For The Master's Sake Part 1

For the Master's Sake.

by Emily Sarah Holt.

PREFACE.

This is not a story which requires much preface. The tale speaks for itself. But it is only right to inform the reader, that the persons who play their parts in it (apart from the historical details given) are all fict.i.tious, excepting John Laurence and Agnes Stone.

It rests, under G.o.d, with the men and women of England--and chiefly with those of them who are young now--whether such events as are here depicted shall recur in this nineteenth century. The battle of the Reformation will soon have to be fought over again; and reformations (no less than revolutions) are "not made with rose-water."

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve! If the Lord be G.o.d, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him."

Are we ready to follow the Master,--if He lead to Calvary? Or are we ready to run the awful risk of hearing Christ's "Depart!" rather than face men's "Crucify"? Now, while it is called to-day, let us settle the question.

CHAPTER ONE.

GLAD TIDINGS.

"For when the heart of man shuts out, Straightway the heart of G.o.d takes in."

_James Russell Lowell_.

"Good lack, Agnes! Why, Agnes Stone! Thou art right well be-called Stone; for there is no more wit nor no more quickness in thee than in a pebble. Lack-a-daisy! but this were never good land sithence preaching came therein,--idle foolery that it is!--good for nought but to set folk by the ears, and learn young maids for to gad about a-showing of their fine raiment, and a-gossiping one with another, whilst all the work to be wrought in the house falleth on their betters. Bodykins o' me! canst not hear ma.s.s once i' th' week, and tell thy beads of the morrow with one hand whilst thou feedest the chicks wi' th' other? and that shall be religion enough for any unlettered baggage like to thee. Here have I been this hour past a-toiling and a-moiling like a Barbary slave, while thou, my goodly young damosel, wert a-junketing it out o' door; and for why, forsooth? Marry, saith she, to hear a shaven crown preach at the Cross! Good sooth, but when I tell lies, I tell liker ones than so!

And but now come home, by my troth; and all the pans o' th' fire might ha' boiled o'er, whilst thou, for aught I know, wert a-dancing in Finsbury Fields with a parcel of idle jades like thyself. Beshrew thee for a lazy hilding [young person; a term applied to either s.e.x] that ne'er earneth her bread by the half! Now then, hold thy tongue, Mistress, and get thee a-work, as a decent woman should. When I lack a lick o' th' rough side thereof, I'll give thee due note!"

Thus far Mistress Martha Winter poured out the vials of her wrath, standing with arms akimbo in the doorway, and addressing a slight, pale-faced, trembling girl of twenty years, who stood before her with bowed head, and made no attempt at self-defence. Indeed, she would have been clever who could have slipped in a sentence, or even have edged in a word, when Mistress Winter had pulled out of her wrath-bottle that cork which was so seldom in it, as Agnes Stone knew to her cost. Nor was it the girl's habit to excuse or defend herself. Mistress Winter's deprecation of that proceeding was merely a flourish of rhetoric. So Agnes, as usual, let the tempest blow over her, offering no attempt to struggle, but only to stand and endure.

Mistress Winter had made an excellent investment when, six years before, she adopted Agnes Stone, then an orphan, homeless and friendless; not by any means to be "treated as one of the family," but to be tyrannised over as drudge and victim in general. The transaction furnished her with two endless topics for gossip, on which she dilated with great enjoyment--her own surpa.s.sing generosity, and the orphan's intense unworthiness. The generosity was not costly; for the portion of food bestowed on Agnes consisted of the sc.r.a.ps usually given to a dog, while she was clothed with such articles as were voted too shabby for the family wear. All work which was dirty or disagreeable, fell to Agnes as a matter of course. The widow's two daughters, Joan and Dorothy, respectively made her the vent for ill-temper, and the b.u.t.t for sarcasm; and if, in some rare moment of munificence, either of them bestowed on her a specked apple, or a faded ribbon, the most abject grat.i.tude was expected in return. She was practically a bond slave; for except by running away, there was no chance of freedom; and running away, in her case, meant starvation.

It had not always been thus. For ten years, more or less, before her term of bondage to Martha Winter, Agnes had lived with an aunt, her only surviving relative. During this stage of her life, she had taken her fair share in the household work, had been fed and clothed--coa.r.s.ely indeed, for her aunt was comparatively poor, but sufficiently--and she had been allowed a reasonable number of holidays, and had not been scolded, except when she deserved it. Though her aunt was an undemonstrative woman, who never gave her an endearing word or a caress, yet life with her was Elysium compared with present circ.u.mstances. But beyond even this, far back in early childhood, Agnes could dimly recollect another life again--a life which was love and suns.h.i.+ne--when a mother's hand came between her and hards.h.i.+p, a mother's heart brooded warmly over her, and a mother's lips called her by tender pet names, "as one whom his mother comforteth." That was long ago; so long, that to look back upon it was almost like recalling some previous state of existence; but the very memory of it, dim though it was, made the present bondage all the harder.

The offence which Agnes had committed on this occasion lay in having exceeded the time allowed her by six minutes. Out of respect to the day, which was the festival of Corpus Christi, she had been graciously granted the rare treat of a whole hour to spend as she pleased. She had chosen to spend it in hearing the latter half of a sermon preached at Paul's Cross. For, despite Mistress Winter's disdainful incredulity, the a.s.sertion was the simple truth; though that lady, being one of the numerous persons who cannot imagine the possibility of anything unpleasant to themselves being delightful to others, had been unable to give credence to the statement. As to the charge of dancing in Finsbury Fields, poor Agnes had never in her life been guilty of such a piece of dissipation. But she knew what to expect when she came in sight of the clock of Saint Paul's Cathedral, and became mournfully conscious that she would have to confess where she had been: for Mistress Winter had peculiar ideas about religion, and a particular horror of being righteous overmuch, which usually besets people who have no tendency in that direction. Anything in the shape of a sermon was her special abhorrence. Every Sunday morning Agnes was required to wait upon her liege lady to matins--that piece of piety lasting for the week: and three times in the year, without the faintest consideration of her feelings--always terribly outraged thereby--poor Agnes was dragged before the tribunal of the family confessor, and required to give a list of her sins since the last occasion. But anything beyond this, and sermons in particular, found no favour in the eyes of Mistress Winter.

Generally speaking, Agnes shrank from the mere _thought_ of a lecture from this terrible dame. But this time, beyond the unpleasant sensation of the moment, it produced no effect upon her. Her whole mind was full of something else; something which she had never heard before, and could never forget again; something which made this hard, dreary, practical world seem entirely changed to her, as though suddenly bathed in a flood of golden light.

G.o.d loved her. This was what Agnes had heard. G.o.d, who could do everything, who had all the universe at His command, loved her, the poor orphan, the unlettered drudge; penniless, despised, unattractive--G.o.d loved her, just as she was. She drank in the glad tidings, as a parched soil drinks the rain.

But this was not all. G.o.d wanted her to love Him. He sought for her love, He cared for it. Amid all the hearts laid at His feet, He would miss hers if she did not give it. The thought came upon her like a new revelation from Heaven, direct to herself.

The preacher at the Cross that day was a Black Friar--a tall spare man, whom some might call gaunt and ungainly; a man of quick intelligence and radiant eyes, of earnest gesture and burning words. No idle monastic reveller this, but a man of one object, of one idea, full of zeal and determination. His years were a little over forty, and his name was John Laurence. But of himself Agnes thought very little; her whole soul was concentrated upon the message which he had brought her from G.o.d.

G.o.d loved her! Since her mother died, she had been unloved. G.o.d loved her! And she had never asked Him for His love--she had never loved Him.

It was just the blessed fact itself which filled the heart, and mind, and soul of Agnes Stone. As to how it had come about, she had very little idea. She had not heard enough of the Friar's sermon to win any clear notion on that point; it was enough for her that it was so.

It never occurred to her to doubt the fact, and demand vouchers. It never occurred to her to suppose that her own hard lot was any contradiction to the theory. And it never occurred to her to imagine, as some do, that G.o.d's love led to no result; that He could love, and not care; that He could love, and not be ready to save. Human love was better than that. The mother who, alone of all creatures, so far as she knew, had ever loved Agnes Stone, had shown her love by always caring, by always s.h.i.+elding from danger where it lay in her power. And surely the Fountain could be no weaker than the stream; the love of a weak, fallen, fallible human creature must be less, not more, than the love of Him who is, and who was, and who is to come; who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.

"Hie thee down this minute, thou good-for-nothing hussy!" thundered the voice of Mistress Winter up the garret stairs, as Agnes was hastily resuming her working garb. "I'll warrant thou didst ne'er set the foul clothes a-soaking as I bade thee ere thou wentest forth to take thy pleasure, and left me a-slaving hither! Get thee to thy work, baggage!

Thou art worth but one half as many pence as there be s.h.i.+llings in a groat! [A fourpenny-piece.] I'll learn thee to gad hearing of sermons!"

"I set the clothes a-soaking ere I went forth, Mistress," said Agnes, coming quickly down stairs, and setting to work on the first thing she saw to need doing.

"Marry come up!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mistress Winter, looking at her. "Good lack! hast met with a fortune dropped from the clouds, that thou art all of a grin o' mirth?"

"I met with nought save that I went for," replied the girl quietly. But it struck her that the comparison of "a fortune dropped from the clouds"

was a singularly happy one.

"Lack-a-daisy!" cried Dorothy. "The Friar must have told some merry tale belike. Prithee, give us the same, Agnes."

"Methinks it were scantly so merry for you, Mistress Doll," answered Agnes rather keenly. The stranger must not intermeddle with her joy.

She held her new treasure with a tight, jealous grasp. Not yet had she learned that the living water flows the fuller for every streamlet that it fills; that the true riches are heaped the higher, the more lavish is the hand that transmits them.

"Hold thy silly tongue!" cried Mistress Winter, turning sharply round upon her daughter. "It were jolly work to fall of idle tale-telling, when all the work in the house gapeth for to be done!--Thou weary, dreary jade! what art thou after now? (Agnes was hastily mending a rent in the curtain.) To fall to dainty st.i.tchery, like a gentlewoman born, when every one of the trenchers lacketh sc.r.a.ping, and not the touch of a mop have the walls felt this morrow! Who dost look to, to slave for thee, prithee, my delicate-fingered damsel? Thou shouldst like well, I reckon, to have a serving-maid o' thy heels, for to 'tend to all matter that was not sweet enough for thy high degree! _I_ go not about to sweep up the dirt off thy shoes, and so I tell thee plainly!"

Certainly there was not often any want of perspicuity in Mistress Winter's admonitions, though there might occasionally be a little lack of elegance and gentleness. But plainly told or not, Agnes remained silent, sc.r.a.ped the wooden trenchers, a process which answered to the was.h.i.+ng of earthenware, and duly mopped the walls, and to the best of her power fulfilled the hard pleasure of her superior.

And here let us leave her for a moment, while we take a glance at the outer world, to discover where we are in the stream of time, and what sort of an England it is into which we have entered.

The day, the festival of Corpus Christi, is the first of June, 1553.

King Edward the Sixth is on the throne--a white-faced, grave, reserved boy of fifteen years, whose life is to close about five weeks thereafter. But beside the throne, and on it in all but name--his hand firmly grasping the reins of power, his voice the living law of the State--stands John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland; a man whose steel-blue eyes are as cold as his heart, and whose one aim in every action of his life is the welfare and aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of John Dudley. He professes himself a Lutheran: at heart, if he care at all for religion of any kind, he is a Papist. But it will not be of service to John Dudley at the present moment to confess that little fact to the world.

Grouped around these two are men of all types--Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, true Nature's gentleman, leal-hearted Gospeller, delicate in mind, clear in intellect, only not able, having done all, to stand; Ridley, Bishop of London, whose firm, intelligent, clear-cut features are an index to his character--perhaps a shade too severe, yet as severe to himself as any other; Hugh Latimer, blunt, warm-hearted old man, who calls a spade a spade in the most uncompromising manner, and spares not vice, though it flaunt its satin robes in royal halls; William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, the mean-spirited time-server who would cry long life to a dozen rival monarchs in as many minutes, so long as he thought it would advance his own interests; Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, who spends his life in a fog of uncertainty, wherein the most misty object is his own mind; William Paulet, Marquis of Winchester, who always remembers his motto, "I bend, but break not;" Richard Lord Rich, the sensual-faced, comfortable-looking, stony-hearted man who pulled off his gown the better to rack Anne Askew, of old time; and, behind them all, one of whom they all think but little--a young man of short stature, with good forehead, and small, wizened features--Mr Secretary Cecil, some day to be known as the great Earl of Burleigh, who holds in his clever hands, as he sits in the background with his silent face, the strings that move most of these puppets, and pulls them without the puppets knowing it, until, on the accession of Mary, the Tower gates will be opened, and Stephen Gardiner will walk forth, to take the reins into his hands, and to steep England in blood.

Of public events, there have been few since the general confiscation of church plate in the preceding month.

The Londoners, of whom our friends at Mistress Winter's form a part, are divided in opinion concerning this step; but neither party has been too much distressed to observe the usual dance round the Strand maypole, on the site of which Saint Mary-le-Strand will presently be built. At present, and for those five weeks yet to come, the march of events is dull and sleepy. It will be sufficiently lively and startling to please the most sensational, before many days of July have run out.

The Bible is now open in every parish church, chained to a desk, so that any one who pleases may read. The entire service is conducted in English. The roods and images have been pulled down; candles, ashes, and palms are laid aside; "the wolves are kept close" in Tower and Fleet and Marshalsea; ma.s.ses, public and private, are contraband articles; the marriage of priests is freely allowed; the altar has been replaced by the table. It is still illegal to eat flesh in Lent; but this is rather with a view to encourage the fish trade than with any religious object.

To turn to minor matters, such as costume and customs, we find Government does not disdain to occupy itself in the regulation of the former, by making stringent sumptuary laws, and effectually securing their observance by heavy fines. The gentlemen dress in the Blue-Coat style, occasionally varying it by a short tunic-like coat instead of the long gown, and surmounting it by a low flat cap, which the n.o.bles ornament by an ostrich feather. The ladies array themselves in long dresses, full of plaits, and often stiff as crinoline--plain for the commonalty, but heavily laden with embroidery, and deeply edged with fur, in the case of the aristocracy. Both s.e.xes, if aspiring to fas.h.i.+on, puff and slash their attire in all directions. The ruff, shortly to become so fas.h.i.+onable, is only just creeping into notice, and as yet contents itself with very modest dimensions.

Needles are precious articles, of which she is a rich woman who possesses more than two or three. Gla.s.s bottles are unknown, and their place is supplied by those of leather, wood, or stone. Wooden bowls and trenchers for the poor, gold and silver plate for the rich, make up for the want of china. The fuel is chiefly wood, coal being considered unhealthy. Every now and then Government takes alarm at the prodigious size to which the metropolis is growing, and an Act is pa.s.sed to restrain further building within a given distance from the City walls.

Country gentlemen receive peremptory orders to reside on their estates, and not to visit London except by licence; for the authorities are afraid lest the influx of visitors should cause famine and pestilence.

There is no drainage; for every householder pours his slops into the street, with a warning shout, that the pa.s.sengers below may run out of the way. There are few watches, and fewer carriages; no cabs, no police, no post-office; no potatoes, tea, coffee, newspapers, brown paper, copper coinage, streetlamps, shawls, muslin or cotton goods. But there is at times the dreaded plague, which decimates wherever it comes; the terrible frequency of capital punishment for comparatively trivial offences; the pleasant probability of meeting with a few highwaymen in every country journey; the paucity of roads, and the extreme roughness of such as do exist; a lamentable lack of education, even in the higher cla.s.ses, hardly atoned for by the exceptional learning of one here and there; and (though the list might be greatly enlarged) last, not least, the constant presence of vermin of the most objectionable sort, from which neither palace nor cottage is exempt. This, then, was the England of 1553.

CHAPTER TWO.

FATHER DAN.

"Fasting is all very well for those Who have to contend with invisible foes: But I am quite sure that it does not agree With a quiet, peaceable man like me."

_Longfellow_.

Fortunately for Agnes Stone, she was too low down in the world for many things to affect her which sorely troubled the occupants of the upper strata. Sumptuary laws were of no consequence to a woman whose best gown was patched with pieces of different colours, and who had not a hood in her possession; taxes and subsidies, though they might press heavily on the rich, were no concern of hers, for she did not own a penny; while no want, however complete, of letters, books, and newspapers, distressed the mind of one who had never learned the alphabet.

Mistress Winter dwelt in Cowbridge Street, otherwise Cow Lane; now the site of crowded City thoroughfares, but then a quiet, pleasant, suburban lane, the calm of which was chiefly broken by the presence, on market-days, of numbers of the animal whence the street took its name, caused by the close proximity of Smithfield. Green fields lay at the back of the houses, through which, on its way to the Thames, ran the little Fleet River, anciently known as the River of the Wells; beyond it towered the Bishop of Ely's Palace, with its extensive walled garden, famous for strawberries; to the left was the pleasant and healthy village of Clerkenwell, whither the Londoners were wont to stroll on summer evenings, to drink milk at the country inn, and gossip with each other round the holy well. On the right hand, between Cow Lane and the Thames, lay the open, airy suburbs of Fleet and Temple, and the royal Palace of Bridewell, with its grounds. In front, Hosier Lane and c.o.c.k Lane gave access to Smithfield, beyond which was the sumptuous but now dissolved Priory of Saint Bartholomew, the once royal domain of Little Britain, and the walls and gates of the great city, with the grand tower of Saint Paul's Cathedral visible in the distance, over the low roofs of the surrounding houses.