One Snowy Night Part 2

"Why did Father go to fight the Saracens?" demanded Derette, looking up from the baby.

"Don't you know, Derette? It is to rescue our Lord's sepulchre," said Flemild.

"Does He want it?" replied Derette.

Flemild did not know how to answer. "It is a holy place, and ought not to be left in the hands of wicked people."

"Are Saracens wicked people?"

"Yes, of course--as bad as Jews. They are a sort of Jews, I believe; at any rate, they wors.h.i.+p idols, and weave wicked spells." [Note 3.]

"Is all the world full of wicked people?"

"Pretty nigh, child!" said her mother, with a sigh. "The saints know that well enough."

"I wonder if the saints do know," answered Derette meditatively, rocking the baby in her arms. "I should have thought they'd come and mend things, if they did. Why don't they, Mother?"

"Bless you, child! The saints know their own business best. Come here and watch this pan whilst I make the sauce."

The supper was ready, and was just about to be dished up, when Haimet entered, accompanied by the leader of the foreigners, to the evident delight of the guests.

"Only just in time," murmured Isel. "However, it is as well you've brought somebody to speak to. Where's all the rest of them folks?"

"Got them all housed at last," said Haimet, flinging his hat into a corner. "Most in the town granary, but several down this street. Old Turguia took two women, and Franna a man and wife: and what think you?-- if old Benefei did not come forth and offer to take in some."

"Did they go with him?"

"As easy in their minds, so far as looks went, as if it had been my Lord himself. Didn't seem to care half a straw."

"Sweet Saint Frideswide! I do hope they aren't witches themselves,"

whispered Isel in some perturbation.

To open one's house for the reception of pa.s.sing strangers was not an unusual thing in that day; but the danger of befriending--and yet more of offending--those who were in league with the Evil One, was an ever-present fear to the minds of men and women in the twelfth century.

The leader overheard the whisper.

"Good friends," he said, addressing Isel, "suffer me to set your minds at rest with a word of explanation. We are strangers, mostly of Teutonic race, that have come over to this land on a mission of good and mercy. Indeed we are not witches, Jews, Saracens, nor any evil thing: only poor harmless peasants that will work for our bread and molest no man, if we may be suffered to abide in your good country for this purpose. This is my wife--" he laid his hand on the shoulder of the baby's mother--"her name is Agnes, and she will soon learn your tongue.

This is my young sister, whose name is Ermine; and my infant son is called Rudolph. Mine own name is Gerhardt, at your service. I am a weaver by trade, and shall be pleased to exercise my craft in your behalf, thus to return the kindness you have shown us."

"Well, I want some new clothes ill enough, the saints know," said Isel in answer; "and if you behave decent, and work well, and that, I don't say as I might be altogether sorry for having taken you in. It's right, I suppose, to help folks in trouble--though it's little enough help I ever get that way, saints knows!--and I hope them that's above 'll bear it in mind when things come to be reckoned up like."

That was Isel's religion. It is the practical religion of a sadly large number of people in this professedly Christian land.

Agnes turned and spoke a few words in a low voice to her husband, who smiled in answer.

"My wife wishes me to thank you," he said, "in her name and that of my sister, for your goodness in taking us strangers so generously into your home. She says that she can work hard, and will gladly do so, if, until she can speak your tongue, you will call her attention, and do for a moment what you wish her to do. Ermine says the same."

"Well, that's fair-spoken enough, I can't deny," responded Isel; "and I'm not like to say I shan't be glad of a rest. There's nought but hard work in this world, without it's hard words: and which is the uglier of them I can't say. It'll be done one of these days, I reckon."

"And then, friend?" asked Gerhardt quietly.

"Well, if you know the answer to that, you know more than I do," said Isel, dis.h.i.+ng up her salt fish. "Dear saints, where ever is that boy Romund? Draw up the form, Haimet, and let us have our supper. Say grace, boy."

Haimet obeyed, by the short and easy process of making a large cross over the table, and muttering a few unintelligible words, which should have been a Latin formula. The first surprise received from the foreign guests came now. Instead of sitting down to supper, the trio knelt and prayed in silence for some minutes, ere they rose and joined their hosts at the table. Then Gerhardt spoke aloud.

"G.o.d, who blessed the five barley loaves and the two fishes before His disciples in the wilderness, bless this table and that which is set on it, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

"Oh, you do say your prayers!" remarked Isel in a tone of satisfaction, as the guests began their supper. "But I confess I'd sooner say mine while the fish isn't getting cold."

"We do, indeed," answered Gerhardt gravely.

"Oh, by the way, tell me if you've ever come across an English traveller called Manning Brown? My husband took the cross, getting on for three years now, and I've never heard another word about him since. Thought you might have chanced on him somewhere or other."

"Whither went he, and which way did he take?"

"Bless you, I don't know! He went to foreign parts: and foreign parts are all one to me."

Gerhardt looked rather amused.

"We come from Almayne," he said; "some of us in past years dwelt in Provence, Toulouse, and Gascony."

"Don't tell me!" said Isel, holding up her hands. "It's all so much gibberish. Have you met with my man?--that's all I want to know."

"I have not," replied Gerhardt. "I will ask my friends, and see if any of them have done so."

Supper over, a second surprise followed. Again Gerhardt offered his special blessing--"G.o.d, who has given us bodily food, grant us His spiritual life; and may G.o.d be with us, and we always with Him!" Then they once more knelt and silently prayed. Gerhardt drew his wife and sister into a corner of the house, and opening his book, read a short portion, after which they engaged in low-toned conversation.

Derette, with the baby in her arms, had drawn near the group. She was not at all bashful.

"I wish I could understand you," she said. "What are you talking about?"

Gerhardt lifted his cap before answering.

"About our blessed Lord Christ, my maiden," he said.

Derette nodded, with an air of satisfaction at the wide extent of her knowledge. "I know. He's holy Mary's Son."

"Ay, and He is our Saviour," added Flemild.

"Is He thy Saviour, little one?" asked Gerhardt.

"I don't know what you mean," was the answer.

"O Derette! you know well enough that our Lord is called the Saviour!"

corrected her sister in rather a shocked tone.

"I know that, but I don't know what it means," persisted the child st.u.r.dily.

"Come, be quiet!" said her mother. "I never did see such a child for wanting to get to the bottom of things.--Well, Romund! Folks that want supper should come in time for it. All's done and put by now."