Chapter Eight.

Chapter Eight.Thekla comes to the Rescue.“It were a well-spent journey,Though seven deaths lay between.”A.R. Cousins.“Lysken, didst thou ever love any one very much?”Blanche spoke dreamily, as she stood leaning against the side of the window in the parsonage parlour, and with busy idleness tied knots in her gold chain, which at once untied themselves by their own weight.“Most truly,” said Lysken, looking up with an expression of surprise. “I love all here—very much.”“Ah! but—not here?”“Certes. I loved Mayken Floriszoon, who died at Leyden, the day after help came. And I loved Aunt Jacobine; and Vrouw Van Vliet, who took care of me before I came hither. And I loved—O Blanche, how dearly!—my father and my mother.”Blanche’s ideas were running in one grove, and Lysken’s in quite a different one.“Ay, but I mean, Lysken—another sort of love.”“Another sort!” said Lysken, looking up again from the stocking which she was darning. “Is there any sort but one?”“Oh ay!” responded Blanche, feeling her experience immeasurably past that of Lysken.“Thou art out of my depth, Blanche, methinks,” said Lysken, re-threading her needle in a practical unromantic way. “Love is love, for me. It differeth, of course, in degree; we love not all alike. But, methinks, even a man’s love for God, though it be needs deeper and higher far, must yet be the same manner of love that he hath for his father, or his childre, or his friends. I see not how it can be otherwise.”Blanche was shocked at the business-like style in which Lysken darned while she talked. Had such a question been asked of herself, the stocking would have stood still till it was settled. She doubted whether to pursue the subject. What was the use of talking upon thrilling topics to a girl who could darn stockings while she calmly analysed love? Still, she wanted somebody’s opinion; and she had an instinctive suspicion that Clare would be no improvement upon her cousin.“Well, but,” she said hesitatingly, “there is another fashion of love, Lysken. The sort that a woman hath toward her husband.”“That is deeper, I guess, than she hath for her father and mother, else would she not leave them to go with him,” said Lysken quietly; “but I see not wherein it should be another sort.”“’Tis plain thou didst never feel the same, Lysken,” returned Blanche sentimentally.“How could I, when I never had an husband?” answered Lysken, darning away tranquilly.“But didst thou never come across any that—that thou shouldst fain—”“Shouldst fain—what?” said Lysken, as Blanche paused.“Shouldst have liked to wed,” said Blanche, plunging into the matter.“Gramercy, nay!” replied Lysken, turning the stocking to look at the other side. “And I should have thought shame if I had.”Blanche felt this speech a reflection on herself.“Lysken!” she cried pettishly.Lysken put down the stocking, and looked at Blanche.“What meanest thou?” she inquired, in a plain matter-of-fact style which was extremely aggravating to that young lady.“Oh, ’tis to no good to tell thee,” returned Blanche loftily. “Thou wist nought at all thereabout.”“Whatabout?” demanded Lysken, to whom Blanche was unintelligible.“About nought. Let be!”“I cannot tell wherefore thou art vexed, Blanche,” said Lysken, resuming her darning, in that calm style which is eminently provoking to any one in a passion.“Thou seest not every matter in the world,” retorted Blanche, with an air of superiority. “And touching this matter, ’tis plain thou wist nothing. Verily, thou hast gain therein; for he that hath bettered knowledge—as saith Solomon—hath but increased sorrow.”“Blanche, I do not know whereof thou art talking! Did I put thee out by saying I had thought shame to have cared to wed with any, or what was it? Why, wouldst not thou?”This final affront was as the last straw to the camel. Deigning no answer, which she felt would be an angry one, Blanche marched away like an offended queen, and sat down on a chair in the hall as if she were enthroning herself upon a pedestal. Mrs Tremayne was in the hall, and the door into the parlour being open, she had heard the conversation. She made no allusion to it at the time, but tried to turn the girl’s thoughts to another topic. Gathering from it, however, the tone of Blanche’s mind, she resolved to give her a lesson which should not eject her roughly from her imaginary pedestal—but make her come down from it of her own accord.“Poor foolish child!” said Mrs Tremayne to herself. “She has mistaken a rushlight for the sun, and she thinks her horizon wider than that of any one else. She is despising Lysken, at this moment, as a shallow, prosaic character, who cannot enter into the depth of her feelings, and has not attained the height of her experience. And there are heights and depths in Lysken that Blanche will never reach.”Mrs Tremayne found her opportunity the next evening. She was alone with Blanche in the parlour; and knowing pretty well what every one was doing, she anticipated a quiet half-hour.Of all the persons to whom Blanche was known, there was not one so well fitted to deal with her in this crisis as the friend in whose hands she had been placed for safety. Thirty years before, Thekla Tremayne had experienced a very dark trial,—had become miserably familiar with the heart-sickness of hope deferred,—during four years when the best beloved of Robin Tremayne had known no certainty whether he was living or dead, but had every reason rather to fear the latter. Compared with a deep, long-tried love like hers, this sentimental fancy over which Blanche was making herself cross and unhappy was almost trivial. But Mrs Tremayne knew that trouble is trouble, if it be based on folly; she thought that she recognised in Blanche, silly though she was in some points, a nobler nature than that of the vain, selfish, indolent mother from whom the daughter derived many of the surface features of her character: and she longed to see that nobler nature rouse itself to work, and sweep away the outward vanity and giddiness. It might be that even this would show her the real hollowness of the gilded world; that this one hour’s journey over the weary land would help to drive her for shelter to the shadow of the great Rock.Blanche sat on a low stool at Mrs Tremayne’s feet, gazing earnestly into the fire. Neither had spoken for some time, during which the only sounds were the slight movements of Mrs Tremayne as she sat at work, and now and then a heavy sigh from Blanche. When the fifth of these was drawn, the lady gently laid her hand on the girl’s head.“Apothecaries say, Blanche, that sighing shorteneth life.”Blanche looked up. “I reckon you count me but a fool, Mistress Tremayne, as do all other.”“Blanche,” said her friend, “I will tell thee a story, and after that thou shall judge for thyself what account I make of thee.”Blanche looked interested, and altered her position so as to watch Mrs Tremayne’s face while she was speaking.“Once upon a time, Blanche,—in the days of Queen Mary,—there was a priest that had a daughter of thine own age—sixteen years. In those days, as I cast no doubt thou hast heard, all wedded priests were laid under ban, and at the last a day was set whereon all they must needs part from their wives. Though my story take root ere this, yet I pray thee bear it in mind, for we shall come thereto anon. Well, this damsel, with assent of her father, was troth-plight unto a young man whom she loved very dearly; but seeing her youth, their wedding was yet some way off. In good sooth, her father had given assent under bond that they should not wed for three years; and the three years should be run out in June, 1553.”“Three years!” said Blanche, under her breath.“This young man was endeavouring himself for the priesthood. During the time of King Edward, thou wist, there was no displeasure taken at married priests; and so far as all they might see when the three years began to run, all was like to go smooth enough. But when they were run out, all England was trembling with fear, and men took much thought (felt much anxiety) for the future. King Edward lay on his dying bed; and there was good reason—ah! more reason than any man then knew!—to fear that the fair estate of such as loved the Gospel should die with him. For a maid then to wed a priest, or for a wedded man to receive orders, was like to a man casting him among wild beasts: there was but a chance that he might not be devoured. So it stood, that if this young man would save his life, he must give up one of two things,—either the service which for many months back he had in his own heart offered to God, or the maiden whom, for a time well-nigh as long, he had hoped should be his wife. What, thinkest thou, should he have done, Blanche?”“I wis not, in very deed, Mistress Tremayne,” said Blanche, shaking her head. “I guess he should have given up rather her,—but I know not. Methinks it had been sore hard to give up either. And they were troth-plight.”“Well,—I will tell thee what they did. They did appoint a set time, at the end whereof, should he not then have received orders (it being not possible, all the Protestant Bishops being prisoners), he should then resign the hope thereof, and they twain be wed. The three years, thou wist, were then gone. They fixed the time two years more beyond,—to run out in August, 1555—which should make five years’ waiting in all.”“And were they wed then?” said Blanche, drawing a long breath.“When the two further years were run out, Blanche—”Blanche was a little startled to hear how Mrs Tremayne’s voice trembled. She was evidently telling “an owre true tale.”“The maid’s father, and he that should have been her husband, were taken in one day. When those two years were run out, her father lay hidden away, having ’scaped from prison, until he might safely be holpen out of the country over seas: and the young man was a captive in Exeter Castle, and in daily expectation of death.”“Good lack!”“And two years thereafter, the young man was had away from Exeter unto Woburn, and there set in the dread prison called Little Ease, shaped like to a funnel, wherein a man might neither stand, nor sit, nor lie, nor kneel.”“O Mistress Tremayne! Heard any ever the like! And what came of the maiden, poor soul?”The needlework in Mrs Tremayne’s hand was still now; and if any one had been present who had known her thirty years before, he would have said that a shadow of her old look at that terrible time had come back to her deep sweet eyes.“My child, God allowed her to be brought very low. At the first, she was upheld mightily by His consolations: and they that saw her said how well she bare it. But ’tis not alway the first blush of a sorrow that trieth the heart most sorely. And there came after this a time—when it was an old tale to them that knew her, and their comforting was given over,—a day came when all failed her. Nay, I should have said rather, all seemed to fail her. God failed her not; but her eyes were holden, and she saw Him not beside her. It was darkness, an horror of great darkness, that fell upon her. The Devil came close enough; he was very busy with her. Was there any hope? quoth he. Nay, none, or but very little. Then of what worth were God’s promises to hear and deliver? He had passed His word, and He kept it not. Was God able to help?—was He true to His promise?—go to, was there any God in Heaven at all? And so, Blanche, she was tossed to and fro on the swelling billows, now up, seeing a faint ray of light, now down, in the depth of the darkness: yet, through all, with an half-palsied grasp, so to speak, upon the hem of Christ’s garment, a groping after Him with numb hands that scarce felt whether they held or no. O Blanche, it was like the plague in the land of Egypt—it was darkness that might be felt!”Blanche listened in awed interest.“Dear heart, the Lord hath passed word to help His people in their need; but He saith not any where that He will alway help them right as they would have it. We be prone to think there is but one fashion of help, and that if we be not holpen after our own manner, we be not holpen at all. Yet, if thou take a penny from a poor beggar, and give him in the stead thereof an angel (half-sovereign), thou hast given him alms, though he have lost the penny. Alas, for us poor beggars! we fall to weeping o’er our penny till our eyes be too dim with tears to see the gold of God’s alms. Dear Blanche, I would not have thee miss the gold.”“I scantly conceive your meaning, dear Mistress.”“We will come back to that anon. I will first tell thee what befel her of whom I spake.”“Ay, I would fain hear the rest.”“Well, there were nigh four years of that fearful darkness. She well-nigh forgat that God might have some better thing in store for her, to the which He was leading her all the time, along this weary road. She thought He dealt hardly with her. At times, when the darkness was at the thickest, she fancied that all might be a delusion: that there was no God at all, or none that had any compassion upon men. But it was not His meaning, to leave one of His own in that black pit of despair. He lifted one end of the dark veil. When the four years were over,—that is, when Queen Elizabeth, that now is, happily succeeded to her evil sister,—God gave the maiden back her father safe.”Blanche uttered a glad “Oh!”“And He gave her more than that, Blanche. He sent her therewith a message direct from Himself. Thou lookest on me somewhat doubtfully, dear heart, as though thou shouldst say, Angels bring no wolds from Heaven now o’ days. Well, in very sooth, I wis not whether they do or no. We see them not: can we speak more boldly than to say this? Yet one thing I know, Blanche: God can send messages to His childre in their hearts, howso they may come. And what was this word? say thine eyes. Well, sweeting, it was the softest of all the chidings that we hear Him to have laid on His disciples,—‘O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?’ As though He should say,—‘Thou mightest have doubted of the fulfilling of thy special hope; yet wherefore doubtMe? Would I have taken pleasure in bereaving thee of aught that was not hurtful? Could I not have given thee much more than this? Because I made thine heart void, that I might fill it with Myself,—child, did I love thee less, or more?’”Mrs Tremayne paused so long, that Blanche asked timidly—“And did he come again at last, or no?”A slight, sudden movement of her friend’s head showed that her thoughts were far away, and that she came back to the present with something like an effort.“Methinks, dear heart,” Mrs Tremayne said lovingly, “there was a special point whereto God did desire to bring this maiden;—a point whereat He oft-times aimeth in the training of His childre. It is, to be satisfied with His will. Not only to submit thereto. Thou mayest submit unto all outward seeming, and yet be sore dissatisfied.”Was not this Blanche’s position at that moment?“But to be satisfied with His ordering—to receive it as the best thing, dearer unto thee than thine own will and way; as the one thing which thou wouldst have done, at the cost, if need be, of all other:—ah, Blanche, ’tis no light nor easy thing, this! And unto this God led her of whom I have been telling thee. He led her, till she could look up to Him, and say, with a true, honest heart—‘Father, lead where Thou wilt. If in the dark, well: so Thou hold me, I am content I am Thine, body, and soul, and spirit: it shall be well and blessed for me, if but Thy will be done.’ And then, Blanche,—when she could look up and say this in sincerity—then He laid down His rod, and gave all back into her bosom.”Blanche drew a deep sigh,—partly of relief, but not altogether.“You knew this maiden your own self, Mrs Tremayne?”“Wouldst thou fain know whom the maid were, Blanche? Her name was—Thekla Rose.”“Mistress Tremayne!—yourself?”“Myself, dear heart. And I should not have gone back over this story now, but that I thought it might serve thee to hear it. I love not to look back to that time, though it were to mine own good. ’Tis like an ill wound which is healed, and thou hast no further suffering thereof: yet the scar is there for evermore. And yet, dear Blanche, if it were given me to choose, now, whether I would have that dark and weary time part of my life, or no—reckoning what I should have lost without it—I would say once again, Ay. They that know the sweetness of close walking with God will rather grope, step by step, at His side through the darkness, than walk smoothly in the full glare of the sun without Him: and very street was my walk, when I had won back the felt holding of His hand.”“But is He not with them in the sunlight?” asked Blanche shyly.“He is alway with them, dear heart: but we see his light clearest when other lights are out. And we be so prone to walk further off in the daylight!—we see so many things beside Him. We would fain be running off after birds and butterflies; fain be filling our hands with bright flowers by the way: and we picture not rightly to ourselves that these things are but to cheer us on as we step bravely forward, for there will be flowers enough when we reach Home.”Blanche looked earnestly into the red embers, and was silent.“Seest thou now, Blanche, what I meant in saying, I would not have thee miss the gold?”“I reckon you mean that God hath somewhat to give, better than what He taketh away.”“Right, dear heart. Ah, how much better! Yet misconceive me not, my child. We do not buy Heaven with afflictions; never think that, Blanche. There be many that have made that blunder. Nay! the beggar buyeth not thy gold with his penny piece. Christ hath bought Heaven for His chosen: it is the purchase of His blood; and nothing else in all the world could have paid for it. But they that shall see His glory yonder, must be fitted for it here below; and oft-times God employeth sorrows and cares to this end.—And now, Blanche, canst answer thine own question, and tell me what I think of thee?”Blanche blushed scarlet.“I am afeared,” she said, hanging down her head, “you must think me but a right silly child.”Mrs Tremayne stroked Blanche’s hair, with a little laugh.“I think nothing very ill of thee, dear child. But I do think thou hast made a blunder or twain.”“What be they?” Blanche wished to know, more humbly than she would have done that morning.“Well, dear Blanche—firstly, I think thou hast mistaken fancy for love. There be many that so do. Many think they love another, when in truth all they do love is themselves and their own pleasures, or the flattering of their own vain conceits. Ask thine own heart what thou lovest in thy lover: is it him, or his liking for thyself? If it be but the latter, that is not love, Blanche. ’Tis but fancy, which is to love as the waxen image to the living man. Love would have him it loveth bettered at her own cost: it would fain see him higher and nobler—I mean not higher in men’s eyes, but nearer Heaven and God—whatever were the price to herself. True love will go with us into Heaven, Blanche: it can never die, nor be forgotten. Remember the word of John the Apostle, that ‘he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.’ And wouldst thou dare to apply that holy and heavenly name unto some vain fancy that shall be as though it had never been six months thereafter? My child, we men and women be verily guilty concerning this matter. We take the name of that which is the very essence of God, and set it lightly on a thing of earth and time, the which shall perish in the using. Well, and there is another mistake, sweet, which I fear thou mayest have made. It may be thou art thinking wrongfully of thine earthly father, as I did of my heavenly One. He dealeth with thee hardly, countest thou? Well, it may be so; yet it is to save thee from that which should be much harder. Think no ill of the father who loveth thee and would fain save thee. And, O Blanche! howsoever He may deal with thee, never, never do thou think hardly of that heavenly Father, who loveth thee far dearer than he, and would save thee from far bitterer woe.”Blanche had looked very awe-struck when Mrs Tremayne spoke so solemnly of the real nature of love; and now she raised tearful eyes to her friend’s face.“I thought none ill of my father, Mistress Tremayne. I wis well he loveth me.”“That is well, dear heart. I am fain it should be so.”And there the subject dropped rather abruptly, as first Clare, and then Arthur, came into the room.Don Juan did not appear to: miss Blanche, after the first day. When he found that she and her father and sister were absent from the supper-table, he looked round with some surprise and a little perplexity; but he asked no question, and no one volunteered an explanation. He very soon found a new diversion, in the shape of Lucrece, to whom he proceeded to address his flowery language with even less sincerity than he had done to Blanche. But no sooner did Sir Thomas perceive this turn of affairs than he took the earliest opportunity of sternly demanding of his troublesome prisoner “what he meant?”Don Juan professed entire ignorance of the purport of this question. Sir Thomas angrily explained.“Nay, Señor, what would you?” inquired the young Spaniard, with an air of injured innocence. “An Andalusian gentleman, wheresoever he may be, and in what conditions, must always show respect to the ladies.”“Respect!” cried the enraged squire. “Do Spanish gentlemen call such manner of talk showing respect? Thank Heaven that I was born in England! Sir, when an English gentleman carries himself toward a young maiden as you have done, he either designs to win her in honourable wedlock, or he is a villain. Which are you?”“If we were in Spain, Señor,” answered Don Juan, fire flashing from his dark eyes, “you would answer those words with your sword. But since I am your prisoner, and have no such remedy, I must be content with a reply in speech. The customs of your land are different from ours. I will even condescend to say that I am, and for divers years have so been, affianced to a lady of mine own country. Towards theseñoritasyour daughters, I have shown but common courtesy, as it is understood in Spain.”In saying which, Don Juan stated what was delicately termed by Swift’s Houynhnms, “the thing which is not.” Of what consequence was it in his eyes, when the Council of Constance had definitively decreed that “no faith was to be kept with heretics”?Sir Thomas Enville was less given to the use of profane language than most gentlemen of his day, but in answer to this speech he swore roundly, and—though a staunch Protestant—thanked all the saints and angels that he never was in Spain, and, the Queen’s Highness’ commands excepted, never would be. As to his daughters, he would prefer turning them all into Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace to allowing one of them to set foot on the soil of that highly objectionable country. These sentiments were couched in the most peppery language of which the Squire’s lips were well capable; and having thus delivered himself, he turned on his heel and left Don Juan to his own meditations.Thatcaballerospeedily discovered that he had addressed his last compliment to any of the young ladies at Enville Court. Henceforward he only saw them at meals, and then he found himself, much to his discomfiture, placed between Jack and Mistress Rachel. To pay delicate attentions to the latter was sheer waste of frankincense: yet it was so much in his nature, when speaking to a woman, that he began to tell her that she talked like an angel. Mistress Rachel looked him full in the face.“Don John,” said she, in the most unmoved manner, “if I believed you true, I should call on my brother to put you forth of the hall. As I believe you false, I do it not.”After that day, Don Juan directed all his conversation to Jack.He was not very sorry to leave Enville Court, which had become no longer an amusing, but an uncomfortable place. In his eyes, it was perfectly monstrous that any man should object to his daughters being honoured by the condescending notice of an Andalusian gentleman, who would one day be a grandee of the first class; utterly preposterous! But since this unreasonable man was so absurd as to object to the distinction, conferred upon his house, it was as well that an Andalusian gentleman should be out of his sphere. So Don Juan went willingly to London. Friends of his parents made suit for him, and Elizabeth herself remembered his mother, as one who had done her several little kindnesses, such as a Lady-in-Waiting on the Queen could do for a Princess under a cloud; and Don Juan received a free pardon, and leave to return home when and as he would. He only broke one more heart while he remained in England; and that was beneath any regret on his part, being only a poor, insignificant grocer’s daughter. And then he sailed for Spain; and then he married Doña Lisarda; and then he became a Lord-in-Waiting; and then he lived a wealthy, gorgeous, prosperous life; and then all men spoke well of him, seeing how much good he had done to himself; and then he grew old,—a highly respected, highly self-satisfied man.And then his soul was required of him. Did God say to him,—“Thou fool”?

“It were a well-spent journey,Though seven deaths lay between.”A.R. Cousins.

“It were a well-spent journey,Though seven deaths lay between.”A.R. Cousins.

“Lysken, didst thou ever love any one very much?”

Blanche spoke dreamily, as she stood leaning against the side of the window in the parsonage parlour, and with busy idleness tied knots in her gold chain, which at once untied themselves by their own weight.

“Most truly,” said Lysken, looking up with an expression of surprise. “I love all here—very much.”

“Ah! but—not here?”

“Certes. I loved Mayken Floriszoon, who died at Leyden, the day after help came. And I loved Aunt Jacobine; and Vrouw Van Vliet, who took care of me before I came hither. And I loved—O Blanche, how dearly!—my father and my mother.”

Blanche’s ideas were running in one grove, and Lysken’s in quite a different one.

“Ay, but I mean, Lysken—another sort of love.”

“Another sort!” said Lysken, looking up again from the stocking which she was darning. “Is there any sort but one?”

“Oh ay!” responded Blanche, feeling her experience immeasurably past that of Lysken.

“Thou art out of my depth, Blanche, methinks,” said Lysken, re-threading her needle in a practical unromantic way. “Love is love, for me. It differeth, of course, in degree; we love not all alike. But, methinks, even a man’s love for God, though it be needs deeper and higher far, must yet be the same manner of love that he hath for his father, or his childre, or his friends. I see not how it can be otherwise.”

Blanche was shocked at the business-like style in which Lysken darned while she talked. Had such a question been asked of herself, the stocking would have stood still till it was settled. She doubted whether to pursue the subject. What was the use of talking upon thrilling topics to a girl who could darn stockings while she calmly analysed love? Still, she wanted somebody’s opinion; and she had an instinctive suspicion that Clare would be no improvement upon her cousin.

“Well, but,” she said hesitatingly, “there is another fashion of love, Lysken. The sort that a woman hath toward her husband.”

“That is deeper, I guess, than she hath for her father and mother, else would she not leave them to go with him,” said Lysken quietly; “but I see not wherein it should be another sort.”

“’Tis plain thou didst never feel the same, Lysken,” returned Blanche sentimentally.

“How could I, when I never had an husband?” answered Lysken, darning away tranquilly.

“But didst thou never come across any that—that thou shouldst fain—”

“Shouldst fain—what?” said Lysken, as Blanche paused.

“Shouldst have liked to wed,” said Blanche, plunging into the matter.

“Gramercy, nay!” replied Lysken, turning the stocking to look at the other side. “And I should have thought shame if I had.”

Blanche felt this speech a reflection on herself.

“Lysken!” she cried pettishly.

Lysken put down the stocking, and looked at Blanche.

“What meanest thou?” she inquired, in a plain matter-of-fact style which was extremely aggravating to that young lady.

“Oh, ’tis to no good to tell thee,” returned Blanche loftily. “Thou wist nought at all thereabout.”

“Whatabout?” demanded Lysken, to whom Blanche was unintelligible.

“About nought. Let be!”

“I cannot tell wherefore thou art vexed, Blanche,” said Lysken, resuming her darning, in that calm style which is eminently provoking to any one in a passion.

“Thou seest not every matter in the world,” retorted Blanche, with an air of superiority. “And touching this matter, ’tis plain thou wist nothing. Verily, thou hast gain therein; for he that hath bettered knowledge—as saith Solomon—hath but increased sorrow.”

“Blanche, I do not know whereof thou art talking! Did I put thee out by saying I had thought shame to have cared to wed with any, or what was it? Why, wouldst not thou?”

This final affront was as the last straw to the camel. Deigning no answer, which she felt would be an angry one, Blanche marched away like an offended queen, and sat down on a chair in the hall as if she were enthroning herself upon a pedestal. Mrs Tremayne was in the hall, and the door into the parlour being open, she had heard the conversation. She made no allusion to it at the time, but tried to turn the girl’s thoughts to another topic. Gathering from it, however, the tone of Blanche’s mind, she resolved to give her a lesson which should not eject her roughly from her imaginary pedestal—but make her come down from it of her own accord.

“Poor foolish child!” said Mrs Tremayne to herself. “She has mistaken a rushlight for the sun, and she thinks her horizon wider than that of any one else. She is despising Lysken, at this moment, as a shallow, prosaic character, who cannot enter into the depth of her feelings, and has not attained the height of her experience. And there are heights and depths in Lysken that Blanche will never reach.”

Mrs Tremayne found her opportunity the next evening. She was alone with Blanche in the parlour; and knowing pretty well what every one was doing, she anticipated a quiet half-hour.

Of all the persons to whom Blanche was known, there was not one so well fitted to deal with her in this crisis as the friend in whose hands she had been placed for safety. Thirty years before, Thekla Tremayne had experienced a very dark trial,—had become miserably familiar with the heart-sickness of hope deferred,—during four years when the best beloved of Robin Tremayne had known no certainty whether he was living or dead, but had every reason rather to fear the latter. Compared with a deep, long-tried love like hers, this sentimental fancy over which Blanche was making herself cross and unhappy was almost trivial. But Mrs Tremayne knew that trouble is trouble, if it be based on folly; she thought that she recognised in Blanche, silly though she was in some points, a nobler nature than that of the vain, selfish, indolent mother from whom the daughter derived many of the surface features of her character: and she longed to see that nobler nature rouse itself to work, and sweep away the outward vanity and giddiness. It might be that even this would show her the real hollowness of the gilded world; that this one hour’s journey over the weary land would help to drive her for shelter to the shadow of the great Rock.

Blanche sat on a low stool at Mrs Tremayne’s feet, gazing earnestly into the fire. Neither had spoken for some time, during which the only sounds were the slight movements of Mrs Tremayne as she sat at work, and now and then a heavy sigh from Blanche. When the fifth of these was drawn, the lady gently laid her hand on the girl’s head.

“Apothecaries say, Blanche, that sighing shorteneth life.”

Blanche looked up. “I reckon you count me but a fool, Mistress Tremayne, as do all other.”

“Blanche,” said her friend, “I will tell thee a story, and after that thou shall judge for thyself what account I make of thee.”

Blanche looked interested, and altered her position so as to watch Mrs Tremayne’s face while she was speaking.

“Once upon a time, Blanche,—in the days of Queen Mary,—there was a priest that had a daughter of thine own age—sixteen years. In those days, as I cast no doubt thou hast heard, all wedded priests were laid under ban, and at the last a day was set whereon all they must needs part from their wives. Though my story take root ere this, yet I pray thee bear it in mind, for we shall come thereto anon. Well, this damsel, with assent of her father, was troth-plight unto a young man whom she loved very dearly; but seeing her youth, their wedding was yet some way off. In good sooth, her father had given assent under bond that they should not wed for three years; and the three years should be run out in June, 1553.”

“Three years!” said Blanche, under her breath.

“This young man was endeavouring himself for the priesthood. During the time of King Edward, thou wist, there was no displeasure taken at married priests; and so far as all they might see when the three years began to run, all was like to go smooth enough. But when they were run out, all England was trembling with fear, and men took much thought (felt much anxiety) for the future. King Edward lay on his dying bed; and there was good reason—ah! more reason than any man then knew!—to fear that the fair estate of such as loved the Gospel should die with him. For a maid then to wed a priest, or for a wedded man to receive orders, was like to a man casting him among wild beasts: there was but a chance that he might not be devoured. So it stood, that if this young man would save his life, he must give up one of two things,—either the service which for many months back he had in his own heart offered to God, or the maiden whom, for a time well-nigh as long, he had hoped should be his wife. What, thinkest thou, should he have done, Blanche?”

“I wis not, in very deed, Mistress Tremayne,” said Blanche, shaking her head. “I guess he should have given up rather her,—but I know not. Methinks it had been sore hard to give up either. And they were troth-plight.”

“Well,—I will tell thee what they did. They did appoint a set time, at the end whereof, should he not then have received orders (it being not possible, all the Protestant Bishops being prisoners), he should then resign the hope thereof, and they twain be wed. The three years, thou wist, were then gone. They fixed the time two years more beyond,—to run out in August, 1555—which should make five years’ waiting in all.”

“And were they wed then?” said Blanche, drawing a long breath.

“When the two further years were run out, Blanche—”

Blanche was a little startled to hear how Mrs Tremayne’s voice trembled. She was evidently telling “an owre true tale.”

“The maid’s father, and he that should have been her husband, were taken in one day. When those two years were run out, her father lay hidden away, having ’scaped from prison, until he might safely be holpen out of the country over seas: and the young man was a captive in Exeter Castle, and in daily expectation of death.”

“Good lack!”

“And two years thereafter, the young man was had away from Exeter unto Woburn, and there set in the dread prison called Little Ease, shaped like to a funnel, wherein a man might neither stand, nor sit, nor lie, nor kneel.”

“O Mistress Tremayne! Heard any ever the like! And what came of the maiden, poor soul?”

The needlework in Mrs Tremayne’s hand was still now; and if any one had been present who had known her thirty years before, he would have said that a shadow of her old look at that terrible time had come back to her deep sweet eyes.

“My child, God allowed her to be brought very low. At the first, she was upheld mightily by His consolations: and they that saw her said how well she bare it. But ’tis not alway the first blush of a sorrow that trieth the heart most sorely. And there came after this a time—when it was an old tale to them that knew her, and their comforting was given over,—a day came when all failed her. Nay, I should have said rather, all seemed to fail her. God failed her not; but her eyes were holden, and she saw Him not beside her. It was darkness, an horror of great darkness, that fell upon her. The Devil came close enough; he was very busy with her. Was there any hope? quoth he. Nay, none, or but very little. Then of what worth were God’s promises to hear and deliver? He had passed His word, and He kept it not. Was God able to help?—was He true to His promise?—go to, was there any God in Heaven at all? And so, Blanche, she was tossed to and fro on the swelling billows, now up, seeing a faint ray of light, now down, in the depth of the darkness: yet, through all, with an half-palsied grasp, so to speak, upon the hem of Christ’s garment, a groping after Him with numb hands that scarce felt whether they held or no. O Blanche, it was like the plague in the land of Egypt—it was darkness that might be felt!”

Blanche listened in awed interest.

“Dear heart, the Lord hath passed word to help His people in their need; but He saith not any where that He will alway help them right as they would have it. We be prone to think there is but one fashion of help, and that if we be not holpen after our own manner, we be not holpen at all. Yet, if thou take a penny from a poor beggar, and give him in the stead thereof an angel (half-sovereign), thou hast given him alms, though he have lost the penny. Alas, for us poor beggars! we fall to weeping o’er our penny till our eyes be too dim with tears to see the gold of God’s alms. Dear Blanche, I would not have thee miss the gold.”

“I scantly conceive your meaning, dear Mistress.”

“We will come back to that anon. I will first tell thee what befel her of whom I spake.”

“Ay, I would fain hear the rest.”

“Well, there were nigh four years of that fearful darkness. She well-nigh forgat that God might have some better thing in store for her, to the which He was leading her all the time, along this weary road. She thought He dealt hardly with her. At times, when the darkness was at the thickest, she fancied that all might be a delusion: that there was no God at all, or none that had any compassion upon men. But it was not His meaning, to leave one of His own in that black pit of despair. He lifted one end of the dark veil. When the four years were over,—that is, when Queen Elizabeth, that now is, happily succeeded to her evil sister,—God gave the maiden back her father safe.”

Blanche uttered a glad “Oh!”

“And He gave her more than that, Blanche. He sent her therewith a message direct from Himself. Thou lookest on me somewhat doubtfully, dear heart, as though thou shouldst say, Angels bring no wolds from Heaven now o’ days. Well, in very sooth, I wis not whether they do or no. We see them not: can we speak more boldly than to say this? Yet one thing I know, Blanche: God can send messages to His childre in their hearts, howso they may come. And what was this word? say thine eyes. Well, sweeting, it was the softest of all the chidings that we hear Him to have laid on His disciples,—‘O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?’ As though He should say,—‘Thou mightest have doubted of the fulfilling of thy special hope; yet wherefore doubtMe? Would I have taken pleasure in bereaving thee of aught that was not hurtful? Could I not have given thee much more than this? Because I made thine heart void, that I might fill it with Myself,—child, did I love thee less, or more?’”

Mrs Tremayne paused so long, that Blanche asked timidly—“And did he come again at last, or no?”

A slight, sudden movement of her friend’s head showed that her thoughts were far away, and that she came back to the present with something like an effort.

“Methinks, dear heart,” Mrs Tremayne said lovingly, “there was a special point whereto God did desire to bring this maiden;—a point whereat He oft-times aimeth in the training of His childre. It is, to be satisfied with His will. Not only to submit thereto. Thou mayest submit unto all outward seeming, and yet be sore dissatisfied.”

Was not this Blanche’s position at that moment?

“But to be satisfied with His ordering—to receive it as the best thing, dearer unto thee than thine own will and way; as the one thing which thou wouldst have done, at the cost, if need be, of all other:—ah, Blanche, ’tis no light nor easy thing, this! And unto this God led her of whom I have been telling thee. He led her, till she could look up to Him, and say, with a true, honest heart—‘Father, lead where Thou wilt. If in the dark, well: so Thou hold me, I am content I am Thine, body, and soul, and spirit: it shall be well and blessed for me, if but Thy will be done.’ And then, Blanche,—when she could look up and say this in sincerity—then He laid down His rod, and gave all back into her bosom.”

Blanche drew a deep sigh,—partly of relief, but not altogether.

“You knew this maiden your own self, Mrs Tremayne?”

“Wouldst thou fain know whom the maid were, Blanche? Her name was—Thekla Rose.”

“Mistress Tremayne!—yourself?”

“Myself, dear heart. And I should not have gone back over this story now, but that I thought it might serve thee to hear it. I love not to look back to that time, though it were to mine own good. ’Tis like an ill wound which is healed, and thou hast no further suffering thereof: yet the scar is there for evermore. And yet, dear Blanche, if it were given me to choose, now, whether I would have that dark and weary time part of my life, or no—reckoning what I should have lost without it—I would say once again, Ay. They that know the sweetness of close walking with God will rather grope, step by step, at His side through the darkness, than walk smoothly in the full glare of the sun without Him: and very street was my walk, when I had won back the felt holding of His hand.”

“But is He not with them in the sunlight?” asked Blanche shyly.

“He is alway with them, dear heart: but we see his light clearest when other lights are out. And we be so prone to walk further off in the daylight!—we see so many things beside Him. We would fain be running off after birds and butterflies; fain be filling our hands with bright flowers by the way: and we picture not rightly to ourselves that these things are but to cheer us on as we step bravely forward, for there will be flowers enough when we reach Home.”

Blanche looked earnestly into the red embers, and was silent.

“Seest thou now, Blanche, what I meant in saying, I would not have thee miss the gold?”

“I reckon you mean that God hath somewhat to give, better than what He taketh away.”

“Right, dear heart. Ah, how much better! Yet misconceive me not, my child. We do not buy Heaven with afflictions; never think that, Blanche. There be many that have made that blunder. Nay! the beggar buyeth not thy gold with his penny piece. Christ hath bought Heaven for His chosen: it is the purchase of His blood; and nothing else in all the world could have paid for it. But they that shall see His glory yonder, must be fitted for it here below; and oft-times God employeth sorrows and cares to this end.—And now, Blanche, canst answer thine own question, and tell me what I think of thee?”

Blanche blushed scarlet.

“I am afeared,” she said, hanging down her head, “you must think me but a right silly child.”

Mrs Tremayne stroked Blanche’s hair, with a little laugh.

“I think nothing very ill of thee, dear child. But I do think thou hast made a blunder or twain.”

“What be they?” Blanche wished to know, more humbly than she would have done that morning.

“Well, dear Blanche—firstly, I think thou hast mistaken fancy for love. There be many that so do. Many think they love another, when in truth all they do love is themselves and their own pleasures, or the flattering of their own vain conceits. Ask thine own heart what thou lovest in thy lover: is it him, or his liking for thyself? If it be but the latter, that is not love, Blanche. ’Tis but fancy, which is to love as the waxen image to the living man. Love would have him it loveth bettered at her own cost: it would fain see him higher and nobler—I mean not higher in men’s eyes, but nearer Heaven and God—whatever were the price to herself. True love will go with us into Heaven, Blanche: it can never die, nor be forgotten. Remember the word of John the Apostle, that ‘he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.’ And wouldst thou dare to apply that holy and heavenly name unto some vain fancy that shall be as though it had never been six months thereafter? My child, we men and women be verily guilty concerning this matter. We take the name of that which is the very essence of God, and set it lightly on a thing of earth and time, the which shall perish in the using. Well, and there is another mistake, sweet, which I fear thou mayest have made. It may be thou art thinking wrongfully of thine earthly father, as I did of my heavenly One. He dealeth with thee hardly, countest thou? Well, it may be so; yet it is to save thee from that which should be much harder. Think no ill of the father who loveth thee and would fain save thee. And, O Blanche! howsoever He may deal with thee, never, never do thou think hardly of that heavenly Father, who loveth thee far dearer than he, and would save thee from far bitterer woe.”

Blanche had looked very awe-struck when Mrs Tremayne spoke so solemnly of the real nature of love; and now she raised tearful eyes to her friend’s face.

“I thought none ill of my father, Mistress Tremayne. I wis well he loveth me.”

“That is well, dear heart. I am fain it should be so.”

And there the subject dropped rather abruptly, as first Clare, and then Arthur, came into the room.

Don Juan did not appear to: miss Blanche, after the first day. When he found that she and her father and sister were absent from the supper-table, he looked round with some surprise and a little perplexity; but he asked no question, and no one volunteered an explanation. He very soon found a new diversion, in the shape of Lucrece, to whom he proceeded to address his flowery language with even less sincerity than he had done to Blanche. But no sooner did Sir Thomas perceive this turn of affairs than he took the earliest opportunity of sternly demanding of his troublesome prisoner “what he meant?”

Don Juan professed entire ignorance of the purport of this question. Sir Thomas angrily explained.

“Nay, Señor, what would you?” inquired the young Spaniard, with an air of injured innocence. “An Andalusian gentleman, wheresoever he may be, and in what conditions, must always show respect to the ladies.”

“Respect!” cried the enraged squire. “Do Spanish gentlemen call such manner of talk showing respect? Thank Heaven that I was born in England! Sir, when an English gentleman carries himself toward a young maiden as you have done, he either designs to win her in honourable wedlock, or he is a villain. Which are you?”

“If we were in Spain, Señor,” answered Don Juan, fire flashing from his dark eyes, “you would answer those words with your sword. But since I am your prisoner, and have no such remedy, I must be content with a reply in speech. The customs of your land are different from ours. I will even condescend to say that I am, and for divers years have so been, affianced to a lady of mine own country. Towards theseñoritasyour daughters, I have shown but common courtesy, as it is understood in Spain.”

In saying which, Don Juan stated what was delicately termed by Swift’s Houynhnms, “the thing which is not.” Of what consequence was it in his eyes, when the Council of Constance had definitively decreed that “no faith was to be kept with heretics”?

Sir Thomas Enville was less given to the use of profane language than most gentlemen of his day, but in answer to this speech he swore roundly, and—though a staunch Protestant—thanked all the saints and angels that he never was in Spain, and, the Queen’s Highness’ commands excepted, never would be. As to his daughters, he would prefer turning them all into Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace to allowing one of them to set foot on the soil of that highly objectionable country. These sentiments were couched in the most peppery language of which the Squire’s lips were well capable; and having thus delivered himself, he turned on his heel and left Don Juan to his own meditations.

Thatcaballerospeedily discovered that he had addressed his last compliment to any of the young ladies at Enville Court. Henceforward he only saw them at meals, and then he found himself, much to his discomfiture, placed between Jack and Mistress Rachel. To pay delicate attentions to the latter was sheer waste of frankincense: yet it was so much in his nature, when speaking to a woman, that he began to tell her that she talked like an angel. Mistress Rachel looked him full in the face.

“Don John,” said she, in the most unmoved manner, “if I believed you true, I should call on my brother to put you forth of the hall. As I believe you false, I do it not.”

After that day, Don Juan directed all his conversation to Jack.

He was not very sorry to leave Enville Court, which had become no longer an amusing, but an uncomfortable place. In his eyes, it was perfectly monstrous that any man should object to his daughters being honoured by the condescending notice of an Andalusian gentleman, who would one day be a grandee of the first class; utterly preposterous! But since this unreasonable man was so absurd as to object to the distinction, conferred upon his house, it was as well that an Andalusian gentleman should be out of his sphere. So Don Juan went willingly to London. Friends of his parents made suit for him, and Elizabeth herself remembered his mother, as one who had done her several little kindnesses, such as a Lady-in-Waiting on the Queen could do for a Princess under a cloud; and Don Juan received a free pardon, and leave to return home when and as he would. He only broke one more heart while he remained in England; and that was beneath any regret on his part, being only a poor, insignificant grocer’s daughter. And then he sailed for Spain; and then he married Doña Lisarda; and then he became a Lord-in-Waiting; and then he lived a wealthy, gorgeous, prosperous life; and then all men spoke well of him, seeing how much good he had done to himself; and then he grew old,—a highly respected, highly self-satisfied man.

And then his soul was required of him. Did God say to him,—“Thou fool”?

Chapter Nine.Too abstruse for Blanche.“Hear the just law, the judgment of the skies!He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies;And he thatwillbe cheated to the last,Delusions strong as Hell shall bind him fast.”Cowper.“I did conceive, Mistress Blanche,” said Mr Tremayne one morning, as the party rose from the breakfast-table, “that you would with a good will see the picture of Clare’s grandsire, the which hangeth in my study-chamber?”“Oh ay, an’ it like you,” responded Blanche eagerly.Clare had seen the portrait, but not Blanche. Mr Tremayne led the way to his study, allowed her to examine the likeness at her leisure, and answered all her questions about John Avery. Entrapped Blanche did not realise that he was catching her with the same sort of guile which Saint Paul used towards the Corinthians. (2 Corinthians 12, 16) Mrs Tremayne came in, and sat down quietly with her work, before the inspection was over. When her curiosity was at length satisfied, Blanche thanked Mr Tremayne, and would have left the room with a courtesy: but such was by no means the intention of her pastor.“I have heard, say, Mistress Blanche,” said he quietly, “that your mind hath been somewhat unsettled touching the difference, or the lack of difference, betwixt us and the Papists. If so be, pray you sit down, and give us leave to talk the same over.”Blanche felt caught at last. It must be Sir Thomas, of course, who had told the Rector, for there was no one else who could have done it. And it may be added, though Blanche did not know it, that her father had specially begged Mr Tremayne to examine into the matter, and to set Blanche right on any points whereon she might have gone wrong.Thus brought to a stand and forced to action, it was Blanche’s nature to behave after the manner of a mule in the same predicament, and to affect stronger contrary convictions than she really felt. It was true, she said rather bluntly: she did think there was very little, if any, difference between many doctrines held by the rival Churches.“There is all the difference that is betwixt Heaven and earth,” answered Mr Tremayne. “Nay, I had well-nigh said, betwixt Heaven and Hell: for I do believe the Devil to have been the perverter of truth with those corruptions that are in Papistry. But I pray you, of your gentleness, to tell me of one matter wherein, as you account, no difference lieth?”With what power of intellect she had—which was not much—Blanche mentally ran over the list, and selected the item on which she thought Mr Tremayne would find least to say.“It seemeth me you be too rude (harsh, severe) to charge the Papists with idolatry,” she said. “They be no more idolaters than we.”“No be they? How so, I pray you?”“Why, the images in their churches be but for the teaching of such as cannot read, nor do they any worship unto the image, but only unto him that is signified thereby. Moreover, they pray not unto the saints, as you would have it; they do but ask the saints’ prayers for them. Surely I may ask my father to pray for me, and you would not say that I prayed unto him!”“I pray you, pull bridle there, Mistress Blanche,” said Mr Tremayne, smiling; “for you have raised already four weighty points, the which may not be expounded in a moment. I take them, an’ it like you, not justly in your order, but rather in the order wherein they do affect each other. And first, under your good pleasure,—what is prayer?”Blanche was about to reply at once, when it struck her that the question involved more than she supposed. She would have answered,—“Why, saying my prayers:” but the idea came to her,Wasthat prayer? And she felt instinctively that, necessarily, it was not. She thought a moment, and then answered slowly;—“I would say that it is to ask somewhat with full desire to obtain the same.”“Is that all?” replied Mr Tremayne.Blanche thought so.“Methinks there is more therein than so. For it implieth, beyond this, full belief that he whom you shall ask,—firstly, can hear you; secondly, is able to grant you; thirdly, is willing to grant you.”“Surely the saints be willing to pray for us!”“How know you they can hear us?”Blanche thought, and thought, and could find no reason for supposing it.“Again, how know you they can grant us?”“But they pray!”“They praise, and they hold communion: I know not whether they offer petitions or no.”Blanche sat meditating.“You see, therefore, there is no certainty on the first and most weighty of all these points. We know not that any saint can hear us. But pass that—grant, for our talk’s sake, that they have knowledge of what passeth on earth, and can hear when we do speak to them. How then? Here is Saint Mary, our Lord’s mother, sitting in Heaven; and upon earth there be petitions a-coming up unto her, at one time, from Loretto in Italy, and from Nuremburg in Germany, and from Seville in Spain, and from Bruges in Flanders, and from Paris in France, and from Bideford in Devon, and from Kirkham in Lancashire. Mistress Blanche, if she can hear and make distinction betwixt all these at the self-same moment, then is she no woman like to you. Your brain should be mazed with the din, and spent with the labour. Invocation declareth omnipotency. And there is none almighty save One,—that is, God.”“But,” urged Blanche, “the body may be one whither, and the spirit another. And Saint Mary is a spirit.”“Truly so. Yet the spirit can scantly be in ten places at one time—how much less a thousand?”Blanche was silent.“The next thing, I take it, is that they pray not unto the saints, but do ask the saints only to pray for them. If the saints hear them not, the one is as futile as the other. But I deny that they do not pray unto the saints.”Mr Tremayne went to his bookcase, and came back with a volume in his hand.“Listen here, I pray you—‘Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, and after Him mine only hope, pray for me, and guard me during this night’—‘Give me power to fight against thine enemies’—‘Great God, who by the resurrection of Thy Son Jesus Christ hast rejoiced the world, we pray Thee, grant that by His blessed mother the Virgin Mary we may obtain the bliss of eternal life’—‘Make mine heart to burn with love for Jesus Christ,—make me to feel the death of Jesus Christ in mine heart,—cause to be given unto us the joys of Paradise—O Jesu! O Mary! cause me to be truly troubled for my sins.’ These, Mistress Blanche, be from the book that is the Common Prayer of the Papistical Church: and all these words be spoken unto Mary. As you well see, I cast no doubt, they do ascribe unto her divinity. For none can effectually work upon man’s heart—save the Holy Ghost only. None other can cause his heart to be ‘truly troubled for sin;’ none other can make his heart to burn. Now what think you of this, Mistress Blanche? Is it praying unto the saints, or no?”What Blanche thought, she did not say; but if it could be guessed from the expression of her face, she was both shocked and astonished.“Now come we to the third point: to wit, that images be as pictures for the teaching of such as have no learning. Methinks, Mistress Blanche, that God is like to be wiser than all men. There must needs have been many Israelites in the wilderness that had no learning: yet His command unto them, as unto us, is, ‘Ye shall not make unto youanygraven image.’ I take it that the small good that might thereby be done (supposing any such to be) should be utterly overborne of the companying evil. Moreover, when you do learn the vulgar, you would, I hope, learn them that which is true. Is it true, I pray you, that Mary was borne into Heaven of angels, like as Christ did Himself ascend?—or that being thus carried thither, she was crowned of God, as a queen? Dear maid, we have the Master’s word touching all such, pourtrayments. ‘The graven images oftheirgods shall ye burn with fire.—Thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.’” (Deuteronomy twelve, verses 25, 26.)“O Mr Tremayne!” said Blanche, with a horrified look. “You would surely ne’er call a picture or an image of our Lord’s own mother a thing accursed?”“But I would, my maid,” he answered very gravely, “that instant moment that there should be given thereunto the honour and worship and glory that be only due to Him. ‘My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images.’ Nay, I would call an image of Christ Himself a thing accursed, if it stood in His place in the hearts of men. Mark you, King Hezekiah utterly destroyed the serpent of brass that was God’s own appointed likeness of Christ, that moment that the children of Israel did begin to burn incense unto it, thereby making it an idol.”“But in the Papistical Church they be no idols, Master Tremayne!” interposed Blanche eagerly. “Therein lieth the difference betwixt Popery and Paganism.”“What should you say, Mistress Blanche, if you wist that therein liethnodifference betwixt Popery and Paganism? The old Pagans were wont to say the same thing. (Note 1.) They should have laughed in your face if you had charged them with worshipping wood and stone, and have answered that they worshipped only the thing signified. So much is it thus, that amongst some Pagan nations, they do hold that their god cometh down in his proper person into the image for a season (like as the Papists into the wafer of the sacrament), and when they account him gone, they cast the image away as no more worth. Yet hark you how God Himself accounteth of this their worship. ‘He maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto IT, and worshippeth IT, and prayeth unto IT, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god.’ And list also how He expoundeth the same:—‘A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?’ (Isaiah 44, verses 17, 20.) There should be little idolatry in this world if there were no deceived hearts.”Blanche twisted her handkerchief about, in the manner of a person who is determined not to be convinced, yet can find nothing to say in answer.“Tell me, Mistress Blanche,—for I think too well of your good sense to doubt the same,—you cannot believe that Christ Himself is in a piece of bread?”In her inmost heart she certainly believed no such thing. But it would never do to retreat from her position. In Blanche’s eyes, disgrace lay not in being mistaken, but in being shown the mistake.“Wherefore may it not be so?” she murmured. “’Tis matter of faith, in like manner as is our Lord’s resurrection.”“In like manner? I cry you mercy. You believe the resurrection on the witness of them that knew it—that saw the sepulchre void; that saw Christ, and spake with Him, and did eat and drink with Him, and knew Him to be the very same Jesus that had died. You can bear no witness either way, for you were not there. But in this matter of the bread, here are you; and you see it for yourself not to be as you be told. Your eyes tell you that they behold bread; your hands tell you that they handle bread; your tongue tells you that it tasteth bread. The witness of your senses is in question: and these three do agree that the matter is bread only.”“The senses may be deceived, I reckon?”“The senses may be deceived; and, as meseemeth, after two fashions: firstly, when the senses themselves be not in full healthfulness and vigour. Thus, if a man have some malady in his eyes, that he know himself to see things mistakenly, from the relation of other around him, then may he doubt what his eyes see with regard to this matter. Secondly, a man must not lean on his senses touching matters that come not within the discerning of sense. Now in regard to this bread, the Papists do overreach themselves. Did they but tell us that the change made was mystical and of faith,—not within the discernment of sense—we might then find it harder work to deal withal, and we must seek unto the Word of God only, and not unto our sense in any wise. But they go farther: they tell us the change is such, that there isno more the substance of bread left at all. (Note 2.) This therefore is matter within the discerning of sense. If it be thus, then this change is needs one that I can see, can taste, can handle. I know, at my own table, whether I eat flesh or bread; how then should I be unable to know the same at the table of the Lord? Make it matter of sense, and I must needs submit it to the judgment of my senses. But now to take the other matter,—to wit, of faith. Christ said unto the Jews, ‘The bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.’ They took Him right as the Papists do. They ‘strave among themselves, saying, How shall this man give us his flesh to eat?’ Now mark you our Lord’s answer. Doth He say, ‘Ye do ill to question this matter; ’tis a mystery of the Church; try it not by sense, but believe?’ Nay, He openeth the door somewhat wider, and letteth in another ray of light upon the signification of His words. He saith to them,—‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye haveno lifein you.’ I pray you, what manner of life? Surely not the common life of nature, for that may be sustained by other food. The life, then, is a spiritual life; and how shall spiritual life be sustained by natural meat? The meat must be spiritual, if the life be so. Again He saith,—‘He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.’ Now, if the eating be after a literal manner, so also must be the dwelling. Our bodies, therefore, must be withinside the body of Christ in Heaven, and His body must be withinside every one of ours on earth. That this is impossible and ridiculous alike, I need not to tell you. Mistress Blanche, faith is not to believe whatsoever any shall tell you. It is less to believe a thing than to trust a man. And I can only trust a man on due testimony that he is worthy trust.”“But this is to trust Christ our Lord,” said Blanche.“Ay so, my maid? Or is it rather to trust our own fantasy of what Christ would say?”Blanche was silent for a moment; then she answered,—“But He did say, ‘This is My body.’”“Will you go further, an’ it like you?”“How, Master Tremayne?”“‘This is My body, which is broken for you.’ Was the bread that He held in His hand the body that was broken? Did that morsel of bread take away the sin of the world? Look you, right in so far as the bread was the body, in so far also was the breaking of that bread the death of that body,—and no further. Now, Mistress Blanche, was the breaking of the bread the death of the body? Think thereon, and answer me.”“It was an emblem or representation thereof, no doubt,” she said slowly.“Good. Then, inasmuch as the breaking did set forth the death, in so much did the bread set forth the body. If the one be an emblem, so must be the other.”“That may be, perchance,” said Blanche, sheering off from the subject, as she found it passing beyond her, and requiring the troublesome effort of thought: “but, Master Tremayne, there is one other matter whereon the speech of you Gospellers verily offendeth me no little.”“Pray you, tell me what it is, Mistress Blanche.”“It is the little honour, or I might well say the dishonour, that you do put upon Saint Mary the blessed Virgin. Surely, of all that He knew and loved on this earth, she must have been the dearest unto our Lord. Why then thus scrimp and scant the reverence due unto her? Verily, in this matter, the Papists do more meetly than you.”“‘More meetly’—wherewith, Mistress Blanche? With the truth of Holy Scripture, or with the fantasies of human nature?”“I would say,” repeated Blanche rather warmly, “that her honour must be very dear to her blessed Son.”“There is one honour ten thousand-fold dearer unto His heart, my maid, and that is the honour of God His eternal Father. All honour, that toucheth not this, I am ready to pay to her. But tell me wherefore you think she must be His dearest?”“Because it must needs be thus,” replied illogical Blanche.“I would ask you to remember, Mistress Blanche, that He hath told us the clean contrary.”Blanche looked up with an astonished expression.“‘Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.’ Equally honourable, equally dear, with that mother of His flesh whom you would fain upraise above all other women. And I am likewise disposed to think that word of Paul,—‘Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more’—I say, I am disposed to think this may have his reverse side. Though He hath known us after the flesh, yet thus, now that He is exalted to the right hand of God, He knoweth us no more. And if so, then Mary is now unto Him but one of a multitude of saved souls, all equally fair and dear and precious in the eyes of Him that died for them.”“O Master Tremayne!”“What would you say, Mistress Blanche?”“That is truly—it sounds so cold!” said Blanche, disparagingly.“Doth it so?” asked the Rector, smiling. “Cold, that all should be beloved of His heart? Dear maid, ’tis not that He loveth her the less, but that He loveth the other more.”As Blanche made no response, Mr Tremayne went on.“There is another side to this matter, Mistress Blanche, that I daresay you have ne’er looked upon: and it toucheth at once the matter of images, and the reverence due unto Saint Mary. Know you that great part of the images held in worship for her by the Papists, be no images of her at all? All the most ancient—and many be very ancient—were ne’er made for Mary. The marvel-working black Virgins—our Lady of Einsiedeln, our Lady of Loretto, and all such—be in very truth old idols, of a certain Tuscan or Etruscan goddess, elder than the days of the Romans. (Note 3.) Again, all they that are of fair complexion—such as have grey eyes (blue eyes were then called grey) and yellow hair—these be not Mary the Jewess. We can cast no doubt she was dark. Whence then come all these fair-complexioned pictures? We might take it, in all likelihood, from the fancy of the painters, that did account a fair woman to be of better favour than a dark. But search you into past history, and you shall find it not thus. These fair-favoured pictures be all of another than Mary; to wit, of that ancient goddess, in her original of the Babylonians, that was worshipped under divers names all over the world,—in Egypt as Isis; in Greece, as Athene, Artemis, and Aphrodite; in Rome as Juno, Diana, and Venus: truly, every goddess was but a diversity of this one. (Note 4.) These, then, be no pictures of the Maid of Nazareth. And ’tis the like of other images,—they be christened idols. The famed Saint Peter, in his church at Rome is but a christened Jupiter. Wit you how Paganism was got rid of? It was by receiving of it into the very bosom of the Roman Church. The ceremonies of the Pagans were but turned,—from Ceres, Cybele, Isis, or Aphrodite, unto Mary—from Apollo, Bacchus, Osiris, Tammuz, unto Christ. Thus, when these Pagans found that they did in very deed worship the same god, and with the same observances, as of old—for the change was in nothing save the name only—they became Christians by handfuls;—yea, by cityfuls. What marvel, I pray you? But how shall we call this Church of Rome, that thus bewrayed her trust, and sold her Lord again like Judas? An idolatrous Christianity—nay, rather a baptised idolatry! God hath writ her name, Mistress Blanche, on the last page of His Word; and it is, Babylon, Mother of all Abominations.”“I do marvel, Master Tremayne,” said Blanche a little indignantly, though in a constrained voice, “how you dare bring such ill charges against the Papistical Church. Do they not set great store by holiness, I pray you? Yea, have they not monks and nuns, and a celibate priesthood, consecrate to greater holiness than other? How can you charge them with wickedness and abomination?”“Poor child!” murmured the Rector, as if to himself,—“she little wist what manner of life idolaters term holiness! Mistress Blanche, yonder cloak of professed holiness hideth worser matter than you can so much as think on. ’Tis not I that set that name on the Papistical Church. It was God Himself. Will you tell me, moreover, an’ it like you,—What is holiness?”“Goodness—right-doing.”“Those be unclear words, methinks. They may mean well-nigh aught. For me, I would say, Holiness is walking with God, and according to the will of God.”“Well! Is not God pleased with the doing of good?”“God is pleased with nothing but Christ. He is not pleased with you because of your deeds. He must first acceptyou, and that not for any your deserving, but for the sake of the alone merits of His Son; and then He shall be pleased with your deeds, since they shall be such as His Spirit shall work in you. But nothing can please God except that which cometh from God. Your works, apart from Him, be dead works. And you cannot serve the living God with dead works.”Blanche’s half-unconscious shrug of the shoulders conveyed the information that this doctrine was not agreeable to her.“Surely God will be pleased with us if we do out best!” she muttered.“By no means,” said Mr Tremayne quietly. “Your best is not good enough for God. He likeneth that best of yours to filthy rags. What should you say to one that brought you a present of filthy rags, so foul that you could not so much as touch them?”Blanche, who was extremely dainty as to what she touched, quite appreciated this simile. She found an answer, nevertheless.“God is merciful, Mr Tremayne. You picture Him as hard and unpitiful.”“Verily, Mistress Blanche, God is merciful: more than you nor I may conceive. But God hath no mercies outside of Christ. Come to Him bringing aught in your hand save Christ, and He hath nought to say to you. And be you ware that you cannot come and bring nothing. If you bring not Christ, assuredly you shall bring somewhat else,—your own works, or your own sufferings, or in some manner your own deservings. And for him that cometh with his own demerits in hand, God hath nought saving the one thing he hath indeed demerited,—which is—Hell.”Mr Tremayne spoke so solemnly that Blanche felt awed. But she did not relish the doctrine which he preached any better on that account.“How have I demerited that?” she asked.“God Himself shall answer you. ‘He that hath not the Son of God hath not life.’ ‘He that believeth not is condemned already.’”“But I do believe—all Christians believe!” urged Blanche.“What believe you?”“I believe unfeignedly all that the creed saith touching our Lord.”“And I believe as unfeignedly all that the Commentaries of Caesar say touching that same Julius Caesar.”“What mean you, Master Tremayne?”“What did Julius Caesar for me, Mistress Blanche?”“Marry, nought at all,” said Blanche, laughing, “without his invading of England should have procured unto us some civility which else we had lacked.”Civility, at that time, meant civilisation. When, according to the wondrous dreamer of Bedford Gaol, Mr Worldly Wiseman referred Christian, if he should not find Mr Legality at home, to the pretty young man called Civility, whom he had to his son, and who could take off a burden as well as the old gentleman himself,—he meant, not what we call civility, but what we call civilisation. That pretty young man is at present the most popular physician of the day; and he still goes to the town of Morality to church. The road to his house is crowded more than ever, though the warning has been standing for two hundred years, that “notwithstanding his simpering looks, he is but a hypocrite,”—as well as another warning far older,—“Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.” (Job twenty-eight verse 28.)“But now,” said the Rector, with an answering smile, “tell me, what did Jesus Christ for me?”“He is the Saviour,” she said in a low voice.“Of whom, dear maid?”Blanche felt rather vague on that point, and the feeling was combined with a conviction that she ought not to be so. She tried to give an answer which could not be contradicted.“Of them that believe.”“Certes,” said Mr Tremayne, suppressing a smile, for he saw both Blanche’s difficulty and her attempt to evade it. “But that, look you, landeth us on the self place where we were at aforetime: who be they that believe?”Blanche wisely determined to commit herself no further.“Would it please you to tell me, Sir?”“Dear child, if you heard me to say, touching some man that we both were acquaint withal,—‘I believe in John’—what should you conceive that I did signify?”“I would account,” said Blanche readily, thinking this question easy to answer, “that you did mean, ‘I account of him as a true man; I trust him; I hold him well worthy of affiance.’”“Good. And if, after thus saying, you should see me loth to trust an half-angel into his hands to spend for me,—should you think that mine act did go with my words, or no?”“Assuredly, nay.”“Then look you, Mistress Blanche, that it is greater matter than you maybe made account, when a man shall say, ‘I believe in Jesus Christ.’ For it signifieth not only that I believe He was born, and lived, and suffered, and arose, and ascended. Nay, but it is, I account of Him as a true man; I trust Him, with body and soul, with friends and goods: I hold Him worthy of all affiance, and I will hold back nothing, neither myself nor my having, from His keeping and disposing. (Ah, my maid! which of us can say so much as this, at all times, and of all matters?) But above all, in the relation whereof we have spoken, it is to say, I trust Christ with my soul. I lean it wholly upon Him. I have no hope in myself; He is mine hope. I have no righteousness of myself; He is my righteousness. I have no standing before God,—I demerit nought but hell; but Christ standeth before God for me: His blood hath washed me clean from all sin, and His pleading with God availeth to hold me up in His ways. And unless or until you can from your heart thus speak I pray you say not again that you believe in Jesus Christ.”“But, Master, every man cannot thus believe.”“No man can thus believe until God have taught him.”Blanche thought, but was not bold enough to say, that she did not see why anybody should believe such disagreeable things about himself. She did not feel this low opinion of her own merits. Hers was the natural religion of professing Christians—that she must do the best she could, and Christ would make up the remainder. Mr Tremayne knew what was passing in her mind as well as if she had spoken it.“You think that is hard?” said he.“Ithink it—Mr Tremayne, I could not thus account of myself.”“You could not, dear maid. I am assured of that.”“Then wherein lieth my fault?” demanded Blanche.“In that you will not.”Blanche felt stung; and she spoke out now, with one of those bursts of confidence which came from her now and then.“That is sooth, Master. I will not. I have not committed such sins as have many men and women. I ne’er stole, nor murdered, nor used profane swearing, nor worshipped idols, nor did many another ill matter: and I cannot believe but that God shall be more merciful to such than to the evil fawtors (factors, doers) that be in the world. Where were His justice, if no?”“Mistress Blanche, you wit neither what is God, neither what is sin. The pure and holy law of God is like to a golden ring. You account, that because you have not broken it on this side, nor on that side, you have not broken it at all. But if you break it on any side, it is broken; and you it is that have broken it.”“Wherein have I broken it?” she asked defiantly.“‘All unrighteousness is sin.’ Have you alway done rightly, all your life long? If not, then you are a sinner.”“Oh, of course, we be all sinners,” said Blanche, as if that were a very slight admission.“Good. And a sinner is a condemned criminal. He is not come into this world to see if he may perchance do well, and stand: he is already fallen; he is already under condemnation of law.”“Then ’tis even as I said,—there is no fault in any of us,” maintained Blanche, sturdily clinging to her point.“‘This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’”“Nay, Master Tremayne, you be now too hard on me. I love not darkness rather than light.”“God saith you so do, dear maid. And He knoweth—ay, better than yourself. But look not only on that side of the matter. If a man believe that and no more, ’tis fit to drive him unto desperation. Look up unto the writing which is over the gate into God’s narrow way—the gate and the way likewise being His Son Jesus Christ—and read His message of peace sent unto these sinners. ‘Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’ It is God’s ordering, that whosoeverwill, he can.”“You said but this last Sunday, Master Tremayne, that ’twas not possible for any man to come to Christ without God did draw him thereto.”“Isaid, my maid? My Master it was which said that. Well—what so?”“Then we can have nought to answer for; for without God do draw us, we cannot come.”“And without we be willing to be thus drawn, God will not do it.”“Nay, but you said, moreover, that the very will must come from God.”“Therein I spake truth.”Blanche thought she had now driven her pastor into a corner.“Then you do allow,” she asked triumphantly, “that if I should not will the same, I am clean of all fault, sith the very will must needs come from God?”Mr Tremayne understood the drift of his catechumen.“An’ it like you, Mistress Blanche, we will leave a moment to make inquiry into that point, till we shall have settled another, of more import to you and me.”“What is it, Master?”“Are you willing?”“Willing that I should be saved eternally? Most assuredly.”“Then—willing that all the will of God shall be done, in you and by you?”“The one followeth not the other.”“I cry you mercy. The King of kings, like other princes, dealeth with His rebels on his own terms.”Blanche was silent, and, very uncomfortable.“’Tis time for me to be about my duties. When you shall have fully settled that point of your willingness, Mistress Blanche, and shall have determined that you are thus willing—which God grant!—then, an’ it like you, we will go into the other matter.”And Mr Tremayne left the room with a bow, very well knowing that as soon as the first point was satisfactorily settled, the second would be left quiescent.Mrs Tremayne had never opened her lips; and leaving her in the study, Blanche wandered into the parlour, where Clare and Lysken were seated at work.“I marvel what Master Tremayne would have!” said Blanche, sitting down in the window, and idly pulling the dead leaves from the plant which stood there. “He saith ’tis our own fault that we will not to be saved, and yet in the self breath he addeth that the will so to be must needs be given us of God.”Lysken looked up.“Methinks we are all willing enow to be saved from punishment,” she said. “What we be unwilling to be saved from is sin.”“‘Sin’—alway sin!” muttered Blanche. “Ye be both of a story. Sin is wickedness. I am not wicked.”“Sin is the disobeying of God,” replied Lysken. “And saving thy presence, Blanche, thou art wicked.”“Then so art thou!” retorted Blanche.“So I am,” said Lysken. “But I am willing to be saved therefrom.”“Prithee, Mistress Elizabeth Barnevelt, from what sin am I not willing to be saved?”“Dost truly wish to know?” asked Lysken in her coolest manner.“Certes!”“Then—pride.”“Pride is no sin!”“I love not gainsaying, Blanche. But I dare in no wise gainsay the Lord. And He saith of pride, that it is an abomination unto Him, and He hateth it.” (Proverbs six, verse 16; and sixteen verse 5.)“But that is ill and sinful pride,” urged Blanche. “There is proper pride.”“It seemeth to my poor wits,” said Lysken, “that a thing which the Lord hateth must be all of it improper.”“Why, Lysken! Thus saying, thou shouldst condemn all high spirit and noble bearing!”“‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’ There was no pride in Christ, Blanche. And thou wilt scarce say that He bare Him not nobly.”“Why, then, we might as well all be peasants!”“I suppose we might, if we were,” said Lysken.“Lysken, it should be a right strange world, where thou hadst the governance!”“Very like,” was Lysken’s calm rejoinder, as she set the pin a little further in her seam.“What good is it, prithee, to set thee up against all men’s opinion? (What are now termed ‘views’ were then called ‘opinions.’) Thou shalt but win scorn for thine.”“Were it only mine, Blanche, it should be to no good. But when it is God’s command wherewith mine opinion runneth,—why then, the good shall be to hear Christ say, ‘Well done, faithful servant.’ The scorn I bare here shall be light weight then.”“But wherefore not go smoothly through the world?”“Because it should cost too much.”“Nay, what now?” remonstrated Blanche.“I have two lives, Blanche: and I cannot have my best things in both. The one is short and passing; the other is unchangeable, and shall stand for ever. Now then, I would like my treasures for the second of these two lives: and if I miss any good thing in the first, it shall be no great matter.”“Thou art a right Puritan!” said Blanche disgustedly.“Call not names, Blanche,” gently interposed Clare.“Dear Clare, it makes he difference,” said Lysken. “If any call me a Papist, ’twill not make me one.”“Lysken Barnevelt, is there aught in this world would move thee?”“‘In this world?’ Well, but little, methinks. But—there will be some things in the other.”“What things?” bluntly demanded Blanche.“To see His Face!” said Lysken, the light breaking over her own. “And to hear Him say, ‘Come!’ And to sit down at the marriage-supper of the Lamb,—with the outer door closed for ever, and the woes, and the wolves, and the winter, all left on the outside. If none of these earthly things move me, Blanche, it is because those heavenly things will.”And after that, Blanche was silent.Note 1. The Gentiles (saith Saint Augustine), which seem to be of the purer religion, say, We worship not the images, but by the corporal image we do behold the signs of the things which we ought to worship. And Lactantius saith, The Gentiles say, We fear not the images, but them after whose likeness the images be made, and to whose names they be consecrated. And Clemens saith, That serpent the Devil uttereth these words by the mouth of certain men: We, to the honour of the invisible God, worship visible images.—(Third Part of the Homily on Peril of Idolatry: references in margin to Augustine Ps. 135; Lactantius l. 2. Inst.; Clem., L. S ad Jacob.) Here are the “Fathers” condemning as Pagan the reasoning of modern Papists.Note 2. “Credit et defendit que in eucharistia sive altaris sacramento verum et naturalem Christi corpus ac verus et naturalis Christi sanguis sub speciebus panis et vini vere non est; et quodibi est materialis panis et materiale vinumtantum absque veritati et presentia corporis et sanguinis Christi.”—Indictment of Reverend Lawrence Saunders, January 30, 1555; Harl. MS. 421, folio 44.“Tenes et defendes in prout quod in eucharistia sive sacramento altaris verum naturalem et realem Christi corpus ac verus naturalis et realis Christi sanguis sub speciebus panis et vini vere non est, sedpost consecratione remanet substantia panis et vini.”—Indictment of Reverend Thomas Rose, May 31, 1555; Harl. MS. 421, folio 188.Note 3. There is the initial M on the pedestal of one or more of these black Virgins, which of course the priests interpret as Mary. This is certainly not the case. It has been suggested that it stands for Maia, a name of the Tuscan goddess. May it not be the initial of Mylitta, “the Mediatrix,” one of the favourite names of the great original goddess?Note 4. See Hislop’sTwo Babylons, pages 22, 122, 491, et aliis; and Shepheard’sTraditions of Eden, page 117, note (where many references are given), and page 188.

“Hear the just law, the judgment of the skies!He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies;And he thatwillbe cheated to the last,Delusions strong as Hell shall bind him fast.”Cowper.

“Hear the just law, the judgment of the skies!He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies;And he thatwillbe cheated to the last,Delusions strong as Hell shall bind him fast.”Cowper.

“I did conceive, Mistress Blanche,” said Mr Tremayne one morning, as the party rose from the breakfast-table, “that you would with a good will see the picture of Clare’s grandsire, the which hangeth in my study-chamber?”

“Oh ay, an’ it like you,” responded Blanche eagerly.

Clare had seen the portrait, but not Blanche. Mr Tremayne led the way to his study, allowed her to examine the likeness at her leisure, and answered all her questions about John Avery. Entrapped Blanche did not realise that he was catching her with the same sort of guile which Saint Paul used towards the Corinthians. (2 Corinthians 12, 16) Mrs Tremayne came in, and sat down quietly with her work, before the inspection was over. When her curiosity was at length satisfied, Blanche thanked Mr Tremayne, and would have left the room with a courtesy: but such was by no means the intention of her pastor.

“I have heard, say, Mistress Blanche,” said he quietly, “that your mind hath been somewhat unsettled touching the difference, or the lack of difference, betwixt us and the Papists. If so be, pray you sit down, and give us leave to talk the same over.”

Blanche felt caught at last. It must be Sir Thomas, of course, who had told the Rector, for there was no one else who could have done it. And it may be added, though Blanche did not know it, that her father had specially begged Mr Tremayne to examine into the matter, and to set Blanche right on any points whereon she might have gone wrong.

Thus brought to a stand and forced to action, it was Blanche’s nature to behave after the manner of a mule in the same predicament, and to affect stronger contrary convictions than she really felt. It was true, she said rather bluntly: she did think there was very little, if any, difference between many doctrines held by the rival Churches.

“There is all the difference that is betwixt Heaven and earth,” answered Mr Tremayne. “Nay, I had well-nigh said, betwixt Heaven and Hell: for I do believe the Devil to have been the perverter of truth with those corruptions that are in Papistry. But I pray you, of your gentleness, to tell me of one matter wherein, as you account, no difference lieth?”

With what power of intellect she had—which was not much—Blanche mentally ran over the list, and selected the item on which she thought Mr Tremayne would find least to say.

“It seemeth me you be too rude (harsh, severe) to charge the Papists with idolatry,” she said. “They be no more idolaters than we.”

“No be they? How so, I pray you?”

“Why, the images in their churches be but for the teaching of such as cannot read, nor do they any worship unto the image, but only unto him that is signified thereby. Moreover, they pray not unto the saints, as you would have it; they do but ask the saints’ prayers for them. Surely I may ask my father to pray for me, and you would not say that I prayed unto him!”

“I pray you, pull bridle there, Mistress Blanche,” said Mr Tremayne, smiling; “for you have raised already four weighty points, the which may not be expounded in a moment. I take them, an’ it like you, not justly in your order, but rather in the order wherein they do affect each other. And first, under your good pleasure,—what is prayer?”

Blanche was about to reply at once, when it struck her that the question involved more than she supposed. She would have answered,—“Why, saying my prayers:” but the idea came to her,Wasthat prayer? And she felt instinctively that, necessarily, it was not. She thought a moment, and then answered slowly;—

“I would say that it is to ask somewhat with full desire to obtain the same.”

“Is that all?” replied Mr Tremayne.

Blanche thought so.

“Methinks there is more therein than so. For it implieth, beyond this, full belief that he whom you shall ask,—firstly, can hear you; secondly, is able to grant you; thirdly, is willing to grant you.”

“Surely the saints be willing to pray for us!”

“How know you they can hear us?”

Blanche thought, and thought, and could find no reason for supposing it.

“Again, how know you they can grant us?”

“But they pray!”

“They praise, and they hold communion: I know not whether they offer petitions or no.”

Blanche sat meditating.

“You see, therefore, there is no certainty on the first and most weighty of all these points. We know not that any saint can hear us. But pass that—grant, for our talk’s sake, that they have knowledge of what passeth on earth, and can hear when we do speak to them. How then? Here is Saint Mary, our Lord’s mother, sitting in Heaven; and upon earth there be petitions a-coming up unto her, at one time, from Loretto in Italy, and from Nuremburg in Germany, and from Seville in Spain, and from Bruges in Flanders, and from Paris in France, and from Bideford in Devon, and from Kirkham in Lancashire. Mistress Blanche, if she can hear and make distinction betwixt all these at the self-same moment, then is she no woman like to you. Your brain should be mazed with the din, and spent with the labour. Invocation declareth omnipotency. And there is none almighty save One,—that is, God.”

“But,” urged Blanche, “the body may be one whither, and the spirit another. And Saint Mary is a spirit.”

“Truly so. Yet the spirit can scantly be in ten places at one time—how much less a thousand?”

Blanche was silent.

“The next thing, I take it, is that they pray not unto the saints, but do ask the saints only to pray for them. If the saints hear them not, the one is as futile as the other. But I deny that they do not pray unto the saints.”

Mr Tremayne went to his bookcase, and came back with a volume in his hand.

“Listen here, I pray you—‘Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, and after Him mine only hope, pray for me, and guard me during this night’—‘Give me power to fight against thine enemies’—‘Great God, who by the resurrection of Thy Son Jesus Christ hast rejoiced the world, we pray Thee, grant that by His blessed mother the Virgin Mary we may obtain the bliss of eternal life’—‘Make mine heart to burn with love for Jesus Christ,—make me to feel the death of Jesus Christ in mine heart,—cause to be given unto us the joys of Paradise—O Jesu! O Mary! cause me to be truly troubled for my sins.’ These, Mistress Blanche, be from the book that is the Common Prayer of the Papistical Church: and all these words be spoken unto Mary. As you well see, I cast no doubt, they do ascribe unto her divinity. For none can effectually work upon man’s heart—save the Holy Ghost only. None other can cause his heart to be ‘truly troubled for sin;’ none other can make his heart to burn. Now what think you of this, Mistress Blanche? Is it praying unto the saints, or no?”

What Blanche thought, she did not say; but if it could be guessed from the expression of her face, she was both shocked and astonished.

“Now come we to the third point: to wit, that images be as pictures for the teaching of such as have no learning. Methinks, Mistress Blanche, that God is like to be wiser than all men. There must needs have been many Israelites in the wilderness that had no learning: yet His command unto them, as unto us, is, ‘Ye shall not make unto youanygraven image.’ I take it that the small good that might thereby be done (supposing any such to be) should be utterly overborne of the companying evil. Moreover, when you do learn the vulgar, you would, I hope, learn them that which is true. Is it true, I pray you, that Mary was borne into Heaven of angels, like as Christ did Himself ascend?—or that being thus carried thither, she was crowned of God, as a queen? Dear maid, we have the Master’s word touching all such, pourtrayments. ‘The graven images oftheirgods shall ye burn with fire.—Thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.’” (Deuteronomy twelve, verses 25, 26.)

“O Mr Tremayne!” said Blanche, with a horrified look. “You would surely ne’er call a picture or an image of our Lord’s own mother a thing accursed?”

“But I would, my maid,” he answered very gravely, “that instant moment that there should be given thereunto the honour and worship and glory that be only due to Him. ‘My glory will I not give to another, neither My praise to graven images.’ Nay, I would call an image of Christ Himself a thing accursed, if it stood in His place in the hearts of men. Mark you, King Hezekiah utterly destroyed the serpent of brass that was God’s own appointed likeness of Christ, that moment that the children of Israel did begin to burn incense unto it, thereby making it an idol.”

“But in the Papistical Church they be no idols, Master Tremayne!” interposed Blanche eagerly. “Therein lieth the difference betwixt Popery and Paganism.”

“What should you say, Mistress Blanche, if you wist that therein liethnodifference betwixt Popery and Paganism? The old Pagans were wont to say the same thing. (Note 1.) They should have laughed in your face if you had charged them with worshipping wood and stone, and have answered that they worshipped only the thing signified. So much is it thus, that amongst some Pagan nations, they do hold that their god cometh down in his proper person into the image for a season (like as the Papists into the wafer of the sacrament), and when they account him gone, they cast the image away as no more worth. Yet hark you how God Himself accounteth of this their worship. ‘He maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto IT, and worshippeth IT, and prayeth unto IT, and saith, Deliver me, for thou art my god.’ And list also how He expoundeth the same:—‘A deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?’ (Isaiah 44, verses 17, 20.) There should be little idolatry in this world if there were no deceived hearts.”

Blanche twisted her handkerchief about, in the manner of a person who is determined not to be convinced, yet can find nothing to say in answer.

“Tell me, Mistress Blanche,—for I think too well of your good sense to doubt the same,—you cannot believe that Christ Himself is in a piece of bread?”

In her inmost heart she certainly believed no such thing. But it would never do to retreat from her position. In Blanche’s eyes, disgrace lay not in being mistaken, but in being shown the mistake.

“Wherefore may it not be so?” she murmured. “’Tis matter of faith, in like manner as is our Lord’s resurrection.”

“In like manner? I cry you mercy. You believe the resurrection on the witness of them that knew it—that saw the sepulchre void; that saw Christ, and spake with Him, and did eat and drink with Him, and knew Him to be the very same Jesus that had died. You can bear no witness either way, for you were not there. But in this matter of the bread, here are you; and you see it for yourself not to be as you be told. Your eyes tell you that they behold bread; your hands tell you that they handle bread; your tongue tells you that it tasteth bread. The witness of your senses is in question: and these three do agree that the matter is bread only.”

“The senses may be deceived, I reckon?”

“The senses may be deceived; and, as meseemeth, after two fashions: firstly, when the senses themselves be not in full healthfulness and vigour. Thus, if a man have some malady in his eyes, that he know himself to see things mistakenly, from the relation of other around him, then may he doubt what his eyes see with regard to this matter. Secondly, a man must not lean on his senses touching matters that come not within the discerning of sense. Now in regard to this bread, the Papists do overreach themselves. Did they but tell us that the change made was mystical and of faith,—not within the discernment of sense—we might then find it harder work to deal withal, and we must seek unto the Word of God only, and not unto our sense in any wise. But they go farther: they tell us the change is such, that there isno more the substance of bread left at all. (Note 2.) This therefore is matter within the discerning of sense. If it be thus, then this change is needs one that I can see, can taste, can handle. I know, at my own table, whether I eat flesh or bread; how then should I be unable to know the same at the table of the Lord? Make it matter of sense, and I must needs submit it to the judgment of my senses. But now to take the other matter,—to wit, of faith. Christ said unto the Jews, ‘The bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.’ They took Him right as the Papists do. They ‘strave among themselves, saying, How shall this man give us his flesh to eat?’ Now mark you our Lord’s answer. Doth He say, ‘Ye do ill to question this matter; ’tis a mystery of the Church; try it not by sense, but believe?’ Nay, He openeth the door somewhat wider, and letteth in another ray of light upon the signification of His words. He saith to them,—‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye haveno lifein you.’ I pray you, what manner of life? Surely not the common life of nature, for that may be sustained by other food. The life, then, is a spiritual life; and how shall spiritual life be sustained by natural meat? The meat must be spiritual, if the life be so. Again He saith,—‘He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him.’ Now, if the eating be after a literal manner, so also must be the dwelling. Our bodies, therefore, must be withinside the body of Christ in Heaven, and His body must be withinside every one of ours on earth. That this is impossible and ridiculous alike, I need not to tell you. Mistress Blanche, faith is not to believe whatsoever any shall tell you. It is less to believe a thing than to trust a man. And I can only trust a man on due testimony that he is worthy trust.”

“But this is to trust Christ our Lord,” said Blanche.

“Ay so, my maid? Or is it rather to trust our own fantasy of what Christ would say?”

Blanche was silent for a moment; then she answered,—“But He did say, ‘This is My body.’”

“Will you go further, an’ it like you?”

“How, Master Tremayne?”

“‘This is My body, which is broken for you.’ Was the bread that He held in His hand the body that was broken? Did that morsel of bread take away the sin of the world? Look you, right in so far as the bread was the body, in so far also was the breaking of that bread the death of that body,—and no further. Now, Mistress Blanche, was the breaking of the bread the death of the body? Think thereon, and answer me.”

“It was an emblem or representation thereof, no doubt,” she said slowly.

“Good. Then, inasmuch as the breaking did set forth the death, in so much did the bread set forth the body. If the one be an emblem, so must be the other.”

“That may be, perchance,” said Blanche, sheering off from the subject, as she found it passing beyond her, and requiring the troublesome effort of thought: “but, Master Tremayne, there is one other matter whereon the speech of you Gospellers verily offendeth me no little.”

“Pray you, tell me what it is, Mistress Blanche.”

“It is the little honour, or I might well say the dishonour, that you do put upon Saint Mary the blessed Virgin. Surely, of all that He knew and loved on this earth, she must have been the dearest unto our Lord. Why then thus scrimp and scant the reverence due unto her? Verily, in this matter, the Papists do more meetly than you.”

“‘More meetly’—wherewith, Mistress Blanche? With the truth of Holy Scripture, or with the fantasies of human nature?”

“I would say,” repeated Blanche rather warmly, “that her honour must be very dear to her blessed Son.”

“There is one honour ten thousand-fold dearer unto His heart, my maid, and that is the honour of God His eternal Father. All honour, that toucheth not this, I am ready to pay to her. But tell me wherefore you think she must be His dearest?”

“Because it must needs be thus,” replied illogical Blanche.

“I would ask you to remember, Mistress Blanche, that He hath told us the clean contrary.”

Blanche looked up with an astonished expression.

“‘Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in Heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.’ Equally honourable, equally dear, with that mother of His flesh whom you would fain upraise above all other women. And I am likewise disposed to think that word of Paul,—‘Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more’—I say, I am disposed to think this may have his reverse side. Though He hath known us after the flesh, yet thus, now that He is exalted to the right hand of God, He knoweth us no more. And if so, then Mary is now unto Him but one of a multitude of saved souls, all equally fair and dear and precious in the eyes of Him that died for them.”

“O Master Tremayne!”

“What would you say, Mistress Blanche?”

“That is truly—it sounds so cold!” said Blanche, disparagingly.

“Doth it so?” asked the Rector, smiling. “Cold, that all should be beloved of His heart? Dear maid, ’tis not that He loveth her the less, but that He loveth the other more.”

As Blanche made no response, Mr Tremayne went on.

“There is another side to this matter, Mistress Blanche, that I daresay you have ne’er looked upon: and it toucheth at once the matter of images, and the reverence due unto Saint Mary. Know you that great part of the images held in worship for her by the Papists, be no images of her at all? All the most ancient—and many be very ancient—were ne’er made for Mary. The marvel-working black Virgins—our Lady of Einsiedeln, our Lady of Loretto, and all such—be in very truth old idols, of a certain Tuscan or Etruscan goddess, elder than the days of the Romans. (Note 3.) Again, all they that are of fair complexion—such as have grey eyes (blue eyes were then called grey) and yellow hair—these be not Mary the Jewess. We can cast no doubt she was dark. Whence then come all these fair-complexioned pictures? We might take it, in all likelihood, from the fancy of the painters, that did account a fair woman to be of better favour than a dark. But search you into past history, and you shall find it not thus. These fair-favoured pictures be all of another than Mary; to wit, of that ancient goddess, in her original of the Babylonians, that was worshipped under divers names all over the world,—in Egypt as Isis; in Greece, as Athene, Artemis, and Aphrodite; in Rome as Juno, Diana, and Venus: truly, every goddess was but a diversity of this one. (Note 4.) These, then, be no pictures of the Maid of Nazareth. And ’tis the like of other images,—they be christened idols. The famed Saint Peter, in his church at Rome is but a christened Jupiter. Wit you how Paganism was got rid of? It was by receiving of it into the very bosom of the Roman Church. The ceremonies of the Pagans were but turned,—from Ceres, Cybele, Isis, or Aphrodite, unto Mary—from Apollo, Bacchus, Osiris, Tammuz, unto Christ. Thus, when these Pagans found that they did in very deed worship the same god, and with the same observances, as of old—for the change was in nothing save the name only—they became Christians by handfuls;—yea, by cityfuls. What marvel, I pray you? But how shall we call this Church of Rome, that thus bewrayed her trust, and sold her Lord again like Judas? An idolatrous Christianity—nay, rather a baptised idolatry! God hath writ her name, Mistress Blanche, on the last page of His Word; and it is, Babylon, Mother of all Abominations.”

“I do marvel, Master Tremayne,” said Blanche a little indignantly, though in a constrained voice, “how you dare bring such ill charges against the Papistical Church. Do they not set great store by holiness, I pray you? Yea, have they not monks and nuns, and a celibate priesthood, consecrate to greater holiness than other? How can you charge them with wickedness and abomination?”

“Poor child!” murmured the Rector, as if to himself,—“she little wist what manner of life idolaters term holiness! Mistress Blanche, yonder cloak of professed holiness hideth worser matter than you can so much as think on. ’Tis not I that set that name on the Papistical Church. It was God Himself. Will you tell me, moreover, an’ it like you,—What is holiness?”

“Goodness—right-doing.”

“Those be unclear words, methinks. They may mean well-nigh aught. For me, I would say, Holiness is walking with God, and according to the will of God.”

“Well! Is not God pleased with the doing of good?”

“God is pleased with nothing but Christ. He is not pleased with you because of your deeds. He must first acceptyou, and that not for any your deserving, but for the sake of the alone merits of His Son; and then He shall be pleased with your deeds, since they shall be such as His Spirit shall work in you. But nothing can please God except that which cometh from God. Your works, apart from Him, be dead works. And you cannot serve the living God with dead works.”

Blanche’s half-unconscious shrug of the shoulders conveyed the information that this doctrine was not agreeable to her.

“Surely God will be pleased with us if we do out best!” she muttered.

“By no means,” said Mr Tremayne quietly. “Your best is not good enough for God. He likeneth that best of yours to filthy rags. What should you say to one that brought you a present of filthy rags, so foul that you could not so much as touch them?”

Blanche, who was extremely dainty as to what she touched, quite appreciated this simile. She found an answer, nevertheless.

“God is merciful, Mr Tremayne. You picture Him as hard and unpitiful.”

“Verily, Mistress Blanche, God is merciful: more than you nor I may conceive. But God hath no mercies outside of Christ. Come to Him bringing aught in your hand save Christ, and He hath nought to say to you. And be you ware that you cannot come and bring nothing. If you bring not Christ, assuredly you shall bring somewhat else,—your own works, or your own sufferings, or in some manner your own deservings. And for him that cometh with his own demerits in hand, God hath nought saving the one thing he hath indeed demerited,—which is—Hell.”

Mr Tremayne spoke so solemnly that Blanche felt awed. But she did not relish the doctrine which he preached any better on that account.

“How have I demerited that?” she asked.

“God Himself shall answer you. ‘He that hath not the Son of God hath not life.’ ‘He that believeth not is condemned already.’”

“But I do believe—all Christians believe!” urged Blanche.

“What believe you?”

“I believe unfeignedly all that the creed saith touching our Lord.”

“And I believe as unfeignedly all that the Commentaries of Caesar say touching that same Julius Caesar.”

“What mean you, Master Tremayne?”

“What did Julius Caesar for me, Mistress Blanche?”

“Marry, nought at all,” said Blanche, laughing, “without his invading of England should have procured unto us some civility which else we had lacked.”

Civility, at that time, meant civilisation. When, according to the wondrous dreamer of Bedford Gaol, Mr Worldly Wiseman referred Christian, if he should not find Mr Legality at home, to the pretty young man called Civility, whom he had to his son, and who could take off a burden as well as the old gentleman himself,—he meant, not what we call civility, but what we call civilisation. That pretty young man is at present the most popular physician of the day; and he still goes to the town of Morality to church. The road to his house is crowded more than ever, though the warning has been standing for two hundred years, that “notwithstanding his simpering looks, he is but a hypocrite,”—as well as another warning far older,—“Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.” (Job twenty-eight verse 28.)

“But now,” said the Rector, with an answering smile, “tell me, what did Jesus Christ for me?”

“He is the Saviour,” she said in a low voice.

“Of whom, dear maid?”

Blanche felt rather vague on that point, and the feeling was combined with a conviction that she ought not to be so. She tried to give an answer which could not be contradicted.

“Of them that believe.”

“Certes,” said Mr Tremayne, suppressing a smile, for he saw both Blanche’s difficulty and her attempt to evade it. “But that, look you, landeth us on the self place where we were at aforetime: who be they that believe?”

Blanche wisely determined to commit herself no further.

“Would it please you to tell me, Sir?”

“Dear child, if you heard me to say, touching some man that we both were acquaint withal,—‘I believe in John’—what should you conceive that I did signify?”

“I would account,” said Blanche readily, thinking this question easy to answer, “that you did mean, ‘I account of him as a true man; I trust him; I hold him well worthy of affiance.’”

“Good. And if, after thus saying, you should see me loth to trust an half-angel into his hands to spend for me,—should you think that mine act did go with my words, or no?”

“Assuredly, nay.”

“Then look you, Mistress Blanche, that it is greater matter than you maybe made account, when a man shall say, ‘I believe in Jesus Christ.’ For it signifieth not only that I believe He was born, and lived, and suffered, and arose, and ascended. Nay, but it is, I account of Him as a true man; I trust Him, with body and soul, with friends and goods: I hold Him worthy of all affiance, and I will hold back nothing, neither myself nor my having, from His keeping and disposing. (Ah, my maid! which of us can say so much as this, at all times, and of all matters?) But above all, in the relation whereof we have spoken, it is to say, I trust Christ with my soul. I lean it wholly upon Him. I have no hope in myself; He is mine hope. I have no righteousness of myself; He is my righteousness. I have no standing before God,—I demerit nought but hell; but Christ standeth before God for me: His blood hath washed me clean from all sin, and His pleading with God availeth to hold me up in His ways. And unless or until you can from your heart thus speak I pray you say not again that you believe in Jesus Christ.”

“But, Master, every man cannot thus believe.”

“No man can thus believe until God have taught him.”

Blanche thought, but was not bold enough to say, that she did not see why anybody should believe such disagreeable things about himself. She did not feel this low opinion of her own merits. Hers was the natural religion of professing Christians—that she must do the best she could, and Christ would make up the remainder. Mr Tremayne knew what was passing in her mind as well as if she had spoken it.

“You think that is hard?” said he.

“Ithink it—Mr Tremayne, I could not thus account of myself.”

“You could not, dear maid. I am assured of that.”

“Then wherein lieth my fault?” demanded Blanche.

“In that you will not.”

Blanche felt stung; and she spoke out now, with one of those bursts of confidence which came from her now and then.

“That is sooth, Master. I will not. I have not committed such sins as have many men and women. I ne’er stole, nor murdered, nor used profane swearing, nor worshipped idols, nor did many another ill matter: and I cannot believe but that God shall be more merciful to such than to the evil fawtors (factors, doers) that be in the world. Where were His justice, if no?”

“Mistress Blanche, you wit neither what is God, neither what is sin. The pure and holy law of God is like to a golden ring. You account, that because you have not broken it on this side, nor on that side, you have not broken it at all. But if you break it on any side, it is broken; and you it is that have broken it.”

“Wherein have I broken it?” she asked defiantly.

“‘All unrighteousness is sin.’ Have you alway done rightly, all your life long? If not, then you are a sinner.”

“Oh, of course, we be all sinners,” said Blanche, as if that were a very slight admission.

“Good. And a sinner is a condemned criminal. He is not come into this world to see if he may perchance do well, and stand: he is already fallen; he is already under condemnation of law.”

“Then ’tis even as I said,—there is no fault in any of us,” maintained Blanche, sturdily clinging to her point.

“‘This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.’”

“Nay, Master Tremayne, you be now too hard on me. I love not darkness rather than light.”

“God saith you so do, dear maid. And He knoweth—ay, better than yourself. But look not only on that side of the matter. If a man believe that and no more, ’tis fit to drive him unto desperation. Look up unto the writing which is over the gate into God’s narrow way—the gate and the way likewise being His Son Jesus Christ—and read His message of peace sent unto these sinners. ‘Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’ It is God’s ordering, that whosoeverwill, he can.”

“You said but this last Sunday, Master Tremayne, that ’twas not possible for any man to come to Christ without God did draw him thereto.”

“Isaid, my maid? My Master it was which said that. Well—what so?”

“Then we can have nought to answer for; for without God do draw us, we cannot come.”

“And without we be willing to be thus drawn, God will not do it.”

“Nay, but you said, moreover, that the very will must come from God.”

“Therein I spake truth.”

Blanche thought she had now driven her pastor into a corner.

“Then you do allow,” she asked triumphantly, “that if I should not will the same, I am clean of all fault, sith the very will must needs come from God?”

Mr Tremayne understood the drift of his catechumen.

“An’ it like you, Mistress Blanche, we will leave a moment to make inquiry into that point, till we shall have settled another, of more import to you and me.”

“What is it, Master?”

“Are you willing?”

“Willing that I should be saved eternally? Most assuredly.”

“Then—willing that all the will of God shall be done, in you and by you?”

“The one followeth not the other.”

“I cry you mercy. The King of kings, like other princes, dealeth with His rebels on his own terms.”

Blanche was silent, and, very uncomfortable.

“’Tis time for me to be about my duties. When you shall have fully settled that point of your willingness, Mistress Blanche, and shall have determined that you are thus willing—which God grant!—then, an’ it like you, we will go into the other matter.”

And Mr Tremayne left the room with a bow, very well knowing that as soon as the first point was satisfactorily settled, the second would be left quiescent.

Mrs Tremayne had never opened her lips; and leaving her in the study, Blanche wandered into the parlour, where Clare and Lysken were seated at work.

“I marvel what Master Tremayne would have!” said Blanche, sitting down in the window, and idly pulling the dead leaves from the plant which stood there. “He saith ’tis our own fault that we will not to be saved, and yet in the self breath he addeth that the will so to be must needs be given us of God.”

Lysken looked up.

“Methinks we are all willing enow to be saved from punishment,” she said. “What we be unwilling to be saved from is sin.”

“‘Sin’—alway sin!” muttered Blanche. “Ye be both of a story. Sin is wickedness. I am not wicked.”

“Sin is the disobeying of God,” replied Lysken. “And saving thy presence, Blanche, thou art wicked.”

“Then so art thou!” retorted Blanche.

“So I am,” said Lysken. “But I am willing to be saved therefrom.”

“Prithee, Mistress Elizabeth Barnevelt, from what sin am I not willing to be saved?”

“Dost truly wish to know?” asked Lysken in her coolest manner.

“Certes!”

“Then—pride.”

“Pride is no sin!”

“I love not gainsaying, Blanche. But I dare in no wise gainsay the Lord. And He saith of pride, that it is an abomination unto Him, and He hateth it.” (Proverbs six, verse 16; and sixteen verse 5.)

“But that is ill and sinful pride,” urged Blanche. “There is proper pride.”

“It seemeth to my poor wits,” said Lysken, “that a thing which the Lord hateth must be all of it improper.”

“Why, Lysken! Thus saying, thou shouldst condemn all high spirit and noble bearing!”

“‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’ There was no pride in Christ, Blanche. And thou wilt scarce say that He bare Him not nobly.”

“Why, then, we might as well all be peasants!”

“I suppose we might, if we were,” said Lysken.

“Lysken, it should be a right strange world, where thou hadst the governance!”

“Very like,” was Lysken’s calm rejoinder, as she set the pin a little further in her seam.

“What good is it, prithee, to set thee up against all men’s opinion? (What are now termed ‘views’ were then called ‘opinions.’) Thou shalt but win scorn for thine.”

“Were it only mine, Blanche, it should be to no good. But when it is God’s command wherewith mine opinion runneth,—why then, the good shall be to hear Christ say, ‘Well done, faithful servant.’ The scorn I bare here shall be light weight then.”

“But wherefore not go smoothly through the world?”

“Because it should cost too much.”

“Nay, what now?” remonstrated Blanche.

“I have two lives, Blanche: and I cannot have my best things in both. The one is short and passing; the other is unchangeable, and shall stand for ever. Now then, I would like my treasures for the second of these two lives: and if I miss any good thing in the first, it shall be no great matter.”

“Thou art a right Puritan!” said Blanche disgustedly.

“Call not names, Blanche,” gently interposed Clare.

“Dear Clare, it makes he difference,” said Lysken. “If any call me a Papist, ’twill not make me one.”

“Lysken Barnevelt, is there aught in this world would move thee?”

“‘In this world?’ Well, but little, methinks. But—there will be some things in the other.”

“What things?” bluntly demanded Blanche.

“To see His Face!” said Lysken, the light breaking over her own. “And to hear Him say, ‘Come!’ And to sit down at the marriage-supper of the Lamb,—with the outer door closed for ever, and the woes, and the wolves, and the winter, all left on the outside. If none of these earthly things move me, Blanche, it is because those heavenly things will.”

And after that, Blanche was silent.

Note 1. The Gentiles (saith Saint Augustine), which seem to be of the purer religion, say, We worship not the images, but by the corporal image we do behold the signs of the things which we ought to worship. And Lactantius saith, The Gentiles say, We fear not the images, but them after whose likeness the images be made, and to whose names they be consecrated. And Clemens saith, That serpent the Devil uttereth these words by the mouth of certain men: We, to the honour of the invisible God, worship visible images.—(Third Part of the Homily on Peril of Idolatry: references in margin to Augustine Ps. 135; Lactantius l. 2. Inst.; Clem., L. S ad Jacob.) Here are the “Fathers” condemning as Pagan the reasoning of modern Papists.

Note 2. “Credit et defendit que in eucharistia sive altaris sacramento verum et naturalem Christi corpus ac verus et naturalis Christi sanguis sub speciebus panis et vini vere non est; et quodibi est materialis panis et materiale vinumtantum absque veritati et presentia corporis et sanguinis Christi.”—Indictment of Reverend Lawrence Saunders, January 30, 1555; Harl. MS. 421, folio 44.

“Tenes et defendes in prout quod in eucharistia sive sacramento altaris verum naturalem et realem Christi corpus ac verus naturalis et realis Christi sanguis sub speciebus panis et vini vere non est, sedpost consecratione remanet substantia panis et vini.”—Indictment of Reverend Thomas Rose, May 31, 1555; Harl. MS. 421, folio 188.

Note 3. There is the initial M on the pedestal of one or more of these black Virgins, which of course the priests interpret as Mary. This is certainly not the case. It has been suggested that it stands for Maia, a name of the Tuscan goddess. May it not be the initial of Mylitta, “the Mediatrix,” one of the favourite names of the great original goddess?

Note 4. See Hislop’sTwo Babylons, pages 22, 122, 491, et aliis; and Shepheard’sTraditions of Eden, page 117, note (where many references are given), and page 188.

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