“Why, she signed because we did, like a dutiful maid as she is alway: and it was our faults, Margaret. May God forgive us!”
“Well, but after all, it wasn’t so very ill, was it?” asked Margaret, rather inconsistently with what she had said before: but people are not always consistent by any means. “Did you promise anything monstrous wrong? I thought it was only to live as became good Christians and faithful subjects.”
“Nay, Meg, it was more than that. We promised right solemnly to submit us to the Church in all matters, and specially in this, that we did believe the Sacrament to be Christ’s body, according to His words.”
“Why, so do we all believe,” said Margaret, “according to His words. Have you forgot the tale Father Tye did once tell us at the King’s Head, of my Lady Elizabeth the Queen’s sister, that when she was asked what she did believe touching the Sacrament, she made this answer?
“‘Christ was the Word that spake it,
He took the bread, and brake it;
And what that word did make it,
That I believe, and take it.’”
“That was a bit crafty, methinks,” said Rose. “I love not such shifts. I would rather speak out my mind plainly.”
“Ay, but if you speak too plainly, you be like to find you in the wrong place,” answered Margaret.
“That would not be the wrong place wherein truth set me,” was Rose’s earnest answer. “That were never the wrong place wherein God should be my company. And if the fire were too warm for my weakness to bear, the holy angels should maybe fan me with their wings till I came to the covert of His Tabernacle.”
“Well, that’s all proper pretty,” said Margaret, “and like a book as ever the parson could talk: but I tell thee what, Rose Allen, thou’lt sing another tune if ever thou come to Smithfield. See if thou doesn’t.”
And Rose answered, “‘The word that God putteth in my mouth, that will I speak.’”