walls are still whole and warm, while Glastonbury
is but a stately ruin, wasted by all the airs that blow freely through
its deserted halls. This, by the way.
My lady left us, as I have said, at the end of a month, to return to
Peckham Hall, though at her first coming she had talked of spending the
remainder of her days among us. But I think she was wise. Such a life
as ours would not have suited her at all. She liked to rule wherever
she was, and had been used many years to almost absolute authority,
for Sir Edward rarely interfered in any matter which concerned the
household; and she was too old and too set to learn new ways. From
something I overheard, I don't think mother assistant favored the
notion. I have heard her say myself that a nun ought to be professed
before she is twenty. I never saw my lady again, though I heard from
her now and then.
Mother assistant was now the real head and ruler of the house, for the
prioress grew more and more indolent every day. She excused herself on
the score of her health, though I cannot but think she would have been
well enough if she had taken more exercise and eaten fewer sweetmeats.
She could not have had a better deputy than the mother assistant, who
was an excellent woman and well fitted to rule a household. I never saw
a woman of a more even temper, and she had that precious faculty of
making every one do her best in her own place.
Mother Joanna continued mistress of the novices, though her task
was a light one, for we had very few accessions; our elections were
regularly gone through with, but they were no more than a form, since
the very same officers were elected over and over, save when some
one died. Sister Sacristine, who was only a middle-aged woman when
I came to Dartford, was growing old and feeble. Two new bursars had
been elected. The trees had grown older, and the old Scotch gardener
more opinionated. Sister Cicely's hands grew too stiff to manage the
organ at times, and I often took her place, and acquitted myself to
the satisfaction of my hearers; and these are about all the changes I
remember, till the great change of all.
I have said our lives were very quiet, and so they were. But when a
storm is raging, it is hard to keep all knowledge or sign of it out of
the house. We heard, now and again, rumors of the changes that were
going on outside. I remember well when Sister Emma, the stewardess,
heard from Dame Hurst, who now and then brought oysters and other
sea-fish for sale, that a great English Bible had been chained to a
pillar in the parish church at Dartford; where any one who listed could
go and hear it read, or read it for themselves, if they pleased. Sister
Emma told us this wonderful piece of news when we were all assembled
under the grape-arbor, shelling of peas for our fast day mess.
It was received with a degree of horror and amazement, which seems
strange as I remember it, now that every householder who can afford it
may have a Bible of his own.
"What an indignity!" exclaimed Sister Agnes. "To think that the Holy
Scripture should be chained to a pillar, like a man in a pillory, to
be thumbed over by every village clown or dirty fisherman who can make
shift to spell out a few words."
"You would not compare a pillar in the house of our Lord to a pillory,
would you, sister?" asked mother assistant, with that gentle smile of
ridicule which I, for one, dreaded more than the rod, when I had been
naughty.
"Why, no, reverend mother, not exactly," answered Sister Agnes, in some
confusion.
"Any how, it is not the true Word of God, but only the heretics'
translation," said Sister Margaret, sharply. "So it does not matter
what is done with it."
"I don't know about that," remarked another sister, rather timidly.
"I suppose it could not be put in the churches every where, without
the consent of the bishops and the other clergy; and they would not
allow an heretical and false translation in such a place, surely. Only
it is a pity the poor people should be allowed to peril their souls'
salvation by reading the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue."
Even then, I remember, it struck me as curious, that peoples' salvation
should be endangered by reading the Word of God, but I said nothing.
"They will never put any such thing in my church—chained or
unchained—that I know," said Sister Sacristine, with great emphasis,
and in her earnestness emptying the peas in her lap among the cods in
the basket. "I would tear up the book with my own hands, before such
things should be allowed near to the shrine of the Holy Magdalene.
Thank the saints, we are not subject either to bishop or archbishop,
but to our own visitor, and I am very sure he would never order such a
thing."
"In that case, it is hardly worth while to waste one's breath
discussing the matter," said mother assistant. "Loveday, you had better
pick up the peas that Sister Sacristine has scattered. It is a pity
they should be wasted."
"There is no telling what will happen—no telling," said a very old
sister, who was warming herself in the sun. "I have strange visions—I
do. I saw last night the walls of the fold pulled down, and the sheep
scattered far and wide. But I hope it won't come in my time. I have
lived here in these very walls almost eighty years, and I don't want to
live any where else."
"No, there is no telling, and therefore we may dismiss the subject,"
said mother assistant. "When they come to ask us to chain a Bible in
our church, it will be time for us to refuse it. 'Each day's trouble is
sufficient for the same selfe day.'"
The striking of the bell warned us of the end of recreation, and sent
us about our several tasks; but the mother's words lingered in my
ears, and I found myself wondering again and again where I had heard
them before. At last I remembered; I had read them in my uncle's great
book—Master Tyndale's book of the New Testament, as I afterward knew it
to be—on the very first day that I came to London.
Well, the days went on, and though we heard rumors of this and
that—of the disgrace of poor Queen Katherine (which I do maintain was
an infamous shame), and the marriage of the King with Anne Boleyn,
mother of our present good Queen—of the burning of heretics here and
there, and the king's taking church matters more and more into his own
hands—though, as I say, we heard rumors of all these things, they did
not greatly disturb our peace. Our gray circling walls were like the
magic circle of the enchanter, and though strange and malign shapes
were seen in very active exercise outside its bounds, yet none had as
yet broken through. But our time was to come.
It was on a pleasant day in the end of September, in the year of grace
1538, that the first blow fell upon us.
By the same token we had, on that very day, buried old Turk in the
garden under a beautiful laylock tree. The poor old cat had been very
decrepit for a long time, having lost most of his teeth, so that he had
to be fed with hashed meat, and bread soaked in cream. Old Adam had
said more than once that the poor thing would be better put out of his
pain, but I don't believe you could have hired him to do the deed—no,
not with a Dutch tulip-root.
Well, it was on that very day that, coming in from the orchard with a
basket of early apples, I saw Father Austin walking up the paved path,
which led from his house to the church, with such a perturbed face as I
never saw him wear before. He passed through the church, and presently
the whole family were called together in a great hall which joined the
church, and was called—I don't know why—the chapter-room. It was the
room in which our elections were held, and was seldom or never used on
other occasions. There we were, old and young, all standing according
to our degree, and some of us looking scared enough, for rumor flies
fast, and we all had an idea that something dreadful was going to
happen.
The prioress sat in her great chair, with her attendant sisters behind
her, and looked about with a dazed, helpless expression. She had grown
very stout and unwieldy, and some of us thought she was not quite right
in her mind. The elders of the house were at her right hand, and near
by stood Father Austin and another priest, with a thin, clever, crafty
face, whom we knew to be Bishop Gardiner's chaplain, and a person
of great consideration. I always had a dislike to this man; chiefly
because the shape of his head—very flat behind, and with prominent
angles at the jaw-bones—reminded me of a viper. I could not help
thinking at that moment that he watched the prioress as a viper might
watch a fat frog on which he had a design.
When we were all settled, Father Austin raised his hand, and spoke: "My
mothers and sisters, your reverend prioress has called you together
to hear a most important message which our visitor has sent us by his
chaplain, Father Simon, who will now deliver the same."
With that he was silent, and Father Simon spoke. I cannot remember his
words, but the gist of the matter was this: The king had wholly broken
off with the pope, and, by consent of the parliament, had proclaimed
himself supreme head of the English Church. All bishops, heads of
religious houses, and certain other officers were required to take
the oath of supremacy, as it was called, under severe penalties—even
that of death—as was like to be the case with the Bishop of Rochester,
who was now in prison and threatened with the loss of his head. (He
really did come to the scaffold soon after.) It was probable that
commissioners would shortly be sent to our house to administer this
oath, and Bishop Gardiner—who, though not our bishop, was our regular
visitor by some ecclesiastical arrangement which I never understood—had
himself taken this oath, and advised us to submit to the same, as a
necessity of the times.
I was watching the prioress's face during this harangue, which was
delivered in a very gentle and insinuating manner. (My eyes should
have been on the ground, but they have always had an unlucky trick of
wandering.) I say, mine eyes should have been on the ground, but they
were watching our mother's face instead, and I was surprised to see
the change that came over it, as the words and meaning of the father's
address penetrated her understanding. Usually her visage had about as
much expression as a slack-baked pie, and was nearly the same color. By
degrees, as she understood the matter, her dull eyes opened wide, and
grew bright and clear, her loose under-lip was compressed, and a little
color came into her cheeks. When the chaplain was silent, she spoke,
and with such a clear voice and so much dignity of manner that the
sisters glanced at each other in surprise.
"I am somewhat slow of comprehension, good father. I pray you bear with
me, if my questions seem not to the purpose. What is it that the king
hath declared himself?"
The chaplain once more explained that the king now called himself
supreme head of the church.
"But the pope—our Holy Father at Rome—is supreme head of the church in
all Christendom!" said the prioress. "How, then, can that title belong
to His Grace, the King of England? There cannot be two supreme heads."
I saw the chaplain cast a keen glance of satirical amusement at Father
Austin before he proceeded to explain once more that the king, having
quarreled with the pope, in the matter of his wife's divorce and some
other things, utterly denied him any authority or jurisdiction over
the realm of England or its dependencies, and required all persons to
submit to him, as formerly to the pope.
"But he is not the head, so what difference does it make what he calls
himself?" persisted the prioress. "And how can the bishop, who is
himself sworn to obey the pope in all things, obey the king when the
king is opposed to him."
"I am not here to explain or justify the conduct of your venerable
visitor, reverend mother!" said the chaplain, rather arrogantly. "But
only to convey you his counsels and commands. The further continuance
of this holy community—nay, your own life—may depend on your obedience.
You would not like to be put in prison, like the Bishop of Rochester!"
Knowing the mother's love of ease, I suppose he thought this a
knock-down argument, but he was mistaken. One may know a person very
well, and yet not be able to foretell what that person will do in an
emergency.
"I should not like it at all!" said the prioress. "It would be very
uncomfortable to lie upon straw and have nothing but bread and water,
and cold water always makes me ill. But I do not see how that makes
any difference about the pope being head of the church, and if he is
supreme head, then the king cannot be. That is all about it."
With that the chaplain took on a higher tone, and began to bluster a
little. Would she, a mere woman, pretend to sit in judgment not only on
a bishop and her visitor, but also on the king himself? Was it not her
duty as a religious to have no mind of her own, but only to do as she
was told?
"You did not think so, reverend father, when the question was of
placing an English Bible in the church for the sisters to read when
they pleased!" said the prioress. "That was the king's will, too, as I
understand, and yet both our visitor and yourself said I was right in
refusing, because ours was not a parish church. And the very Bible that
was sent down lies locked up in the press in the sacristy. Does it not,
mother assistant?"
"It was there at one time, but I have had it removed to a safer place!"
answered the mother assistant, quietly. I saw the sisters exchange
glances of amazement from under their down-dropped lids. This was the
first time we had heard of any such book. But that is the way in a
convent. A measure which affects your very life may be settled, and you
be none the wiser.
"Very well, reverend mother, I shall say no more at this time!" said
the chaplain, after a moment's pause. "I will report to your reverend
visitor that you have decided to take matters into your own hands,
and that being the case, he will doubtless leave this house and its
inhabitants to their fate—that fate which has already overtaken so
many religious communities. When the commissioners come down and you
see your revenues confiscated and your daughters turned out, and the
beautiful shrine of the Holy Magdalene stripped of all its ornaments
and treasures, I hope you will be satisfied with your contumacy."
"I shall not be satisfied at all, and I don't want my daughters turned
out!" said the prioress. "And I am not contumacious, either. I have
always done just as our visitor directed about every thing, and you
know I have, Father Simon; only I can't see how the king can be supreme
head of the church, when the pope is the head! I would lay down my
life for this house!" she added, raising herself from her chair and
standing erect with a dignity that might have belonged to St. Katherine
of Egypt, or any other sainted queen. "I would be torn by wild beasts
before my dear, dutiful children should be turned out upon the world;
but I can not deny the authority of our Holy Father the Pope, and put
another in his place, without greater and better reason than I see now,
and so with my humble duty and reverence, you may tell his reverence,
Sir Chaplain."
We looked at each other without disguise now, so great was our
amazement. If the figure of the Holy Virgin in the Lady Chapel had
spoken, we should not have been more surprised. But we had not long
to indulge our wonder. I saw the mother assistant move nearer to the
prioress, and in another instant the poor lady had sunk down in her
chair in a fit.
The room was all in confusion for a moment; but nuns, like soldiers,
feel the power of habitual discipline, and in a minute or two, mother
assistant had restored order. She and the sick-nurse were supporting
the prioress, and she called me to help her, as I was one of the
strongest of the family, bidding the others betake themselves to the
work-rooms, where was their place at this hour.
We carried the lady to her own room, with the help of the two
priests—we could hardly have done it without them, she was so heavy—and
Father Austin, who was surgeon as well as priest, proceeded to bleed
her. The blood would hardly flow at first, but at last it did, and the
treatment was so far successful, that the mother opened her eyes, and
swallowed the restorative which was put into her mouth, though she did
not try to speak, and seemed to know no one. We undressed her, and got
her into bed, and then mother assistant dismissed me, bidding me go and
take the air a little for that I looked pale. Indeed I had had much ado
to keep from fainting, as I had never seen any person bled before, but
I summoned all my resolution, and held out.
I went to the workroom where all the sisters were assembled round
the frames, on which the new hangings were being worked for the Lady
Chapel. We were permitted so much converse as was actually needful, at
such times, and not uncommonly the liberty was stretched a little, for,
as I said before, the discipline of our house was not over strict; but
I never heard such a gabble as was now going on. As I entered and went
to the press to find my own particular bit of work (which was a piece
of needle lace on a small frame), intending to take it out into the
summer-house, I was assailed by a volley of questions.
"How is the reverend mother?" "Hath she spoken?" "Will she die?" "Will
she live?" "Will she take the oath?" "Where is the mother assistant,
and Mother Joanna?"
It vexed me to see them all so ready to take advantage of their elder's
absence, and I answered, rather sharply, I fear.
"How many more? The mother is better, but she has not spoken, and no
one knows whether she will live or die—much more whether she will take
the oath. As to mother assistant, and Mother Joanna, it is very plain
that wherever they are, they are not here. One could tell that half a
mile off."
Some of the sisters looked ashamed, but Sister Perpetua answered me
sharply:
"You are very pert, Sister Postulant." (That had been my rank for a
good while now, for I had no other thought than to end my days at St.
Magdalene's.) "It does not become you to reprove and check your elders."
"It does not become her elders to give cause of reproof!" said Sister
Bridget, a quiet, retiring woman, the elder of the party: "The child is
right, and we have been to blame. As the oldest present, I must request
you, sisters, to be quiet and attend to your work."
"You are not the oldest present," answered Sister Perpetua. "Sister
Anne is older than you."
"No, indeed, I am not!" said Sister Anne, with some sharpness. "Sister
Bridget is fully half a dozen years older than I am, are you not,
sister?"
"More than that, I should say," replied Sister Bridget, tranquilly. (N.
B. * She was very pretty and young looking, while Sister Anne was both
plain and wrinkled.) "But you know as well as I, sister, that it is not
age, but standing in the house, that settles such matters. Again, as
the oldest present, I must request you, sisters, to pursue your work
in silence. Prayers and psalms and holy meditations are better fitted
for people in our evil case, threatened not only with the death of our
reverend mother, but with the loss of all things, than such laughing
and gossip as has gone on for the last half hour. I take shame to
myself, and thank the child for her reproof, though it might have been
more gently spoken."
* N. B.—nota bene
"I beg your pardon, sister," said I.
She had spoken with a great deal of gravity, and feeling, and most
of the sisters had the grace to look ashamed, only Sister Perpetua
muttered under her breath, but so I heard her:
"Fine airs, to be sure. But you are not prioress just yet, and many
things may happen."
I don't know what brought her to a religious house, I am sure, unless
it was that her friends wished to get rid of her, which was the reason
a great many nuns were professed in those days. I am very sure she
never had any vocation for such a life, and she showed it after she got
out.
By that time my faintness was gone, but I thought I would like to be
alone, so I told Sister Bridget what mother assistant had said, and
withdrew.
I had plenty to think about as I worked. Could it be possible that
our house would be turned out of windows, as that of the Gray Nuns at
Bridgewater had been—that venerable institution founded in the days of
the Confessor—and if so, what would become of all? I had not heard from
my uncle, nor from Lady Peckham in several years, and knew not whether
they were alive or dead. However, I was not so greatly concerned about
my own fate. I was young and strong, a good needle-woman and musician,
and I thought I could easily find a place as waiting-woman, or to
attend upon young gentlewomen.
But what would become of such as Sister Bridget and Sister Cicely,
and Sister Sacristine and Mother Joanna—old women who had spent all
their lives in those walls, and knew nothing of the world beyond their
boundary. Then I began to think about that Bible and to wonder where
it was, and what was in it. I remembered the text mother assistant had
quoted, and wondered—not without blaming myself for the thought—if she
had read it in that same Bible.
We had heard before, that though people were permitted to read the Word
of God, they were forbidden to discuss or dispute about it, which was
much as if one should open the floodgates a little and then forbid the
water to run through.
I was so lost in my musings, that I started as if I had been shot when
the bell rung for vespers. We heard at supper that the prioress had
rallied a little, but neither Father Austin nor the doctor, who had
been sent for, believed she could get well.
That was an anxious time. The prioress lingered for several days,
sometimes quite herself for a few hours at a time, but mostly lying in
a death-like stupor. The elders were of course much with her, and the
discipline of the house was unusually relaxed.
It was a time that showed what people were made of. The really sincere
and religious sisters went on with their duties just as usual, being
perhaps a little more punctilious in their performance; others took
advantage, broke rules, got together in knots and coteries and
gossiped—not always in the most edifying way—of what was coming to
pass, and what they would do when they got out. I was very angry with
them then, but I can make more excuse for them in these days. Many of
them, like Sister Perpetua, had no real calling to a religious life
(it was called the religious life in those days, as if no one could
be religious out a cloister). They were mostly younger daughters and
orphan sisters, who were not likely to marry well and were sent to the
convent as a safe and respectable place out of the way. Not that all
were so, by any means, but we had enough of that element to rejoice in
any relaxation of rules.
One day at sunset, however, the suspense was at an end so far as the
prioress was concerned. We were all called into the ante-room of the
apartment to assist at the last rites, and after they were over, we
stood watching our poor mother who, supported in the arms of mother
assistant, was painfully gasping her life away. Her face wore an
anxious expression, and her eyes turned from one to another in a way
that showed she was quite conscious. Now and then she said a word or
two in a low tone—so low that we in the outer room could not hear. At
last mother assistant beckoned me, and whispered me to give her a dry
napkin from a pile that lay on the table.
As I did so, I heard the prioress say, in a distressed whisper:
"But Purgatory—that dreadful place—are you sure?"
Mother assistant bent down to her and whispered in her ear—I was close
by and heard the words plainly:
"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin."
The poor lady smiled, and just as the last ray of the sun shot into the
window, she passed peacefully away.
She was a good woman in the main, and very much of a lady, but she
had allowed indolence—coming from an illness in the first place—to
grow upon her, till it became an overmastering passion—if one can call
indolence a passion.
It came to that, that any call to exertion was looked upon as a
positive misfortune. She had such able assistants, that this state of
things did not produce so much trouble as might have been expected, but
any one who knows what a houseful of ungoverned young people is like,
may guess what our community would have become but for Father Austin
and mother assistant.
As soon as it was decent, a new meeting was called, and no one was
surprised at the choice of mother assistant to be prioress. Mother
Joanna was made assistant and Sister Bridget put in her place—a very
good choice.
At "obedience," when we were all assembled in her room, our now
prioress made us an address, and very noble and touching it was.
She reminded us of our precarious condition, likely at any time to
be turned out. She said she had been pained to know that some—she
would name no names at present—but would leave the matter to our own
consciences—had taken advantage of the state of things to behave in a
way which was unbecoming their profession, and to good order. Here two
or three of our best sisters who had been guilty of some little acts of
forgetfulness kneeled down and kissed the floor, while Sister Perpetua
and Sister Regina, who had been the ring-leaders, stood up as bold
as brass. (It is always those who deserve blame least who take it to
themselves.)
She then pointed out the importance of good order and discipline,
that our enemies might have nothing whereof justly to accuse us. She
would not conceal the fact that we stood in great peril, but we were
in higher hands than our own. She would have us neither anxious nor
careless, but pursuing a recollected and cheerful frame of mind, giving
ourselves to prayer and good works, and not being anxious about the
morrow. She would pass over all that had happened for the last few
days, unless there were those who wished to clear their consciences by
confessing any breach of discipline: but hereafter, every thing would
be kept up to the standards of the house. She concluded by asking our
prayers for herself and her assistants, in a tone of true humility that
brought tears to many eyes. We noticed that she said nothing about
praying for the soul of our departed mother, whereby we argued that she
believed that soul to be already in Paradise. She then dismissed us
with her blessing, and all things seemed to fall into their usual train.
I have heard that people who live where there are volcanoes, get used
to them so that they carry on their business just as if nothing was the
matter. We were then living on the crust of a volcano which might blow
us into the air at any time, but we had already become used to it, and
as the autumn passed into winter, we almost forgot our danger. Sister
Perpetua, indeed, tried titles once or twice, but she soon found that
while the reverend mother had a house over her head, she meant to be
mistress in it, and after doing penance three whole days in the vaulted
room under the sacristy on a diet of bread and water, and not much of
that, she was very meek and subdued for a while.
Somehow or other the storm was diverted for that time. I suppose that
Bishop Gardiner, being so great with the king, contrived to keep the
matter from his knowledge. However it was, the apples were gathered and
garnered in peace, the usual stock of faggots laid in, and we settled
down to our in-door occupations as if nothing was the matter.
The reverend mother had a great deal of work put in hand, and instead
of our usual whispered conversations, we had loud reading in the
Imitation of Christ, and other good books. Sometimes our mother would
read us passages out of the Gospels, from a little written book which
she held in her hand, copied I fancy from that same great Bible which
was never put in the church. I had read many of them before in the
great book of Master Tyndale's, which my uncle kept in his desk, and
they set me thinking more than ever of mine old home. These readings
were much liked by the serious part of our community, and as for the
others, what ever they might feel, they knew enough to keep their own
counsel.
It was about this time, I remember being struck with the fact that in
the whole Imitation, from beginning to end, there is not one single
word or hint of any worship offered to the Virgin. I ventured to say as
much once to Father Austin, with whom I still did a Latin lesson now
and then, and to ask him what he thought was the reason; whereat he
smiled, and said when I saw Saint Thomas in Paradise I might ask him.
The orchards bore very plentifully that year, and we sold our crop at
a good price. We were helping to pick up the last of them one fine
October day, when old Adam remarked that he wondered who would have the
ordering of those same trees another year.
"Why, you yourself—why not?" said I.
"Na, na, lassie, I'll no be here next year; at least I think not."
"You do not think you are going to die?" said I, anxiously, for he was
a great friend of mine. "Do you feel ill?"
"No, I have my health well enough for one of my years. But we Islesmen
have whiles a gliff of the second sight, and I have had strange visions
concerning this house."
"Oh, you are thinking about the visit of the commissioners!" said I.
"But you see that has blown over and nothing has come of it."
"I have whiles seen a storm blow over and then come back!" said the
old man, seriously. "Na, na, lassie. Dinna be too confident. What's
fristed * is no forgotten."
* Fristed is "covered up," or "skinned over."
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