There was a sad sight at the gate,—a whole multitude of wretched-looking beggars, and poor of all ages and degrees of misery, who all held out their hands and raised one cry of "Alms, alms, gracious Lady, alms, for the love of heaven!"
Mary looked round on them with tearful eyes, and exclaimed, "Alack, good folk, I have nothing to give you! I am as much a beggar as yourselves!"
The escort dispersed them roughly, Paulett assuring her that they were nothing but "a sort of idle folk," who were only encouraged in laziness by her bounty, which was very possibly true of a certain proportion of them, but it had been a sore grief to her that since Cuthbert Langston's last approach in disguise she had been prevented from giving alms.
In due time Chartley was reached, and the first thing the Queen did on dismounting was to hurry to visit poor Barbara Curll, who had—on her increasing illness—been removed to one of the guest-chambers, where the Queen now found her, still in much distress about her husband, who was in close imprisonment in Walsingham's house, and had not been allowed to send her any kind of message; and in still more immediate anxiety about her new-born infant, who did not look at all as if its little life would last many hours.
She lifted up her languid eyelids, and scarcely smiled when the Queen declared, "See, Barbara, I am come back again to you, to nurse you and my god-daughter into health to receive your husband again. Nay, have no fears for him. They cannot hurt him. He has done nothing, and is a Scottish subject beside. My son shall write to claim him," she declared with such an assumed air of confidence that a shade of hope crossed the pale face, and the fear for her child became the more pressing of the two griefs.
"We will christen her at once," said Mary, turning to the nearest attendant. "Bear a request from me to Sir Amias that his chaplain may come at once and baptize my god-child."
Sir Amias was waiting in the gallery in very ill-humour at the Queen's delay, which kept his supper waiting. Moreover, his party had a strong dislike to private baptism, holding that the important point was the public covenant made by responsible persons, and the notion of the sponsorship of a Roman Catholic likewise shocked him. So he made ungracious answer that he would have no baptism save in church before the congregation, with true Protestant gossips.
"So saith he?" exclaimed Mary, when the reply was reported to her. "Nay, my poor little one, thou shalt not be shut out of the Kingdom of Heaven for his churlishness." And taking the infant on her knee, she dipped her hand in the bowl of water that had been prepared for the chaplain, and baptized it by her own name of Mary.
The existing Prayer-book had been made expressly to forbid lay baptism and baptism by women, at the special desire of the reformers, and Sir Amias was proportionately horrified, and told her it was an offence for the Archbishop's court.
"Very like," said Mary. "Your Protestant courts love to slay both body and soul. Will it please you to open my own chambers to me, sir?"