"Please, Dorothy, what's become of Rose Allen? and Bessy Foulkes? and
Mistress Mount, and all of them?"
"All gone, my dear heart--all with thy father."
"Are they all gone?" said Cissy with another sob, "Isn't there one
left?"
"Not one of them."
"Then if we came out, we shouldn't find nobody?"
"Prithee reckon not, Cicely," said the nun, "that thou art likely to
come out. There is no such likelihood at all whilst our good Queen
reigneth; and if it please God, she shall have a son after her that
shall be true to the Catholic faith, as she is, and not suffer evil
courses and naughty heretics to be any more in the realm. Ye will abide
here till it be plainly seen whether God shall grant to thee and thy
sister the grace of a vocation; and if not, it shall be well seen to
that ye be in care of good Catholic folk, that shall look to it ye go in
the right way. So prithee, suffer not thy fancy to deceive thee with
any thought of going forth of this house of religion. When matters be
somewhat better established, and the lands whereof the Church hath been
robbed are given back to her, and all the religious put back in their
houses, or new ones built, then will England be an Isle of Saints as in
olden time, and men may rejoice thereat."
Cissy listened to this long speech, which she only understood in part,
but she gathered that the nuns meant to keep her a prisoner as long as
they could.
"But Sister Joan," said she, "you don't know, do you, what God is going
to do? Perhaps he will give us another good king or queen, like King
Edward. I ask Him to do, every day. But, please, what is a vocation?"
"Thou dost, thou wicked maid? I never heard thee."
"But I don't ask you, Sister Joan. I ask God. And I think He'll do it,
too. What is a vocation, please?"
"What I'm afeared thou wilt never have, thou sinful heretic child--the
call to become a holy Sister."
"Who is to call me? I am a sister now; I'm Will's and Baby's sister.
Nobody can't call me to be a sister to nobody else," said Cissy, getting
very negative in her earnestness.
Sister Joan rose from her seat. "The time is up," said she. "Say
farewell to thy friend."
"Farewell, Dorothy dear," said Cissy, clinging to the one person she
knew, who seemed to belong to her past, as she never would have thought
of doing to Dorothy Denny in bygone days. "Please give Mistress Wade my
duty, when she comes home, and say I'm trying to do as Father bade me,
and I'll never, never believe nothing he told me not. You see they
couldn't do nothing to me save burn me, as they did Father, and then I
should go to Father, and all would be right directly. It's much better
for them all that they are safe there, and I'll try to be glad--thought
here's nobody left for me. Father'll have company: I must try and think
of that. I thought he'd find nobody he knew but Mother, but if they've
all gone too, there'll be plenty. And I suppose there'll be some holy
angels to look after us, because God isn't gone away, you see: He's
there and here too. He'll help me still to look after Will and Baby,
now I haven't"--a sob interrupted the words--"haven't got Father.
Good-bye, Dolly! Kiss me, please. Nobody never kisses me now."
"Thou poor little dear!" cried Dorothy, fairly melted, and sobbing over
Cissy as she gave her half-a-dozen kisses at least. "The Lord bless
thee, and be good to thee! I'm sure He'll take proper vengeance on
every body as isn't. I wouldn't like to be them as ill-used thee.
They'll have a proper bill to pay in the next world, if they don't get
it in this. Poor little pretty dear!"
"You will drink a cup of ale and eat a manchet?" asked Sister Joan of
Dorothy.
A manchet was a cake of the best bread.
"No, I thank you, Sister, I am not a-hungered," was the answer.
"But, Dolly, you did not come all the way from Colchester?" said Cissy.
"Ay, I did so, my dear, in the miller's cart, and I'm journeying back in
the same. I covenanted to meet him down at the end of yonder lane at
three o'clock, and methinks I had best be on my way."
"Ay, you have no time to lose," responded Sister Joan.
Dorothy found Mr Ewring waiting for her at the end of the lane.
"Have you had to eat, Dorothy?" was his first question when she had
climbed up beside him.
"Never a bite or sup in _that_ house, Master, I thank you," was
Dorothy's rejoinder. "If I'd been starving o' hunger, I wouldn't have
touched a thing."
"Have you seen the children?"
"I've seen Cissy. That was enough and to spare."
"What do they with her?"
"They are working hard with both hands to make an angel of her at the
soonest--that's what they are doing. It's not what they mean to do.
They want to make her a devil, or one of the devil's children, which
comes to the same thing: but the Lord 'll not suffer that, or I'm a
mistaken woman. They are trying to bend her, and they never will.
She'll break first. So they'll break her, and then there'll be no more
they can do. That's about where it is, Master Ewring."
"Why, Dorothy, I never saw you thus stirred aforetime."
"Maybe not. It takes a bit to stir me, but I've got it this even, I can
tell you."
"I could well-nigh mistake you for Mistress Wade," said Mr Ewring with
a smile.
"Eh, poor Mistress! but if she could see that poor little dear, it would
grieve her to her heart. Master Ewring, how long will the Lord bear
with these sons of Satan!"
"Ah, Dorothy, that's more than you or I can tell. `Many shall be
purified, and made white, and tried': that is all we know."
"How much is many?" asked Dorothy almost bitterly.
"Not one too many," said the miller gravely: "and not one too few. We
are called to wait until our brethren be accomplished that shall suffer.
It may be shorter than we think. But, Dorothy, who set you among the
prophets? I rather thought you had not over much care for such things."
"Master Ewring, I've heard say that when a soldier's killed in battle,
another steppeth up behind without delay to fill his place. There's
some places wants filling at Colchester, where the firing's been fierce
of late: and when most of the old warriors be killed, they'll be like to
fill the ranks up with new recruits. And if they be a bit awkward, and
don't step just up to pace, maybe they'll learn by and by, and meantime
the others must have patience."
"The Lord perfect that which concerneth thee!" said the miller, with
much feeling. "Dorothy, was your mistress not desirous to have brought
up these little ones herself?"
"She was so, Master Ewring, and I would with all my heart she could.
Poor little dears!"
"I would have taken the lad, if it might have been compassed, when he
was a bit older, and have bred him up to my own trade. The maids should
have done better with good Mistress Wade."
"Eh, Master, little Cicely's like to dwell in other keeping than either,
and that's with her good father and mother above."
"The Lord's will be done!" responded Mr Ewring. "If so be, she at
least will have little sorrow."