Chapter Seven.
Bereavement, but not Death.
“Take from me anything Thou wilt,
But go not Thou away!”
Little Geoffrey slowly recovered from the illness which had brought him to death’s door, and though able to run about the house, he was still far from perfect health, when Margery received orders to prepare for another interview with Abbot Bilson. She rightly divined that this would be more stormy than the last. Abbot Bilson came now fully prepared, and not alone. He was accompanied by Archbishop Arundel, a man of violent passions, and a bitter persecutor of all whom he conceived to lean to the opinions of Wycliffe. When Margery entered the room, and saw the Archbishop, she trembled, as well she might. She meekly knelt and asked their blessing—the manner in which priests were commonly greeted. The Abbot gave his, saying, “May God bless thee, and lead thee unto the truth!”
“Amen!” responded Margery. Arundel, however, refused his benediction until he had inquired into the matter.
“Be seated, my daughter!” said the Abbot. Margery obeyed.
“Holy Church, daughter, hath been sore aggrieved by thine evil doing. She demandeth of thee an instant yielding of yon heretical and pernicious book, the which hath led thee astray; and a renunciation of thy heresy; the which done, thou shalt receive apostolic absolution and benediction.”
“I know not, reverend father, what ye clepe (call) heresy. Wherein have I sinned?”
“In the reading of yon book, and in thy seldom confession. Moreover, I trow thou holdest with the way of John Wycliffe, yon evil reprobate!” replied the Archbishop.
“I cry you mercy, reverend fathers. I take my belief from no man. I crede (believe) the words of Christ as I find the same written, and concern not myself with Master Wycliffe or any other. I know not any Lollards, neither have I allied myself unto them.”
The Archbishop and the Abbot both looked at Lord Marnell—a mute inquiry as to whether Margery spoke the truth.
“I ween it is so, reverend fathers,” said he. “I wis nought of my wife her manner of living ere I wedded her, but soothly sithence (since) she came hither, I know of a surety that she hath never companied with any such evil persons as be these Lollards.”
“Hold you not with the way of Wycliffe, daughter?” inquired the Abbot.
“I wis not, reverend father,” answered she, “for of a truth I know not wherein it lieth. I hold that which I find in the book; and I trow an’ I keep close by the words of Christ, I cannot stray far from truth.”
“The words in yon book be no words of Christ!” said Arundel. “That evil one Wycliffe, being taught of the devil, hath rendered the holy words of the Latin into pernicious heresy in English.”
“I pray you then, father, will you give me the book in Latin, for I wis a little the Latin tongue, and moreover I can learn of one that hath the tongues to wit better the same.”
This was not by any means what Arundel intended, and it raised his anger.
“I will not give thee the Latin!” exclaimed he. “I forbid thee to read or learn the same, for I well know thou wouldst wrest it to thine evil purposes.”
“How can you put a right meaning to the words, my daughter?” mildly suggested the Abbot.
“I know well that I could in no wise do the same,” replied Margery, humbly, “had I not read the promise of Christ Jesu that He would send unto His own ‘thilk Spyryt of treuthe,’ who should ‘teche them al treuthe,’ (John xvi. 13) wherefore by His good help I trust I shall read aright.”
“That promise was given, daughter, unto the holy apostles.”
“It was given, reverend father, unto weak men and evil, else Peter had never denied his Master, ne (neither) had all of them left Him and taken to flight, when the servants of the bishops (see Note 1) laid hold on Him. I wis that I have an evil heart like as they had, but meseemeth that mine is not worser than were theirs, wherefore I count that promise made unto myself also.”
“Thou art lacking in meekness, Madge,” said Lord Marnell.
“I trust not so, good my Lord; but an’ if I be, I pray God to give it to me.”
“Give up the book, Madge!” said her husband, apparently desirous to allay the storm which he had raised, “and thou shalt then receive absolution, and all will go well.”
“I will give up the book, my Lord, in obedience to you,” replied Margery, “for I wis well that wives be bounden to obey their husbands; and soothly it is no great matter, for I know every word therein. But under your good leave, my Lord, the truth which this book hath taught me, neither you nor any other man shall have power to take from me, for it is of God, and not of men!”
She drew the book from her pocket—ladies wore much larger pockets in those days than they now do—kissed it, and handed it to her husband.
“Thou hast well done, Madge!” said Lord Marnell, more kindly than before, as he passed the book to the Archbishop. Arundel, with a muttered curse upon all evil teaching, took the book from Lord Marnell with his hand folded in the corner of his gown, as if he thought its very touch would communicate pollution, and flung it into the fire. The fire was a large one, and in a minute the volume was consumed. Margery watched the destruction of her treasure with swimming eyes.
“Burn, poor book!” she said, falteringly, “and as thy smoke goeth up to God, leave it tell Him that the reading and the loving of His Word is accounted a sin by those who ought to be His pastors.”
“Woman, wilt not hear the truth?” cried Arundel.
“Truly, father, I have heard it, and it shall rest with me unto my dying day. But I trow that if your teaching were truth, ye had never burned with fire the Word of Christ, who hath power, if ye repent not, to consume you also with the like!”
“Told I not thee that the evil book which I gave to the fire was not Christ His Word, but the work of the devil?”
“Yea, truly; and the like said the heathen Jews, ‘Wher we seyen not wel that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a deuel?’ But I find not that their saying the same made it ever the truer. What saith Christ in answer? ‘I haue not a deuel; but I honoure my Fadir, and ye han unhonourid me.’” (John viii. 48, 49.)
“My daughter,” said the Abbot, with even more than his usual gentleness, “I misdoubt greatly that you be obstinate in your error. And if this be so, we shall have necessity of deeds the which we should sore lament. You wit, doubtless, that in case you continue thus obstinate, you will be had up afore the King’s Grace’s Council?”
“I am ready,” answered Margery.
“You wit also,” pursued the Abbot, no less gently, “that you may be sentenced unto close prison for such time as pleaseth the King’s Grace?”
“I am ready,” said Margery again.
Her examiners looked surprised.
“Moreover,” continued the Abbot, in a softer tone than ever, “wit you that we can allow you no longer to have the charge and teaching of your son, who must needs be instructed in the true faith?”
The end of the reverend fathers was at length reached. The quiet words of the Abbot produced an effect which the furious abuse of the Archbishop had been unable to accomplish. A cry of mingled terror, anguish, and despair, broke from poor Margery’s lips.
“Ye could not—ye could not be so cruel!” she sobbed. “Take from me all I have in this world—comfort, freedom, yea, life—only leave me my child!”
“Thou seest what thou hast brought on thyself!” said Arundel. “How can we, being the ministers of God His truth, suffer the mind of yon innocent child to be poisoned with like evil doctrine?”
“Doth God part the child from the mother?” faltered Margery. “This is none of His doing. My darling! my darling!”
Lord Marnell pitied his wife. Her agony touched all that was soft and gentle in his not too soft heart.
“Well, well, Madge!” he said, kindly; “I will see that thy child is not taken from thee, if thou wilt obey these reverend fathers in confessing of thine error, and wilt humbly beg absolution at their hands.”
Margery looked up at her husband with an expression of unutterable gratitude beaming in her eyes—but the moment she heard his if, her face fell instantly.
“I conceive you, good my Lord,” she said, mournfully, “howsoever I thank you. You will give me back my darling, if I will deny that I hold Christ His truth. I cannot. I dare not!”
“‘Christ His truth,’ persist you in calling your heresy!” cried Arundel, in a fury. “Choose, then, quickly, for the last time, betwixt ‘Christ His truth’ and your child!”
She shivered from head to foot as if an ague-fit were on her, and her sobs almost mounted to a scream. No heart that had any pretension to humanity could have helped pitying her. Her husband did pity her; but Arundel was carried away by passion, and Bilson had no heart. Through all this tempest, however agonised, firm and unwavering came the answer—
“Christ!”
Arundel, rising, ordered her to kneel. Margery knelt down on the hearth, her hands clasped on her breast, and her eyes looking up to heaven. Solemnly, and with all that terrific majesty which the Church of Rome so well knows how to put into her threats and denunciations, the Archbishop cited her to appear before the council on the 17th day of the following September. In the meantime she was to be confined in one of the State dungeons. Arundel graciously added that he would give her the remainder of that day to make her preparations. Lord Marnell here interposed, and begged the Archbishop to reconsider his decision. He had anticipated Margery’s examination by the council, and possibly her being sentenced to a term of imprisonment, but he had not bargained for this previous incarceration. Arundel bluntly refused to alter his sentence.
Margery raised her tearful eyes to Lord Marnell. “My Lord,” she said, “and you, reverend fathers, I have one small thing to ask of you. I pray you deny me not.”
“What is it, Madge?” asked Lord Marnell.
“My good Lord,” she said, pleadingly, “suffer me to take one last kiss of my child, ere ye take me where I shall see him no more!”
The Abbot seemed disposed to grant Margery’s petition, though the Archbishop demurred; but Lord Marnell settled the matter by authoritatively commanding that the mother should be permitted to take leave of her child. Arundel, with rather a bad grace, gave way on this secondary point. Margery was then dismissed.
She went up-stairs as if she were walking in a dream, and found Alice hiding behind the door for the amusement of little Geoffrey, who was in high glee. Margery stood a moment on the threshold, looking at them, and mournfully thinking that it was the last time she would ever look on that sunny little face, or hear that silvery laugh. As she stood there, Alice caught sight of her mistress, and her share of the mirth ceased instantly.
“My Lady! my Lady! what have you, I pray you tell me? You look as if sentence of death had been passed on you!”
Margery passed her hand dreamily across her brow.
“Sentence, good Alice, of the evil which is in death!” she said, softly, “and henceforth death must needs be a glad thing. But that is to come yet.”
She sat down, and took the child on her knee, and he nestled his little golden head into her bosom. For a few minutes she rocked herself and him to and fro in silence, but at length her voice came, and though it trembled a little, it was almost as quiet and silvery as usual.
“Geoffrey, dost love me?”
“Yes, mother, very much.”
“Poor child! how wilt do without me!”
“Go you hence, mother?”
“Yes, my child, I go hence. Geoffrey, wilt mind ever what I now say unto thee? Wilt never, never forget it, but ever keep it fresh and shene, and think thereof whenever thou dost think of me?”
“Yes, mother, I shan’t forget.”
“Alice, thou wilt help him to remember, good lass, if thou be not taken from him.”
“That will I, good my Lady,” said Alice, sobbing, and only comprehending that something painful had happened.
“Geoffrey, darling, thou wilt be a good child to thy father?”
“I’ll try, mother, but—he frighteth me.”
Margery sighed heavily.
“List me now, my heart. Dost remember what I told thee about Jesus Christ?”
Geoffrey answered that he did.
“Right, my heart. And lovest Jesus Christ, who died for thee?”
“Yes, mother, I love Him and you.”
The child’s innocent answer nearly upset Margery’s half-assumed calmness. She rocked him a minute longer in silence. “Remember, mine own sweet heart, ever that nothing but Jesus can save thee. Thou canst not save thyself. Beg of Him with all thine heart that He will save thee, and love Him all thy life long, even unto the end.”
She ceased an instant.
“Now, sweet heart, kiss me. Give me a brave kiss, mine own—it is the last. Never shall we kiss again till we kiss in the Happy City! Fare-thee-well, dearly beloved! God have thee in His holy keeping! God teach thee what I cannot—what I by reason of mine ignorance know not, or what thou by reason of thy tender years canst not yet conceive. God forgive thee thy sins, and help thee in all trouble and woe, and bring thee to that blessed home where I shall see thee again, and where they sin not, nor grieve, neither part any more!”
Margery gently detached herself from the child’s embrace, and set him down. She desired Alice to take him away, and then to return and assist her in matters respecting which she would tell her particulars when she should have removed the child. She stood looking after the boy as Alice led him away, and he turned his head to say, “God be wi’ ye!” (See Note 2).
“Never again! never again!” said Margery to herself in a half-whisper. “The worst part of death is over! I have nothing left now but Christ.”
Note 1. Wycliffe always renders “Bisschopis” the word translated “chief priests” in the authorised version.
Note 2. The farewell phrase which has in modern times been shortened into “good-bye.”