Few things are more touching in their way than the fragment of paper containing the poem from which the motto to this chapter is a quotation. Among the dusty business manuscripts of the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, in the oldest division, relating to the affairs of the Priory of Christ Church, were found by the Historical Commission two songs, scribbled on scraps of paper. One was a love-song of the common type, such as, allowing for difference of diction, might be had in any second-rate music-shop of the present day. But the other was of a very different and far higher order. It was the cry of the immured bird which has been forced from its nest in the greenwood, and for which life has no other attraction than to sit mournfully at the door of the cage, looking out to the fair fields, and the blue sky in which it shall stretch its wings no more. None but God will ever know the name or the story of that poor heart-weary monk, torn from all that he loved on earth, who thus “pressed his soul on paper,” one hundred years before the dissolution of the monasteries. We can only hope that through the superincumbent wood, hay, stubble, he dug down to the one Foundation and was safe: that through the dead words of the Latin services he heard the Living Voice calling to all the weary and heavy-laden, and that he too came and found rest.
But to turn to our story.
The days rolled slowly on, undistinguishable from one another save by the practical divisions of baking-day, washing-day, brewing-day, and so forth; and, certainly, not distinguished by any increase of comfort in the outward surroundings of Agnes’s lot. She was trying to do her work heartily, as to the Lord; but it did seem to her that the harder she tried, the harder Mistress Winter was to please; the crosser was Joan, the more satirical was Dorothy. The only sunshine of her life was on those precious Sunday afternoons, when always the tall gaunt figure might be seen ascending the desk in the nave of Saint Paul’s, and, after the reading from Scripture, came a few pithy, fervent words, which Agnes treasured up as very gems. But by-and-by, another gleam of sunlight began to creep into her life.
It was again Sunday afternoon, and the reading in Saint Paul’s was over for that day. But it was too soon to go back to the bosom of that uncongenial household which Agnes called home; for Mistress Winter was generally extra cross—and the ordinary exhibition was enough without the extra—if Agnes presented herself before she was expected. The now deserted steps of the Cross were the only place where she could sit; and accordingly she took refuge there. Not many minutes were over, when she recognised the dark figure of Friar Laurence passing through the churchyard with his usual rapid step. All at once a thought seemed to strike him. He paused, turned, and came straight up to the place where Agnes was seated.
“And how is it with thee, my daughter?” he demanded.
“Well, Father; and I thank you,” said she. “Verily, touching outward things, as aforetime; but touching the inward, methinks the good Lord learneth me somewhat.”
“Be thou an apt scholar,” said he.
Agnes grew desperate, and resolved to plunge into the matter. She was afraid lest he should leave her, with one of his usual rapid movements, before she had got to know what she wanted.
“Father!” she said hastily, crimsoning as she spoke, “pray you, give me leave to demand a thing of you.”
“Ask thy will, my daughter.”