Chapter Seven.A Spice of Philosophy.While Dan was thus detailing his troubles in Avice’s kitchen, his daughter Emma was finishing her day’s work. She was apprenticed to an embroideress; for all kinds of embroidery were in much greater use then than now. There was no sort of trimming except embroidery and fur; there were no such things as printed cottons; and not only ladies’ dresses, but gentlemen’s, and all kinds of curtains and hangings, were very largely ornamented with the needle. Mrs De la Laund kept eighteen apprentices, and they worked in a long, narrow room with windows at each end—not glass windows, but just square openings, where light, wind, and rain or snow, came in together. It was about half an hour before it would be time to stop work. There was no clock in the room, and there were only three in all Lincoln. Clocks such as we have were then unknown. They had but two measures of time—the clepsydra, or water-clock, and the sun-dial. When a man had neither of these, he employed all kinds of ingenious expedients for guessing what time it was, if the day were cloudy and the sun not to be seen. King Alfred had invented the plan, long before, of having candles to burn a certain time; the monks knew how long it took to repeat certain psalms. Mrs De la Laund stopped work when the cathedral bell tolled for vespers—that is, at four o’clock.“You look tired, Antigone,” said Emma to her nearest neighbour, a pale girl of eighteen.“Tired? Of course I’m tired,” was the unpromising answer. “Where’s the good? One must go on.”“She does not like the work,” said the girl on the other side of her.“Do you?” responded Antigone, turning to her.The girl gave a little laugh. “I don’t think whether I like it or not,” she said. “I like being taught what will get me a living some day.”“I hate it!” answered Antigone. “Why should I have to work for my living, when Lady Margaret, up at the Castle, never needs to put a needle in or out unless she pleases?”“Nay, you’re wrong there. My sister Justina is scullion-maid at the Castle, and I am sure, from what she tells me, you wouldn’t like to change with Lady Margaret.”“My word, but I would!”“Why not, Sarah?” asked Emma.“Well,” replied Sarah with a smile, “Antigone likes what she calls a bit of fun when the day’s work is over; and she would not get nearly so much as she does, if she were in Lady Margaret’s place. She dwells in three chambers in her mother’s tower, and never comes down except to hall,” (namely, to meals,) “with now and then a decorous dance under the eyes of the Lady Countess. No running races on the green, nor chattering away to everybody, nor games—except upstairs in her own room with a few other young damsels. Antigone would think she was in prison, to be used like that. And learning!—why, she has to learn Latin, and surgery, and heraldry, and all sorts of needlework—not embroidery only; and cooking, and music, and I do not know what else. How would you like it, Antigone?”“Well, at any rate, she has a change!” said Antigone, with some acerbity.“Not quite the same thing as no work at all, for which I thought you were longing. And no liberty, remember.”“But her gowns, Sarah, her gowns!—and her hoods, and cloaks, and everything else! Did you see her last Saint Michael? I’d have given a bit of liberty for that orange samite and those lovely blue slippers!”Sarah laughed and gave a little shake of her head.“I know who is fond of Hunt the Slipper,” said she. “A pretty figure an orange samite gown would cut after an evening of it! I think, too, I would rather be free to go about on my feet than even to wear lovely blue slippers. Nay, Antigone, you may depend upon it, there are less pleasant things in Lady Margaret’s life than orange gowns and blue slippers. We can have a say about our weddings, remember: but she will be handed over to somebody she never saw, as like as not. I’d rather be as I am. Mother says folks’ lots are more even than they like to think. Poor folks fancy that rich ones have nothing to trouble them worth mention; and a sick man thinks, if he were only well, he would not mind being poor; and a man in prison says that if he could but be free, he could bear both illness and poverty. The truth is, everybody thinks his own trouble the worst; and yet, if we had our neighbours’ instead, nine times out of ten we should be glad to get back to our own. We know the worst of them, and often we don’t of the others. So that is why I say, I’d rather be as I am.”“But people look down on you!” said Antigone.“Well, let them.Thatwon’t hurt me,” answered Sarah.“Sarah, I do believe you’ve not a bit of spirit!”“I’d rather keep my spirit for what it is good for—to help me over hard places and along weary bits of road. All women have those at times. Mother says—”“Where’s the good of quoting old women? They have outlived their youth.”“Well, at any rate they lived through it, and some of them picked up a bit of wisdom by the way.”“You may keep your musty wisdom to yourself! I want none of it!” said Antigone, scornfully.“I want all I can get,” quietly responded Sarah. “Mother says (if you don’t care for it, Emma may) that discontent is the worst companion a girl can have for making everything look miserable. You’ll be a deal happier, she says, with a dry crust and a good will to it, than with a roast ox and a complaining temper.”“Ay, that’s true!” said Emma, with a sigh.“Poor Emma!” laughed Antigone. “You get enough of it, don’t you, at the smithy?”“I would rather not talk over my mother and sisters, if you please,” returned Emma.“Oh, you don’t need to take airs, my lady. I know!”“Come, let Emma be,” said Sarah. “Let’s keep our tempers, if we haven’t much else. There’s the vesper bell!”Antigone’s work was not likely to be improved by the hasty huddled-up style in which it was folded, while Sarah and Emma shook theirs straight and carefully avoided creases. They had then to give it in to the mistress, who stood at one end of the room, putting all away in a large coffer. When the last girl had given in her work, Mrs De la Laund called for silence.“On Thursday next,” said she, “I shall give you a holiday after dinner. The Queen comes to Lincoln on that day, and I wish to give as many as are good girls the chance of seeing her enter. But I shall expect to have no creased work like Antigone’s; nor split and frayed like Geneveva’s; nor dirtied like Femiana’s. Now you may go.”They had odd names for girls in those days. Among the nobles and gentry, most were like ours; young ladies of rank were Alice, Cicely, Margaret, Joan, Isabel, Emma, or Agnes: a strange name being the exception. But among working women the odd names were then the rule: they were Yngeleis, Sabelina, Orenge, Pimma, Cinelote, Argentella, and very many more of the same high-sounding kind.When the apprentices left the work-room, they were free to do as they liked till seven o’clock, when they must all re-assemble there, answer to their names called over, repeat some prayers after Mrs de la Laund, and go to bed in a large loft at the top of the house. Characters came out on these occasions. The majority showed themselves thoughtless and giddy: they went to run races on the green, and to play games—the better disposed only among themselves: but the wild, adventurous spirits soon joined a lot of idle youths as unsteady as themselves, with whom they spent the evening in rough play, loud laughter, and not altogether decorous joking. The little group of sensible girls kept away from such scenes. Most of them went to see their friends, if within reasonable distance; those who had none at hand sat or walked quietly together. Emma and Sarah were among these.Any person entering Lincoln on the following Wednesday would plainly have seen that the town was preparing for some great event. Every house draped itself in some kind of hanging—the rich in coarse silk, the poorer in bunting or whatever they could get. The iron hoops here and there built into the walls for that purpose, held long pine-sticks, to be lighted as torches after dark; and they would need careful watching, for a great deal of the city was built of wood, and if a spark lighted on the walls, a serious fire might be the result. In the numerous balconies which projected from the better class of houses sat ladies dressed in their handsomest garments on the Thursday morning, and below in the street stood men and women packed tightly into a crowd, waiting for the Queen to arrive. There was not much room in a mediaeval street, and the sheriffs did not find it easy to keep a clear passage for the royal train. As to keeping any passage for the traffic, that would have been considered quite unnecessary. There was not much to keep it for; and what there was could go round by back streets, just as well as not. Few people set any value on time in the Middle Ages.Queen Alianora was expected to arrive about twelve o’clock. She was not the Queen Eleanor of whom we read at the beginning of the story (for Alianora is only one of the old ways of spelling Eleanor), but her daughter-in-law, the Lady Alianora who had been a friend to the dumb Princess. She was a Spanish lady, and was one of the best and loveliest Queens who ever reigned in England. Goodness and beauty are not always found in company—perhaps I might say, not often; but they went together with her. She was a Spanish blonde—which means that her hair was a bright shade of golden—neither flaxen nor red; and that her eyes were a deep, deep blue—the blue of a southern sky, such as we rarely if ever see in an English one. Her complexion was fair and rosy, her features regular and beautiful, her figure extremely elegant and well-proportioned. The crowd, though good-humoured, was beginning to get tired, when she came at last.The Queen, who was not quite thirty years of age, rode on a white horse, whose scarlet saddle-cloth was embroidered with golden lions and roses, and which was led by Garcia, her Spanish Master of the Horse. She was dressed in green samite, trimmed with ermine. On her left hand rode the Earl of Lincoln, on her right, her eldest surviving son, the little Prince Alphonso, who was only seven years old. He died at the age of eleven. After the Queen rode her two damsels, Aubrey de Caumpeden and Ermetrude; and after them and the officers of the household came a number of lesser people, the mob of sight-seers closing in and following them up the street. (See Note 1.) Her Majesty rode up Steephill to the Castle, where the Countess of Lincoln and her daughter Lady Margaret—a girl of about fifteen—received her just inside the gate. Then the mob cheered, the Queen looked back with a smile and a bow, the Almoner flung a handful of silver pennies among them, the portcullis was hauled down, and the sight was over.As Emma turned back from the Castle gate, she met her father and her sister Eleanor, who, like her, had been sight-seeing.“Well!” said Dan, “did thou see her?”“Oh yes, beautifully!” answered Emma. “Isn’t she handsome, Father?”“‘Handsome is as handsome does,’” philosophically returned Dan. “Some folks looks mighty handsome as doesn’t do even to it.Shewas just like a pictur’ when I wed her. Ay, she was, so!—Where art thou going, Emma?”“I thought of looking in on Aunt Avice, Father. Are you and Eleanor coming, too?”“I’m not,” said Eleanor. “I’m going to see Laurentia atte Gate. So I’ll wish you good even.”She kept straight on, while Dan and Emma turned off for Avice’s house. It was not surprising that they found nobody at home but the turnspit dog, who was sufficiently familiar with both to wag a welcome; but somebody sat in the chimney-corner who was not at home, but was a visitor like themselves. When the door was unlatched, Father Thomas closed the book he had been reading and looked up.“Good even, Father,” said Dan to the priest. “I reckon you’ve come o’ th’ same errand as us.”“What is that, my son?”Dan sat down on the form, and put a big hand on each knee.“Well, it’s some’at like t’ shepherd comin’ to count t’ sheep, to see ’at none of ’em’s missin’,” said he. “It’s so easy to get lost of a big moor full o’ pits and quagmires. And this world’s some’at like it.—Ah, Avice! folks as goes a-sight-seeing mun expect to find things of a mixtur’ when they gets home.”“A very pleasant mixture, Uncle,” said Avice. “Pray you of your blessing, holy Father.”Father Thomas gave it, and Bertha, stooping down, kissed Dan on his broad wrinkled forehead.“Did thou get a penny?” asked Dan.“I got two!” cried Bertha, triumphantly. “And Aunt Avice got one. Did you, Father?”“Nay, lass—none o’ my luck! Silver pennies and such knows better nor to come my way. Nor they’d better not, without they’ll come right number. I should get tore to bits if I went home wi’ one, as like as not. She ’d want it, and so ’d Ankaret, and so ’d Susanna, and so ’d Mildred; and atwixt ’em all it ’d get broke i’ pieces, andsoshould I. And see thou, it’s made i’ quarters, and I amn’t, so it wouldn’t come so convenient to me.”Pennies were then made with a deep cross cut athwart them, so that they were easily broken, when wanted, into halfpence and farthings, for there were no separate ones coined.“Father, have one of mine!” cried Bertha at the beginning of Dan’s answer.“Nay, nay, lass! Keep thy bit o’ silver—or if thou wants to give it, let Emma have it. She’ll outlive it; I shouldn’t.”The silver penny changed hands at once. Avice had meanwhile been hanging up her hood and cloak, and she now proceeded to prepare a dish of eggs, foreseeing company to supper. Supper was exceedingly early to-day, as it was scarcely three o’clock; but dinner had been equally so, for nobody wanted to be busy when the Queen came. A large dish of “eggs and butter” was speedily on the table—the “buttered eggs” of the north of England, which are, I believe, identical with the “scrambled eggs” of the United States. The party sat down to supper, Father Thomas being served with a trencher to himself.“And how dost thou get along wi’ thy Missis, my lass?” said Dan to his daughter.“Oh, things is very pleasant as yet, Father,” answered Emma with a smile. “There’s a mixture, as you said just now. Some’s decent lasses enough; and some’s foolish; and some’s middlin’. There’s most of the middlin’ ones.”“I’m fain to hear it,” said Dan. “Lasses is so foolish, I should ha’ thought there ’d be most o’ that lot. So ’s lads too. Eh, it’s a queer world, this un: mortal queer! But I asked thee how thou got on with thy Missis, and thou tells me o’ th’ lasses. Neverdidknow a woman answer straight off. Ask most on ’em how far it is to Newark, and they’ll answer you that t’ wind was west as they come fro’ Barling.”“Thou hast not a good opinion of women, my son,” said Father Thomas, who looked much amused.“I’ve seen too much on ’em!” responded Dan, conclusively. “I’ve got a wife and six lasses.”“Bertha, we’d better mind our ways!” said Emma, laughing.“Nay, it’s none you,” was Dan’s comment. “You’re middlin’ decent, you two. So’s Avice; and so’s old Christopher’s Regina. I know of ne’er another, without it ’s t’ cat—and she scratches like t’ rest when she’s put out. Thereisother decent ’uns, happen. They haven’t come my way yet.”“Why, Father!” cried Emma. “Think who you’re lumping together—the Lady Queen, and my Lady at the Castle, and Lady Margaret, and the Dean’s sister, and—”“Thou’ll be out o’ breath, if thou reckons all thou’st heard tell of,” said Dan. “There’s cats o’ different sorts, child: some’s snowy white (when so be they’ve none been i’ th’ ash-hole), and some’s tabby, and some’s black as iron; but they all scrats. Women’s like ’em.—You’re wise men, you parsons and such, as have nought to do wi’ ’em. Old Christopher, my neighbour up at smithy, he says weddin’s like a bag full o’ snakes wi’ one eel amongst ’em: you ha’ to put your hand in, and you may get th’ eel. But if you dunna—why you’ve got to do t’ best you can wi’ one o’ t’ other lot. If you’ll keep your hand out of the bag you’ll stand best chance of not getting bit.”“It is a pity thou wert not a monk, my son,” said the priest, whose gravity seemed hard to keep.“Ay, it is!” was Dan’s hearty response. “I’m alway fain to pass a nunnery. Says I to myself, There’s a bonnie lot o’ snakes safe tied up out o’ folkses’ way. They’ll never fly at nobody no more. I’m fain for the men as hasn’t got ’em. Ay, I am!”Avice and her young cousins laughed.“Do you think they never fly at one another, Uncle Dan?” asked the former.“Let ’em!” returned that gentleman with much cordiality. “A man gets a bit o’ peace then. It’s t’ only time he does. If they’d just go and make a reg’lar end o’ one another! but they never does,”—and the smith pushed away his trencher with a sigh. “Well! I reckon I mun be going. She gave me while four:—and I’m feared o’ vesper bell ringing afore I can get home. There’ll be more bells nor one, if so. God be wi’ ye, lasses! Good even, Father.”And the door was shut on the unhappy husband of the delightful Filomena. Emma took leave soon after, and Bertha went with her, to see another friend before she returned to her employer’s house. Avice and the priest were left alone. For a few minutes both were silent; but perhaps their thoughts were not very unlike.“I wish, under your leave, Father,” said Avice at length, “that somebody would say a word to Aunt Filomena. I am afraid both she and Uncle Dan are very ignorant. Truly, so am I: and it should be some one who knows better. I doubt if he quite means all he says; but he thinks too ill of women,—and indeed, with five such as he has at home, who can wonder at it? He has no peace from morning to night; and he is naturally a man who loves peace and quiet—as you are yourself, holy Father, unless I mistake.”“Thou art not mistaken, my daughter,” said Father Thomas. Something inside him was giving him a sharp prick or two. Did he love quiet too much, so as to interfere with his duties to his fellow-men? And then something else inside the priest’s heart rose up, as it were, to press down the question, and bid the questioner be silent.“I wonder,” said Avice, innocently, quite unaware of the course of her companion’s thoughts, “whether, if Aunt Filomena knew her duty better, she might not give poor Uncle Dan a little more rest. He is good, in his way, and as far as he knows. I wish I knew more! But then,” Avice concluded, with a little laugh, “I am only a woman.”“Yet thou art evidently one of the few whom he likes and respects,” answered the priest. “Be it thine, my daughter, to show him that women are not all of an evil sort. Do thy best, up to the light thou hast; and cry to God for more light, so that thou mayest know how to do better. ‘Pour forth thy prayers to Him,’ as saith the Collect for the First Sunday after the Epiphany, ‘that thou mayest know what thy duty requires of thee, and be able to comply with what thou knowest.’ It is a good prayer, and specially for them that are perplexed concerning their duty.” (See Note 2.)“But when one does know one’s duty,” asked Avice with simplicity, “it seems so hard to make one’s self do it.”“Didst thou ever yet do that? Daughter, dost thou believe in the Holy Ghost?”Avice’s immediate answer was what would be the instinctive unthinking response of most professing Christians.“Why, Father, of course I do!”“Good. What dost thou believe?”Avice was silent. “Ah!” said the priest. “It is easy to think we believe: but hard to put our faith into plain words. If the faith were clearer, maybe the words would follow.”“It is so difficult to get things clear and plain!” sighed poor Avice.“Have one thing clear, daughter—the way between God and thine own soul. Let nothing come in to block up that—however fair, howsoever dear it be. And thou shalt have thy reward.”“Father, is it like keeping other things clear? The way to have the floor clear and clean is to sweep it every morning.”“Ay, my daughter, sweep it every morning with the besom of prayer, and every night bear over it the torch of self-examination. So shall the evil insects not make their nests there.”“I don’t quite know how to examine myself,” said Avice.“And thou wilt err,” answered Father Thomas, “if thou set about that work alone, with a torch lighted at the flame of thine own righteousness. Light thy torch at the fire of God’s altar; examine thyself by the light of His holy law; and do it at His feet, so that whatever evil thing thou mayest find thou canst take at once to Him to be cleansed away. Content not thyself with brushing away thoughts, but go to the root of that same sin in thine own heart. Say not, ‘I should not have spoken proudly to my neighbour’—but, ‘I should not be proud in my heart.’ Deal rather with the root that is in thee than with the branches of acts and words. There are sins which only to think of is to do. Take to our Lord, then, thy sins to be cleansed away; but let thine own thoughts dwell not so much on thy sins, thy deeds done and words said, but rather on thy sinfulness, the inward fount of sin in thy nature.”“That were ugly work!” said Avice.“Ay. I reckon thou countest not the scouring of thy floor among thine enjoyments. But it is needful, my daughter: and is it no enjoyment to see it clean?”“Ay, that it is,” admitted Avice.“I remember, my child, many years ago—thou wert but a little maid—that holy Bishop Robert came to sup with thy grandmother Muriel. Tell me, wouldst thou have been satisfied—I say not as a little child, since children note not such things—but as a woman, wouldst thou have been satisfied to receive the holy Bishop with a dirty floor, and offer to him an uncleansed spoon to put to his lips?”“Oh no, Father, surely not!”“Then see, daughter, that when the Bishop of thy soul lifteth the latch to come in and sup with thee, He find not the soiled floor and the unclean vessel, and turn sorrowfully away, saying, ‘I thought to sup with My child this night, but this is no place for Me.’ Trust me, thou wilt lose more than He, if He close the door and depart.”Avice’s eyes filled with tears.“O Father, pray for me! I cannot bear to think of that.”Father Thomas rose and laid his hand on Avice’s head. His words, as coming from a priest, rather surprised her.“My child,” he said softly, “let us pray for each other.”Avice stood looking out of the window after him as he went down the street.“I wonder,” she said to herself, “if our Lord ever turned away thus because Father Thomas’s chamber was not clean! He seemed to know what it was so well—yet how could such a good, holy man know anything about it?”Note 1. Aubrey is now a man’s name only, but in the earlier hall of the Middle Ages it was used for both sexes.Note 2. This collect was slightly altered from that in the Sarum Missal. The form here quoted is the older one.
While Dan was thus detailing his troubles in Avice’s kitchen, his daughter Emma was finishing her day’s work. She was apprenticed to an embroideress; for all kinds of embroidery were in much greater use then than now. There was no sort of trimming except embroidery and fur; there were no such things as printed cottons; and not only ladies’ dresses, but gentlemen’s, and all kinds of curtains and hangings, were very largely ornamented with the needle. Mrs De la Laund kept eighteen apprentices, and they worked in a long, narrow room with windows at each end—not glass windows, but just square openings, where light, wind, and rain or snow, came in together. It was about half an hour before it would be time to stop work. There was no clock in the room, and there were only three in all Lincoln. Clocks such as we have were then unknown. They had but two measures of time—the clepsydra, or water-clock, and the sun-dial. When a man had neither of these, he employed all kinds of ingenious expedients for guessing what time it was, if the day were cloudy and the sun not to be seen. King Alfred had invented the plan, long before, of having candles to burn a certain time; the monks knew how long it took to repeat certain psalms. Mrs De la Laund stopped work when the cathedral bell tolled for vespers—that is, at four o’clock.
“You look tired, Antigone,” said Emma to her nearest neighbour, a pale girl of eighteen.
“Tired? Of course I’m tired,” was the unpromising answer. “Where’s the good? One must go on.”
“She does not like the work,” said the girl on the other side of her.
“Do you?” responded Antigone, turning to her.
The girl gave a little laugh. “I don’t think whether I like it or not,” she said. “I like being taught what will get me a living some day.”
“I hate it!” answered Antigone. “Why should I have to work for my living, when Lady Margaret, up at the Castle, never needs to put a needle in or out unless she pleases?”
“Nay, you’re wrong there. My sister Justina is scullion-maid at the Castle, and I am sure, from what she tells me, you wouldn’t like to change with Lady Margaret.”
“My word, but I would!”
“Why not, Sarah?” asked Emma.
“Well,” replied Sarah with a smile, “Antigone likes what she calls a bit of fun when the day’s work is over; and she would not get nearly so much as she does, if she were in Lady Margaret’s place. She dwells in three chambers in her mother’s tower, and never comes down except to hall,” (namely, to meals,) “with now and then a decorous dance under the eyes of the Lady Countess. No running races on the green, nor chattering away to everybody, nor games—except upstairs in her own room with a few other young damsels. Antigone would think she was in prison, to be used like that. And learning!—why, she has to learn Latin, and surgery, and heraldry, and all sorts of needlework—not embroidery only; and cooking, and music, and I do not know what else. How would you like it, Antigone?”
“Well, at any rate, she has a change!” said Antigone, with some acerbity.
“Not quite the same thing as no work at all, for which I thought you were longing. And no liberty, remember.”
“But her gowns, Sarah, her gowns!—and her hoods, and cloaks, and everything else! Did you see her last Saint Michael? I’d have given a bit of liberty for that orange samite and those lovely blue slippers!”
Sarah laughed and gave a little shake of her head.
“I know who is fond of Hunt the Slipper,” said she. “A pretty figure an orange samite gown would cut after an evening of it! I think, too, I would rather be free to go about on my feet than even to wear lovely blue slippers. Nay, Antigone, you may depend upon it, there are less pleasant things in Lady Margaret’s life than orange gowns and blue slippers. We can have a say about our weddings, remember: but she will be handed over to somebody she never saw, as like as not. I’d rather be as I am. Mother says folks’ lots are more even than they like to think. Poor folks fancy that rich ones have nothing to trouble them worth mention; and a sick man thinks, if he were only well, he would not mind being poor; and a man in prison says that if he could but be free, he could bear both illness and poverty. The truth is, everybody thinks his own trouble the worst; and yet, if we had our neighbours’ instead, nine times out of ten we should be glad to get back to our own. We know the worst of them, and often we don’t of the others. So that is why I say, I’d rather be as I am.”
“But people look down on you!” said Antigone.
“Well, let them.Thatwon’t hurt me,” answered Sarah.
“Sarah, I do believe you’ve not a bit of spirit!”
“I’d rather keep my spirit for what it is good for—to help me over hard places and along weary bits of road. All women have those at times. Mother says—”
“Where’s the good of quoting old women? They have outlived their youth.”
“Well, at any rate they lived through it, and some of them picked up a bit of wisdom by the way.”
“You may keep your musty wisdom to yourself! I want none of it!” said Antigone, scornfully.
“I want all I can get,” quietly responded Sarah. “Mother says (if you don’t care for it, Emma may) that discontent is the worst companion a girl can have for making everything look miserable. You’ll be a deal happier, she says, with a dry crust and a good will to it, than with a roast ox and a complaining temper.”
“Ay, that’s true!” said Emma, with a sigh.
“Poor Emma!” laughed Antigone. “You get enough of it, don’t you, at the smithy?”
“I would rather not talk over my mother and sisters, if you please,” returned Emma.
“Oh, you don’t need to take airs, my lady. I know!”
“Come, let Emma be,” said Sarah. “Let’s keep our tempers, if we haven’t much else. There’s the vesper bell!”
Antigone’s work was not likely to be improved by the hasty huddled-up style in which it was folded, while Sarah and Emma shook theirs straight and carefully avoided creases. They had then to give it in to the mistress, who stood at one end of the room, putting all away in a large coffer. When the last girl had given in her work, Mrs De la Laund called for silence.
“On Thursday next,” said she, “I shall give you a holiday after dinner. The Queen comes to Lincoln on that day, and I wish to give as many as are good girls the chance of seeing her enter. But I shall expect to have no creased work like Antigone’s; nor split and frayed like Geneveva’s; nor dirtied like Femiana’s. Now you may go.”
They had odd names for girls in those days. Among the nobles and gentry, most were like ours; young ladies of rank were Alice, Cicely, Margaret, Joan, Isabel, Emma, or Agnes: a strange name being the exception. But among working women the odd names were then the rule: they were Yngeleis, Sabelina, Orenge, Pimma, Cinelote, Argentella, and very many more of the same high-sounding kind.
When the apprentices left the work-room, they were free to do as they liked till seven o’clock, when they must all re-assemble there, answer to their names called over, repeat some prayers after Mrs de la Laund, and go to bed in a large loft at the top of the house. Characters came out on these occasions. The majority showed themselves thoughtless and giddy: they went to run races on the green, and to play games—the better disposed only among themselves: but the wild, adventurous spirits soon joined a lot of idle youths as unsteady as themselves, with whom they spent the evening in rough play, loud laughter, and not altogether decorous joking. The little group of sensible girls kept away from such scenes. Most of them went to see their friends, if within reasonable distance; those who had none at hand sat or walked quietly together. Emma and Sarah were among these.
Any person entering Lincoln on the following Wednesday would plainly have seen that the town was preparing for some great event. Every house draped itself in some kind of hanging—the rich in coarse silk, the poorer in bunting or whatever they could get. The iron hoops here and there built into the walls for that purpose, held long pine-sticks, to be lighted as torches after dark; and they would need careful watching, for a great deal of the city was built of wood, and if a spark lighted on the walls, a serious fire might be the result. In the numerous balconies which projected from the better class of houses sat ladies dressed in their handsomest garments on the Thursday morning, and below in the street stood men and women packed tightly into a crowd, waiting for the Queen to arrive. There was not much room in a mediaeval street, and the sheriffs did not find it easy to keep a clear passage for the royal train. As to keeping any passage for the traffic, that would have been considered quite unnecessary. There was not much to keep it for; and what there was could go round by back streets, just as well as not. Few people set any value on time in the Middle Ages.
Queen Alianora was expected to arrive about twelve o’clock. She was not the Queen Eleanor of whom we read at the beginning of the story (for Alianora is only one of the old ways of spelling Eleanor), but her daughter-in-law, the Lady Alianora who had been a friend to the dumb Princess. She was a Spanish lady, and was one of the best and loveliest Queens who ever reigned in England. Goodness and beauty are not always found in company—perhaps I might say, not often; but they went together with her. She was a Spanish blonde—which means that her hair was a bright shade of golden—neither flaxen nor red; and that her eyes were a deep, deep blue—the blue of a southern sky, such as we rarely if ever see in an English one. Her complexion was fair and rosy, her features regular and beautiful, her figure extremely elegant and well-proportioned. The crowd, though good-humoured, was beginning to get tired, when she came at last.
The Queen, who was not quite thirty years of age, rode on a white horse, whose scarlet saddle-cloth was embroidered with golden lions and roses, and which was led by Garcia, her Spanish Master of the Horse. She was dressed in green samite, trimmed with ermine. On her left hand rode the Earl of Lincoln, on her right, her eldest surviving son, the little Prince Alphonso, who was only seven years old. He died at the age of eleven. After the Queen rode her two damsels, Aubrey de Caumpeden and Ermetrude; and after them and the officers of the household came a number of lesser people, the mob of sight-seers closing in and following them up the street. (See Note 1.) Her Majesty rode up Steephill to the Castle, where the Countess of Lincoln and her daughter Lady Margaret—a girl of about fifteen—received her just inside the gate. Then the mob cheered, the Queen looked back with a smile and a bow, the Almoner flung a handful of silver pennies among them, the portcullis was hauled down, and the sight was over.
As Emma turned back from the Castle gate, she met her father and her sister Eleanor, who, like her, had been sight-seeing.
“Well!” said Dan, “did thou see her?”
“Oh yes, beautifully!” answered Emma. “Isn’t she handsome, Father?”
“‘Handsome is as handsome does,’” philosophically returned Dan. “Some folks looks mighty handsome as doesn’t do even to it.Shewas just like a pictur’ when I wed her. Ay, she was, so!—Where art thou going, Emma?”
“I thought of looking in on Aunt Avice, Father. Are you and Eleanor coming, too?”
“I’m not,” said Eleanor. “I’m going to see Laurentia atte Gate. So I’ll wish you good even.”
She kept straight on, while Dan and Emma turned off for Avice’s house. It was not surprising that they found nobody at home but the turnspit dog, who was sufficiently familiar with both to wag a welcome; but somebody sat in the chimney-corner who was not at home, but was a visitor like themselves. When the door was unlatched, Father Thomas closed the book he had been reading and looked up.
“Good even, Father,” said Dan to the priest. “I reckon you’ve come o’ th’ same errand as us.”
“What is that, my son?”
Dan sat down on the form, and put a big hand on each knee.
“Well, it’s some’at like t’ shepherd comin’ to count t’ sheep, to see ’at none of ’em’s missin’,” said he. “It’s so easy to get lost of a big moor full o’ pits and quagmires. And this world’s some’at like it.—Ah, Avice! folks as goes a-sight-seeing mun expect to find things of a mixtur’ when they gets home.”
“A very pleasant mixture, Uncle,” said Avice. “Pray you of your blessing, holy Father.”
Father Thomas gave it, and Bertha, stooping down, kissed Dan on his broad wrinkled forehead.
“Did thou get a penny?” asked Dan.
“I got two!” cried Bertha, triumphantly. “And Aunt Avice got one. Did you, Father?”
“Nay, lass—none o’ my luck! Silver pennies and such knows better nor to come my way. Nor they’d better not, without they’ll come right number. I should get tore to bits if I went home wi’ one, as like as not. She ’d want it, and so ’d Ankaret, and so ’d Susanna, and so ’d Mildred; and atwixt ’em all it ’d get broke i’ pieces, andsoshould I. And see thou, it’s made i’ quarters, and I amn’t, so it wouldn’t come so convenient to me.”
Pennies were then made with a deep cross cut athwart them, so that they were easily broken, when wanted, into halfpence and farthings, for there were no separate ones coined.
“Father, have one of mine!” cried Bertha at the beginning of Dan’s answer.
“Nay, nay, lass! Keep thy bit o’ silver—or if thou wants to give it, let Emma have it. She’ll outlive it; I shouldn’t.”
The silver penny changed hands at once. Avice had meanwhile been hanging up her hood and cloak, and she now proceeded to prepare a dish of eggs, foreseeing company to supper. Supper was exceedingly early to-day, as it was scarcely three o’clock; but dinner had been equally so, for nobody wanted to be busy when the Queen came. A large dish of “eggs and butter” was speedily on the table—the “buttered eggs” of the north of England, which are, I believe, identical with the “scrambled eggs” of the United States. The party sat down to supper, Father Thomas being served with a trencher to himself.
“And how dost thou get along wi’ thy Missis, my lass?” said Dan to his daughter.
“Oh, things is very pleasant as yet, Father,” answered Emma with a smile. “There’s a mixture, as you said just now. Some’s decent lasses enough; and some’s foolish; and some’s middlin’. There’s most of the middlin’ ones.”
“I’m fain to hear it,” said Dan. “Lasses is so foolish, I should ha’ thought there ’d be most o’ that lot. So ’s lads too. Eh, it’s a queer world, this un: mortal queer! But I asked thee how thou got on with thy Missis, and thou tells me o’ th’ lasses. Neverdidknow a woman answer straight off. Ask most on ’em how far it is to Newark, and they’ll answer you that t’ wind was west as they come fro’ Barling.”
“Thou hast not a good opinion of women, my son,” said Father Thomas, who looked much amused.
“I’ve seen too much on ’em!” responded Dan, conclusively. “I’ve got a wife and six lasses.”
“Bertha, we’d better mind our ways!” said Emma, laughing.
“Nay, it’s none you,” was Dan’s comment. “You’re middlin’ decent, you two. So’s Avice; and so’s old Christopher’s Regina. I know of ne’er another, without it ’s t’ cat—and she scratches like t’ rest when she’s put out. Thereisother decent ’uns, happen. They haven’t come my way yet.”
“Why, Father!” cried Emma. “Think who you’re lumping together—the Lady Queen, and my Lady at the Castle, and Lady Margaret, and the Dean’s sister, and—”
“Thou’ll be out o’ breath, if thou reckons all thou’st heard tell of,” said Dan. “There’s cats o’ different sorts, child: some’s snowy white (when so be they’ve none been i’ th’ ash-hole), and some’s tabby, and some’s black as iron; but they all scrats. Women’s like ’em.—You’re wise men, you parsons and such, as have nought to do wi’ ’em. Old Christopher, my neighbour up at smithy, he says weddin’s like a bag full o’ snakes wi’ one eel amongst ’em: you ha’ to put your hand in, and you may get th’ eel. But if you dunna—why you’ve got to do t’ best you can wi’ one o’ t’ other lot. If you’ll keep your hand out of the bag you’ll stand best chance of not getting bit.”
“It is a pity thou wert not a monk, my son,” said the priest, whose gravity seemed hard to keep.
“Ay, it is!” was Dan’s hearty response. “I’m alway fain to pass a nunnery. Says I to myself, There’s a bonnie lot o’ snakes safe tied up out o’ folkses’ way. They’ll never fly at nobody no more. I’m fain for the men as hasn’t got ’em. Ay, I am!”
Avice and her young cousins laughed.
“Do you think they never fly at one another, Uncle Dan?” asked the former.
“Let ’em!” returned that gentleman with much cordiality. “A man gets a bit o’ peace then. It’s t’ only time he does. If they’d just go and make a reg’lar end o’ one another! but they never does,”—and the smith pushed away his trencher with a sigh. “Well! I reckon I mun be going. She gave me while four:—and I’m feared o’ vesper bell ringing afore I can get home. There’ll be more bells nor one, if so. God be wi’ ye, lasses! Good even, Father.”
And the door was shut on the unhappy husband of the delightful Filomena. Emma took leave soon after, and Bertha went with her, to see another friend before she returned to her employer’s house. Avice and the priest were left alone. For a few minutes both were silent; but perhaps their thoughts were not very unlike.
“I wish, under your leave, Father,” said Avice at length, “that somebody would say a word to Aunt Filomena. I am afraid both she and Uncle Dan are very ignorant. Truly, so am I: and it should be some one who knows better. I doubt if he quite means all he says; but he thinks too ill of women,—and indeed, with five such as he has at home, who can wonder at it? He has no peace from morning to night; and he is naturally a man who loves peace and quiet—as you are yourself, holy Father, unless I mistake.”
“Thou art not mistaken, my daughter,” said Father Thomas. Something inside him was giving him a sharp prick or two. Did he love quiet too much, so as to interfere with his duties to his fellow-men? And then something else inside the priest’s heart rose up, as it were, to press down the question, and bid the questioner be silent.
“I wonder,” said Avice, innocently, quite unaware of the course of her companion’s thoughts, “whether, if Aunt Filomena knew her duty better, she might not give poor Uncle Dan a little more rest. He is good, in his way, and as far as he knows. I wish I knew more! But then,” Avice concluded, with a little laugh, “I am only a woman.”
“Yet thou art evidently one of the few whom he likes and respects,” answered the priest. “Be it thine, my daughter, to show him that women are not all of an evil sort. Do thy best, up to the light thou hast; and cry to God for more light, so that thou mayest know how to do better. ‘Pour forth thy prayers to Him,’ as saith the Collect for the First Sunday after the Epiphany, ‘that thou mayest know what thy duty requires of thee, and be able to comply with what thou knowest.’ It is a good prayer, and specially for them that are perplexed concerning their duty.” (See Note 2.)
“But when one does know one’s duty,” asked Avice with simplicity, “it seems so hard to make one’s self do it.”
“Didst thou ever yet do that? Daughter, dost thou believe in the Holy Ghost?”
Avice’s immediate answer was what would be the instinctive unthinking response of most professing Christians.
“Why, Father, of course I do!”
“Good. What dost thou believe?”
Avice was silent. “Ah!” said the priest. “It is easy to think we believe: but hard to put our faith into plain words. If the faith were clearer, maybe the words would follow.”
“It is so difficult to get things clear and plain!” sighed poor Avice.
“Have one thing clear, daughter—the way between God and thine own soul. Let nothing come in to block up that—however fair, howsoever dear it be. And thou shalt have thy reward.”
“Father, is it like keeping other things clear? The way to have the floor clear and clean is to sweep it every morning.”
“Ay, my daughter, sweep it every morning with the besom of prayer, and every night bear over it the torch of self-examination. So shall the evil insects not make their nests there.”
“I don’t quite know how to examine myself,” said Avice.
“And thou wilt err,” answered Father Thomas, “if thou set about that work alone, with a torch lighted at the flame of thine own righteousness. Light thy torch at the fire of God’s altar; examine thyself by the light of His holy law; and do it at His feet, so that whatever evil thing thou mayest find thou canst take at once to Him to be cleansed away. Content not thyself with brushing away thoughts, but go to the root of that same sin in thine own heart. Say not, ‘I should not have spoken proudly to my neighbour’—but, ‘I should not be proud in my heart.’ Deal rather with the root that is in thee than with the branches of acts and words. There are sins which only to think of is to do. Take to our Lord, then, thy sins to be cleansed away; but let thine own thoughts dwell not so much on thy sins, thy deeds done and words said, but rather on thy sinfulness, the inward fount of sin in thy nature.”
“That were ugly work!” said Avice.
“Ay. I reckon thou countest not the scouring of thy floor among thine enjoyments. But it is needful, my daughter: and is it no enjoyment to see it clean?”
“Ay, that it is,” admitted Avice.
“I remember, my child, many years ago—thou wert but a little maid—that holy Bishop Robert came to sup with thy grandmother Muriel. Tell me, wouldst thou have been satisfied—I say not as a little child, since children note not such things—but as a woman, wouldst thou have been satisfied to receive the holy Bishop with a dirty floor, and offer to him an uncleansed spoon to put to his lips?”
“Oh no, Father, surely not!”
“Then see, daughter, that when the Bishop of thy soul lifteth the latch to come in and sup with thee, He find not the soiled floor and the unclean vessel, and turn sorrowfully away, saying, ‘I thought to sup with My child this night, but this is no place for Me.’ Trust me, thou wilt lose more than He, if He close the door and depart.”
Avice’s eyes filled with tears.
“O Father, pray for me! I cannot bear to think of that.”
Father Thomas rose and laid his hand on Avice’s head. His words, as coming from a priest, rather surprised her.
“My child,” he said softly, “let us pray for each other.”
Avice stood looking out of the window after him as he went down the street.
“I wonder,” she said to herself, “if our Lord ever turned away thus because Father Thomas’s chamber was not clean! He seemed to know what it was so well—yet how could such a good, holy man know anything about it?”
Note 1. Aubrey is now a man’s name only, but in the earlier hall of the Middle Ages it was used for both sexes.
Note 2. This collect was slightly altered from that in the Sarum Missal. The form here quoted is the older one.
Chapter Eight.As a Little Child.If you put a single straw into an eddying stream, other straws and bits of rubbish of all sorts will come and join it, until by and bye it looks like a little island in the midst of the water. And we often see something like this going on in men’s minds. A man drops one idea, which another man takes up and considers, till ideas of his own come to join it, many things seen and heard contribute their help, and at last the single sentence grows into a mountain of action.Avice would have been astonished if any one had told her that she had made an island. But her simple suggestion fell like an odd straw into the stream of Father Thomas’s thoughts, and grew and grew there, until a few days later it led to decided action.Father Thomas was by nature a quiet man. His temper was gentle and even; he hated everything like noise and bustle, far more tumult and quarrelling. He was not fond even of conversation, except now and then as a pleasant variety to a quiet life, full of thinking and reading. A man of this sort is generally an innocent man—by which I mean, a man who does no harm to his neighbours: and considering how many men and women spend their lives in doing their neighbours harm of one sort or another, that is a good deal to say of any man. But there is another point to be taken into account, namely, what good does such a man do? Why, no more than a chrysalis. And he is a poor specimen of manhood who is content to be of no more use in the world than a chrysalis, and to be as little missed when he goes out of it. This was the point which troubled Father Thomas’s meditations. It was as if an angel had come down to him, and pointed to the old smithy on the green, and said, “What are you doing for those people? God will demand an account of their souls, some day, and from somebody. Are you not your brothers’ keeper?” Hitherto Father Thomas had gone on very comfortably, with a reflection which serves a great many of us to excuse our pride or our laziness—I wish it might never be heard again from human lips—“It is not my place.” It was true, in one sense. The smithy was in Newport parish, and Father Thomas belonged to the Cathedral. He tried to quiet the angel—which was really his own conscience—with the thought that he had no business to intrude into somebody else’s parish. But the angel would not be quiet.“Will God take that answer at the Judgment Day?” he said. “You know very well that the Vicar of Newport is an idle, careless man, who never troubles himself about the souls of his people: that so long as you observe the proper forms of civility, and ask his leave to visit these people, he will give it you in a minute, and be glad enough to think he is saved the trouble. That is the truth, and you know it.”Now, it is very unpleasant when one’s conscience says in that blunt, downright, cutting way, “You know it:” and Father Thomas found it so. He made a few more excuses, which his conscience blew to the winds before they were well finished: and at last it laid hold of him, as it were, by the shoulders, and said, “Look there!”Father Thomas looked there—at the cross which then hung in every clergyman’s room. There were two lines carved on the wood at the bottom of this—lines which it was then not unusual to put at the bottom of these crosses.“This did I for thee; What dost thou for Me?”“Look there!” cried the Angel Conscience. “Christ bore that heavy cross for you—bore the reviling and the agony, the spitting, the scourging, and the shame; and you won’t face the Vicar of Newport for Him! You can’t walk half a mile, and ask a civil question of a man from whom you expect a civil answer, for love of the Man who came down all the way from Heaven to earth, and endured all the contradiction of sinners for three-and-thirty years, and faced all the malice of the devil, for the love of you! Are you ashamed of yourself, Thomas de Vaux, or are you not?”When it reached that point, Father Thomas was painting in a book. Books in those days were often ornamented with very beautiful paintings: and the one on which the priest was working, represented Peter denying Christ in the High Priest’s palace. He had just painted one side of Peter’s hair, but the other side was still blank. But when the Angel asked that question, down went the brush.“Lord, pardon Thy servant!” said Father Thomas humbly. “I am not worthy to carry so much as the corner of Thy cross after Thee. But I will take it up, and go forth. Indeed, I did not know I was such a selfish, lazy, ease-loving man as I am!”Saint Peter had to put up with only half his hair for the rest of that day, for Father Thomas determinately washed and wiped his brush, threw a cloth over his book and painting tools to keep them from the dust, put on his fur cap, and went off to see the Vicar of Newport.When a man braces himself up to do something which he does not like for the love of God, sometimes God makes it a great deal easier and less disagreeable than he expected to find it. The Vicar was just coming out of his door as Father Thomas reached it.“A fine day—peace be with thee!” said he. “Whither go you, Brother?”“May I have your leave, Father, to visit one of your parishioners—the smith that dwells about a mile hence, on the Newport road?”“The saints love you! you may visit every man Jack of my parishioners, and take my blessing with you!” said the Vicar with a hearty laugh. “I am not over fond of that same visiting of smiths and tailors and fellows of that sort. I never know what to say to them, save hear confession, and they never have nought to say to me. You are cut from another quality of stuff, I reckon. Go your way, Brother Thomas, and make decent Christians of them if you can. There’s a she-bear lives there: I wish you luck with her.”And with a farewell nod, the careless Vicar strode away.“And into such hands as these, men’s souls are given!” thought Father Thomas. “Lord, purify Thy Church! Ah, dear old Bishop! you might well weep in dying.”He walked on rapidly till he came within sight of the forge. Daniel Greensmith’s ringing blows on the anvil grew more and more distinct and at last the words he was singing as he worked came to the priest’s ears:“All things turn unto decay,Fall, and die, and pass away.Sinketh tower and droppeth wall,Cloth shall fray and horse shall fall,Flesh shall die and iron rust,Pass and perish all things must.Well I understand and say,All shall die, both priest and lay;And small time, for praise or blame,When man dieth, lives his fame.”Note. This is translated from an old French poem, written before the time of the story.Father Thomas stopped beside the anvil, but the smith’s back was turned, so that he did not see him.“A sad song, my friend—if that were all.”“Eh?” said Dan, looking behind him, and then immediately throwing down the hammer, and giving a pull to his forelock. Great respect was paid to priests at that day. “Axe your pardon, Father! Didn’t see who it were.”“I came to see thy wife, my son. Shall I go forward?”“Not if you’re o’ my mind. Happen you aren’t.”“Is she not at home?”“Oh, ay, she’s at home!”The smith’s tone might have meant that he could have wished she was somewhere else. Father Thomas waited, till Dan flung down the hammer, and looked up at him.“Had ye e’er a mother?” asked he.“Ay,” replied the priest.“Was she one ’at took th’ andirons to you when you didn’t suit her?”“Truly, no. She was a full good and gentle woman.”“And had ye e’er a sister?”“Ay; three.”“Was they given to rugging your hair when they wasn’t pleased?”“Not at all, my son.”“Ah! you’d best go home, I reckon.”“What meanest thou?” asked Father Thomas, feeling much amused at the very unusual style of Dan’s reception.“Well!” said Dan, passing his fingers through his hair, “I mean, if that’s the way you was fetched up, you don’t know the animal you’ve got to deal with here. There’s five dragons i’ that house o’ mine: and each on ’em’s got teeth and claws, and they knows how to use ’em, they does. If one on ’em wern’t a bit better nor t’others, and did not come and stand by me now and then, I should ne’er ha’ lived to talk to you this even. Nay, I shouldn’t! Best go home, Father, while you’ve getten a coat on your back, and some hair on your head.”“Is it so bad as that?”“Ah, it is!” was Dan’s short but emphatic reply.“But surely, my son, thy wife would never use a man ill that meant her good?”“Think she’ll stop to ask your meanin’?” said Dan, with a contemptuous grunt. “If she’s not changed sin’ I come fro’ dinner, she’ll be a-top of you before you can say ‘mercy.’ And she’s none a comfortable thing to have a-top of you, I give you fair warning.”“How was she at supper, then?—no better?”“Supper! I durstn’t go in for no supper. I likes hunger better nor a fray. Happen El’nor ’ll steal out to me with a crust after dark. She does, sometimes.”“And how long does it take thy wife to cool down?”Dan rubbed his forehead with his blackened hand.“I was wed to her,” said he, “th’ year afore the great frost, if you know when that were—and I’d better have been fruz, a deal. I’ve had it mortal hot ever since. She’s had that time to cool down in, and she’s no cooler nor she were then. Rather, if either, t’other way on, I reckon.”Before Father Thomas could reply, the shrillest scream that had ever met his ears came out of the window of the smithy.“Ankaret!” it said. “Ankaret! An-ka-ret!”“Ha! That’s Her!” whispered Dan, as if he were awed by the sound.An answering scream, as shrill, but scarcely so loud, came from the neighbouring cottage.“Whatever do you want now?” said the second shriek.“What dost thou yonder, thou slatternly minx?” returned the first. “I’ll mash every bone of thee, if thou doesn’t come in this minute!”“Then I sha’n’t!” shrieked the second voice. “Two can play at that.”“Who is Ankaret?” asked Father Thomas of the smith.“She’s th’ eldest o’ th’ dragons—that’s our Ank’ret,” said Dan in the same half-frightened whisper. “If you mun face Her, you’d best do it while Ank’ret’s next door: both on ’em’s too much for any man. Th’ Angel Gabriel couldn’t match the pair on ’em: leastwise, if he comes down to axe me,Isha’n’t send him forward. And don’t you go and say I sent you, now. For pity’s sake, don’t!”Father Thomas walked off, and knocked at the house door. He was beginning to think that if the former part of his task had been easier than he expected, the latter was going to prove more difficult. The door was opened by a young woman.“Good day, my daughter. Is thy mother within?”“She’s here, Father. Pray you, come in.”The priest stepped inside, and sat down on a bench. For those times, the house was comfortable, and it was very clean. The young woman disappeared, and presently a pair of heavy boots came clattering down the stairs, and Father Thomas felt pretty sure that the sweet Filomena herself stood before him.“Now then, what doyouwant?” quoth she, in a tone which did not sound as if she were delighted to see her visitor.“My daughter, I am a priest,” said Father Thomas gently; “and I am come to see thee for thy good.”“I’ve got eyes!” snapped Filomena. “Can’t I see you’re a priest? What’s the good of such as you? Fat, lazy fellows that lives on the best o’ the land, wrung out of the hard earnings o’ the poor, and never does a stroke o’ work theirselves, but sits a-twirling o’ their thumbs all day long. That’s what you are—the whole boiling of you! Get you out o’ my house, or I’ll help you!”And Filomena took up a formidable-looking mop which stood in the corner, as if to let the priest clearly understand the sort of help which she proposed to give him. She had tried this style of reception when the Vicar took the liberty of calling on her some months before, with the result that the appalled gentleman in question never ventured to renew his visit, and told the anecdote with many shakes of the head over “that she-bear up at the smithy.” She understood how to deal with a man of the Vicar’s stamp, and she mistakenly fancied that all priests were of his sort. Sadly too many of them were such lazy, careless, self-indulgent men, who, having just done as much work as served to prevent the Bishop or their consciences (when they kept any) from becoming troublesome, let all the rest go, and thought their duty done. But Father Thomas, as the Vicar had said, was cut from another kind of stuff. Very sensitive to rudeness or unkindness, his feelings were not permitted to override his duty of perseverance: and while he dearly loved peace, he was not ready to buy it at the cost of something more valuable than itself. While he might be slow to see his duty, yet once seen, it would not escape him again.The personal taunts which Filomena had launched at him he simply put aside as not worth an answer. They did not apply to him. He was neither fat nor lazy: and if Filomena were so ignorant as to fancy that the clergy were paid out of the earnings of the poor, what did it matter, when he knew they were not? He went straight to the root of the thing. His words were gentle enough, but his tone was one of authority.“Daughter, what an unhappy woman thou art!”Filomena’s fingers slowly unclosed from the mop, which fell back into the corner. Father Thomas said no more: he merely kept his eyes upon her. His calm dignity took effect at last. Her angry eyes fell before his unchanged look. She was not accustomed to hear her abuse answered in this manner.“I just am!” she muttered with intense bitterness.“Dost thou wish to be happy?”“That’s none for the like of us. It’s only for rich folks, isn’t that,—folks as has all they wants, and a bit over.”“No man has that,” said Father Thomas, “except the little children who sit at the feet of Jesus Christ. Become thou as a little child, and happiness shall come to seek thee.”“Me a little child!” There was no merriment in the laugh which accompanied the words.“Ay, even thou. For ‘if there be a new creature in Christ, old things pass away; behold, all things are made new.’ (Note. 3 Corinthians five 17, Vulgate version.) That is the very childhood, my daughter—to be made new. Will thou have it? It may be had for the asking, if it be asked of God by a true heart—that childhood of grace, which is meek, patient, gentle, loving, obedient, humble. For it is not thou that canst conquer Satan, but Christ in thee, that shall first conquer thee. Thou in Christ—this is safety: Christ in thee—here is strength. Seek, and thou shalt find. Farewell.”And without giving Filomena time to answer, Father Thomas turned away, and was lost in a moment behind the bushes which separated the cottage from the smithy. She stood for a minute where he left her, as if she had been struck to stone. The whole style of his address was to her something completely new, and so unlike anything she had expected that for once in her life she was at a loss.Filomena took up the corner of her apron and wiped her forehead, as if she were settling her brains into their places.“Well, that’s a queer set-out!” said she at last, to nobody, for she was left alone. “Me a baby! Whatever would the fellow be at? I reckon I was one once. Eh, but it would be some queer to get back again! What did he say? ‘Meek, patient, gentle, loving, obedient, humble.’That’snot me! Old Dan wouldn’t think he’d picked up his own wife, if I were made new o’ that fashion. It didn’t sound so bad, though. Wonder how it ’d be if I tried it! That chap said it would make me happy. I’m none that, neither, nor haven’t been these many years. Eh deary me! to think of me a baby!”While these extremely new ideas were seething in Filomena’s mind, Father Thomas reached the smithy.“Glad to see you!” said Dan, laying down his hammer. “You did not ’bide so long!” with a grim smile.“Long enough,” said the priest shortly.“I believe you! If you wasn’t glad to get your back turned, you liked a tussle wi’ a dragon better nor most folks. Was she white-hot, or no-but (Only) red? El’nor, she came down to me while you was in there, wi’ a hunch o’ bread and cheese, and she said it were gettin’ smoother a bit nor it had been most part o’ th’ day. What said she to you?”“Less than I said to her.”“You dunnot mean she hearkened you?”“Not at first. But in the end, she hearkened me, and made me no answer.”Dan looked his visitor all over from head to foot.“Well!” said he, and shook his head slowly. “Well!” and wiped his face with his apron, “Well!” he exclaimed a third time. “If I’d ha’ knowed! I’d ha’ given forty marks (Note 1.) to see th’ like o’ that. Eh, do ’bide a minute, and let me take th’ measure on you! T’ chap that could strike our Filomena dumb mun ha’ come straight fro’ Heaven, for there isn’t his like o’ earth! Now, Father, do just tell a body, what did you say to her?”“I told her how to be happy.”Dan stared. “She wants no tellin’ that, I’ll go bail! she’s got every mortal thing her own way.”“That is not the way to be happy,” answered the priest. “Nay, my son, she is a most unhappy woman, and her face shows it. Thou art happier far than she.”Dan dropped the big hammer in sheer astonishment, and if Father Thomas had not made a rapid retreat, more than his eyes and ears would have told him so.“Me happier nor our Filomena! Me! Father, dunnot be angered wi’ me, but either you’re downright silly, or you’re somewhat more nor other folks.”“I have told thee the truth, my son. Now, wilt thou do somewhat to help thy wife to be happy? If she is happy, she will be humble and meek—happy, that is, in the way I mean.”“I’ll do aught as ’ll make our Filomena meek,” replied Dan, with a shake of his grizzled head: “but how that’s going to be shaped beats me, I can tell you. Mun I climb up to th’ sky and stick nails into th’ moon?”“Nay,” said the priest with a smile. “Thou shalt pray God to make her as a little child.”“That’s a corker,thatis!” Dan picked up the hammer, and began meditatively to fashion a nail. “Our Ank’ret were a babby once,” said he, as if to himself. “She were a bonnie un, too. She were, so! I used to sit o’ th’ bench at th’ door of an even, wi’ her on my knee, a-smilin’ up like—eh, Father, but I’ll tell you what, if them times could come back, it ’d be enough to make a chap think he’d getten into Heaven by mistake.”“I trust, my son, thou wilt some day find thee in Heaven, not by mistake,” said the priest. “But if so, Daniel, thou must have a care to go the right road thither.”“Which road’s that, Father?”“It is a straight road, my son, and it is a narrow road. And the door to it goes right through the cross whereon Jesus Christ died for thee and me. Daniel, dost thou love the Lord Jesus?”“Well, you see, Father, I’m not much acquaint wi’ Him. He’s a great way up, and I’m down here i’ t’ smithy.”“He will come down here and abide with thee, my son, if thou wilt but ask Him. So dear He loveth man, that He will come any whither on earth save into sin, if so be He may have man’s company. ‘Greater than this love hath no man, that he give his life for his friends.’”“Well, that stands to reason,” said Dan. “When man gives his life, he gives all there is of him.”“Thou sayest well. And is it hard to love man that giveth his life to save thine?”“I reckon it ’d be harder to help it, Father.”Father Thomas turned as if to go. “My son,” said he, “wilt thou let the Lord Jesus say to the angels round His Throne,—‘I gave all there was of Me for Daniel Greensmith, and he doth not love Me for it?’”The big smith had never had such an idea presented to him before. His simple, transparent, child-like nature came up into his eyes, and ran over. Men did not think it in those earlier ages any discredit to their manliness to let their hearts be seen. Perhaps they were wiser than we are.“Eh, Father, but you never mean it’d be like that?” cried poor Dan. “Somehow, it never come real to me, like as you’ve put it. Do you mean ’at Hecares—that it makes any matter to Him up yonder, whether old Dan at t’ smithy loves Him or not? I’m no-but a common smith. There’s hundreds just like me. Does He really care, think you?”“Thou art a man,” said the priest, “and it was for men Christ died. And there is none other of thee, though there were millions like thee. Is a true mother content with any babe in exchange for her own, because there are hundreds of babes in the world? Nay, Daniel Greensmith, it was for thee the Lord Christ shed His blood on the cruel cross, and it is thyself whose love and thanksgivings He will miss, though all the harps of all the angels make music around His ear. Shall He miss them any longer, my son?”Once more Dan threw aside the big hammer—this time on the inner side of the smithy.“Father,” said he, “you’ve knocked me clean o’er. I never knowed till now as it were real.”“As a little child!” said Father Thomas to himself, as he went back to Lincoln. “The road into the kingdom will be far smoother for him than her. Yet the good Lord can lead them both there.”The very next visit that Dan paid to Avice and Bertha showed them plainly that a change of some sort had come over him, and as time went on they saw it still more plainly. His heart had opened to the love of Christ like a flower to the sunlight. The moment that he really saw Him, he accepted Him. With how many is it not the case that they do not love Christ because they do not know Him, and they do not know Him because no one of those who do puts Him plainly before them?It was much longer before Father Thomas and Avice saw any fruit of their prayers for Filomena. There was so much more to undo in her case than in her husband’s, that the growth was a great deal slower and less apparent. Avice discovered that Dan’s complaints were fewer, but she set it down entirely to the change in himself, long before she noticed that Filomena’s voice was less sharp, and her fats of fury less frequent. But at length the day came when Filomena, having been betrayed into a very mild copy of one of her old storms of temper, would suddenly catch herself up and walk determinately out of the back door till she grew cool: and when she came back would lay her hand upon her husband’s shoulder, and say—“Dan, old man, I’m sorry I was bad to thee. Forgive me!”And Dan, at first astounded beyond measure, grew to accept this conclusion as a matter of course, and to say—“Let her alone, and she’ll come round.”And then Avice’s eyes were opened.One day, when she was unusually softened by the death of Susanna’s baby, Filomena opened her heart to her niece.“Eh, Avice, it’s hard work! Nobody knows how hard, that hasn’t had a temper as mastered ’em. I’ve pretty nigh to bite my tongue through, many a time a day. I wish I’d begun sooner—I do! It’d ha’ come easier a deal then. But I’m trying hard, and I hope our Lord’ll help me. Thou does think He’ll help me, doesn’t thou, Avice? I’m not too bad, am I?”“Father Thomas says, Aunt,” replied Avice, “that God helps all those who want His help: and the worse we are, the more we want of His mercy.”“That’s true!” said Filomena.“And Father Thomas says,” continued Avice, “that we must all go to our Lord just like little children, ready to take what He sees good for us, and telling Him all our needs of body and soul, as a child would tell its mother.”They were walking slowly up Steephill when Avice said this.“Father Thomas has one apt scholar,” said the priest’s unexpected voice behind her. “But it was a Greater than I, my daughter, who told His disciples that ‘whosoever did not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, should in no wise enter therein.’”Note 1. A mark was 13 shillings 4 pence, and was the largest piece of money then known.The End.
If you put a single straw into an eddying stream, other straws and bits of rubbish of all sorts will come and join it, until by and bye it looks like a little island in the midst of the water. And we often see something like this going on in men’s minds. A man drops one idea, which another man takes up and considers, till ideas of his own come to join it, many things seen and heard contribute their help, and at last the single sentence grows into a mountain of action.
Avice would have been astonished if any one had told her that she had made an island. But her simple suggestion fell like an odd straw into the stream of Father Thomas’s thoughts, and grew and grew there, until a few days later it led to decided action.
Father Thomas was by nature a quiet man. His temper was gentle and even; he hated everything like noise and bustle, far more tumult and quarrelling. He was not fond even of conversation, except now and then as a pleasant variety to a quiet life, full of thinking and reading. A man of this sort is generally an innocent man—by which I mean, a man who does no harm to his neighbours: and considering how many men and women spend their lives in doing their neighbours harm of one sort or another, that is a good deal to say of any man. But there is another point to be taken into account, namely, what good does such a man do? Why, no more than a chrysalis. And he is a poor specimen of manhood who is content to be of no more use in the world than a chrysalis, and to be as little missed when he goes out of it. This was the point which troubled Father Thomas’s meditations. It was as if an angel had come down to him, and pointed to the old smithy on the green, and said, “What are you doing for those people? God will demand an account of their souls, some day, and from somebody. Are you not your brothers’ keeper?” Hitherto Father Thomas had gone on very comfortably, with a reflection which serves a great many of us to excuse our pride or our laziness—I wish it might never be heard again from human lips—“It is not my place.” It was true, in one sense. The smithy was in Newport parish, and Father Thomas belonged to the Cathedral. He tried to quiet the angel—which was really his own conscience—with the thought that he had no business to intrude into somebody else’s parish. But the angel would not be quiet.
“Will God take that answer at the Judgment Day?” he said. “You know very well that the Vicar of Newport is an idle, careless man, who never troubles himself about the souls of his people: that so long as you observe the proper forms of civility, and ask his leave to visit these people, he will give it you in a minute, and be glad enough to think he is saved the trouble. That is the truth, and you know it.”
Now, it is very unpleasant when one’s conscience says in that blunt, downright, cutting way, “You know it:” and Father Thomas found it so. He made a few more excuses, which his conscience blew to the winds before they were well finished: and at last it laid hold of him, as it were, by the shoulders, and said, “Look there!”
Father Thomas looked there—at the cross which then hung in every clergyman’s room. There were two lines carved on the wood at the bottom of this—lines which it was then not unusual to put at the bottom of these crosses.
“This did I for thee; What dost thou for Me?”
“Look there!” cried the Angel Conscience. “Christ bore that heavy cross for you—bore the reviling and the agony, the spitting, the scourging, and the shame; and you won’t face the Vicar of Newport for Him! You can’t walk half a mile, and ask a civil question of a man from whom you expect a civil answer, for love of the Man who came down all the way from Heaven to earth, and endured all the contradiction of sinners for three-and-thirty years, and faced all the malice of the devil, for the love of you! Are you ashamed of yourself, Thomas de Vaux, or are you not?”
When it reached that point, Father Thomas was painting in a book. Books in those days were often ornamented with very beautiful paintings: and the one on which the priest was working, represented Peter denying Christ in the High Priest’s palace. He had just painted one side of Peter’s hair, but the other side was still blank. But when the Angel asked that question, down went the brush.
“Lord, pardon Thy servant!” said Father Thomas humbly. “I am not worthy to carry so much as the corner of Thy cross after Thee. But I will take it up, and go forth. Indeed, I did not know I was such a selfish, lazy, ease-loving man as I am!”
Saint Peter had to put up with only half his hair for the rest of that day, for Father Thomas determinately washed and wiped his brush, threw a cloth over his book and painting tools to keep them from the dust, put on his fur cap, and went off to see the Vicar of Newport.
When a man braces himself up to do something which he does not like for the love of God, sometimes God makes it a great deal easier and less disagreeable than he expected to find it. The Vicar was just coming out of his door as Father Thomas reached it.
“A fine day—peace be with thee!” said he. “Whither go you, Brother?”
“May I have your leave, Father, to visit one of your parishioners—the smith that dwells about a mile hence, on the Newport road?”
“The saints love you! you may visit every man Jack of my parishioners, and take my blessing with you!” said the Vicar with a hearty laugh. “I am not over fond of that same visiting of smiths and tailors and fellows of that sort. I never know what to say to them, save hear confession, and they never have nought to say to me. You are cut from another quality of stuff, I reckon. Go your way, Brother Thomas, and make decent Christians of them if you can. There’s a she-bear lives there: I wish you luck with her.”
And with a farewell nod, the careless Vicar strode away.
“And into such hands as these, men’s souls are given!” thought Father Thomas. “Lord, purify Thy Church! Ah, dear old Bishop! you might well weep in dying.”
He walked on rapidly till he came within sight of the forge. Daniel Greensmith’s ringing blows on the anvil grew more and more distinct and at last the words he was singing as he worked came to the priest’s ears:
“All things turn unto decay,Fall, and die, and pass away.Sinketh tower and droppeth wall,Cloth shall fray and horse shall fall,Flesh shall die and iron rust,Pass and perish all things must.Well I understand and say,All shall die, both priest and lay;And small time, for praise or blame,When man dieth, lives his fame.”
“All things turn unto decay,Fall, and die, and pass away.Sinketh tower and droppeth wall,Cloth shall fray and horse shall fall,Flesh shall die and iron rust,Pass and perish all things must.Well I understand and say,All shall die, both priest and lay;And small time, for praise or blame,When man dieth, lives his fame.”
Note. This is translated from an old French poem, written before the time of the story.
Father Thomas stopped beside the anvil, but the smith’s back was turned, so that he did not see him.
“A sad song, my friend—if that were all.”
“Eh?” said Dan, looking behind him, and then immediately throwing down the hammer, and giving a pull to his forelock. Great respect was paid to priests at that day. “Axe your pardon, Father! Didn’t see who it were.”
“I came to see thy wife, my son. Shall I go forward?”
“Not if you’re o’ my mind. Happen you aren’t.”
“Is she not at home?”
“Oh, ay, she’s at home!”
The smith’s tone might have meant that he could have wished she was somewhere else. Father Thomas waited, till Dan flung down the hammer, and looked up at him.
“Had ye e’er a mother?” asked he.
“Ay,” replied the priest.
“Was she one ’at took th’ andirons to you when you didn’t suit her?”
“Truly, no. She was a full good and gentle woman.”
“And had ye e’er a sister?”
“Ay; three.”
“Was they given to rugging your hair when they wasn’t pleased?”
“Not at all, my son.”
“Ah! you’d best go home, I reckon.”
“What meanest thou?” asked Father Thomas, feeling much amused at the very unusual style of Dan’s reception.
“Well!” said Dan, passing his fingers through his hair, “I mean, if that’s the way you was fetched up, you don’t know the animal you’ve got to deal with here. There’s five dragons i’ that house o’ mine: and each on ’em’s got teeth and claws, and they knows how to use ’em, they does. If one on ’em wern’t a bit better nor t’others, and did not come and stand by me now and then, I should ne’er ha’ lived to talk to you this even. Nay, I shouldn’t! Best go home, Father, while you’ve getten a coat on your back, and some hair on your head.”
“Is it so bad as that?”
“Ah, it is!” was Dan’s short but emphatic reply.
“But surely, my son, thy wife would never use a man ill that meant her good?”
“Think she’ll stop to ask your meanin’?” said Dan, with a contemptuous grunt. “If she’s not changed sin’ I come fro’ dinner, she’ll be a-top of you before you can say ‘mercy.’ And she’s none a comfortable thing to have a-top of you, I give you fair warning.”
“How was she at supper, then?—no better?”
“Supper! I durstn’t go in for no supper. I likes hunger better nor a fray. Happen El’nor ’ll steal out to me with a crust after dark. She does, sometimes.”
“And how long does it take thy wife to cool down?”
Dan rubbed his forehead with his blackened hand.
“I was wed to her,” said he, “th’ year afore the great frost, if you know when that were—and I’d better have been fruz, a deal. I’ve had it mortal hot ever since. She’s had that time to cool down in, and she’s no cooler nor she were then. Rather, if either, t’other way on, I reckon.”
Before Father Thomas could reply, the shrillest scream that had ever met his ears came out of the window of the smithy.
“Ankaret!” it said. “Ankaret! An-ka-ret!”
“Ha! That’s Her!” whispered Dan, as if he were awed by the sound.
An answering scream, as shrill, but scarcely so loud, came from the neighbouring cottage.
“Whatever do you want now?” said the second shriek.
“What dost thou yonder, thou slatternly minx?” returned the first. “I’ll mash every bone of thee, if thou doesn’t come in this minute!”
“Then I sha’n’t!” shrieked the second voice. “Two can play at that.”
“Who is Ankaret?” asked Father Thomas of the smith.
“She’s th’ eldest o’ th’ dragons—that’s our Ank’ret,” said Dan in the same half-frightened whisper. “If you mun face Her, you’d best do it while Ank’ret’s next door: both on ’em’s too much for any man. Th’ Angel Gabriel couldn’t match the pair on ’em: leastwise, if he comes down to axe me,Isha’n’t send him forward. And don’t you go and say I sent you, now. For pity’s sake, don’t!”
Father Thomas walked off, and knocked at the house door. He was beginning to think that if the former part of his task had been easier than he expected, the latter was going to prove more difficult. The door was opened by a young woman.
“Good day, my daughter. Is thy mother within?”
“She’s here, Father. Pray you, come in.”
The priest stepped inside, and sat down on a bench. For those times, the house was comfortable, and it was very clean. The young woman disappeared, and presently a pair of heavy boots came clattering down the stairs, and Father Thomas felt pretty sure that the sweet Filomena herself stood before him.
“Now then, what doyouwant?” quoth she, in a tone which did not sound as if she were delighted to see her visitor.
“My daughter, I am a priest,” said Father Thomas gently; “and I am come to see thee for thy good.”
“I’ve got eyes!” snapped Filomena. “Can’t I see you’re a priest? What’s the good of such as you? Fat, lazy fellows that lives on the best o’ the land, wrung out of the hard earnings o’ the poor, and never does a stroke o’ work theirselves, but sits a-twirling o’ their thumbs all day long. That’s what you are—the whole boiling of you! Get you out o’ my house, or I’ll help you!”
And Filomena took up a formidable-looking mop which stood in the corner, as if to let the priest clearly understand the sort of help which she proposed to give him. She had tried this style of reception when the Vicar took the liberty of calling on her some months before, with the result that the appalled gentleman in question never ventured to renew his visit, and told the anecdote with many shakes of the head over “that she-bear up at the smithy.” She understood how to deal with a man of the Vicar’s stamp, and she mistakenly fancied that all priests were of his sort. Sadly too many of them were such lazy, careless, self-indulgent men, who, having just done as much work as served to prevent the Bishop or their consciences (when they kept any) from becoming troublesome, let all the rest go, and thought their duty done. But Father Thomas, as the Vicar had said, was cut from another kind of stuff. Very sensitive to rudeness or unkindness, his feelings were not permitted to override his duty of perseverance: and while he dearly loved peace, he was not ready to buy it at the cost of something more valuable than itself. While he might be slow to see his duty, yet once seen, it would not escape him again.
The personal taunts which Filomena had launched at him he simply put aside as not worth an answer. They did not apply to him. He was neither fat nor lazy: and if Filomena were so ignorant as to fancy that the clergy were paid out of the earnings of the poor, what did it matter, when he knew they were not? He went straight to the root of the thing. His words were gentle enough, but his tone was one of authority.
“Daughter, what an unhappy woman thou art!”
Filomena’s fingers slowly unclosed from the mop, which fell back into the corner. Father Thomas said no more: he merely kept his eyes upon her. His calm dignity took effect at last. Her angry eyes fell before his unchanged look. She was not accustomed to hear her abuse answered in this manner.
“I just am!” she muttered with intense bitterness.
“Dost thou wish to be happy?”
“That’s none for the like of us. It’s only for rich folks, isn’t that,—folks as has all they wants, and a bit over.”
“No man has that,” said Father Thomas, “except the little children who sit at the feet of Jesus Christ. Become thou as a little child, and happiness shall come to seek thee.”
“Me a little child!” There was no merriment in the laugh which accompanied the words.
“Ay, even thou. For ‘if there be a new creature in Christ, old things pass away; behold, all things are made new.’ (Note. 3 Corinthians five 17, Vulgate version.) That is the very childhood, my daughter—to be made new. Will thou have it? It may be had for the asking, if it be asked of God by a true heart—that childhood of grace, which is meek, patient, gentle, loving, obedient, humble. For it is not thou that canst conquer Satan, but Christ in thee, that shall first conquer thee. Thou in Christ—this is safety: Christ in thee—here is strength. Seek, and thou shalt find. Farewell.”
And without giving Filomena time to answer, Father Thomas turned away, and was lost in a moment behind the bushes which separated the cottage from the smithy. She stood for a minute where he left her, as if she had been struck to stone. The whole style of his address was to her something completely new, and so unlike anything she had expected that for once in her life she was at a loss.
Filomena took up the corner of her apron and wiped her forehead, as if she were settling her brains into their places.
“Well, that’s a queer set-out!” said she at last, to nobody, for she was left alone. “Me a baby! Whatever would the fellow be at? I reckon I was one once. Eh, but it would be some queer to get back again! What did he say? ‘Meek, patient, gentle, loving, obedient, humble.’That’snot me! Old Dan wouldn’t think he’d picked up his own wife, if I were made new o’ that fashion. It didn’t sound so bad, though. Wonder how it ’d be if I tried it! That chap said it would make me happy. I’m none that, neither, nor haven’t been these many years. Eh deary me! to think of me a baby!”
While these extremely new ideas were seething in Filomena’s mind, Father Thomas reached the smithy.
“Glad to see you!” said Dan, laying down his hammer. “You did not ’bide so long!” with a grim smile.
“Long enough,” said the priest shortly.
“I believe you! If you wasn’t glad to get your back turned, you liked a tussle wi’ a dragon better nor most folks. Was she white-hot, or no-but (Only) red? El’nor, she came down to me while you was in there, wi’ a hunch o’ bread and cheese, and she said it were gettin’ smoother a bit nor it had been most part o’ th’ day. What said she to you?”
“Less than I said to her.”
“You dunnot mean she hearkened you?”
“Not at first. But in the end, she hearkened me, and made me no answer.”
Dan looked his visitor all over from head to foot.
“Well!” said he, and shook his head slowly. “Well!” and wiped his face with his apron, “Well!” he exclaimed a third time. “If I’d ha’ knowed! I’d ha’ given forty marks (Note 1.) to see th’ like o’ that. Eh, do ’bide a minute, and let me take th’ measure on you! T’ chap that could strike our Filomena dumb mun ha’ come straight fro’ Heaven, for there isn’t his like o’ earth! Now, Father, do just tell a body, what did you say to her?”
“I told her how to be happy.”
Dan stared. “She wants no tellin’ that, I’ll go bail! she’s got every mortal thing her own way.”
“That is not the way to be happy,” answered the priest. “Nay, my son, she is a most unhappy woman, and her face shows it. Thou art happier far than she.”
Dan dropped the big hammer in sheer astonishment, and if Father Thomas had not made a rapid retreat, more than his eyes and ears would have told him so.
“Me happier nor our Filomena! Me! Father, dunnot be angered wi’ me, but either you’re downright silly, or you’re somewhat more nor other folks.”
“I have told thee the truth, my son. Now, wilt thou do somewhat to help thy wife to be happy? If she is happy, she will be humble and meek—happy, that is, in the way I mean.”
“I’ll do aught as ’ll make our Filomena meek,” replied Dan, with a shake of his grizzled head: “but how that’s going to be shaped beats me, I can tell you. Mun I climb up to th’ sky and stick nails into th’ moon?”
“Nay,” said the priest with a smile. “Thou shalt pray God to make her as a little child.”
“That’s a corker,thatis!” Dan picked up the hammer, and began meditatively to fashion a nail. “Our Ank’ret were a babby once,” said he, as if to himself. “She were a bonnie un, too. She were, so! I used to sit o’ th’ bench at th’ door of an even, wi’ her on my knee, a-smilin’ up like—eh, Father, but I’ll tell you what, if them times could come back, it ’d be enough to make a chap think he’d getten into Heaven by mistake.”
“I trust, my son, thou wilt some day find thee in Heaven, not by mistake,” said the priest. “But if so, Daniel, thou must have a care to go the right road thither.”
“Which road’s that, Father?”
“It is a straight road, my son, and it is a narrow road. And the door to it goes right through the cross whereon Jesus Christ died for thee and me. Daniel, dost thou love the Lord Jesus?”
“Well, you see, Father, I’m not much acquaint wi’ Him. He’s a great way up, and I’m down here i’ t’ smithy.”
“He will come down here and abide with thee, my son, if thou wilt but ask Him. So dear He loveth man, that He will come any whither on earth save into sin, if so be He may have man’s company. ‘Greater than this love hath no man, that he give his life for his friends.’”
“Well, that stands to reason,” said Dan. “When man gives his life, he gives all there is of him.”
“Thou sayest well. And is it hard to love man that giveth his life to save thine?”
“I reckon it ’d be harder to help it, Father.”
Father Thomas turned as if to go. “My son,” said he, “wilt thou let the Lord Jesus say to the angels round His Throne,—‘I gave all there was of Me for Daniel Greensmith, and he doth not love Me for it?’”
The big smith had never had such an idea presented to him before. His simple, transparent, child-like nature came up into his eyes, and ran over. Men did not think it in those earlier ages any discredit to their manliness to let their hearts be seen. Perhaps they were wiser than we are.
“Eh, Father, but you never mean it’d be like that?” cried poor Dan. “Somehow, it never come real to me, like as you’ve put it. Do you mean ’at Hecares—that it makes any matter to Him up yonder, whether old Dan at t’ smithy loves Him or not? I’m no-but a common smith. There’s hundreds just like me. Does He really care, think you?”
“Thou art a man,” said the priest, “and it was for men Christ died. And there is none other of thee, though there were millions like thee. Is a true mother content with any babe in exchange for her own, because there are hundreds of babes in the world? Nay, Daniel Greensmith, it was for thee the Lord Christ shed His blood on the cruel cross, and it is thyself whose love and thanksgivings He will miss, though all the harps of all the angels make music around His ear. Shall He miss them any longer, my son?”
Once more Dan threw aside the big hammer—this time on the inner side of the smithy.
“Father,” said he, “you’ve knocked me clean o’er. I never knowed till now as it were real.”
“As a little child!” said Father Thomas to himself, as he went back to Lincoln. “The road into the kingdom will be far smoother for him than her. Yet the good Lord can lead them both there.”
The very next visit that Dan paid to Avice and Bertha showed them plainly that a change of some sort had come over him, and as time went on they saw it still more plainly. His heart had opened to the love of Christ like a flower to the sunlight. The moment that he really saw Him, he accepted Him. With how many is it not the case that they do not love Christ because they do not know Him, and they do not know Him because no one of those who do puts Him plainly before them?
It was much longer before Father Thomas and Avice saw any fruit of their prayers for Filomena. There was so much more to undo in her case than in her husband’s, that the growth was a great deal slower and less apparent. Avice discovered that Dan’s complaints were fewer, but she set it down entirely to the change in himself, long before she noticed that Filomena’s voice was less sharp, and her fats of fury less frequent. But at length the day came when Filomena, having been betrayed into a very mild copy of one of her old storms of temper, would suddenly catch herself up and walk determinately out of the back door till she grew cool: and when she came back would lay her hand upon her husband’s shoulder, and say—
“Dan, old man, I’m sorry I was bad to thee. Forgive me!”
And Dan, at first astounded beyond measure, grew to accept this conclusion as a matter of course, and to say—
“Let her alone, and she’ll come round.”
And then Avice’s eyes were opened.
One day, when she was unusually softened by the death of Susanna’s baby, Filomena opened her heart to her niece.
“Eh, Avice, it’s hard work! Nobody knows how hard, that hasn’t had a temper as mastered ’em. I’ve pretty nigh to bite my tongue through, many a time a day. I wish I’d begun sooner—I do! It’d ha’ come easier a deal then. But I’m trying hard, and I hope our Lord’ll help me. Thou does think He’ll help me, doesn’t thou, Avice? I’m not too bad, am I?”
“Father Thomas says, Aunt,” replied Avice, “that God helps all those who want His help: and the worse we are, the more we want of His mercy.”
“That’s true!” said Filomena.
“And Father Thomas says,” continued Avice, “that we must all go to our Lord just like little children, ready to take what He sees good for us, and telling Him all our needs of body and soul, as a child would tell its mother.”
They were walking slowly up Steephill when Avice said this.
“Father Thomas has one apt scholar,” said the priest’s unexpected voice behind her. “But it was a Greater than I, my daughter, who told His disciples that ‘whosoever did not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, should in no wise enter therein.’”
Note 1. A mark was 13 shillings 4 pence, and was the largest piece of money then known.
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