“Christ save all here!” said the priest, holding up three fingers in the style of benediction peculiar to his Order.
Taking no further notice of Agnes, he marched within, to be cordially welcomed, and his blessing begged, by Mistress Winter and Dorothy; for Joan was gone to see the bear-baiting in Southwark.
Father Dan was a priest of the popular type—florid, fat, and jovial. His penances were light and easy to those who had it in their power to ask him to dinner, or to make gifts to his Order. It might be that they were all the harder to those from whom such favours were not expected.
The Cordelier took his seat at the supper-table just laid by Dorothy, this being an easy and dainty style of work in which that young lady condescended to employ her delicate hands. Mistress Winter was busily occupied with a skillet containing some savoury compound, and the Friar’s eyes twinkled with expectant gastronomic delight as he watched the proceedings of his hostess. Supper being at last ready, the three prepared to do justice to it, while Agnes waited upon them. A golden flood of buttered eggs was poured upon the dish in front of the Friar, a cherry pie stood before Dorothy, while Mistress Winter, her sleeves rolled up, and her widow’s barb (Note 2) laid aside because of the heat, was energetically attacking some ribs of beef.
“Had Joan no purpose to be back for supper, Doll?” demanded her mother.
“Nay,” said Dorothy; “Mall Whitelock bade her to supper in Long Lane. I heard them discoursing of the same.”
“And what news abroad, Father?” asked Mistress Winter. “Pray you, give me leave to help you to another shive of the beef. Agnes, thou lither (wicked) jade, whither hast set the mustard?”
Father Dan’s news was of a minute type. He was no intellectual philosopher, no profound conspirator; he was indeed slightly interested in the advancement of the Church, and much more deeply so in that of his own particular Order; but beyond this, his mind was one of those which dwell rather on the game season than the government of the country, and was likely to feel more pleasure in an enormous gooseberry, or a calf with two heads, than in the outbreak of a European war, or the discovery of an unknown continent. The great subject in his mind at the moment was starch. Somebody—Father Dan regretted that he was not able to name him—had discovered the means of manufacturing a precious liquid, which would impart various colours, and indescribable powers of standing alone, to any texture of linen, lawn, or lace.
“Good heart! what labour it shall save!” cried lazy Dorothy—who did assist in the more delicate parts of the household washing, but shirked as much of it as she could.
“Ay, and set you off, belike, Mistress Doll,” added the complimentary Friar. “As for us, poor followers of Saint Francis, no linen alloweth us our Rule, so that little of the new matter is like to come our way. They of Saint Dominic shall cheapen well the same (buy plenty of it), I reckon,” he added, with a contemptuous curl of his lip, intended for the rival Order.