"I must have speech of his Grace, and I think I see my way there," said my uncle. "I have brought him a token from a Flemish lord, a friend of his, and a small offering on mine own account. I will see him, and lay the matter before him. His nobleness is well-known as a protector of the oppressed children of God. I will go back to London to-morrow, and do you remain here till you have certain news from us."
I told him what his Grace had said about sending the ring.
"That is well thought of. I will take the best counsel on the matter, and, meantime, keep you quiet and trust that all will yet be well."
We talked and talked till the stroke of three from the church-tower warned us it was time to part. Master Yates was awakened and we separated. The farmer and myself made our way home while the first streaks of dawn were reddening the Eastern sky, and reached the farmhouse door without meeting any body.
"Now, go you to rest, my young lady, and trust my dame to make your excuses," said the good man. "It is not very healthful for young maids to breathe the night air."
I went to my room, but not to rest. I had something to settle before I could sleep. The bitterest drop in my cup had been the feeling that I had been guilty of a great and dreadful sin in loving Walter, because he was a priest. Such a love, I had been taught to think, was a horrible sacrilege. It had been a misery to me that, try as I would, I could not feel such contrition as I thought my wickedness demanded, and I had at times been tempted to think myself abandoned of Heaven for this reason. My uncle's words concerning Katherine's marriage had thrown a gleam of light upon the matter. It was like a sun-blink to a traveler lost among fogs and fens. It seemed to show me for one moment the safe path, and I could not rest till I made the matter sure.
That day I read the New Testament straight through from beginning to end, and when, at midnight, I laid it down and sought my much needed rest, it was with the comfortable conviction that though my love for Walter was hopeless, there was no guilt in it—that I might even (though with due submission to His will) ask my Heavenly Father for His blessing thereon. And then, even though we never met in this world again, was there not that other home in the Paradise of God? I do not think any one now can estimate the weight which that reading took from my heart and conscience. I wondered how I could have been so blinded, having before mine eyes the facts—that St. Peter and St. James, and other apostles were married, and took their wives with them on their apostolic journeys—that Paul asserted his right to do the same if he found it convenient, and that he permitted, if he did not absolutely commend, the new bishops of the Church should be married men.
Oh, it is an evil and bitter thing to burden tender consciences by making that to be sin which God never made so, and they will have much to answer for who do it. Neither is it a thing confined to Papists. There are people in these days who make as much of a young maid's wearing of a starched ruff, or a farthingale, or reading a chapter of Master Sidney's "Arcadia"—yea, of keeping of Christmas, or eating of pancakes on a Shrove Tuesday—as ever Mother Joanna did of not believing in the jaw-bone of St. Lawrence.
Master Stubbes his new book, which Philippa sent me last week, is a fine example of this kind of sin-making. Marry, she swallows every word of it, and one might as well laugh at the Miracle of Cana as at the tale of the black cat found in the coffin of the poor young lady which was "setting of great ruffs and frizzing of hair to the great feare and trouble of believers." *
* See Phillip Stubbes' "Anatomic of Abuses." This wonderful tale is quoted at length in Dr. Drake's excellent and agreeable book, "Shakespeare and His Times."