Robin Tremayne Part 5

"Wish me happiness, Mrs Avery," he said in a low but very satisfied voice.

Isoult Avery was a poor guesser of riddles. She looked up with an air of perplexed simplicity.

"Why, Mr Monke, I do that most heartily at all times," she answered.

"But what mean you?"

"That G.o.d hath given me the richest jewel He had for me," he said, in the same tone as before.

Then Isoult knew what he meant. "Is it Frances?" she asked, speaking as softly as he had done.

"It is that fair and s.h.i.+ning diamond," he pursued, "known among men as the Lady Frances Ba.s.set."

For a moment Isoult was silent, and if Mr Monke could have read the thoughts hidden behind that quiet face, perhaps he would not have felt flattered. For Isoult was wondering in her own mind whether she ought to be glad or sorry. But the next moment her delicate instinct had told her what to answer.

"Mr Monke," she said, looking up again, "I do most heartily wish happiness to both you and her."

And Mr Monke never guessed from any thing in the quiet face what the previous thought had been.

The next day brought a letter to Isoult from Lady Frances herself; and the last relic of Jennifer's uneasiness was appeased by the fair hair and beard of the messenger. She only said now that there might have been two strangers in the fire; she ought to have looked more carefully.

All was smooth water now at Crowe. Lady Lisle had given way, but not until Frances plainly told her that she had urged this very match earnestly before, and now that she was reluctantly endeavouring to conform to her wishes, had turned round to the opposing side. Philippa was more readily won over. Lady Frances had told Mr Monke honestly that a great part of her heart lay in the grave of John Ba.s.set; but that she thoroughly esteemed himself, and such love as she could give him he should have.

"I trust," she wrote to Isoult, "that we may help, not hinder, the one the other on the way to Heaven. We look to be wed in June next, after the new fas.h.i.+on, in the English tongue. Pray meanwhile for me, dear heart, that I may 'abide in Him.'"

When Isoult came down-stairs from the careful perusal of her letter, she heard Dr Thorpe's voice in the hall, and soon perceived that her husband and he were deep in religious conversation.

"Softly, Jack!" Dr Thorpe was saying as she entered. "Methinks thou art _somewhat_ too sweeping. We must have priests, man (though they need not be ill and crafty men); nor see I aught so mighty wrong in calling the Lord's Table an altar. Truly, myself I had liefer say 'table'; yet would I not by my good will condemn such as do love that word 'altar.' Half the mischief that hath arisen in all these battles of religion now raging hath come of quarrelling over words. And 'tis never well to make a martyr or an hero of thine adversary."

"I have no mind to make a martyr of you, my dear old friend," answered Avery, "in whatsoever signification. I see well what you would be at, though I see not with you. And I would put you in mind, by your leave, that while true charity cometh of G.o.d, there is a false charity which hath another source."

"But this is to split straws, Jack," said the Doctor.

"I pray you pardon me," replied he, "but I think not so. I know, Doctor, you do incline more toward the Lutheran than I, and therefore 'tis like that such matters may seem smaller unto you than to me. But when--"

"I incline toward the truth," broke in Dr Thorpe, bluntly.

"We will both strive our best so to do, friend," gently answered Avery.

"But, as I was about to say, when you come to look to the ground of this matter, you shall see it (if I blunder not greatly) to be far more than quarrelling over words or splitting of straws. The calling of men by that name of priest toucheth the eternal priesthood of the Lord Christ."

"As how?" queried the old man, resting his hands on his staff, and looking Avery in the face.

"As thus," said he. "Cast back your eyes, I pray you, to the times of the old Jewish laws, and tell me wherefore they lacked so many priests as all the sons of Aaron should needs be. I mean, of course, so many at one time."

"Why, man! one at once should have been crushed under the work!"

answered Dr Thorpe. "If one man had been to slay Solomon his twenty-two thousand sacrifices, he should not have made an end by that day month."

"Good. Then the lesser priests were needed, because of the insufficiency of the high priest for all that lacked doing?"

"That I allow," said Dr Thorpe, after some meditation.

"See you what you allow, friend?" Avery answered, softly. "If, then, the lesser priests be yet needed, it must be by reason that the High Priest is yet insufficient, and the sacrifice which He offered is yet incomplete."

"Nay, nay, Jack, nay!" cried the old man, much moved, and shaking his head.

"It must be so, dear friend. To what good were those common and ordinary priests, save to aid the high priest in that which, being but a man, he might not perform alone? Could the high priest have sufficed alone, what need were there of other? But our High Priest sufficeth, and hath trodden the wine-press alone. His sacrifice is perfect, is full, is eternal. There needeth no repeating--nay, there can be no repeating thereof. What do we, then, with priests now? Where is their sacrifice? And a priest that sacrificeth not is a gainsaying of words.

Friend, whoso calleth him a priest now, by that word denieth the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus."

"And whoso calleth the Table an altar--" began Dr Thorpe.

"Is guilty of the same sin," pursued he; "the same affront unto the Majesty of Him that will not give His glory to an other."

"They mean it not so, I verily believe," responded Dr Thorpe, a little uneasily. "They mean a.s.suredly to do Him honour."

"And He can see the difference," said Avery, tenderly, "betwixt the denial of Peter that loved Him, and the betrayal of Judas that hated Him. Our eyes are rarely fine enough for that. More than once or twice, had the judgment lain with us, we had, I think, condemned Peter and quitted Judas."

"I would all this variance betwixt Lutherans and Gospellers might cease!" resumed Dr Thorpe, rather bitterly. "When we should be pointing our spears all against the enemy, we are bent on p.r.i.c.king of each other!"

"A vain wish, friend," answered he. "So far as I can see, that hath been ever since the world began, and will last unto the world's end. I am not so fond as to look for Christ's kingdom until I see the King.

The fair Angel of Peace flieth in His train; but, methinks, never out of it."

"It seemeth," said Dr Thorpe, "as though the less s.p.a.ce there were betwixt my doctrine and thine, the more bitterly must thou and I wrangle!"

"Commonly it is so," replied Avery.

"And while these real battles be fighting," pursueth he, "betwixt Christ's followers and Christ's foes,--what a sight is it to see the followers dividing them on such matters as--whether childre shall be baptised with the cross or no; whether a certain garment shall be worn or no; whether certain days shall be kept with public service or no!

Tus.h.!.+ it sickeneth a man with the whole campaign."

Both rose, but after his farewell Dr Thorpe broke out again, as though he could not let the matter drop.

"Do the fools think," asked the old man, "that afore the angels will open the gate of Heaven unto a man, they fall a-questioning him--to wit, whether salt were used at his baptism; whether his body were buried looking toward the East or the West; whether when he carried his Bible he held it in his right hand or his left? Dolts, idiots, patches!

[Fools.] It should do me a relief to duck every man of them in the Tamar."

"And cause them to swallow a dose of physic at afterward?" laughed Avery.

"It were hemlock, then," said Dr Thorpe, grimly.

"Nay, friend, not so bad as that, methinks. But shall I give you one dose of a better physic than any of yours? 'By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one toward another.'"

"How are they to know it now?" said Dr Thorpe, despairingly. "How are they to know it? Well, I know not; maybe thou art not so far-off, Jack; but for all other I know--"

And away he went, shaking his grey head.

Lady Frances and Mr Monke were married when the summer came. John Avery and Isoult were invited to the wedding; and Philippa sent a special message requesting that their little Kate might be included; for, said she, "Arthur shall be a peck of trouble, and an' he had one that he might play withal he should be the less."

"List thee, sweet heart! thou art bidden to a wedding!" said Jennifer to Kate.

"What is a wedding?" inquired four-year-old Kate, in her gravest manner.

"Is it a syllabub?"