It Might Have Been: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot

by Emily Sarah Holt

Chapter Twelve.

The Fruit of his own Way.

“Say not, This brackish well I will not taste;
Ere long thou may’st give thanks that even this
Is left for thee in such a burning waste.”
Reverend Horatius Bonar.

“Tell Mr Louvaine that I desire speech of him.”

The page who received this order looked up in apprehension. So exceedingly stern were Lady Oxford’s tone, and so frowning her aspect, that he trembled for himself, apart from Aubrey. Escaping from that awful presence at the earliest moment possible, he carried the message to Aubrey, who when he received it was lounging on a day-bed, or sofa, with his arms crossed behind his head.

“And you’d best go soon, Sir,” said the page, “for her Ladyship looks as though she could swallow me in two bites.”

“Then I rather count I’d best not,” said Aubrey, looking very much indisposed to stir. “What on earth would she have of me? There’s no end to the whims and conceits of women.”

He unwreathed his arms and stood up, yawned, and very slowly went upstairs to the gallery where he had learned that the Countess was awaiting him. Aubrey Louvaine was at that moment a most unhappy young man. The first sensation of amazement and horror at the discovery of the treachery and wickedness of his chosen friends was past, but the apprehensions for his own safety were not; and as the time went on, the sense of loss, weariness, and disgust of life, rather grew than lessened. Worst of all, and beyond all, were two better feelings—the honest affection which Aubrey had scarcely realised before that he entertained for Thomas Winter, and the shock and pain of his miserable fate: and even beyond this, a sense of humiliation, very wholesome yet very distressing, at the folly of his course, and the wreck which he had made of his life. How complete a wreck it was he had not discovered even now: but that he had been very foolish, he knew in his inmost heart. And when a man is just making that valuable discovery is not the best time for other men to tell him of it.

That Fate was preparing for him not a sedative but a stimulant, he had little doubt as he went slowly on his way to the gallery: but of the astringent nature of that mixture he had equally small idea, until he turned the last corner, and came in sight of the Countess’s face. There was an aspect of the avenging angel about Lady Oxford, as she stood up, tall and stately, in that corner of the gallery, and held out to Aubrey what that indiscreet young gentleman recognised as a lost solitaire that was wont to fasten the lace ruffles on his wrist.

“Is this yours, Mr Louvaine?” Her voice said, “Guilty or not guilty?” so plainly that he was almost ready to respond, “Of what?”

Aubrey gave the garnet solitaire a more prolonged examination than it needed. He felt no doubt of its identity.

“Yes, Madam, I think it is,” he answered slowly. “At the least, I have lost one that resembles it.”

“I think it is, too,” said the Countess no less sternly. “Do you know where this was found, Mr Louvaine?”

Aubrey began to feel thoroughly alarmed.

“No, Madam,” he faltered.

“In the chamber of Thomas Winter, the traitor and Papist, at the sign of the Duck, in the Strand. Perhaps you can tell me how it came thither?”

Aubrey was silent, from sheer terror. A gulf seemed to yawn before his feet, and the Countess appeared to him in the light of the minister of wrath waiting to push him into it. With the rapidity of lightning, his whole life seemed to pass in sudden review before him—his happy childhood and guarded youth at Selwick Hall, the changed circumstances of his London experiences, his foolish ways and extravagant expenditure, his friendship with Winter, the quiet home at the White Bear into which his fall would bring such disgrace and sorrow, the possible prison and scaffold as the close of all. Was it to end thus? He had meant so little ill, had done so little wrong. Yet how was he to convince any one that he had not meant the one, or even that he had not done the other?

In that moment, one circumstance of his early life stood out bright and vivid as if touched with a sunbeam:—an act of childish folly, done fifteen years before, for which his grandfather had made him learn the text, “Thou God seest me.” It came flashing back upon him now. Had God seen him all this while? Then He knew all his foolishness—ay, and his innocence as well. Could He—would He—help him in this emergency? Aubrey Louvaine had never left off the outward habit of saying prayers; but it was years since he had really prayed before that unheard cry went up in the gallery of Oxford House—“Lord, save me, for my grandmother’s sake!” He felt as if he dared not ask it for his own.

All these thoughts followed each other in so short a time that Lady Oxford was conscious of little more than a momentary hesitation, before Aubrey said—

“I suppose I can, Madam.”

He had made up his mind to speak the plain, full truth. Even that slight touch of the hem of Christ’s garment had given him strength.

“Then do so. Have you visited this man?”

“I have, Madam.”

“How many times?”

“Several times, Madam. I could not say with certainty how many.”

“How long knew you this Thomas Winter?”

“Almost as long as I have dwelt in your Ladyship’s house—not fully that time.”

“Who made you acquaint with him?”

“Mr Percy.”

“What, the arch-traitor?” Percy was then supposed to be what Catesby really was—the head and front of the offending.

“He, Madam. I will not deceive your Ladyship.”

“And pray who made you acquaint with him?” demanded the Countess, grimly. In her heart, as she looked into the eyes honestly raised to hers, she was saying, “The lad is innocent of all ill meaning—a foolish daw that these kites have plucked:” but she showed no sign of the relenting she really felt.

“Madam, that was Mr Thomas Rookwood.”

“He that dwells beside the Lady Lettice?”

“His son, Madam.”

“Were you acquaint with any of their wicked designs?”

“Not one of them, Madam, nor I never imagined no such a thing of any of those gentlemen.”

“Who of them all have you seen?”

“Madam, I have seen divers of whom I knew no more than to see them, whose names—but no more—I can specify if your Ladyship desire it. But those that I did really know and at all consort with were three only beside Mr Tom Rookwood—to wit, Mr Percy, Mr Catesby, and Mr Thomas Winter: and I saw but little save of the last.”

“The boy’s telling truth,” said Lady Oxford to herself. “He has been exceedingly foolish, but no worse.” Then aloud she asked,—“Saw you ever any priests there?”

“Not to know them for such, Madam.”

“Tampered they with you in any wise as to religion?”

“Never, Madam.”

“And you are yet at heart a true Protestant, and loyal to King James?”

“As much so as I ever was, Madam.”

But as Aubrey spoke, the question arose in his conscience,—What had he ever cared about either? Not half as much as he had cared for Tom Winter,—nay, not so much as he had cared for Tom Winter’s tobacco.

“Mr Louvaine,” said the Countess, suddenly, “have you discovered that you are a very foolish young man?”

Aubrey flushed red, and remained silent.

“It seems to me,” she continued, “that you speak truth, and that you have been no worser than foolish. Yet, so being, you must surely guess that for your own sake, no less than for the Earl’s, you must leave this house, and that quickly.”

He had not guessed it, and it came upon him like a bomb-shell. Leave Oxford House! What was to become of him?

“And if you will take my advice, you will not essay to win into any other service. Tarry as still as you can some whither, till matters be blown over, and men begin to forget the inwards of this affair: not in Town. Have you no friend in the country that would take you in for a while? ’Tis for your own good, and for my Lady Lettice’ sake, that I give you this counsel.”

“Lie hidden in the country!” Aubrey’s tones were perfectly aghast. Such an expectation had never visited his least coherent dreams.

“Mr Louvaine,” said Lady Oxford in a kinder voice, “I can see that you have never reckoned till this moment whither your course should lead you, nor what lay at the end of the road you traversed. I am sorry for you, rather than angered; for I believe you thought no ill: you simply failed to think at all, as so many have done before you. Yet is it the truest kindness not to cover your path by a deluding mist, but to point out to you plainly the end of the way you are going. Trust me, if this witness in mine hand were traced to you by them in power, they should not take your testimony for truth so easily as I may. I know you, and the stock whence you come; to them, you were but one of a thousand, without favour or distinction. Maybe you think me hard; yet I ensure you, you have no better friend, nor one that shall give you truer counsel than this which I have given. Go you into the country, the further from London the better, and lie as quiet as you may, till the whole matter be blown over, and maybe some time hence, it shall be possible to sue you a pardon from his Majesty to cover all.”

“Some time!” broke from Aubrey’s lips.

“Ay, and be thankful it is no worse. He that leaps into a volcano, counting it but a puddle, shall not find it a puddle, but a volcano. You have played with firebrands, Mr Louvaine, and must not marvel nor grumble to feel the scorching of your fingers.”

Aubrey’s silence was the issue of sheer despair.

“You must leave this house to-day,” said the Countess firmly, “and not as though you went on a journey. Go forth this afternoon, as for a walk of pleasure, and carrying nothing save what you can put in your pockets. When you have set a few miles betwixt yourself and the town, you may then hire an horse, and ride quickly. I would counsel you not to journey too direct—if you go north or south, tack about somewhat to east and west; one may ride with far more safety than many. I am not, as you know, over rich, yet I will, for my Lady Lettice’ sake, lend you a sufficiency to carry you an hundred miles—and if it fall out that you are not able to return the loan, trouble yourself not thereabout. I am doing my best for you, Mr Louvaine, not my worst.”

“I thank your Ladyship,” faltered the unhappy youth. “But—must I not so much as visit my grandmother?”

It was no very long time since the White Bear had been to Aubrey a troublesome nuisance. Now it presented itself to his eyes in the enticing form of a haven of peace. He was loved there: and he began to perceive that love, even when it crossed his wishes, was better worth having than the due reward of his deeds.

“Too great a risk to run,” said the Countess, gravely. “If any inquiration be made for you, and you not found here, the officers of justice should go straight thither. No: I will visit my Lady Lettice myself, and soften the thing as best I may to her and to Mrs Louvaine. The only thing,” she paused a moment in thought. “What other friends have you in London?”

“Truly, none, Madam, save my cousin David—”

“Not a relative. Is there no clergyman that knows you, who is of good account, and a staunch Protestant?”

“There is truly Mr Marshall, a friend of my grandmother, and an ejected Puritan.”

“Where dwelleth he?”

“In Shoe Lane, Madam.”

“Is he a wise and discreet man?”

“I think, Madam, my grandmother holds him for such.”

“It is possible,” said Lady Oxford, meditatively, “that you might be safe in his house for a day or two, and your friends from the White Bear could go as if to see him and his wife—hath he a wife?”

“He buried his wife this last summer, Madam: he hath a daughter that keeps his house, of about mine own years.”

“If you think it worth to run the risk, you might ask this good gentleman to give you a day’s shelter, so as to speak with your friends ere you depart. It were a risk: yet not, perchance, too great. You must judge for yourself. If you choose this way, I will take it on myself to let your friends know how it is with you.”

It was a bitter pill to swallow. Mr Marshall was about the last man in his world to whom Aubrey felt any inclination to lay himself under an obligation. Both as a clergyman, a Puritan, and an ejected minister, this undiscerning youth had looked down exceedingly upon his superior. The popular estimate of the clergy was just then at the lowest ebb, and it required some moral courage for any man to take holy orders, who was neither very high up in rank, nor very low down. This was the result partly of the evil lives, and partly of the gross ignorance, of the pre-Reformation priests; the lives were now greatly amended, but too much of the ignorance, remained, and the time had not been sufficient to remove the stigma. A clergyman was expected to apprentice his children to a trade, or at best to place them in domestic service; and he would have been thought forward and impertinent if, when dining with laymen in a good position, he had not spontaneously taken his departure before dessert made its appearance. To be indebted, therefore, for an essential service to one of this lowly class, Aubrey was sufficiently foolish to account a small degradation.

Happily for him, he had just enough sense left, and had been sufficiently humiliated, to perceive that he could not escape the necessity of devouring this unpalatable piece of humble pie, and that the only choice left him was a choice of bitters. The false manliness which he had been diligently cultivating had vanished into thin air, and something of the child’s spirit, so long despised, was coming back to him,—the longing for the sound of a familiar voice, and the touch of a tender hand. Even Aunt Temperance would have received, just then, a welcome which might have astonished her. But it showed the character of the women of his family that in this emergency Aubrey’s thoughts scarcely touched his mother, and dwelt longingly on his grandmother and his Aunt Edith.

The wise Countess waited quietly till Aubrey’s meditations had taken time to settle themselves into resolution.

“Madam, I thank your Ladyship,” he said at last, as he looked up, with an expression which had not dwelt for many a month in his eyes. “I think I perceive now how matters stand. Suffer me to say that I never knew, until now, how foolish I have been. Under your Ladyship’s leave, I will take your kindly counsel, and seek aid of Mr Marshall. I would like to see them again.”

His voice faltered as the last words were spoken.

“So will you do well,” said the Countess, more kindly than before. “All is not yet lost, Mr Louvaine. You have been foolish, but there is time before you wherein you may be wise.”

Aubrey bowed, took his leave, and went to his own room, where he filled his pockets with a few immediate necessaries and what little money he had. It was hard to bear, this going forth into the wilderness, not at God’s call, but as the consequence of his own folly—Egypt left behind, and no Canaan in prospect. He must take leave of none save Lady Oxford—must appear to none to be what he was—a homeless fugitive with his life in his hand. As he came down-stairs, he was met in the hall by the same page who had previously summoned him.

“My Lady would speak a word with you in her cabinet ere you walk forth.”

Aubrey found Lady Oxford at her desk, busied with household accounts, and a little pile of gold beside her. When she had reminded him that she was not rich, she had spoken very truly. That deceased husband of hers, as wanting in reason in his age as in his youth, having reduced the great Vere estates to almost nothing, his second wife, the Countess Elizabeth, and her young son Earl Henry, had to sustain the dignity of the House upon a very insufficient number of gold pieces. Twenty months had elapsed since the death of Earl Edward, and the excellent management and strict economy of the widowed Countess had done something to retrieve the ruined fortunes of the family, but much still remained to do.

Lady Oxford glanced up at Aubrey as he entered.

“Mr Louvaine, I owe you your quarter’s wages,” she said; “at least, so little time remains that it need not tarry, and ’tis to my conveniency to reckon with you this afternoon.” This was said in a voice that the page could hear. Then, as Aubrey came up to her, with a significant look, she laid another ten pounds in his hand, with a few words for his private ear. “Let me hear of you in time to come as a good man. God go with you! Farewell.”

Ten minutes later, Aubrey closed the door of Oxford House for the last time, and went out, truly not knowing whither he went. His primary destination of course was Shoe Lane; but after that—whither?

Through back streets he made his way to Aldersgate, and passed through it out of the City; over Snow Hill and Holborn Bridge, and down Shoe Lane to the small house where Mr Marshall “had his lodging”—to use the phrase of the time—in other words, where he and Agnes made their home in three rooms, the kitchen being open to all the lodgers to cook for themselves. Two of the rooms were moderately large; these formed the sitting-room, and the clergyman’s bedroom and study, the bedroom end being parted from the study end by a curtain between the two. The remaining room, a mere closet, was his daughter’s bedchamber. Pleasantest of the three was the sitting-room, the front half of which was the general and public portion, while the back was reserved as Agnes’s boudoir, where her little work-table and stool were set by a small window, looking out over the little garden towards Fetter Lane, bounded on the right hand by the wall of Saint Andrew’s Church. The door was opened by a rather slipshod girl, the landlady’s daughter.

“Pray you, is Mr Marshall at home?”

“He’s not, Sir; he’s gone for a country walk.”

“What time look you for him?”

“Well, about dark, I dare say. Mrs Agnes, she’s in.”

“Thank you; I will come again about dusk.” Aubrey walked up the lane, turned aimlessly to the left, and sauntered on towards Bloomsbury. It was no matter where he went—no matter to any one, himself least of all. Passing Saint Giles’s Church, he turned to the right, up a broad country road lined by flowery banks, wherein the first primroses of spring were just beginning to appear. There are primroses there yet—in flower-girls’ baskets: they bloom now no otherwise in Tottenham Court Road.

When he had gone some little distance, Aubrey grew tired. It was a warm day for the season; he sat down to rest on the flowery bank, and lost himself in unhappy thought.

A mile further on, Mr Marshall was coming home down the same road, in a more despondent mood than was usual with him. Things were going badly for the Puritans abroad, and for the Marshalls at home. An ejected minister was at all times an unfashionable person, and usually a very poor man. His income was small, was growing smaller, and was not at all likely to take a turn and increase. His wife was gone, and he felt her loss rather more than less as time passed on; and Agnes had her private trouble, for her affianced husband, a young tradesman to whom she had been engaged for two years, had jilted her when he heard of her father’s ejectment. Altogether, the prospect before the Marshalls was not pleasant. Rent was due, and clothes were needed, and money was exceedingly scanty.

In the outside world, too, the sky was dull and gloomy. The Puritans were in no greater favour than they had been, though the Papists were at the lowest ebb. That there was any inconsistency in their conduct did not apparently occur to the authorities, nor that the true way to repress Popery was by cultivating Puritanism. Believing the true principles of the Church of England to be the golden mean between the two, they acted under the pleasing illusion that when both halves were cut off, the middle would be left intact, and all the better for the operation.

As Mr Marshall walked on in the Tottenham road, he saw a figure seated on the grassy bank at some distance before him. When he came nearer, he perceived that it was a young man, who sat with his head cast down, in an attitude of meditation, and a light cane in his hand, with which now and then he switched off the head of an unoffending dandelion. Drawing nearer still, the minister began to suspect that the youth’s face was not unfamiliar; and when he came close, instead of passing the sitter on the bank, he stepped down, and took a seat beside him.

The youth had paid no apparent attention to his companion until that moment. His face was turned away northward, and only when Mr Marshall sat down close to him did he seem to perceive that he was not alone.

“How goes the world with you this afternoon, Mr Louvaine?”

“Mr Marshall! I ask your pardon. I had not seen you.”

“I thought not. You have taken a long walk.”

Aubrey made no reply.

“Now, how am I to get at this shut-up heart?” said Mr Marshall to himself. “To say the wrong thing just now may do considerable harm. Yet what is the right one?” Aloud he said only,—“I hope my Lady Lettice is well? I know not whether you or I saw her last.”

“I have not seen her for months,” said Aubrey, curtly.

“Then I am happier than you, for I saw her three weeks since. I thought her looking somewhat frail and feeble, even more so than her wont; yet very ripe for Heaven, when as it shall please God to take her.”

There was no answer again. Aubrey’s cane applied itself diligently to making a plantain leaf lie to the right of its neighbour instead of the left.

“Mr Louvaine, did you ever hear that my mother and your grandfather were friends of old time?”

For the first time Aubrey turned his head fully, and looked at his companion. The face which Mr Marshall saw was not, as he had imagined it might be, sullen and reluctant to converse. It was only very, very weary and sad, with heavy eyes as though they had slept little, or were holding back unshed tears.

“No, never,” was all he said.

“My mother,” said Mr Marshall, “was an Oxfordshire woman, of Minster Lovel by her birth, but she wedded a bookseller in Oxford town, where she was in service to a lady. I think you were not present when I told this to my Lady Lettice. But do you remember your old friend Mrs Elizabeth Wolvercot, that she told me you were wont to call Cousin Bess?”

“Remember Cousin Bess! Of course I do,” said Aubrey, a tone of interest coming into his voice. “What of her?”

“My mother was her sister Ellen.”

“Why, Mr Marshall! are you my cousin?”

“If it please you to acknowledge me, Cousin Aubrey.”

“That I will, indeed!” said Aubrey, clasping the hand of the ejected minister. Then, with a sudden and complete change of tone,—“But, maybe, if you knew all I know, you were not over ready to acknowledge me.”

“You are in trouble, my friend,” answered Mr Marshall sympathisingly. “Can I help you thereout? At least I can feel for you in it, if I may do no more.”

There was another minute of dead silence. The next question came suddenly and bluntly.

“Mr Marshall, did you ever in your life feel that you had been a grand fool?”

“Yes,” was the short, quiet answer.

“I am glad to hear it, though I should not have thought so. I thought you had always been a precisely proper person, and I did not suppose you could feel for me a whit. But I must tell my trouble to somebody, or I shall grow desperate. Look you, I have lost my place, and I can get none other, and I have not twenty pounds in the world, and I owe an hundred pounds, and I can’t go home.”

“Thank God!” was the strange answer.

“Well, to be sure,—Mr Marshall, what on earth are you thanking God for?”

“That your husks have lost their flavour, my son. So long as the prodigal finds the husks sweet, there is little hope of him. But let him once discover that they are dry husks, and not sweet fruits, and that his companions are swine, and not princes—then he is coming to himself, and there is hope of making a man of him again. I say therefore, Thank God!”

“I shall never make anything better than a fool.”

“A man commonly ceases to be a fool when he begins to reckon himself one.”

“You know not the worst yet. But—Mr Marshall, if I tell it you, you will not betray me, for my poor old grandmother’s sake? I never gave her much cause to love me, but I know she doth, and it would grieve her if I came to public hurt and shame.”

“It would grieve me, my cousin, more than you know. Fear not, but speak freely.”

“Well,—I know not if my grandmother told you that I was intimate with some of these poor gentlemen that have paid the penalty of their treason of late?”

“I know that you knew Percy and Winter—and, I dare say, Rookwood.”

“I knew them all, and Catesby too. And though I was not privy to the plot—not quite so bad as that!—yet I would have followed Mr Tom Winter almost anywhere,—ay, even into worse than I did.”

“Surely, Aubrey Louvaine, you never dreamed of perversion!”

“Mr Marshall, I was ready to do anything Tom Winter bade me; but he never meddled with my religion. And—come, I may as well make a clean breast, as I have begun—I loved Dorothy Rookwood, and if she had held up a finger, I should have gone after. You think the Rookwoods Protestants, don’t you? They are not.”

Mr Marshall sat in dismayed silence, for a moment.

“I doubted them somewhat,” he said: “but I never knew so much as you have told me. Then Mrs Dorothy—”

“Oh, she would have none of me. She told me I was a beggar and a fool both, and she spake but the bitter truth. Yet it was bitter when she said it.”

“My poor boy!” said Mr Marshall, compassionately.

“I thought Hans but a fool when he went and bound himself to yon mercer—he, the son of a Dutch Baron! But I see now—I was the fool, not he. Had I spent my days in selling silk stockings instead of wearing them, and taken my wages home to my mother like a good little boy, it had been better for me. I see, now,—now that the doors are all shut against me, and I dare not go home.”

“Yet tell me, Aubrey, for I scarce understand it—why dare you not go home?”

As Aubrey laid the matter before him from the point of view presented by Lady Oxford, Mr Marshall’s face grew graver every moment. He began to see that the circumstances were much more serious than he had apprehended. There was silence for a few minutes when Aubrey finished his account. Then the clergyman said—

“’Tis a tangle, and a tight one, my boy. Yet, by God’s blessing, we may see our way out. Let us take one point at a time. These debts of yours—will you tell me, are they ‘debts of honour,’ falsely so-called?”

“Only twenty pounds. The rest is due partly to Patrick the tailor and others for goods, and partly to Tom Rookwood for money I borrowed of him.”

“How much to Tom Rookwood?”

“Twenty pounds.”

“I will see what I can do with him,” said Mr Marshall, thoughtfully. “If these Rookwoods are in no wise dragged into the plot, so that they have no land escheated, nor fines to pay, then I think he can afford to wait for his money—better, very like, than the tradesfolk. But, Aubrey, you must get another place. Bear with me if I ask you,—Could you bring your pride down to serve in a shop?”

The young shapely head went up suddenly, as if in proud protest against this most unacceptable proposal. Then it dropped again, and the cane toyed with the plantain.

“I thought my pride was down,” he said in a low voice? “but I see it might be lowered yet further. Mr Marshall, I will try to humble myself even to that, if it be needful.”

Aubrey did not suspect that Mr Marshall had never come so near respecting him as at that moment.

“Well,” he said, quietly, “I will do what I can to help you. I will see Tom Rookwood; and I know a bookseller in Oxford town to whom I could speak for you if you wish it. The question for you at this moment is not, What is easy and pleasant?—but, What is right? ‘Facilis descensus Averni’—you know—‘sed revocare gradum!’ It is always hard work turning back. There is a bitter cup to be drunk; and if you would win back your lost self-respect—if you would bring help and comfort to your grandmother in her old age—if you would light up the lamp of joy where hitherto you have wrought darkness—nay, if you would win a smile from the blessed lips which said ‘Father, forgive them’ for you—then, Aubrey Louvaine, be a man, and drink off that bitter draught. You will find it sweeter afterwards than all the dainties you have been searching after for so long.”

Aubrey sat still and silent for some time, and his companion let him alone to consider his ways. Mr Marshall was a wise man; and never gave more strokes to a nail than were needful to drive it in. At last the question came, in low, unsteady tones—

“Mr Marshall, did God send you up this road this afternoon?”

“I have no doubt He did, my friend, if anything I say or do can help you to the right way. You see, I knew not of your being here, and He did.”

“When you came up,” said the low voice, “I thought all was over, and my mind was very near made up to enlist as a common soldier, and leave no trace behind. I see now, it should have been an ill deed to do.”

“An ill deed in truth for your poor friends, if the only news they had ever heard of you were your name in a list of the dead.”

“Yes, I wished to be killed as soon as might be—get to the end as fast as possible.”

“Would that have been the end, Aubrey?”

The reply was barely audible. “No, I suppose not.”

“Take up your burden instead, my son, and bear it by God’s grace. He does not refuse that, even when the burden is heaped and bound by our own hands. Unlike men, His compassion faileth never. He has maybe emptied thine heart, Aubrey, that He may fill it with Himself.”

Aubrey made no reply, but Mr Marshall did not think that a bad sign.

“Well, come now,” said he, rising from the bank, and in a more cheerful tone. “Let us go to Shoe Lane, and see if Agnes hath any supper for us. The prodigal son was not more welcome to his old father than you shall be to my poor lodging, for so long a time as may stand with your safety and conveniency. My Lady Oxford, you say, was to give my Lady Lettice to know how things went with you? but methinks it shall do none ill if I likewise visit her this evening. ‘Two heads are better than one,’ and though ’tis said ‘o’er many cooks spoil the broth,’ yet three may be better than two.”

The feeling of humiliation which grew and deepened in Aubrey’s mind, was one of the best things which could have come to him. Vanity and self-sufficiency had always been his chief failings; and he was now finding, to his surprise, that while his chosen friends surrounded him with difficulties, the people whom he had slighted and despised came forward to help him out of them. He had looked down on no one more than on Mr Marshall, and Agnes had received a share of his contempt, partly because of her father’s calling and comparative poverty, partly because she was not pretty, and partly because she showed no power of repartee or spirit in conversation. In Aubrey’s eyes she had been “a dull, humdrum thing,” only fit to cook and sew, and utterly beneath the notice of any one so elevated and spirituel as himself.

During the last few hours, Aubrey’s estimate of things in general had sustained some rude shocks, and his hitherto unfaltering faith in his own infallibility was considerably shaken. It suffered an additional blow when Mr Marshall led him into his quiet parlour, and he saw Agnes seated at her work, the supper-table spread, and a cheerful fire blazing upon a clean hearth. An expression of slight surprise came into her eyes as she rose to greet Aubrey.

“You see, daughter, I have brought home a guest,” said her father. “He will tarry with us a little season.”

Then, stepping across the room, he opened a closed door, and showed Aubrey another chamber, the size of the first, across which a red curtain was drawn.

“This is my chamber, and shall be also yours,” said he: “I pray you use it freely. At this end is my study, and beyond the curtain my bedchamber. I somewhat fear my library may scarce be to your liking,” he added, an amused smile playing round his lips; “but if you can find therein anything to please you, I shall be glad.—Now, daughter, what have we here? We so rarely have guests to supper, I fear Mr Louvaine may find our fare somewhat meagre: though ‘better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.’”

“It is a dinner of herbs, Father,” said Agnes, echoing the smile; “for ’tis a bit of gammon of bacon and spinach, with eggs in poach.”

“How say you, my friend?” asked Mr Marshall of Aubrey. “Can you make your supper of so simple a dish?”

“Indeed I can, Sir, and thankfully,” was the answer.

Agnes Marshall, though very quiet, was observant, and she perceived in a moment that something was wrong with the magnificent youth who had scarcely deigned to look at her when they had met on previous occasions. She saw also that his manner had greatly changed, and very much for the better. He spoke to her now on terms of equality, and actually addressed her father in a tone of respect. Something must have happened.

Aubrey, naturally the less observant of the two, was looking on just now with quickened senses; and discovered, also to his surprise, that the simple supper was served with as much dainty neatness as at Lord Oxford’s table; that Mr Marshall could talk intelligently and interestingly on other than religious subjects; that Agnes really was not dull, but quite able to respond to her father’s remarks; that her eyes were clear and bright, her complexion not at all bad, and her smile decidedly pleasant: and lastly, that both his hosts, though take a thus unawares, were exceedingly kind to him, and ready to put themselves to any trouble or inconvenience in order to accommodate him. He had learned more, when he lay down to sleep that night, in twelve hours than in any previous twelve months of his life, since his infancy. The lessons were of higher value, and they were not likely to be lost.

When supper was over, Mr Marshall repaired to the White Bear, and Aubrey was left to Agnes as entertainer. She was sewing a long seam, and her needle went in and out with unfailing regularity. For a few minutes he watched her in silence, discovering a sunny gleam on her hair that he had never before noticed. Then he suddenly spoke out one of his thoughts.

“Don’t you find that exceeding wearisome?”

Agnes looked up with amused surprise.

“Truly,” she said, “I never thought about it.”

“I am sure I could not work at it ten minutes,” replied Aubrey.

Agnes laughed—a low, soft, musical laugh, which struck pleasantly on the ear.

“My father would be ill off for shirts if I could not,” she answered. “You see, Mr Louvaine, things have to be done. ’Tis to no good purpose to be impatient with them. It doth but weary more the worker, and furthers not the work a whit.”

“Would you not like to lead a different life?—such a life as other young maids do—amid flowers, and sunshine, and jewels, and dancing, and laughter, and all manner of jollity?”

He was curious to hear what she would say to the question.

Agnes answered by a rather wondering smile. Then her eyes went out of the window, to the steeple of Saint Andrew’s, and the blue sky beyond it.

“I might well enjoy some of them,” she said slowly, as if the different ideas were passing in review before her. “I love sunshine, and flowers. But there is one thing I love far better.”

“And that is—?”

A light “that never was from sun nor moon” flooded the grave grey eyes of Agnes Marshall. Her voice was very low and subdued as she answered.

“That is, to do the will of God. There is nothing upon earth that I desire in comparison of Him.”

“Is not that a gloomsome, dismal sort of thing?”

There was Divine compassion, mingled with human amusement, in the smile which was on Agnes’s lips as she looked up at him.

“Have you tried it, Mr Louvaine?”

Aubrey shook his head. “I have tried a good many things, but not Puritan piety. It ever seemed to me a most weary and dreary matter,—an eternal ‘Thou shalt not’ carved o’er the gate of every garden of delight that I would fain enter. They may be angels that stand there, but they bear flaming swords.”

He spoke lightly, yet there was an accent in his voice which revealed to Agnes a deep unfilled void in his heart.

“Don’t try piety,” she said quietly. “Try Jesus Christ instead. There are no flaming swords in the way to Him, and the truest and deepest satisfaction cannot be reached without Him.”

“Have you found it thus, Mrs Agnes?”

“I have, Mr Louvaine.”

“But, then,—you see,—you have not tried other fashions of pleasure, maybe,” said Aubrey, slowly.

“Have you?” said Agnes.

“Ay—a good many.”

“And did you find them satisfying? I say not, pleasant at the moment, but satisfying?”

“Well, that is a large word,” said Aubrey.

“It is a large word,” was the reply, “yet Christ can fill it: and none can do it but He. Know you any thing or creature else that can?”

“I cannot say, for I have not needed it.”

“That is, you have not been down yet into deep places, methinks, where the floods have overflowed you. I have not visited many, in truth; yet have I been in one or two where I should have lost my footing, had not my Lord held me up.”

A very sorrowful look came into the gentle eyes. Agnes was thinking of the faithless Jonas Derwent, who had cast her off in the day of her calamity. Aubrey made no answer. He was beginning to find out that life was not, as he had always imagined it, a field of flowers, but a very sore and real battlefield, wherein to lose the victory meant to lose his very self, and to win it meant to reign for ever and ever.

And then Mr Marshall’s voice said on the other side of the door,—“This is the way,”—and another voice, dearly welcome to Aubrey, responded as Aunt Edith came into the room—

“Mine own dear boy! God be thanked that we see thee safe from harm!”

And again, for the twentieth time, Aubrey felt as he kissed her that he had not deserved it.

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