It is well that it should be so. We have abundant cause to thank God that He has hidden the future from us. It is enough for us to know that all things work together for good to them that love Him, to them that are the called according to His purpose.
But very, very mournfully came this year in; for it opened with the loss of Calais. Isoult had dwelt there for two years with Lady Lisle; and there were few places nearer to her heart. Perhaps we can hardly picture to ourselves how nearly that loss touched every English heart. It was as if each man in the land had lost a piece of his estate. Calais belonged to every Englishman.
“Well, my friends in the monastery!” was the greeting of Mr Ferris, “that I promised Underhill I would look to by times. Hath your secluded ear been yet pierced with the tidings this morrow—that be making every man all over London to swear and curse, that loveth not his soul better than his anger?”
“What now?” said John. “Nay, the Courts be not yet opened again, so I have bidden at home.”
“And I am an old man, burdened with an access,” (a fit of the gout) said Dr Thorpe. “Come, out with your news! What platform (Note 5) toucheth it?”
“Every platform in the realm. Have it here—Calais is lost.”
“Calais!” They said no more.
But a vision rose before the eyes of Isoult—of George Bucker in the pulpit of the Lady Church, and Lord and Lady Lisle in the nave below: of the Market Place, where his voice had rung out true and clear: of the Lantern Gate whereon his head had been exposed: of the gallows near Saint Pierre whereon he had died. His voice came back to her, and Lord Lisle’s—both which she had heard last in the Tower, but both which were to her for ever bound up with Calais. Her eyes were swimming, and she could not speak. And before another word had been uttered by any one, the latch was lifted by Philippa Basset.
“There is not a man left in England!” she cried. “Calais had never been lost, had I been there to fire the culverins.”
“No, Madam,” said Mr Ferris (who did not know that she was a Papist). “They have all been burned or beheaded.”