It was not, therefore, unnatural that Maude’s answer should have been,—“But, Master Calverley! so saying you should have no need of our Lady.” She expected Hugh to reply by an indignant denial; and it astounded her no little to hear him quietly accept the unheard-of alternative.
“Do you as you list, Mistress Maude,” he answered. “For me, I am content with our Lord.”
“Well-a-day! methought all pity (piety) lay in worship of our Lady!” said Maude, in that peculiar constrained tone which implies that the speaker feels himself the infinitely distant superior of his antagonist.
“Mistress,” was Hugh’s answer, “I never said that I was content without our Lord. I lack an advocate, to the full as well as any; but Saint Paul saith that ‘oo (one) God and a mediatour is of God and of men, a man, Christ Jesu.’ And methinks he should be a sorry mediator that lacked an advocate himself.”
Avice had lifted her head, and had fixed her eyes intently on Hugh. She had said nothing more; she was learning.
“Likewise saith He,” resumed Hugh, “that ‘no man cometh to the Fadir but by me.’ Again, ‘no man may come to me but if the Fadir that hath sente me drawe him:’ yet ‘all thing that the Fadir gyueth me schal come to me.’”
Avice spoke at last.
“‘All thing given’ and none other? Then without we be given, we may not come. And how shall a man wit so much?”
“Methinks, Madam,” said Hugh, thoughtfully, “that if a man be willing to come, and to give himself, he hath therein witness that he was given of the Father.”
“But to give himself wholly unto God,” added Maude, “signifieth that he shall take no more pleasure in this life?”