Chapter Four.
The Root of the Matter.
“My Christ He is the Heaven of Heavens—
My Christ what shall I call?
My Christ is first, my Christ is last,
My Christ is all in all.”
John Mason.
As Agnes toiled home with her weary burden, she met her own special favourite, little Will.
“Look you, Mistress Agnes!” cried little Will, triumphantly holding up his horn-book.
“I can say all my Christ-Cross-Row (alphabet)—every letter!”
“Dear heart!” returned Agnes, sympathising in her little friend’s pleasure.
“And as to-morrow I am to join the letters!” exclaimed little Will again, in high exultation.
“I trust thou wilt be a good lad, Will, and apply thee diligently.”
“Oh, ay,” said Will, dismissing that part of the question somewhat curtly. “And look you, I met, an half-hour gone, with the Black Friar that preached at the Cross th’ other morrow; and he saw my horn-book, and asked at me if I knew the same. And when I said I so did, what did he, think you, but sat him down of a stone, and would needs have me for to say it all o’er unto him. And I made but one only blunder; I said, ‘Q, S, R,’ in the stead of ‘Q, R, S.’ And he strake mine head, and said I was a good lad, and he would I should go on with my learning till I might read in the great Bible that lieth chained in the Minster.”
“Well-a-day! did he so?” responded Agnes.
“Ay, so did he. But wot you what Christie Marvell saith? He saith ’tis rare evil doing that any save a priest should read in yon big book, and he hath heard his father for to say the same. And he saith old Father Dan, the Cordelier, that is alway up and down hereabout, he said unto him that he would not for no money that he should learn to read the Evangel, for that it should do him a mischief. What think you, Mistress Agnes?”
“Methinks, Will, thou shalt do well to give good heed unto the Black Friar, and to thy master at the school, and leave Christie Marvell a-be with his idle talk.”
“Nay, go to, Mistress Agnes! ’tis Father Dan’s talk.”
“Then tarry till Father Dan tell thee so much himself. It may well be that Christie took not his words rightly.”
“Ay,” said the child, doubtfully. “But what manner of mischief, think you, meant he? Should it cast a spell on me, or give me the ague?”
Little Will, as we have already seen, was the child of a superstitious mother. To hear the tap of a death-watch was sufficient to make Mistress Flint lose a night’s sleep; and a person who disbelieved in fairies she would have considered next door to a reprobate. But Agnes was remarkably free from such ideas for her time, when few were entirely devoid of them; and she laughed at little Will’s fancy.
“Well,” said he, “any way, when I can read in the great Bible, Mistress Agnes, then will I read unto you, and you shall come to the Minster and hear me. Christie’s mother saith there be right pretty stories therein.”
Like many another in those days, into the household of Henry and Cicely Marvell, the Gospel had brought not peace, but a sword. The husband, a stern, morose man, was fondly attached to the beggarly elements of Roman ceremonials; while the wife had received and hidden the Word in her heart, and though too much afraid of her husband to venture far, contrived now and then to drop a word for Christ’s Gospel. Christie, the troublesome boy, cared for none of these things, and made game of the views of each parent in turn.
Agnes smilingly bade good-bye to her ambitious little friend Will, for they had now reached Mistress Winter’s door. A scolding awaited her, as usual, first for “dawdling,” and then for spilling a few drops of water on the brick floor as she set down the heavy pails. But Agnes scarcely heeded it, for her mind was full of a new project. It would be some time before little Will could read, and longer still before he could see over the Minster desk, where the great Bible lay chained. But why should she wait for that? She dimly remembered, in long past days, when her aunt was living, having several times gone with her on Sunday afternoons to vespers in the Cathedral, and heard some one reading at the desk in the nave. Then she had not cared to listen. Why should she not go to hear it now?
Of political events Agnes knew little, and thought less. She could barely have told who was on the throne, had she been asked. She had watched alike tumult and pageant without any intelligent notion of what was passing. Nor had she any idea that during those past days, when such things had no interest for her, the opportunity of using them had been passing away; and that in a very few weeks the public reading of the Bible would be perilous to those who had the courage to dare it. Imprisonment would soon await any layman who should dare to read to another the Word of Life.
It often occurred that projects had to dwell in Agnes’s mind for some time before she had an opportunity to put them into execution. That such should be the case with this one gave her no surprise. Generally speaking, after mass on Sunday, Joan and Dorothy donned their finest clothes, and went out on a merry-making expedition, while Mistress Winter, also in grand array, preferred to entertain her neighbours at home. She considered Agnes on these occasions as one too many, and usually contrived to send her on some errand to a distance; but now and then, when no errand was forthcoming, she had the Sunday afternoon to herself. Five Sundays passed after the project had taken shape in her mind, and no leisure had yet come to Agnes. The Saturday arrived, the eve of the sixth Sunday, and she was still in expectation of fulfilling her hopes in some happy future. The hope was communicated to Cicely Marvell, whom Agnes met in returning from the pump, with certainty of sympathy on her part.
The full pails were only just set down on the kitchen floor, when in bustled Mistress Flint, with a dish-cloth in her hand, which she had not waited to lay down, so eager was she to utter what she came to say.
“Go to, Gossip Winter! Heard you the news?”
“News, gramercy! Who e’er hath the grace to tell me a shred thereof?” returned Mistress Winter crustily. “What now, Gossip?”
“Forsooth, the King’s Grace is departed.”
“Alack the day! Who saith it?”
“Marry, my Lord Mayor himself hath proclaimed it at the Cross, and as Monday are my Lords of the Council to ride unto the Tower for to salute the new Queen.”
“The new Queen! Who is she, belike?” demanded Mistress Winter, who did not usually trouble her head with politics. She was standing by the fire with a frying-pan in her hand, arrested in her occupation by surprise and curiosity, as Mistress Flint had been in hers.
“Why, what think you? Folk say that heard the same, that the King’s Highness hath left the Crown by will to his cousin, my Lady Jane Dudley, and hath put by his own sisters; and she shall be proclaimed as to-morrow in Cheapside.”
“Dear heart alive!” cried Mistress Winter. “And what say my Ladies the King’s sisters, that be thus left out in the cold?”
“That is as it may be,” replied Mistress Flint mysteriously. “My good man saith, if the Lady Mary suffer all tamely, then is she not the maid he took her to be.”
“Lack-a-day! but I do verily hope siege shall be ne’er laid to London! It should go ill with us that dwell in the outskirts.”
“You say well, Gossip, in very deed. The blessed saints have a care of us! as metrusteth they shall.”
“Not they belike!” growled Mistress Winter, resuming her suspended proceedings with the frying-pan. “They shall be every one a-looking out for the Lady Jane.”
Mistress Flint came nearer, and replied in a mysterious whisper.
“Scantly so, as methinks, Gossip, when she is of the new learning, if folk speak sooth touching her. The saints and angels shall trouble them rare little about her. Trust me, they shall go with the Lady Mary, every man of them.”
“Say you so?” demanded Mistress Winter. “Why, then shall the old learning come in again, an’ she win.”
“Ay, I warrant you!” responded her neighbour.
Mistress Winter fried her rashers with a meditative face.
“Doll!” said she, when Mistress Flint and her dish-cloth had departed, “whither is become Saint Thomas of Canterbury?”
“Go to! what wis I?” returned Dorothy. “He was cast with yon old lumber in the back attic, when King Edward’s Grace come in. He hath been o’ no count this great while.”
“Fetch him forth,” said Mistress Winter; “and, Agnes, do thou cleanse him well. If my Lady Jane win, why, ’tis but that we love not to have no dirt in the house: but if my Lady Mary, then shall he go to the gilder, and I will set him of an high place, for to be seen. Haste thee about it.”
Half an hour later, Agnes (to whom Dorothy deputed the dusty search) came down from the attic, carrying a battered wooden doll on a stand, which had once been gaudily painted, but was now worn and soiled, deprived of an arm, and gashed in sundry places, having been used as a chopping-block for a short time during the palmy days of the Reformation.
“He’ll lack a new nose,” remarked Mistress Winter, thoughtfully considering the poor ill-used article. “And an arm must he have, and be all fresh painted and gilt, belike. Dear heart! it shall be costly matter! Howbeit, we must keep up with the times, if we would swim and not sink.”
Keeping up with the times is a very costly business. It costs many men their fortunes, many their reputations, and some their souls. Yet men and women are always to be found who will pay the full price, rather than miss doing it.
The struggle was sharp, but short. On the tenth of July, Lady Jane made her queenly entry into the Tower, in anticipation of that coronation which was never to be hers in this world; and on the twentieth, her nine days’ reign was over, and Mary was universally acknowledged Queen of England. The first important prisoner made was the Duke of Northumberland, hurled down just as he touched the glittering prize to the winning of which he had given his life; the second was Bishop Ridley. Events followed each other with startling rapidity. The Lady Elizabeth, with her customary sagacity, kept quiet in the background until the succession of her sister was assured, and then came openly to London to meet the Queen. Peers were sent to the Tower in a long procession. Bonner was restored to the See of London, Gardiner sworn of the Council, Norfolk and Tunstal released from prison. The Queen made her triumphal entry into her metropolis, and the new order of things was secured beyond a doubt.
Business was very brisk, for some weeks afterwards, with the carver and gilder at the bottom of Hosier Lane. Quantities of idols, thrown six years before to the moles and to the bats, were now searched for, mended, cleaned, regilt, and set up in elevated niches. Every house showed at least one, except where those few dwelt who counted not their lives dear unto them for the Master’s sake. Henry Marvell went to the expense of a new Virgin, which he set up on high in his kitchen; but Cicely did not put her hand to the accursed thing, and quietly ignored its existence. Christie, as usual, made himself generally disagreeable, by low reverences to the image in the presence of his mother, and making faces at it in that of his father—a state of things which lasted until he was well beaten by the latter, after which occurrence he reserved his grimaces for other company.
Mistress Flint was entirely indifferent to the question; but since every body else was setting up an idol, she followed in the crowd. If Mr Flint cared, he kept his own counsel. Little Dickon clapped his hands at the pretty colours and bright gilding; and Will innocently asked, “Mother, wherefore had we ne’er Saint Christopher aforetime?”
“Come now, be a good lad, and run to Gossip Hickman for a candle!” was his mother’s convincing answer.
But this is anticipating, and we must retrace our steps to that sixth Sunday for which Agnes was waiting in patient hope. Very anxiously she watched to see whether, when dinner was over, she would be despatched to Aldgate or Bermondsey. But it happened at last as she desired; there was nowhere to send her. Mistress Winter, in her usual considerate style of language, gave Agnes to understand that she had no wish to see her again before dark; and, clad in the old patched serge which was her Sunday dress, the poor drudge crept timidly into Saint Paul’s Cathedral.
From the Lady Chapel, soft and low, came the chant of the Virgin’s Litany. The fashionable people, in rich attire, were promenading up and down the aisle known as “Paul’s Walk.” In the side chapels a few worshippers lingered before the shrines; and round a lectern, in one corner of the nave, were gathered a little knot of men and women, waiting there in the almost forlorn hope that some priest, more zealous than the rest, might come up and read to them. They could not now expect any layman to have the courage to do so. Agnes joined this group.
“I misdoubt there’ll be no reading this day,” said a grey-headed man.
“Ne’er a priest in Paul’s careth to do the same,” responded a forlorn-looking woman. “They be an idle set of wine-bibbers, every man Jack of them.”
“Hush thee, Goody!” whispered a second woman, giving a friendly push to the first. “Keep a civil tongue in thine head, prithee, as whatso thy thoughts be.”
“Thoughts make no noise,” said the old man, smiling grimly.
All at once there was a little stir among the group, as the tall, gaunt figure of the Black Friar was seen climbing the steps of the desk.
“Brethren!” said the voice which Agnes so well remembered, “let us read together the word of God.”
And, beginning just where he had opened the book, he read to them the story of the raising of Lazarus. He gave no word of comment till he reached the end; then he shut the book and spoke to them.
“Brethren!” said the ringing voice, “this day is come Christ unto you, that He may awake you out of sleep. And if ye have not heretofore heard His voice, your sleep, like Lazarus, is that of very death. Now, O ye dead, hear the voice of the Son of God, and live. No man cometh unto the Father but by Him. Ye must come at God neither by mass, nor by penance, nor by confessing, nor by alms-giving, but alonely by Christ. And him that cometh will Christ in nowise cast out. No thief will He turn away; no murderer shall hear that he hath overmuch sinned for pardon; no poor soul shall be denied the unsearchable riches; no weary heart shall seek for rest and find none. Yea, He is become Christ—that is, God and man together—for this very thing, that He might give unto every one of you that will have them, His pardon and His peace. Come ye, every one of you, this day, and put this Christ unto the test.”
Without another word the Black Friar descended from the desk, and passed along the nave to the western door with long, rapid strides. And Agnes went home with her heart full.
Full—with what strange and new thoughts! No masses, no penances, no confessions, no alms-givings, to be the means of reconciliation with God; but only Christ. And was it possible that the Friar meant one other thing which, he had not said—no intercession of saints? If Christ were so ready to receive and bless all who would come—if He were Himself the Mediator for man with God—could He need a mediator in His turn?
Yet if not, thought Agnes with a feeling of sudden terror as the supposition came to her, what became of the intercession of Mary? She who was held up as the Lady of Sorrows—just as Isis, and Cybele, and Hertha had been before her, but of that Agnes knew nothing—she who was pictured by the Church as the fountain of mercy and compassion—the maiden who could sympathise with the griefs of womanhood, the mother who had influence with, yea, authority over, the divine Son—what place did Friar Laurence find for her in his teaching? The mere imagination of a religion without Mary, was like the thought of chaos. Hitherto she had been the motive-power of all piety to Agnes Stone. A sermon without our Lady! It was shocking even to think of it.
Had Agnes been in the regular habit of attendance at Saint Paul’s Cross, she would have heard many such sermons during the reign of Edward the Sixth. But Mistress Winter’s disapprobation, combined with her own indifference, had been enough to keep her away, and the half-discourse of John Laurence at the Cross had been the only sermon she remembered to have heard during the five years of her residence with that delectable dame. Many thoughts, therefore, now familiar to the church-going public, were quite new to her.
If she could but once again come across Friar Laurence!