Chapter Thirty.
“They won’t make me!”
“What! Agnes Bongeor taken to the Moot Hall? Humph! they’ll be a-coming for me next. I must get on with my work. Let’s do as much as we can for the Lord, ere we’re called to suffer for Him. Thou tookest my message to Master Commissary, Doll?”
Dorothy Denny murmured something which did not reach the ear of Mrs Wade.
“Speak up, woman! I say, thou tookest my message?”
“Well, Mistress, I thought—”
“A fig for thy thought! Didst give my message touching Johnson’s children?”
“N–o, Mistress, I,—”
“Beshrew thee for an unfaithful messenger. Dost know what the wise King saith thereof? He says it is like a foot out of joint. Hadst ever thy foot out o’ joint? I have, and I tell thee, if thou hadst the one foot out of joint, thou wouldst not want t’other. I knew well thou wert an ass, but I did not think thee unfaithful. Why didst not give my message?”
There were tears in Dorothy’s eyes.
“Mistress,” said she, “forgive me, but I will not help you to run into trouble, though you’re sore set to do it. It shall serve no good purpose to keep your name for ever before the eyes of Master Commissary and his fellows. Do, pray, let them forget you. You’ll ne’er be safe, an’ you thrust yourself forward thus.”
“Safe! Bless the woman! I leave the Lord to see to my safety. I’ve no care but to get His work done.”
“Well, then He’s the more like to have a care of you; but, Mistress, won’t you let Dorothy Denny try to see to you a bit too?”
“Thou’rt a good maid, Doll, though I’m a bit sharp on thee at times; and thou knows thou art mortal slow. Howbeit, tell me, what is come of those children? If they be in good hands, I need not trouble.”
“Ursula Felstede has them, Mistress, till the Black Nuns of Hedingham shall fetch them away.”
“Ursula Felstede! ‘Unstable as water.’ That for Ursula Felstede. Black Nuns shall not have ’em while Philippa Wade’s above ground. I tell thee, Dorothy, wherever those little ones go, the Lord’s blessing ’ll go with them. Dost mind what David saith? ‘I have been young, and now am old; and yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.’ And I want them, maid,—part because I feel for the little ones, and part because I want the blessing. Why, that poor little Cicely ’ll be crying her bits of eyes out to part with ‘Father.’ Doll, I’ll go down this even, if I may find leisure, to Ursula Felstede, and see if I cannot win her to give me the children. I shall tell her my mind first, as like as not: and much good may it do her! But I’ll have a try for ’em—I will.”
“Folks saith, Mistress, the prisoners be in as good case as may be: always reading and strengthening one another, and praising God.”
“I’m fain to hear it, Dorothy. Ah, they be not the worst off in this town. If the Lord were to come to judge the earth this even, I’d a deal liefer be one of them in the Moot Hall than be of them that have them in charge. I marvel He comes not. If he had been a man and not God, He’d have been down many a time afore now.”
About six o’clock on a hot July evening, Ursula Felstede heard a tap at her door.
“Come in! O Mistress Wade, how do you do? Will you sit? I’m sure you’re very welcome,” said Ursula, in some confusion.
“I’m not quite so sure of it, Ursula Felstede: but let be. You’ve Johnson’s children here, haven’t you?”
“Ay, I have so: and I tell you that Will’s a handful! Seems to me he’s worser to rule than he used. He’s getting bigger, trow.”
“And Cicely?”
“Oh, she’s quiet enough, only a bit obstinate. Won’t always do as she’s told. I have to look after her sharp, or she’d be off, I do believe.”
“I’d like to see her, an’t please you.”
“Well, to be sure! I sent ’em out to play them a bit. I don’t just know where they are.”
“Call that looking sharp after ’em?”
Ursula laughed a little uneasily.
“Well, one can’t be just a slave to a pack of children, can one? I’ll look out and see if they are in sight.”
“Thank you, I’ll do that, without troubling you. Now, Ursula Felstede, I’ve one thing to say to you, so I’ll say it and get it over. Those children of Johnson’s have the Lord’s wings over them: they’ll be taken care of, be sure: but if you treat them ill, or if you meddle with what their father learned them, you’ll have to reckon with Him instead of the Queen’s Commissioners. And I’d a deal sooner have the Commissioners against me than have the Lord. Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do but fear Him which after He hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Yea, I say unto thee, Fear Him!”
And Mrs Wade walked out of the door without saying another word. She was going to look for the children. The baby she had already seen asleep on Ursula’s bed. Little Will she found in the midst of a group of boys down by the brook, one of whom, a lad twice his size, was just about to fight him when Mrs Wade came up.
“Now, Jack Tyler, if thou dost not want to be carried to thy father by the scuff of thy neck, like a cat, and well thrashed to end with, let that lad alone.—Will, where’s thy sister?”
Little Will, who looked rather sheepish, said,—
“Over there.”
“Where’s there?”
“On the stile. She’s always there when we’re out, except she’s looking after me.”
“Thou lackest looking after.”
“Philip Tye said he’d see to me: and then he went off with Jem Morris, bird-nesting.”
“Cruel lads! well, you’re a proper lot! It’d do you good, and me too, to give you a caning all round. I shall have to let be to-night, for I want to find Cicely.”
“Well, you’ll see her o’ top o’ the stile.”
Little Will turned back to his absorbing amusement of bulrush-plaiting, and Mrs Wade went up to the stile which led to the way over the fields towards Colchester. As she came near, sheltered by the hedge, she heard a little voice.
“Yea, though I walk in vale of death,
Yet will I fear no ill:
Thy rod, Thy staff, doth comfort me,
And Thou art with me still.”
Mrs Wade crept softly along till she could see through the hedge. The stile was a stone one, with steps on each side, such as may still be seen in the north of England: and on the top step sat Cissy, resting her head upon her hand, and looking earnestly in the direction of Colchester.
“What dost there, my dear heart?” Mrs Wade asked gently.
“I’m looking at Father,” said Cissy, rather languidly. She spoke as if she were not well, and could not care much about anything.
“‘Looking at Father’! What dost thou mean, my child?”
“Well, you see that belt of trees over yonder? When the sun shines, I can see All Hallows’ tower stand up against it. You can’t see it to-day: it does not shine; but it’s there for all that. And Father’s just behind in the Castle: so I haven’t any better way to look at him. Only God looks at him, you know; they can’t bar Him out. So I come here, and look as far as I can, and talk to God about Father. I can’t see Father, but he’s there: and I can’t see God, but He’s there too: and He’s got to see to Father now I can’t.”
The desolate tone of utter loneliness in the little voice touched Mrs Wade to the core of her great warm heart.
“My poor little Cicely!” she said. “Doth Ursula use thee well?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Cissy, in a quiet matter-of-fact way; “only when I won’t pray to her big image, she slaps me. But she can’t make me do it. Father said not. It would never do for God to see us doing things Father forbade us, because he’s shut up and can’t come to us. I’m not going to pray to that ugly thing: never! And if it was pretty, it wouldn’t make any difference, when Father said not.”
“No, dear heart, that were idolatry,” said Mrs Wade.
“Yes, I know,” replied Cissy: “Father said so. But Ursula says the Black Sisters will make me, or they’ll put me in the well. I do hope God will keep away the Black Sisters. I ask Him every day, when I’ve done talking about Father. I shouldn’t like them to put me in the well!” and she shuddered. Evidently Ursula had frightened her very much with some story about this. “But God would be there, in the well, wouldn’t He? They won’t make me do it when Father said not!”