For The Master's Sake Part 8

The answer was in inspired words. "'For perfect wert thou, in My beauty which I put upon thee, saith the Lord G.o.d.'"

Agnes sat still, trying to take in the idea.

"Hear yet again another His saying to the Church: 'Thou hast wounded Mine heart, My sister-spouse; thou hast wounded Mine heart in one of thine eyes, and in one chain of thy neck.' Now what is the eye?--is it not a member of the body? Doth not this learn us that every one of Christ's members hath his proper and peculiar love of Him, that cannot belong to any other? Yea, more; for the chain of the neck is not a member, but only the ornament of a member. Wherefore one grace--for the ornaments of the soul be his graces--one grace of one Christian soul is enough to delight Christ's heart."

Both were silent for a while, Agnes learning her new lesson.

"Mine heart!" said John Laurence suddenly, "the right way at times looks like the wrong."

"What meanest thou, John?" said Agnes, looking into his face, and startled by its expression of pain.

"Dear heart, we know not what lieth afore us. We be so blind, Agnes!

But He knows. It is enough, if we are ready to follow Him. Canst thou dare follow, as well through the flood and the fire as through the flowery mead?"

"I cannot tell," she said tremulously. "I would try."

"There be two staves to lean on in our weariness," he said. "The one is for earth: 'Fear not, because I am with thee.' And the other is of Heaven, but gildeth earth with hope: 'Where I am, there shall My servant be.' There must be glory and sweetness, where is Jesus Christ."

Long years afterwards, Agnes recalled those words.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

SAD TIDINGS.

"But of all sad words by tongue or pen, The saddest are these--'It might have been!'"

Though the majority of the nation were comparatively indifferent to the religious changes that had been effected, there were certain political occurrences which they viewed with less equanimity. One of these was the vast number of Spaniards brought over by Philip. It was reckoned-- doubtless with some exaggeration--that in September, 1554, three Spaniards might be seen in London to every Englishman. The rumour ran that five thousand more were on the way. The nation was both vexed and alarmed. Was England to be reduced, like the Netherlands, to the condition of a mere outlying province of Spain?

Before eight weeks had run out from the day of Philip's arrival in London, his hand upon the reins was plainly visible. He had been heard to say that if he believed a member of his own body to be tainted with heresy, he would amputate it immediately and without remorse. The Gospellers were not left quite ignorant of what they might reasonably expect.

It was on a quiet morning in October that Agnes was on her way to Horsepool, when she was overtaken by Cicely Marvell, carrying a yoke of water-pails like herself.

"Good morrow, Mistress Marvell!" said the former. "Dear heart! but you look something troubled belike. Is any sick with you?"

Cicely and Agnes were quite aware that their religious sentiments were alike. It is in the cloudy and dark day that those who fear the Lord speak often one to another.

"Heavy news, my maid!" said Cicely in a low voice, and shaking her head.

"Yesternight sixty folk were arrest in London for reading of Lutheran books."

"Poor folk, trow?"

"All manner, as I do hear."

Neither high nor low, in those days, were safe, if suspicion of heresy were once roused against them. The higher cla.s.s were the more likely to be detected; yet there was a little more hesitation in bringing them to the stake. But it was easy to see, then as now, that as a rule it was the poor of this world whom G.o.d had chosen to be rich in faith. For every rich man or t.i.tled lady who incurred bodily danger through faithfulness to the truth, there were at least fifty of those whom the world regards as "n.o.body."

There was a strange mixture of comedy and tragedy in the events of those days. The miracle-play alternated with the pillory, and the sight-seers went from the burning of a heretic in the morning to see the new athletic games, introduced by the Spaniards, in the afternoon in Palace Yard. A grand tournament at Court preceded, and a bear-baiting followed, the humiliating spectacle of the Parliament of England kneeling at the feet of Cardinal Pole, and abjectly craving absolution from Rome. One man--Sir Ralph Bagenall--stood out, and stood up, when all his co-senators were thus prostrate in the dust. He was religiously a Gallio, not a Gospeller; but he was politically a st.u.r.dy Englishman, and no coward. Strange to say, no harm came to him. Nay, is it strange, when we read, "Them that honour Me, I will honour," and "Whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it?"

There were no longer any sermons preached at the Cross that a Gospeller cared to hear. One was forthcoming regularly every Sunday; but the preachers were Pendleton the renegade, f.e.c.kenham the suave, or Gardiner the man of blood. The uneasy feeling of a section at least of the populace was shown by frays at Charing Cross, incipient insurrections in Suffolk, a.s.saults on priests at the altar, and unaccountable iconoclasms. The image of Becket was twice found broken by mysterious means; and a cat, tonsured, and arrayed in miniature vestments, was discovered hanging on the gallows in Cheapside, while the offer of a large reward failed to reveal the offender.

During this time, Mistress Winter's piety had been blooming in a wonderful manner. She kept Saint Thomas of Canterbury on a small table, with a lamp burning before it, and every morning diligently courtesied to this stock and stone. When her hands were not otherwise busied, a rosary was pretty sure to be found in them, on which she recounted Paters and Aves with amazing celerity. The bitterness of her tongue kept pace with her show of religiousness. Ugly adjectives, and uglier substantives, were flung at Agnes all the day long, and whether she deserved reproof or not appeared to make no difference. But though words and even blows were not spared, Mistress Winter went no further.

Agnes was much too useful to be denounced as a heretic, at least so long as she remained at her post in Cow Lane. She did all the unpleasant work in the house, besides filling the convenient offices of a vent for Joan's temper, and a b.u.t.t for Dorothy's ridicule. But though getting rid of her was not to be thought of, words were cheap, however peppery, and a box on the ear was a great relief to the feelings of the giver-- those of the recipient not being taken into account. So Agnes got plenty of both.

"Sweet-heart, how earnest by yonder black eye?" anxiously demanded John Laurence, on the last Sunday afternoon in January, when Agnes and he were coming back from their favourite stroll towards Clerkenwell.

"'Tis nought new, belike," said she with a smile.

"Please G.o.d," returned he, "it shall be ancient matter and by-gone, very soon."

He stood still a moment, looking over the crowded chimneys of the City, just beyond the green field through which they were walking.

"Doth the thought e'er come to thy mind, Agnes," asked he, "how soon all things shall be bygones? At the most afore many years,--yea, afore many days, it may be,--thou and I shall be away hence from this world. And even this great city, that doth look thus firm and substantial, ere long shall not be left thereof one trace. Yea, heaven and earth shall pa.s.s away: but Christ's words shall not pa.s.s away."

Agnes listened with interest, but gave no answer beyond a gesture of a.s.sent.

"I have fallen to think much of late," said the Black Friar, "of one word of His,--a.s.suredly not to pa.s.s away, nor be forgotten--'Whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in Heaven.' Verily, it were awful matter, to draw down on a man's head this public denying of Jesu Christ."

"Dear heart!" said Agnes, at once sympathetically and deprecatingly.

"Ah!" he replied, with a sigh of self-distrust: "hope is one matter, and belief another."

"Dost fear some ill work, trow?" she asked doubtfully.

John Laurence did not answer at once. He spoke after a minute, dreamily, as if to himself; a habit to which Agnes was now quite accustomed.

"'Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after that He hath killed hath power to cast into h.e.l.l.'"

The Friar walked on for a few seconds with his usual rapidity, and then suddenly stopped again.

"Men think lightly of these things, dear heart," said he. "Most men have a far greater care lest they break a limb, or lose an handful of gold, than lest they be cast into h.e.l.l. Yet see thou how Christ took the same. And He knew,--as we cannot know,--what is h.e.l.l."

"The good Lord keep us!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Agnes fervently.

"Amen!" responded the Black Friar. "'He shall keep the feet of His saints.' It is not we that keep ourselves. 'Tis not we that hold Him, no more than the babe holdeth himself in his mother's arms. And the mother were more like to leave the babe fall into the fire or the water, than He to loose hold upon His trustful child."

He was trying to prepare her for what might come. But she was not prepared.

Cold though it was, they had a pleasant walk that afternoon. The time of release was drawing so near, that Agnes felt almost as bright and glad as if it were already come. At Cow Cross, her betrothed bade her farewell, saying with his grave smile that he would not come further, lest it should cost her an extra taunt from Mistress Dorothy.

Agnes was quite satisfied to be saved the small torment in question.

She did not realise how soon the time might come when it would seem to her a lighter thing to endure Dorothy's ridicule for a calendar year, than to miss one glimpse of that face.

We recognise such facts as these--when they come.

The next day pa.s.sed over uneventfully. The Tuesday morning rose, bright, clear, and frosty. Agnes was in spirits perfectly marvellous, considering what she had to endure. She was making melody in her heart as she carried her pails to the pump, thinking gladly how short her time of trial was growing, and how bright her future would be. It mattered nothing to her that she would have to work as hard as ever; nothing, that she must live in a single room of a crowded street in the heart of the City; nothing, that John Laurence was a worn, gaunt man of more than twice her years, and utterly unattractive in the eyes of the world; nothing, that the day was bitterly cold, and her thin bed-gown a very insufficient protection. Everything was rose-colour to her. Had she not Christ in Heaven, and one honest heart that loved her upon earth?

When Agnes came in sight of the pump, she perceived a little child sitting crouched upon the step of the trough, and evidently crying. Her heart was not hard to touch, and setting down her pails she laid her hand on the boy's shoulder. He had been too much absorbed in his grief to notice her approach, but when she spoke he looked up, showing the now tear-stained face of little Will Flint.