"Fasting is all very well for those
Who have to contend with invisible foes:
But I am quite sure that it does not agree
With a quiet, peaceable man like me."
_Longfellow_.
Fortunately for Agnes Stone, she was too low down in the world for many
things to affect her which sorely troubled the occupants of the upper
strata. Sumptuary laws were of no consequence to a woman whose best
gown was patched with pieces of different colours, and who had not a
hood in her possession; taxes and subsidies, though they might press
heavily on the rich, were no concern of hers, for she did not own a
penny; while no want, however complete, of letters, books, and
newspapers, distressed the mind of one who had never learned the
alphabet.
Mistress Winter dwelt in Cowbridge Street, otherwise Cow Lane; now the
site of crowded City thoroughfares, but then a quiet, pleasant, suburban
lane, the calm of which was chiefly broken by the presence, on
market-days, of numbers of the animal whence the street took its name,
caused by the close proximity of Smithfield. Green fields lay at the
back of the houses, through which, on its way to the Thames, ran the
little Fleet River, anciently known as the River of the Wells; beyond it
towered the Bishop of Ely's Palace, with its extensive walled garden,
famous for strawberries; to the left was the pleasant and healthy
village of Clerkenwell, whither the Londoners were wont to stroll on
summer evenings, to drink milk at the country inn, and gossip with each
other round the holy well. On the right hand, between Cow Lane and the
Thames, lay the open, airy suburbs of Fleet and Temple, and the royal
Palace of Bridewell, with its grounds. In front, Hosier Lane and Cock
Lane gave access to Smithfield, beyond which was the sumptuous but now
dissolved Priory of Saint Bartholomew, the once royal domain of Little
Britain, and the walls and gates of the great city, with the grand tower
of Saint Paul's Cathedral visible in the distance, over the low roofs of
the surrounding houses.
The locality of Cow Lane was far from being a low neighbourhood, though
its name was not particularly aristocratic in sound. In the old days
before the dissolution, which Agnes could just remember, the Prior of
Sempringham had his town house in Cow Lane; and the Earl of Bath lived
on the further side of the Fleet River, with Furnival's Inn beyond, the
residence of the Barons Furnival, now merged in the Earldom of
Shrewsbury. Mistress Winter lived in the last house at the north end of
the lane, next to Cow Cross, and almost in the country. There is no
need to name her neighbours, with two exceptions, since these only are
concerned in the story. But in Cow Lane every body knew every body
else's business; and the mistress at the Fetterlock could not put on a
new ribbon without the chambermaid at the Black Lion being aware of it.
Do not rush to the conclusion, gentle modern reader, that Cow Lane was
full of inns or public-houses. Streets were not numbered in those days;
and in order to effect the necessary distinction between one house and
another, every man hung out his sign, selecting a silent woman [Note 1],
a blue cow, a griffin, or a rose, according as his fancy led him.
Sign-painting must have been a profitable trade at that time, and a very
necessary one, when scarcely one man in twenty knew his alphabet; and
the cardinal figures were cabalistic signs to common eyes.
The two families previously alluded to lived at the southern end of Cow
Lane, and their respective names were Flint and Marvell. Mistress Flint
was a cheerful, good-tempered woman, with whom life went easily, and who
had a large family of sons and daughters, the youngest but one, little
Will, being a special favourite with Agnes. The Marvells were very
quiet people, who kept their opinions and feelings to themselves; though
their son Christie, a mischievous lad of some twelve years, was renowned
in Cow Lane for the exact opposite.
The day was drawing towards evening, when Agnes, as she turned round
from emptying a pail of dirty water into the common sewer of Cow Lane,
detected the burly figure of Father Dan, the Cordelier Friar, who was
Mistress Winter's family confessor, coming up from Seacoal Lane. Not
without some fears of his errand, she waited till he came near, and then
humbly louted--the ancient English reverence, now conventionally
supposed to be restricted to charity children.
"Christ save all here!" said the priest, holding up three fingers in the
style of benediction peculiar to his Order.
Taking no further notice of Agnes, he marched within, to be cordially
welcomed, and his blessing begged, by Mistress Winter and Dorothy; for
Joan was gone to see the bear-baiting in Southwark.
Father Dan was a priest of the popular type--florid, fat, and jovial.
His penances were light and easy to those who had it in their power to
ask him to dinner, or to make gifts to his Order. It might be that they
were all the harder to those from whom such favours were not expected.
The Cordelier took his seat at the supper-table just laid by Dorothy,
this being an easy and dainty style of work in which that young lady
condescended to employ her delicate hands. Mistress Winter was busily
occupied with a skillet containing some savoury compound, and the
Friar's eyes twinkled with expectant gastronomic delight as he watched
the proceedings of his hostess. Supper being at last ready, the three
prepared to do justice to it, while Agnes waited upon them. A golden
flood of buttered eggs was poured upon the dish in front of the Friar, a
cherry pie stood before Dorothy, while Mistress Winter, her sleeves
rolled up, and her widow's barb [Note 2] laid aside because of the heat,
was energetically attacking some ribs of beef.
"Had Joan no purpose to be back for supper, Doll?" demanded her mother.
"Nay," said Dorothy; "Mall Whitelock bade her to supper in Long Lane. I
heard them discoursing of the same."
"And what news abroad, Father?" asked Mistress Winter. "Pray you, give
me leave to help you to another shive of the beef. Agnes, thou lither
[wicked] jade, whither hast set the mustard?"
Father Dan's news was of a minute type. He was no intellectual
philosopher, no profound conspirator; he was indeed slightly interested
in the advancement of the Church, and much more deeply so in that of his
own particular Order; but beyond this, his mind was one of those which
dwell rather on the game season than the government of the country, and
was likely to feel more pleasure in an enormous gooseberry, or a calf
with two heads, than in the outbreak of a European war, or the discovery
of an unknown continent. The great subject in his mind at the moment
was starch. Somebody--Father Dan regretted that he was not able to name
him--had discovered the means of manufacturing a precious liquid, which
would impart various colours, and indescribable powers of standing
alone, to any texture of linen, lawn, or lace.
"Good heart! what labour it shall save!" cried lazy Dorothy--who did
assist in the more delicate parts of the household washing, but shirked
as much of it as she could.
"Ay, and set you off, belike, Mistress Doll," added the complimentary
Friar. "As for us, poor followers of Saint Francis, no linen alloweth
us our Rule, so that little of the new matter is like to come our way.
They of Saint Dominic shall cheapen well the same [buy plenty of it], I
reckon," he added, with a contemptuous curl of his lip, intended for the
rival Order.
"But lo' you, there is another wonder abroad, as I do hear tell,"
remarked Mistress Winter, "and 'tis certain matter the which, being
taken--Agnes, thou dolt! what hast done wi' the salad?--being taken
hendily [gently, delicately] off the top of ale when 'tis a-making,
shall raise bread all-to [almost] as well as sour dough. I know not
what folk call it.--Thou idle, gaping dizzard [fool]! and I have to ask
thee yet again what is come of aught, it shall be with mine hand about
thine ears! Find a spoon this minute!"
"Ha!" said Father Dan, helping himself to sack [Note 3], which had been
brought out specially to do him honour. "_Yeast_ is it I have heard the
same called. 'Tis said the bread is better tasted therewith, rather
than sour dough."
"Pray you, good Father, to eat of this salad," entreated his hostess.
"I had it of one of my Lord of Ely his gardeners; and there is therein
the new endive, and the Italian parsley, that be no common matter."
That the Cordelier was by no means indifferent to the good things of
this life might be seen in his face, as he drew the wooden salad bowl a
little nearer.
"Have you beheld the strange bird that Mistress Flint hath had sent to
her over seas?" inquired he. "I do hear that great lords and ladies
have kept such like these fifty years or so; but never saw I one thereof
aforetime. 'Tis bright yellow of plumage, and singeth all one as a
lark: they do call his name canary."
"Nay, forsooth, I never see aught that should do me a pleasure!" said
Mistress Winter crustily. "Gossip Flint might have told me so much.--
Take that, thou lither hussy! I'll learn thee to let fall the knives!"
And on the ear of the unfortunate Agnes, as she was stooping to recover
the dropped knife, came Mistress Winter's hand, with sufficient
heaviness to make her grow white and totter ere she could recover her
balance.
Father Dan took no notice. He could not have afforded to quarrel with
Mistress Winter, especially now when priests of the old style were at a
discount; and in his eyes such creatures as Agnes were made to be beaten
and abused. He merely saw in his hostess a notable housewife, and in
Agnes a kind of animated machine, with just soul enough to be kept to
the duty of confession, and require a careless absolution, three times
in the year. Such people had no business, in Father Dan's eyes, to have
thoughts or feelings of any sort. They were sent into the world to mop
and cook and serve their betters. Of course, when the animated machines
did take to thinking for themselves, and to showing that they had done
so, the Cordelier regarded it as most awkward and inconvenient--a piece
of insubordinate presumption that must be stamped out at once, and not
suffered to infect others.
After further conversation in the same style, being unable to go on
eating and drinking for ever, Father Dan rose to depart. It was not
confession-time, and on all other occasions Father Dan's pastoral visits
came very much under the head of revelling. There was not a syllable of
religious conversation; that was considered peculiar to the
confessional.
Mistress Winter and Dorothy, after a little needlework and some more
scolding of Agnes, tramped upstairs to bed; and Joan, coming in half an
hour later, excessively cross after her day's pleasuring, followed the
example. Having put away the supper things, and laid every thing in
readiness for the morrow's work. Agnes stood for a moment before she
too lay down on her hard pallet in the one chamber above that served all
four as bedroom. Through the uncurtained window high up in the room the
June stars looked down upon her. She had no notion of prayer, except
telling beads to Latin Paters and Aves; but the instinct of the awakened
spirit rose in something like it.
"God, Thou lovest me!" she said in her heart. He was there, somewhere
beyond those stars. He would know what she was thinking. "I know but
little of Thee; I desire to know more. Thou, who lovest me, tell some
one to teach me!"
It would have astonished her to be told that such unuttered longings for
the knowledge of God could be of the nature of prayer. Brought up in
intense formalism, it never occurred to her that it was possible to pray
without an image, a crucifix, or a pair of beads. She crept to her poor
straw pallet, and lay down. But the latest thought in her heart, ere
she dropped asleep, was, "God loves me; God will take care of me, and
teach me." She would have been startled to hear that this was faith.
Faith, to her, meant relying on the priest, and obeying the Church. But
was there no whisper--unheard even by herself--
"O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. This, I am sorry to say, was a lady without a head. It
probably indicated the residence of an old bachelor.
Note 2. The barb was a plaiting of white linen, which was fastened at
the chin, and entirely covered the neck.
Note 3. Sack appears to have been a general name for white wine,
especially the sweeter kinds.