At the foot of the river-stairs nearest the Westminster Law Courts, you
might have seen (in the days when the sixteenth century was yet in its
teens, King Henry the Eighth, a slim young Prince—the very flower of
knighthood—and the Thames, a silver highway of romance,) a private barge,
with a couple of blue-coated serving men, waiting for their master.
And presently down the steps would come a man with brown hair a little
tumbled, and dress a little awry, after a long, hard day’s work in the
Courts. Something in the gait—a little defect, one shoulder somewhat
higher than the other—might strike your attention, and you would turn
to a water-bailiff near you with a question: “Is this Master More?”
Then—whether intentionally or not, your whisper having carried further
than the ear for which it was ostensibly intended—you would see the
uneven shoulders swing suddenly round, and from half-way down the steps
a clever face—wonderfully attractive in its irregularity—with a humorous
mouth, and merry, grey eyes, would be lifted to you, and a laughing voice
would proclaim its owner, “Thomas More, indeed, and very much _more_ at
your service.”
If upon being further pressed to know in what _more_ he could serve you,
you were well enough advised to make the request to be rowed down the
river with him to Chelsea—there to make the acquaintance of his daughter,
Mistress Margaret, and the others of his “Academia,” not to mention
his second wife, Dame Alice (for whose solid, if somewhat Philistine,
qualities you have the highest regard), and Master Gunnel, and John
Harris, and Henry Pattieson—with all of whom you already seem to yourself
familiar, from Erasmus, his letters—you would find yourself comfortably
seated in the stern of the barge (before you had time to enlarge on the
reasons, which had emboldened you to make your request), and being borne
on your pleasant way down the pleasant, shining Thames.
Oh! a very pleasant way, in good sooth! The river covered with barges
that carry bright colours, and music and laughter, and its banks covered
with gardens that let the evening breeze rifle them for sweetness;
the wooded hills that fill in the distance, brave in their new summer
greenery, and the kindly sun, the giver of all these good gifts, so loth
to leave the sight of them that he sinks but slowly, slowly to his bed in
the West!
And yet methinks the most pleasant part of all would be yet to come. It
would be waiting for you at a certain steps, towards which you might have
seen your host, long since, strain his eyes. A group of young things are
standing at the top, waving their scarves. Two of them, a little boy and
a girl, so near a size that you take them for twins, are in such haste
to get to the barge that they are in danger of tumbling right down the
steps into the river. You can hear a girl’s voice call at them anxiously,
“Cecy! Jack!” and when the barge is fastened to its moorings, and you are
mounting the steps, leisurely enough to give your host a good start of
you, you look up and see those two troublesome little monkeys held fast
by the hands of a tall girl of fifteen or so, and you know by the way her
father turns to her, first of all, that this is Margaret.
In the meantime your host is being pulled, very affectionately, from
one to the other. Margaret’s restraining hand is not strong enough to
keep Jack and Cecily in check any longer, and with those two rifling his
pockets for barley-sugar, and Bess and Daisy hanging out of his arms, one
on each side, and Margaret Giggs a little in the background, and young
Will Roper, and Jack Dancey, and Rupert Alington dancing around, one
understands why he cares not to be over-careful of his clothes.
Going up the garden path to the great house you will meet a stately lady
stepping sedately down from it. If her welcome has a touch of frigidity,
lay it not to her charge, good lady. In truth, her lord might have given
her a little warning that a stranger was coming to supper. Then had she
time to get Gillian to add a dish of black-caps and a lèche to the bill
of fare, and herself to change into her scarlet gown and coif. Whereas,
now!
Indeed, the fare is plain enough, as you will presently discover when you
are seated at Master More’s right hand at the long table in the great
hall. But dainty though you be at your sizes, on ordinary occasions, it
will be odds if you have ever set down to a meal more to your taste, or
eaten anything with a greater appetite than the salt meat, and coarse
fish, and thick slices from the cob-loaf, flavoured, as these are, with
the “Attic Salt,” for which this house is famous.
After supper someone will suggest a stroll through the garden; and you
will accept the more readily since you hear Dame Alice say that Gillian
needs her superintendence in the kitchen. As you rise from table your
eye, through the long, wide lattice, catches a glimpse of glowing
flower-beds and blossoming hedges, and you compliment your host on the
beautiful home he has made for himself. Is it fancy, or does a slight
shadow really fall on his laughing face, as if he felt in how short a
time he must bid it all good-bye?
It would seem as if Margaret noticed the little cloud also, and her
homely, clever face, so like her father’s in colouring and feature and
expression, reflects it lovingly. But she knows how to conjure away his
sadness. “Shall we not go to the Academia first, and show you to what
good use we have put the day?” she asks him, laying her hand on his arm
and turning her dear face up to his.
“Well proposed, Meg,” he says, tucking her arm under his own, and so
leading the way up the broad oak stairs—you following among the others.
“How charming!” is your first exclamation as you enter the schoolroom.
And, indeed, you are right. No more delightful room can be imagined
than this panelled-oak chamber, with deep, low, roomy window-seats, and
classic tapestry, flapping in the cool breeze from the river. After you
have spoken a word with Master Gunnel, the tutor (whom you have noticed
slip away early from the supper table, and find again here with young
John Clement, with a Greek text between them) you will be conducted to
the various desks, and shown their contents by their several owners. On
Bessy’s you will find a “Livy” most probably, on Daisy Middleton’s a
“Sallust,” and on Margaret’s a “Saint Augustine,” with her father’s marks
“where she is to read and where desist.” Then Master Gunnel will conduct
you to his own high desk, and take therefrom some of their traductions,
at the purity and elegance of which, if you have any skill in Latin
style, you will be completely amazed.
Though you compliment Master Gunnel on the proficiency of his pupils you
know, and he knows, that the credit is all due to their father. Even in
his busiest years it has been his chief occupation. If you had time to go
over the letters which Margaret treasures so dearly, and which you may
see (tied up like a lover’s in blue ribbon) in a safe corner of her desk,
you would find, not once, but many times repeated, words like these: “I
beg you, Margaret, tell me about the progress you are all making in your
studies. For I assure you that, rather than allow my children to be idle
and slothful, I would make a sacrifice of wealth, and bid adieu to other
cares and business, to attend to my children and my family, amongst whom
none is more dear to me than yourself, my beloved daughter.”
“Jack! Jack! What has become of Jack?” Margaret looks around anxiously;
but for once Jack is not in any particular mischief, and comes up to his
father with a look of self-satisfaction at the fact, which is infinitely
comical.
“Look,” says his father, “how the little monkey knows already that he is
going to be praised for the Latin letter he sent me to Court by the hand
of the Bristol merchant.”
He takes the little chap between his knees, and strokes his curls while
he talks to them all. Indeed, each of them had done very well, and it was
not only because he was their father and loved them dearly that their
letters had given him such pleasure. Their letters were very good; the
thought very well put; the Latin pure and correct. But John’s pleased
him best of all, because it was longer, and showed that he had taken more
trouble with it than the others had done. It was funny too, and some of
his own jokes had been turned very wittily against himself; the which
pleased him not a little. But even in this matter John had remembered not
to go too far, and while he thrust and parried very prettily, he never
forgot that he was fencing with his father.
With that Cecy claps her hands in delight, for whatever of good or ill
befalls Jack is her hap, too.
“There is a mount for thee, too, Cecy,” her father promises her, and
takes her and Jack, one on each knee, and goes on with his discourse.
When he is away from home he will expect a letter from each of them every
day. He will not take excuses such as Jack is wont to make, that he has
not time, or the carrier went off before he knew, or, forsooth, he had
nothing to write about. As for want of time, how could it fail, since
everyone who has anything to say in the division of their day will let
the letter to father take first place. And as for keeping the carrier
waiting, why not have the letters ready and sealed, even before his
coming? And as for having nothing to say—did anyone ever hear of such an
excuse from girls, who (he pulls Cecy’s ears at this point) have always
a world to say about nothing at all. If there is nothing at all to write
about, why! let them write about “nothing at all.” But they know he likes
to hear about their studies and their games. But whatever they write,
whether it be fun or earnest, let them write it as carefully and with as
much finish as possible. It will be no harm to write out first the whole
in English, for then they will have much less trouble in turning it into
Latin; not having to look for the matter, their mind will be more free to
attend to the language. That, however, he will leave to their own choice;
but on another thing he will be strict. Whatever they have composed, they
must carefully examine before writing out clear; and in this examination
they must first scrutinise the whole sentence, and then every part of it.
Thus, if any solecisms have escaped them, they will easily detect them.
By this diligence they will soon be able to turn out elegant productions.
“And have them shown to the Archbishop, or Dean Colet, or even the King,
as Erasmus did with a letter of Margaret’s,” says Cecily.
A little shade comes over the kind face above her curls. If there is one
thing he dreads for his girls, this wise father, it is vain-glory.
“Tilly-vally, Master More,” says Dame Alice, bustling in (just at the
right moment, to show what a sensible choice he has made of a step-mother
for his brilliant girls). “What comes over you to keep the girls all
idling here, while Gillian needs them in the dairy, being all of a sweat,
poor wench, a-trying to make the butter come? Off with you all, girls,
now, and take your turns at the churn until the cream breaks, were it to
keep you to morning.”
She leads the relief-party off to the dairy, and you find yourself alone
with your host and Master Gunnel.
“Shall we to the garden until the young ones come back to us?” Master
More inquires, and you need no second invitation.
What a beautiful garden it is! Even though so many of the flowers have
gone to sleep, you know you have never been in so beautiful a garden
in all your life. All sorts of sweet perfumes come to you as you seat
yourself between your host and Master Gunnel in the pavilion that gives
such a charming view of the river. You would like to know some of the
names of these so sweet-smelling flowers and herbs that you might
perfume your own garden with them.
Sayth Master Gunnel: “It is a pity that Mistress Margaret is not here,
for she knows the name of each of them, and their nature, and their uses.”
Margaret’s father laughs. “If Margaret is not spoiled, methinks it is
not to her tutor she owes it—for he is always ready to blazon forth her
praises. I am glad to think, however, that she has good skill in herbs.
It is that the children may learn the uses of common things that I keep
in my garden and paddock many a plant which the fastidious would cast
forth. A woman should have good knowledge of healing.”
“And of what else?” inquires Master Gunnel, innocently.
A merry laugh from your host. “Look what artifices he useth, this good
Gunnel, to get me to mount my favourite hobby. You must e’en take the
consequences, if it rides off with me.”
And with that he is off in good earnest, and you are minded to lose no
word of what he says about the way a girl should be educated.
“In your country,” he says (turning to you), “which would have been mine,
too, had not one of my ancestors left Ireland for England, I have heard
it said that embroiderers ever kept before them, stamped in a piece of
leather, the pattern of that design which they wished to imitate on
church robes and vestments. Now, even such a pattern, stamped on the
imperishable leather of Holy Writ, lies to our hands; and I know that
good Master Gunnel here (of whose work one may speak in a manner, not
all too fanciful, as resembling that of the embroiderer) puts in never
a stitch without looking carefully at the model. Is it not so, Master
Gunnel?”
For answer Master Gunnel begins to quote the glorious words: “Who shall
find a valiant woman? far, and from the uttermost coast is the price of
her. The heart of her husband trusteth in her, and he shall have no need
of spoils.” And so on, till the picture is complete, and the “Valiant
Woman” stands out before you, strong, and wise, and chaste, and kind, and
sweet, in all her imperishable beauty.
The hour is exquisite. Sweeter and sweeter grows the garden, as the dew
distils new perfumes. The paling river is pricked here and there by a
rare star; but in the sky itself, from where you sit, you can only see
one, and that is Venus. In the faint light your host’s face, raised to
it, shows very soft and dreamy. Is he thinking of the wife of his youth,
the dead mother of his girls?
Presently he begins to talk again. “If I were a preacher, or a moralist,
or anything but a lawyer, trained only to look for the flaws in all
things, I could show you how in that one passage of Holy Writ is
contained a whole treatise on the Education of Women. But Master Gunnel
shall do it for me.”
“Right willingly,” declares Master Gunnel, “if you will but show me how.”
“I would have you in the first place note that the ‘Mens Sana in Corpore
Sano’ hath never been more clearly indicated than in that picture. For
the healthy body, you shall see it mentioned not once but many times, and
you shall guess at it, too, by the laughter and good humour which she
carries down into her old age. ‘She hath girded her loins with strength,
and hath strengthened her arm’—as if to show that this strength and
suppleness of body, so admirable in a woman, were to be cultivated by
suitable exercises; as to which, to speak sooth, none are so well adapted
for the purpose as those she finds ready to hand in her household tasks,
sweeping, kneading bread, churning, spinning.”
“At all of which she was proficient, this ‘Valiant Woman,’” puts in
Master Gunnel. “‘She hath looked well to the paths of her house, and hath
not eaten her bread idle’, and again: ‘She hath sought wool and flax, and
hath wrought by the counsel of her hands.’ ‘Her fingers have taken hold
of the spindle.’”
“As for her good humour,” continues your host, laughing a little, “I
would ask your opinion whether it is better shown in anything than the
excellent terms she always managed to maintain with her husband.”
“Of a truth,” sayth Master Gunnel demurely, “the fact proveth that she
suffered not from megrims, to which effect I, for one (who believe in
the healthfulness of the morning hours), consider her early rising much
contributed.”
“Ah! Master Gunnel,” says More, standing up, “you will be able to write
that treatise without any help from me.”
Here you put in a word, and entreat Master More to develop the matter
further.
“And you will,” he promises you; “but let us climb to the roof of the new
building, where I have promised to have the young ones, and question them
on their knowledge of the stars.”
Under the great dome of the starry sky the conversation takes another
tone—deeper and more serious. He holds, you gather from what you hear
him say, that those who trained the mind and soul of that woman were
not afraid to feed them with the food of strong thoughts. He discovers
a strength and sureness about all her dealings, a big and generous way
of regarding things that show a well-nourished, well-balanced mentality.
That little touch about her concern for the well-being of her household:
that they be generously fed, and warmly and comfortably clad, seems
to him to indicate a wider outlook than the prejudice which confines
woman’s studies to the petty things of life would tend to foster. “Be
sure of this,” sayth he, “she is not one of those who are penny-wise and
pound-foolish, saving a candle’s end and spoiling a velvet gown.”
“That she was well-read,” says Master Gunnel, “is not without warranty.”
“Now, how may that be?” you inquire; and Master Gunnel instances her
clever and sensible conversation, which, he holds reasonably enough,
was not acquired without reading, and study, and listening to the
conversation of learned men. “I take it,” he says, turning to More, “that
we can interpret this, what is further said of her: ‘She had opened her
mouth to wisdom, and the law of clemency is on her tongue.’”
But here there comes a sound of laughter thrilling through the garden,
and a scamper of light feet up the steps that lead to the flat roof of
the new building, and the whole Academia, with the exception of Jack and
Cecy (who have been attacked by “Johnny Nods,” and carried off to their
respective beds), are here to tell all the frolic they had in the dairy,
and how long it has taken for the butter to come.