"Whate'er I say, whate'er I syng,
Whate'er I do, that hart shall se,
That I shall serue with hart lovyng
That lovyng hart that lovyth me."
Few things are more touching in their way than the fragment of paper
containing the poem from which the motto to this chapter is a quotation.
Among the dusty business manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of
Canterbury, in the oldest division, relating to the affairs of the
Priory of Christ Church, were found by the Historical Commission two
songs, scribbled on scraps of paper. One was a love-song of the common
type, such as, allowing for difference of diction, might be had in any
second-rate music-shop of the present day. But the other was of a very
different and far higher order. It was the cry of the immured bird
which has been forced from its nest in the greenwood, and for which life
has no other attraction than to sit mournfully at the door of the cage,
looking out to the fair fields, and the blue sky in which it shall
stretch its wings no more. None but God will ever know the name or the
story of that poor heart-weary monk, torn from all that he loved on
earth, who thus "pressed his soul on paper," one hundred years before
the dissolution of the monasteries. We can only hope that through the
superincumbent wood, hay, stubble, he dug down to the one Foundation and
was safe: that through the dead words of the Latin services he heard the
Living Voice calling to all the weary and heavy-laden, and that he too
came and found rest.
But to turn to our story.
The days rolled slowly on, undistinguishable from one another save by
the practical divisions of baking-day, washing-day, brewing-day, and so
forth; and, certainly, not distinguished by any increase of comfort in
the outward surroundings of Agnes's lot. She was trying to do her work
heartily, as to the Lord; but it did seem to her that the harder she
tried, the harder Mistress Winter was to please; the crosser was Joan,
the more satirical was Dorothy. The only sunshine of her life was on
those precious Sunday afternoons, when always the tall gaunt figure
might be seen ascending the desk in the nave of Saint Paul's, and, after
the reading from Scripture, came a few pithy, fervent words, which Agnes
treasured up as very gems. But by-and-by, another gleam of sunlight
began to creep into her life.
It was again Sunday afternoon, and the reading in Saint Paul's was over
for that day. But it was too soon to go back to the bosom of that
uncongenial household which Agnes called home; for Mistress Winter was
generally extra cross--and the ordinary exhibition was enough without
the extra--if Agnes presented herself before she was expected. The now
deserted steps of the Cross were the only place where she could sit; and
accordingly she took refuge there. Not many minutes were over, when she
recognised the dark figure of Friar Laurence passing through the
churchyard with his usual rapid step. All at once a thought seemed to
strike him. He paused, turned, and came straight up to the place where
Agnes was seated.
"And how is it with thee, my daughter?" he demanded.
"Well, Father; and I thank you," said she. "Verily, touching outward
things, as aforetime; but touching the inward, methinks the good Lord
learneth me somewhat."
"Be thou an apt scholar," said he.
Agnes grew desperate, and resolved to plunge into the matter. She was
afraid lest he should leave her, with one of his usual rapid movements,
before she had got to know what she wanted.
"Father!" she said hastily, crimsoning as she spoke, "pray you, give me
leave to demand a thing of you."
"Ask thy will, my daughter."
"Pray you, tell me of your grace, wherefore in your goodly discourses
you make at all no mention of our Lady?"
The Friar sat down on the steps, when he was asked that question.
"What wouldst thou have me for to say of her?"
"Nay, Father!" returned Agnes, humbly. "You be a learned priest, and I
but an ignorant maiden; but having alway heard them that did preach
sermons to make much of our Lady, methought I would fain wit, an' I
might ask it at you, wherefore you make thus little."
"My child!" answered the Friar quietly, "who died on the rood for thee?"
"Jesus Christ our Lord," responded Agnes readily.
"What! not Saint Mary?"
"Certes, nay, Father, as methinks."
"And who is it that pleadeth with God for thee?"
"You have told me, Father, our Lord Christ is He. Yet the folk say
alway, that our Lady doth entreat our Lord for to hear our prayers."
"Child!" asked the Black Friar, "did Christ die for thee against His
will?"
"I would humbly think, not so, Father," answered Agnes meekly, "sith He
needed not to have so done at all without it were His good pleasure."
"Right!" was the rejoinder. "It was by reason that God the Father loved
thee, that He gave Christ to die for thee; it was by reason that Christ
loved thee, that He bare for thee the pain and shame of the bitter
cross. Tell me, is there in this world any that thou lovest?"
Agnes hesitated. It seemed something new and strange to think that she
could love, or could be loved, since the death of her mother. But she
thought, and said, that she loved little Will Flint.
"Tell me, then," pursued her teacher, "if this little lad were in some
sore trouble, and that thou couldst quickly ease him thereof, should he
need for to run home and fetch his mother to entreat thee?"
"Surely, nay!" responded Agnes. "I would do the same incontinent
[immediately], of mine own compassion, and the more if he should ask it.
I would never tarry for his mother!"
"My daughter, is thy love so much better than His that died for us?
Should Christ tarry till His mother pray Him to be thine help, when of
Himself He loveth thee?"
"But, Father--I pray you pardon me if I speak foolishly, in mine
unwisdom--how then needeth a mediator at all, if God the Father be so
loving unto men?"
"God is a King, whose law thou hast broken. He is all perfect;
therefore must His justice be perfect, no less than His mercy. A
lawgiver that were all justice should be a scourge unto men; but a
lawgiver that were all mercy should be as good as no law. God hath
appointed His Son to be thy Surety; and by reason that He is thy Surety,
He is become thine Advocate. He hath said in His Word that the Son is
the Advocate with the Father; but of an advocate with the Son never a
word saith He. Wherefore God saw fit to appoint a Mediator, He knoweth,
not I. I am content that having thus decreed, He hath Himself provided
the same."
Agnes looked up, after a moment's thought, with an expression of fear
and trouble on her white face.
"But what then of our Lady?"
"Wherefore should there be aught beyond what God hath told us?" replied
Friar Laurence. "She was `highly favoured' and `blessed among women,'
in that she was the mother of the Saviour. Must she needs _be_ the
Saviour to boot?"
"But we must worship her, trow?"
"Must we so? `Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt
thou serve.' Let us hold by God's Word, my daughter."
"Father, I wis so little thereof! nought at all but what I do hear of
you," said Agnes with a sigh.
"Then, my child," he replied gently, "list thou the better. And here is
a word for thee, and for all other in thy place: `If any man do desire
to do God's will, he shall know whether doctrine be truth or no.' Keep
that desire ever sharp on the whetstone of prayer. Then, surely as God
is in Heaven, thou shalt know."
The next minute he was gone.
"Agnes, sweet-heart!" demanded Dorothy that evening, in the sugary style
which she only used when she was in a particularly tormenting mood,
"prithee do me to wit of the name of thy dear friend, Master Black
Friar? I beheld him and thee in so sweet converse at the Cross, it
caused me to sigh that I had no such a friend as he. I pray thee
lovingly of his goodly name?"
The answers which Dorothy usually received from Agnes to questions of
this kind were as short as civility permitted.
"Master John Laurence," said she.
"And how long hast been of his cognisance, sweeting?" demanded Dorothy,
with more honey on her tongue than ever.
"I have wist him some six weeks," said Agnes.
"Six weeks! woe worth the day!" cried Dorothy, putting on an aspect of
sentimental sorrow. "And thou never spakest word, when thou wist how
dear all we do love thee, and the least we might do for joy of thy
finding a new friend were to have the great bell rung at Paul's! Agnes,
my fairest one, this is to entreat us but evil."
Agnes held her peace. She never felt any doubt of the exceedingly low
price to be set upon Dorothy's affections towards her.
"Is he a priest, darling?" inquired Dorothy in her most coaxing tone.
"Ay," replied Agnes as curtly as before.
"Good lack, how delightsome!" exclaimed Dorothy, clasping her hands in
mock rapture. "Do, of thy sweet gentlehood, bring me of his cognisance.
But to think what it were to have a priest thy friend, and alway get
absolution without no trouble at all!"
But about the last thing which Agnes had any intention of doing was to
introduce Dorothy to John Laurence.
After that interview at the Cross, Agnes often met the Black Friar.
Sometimes he passed her with a simple blessing in answer to her
reverence; but more frequently he stopped her, and inquired into her
spiritual welfare. She had many a difficulty in which to ask his
counsel; many a trouble in which it was a relief to seek (and always to
find) his sympathy. He was the only friend she had who spoke the
language of Canaan. And it was far less as a priest than as a friend
that Agnes regarded him. He was as different from old Father Dan, the
Cordelier, as Mistress Flint differed from Mistress Winter. Agnes never
knew, when preparing for one of those abhorred periodical interviews
with the Cordelier, what he might say to her, or rather, what he might
not say. She shrank with horror from his inquisitive questioning, and
not much less from his petty humiliating penances. Father Dan's remedy
for angry words was to fast for a week on bread and water; for pride, to
lick a cross in the dust of the church floor; for envy and covetousness,
the administration of a cat-o'-nine-tails on the shoulders. The Black
Friar, on the contrary, led Agnes out of herself altogether. He had
only one topic, of infinite variety, for it was Jesus Christ. Only once
had Agnes asked him whether he would recommend her to administer "the
discipline" to herself, as a cure for discontent and murmuring.
"If thy shoulders be discontented, why, by all means," answered Friar
Laurence, with his grave smile; "but if it be thine heart that
murmureth, wherefore chastise thy shoulders?"
Agnes never put the question again, and never had recourse to the
discipline. Of fasting, poor girl, she had already too much for her
bodily profit, without any adventitious use of it. And when she began
to pray in reality, the rosary was very soon dropped. When a man's
heart is in earnest, to keep count of his words is not possible.
Meanwhile, in the outer world, the downward progress was very rapid.
One after another the Protestant Bishops were committed to prison, and
the chief preachers shared their fate. The first mass was sung at Saint
Bartholomew's on the eleventh of August, when the people were ready to
tear the officiating priest in pieces; but by the twenty-fourth of the
same month it was heard in other churches in London, and the hearers
were becoming reconciled to the innovation. The once powerful Duke of
Northumberland was beheaded on Tower Hill, notwithstanding his
profession of Popery at the last hour; the married priests were
deprived; the French Protestant residents were banished; the altar was
replaced in Saint Paul's; the Latin services, processions, palms, ashes,
candles, holy bread, holy water, and all the rest of the rubbish swept
away at the Reformation, came back one by one. That portion of the
populace which had no particular religion was well pleased enough with
these changes. The shows and the music were agreeable to them, and the
Gospel sermons which they displaced had not been agreeable.
Some tell us in the present day that young people must be attracted to
church, and that if music and pageant be not given them, their
attendance is not likely to be secured. But what have we gained by thus
going down to the Philistines to sharpen our weapons? Are these young
people attracted to any thing but the music and the pageant? They are
quite clever enough to realise the inconsistency of the man who serves
them with bread in the pulpit, while he hands out husks from the
chancel.
How many of us mean what we say, when the familiar words fall from our
lips, "I believe in the Holy Ghost"? Should we think it necessary, if
we really did so, to add all these condiments and spices to the pure
Bread of Life? Would it not be easier to discern the real flavour of
the heavenly ambrosia, if we might have it served without Italian
cookery?
And is there to be no thought taken for those who are won to Christ
already? to whom He is in Himself the all-sufficient attraction, and
these veils and gewgaws are but annoyances, or at least superfluities?
Where is the building up of the saints, the edifying of the Body of
Christ? Once was it said to Peter, "Feed My lambs;" but twice "Feed My
sheep." How is it that so many are satisfied with a state of things in
which the sheep of Christ are starved and disgusted for the sake of the
lambs, or in many cases rather for the sake of those who are not in the
fold at all?
In February, 1554, a great commotion was caused in the City and suburbs
by the insurrection of Wyatt, which had for its object to arrest the
Queen's projected marriage with Prince Philip of Spain. The Londoners
did not show themselves particularly valiant on this occasion, and the
doughty Doctor Weston--one of the most active and prominent of the
Popish clergy--sang mass to them with a full suit of armour under his
vestments. The Duke of Suffolk, whose sad fate it was to be perpetually
getting himself into trouble in the present, for fear of calamities
which might never occur in the future, ran away in terror lest he should
be suspected of complicity with the rebellion; a proceeding which of
course roused suspicion instantly, and sealed not only his own fate, but
that of his daughter, Lady Jane Grey. The latter was beheaded on the
twelfth of February, the former on the twenty-third. For weeks the
prisons were full, and the gallows perpetually at work. The Londoners
were in so excited and frightened a state--is it any marvel?--that when
the phenomena of a mock sun and an inverted rainbow occurred on the
fifteenth, they were terrified beyond measure. There was enough to
terrify them on the earth, without troubling themselves about the sky.
No man's property, liberty, or life was safe for a moment unless he were
a devout servant of holy Church; and even in that case he held them by a
frail tenure, for private spite might accuse him of heresy, and then for
him there was little hope of mercy. One after another, the few who had
hitherto remained staunch either fled from England, fell from the faith,
or suffered at the stake.
These being the awkward circumstances of the case, Mistress Winter
thought it desirable not only to gild Saint Thomas, but to put on a
cloak of piety. The garment was cheap. It was not difficult to attend
evensong as well as matins, and that every day instead of once in the
week; the drama performed in the Cathedral was very pretty, the music
pleasant to hear, the scent of the incense agreeable. It was easy to be
extremely cordial to Father Dan, and to express intense subservience to
his orders. This kind of religion was no inconvenient bridler of the
tongue, nor did it in the least interfere with the pride of the natural
heart. Humiliation is one thing, and humility is quite another.
Dorothy began seriously to consider whether she should take the veil.
Her disposition was a mixture of the satirical and the sentimental.
There would be a good deal of _eclat_ about the proceeding. It was
pleasant to be regarded as holier than other people. Nevertheless there
were drawbacks; for Dorothy was not fond of hard scrubbing, and was
uncommonly fond of venison and barberry pie. And she had a suspicion
that rather more scrubbing than venison generally fell to the lot of the
holy sisters of Saint Clare. But the idea of the implicit obedience to
authority which would in that case be required of her decided Dorothy to
remain "in the world." She thought there was more hope of managing a
husband than a lady abbess.
Nearly two years had passed away since Agnes had first heard Friar
Laurence preach at Saint Paul's Cross, and once more Corpus Christi had
come round. Since that time she had grown much in the spiritual life,
though she had received no outward help beyond those rare Sunday
readings, and her occasional interviews with the Friar. Though Corpus
Christi was still "uncertainly" kept, it naturally fell in with Mistress
Winter's new policy of veneered piety to be exceedingly respectful to
all fasts and festivals. Accordingly she gave a grand banquet to some
dozen acquaintances, and sent Agnes about her business. There was
likely to be reading on a holy day, and Agnes bent her steps towards the
Cathedral; but finding when she reached it that it was a little too
early, she sat down on the steps of the Cross to wait. There was no one
about; for most of those who cared to keep the feast did not care to
hear sermons or Bible-readings; and Agnes was thinking so intently as
hardly to be conscious whether she was alone or not.
"Good morrow, friend!" said a voice beside her; and John Laurence sat
down a little way from her on the steps.
"Good morrow, Father," answered Agnes.
"Agnes, I would seek thy counsel."
Agnes looked up in astonishment. He seek her counsel! Was it not she
who had always sought his?
"Good lack, Father!" she exclaimed in her surprise.
John Laurence leaned his head thoughtfully on his hand, and made no
further communication for some seconds.
"I know a Black Friar, Agnes," he said, speaking slowly, as if weighing
each word, "who seeth no cause, neither in God's Word, neither in common
reason, wherefore priests should not be wedded men, as thou wist that
many, these ten years past, have been. But he is yet loth to break his
mind unto the maid, seeing that many perils do now seem to lie in the
way of wedded priests, and he cannot tell if it were well done or no,
that he should speak unto her. If penalty fell on him, being thus wed,
it should not leave her scatheless. Tell me, now, how thinkest thou?--
should he do well to break his mind, or no? A maid may judge better
than a man how a maid should take it."
"I would think, Father," answered the astonished Agnes, "that a maid
which did truly love any man should not suffer uncertain sorrow to stand
betwixt her and him."
"Yet how, if it were certain?"
"Nay, nor so neither."
"Go to! Put it this case were thine own. Shouldst thou be afeared to
wed with a priest?"
Agnes did not quite like such a home question. Yet she replied calmly,
without any idea of the other question which was coming.
"Methinks, no; not if I truly loved him."
"And couldst thou truly love--_me_, Agnes?"
For an instant Agnes gave no answer. She had as little expected to have
that question asked her as she had expected to be created a duchess.
"Say sooth, if thou shouldst be feared," said John Laurence; and the
faint suspicion of pain in his tone unloosed her lips at once.
Afraid! Afraid to leave all her dreary past behind her, and to begin a
new life, with her cup of gladness full to the very brim? John Laurence
was satisfied with his answer. But, for the first time, not one word of
reading or comment reached Agnes's mind in an intelligible form.
"May be, my gracious Lady, your good Ladyship should like your palfrey
called!" were the words that greeted Agnes when she made her
reappearance in Mistress Winter's kitchen, having certainly been more
forgetful than usual of the flight of time. "Or, may be, it might
please your honourableness to turn your goodly eyes upon the clock, and
behold whether it be meet time for a decent maid to come home of a
feast-day even? By my troth, I would wager thou hadst been to
Westminster and hadst danced a galliardo in the Queen's Grace's hall,
did I not know that none with 's eyes in 's head should e'er so much as
look on thee. Thou idle doltish gadabout! Dost think I keep thee in
board and lodgment and raiment for to go a-gossiping with every idle
companion thou mayest meet? Whither hast been, thou dawdlesome patch?
Up to no good, I warrant thee!"
"I have been to Paul's, Mistress, an' it like you," was all that Agnes
answered.
"Soothly, it liketh me well, sweeting! Alisting some fat pickpurse
friar, with his oily words, belike?"
"I have been a-talking with a friend," said Agnes boldly.
"Marry come up! So my sweet young damosel hath made friends, quotha!
Prithee, was it my Lady's Grace of Suffolk thou wentest forth to see, or
my Lady of Norfolk, trow? Did she give thee a ride o' her velvet
pillion, bestudded with gold?"
Agnes thought it would be best to get it over. The storm which must
come might as well fall soon as late. She stood up, and looked the
terrible Mistress Winter in the face.
"Please it you, Mistress Winter, I am handfast to wedlock; and he that
shall be mine husband it is that I have talked withal this even."
And having so spoken, Agnes waited quietly for the tempest.