"To thine own self be true!
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
Shakespeare.
"There's the Mayor sent orders for the streets to be swept clean, and
all the mud carted out of the way. You'd best sweep afore your own
door, and then maybe you'll have less rate to pay, Aunt Isel."
It was Stephen the Watchdog who looked in over the half-door to give
this piece of information.
"What's that for?" asked Isel, stopping in the work of mopping the brick
floor.
"The Lady Queen comes through on her way to Woodstock."
"To-day?" said Flemild and Derette together.
"Or to-morrow. A running footman came in an hour ago, to say she was at
Abingdon, and bid my Lord hold himself in readiness to meet her at the
East Gate. The vintners have had orders to send in two tuns of Gascon
and Poitou wine; and Henry the Mason tells me a new cellar and chimney
were made last week in the Queen's chamber at Woodstock. Geoffrey the
Sumpter was in town yesterday, buying budgets, coffers, and bottles. So
if you girls want to see her, you had better make haste and get your
work done, and tidy yourselves up, and be at the East Gate by noon or
soon after."
"Get their work done! Don't you know better than that, Stephen? A
woman's work never is done. It's you lazy loons of men that stop
working and take your pleasure when night comes. Work done, indeed!"
"But, Isel, I will finish de work for you. Go you and take your
pleasure to see de Queen, meine friend. You have not much de pleasure."
"You're a good soul, Agnes, and it was a fine day for me when I took you
in last winter. But as for pleasure, it and me parted company a smart
little while ago. Nay, let the maids go; I'll tarry at home. You can
go if you will.--Stephen! are you bound elsewhere, or can you come and
look after the girls?"
"I can't, Aunt Isel; I'm on duty in the Bayly in half an hour, and when
I shall be free again you must ask my Lord or Master Mayor."
"Never mind: the boys are safe to be there. Catch them missing a show!
Now, Flemild, child, drop that washing; and leave the gavache [Note 1],
Ermine, and get yourselves ready. It's only once in three or four years
at most that you're like to see such a sight. Make haste, girls."
There was little need to tell the girls to make haste. Flemild hastily
wrung out the apron she was washing, and pinned it on the line; Ermine
drew the thread from her needle--the entire household owned but one of
those useful and costly articles--and put it carefully away; while
Derette tumbled up the ladder at imminent risk to her limbs, to fling
back the lid of the great coffer at the bed-foot, and institute a
search, which left every thing in wild confusion, for her sister's best
kerchief and her own. Just as the trio were ready to start, Gerhardt
came in.
"Saint Frideswide be our aid! wherever are them boys?" demanded Isel of
nobody in particular.
"One on the top of the East Gate," said Gerhardt, "and the other playing
at quarter-staff in Pary's Mead."
Pary's Mead lay between Holywell Church and the East Gate, on the north
of the present Magdalen College.
"Lack-a-daisy! but however are the girls to get down to the gate? I
daren't let 'em go by themselves."
The girls looked blank: and two big tears filled Derette's eyes, ready
to fall.
"If all you need is an escort, friend, here am I," said Gerhardt; "but
why should the girls go alone? I would fain take you and Agnes too."
"Take Agnes and welcome," said Isel with a sigh; "but I'm too old, I
reckon, and poor company at best."
A little friendly altercation followed, ended by Gerhardt's decided
assertion that Agnes should not go without her hostess.
"But who's to see to Baby?" said Derette dolefully.
"We will lock up the house, and leave Baby with old Turguia," suggested
Isel.
"Nay, she tramped off to see the show an hour ago."
"Never mind! I'll stop with Baby," said Derette with heroic
self-abnegation.
"Indeed you shall not," said Ermine.
A second war of amiability seemed likely to follow, when a voice said at
the door--
"Do you all want to go out? I am not going to the show. Will you trust
me with the child?"
Isel turned and stared in amazement at the questioner.
"I would not hurt it," pleaded the Jewish maiden in a tremulous voice.
"Do trust me! I know you reckon us bad people; but indeed we are not so
black as you think us. My baby brother died last summer; and my aims
are so cold and empty since. Let me have a little child in them once
more!"
"But--you will want to see the show," responded Isel, rather as an
excuse to decline the offered help than for any more considerate reason.
"No--I do not care for the show. I care far more for the child. I have
stood at the corner and watched you with him, so often, and have longed
so to touch him, if it might be but with one finger. Won't you let me?"
Agnes was looking from the girl to Gerhardt, as if she knew not what to
do.
"Will you keep him from harm, and bring him back as soon as we return,
if you take him?" asked Gerhardt. "Remember, the God in whom we both
believe hears and records your words."
"Let Him do so to me and more also," answered Countess solemnly, "if I
bring not the child to you unhurt."
Gerhardt lifted little Rudolph from his mother's arms and placed him in
those of the dark-eyed maiden.
"The Lord watch over thee and him!" he said.
"Amen!" And as Countess carried away the baby close pressed to her
bosom, they saw her stoop down and kiss it almost passionately.
"Holy Virgin! what have you done, Gerard?" cried Isel in horror. "Don't
you know there is poison in a Jew's breath? They'll as sure cast a
spell upon that baby as my name's Isel."
"No, I don't," said Gerhardt a little drily. "I only know that some men
say so. I have placed my child in the hands of the Lord; and He, not I,
has laid it in that maiden's. It may be that this little kindness is a
link in the chain of Providence, whereby He designs to bring her soul to
Him. Who am I, if so, that I should put my boy or myself athwart His
purpose?"
"Well, you're mighty pious, I know," said Isel. "Seems to me you should
have been a monk, by rights. However, what's done is done. Let's be
going, for there's no time to waste."
They went a little way down Fish Street, passing the Jewish synagogue,
which stood about where the northernmost tower of Christ Church is now,
turned to the left along Civil School Lane--at the south end of Tom
Quad, coming out about Canterbury Gate--pursued their way along Saint
John Baptist Street, now Merton Street, and turning again to the left
where it ended, skirted the wall till they reached the East Gate. Here
a heterogeneous crowd was assembled, about the gate, and on the top were
perched a number of adventurous youths, among whom Haimet was descried.
"Anything coming?" Gerhardt called to him.
"Yes, a drove of pigs," Haimet shouted back.
The pigs came grunting in, to be sarcastically greeted by the crowd, who
immediately styled the old sow and her progeny by the illustrious names
of Queen Eleonore and the royal children. Her Majesty was not very
popular, the rather since she lived but little in England, and was known
greatly to prefer her native province of Aquitaine. Still, a show was
always a show, and the British public is rarely indifferent to it.
The pigs having grunted themselves up Cat Street--running from the east
end of Saint Mary's to Broad Street--a further half-hour of waiting
ensued, beguiled by rough joking on the part of the crowd. Then Haimet
called down to his friends--
"Here comes Prester John, in his robes of estate!"
The next minute, a running footman in the royal livery--red and gold--
bearing a long wand decorated at the top with coloured ribbons, sped in
at the gate, and up High Street on his way to the Castle. In ten
minutes more, a stir was perceptible at the west end of High Street, and
down to the gate, on richly caparisoned horses, came the Earl and
Countess of Oxford, followed by a brilliant crowd of splendidly-dressed
officials. It was evident that the Queen must be close at hand.
All eyes were now fixed on the London Road, up which the royal cavalcade
was quickly seen approaching. First marched a division of the guard of
honour, followed by the officials of the household, on horseback; then
came the Queen in her char, followed by another bearing her ladies. The
remainder of the guard brought up the rear.
The char was not much better than a handsomely-painted cart. It had no
springs, and travelling in it must have been a trying process. But the
horses bore superb silken housings, and the very bits were gilt. [Note
2.] Ten strong men in the royal livery walked, five on each side of the
char; and their office, which was to keep it upright in the miry
tracks--roads they were not--was by no means a sinecure.
The royal lady, seated on a Gothic chair which made the permanent seat
of the char, being fixed to it, was one of the most remarkable women who
have ever reigned in England. If a passage of Scripture illustrative of
the life and character were to be selected to append to the statue of
each of our kings and queens, there would be little difficulty in the
choice to be made for Eleonore of Aquitaine. "Whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap." She sowed the wind, and she reaped the
whirlwind. A youth of the wildest giddiness was succeeded by a middle
life of suffering and hardship, and both ended in an old age of
desolation.
But when Eleonore rode in that spring noon-day at the East Gate of
Oxford, the reaping-time was not yet. The headstrong giddiness was a
little toned down, but the terrible retribution had not begun.
The Queen's contemporaries are eloquent as to her wondrous loveliness
and her marvellous accomplishments. "Beauty possessed both her mind and
body," says one writer who lived in the days of her grandson, while
another expatiates on her "_clairs et verds yeux_," and a third on her
"exquisite mouth, and the most splendid eyes in the world." Her Majesty
was attired with equal stateliness and simplicity, for that was not an
era of superb or extravagant dress. A close gown with tight sleeves was
surmounted by a pelisse, the sleeves of which were very wide and full,
and the fur trimming showed the high rank of the wearer. A long white
veil came over her head, and fell around her, kept in its place by a
jewelled fillet. The gemmed collar of gold at the neck, and the thick
leather gloves (with no partitions for the fingers) heavily embroidered
on the back, were also indicative of regal rank.
The Queen's char stopped just within the gate, so that our friends had
an excellent view of her. She greeted the Earl and Countess of Oxford
with a genial grace, which she well knew how to assume; gave her hand to
be kissed to a small selection of the highest officials, and then the
char passed on, and the sight was over.
Isel and her friends turned homewards, not waiting for the after portion
of the entertainment. There was to be a bull-baiting in the afternoon
on Presthey--Christ Church Meadow--and a magnificent bonfire at night in
Gloucester Meadows--Jericho; but these enjoyments they left to the boys.
There would be plenty of women, however, at the bull-baiting; as many
as at a Spanish _corrida_. The idea of its being a cruel pastime, or
even of cruelty being at all objectionable or demoralising, with very
few exceptions, had not then dawned on the minds of men.
They returned by the meadows outside the city, entering at the South
Gate. As they came up Fish Street, they could see Countess on a low
seat at her father's door, with little Rudolph on her knee, both parties
looking very well content with their position. On their reaching the
corner, she rose and came to meet them.
"Here is the baby," she said, smiling rather sadly. "See, I have not
done him any harm! And it has done me good. You will let me have him
again some day?--some time when you all want to go out, and it will be a
convenience to you. Farewell, my pretty bird!"
And she held out the boy to Agnes. Little Rudolph had shown signs of
pleasure at the sight of his mother; but it soon appeared that he was
not pleased by any means at the prospect of parting with his new friend.
Countess had kept him well amused, and he had no inclination to see an
abrupt end put to his amusement. He struggled and at last screamed his
disapprobation, until it became necessary for Gerhardt to interfere, and
show the young gentleman decidedly that he must not always expect to
have his own way.
"I t'ank you"--Agnes began to say, in her best English, which was still
imperfect, though Ermine spoke it fluently now. But Countess stopped
her, rather to her surprise, by a few hurried words in her own tongue.
"Do not thank me," she said, with a flash of the black eyes. "It is I
who should thank you."
And running quickly across Fish Street, the Jewish maiden disappeared
inside her father's door.
All European nations at that date disliked and despised the hapless sons
of Israel: but the little company to whom Gerhardt and Agnes belonged
were perhaps a shade less averse to them than others. They were to some
extent companions in misfortune, being themselves equally despised and
detested by many; and they were much too familiar with the Word of God
not to recognise that His blessing still rested on the seed of Abraham
His friend, hidden "for a little moment" by a cloud, but one day to
burst into a refulgence of heavenly sunlight. When, therefore, Flemild
asked Ermine, as they were laying aside their out-door garb--"Don't you
hate those horrid creatures?" it was not surprising that Ermine paused
before replying.
"Don't you?" repeated Flemild.
"No," said Ermine, "I do not think I do."
"_Don't_ you?" echoed Flemild for the third time, and with emphasis.
"Why, Ermine, they crucified our Lord."
"So did you and I, Flemild; and He bids us love one another."
Flemild stood struck with astonishment, her kerchief half off her head.
"I crucified our Lord!" she exclaimed. "Ermine, what can you mean?"
"Sin crucified Him," said Ermine quietly; "your sins and mine, was it
not? If He died not for our sins, we shall have to bear them ourselves.
And did He not die for Countess too?"
"I thought He died for those who are in holy Church; and Countess is a
wicked heathen Jew."
"Yes, for holy Church, which means those whom God has chosen out of the
world. How can you know that Countess is not some day to be a member of
holy Church?"
"Ermine, they are regular wicked people!"
"We are all wicked people, till God renews us by His Holy Spirit."
"I'm not!" cried Flemild indignantly; "and I don't believe you are
either."
"Ah, Flemild, that is because you are blind. Sin has darkened our eyes;
we cannot see ourselves."
"Ermine, do you mean to say that you see me a wicked creature like a
Jew?"
"By nature, I am as blind as you, Flemild."
"`By nature'! What do you mean? _Do_ you see me so?"
"Flemild, dear friend, what if God sees it?"
Ermine had spoken very softly and tenderly, but Flemild was not in a
mood to appreciate the tenderness.
"Well!" she said in a hard tone. "If we are so dreadfully wicked, I
wonder you like to associate with us."
"But if I am equally wicked?" suggested Ermine with a smile.
"I wonder how you can hold such an opinion of yourself. I should not
like to think myself so bad. I could not bear it."
Flemild entertained the curious opinion--it is astonishing how many
people unwittingly hold it--that a fact becomes annihilated by a man
shutting his eyes to it. Ermine regarded her with a look of slight
amusement.
"What difference would it make if I did not think so?" she asked.
Flemild laughed, only then realising the absurdity of her own remark.
It augured well for her good sense that she could recognise the
absurdity when it was pointed out to her.
Coming down the ladder, they found Anania seated below.
"Well, girls! did you see the Queen?"
"Oh, we had a charming view of her," said Flemild.
"Folks say she's not so charming, seen a bit nearer. You know Veka, the
wife of Chembel? She told me she'd heard Dame Ediva de Gathacra say the
Queen's a perfect fury when she has her back up. Some of the scenes
that are to be seen by nows and thens in Westminster Palace are enough
to set your hair on end. And her extravagance! Will you believe it,
Dame Ediva said, this last year she gave over twenty pounds for one
robe. How many gowns would that buy you and me, Aunt Isel?"
At the present value of money, Her Majesty's robe cost rather more than
500.
"Bless you, I don't know," was Isel's answer. "Might be worth cracking
my head over, if I were to have one of 'em when I'd done. But there's
poor chance of that, I reckon; so I'll let it be."
"They say she sings superbly," said Flemild.
"Oh, very like. Folks may well sing that can afford to give twenty
pound for a gown. If she'd her living to earn, and couldn't put a bit
of bread in her mouth, nor in her children's, till she'd worked for it,
she'd sing o' t'other side her mouth, most likely."
"Anania, don't talk so unseemly. I'm sure you've a good enough place."
"Oh, are you? I dress in samite, like the Queen, don't I?--and eat
sturgeon and peacocks to my dinner?--and drive of a gilt char when I
come to see folks? I should just like to know why she must have all the
good things in life, and I must put up with the hard ones? I'm as good
a woman as she is, I'm sure of that."
"Cousin Anania," said Derette in a scandalised tone, "you should not
tell us you're a good woman; you should wait till we tell you."
"Then why didn't you tell me?" snapped Anania.
"_I_ didn't tell you so because I don't think so," replied Derette with
severity, "if you say such things of the Queen."
"Much anybody cares what you think, child. Why, just look!--tuns and
tuns of Gascon wine are sent to Woodstock for her: and here must I make
shift with small ale and thin mead that's half sour. She's only to ask
and have."
"Well, I don't know," said Isel. "I wouldn't give my quiet home for a
sup of Gascon wine--more by reason I don't like it. `Scenes at
Westminster Palace' are not things I covet. My poor Manning was
peaceable enough, and took a many steps to save me, and I doubt if King
Henry does even to it. Eh dear! if I did but know what had come of my
poor man! I should have thought all them Saracens 'd have been dead and
buried by now, when you think what lots of folks has gone off to kill
'em. And as to `asking and having'--well, that hangs on what you ask
for. There's a many folks asks for the moon, but I never heard tell as
any of 'em had it."
"Why do folks go to kill the Saracens?" demanded Derette, still
unsatisfied on that point.
"Saints know!" said her mother, using her favourite comfortable
expletive. "I wish _he_ hadn't ha' gone--I do so!"
"It's a good work, child," explained Anania.
"Wouldn't it have been a good work for Father to stay at home, and save
steps for Mother?"
"I think it would, my child," said Gerhardt; "but God knoweth best, and
He let thy father go. Sometimes what seems to us the best work is not
the work God has appointed for us."
Had Gerhardt wished to drive away Anania, he could not have taken a
surer method than by words which savoured of piety. She resembled a
good many people in the present day, who find the Bread of Life very dry
eating, and if they must swallow a little of it, can only be persuaded
to do so by a thick coating of worldly butter. They may be coaxed to
visit the church where the finest anthem is sung, but that where the
purest Gospel is preached has no attraction for them. The porter's
wife, therefore, suddenly discovered that she had plenty to do at home,
and took her departure, much to the relief of the friends on whom she
inflicted herself. She had not been gone many minutes when Stephen
looked in.
"Lads not come in yet?" said he. "Well, have you seen the grand sight?
The Queen's gone again; she only stayed for supper at the Castle, and
then off to Woodstock. She'll not be there above a month, they say.
She never tarries long in England at once. But the King's coming back
this autumn--so they say."
"Who say?" asked Gerhardt.
"Oh, every body," said Stephen with a laugh, as he leaned over the
half-door.
"_Every_ body?" inquired Gerhardt drily.
"Oh, come, you drive things too fine for me. Every body, that is
anybody."
"I thought every body was somebody."
"Not in this country: maybe in yours," responded Stephen, still
laughing. "But I'm forgetting what I came for. Aunt Isel, do you want
either a sheep or a pig?"
"Have you got 'em in that wallet on your back?"
"Not at present, but I can bring you either if you want it."
"What's the price, and who's selling them?"
"Our neighbour Veka wants to sell three or four bacon pigs and
half-a-dozen young porkers; Martin le bon Fermier, brother of Henry the
Mason, has a couple of hundred sheep to sell."
"But what's the cost? Veka's none so cheap to deal with, though she
feeds her pigs well, I know."
"Well, she wants two shillings a-piece for the bacons, and four for the
six porkers."
"Ay, I knew she'd clap the money on! No, thank you; I'm not made of
gold marks, nor silver pennies neither."
"Well, but the sheep are cheap enough; he only asks twopence halfpenny
each."
"That's not out of the way. We might salt one or two. I'll think about
it. Not in a hurry to a day or two, is he?"
"Oh, no; I shouldn't think so."
"Has he any flour or beans to sell, think you? I could do with both
those, if they were reasonable."
"Ay, he has. Beans a shilling a quarter, and flour fourteen pence a
load. [Note 3.] Very good flour, he says it is."
"Should be, at that price. Well, I'll see: maybe I shall walk over one
of these days and chaffer with him. Any way, I'm obliged to you,
Stephen, for letting me know of it."
"Very good, Aunt Isel; Martin will be glad to see you, and I'll give
Bretta a hint to be at home when you come, if you'll let me know the day
before."
This was a mischievous suggestion on Stephen's part, as he well knew
that Martin's wife was not much to his aunt's liking.
"Don't, for mercy's sake!" cried Isel. "She's a tongue as long as a
yard measure, and there isn't a scrap of gossip for ten miles on every
side of her that she doesn't hand on to the first comer. She'd know all
I had on afore I'd been there one Paternoster, and every body else 'd
know it too, afore the day was out."
The space of time required to repeat the Lord's Prayer--of course as
fast as possible--was a measure in common use at that day.
"Best put on your holiday clothes, then," said Stephen with a laugh, and
whistling for his dog, which was engaged in the pointing of Countess's
kitten, he turned down Fish Street on his way to the East Gate.
Stephen's progress was arrested, as he came to the end of Kepeharme
Lane, by a long and picturesque procession which issued from the western
door of Saint Frideswide. Eight priests, fully robed, bore under a
canopy the beautifully-carved coffer which held the venerated body of
the royal saint, and they were accompanied by the officials of the
Cathedral, the choir chanting a litany, and a long string of nuns
bringing up the rear. Saint Frideswide was on her way to the bedside of
a paralysed rich man, who had paid an immense sum for her visit, in the
hope that he might be restored to the use of his faculties by a touch of
her miracle-working relics. As the procession passed up the street, a
door opened in the Jewry, and out came a young Jew named Dieulecresse
[Note 4], who at once set himself to make fun of Saint Frideswide.
Limping up the street as though he could scarcely stir, he suddenly drew
himself erect and walked down with a free step; clenching his hands as
if they were rigid, he then flung his arms open and worked his fingers
rapidly.
"O ye men of Oxford, bring me your oblations!" he cried. "See ye not
that I am a doer of wonders, like your saint, and that my miracles are
quite as good and real as hers?"
The procession passed on, taking no notice of the mockery. But when,
the next day, it was known that Dieulecresse had committed suicide in
the night, the priests did not spare the publication of the fact, with
the comment that Saint Frideswide had taken vengeance on her enemy, and
that her honour was fully vindicated from his aspersions.
"Ah!" said Gerhardt softly, "`those eighteen, on whom the tower in
Siloam fell!' How ready men are to account them sinners above all men
that dwell in Jerusalem! Yet it may be that they who thus judge are the
worse sinners of the two, in God's eyes, however high they stand in the
world's sight."
"Well, I don't set up to be better than other folks," said Stephen
lightly. He had brought the news. "I reckon I shall pass muster, if
I'm as good."
"That would not satisfy me," said Gerhardt. "I should want to be as
good as I could be. I could not pass beyond that. But even then--"
"That's too much trouble for me," laughed Stephen. "When you've done
your work, hand me over the goodness you don't want."
"I shall not have any, for it won't be enough."
"That's a poor lookout!"
"It would be, if I had to rely on my own goodness."