"Dorothy! Dorothy Denny! Wherever can the woman have got to?"
Mr Ewring had already tapped several times with his stick on the brick
floor of the King's Head kitchen, and had not heard a sound in answer.
The clock ticked to and fro, and the tabby cat purred softly as she sat
before the fire, and the wood now and then gave a little crackle as it
burned gently away, and those were all the signs of life to be seen on
the premises.
Getting tired at last, Mr Ewring went out into the courtyard, and
called in his loudest tones--"Do-ro-thy!"
He thought he heard a faint answer of "Coming!" which sounded high up
and a long way off: so he went back to the kitchen, and took a seat on
the hearth opposite the cat. In a few minutes the sound of running down
stairs was audible, and at last Dorothy appeared--her gown pinned up
behind, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and her entire aspect that
of a woman who had just come off hard and dirty work.
"Eh, Master Ewring! but I'm sorry to have kept you a-waiting. Look you,
I was mopping out the--Dear heart, but what is come to you? Has the
resurrection happened? for your face looks nigh too glad for aught
else."
The gladness died suddenly away, as those words brought to Mr Ewring
the thought of something which could not happen--the memory of the
beloved face which for thirty years had been the light of his home, and
which he should behold in this world never any more.
"Nay, Dorothy--nay, not that! Yet it will be, one day, thank God! And
we have much this morrow to thank God for, whereof I came to tell thee."
"Why, what has come, trow?"
The glad light rose again to Mr Ewring's eyes.
"Gideon has come, and hath subdued the Midianites!" he answered, with a
ring of triumph in his voice. "King David is come, and the Philistines
will take flight, and Israel shall sit in peace under his vine and
fig-tree. May God save Elizabeth our Queen!"
"Good lack, but you never mean _that_!" cried Dorothy in a voice as
delighted as his own. "Why then, Mistress 'll be back to her own, and
them poor little dears 'll be delivered from them black snakes, and
there 'll be Bible-reading and sermons again."
"Ay, every one of them, I trust. And a man may say what he will that is
right, without looking first round to see if a spy be within hearing.
We are free, Dorothy, once more."
"Eh, but it do feel like a dream! I shall have to pinch myself to make
sure I'm awake. But, Master, do you think it is sure? She haven't
changed, think you?"
Mr Ewring shook his head. "The Lady Elizabeth suffered with us," he
said, "and she will not forsake us now. No, Dorothy, she has not
changed: she is not one to change. Let us not distrust either her or
the Lord. Ah, He knew what He would do! It was to be a sharp, short
hour of tribulation, through which His Church was to pass, to purify,
and try, and make her white: and now the land shall have rest forty
years, that she may sing to Him a new song on the sea of glass. Those
five years have lit the candle of England's Church, and as our good old
Bishop said in dying, by God's grace it shall never be put out."
"Well, sure, it's a blessed day!"
"Dorothy, can you compass to drive with me to Hedingham again? I think
long till those poor children be rescued. And the nuns will be ready
and glad to give them up; they'll not want to be found with Protestant
children in their keeping--children, too, of a martyred man."
"Master Ewring, give me but time to get me tidied and my hood, and I'll
go with you this minute, if you will. I was mopping out the loft. When
Mistress do come back, she shall find her house as clean as she'd have
had it if she'd been here, and that's clean enough, I can tell you."
"Right, friend, `Faithful in a little, faithful also in much.' Dorothy,
you'd have made a good martyr."
"Me, Master?"
Mr Ewring smiled. "Well, whether shall it be to-morrow, or leave over
Sunday?"
"If it liked you, Master, I would say to-morrow. Poor little dears!
they'll be so pleased to come back to their friends. I can be ready for
them--I'll work early and late but I will. Did you think of taking the
little lad yourself, or are they all to bide with me?"
"I'll take him the minute he's old enough, and no more needs a woman's
hand about him. You know, Dorothy, there be no woman in mine house--
now."
"Well, he'll scarce be that yet, I reckon. Howbeit, the first thing is
to fetch 'em. Master, when think you Mistress shall be let go?"
"It is hard to say, Dorothy, for we've heard so little. But if she be
in the Bishop of London's keeping, as she was, I cast no doubt she shall
be delivered early. Doubtless all the bishops that refuse to conform
shall be deprived: and he will not conform, without he be a greater
rogue than I think."
There was something of the spirit of the earliest Christians when they
had all things common, in the matter-of-course way in which it was
understood on both sides that each was ready to take charge, at any
sacrifice of time, money, or ease, of children who had been left
fatherless by martyrdom.
Early the next morning, the miller's cart drew up before the door of the
King's Head, and Dorothy, hooded and cloaked, with a round basket on her
arm, was quite ready to get in. The drive to Hedingham was pleasant
enough, cold as the weather was; and at last they reached the barred
gate of the convent. Dorothy alighted from the cart.
"I'll see you let in, Dorothy, ere I leave you," said he, "if indeed I
have to leave you at all. I should never marvel if they brought the
children forth, and were earnest to be rid of them at once."
It did not seem like it, however, for several knocks were necessary
before the wicket unclosed. The portress looked relieved when she saw
who was there.
"What would you?" asked she.
Mr Ewring had given Dorothy advice how to proceed.
"An' it like you, might I see the children? Cicely Johnson and the
little ones."
"Come within," said the portress, "and I will inquire."
This appeared more promising. Dorothy was led to the guest-chamber, and
was not kept waiting. Only a few minutes had elapsed when the Prioress
herself appeared.
"You wish to see the children?" she said.
"I wish to take them with me, if you please," answered Dorothy
audaciously. "I look for my mistress back shortly, and she was
aforetime desirous to bring them up. I will take the full charge of
them, with your leave."
"Truly, and my leave you shall have. We shall be right glad to be rid
of the charge, for a heavy one it has been, and a wearisome. A more
obstinate, perverse, ungovernable maid than Cicely never came in my
hands."
"Thank the Lord!" said Dorothy.
"Poor creatures!" said the Prioress. "I suppose you will do your best
to undo our teaching, and their souls will be lost. Howbeit, we were
little like to have saved them. And it will be well, now for the
community that they should go. Wait, and I will send them to you."
Dorothy waited half-an-hour. At the end of that time a door opened in
the wainscot, which she had not known was there, and a tall, pale,
slender girl of eleven, looking older than she was, came forward.
"Dorothy Denny!" said Cissy's unchanged voice, in tones of unmistakable
delight. "Oh, they didn't tell me who it was! Are we to go with
_you_?--back to Colchester? Has something happened? Do tell me what is
going to become of us."
"My dear heart, peace and happiness, if it please the Lord. Master
Ewring and I have come to fetch you all. The Queen is departed to God,
and the Lady Elizabeth is now Queen; and the nuns are ready enough to be
rid of you. If my dear mistress come home safe--as please God, she
shall--you shall be all her children, and Master Ewring hath offered to
take Will when he be old enough, and learn him his trade. Your troubles
be over, I trust the Lord, for some while."
"It's just in time!" said Cissy with a gasp of relief. "Oh, how wicked
I have been, not to trust God better! and He was getting this ready for
us all the while!"