Chapter Three.
Little Mrs Dorothy.
“And the thousands come and go
All along the crowded street;
But they give no ear to the things we know,
And they pass with careless feet.
For some hearts are hard with gold,
And some are crushed in the throng,
And some with the pleasures of life are cold—
How long, O Lord, how long!”
“If I am to begin at the beginning, my dears,” said little Mrs Dorothy, “I must tell you that I was born in a farmhouse, about a mile from Saint Albans, on the last day of the year of our Lord 1641; that my father was the Reverend William Jennings, brother to Sir Edward; and that my mother was Mrs Frances, daughter to Sir Jeremy Charlton.”
“Whatever made your father take up with a parson’s life?” said Rhoda. “I wouldn’t be one for an apron full of money! Surely he was married first, wasn’t he?”
“He was married first,” answered Mrs Dorothy; “and both his father and my mother’s kindred took it extreme ill that he should propose such views to himself,—the rather because he was of an easy fortune, his grandmother having left him some money.”
“Would I have been a parson!” exclaimed Rhoda. “I’m too fond of jellies and conserves—nobody better.”
“Well, my dear Mrs Rhoda, if you will have me say what I think,” resumed Mrs Dorothy.
“You can if you like,” interjected Rhoda.
“It does seem to me, and hath ever done so, that the common custom amongst us, which will have the chaplain to rise and withdraw when dessert is served, must be a relique of barbarous times.”
Dessert at that time included pies, puddings, and jellies.
“O Mrs Dorothy! you have the drollest notions!”
And Rhoda went off in a long peal of laughter. The idea of any other arrangement struck her as very comical indeed.
“Well, my dear,” said Mrs Dorothy, “I hope some day to see it otherwise.”
“Oh, how droll it would be!” said Rhoda. “But go on, please, Mrs Dolly.”
“Through those troublous times that followed on my birth,” resumed the old lady, “I was left for better safety with the farmer at whose house I was born; for my father had shortly after been made parson of a church in London, and ’twas not thought well that so young a child as I then was should be bred up in all the city tumults. My foster-father’s name was Lawrence Ingham; and he and his good wife were as father and mother to me.”
“But what fashion of breeding could you get at a farmhouse?” demanded Rhoda, with a scornful pout.
“Why, ’twas not there I learned French, child,” answered Mrs Dorothy, smiling; “but I learned to read, write, and cast accounts; to cook and distil, to conserve and pickle; with all manner of handiworks—sewing, knitting, broidery, and such like. And I can tell you, my dear, that in all the great world whereunto I afterwards entered I never saw better manners than in that farmhouse. I saw more ceremonies, sure; but not more courtesy and kindly thought for others.”
“Why, I thought folks like that had no manners at all!” said Rhoda.
“Then you were mightily mistaken, my dear. Farmer Ingham had two daughters, who were like sisters to me; but they were both older than I. Their names were Grace and Faith. ’Twas a very quiet, peaceful household. We rose with the sun in summer, and before it in winter—”
“Catch me!” interpolated Rhoda.
“And before any other thing might be done, there was reading and prayer in the farmhouse kitchen. All the farm servants trooped in, and took their places in order, the men on the right hand of the master, and the women on the left of the mistress. Then the farmer read a chapter, and afterwards prayed, all joining in ‘Our Father’ at the end.”
“But—he wasn’t a parson?” demanded Rhoda, with a perplexed look.
“Oh no, my dear.”
“Then how could he pray?” said Rhoda. “He’d no business to read the Prayer-Book; and of course he couldn’t pray without it.”
“Ah, then he made a mistake,” replied Mrs Dorothy very quietly. “He fancied he could.”
“But who ever heard of such a thing?” said Rhoda.
“We heard a good deal of it in those days, my dear. Why, child, the Common Prayer was forbid, even in the churches. Nobody used it, save a few here and there, that chose to run the risk of being found out and punished.”
“How queer!” cried Rhoda. “Well, go on, Mrs Dolly. I hope the prayers weren’t long. I should have wanted my breakfast.”
“They were usually about three parts of an hour.”
“Ugh!” with a manufactured shudder, came from Rhoda.
“After prayers, for an hour, each went to her calling. Commonly we took it turn about, the girls and I—one with the mistress in the kitchen, one with the maids in the chambers, and the third, if the weather was fine, a-weeding the posies in the garden, or, if wet, at her sewing in the parlour. Then the great bell was rung for breakfast, and we all gathered again in the kitchen. For breakfast were furmety, eggs, and butter, and milk, for the women; cold bakemeats and ale for the men.”
“No tea?” asked Rhoda.
“I was near ten years old, child, ere coffee came into England; and tea was some years later. The first coffee-house that ever was in this realm was set up at Oxford, of one Jacobs, a Jew; and about two years after was the first in London. For tea, ’twas said Queen Catherine brought it hither from Portingale; but in truth, I believe ’twas known among us somewhat sooner. But when it came in, for a long time none knew how to use it, except at the coffee-houses. I could tell you a droll tale of a neighbour of Farmer Ingham’s, that had a parcel of tea sent her as a great present from London, with a letter that said ’twas all the mode with the quality. And what did she, think you, but boiled it like cabbage, and bade all her neighbours come taste the new greens.”
“Did they like them?” asked Rhoda, as well as she could speak for laughing.
“I heard they all thought with their hostess, who said, ‘If those were quality greens, the quality were welcome to keep ’em; country folk would rather have cabbage and spinach any day.’”
“Well!” said Rhoda, bridling a little, when her amusement had subsided; “’tis very silly for mean people to ape the quality.”
“It is so, my dear,” replied Mrs Dorothy, with that extreme quietness which was the nearest her gentle spirit could come to irony. “’Tis silly for any to ape another, be he less or more.”
“Why, there can be no communication between them,” observed Rhoda, with a toss of her head.
“‘Communication,’ my dear,” said Mrs Dolly. “Yonder’s a new word. Where did you pick it up?”
“O Mrs Dolly! you can’t be in the mode if you don’t pick up all the new words,” answered Rhoda more affectedly than ever. She was showing off now, and was entirely in her element.
“And pray what are the other new words, my dear?” inquired Mrs Dorothy good-naturedly, and not without a little amusement. “That one sounds very much like the old-fashioned ‘commerce.’”
“Well, I don’t know them all!” said Rhoda, with an assumption of humility; “but now-o’-days, when you speak of any one’s direction, you must say adresse, from the French; and if one is out of spirits, you say he is hipped—that’s from hypochondriacal; and a crowd of people is a mob—that’s short for mobile; and when a man goes about, and doesn’t want to be known, you say he is incog.—that means incognito, which is the Spanish for unknown. Then you say Mr Such-an-one spends to the tune of five hundred a year; and there are a lot of men of his kidney; and I bantered them well about it. Oh, there are lots of new words, Mrs Dolly.”
“So it seems, my dear. But are you sure incognito is Spanish?”
“Oh, yes! William Knight told me so,” said Rhoda, with another toss of her head.
“I imagined it was Latin,” observed Mrs Dorothy. “But ’tis true, I know nought of either tongue.”
“Oh, William Knight knows everything,” said Rhoda, hyperbolically.
“He must be a very ingenious young man,” quietly observed Mrs Dorothy.
“Well, he is,” said Rhoda, scarcely perceiving the satire latent in Mrs Dorothy’s calm tones.
“I am glad to hear it, my dear,” returned the old lady.
“But he’s very uppish,—that’s pos.,” resumed the young one.
“Really, my dear, you are full of new words,” said Mrs Dorothy, good-naturedly. “What means ‘pos.,’ pray you?”
“Why, ‘positive,’” said Rhoda, laughing. “And rep. means reputation, and fire means spirit, and smart means sharp, and a concert means a lot of people singing and playing on instruments of music, and an operation means anything you do, and a speculation means—well, it means—it means a speculation, you know.”
“Dear, dear!” cried little Mrs Dorothy, holding up her hands. “I protest, my dear, I shall be drove to learn the English tongue anew if this mode go on.”
“Well, Mrs Dolly, suppose your tale should go on?” suggested Rhoda. “Heyday! do you know what everybody is saying?—everybody that is anybody, you understand.”
“I thought that everybody was somebody,” remarked Mrs Dorothy, with a comical set of the lips.
“Oh dear, no!” said Rhoda. “There are ever so many people who are nobody.”
“Indeed!” said Mrs Dorothy. “Well, child, what is everybody saying?”
“Why, they say the Duke is not so well with the Queen as he has been. ’Tis thought, I assure you, by many above people.”
“Is that one of the new words?” inquired Mrs Dorothy, with a little laugh. “Dear child, what mean you?—the angels?”
“Oh, Mrs Dorothy, you are the oddest creature!” cried Rhoda. “Why, you know very well what I mean. Should you be sorry, Mrs Dolly, if the Duke became inconsiderable?”
“No, my dear. Why should I?”
“Well, I thought—” but Rhoda’s thought went no further.
“You thought,” quietly continued the old lady, “that I had not had enow of town vanities, and would fain climb a few rungs up the ladder, holding on to folks’ skirts. Was that it, child?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Rhoda uneasily, for Mrs Dorothy had translated her thought into rather too plain language.
“Ah, my dear, that is because you would love to climb a little yourself,” said Mrs Dorothy, smilingly, “and you apprehend no inconveniency from it. But, child, ’tis the weariest work in all the world—except it be climbing from earth to heaven. To climb on men’s ladders is mostly as a squirrel climbs in its cage,—round and round; you think yourself going vastly higher, but those that stand on the firm ground and watch you see that you do but go round. But to climb up Jacob’s ladder, whereof the Lord stands at the top, it will be other eyes that behold you climbing up, when in your own eyes you have not bettered yourself by a step. Climb as high as you will there, dear maids!—but never mind the ladders that go round. They are infinitely disappointing. I know it, for I have climbed them.”
“Well, Mrs Dolly, do go on, now, and tell us all about it, there’s a good soul!” said Rhoda.
Little Mrs Dorothy was executing some elaborate knitting. She went on with it for a few seconds in silence.
“I was but sixteen,” she said, quietly, “when my mother came to visit me. I could not remember seeing her before: and very frighted was I of the grand gentlewoman, for so she seemed to me, that rustled into the farmhouse kitchen in silken brocade, and a velvet tippet on her neck. She was evenly disappointed with me. She thought me stiff and gloomy; and I thought her strange and full of vanities. ‘In three years’ time, Dolly,’ quoth she, ‘thou wilt be nineteen, and I will then have thee up to Town, and thou shalt see somewhat of the world. Thou art not ill-favoured,’ quoth she,—’twas my mother that said this, my dears,” modestly interpolated Mrs Dorothy,—“and I dare say thou wilt be the Town talk in a week. ’Tis pity there is no better world to have thee into!—and thy father as sour and Puritanical as any till of late, save the mark!—but there, ‘we must swim with the tide,’ saith she. ‘’Tis a long lane that has no turning.’ Ah me! but the lane had turned ere I was nineteen.”
“Why, Mrs Dolly, the Restoration must have been that very year,” observed Rhoda.
“That very year,” repeated Mrs Dorothy. “’Twas in April I quitted Farmer Ingham’s house, and was fetched up to London; and in May came the King in, and was shortly thereafter crowned.”
“If it please you,” asked Phoebe, speaking for the first time of her own accord, “were you glad to go, Madam?”
“Well, my dear, I was partly glad and partly sorry. I was sorrowful to take leave of mine old friends, little knowing if I should ever see them again or no; yet, like an untried maid, I was mightily set up with the thought of seeing London, and the lions, and Whitehall, and the like. Silly maid that I was! I had better have shed tears for the last than for the first.”
“What thought you the finest thing in London?” said Rhoda. “But tell us, what thought you of London altogether?”
“Why, the first thing I thought of was the size and the noise,” answered Mrs Dorothy. “It seemed to me such a great overgrown town, so different from Saint Albans; and so many carts and wheelbarrows always rattling over the stones; and so many folks in the streets; and all the strange cries of a morning. I thought my father a very strange, cold man, of whom I was no little afraid; and my mother was sadly disappointed that I did not roll my eyes, and had not been taught to dance.”
“Why did they ever leave you at a farmhouse?” inquired Rhoda, rather scornfully.
“I cannot entirely say, my dear; but I think that was mainly my father’s doing. My poor father!”
And Mrs Dorothy’s handkerchief was hastily passed across her eyes.
“The first night I came,” she said, “my mother had a large assembly in her withdrawing-chamber. There were smart-dressed ladies fluttering of their fans, and gentlemen in all the colours of the rainbow; and I, foolish maid! right well pleased when one and another commended my country complexion, or told me something about my fine eyes: when all at once came a heavy hand on my shoulder, and my father saith, ‘Dorothy, I would speak with you.’ I followed him forth, not a little trembling lest he should be about to chide me; but he led me into his own closet, and shut the door. He bade me sit, and leaning over the fire himself, he said nought for a moment. Then saith he, ‘Dorothy, you heard Mr Debenham speak to you?’ ‘Yes, Sir,’ quoth I. ‘And what said he, child?’ goes on my father, gently. I was something loth to repeat what he had said; for it was what I, in my foolish heart, thought a very fine speech about Mrs Doll’s fine eyes, that glistered like stars. Howbeit, my father waited quiet enough; and having been well bred to obey by Farmer Ingham, I brought it out at last. ‘Did you believe it, Dorothy?’ saith my father. ‘Did you think he meant it?’ I did but whisper, ‘Yes, Sir,’ for I could not but feel very much ashamed. ‘Then, Dorothy,’ saith he, ‘the first lesson you will do well to learn in London is that men and women do not always mean it when they flatter you. And he does not. Ah!’ saith my father, fetching a great sigh,—‘’tis easy work for fathers to say such things, but not so for maidens to believe them. There is one other thing I would have you learn, Dorothy.’ ‘Yes, Sir,’ quoth I, when he stayed. He turned him around, and looked in my face with his dark eyes, that seemed to burn into me, and he saith, ‘Learn this, Dorothy,—that ’tis the easiest thing in all the world for a man to drift away from God. Ay, or a woman either. You may do it, and never know that you have done it,—for a while, at least. David was two full years ere he found it out. Oh Dorothy, take warning! I was once as innocent as you are. I have drifted from God, oh my child, how far! The Lord keep you from a like fate.’ I was fairly affrighted, for his face was terrible. An hour after, I saw him dealing the cards at ombre, with a look as bright and mirthful as though he knew not grief but by name.”
Phoebe looked up with eyes full of meaning. “Did he never come back?”
“Dear child,” said Mrs Dorothy, turning to her, “hast thou forgot that the Good Shepherd goeth after that which was lost, until He find it? He came back, my dear. But it was through the Great Plague and the Great Fire.”
It was evident for a few minutes that Mrs Dorothy was wrestling with painful memories.
“Well, and what then?” said Rhoda, who wanted the story to go on, and was afraid of what she called preaching.
“Well!” resumed the old lady, more lightly, “then, for three days in the week I had a dancing-master come to teach me; and twice in the week a music-master; and all manner of new gowns, and my hair dressed in a multitude of curls; and my mother’s maid to teach me French, and see that I carried myself well. And when this had gone on a while, my mother began to carry me a-visiting when she went to see her friends. For above a year she used a hackney coach; but then my father was made Doctor, and had a great church given him that was then all the mode; and my Lady Jennings came up to Town, and finding he had parts, she began to take note of him, and would carry him in her coach to the Court; and my mother would then set up her own coach, the which she did. And at length, the summer before I was one-and-twenty, my Lady Jennings, without the privity of my father, offered my mother to have me a maid to one of the Ladies in Waiting on the Queen. From this place, said she, if I played my cards well, and was liked of them above me, I might come in time to be a Maid of Honour.”
“O rare!” exclaimed Rhoda. “And did you, Mrs Dolly?”
“Yes, child,” slowly answered Mrs Dorothy. “I did so.”
Rhoda’s face was sparkling with interest and pleasure. Phoebe’s was shadowed with forebodings, of a sad end to come.
“The night ere I left home for the Court,” pursued the old lady, “my mother held long converse with me. ‘Thou art mightily improved, Dolly,’ saith she, ‘since thy coming to London; but there is yet a stiff soberness about thee, that thou wilt do well to be rid of. Thou shouldst have more ease, child. Do but look at thy cousin Jenny, that is three years younger than thou, and yet how will she rattle to every man that hath a word of compliment to pay her!’ But after she had made an end, my father called me into his closet. ‘Poor Dorothy!’ he said. ‘The bloom is not all off the peach yet. But ’tis going, child—’tis fast going. I feared this. Poor Dorothy!’”
“Oh, dear!” said Rhoda. “You were not going to a funeral, Mrs Dolly!”
“Ah, child! maybe, if I had, it had been the better for me. The wise man saith, ‘It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting.’”
“But pray, what harm came to you, Mrs Dorothy?”
“No outward bodily harm at all, my dear. Yet even that was no thanks to me. It was ‘of the Lord’s compassion,’ seeing He had a purpose of mercy toward me. But, ah me! what inward and spiritual harm! Mrs Rhoda, my dear, I saw sights and heard sayings those two years I dwelt in the Court which I would give the world, so to speak, only to forget them now.”
“What were they, Mrs Dorothy?” asked Rhoda, eagerly sitting up.
“Think you I am likely to tell you, child? No, indeed!”
“But what sort of harm did they to you, Mrs Dolly?”
“Child, I learned to think lightly of sin. People did not talk of sin there at all; the words they used were crime and vice. Every wrong doing was looked on as it affected other men: if it touched your neighbour’s purse or person, it was ill; if it only grieved his heart, then ’twas a little matter. But how it touched God was never so much as thought on. There might have been no God in Heaven, so little account was taken of Him there.”
“Now do tell us. Mrs Dolly, what the Queen was like, and the King,” said Rhoda, yawning. “And how many Maids of Honour were there? Just tell us all about it.”
“There were six,” replied the old lady, taking up her knitting, which she had dropped in her earnestness a minute before. “And Mrs Sanderson was their mother. I reckon you will scarce know that always a married gentlewoman goeth about with these young damsels, called the Mother of the Maids, whose work it is to see after them.”
“And keep them from everything jolly!” exclaimed Rhoda. “Now, that’s a shame! Wouldn’t it be fun to bamboozle that creature? I protest I should enjoy it!”
“O Mrs Rhoda! Mrs Rhoda!”
“I should, of all things, Mrs Dolly! But now, what were the King and Queen like? Was she very beautiful?”
(Note: Charles the Second and Catherine of Braganza.)
“No,” said Mrs Dorothy, “she was not. She had pretty feet, fine eyes, and very lovely hair. ’Twas rich brown on the top of her head, and descending downward it grew into jet black. For the rest, she was but tolerable. In truth, her teeth wronged her by sticking too far out of her mouth; but for that she would have been lovelier by much.”
“Horrid!” said Rhoda. “I forget where she came from, Mrs Dolly?”
“She came from Portingale, my dear, being daughter to the King of that country, and her name was Catherine.”
“And what was the King like?”
“When he was little, my dear, his mother, Queen Mary, used to say he was so ugly a baby that she was quite ashamed of him. He was better-favoured when he grew a man; he had good eyes, but a large Mouth.”
(Note: Queen Mary was Henrietta Maria, always termed Queen Mary during her own reign.)
“He was a black man, was he not?”
By which term Rhoda meant what we now call a dark man.
“Yes, very black and swarthy.”
“Where did he commonly live?”
“Mostly at Whitehall or Saint James’s. At times he went to Hampton Court, and often, for a change of sir, to Newmarket; now and then to Tunbridge Wells. He was but little at Windsor.”
“Did you like him, Mrs Dorothy?”
Phoebe looked up, when no answer came. The expression of Mrs Dorothy’s face was a curious mixture of fear, repulsion, and yet amusement.
“No!” she said at length.
“Why not?” demanded Rhoda.
“Well, there were some that did,” was the reply, in a rather constrained tone; “and the one that he behaved the worst to loved him the best of all.”
“How droll!” said Rhoda. “And who were your friends, then, Mrs Dorothy?”
“That depends, my dear, on what you mean by friends. If you mean them that flattered me, and joked with me, and the like,—why, I had very many; or if you mean them that would take some trouble to push me in the world,—well, there were several of those; but if you mean such as are only true friends, that would have cast one thought to my real welfare, whether I should go to Heaven or Hell,—I had but one of that sort.”
“And who was your one friend, Mrs Dolly?” asked Rhoda, pursing up her lips a little.
“The King’s Scots cook, my dear,” quietly replied Mrs Dorothy.
“The what?” shrieked Rhoda, going into convulsions of laughter.
“Ah, you may laugh, Mrs Rhoda. You know there’s an old saying, ‘Let them laugh that win.’ If ever an old sinner like me enters the gates of Heaven, so far as the human means are concerned, I shall owe it, first of all, to old David Armstrong.”
“Will you please to tell us about him, Madam?” rather timidly asked Phoebe.
“With all my heart, my dear. Dear old Davie! Methinks I see him now. Picture to yourselves, my dears, a short man, something stooping in the shoulders, with sharp features and iron-grey hair; always dressed in his white cooking garb, and a white cap over his frizzled locks. But before I tell you what I knew of old Davie, methinks I had better tell you a tale of him that will give you some diversion, without I mistake.”
“Oh do, Mrs Dolly?” cried Rhoda, who feared nothing so much as too great seriousness in her friend’s stones.
“Well,” said Mrs Dorothy, “then you must know, my dears, that once upon a time the King and Queen were at dinner, and with them, amongst others, my Lord Rochester, who was at that time a very wild gallant. He died, indeed, very penitent, and, I trust, a saved man; but let that be. They were sat after dinner, and my Lord Rochester passes the bottle about to his next neighbour. ‘Come, man!’ saith the King, in his rollicksome way, ‘take a glass of that which cheereth God and man, as Scripture saith.’ My Lord Rochester at once bets the King forty pound that there was no such saying in Scripture. The King referreth all to the Queen’s chaplain, that happened to be the only parson then present; but saith again, that though he could not name the place, yet he was as certain to have read it in Scripture as that his name was Charles, ‘What thinks your Majesty?’ quoth my Lord Rochester, turning to the Queen. She, very modestly—”
“But, Mrs Dolly, was not the Queen a Papist? What would she know about the Bible?”
“So she was, my dear. But they have a Bible of their own, that they allow the reading of to certain persons. And I dare say she was one. However, my Lord Rochester asked her, for I heard him; and she said, very womanly, that she was unfit to decide such matters, but she could not think there to be any such passage in the Bible.”
“Why, there isn’t!” rashly interpolated Rhoda.
Mrs Dorothy smiled, but did not contradict her.
“Then up spoke the Queen’s chaplain, and gave his voice like his mistress, that there was no such passage; and several others of them at the table said they thought the like. So the King, swearing his wonted oath, cried out for some to bring a Bible, that he might search and see.”
“O Mrs Dolly! what was his favourite oath?”
“I do not see, my dear, that it would do you any good to know it. Well, the Bible, as matters went, was not to be had. King, Queen, chaplain, and courtiers, there was not a man nor woman at the table that owned to possessing a Bible.”
“How shocking!” said Phoebe, under her breath.
“Very shocking, my dear,” assented Mrs Dorothy. “But all at once my Lord Rochester cries out, ‘Please your Majesty, I’ll lay you forty shillings there’s one man in this palace that has a Bible! He cut me short for swearing in the yard a month since. That’s old David, your Majesty’s Scots cook. If you’ll send for him—’ ‘Done!’ says the King. ‘Killigrew, root out old Davie, and tell him to come here, and bring his Bible with him.’ So away went Mr Killigrew, the King’s favourite page; and ere long back he comes, and old Davie with him, and under Davie’s arm a great brown book. ‘Here he is, Sire, Bible and all!’ says Mr Killigrew. ‘Come forward, Davie, and be hanged!’ says the King. ‘I’ll come forward, Sire, at your Majesty’s bidding,’ says Davie, ‘and gin ye order it, and I ha’e deservit it, I can be hangit,’ saith he, mighty dry; ’but under your Majesty’s pleasure I’ll just tak’ the liberty to ask, Sire, what are ye wantin’ wi’ the Buik?”
“Oh, how queer you talk, Mrs Dolly!”
“As David talked, my dear. He was a Scot, you know. Well, the King gave a hearty laugh; and says he, ‘Oh, come forward, Davie, and fear nothing. We’ll not hang you, and we want no hurt to your darling book.’ ‘Atweel, Sire,’ says Davie, ‘and I’d ha’e been gey sorry gin ye had meant to hurt my buik, seein’ it was my mither’s, and I set store by it for her sake; but trust me, Sire, I’d ha’e been a hantle sorrier gin ye had meant onie disrespect to the Lord’s Buik. I’ll no stand by, wi’ a’ honour to your Majesty, an’ see I lichtlied.’”
“What does that mean, Mrs Dolly?”
“Set light by, my dear. Well, the King laughed again, but I think Davie’s words a little sobered him, for he spoke kindly enough, that no harm should be done, nor was any disrespect intended; ‘but,’ saith he, ‘my Lord Rochester and I fell a-disputing if certain words were in the Bible or no; and as you are the only man here like to have one, I sent for you.’ Davie looks, quiet enough, round all the table; and he says, under his breath, ‘The only man here like to have a Bible! Ay, your Majesty, I ken weel eneuch that I ha’e my habitation among the tents o’ Kedar. Atweel, Sire, an’ I’ll be pleasit to answer onie sic question, gin ye please to tell me the words.’ My Lord Rochester saith, ‘“Wine, which cheereth God and man.” Are such words as those in the Bible, David?’ Neither yea nor nay said old Davie: but he turned over the leaves of his Bible for a moment, and then, clearing his voice, and first doffing his cook’s cap (which he had but lifted a minute for the King), he read from the Book of Judges, Jotham’s parable of the trees. ’Twas a little while ere any spoke: then said the Queen’s chaplain, swearing a great oath, that he could not but be infinitely surprised to find there to be such words in the Bible.”
“O Mrs Dolly! a parson to swear!”
“There are different sorts of parsons, my dear. But old David thought it shocking, for he turns round to the chaplain, and saith he, ‘Your pardon, Mr Howard, but gin ye’d give me leave, I’d be pleasit to swear the neist oath for ye. It would sound rather better, ye ken, for a cook than a chaplain.’ ‘Hurrah!’ says the King, swearing himself, ‘the sprightliest humour I heard of a long time! Pray you, silence, and hear old Davie swear!’ ‘I see nothing to swear anent the now, an’ it please your Majesty,’ says Davie, mighty dry again: ‘when I do, your Majesty’ll be sure to hear it.’ The King laughed heartily, for he took Davie right enough, though I saw some look puzzled. Of course he never would see reason to do a sinful thing. But a new thought had come into the King’s head, and he turns quick to Mr Howard, and desires that he would give exposition of the words that Davie had read. ‘You ought to know what they mean, if we don’t, poor sinners,’ saith the King. ‘I protest, Sire,’ saith the chaplain, ‘that I cannot so much as guess what they mean.’ ‘Now then, David the divine,’ cries my Lord Rochester, ‘your exposition, if you please.’ And some of the courtiers, that by this time were not too sober, drummed on the table with glasses, and shouted for David’s sermon.”
“I think, Mrs Dolly, that was scarce proper, in the King’s and Queen’s presence.”
“So I think, my dear. But King Charles’s Court was Liberty Hall, and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. But Davie stood very quiet, with the Bible yet open in his hands. He waited his master’s bidding, if they did not. ‘Oh ay, go on, Davie,’ saith the King, leaning back in his chair and laughing. ‘Silence for Mr David Armstrong’s sermon!’ cries my Lord Rochester, in a voice of a master of ceremonies. But Davie took no note of any voice but the King’s, though ’twas to my Lord Rochester he addressed him when he spoke. ‘That wine cheereth man, your Lordship very well knows,’ quoth Davie, in his dry way: and seeing his Lordship had drank a bottle and a half since he sat down, I should think he did, my dears. ‘But this, that wine cheereth God, is referable to the drink-offering commanded by God of the Jews, wherein the wine doth seem to typify the precious blood of Christ, and the thankfulness of him that hath his iniquity thereby purged away. For in the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Numbers you shall find this drink-offering termed “a sweet savour unto the Lord.” And since nothing but Christ is a sweet savour unto God, therefore we judge that the wine of the drink-offering, like to that of the Sacrament, did denote the blood of Christ whereby we are redeemed; the one prefiguring that whereto it looked forward, as the other doth likewise figure that whereunto it looketh back. This, therefore, that wine cheereth God, is to be understood by an emblem, of the blood of Christ, our Mediator; for through this means God is well pleased in the way of salvation that He hath appointed, whereby His justice is satisfied. His law fulfilled, His mercy reigneth, His grace doth triumph, all His perfections do agree together, the sinner is saved, and God in Christ glorified. Now, Sire, I have done your bidding, and I humbly ask your Majesty’s leave to withdraw.’ The King said naught, but cast him a nod of consent. My dears, you never saw such a change as had come over that table. Every man seemed sobered and awed. The Queen was weeping, the King silent and thoughtful. My Lord Rochester, whom at that time nothing could sober long, was the only one to speak, and rising with make-believe gravity, as though in his place in the House of Lords, he offered a motion that the King should please to send Mr Howard into the kitchen to make kail, and raise the Reverend Mr David Armstrong to the place of chaplain.”
“What is kail, Mrs Dolly?” asked Rhoda, laughing.
“’Tis Scots broth, my dear, whereof King Charles was very fond, and old David had been fetched from Scotland on purpose to make it for him.”
“What a droll old man!” exclaimed Rhoda.
“Ah, he was one of the best men ever I knew,” said Mrs Dorothy. “But, my dear, look at the clock!”
“I declare!” cried Rhoda. “Phoebe, we have but just time to run home ere supper, if so much as that. Good evening, Mrs Dolly, and thank you. What will Madam say?”
Note: David Armstrong is a historical person, and this anecdote is true. The surname given to him only is fictitious, as history does not record any name but “David.”