For God and Gold

by Julian Stafford Corbett

Outwardly to his great friends in the county he was still good company. For, not to speak more, because of the honour I bear him, he was a worldly man, and not one to use a shoe-horn to drag ill-fitting opinions on to men of quality, nor in any way to seek a martyr's crown. His chiding and severity were kept for me and his servants and tenants, who were all hard-pressed, though, in truth, not beyond what justice would warrant were mercy laid aside.

It was a hard case for me, because of my mother I had not even a memory. The same hour that I was born she died, leaving my father alone in the world save for me. It was then that he most changed, they told me, but in no respect showed his grief so much as in misliking me.

Yet I think I loved him, for all his chiding and sharpness. Indeed I had so little else to love. At least I know that I was sobbing bitterly when my old nurse came to tell me that his short sickness had come suddenly to an end: for he had but a little time past been seized with a quartan ague, which carried off so many that same glorious year that our great Queen came to her throne.

It was a cold, gray afternoon in January. I was sitting, hungry and forgotten, in my favourite nook in the dim old library. It was an ancient, low room, which my father had left standing when he had rebuilt the rest of the place in the new style soon after he had purchased it. It had been a house of Austin Canons which fell to the lot of some spendthrift courtier in King Henry's time, which gentleman, getting past his depth in my father's books with over much borrowing, was at last driven to release the place to him. So it was that the old monastery became our dwelling, but this, the Canons' refectory, was all that was left of the former buildings.

At one end there was a deep recess, where I could sit and see the dreary darkness settling down on the distant Medway, and the Upchurch Marshes, and the Saltings. It was but a sad prospect at any time in winter, and made me sad, though I would never sit elsewhere with my books. I must have loved it because my father never came to chide me there, and because on that cold stone sill I could sit and sob undisturbed over the sorrows of men long dead, as I now sat sobbing over my own, when Cicely came hurriedly to me.

'The Lord has taken him, Master Jasper,' she cried, as well as her sobs would allow. 'The Lord has taken him, before I could call you to see how sweet an ending he made. God-a-mercy on him, for he was a just and upright gentleman, and one that dallied not with mercy, and died a good Reformation man. Ay, that he did, and would see never a priest of them all, with their hocus-pocus and Jack-in-the-box, and their square caps and their Latins. When the end was coming he cried out, "God-a-mercy on me and all usurers," once or twice he did, for the usurers seemed to trouble him. So I opened the windows, and bade him not trouble himself with the rogues at such a time, but get on sweetly with his dying. That was a comfort to him, I know, for he grew quiet then, and passed away with but one more cry for mercy on them. May the rogues be better for a good man's prayers, that he shall pray no more! For 'tis all passed, 'tis all passed; and you are Squire of Longdene now, Master Jasper; and maybe your worship would like to see how your father lies.'

I dried my tears then, for I had been dreading the summons to see him die, and felt glad that I was spared the sight. I was able to follow Cicely into the great chamber where he lay, and look bravely for the last time on the wise, hard face.

It was when I came out that I felt indeed my life had begun. For there stood old Miles, our steward, who had married my nurse, bowing respectfully.

'A wise man has gone this day, sir,' he said, 'and a godly and a rich. May the Lord in His mercy give your worship strength to bear his loss and walk in his footsteps.'

It lifted me up strangely to hear him speak thus; for I was but fourteen years old, and had never been called 'your worship' before, except sometimes on Saturdays by the Medway fisher lads, who knew I had groats in my wallet then. To hear Miles thus call me was a thing I could hardly understand. He who had barely a word for me, except to scold when he caught me bird-nesting in the orchard, or swear after me in breathless chase when I flew my hawk at his pigeons, as happened more than once when Harry came to see me and my father was away.