"What difference would it make if I did not think so?" she asked.

Flemild laughed, only then realising the absurdity of her own remark. It augured well for her good sense that she could recognise the absurdity when it was pointed out to her.

Coming down the ladder, they found Anania seated below.

"Well, girls! did you see the Queen?"

"Oh, we had a charming view of her," said Flemild.

"Folks say she's not so charming, seen a bit nearer. You know Veka, the wife of Chembel? She told me she'd heard Dame Ediva de Gathacra say the Queen's a perfect fury when she has her back up. Some of the scenes that are to be seen by nows and thens in Westminster Palace are enough to set your hair on end. And her extravagance! Will you believe it, Dame Ediva said, this last year she gave over twenty pounds for one robe. How many gowns would that buy you and me, Aunt Isel?"

At the present value of money, Her Majesty's robe cost rather more than 500.

"Bless you, I don't know," was Isel's answer. "Might be worth cracking my head over, if I were to have one of 'em when I'd done. But there's poor chance of that, I reckon; so I'll let it be."

"They say she sings superbly," said Flemild.

"Oh, very like. Folks may well sing that can afford to give twenty pound for a gown. If she'd her living to earn, and couldn't put a bit of bread in her mouth, nor in her children's, till she'd worked for it, she'd sing o' t'other side her mouth, most likely."

"Anania, don't talk so unseemly. I'm sure you've a good enough place."

"Oh, are you? I dress in samite, like the Queen, don't I?—and eat sturgeon and peacocks to my dinner?—and drive of a gilt char when I come to see folks? I should just like to know why she must have all the good things in life, and I must put up with the hard ones? I'm as good a woman as she is, I'm sure of that."

"Cousin Anania," said Derette in a scandalised tone, "you should not tell us you're a good woman; you should wait till we tell you."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" snapped Anania.

"I didn't tell you so because I don't think so," replied Derette with severity, "if you say such things of the Queen."

"Much anybody cares what you think, child. Why, just look!—tuns and tuns of Gascon wine are sent to Woodstock for her: and here must I make shift with small ale and thin mead that's half sour. She's only to ask and have."

"Well, I don't know," said Isel. "I wouldn't give my quiet home for a sup of Gascon wine—more by reason I don't like it. 'Scenes at Westminster Palace' are not things I covet. My poor Manning was peaceable enough, and took a many steps to save me, and I doubt if King Henry does even to it. Eh dear! if I did but know what had come of my poor man! I should have thought all them Saracens 'd have been dead and buried by now, when you think what lots of folks has gone off to kill 'em. And as to 'asking and having'—well, that hangs on what you ask for. There's a many folks asks for the moon, but I never heard tell as any of 'em had it."

"Why do folks go to kill the Saracens?" demanded Derette, still unsatisfied on that point.

"Saints know!" said her mother, using her favourite comfortable expletive. "I wish he hadn't ha' gone—I do so!"

"It's a good work, child," explained Anania.

"Wouldn't it have been a good work for Father to stay at home, and save steps for Mother?"

"I think it would, my child," said Gerhardt; "but God knoweth best, and He let thy father go. Sometimes what seems to us the best work is not the work God has appointed for us."

Had Gerhardt wished to drive away Anania, he could not have taken a surer method than by words which savoured of piety. She resembled a good many people in the present day, who find the Bread of Life very dry eating, and if they must swallow a little of it, can only be persuaded to do so by a thick coating of worldly butter. They may be coaxed to visit the church where the finest anthem is sung, but that where the purest Gospel is preached has no attraction for them. The porter's wife, therefore, suddenly discovered that she had plenty to do at home, and took her departure, much to the relief of the friends on whom she inflicted herself. She had not been gone many minutes when Stephen looked in.

"Lads not come in yet?" said he. "Well, have you seen the grand sight? The Queen's gone again; she only stayed for supper at the Castle, and then off to Woodstock. She'll not be there above a month, they say. She never tarries long in England at once. But the King's coming back this autumn—so they say."

"Who say?" asked Gerhardt.

"Oh, every body," said Stephen with a laugh, as he leaned over the half-door.

"Every body?" inquired Gerhardt drily.

"Oh, come, you drive things too fine for me. Every body, that is anybody."

"I thought every body was somebody."

"Not in this country: maybe in yours," responded Stephen, still laughing. "But I'm forgetting what I came for. Aunt Isel, do you want either a sheep or a pig?"

"Have you got 'em in that wallet on your back?"

"Not at present, but I can bring you either if you want it."

"What's the price, and who's selling them?"

"Our neighbour Veka wants to sell three or four bacon pigs and half-a-dozen young porkers; Martin le bon Fermier, brother of Henry the Mason, has a couple of hundred sheep to sell."

"But what's the cost? Veka's none so cheap to deal with, though she feeds her pigs well, I know."

"Well, she wants two shillings a-piece for the bacons, and four for the six porkers."

"Ay, I knew she'd clap the money on! No, thank you; I'm not made of gold marks, nor silver pennies neither."

"Well, but the sheep are cheap enough; he only asks twopence halfpenny each."

"That's not out of the way. We might salt one or two. I'll think about it. Not in a hurry to a day or two, is he?"

"Oh, no; I shouldn't think so."

"Has he any flour or beans to sell, think you? I could do with both those, if they were reasonable."

"Ay, he has. Beans a shilling a quarter, and flour fourteen pence a load. [Note 3.] Very good flour, he says it is."

"Should be, at that price. Well, I'll see: maybe I shall walk over one of these days and chaffer with him. Any way, I'm obliged to you, Stephen, for letting me know of it."

"Very good, Aunt Isel; Martin will be glad to see you, and I'll give Bretta a hint to be at home when you come, if you'll let me know the day before."

This was a mischievous suggestion on Stephen's part, as he well knew that Martin's wife was not much to his aunt's liking.

"Don't, for mercy's sake!" cried Isel. "She's a tongue as long as a yard measure, and there isn't a scrap of gossip for ten miles on every side of her that she doesn't hand on to the first comer. She'd know all I had on afore I'd been there one Paternoster, and every body else 'd know it too, afore the day was out."

The space of time required to repeat the Lord's Prayer—of course as fast as possible—was a measure in common use at that day.

"Best put on your holiday clothes, then," said Stephen with a laugh, and whistling for his dog, which was engaged in the pointing of Countess's kitten, he turned down Fish Street on his way to the East Gate.

Stephen's progress was arrested, as he came to the end of Kepeharme Lane, by a long and picturesque procession which issued from the western door of Saint Frideswide. Eight priests, fully robed, bore under a canopy the beautifully-carved coffer which held the venerated body of the royal saint, and they were accompanied by the officials of the Cathedral, the choir chanting a litany, and a long string of nuns bringing up the rear. Saint Frideswide was on her way to the bedside of a paralysed rich man, who had paid an immense sum for her visit, in the hope that he might be restored to the use of his faculties by a touch of her miracle-working relics. As the procession passed up the street, a door opened in the Jewry, and out came a young Jew named Dieulecresse [Note 4], who at once set himself to make fun of Saint Frideswide. Limping up the street as though he could scarcely stir, he suddenly drew himself erect and walked down with a free step; clenching his hands as if they were rigid, he then flung his arms open and worked his fingers rapidly.

"O ye men of Oxford, bring me your oblations!" he cried. "See ye not that I am a doer of wonders, like your saint, and that my miracles are quite as good and real as hers?"

The procession passed on, taking no notice of the mockery. But when, the next day, it was known that Dieulecresse had committed suicide in the night, the priests did not spare the publication of the fact, with the comment that Saint Frideswide had taken vengeance on her enemy, and that her honour was fully vindicated from his aspersions.

"Ah!" said Gerhardt softly, "'those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell!' How ready men are to account them sinners above all men that dwell in Jerusalem! Yet it may be that they who thus judge are the worse sinners of the two, in God's eyes, however high they stand in the world's sight."

"Well, I don't set up to be better than other folks," said Stephen lightly. He had brought the news. "I reckon I shall pass muster, if I'm as good."

"That would not satisfy me," said Gerhardt. "I should want to be as good as I could be. I could not pass beyond that. But even then—"

"That's too much trouble for me," laughed Stephen. "When you've done your work, hand me over the goodness you don't want."

"I shall not have any, for it won't be enough."

"That's a poor lookout!"

"It would be, if I had to rely on my own goodness."

Stephen stared. "Why, whose goodness are you going to rely on?"

Gerhardt lifted his cap. "'There is none good but One,—that is, God.'"

"I reckon that's aiming a bit too high," said Stephen, with a shake of his head. "Can't tell how you're going to get hold of that."

"Nor could I, unless the Lord had first laid hold of me. 'He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness'—I do not put it on myself."

Gerhardt never made long speeches on religious topics. He said what he had to say, generally, in one pithy sentence, and then left it to carry its own weight.

"I say, Gerard, I've wondered more than once—"

"Well, Stephen?"

"No offence, friend?"

"Certainly not: pray say all you wish."

"Whether you were an unfrocked priest."

"No, I assure you."

"Can't tell how you come by all your notions!" said Stephen, scratching his head.

"Notions of all kinds have but two sources," was the reply: "the Word of God, and the corruption of man's heart."

"Come, now, that won't do!" objected Stephen. "You've built your door a mile too narrow. I've a notion that grass is green, and another that my new boots don't fit me: whence come they?"

"The first," said Gerhardt drily, "from the Gospel of Saint Mark; the second from the Fourteenth Psalm."

"The Fourteenth Psalm makes mention of my boots!"

"Not in detail. It saith, 'There is none that doeth good,—no, not one.'"

"What on earth has that to do with it?"

"This: that if sin had never entered the world, both fraud and suffering would have tarried outside with it."

"Well, I always did reckon Father Adam a sorry fellow, that he had no more sense than to give in to his wife."

"I rather think he gave in to his own inclination, at least as much. If he had not wanted to taste the apple, she might have coaxed till now."

"Hold hard there, man! You are taking the woman's side."

"I thought I was taking the side of truth. If that be not one's own, it is quite as well to find it out."

Stephen laughed as he turned away from the door of the Walnut Tree.

"You're too good for me," said he. "I'll go home before I'm infected with the complaint."

"I'd stop and take it if I were you," retorted Isel. "You're off the better end, I'll admit, but you'd do with a bit more, may be."

"I'll leave it for you, Aunt Isel," said Stephen mischievously. "One shouldn't want all the good things for one's self, you know."

The Queen did not remain for even a month at Woodstock. In less than three weeks she returned to London, this time without passing through Oxford, and took her journey to Harfleur, the passage across the Channel costing the usual price of 7 pounds, 10 shillings equivalent in modern times to 187 pounds, 10 shillings.

Travelling seems to have been an appalling item of expense at that time. The carriage of fish from Yarmouth to London cost 9 shillings (11 pounds, 5 shillings); of hay from London to Woodstock, 60 shillings (75 pounds); and of the Queen's robes from Winchester to Oxford, 8 shillings (10 pounds). Yet the Royal Family were perpetually journeying; the hams were fetched from Yorkshire, the cheeses from Wiltshire, and the pearmain apples from Kent. Exeter was famous for metal and corn; Worcester and London for wheat; Winchester for wine—there were vineyards in England then; Hertford for cattle, and Salisbury for game; York for wood; while the speciality of Oxford was knives.

An old Jew, writing to a younger some thirty years later, in the reign of Henry Second, and giving him warning as to what he would find in the chief towns of southern England, thus describes such as he had visited: "London much displeases me; Canterbury is a collection of lost souls and idle pilgrims; Rochester and Chichester are but small villages; Oxford scarcely (I say not satisfies, but) sustains its clerks; Exeter refreshes men and beasts with corn; Bath, in a thick air and sulphurous vapour, lies at the gates of Gehenna!"

But if travelling were far more costly than in these days, there were much fewer objects on which money could be squandered. Chairs were almost as scarce as thrones, being used for little else, and chimneys were not more common. [Note 5.] Diamonds were unknown; lace, velvet, and satin had no existence, samite and silk being the costly fabrics; and the regal ermine is not mentioned. Dress, as has been said, was not extravagant, save in the item of jewellery, or of very costly embroidery; cookery was much simpler than a hundred years later. Plate, it is true, was rich and expensive, but it was only in the hands of the nobles and church dignitaries. On the other hand, fines were among the commonest things in existence. Not only had every breach of law its appropriate fine, but breaches of etiquette were expiated in a similar manner. False news was hardly treated: 13 shillings 4 pence was exacted for that [Pipe Roll, 12 Henry Third] and perjury [Ibidem, 16 ib] alike, while wounding an uncle cost a sovereign, and a priest might be slain for the easy price of 4 shillings 9 pence [Ibidem, 27 ib]. The Prior of Newburgh was charged three marks for excess of state; and poor Stephen de Mereflet had to pay 26 shillings 8 pence for "making a stupid reply to the King's Treasurer"! [Pipe Roll, 16 Henry Third] It was reserved for King John to carry this exaction to a ridiculous excess, by taking bribes to hold his tongue on inconvenient topics, and fining his courtiers for not having reminded him of points which he happened to forget. [Misae Roll, I John.]

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. A long undergarment then worn by men and women alike.

Note 2. "For gilding the King's bit (frenum), 56 shillings." (Pipe Roll, 31 Henry First.)

Note 3. Reckoned according to modern value, these prices stand about thus:—Bacon pig, 2 pounds, 10 shillings; porkers, 5 pounds; sheep, 5 shillings 3 pence; quarter of beans, 25 shillings; load of flour, 30 shillings.

Note 4. "Dieu L'encroisse," a translation of Gedaliah, and a very common name among the English Jews at that time. This incident really occurred about twenty-five years later.

Note 5. Some writers deny the existence of chimneys at this date; but an entry, on the Pipe Roll for 1160, of money expended on "the Queen's chamber and chimney and cellar," leaves no doubt on the matter.



CHAPTER FOUR.

THE FAIR OF SAINT FRIDESWIDE.

"That's what I always say—if you wish a thing to be well done, You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others."

Longfellow.

The month of May was the liveliest and gayest of the year at Oxford, for not only were the May Day games common to the whole country, but another special attraction lay in Saint Frideswide's Fair, held on Gloucester Green early in that month. Oxford was a privileged town, in respect of the provision trade, the royal purveyors being forbidden to come within twenty miles of that city. In those good old times, the King was first served, then the nobility, lay and clerical, then the gentry, and the poor had to be content with what was left. It was not unusual, when a report of anything particularly nice reached the monarch—such as an import of wine, a haul of fish, or any other dainty,—for the Sheriff of that place to receive a mandate, bidding him seize for the royal use a portion or the whole thereof. Prices, too, were often regulated by proclamation, so that tradesmen not unfrequently found it hard to live. If a few of our discontented and idle agitators (I do not mean those who would work and cannot) could spend a month or two in the olden time, their next speeches on Tower Hill might be somewhat differently flavoured.

Saint Frideswide's Fair was a sight to see. For several days before it was held, a multitude of carpenters were employed in putting up wooden booths and stalls, and Gloucester Green became a very lively place. Fairs in the present day, when they are held at all, are very different exhibitions from what they were seven hundred years ago. The stalls then were practically shops, fully stocked with goods of solid value. There was a butcher's row, a baker's row, a silversmith's row, and a mercer's row—ironmongers, saddlers, shoemakers, vintners, coopers, pelters (furriers), potters, hosiers, fishmongers, and cooks (confectioners)—all had their several streets of stalls. The Green— larger than now—became a town within a town. As the fair was held by licence of Saint Frideswide, and was under her especial protection, the Canons of that church exacted certain dues both from the Crown and the stall-holders, which were duly paid. From the Crown they received 25 shillings per annum. It was deemed a point of honour to keep the best of everything for the fair; and those buyers who wished to obtain good value for their money put off their purchases when it grew near fair time. When the third of May came, they all turned out in holiday costume to lay in necessaries, so far as possible, for the year—meat excepted, which could be purchased again at the cattle fair in the following September.

There was one serious inconvenience in shopping at that time, of which we know nothing at the present day. With the exception of the penny and still smaller coins (all silver) there was no money. The pound, though it appears on paper, was not a coin, but simply a pound weight of pence; the mark was two-thirds, and the noble (if used so early) one-third of that amount. When a woman went out to buy articles of any value, she required to carry with her an enormous weight of small silver cash. Purses were not therefore the toys we use, but large bags of heavy leather, attached to the girdle on the left side; and the aim of a pickpocket was to cut the leather bag away from its metal fastening— hence the term cut-purse.

Every woman in Kepeharme Lane—and it might be added, in Oxford— appeared in the street with a basket on her arm as soon as daylight had well dawned. The men went at their own time and convenience. For many of them a visit to the fair was merely amusement; but the ladies were on business. Even Derette followed her mother, armed with a smaller basket than the rest. Little Rudolph was left with Countess, who preferred him to the fair; and such is the power of habit that our friends had now become quite accustomed to this, and would give a nod and a smile to Countess when they met, just as they did to any other neighbour. This does not mean that they entertained an atom less of prejudice against Jews in general; they had merely got over their prejudice in the case of that one Jewish girl in particular.

Isel's business was heavy enough. She wanted a pig, half an ox, twenty ells of dark blue cloth, a cloak for herself and capes for her daughters, thirty pairs of slippers—a very moderate allowance for three women, for slippers were laid in by the dozen pairs in common—fifty cheeses (an equally moderate reckoning) [Note 1], a load of flour, another of oatmeal, two quarters of cabbage for salting, six bushels of beans, five hundred herrings, a barrel of ale, two woollen rugs for bedclothes, a wooden coffer, and a hundred nails. She had already bought and salted two sheep from Martin, so mutton was not needed.

"Now, Agnes, what do you want?" she asked.

Agnes, who was following with another basket, replied that she wanted some stuff for a dress, some flannel for Rudolph, and a few pairs of shoes. Shoes must have worn only a very short time, considering the enormous quantity of them usually bought at once.

"And you, Ermine?"

"Nothing but a hood, Mother Isel."

"You're easily satisfied. Well, I'll go first after my pig."

They turned into the Butcher's Row, where in a minute they could scarcely hear each other speak. The whole air seemed vocal with grunts, lowing, and bleating, and, the poulterers' booths lying close behind, crowing and cackling also.

"How much for a good bacon pig?" screamed Isel to a fat butcher, who was polishing a knife upon a wooden block.

"Hertford kids? I have none."

"Bacon pig!" screamed Isel a little louder.

"Oh! Well, look you, there's a nice one—twenty pence; there's a rare fine one—twenty-two; there's a—"

"Bless thee, man! dost thou think I'm made of money?"

"Shouldn't wonder if you'd a pot laid by somewhere," said the butcher with a knowing wink. He was an old acquaintance.

"Well, I haven't, then: and what's more, I've plenty to do with the few marks I have. Come now, I'll give you sixteen pence for that biggest fellow."

The butcher intimated, half in a shout and half by pantomime, that he could not think of such a thing.

"Well, eighteen, then."

The butcher shook his head.

"Nineteen! Now, that's as high as I'll go."

"Not that one," shouted the butcher; "I'll take nineteen for the other."

Isel had to execute a gymnastic feat before she could answer, to save herself from the horns of an inquisitive cow which was being driven up the row; while a fat pig on the other side was driving Flemild nearly out of the row altogether.

"Well! I'll agree to that," said Isel, when she had settled with the cow.

A similar process having been gone through for the half ox, for which Isel had to pay seventeen pence [Salted cow was much cheaper, being only 2 shillings each.]—a shameful price, as she assured her companions—the ladies next made their way to Drapers' Row. The draper, then and for some centuries later, was the manufacturer of cloth, not the retail dealer only: but he sold retail as well as wholesale. Isel found some cloth to her mind, but the price was not to her mind at all, being eighteen pence per ell.

"Gramercy, man! wouldst thou ruin me?" she demanded.

A second battle followed with the draper, from which Isel this time emerged victorious, having paid only 1 shilling 5 pence per ell. They then went to the clothier's, where she secured a cloak for a mark (13 shillings 4 pence) and capes for the girls at 6 shillings 8 pence each. At the shoemaker's she laid in her slippers for 6 pence per pair, with three pairs of boots at a shilling. The cheeses were dear, being a halfpenny each; the load of flour cost 14 pence, and of meal 2 shillings; the beans were 1 shilling 8 pence, the cabbage 1 shilling 2 pence, the herrings 2 shillings. The coffer came to 5 shillings, the nails to 2 shillings 4 pence. [Note 2.] Isel looked ruefully at her purse.

"We must brew at home," she said, easily dismissing that item; "but how shall I do for the rugs?"

Rugs were costly articles. There was no woollen manufacture in England, nor was there to be such for another hundred years. A thick, serviceable coverlet, such as Isel desired, was not to be bought much under two pounds.

"We must do without them," she said, with a shake of her head. "Girls, you'll have to spread your cloaks on the bed. We must eat, but we needn't lie warm if we can't afford it."

"Isel, have you de one pound? Look, here is one," said Agnes timidly, holding out her hand.

"But you want that, my dear."

"No, I can do widout. I will de gown up-mend dat I have now. Take you de money; I have left for de shoes and flannel."

She did not add that the flannel would have to be cut down, as well as the new dress resigned.

"And I can do very well without a hood," added Ermine quickly. "We must help Mother Isel all we can."

"My dears, I don't half like taking it."

"We have taken more from you," said Ermine.

Thus urged, Isel somewhat reluctantly took the money, and bought one rug, for which she beat down the clothier to two marks and a half, and departed triumphant, this being her best bargain for the day. It was then in England, as it yet is in Eastern lands, an understood thing that all tradesmen asked extortionate prices, and must be offered less as a matter of course: a fact which helps to the comprehension of the Waldensian objection to trade as involving falsehood.

Isel returned to Agnes the change which remained out of her pound, which enabled her to get all the flannel she needed. Their baskets being now well filled, Isel and her party turned homewards, sauntering slowly through the fair, partly because the crowd prevented straightforward walking, but partly also because they wished to see as much as they could. Haimet was to bring a hand-cart for the meat and other heavy purchases at a later hour.

Derette, who for safety's sake was foremost of the girls, directly following her mother and Agnes, trudged along with her basket full of slippers, and her head full of profound meditation. Had Isel known the nature of those meditations, she certainly would never have lingered at the silversmiths' stalls in a comfortable frame of mind, pointing out to her companions various pretty things which took her fancy. But she had not the remotest idea of her youngest daughter's private thoughts, and she turned away from Gloucester Green at last, quite ignorant of the fashion wherein her feelings of all sorts were about to be outraged.

Derette was determined to obtain a dress for Agnes. She had silently watched the kindly manner in which the good-natured German gave up the thing she really needed: for poor Agnes had but the one dress she wore, and Derette well knew that no amount of mending would carry it through another winter. But how was a penniless child to procure another for her? If Derette had not been a young person of original ideas and very independent spirit, the audacious notion which she was now entertaining would never have visited her mind.

This was no less than a visit to the Castle, to beg one of the cast-off gowns of the women of the household. Dresses wore long in the Middle Ages, and ladies of rank were accustomed to make presents of half-worn ones to each other. Derette was not quite so presumptuous as to think of addressing the Countess—that, even in her eyes, seemed a preposterous impossibility; but surely one of her waiting-women might be reached. How was she to accomplish her purpose?

That she must slip away unseen was the first step to be taken. Her mother would never dream of allowing such an errand, as Derette well knew; but she comforted herself, as others have done beside her, with the reflection that the excellence of her motive quite compensated for the unsatisfactory details of her conduct. Wedged as she was in the midst of the family group, and encumbered with her basket, she could not hope to get away before they reached home; but she thought she saw her chance directly afterwards, when the baskets should have been discharged of their contents, and every body was busy inspecting, talking about, and putting away, the various purchases that had been made.

Young girls were never permitted to go out alone at that time. It was considered less dangerous in town than country, and a mere run into a neighbouring house might possibly have been allowed; but usually, when not accompanied by some responsible person, they were sent in groups of three or four at once. Derette's journey must be taken alone, and it involved a few yards of Milk Street, as far as Saint Ebbe's, then a run to Castle Street and up to the Castle. That was the best way, for it was both the shortest and comparatively the quietest. But Derette determined not to go in at the entrance gate, where she would meet Osbert and probably Anania, but to make for the Osney Gate to the left, where she hoped to fall into the kindlier hands of her cousin Stephen. The danger underlying this item was that Stephen might have gone to the fair, in which case she would have to encounter either the rough joking of Orme, or the rough crustiness of Wandregisil, his fellow-watchmen. That must be risked. The opportunity had to be bought, and Derette made up her mind to pay the necessary price.

The Walnut Tree was reached, the baskets laid down, and while Agnes was divesting herself of her cloak, and Isel reiterating her frequent assertion that she was "that tired," Derette snatched her chance, and every body's back being turned for the moment, slipped out of the door, and sped up Kepeharme Lane with the speed of a fawn. Her heart beat wildly, and until she reached Milk Street, she expected every instant to be followed and taken back. If she could only get her work done, she told herself, the scolding and probable whipping to follow would be easily borne.

Owing to its peculiar municipal laws, throughout the Middle Ages, Oxford had the proud distinction of being the cleanest city in England. That is to say, it was not quite so appallingly smothered in mire and filth as others were. Down the midst of every narrow street ran a gutter, which after rain was apt to become a brook, and into which dirt of every sort was emptied by every householder. There were no causeways; and there were frequent holes of uncertain depth, filled with thick mud. Ownerless dogs, and owned but equally free-spoken pigs, roamed the streets at their own sweet will, and were not wont to make way for the human passengers; while if a cart were met in the narrow street, it was necessary for the pedestrian to squeeze himself into the smallest compass possible against the wall, if he wished to preserve his limbs in good working order. Such were the delights of taking a walk in the good old times. It may reasonably be surmised that unnecessary walks were not frequently taken.

Kepeharme Lane left behind, where the topography of the holes was tolerably familiar, Derette had to walk more guardedly. After getting pretty well splashed, and dodging a too attentive pig which was intent on charging her for venturing on his beat, Derette at last found herself at the Osney Gate. She felt now that half her task was over.

"Who goes there?" demanded the welcome voice of Stephen, when Derette rapped at the gate.

"It's me, Stephen,—Derette: do let me in."

The gate stood open in a moment, and Stephen's pleasant face appeared behind it, with a look of something like consternation thereon.

"Derette!—alone!—whatever is the matter?"

"Nothing, Stephen; oh, nothing's the matter. I only came alone because I knew Mother wouldn't let me if I asked her."

"Hoity-toity!—that's a nice confession, young woman! And pray what are you after, now you have come?"

"Stephen—dear, good Stephen, will you do me a favour?"

"Hold off, you coaxing sinner!"

"Oh, but I want it so much! You see, she gave it up because Mother wanted a rug, and she let her have the money—and I know it won't mend up to wear any thing like through the winter—and I do want so to get her another—a nice soft one, that will be comfortable, and—You'll help me, won't you, Steenie?"

And Derette's small arms came coaxingly round her cousin's wrist.

"I'm a heathen Jew if I have the shadow of a notion what I'm wanted to help! 'A nice soft one!' Is it a kitten, or a bed-quilt, or a sack of meal, you're after?"

"O Stephen!—what queer things you guess! It's a gown—."

"I don't keep gowns, young woman."

"No, but, Steenie, you might help me to get at somebody that does. One of the Lady's women, you know. I'm sure you could, if you would."

Steenie whistled. "Well, upon my word! You'll not lose cakes for want of asking for. Why don't you go to Anania?"

"You know she'd only be cross."

"How do you know I sha'n't be cross?" asked Stephen, knitting his brows, and pouting out his lips, till he looked formidable.

"Oh, because you never are. You'll only laugh at me, and you won't do that in an ugly way like some people. Now, Steenie, you will help me to get a gown for Agnes?"

"Agnes, is it? I thought you meant Flemild."

"No, it's Agnes; and Ermine gave up her hood to help: but Agnes wants the gown worse than Ermine does a hood. You like them, you know, Steenie."

"Who told you that, my Lady Impertinence? Dear, dear, what pests these children are!"

"Now, Stephen, you know you don't think any thing of the sort, and you are going to help me this minute."

"How am I to help, I should like to know? I can't leave my gate."

"You can call somebody. Now do, Steenie, there's a darling cousin!—and I'll ask Mother to make you some of those little pies you like so much. I will, really."

"You outrageous wheedler! I suppose I shall have no peace till I get rid of you.—Henry!"

A lad of about twelve years old, who was crossing the court-yard at the other side, turned and came up at the call.

"Will you take this maid in, and get her speech of Cumina? She's very good-natured, and if you tell her your story, Derette, I shouldn't wonder if she helps you."

"Oh, thank you, Steenie, so much!"

Derette followed Henry, who made faces at her, but gave her no further annoyance, into the servants' offices at the Castle, where he turned her unceremoniously over to the first person he met—a cook in a white cap and apron—with the short and not too civil information that—

"She wants Cumina."

The cook glanced carelessly at Derette.

"Go straight along the passage, and up the stairs to the left," he said, and then went on about his own business.

Never before had Derette seen a house which contained above four rooms at the utmost. She felt in utter confusion amid stairs, doors, and corridors. But she managed to find the winding staircase at the end of the passage, and to mount it, wishing much that so convenient a mode of access could replace the ladder in her mother's house. She went up till she could go no further, when she found herself on the top landing of a round tower, without a human creature to be seen. There were two doors, however; and after rapping vainly at both, she ventured to open one. It led to the leads of the tower. Derette closed this, and tried the other. She found it to open on a dark fathomless abyss,—the Castle well [Note 3], had she known it—and shut it quickly with a sensation of horror. After a moment's reflection, she went down stairs to the next landing.

Here there were four doors, and from one came the welcome sound of human voices. Derette rapped timidly on this. It was opened by a girl about the age of Flemild.

"Please," said Derette, "I was to ask for Cumina."

"Oh, you must go to the still-room," answered the girl, and would have shut the door without further parley, had not Derette intercepted her with a request to be shown where the still-room was.

With an impatient gesture, the girl came out, led Derette a little way along the corridor running from the tower, and pointed to a door on the left hand.

Derette's hopes rose again. She was one of those persons whom delays and difficulties do not weary out or render timid, but rather inspire to fresh and stronger action.

"Well, what do you want?" asked the pleasant-faced young woman who answered Derette's rap. "Please, is there somebody here called Cumina?"

"I rather think there is," was the smiling answer. "Is it you?"

"Ay. Come in, and say what you wish." Derette obeyed, and poured out her story, rather more lucidly than she had done to Stephen. Cumina listened with a smile.

"Well, my dear, I would give you a gown for your friend if I had it," she said good-humouredly; "but I have just sent the only one I can spare to my mother. I wonder who there is, now—Are you afraid of folks that speak crossly?"

"No," said Derette. "I only want to shake them." Cumina laughed. "You'll do!" she said. "Come, then, I'll take you to Hagena. She's not very pleasant-spoken, but if any body can help you, she can. The only doubt is whether she will."

Derette followed Cumina through what seemed to her endless corridors opening into further and further corridors, till at last she asked in a tone of astonishment—

"How can you ever find your way?"

"Oh, you learn to do that very soon," said Cumina, laughing, as she opened the door of a long, low chamber. "Now, you must tread softly here, and speak very respectfully."

Derette nodded acquiescence, and they went in.

The room was lined with presses from floor to ceiling. On benches which stood back to back in its midst, several lengths of rich silken stuffs were spread out; and on other benches near the windows sat two or three girls busily at work. Several elder ladies were moving about the room, and one of them, a rather stout, hard-featured woman, was examining the girls' work. Cumina went up to her.

"If you please, Hagena," she said, "is there any where an old gown which it would please you to bestow on this girl, who has asked the boon?"

Hagena straightened herself up and looked at Derette.

"Is she the child of one of my Lord's tenants?"

"No," answered Derette. "My mother's house is her own."

"Well, if ever I heard such assurance! Perchance, Madam, you would like a golden necklace to go with it?"

If Derette had not been on her good behaviour, Hagena would have received as much as she gave. But knowing that her only chance of success lay in civil and submissive manners, she shut her lips tight and made no answer.

"Who sent you?" pursued Hagena, who was the Countess's mistress of the household, and next in authority to her.

"Nobody. I came of myself."

"Ha, chetife! I do wonder what the world's coming to! The impudence of the creature! How on earth did she get in? Just get out again as fast as you can, and come on such an errand again if you dare! Be off with you!"

Derette's voice trembled, but not with fear, as she turned back to Cumina. To Hagena she vouchsafed no further word.

"I did not know I was offending any body," she said, in a manner not devoid of childish dignity. "I was trying to do a little bit of good. I think, if you please, I had better go home."

Derette's speech infuriated Hagena. The child had kept her manners and her dignity too, under some provocation, while the mistress of the household was conscious that she had lost hers.

"How dare—" she was beginning, when another voice made her stop suddenly.

"What has the child been doing? I wish to speak with her."

Cumina hastily stopped Derette from leaving the room, and led her up to the lady who had spoken and who had only just entered.

"What is it, my little maid?" she said kindly.

"I beg your pardon," said the child. She was but a child, and her brave heart was failing her. Derette was very near tears. "I did not mean any harm. Somebody had given up having a new gown—and she wanted it very much—to let somebody else have the money; and I thought, if I could beg one for her—but I did not mean to be rude. Please let me go home."

"Thou shalt go home, little one," answered the lady; "but wait a moment. Does any one know the child?"

Nobody knew her.

"Stephen the Watchdog knows me," said Derette, drawing a long breath. "He is my cousin. So is Osbert the porter."

The lady put her arm round Derette.

"What sort of a gown wouldst thou have, my child?"

Derette's eyes lighted up. Was she really to succeed after all?

"A nice one, please," she said, simply, making every one smile except Hagena, who was still too angry for amusement. "Not smart nor grand, you know, but warm and soft. Something woollen, I suppose, it should be."

The lady addressed herself to Hagena.

"Have I any good woollen robe by the walls?"

When a dress was done with, if the materials were worth using for something else, it was taken to pieces; if not, it was hung up "by the walls," ready to give away when needed.

Hagena had some difficulty in answering properly.

"No, Lady; the last was given to Veka, a fortnight since."

"Then," was the quiet answer, which surprised all present, "it must be one of those I am wearing. Let Cumina and Dora bring such as I have."

Derette looked up into the face of her new friend.

"Please, are you the Lady Countess?"

"Well, I suppose I am," replied the Countess with a smile. "Now, little maid, choose which thou wilt."

Seven woollen gowns were displayed before the Countess and Derette, all nearly new—blue, green, scarlet, tawny, crimson, chocolate, and cream-colour. Derette looked up again to the Countess's face.

"Nay, why dost thou look at me? Take thine own choice."

The Countess was curious to see what the child's selection would be.

"I looked to see which you liked best," said Derette, "because I wouldn't like to choose that."

"True courtesy here!" remarked the Countess. "It is nothing to me, my child. Which dost thou like?"

"I like that one," said Derette, touching the crimson, which was a rich, soft, dark shade of the colour, "and I think Agnes would too; but I don't want to take the best, and I am not sure which it is."

"Fold it up," said the Countess to Cumina, with a smile to Derette; "let it be well lapped in a kerchief; and bid Wandregisil go to the Osney Gate, so that Stephen can take the child home."

The parcel was folded up, the Countess's hand kissed with heartfelt thanks, and the delighted Derette, under the care of Cumina, returned to the Osney Gate with her load.

"Well, you are a child!" exclaimed Stephen. "So Cumina has really found you a gown? I thought she would, if she had one to give away."

"No," said Derette, "it is the Countess's gown."

"And who on earth gave you a gown of the Lady's?"

"Her own self!—and, Stephen, it is of her own wearing; she hadn't done with it; but she gave it me, and she was so nice!—so much nicer than all the others except Cumina."

"Well, if ever I did!" gasped Stephen. "Derette, you are a terrible child! I never saw your like."

"I don't know what I've done that's terrible," replied the child. "I'm sure Agnes won't think it terrible to have that pretty gown to wear. What is terrible about it, Stephen?"

They had left the Castle a few yards behind, were over the drawbridge, and winding down the narrow descent, when a sharp call of "Ste-phen!" brought them to a standstill.

"Oh dear, that's Cousin Anania!" exclaimed Derette. "Let me run on, Stephen, and you go back and see what she wants."

"Nay, I must not do that, child. The Lady sent orders that I was to see you home. You'll have to go back with me."

"But she'll worry so! She'll want to know all about the gown, and then she'll want it undone, and I'm sure she'll mess it up—and Cumina folded it so smooth and nice:" urged Derette in a distressed tone.

"We won't let her," answered Stephen, quietly, as they came to the entrance gate. "Well, what's up, Anania?"

"What's Derette doing here? Who came with her? Where are you going?— and what's in that fardel?"

"Oh, is that all you're after? I'll answer those questions when I come back. I've got to take Derette home just now."

"You'll answer them before you go an inch further, if you please. That child's always in some mischief, and you aid and abet her a deal too often."

"But I don't please. I am under orders, Anania, and I can't stop now."

"At least you'll tell me what's in the fardel!" cried Anania, as Stephen turned to go on his way without loosing his hold of the parcel.

"A gown which the Lady has given to Derette," said Stephen mischievously, "and she sent commands that I was to escort her home with it."

"A gown!—the Lady!—Derette!" screamed Anania. "Not one of her own?— why on earth should she give Derette a gown?"

"That's the Lady's business, not mine."

"Yes, one of her own," said Derette proudly.

"But what on earth for? She hasn't given me a gown, and I am sure I want it more than that child—and deserve it, too."

"Perhaps you haven't asked her," suggested Derette, trotting after Stephen, who was already half-way across the bridge.

"Asked her! I should hope not, indeed—I know my place, if you don't. You never mean to say you asked her?"

"I can't stop to talk, Cousin Anania."

"But which gown is it?—tell me that!" cried Anania, in an agony of disappointed curiosity.

"It's a crimson woollen one. Good morrow."

"What! never that lovely robe she had on yesterday? Saints bless us all!" was the last scream that reached them from Anania.

Stephen laughed merrily as Derette came up with him.

"We have got clear of the dragon this time," said he.

A few minutes brought them to the Walnut Tree.

"Haimet—Oh, it's Stephen!" cried Isel in a tone of sore distress, as soon as he appeared at the door. "Do, for mercy's sake—I'm just at my wits' end to think whatever—Oh, there she is!"

"Yes, Mother, I'm here," said Derette demurely.

"Yes, she's here, and no harm done, but good, I reckon," added Stephen. "Still, I think it might be as well to look after her a bit, Aunt Isel. If she were to take it into her head to go to London to see the Lady Queen, perhaps you mightn't fancy it exactly."

"What has she been doing?" asked Isel in consternation.

"Only paying a visit to the Countess," said Stephen, laughing.

By this time Derette had undone the knots on the handkerchief, and the crimson robe was revealed in all its beauty.

"Agnes," she said quietly, but with a little undertone of decided triumph, "this is for you. You won't have to give up your gown, though you did give Mother the money."

A robe, in the Middle Ages, meant more than a single gown, and the crimson woollen was a robe. Under and upper tunics, a mantle, and a corset or warm under-bodice, lay before the eyes of the amazed Agnes.

"Derette, you awful child!" exclaimed her mother almost in terror, "what have you been after, and where did you get all that? Why, it's a new robe, and fit for a queen!"

"Don't scold the child," said Stephen. "She meant well, and I believe she behaved well; she got more than she asked for, that's all."

"Please, it isn't quite new, Mother, because the Lady wore it yesterday; but she said she hadn't one done with, so she gave me one she was wearing."

Bit by bit the story was told, while Isel held up her hands in horrified astonishment, which she allowed to appear largely, and in inward admiration of Derette's spirit, of which she tried to prevent the appearance. She was not, however, quite able to effect her purpose.

"Meine Kind!" cried Agnes, even more amazed and horrified than Isel. "Dat is not for me. It is too good. I am only poor woman. How shall I such beautiful thing wear?"

"But it is for you," pleaded Derette earnestly, "and you must wear it; because, you see, if you did not, it would seem as if I had spoken falsely to the Lady."

"Ay, I don't see that you can do aught but take it and wear it," said Stephen. "Great ladies like ours don't take their gifts back."

Gerhardt had come in during the discussion.

"Nor does the Lord," he said, "at least not from those who receive them worthily. Take it from Him, dear, with thankfulness to the human instruments whom He has used. He saw thy need, and would not suffer thee to want for obeying His command."

"But is it not too fine, Gerhardt?"

"It might be if we had chosen it," answered Gerhardt with a smile; "but it seems as if the Lord had chosen it for thee, and that settles the matter. It is only the colour, after all."

There was no trimming on the robe, save an edging of grey fur,—not even embroidery: and no other kind of trimming was known at that time. Agnes timidly felt the soft, fine texture.

"It is beautiful!" she said.

"Oh, it is beautiful enough, in all conscience," said Isel, "and will last you a life-time, pretty nigh. But as to that dreadful child—"

"Now, Mother, you won't scold me, will you?" said Derette coaxingly, putting her arms round Isel's neck. "I haven't done any harm, have I?"

"Well, child, I suppose you meant well," said Isel doubtfully, "and I don't know but one should look at folks' intentions more than their deeds, in especial when there's no ill done; but—"

"Oh, come, let's forgive each other all round!" suggested Stephen. "Won't that do?"

Isel seemed to think it would, for she kissed Derette.

"But you must never, never do such a thing again, child, in all the days of your life!" said she.

"Thank you, Mother, I don't want to do it again just now," answered Derette in a satisfied tone.

The afternoon was not over when Anania marched into the Walnut Tree.

"Well, Aunt Isel! I hope you are satisfied now!"

"With what, Anania?"

"That dreadfully wicked child. Didn't I tell you? I warned you to look after her. If you only would take good advice when folks take the trouble to give it you!"

"Would you be so good as to say what you mean, Anania? I'm not at all satisfied with dreadfully wicked children. I'm very much dissatisfied with them, generally."

"I mean Derette, of course. I hope you whipped her well!"

"What for?" asked Isel, in a rather annoyed tone.

"'What for?'" Anania lifted up her hands. "There now!—if I didn't think she would just go and deceive you! She can't have told you the truth, of course, or you could never pass it by in that light way."

"If you mean her visit to the Castle," said Isel in a careless tone, "she told us all about it, of course, when she got back."

"And you take it as coolly as that?"

"How did you wish me to take it? The thing is done, and all's well that ends well. I don't see that it was so much out of the way, for my part. Derette got no harm, and Agnes has a nice new gown, and nobody the worse. If anybody has a right to complain, it is the Countess; and I can't see that she has so much, either; for she needn't have given the robe if she hadn't liked."

"Oh, she's no business to grumble; she has lots more of every thing. She could have twenty robes made like that to-morrow, if she wanted them. I wish I'd half as many—I know that!"

Agnes came down the ladder at that moment, carrying one of her new tunics, which she had just tried on, and was now going to alter to fit herself.

"That's it, is it?" exclaimed Anania in an interested voice. "I thought it was that one. Well, you are in luck! That's one of her newest robes, I do believe. Ah, folks that have more money than they know what to do with, can afford to do aught they fancy. But to think of throwing away such a thing as that on you!"

Neither words nor tone were flattering, but the incivility dropped harmless from the silver armour of Agnes's lowly simplicity.

"Oh, but it shall not away be t'rown," she said gently; "I will dem all up-make, and wear so long as they will togeder hold. I take care of dat, so shall you see!"

Anania looked on with envious eyes.

"How good lady must de Countess be!" added Agnes.

"Oh, she can be good to folks sometimes," snarled Anania. "She's just as full of whims as she can be—all those great folks are—proud and stuck-up and crammed full of caprice: but they say she's kind where she takes, you know. It just depends whether she takes to you. She never took to me, worse luck! I might have had that good robe, if she had."

"I shouldn't think she would," suddenly observed the smallest voice in the company.

"What do you mean by that, you impudent child?"

"Because, Cousin Anania, I don't think there's much in you to take to."

Derette's prominent feeling at that moment was righteous indignation. She could not bear to hear the gentle, gracious lady, who had treated her with such unexpected kindness, accused of being proud and full of whims, apparently for no better reason than because she had not "taken to" Anania—a state of things which Derette thought most natural and probable. Her sense of justice—and a child's sense of justice is often painfully keen—was outraged by Anania's sentiments.

"Well, to be sure! How high and mighty we are! That comes of visiting Countesses, I suppose.—Aunt Isel, I told you that child was getting insufferable. There'll be no bearing her very soon. She's as stuck-up now as a peacock. Just look at her!"

"I don't see that she looks different from usual," said Isel, who was mixing the ingredients for a "bag-pudding."

Anania made that slight click with her tongue which conveys the idea of despairing compassion for the pitiable incapacity of somebody to perceive patent facts.

Isel went on with her pudding, and offered no further remark.

"Well, I suppose I'd better be going," said Anania—and sat still.

Nobody contradicted her, but she made no effort to go, until Osbert stopped at the half-door and looked in.

"Oh, you're there, are you?" he said to his wife. "I don't know whether you care particularly for those buttons you bought from Veka, but Selis has swallowed two, and—"

"Those buttons! Graven silver, as I'm a living woman! I'll shake him while I can stand over him! And only one blessed dozen I had of them, and the price she charged me—The little scoundrel! Couldn't he have swallowed the common leaden ones?"

"Weren't so attractive, probably," said Osbert, as Anania hurried away, without any leave-taking, to bestow on her son and heir, aged six, the shaking she had promised.

"But de little child, he shall be sick!" said Agnes, looking up from her work with compassionate eyes.

"Oh, I dare say it won't hurt him much," replied Osbert coolly, "and perhaps it will teach him not to meddle. I wish it might teach his mother to stay at home and look after him, but I'm afraid that's hopeless. Good morrow!"

Little Selis seemed no worse for his feast of buttons, beyond a fit of violent indigestion, which achieved the wonderful feat of keeping Anania at home for nearly a week.

"You've had a nice quiet time, Aunt Isel," said Stephen. "Shall I see if I can persuade Selis to take the rest of the dozen?"

Life went on quietly—for the twelfth century—in the little house in Kepeharme Street. That means that nobody was murdered or murderously assaulted, the house was not burned down nor burglariously entered, and neither of the boys lost a limb, and was suffered to bleed to death, for interference with the King's deer. In those good old times, these little accidents were rather frequent, the last more especially, as the awful and calmly-calculated statistics on the Pipe Rolls bear terrible witness.

Romund married, and went to live in the house of his bride, who was an heiress to the extent of possessing half-a-dozen houses in Saint Ebbe's parish. Little Rudolph grew to be seven years old, a fine fearless boy, rather more than his quiet mother knew how to manage, but always amenable to a word from his grave father. The Germans had settled down peaceably in various parts of the country, some as shoemakers, some as tailors, some as weavers, or had hired themselves as day-labourers to farmers, carpenters, or bakers. Several offers of marriage had been made to Ermine, but hitherto, to the surprise of her friends, all had been declined, her brother assenting to this unusual state of things.

"Why, what do you mean to do, Gerard?" asked Isel of her, when the last and wealthiest of five suitors was thus treated. "You'll never have a better offer for the girl than Raven Soclin. He can spend sixty pound by the year and more; owns eight shops in the Bayly, and a brew-house beside Saint Peter's at East Gate. He's no mother to plague his wife, and he's a good even-tempered lad, as wouldn't have many words with her. Deary me! but it's like throwing the fish back into the sea when they've come in your net! What on earth are you waiting for, I should just like to know?"

"Dear Mother Isel," answered Ermine softly, "we are waiting to see what God would have of me. I think He means me for something else. Let us wait and see."

"But there is nothing else, child," returned Isel almost irritably, "without you've a mind to be a nun; and that's what I wouldn't be, take my word for it. Is that what you're after?"

"No, I think not," said Ermine in the same tone.

"Then there's nothing else for you—nothing in this world!"

"This is not the only world," was the quiet reply.

"It's the only one I know aught about," said Isel, throwing her beans into the pan; "or you either, if I'm not mistaken. You'd best be wise in time, or you'll go through the wood and take the crookedest stick you can find."

"I hope to be wise in time, Mother Isel; but I would rather it were God's time than mine. And we Germans, you know, believe in presentiments. Methinks He has whispered to me that the way He has appointed for my treading is another road than that."

Ermine was standing, as she spoke, by the half-door, her eyes fixed on the fleecy clouds which were floating across the blue summer sky.

"Can you see it, Aunt Ermine?" cried little Rudolph, running to her. "Is it up there, in the blue—the road you are going to tread?"

"It is down below first," answered Ermine dreamily. "Down very low, in the dim valleys, and it is rough. But it will rise by-and-bye to the everlasting hills, and to the sapphire blue; and it leads straight to God's holy hill, and to His tabernacle."

They remembered those words—seven months later.

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. The Pipe Rolls speak of large cheeses, which cost from threepence to sixpence each, and the ordinary size, of which two or three were sold for a penny. They were probably very small.

Note 2. Modern value of above prices:—Pig, 1 pound, 19 shillings 7 pence; half ox, 1 pound, 15 shillings 5 pence; cloth, 1 pound 16 shillings 5 and a half pence per ell; cloak, 13 pounds 6 shillings 8 pence; cape, 6 pounds, 13 shillings 4 pence; pair of slippers, 12 shillings 6 pence; boots, per pair, 25 shillings; cheeses, 2 shillings 1 penny each; flour and cabbage, each 1 pound 9 shillings 2 pence; meal and herrings, each 2 pounds, 10 shillings; beans, 2 pounds 1 shilling 8 pence; coffer, 6 pounds, 5 shillings; nails, 2 pounds, 18 shillings 4 pence; rug, 50 pounds. It will be seen that money was far cheaper than now, and living much more expensive.

Note 3. For the sinking of which King Henry paid 19 pounds, 19 shillings 5 pence near this time.



CHAPTER FIVE.

WARNED.

"Though briars and thorns obstruct the way, Oh, what are thorns and briars to me, If Thy sweet words console and stay, If Thou but let me go with Thee?"

"G.E.M."

In the house of Henry the Mason, six doors from the Walnut Tree, three of the Germans had been received—old Berthold, his wife Luitgarde, and their daughter Adelheid. Two years after their coming, Luitgarde had died, and Berthold and his daughter were left alone Adelheid, though ten years the elder, was a great friend of Ermine, and she seemed about as much averse to matrimony as the latter, though being less well-favoured, she had received fewer incentives to adopt it. Raven Soclin, however, did not allow his disappointment in love to affect his spirits, nor to have much time for existence. Ermine's refusal was barely six weeks old when he transferred his very transferable affections to Flemild, and Romund, the family dictator, did not allow any refusal of the offer. In fact, Flemild was fairly well satisfied with the turn matters had taken. She knew she must be either wife or nun—there was no third course open for a woman in England at that day—and she certainly had no proclivity for the cloister. Derette, on the other hand, had expressed herself in terms of great contempt for matrimony, and of decided intention to adopt single life, in the only form in which it was then possible. It was therefore arranged by Romund, and obediently sanctioned by Isel—for that was an age of obedient mothers, so far as sons were concerned—that Flemild should marry Raven Soclin, and Derette should become a novice at Godstowe, in the month of September shortly about to open.

Nothing had yet been heard of Manning, the absent husband and father. Isel still cherished an unspoken hope of his return; but Romund and Flemild had given him up for dead, while the younger children had almost forgotten him.

Another person who had passed out of their life was the Jewish maiden, Countess. She had been married the year after the arrival of the Germans, and had gone to live at Reading: married to an old Jew whom she only knew by name, then no unusual fate for girls of her nation. From little Rudolph, who was just beginning to talk, she had parted most unwillingly.

"Ah! if you would give him to me!" she had said in German to Agnes, with a smile on her lips, yet with tears in the dark eyes. "I know it could not be. Yet if time should come that trouble befel you, and you sought refuge for the child, my heart and my arms would be open. Ah, you think, what could a poor Jewess do for you? Well, maybe so. Yet you know the fable of the mouse that gnawed the net in which the lion was caught. It might be, some day, that even poor Countess—"

Gerhardt laid his hand on the arm of the young Jewess, and Isel, who saw the action, trembled for the consequences of his temerity.

"Friend," he said, "I would, if so were, confide my child to you sooner than to any other outside this house, if your word were given that he should not be taught to deride and reject the Lord that died for him."

"You would take my word?" The dark eyes flashed fire.

"I would take it, if you would give it."

"And you know that no Court in this land would receive the witness of a Jew! You know it?" she repeated fierily.

"I know it," he answered, rather sadly.

"Yet you would take mine?"

"God would know if you spoke truth. He is the Avenger of all that have none other."

"He has work to do, then!" replied Countess bitterly.

"He would not be too busy, if need were, to see to my little Rudolph. But I do not believe in the need: I think you true."

"Gerhardt, you are the strangest Christian that I ever knew! Do you mean what you say?"

"I mean every word of it, Countess."

"Then—you shall not repent it." And she turned away.

Little Rudolph fretted for a time after his nurse and playfellow. But as the months passed on, her image grew fainter in his memory, and now, at seven years old, he scarcely remembered her except by name, Ermine having spoken of her to him on several occasions.

"I wonder you talk of the girl to that child!" Isel remonstrated. "It were better that he should forget her."

"Pardon me, Mother Isel, but I think not so. The good Lord brought her in our way, and how do I know for what purpose? It may be for Rudolph's good, no less than hers; and she promised, if need arose, to have a care of him. I cannot tell what need may arise, wherein it would be most desirable that he should at least recall her name."

"But don't you see, Ermine, even on your own showing, our Lord has taken her out of your way again?"

"Yes, now. But how do I know that it is for always?"

"Why, child, how can Countess, a married woman, living away at Reading, do anything to help a child at Oxford?"

"I don't know, Mother Isel. The Lord knows. If our paths never cross again, it will not hurt Rudolph to remember that a young Jewess named Countess was his loving friend in childhood: if they should meet hereafter, it may be very needful. And—" that dreamy look came into Ermine's eyes—"something seems to whisper to me that it may be needed. Do not blame me if I act upon it."

"Well, with all your soft, gentle ways, you have a will of your own, I know," said Isel; "so you must e'en go your own way. And after September, Ermine, you'll be the only daughter left to me. Ah me! Well, it's the way of the world, and what is to be must be. I am sure it was a good wind blew you in at my door, for I should have been dreadful lonely without you when both my girls were gone."

"But, dear Mother Isel, Flemild is not going far."

"Not by the measuring-line, very like; but she's going far enough to be Raven's wife, and not my daughter. It makes a deal of difference, that does. And Derette's going further, after the same fashion. I sha'n't see her, maybe, again, above a dozen times in my life. Eh dear! this is a hard world for a woman to live in. It's all work, and worry, and losing, and giving up, and such like."

"There is a better world," said Ermine softly.

"There had need be. I'm sure I deserve a bit of rest and comfort, if ever a hard-working woman did. I'll say nought about pleasure; more by reason that I'm pretty nigh too much worn out and beat down to care about it."

"Nay, friend," said Gerhardt; "we sinners deserve the under-world. The road to the upper lieth only through the blood and righteousness of our Lord Christ."

"I don't know why you need say that," returned Isel with mild resentment. "I've been as decent a woman, and as good a wife and mother, as any woman betwixt Grandpont and Saint Maudlin, let the other be who she may,—ay, I have so, though I say it that hadn't ought. But you over-sea folks seem to have such a notion of everybody being bad, as I never heard before—not even from the priest."

The Church to which Gerhardt belonged held firmly, as one of her most vital dogmas, that strong view of human depravity which human depravity always opposes and resents. Therefore Gerhardt did but enunciate a foundation-article of his faith when he made answer—

"'All the evil which I do proceeds from my own depravity.'"

"Come, you're laying it on a bit too thick," said Isel, with a shake of her head.

"He only speaks for himself, don't you hear, Mother?" suggested Haimet humorously.

Gerhardt smiled, and shook his head in turn.

"Well, but if all the ill we do comes of ourselves, I don't see how you leave any room for Satan. He's busy about us, isn't he?"

"He's 'a roaring lion, that goeth about, seeking whom he may devour'; but he can devour no man without his own participation."

"Why, then, you make us all out to be witches, for it's they who enter into league with Satan."

"Do you know, Gerard," said Haimet suddenly, "some folks in the town are saying that you belong to those over-sea heretics whose children are born with black throats and four rows of teeth, and are all over hair?"

"I don't see that Rudolph resembles that description," was the calm reply of Gerhardt. "Do you?"

"Oh, of course we know better. But there are some folks that say so, and are ready to swear it too. It would be quite as well if you stayed quiet at home for a while, and didn't go out preaching in the villages so much. If the Bishop comes to hear of some things you've said—"

Isel and her daughters looked up in surprise. They had never imagined that their friend's frequent journeys were missionary tours. Haimet, who mixed far more with the outer world, was a good deal wiser on many points.

"What have I said?" quietly replied Gerhardt, stopping his carving— which he still pursued in an evening—to sweep up and throw into the corner the chips which he had made.

"Well, I was told only last week, that you had said when you spoke at Abingdon, that 'Antichrist means all that is in contrast to Christ,' and that there was no such thing as a consecrated priest in the world."

"The first I did say: can you disprove it? But the second I did not say. God forbid that I ever should!"

"Oh, well, I am glad to hear it: but I can tell you, Halenath the Sacristan said he heard you."

"I wish that old chattering magpie would hold his tongue!" exclaimed Isel, going to the door to empty the bowl in which she had been washing the cabbages for supper. "He makes more mischief than any man within ten miles of the Four-Ways."

"Haimet," said Gerhardt, looking up from the lovely wreath of strawberry-blossom which he was carving on a box, "I must not leave you to misapprehend me as Halenath has done. I never said there was no such thing as a consecrated priest: for Christ our Priest is one, of the Order of Melchizedek, and by His one offering He hath perfected His saints for ever. But I did say that the priests of Rome were not rightly consecrated, and that the Pope's temporal power had deprived the Church of true consecration. I will stand as firmly to that which I have said, as I will deny the words I have not spoken."

Isel stood aghast, looking at him, while the spoon in her hand went down clattering on the brick floor.

"Dear blessed saints!" seemed to be all she could say.

"Why, whatever do you call that?" cried Haimet. "It sounds to me just as bad as the other, if it isn't worse. I should think, if anything, it were a less heresy to say there were no consecrated priests, than to say that holy Church herself had lost true consecration. Not that there's very much to choose between them, after all; only that you cunning fellows can split straws into twenty bits as soon as we can look at them."

"Do you mean to say that the Church of England has lost true consecration?" gasped Isel.

"If he means one, he means the other," said Haimet, "because our Church is subject to the holy Father."

"There is one Church, and there are many Churches," answered Gerhardt. "One—holy, unerring, indivisible, not seen of men. This is the Bride, the Lamb's wife; and they that are in her are called, and chosen, and faithful. This is she that shall persevere, and shall overcome, and shall receive the crown of life. But on earth there are many Churches; and these may err, and may utterly fall away. Yea, there be that have done it—that are doing it now."

"I don't understand you a bit!" exclaimed Isel. "I always heard of the Catholic Church, that she was one and could not err; that our Lord the Pope was her head, and the Church of England was a branch of her. Isn't that your doctrine?"

"You mean the same thing, don't you, now?" suggested Flemild, trying to make peace. "I dare be bound, it's only words that differ. They are so queer sometimes. Turn 'em about, and you can make them mean almost anything."

Gerhardt smiled rather sadly, as he rose and put away his carving on one of the broad shelves that ran round the house-place, and served the uses of tables and cupboards.

"Words can easily be twisted," he said, "either by ignorance or malice. But he is a coward that will deny his words as he truly meant them. God help me to stand to mine!"

"Well, you'd better mind what I tell you about your preaching," responded Haimet. "Leave preaching to the priests, can't you? It is their business, not a weaver's. You keep to your craft."

"Had you not once a preacher here named Pullus?" asked Gerhardt, without replying to the question.

"I think I have heard of him," said Haimet, "but he was before my time."

"I have been told that he preached the Word of God in this city years ago," said Gerhardt.

"Whom did you say? Cardinal Pullus?" asked Isel, standing up from her cooking. "Ay, he did so! You say well, Haimet, it was before your day; you were only beginning to toddle about when he died. But I've listened to him many a time at Saint Martin's, and on Presthey, too. He used to preach in English, so that the common folks could understand him. Many professed his doctrines. I used to like to hear him, I did—when I was younger. He said nice words, though I couldn't call 'em back now. No, I couldn't."

"I am sorry to hear it; I rather hoped you could," replied Gerhardt.

"Bless you! I never heard aught of that sort yet, that I could tell you again, a Paternoster after I'd gone forth of the door. Words never stay with me; they run in at one ear and out at the other. Seem to do me good, by times; but I never can get 'em back again, no more than you can the rain when it has soaked into the ground."

"If the rain and the words bring forth good fruit, you get them back in the best way of all," said Gerhardt. "To remember the words in your head only, were as fruitless as to gather up rain-drops from the stone or metal into which they cannot penetrate."

"Well, I never had nought of a head-piece," returned Isel. "I've heard my mother tell that I had twenty wallopings ere she could make me say the Paternoster; and I never could learn nought else save the Joy and the Aggerum."

"What do you mean by the 'Aggerum,' Mother?" inquired Haimet.

"Well, isn't that what you call it? Aggerum or Adjerum, or some such outlandish name. It's them little words that prayers begin with."

"'Deus, in adjutorium,'" said Gerhardt quietly.

Haimet seemed exceedingly amused. He had attended the schools long enough to learn Latin sufficient to interpret the common prayers and Psalms which formed the private devotions of most educated people. This was because his mother had wished him to be a priest. But having now, in his own estimation, arrived at years of discretion, he declined the calling chosen for him, preferring as he said to go into business, and he had accordingly been bound apprentice to a moneter, or money-changer. Poor Isel had mourned bitterly over this desertion. To her mind, as to that of most people in her day, the priesthood was the highest calling that could be attained by any middle-class man, while trade was a very mean and despicable occupation, far below domestic service. She recognised, however, that Haimet was an exception to most rules, and was likely to take his own way despite of her.

Isel's own lack of education was almost as unusual as Haimet's possession of it. At that time all learning was in the hands of the clergy, the monastic orders, and the women. By the Joy, she meant the Doxology, the English version of which substituted "joy" for "glory;" while the Adjutorium denoted the two responses which follow the Lord's Prayer in the morning service, "O God, make speed to save us," "O Lord, make haste to help us."

"Can't you say adjutorium, Mother?" asked the irreverent youth.

"No, lad, I don't think I can. I'll leave that for thee. One's as good as t'other, for aught I see."

Haimet exploded a second time.

"Good evening!" said Romund's voice, and a cloaked figure, on whose shoulders drops of rain lay glittering, came in at the door. "I thought you were not gone up yet, for I saw the light under the door. Derette, I have news for you. I have just heard that Saint John's anchoritess died yesterday, and I think, if you would wish it, that I could get the anchorhold for you. You may choose between that and Godstowe."

Derette scarcely stood irresolute for a moment.

"I should like the anchorhold best, Brother. Then Mother could come to me whenever she wanted me."

"Is that the only reason?" asked Haimet, half laughing.

"No, not quite," said Derette, with a smile; "but it is a good one."

"Then you make up your mind to that?" questioned Romund.

"Yes, I have made up my mind," replied Derette.

"Very good: then I will make application for it. Good night! no time to stay. Mabel? Oh, she's all right. Farewell!"

And Romund shut the door and disappeared.

"Deary me, that seems done all of a hurry like!" said Isel. "I don't half like such sudden, hasty sort of work. Derette, child, are you sure you'll not be sorry?"

"No, I don't think I shall, Mother. I shall have more liberty in the anchorhold than in the nunnery."

"More liberty, quotha!" cried Isel in amazement. "Whatever can the child mean? More liberty, penned up in two little chambers, and never to leave them all your life, than in a fine large place like Godstowe, with a big garden and cloisters to walk in?"

"Ah, Mother, I don't want liberty for my feet, but for my soul. There will be no abbess nor sisters to tease one in the anchorhold."

"Well, and what does that mean, but never a bit of company? Just your one maid, and tied up to her. And the child calls it 'liberty'!"

"You forget, Mother," said Haimet mischievously. "There will be the Lady Derette. In the cloister they are only plain Sister."

Every recluse had by courtesy the title of a baron.

"As if I cared for that rubbish!" said Derette with sublime scorn.

"Dear! I thought you were going on purpose," retorted her brother.

"Whom will you have for your maid, Derette?" asked her sister.

"Ermine, if I might have her," answered Derette with a smile.

Gerhardt suddenly stopped the reply which Ermine was about to make.

"No," he said, "leave it alone to-night, dear. Lay it before the Lord, and ask of Him whether that is the road He hath prepared for thee to walk in. It might be for the best, Ermine."

There was a rather sorrowful intonation in his voice.

"I will wait till the morning, and do as you desire," was Ermine's reply. "But I could give the answer to-night, for I know what it will be. The best way, and the prepared way, is that which leads the straightest Home."

It was very evident, when the morning arrived, that Gerhardt would much have liked Ermine to accept the lowly but safe and sheltered position of companion to Derette in the anchorhold. While the hermit lived alone, but wandered about at will, the anchorite, who was never allowed to leave his cell, always had with him a companion of his own sex, through whom he communicated with the outer world. Visitors of the same sex, or children, could enter the cell freely, or the anchorite might speak through his window to any person. Derette, therefore, would really be less cut off from the society of her friends in the anchorhold, than she would have been as a cloistered sister at Godstowe, where they would only have been permitted to see her, at most, once in a year. But outside the threshold of her cell she might never step, save for imminent peril of life, as in the case of fire. She must live there, and die there, her sole occupation found in devotional exercises, her sole pleasure in her friends' visits, the few sights she could see from her window, and through a tiny slit into the chancel of the Church of Saint John the Baptist, which we know as the chapel of Merton College. Every anchorhold was built close to a church, so as to allow its occupant the privilege of seeing the performance of mass, and of receiving the consecrated wafer, by the protrusion of his tongue through the narrow slit.

In those early days, and before the corruptions of Rome reached their full development, this cloistered life was not without some advantages for the securing of which it is not required now. In rough, wild times, when insult or cruelty to a woman was among the commonest events, it was something for a woman to know that by wearing a certain uniform, her person would be regarded as so sacred that he who dared to molest her would be a man of rare and exceptional wickedness. It was something, also, to be sure, even moderately sure, of provision for her bodily needs during life: something to know that if any sudden accident should deprive her of the services of her only companion, the world deemed it so good a deed to serve her, that any woman whom she might summon through her little window would consider herself honoured and benefited by being allowed to minister to her even in the meanest manner. The loss of liberty was much assuaged and compensated, by being set against such advantages as these. The recluse was considered the holiest of nuns, not to say of women, and the Countess of Oxford herself would have held it no degradation to serve her in her need.

Derette would dearly have liked to secure the companionship of Ermine, but she saw plainly that it was not to be. When the morning came, therefore, she was much less surprised than sorry that Ermine declined the offer. Gerhardt pressed it on her in vain.

"If you command me, my brother," said Ermine, "I will obey, for you have a right to dispose of me; but if the matter is left to my own choice, I stay with you, and your lot shall be mine."

"But if our lot be hardship and persecution, my Ermine—cold and hunger, nakedness, and peril and sword! This might be a somewhat dull and dreary life for thee, but were it not a safe one?"

"Had the Master a safe and easy life, Brother, that His servants should seek it? Is the world so safe, and the way to Paradise so hard? Is it not written, 'Blessed are ye, when they shall persecute you'? Methinks I see arising, even now, that little cloud which shall ere long cover all the sky with darkness. Shall I choose my place with the 'fearful' that are left without the Holy City, rather than with them that shall follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth?"

"It is written again, 'When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another,'" replied Gerhardt.

"'When they persecute you,'" repeated Ermine. "It has not come yet."

"It may be too late, when it has come."

"Then the way will be plain before me."

"Well, dear, I will urge you no further," said Gerhardt at last, drawing a heavy sigh. "I had hoped that for thee at least—The will of the Lord be done."

"If it were His will to preserve my life, even the persecutors themselves might be made the occasion of doing so."

"True, my Ermine. It may be thou hast more faith than I. Be it as thou wilt."

So Derette had to seek another maid.

"I'm sure I don't know who you'll get," said Isel. "There's Franna's Hawise, but she's a bit of a temper,"—which her hearers knew to be a very mild representation of facts: "and there's Turguia's grand-daughter, Canda, but you'll have to throw a bucket of water over her of a morrow, or she'll never be out of bed before sunrise on the shortest day of the year. Then there's Henry's niece, Joan—" then pronounced as a dissyllable, Joan—"but I wouldn't have such a sloven about me. I never see her but her shoes are down at heel, and if her gown isn't rent for a couple of hand-breadths, it's as much as you can look for. Deary me, these girls! they're a sorry lot, the whole heap of 'em! I don't know where you're going to find one, Derette."

"Put it in the Lord's hands, and He will find you one."

"I'll tell you what, Gerard, I never heard the like of you," answered Isel, setting her pan swinging by its chain on the hook over the fire. "You begin and end every mortal thing with our Lord, and you're saying your prayers pretty nigh all day long. Are you certain sure you've never been a monk?"

"Very certain, friend," said Gerhardt, smiling. "Is not the existence of Agnes answer enough to that?"

"Oh, but you might have run away," said Isel, whose convictions on most subjects were of rather a hazy order. "There are monks that do, and priests too: or if they don't forsake their Order, they don't behave like it. Why, just look at Reinbald the Chaplain—who'd ever take him for a priest, with his long curls and his silken robes, and ruffling up his hair to hide the tonsure?"

"Ay, there are men who are ashamed of nothing so much as of the cross which their Master bore for them," admitted Gerhardt sorrowfully. "And at times it looks as if the lighter the cross be, the less ready they are to carry it. There be who would face a drawn sword more willingly than a scornful laugh."

"Well, we none of us like to be laughed at."

"True. But he who denies his faith through the mockery of Herod's soldiers, how shall he bear the scourging in Pilate's hall?"

"Well, I'm none so fond of neither of 'em," said Isel, taking down a ham.

"It is only women who can't stand being touched," commented Haimet rather disdainfully. "But you are out there, Gerard: it is a disgrace to be laughed at, and disgrace is ever worse to a true man than pain."

"Why should it be disgrace, if I am in the right?" answered Gerhardt. "If I do evil, and refuse to own it, that is disgrace, if you will; but if I do well, or speak truth, and stand by it, what cause have I to be ashamed?"

"But if men believe that you have done ill, is that no disgrace?"

"If they believe it on false witness, the disgrace is equally false. 'Blessed are ye, when men shall persecute you, and shall say all evil against you, lying, for My sake.' Those are His words who bore all shame for us."

"They sha'n't say it of me, unless they smart for it!" cried Haimet hotly.

"Then wilt thou not be a true follower of the Lamb of God, who, when He was reviled, reviled not again, but committed Himself unto Him that judgeth righteously."

"Saints be with you!" said Anania, lifting the latch, and intercepting a response from Haimet which might have been somewhat incisive. "I declare, I'm just killed with the heat!"

"I should have guessed you were alive, from the look of you," returned Derette calmly.

"So you're going into the anchorhold, I hear?" said Anania, fanning herself with her handkerchief.

"If Romund can obtain it for me."

"Oh, he has; it's all settled. Didn't you know? I met Mabel in Saint Frideswide's Street [which ran close to the north of the Cathedral], and she told me so.—Aunt Isel, I do wonder you don't look better after that young woman! She'll bring Romund to his last penny before she's done. That chape [a cape or mantle] she had on must have cost as pretty a sum as would have bought a flock of sheep. I never saw such extravagance."