wherein I love the better to look thereat. And it is this: that in this
world be no little things."
"What would you say, Mistress Eunice? In good sooth, it seemeth me the
rather, there be few great."
"I cry you mercy," said Eunice, with her bright smile. "Lo' you,--'tis
after this fashion. The pudding I have made a man shall eat, and
thereby be kept alive. This man shall drop a word to another, which one
passing by shall o'erhear,--on the goodness and desirableness of
learning, I will say. Well, this last shall turn it o'er in his mind,
and shall determine to send his lad to school, and have him well
learned. Time being gone, this lad shall write a book, or shall preach
a sermon, whereby, through the working of God's Spirit, many men's
hearts shall be touched, and led to consider the things that belong unto
their peace. Look you, here is a chain; and in this great chain one
little link is the pudding which I made, twenty years gone."
"But the man could have eaten somewhat else."
"Soothly; but he did not, you see."
"Or another than you could have made the pudding."
"Soothly, again: but I was to make it."
Clare considered this view of the case.
"All things in this world, Mistress Clare, be links in some chain. In
Dutchland [Germany], many years gone now, a young man that studied in an
university there was caught in an heavy thunderstorm. He grew sore
affrighted; all his sins came to his mind: and he prayed Saint Anne to
dispel the storm, promising that he would straightway become a monk.
The storm rolled away, and he suffered no harm. But he was mindful of
his vow, and he became a monk. Well, some time after, having a spare
half-hour, he went to the library to get him a book. As God would have
it, he reached down a Latin Bible, the like whereof he had ne'er seen
aforetime. Through the reading of this book--for I am well assured you
know that I speak of Luther--came about the full Reformation of religion
which, thanks be to God! is now spread abroad. And all this cometh--to
speak after the manner of men--in that one Martin was at one time
affrighted with the thunder; and, at another time, reached him down a
book. Nay, Mistress Clare--in God's world be no little things!"
"Mistress Eunice, in so saying, you make life to look a mighty terrible
thing, and full of care."
"And is life not a most terrible thing to them that use it not aright?
But for them that do trust them unto God's guidance, and search His Word
to see what He would have them do, and seek alway and above all things
but to do His will,--it may be life is matter for meditation, yea, and
watchfulness; but methinks none for care. God will see to the chain:
'tis He, not we, that is weaver thereof. We need but to be careful,
each of his little link."
"My links be wearyful ones!" said Clare with a little sigh. "'Tis to
cut, and snip, and fit, and sew, and guard, and mend. My cousin Lysken
dealeth with men and women, I with linen and woollen. Think you it
strange that her work should seem to me not only the nobler, but the
sweeter belike?"
"Methinks I have seen Mistress Lysken to deal pretty closely with linen
and woollen, sithence Father and I came hither," said Eunice smiling.
"But in very deed, Mistress Clare, 'tis but nature that it so should
seem unto you. Yet did it ever come into your mind, I pray you, that we
be poor judges of that which is high and noble? I marvel if any save
Christ and Gabriel e'er called John Baptist a great man. Yet he was
great in the sight of the Lord. Yea, that word, `more than a prophet'
was the very accolade of the King of the whole world. You know,
Mistress Clare, that if the Queen's Majesty should call a man `Sir
Robert,' though it were but a mistake, and he no knight, that very word
from her should make him one. And the King of Heaven can make no
mistake; His great men be great men indeed. Now whether would you
rather, to be great with men, or with God?"
"Oh, with God, undoubtedly!" said Clare shyly.
"It seemeth me," said Eunice, knitting her brows a little, "there be
three questions the which your heart may ask himself touching your work.
_Wherefore_ do I this? You will very like say, Because you be bidden.
Good. But then--_How_ do I this?--is it in the most excellent way I
can? And yet again, _For whom_ do I this? That last lieth deepest of
all."
"Why, I do it for my mother and Aunt Rachel," said Clare innocently.
"Good. But wherefore not, henceforward, do it for God?"
"For God, Mistress Eunice!"
"'Tis the true touchstone of greatness. Nought can be little that a man
doth for God; like as nought can be great that a man doth but for
himself."
"Lysken can work for God," said Clare thoughtfully; "but I, who do but
draw needles in and out--"
"Cannot draw them for God? Nay, but Paul thought not so. He biddeth
you `whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do _all_ to the
glory of God.' But mind you, only the very best work is to His glory:
that is to say, only _your_ very best. He measures not Mall's work by
Jane's, but he looketh at the power of both, and judgeth if they have
wrought their best or no. Jane may have finished the better piece of
work, but if Mall have wrought to her utmost, and Jane not so, then
Mall's work shall take first rank, and Jane's must fall behind."
"That is a new thought unto me, Mistress Eunice--that I can do such work
for God. I did indeed account that I could be patient under the same,
for to please Him: and I could have thought that the saving of a child
from drowning, or the leading of a ship to battle, and so forth, might
be done as unto God: but to cut and sew and measure!"
"I would 'twere not a new thought to many another," answered Eunice.
"But I guess we can sew well or ill; and we can cut carefully or
carelessly; and we can measure truly or untruly. Truth is no little
matter, Mistress Clare; neither is diligence; nor yet a real, honest,
hearty endeavouring of one's self to please the Lord, who hath given us
our work, in every little thing. Moreover, give me leave to tell you,--
you may be set a great work, and you may fail to see the greatness
thereof. I mind me, when I was something younger than you be, and my
brother Hal was but a little child, he fell into sore danger, and should
belike have been killed, had none stretched out hand to save him. Well,
as the Lord in His mercy would have it, I saw his peril, and I ran and
snatched up the child in the very nick of time. There was but an
half-minute to do it. And at afterward, men praised me, and said I had
done a great thing. But think you it bare the face of a great thing to
me, as I was in the doing thereof? Never a whit. I ne'er tarried to
think if it were a great thing or a small: I thought neither of me nor
of my doing, but alonely of our Hal, and how to set him in safety. They
said it was a great matter, sith I had risked mine own life. But, dear
heart! I knew not that I risked aught--I ne'er thought once thereon.
Had I known it, I would have done the same, God helping me: but I knew
it not. Now, whether was this a great thing or a small?"
"I have no doubt to say, a great."
"Maybe, Mistress Clare, when you and I shall stand--as I pray God we
may!--among the sheep at the right hand of Christ our Saviour,--when the
books be opened, and the dead judged according to that which is written
of them,--He may pick out some little petty deed (to our eyes), and may
say thereof, This was a great thing in My sight. And it may be, too,
that the deeds we counted great He shall pass by without any mention.
Dear heart, let us do the small deeds to our utmost, and the great are
sure to follow. `He that is faithful in that which is least, is
faithful also in much.' And you know what He saith touching that poor
cup of cold water, which assuredly is but a right small thing to give.
Think you, if the Queen's Highness were passing here but now, and should
drop her glove, and you picked up the same and offered it to Her
Grace,--should you e'er forget it? I trow not. Yet what a petty
matter--to pick up a dropped glove! `Ah, but,' say you, `It was the
Queen's glove--that wrought the difference.' Verily so. Then set the
like gilding upon your petty deeds. It is the King's work. You have
wrought for the King. Your guerdon is His smile--is it not enough?--and
your home shall be within His house for ever."
"Ay!" said Clare, drawing a long sigh--not of care: "it is enough,
Mistress Eunice."
"And He hath no lack of our work," added Eunice softly. "It is _given_
to us to do, like as it was given unto Peter and John to suffer.
Methinks he were neither a good child nor a thankful, that should refuse
to stretch forth hand for his Father's gift."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. I have not been able to ascertain the true date of Underhill's
death, but he was living on the 6th of March 1568. (Rot. Pat., 10
Elizabeth, Part Two.)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
GENTLEMAN JACK.
"He is transformed, And grown a gallant of the last edition."
_Massinger_.
Jack's letters from London were exuberant. He was delighted with his
new phase of existence. He had made some most advantageous friendships,
and was in hopes of obtaining a monopoly, which would bring him in about
a hundred a year. In the meantime, he begged that his father would
remember that life at Court was a very costly affair; and perhaps he
would be so good as to send him a little more money. Half-a-dozen
letters of this description passed, and Jack was liberally supplied with
such an amount as his father anticipated that he might reasonably want.
But at the end of about two years came a much more urgent epistle. Jack
was sorry to say that he had been unavoidably compelled to go into debt.
No blame was to be attached to him in the matter. He had not incurred
the obligation of a penny for anything beyond the barest necessaries; he
hoped his father would not imagine that he had been living
extravagantly. But he wished Sir Thomas to understand that he really
had not a suspicion of the inevitable expenses of Court life. The sums
which he had been so good as to remit were a mere drop in the ocean of
Jack's necessities.
Sir Thomas replied, without any expression of displeasure, that if his
son could get leave of absence sufficient to pay a visit to Lancashire,
he would be glad to see him at home, and he desired that he would bring
all his bills with him.
The answer to this letter was Jack himself, who came home on an autumn
evening, most elaborately attired, and brimful of news.
A fresh punishment had been devised for felony--transportation to the
colonies among the savages. The Spaniards were finally and completely
expelled from the Dutch provinces. A Dutchman had made the
extraordinary discovery that by an ingenious arrangement of pieces of
glass, of certain shapes, at particular distances, objects far off could
be made to seem nearer and larger. The Queen was about to send out a
commercial expedition to India--the first--from which great things were
expected. There was a new proclamation against Jesuits and "seminary
priests." All these matters naturally enough, with Jack's personal
adventures, occupied the first evening.
The next morning, Sir Thomas asked to see the bills. Jack brought out a
tolerably large package of documents, which he presented to his father
with a graceful reverence.
"I do ensure you, Sir, that I have involved me for nought beyond the
barest necessities of a gentleman."
His father opened and perused the first bill.
"`One dozen of shirts at four pound the piece.' Be those, my lad, among
the barest necessities?"
"Of a gentleman, Sir," said Jack.
"Four pound, Brother! Thou must mean four shillings," cried Rachel.
"'Tis writ four pound," calmly returned Sir Thomas.
"Good lack Jack!" said Rachel, turning to her nephew. "Were there
angels for buttons all the way down?"
"The broidery, Aunt--the broidery!" returned Jack. "Four pound is a
reasonable charge enough. Marry, I do ensure you, my sometime Lord of
Leicester was wont to pay ten pound the piece for his shirts."
"I would I had been his shirt-maker!" said Rachel. "'Twould have built
up my fortune."
"What wist thou touching broidery, Jack?" demanded Lady Enville, with
her silvery laugh.
"Go to!" said Sir Thomas, taking up the next bill. "`Five score of silk
stockings, broidered, with golden clocks [Note 1], twenty-six and
eight-pence the pair.'--Those be necessaries, belike, Jack?"
"Assuredly, Sir. White, look you--a pair the day, or maybe two."
"Ha!" said his father. "`Item, one short coat, guarded with budge
[lambskin], and broidered in gold thread, 45 pounds.--Item, one long
gown of tawny velvet, furred with pampilion [an unknown species of fur],
and guarded with white lace, 66 pounds, 13 shillings, 4 pence.'--
Necessaries, Jack?"
"Mercy preserve us!" ejaculated Rachel.
"Good lack, Sir Thomas!--the lad must have gear!" urged his step-mother.
Sir Thomas laid down the bills.
"Be so good, Jack, as to tell me the full figures of these counts?"
"Good sooth, Sir! I have not added them," replied Jack in a
contemptuous tone. "A gentleman is ne'er good at reckoning."
"He seems to be reasonable good at spending," said his father. "But how
much, Jack, dost guess they may all come to?"
"Really, Sir, I cannot say."
"Go to--give a guess."
"Marry--somewhere about five thousand pound, it may be."
According to the equivalent value of money in the present day, Jack's
debts amounted to about seventy-five thousand pounds. His father's
yearly income was equal to about six thousand.
"How lookest thou to pay this money, Jack?" asked Sir Thomas, in a tone
of preternatural calmness which argued rather despair than lack of
annoyance.
"Well, Sir, there be two or three fashions of payment," returned Jack,
airily. "If you cannot find the money--"
"I cannot, in very deed, lad."
"Good," answered Jack quite complacently. "Then--if I win not the
monopoly--"
"The monopoly would not pay thy debts under fifty years, Jack; not if
thou gavest every penny thereof thereto, and hadst none fresh to pay.
How about that, lad?"
"Of course I must live like a gentleman, Sir," said Jack loftily. "Then
the next way is to win the grant of a wardship."
This way of acquiring money is so entirely obsolete that it needs
explanation. The grant of a wardship meant that some orphan heir of a
large inheritance was placed in the care of the grantee, who was obliged
to defray out of the heir's estate the necessary expenses of his
sustenance and education, but was free to apply all the surplus to his
own use until the heir was of age. When the inheritance was large,
therefore, the grant was a considerable boon to the guardian.
"And supposing that fail thee?"
"Well, then--if the worst come to the worst--I can but wed an heir,"
remarked Jack with serenity.
"Wed an estate, thou meanest, Jack."
"Of course, Sir. The woman must come with it, I reckon. That I cannot
help."
"Marry come up!" exclaimed Rachel. "Thou art a very man. Those be
right the man's ways. `The woman must come with it,' forsooth! Jack,
my fingers be itching to thrash thee."
"Such matters be done every day, Aunt," observed Jack, smiling
graciously,--not with reference to the suggested reward of his misdeeds.
"Black sin is done every day, lad. I wis that without thy telling. But
that is no cause why thou shouldst be the doer of it."
"Nay, Aunt Rachel!" retorted Jack, in the same manner. "'Tis no sin to
wed an heir."
"It was a sin, when I was a child, to tell lies. Maybe that is altered
now," said Rachel dryly.
"What lies, Aunt Rachel?" asked Jack laughing.
"Is it no lie, Jack, to lead a woman into believing that thou lovest
_her_, when, if she plucked her purse out of her pocket and gave it
thee, thou wert fully content, and shouldst ask no more?"
"You have old-fashioned notions, Aunt Rachel," said Jack, still
laughing.
"Jack! I do trust thou wilt not wed with any but one of good degree.
Let her be a knight's daughter, at the least--a lord's were all the
better," said his step-mother.
"But touching these debts, Jack," resumed his father. "Suppose thou
shouldst fail to wed thine heir,--how then?"
"Then, Sir, I shall trust to redeem the money at play."
Every man of substance--not a Puritan--was at that time a gamester.
"And how, if that fail?"
"They can't all fail, Sir!" said Jack lightly.
"My lad!" replied His father earnestly, "I did an ill deed when I sent
thee to London."
"Dear heart, Sir!" exclaimed Jack, just suppressing a much stronger
ejaculation, "I do ensure you, you never did a wiser thing."
"Then my life hath been one of sore folly," answered his father.
"I alway told thee thou shouldst come to wrack," added his aunt.
"Nay, now, what wrack have I come to?" returned Jack with a graceful
flourish of his hands. "Call you it wrack to have a good post in the
Queen's Majesty's house, with hope of a better, maybe, when it please
God?--or, to be well [stand well, be on good terms] with many honourable
gentlemen, and heirs of good houses, throughout all England?--or, to
have the pick of their sisters and cousins, when it liketh me to wed?"
"They shall have a jolly picking that pick out thee!" growled Aunt
Rachel.
"Or to have open door of full many honourable houses,--and good credit,
that there is not a craftsman in London that should not count it honour
to serve me with such goods as I might choose?" pursued Jack.
"A mighty barren honour, Jack, on thine own showing."
"Jack!" interposed Sir Thomas, who had seemed deep in thought for a
minute, "tell me honestly,--of this five thousand pound, if so be, how
much was lost at the dice?"
"Why, Sir!--you did not count I should reckon my debts of honour?"
Sir Thomas groaned within himself.
"Debts of honour!" cried Rachel. "What, be there a parcel more?"
"These be trade-debts, Aunt!" said Jack, with an injured air,--"debts
that I can defray or leave, as it may stand with conveniency. My debts
of honour must be paid, of course!--I looked to your bounty, Sir, for
that. They be not much--but a light thousand or twelve hundred pound, I
take it."
That is to say, about 15,000 pounds to 18,000 pounds.
"Jack!" said his father, "dost remember thou hast two sisters yet
unwed?"
"One, Sir, under your good pleasure," replied Jack suavely.
"Two," gravely repeated Sir Thomas. "I will set no difference betwixt
Blanche and Clare. And they be to portion, lad; and we have all to
live. I cannot pay thy debts of honour and see to these likewise. And,
Jack, the trade-debts, as thou callest them, must come first."
"Sir!" exclaimed Jack aghast.
"I say, the trade-debts must stand first," repeated his father firmly.
"A gentleman never puts his trade-debts before his debts of honour,
Sir!" cried Jack in a tone of intense disgust mixed with amazement.
"I know not what you gentlemen of the Court may account honour nor
honesty, Sir," replied Sir Thomas, now sternly; "but I am a plain honest
man, that knows nought of Court fashions, for the which His good
providence I thank God. And if it be honest to heap up debt that thou
hast no means of paying to thy certain knowledge, then I know not the
signification of honesty."
"But I must play, Sir!" replied Jack--in the tone with which he might
have said, "I must breathe."
"Then thou must pay," said Sir Thomas shortly.
"Must play, quotha!" interjected Rachel. "Thou must be a decent lad,--
that is all the must I see."
"Come, be not too hard on the lad!" pleaded Lady Enville, fanning
herself elegantly. "Of course he must live as other young men."
"That is it, Madam!" responded Jack eagerly, turning to his welcome
ally. "I cannot affect singularity--'tis not possible."
"Of course not," said Lady Enville, who quite agreed with Jack's
sentiments, as women of her type generally do.
"Thou canst affect honesty, trow," retorted Rachel.
"Sir," said Jack, earnestly addressing his father, "I do entreat you,
look on this matter in a reasonable fashion."
"That is it which I would fain do, Jack."
"Well, Sir,--were I to put my trade-debts before my debts of honour, all
whom I know should stamp me as no gentleman. They should reckon me some
craftsman's son that had crept in amongst them peradventure."
"Good lack!" said his step-mother and aunt together,--the former in
dismay, the latter in satire.
"I am willing that any should count me no gentleman, if he find me not
one," answered his father; "but one thing will I never do, and that is,
give cause to any man to reckon me a knave."
"But, Sir, these be nought save a parcel of beggarly craftsmen."
"Which thou shouldst have been, had it so pleased God," put in Aunt
Rachel.
"Aunt," said Jack loftily, "I was born a gentleman; and under your good
leaves, a gentleman I do mean to live and die."
"Thou hast my full good leave to live and die a gentleman, my lad," said
his father; "and that is, a man of honour, truth, and probity."
"And 'tis no true man, nor an honourable, that payeth not his just
debts," added Rachel.
"I cry thee mercy, Rachel; a gentleman never troubleth him touching
debts," observed Lady Enville.
"In especial unto such like low companions as these," echoed Jack.
"Well!--honesty is gone out of fashion, I reckon," said Rachel.
"Only this will I say, Sir," resumed Jack with an air of settling
matters: "that if you will needs have my trade-debts defrayed before my
debts of honour, you must, an't like you, take them on yourself. I will
be no party to such base infringement of the laws of honour."
"Good lack, lad! Thou talkest as though thy father had run into debt,
and was looking unto thee to defray the charges! 'Tis tother way about,
Jack. Call thy wits together!" exclaimed his aunt.
"Well, Aunt Rachel, you seem determined to use me hardly," said Jack,
with an air of reluctant martyrdom; "but you will find I harbour no
malice for your evil conception of mine intents."
To see this Jack, who had done all the mischief and made everybody
uncomfortable, mount on his pedestal and magnanimously forgive them, was
too much for Rachel's equanimity.
"Of all the born fools that e'er gat me in a passion, Jack, thou art
very king and captain! I would give my best gown this minute thou wert
six in the stead of six-and-twenty--my word, but I would leather thee!
I would whip thee till I was dog-weary, whatever thou shouldst be. The
born patch [fool]!--the dolt [dunce]!--the lither loon [idle,
good-for-nothing fellow]!--that shall harbour no malice against me
because--he is both a fool and a knave! If thou e'er hadst any sense,
Jack (the which I doubt), thou forgattest to pack it up when thou
earnest from London. Of all the long-eared asses ever I saw--"
Mistress Rachel's diatribe came to a sudden close, certainly not from
the exhaustion of her feelings, but from the want of suitable words
wherein to express them.
"Aunt!" said Jack, still in an injured tone, "would you have me to
govern myself by rule and measure, like a craftsman?"
"Words be cast away on thee, Jack: I will hold my peace. When thy
brains be come home from the journey they be now gone, thou canst give
me to wit, an' it like thee."
"I marvel," murmured Sir Thomas absently, "what Master Tremayne should
say to all this."
"He!" returned Jack with sovereign scorn. "He is a Puritan!"
"He is a good man, Jack. And I doubt--so he keep out of ill company--
whether Arthur shall give him the like care," said his father sighing.
"Arthur! A sely milksop, Sir, that cannot look a goose in the face!"
"Good lack! how shall he ever win through this world, that is choke-full
of geese?" asked Rachel cuttingly.
"Suffer me to say, Sir, that Puritans be of no account in the Court."
"Of earth, or Heaven?" dryly inquired Sir Thomas.
"The Court of England, I mean, Sir. They be universally derided and
held of low esteem. All these Sectaries--Puritans, Gospellers,
Anabaptists, and what not--no gentleman would be seen in their company."
"Dear heart!" growled the still acetic Rachel. "The angels must be
mighty busy a-building chambers for the gentry, that they mix not in
Heaven with the poor common saints."
"'Tis the general thought, Aunt, among men of account.--and doth commend
itself for truth,--that 't will take more ill-doing to damn a gentleman
than a common man." [Note 2.]
"Good lack! I had thought it should be the other way about," said
Rachel satirically.
"No doubt," echoed Lady Enville--in approbation of Jack's sentiment, not
Rachel's.