"Oh for the faith to grasp Heaven's bright For Ever,
Amid the shadows of earth's Little While!"
_Jane Crewdson_.
Sheer amazement kept Mistress Winter silent for one moment after Agnes
had made her startling revelation. That her bondslave should have dared
to dream of freedom was almost too preposterous for belief. And she was
powerless to stop this most insubordinate proceeding; for, never
anticipating such a calamity, and not fond of spending money, except on
herself and her daughters, she had not, as she might have done, bound
Agnes her apprentice. But after that minute of astonished silence, a
thunderstorm such as even Agnes had never before experienced, burst upon
her devoted head. If Mistress Winter might be believed, no such
instance of rebellion, perversity, ingratitude, and all imaginable
wickedness, had ever before occurred since Adam and Eve quitted
Paradise. Agnes was asked to what she expected to come in this life,
and where she expected to go after it. When Mistress Winter became
weary of scolding, which was not soon, Joan took up the tale, and when
she was tired Dorothy succeeded, and as all were gifted with
considerable powers of speech, the ball was kept going until bedtime.
Then Agnes was allowed to creep to her coarse rug and bundle of straw,
feeling herself in peace at last.
Thenceforward there was not much peace left, at least in the day-time.
Having been interrogated as to the name and calling of her suitor, Agnes
was at once dubbed Madam Dominic, my Lady's Grace of Blackfriars, and
various similar titles. Dorothy, clasping her hands in mock rapture,
falsely averred that she had foreseen this delightful ending to the
story, when she caught sight of Agnes and Friar Laurence talking at the
Cross; and proceeded to give an ironical description of the Friar's
personal charms, sufficiently spiced to be very amusing to her mother
and sister, and just sufficiently seasoned with truth to be exceedingly
galling to Agnes. Henceforth she took every opportunity to play
ill-natured practical jokes on the latter. It was not likely that Agnes
would particularly enjoy having shreds of dirty flannel and linen flung
into her lap, with a tittering remark that they would enrich her
trousseau; nor feeling, when she sat at needlework, a rotten egg gently
broken over her head, with the bland intimation that it was to dress her
hair for the wedding; nor the presentation, in solemn form, of torn and
faded ribbons, accompanied by the information that they would become her
sweetly on her bridal. Of all approach to wedding attire poor Agnes was
devoid. She had but two gowns in the world--the washed-out linen
bed-gown and stuff petticoat in which her work was generally done, and
the well-patched serge which replaced it upon holy days. But Agnes bore
all these outrages with a patience born of long practice, and nourished
by glad hope. It was now May, and it had been agreed with John Laurence
that the twenty-ninth of the following March was to set her free.
They would gladly have made arrangements for an earlier date, had it
been possible. But John Laurence was not much richer than Agnes
herself, and they had to wait till he thought that he could reasonably
afford to marry. Beside this, it was a most perilous time for a priest
to think of wedlock. Things might change. Hope told that "flattering
tale" which she is so fond of recapitulating to young people--often most
unjustifiably. Who could tell what might happen, if they waited?
Meanwhile, what was happening was not particularly cheering, at least to
the apprehension of the Gospellers. Wyatt's insurrection had been put
down, and its leader beheaded; and its fruitlessness was shown by the
setting out of the Queen's envoys to escort Philip to England, while
Wyatt yet lay in prison waiting for his trial. The Princess Elizabeth,
sent to the Tower in March, on charge of complicity in Wyatt's evil
deeds--who will ever know whether it was true?--had been released (at
Philip's request, it was said) a few days before Corpus Christi.
Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer lay imprisoned at Oxford, and under
sentence of death. Nearly every day somebody was exhibited in the
pillory--women as well as men--the most frequent charge being, as it
appears in the diary of that comical speller, Mr Henry Machyn--"spekyng
yll of good Qwen Mare." The difficulty which presents itself to the
present generation is, how else her subjects could well speak of her
proceedings. However, they could have held their peace. Probably the
discreet portion of the community did so.
It may seem a little strange, on the surface, when one considers how it
was that the reign of Mary was felt so galling, that the accession of
Elizabeth was welcomed with such a fever of delight and triumph, such a
sense of relief and freedom, as was undoubtedly the case--and yet that
men bore the former and made no sign, waited for the latter with
indescribable longing, but without any attempt to bring it about.
Perhaps we must attribute this partly to that law-abiding instinct
inherent in the ordinary Englishman: yet I think still more to the fact
that as a rule, at all times, in all respects, the majority of the
nation are indifferent. There were men who died at the stake in defence
of the free Gospel. There were men who kindled those fires, and stamped
out the truth, so far as in them lay. But these, even when put
together, were still a minority. The majority were the watchers who
stood round the stake, and who cared nothing for the cause on either
side--who went to see a martyrdom as a Spaniard goes to see a
bull-fight, with neither sympathy nor enmity towards the martyr. Of
course, these would be, as to religious profession, what they found it
to their own interest that they should be. The most popular and crowded
of all the Seven Churches is the Church of Laodicea.
"_Because_ thou art lukewarm... I will spue thee out of My mouth."
It was not without some difficulty that Agnes contrived to enjoy an
occasional, and always short, interview with her betrothed. Such
interviews were generally followed by forced audiences of Dorothy, who
professed an entirely hypocritical interest in the progress of the
love-match, and did her best to make Agnes recount what her lover had
said to her. Agnes, however, was wise enough to keep out of the trap
laid for her, and Dorothy took little by her motion.
Sometimes the lovers met for a few minutes before or after the reading
in the Cathedral; sometimes there could be a few words as Agnes carried
her pails to and from the Horsepool; once or twice, when Mistress Winter
had barred the door on her for misdemeanour, they walked to some quiet
nook in the fields near Clerkenwell, refreshing themselves with converse
on the one grand subject nearest to both hearts--nearer even than each
other. But the readings in the Cathedral were becoming much fewer than
of old. It was a perilous thing to do now, and John Laurence was a
marked man. Not that he feared danger: his motto was that of the old
French knight--"Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra!" But his brother
clergy were afraid lest it should be known that such compromising
proceedings as regular Scripture lessons were permitted at Saint Paul's.
Some from dislike of the Bible-reading, a few from honest kindly
feeling towards the reader, managed to take care that the lectern was
otherwise occupied, during the hour which alone John Laurence could
usually spare from other duties.
At last King Philip landed in England, and his meeting and marriage with
the Queen took place at Winchester. The City and suburbs blazed with
bonfires, and rang with bells; the _Te Deum_ was chanted in every
church; the utmost delight had to be felt, or at any rate professed, by
all who did not wish to be reported as disaffected persons. On the
twelfth of August, the royal bride and bridegroom made their state entry
into London. A heretic had been burnt at Uxbridge four days previous.
Every house in Cow Lane, imitating every other street in London, poured
forth its members to see the procession. The good folks locked their
doors, and left their houses to take care of themselves. Agnes, who
liked a pretty sight as well as other people, had taken her stand with
the crowd, and was looking out with interest as the first of the
advancing horsemen who opened the procession became visible, when
suddenly she felt a hand upon her own. She looked up into the welcome
face of John Laurence.
"Art come to see the sight, John?" she asked with a smile.
"I am come to see two sights," said he, returning it,--but his smiles
were always grave. "To wit, the King's and Queen's Graces of the one
hand, and Agnes Stone of the other. Hast a mind for a walk toward the
Clerks' Well, when all be gone by?"
"With a very good will," she answered.
But the pageant was coming past now, and they exchanged the use of their
tongues for that of their eyes. It was entirely equestrian, and came
over London Bridge, from Suffolk Place, where the King and Queen had
passed the night. Our friends were not prepossessed by the royal
bridegroom, whose low stature, want of beauty, and gloomy expression,
struck them in the same light that they did most Englishmen, as denoting
neither grace nor graciousness. Only two persons are recorded ever to
have loved Philip--Queen Mary herself, and her successor, the fair and
sagacious Elizabeth of France.
Just opposite the place where Agnes and the Friar stood was an
allegorical group, of which one painted figure, supposed to be Henry the
Eighth, was holding out to the Queen an open Bible, inscribed with the
words _Verbum Dei_. But before night a warning had been conveyed to the
authorities that the Queen was offended with this representation of her
father, and the Bible was painted out so hastily that the hand of the
figure was partly obliterated with it.
When the pageant had gone by, and the crowd had sufficiently dispersed,
John Laurence and Agnes set out for their walk to Clerkenwell. They
found a shady field, in a corner of which they sat down, and the Friar
drew from his pocket a Latin Psalter,--the only form of the Bible with
which it was then safe to be caught. From this he read to Agnes the
hundred and seventh Psalm, translating it as he went on into the only
tongue she knew.
"And He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to the City
of Habitation."
He paused at that seventh verse, and half closing the book, sat looking
thoughtfully into the blue heaven.
Very vaguely did Agnes enter into his deeper thoughts. Her ideas
concerning public events, and possible future dangers, were of a very
misty description. She kept silent a moment. Then, when he did not
speak, she said--
"Well, John?"
"By the right way!" he said dreamily, rather as if speaking to himself
than to her. "And He leads them, too, _inportum voluntatis eorum_--to
the haven of their desire."
"That is, Heaven?" said Agnes questioningly. Her admiration for his
knowledge and wisdom was high.
"That is Heaven," he replied in the same tone as before.
"John, what thinkest Heaven shall be like?"
"Like God!" said the Black Friar slowly. "Therefore, glorious--
wonderful--perfect in every part--holy--satisfying."
"And right fair and beauteous, doubtless," she added, by way of
completing the picture.
"That which is perfect must be fair," said John Laurence. "He saith to
His Church, `Thou art all fair, My love, and a stain is not in thee.'
That is, to thee, and me, Agnes."
"To _me_?" she repeated, in an awe-struck voice. "Nay, how so, trow? I
am all o'er a stain with my sins."
The answer was in inspired words. "`For perfect wert thou, in My beauty
which I put upon thee, saith the Lord God.'"
Agnes sat still, trying to take in the idea.
"Hear yet again another His saying to the Church: `Thou hast wounded
Mine heart, My sister-spouse; thou hast wounded Mine heart in one of
thine eyes, and in one chain of thy neck.' Now what is the eye?--is it
not a member of the body? Doth not this learn us that every one of
Christ's members hath his proper and peculiar love of Him, that cannot
belong to any other? Yea, more; for the chain of the neck is not a
member, but only the ornament of a member. Wherefore one grace--for the
ornaments of the soul be his graces--one grace of one Christian soul is
enough to delight Christ's heart."
Both were silent for a while, Agnes learning her new lesson.
"Mine heart!" said John Laurence suddenly, "the right way at times looks
like the wrong."
"What meanest thou, John?" said Agnes, looking into his face, and
startled by its expression of pain.
"Dear heart, we know not what lieth afore us. We be so blind, Agnes!
But He knows. It is enough, if we are ready to follow Him. Canst thou
dare follow, as well through the flood and the fire as through the
flowery mead?"
"I cannot tell," she said tremulously. "I would try."
"There be two staves to lean on in our weariness," he said. "The one is
for earth: `Fear not, because I am with thee.' And the other is of
Heaven, but gildeth earth with hope: `Where I am, there shall My servant
be.' There must be glory and sweetness, where is Jesus Christ."
Long years afterwards, Agnes recalled those words.