"I reckon that's aiming a bit too high," said Stephen, with a shake of
his head. "Can't tell how you're going to get hold of that."
"Nor could I, unless the Lord had first laid hold of me. `_He_ hath
covered me with the robe of righteousness'--I do not put it on myself."
Gerhardt never made long speeches on religious topics. He said what he
had to say, generally, in one pithy sentence, and then left it to carry
its own weight.
"I say, Gerard, I've wondered more than once--"
"Well, Stephen?"
"No offence, friend?"
"Certainly not: pray say all you wish."
"Whether you were an unfrocked priest."
"No, I assure you."
"Can't tell how you come by all your notions!" said Stephen, scratching
his head.
"Notions of all kinds have but two sources," was the reply: "the Word of
God, and the corruption of man's heart."
"Come, now, that won't do!" objected Stephen. "You've built your door a
mile too narrow. I've a notion that grass is green, and another that my
new boots don't fit me: whence come they?"
"The first," said Gerhardt drily, "from the Gospel of Saint Mark; the
second from the Fourteenth Psalm."
"The Fourteenth Psalm makes mention of my boots!"
"Not in detail. It saith, `There is none that doeth good,--no, not
one.'"
"What on earth has that to do with it?"
"This: that if sin had never entered the world, both fraud and suffering
would have tarried outside with it."
"Well, I always did reckon Father Adam a sorry fellow, that he had no
more sense than to give in to his wife."
"I rather think he gave in to his own inclination, at least as much. If
he had not wanted to taste the apple, she might have coaxed till now."
"Hold hard there, man! You are taking the woman's side."
"I thought I was taking the side of truth. If that be not one's own, it
is quite as well to find it out."
Stephen laughed as he turned away from the door of the Walnut Tree.
"You're too good for me," said he. "I'll go home before I'm infected
with the complaint."
"I'd stop and take it if I were you," retorted Isel. "You're off the
better end, I'll admit, but you'd do with a bit more, may be."
"I'll leave it for you, Aunt Isel," said Stephen mischievously. "One
shouldn't want all the good things for one's self, you know."
The Queen did not remain for even a month at Woodstock. In less than
three weeks she returned to London, this time without passing through
Oxford, and took her journey to Harfleur, the passage across the Channel
costing the usual price of 7 pounds, 10 shillings equivalent in modern
times to 187 pounds, 10 shillings.
Travelling seems to have been an appalling item of expense at that time.
The carriage of fish from Yarmouth to London cost 9 shillings (11
pounds, 5 shillings); of hay from London to Woodstock, 60 shillings (75
pounds); and of the Queen's robes from Winchester to Oxford, 8 shillings
(10 pounds). Yet the Royal Family were perpetually journeying; the hams
were fetched from Yorkshire, the cheeses from Wiltshire, and the
pearmain apples from Kent. Exeter was famous for metal and corn;
Worcester and London for wheat; Winchester for wine--there were
vineyards in England then; Hertford for cattle, and Salisbury for game;
York for wood; while the speciality of Oxford was knives.
An old Jew, writing to a younger some thirty years later, in the reign
of Henry Second, and giving him warning as to what he would find in the
chief towns of southern England, thus describes such as he had visited:
"London much displeases me; Canterbury is a collection of lost souls and
idle pilgrims; Rochester and Chichester are but small villages; Oxford
scarcely (I say not satisfies, but) sustains its clerks; Exeter
refreshes men and beasts with corn; Bath, in a thick air and sulphurous
vapour, lies at the gates of Gehenna!"
But if travelling were far more costly than in these days, there were
much fewer objects on which money could be squandered. Chairs were
almost as scarce as thrones, being used for little else, and chimneys
were not more common. [Note 5.] Diamonds were unknown; lace, velvet,
and satin had no existence, samite and silk being the costly fabrics;
and the regal ermine is not mentioned. Dress, as has been said, was not
extravagant, save in the item of jewellery, or of very costly
embroidery; cookery was much simpler than a hundred years later. Plate,
it is true, was rich and expensive, but it was only in the hands of the
nobles and church dignitaries. On the other hand, fines were among the
commonest things in existence. Not only had every breach of law its
appropriate fine, but breaches of etiquette were expiated in a similar
manner. False news was hardly treated: 13 shillings 4 pence was exacted
for that [Pipe Roll, 12 Henry Third] and perjury [Ibidem, 16 ib] alike,
while wounding an uncle cost a sovereign, and a priest might be slain
for the easy price of 4 shillings 9 pence [Ibidem, 27 ib]. The Prior of
Newburgh was charged three marks for excess of state; and poor Stephen
de Mereflet had to pay 26 shillings 8 pence for "making a stupid reply
to the King's Treasurer"! [Pipe Roll, 16 Henry Third] It was reserved
for King John to carry this exaction to a ridiculous excess, by taking
bribes to hold his tongue on inconvenient topics, and fining his
courtiers for not having reminded him of points which he happened to
forget. [Misae Roll, I John.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. A long undergarment then worn by men and women alike.
Note 2. "For gilding the King's bit (_frenum_), 56 shillings." (Pipe
Roll, 31 Henry First.)
Note 3. Reckoned according to modern value, these prices stand about
thus:--Bacon pig, 2 pounds, 10 shillings; porkers, 5 pounds; sheep, 5
shillings 3 pence; quarter of beans, 25 shillings; load of flour, 30
shillings.
Note 4. "_Dieu L'encroisse_," a translation of Gedaliah, and a very
common name among the English Jews at that time. This incident really
occurred about twenty-five years later.
Note 5. Some writers deny the existence of chimneys at this date; but
an entry, on the Pipe Roll for 1160, of money expended on "the Queen's
chamber and chimney and cellar," leaves no doubt on the matter.