Chapter Twelve.
A Glimpse of the Hot Gospeller.
“In service which Thy love appoints
There are no bonds for me;
My secret heart has learned the truth
Which makes Thy children free:
A life of self-renouncing love
Is a life of liberty.”
Anna L. Waring.
“I hold not with you there, Parson!”
The suddenness of this appeal would have startled any one less calm and self-controlled than the Reverend Robert Tremayne, who was taking off his surplice in the vestry after morning prayers one Wednesday, when this unexpected announcement reached him through the partially open door. But it was not the Rector’s habit to show much emotion of any kind, whatever he might feel.
“Pray you, come forward,” he said quietly, in answer to the challenge.
The door, pushed wide open by the person without, revealed a handsome old man, lithe and upright still,—whose hair was pure white, and his brown eyes quick and radiant. He marched in and seated himself upon the settle, grasping a stout oaken stick in both hands, and gazing up into the Rector’s face. His dress, no less than his manners, showed that notwithstanding the blunt and eccentric nature of his greeting, he was by birth a gentleman.
“And wherein hold you not with me, Sir, I pray you?” inquired Mr Tremayne with some amusement.
“In your tolerating of evil opinion.”
“I cry you mercy. What evil opinion have I tolerated?”
“If you will tolerate men which hold evil opinions, you must needs tolerate evil opinion.”
“I scantly see that.”
“Maybe you see this?” demanded the stranger, pulling a well-worn Bible from a capacious pocket.
“My sight is sharp enough for so much,” returned Mr Tremayne good-naturedly.
“Well, and I tell you,” said the stranger, poising the open Bible between his hands, “there is no such word as toleration betwixt the two backs of this book!”
The two backs of the book were brought together, by way of emphasising the assertion, with a bang which might almost have been heard to the parsonage.
“There is no such word, I grant you.”
“No, Sir!—and there is no such thing.”
“That hangeth, I take it, on what the word is held to signify.”
“Shall I tell you what it signifieth?”
“Pray you, so do.”
“Faint-heartedness, Sir!—weakness—recreancy—cowardliness—shamedness of the truth!”
“An ill-sounding list of names,” said Mr Tremayne quietly. “And one of none whereof I would by my good-will be guilty.—Pray you, whom have I the honour to discourse withal?”
“A very pestilent heretic, that Queen Mary should have burned, and forgat.”
“She did not that with many,” was the significant answer.
“She did rare like to it with a lad that I knew in King Edward’s days, whose name was Robin Tremayne.”
“Master Underhill, my dear old friend!” cried the Rector, grasping his visitor’s hand warmly. “I began these two minutes back to think I should know those brown eyes, but I might not set a name thereto all at once.”
“Ha! the ‘pestilent heretic’ helped thee to it, I reckon!” replied the guest laughing. “Ay, Robin, this is he thou knewest of old time. We will fight out our duello another time, lad. I am rare glad to see thee so well-looking.”
“From what star dropped you, Master Underhill? or what fair wind blew you hither?”
“I am dropped out of Warwickshire, lad, if that be a star; and I came hither of a galloway’s back (but if he were the wind, ’twas on the stillest night of the year!) And how goes it with Mrs Thekla? I saw her last in her bride’s gear.”
“She will be rarely glad to see you, old friend; and so, I warrant you, will our mother, Mistress Rose. Will you take the pain to go with me to mine house?—where I will ensure you of a good bed and a rare welcome.”
“Wilt thou ensure me of twain, lad?” asked the old man, with a comic twinkle in his eyes.
“Twain! What, which of all my small ancient friends be with you?—Ay, and that as hearty as to yourself.—Is it Hal or Ned?”
“Thou art an ill guesser, Robin: ’tis neither Ned nor Hal. Thy small friends, old lad, be every man and woman of them higher than their father. Come, let us seek the child. I left her a-poring and posing over one of the tombs in the church.—What, Eunice!—I might as well have left my staff behind as leave her.”
It was plainly to be perceived, by the loud call which resounded through the sacred edifice, that Mr Underhill was not fettered by any superstitious reverence for places. A comely woman answered the call,—in years about thirty-seven, in face particularly bright and pleasant. The last time that Mr Tremayne had seen her, Eunice Underhill was about as high as the table.
“And doth Mistress Rose yet live?” said her father, as they went towards the parsonage. “She must be a mighty old grandame now. And all else be gone, as I have heard, that were of old time in the Lamb?”
“All else, saving Barbara Polwhele,—you mind Barbara, the chamber—maiden?—and Walter’s daughter, Clare, which is now a maid of twenty years.”
“Ah, I would fain see yon lass of little Walter’s. What manner of wife did the lad wed?”
“See her—ask not me,” said the Rector smiling.
“Now, how read I that? Which of the Seven Sciences hath she lost her way in?”
“In no one of them all.”
“Come, I will ask Mrs Thekla.”
Mr Tremayne laughed.
“You were best see her for yourself, as I cast no doubt you soon will. How long time may we hope to keep you?”
“Shall you weary of us under a month?”
Mr Underhill was warmly enough assured that there was no fear of any such calamity.
Most prominent of his party—which was Puritan of the Puritans—was Edward Underhill of Honyngham, the Hot Gospeller. His history was a singular one. Left an heir and an orphan at a very early age, he had begun life as a riotous reveller. Soon after he reached manhood, God touched his heart—by what agency is not recorded. Then he “fell to reading the Scriptures and following the preachers,”—throwing his whole soul into the service of Christ, as he had done before into that of Satan. Had any person acquainted with the religious world of that day been asked, on the outbreak of Queen Mary’s persecution, to name the first ten men who would suffer, it is not improbable that Edward Underhill’s name would have been found somewhere on the list. But, to the astonishment of all who knew his decided views, and equally decided character, he had survived the persecution, with no worse suffering than a month spent in Newgate, and a tedious illness as the result. Nor was this because he had either hidden his colours, or had struck them. Rather he kept his standard flying to the breeze, and defied the foe. No reason can be given for his safety, save that still the God of Daniel could send His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, that they should do His prophets no hurt.
On the accession of Elizabeth, Underhill returned for a short time to his London home in Wood Street, Cheapside; but die soon went back to the family seat in Warwickshire, where he had since lived as a country squire. (Note 1.)
“Yet these last few months gone have I spent in London,” said he, “for my Hal (name true, character imaginary) would needs have me. Now, Robin, do thou guess what yon lad hath gat in his head. I will give thee ten shots.”
“No easy task, seeing I ne’er had the good fortune to behold him. What manner of lad is he?”
“Eunice?” said her father, referring the question to her.
Eunice laughed. “Hal is mighty like his father, Master Tremayne. He hath a stout will of his own, nor should you quickly turn him thence.”
“Lo you, now, what conditions doth this jade give me!” laughed Underhill. “A stubborn old brute, that will hear no reason!”
“Hal will not hear o’ermuch, when he is set on aught,” said Eunice.
“Well,” said Mr Tremayne thoughtfully, “so being, I would guess that he had set his heart, to be Archbishop of Canterbury, or else Lord Privy Seal.”
“Ma foi!” interposed Mrs Rose, “but I would guess that no son of Mr Underhill should tarry short of a king. Mind you not, hermano, that I did once hear you to say that you would not trust your own self, had you the chance to make your Annette a queen?”
“Dear heart, Mistress Rose! I would the lad had stayed him at nought worser. Nay, he is not for going up the ladder, but down. Conceive you, nought will serve him but a journey o’er seas, and to set him up a home in the Queen’s Majesty’s country of Virginia—yea, away in the plantations, amongst all the savages and wild beasts, and men worser than either, that have been of late carried thither from this land, for to be rid of them. ‘Come, lad,’ said I to him, ‘content thee with eating of batatas (the Spanish word of which potato is a corruption) and drinking of tobacco (smoking tobacco was originally termed drinking it), and leave alone this mad fantasy.’ But not he, in good sooth! Verily, for to go thither as a preacher and teacher, with hope to reform the ill men,—that had been matter of sore peril, and well to be thought on; yet would I not have said him nay, had the Lord called him to it;—but to make his home!”
And Mr Underhill stopped short, as if words were too weak adequately to convey his feelings.
“Maybe the Lord hath called him to that, old friend,” said the Rector. “His eyes be on Virginia, no less than England.”
“God forbid I should deny it! Yet there is such gear as tempting the Lord. For my part,—but la! I am an old man, and the old be less venturesome than the young,—yet for me, I see not what should move a man to dwell any whither out of his own country, without he must needs fly to save his life.”
“Had all men been of your mind,” observed Mr Tremayne with a smile, “there had ne’er been any country inhabited save one, until men were fairly pushed thence by lack of room.”
“Well!—and wherefore should any quit home until he be pushed out?”
“Ask at Hal,” said the Rector laughing.
“No have I so? Yea, twenty times twice told: but all I may win from the young ne’er-do-well is wise saws that the world must be peopled (why so, I marvel?),—and that there is pleasure in aventure (a deal more, I reckon, in keeping of one’s carcase safe and sound!)—and that some men must needs dwell in strange lands, and the like. Well-a-day! wherefore should they so? Tell me that, Robin Tremayne.”
“I will, old friend, when mine amaze is o’er at hearing of such words from one Ned Underhill.”
“Amaze!—what need, trow?”
“But little need, when one doth call to mind that the most uncommon of all things is consistency. Only when one hath been used for forty years and more to see a man (I name him not) ever foremost in all perilous aventure, and thrusting him forward into whatsoever danger there were as into a bath of rosewater, ’tis some little surprise that taketh one to hear from the self-same party that ’tis never so much sweeter to keep safe and sound at home.”
Mr Underhill threw his head back, and indulged in a hearty peal of laughter.
“On my word, Robin, thou ticklest me sore! But what, lad!—may a man not grow prudent in his old age?”
“By all manner of means, or in his youth no less; but this will I say, that the last prudent man I looked to set eyes on should bear the name of Underhill.”
“Well-a-day! Here is Eunice made up of prudence.”
“She taketh after her mother, trow,” replied the Rector dryly.
“Come, I’ll give o’er, while I have some bones left whole.—And what thinkest, lad, of the outlook of matters public at this time?”
“Nay, what think you, that have been of late in London?”
“Robin,” said Mr Underhill gravely, “dost mind, long years gone, when King Edward his reign was well-nigh o’er, the ferment men’s minds gat in touching the succession?”
“Eh, la belle journée!” said Mrs Rose waggishly. “I do well mind the ferment you were in, Mr Underhill, and how you did push your Queen Mary down all the throats of your friends: likewise how sweetly she did repay you, bidding you for a month’s visit to her palace of Newgate! Pray you, shall it be the same again, hermano?”
“Dear heart! What a memory have you, Mistress Rose!” said Mr Underhill, with another hearty laugh. “It shall scantly be Newgate again, metrusteth: the rather, since there is no Queen Mary to thrust adown your throats—thank the Lord for that and all other His mercies. He that we may speak of is no Papist, whatso else; but I mistake greatly, Robin, if somewhat the same matter shall not come o’er again, should it please God to do a certain thing.”
Mr Underhill spoke thus vaguely, having no wish to finish his days on the gallows; as men had done ere now, for little more than a hint that the reigning Sovereign might not live for ever.
“And when the ferment come, under what flag must we look for you, Mr Underhill?” asked. Mrs Tremayne.
“Well,” said he, “Harry Eighth left a lad and two lasses, and we have had them all. But Harry Seventh left likewise a lad and two lasses; and we have had the lad, but ne’er a one of the lasses.”
“Both these lasses be dead,” responded the Rector.
“They be so. But the first left a lad and a lass; and that lad left a lass, and that lass left a lad—which is alive and jolly.”
This meant, that Queen Margaret of Scotland, elder sister of Henry the Eighth, had issue King James the Fifth, whose daughter was Mary Queen of Scots, and her son was James the Sixth, then living.
“You count the right lieth there?” queried Mr Tremayne.
Mr Underhill nodded his head decidedly.
“And is—yonder party—well or ill affected unto the Gospellers?—how hear you?”
“Lutheran to the back-bone—with no love for Puritans, as men do now begin to call us Hot Gospellers.”
“Thus is the Queen, mecounteth: and we have thriven well under her, and have full good cause to thank God for her.”
“Fifty years gone, Robin—when she was but a smatchet (a very young person)—I said that lass would do well. There is a touch of old Hal in her—not too much, but enough to put life and will into her.”
“There shall scantly be that in him.”
“Nay, I’ll not say so much. Meg had a touch of Hal, too. ’Twas ill turning her down one road an’ she took the bit betwixt her teeth, and had a mind to go the other. There was less of it in Mall, I grant you. And as to yon poor luckless loon, Mall’s heir,—if he wit his own mind, I reckon ’tis as much as a man may bargain for. England ne’er loveth such at her helm—mark you that, Robin. She may bear with them, but she layeth no affiance in them.”
Mr Underhill’s hearers knew that by the poor luckless loon, he meant Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp, the representative of the Princess Mary, younger sister of Henry the Eighth. He was heir of England under Henry’s will, and might, if he had chosen it, have been a very formidable opponent of King James.
“There was trial made, in King Harry’s days,” said the Rector thoughtfully, “to join the two Crowns of England and Scotland, by marrying of King Edward, that then was Prince, with their young Queen Mary.”
“Well-a-day!—what changes had been, had that matter come to perfection!”
“It were a mighty great book, friend, that should be writ, were all set down that might have happened if things had run other than they have done. But I pray you, what outlook is now for the Gospellers—or Puritans, if they be so called—these next few years? Apart from the Court—be they in good odour in London, or how?”
“Be they in good odour in Heaven, you were better to ask. What is any great town but a sink of wickedness? And when did ill men hold good men in esteem?”
“Ah, Mr Underhill, but there is difficulty beside that,” said Mrs Rose, shaking her head. “Wherefore, will you tell me, cannot the good men be content to think all the same thing, and not go quarrel, quarrel, like the little boys at play?”
“So they should, Mistress Rose!—so they should!” said Mr Underhill uncompromisingly. “What with these fantasies and sectaries and follies—well-a-day! were I at the helm, there should be ne’er an opinion save one.”
“That is the very thing Queen Mary thought,” said Mr Tremayne, looking amused.
“Dear heart! what will the lad say next?” demanded Mr Underhill in a surprised tone.
“’Tis truth, old friend. See you not that to keep men of one opinion, the only way is to slay them that be of the contrary? Living men must differ. Only the dead ne’er wrangle touching aught.”
“Eh, Robin, man! ‘Live peaceably with all men.’”
“‘As much as lieth in you.’ Paul was wiser than you, saving your presence.”
“But, Robin, my son,” said Mrs Rose, “I would not say only, for such matters as men may differ in good reason. They cannot agree on the greater things, mon chéri,—nay, nor on the little, littles no more.—Look you, Mr Underhill, we have in this parish a man that call himself a Brownist—I count he think the brown the only colour that is right; if he had made the world, all the flowers should be brown, and the leaves black: eh, ma foi! what of a beautiful world to live in!—Bien! this last May Day, Sir Thomas Enville set up the maypole on the green. ‘Come, Master,’ he said to the Brownist, ‘you dance round the maypole?’—‘Nay, nay,’ saith he, ‘it savoureth of Popery.’ ‘Well,’ quoth he, ‘then you come to prayer in the church! There is nothing against that, I trow?’—‘Good lack, nay!’ saith he, ‘’tis an idle form. I cannot pray without the Spirit aid me; and the Spirit will not be bounden down unto dead forms.’ And so, Mr Underhill, they fall to wrangling. Now, is it not sad? Not only they will not take their pleasure together, but they will not say their prayers together no more. Yet they all look to meet in Heaven. They will not wrangle and quarrel there, I trow? Then why can they not be at peace these few days the sooner?”
This was a long speech for Mrs Rose.
“Well, to speak truth,” said Mr Underhill, “I could find in mine heart to cry ‘Hail, fellow!’ to your Brownist over the maypole: though I see not wherein it savoureth of Popery, but rather of Paganism. Howbeit, as I well know, Popery and Paganism be sisters, and dwell but over the way the one from the other. But as to the Common Prayer being but a form, and that dead,—why, I pray you, what maketh it a dead form save the dead heart of him that useth the same? The very Word of God is but a dead thing, if the soul of him that readeth it be dead.”
A certain section of the laity are earnestly petitioning the clergy for “a hearty service.” Could they make a more absurd request? The heart is in the worshipper, not in the service. And who can bring his heart to it but himself?
“Ma foi!” said Mrs Rose, with a comical little grimace, “but indeed I did think, when we were set at rest from the Queen Mary and her burnings, that we could have lived at peace the ones with the others.”
“Then which counted you to be rid of, Mistress Rose—the childre of God or the childre of the devil?. So long as both be in the world, I reckon there’ll not be o’er much peace,” bluntly replied Underhill.
“Mind you what my dear father was used to say,” asked Mr Tremayne,—“‘Afore the kingdom must come the King’? Ah, dear friends, we have all too little of Christ. ‘We shall be satisfied,’ and we shall be of one mind in all things, only when we wake up ‘after His likeness.’”
Clare Avery and Eunice Underhill struck up a warm friendship. Eunice (name and dates true, character imaginary) was one of the few women who keep “the dew of their youth,” and in freshness, innocence, and ignorance of this evil world, she was younger than many girls not half her age. Her simplicity put Clare at ease, while her experience of life awoke respect. Clare seized her opportunity one day, while taking a long walk with Eunice, to obtain the opinion of the latter on the point which still interested her, and compare it with that of Mrs Tremayne. Why it was easier to talk to Eunice than to those at home, Clare could not decide. Perhaps, had she discovered the reason, she might not have found it very flattering to her self-love.
“Mistress Eunice, think you it easy to be content with small gear?”
“You would say with lack of goods?” asked Eunice.
“Nay; but with the having to deal with petty, passing matter, in the stead of some noble deed that should be worthy the doing.”
“I take you now, Mistress Clare. And I can feel for your perplexity, seeing I have known the same myself.”
“Oh, you have so?” responded Clare eagerly.
“Ay, I have felt as though the work set me to do were sheer waste of such power and knowledge as God had given unto me; and have marvelled (I would speak it with reverence) what the Lord would be at, that He thus dealt with me. Petty things—mean things—little passing matter, as you said, that none shall be the better for to-morrow; wherefore must I do these? I have made a pudding, maybe; I have shaken up a bed; I have cut an old gown into a kirtle. And to-morrow the pudding shall be eaten, and the bed shall lack fresh straw, and ere long the gown shall be worn to rags. But I shall live for ever. Wherefore should a soul be set to such work which shall live for ever?”
“Ay,—you know!” said Clare, drawing a deep breath of satisfaction. “Now tell me, Mistress Eunice, what answer find you to this question? Shall it be with you, as with other, that these be my tasks at school?”
“That is verily sooth, Mistress Clare; yet there is another light wherein I love the better to look thereat. And it is this: that in this world be no little things.”
“What would you say, Mistress Eunice? In good sooth, it seemeth me the rather, there be few great.”
“I cry you mercy,” said Eunice, with her bright smile. “Lo’ you,—’tis after this fashion. The pudding I have made a man shall eat, and thereby be kept alive. This man shall drop a word to another, which one passing by shall o’erhear,—on the goodness and desirableness of learning, I will say. Well, this last shall turn it o’er in his mind, and shall determine to send his lad to school, and have him well learned. Time being gone, this lad shall write a book, or shall preach a sermon, whereby, through the working of God’s Spirit, many men’s hearts shall be touched, and led to consider the things that belong unto their peace. Look you, here is a chain; and in this great chain one little link is the pudding which I made, twenty years gone.”
“But the man could have eaten somewhat else.”
“Soothly; but he did not, you see.”
“Or another than you could have made the pudding.”
“Soothly, again: but I was to make it.”
Clare considered this view of the case.
“All things in this world, Mistress Clare, be links in some chain. In Dutchland (Germany), many years gone now, a young man that studied in an university there was caught in an heavy thunderstorm. He grew sore affrighted; all his sins came to his mind: and he prayed Saint Anne to dispel the storm, promising that he would straightway become a monk. The storm rolled away, and he suffered no harm. But he was mindful of his vow, and he became a monk. Well, some time after, having a spare half-hour, he went to the library to get him a book. As God would have it, he reached down a Latin Bible, the like whereof he had ne’er seen aforetime. Through the reading of this book—for I am well assured you know that I speak of Luther—came about the full Reformation of religion which, thanks be to God! is now spread abroad. And all this cometh—to speak after the manner of men—in that one Martin was at one time affrighted with the thunder; and, at another time, reached him down a book. Nay, Mistress Clare—in God’s world be no little things!”
“Mistress Eunice, in so saying, you make life to look a mighty terrible thing, and full of care.”
“And is life not a most terrible thing to them that use it not aright? But for them that do trust them unto God’s guidance, and search His Word to see what He would have them do, and seek alway and above all things but to do His will,—it may be life is matter for meditation, yea, and watchfulness; but methinks none for care. God will see to the chain: ’tis He, not we, that is weaver thereof. We need but to be careful, each of his little link.”
“My links be wearyful ones!” said Clare with a little sigh. “’Tis to cut, and snip, and fit, and sew, and guard, and mend. My cousin Lysken dealeth with men and women, I with linen and woollen. Think you it strange that her work should seem to me not only the nobler, but the sweeter belike?”
“Methinks I have seen Mistress Lysken to deal pretty closely with linen and woollen, sithence Father and I came hither,” said Eunice smiling. “But in very deed, Mistress Clare, ’tis but nature that it so should seem unto you. Yet did it ever come into your mind, I pray you, that we be poor judges of that which is high and noble? I marvel if any save Christ and Gabriel e’er called John Baptist a great man. Yet he was great in the sight of the Lord. Yea, that word, ‘more than a prophet’ was the very accolade of the King of the whole world. You know, Mistress Clare, that if the Queen’s Majesty should call a man ‘Sir Robert,’ though it were but a mistake, and he no knight, that very word from her should make him one. And the King of Heaven can make no mistake; His great men be great men indeed. Now whether would you rather, to be great with men, or with God?”
“Oh, with God, undoubtedly!” said Clare shyly.
“It seemeth me,” said Eunice, knitting her brows a little, “there be three questions the which your heart may ask himself touching your work. Wherefore do I this? You will very like say, Because you be bidden. Good. But then—How do I this?—is it in the most excellent way I can? And yet again, For whom do I this? That last lieth deepest of all.”
“Why, I do it for my mother and Aunt Rachel,” said Clare innocently.
“Good. But wherefore not, henceforward, do it for God?”
“For God, Mistress Eunice!”
“’Tis the true touchstone of greatness. Nought can be little that a man doth for God; like as nought can be great that a man doth but for himself.”
“Lysken can work for God,” said Clare thoughtfully; “but I, who do but draw needles in and out—”
“Cannot draw them for God? Nay, but Paul thought not so. He biddeth you ‘whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.’ But mind you, only the very best work is to His glory: that is to say, only your very best. He measures not Mall’s work by Jane’s, but he looketh at the power of both, and judgeth if they have wrought their best or no. Jane may have finished the better piece of work, but if Mall have wrought to her utmost, and Jane not so, then Mall’s work shall take first rank, and Jane’s must fall behind.”
“That is a new thought unto me, Mistress Eunice—that I can do such work for God. I did indeed account that I could be patient under the same, for to please Him: and I could have thought that the saving of a child from drowning, or the leading of a ship to battle, and so forth, might be done as unto God: but to cut and sew and measure!”
“I would ’twere not a new thought to many another,” answered Eunice. “But I guess we can sew well or ill; and we can cut carefully or carelessly; and we can measure truly or untruly. Truth is no little matter, Mistress Clare; neither is diligence; nor yet a real, honest, hearty endeavouring of one’s self to please the Lord, who hath given us our work, in every little thing. Moreover, give me leave to tell you,—you may be set a great work, and you may fail to see the greatness thereof. I mind me, when I was something younger than you be, and my brother Hal was but a little child, he fell into sore danger, and should belike have been killed, had none stretched out hand to save him. Well, as the Lord in His mercy would have it, I saw his peril, and I ran and snatched up the child in the very nick of time. There was but an half-minute to do it. And at afterward, men praised me, and said I had done a great thing. But think you it bare the face of a great thing to me, as I was in the doing thereof? Never a whit. I ne’er tarried to think if it were a great thing or a small: I thought neither of me nor of my doing, but alonely of our Hal, and how to set him in safety. They said it was a great matter, sith I had risked mine own life. But, dear heart! I knew not that I risked aught—I ne’er thought once thereon. Had I known it, I would have done the same, God helping me: but I knew it not. Now, whether was this a great thing or a small?”
“I have no doubt to say, a great.”
“Maybe, Mistress Clare, when you and I shall stand—as I pray God we may!—among the sheep at the right hand of Christ our Saviour,—when the books be opened, and the dead judged according to that which is written of them,—He may pick out some little petty deed (to our eyes), and may say thereof, This was a great thing in My sight. And it may be, too, that the deeds we counted great He shall pass by without any mention. Dear heart, let us do the small deeds to our utmost, and the great are sure to follow. ‘He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.’ And you know what He saith touching that poor cup of cold water, which assuredly is but a right small thing to give. Think you, if the Queen’s Highness were passing here but now, and should drop her glove, and you picked up the same and offered it to Her Grace,—should you e’er forget it? I trow not. Yet what a petty matter—to pick up a dropped glove! ‘Ah, but,’ say you, ‘It was the Queen’s glove—that wrought the difference.’ Verily so. Then set the like gilding upon your petty deeds. It is the King’s work. You have wrought for the King. Your guerdon is His smile—is it not enough?—and your home shall be within His house for ever.”
“Ay!” said Clare, drawing a long sigh—not of care: “it is enough, Mistress Eunice.”
“And He hath no lack of our work,” added Eunice softly. “It is given to us to do, like as it was given unto Peter and John to suffer. Methinks he were neither a good child nor a thankful, that should refuse to stretch forth hand for his Father’s gift.”
Note 1. I have not been able to ascertain the true date of Underhill’s death, but he was living on the 6th of March 1568. (Rot. Pat., 10 Elizabeth, Part Two.)