Chapter Thirty Six.
Into the Lion’s Mouth.
“Give you good den, Master Hiltoft! May a man have speech of your prisoner, Mistress Bongeor?”
“You’re a bold man, Master Ewring.”
“Wherefore?”
“Wherefore! Sotting your head in the lion’s mouth! I should have thought you’d keep as far from Moot Hall as you could compass. Yourself not unsuspected, and had one burned already from your house—I marvel at you that you hide not yourself behind your corn-measures and flour-sacks, and have a care not to show your face in the street. And here up you march as bold as Hector, and desire to have speech of a prisoner! Well—it’s your business, not mine.”
“Friend, mine hearth is desolate, and I have only God to my friend. Do you marvel that I haste to do His work whilst it is day, or that I desire to be approved of Him?”
“You go a queer way about it. I reckon you think with the old saw, (Proverb.) ‘The nearer the church the further from Heaven’!”
“That is true but in some sense. Verily, the nearer some churches, and some priests, so it is. May I see Mistress Bongeor?”
“Ay, you would fain not commit yourself, I see, more than may be. Come, you have a bit of prudence left. So much the better for you. Come in, and I’ll see if Wastborowe’s in a reasonable temper, and that hangs somewhat on the one that Audrey’s in.”
The porter shut the gate behind Mr Ewring, and went to seek Wastborowe. Just then Jane Hiltoft, coming to her door, saw him waiting, and invited him to take a seat.
“Fine morning, Master.”
“Ay, it is, Jane. Have you yet here poor Johnson’s little maid?”
“I haven’t, Master, and I feel fair lost without the dear babe. A rare good child she was—never see a better. The Black Ladies of Hedingham has got her, and I’m all to pieces afeard they’ll not tend her right way. How should nuns (saving their holy presences) know aught about babes and such like? Eh dear! they’d better have left her with me. I’d have taken to her altogether, if Simon’d have let me—and I think he would after a bit. And she’d have done well with me, too.”
“Ay, Jane, you’d have cared her well for the body, I cast no doubt.”
“Dear heart, but it’s sore pity, Master Ewring, such a good man as you cannot be a good Catholic like every body else! You’d save yourself ever so much trouble and sorrow. I cannot think why you don’t.”
“We should save ourselves a little sorrow, Jane; but we should have a deal more than we lost.”
“But how so, Master? It’s only giving up an opinion.”
“Maybe so, with some: but not with us. They that have been taught this way by others, and never knew Christ for themselves—with them, as you say, it were but the yielding of opinion: but to us that know Him, and have heard His voice, it would be the betraying of the best Friend in earth or Heaven. And we cannot do that, Jane Hiltoft—not even for life.”
“Nay, that stands to reason if it were so, Master Ewring; but, trust me, I know not what you mean, no more than if you spake Latin.”
“Read God’s Book, and pray for His Spirit, and you shall find out, Jane.—Well, Hiltoft?”
“Wastborowe says you may see Mistress Bongeor if you’ll give him a royal farthing, but he won’t let you for a penny less. He’s had words with their Audrey, and he’s as savage as Denis of Siccarus.”
“Who was he, Hiltoft?” answered Mr Ewring with a smile, as he felt in his purse for the half-crown which was to be the price of his visit to Agnes Bongeor.
“Eh, I don’t know: I heard Master Doctor say the other day that his dog was as fierce as him.”
“Art sure he said not ‘Syracuse’?”
“Dare say he might. Syracuse or Siccarus, all’s one to me.”
At the door of the dungeon stood the redoubtable Wastborowe, his keys hanging from his girdle, and looking, to put it mildly, not particularly amiable.
“Want letting out again by and by?” he inquired with grim satire, as Mr Ewring put the coin in his hand.
“If you please, Wastborowe. You’ve no writ to keep me, have you?”
“Haven’t—worse luck! Only wish I had. I’ll set a match to the lot of you with as much pleasure as I’d drink a pot of ale. It’ll never be good world till we’re rid of heretics!”
“There’ll be Satan left then, methinks, and maybe a few rogues and murderers to boot.”
“Never a one as bad as you Lutherans and Gospellers! Get you in. You’ll have to wait my time to come out.”
“Very well,” said Mr Ewring quietly, and went in.
He found Agnes Bongeor seated in a corner of the window recess, with her Bible on her knee; but it was closed, and she looked very miserable.
“Well, my sister, and how is it with you?”
“As ’tis like to be, Master Ewring, with her whom the Lord hath cast forth, and reckons unworthy to do Him a service.”
“Did he so reckon Abraham, then, at the time of the offering up of Isaac? Isaac was not sacrificed: he was turned back from the same. Yet what saith the Lord unto him? ‘Because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thou shalt be blessed, because thou hast obeyed My voice.’ See you, his good will thereto is reckoned as though he had done the thing. ‘The Lord looketh on the heart.’ Doubt thou not, my good sister, but firmly believe, that to thee also faith is counted for righteousness, and the will passeth for the deed, with Him who saith that ‘if thou be Christ’s then art thou Abraham’s seed.’”
“That’s comforting, in truth,” said poor Agnes. “But, Master Ewring, think you there is any hope that I may yet be allowed to witness for my Lord before men in very deed? To have come so near, and be thrust back! Is there no hope?”
Agnes Bongeor was not the only one of the sufferers in this persecution who actually coveted and longed for martyrdom. If the imperial crown of all the world had been laid at their feet, they would have reckoned it beneath contempt in comparison with that crown of life promised to such as are faithful unto death. Not faithful till death, but unto it.
“I know not what the Lord holds in reserve for thee, my sister. I only know that whatsoever it be, it is that whereby thou mayest best glorify Him. Is that not enough? If more glory should come to Him by thy dying in this dungeon after fifty years’ imprisonment, than by thy burning, which wouldst thou choose? Speak truly.”
Agnes dropped her face upon her hands for a moment.
“You have the right, Master Ewring,” said she, when she looked up again. “I fear I was over full of myself. Let the Lord’s will be done, and His glory ensured, by His doing with me whatsoever He will. I will strive to be patient, and not grieve more than I should.”
“Therein wilt thou do well, my sister. And now I go—when as it shall please Wastborowe,” added Mr Ewring with a slight smile of amusement, and then growing grave,—“to visit one in far sorer trouble than thyself.”
“Eh, Master, who is that?”
“It is Margaret Thurston, who hath not been, nor counted herself, rejected of the Lord, but hath of her own will rejected Him. She bought life by recanting.”
“Eh, poor soul, how miserable must she be! Tell her, if it like you, that I will pray for her. Maybe the Lord will grant to both of us the grace yet to be His witnesses.”
Mr Ewring had to pass four weary hours in the dungeon before it pleased Wastborowe to let him out. He spent it in conversing with the other prisoners,—all of whom, save Agnes Bongeor, were arrested for some crime,—and trying to do them good. At last the heavy door rolled back, and Wastborowe’s voice was heard inquiring, in accents which did not sound particularly sober,—
“Where’s yon companion that wants baking by Lexden Road?”
“I am here, Wastborowe,” said Mr Ewring, rising. “Good den, friends. The Lord bless and comfort thee, my sister!”
And out he went into the summer evening air, to meet the half-tipsy gaoler’s farewell of,—
“There! Take to thy heels, old shortbread, afore thou’rt done a bit too brown. Thou’lt get it some of these days!”