Chapter Thirty Seven.
“Remember!”
Mr Ewring only returned Wastborowe’s uncivil farewell by a nod, as he walked up High Street towards East Gate. At the corner of Tenant’s Lane he turned to the left, and went up to the Castle. A request to see the prisoner there brought about a little discussion between the porter and the gaoler, and an appeal was apparently made to some higher authority. At length the visitor was informed that permission was granted, on condition that he would not mention the subject of religion.
The condition was rejected at once. Mr Ewring had come to talk about that and nothing else.
“Then you’d best go home,” said Bartle. “Can’t do to have matters set a-crooked again when they are but now coming straight. Margaret Thurston’s reconciled, and we’ve hopes for John, though he’s been harder of the two to bring round. Never do to have folks coming and setting ’em all wrong side up. Do you want to see ’em burned, my master?”
“I want to see them true,” was Mr Ewring’s answer, “The burning doesn’t much matter.”
“Oh, doesn’t it?” sneered Bartle. “You’ll sing another tune, Master Ewring, the day you’re set alight.”
“Methinks, friend, those you have burned sang none other. But how about a thousand years hence? Bartholomew Crane, what manner of tune wilt thou be singing then?”
“Time enough to say when I’ve got it pricked, Master,” said Bartle: but Mr Ewring saw from his uneasiness that the shot had told.
People were much more musical in England three hundred years ago than now. Nearly everybody could sing, or read music at sight: and a lady was thought very poorly educated if she could not “set”—that is, write down a tune properly on hearing it played. Writing music they called “pricking” it.
Mr Ewring did not stay to talk with Bartle; he bade him good-bye, and walked up Tenant’s Lane on his way home. But before he had gone many yards, an idea struck him, and he turned round and went back to the Castle.
Bartle was still in the court, and he peeped through the wicket to see who was there.
“Good lack! you’re come again!”
“I’m come again,” said Mr Ewring, smiling. “Bartle, wilt take a message to the Thurstons for me?”
“Depends,” said Bartle with a knowing nod. “What’s it about? If you want to tell ’em price of flour, I don’t mind.”
“I only want you to say one word to either of them.”
“Come, that’s jolly! What’s the word?”
“Remember!”
Bartle scratched his head. “Remember what? There’s the rub!”
“Leave that to them,” said Mr Ewring.
“Well,—I—don’t—know,” said Bartle very slowly. “Mayhap I sha’n’t remember.”
“Mayhap that shall help you,” replied the miller, holding up an angelet, namely, a gold coin, value 3 shillings 4 pence—the smallest gold coin then made.
“Shouldn’t wonder if that strengthened my wits,” said Bartle with a grin, as the little piece of gold was slipped through the wicket. “That’s over a penny a letter, bain’t it?”
“Fivepence. It’s good pay.”
“It’s none so bad. I’m in hopes you’ll have a few more messages, Master Ewring. They’re easy to carry when they come in a basket o’ that metal.”
“Ah, Bartle! wilt thou do that for a gold angelet which thou wouldst not for the love of God or thy neighbour? Beware that all thy good things come not to thee in this life—which can only be if they be things that pertain to this life alone.”
“This life’s enough for me, Master: it’s all I’ve got.”
“Truth, friend. Therefore cast it not away in folly.”
“In a good sooth, Master Ewring, I love your angelets better than your preachment, and you paid me not to listen to a sermon, but to carry a message. Good den!”
“Good den, Bartle. May the Lord give thee good ending!”
Bartle stood looking from the wicket until the miller had turned the corner.
“Yon’s a good man, I do believe,” said he to himself. “I marvel what they burn such men for! They’re never found lying or cheating or murdering. Why couldn’t folks let ’em alone? We shouldn’t want to hurt ’em, if the priests would let us alone. Marry, this would be a good land if there were no priests!”
Bartle shut the wicket, and prepared to carry in supper to his prisoners. John and Margaret Thurston were not together. The priests were afraid to let them be so, lest John, who stood more firmly of the two, should talk over Margaret. They occupied adjoining cells. Bartle opened a little wicket in the first, and called John to receive his rations of brown bread, onions, and weak ale.
“I promised to give you a message,” said he, “but I don’t know as it’s like to do you much good. It’s only one word.”
“Should be a weighty one,” said John. “What is it?”
“‘Remember!’”
“Ah!” John Thurston’s long-drawn exclamation, which ended with a heavy sigh, astonished Bartle.
“There’s more in it than I reckoned, seemingly,” said he as he turned to Margaret’s cell, and opened her wicket to pass in the supper.
“Here’s a message for you, Meg, from Master Ewring the miller. Let’s see what you’ll say to it—‘Remember!’”
“‘Remember!’” cried Margaret in a pained tone. “Don’t I always remember? isn’t it misery to me to remember? And can’t I guess what he means—‘Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works’? Eh, then there’s repentance yet for them that have fallen! ‘I will fight against thee, except thou repent.’ God bless you, Bartle: you’ve given me a buffet and yet a hope.”
“That’s a proper powerful word, is that!” said Bartle. “Never knew one word do so much afore.”
There was more power in that one word from Holy Writ than Bartle guessed. The single word, sent home to their consciences by the Holy Ghost, brought quit different messages to the two to whom it was sent. To John Thurston it did not say, “Remember from whence thou hast fallen.” That was the message with which it was charged for Margaret. But to John it said, “Call to remembrance the former days, in which, after that ye were illuminated, ye endured a great flight of afflictions ... knowing in yourselves that ye have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.” That was John’s message, and it found him just on the brink of casting his confidence away, and stopped him.
Mr Ewring had never spent an angelet better than in securing the transmission of that one word, which was the instrument in God’s hand to save two immortal souls.
As he reached the top of Tenant’s Lane, he met Ursula Felstede, carrying a large bundle, with which she tried to hide her face, and to slink past. The miller stopped.
“Good den, Ursula. Wither away?”
“Truly, Master, to the whitster’s with this bundle.”
The whitster meant what we should now call a dyer and cleaner.
“Do you mind, Ursula, what the Prophet Daniel saith, that ‘many shall be purified and made white’? Methinks it is going on now. White, as no fuller on earth can white them! May you and I be so cleansed, friend! Good den.”
Ursula courtesied and escaped, and Mr Ewring passed through the gate, and went up to his desolated home. He stood a moment in the mill-door, looking back over the town which he had just left.
“‘The night cometh, when no man can work,’” he said to himself. “Grant me, Lord, to be about Thy business until the Master cometh!”
And he knew, while he said it, that in all likelihood to him that coming would be in a chariot of fire, and that to be busied with that work would bring it nearer and sooner.