If Perrote de Carhaix had not been gifted with the unction from the Holy One, she would have made a terrible mistake at that juncture. All that she had been taught by man inclined her to say "no" to the question. But "there are a few of us whom God whispers in the ear," and those who hear those whispers often go utterly contrary to man's teaching, being bound only by God's word. So bound they must be. If they speak not according to that word, it is because there is no light in them—only an ignis fatuus which leads the traveller into quagmires. But they are often free from all other bonds. Perrote could not have told what made her answer that question in the way she did. It was as if a soft hand were laid upon her lips, preventing her from entering into any doctrinal disputations, and insisting on her keeping the question down to the personal level. She said—or that inward monitor said through her—

"Is it settled for thee, Amphillis?"

"Mistress, I don't know! Can I have it settled?"

"'He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.' 'I give unto them eternal life.'" [John three verse 36; ten, verse 28.] Perrote said no more.

"Then, if I go and ask at Him—?"

"'My Lord God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou madest me whole.' 'All ye that hope in the Lord, do manly, and your heart shall be comforted.'" [Psalm thirty, verse 3; thirty-one, verse 25; Hereford and Purvey's version.]

Once more it was as by a heavenly instinct that Perrote answered in God's words rather than in her own. Amphillis drew a long breath. The light was rising on her. She could not have put her convictions into words; and it was quite as well, for had she done so, men might have persuaded her out of them. But the one conviction "borne in upon her" was—God, and not man; God's word, not men's words; God the Saviour of men, not man the saviour of himself; God the Giver of His Son for the salvation of men, not men the offerers of something to God for their own salvation. And when man or woman reaches that point, that he sees in all the universe only himself and God, the two points are not likely to remain long apart. When the one is need longing for love, and the Other is love seeking for need, what can they do but come close together?

Sir Godfrey set forth for his tournament in magnificent style, and Lady Foljambe and Mistress Margaret with him. Young Godfrey was already gone. The old knight rode a fine charger, and was preceded by his standard-bearer, carrying a pennon of bright blue, whereon were embroidered his master's arms—sable, a bend or, between six scallops of the second. The ladies journeyed together in a quirle, and were provided with rich robes and all their jewellery. The house and the prisoner were left in the hands of Matthew, Father Jordan, and Perrote. Norman Hylton accompanied his master.

Lady Foljambe's mind had grown tolerably easy on the subject of Ivo, and she only gave Perrote a long lecture, warning her, among other things, never to leave the door unlocked nor the prisoner alone. Either Perrote or Amphillis must sleep in the pallet bed in her chamber during the whole time of Lady Foljambe's absence, so that she should never be left unguarded for a single moment. Matthew received another harangue, to which he paid little attention in reality, though in outward seeming he received it with due deference. Father Jordan languidly washed his hands with invisible soap, and assured his patrons that no harm could possibly come to the prisoner through their absence.

The Tuesday evening was near its close. The sun had just sunk behind the western hills; the day had been bright and beautiful in the extreme. Amphillis was going slowly upstairs to her turret, carrying her little work-basket, which was covered with brown velvet and adorned with silver cord, when she saw Kate standing in the window of the landing, as if she were waiting for something or some person. It struck Amphillis that Kate looked unhappy.

"Kate, what aileth thee?" she asked, pausing ere ere she mounted the last steps. "Dost await here for man to pass?"

"Nay, Mistress—leastwise—O Mistress Amphillis, I wis not what to do!"

"Anentis what, my maid?"

"Nay, I'd fain tell you, but—Lack-a-day, I'm all in a tumblement!"

"What manner of tumblement?" asked Amphillis, sitting down in the window-seat. "Hast brake some pottery, Kate, or torn somewhat, that thou fearest thy dame's anger?"

"Nay, I've brake nought saving my word; and I've not done that yet."

"It were evil to break thy word, Kate."

"Were it so?" Kate looked up eagerly.

"Surely, without thou hadst passed word to do somewhat thou shouldst not."

Kate's face fell. She had thought she saw a way out of her difficulty; and it was closing round her again.

"It's none so easy to tell what man shouldn't," she said, in a troubled tone.

"What hast thou done, Kate?"

"Nay, I've done nought yet. I've only passed word to do."

"To do what?"

Before Kate could answer, Agatha whisked into the corner.

"Thank goodness they're all gone, the whole lot of them! Won't we have some fun now! Kate, run down stairs, and bring me up a cork; and I want a long white sheet and a mop. Now haste thee, do! for I would fain cause Father Jordan to skrike out at me, and I have scarce time to get my work done ere the old drone shall come buzzing up this gait. Be sharp, maid! and I'll do thee a good turn next time."

And Agatha fairly pushed Kate down the stairs, allowing her neither excuse nor delay—a piece of undignified conduct which would bitterly have scandalised Lady Foljambe, could she have seen it. By the time that Kate returned with the articles prescribed, Agatha had possessed herself of a lighted candle, wherein she burnt the end of the cork, and with it proceeded to delineate, in the middle of the sheet, a very clever sketch of a ferocious Turk, with moustaches of stupendous length. Then elevating the long mop till it reached about a yard above her head, she instructed Kate to arrange the sheet thereon in such a manner that the Turk's face showed close to the top of the mop, and gave the idea of a giant about eight feet in height.

"Now then—quick! I hear the old bumble-bee down alow yonder. Keep as still as mice, and stir not, nor laugh for your lives!"

Kate appeared to have quite forgotten her trouble, and entered into Agatha's mischievous fun with all the thoughtless glee of a child.

"Agatha," said Amphillis, "my Lady Foljambe should be heavy angered if she wist thy dealing. Prithee, work not thus. If Father Jordan verily believed thou wert a ghost, it were well-nigh enough to kill him, poor sely old man. And he hath ill deserved such treatment at thine hands."

In the present day we should never expect an adult clergyman to fall into so patent a trap; but in the Middle Ages even learned men were credulous to an extent which we can scarcely imagine. Priests were in the habit of receiving friendly visits from pretended saints, and meeting apparitions of so-called demons, apparently without the faintest suspicion that the spirits in question might have bodies attached to them, or that their imaginations might be at all responsible for the vision.

"Thank all the Calendar she's away!" was Agatha's response. "Thee hold thy peace, and be not a spoil-sport. I mean to tell him I'm a soul in Purgatory, and none save a priest named Jordan can deliver me, and he only by licking of three crosses in the dust afore our Lady's altar every morrow for a month. That shall hurt none of him! and it shall cause me die o' laughter to see him do it. Back! quick! here cometh he. I would fain hear the old snail skrike out at me, 'Avaunt, Sathanas!' as he surely will."

Amphillis stepped back. Her quicker ear had recognised that the step beginning to ascend the stairs was not that of the old priest, and she felt pretty sure whose it was—that healthy, sturdy, plain-spoken Meg, the cook-maid, was the destined victim, and was likely to be little injured, while there was a good chance of Agatha's receiving her deserts.

Just as Meg reached the landing, a low groan issued from the uncanny thing. Agatha of course could not see; she only heard the steps, which she still mistook for those of Father Jordan. Meg stood calmly gazing on the apparition.

"Will none deliver an unhappy soul in Purgatory?" demanded a hollow moaning voice, followed by awful groans, such as Amphillis had not supposed it possible for Agatha to produce.

"I rather reckon, my Saracen, thou'rt a soul out o' Purgatory with a body tacked to thee," said Meg, in the coolest manner. "Help thee? Oh ay, that I will, and bring thee back to middle earth out o' thy pains. Come then!"

And Meg laid hands on the white sheet, and calmly began to pull it down.

"Oh, stay, Meg! Thou shalt stifle me," said the Turk, in Agatha's voice.

"Ay, I thought you'd somewhat to do wi' 't, my damsel; it were like you. Have you driven anybody else out o' her seven senses beside me wi' yon foolery?"

"You've kept in seventy senses," pouted Agatha, releasing herself from the last corner of her ghostly drapery. "Meg, you're a spoil-sport."

"My dame shall con you but poor thanks, Mistress Agatha, if you travail folks o' this fashion while she tarrieth hence. Mistress Amphillis, too! Marry, I thought—"

"I tarried here to lessen the mischief," said Amphillis.

"It wasn't thee I meant to fright," said Agatha, with a pout. "I thought Father Jordan was a-coming; it was he I wanted. Never blame Amphillis; she's nigh as bad as thou."

"Mistress Amphillis, I ask your pardon. Mistress Agatha, you're a bad un. 'Tis a burning shame to harry a good old man like Father Jordan. Thee hie to thy bed, and do no more mischief, thou false hussy! I'll tell my dame of thy fine doings when she cometh home; I will, so!"

"Now, Meg, dear, sweet Meg, don't, and I'll—"

"You'll get you abed and 'bide quiet. I'm neither dear nor sweet; I'm a cook-maid, and you're a young damsel with a fortin, and you'd neither 'sweet' nor 'dear' me without you were wanting somewhat of me. Forsooth, they'll win a fortin that weds wi' the like of you! Get abed, thou magpie!"

And Meg was heard muttering to herself as she mounted the upper stairs to the attic chamber, which she shared with Joan and Kate.

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. Understood. The word understand was then restricted to an original idea; conceive was used in the sense of understanding another person.

Note 2. The term "middle earth" arose from the belief then held, that the earth was in the midst of the universe, equidistant from Heaven above it and from Hell beneath.



CHAPTER TEN.

NIGHT ALARMS.

"Oh let me feel Thee near me,— The world is very near: I see the sights that dazzle, The tempting sounds I hear; My foes are ever near me, Around me and within; But, Jesus, draw Thou nearer, And save my soul from sin."

John E. Bode.

"Phyllis, thou wilt lie in my Lady's pallet, tonight," said Perrote, as she let her into their own chamber. Amphillis looked rather alarmed. She had never yet been appointed to that responsible office. But it was not her nature to protest against superior orders; and she quietly gathered up such toilet articles as she required, and prepared to obey.

"You know your duty?" said Perrote, interrogatively. "You first help your Lady abed, and then hie abed yourself, in the dark, as silently and hastefully as may be. There is no more to do, without she call in the night, till her lever, for which you must be ready, and have a care not to arouse her till she wake and summon you, without the hour grow exceeding late, when you may lawfully make some little bruit to wake her after a gentle fashion. Come now."

Amphillis followed Perrote into the Countess's room.

They found her standing by the window, as she often was at night, for the sunset and the evening lights had a great attraction for her. She turned her head as they entered.

"At last, Perrote!" she said. "In good sooth, but I began to think thou hadst forgot me, like everybody else in earth and heaven."

"My Lady knows I shall never do that," was the quiet reply. "Dame, my Lady Foljambe entreats of your Ladyship leave that Amphillis here shall lie in your pallet until she return."

"Doth she so?" answered the Countess, with a curt laugh. "My Lady Foljambe is vastly pleasant, trow. Asking her caged bird's leave to set another bird in the cage! Well, little brown nightingale, what sayest? Art feared lest the old eagle bite, or canst trust the hooked beak for a week or twain?"

"Dame, an' it please you, I am in no wise feared of your Grace."

"Well said. Not that thou shouldst make much difference. Had I a mind to fight for the door or the window, I could soon be quit of such a white-faced chit as thou. Ah me! to what end? That time is by, for me. Well! so they went off in grand array? I saw them. If Godfrey Foljambe buy his wife a new quirle, and his daughter-in-law a new gown, every time they cry for it, he shall be at the end of his purse ere my cushion yonder be finished broidering. Lack-a-day! I would one of you would make an end thereof. I am aweary of the whole thing. Green and tawny and red—red and tawny and green; tent-stitch down here, and satin-stitch up yonder. And what good when done? There's a cushion-cover more in the world; that is all. Would God—ah, would God, from the bottom of mine heart, that there were but one weary woman less!"

"My dear Lady!" said Perrote, sympathisingly.

"Ay, old woman, I know. Thou wouldst fain ask, Whither should I go? I know little, verily, and care less. Only let me lie down and sleep for ever, and forget everything—I ask but so much. I think God might let me have that. One has to wake ever, here, to another dreary day. If man might but sleep and not wake! or—ah, if man could blot out thirty years, and I sit once more in my mail on my Feraunt at the gate of Hennebon! Dreams, dreams, all empty dreams! Come, child, and lay by this wimple. 'Tis man's duty to hie him abed now. Let's do our duty. 'Tis all man has left to me—leave to do as I am bidden. What was that bruit I heard without, an half-hour gone?"

Amphillis, in answer, for Perrote was unable to speak, told the story of Agatha's mischievous trick. The Countess laughed.

"'Tis right the thing I should have done myself, as a young maid," said she. "Ay, I loved dearly to make lordly, sober folks look foolish. Poor Father Jordan, howbeit, was scarce fit game for her crossbow. If she had brought Avena Foljambe down, I'd have given her a clap on the back. Now, maid, let us see how thou canst braid up this old white hair for the pillow. It was jet black once, and fell right to my feet. I little thought, then—I little thought!"

The coucher accomplished, the Countess lay down in her bed; Perrote took leave of her, and put out the light, admonishing Amphillis to be quick. Then she left the room, locking the door after her.

"There!" said the voice of the Countess through the darkness. "Now then we are prisoners, thou and I. How doth it like thee?"

"It liketh me well, Dame, if so I may serve your Grace."

"Well said! Thou shalt be meet for the Court ere long. But, child, thou hast not borne years of it, as I have: sixteen years with a hope of release, and eight with none. Tell me thy history: I have no list to sleep, and it shall pass the time."

"If it may please your Grace, I reckon I have had none."

"Thou wert best thank the saints for that. Yet I count 'tis scarce thus. Didst grow like a mushroom?"

"Truly, no, Dame," said Amphillis, with a little laugh. "But I fear it should ill repay your Grace to hear that I fed chickens and milked cows, and baked patties of divers sorts."

"It should well repay me. It were a change from blue silk and yellow twist, and one endless view from the window. Fare forth!"

Thus bidden, Amphillis told her story as she lay in the pallet, uninterrupted save now and then by a laugh or a word of comment. It was not much of a story, as she had said; but she was glad if it amused the royal prisoner, even for an hour.

"Good maid!" said her mistress, when she saw that the tale was finished. "Now sleep thou, for I would not cut off a young maid from her rest. I can sleep belike, or lie awake, as it please the saints."

All was silence after that for half-an-hour. Amphillis had just dropped asleep, when she was roused again by a low sound, of what nature she knew not at first. Then she was suddenly conscious that the porter's watch-dog, Colle, was keeping up a low, uneasy growl beneath the window, and that somebody was trying to hush him. Amphillis lay and listened, wondering whether it were some further nonsense of Agatha's manufacture. Then came the sound of angry words and hurrying feet, and a woman's shrill scream.

"What ado is there?" asked the Countess. "Draw back the curtain, Phyllis, and see."

Amphillis sprang up, ran lightly with bare feet across the chamber, and drew back the curtain. The full harvest moon was shining into the inner court, and she discerned eight black shadows, all mixed together in what was evidently a struggle of some kind, the only one distinguishable being that of Colle, who was as busy and excited as any of the group. At length she saw one of the shadows get free from the others, and speed rapidly to the wall, pursued by the dog, which, however, could not prevent his escape over the wall. The other shadows had a further short scuffle, at the end of which two seemed to be driven into the outer yard by the five, and Amphillis lost sight of them. She told her mistress what she saw.

"Some drunken brawl amongst the retainers, most like," said the Countess. "Come back to thy bed, maid; 'tis no concern of thine."

Amphillis obeyed, and silence fell upon the house. The next thing of which she was conscious was Perrote's entrance in the morning.

"What caused yon bruit in the night?" asked the Countess, as Amphillis was dressing her hair.

"Dame," said Perrote, "it was an attack upon the house."

"An attack?" The Countess turned suddenly round, drawing her hair out of her tirewoman's hands. "After what fashion? thieves? robbers? foes? Come, tell me all about it."

"I scantly know, Dame, how far I may lightly tell," said Perrote, uneasily. "It were better to await Sir Godfrey's return, ere much be said thereanentis."

The Countess fixed her keen black eyes on her old attendant.

"The which means," said she, "that the matter has too much ado with me that I should be suffered to know the inwards thereof. Perrote, was it that man essayed once more to free me? Thou mayest well tell me, for I know it. The angels whispered it to me as I lay in my bed."

"My dear Lady, it was thus. Pray you, be not troubled: if so were, should you be any better off than now?"

"Mary, Mother!" With that wail of pain the Countess turned back to her toilet. "Who was it? and how? Tell me what thou wist."

Perrote considered a moment, and then answered the questions.

"Your Grace hath mind of the two pedlars that came hither a few days gone?"

"One of whom sold yon violet twist, the illest stuff that ever threaded needle? He had need be 'shamed of himself. Ay: well?"

"Dame, he was no pedlar at all, but Sir Roland de Pencouet, a knight of Bretagne."

"Ha! one of Oliver Clisson's following, or I err. Ay?"

A look of intense interest had driven out the usual weary listlessness in the black eyes.

"Which had thus disguised him in order to essay the freeing of your Grace."

"I am at peace with him, then, for his caitiff twist. Knights make ill tradesmen, I doubt not. Poor fool, to think he could do any such thing! What befell him?"

"With him, Dame, were two other—Ivo filz Jehan, yon little Breton jeweller that was used to trade at Hennebon; I know not if your Grace have mind of him—"

"Ay, I remember him."

"And also a priest, named Father Eloy. The priest won clean away over the wall; only Mark saith that Colle hath a piece of his hose for a remembrance. Sir Roland and Ivo were taken, and be lodged in the dungeon."

"Poor fools!" said the Countess again. "O Perrote, Perrote, to be free!"

"Dear my Lady, should it be better with you than now?"

"What wist thou? To have the right to go right or left, as man would; to pluck the flowerets by the roadside at will; to throw man upon the grass, and breathe the free air; to speak with whom man would; to feel the heaving of the salt sea under man's boat, and to hear the clash of arms and see the chargers and the swords and the nodding plumes file out of the postern—O Perrote, Perrote!"

"Mine own dear mistress, would I might compass it for you!"

"I know thou dost. And thou canst not. But wherefore doth not God compass it? Can He not do what He will? Be wrong and cruelty and injustice what He would? Doth He hate me, that He leaveth me thus to live and die like a rat in a hole? And wherefore? What have I done? I am no worser sinner than thousands of other men and women. I never stole, nor murdered, nor sware falsely; I was true woman to God and to my lord, and true mother to the lad that they keep from me; ay, and true friend to Lord Edward the King, that cares not a brass nail whether I live or die—only that if I died he would be quit of a burden. Holy saints, but I would full willingly quit him of it! God! when I ask Thee for nought costlier than death, canst Thou not grant it to me?"

She looked like an inspired prophetess, that tall white-haired woman, lifting her face up to the morning sun, as if addressing through it the Eternal Light, and challenging the love and wisdom of His decrees. Amphillis shrank back from her. Perrote came a little nearer.

"God is wiser than His creatures," she said.

"Words, words, Perrote! Only words. And I have heard them all aforetime, and many a time o'er. If I could but come at Him, I'd see if He could not tell me somewhat better."

"Ay," said Perrote, with a sigh; "if we could all but come at Him! Dear my Lady—"

"Cross thyself, old woman, and have done. When I lack an homily preacher, I'll send for a priest. My wimple, Phyllis. When comes Sir Godfrey back?"

"Saturday shall be a week, Dame."

Sir Godfrey came back in a bad temper. He had been overcome at the tournament, which in itself was not pacifying; and he was extremely angry to hear of the unsuccessful attempt to set his prisoner free. He scolded everybody impartially all round, but especially Matthew and Father Jordan, the latter of whom was very little to blame, since he was not only rather deaf, but he slept on the other side of the house, and had never heard the noise at all. Matthew growled that if he had calmly marched the conspirators up to the prisoner's chamber, and delivered her to them, his father could scarcely have treated him worse; whereas he had safely secured two out of the three, and the prisoner had never been in any danger.

Kate had been captured as well as the conspirators, and instead of receiving the promised crespine, she was bitterly rueing her folly, locked in a small turret room whose only furniture was a bundle of straw and a rug, with the pleasing prospect of worse usage when her mistress should return. The morning after their arrival at home, Lady Foljambe marched up to the turret, armed with a formidable cane, wherewith she inflicted on poor Kate a sound discipline. Pleading, sobs, and even screams fell on her ears with as little impression as would have been caused by the buzzing of a fly. Having finished her proceeding, she administered to the suffering culprit a short, sharp lecture, and then locked her up again to think it over, with bread and water as the only relief to meditation.

The King was expected to come North after Parliament rose—somewhere about the following February; and Sir Godfrey wrathfully averred that he should deal with the conspirators himself. The length of time that a prisoner was kept awaiting trial was a matter of supremely little consequence in the Middle Ages. His Majesty reached Derby, on his way to York, in the early days of March, and slept for one night at Hazelwood Manor, disposing of the prisoners the next morning, before he resumed his journey.

Nobody at Hazelwood wished to live that week over again. The King brought a suite of fourteen gentlemen, beside his guard; and they all had to be lodged somehow. Perrote, Amphillis, Lady Foljambe, and Mrs Margaret slept in the Countess's chamber.

"The more the merrier," said the prisoner, sarcastically. "Prithee, Avena, see that the King quit not this house without he hath a word with me. I have a truth or twain to tell him."

But the King declined the interview. Perhaps it was on account of an uneasy suspicion concerning that truth or twain which might be told him. For fifty years Edward the Third swayed the sceptre of England, and his rule, upon the whole, was just and gentle. Two sore sins lie at his door—the murder of his brother, in a sudden outburst of most righteous indignation; and the long, dreary captivity of the prisoner of Tickhill and Hazelwood, who had done nothing to deserve it. Considering what a mother he had, perhaps the cause for wonder is that in the main he did so well, rather than that on some occasions he acted very wrongly. The frequent wars of this King were all foreign ones, and under his government England was at rest. That long, quiet reign was now drawing near its close. The King had not yet sunk into the sad state of senile dementia, wherein he ended his life; but he was an infirm, tired old man, bereft of his other self, his bright and loving wife, who had left him and the world about four years earlier. He exerted himself a little at supper to make himself agreeable to the ladies, as was then held to be the bounden duty of a good knight; but after supper he enjoyed a peaceful slumber, with a handkerchief over his face to keep away the flies. The two prisoners were speedily disposed of, by being sent in chains to the Duke of Bretagne, to be dealt with as he should think fit. The King seemed rather amused than angered by Kate's share in the matter: he had the terrified girl up before him, talked to her in a fatherly fashion, and ended by giving her a crown-piece with his own hand, and bidding her in the future be a good and loyal maid, and not suffer herself to be beguiled by the wiles of evil men. Poor Kate sobbed, promised, and louted confusedly; and in due course of time, when King Edward had been long in his grave, and Kate was a staid grandmother, the crown-piece held the place of honour on her son's chest of drawers as a prized family heirloom.

The next event of any note, a few weeks afterwards, was Marabel's marriage. In those days, young girls of good family, instead of being sent to school, were placed with some married lady as bower-women or chamberers, to be first educated and then married. The mistress was expected to make the one her care as much as the other; and it was not considered any concern of the girl's except to obey. The husband was provided by the mistress, along with the wedding-dress and the wedding-dinner; and the bride meekly accepted all three with becoming thankfulness—or at least was expected to do so.

The new chamberer, who came in Marabel's place, was named Ricarda; the girls were told this one evening at supper-time, and informed that she would arrive on the morrow. Her place at table was next below Amphillis, who was greatly astonished to be asked, as she sat down to supper—

"Well, Phyllis, what hast thou to say to me?"

Amphillis turned and gazed at the speaker.

"Well?" repeated the latter. "Thou hast seen me before."

"Ricarda! How ever chanceth it?"

The astonishment of Amphillis was intense. The rules of etiquette at that time were chains indeed; and the daughter of a tradesman was not in a position to be bower-woman to a lady of title. How had her cousin come there?

"What sayest, then," asked Ricarda, with a triumphant smile, "to know that my Lady Foljambe sent to covenant with me by reason that she was so full fain of thee that she desired another of thy kin?"

"Is it soothly thus?" replied Amphillis, her surprise scarcely lessened by hearing of such unusual conduct on the part of the precise Lady Foljambe. "Verily, but—And how do my good master mine uncle, and my good cousin Alexandra?"

"Saundrina's wed, and so is my father. And Saundrina leads Clement a life, and Mistress Altham leads my father another. I was none so sorry to come away, I can tell thee. I hate to be ruled like a ledger and notched like a tally!"

"Thou shalt find things be well ruled in this house, Rica," said Amphillis, thinking to herself that Ricarda and Agatha would make a pair, and might give their mistress some trouble. "But whom hath mine uncle wed, that is thus unbuxom [disobedient] to him?"

"Why, Mistress Regina, the goldsmith's daughter, that counts herself worth us all, and would fain be a queen in the patty-shop, and cut us all out according to her will."

"But, Ricarda, I reckoned Mistress Regina a full good and wise woman."

"'Good and wise!' She may soon be so. I hate goodness and wisdom. There's never a bit of jollity for her. 'Tis all 'thou shalt not.' She might as well be the Ten Commandments and done with it."

"Wouldst thou fain not keep the Ten Commandments, Rica?"

"I'd fain have my own way, and be jolly. Oh, she keeps the house well enough. Father saith he's tenfold more comfortable sithence her coming."

"I thought thou saidst she led him an ill, diseaseful [Note 1] life?"

"Well, so did I. Father didn't."

"Oh!" said Amphillis, in an enlightened tone.

"And she's a rare hand at the cooking, that will I say. She might have made patties all her life. She catches up everything afore you can say 'Jack Robinson.' She says it's by reason she's a Dutchwoman [Note 2]. Rubbish! as if a lot of nasty foreigners could do aught better, or half as well, as English folks!"

"Be all foreigners nasty?" asked Amphillis, thinking of her mistress.

"Of course they be! Phyllis, what's come o'er thee?"

"I knew not anything had."

"Lack-a-day! thou art tenfold as covenable and deliver [Note 3] as thou wert wont to be. Derbyshire hath brightened up thy wits."

Amphillis smiled. Privately, she thought that if her wits were brightened, it was mainly by being let alone and allowed to develop free of perpetual repression.

"I have done nought to bring the same about, Ricarda. But must I conceive that Master Winkfield's diseaseful life, then, is in thine eyes, or in his own?"

"He reckons himself the blissfullest man under the sun," said Ricarda, as they rose from the table: "and he dare not say his soul is his own; not for no price man should pay him."

Amphillis privately thought the bliss of a curious kind.

"Phyllis!" said her cousin, suddenly, "hast learned to hold thy tongue?"

"I count I am metely well learned therein, Rica."

"Well, mind thou, not for nothing of no sort to let on to my Lady that Father is a patty-maker. I were put forth of the door with no more ado, should it come to her ear that I am not of gentle blood like thee."

"Ricarda! Is my Lady, then, deceived thereon?"

"'Sh—'sh! She thinks I am a Neville, and thy cousin of the father's side. Thee hold thy peace, and all shall be well."

"But, Rica! that were to tell a lie."

"Never a bit of it! Man can't tell a lie by holding his peace."

"Nay, I am not so sure thereof as I would like. This I know, he may speak one by his life no lesser than his words."

"Amphillis, if thou blurt out this to my Lady, I'll hate thee for ever and ever, Amen!" said Ricarda.

"I must meditate thereon," was her cousin's answer. "Soothly, I would not by my good will do thee an ill turn, Rica; and if it may stand with my conscience to be silent, thou hast nought to fear. Yet if my Lady ask me aught touching thee, that may not be thus answered, I must speak truth, and no lie."

"A murrain take thy conscience! Canst not say a two-three times the Rosary of our Lady to ease it?"

"Maybe," said Amphillis, drily, "our Lady hath no more lore for lying than I have."

"Mistress Ricarda!" said Agatha, joining them as they rose from the table, "I do right heartily pray you of better acquaintance. I trust you and I be of the same fashion of thinking, and both love laughter better than tears."

"In good sooth, I hate long faces and sad looks," said Ricarda, accepting Agatha's offered kiss of friendship.

"You be not an ill-matched pair," added Amphillis, laughing. "Only, I pray you, upset not the quirle by over much prancing."

————————————————————————————————————

Note 1. Still used in its original sense of uncomfortable.

Note 2. The Dutch were then known as High Dutch, the Germans as Low Dutch.

Note 3. Agreeable and ready in conversation.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

BEATEN BACK.

"I know not why my path should be at times So straitly hedged, so strangely barred before: I only know God could keep wide the door; But I can trust."

"Mistress Perrote, I pray you counsel me. I am sore put to it to baffle my cousin's inquirations touching our Lady. How she cometh to know there is any such cannot I say; but I may lightly guess that Agatha hath let it 'scape: and in old days mine uncle was wont to say, none never could keep hidlis [secrets] from Ricarda. Truly, might I have known aforehand my Lady Foljambe's pleasure, I could have found to mine hand to pray her not to advance Ricarda hither: not for that I would stand in her way, but for my Lady's sake herself."

"I know. Nay, as well not, Phyllis. It should tend rather to thine own disease, for folk might lightly say thou wert jealous and unkindly to thy kin. The Lord knoweth wherefore such things do hap. At times I think it be to prevent us from being here in earth more blissful than it were good for us to be. As for her inquirations, parry them as best thou mayest; and if thou canst not, then say apertly [openly] that thou art forbidden to hold discourse thereanentis."

Amphillis shook her head. She pretty well knew that such an assertion would whet Ricarda's curiosity, and increase her inquisitive queries.

"Mistress Perrote, are you ill at ease?"

"Not in health, thank God. But I am heavy of heart, child. Our Lady is in evil case, and she is very old."

We should not now call a woman very old who was barely sixty years of age; we scarcely think that more than elderly. But in 1373, when the numerous wars and insurrections of the earlier half of the century had almost decimated the population, so that, especially in the upper classes, an old man was rarely to be seen, and when also human life was usually shorter than in later times, sixty was the equivalent of eighty or ninety with us, while seventy was as wonderful as we think a hundred. King Edward was in his second childhood when he died at sixty-five; while "old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster," scarcely passed his fifty-ninth birthday.

"Is she sick?" said Amphillis, pityingly. She had not seen her mistress for several days, for her periods of attendance on her were fitful and uncertain.

"She is very sick, and Father Jordan hath tried his best."

The household doctor at that time, for a country house, was either the mistress of the family or the confessor. There were few medical men who were not also priests, and they only lived in chief cities. Ladies were taught physic and surgery, and often doctored a whole neighbourhood. In a town the druggist was usually consulted by the poor, if they consulted any one at all who had learned medicine; but the physicians most in favour were "white witches," namely, old women who dealt in herbs and charms, the former of which were real remedies, and the latter heathenish nonsense. A great deal of superstition mixed with the practice of the best medical men of the day. Herbs must be gathered when the moon was at the full, or when Mercury was in the ascendant; patients who had the small-pox must be wrapped in scarlet; the blood-stone preserved its wearer from particular maladies; a hair from a saint's beard, taken in water, was deemed an invaluable specific. They bled to restore strength, administered plasters of verdigris, and made their patients wait for a lucky day to begin a course of treatment.

"He hath given her," pursued Perrote, sorrowfully, "myrrh and milelot and tutio [oxide of zinc], and hath tried plasters of diachylon, litharge, and ceruse, but to no good purpose. He speaketh now of antimony and orchis, but I fear—I fear he can give nothing to do any good. When our Lord saith 'Die,' not all the help nor love in the world shall make man live. And I think her time is come."

"O Mistress Perrote! must she die without deliverance?"

"Without earthly deliverance, it is like, my maid. Be it so. But, ah me, what if she die without the heavenly deliverance! She will not list me: she never would. If man would come by that she would list, and might be suffered so to do, I would thank God to the end of my days."

"Anentis what should she list, good Mistress?"

"Phyllis, she hath never yet made acquaintance with Christ our Lord. He is to her but a dead name set to the end of her prayers—an image nailed to a cross—a man whom she has heard tell of, but never saw. The living, loving Lord, who died and rose for her—who is ready at this hour to be her best Friend and dearest Comforter—who is holding forth His hands to her, as to all of us, and entreating her to come to Him and be saved—she looketh on Him as she doth on Constantine the Great, as man that was good and powerful once, but long ago, and 'tis all over and done with. I would fain have her hear man speak of Him that knoweth Him."

"Father Jordan, Mistress?"

"No. Father Jordan knows about Him. He knoweth Him not—at the least not so well as I want. Ay, I count he doth know Him after a fashion; but 'tis a poor fashion. I want a better man than he, and I want leave for him to come at her. And me feareth very sore that I shall win neither."

"Shall we ask our Lord for it?" said Amphillis, shyly.

"So do, dear maid. Thy faith shameth mine unbelief."

"What shall I say, Mistress?"

"Say, 'Lord, send hither man that knoweth Thee, and incline the hearts of them in authority to suffer him to come at our Lady.' I will speak yet again with Sir Godfrey, but I might well-nigh as good speak to the door-post: he is as hard, and he knows as little. And her time is very near."

There were tears in Perrote's eyes as she went away, and Amphillis entirely sympathised with her. She was coming to realise the paramount importance to every human soul of that personal acquaintance with Jesus Christ, which is the one matter of consequence to all who have felt the power of an endless life. The natural result of this was that lesser matters fell into their right place without any difficulty. There was no troubling "May I do this?" or "How far is it allowable to enjoy that?" If this were contrary to the mind of God, or if that grated on the spiritual taste, it simply could not be done, any more than something could be done which would grieve a beloved human friend, or could be eaten with relish if it were ill-flavoured and disgusting. But suppose the relish does remain? Then, either the conscience is ill-informed and scrupulous, requiring enlightenment by the Word of God, and the heart setting at liberty; or else—and more frequently—the acquaintance is not close enough, and the new affection not sufficiently deep to have "expulsive power" over the old. In either case, the remedy is to come nearer to the Great Physician, to drink deeper draughts of the water of life, to warm the numbed soul in the pure rays of the Sun of Righteousness. "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,"—not stay away, hewing out for himself broken cisterns which can hold no water. How many will not come to Christ for rest, until they have first tried in vain to rest their heads upon every hard stone and every thorny plant that the world has to offer! For the world can give no rest—only varieties of weariness are in its power to offer those who do not bring fresh hearts and eager eyes, as yet unwearied and unfilled. For those who do, it has gay music, and sparkling sweet wine, and gleaming gems of many a lovely hue: and they listen, and drink, and admire, and think there is no bliss beyond it. But when the eager eyes grow dim, and the ears are dulled, and the taste has departed, the tired heart demands rest, and the world has none for it. A worn-out worldling, whom the world has ceased to charm, is one of the most pitiable creatures alive.

Sir Godfrey Foljambe had not arrived at that point; he was in a condition less unhappy, but quite as perilous. To him the world had offered a fresh apple of Sodom, and he had grasped it as eagerly as the first. The prodigal son was in a better condition when he grew weary of the strange country, than while he was spending his substance on riotous living. Sir Godfrey had laid aside the riotous living, but he was not weary of the strange country. On the contrary, when he ran short of food, he tried the swine's husks, and found them very palatable— decidedly preferable to going home. He put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. The liberty wherewith Christ would have made him free was considered as a yoke of bondage, while the strong chains in which Satan held him were perfect freedom in his estimation.

It was not with any hope that he would either understand or grant her request that Perrote made a last application to her lady's gaoler. It was only because she felt the matter of such supreme importance, the time so short, and the necessity so imperative, that no fault of hers should be a hindrance. Perhaps, too, down in those dim recesses of the human heart which lie so open to God, but scarcely read by man himself, there was a mustard-seed of faith—a faint "Who can tell?" which did not rise to hope—and certainly a love ready to endure all if it might gain its blessed end.

"Sir," said Perrote, "I entreat a moment's speech of you."

Sir Godfrey, who was sauntering under the trees in the garden, stopped and looked at her. Had he spoken out his thoughts, he would have said, "What on earth does this bothering old woman want?" As it was, he stood silent, and waited for her to proceed.

"Sir, my Lady is full sick."

"Well! let Father Jordan see her."

"He hath seen her, Sir, and full little can he do."

"What would you? No outer physician can be called in."

"Ah, Sir, forgive me, but I am thinking rather of the soul than the body: it is the worser of the twain."

"Verily, I guess not how, for she should be hard put to it to commit mortal sin, when mewed for eight years in one chamber. Howbeit, if so be, what then? Is not Father Jordan a priest? One priest is full as good as another."

"Once more, forgive me, Sir! For the need that I behold, one priest is not as good as another. It is not a mass that my Lady needeth to be sung; it is counsel that she lacketh."

"Then let Father Jordan counsel her."

"Sir, he cannot."

"Cannot! What for, trow? Hath he lost his wits or his tongue?"

"No, he hath lost nothing, for that which he lacketh I count he never had, or so little thereof that it serveth not in this case. Man cannot sound a fathom with an inch-line. Sir, whether you conceive me or not, whether you allow me or no, I do most earnestly entreat you to suffer that my Lady may speak with one of the poor priests that go about in frieze coats bound with leather girdles. They have whereof to minister to her need."

Sir Godfrey thought contemptuously that there was no end to the fads and fancies of old women. His first idea of a reply was to say decidedly that it was not possible to trust any outsider with the cherished secret of the Countess's hiding-place; his next, that the poor priests were in tolerably high favour with the great, that the King had commanded the prisoner to be well treated, that the priest might be sworn to secrecy, and that if the Countess were really near her end, little mischief would be done. Possibly, in his inner soul, too, a power was at work which he was not capable of recognising.

"Humph!" was all he said; but Perrote saw that she had made an impression, and she was too wise to weaken it by adding words. Sir Godfrey, with his hands in the pockets of his haut-de-chausses, took a turn under the trees, and came back to the suppliant. "Where be they to be found?"

"Sir, there is well-nigh certain to be one or more at Derby. If it pleased you to send to the Prior of Saint Mary there, or to your own Abbey of Darley, there were very like to be one tarrying on his way, or might soon come thither; and if, under your good leave, the holy Father would cause him to swear secrecy touching all he might see or hear, no mischief should be like to hap by his coming."

"Humph!" said Sir Godfrey again. "I'll meditate thereon."

"Sir, I give you right hearty thanks," was the grateful answer of Perrote, who had taken more by her motion than she expected.

As she passed from the inner court to the outer on her way to the hall, where supper would shortly be served, she heard a little noise and bustle of some sort at the gate. Perrote stopped to look.

Before the gate, on a richly-caparisoned mule, sat the Abbot of Darley, with four of his monks, also mounted on those ecclesiastical animals. The porter, his keys in his hand, was bowing low in reverential awe, for an abbot was only a step below a bishop, and both were deemed holy and spiritual men. Unquestionably there were men among them who were both spiritual and holy, but they were considerably fewer than the general populace believed. The majority belonged to one of four types—the dry-as-dust scholar, the austere ascetic, the proud tyrant, or the jovial ton vivant. The first-class, which was the best, was not a large one; the other three were much more numerous. The present Abbot of Darley was a mixture of the two last-named, and could put on either at will, the man being jovial by nature, and the abbot haughty by training. He had now come to spend a night at Hazelwood on his way from Darley to Leicester; for the Foljambes were lords of Darley Manor, and many of them had been benefactors to the abbey in their time. It was desirable, for many reasons, that Sir Godfrey and the Abbot should keep on friendly terms. Perrote stepped back to tell the knight who stood at his gate, and he at once hastened forward with a cordial welcome.

The Abbot blessed Sir Godfrey by the extension of two priestly fingers in a style which must require considerable practice, and, in tones which savoured somewhat more of pride than humility, informed him that he came to beg a lodging for himself and his monks for one night. Sir Godfrey knew, he said, that poor monks, who abjured the vanities of the world, were not accustomed to grandeur; a little straw and some coarse rugs were all they asked. Had the Abbot been taken at his word, he would have been much astonished; but he well knew that the best bedchambers in the Manor House would be thought honoured by his use of them. His Reverence alighted from his mule, and, followed by the four monks, was led into the hall, his bareheaded and obsequious host preceding them. The ladies, who were assembling for supper, dropped on their knees at the sight, and also received a priestly blessing. The Abbot was conducted to the seat of honour, on Sir Godfrey's right hand.

The servers now brought in supper. It was a vigil, and therefore meat, eggs, and butter were forbidden; but luxury, apart from these, being unforbidden to such as preferred the letter to the spirit, the meal was sufficiently appetising, notwithstanding this. Beside some fishes whose names are inscrutable, our ancestors at this time ate nearly all we habitually use, and in addition, whelks, porpoises, and lampreys. There were soups made of apples, figs, beans, peas, gourds, rice, and wheat. Fish pies and fruit pies, jellies, honey cakes and tarts, biscuits of all descriptions, including maccaroons and gingerbread, vegetables far more numerous than we use, salads, cucumbers, melons, and all fruits in season, puddings of semolina, millet, and rice, almonds, spices, pickles—went to make up a menu by no means despicable.

Supper was half over when Sir Godfrey bethought himself of Perrote's appeal and suggestion.

"Pray you, holy Father," said he, "have you in your abbey at this season any of them called the poor priests, or know you where they may be found?"

The Abbot's lips took such a setting as rather alarmed his host, who began to wish his question unasked.

"I pray you of pardon if I ask unwisely," he hastily added. "I had thought these men were somewhat in good favour in high place at this time, and though I desire not at all to—"

"Wheresoever is my Lady Princess, there shall the poor priests find favour," said the Abbot, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "The King, too, is not ill-affected toward them. But I forewarn you, my son, that they be not over well liked of the Church and the dignitaries thereof. They go about setting men by the ears, bringing down to the minds of the commoner sort high matters that are not meet for such to handle, and inciting them to chatter and gabble over holy things in unseemly wise. Whereso they preach, 'tis said, the very women will leave their distaffs, and begin to talk of sacred matter—most unbecoming and scandalous it is! I avise you, my son, to have none ado with such, and to keep to the wholesome direction of your own priest, which shall be far more to your profit."

"I cry you mercy, reverend Father! Truly it was not of mine own motion that I asked the same. 'Twas a woman did excite me thereto, seeing—"

"That may I well believe," said the Abbot, contemptuously. "Women be ever at the bottom of every ill thing under the sun."

Poor man! he knew nothing about them. How could he, when he was taught that they were unclean creatures with whom it was defilement to converse? And he could not remember his mother—the one womanly memory which might have saved him from the delusion.

Sir Godfrey, in his earnest anxiety to get out of the scrape into which Perrote had brought him, hastily introduced a fresh topic as the easiest means of doing so.

"Trust me, holy Father, I will suffer nought harmful to enter my doors, nor any man disapproved by your Lordship. Is there news abroad, may man wit?"

"Ay, we had last night an holy palmer in our abbey," responded the Abbot, with a calmer brow. "He left us this morrow on his way to Jesmond. You wist, doubtless, that my Lord of York is departed?"

"No, verily—my Lord of York! Is yet any successor appointed?"

"Ay, so 'tis said—Father Neville, as men say."

Amphillis looked up with some interest, on hearing her own name.

"Who is he, this Father Neville?"

"Soothly, who is he?" repeated the Abbot, with evident irritation. "Brother to my Lord Neville of Raby; but what hath he done, trow, to be advanced thus without merit unto the second mitre in the realm? Some meaner bishop, or worthy abbot, should have been far fitter for the preferment."

"The worthy Abbot of Darley in especial!" whispered Agatha in the ear of Amphillis.

"What manner of man is he, holy Father, by your leave?"

"One of these new sectaries," replied the Abbot, irascibly. "A man that favours the poor priests of whom you spake, and swears by the Rector of Ludgarshall, this Wycliffe, that maketh all this bruit. Prithee, who is the Rector of Ludgarshall, that we must all be at his beck and ordering? Was there no truth in the whole Church Catholic, these thirteen hundred years, that this Dan John must claim for to have discovered it anew? Pshaw! 'tis folly."

"And what other tidings be there, pray you, holy Father?"

"Scarce aught beside of note, I think," answered the Abbot, meditatively—"without it be the news from Brittany of late—'tis said all Brittany is in revolt, and the King of France aiding the same, and the Duke is fled over hither to King Edward, leaving my Lady Duchess shut up in the Castle of Auray, which 'tis thought the French King shall besiege. Man reckons he comes for little—I would say, that our King shall give him little ado over that matter, without it were to ransom my Lady, should she be taken, she being step-daughter unto my Lord Prince."

"The Lord King, then, showeth him no great favour?"

"Favour enough to his particular [to himself personally]; but you will quickly judge there is little likelihood of a new army fitted out for Brittany, when you hear that his Grace writ to my Lord Archbishop of Canterbury that he should in no wise submit to the tax laid on the clergy by my Lord Cardinal of Cluny, that came o'er touching those affairs, and charged the expenses of his journey on the clergy of England. The King gave promise to stand by them in case they should resist, and bade them take no heed of the censure of the said Nuncio, seeing the people of England were not concerned touching matters of Brittany; and where the cause, quoth he, is so unjust, the curse must needs fall harmless."

"Brave words, in good sooth!" said young Godfrey.

"Ay, our Lord the King is not he that shall suffer man to ride roughshod over him," added his father.

"The which is full well in case of laymen," said the Abbot, a little severely; "yet it becometh even princes to be buxom and reverent to the Church, and unto all spiritual men."

"If it might please you, holy Father, would you do so much grace as tell me where is my Lord Duke at this present?"

It was Perrote who asked the question, and with evident uneasiness.

The Abbot glanced at her, and then answered carelessly. She was only one of the household, as he saw. What did her anxiety matter to my Lord Abbot of Darley?

"By my Lady Saint Mary, that wis I little," said he. "At Windsor, maybe, or Woodstock—with the King."

"The palmer told us the King was at Woodstock," remarked one of the hitherto silent monks.

The Abbot annihilated him by a glance.

"Verily, an' he were," remarked Sir Godfrey, "it should tell but little by now, when he may as like as not be at Winchester or Norwich."

Our Plantagenet sovereigns were perpetual travellers up and down the kingdom, rarely staying even a fortnight in one place, though occasionally they were stationary for some weeks; but the old and infirm King who now occupied the throne had moved about less than usual of late years.

Perrote was silent, but her face took a resolute expression, which Sir Godfrey had learned to his annoyance. When the "bothering old woman" looked like that, she generally bothered him before he was much older. And Sir Godfrey, like many others of his species, detested being bothered.

He soon found that fate remembered him. As he was going up to bed that night, he found Perrote waiting for him on the landing.

"Sir, pray you a word," said she.

Sir Godfrey stood sulkily still.

"If my Lord Duke be now in England, should he not know that his mother is near her end?"

"How am I to send to him, trow?" growled the custodian. "I wis not where he is."

"A messenger could find out the Court, Sir," answered Perrote. "And it would comfort her last days if he came."

"And if he refused?"

Perrote's dark eyes flashed fire.

"Then may God have mercy on him!—if He have any mercy for such a heartless wretch as he should so be."

"Keep a civil tongue in your head, Perrote de Carhaix," said Sir Godfrey, beginning to ascend the upper stair. "You see, your poor priests are no good. You'd better be quiet."

Perrote stood still, candle in hand, till he disappeared.

"I will be silent towards man," she said, in a low voice; "but I will pour out mine heart as water before the face of the Lord. The road toward Heaven is alway open: and they whom men beat back and tread down are the most like to win ear of Him. Make no tarrying, O my God!"



CHAPTER TWELVE.

WHEREIN SUNDRY PEOPLE ACT FOOLISHLY.

"Why for the dead, who are at rest? Pray for the living, in whose breast The struggle between right and wrong Is raging terrible and strong."

Longfellow.

Amphillis Neville was a most unsuspicious person. It never occurred to her to expect any one to do what, in his place, she would not have done; and all that she would have done was so simple and straightforward, that scheming of every sort was an impossible idea, until suggested by some one else. She was consequently much surprised when Perrote said one evening—

"Phyllis, I could find in mine heart to wish thy cousin had tarried hence."

The discovery of Ricarda's deception was the only solution of this remark which presented itself to Amphillis, but her natural caution stood her in good stead, and she merely inquired her companion's meaning.

"Hast not seen that she laboureth to catch Master Hylton into her net?"

Thoughts, which were not all pleasant, chased one another through the mind of Amphillis. If Ricarda were trying to win Norman Hylton, would she be so base as to leave him under the delusion that she was a Neville, possibly of the noble stock of the Lords of Raby? Mr Hylton's friends, if not himself, would regard with unutterable scorn the idea of marriage with a confectioner's daughter. He would be held to have demeaned himself to the verge of social extinction. And somehow, somewhere, and for some reason—Amphillis pushed the question no further than this—the thought of assisting, by her silence, in the ruin of Norman Hylton, seemed much harder to bear than the prospect of being hated by Ricarda Altham, even though it were for ever and ever. When these meditations had burned within her for a few seconds, Amphillis spoke.

"Mistress Perrote, wit you how my cousin came hither?"

"Why, by reason my Lady Foljambe sent to thine uncle, to ask at him if thou hadst any kin of the father's side, young maids of good birth and breeding, and of discreet conditions, that he should be willing to put forth hither with thee."

Amphillis felt as if her mind were in a whirl. Surely it was not possible that Mr Altham had known, far less shared, the dishonesty of his daughter? She could not have believed her uncle capable of such meanness.

"Sent to mine uncle?" seemed all that she could utter.

"Ay, but thine uncle, as I heard say, was away when the messenger came, and he saw certain women of his house only."

"Oh, then my uncle was not in the plot!" said Amphillis to herself with great satisfaction.

"Maybe I speak wrongly," added Perrote, reflectively; "I guess he saw but one woman, a wedded cousin of thine, one Mistress Winkfield, who said she wist of a kinswoman of thine on the father's side that she was secure her father would gladly prefer, and she would have her up from Hertfordshire to see him, if he would call again that day week."

How the conspiracy had been managed flashed on Amphillis at once. Mr Altham was always from home on a Wednesday, when he attended a meeting of his professional guild in the city. That wicked Alexandra had done the whole business, and presented her own sister to the messenger as the cousin of Amphillis, on that side of her parentage which came of gentle blood.

"Mistress, I pray you tell me, if man know of wrong done or lying, and utter it not, hath he then part in the wrong?"

"Very like, dear heart. Is there here some wrong-doing? I nigh guessed so much from thy ways. Speak out, Phyllis."

"Soothly, Mistress, I would not by my good will do my kinswoman an ill turn; yet either must I do so, or else hold my peace at wrong done to my Lady Foljambe, and peradventure to Master Hylton. My cousin Ricarda is not of my father's kin. She is daughter unto mine uncle, the patty-maker in the Strand. I know of no kin on my father's side."

"Holy Mary!" cried the scandalised Perrote. "Has thine uncle, then, had part in this wicked work?"

"I cry you mercy, Mistress, but I humbly guess not so. Mine uncle, as I have known him, hath been alway an honest and honourable man, that should think shame to do a mean deed. That he had holpen my cousins thus to act could I not believe without it were proven."

"Then thy cousin, Mistress Winkfield?"

"Alexandra? I said not so much of her."

"Phyllis, my Lady Foljambe must know this."

"I am afeard, Mistress, she must. Mistress, I must in mine honesty confess to you that these few days I have wist my cousin had called her by the name of Neville; but in good sooth, I wist not if I ought to speak or no, till your word this even seemed to show me that I must. My cousins have been somewhat unfriends to me, and I held me back lest I should be reckoned to revenge myself." Perrote took in the situation at a glance. "Poor child!" she said. "It is well thou hast spoken. I dare guess, thou sawest not that mischief might come thereof."

"In good sooth, Mistress, that did I not until this even. I never thought of no such a thing."

"Verily, I can scarce marvel, for such a thing was hardly heard of afore. To deceive a noble lady! to 'present herself as of gentle blood, when she came but of a trading stock! 'Tis horrible! I can scarce think of worser deed, without she had striven to deceive the priest himself in confession."

The act of Ricarda Altham was far more shocking in the eyes of a lady in the fourteenth century than in the nineteenth. The falsehood she had told was the same in both cases; or rather, it would weigh more heavily now than then. But the nature of the deception—that what they would have termed "a beggarly tradesman's brat" should, by deceiving a lady of family, have forced herself on terms of comparative equality into the society of ladies—was horrible in the extreme to their eclectic souls. Tradesmen, in those days, were barely supposed, by the upper classes, to have either morals or manners, except an awe of superior people, which was expected to act as a wholesome barrier against cheating their aristocratic customers. In point of fact, the aristocratic customers were cheated much oftener than they supposed, on the one side, and some of the "beggarly tradesfolk" were men of much higher intellect and principle than they imagined, on the other. Brains were held to be a prerogative of gentle blood, extra intelligence in the lower classes being almost an impertinence. The only exception to this rule lay with the Church. She was allowed to develop a brain in whom she would. The sacredness of her tonsure protected the man who wore it, permitting him to exhibit as much (or as little) of manners, intellect, and morals, as he might think proper.

Perrote's undressing on that evening was attended with numerous shakes of the head, and sudden ejaculations of mingled astonishment and horror.

"And that Agatha!" was one of the ejaculations.

Amphillis looked for enlightenment.

"Why, she is full hand in glove with Ricarda. The one can do nought that the other knows not of. I dare be bound she is helping her to draw poor Master Norman into her net—for Agatha will have none of him; she's after Master Matthew."

"Lack-a-day! I never thought nobody was after anybody!" said innocent Amphillis.

"Keep thy seliness [simplicity], child!" said Perrote, smiling on her. "Nor, in truth, should I say 'poor Master Norman,' for I think he is little like to be tangled either in Ricarda's web or Agatha's meshes. If I know him, his eyes be in another quarter—wherein, I would say, he should have better content. Ah me, the folly of men! and women belike— I leave not them out; they be oft the more foolish of the twain. The good God assoil [forgive] us all! Alack, my poor Lady! It doth seem as if the Lord shut all doors in my face. I thought I was about to win Sir Godfrey over—and hard work it had been—and then cometh this Abbot of Darley, and slams the door afore I may go through. Well, the Lord can open others, an' He will. 'He openeth, and none shutteth; He shutteth, and none openeth;' and blessed be His holy Name, He is easilier come at a deal than men. If I must tarry, it is to tarry His leisure; and He knows both the hearts of men, and the coming future; and He is secure not to be too late. He loves our poor Lady better than I love her, and I love her well-nigh as mine own soul. Lord, help me to wait Thy time, and help mine unbelief!"

The ordeal of telling Lady Foljambe had to be gone through the next morning. She was even more angry than Perrote had anticipated, and much more than Amphillis expected. Ricarda was a good-for-nought, a hussy, a wicked wretch, and a near relative of Satan, while Amphillis was only a shade lighter in the blackness of her guilt. In vain poor Amphillis pleaded that she had never guessed Lady Foljambe's intention of sending for her cousin, and had never heard of it until she saw her. Then, said Lady Foljambe, unreasonable in her anger, she ought to have guessed it. But it was all nonsense! Of course she knew, and had plotted it all with her cousins.

"Nay, Dame," said Perrote; "I myself heard you to say, the even afore Ricarda came, that it should give Phyllis a surprise to see her."

If anything could have made Lady Foljambe more angry than she was, it was having it shown to her that she was in the wrong. She now turned her artillery upon Perrote, whom she scolded in the intervals of heaping unsavoury epithets upon Amphillis and Ricarda, until Amphillis thought that everything poor Perrote had ever done in her life to Lady Foljambe's annoyance, rightly or wrongly, must have been dragged out of an inexhaustible memory to lay before her. At last it came to an end. Ricarda was dismissed in dire disgrace; all that Lady Foljambe would grant her was her expenses home, and the escort of one mounted servant to take her there. Even this was given only at the earnest pleading of Perrote and Amphillis, who knew, as indeed did Lady Foljambe herself, that to turn a girl out of doors in this summary manner was to expose her to frightful dangers in the fourteenth century. Poor Ricarda was quite broken down, and so far forgot her threats as to come to Amphillis for help and comfort. Amphillis gave her every farthing in her purse, and desired the servant who was to act as escort to convey a conciliatory message to her uncle, begging forgiveness for Ricarda for her sake. She sent also an affectionate and respectful message to her new aunt, entreating her to intercede with her husband for his daughter.

"Indeed, Rica, I would not have told if I could have helped it and bidden true to my trust!" was the farewell of Amphillis.

"O Phyllis, I wish I'd been as true as you, and then I should never have fallen in this trouble!" sobbed the humbled Ricarda. "I shouldn't have thought of it but for Saundrina. But there, I've been bad enough! I'll not lay blame to other folks. God be wi' thee! if I may take God's name into my lips; but, peradventure, He'll be as angry as my Lady."

"I suppose He is alway angered at sin," said Amphillis. "But, Rica, the worst sinner that ever lived may take God's name into his lips to say, 'God, forgive me!' And we must all alike say that. And Mistress Perrote saith, if we hide our stained souls behind the white robes of our Lord Christ, God the Father is never angered with Him. All that anger was spent, every drop of it, upon the cross on Calvary; so there is none left now, never a whit, for any sinner that taketh refuge in Him. Yea, it was spent on Him for this cause, that all souls taking shelter under His wing unto all time might find there only love, and rest, and peace."

"O Phyllis, thou'rt a good maid. I would I were half as good as thou!"

"If I am good at all, dear Rica, Jesu Christ hath done it; and He will do it for thee, for the asking."

So the cousins parted in more peace than either of them would once have thought possible.

For some hours Amphillis was in serious doubt whether she would not share the fate of her cousin. Perrote pleaded for her, it seemed, in vain; even Mrs Margaret added her gentle entreaties, and was sharply bidden to hold her tongue. But when, on the afternoon of that eventful day, Amphillis went, as was now usual, to mount guard in the Countess's chamber, she was desired, in that lady's customary manner—

"Bid Avena Foljambe come and speak with me."

Amphillis hesitated an instant, and her mistress saw it.

"Well? Hast an access [a fit of the gout], that thou canst not walk?"

"Dame, I cry your Grace mercy. I am at this present ill in favour of my Lady Foljambe, and I scarce know if she will come for my asking."

The Countess laughed the curt, bitter laugh which Amphillis had so often heard from her lips.

"Tell her she may please herself," she said; "but that if she be not here ere the hour, I'll come to her. I am not yet so sick that I cannot crawl to the further end of the house. She'll not tarry to hear that twice, or I err."

Amphillis locked the door behind her, as she was strictly ordered to do whenever she left that room, unless Perrote were there, and finding Lady Foljambe in her private boudoir, tremblingly delivered the more civil half of her message. Lady Foljambe paid no heed to her.

"Dame," said poor Amphillis, "I pray you of mercy if I do ill; but her Grace bade me say also that, if you came not to her afore the clock should point the hour, then would she seek you."

Lady Foljambe allowed a word to escape her which could only be termed a mild form of swearing—a sin to which women no less than men, and of all classes, were fearfully addicted in the Middle Ages—and, without another look at Amphillis, stalked upstairs, and let herself with her own key into the Countess's chamber.

The Countess sat in her large chair of carved walnut, made easy by being lined with large, soft cushions. There were no easy chairs of any other kind. She was in her favourite place, near the window.

"Well, Avena, good morrow! Didst have half my message, or the whole?"

"I am here, Dame, to take your Grace's orders."

"I see, it wanted the whole. 'To take my Grace's orders!' Soothly, thou art pleasant. Well, take them, then. My Grace would like a couch prepared on yonder lawn, and were I but well enough, a ride on horseback; but I misdoubt rides be over for me. Go to: what is this I hear touching the child Amphillis?—as though thou wentest about to be rid of her."

"Dame, I have thought thereupon."

"What for? Now, Avena, I will know. Thou dost but lose thy pains to fence with me."

In answer, Lady Foljambe told the story, with a good deal of angry comment. The Countess was much amused, a fact which did not help to calm the narrator.

"Ha, jolife!" said she, "but I would fain have been in thy bower when the matter came forth! Howbeit, I lack further expounding thereanentis. Whereof is Phyllis guilty?"

Lady Foljambe, whose wrath was not up at the white heat which it had touched in the morning, found this question a little difficult to answer. She could not reasonably find fault with Amphillis for being Ricarda's cousin, and this was the real cause of her annoyance. The only blame that could be laid to her was her silence for a few days as to the little she knew. Of this crime Lady Foljambe made the most.

"Now, Avena," said the Countess, as peremptorily as her languor permitted, "hearken me, and be no more of a fool than thou canst help. If thou turn away a quiet, steady, decent maid, of good birth and conditions, for no more than a little lack of courage, or maybe of judgment—and thou art not a she-Solomon thyself, as I give thee to wit, but thou art a fearsome thing to a young maid when thou art angered; and unjust anger is alway harder, and sharper, and fierier than the just, as if it borrowed a bit of Satan, from whom it cometh—I say, if thou turn her away for this, thou shalt richly deserve what thou wilt very like get in exchange—to wit, a giddy-pate that shall blurt forth all thy privy matter (and I am a privy matter, as thou well wist), or one of some other ill conditions, that shall cost thee an heartbreak to rule. Now beware, and be wise. And if it need more, then mind thou"—and the tone grew regal—"that Amphillis Neville is my servant, not thine, and that I choose not she be removed from me. I love the maid; she hath sense, and she is true to trust; and though that keeps me in prison, yet can I esteem it when known. 'Tis a rare gift. Now go, and think on what I have said to thee."

Lady Foljambe found herself reluctantly constrained to do the Countess's bidding, so far, at least, as the meditation was concerned. And the calmer she grew, the more clearly she saw that the Countess was right. She did not, however, show that she felt she had been in the wrong. Amphillis was not informed that she was forgiven, nor that she was to retain her place, but matters were allowed to slide silently back into their old groove. So the winter came slowly on.

"The time drew near the birth of Christ," that season of peace and good-will to men which casts its soft sunshine even over the world, bringing absent relatives together, and suggesting general family amnesties. Perrote determined to make one more effort with Sir Godfrey. About the middle of December, as that gentleman was mounting his staircase, he saw on the landing that "bothering old woman," standing, lamp in hand, evidently meaning to waylay some one who was going up to bed. Sir Godfrey had little doubt that he was the destined victim, and he growled inwardly. However, it was of no use to turn back on some pretended errand; she was sure to wait till his return, as he knew. Sir Godfrey growled again inaudibly, and went on to meet his fate in the form of Perrote.

"Sir, I would speak with you."

Sir Godfrey gave an irritable grunt.

"Sir, the day of our Lord's birth is very nigh, when men be wont to make up old quarrels in peace. Will you not yet once entreat of my Lord Duke, being in England, to pay one visit to his dying mother?"

"I wis not that she is dying. Folks commonly take less time over their dying than thus."

Perrote, as it were, waved away the manner of the answer, and replied only to the matter.

"Sir, she is dying, albeit very slowly. My Lady may linger divers weeks yet. Will you not send to my Lord?"

"I did send to him," snapped Sir Godfrey.

"And he cometh?" said Perrote, eagerly for her.

"No." Sir Godfrey tried to pass her with that monosyllable, but Perrote was not to be thus baffled. She laid a detaining hand upon his arm.

"Sir, I pray you, for our Lord's love, to tell me what word came back from my Lord Duke?"

Our Lord's love was not a potent factor in Sir Godfrey's soul. More powerful were those pleading human eyes—and yet more, the sentiment which swayed the unjust judge—"Because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her." He turned back.

"Must you needs wit? Then take it: it shall do you little pleasure. My Lord writ that he was busily concerned touching the troubles in Brittany, and ill at ease anentis my Lady Duchess, that is besieged in the Castle of Auray, and he could not spare time to go a visiting; beside which, it might be taken ill of King Edward, whose favour at this present is of high import unto him, sith without his help he is like to lose his duchy. So there ends the matter. No man can look for a prince to risk the loss of his dominions but to pleasure an old dame."

"One only, Sir, it may be, is like to look for it; and were I my Lord Duke, I should be a little concerned touching another matter—the account that he shall give in to that One at the last day. In the golden balances of Heaven I count a dying mother's yearning may weigh heavy, and the risk of loss of worldly dominion may be very light. I thank you, Sir. Good-night. May God not say one day to my Lord Duke, 'Thou fool!'"

Perrote disappeared, but Sir Godfrey Foljambe stood where she had left him. Over his pleasure-chilled, gold-hardened conscience a breath from Heaven was sweeping, such a breath as he had often felt in earlier years, but which very rarely came to him now. Like the soft toll of a passing bell, the terrible words rang in his ears with their accent of hopeless pity—"Thou fool! Thou fool!" Would God, some day, in that upper world, say that to him?

The sound was so vivid and close that he actually glanced round to see if any one was there to hear but himself. But he was alone. Only God had heard them, and God forgets nothing—a thought as dreadful to His enemies as it is warmly comforting to His children. Alas, for those to whom the knowledge that God has His eye upon them is only one of terror!

Yet there is one thing that God does forget. He tells us that He forgets the forgiven sin. "As far as the sun-rising is from the sun-setting [Note 1], so far hath He removed our transgressions from us"—"Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." But as it has been well said, "When God pardons sin, He drops it out of His memory into that of the pardoned sinner." We cannot forget it, because He has done so.

For Sir Godfrey Foljambe the thought of an omniscient eye and ear was full of horror. He turned round, went downstairs, and going to a private closet in his own study, where medicines were kept, drank off one of the largest doses of brandy which he had ever taken at once. It was not a usual thing to do, for brandy was not then looked on as a beverage, but a medicine. But Sir Godfrey wanted something potent, to still those soft chimes which kept saying, "Thou fool!" Anything to get away from God!

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Note 1. This is really the Hebrew of Psalm 103, verse 12. The infidel objection, therefore, that since "east" and "west" meet, the verse has no meaning, is untenable as concerns the inspired original. It is only valid as a criticism on the English translation.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

MY LORD ELECT OF YORK.

"She only said,—'The day is dreary, He will not come,' she said: She wept,—'I am aweary, weary,— O God, that I were dead!'"

Tennyson.

"What, ho! Gate, ho! Open unto my Lord elect of York!"

The cry startled the porter at Hazelwood Manor from an afternoon nap. He sprang up and hurried out, in utter confusion at his negligence. To keep a priest waiting would have been bad manners enough, and an abbot still worse; but an archbishop was, in the porter's estimate, a semi-celestial being. True, this Archbishop was not yet consecrated, nor had he received his pallium from Rome, both which considerations detracted from his holiness, and therefore from his importance; but he was the Archbishop of the province, and the shadow of his future dignity was imposing to an insignificant porter. Poor Wilkin went down on his knees in a puddle, as soon as he had got the gate open, to beg the potentate's pardon and blessing, and only rose from them summarily to collar Colle, who had so little notion of the paramount claims of an archbishop that he received the cavalcade with barks as noisy as he would have bestowed on any worldly pedlar. Nay, so very unmannerly was Colle, that when he was let go, he marched straight to the Archbishop, and after a prolonged sniff at the archiepiscopal boots, presumed so far as to wag his very secular tail, and even to give an uninvited lick to the archiepiscopal glove. The Archbishop, instead of excommunicating Colle, laid his hand gently on the dog's head and patted him; which so emboldened that audacious quadruped that he actually climbed up the prelate, with more decided wagging than before.

"Nay, my son!" said the Archbishop, gently, to an officious young priest in his suite, who would have dragged the dog away—"grudge me not my welcome. Dogs be honest creatures, and dissemble not. Hast thou never heard the saw, that 'they be ill folks that dogs and children will not go withal'?"

And with another pat of Colle's head, the Archbishop dismissed him, and walked into the hall to meet a further welcome from the whole family and household, all upon their knees. Blessing them in the usual priestly manner, he commanded them to rise, and Sir Godfrey then presented his sons and squire, while Lady Foljambe did the same for the young ladies.

"Mistress Margaret Foljambe, my son's wife, an' it please your Grace; and Mistress Perrote de Carhaix, my head chamberer. These be my bower-women, Agatha de La Beche and Amphillis Neville."

"Neville!" echoed the Archbishop, instantly. "Of what Nevilles comest thou, my maid?"

"Please it you, holy Father," said the confused Amphillis, more frightened still to hear a sharp "your Grace!" whispered from Lady Foljambe; "I know little of my kin, an' it like your Grace. My father was Walter Neville, and his father a Ralph, but more know I not, under your Grace's pleasure."

"How comes it thou wist no more?"

"May it please your Grace, my father dwelt in Hertfordshire, and he wedded under his estate, so that his family cast him off, as I have heard," said Amphillis, growing every moment more hot and confused, for it was no light ordeal for one in her position to be singled out for conversation by an archbishop, and she sorely feared an after ebullition of Lady Foljambe's wrath.

"My child!" said the Archbishop with great interest, and very gently, "did thy father wed one Margery Altham, of London, whose father dwelt in the Strand, and was a baker?"

"He did so, under your Grace's pardon," said poor Amphillis, blushing for the paternal shortcomings; "but, may it please your Grace, he was a master-pastiller, not a baker."

A little smile of amusement at the delicate distinction played about the Archbishop's lips.

"Why, then, Cousin Amphillis, I think thy cousin may ask thee for a kiss," said he, softly touching the girl's cheek with his lips. "My Lady Foljambe, I am full glad to meet here so near a kinswoman, and I do heartily entreat you that my word may weigh with you to deal well with this my cousin."

Lady Foljambe, with a low reverence, assured his Grace that she had been entirely unaware, like Amphillis herself, that her bower-woman could claim even remote kindred with so exalted a house and so dignified a person; and that in future she should assume the position proper to her birth. And to her astonishment, Amphillis was passed by her Ladyship up the table, above Agatha, above even Perrote—nay, above Mistress Margaret—and seated, not by any means to her comfort, next to Lady Foljambe herself. From that day she was no more addressed with the familiar thou, but always with the you, which denoted equality or respect. When Lady Foljambe styled her Mistress Amphillis, she endured it with a blush. But when Perrote substituted it for the affectionate "Phyllis" usual on her lips, she was tearfully entreated not to make a change.

The Archbishop was on his way south for the ceremony of consecration, which required a dispensation if performed anywhere outside the Cathedral of Canterbury, unless bestowed by the Pope himself. His visit set Sir Godfrey thinking. Here was a man who might safely be allowed to visit the dying Countess—being, of course, told the need for secrecy— and if he requested it of him, Perrote must cease to worry him after that. No poor priest, nor all the poor priests put together, could be the equivalent of a live Archbishop.

He consulted Lady Foljambe, and found her of the same mind as himself. It would be awkward, she admitted, if the Countess died, to find themselves censured for not having supplied her with spiritual ministrations proper for her rank. Here was a perfect opportunity. It would be a sin to lose it.

It was, indeed, in a different sense to that in which she used the words, a perfect opportunity. The name of Alexander Neville has come down to us as that of the gentlest man of his day, one of the most lovable that ever lived. Beside this quality, which rendered him a peculiarly fit ministrant to the sick and dying, he was among the most prominent Lollards; he had drunk deep into the Scriptures, and, therefore, while not free from superstition—no man then was—he was very much more free than the majority. Charms and incantations, texts tied round the neck, and threads or hairs swallowed in holy water, had little value to the masculine intellect of Alexander Neville. And along with this masculine intellect was a heart of feminine tenderness, which would enable him to enter, so far as it was possible for a celibate priest to enter, into the sad yearnings of the dying mother, whose children did not care to come to her, and held aloof even in the last hour of her weary life. In those times, when worldliness had eaten like a canker into the heart of the Church, almost as much as in our own— when preferment was set higher than truth, and Court favour was held of more worth than faithfulness, one of the most unworldly men living was this elect Archbishop. The rank of his penitent would weigh nothing with him. She would be to him only a passing soul, a wronged woman, a lonely widow, a neglected mother.

After supper, Sir Godfrey drew the Archbishop aside into his private room, and told him, with fervent injunctions to secrecy, the sorrowful tale of his secluded prisoner. As much sternness as was in Archbishop Neville's heart contracted his brows and drew his lips into a frown.

"Does my Lord Duke of Brittany know his mother's condition?"

"Ay, if it please your Grace." Sir Godfrey repeated the substance of the answer already imparted to Perrote.

"Holy saints!" exclaimed the Archbishop. "And my Lady Basset, what saith she?"

"An' it like your Grace, I sent not unto her."

"But wherefore, my son? An' the son will not come, then should the daughter. I pray you, send off a messenger to my Lady Basset at once; and suffer me to see your prisoner. Is she verily nigh death, or may she linger yet a season?"

"Father Jordan reckoneth she may yet abide divers weeks, your Grace; in especial if the spring be mild, as it biddeth fair. She fadeth but full slow."

Sir Godfrey's tone was that of an injured man, who was not properly treated, either by the Countess or Providence, through this very gradual demise of the former. The Archbishop's reply—"Poor lady!" was in accents of unmitigated compassion.

Lady Foljambe was summoned by her husband, and she conducted the prelate to the turret-chamber, where the Countess sat in her chair by the window, and Amphillis was in attendance. He entered with uplifted hand, and the benediction of "Christ, save all here!"

Amphillis rose, hastily gathering her work upon one arm. The Countess, who had heard nothing, for she had been sleeping since her bower-maiden returned from supper, looked up with more interest than she usually showed. The entrance of a complete stranger was something very unexpected and unaccountable.

"Christ save you, holy Father! I pray you, pardon me that I arise not, being ill at ease, to entreat your blessing. Well, Avena, what has moved thee to bring a fresh face into this my dungeon, prithee? It should be somewhat of import."

"Madame, this is my Lord's Grace elect of York, who, coming hither on his way southwards, mine husband counted it good for your Grace's soul to shrive you of his Grace's hand. My Lord, if your Grace have need of a crucifix, or of holy water, both be behind this curtain. Come, Mistress Amphillis. His Grace will be pleased to rap on the door, when it list him to come forth; and I pray you, abide in your chamber, and hearken for the same."

"I thank thee, Avena," said the Countess, with her curt laugh. "Sooth to say, I wist not my soul was of such worth in thine eyes, and still less in thine husband's. I would my body weighed a little more with the pair of you. So I am to confess my sins, forsooth? That shall be a light matter, methinks; I have but little chance to sin, shut up in this cage. Truly, I should find myself hard put to it to do damage to any of the Ten Commandments, hereaway. A dungeon's all out praisable for keeping folks good—nigh as well as a sick bed. And when man has both together, he should be marvellous innocent. There, go thy ways; I'll send for thee when I lack thee."

Lady Foljambe almost slammed the door behind her, and, locking it, charged Amphillis to listen carefully for the Archbishop's knock, and to unlock the door the moment she should hear it.

The Archbishop, meanwhile, had seated himself in the only chair in the room corresponding to that of the Countess. A chair was an object of consequence in the eyes of a mediaeval gentleman, for none but persons of high rank might sit on a chair; all others were relegated to a form, styled a bench when it had a back to it. Stools, however, were allowed to all. That certain formalities or styles of magnificence should have been restricted to persons of rank may be reasonable; but it does seem absurd that no others should have been allowed to be comfortable. "The good old times" were decidedly inconvenient for such as had no handles to their names.

"I speak, as I have been told, to the Lady Marguerite, Duchess of Brittany, and mother to my Lord Duke?" inquired the Archbishop.

"And Countess of Montfort," was the answer. "Pray your Grace, give me all my names, for nought else is left me to pleasure me withal—saving a two-three ounces of slea-silk and an ell of gold fringe."

"And what else would you?"

"What else?" The question was asked in passionate tones, and the dark flashing eyes went longingly across the valley to the Alport heights. "I would have my life back again," she said. "I have not had a fair chance. I have done with my life not that I willed, but only that which others gave leave for me to do. Six and twenty years have I been tethered, and fretted, and limited, granted only the semblance of power, the picture of life, and thrust and pulled back whensoever I strained in the least at the leash wherein I was held. No dog has been more penned up and chained than I! And now, for eight years have I been cabined in one chamber, shut up from the very air of heaven whereunto God made all men free—shut up from every face that I knew and loved, saving one of mine ancient waiting-maids—verily, if they would use me worser than so, they shall be hard put to it, save to thrust me into my coffin and fasten down the lid on me. I want my life back again! I want the bright harvest of my youth, which these slugs and maggots have devoured, which I never had. I want the bloom of my dead happiness which men tare away from me. I want my dead lord, and mine estranged children, and my lost life! Tell me, has God no treasury whence He pays compensation for such wrongs as mine? Must I never see my little child again, the baby lad that clung to me and would not see me weep? My pillow is wet now, and no man careth for it—nay, nor God Himself. I was alway true woman; I never wronged human soul, that I know. I paid my dues, and shrived me clean, and lived honestly. Wherefore is all this come upon me?"

"Lady Marguerite, if you lost a penny and gained a gold noble, would you think you were repaid the loss or no?"

"In very deed I should," the sick woman replied, languidly; the fire had spent itself in that outburst, and the embers had little warmth left in them.

"Yet," said the Archbishop, significantly, "you would not have won the lost thing back."

"What matter, so I had its better?"

"We will return to that. But first I have another thing to ask. You say you never wronged man to your knowledge. Have you always paid all your dues to Him that is above men?"

"I never robbed the Church of a penny!"

"There be other debts than pence, my daughter. Have you kept, to the best of your power, all the commandments of God?"

"In very deed I have."

"You never worshipped any other God?"

"I never worshipped neither Jupiter nor Juno, nor Venus, nor Diana, nor Mars, nor Mercury."

"That can I full readily believe. But as there be other debts than money, so there be other gods than Jupiter. Honoured you no man nor thing above God? Cared you alway more for His glory than for the fame of Marguerite of Flanders, or the comfort of Jean de Bretagne?"

"Marry, you come close!" said the Countess, with a laugh. "Fame and ease be not gods, good Father."

"They be not God," was the significant answer. "'Ye are servants to him whom ye obey,' saith the apostle, and man may obey other than his lawful master. Whatsoever you set, or suffer to set himself, in God's place, that is your god. What has been your god, my daughter?"

"I am never a bit worse than my neighbours," said the Countess, leaving that inconvenient question without answer, and repairing, as thousands do, to that very much broken cistern of equality in transgression.

"You must be better than your neighbours ere God shall suffer you in His holy Heaven. You must be as good as He is, or you shall not win thither. And since man cannot be so, the only refuge for him is to take shelter under the cross of Christ, which wrought righteousness to cover him."

"Then man may live as he list, and cover him with Christ's righteousness?" slily responded the Countess, with that instant recourse to the Antinomianism inherent in fallen man.

"'If man say he knoweth Him, and keepeth not His commandments, he is a liar,'" quoted the Archbishop in reply. "'He that saith he abideth in Him, ought to walk as He walked.' Man cannot abide in Christ, and commit sin, for He hath no sin. You left unanswered my question, Lady: what has been your god?"

"I have paid due worship to God and the Church," was the rather stubborn answer. "Pass on, I pray you. I worshipped no false god; I took not God's name in vain no more than other folks; I always heard mass of a Sunday and festival day; I never murdered nor stole; and as to telling false witness, beshrew me if it were false witness to tell Avena Foljambe she is a born fool, the which I have done many a time in the day. Come now, let me off gently, Father. There are scores of worser women in this world than me."

"God will not judge you, Lady, for the sins of other women; neither will He let you go free for the goodness of other. There is but One other for whose sake you shall be suffered to go free, and that only if you be one with Him in such wise that your deeds and His be reckoned as one, like as the debts of a wife be reckoned to her husband, and his honours be shared by her. Are you thus one with Jesu Christ our Lord?"

"In good sooth, I know not what you mean. I am in the Church: what more lack I? The Church must see to it that I come safe, so long as I shrive me and keep me clear of mortal sin: and little chance of mortal sin have I, cooped up in this cage."

"Daughter, the Church is every righteous man that is joined with Christ. If you wist not what I mean, can you be thus joined? Could a woman be wedded to a man, and not know it? Could two knights enter into covenant, to live and die each with other, and be all unsure whether they had so done or no? It were far more impossible than this, that you should be a member of Christ's body, and not know what it meaneth so to be."

"But I am in Holy Church!" urged the Countess, uneasily.

"I fear not so, my daughter."

"Father, you be marvellous different from all other priests that ever spake to me. With all other, I have shrived me and been absolved, and there ended the matter. I had sins to confess, be sure; and they looked I should so have, and no more. But you—would you have me perfect saint, without sin? None but great saints be thus, as I have been taught."

"Not the greatest of saints, truly. There is no man alive that sinneth not. What is sin?"

"Breaking the commandments, I reckon."

"Ay, and in especial that first and greatest—'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.' Daughter, hast thou so loved Him—so that neither ease nor pleasure, neither fame nor life, neither earth nor self, came between your love and Him, was set above Him, and served afore Him? Speak truly, like the true woman you are. I wait your answer."

It was several moments before the answer came.

"Father, is that sin?"

"My daughter, it is the sin of sins: the sin whence all other sins flow—this estrangement of the heart from God. For if we truly loved God, and perfectly, should we commit sin?—could we so do? Could we desire to worship any other than Him, or to set anything before Him?— could we bear to profane His name, to neglect His commands, to go contrary to His will? Should we then bear ill-will to other men who love Him, and whom He loveth? Should we speak falsely in His ears who is the Truth? Should we suffer pride to defile our souls, knowing that He dwelleth with the lowly in heart? Answer me, Lady Marguerite."

"Father, you are sore hard. Think you God, that is up in Heaven, taketh note of a white lie or twain, or a few cross words by nows and thens? not to name a mere wish that passeth athwart man's heart and is gone?"

"God taketh note of sin, daughter. And sin is sin—it is rebellion against the King of Heaven. What think you your son would say to a captain of his, which pleaded that he did but surrender one little postern gate to the enemy, and that there were four other strong portals that led into the town, all whereof he had well defended?"

"Why, the enemy might enter as well through the postern as any other. To be in, is to be in, no matter how he find entrance."

"Truth. And the lightest desire can be sin, as well as the wickedest deed. Verily, if the desire never arose, the deed should be ill-set to follow."

"Then God is punishing me?" she said, wistfully.

"God is looking for you," was the quiet answer. "The sheep hath gone astray over moor and morass, and the night is dark and cold, and it bleateth piteously: and the Shepherd is come out of the warm fold, and is tracking it on the lonely hills, and calling to it. Lady, will the sheep answer His voice? will it bleat again and again, until He find it? or will it refuse to hear, and run further into the morass, and be engulfed and fully lost in the dark waters, or snatched and carried into the wolf's den? God is not punishing you now; He is loving you; He is waiting to see if you will take His way of escape from punishment. But the punishment of your sins must be laid upon some one, and it is for you to choose whether you will bear it yourself, or will lay it upon Him who came down from Heaven that He might bear it for you. It must be either upon you or Him."

The face lighted up suddenly, and the thin weak hands were stretched out.

"If God love me," she said, "let Him give me back my children! He would, if He did. Let them come back to me, and I shall believe it. Without this I cannot. Father, I mean none ill; I would fain think as you say. But my heart is weak, and my life ebbs low, and I cannot bleat back again. O God, for my children!—for only one of them! I would be content with one. If Thou lovest me—if I have sinned, and Thou wouldst spare me, give me back my child! 'Thou madest far from me friend and neighbour'—give me back one, O God!"