"For when the heart of man shuts out,
Straightway the heart of God takes in."
_James Russell Lowell_.
"Good lack, Agnes! Why, Agnes Stone! Thou art right well be-called
Stone; for there is no more wit nor no more quickness in thee than in a
pebble. Lack-a-daisy! but this were never good land sithence preaching
came therein,--idle foolery that it is!--good for nought but to set folk
by the ears, and learn young maids for to gad about a-showing of their
fine raiment, and a-gossiping one with another, whilst all the work to
be wrought in the house falleth on their betters. Bodykins o' me! canst
not hear mass once i' th' week, and tell thy beads of the morrow with
one hand whilst thou feedest the chicks wi' th' other? and that shall be
religion enough for any unlettered baggage like to thee. Here have I
been this hour past a-toiling and a-moiling like a Barbary slave, while
thou, my goodly young damosel, wert a-junketing it out o' door; and for
why, forsooth? Marry, saith she, to hear a shaven crown preach at the
Cross! Good sooth, but when I tell lies, I tell liker ones than so!
And but now come home, by my troth; and all the pans o' th' fire might
ha' boiled o'er, whilst thou, for aught I know, wert a-dancing in
Finsbury Fields with a parcel of idle jades like thyself. Beshrew thee
for a lazy hilding [young person; a term applied to either sex] that
ne'er earneth her bread by the half! Now then, hold thy tongue,
Mistress, and get thee a-work, as a decent woman should. When I lack a
lick o' th' rough side thereof, I'll give thee due note!"
Thus far Mistress Martha Winter poured out the vials of her wrath,
standing with arms akimbo in the doorway, and addressing a slight,
pale-faced, trembling girl of twenty years, who stood before her with
bowed head, and made no attempt at self-defence. Indeed, she would have
been clever who could have slipped in a sentence, or even have edged in
a word, when Mistress Winter had pulled out of her wrath-bottle that
cork which was so seldom in it, as Agnes Stone knew to her cost. Nor
was it the girl's habit to excuse or defend herself. Mistress Winter's
deprecation of that proceeding was merely a flourish of rhetoric. So
Agnes, as usual, let the tempest blow over her, offering no attempt to
struggle, but only to stand and endure.
Mistress Winter had made an excellent investment when, six years before,
she adopted Agnes Stone, then an orphan, homeless and friendless; not by
any means to be "treated as one of the family," but to be tyrannised
over as drudge and victim in general. The transaction furnished her
with two endless topics for gossip, on which she dilated with great
enjoyment--her own surpassing generosity, and the orphan's intense
unworthiness. The generosity was not costly; for the portion of food
bestowed on Agnes consisted of the scraps usually given to a dog, while
she was clothed with such articles as were voted too shabby for the
family wear. All work which was dirty or disagreeable, fell to Agnes as
a matter of course. The widow's two daughters, Joan and Dorothy,
respectively made her the vent for ill-temper, and the butt for sarcasm;
and if, in some rare moment of munificence, either of them bestowed on
her a specked apple, or a faded ribbon, the most abject gratitude was
expected in return. She was practically a bond slave; for except by
running away, there was no chance of freedom; and running away, in her
case, meant starvation.
It had not always been thus. For ten years, more or less, before her
term of bondage to Martha Winter, Agnes had lived with an aunt, her only
surviving relative. During this stage of her life, she had taken her
fair share in the household work, had been fed and clothed--coarsely
indeed, for her aunt was comparatively poor, but sufficiently--and she
had been allowed a reasonable number of holidays, and had not been
scolded, except when she deserved it. Though her aunt was an
undemonstrative woman, who never gave her an endearing word or a caress,
yet life with her was Elysium compared with present circumstances. But
beyond even this, far back in early childhood, Agnes could dimly
recollect another life again--a life which was love and sunshine--when a
mother's hand came between her and hardship, a mother's heart brooded
warmly over her, and a mother's lips called her by tender pet names, "as
one whom his mother comforteth." That was long ago; so long, that to
look back upon it was almost like recalling some previous state of
existence; but the very memory of it, dim though it was, made the
present bondage all the harder.
The offence which Agnes had committed on this occasion lay in having
exceeded the time allowed her by six minutes. Out of respect to the
day, which was the festival of Corpus Christi, she had been graciously
granted the rare treat of a whole hour to spend as she pleased. She had
chosen to spend it in hearing the latter half of a sermon preached at
Paul's Cross. For, despite Mistress Winter's disdainful incredulity,
the assertion was the simple truth; though that lady, being one of the
numerous persons who cannot imagine the possibility of anything
unpleasant to themselves being delightful to others, had been unable to
give credence to the statement. As to the charge of dancing in Finsbury
Fields, poor Agnes had never in her life been guilty of such a piece of
dissipation. But she knew what to expect when she came in sight of the
clock of Saint Paul's Cathedral, and became mournfully conscious that
she would have to confess where she had been: for Mistress Winter had
peculiar ideas about religion, and a particular horror of being
righteous overmuch, which usually besets people who have no tendency in
that direction. Anything in the shape of a sermon was her special
abhorrence. Every Sunday morning Agnes was required to wait upon her
liege lady to matins--that piece of piety lasting for the week: and
three times in the year, without the faintest consideration of her
feelings--always terribly outraged thereby--poor Agnes was dragged
before the tribunal of the family confessor, and required to give a list
of her sins since the last occasion. But anything beyond this, and
sermons in particular, found no favour in the eyes of Mistress Winter.
Generally speaking, Agnes shrank from the mere _thought_ of a lecture
from this terrible dame. But this time, beyond the unpleasant sensation
of the moment, it produced no effect upon her. Her whole mind was full
of something else; something which she had never heard before, and could
never forget again; something which made this hard, dreary, practical
world seem entirely changed to her, as though suddenly bathed in a flood
of golden light.
God loved her. This was what Agnes had heard. God, who could do
everything, who had all the universe at His command, loved her, the poor
orphan, the unlettered drudge; penniless, despised, unattractive--God
loved her, just as she was. She drank in the glad tidings, as a parched
soil drinks the rain.
But this was not all. God wanted her to love Him. He sought for her
love, He cared for it. Amid all the hearts laid at His feet, He would
miss hers if she did not give it. The thought came upon her like a new
revelation from Heaven, direct to herself.
The preacher at the Cross that day was a Black Friar--a tall spare man,
whom some might call gaunt and ungainly; a man of quick intelligence and
radiant eyes, of earnest gesture and burning words. No idle monastic
reveller this, but a man of one object, of one idea, full of zeal and
determination. His years were a little over forty, and his name was
John Laurence. But of himself Agnes thought very little; her whole soul
was concentrated upon the message which he had brought her from God.
God loved her! Since her mother died, she had been unloved. God loved
her! And she had never asked Him for His love--she had never loved Him.
It was just the blessed fact itself which filled the heart, and mind,
and soul of Agnes Stone. As to how it had come about, she had very
little idea. She had not heard enough of the Friar's sermon to win any
clear notion on that point; it was enough for her that it was so.
It never occurred to her to doubt the fact, and demand vouchers. It
never occurred to her to suppose that her own hard lot was any
contradiction to the theory. And it never occurred to her to imagine,
as some do, that God's love led to no result; that He could love, and
not care; that He could love, and not be ready to save. Human love was
better than that. The mother who, alone of all creatures, so far as she
knew, had ever loved Agnes Stone, had shown her love by always caring,
by always shielding from danger where it lay in her power. And surely
the Fountain could be no weaker than the stream; the love of a weak,
fallen, fallible human creature must be less, not more, than the love of
Him who is, and who was, and who is to come; who is the same yesterday,
and to-day, and for ever.
"Hie thee down this minute, thou good-for-nothing hussy!" thundered the
voice of Mistress Winter up the garret stairs, as Agnes was hastily
resuming her working garb. "I'll warrant thou didst ne'er set the foul
clothes a-soaking as I bade thee ere thou wentest forth to take thy
pleasure, and left me a-slaving hither! Get thee to thy work, baggage!
Thou art worth but one half as many pence as there be shillings in a
groat! [A fourpenny-piece.] I'll learn thee to gad hearing of
sermons!"
"I set the clothes a-soaking ere I went forth, Mistress," said Agnes,
coming quickly down stairs, and setting to work on the first thing she
saw to need doing.
"Marry come up!" ejaculated Mistress Winter, looking at her. "Good
lack! hast met with a fortune dropped from the clouds, that thou art all
of a grin o' mirth?"
"I met with nought save that I went for," replied the girl quietly. But
it struck her that the comparison of "a fortune dropped from the clouds"
was a singularly happy one.
"Lack-a-daisy!" cried Dorothy. "The Friar must have told some merry
tale belike. Prithee, give us the same, Agnes."
"Methinks it were scantly so merry for you, Mistress Doll," answered
Agnes rather keenly. The stranger must not intermeddle with her joy.
She held her new treasure with a tight, jealous grasp. Not yet had she
learned that the living water flows the fuller for every streamlet that
it fills; that the true riches are heaped the higher, the more lavish is
the hand that transmits them.
"Hold thy silly tongue!" cried Mistress Winter, turning sharply round
upon her daughter. "It were jolly work to fall of idle tale-telling,
when all the work in the house gapeth for to be done!--Thou weary,
dreary jade! what art thou after now? (Agnes was hastily mending a rent
in the curtain.) To fall to dainty stitchery, like a gentlewoman born,
when every one of the trenchers lacketh scraping, and not the touch of a
mop have the walls felt this morrow! Who dost look to, to slave for
thee, prithee, my delicate-fingered damsel? Thou shouldst like well, I
reckon, to have a serving-maid o' thy heels, for to 'tend to all matter
that was not sweet enough for thy high degree! _I_ go not about to
sweep up the dirt off thy shoes, and so I tell thee plainly!"
Certainly there was not often any want of perspicuity in Mistress
Winter's admonitions, though there might occasionally be a little lack
of elegance and gentleness. But plainly told or not, Agnes remained
silent, scraped the wooden trenchers, a process which answered to the
washing of earthenware, and duly mopped the walls, and to the best of
her power fulfilled the hard pleasure of her superior.
And here let us leave her for a moment, while we take a glance at the
outer world, to discover where we are in the stream of time, and what
sort of an England it is into which we have entered.
The day, the festival of Corpus Christi, is the first of June, 1553.
King Edward the Sixth is on the throne--a white-faced, grave, reserved
boy of fifteen years, whose life is to close about five weeks
thereafter. But beside the throne, and on it in all but name--his hand
firmly grasping the reins of power, his voice the living law of the
State--stands John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland; a man whose
steel-blue eyes are as cold as his heart, and whose one aim in every
action of his life is the welfare and aggrandisement of John Dudley. He
professes himself a Lutheran: at heart, if he care at all for religion
of any kind, he is a Papist. But it will not be of service to John
Dudley at the present moment to confess that little fact to the world.
Grouped around these two are men of all types--Cranmer, Archbishop of
Canterbury, true Nature's gentleman, leal-hearted Gospeller, delicate in
mind, clear in intellect, only not able, having done all, to stand;
Ridley, Bishop of London, whose firm, intelligent, clear-cut features
are an index to his character--perhaps a shade too severe, yet as severe
to himself as any other; Hugh Latimer, blunt, warm-hearted old man, who
calls a spade a spade in the most uncompromising manner, and spares not
vice, though it flaunt its satin robes in royal halls; William Herbert,
Earl of Pembroke, the mean-spirited time-server who would cry long life
to a dozen rival monarchs in as many minutes, so long as he thought it
would advance his own interests; Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, who spends
his life in a fog of uncertainty, wherein the most misty object is his
own mind; William Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, who always remembers
his motto, "I bend, but break not;" Richard Lord Rich, the
sensual-faced, comfortable-looking, stony-hearted man who pulled off his
gown the better to rack Anne Askew, of old time; and, behind them all,
one of whom they all think but little--a young man of short stature,
with good forehead, and small, wizened features--Mr Secretary Cecil,
some day to be known as the great Earl of Burleigh, who holds in his
clever hands, as he sits in the background with his silent face, the
strings that move most of these puppets, and pulls them without the
puppets knowing it, until, on the accession of Mary, the Tower gates
will be opened, and Stephen Gardiner will walk forth, to take the reins
into his hands, and to steep England in blood.
Of public events, there have been few since the general confiscation of
church plate in the preceding month.
The Londoners, of whom our friends at Mistress Winter's form a part, are
divided in opinion concerning this step; but neither party has been too
much distressed to observe the usual dance round the Strand maypole, on
the site of which Saint Mary-le-Strand will presently be built. At
present, and for those five weeks yet to come, the march of events is
dull and sleepy. It will be sufficiently lively and startling to please
the most sensational, before many days of July have run out.
The Bible is now open in every parish church, chained to a desk, so that
any one who pleases may read. The entire service is conducted in
English. The roods and images have been pulled down; candles, ashes,
and palms are laid aside; "the wolves are kept close" in Tower and Fleet
and Marshalsea; masses, public and private, are contraband articles; the
marriage of priests is freely allowed; the altar has been replaced by
the table. It is still illegal to eat flesh in Lent; but this is rather
with a view to encourage the fish trade than with any religious object.
To turn to minor matters, such as costume and customs, we find
Government does not disdain to occupy itself in the regulation of the
former, by making stringent sumptuary laws, and effectually securing
their observance by heavy fines. The gentlemen dress in the Blue-Coat
style, occasionally varying it by a short tunic-like coat instead of the
long gown, and surmounting it by a low flat cap, which the nobles
ornament by an ostrich feather. The ladies array themselves in long
dresses, full of plaits, and often stiff as crinoline--plain for the
commonalty, but heavily laden with embroidery, and deeply edged with
fur, in the case of the aristocracy. Both sexes, if aspiring to
fashion, puff and slash their attire in all directions. The ruff,
shortly to become so fashionable, is only just creeping into notice, and
as yet contents itself with very modest dimensions.
Needles are precious articles, of which she is a rich woman who
possesses more than two or three. Glass bottles are unknown, and their
place is supplied by those of leather, wood, or stone. Wooden bowls and
trenchers for the poor, gold and silver plate for the rich, make up for
the want of china. The fuel is chiefly wood, coal being considered
unhealthy. Every now and then Government takes alarm at the prodigious
size to which the metropolis is growing, and an Act is passed to
restrain further building within a given distance from the City walls.
Country gentlemen receive peremptory orders to reside on their estates,
and not to visit London except by licence; for the authorities are
afraid lest the influx of visitors should cause famine and pestilence.
There is no drainage; for every householder pours his slops into the
street, with a warning shout, that the passengers below may run out of
the way. There are few watches, and fewer carriages; no cabs, no
police, no post-office; no potatoes, tea, coffee, newspapers, brown
paper, copper coinage, streetlamps, shawls, muslin or cotton goods. But
there is at times the dreaded plague, which decimates wherever it comes;
the terrible frequency of capital punishment for comparatively trivial
offences; the pleasant probability of meeting with a few highwaymen in
every country journey; the paucity of roads, and the extreme roughness
of such as do exist; a lamentable lack of education, even in the higher
classes, hardly atoned for by the exceptional learning of one here and
there; and (though the list might be greatly enlarged) last, not least,
the constant presence of vermin of the most objectionable sort, from
which neither palace nor cottage is exempt. This, then, was the England
of 1553.