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One Snowy Night

by Emily Sarah Holt · English · Gutenberg #27962 · 493,825 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: One Snowy Night

Author: Emily Sarah Holt

Illustrator: M. Irwin


        
Release date: February 2, 2009 [eBook #27962]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27962

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE SNOWY NIGHT ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




One Snowy Night, by Emily Sarah Holt.



PREFACE.

The story of the following pages is one of the least known yet saddest
episodes in English history--the first persecution of Christians by
Christians in this land.  When Boniface went forth from England to
evangelise Germany, he was received with welcome, and regarded as a
saint: when Gerhardt came from Germany to restore the pure Gospel to
England, he was cast out of the vineyard and slain.

The spirit of her who is drunk with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus is
the same now that it was then.  She does not ask if a man agree with the
Word of God, but whether he agree with _her_.  "When the Church has
spoken"--this has been said by exalted ecclesiastical lips quite
recently--"we cannot appeal to Scripture against her!"

But we Protestants can--we must--we will.  The Church is not God, but
man.  The Bible is not the word of man, but the Word of God (One
Thessalonians, two, verse 13; Ephesians, six, verse 17): therefore it
must be paramount and unerring.  Let us hold fast this our profession,
not being moved away from the hope of the Gospel, nor entangled again
with the yoke of bondage, but stablished in the faith, grounded and
settled.  "For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning
of our confidence stedfast unto the end."



CHAPTER ONE.

SAINT MAUDLIN'S WELL.

  "For men must work, and women must weep,
  And the sooner 'tis over, the sooner to sleep."

  Reverend Charles Kingsley.

"Flemild!"

"Yes, Mother."

It was not a cross voice that called, but it sounded like a very tired
one.  The voice which answered was much more fresh and cheerful.

"Is Romund come in yet?"

"No, Mother."

"Nor Haimet either?"

"I have not seen him, Mother."

"Oh dear, those boys!  They are never in the way when they are wanted."

The speaker came forward and showed herself.  She was a woman of some
forty years or more, looking older than she was, and evidently very
weary.  She wore a plain untrimmed skirt of dark woollen stuff, short to
the ankles, a long linen apron, and a blue hood over her head and
shoulders.  Resting her worn hands on the half-door, she looked drearily
up and down the street, as if in languid hope of catching a glimpse of
the boys who should have been there, and were not.

"Well, there's no help for it!" she said at last, "Flemild, child, you
must go for the water to-night."

"I?  O Mother!"  The girl's tone was one of manifest reluctance.

"It can't be helped, child.  Take Derette with you, and be back as quick
as you can, before the dusk comes on.  The lads should have been here to
spare you, but they only think of their own pleasure.  I don't know what
the world's coming to, for my part."

"Father Dolfin says it's going to be burnt up," said a third voice--that
of a child--from the interior of the house.

"Time it was!" replied the mother bluntly.  "There's nought but trouble
and sorrow in it--leastwise I've never seen much else.  It's just work,
work, work, from morning to night, and often no rest to speak of from
night to morning.  You get up tireder than you went to bed, and you may
just hold your tongue for all that any body cares, as the saints know.
Well, well!--Come, make haste, child, or there'll be a crowd round Saint
Martin's Well."  [Note 1.]

"O Mother! mayn't I go to Plato's Well?"

"What, and carry your budget four times as far?  Nonsense, Flemild!"

"But, Mother, please hear me a minute!  It's a quiet enough way, when
you are once past the Bayly, and I can step into the lodge and see if
Cousin Stephen be at home.  If he be, he'll go with me, I know."

"You may go your own way," said the mother, not quite pleasantly.
"Young folks are that headstrong!  I can't look for my children to be
better than other folks'.  If they are as good, it's as much as one need
expect in this world."

Flemild had been busily tying on a red hood while her mother spoke, and
signing to her little sister to do the same.  Then the elder girl took
from a corner, where it hung on a hook, a budget or pail of boiled
leather, a material then much used for many household vessels now made
of wood or metal: and the girls went out into the narrow street.

The street was called Kepeharme Lane, and the city was Oxford.  This
lane ran, in old diction, from the Little Bayly to Fish Street--in
modern language, from New Inn Hall Street to Saint Aldate's, slightly
south of what is now Queen Street, and was then known as the Great
Bayly.  The girls turned their backs on Saint Aldate's, and went
westwards, taking the way towards the Castle, which in 1159 was not a
ruined fortress, but an aristocratic mansion, wherein the great De Veres
held almost royal state.

"Why don't you like Saint Martin's Well, Flemild?" demanded the child,
with childish curiosity.

"Oh, for lots of reasons," answered her sister evasively.

"Tell me one or two."

"Well, there is always a crowd there towards evening.  Then, very often,
there are ragamuffins on Penniless Bench [Note 2] that one does not want
to come too near.  Then--don't you see, we have to pass the Jewry?"

"What would they do to us?" asked the child.

"Don't talk about it!" returned her sister, with a shudder.  "Don't you
know, Derette, the Jews are very, very wicked people?  Hasn't Mother
told you so many a time?  Never you go near them--now, mind!"

"Are they worse than we are?"

Flemild's conscience pricked her a little as she replied, "Of course
they are.  Don't you know they crucified our Lord?"

"What, these Jews?" asked Derette with open eyes.  "Old Aaron, and
Benefei at the corner, and Jurnet the fletcher, and--O Flemild, not,
surely not Countess and Regina?  They look so nice and kind, I'm sure
they never could do any thing like that!"

"No, child, not these people, of course.  Why, it was hundreds and
hundreds of years ago.  But these are just as bad--every one of them.
They would do it again if they had the chance."

"Countess wouldn't, _I_ know," persisted the little one.  "Why, Flemild,
only last week, she caught pussy for me, and gave her to me, and she
smiled so prettily.  I liked her.  If Mother hadn't said I must never
speak to any of them, I'd have had a chat with her; but of course I
couldn't, then, so I only smiled back again, and nodded for `thank
you.'"

"Derette!"  There was genuine terror in the tone of the elder sister.
"Don't you know those people are all wicked witches?  Regular black
witches, in league with the Devil.  There isn't one of them would not
cast a spell on you as soon as look at you."

"What would it do to me?" inquired the startled child.

"What wouldn't it do? you had better ask.  Make you into a horrid black
snake, or a pig, or something you would not like to be, I can tell you."

"I shouldn't quite like to be a black snake," said Derette, after a
minute's pause for reflection.  "But I don't think I should much mind
being a pig.  Little, tiny pigs are rather pretty things; and when they
lie and grunt, they look very comfortable."

"Silly child!--you'd have no soul to be saved!"

"Shouldn't I?  But, Flemild, I don't quite see--if _I_ were the pig--
would that be me or the pig?"

"Hi, there!  Where are you going?"

Flemild was not very sorry to be saved the solution of Derette's
difficult problem.  She turned to the youth of some fifteen years, who
had hailed her from the corner of Castle Street.

"Where you should have gone instead, Haimet--with the budget for water.
Do go with me now."

"Where on earth are you going--to Osney?"

"No, stupid boy: to Plato's Well."

"I'm not going there.  I don't mind Saint Maudlin's, if you like."

"We are out of the way to Saint Maudlin's, or else I shouldn't have
minded--"

"No, my lady, I rather think you wouldn't have minded the chance of a
dance in Horsemonger Street.  However, I'm not going to Plato's Well.
If you go with me, you go to Saint Maudlin's; and if you don't, you may
find your way back by yourselves, that's all."

And laying his hands on the budget, Haimet transferred it from his
sister's keeping to his own.

Plato's Well stood in Stockwell Street, on the further side of the
Castle, and on the south of Gloucester Hall, now Worcester College.
Fortified by her brother's presence, Flemild turned after him, and they
went up Castle Street, and along North Bayly Street into Bedford Lane,
now the northern part of New Inn Hall Street.  When they reached the
North Gate, they had to wait to go out, for it was just then blocked by
a drove of cattle, each of which had to pay the municipal tax of a
halfpenny, and they were followed by a cart of sea-fish, which paid
fourpence.  The gate being clear, they passed through it, Flemild
casting rather longing looks down Horsemonger Street (the modern Broad
Street), where a bevy of young girls were dancing, while their elders
sat at their doors and looked on; but she did not attempt to join them.
A little further, just past the Church of Saint Mary Magdalen, they came
to a small gothic building over a well.  Here, for this was Saint
Maudlin's Well, Haimet drew the water, and they set forth on the return
journey.

"Want to go after those damsels?" inquired the youth, with a nod in the
direction of the dancers, as they passed the end of the street.

"N-o," said Flemild.  "Mother bade me haste back.  Beside, they won't be
out many minutes longer.  It isn't worth while."

"Like a woman," retorted Haimet with a satirical grin; "the real reason
always comes last."

"What do you know about it?" answered his sister, not ill-humouredly, as
they paused again at the North Gate.  "O Haimet, what are those?"

A small company of about thirty--men, women, and a few children--were
coming slowly down Horsemonger Street.  They were attired in rough short
tunics, warm sheepskin cloaks, heavy boots which had seen hard service,
and felt hats or woollen hoods.  Each man carried a long staff, and all
looked as though they were ending a wearisome journey.  Their faces had
a foreign aspect, and most of the men wore beards,--not a very common
sight in England at that date, especially with the upper classes.  And
these men were no serfs, as was shown by the respectability of their
appearance, and the absence of the brazen neck-collar which marked the
slave.

The man who walked first of the little company, and had a look of
intelligence and power, addressed himself to the porter at the gate in
excellent French--almost too excellent for comprehension.  For though
French was at that date the Court tongue in England, as now in Belgium,
it was Norman French, scarcely intelligible to a Parisian, and still
less so to a Provencal.  The porter understood only the general scope of
the query--that the speaker wished to know if he and his companions
might find lodging in the city.

"Go in," said he bluntly.  "As to lodgings, the saints know where you
will get them.  There are dog-holes somewhere, I dare say."

The leader turned, and said a few words to his friends in an unknown
tongue, when they at once followed him through the gate.  As he passed
close by the girls, they noticed that a book hung down from his girdle--
a very rare sight to their eyes.  While they were watching the
foreigners defile past them, the leader stopped and turned to Haimet,
who was a little in advance of his sisters.

"My master," he said, "would you for the love of God tell us strangers
where we can find lodging?  We seek any honest shelter, and ask no
delicate fare.  We would offend no man, and would gladly help with any
household work."

Haimet hesitated, and gnawed his under lip in doubtful fashion.  Flemild
pressed forward.

"Master," she said, "if in truth you are content with plain fare and
lodging, I think my mother would be willing to give room to one or two
of the women among you, if they would pay her by aid in household work:
and methinks our next neighbour would maybe do as much.  Thinkest thou
not so, Haimet?--Will you follow us and see?"

"Most gladly, maiden," was the answer.

"My word, Flemild, you are in for it!" whispered Haimet.  "Mother will
be right grateful to you for bringing a whole army of strangers upon
her, who may be witches for all you know."

"Mother will be glad enough of a woman's arms to help her, and let her
rest her own," replied Flemild decidedly; "and I am sure they look quite
respectable."

"Well, look out for storms!" said Haimet.

Flemild, who had acted on an impulse of compassionate interest, was
herself a little doubtful how her action would be received at home,
though she did not choose to confess it.  They passed down North Gate
Street (now the Corn-market), and crossing High Street, went a few yards
further before they readied their own street.  On their right hand stood
the cooks' shops, and afterwards the vintners', while all along on their
left ran the dreaded Jewry, which reached from High Street to what is
_now_ the chief entrance of Christ Church.  The fletchers' and cutlers'
stalls stood along this side of the street.  Eastwards the Jewry
stretched to Oriel Street, and on the south came very near the Cathedral
Church of Saint Frideswide.  The (now destroyed) Church of Saint Edward
stood in the midst of it.

As our friends turned into their own street, they passed a girl of some
seventeen years of age--a very handsome girl, with raven hair and dark
brilliant eyes.

She smiled at Derette as she passed, and the child returned the silent
salutation, taking care to turn her head so that her sister should not
see her.  A moment later they came to their own door, over which hung a
panel painted with a doubtful object, which charity might accept as the
walnut tree for which it was intended.  Just as this point was reached,
their mother came to the door, carrying a tin basin, from which she
threw some dirty water where every body then threw it, into the gutter.

"Saint Benedict be merciful to us!" she cried, nearly dropping the
basin.  "What on earth is all this ado?  And the children here in the
midst of it!  Holy Virgin, help us!  There is nothing but trouble for a
poor woman in this world.  And me as good as a widow, and worse, too.
Haimet!  Flemild! whatever are you about?"

"Mother," said Flemild in politic wise, "I have brought you some help.
These good women here seek lodging for the night--any decent kind will
serve them--and they offer to pay for it in work.  It will be such a
rest for you, Mother, if you will take in one or two; and don't you
think Franna would do the same, and old Turguia be glad of the chance?"

Isel stood with the basin in her hand, and a look half vexed, half
amused, upon her face.

"Well! what is to be will be," she said at last.  "I suppose you've
arranged it all.  It'll be grand rest to have every thing smashed in the
house.  Come in, friends, as many of you as like.  Those that can't find
straw to lie on can sit on a budget.  Blessed saints, the shiftlessness
of girls!"

And with a tone of voice which seemed to be the deeper depth below
despair itself, Isel led the way into the house.

Derette had fallen a little back, entranced by a sight which always
attracted her.  She loved any thing that she could pet, whether a baby
or a kitten; and had once, to the horror of her mother's housekeeping
soul, been discovered offering friendly advances to a whole family of
mice.  In the arms of the woman who immediately followed the leader, lay
what seemed to Derette's eyes a particularly fascinating baby.  She now
edged her way to her mother's side, with an imploring whisper of
"There's a baby, Mother!"

"There's three, child.  I counted them," was the grim reply.

"But, Mother, there's one particular baby--"

"Then you'd better go and fetch it, before you lose it," said Isel in
the same tone.

Derette, who took the suggestion literally, ran out, and with many
smiles and encouraging nods, led in the baby and its mother, with a
young girl of about eighteen years, who came after them, and seemed to
belong to them.

"I suppose I shall have to go with you, at any rate through this
street," said Haimet, returning after he had set down the bucket.  "Our
folks here won't understand much of that lingo of yours.  Come along."

The tone was less rough than the words--it usually was with Haimet,--and
the little company followed him down the street, very ready to accept
the least attempt at kindness.

Isel and Flemild were somewhat dismayed to discover that their chosen
guests could not understand a word they said, and were quite as
unintelligible to them.  Derette's mute offer to hold the baby was
quickly comprehended; and when Isel, taking the woman and girl up the
ladder, showed them a heap of clean straw, on which two thick rough rugs
lay folded, they quite understood that their sleeping-place for the
night was to be there.  Isel led the way down again, placed a bowl of
apples before the girl, laid a knife beside it, and beginning to pare
one of the apples, soon made known to her what she required.  In a
similar manner she seated the woman in the chimney-corner, and put into
her hands a petticoat which she was making for Derette.  Both the
strangers smiled and nodded, and went to work with a will, while Isel
set on some of the fresh water just brought, and began to prepare
supper.

"Well, this is a queer fix as ever I saw!" muttered Isel, as she cleaned
her fish ready for boiling.  "It's true enough what my grandmother used
to say--you never know, when you first open your eyes of a morning, what
they'll light on afore you shut them at night.  If one could talk to
these outlandish folks, there'd be more sense in it.  Flemild, I wonder
if they've come across your father."

"O Mother, couldn't we ask them?"

"How, child?  If I say, `Have you seen aught of an Englishman called
Manning Brown?' as like as not they'll think I'm saying, `Come and eat
this pie.'"

Flemild laughed.  "That first man talks," she said.

"Ay, and he's gone with the lot.  Just my luck!--always was.  My father
was sure to be killed in the wars, and my husband was safe to take it
into his head to go and fight the Saracens, instead of stopping at home
like a decent fellow to help his wife and bring up his children the way
they should go.  Well!--it can't be helped, I suppose."

"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 worship 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 passing 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, dishing 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.

"God, 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--"God, who has given us bodily food, grant us His
spiritual life; and may God 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
sturdily.

"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."

"I have had my supper at the Lodge," responded a tall young man of
twenty-two, who had just entered.  "Who are those people?"

His mother gave the required explanation.  Romund looked rather
doubtfully at the guests.  Gerhardt, seeing that this was the master of
the house, at least under present circumstances, rose, and respectfully
raising his cap, apologised for their presence.

"What can you do?" inquired Romund shortly.

"My trade is weaving," replied Gerhardt, "but I can stack wood or cut
it, put up shelves, milk cows, or attend to a garden.  I shall be glad
to do any thing in my power."

"You may nail up the vine over the back door," said Romund, "and I dare
say my mother can find you some shelves and hooks to put up.  The women
can cook and sew.  You may stay for a few days, at any rate."

Gerhardt expressed his thanks, and Romund, disappearing outside the back
door, returned with some pieces of wood and tools, which he laid down on
the form.  He was trying to carve a wooden box with a pattern of oak
leaves, but he had not progressed far, and his attempts were not of the
first order.  Haimet noticed Gerhardt's interested glance cast on his
brother's work.

"Is that any thing in your line?" he asked with a smile.

"I have done a little in that way," replied Gerhardt modestly.  "May I
examine it?" he asked of Romund.

The young carver nodded, and Gerhardt took up the box.

"This is an easy pattern," he said.

"Easy, do you call it?" replied Romund.  "It is the hardest I have done
yet.  Those little round inside bits are so difficult to manage."

"May I try?" asked Gerhardt.

It was not very willingly that Romund gave permission, for he almost
expected the spoiling of his work: but the carving-tool had not made
more than a few cuts in the German's fingers, before Romund saw that his
guest was a master in the art.  The work so laborious and difficult to
him seemed to do itself when Gerhardt took hold of it.

"Why, you are a first-class hand at it!" he cried.

Gerhardt smiled.  "I have done the like before, in my own country," he
said.

"Will you teach me your way of working?" asked Romund eagerly.  "I never
had any body to teach me.  I should be as glad as could be to learn of
one that really knew."

"Gladly," said Gerhardt.  "It will give me pleasure to do any thing for
the friends who have been so kind to me."

"Derette, it is your bedtime," came from the other corner--not by any
means to Derette's gratification.  "Give the baby to its mother, and be
off."

Very unwillingly Derette obeyed: but Gerhardt, looking up, requested
Isel's permission for his wife and sister to retire with the child.
They had had a long journey that day, and were quite worn out.  Isel
readily assented, and Derette with great satisfaction saw them accompany
her up the ladder.

The houses of the common people at that time were extremely poor.  This
family were small gentlefolks after a fashion, and looked down upon the
tradesmen by whom they were surrounded as greatly their inferiors: yet
they dwelt in two rooms, one above the other, with a ladder as the only
means of communication.  Their best bed, on which Isel and Flemild
slept, was a rough wooden box filled with straw, on the top of which
were a bed and a mattress, covered by coarse quilts and a rug of
rabbit-skin.  Derette and the boys lay on sacks filled with chaff, with
woollen rugs over them.

The baby was already asleep, and Agnes laid it gently on one of the
woollen rugs, while she and Ermine, to Derette's amazement, knelt and
prayed for some time.  Derette herself took scarcely five minutes to her
prayers.  Why should she require more, when her notion of prayer was not
to make request for what she wanted to One who could give it to her, but
to gabble over one Creed, six Paternosters, and the doxology, with as
much rapidity as she could persuade her lips to utter the words?  Then,
in another five minutes, after a few rapid motions, Derette drew the
woollen rug over her, and very quickly knew nothing more, for that night
at least.

The city of Oxford, as then inhabited, was considerably smaller than it
is now.  The walls ran, roughly speaking, on the north, from the Castle
to Holywell Street, on the east a little lower than the end of Merton
Street, thence on the south to the other side of the Castle.  Beyond the
walls the houses extended northwards somewhat further than to Beaumont
Street, and southwards about half-way to Friar Bacon's Tower.  The
oldest church in the city is Saint Peter's in the East, which was
originally built in the reign of Alfred; the University sermons used to
be delivered in the stone pulpit of this church.

There was a royal palace in Oxford, built by Henry First, who styled it
le Beau Mont; it stood in Stockwell Street, nearly on the site of the
present workhouse.  It had not been visited by royalty since 1157, when
a baby was born in it, destined to become a mighty man of valour, and to
be known to all ages as King Richard Coeur-de-Lion.  In 1317 King Edward
Second bestowed it on the White Friars, and all that now remains of it
is a small portion of the wall built into the workhouse.

The really great man of the city was the Earl of Oxford, at that time
Aubrey de Vere, the first holder of the title.  He had been married to a
lady who was a near relative of King Stephen, but his second and present
Countess, though of good family, came from a lower grade.

Modern ideas of a castle are often inaccurate.  It was not always a
single fortified mansion, but consisted quite as frequently of an
embattled wall surrounding several houses, and usually including a
church.  The Castle of Oxford was of the latter type, the Church of
Saint George being on its western side.  The keep of a castle was
occupied by the garrison, though it generally contained two or three
special chambers for the use of the owner, should necessity oblige him
and his family to take refuge there in a last extremity.  The entrance
was dexterously contrived, particularly when the fortress consisted of a
single house, to present as much difficulty as possible to a besieger.
It was always at some height in the wall, and was reached by a winding,
or rather rambling, stairway leading from the drawbridge, and often
running round a considerable part of the wall.  One or more gates in the
course of this stair could be closed at pleasure.  A large and imposing
portal admitted the visitor to a small tower occupied by the guards,
through which the real entrance was approached.  This stood in the
thickness of the outer wall, and was protected by another pair of gates
and a portcullis, just inside which was the porter's lodge.  On the
ground-floor the soldiers were lodged; on the midmost were the state and
family apartments, while the uppermost accommodated the household
servants and attendants.  A special tower was usually reserved for the
ladies of the family, and was often accompanied by a tiny garden.  In
the partition wall a well was dug, which could be reached on every
floor; and below the vestibule was a dungeon.  The great banqueting-hall
was the general sitting-room to which every one in the castle had
access; and here it was common for family, servants, and guard to take
together their two principal meals--dinner at nine a.m., supper at four
or five o'clock.  The only distinction observed was that the board and
trestles for the family and guests were set up on the dais, for the
household and garrison below.  The tables were arranged in the form of a
horse-shoe, the diners sitting on the outer or larger side, while the
servants waited on the inner.  The ladies had, beside this, their own
private sitting-room, always attached to the bedchamber, and known as
the "bower," to which strangers were rarely admitted.  Here they sat and
sang, gossiped, and worked their endless embroidery.  The days were
scarcely yet over when English needlework bore the palm in Europe and
even in the East, while the first illuminators were the monks of
Ireland.  Ladies were the spinners, weavers, surgeons, and readers of
the day; they were great at interpreting dreams, and dearly loved
flowers.  The gentlemen looked upon reading as an occupation quite as
effeminate as sewing, war and hunting being the two main employments of
the lords of creation, and gambling the chief amusement.  Priests and
monks were the exceptions to this rule, until Henry First introduced a
taste for somewhat more liberal education.  Even more respectful to
letters was his grandson Henry Second, who had a fancy for resembling
his grandfather in every thing; yet he allowed the education of his sons
to be thoroughly neglected.

The popular idea that the University of Oxford is older than King Alfred
is scarcely borne out by modern research.  That there was some kind of
school there in Alfred's day is certain: but nothing like a university
arose before the time of Henry First, and the impetus which founded it
came from outside.  A Frenchman with a Scotch education, and a Jewish
Rabbi, are the two men to whom more than any others must be traced the
existence of the University of Oxford.

Theodore d'Etampes, a secular priest, and apparently a chaplain of Queen
Margaret of Scotland, arrived at Oxford about the year 1116, where he
taught classes of scholars from sixty to a hundred in number.  But every
thing which we call science came there with the Jews, who settled under
the shadow of Saint Frideswide shortly after the Conquest.  Hebrew,
astronomy, astrology, geometry, and mathematics, were taught by them, at
their hostels of Lombard Hall, Moses Hall, and Jacob Hall; while law,
theology, and the "humanities," engaged the attention of the Christian
lecturers.  Cardinal Pullus, Robert de Cricklade, and the Lombard jurist
Vacario, each in his turn made Oxford famous, until King Stephen closed
the mouth of "the Master" of civil law, and burned at once the law-books
and the Jews.  Henry Second revived and protected the schools, in the
churchyard outside the west door of Saint Mary's Church; the scriveners,
binders, illuminators, and parchmenters, occupying Schools Street, which
ran thence towards the city wall.

The special glory of Oxford, at that time, was not the University, but
the shrine of Saint Frideswide.  This had existed from the eighth
century, when the royal maiden whom it celebrated, after declining to
fulfil a contract of matrimony which her father had made for her (as she
was much too holy to be married), had added insult to injury by
miraculously inflicting blindness on her disappointed lover when he
attempted to pursue her.  She had, however, the grace to restore his
sight on due apologies being made.  Becoming Prioress of the convent
which she founded, she died therein on October 14th, 740, which day was
afterwards held as a gaudy day.  Possibly because her indignant lover
was a king, it was held ominous for any monarch to enter the Chapel of
Saint Frideswide in her convent church.  King John, who was as
superstitious on some points as he was profane on others, never dared to
pass the threshold.

His father, being gifted with more common sense, was present at the
translation of the saint in 1180.  The bones of Saint Frideswide still
sleep in Christ Church; but at the Reformation they were purposely
mingled with those of Katherine Vermilia, wife of Peter Martyr, and on
the grave where the two were interred was carved the inscription, "Here
lieth Religion with Superstition."  Of course the object of this was to
prevent any further worship of the relics, as it would be impossible to
discern the bones of the saint from those of the heretic.  It is not
improbable that both were good women according to their light; but the
saint was assuredly far the less enlightened.  To common sense, apart
from tradition and sentiment, it is difficult to understand why a
certain group of persons, who lived in an age when education was very
limited, superstition and prejudice very rife, spirituality almost
dormant, and a taste for childish follies and useless hair-splitting the
commonest things in literature, should be singled out for special
reverence as "saints," or under the honourable name of "the Fathers," be
deemed higher authorities in respect to the interpretation of Holy Writ
than the far more intelligent and often far more spiritual writers of
later date.  If this curious hero-worship were confined to the
generation immediately following the Apostles, it would be a little more
intelligible; as such men might possibly have derived some of their
ideas from apostolic oral teaching.  But to those who know the history
of the early ages of Christianity, and are not blinded by prejudice, it
is simply amazing that the authority of such men as Basil, Cyprian, and
Jerome, should be held to override that of the spiritual giants of the
Puritan era, and of those who have deeply and reverently studied
Scripture in our own times.  To appeal to the views held by such men as
decisive of the burning questions of the day, is like referring matters
of grave import to the judgment of little children, instead of
consulting men of ripe experience.  We know what followed a similar
blunder on the part of King Rehoboam.  Yet how often is it repeated!  It
would seem that not only is "no prophet accepted in his own country,"
but also in his own day.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1.  Saint Martin's Well stood in the junction of the "four-ways"
from which Carfax takes its name.

Note 2.  Penniless Bench, which ran along the east end of Carfax Church,
was the original of all "penniless benches."  It was not always occupied
by idle vagrants, for sometimes the scholars of the University used to
congregate there, as well as the Corporation of the city.

Note 3.  All Christians believed this at that date.



CHAPTER TWO.

VALIANT FOR THE FAITH.

  "As labourers in Thy vineyard,
      Send us out, Christ, to be,
   Content to bear the burden
      Of weariness for Thee.

  "We ask no other wages
      When Thou shalt call us Home,
  But to have shared the travail
      Which makes Thy kingdom come."

It is popularly supposed that surnames only came into existence with the
reign of King John.  This is not quite an accurate assertion.  They
existed from the Conquest, but were chiefly personal, and apart from the
great feudal families, only began at that date to consolidate and
crystallise into hereditary names.  So far as common people were
concerned, in the reign of Henry the Second, a man's surname was usually
restricted to himself.  He was named either from one of his parents, as
John William-son, or John Fitz-mildred; from his habitation, as John by
the Brook; from his calling, as John the Tanner; from some peculiarity
in his costume, as John Whitehood,--in his person, as John Fairhair,--in
his mind, as John Lovegood,--in his tastes, as John Milk-sop,--or in his
habits, as John Drinkdregs.  If he removed from one place to another, he
was likely to change his name, and to become known, say at Winchester,
as John de Nottingham; or if his father were a priest who was a
well-known person, he would not improbably be styled John
Fiz-al-Prester.  [Note 1.]  It will readily be seen that the majority of
these names were not likely to descend to a second generation.  The son
of John William-son would be Henry John-son, or Henry Alice-son; he
might or might not retain the personal name, or the trade-name; but the
place-name he probably would inherit.  This explains the reason why so
large a majority of our modern surnames are place-names, whether in
respect of a town, as Nottingham, Debenham, Brentwood: or of a country
locality, as Brook, Lane, Hill, etcetera.  Now and then a series of
Johns in regular descent would fix the name of Johnson on the family; or
the son and grandson pursuing the same calling as the father, would turn
the line into Tanners.  All surnames have arisen in such a manner.

Our friends in Kepeharme Lane knew nothing of surnames otherwise than
personal, apart from the great territorial families of Norman
immigration, who brought their place-names with them.  Manning Brown was
so termed from his complexion; his elder son, not being specially
remarkable, was known merely as Romund Fitz-Manning; but the younger, in
his boyhood of a somewhat impetuous temper, had conferred on him the
epithet of Haimet Escorceueille, or Burntown.  The elder brother of
Manning was dubbed Gilbert Cuntrevent, or Against-the-Wind; and his two
sons, of whom one was the head porter, and another a watchman, at the
Castle, were called Osbert le Porter and Stephen Esueillechien, or
Watchdog,--the last term evidently a rendering of English into
_dog-French_.  Our forefathers were apt hands at giving nicknames.
Their epithets were always direct and graphic, sometimes highly
satirical, some very unpleasant, and some very picturesque.  Isel, who
was recognised as a woman of a complaining spirit, was commonly spoken
of as Isel the Sweet; while her next neighbour, who lorded it over a
very meek husband, received the pungent appellation of Franna
Gillemichel.  [Note 2.]

The day after the arrival of the Germans, the porter's wife came down to
see her kindred.

"What, you've got some of those queer folks here?" she said in a loud
whisper to Isel, though Gerhardt was not present, and his wife and
sister could not understand a word she spoke.

"Ay, they seem decentish folks," was the reply, as Isel washed her
eel-like lampreys for a pie--the fish which had, according to tradition,
proved the death of Henry the First.

"Oh, do they so?  You mind what you are after.  Osbert says he makes no
account of them.  He believes they're Jews, if not worse."

"Couldn't be worse," said Isel sententiously.  "Nothing of the sort,
Anania.  They say their prayers oftener than we do."

"Ay, but what to?  Just tell me that.  Old Turguia has some in her
house, and she says they take never a bit of notice of our Lady nor
Saint Helen, that she has upstairs and down; they just kneel down and
fall a-praying anywhere.  What sort of work do you call that?"

"I don't know as I wish to call it anything in particular, without
you're very anxious," replied Isel.

"But I am anxious about it, Aunt.  These folks are in your house, and if
they are witches and such like, it's you and the girls who will suffer."

"Well, do you think it's much matter?" asked Isel, putting aside the
lampreys, and taking up a bushel basket of Kentish pearmains.  "If our
Lady could hear me in one corner, I reckon she could hear me in
another."

"But to turn their backs on them!" remonstrated Anania.

"Well, I turn mine on her, when I'm at work, many a time of a day."

"Work--ay.  But not when you're at prayer, I suppose?"

"Oh, it'll be all right at last, I hope," said Isel a little uneasily.

"Hope's poor fare, Aunt.  But I tell you, these folks are after no good.
Why, only think! five of them got taken in by those rascals of Jews--
three in Benefei's house, and two at Jurnet's.  _They'd_ never have
taken them in, depend on it, if they hadn't known they weren't so much
better than they should be."

Agnes and Ermine understood none of these words, though they saw readily
enough that the looks Anania cast upon them were not friendly.  But
Derette spoke up for her friends.

"They're much better than you, Cousin Anania!" said that downright young
woman.

"Keep a civil tongue in your head," replied Anania sharply.

"I'd rather have a true one," was the child's answer; "and I'm not sure
they always go together."

"Osbert says," pursued Anania, ignoring Derette, "that he expects
there'll be a stir when my Lord comes to hear of them.  Much if they
don't get turned out, bag and baggage.  Serve 'em right, too!"

"They haven't got any bags," said literal Derette.  "I don't think
they've any of them any clothes but what they wear.  Only Gerard's got a
book."

"A book!  What is it about?" cried Anania.  "Is he a priest?--surely
not!"

Only a priest or monk, in her eyes, could have any business with a book.

"Oh no, he's no priest; he's a weaver."

"Then what on earth is he doing with a book?  You get hold of it, Aunt!
I'll warrant you it's some sort of wickedness--safe to be!  Black spells
to turn you all into ugly toads, or some such naughty stuff--take my
word for it!"

"I'd rather not, Cousin Anania, for you haven't seen it, so your word
isn't much good," said Derette calmly.

"It's not like to do us much good when we do see it," observed Isel,
"because it will be in their own language, no doubt."

"But if it's a witch-book, it's like to have horoscopes and all manner
of things in it!" said Anania, returning to the charge.

"Then it is not, for I have seen it," said Flemild.  "It is in a foreign
language; but all in it beside words is only red lines ruled round the
pages."

"He read me a piece out of it," added Derette; "and it was a pretty
story about our Lady, and how she carried our Lord away when He was a
baby, that the wicked King should not get hold of Him.  It wasn't bad at
all, Cousin Anania.  You are bad, to say such things when you don't know
they are true."

"Hush, child!" said her mother.

"I'll hush," responded Derette, marching off to Agnes and the baby: "but
it's true, for all that."

"That girl wants teaching manners," commented Anania.  "I really think
it my duty, Aunt, to tell you that nearly every body that knows you is
talking of that child's forward manners and want of respect for her
betters.  You don't hear such remarks made, but I do.  She will be
insufferable if the thing is not stopped."

"Oh, well, stop it, then!" said Isel wearily, "only leave me in peace.
I'm just that tired!--"

"I beg your pardon, Aunt!  Derette is not my child.  I have no right to
correct her.  If I had--"

Anania left it to be understood that the consequences would not be to
her little cousin's taste.

"She'll get along well enough, I dare say.  I haven't time to bother
with her," said Isel.

"She will just be a bye-word in the whole town, Aunt.  You don't know
how people talk.  I've heard it said that you are too idle to take any
pains with the child."

"Idle?--me!" cried poor Isel.  "I'm up long before you, and I don't get
a wink of sleep till the whole town's been snoring for an hour or more:
and every minute of the time as full as it can be crammed.  I'll tell
you what, Anania, I don't believe you know what work means.  If you'd
just change with me for a week, you'd have an idea or two more in your
head at the end of it."

"I see, Aunt, you are vexed at what I told you," replied Anania in a
tone of superior virtue.  "I am thankful to say I have not my house in
the mess yours is, and my children are decently behaved.  I thought it
only kind to let you know the remarks that are being made: but of
course, if you prefer to be left ignorant, I don't need to stay.  Good
morrow!  Pray don't disturb yourself, Flemild--I can let myself out, as
you are all so busy.  You'll be sorry some day you did not take advice.
But I never obtrude my advice; if people don't want it, I shall not
trouble them with it.  It's a pity, that's all."

"Oh deary, deary!" cried poor Isel, as Anania sailed away with her head
held rather higher than usual.  "Why ever did she come to plague me,
when I've got my hands as full already!--And what on earth does she
mean, calling me names, and Derette too?  The child's good enough--only
a bit thoughtless, as children always are.  I do wonder why folks can't
let a body alone!"

For three days the Germans rested peacefully in their new quarters.  At
the end of that time, Gerhardt called on all his little company, and
desired them to meet him early on the following morning on a piece of
vacant ground, a few miles from the city.  They met as agreed, eighteen
men and eleven women, of all ages, from young Conrad whose moustache was
little more than down, to old Berthold who carried the weight of
threescore and fifteen years.

"My friends," said Gerhardt, "let us speak to our God, before we say
anything to each other."

All knelt, and Gerhardt poured forth a fervent prayer that God would be
with them and aid them in the work which they had undertaken; that He
would supply them with bread to eat, and raiment to put on; that He
would keep the door of their lips, that they should speak neither guile,
discourtesy, nor error, yet open their mouths that with all boldness
they might preach His Word; that none of them might be ashamed to
confess the faith of Christ crucified, nor seek to hide the offence of
the cross for the sake of pleasing men.  A whole-hearted Amen was the
response from the group around him.

They rose, and Gerhardt repeated by heart three Psalms--the fifteenth,
the forty-sixth, and the ninetieth--not in Latin, but in sonorous
German, many of his compatriots taking up the words and repeating them
with him, in a style which made it plain that they were very familiar.
Then Gerhardt spoke.

"I will but shortly remind you, my friends," he said, "of the reason for
which we are here.  Hundreds of years ago, it pleased God to send to us
Germans a good English pastor, who name was Winfrid, when we were poor
heathens, serving stocks and stones.  He came with intent to deliver us
from that gloomy bondage, and to convert us to the faith of Christ.  God
so blessed his efforts that as their consequence, Germany is Christian
at this day; and he, leaving his English name of Winfrid, the
Peace-Conqueror (though a truer name he could never have had), is known
among us as Boniface, the doer of good deeds.  Since his day, four
hundred years have passed, and the Church of Christ throughout the world
has woefully departed from the pure faith.  We are come out, like the
Apostles, a little company,--like them, poor and unlearned,--but rich in
the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord; we are come to tread in
their steps, to do the work they did, and to call the world back to the
pure truth of the earliest days of Christendom.  And we come here,
because it is here that our first duty is due.  We come to give back to
England the precious jewel of the true faith which she gave to us four
hundred years ago.  Let every one of us clearly understand for what we
are to be ready.  We tread in our Master's steps, and our Master was not
flattered and complimented by the world.  He came bringing salvation,
and the world would none of it, nor of Him.  So, if we find the world
hates us, let us be neither surprised nor afraid, but remember that it
hated Him, and that as He was, so are we in this world.  Let us be
prepared to go with Him, if need be, both into prison and to death.  If
we suffer with Him, we shall reign.  Brethren, if we seek to reign, we
must make account first to suffer."

"We are ready!" cried at least a dozen voices.

"Will ye who are foremost now, be the foremost in that day?" asked
Gerhardt, looking round upon them with a rather compassionate smile.
"God grant it may be so!  Now, my friends, I must further remind you--
not that ye know it not, but that ye may bear its importance in mind--
that beyond those beliefs common to all Christians, our faith confesses
three great doctrines which ye must teach.

"First, that Holy Scripture alone containeth all things necessary to
salvation; and nothing is to be taught as an article of faith but what
God has revealed.

"Secondly, the Church of God consists of all who hear and understand the
Word of God.  All the saved were elect of God before the foundation of
the world; all who are justified by Christ go into life eternal.
Therefore it follows that there is no Purgatory, and all masses are
damnable, especially those for the dead.  And whosoever upholds free
will--namely, man's capacity to turn to God as and when he will--denies
predestination and the grace of God.  Man is by nature utterly depraved;
and all the evil that he doth proceeds from his own depravity.

"Thirdly, we acknowledge one God and one Mediator--the Lord Jesus
Christ; and reject the invocation of saints or angels.  We own two
Sacraments--baptism and the Supper of the Lord; but all Church
observances not ordained by Christ and the Apostles, we reject as idle
superstitions and vain traditions of men.  [Note 3.]

"This is our faith.  Brethren, do ye all stand banded together in this
faith?"

Up went every right arm, some quietly, some impetuously.

"Furthermore," continued the leader, "as to conduct.  It is incumbent
upon us to honour all secular powers, with subjection, obedience,
promptitude, and payment of tribute.  On the Sabbath, cease ye from all
worldly labours, abstain from sin, do good works, and pay your devotions
to God.  Remember, to pray much is to be fervent in prayer, not to use
many words nor much time.  Be orderly in all things; in attire, so far
as lies in your power, avoid all appearance of either pride or squalor.
We enter no trade, that we may be free from falsehood: we live by the
labour of our hands, and are content with necessaries, not seeking to
amass wealth.  Be ye all chaste, temperate, sober, meek: owe no man
anything; give no reason for complaint.  Avoid taverns and dancing, as
occasions of evil.  The women among you I charge to be modest in manners
and apparel, to keep themselves free from foolish jesting and levity of
the world, especially in respect of falsehood and oaths.  Keep your
maidens, and see that they wander not; beware of suffering them to deck
and adorn themselves.  `We serve the Lord Christ.'  `Watch ye, stand
fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong!'  Read the Scriptures,
serve God in humility, be poor in spirit.  Remember that Antichrist is
all that opposeth Christ.  `Love not the world, neither the things of
the world.'  `Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us
free,' and bear in mind that ye are sent forth as sheep in the midst of
wolves, as under-shepherds to seek for His strayed sheep.  Beware that
ye glorify not yourselves, but Him.

"Berthold, Arnulph, and Guelph, ye tarry in this city with me, going
forth to preach in the surrounding villages, as the Lord shall grant us
opportunity.  Heinrich, Otho, Conrad, and Magnus, ye go northward to
evangelise in like manner.  Friedrich, Dietbold, Sighard, and Leopold,
ye to the south; Albrecht, Johann, and Hermann, ye to the east; Wilhelm,
Philipp, and Ludwig, ye to the west.  Every man shall take with him wife
and children that hath them.  The elder women among us--Cunegonde,
Helena, Luitgarde, Elisabeth, and Margarethe--I especially exhort to
instruct the young women, as the Apostle bids, and to evangelise in such
manner as women may, by modest and quiet talking with other women.  Once
in the year let us meet here, to compare experiences, resolve
difficulties, and to comfort and edify one another in our work.  And now
I commend you to God, and to the Word of His grace.  Go ye forth, strong
in the Lord, and in the power of His might, always abounding in the work
of the Lord, teaching all to observe whatsoever He has commanded.  For
lo!  He is with us always, even unto the end of the world."

Another fervent prayer followed the address.  Then each of the little
company came up in turn to Gerhardt, who laid his hand upon the head of
every one, blessing them in the name of the Lord.  As each thus took
leave, he set out in the direction which he had been bidden to take,
eight accompanied by their wives, and three by children.  Then Gerhardt,
with Agnes and Ermine, turned back into the town; Berthold, with his
wife Luitgarde, and his daughter Adelheid, followed; while Arnulph and
Guelph, who were young unmarried men, went off to begin their preaching
tour in the villages.

The day afterwards, the priest of Saint Aldate's rapped at the door of
the Walnut Tree.  It was opened by Flemild, who made a low reverence
when she saw him.  With hand uplifted in blessing, and--"Christ save all
here!"--he walked into the house, where Isel received him with an
equally respectful courtesy.

"So I hear, my daughter, you have friends come to see you?"

"Well, they aren't friends exactly," said Isel: "leastwise not yet.  May
be, in time--hope they will."

"Whence come they, then, if they be strangers?"

"Well," replied Isel, who generally began her sentences with that
convenient adverb, "to tell truth, Father, it beats me to say.  They've
come over-sea, from foreign parts; but I can't get them outlandish names
round my tongue."

"Do they speak French or English?"

"One of 'em speaks French, after a fashion, but it's a queer fashion.
As to English, I haven't tried 'em."

The Reverend Dolfin (he had no surname) considered the question.

"They are Christians, of course?"

"That they are, Father, and good too.  Why, they say their prayers
several times a day."

The priest did not think that item of evidence so satisfactory as Isel
did.  But he had not come with any intention of ferreting out doubtful
characters or suspicious facts.  He was no ardent heretic-hunter, but a
quiet, peaceable man, as inoffensive as a priest could be.

"Decent and well-behaved?" he asked.

"As quiet and sensible as any living creature in this street," Isel
assured him.  "The women are good workers, and none of them's a talker,
and that's no small blessing!"

"Truly, thou art right there, my daughter," said the priest, who,
knowing nothing about women, was under the impression that they rarely
did any thing but talk, and perform a little desultory housework in the
intervals between the paragraphs.  "So far, good.  I trust they will
continue equally well-behaved, and will give no scandal to their
neighbours."

"I'll go surety for that," answered Isel rather warmly; "more than I
will for their neighbours giving them none.  Father, I'd give a silver
penny you'd take my niece Anania in hand; she'll be the death of me if
she goes on.  Do give her a good talking-to, and I'll thank you all the
days of my life!"

"With what does she go on?" asked the priest, resting both hands on his
silver-headed staff.

"Words!" groaned poor Isel.  "And they bain't pretty words, Father--not
by no manner of means.  She's for ever and the day after interfering
with every mortal thing one does.  And her own house is just right-down
slatternly, and her children are coming up any how.  If she'd just spend
the time a-scouring as she spends a-chattering, her house 'd be the
cleanest place in Oxfordshire.  But as for the poor children, I'm that
sorry!  Whatever they do, or don't do, they get a slap for it; and then
she turns round on me because I don't treat mine the same.  Why, there's
nothing spoils children's tempers like everlasting scolding and slapping
of 'em.  I declare I don't know which to be sorriest for, them that
never gets no bringing up at all, or them that's slapped from morning to
night."

"Does her husband allow all that?"

"Bless you, Father, he's that easy a man, if she slapped _him_, he'd
only laugh and give it back.  It's true, when he's right put out he'll
take the whip to her; but he'll stand a deal first that he'd better not.
Biggest worry I have, she is!"

"Be thankful, my daughter, if thy biggest worry be outside thine own
door."

"That I would, Father, if I could keep her outside, but she's always
a-coming in."

The priest laughed.

"I will speak to my brother Vincent about her," he said.  "You know the
Castle is not in my parish."

"Well, I pray you, Father, do tell Father Vincent to give it her strong.
She's one o' them that won't do with it weak.  It'll just run off her
like water on a duck's back.  Father, do you think my poor man 'll ever
come back?"

The priest grew grave when asked that question.

"I cannot tell, my daughter.  Bethink thee, that if he fall in that holy
conflict, he is assured of Heaven.  How long is it since his departing?"

"It's two years good, Father--going in three: and I'm glad enough he
should be sure of Heaven, but saving your presence, I want him here on
earth.  It's hard work for a lone woman to bring up four children, never
name boys, that's as rampageous as young colts, and about as easy to
catch.  And the younger and sillier they are, the surer they are to
think they know better than their own mother."

"That is a standing grievance, daughter," said the priest with a smile,
as he rose to take leave.  "Well, I am glad to hear so good a report of
these strangers.  So long as they conduct themselves well, and come to
church, and give no offence to any, there can be no harm in your giving
them hospitality.  But remember that if they give any occasion of
scandal, your duty will be to let me know, that I may deal with them.
The saints keep you!"

No occasion of scandal required that duty from Isel.  Every now and then
Gerhardt absented himself--for what purpose she did not know; but he
left Agnes and Ermine behind, and they never told the object of his
journeys.  At home he lived quietly enough, generally following his
trade of weaving, but always ready to do any thing required by his
hostess.  Isel came to congratulate herself highly on the presence of
her quiet, kindly, helpful guests.  In a house where the whole upper
floor formed a single bedchamber, divided only by curtains stretched
across, and the whole ground-floor was parlour and kitchen in one, a few
inmates more or less, so long as they were pleasant and peaceable, were
of small moment.  Outwardly, the Germans conducted themselves in no way
pointedly different from their English hosts.  They indulged in rather
longer prayers, but this only increased the respect in which they were
held.  They went to church like other people; and if they omitted the
usual reverences paid to the images, they did it so unobtrusively that
it struck and shocked no one.

The Roman Church, in 1160, was yet far from filling the measure of her
iniquity.  The mass was in Latin, but transubstantiation was only a
"pious opinion;" there were invocation of saints and worship of images,
prayers for the dead, and holy water; but dispensations and indulgences
were uninvented, the Inquisition was unknown, numbers of the clergy were
married men, and that organ of tyranny and sin, termed auricular
confession, had not yet been set up to grind the consciences and torment
the hearts of those who sought to please God according to the light they
enjoyed.  Without that, it was far harder to persecute; for how could a
man be indicted for the belief in his heart, if he chose to keep the
door of his lips?

The winter passed quietly away, and Isel was--for her--well pleased with
her new departure.  The priest, having once satisfied himself that the
foreign visitors were nominal Christians, and gave no scandal to their
neighbours, ceased to trouble himself about them.  Anania continued to
make disagreeable remarks at times, but gradually even she became more
callous on the question, and nobody else ever said any thing.

"I do wonder if Father Vincent have given her a word or two," said Isel.
"She hasn't took much of it, if he have.  If she isn't at me for one
thing, she's at me for another.  If it were to please the saints to make
Osbert the Lord King's door-keeper, so as he'd go and live at London or
Windsor, I shouldn't wonder if I could get over it!"

"Ah, `the tongue can no man tame,'" observed Gerhardt with a smile.

"I don't so much object to tongues when they've been in salt," said
Isel.  "It's fresh I don't like 'em, and with a live temper behind of
'em.  They don't agree with me then."

"It is the live temper behind, or rather the evil heart, which is the
thing to blame.  `Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,' which grow
into evil words and deeds.  Set the heart right, and the tongue will
soon follow."

"I reckon that's a bit above either you or me," replied Isel with a
sigh.

"A man's thoughts are his own," interposed Haimet rather warmly.
"Nobody has a right to curb them."

"No man can curb them," said Gerhardt, "unless the thinker put a curb on
himself.  He that can rule his own thoughts is king of himself: he that
never attempts it is `a reed driven with the wind and tossed.'"

"Oh, there you fly too high for me," said Haimet.  "If my acts and words
are inoffensive, I have a right to my thoughts."

"Has any man a right to evil thoughts?" asked Gerhardt.

"What, you are one of those precise folks who make conscience of their
thoughts?  I call that all stuff and nonsense," replied Haimet, throwing
down the hammer he was using.

"If I make no conscience of my thoughts, of what am I to make
conscience?" was the answer.  "Thought is the seed, act the flower.  If
you do not wish for the flower, the surest way is not to sow the seed.
Sow it, and the flower will blossom, whether you will or no."

"That sort of thing may suit you," said Haimet rather in an irritated
tone.  "I could never get along, if I had to be always measuring my
thoughts with an ell-wand in that fashion."

"Do you prefer the consequences?" asked Gerhardt.

"Consequences!--what consequences?"

"Rather awkward ones, sometimes.  Thoughts of hatred, for instance, may
issue in murder, and that may lead to your own death.  If the thoughts
had been curbed in the first instance, the miserable results would have
been spared to all the sufferers.  And `no man liveth to himself': it is
very seldom that you can bring suffering on one person only.  It is
almost sure to run over to two or three more.  And as the troubles of
every one of them will run over to another two or three, like circles in
the water, the sorrow keeps ever widening, so that the consequences of
one small act or word for evil are incalculable.  It takes God to reckon
them."

"Eh, don't you, now!" said Isel with a shudder.  "Makes me go all creepy
like, that does.  I shouldn't dare to do a thing all the days of my
life, if I looked at every thing that way."

"Friend," said Gerhardt gravely, "these things _are_.  It does not
destroy them to look away from them.  It is not given to us to choose
whether we will act, but only how we will act.  In some manner, for good
or for ill, act we must."

"I declare I won't listen to you, Gerard.  I'm going creepy-crawly this
minute.  Oh deary me! you do make things look just awful."

"Rubbish!" said Haimet, driving a nail into the wall with unnecessary
vehemence.

"It is the saying of a wise man, friends," remarked Gerhardt, "that `he
that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little.'  And with
equal wisdom he saith again, `Be not confident in a plain way.'"  [Note
5.]

"But it is all nonsense to say `we must act,'" resumed Haimet.  "We need
not act in any way unless we choose.  How am I acting if I sit here and
do nothing?"

"Unless you are resting after work is done, you are setting an example
of idleness or indecision.  Not to do, is sometimes to do in a most
effectual way.  Not to hinder the doing of evil, when it lies in your
power, is equivalent to doing it."

Haimet stared at Gerhardt for a moment.

"What a wicked lot of folks you would make us out to be!"

"So we are," said Gerhardt with a quiet smile.

"Oh, I see!--that's how you come by your queer notions of every man's
heart being bad.  Well, you are consistent, I must admit."

"I come by that notion, because I have seen into my own.  I think I have
most thoroughly realised my own folly by noting in how many cases, if I
were endued with the power of God, I should not do what He does: and in
like manner, I most realise my own wickedness by seeing the frequent
instances wherein my will raises itself up in opposition to the will of
God."

"But how is it, then, that I never see such things in myself?"

"Your eyes are shut, for one thing.  Moreover, you set up your own will
as the standard to be followed, without seeking to ascertain the will of
God.  Therefore you do not see the opposition between them."

"Oh, I don't consider myself a saint or an angel.  I have done foolish
things, of course, and I dare say, some things that were not exactly
right.  We are all sinners, I suppose, and I am much like other people.
But taking one thing with another, I think I am a very decent fellow.  I
can't worry over my `depravity,' as you do.  I am not depraved.  I know
several men much worse than I am in every way."

"Is that the ell-wand by which God will measure you?  He will not hold
you up against those men, but against the burning snow-white light of
His own holiness.  What will you look like then?"

"Is that the way you are going to be measured, too?"

"I thank God, no.  Christ our Lord will be measured for me, and He has
fulfilled the whole Law."

"And why not for me?" said Haimet fiercely.  "Am I not a baptised
Christian, just as much as you?"

"Friend, you will not be asked in that day whether you were a baptised
Christian, but whether you were a believing Christian.  Sins that are
laid on Christ are gone--they exist no longer.  But sins that are not so
destroyed have to be borne by the sinner himself."

"Well, I call that cowardice," said Haimet, drawing a red herring across
the track, "to want to burden somebody else with your sins.  Why not
have the manliness to bear them yourself?"

"If you are so manly," answered Gerhardt with another of his quiet
smiles, "will you oblige me, Haimet, by taking up the Castle, and
setting it down on Presthey?"

"What are you talking about now?  How could I?"

"Much more easily than you could atone for one sin.  What do you call a
man who proposes to do the impossible?"

"A fool."

"And what would you call the bondman whose master had generously paid
his debt, and who refused to accept that generosity, but insisted on
working it out himself, though the debt was more than he could discharge
by the work of a thousand years?"

"Call him what you like," said Haimet, not wishing to go too deeply into
the question.

"I will leave you to choose the correct epithet," said Gerhardt, and
went on with his carving in silence.

The carving was beginning to bring in what Isel called "a pretty penny."
Gerhardt's skill soon became known, and the Countess of Oxford employed
him to make coffers, and once sent for him to the Castle to carve
wreaths on a set of oak panels.  He took the work as it came, and in the
intervals, or on the summer evenings, he preached on the village greens
in the neighbourhood.  His audiences were often small, but his doctrines
spread quietly and beneath the surface.  Not one came forward to join
him openly, but many went away with thoughts that they had never had
before.  Looked on from the outside, Gerhardt's work seemed of no value,
and blessed with no success.  Yet it is possible that its inward
progress was not little.  There may have been silent souls that lived
saintly lives in that long past century, who owed their first awakening
or their gradual edification to some word of his; it may be that the
sturdy resistance of England to Papal aggression in the subsequent
century had received its impetus from his unseen hand.  Who shall say
that he achieved nothing?  The world wrote "unsuccessful" upon his work:
did God write "blessed"?  One thing at least I think he must have
written--"Thou hast been faithful in a few things."  And while the
measure of faithfulness is not that of success, it is that of the
ultimate reward, in that Land where many that were first shall be last,
and the last first.  "They that are with" the Conqueror in the last
great battle, are not the successful upon earth, but the "called and
chosen and faithful."

"If any man serve Me, let him follow Me,"--and what work ever had less
the appearance of success than that which seemed to close on Calvary?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1.  "William, son of the fat priest," occurs on the Pipe Roll for
1176, Unless "Grossus" is to be taken as a Christian name.

Note 2.  Servant or slave of Michael.  The Scottish _gillie_ comes from
the same root.

Note 3.  These are the tenets of the ancient Waldensian Church, with
which, so far as they are known, those of the German mission agreed.
(They are exactly those of the Church of England, set forth in her
Sixth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Seventeenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth,
Twenty-Second, Twenty-Fifth, and Thirty-First Articles of Religion.)
She accepted two of our three Creeds, excluding the Nicene.

Note 4.  Ecclesiasticus nineteen 1, and thirty-two 21.  The Waldensian
Church regarded the Apocrypha as the Church of England does--not as
inspired Scripture, but as a good book to be read "for example of life
and instruction of manners."



CHAPTER THREE.

THE JEWISH MAIDEN'S VOW.

              "To thine own self be true!
  And it must follow, as the night the day,
  Thou canst not then be false to any man."

  Shakespeare.

"There's the Mayor sent orders for the streets to be swept clean, and
all the mud carted out of the way.  You'd best sweep afore your own
door, and then maybe you'll have less rate to pay, Aunt Isel."

It was Stephen the Watchdog who looked in over the half-door to give
this piece of information.

"What's that for?" asked Isel, stopping in the work of mopping the brick
floor.

"The Lady Queen comes through on her way to Woodstock."

"To-day?" said Flemild and Derette together.

"Or to-morrow.  A running footman came in an hour ago, to say she was at
Abingdon, and bid my Lord hold himself in readiness to meet her at the
East Gate.  The vintners have had orders to send in two tuns of Gascon
and Poitou wine; and Henry the Mason tells me a new cellar and chimney
were made last week in the Queen's chamber at Woodstock.  Geoffrey the
Sumpter was in town yesterday, buying budgets, coffers, and bottles.  So
if you girls want to see her, you had better make haste and get your
work done, and tidy yourselves up, and be at the East Gate by noon or
soon after."

"Get their work done!  Don't you know better than that, Stephen?  A
woman's work never is done.  It's you lazy loons of men that stop
working and take your pleasure when night comes.  Work done, indeed!"

"But, Isel, I will finish de work for you.  Go you and take your
pleasure to see de Queen, meine friend.  You have not much de pleasure."

"You're a good soul, Agnes, and it was a fine day for me when I took you
in last winter.  But as for pleasure, it and me parted company a smart
little while ago.  Nay, let the maids go; I'll tarry at home.  You can
go if you will.--Stephen! are you bound elsewhere, or can you come and
look after the girls?"

"I can't, Aunt Isel; I'm on duty in the Bayly in half an hour, and when
I shall be free again you must ask my Lord or Master Mayor."

"Never mind: the boys are safe to be there.  Catch them missing a show!
Now, Flemild, child, drop that washing; and leave the gavache [Note 1],
Ermine, and get yourselves ready.  It's only once in three or four years
at most that you're like to see such a sight.  Make haste, girls."

There was little need to tell the girls to make haste.  Flemild hastily
wrung out the apron she was washing, and pinned it on the line; Ermine
drew the thread from her needle--the entire household owned but one of
those useful and costly articles--and put it carefully away; while
Derette tumbled up the ladder at imminent risk to her limbs, to fling
back the lid of the great coffer at the bed-foot, and institute a
search, which left every thing in wild confusion, for her sister's best
kerchief and her own.  Just as the trio were ready to start, Gerhardt
came in.

"Saint Frideswide be our aid! wherever are them boys?" demanded Isel of
nobody in particular.

"One on the top of the East Gate," said Gerhardt, "and the other playing
at quarter-staff in Pary's Mead."

Pary's Mead lay between Holywell Church and the East Gate, on the north
of the present Magdalen College.

"Lack-a-daisy! but however are the girls to get down to the gate?  I
daren't let 'em go by themselves."

The girls looked blank: and two big tears filled Derette's eyes, ready
to fall.

"If all you need is an escort, friend, here am I," said Gerhardt; "but
why should the girls go alone?  I would fain take you and Agnes too."

"Take Agnes and welcome," said Isel with a sigh; "but I'm too old, I
reckon, and poor company at best."

A little friendly altercation followed, ended by Gerhardt's decided
assertion that Agnes should not go without her hostess.

"But who's to see to Baby?" said Derette dolefully.

"We will lock up the house, and leave Baby with old Turguia," suggested
Isel.

"Nay, she tramped off to see the show an hour ago."

"Never mind!  I'll stop with Baby," said Derette with heroic
self-abnegation.

"Indeed you shall not," said Ermine.

A second war of amiability seemed likely to follow, when a voice said at
the door--

"Do you all want to go out?  I am not going to the show.  Will you trust
me with the child?"

Isel turned and stared in amazement at the questioner.

"I would not hurt it," pleaded the Jewish maiden in a tremulous voice.
"Do trust me!  I know you reckon us bad people; but indeed we are not so
black as you think us.  My baby brother died last summer; and my aims
are so cold and empty since.  Let me have a little child in them once
more!"

"But--you will want to see the show," responded Isel, rather as an
excuse to decline the offered help than for any more considerate reason.

"No--I do not care for the show.  I care far more for the child.  I have
stood at the corner and watched you with him, so often, and have longed
so to touch him, if it might be but with one finger.  Won't you let me?"

Agnes was looking from the girl to Gerhardt, as if she knew not what to
do.

"Will you keep him from harm, and bring him back as soon as we return,
if you take him?" asked Gerhardt.  "Remember, the God in whom we both
believe hears and records your words."

"Let Him do so to me and more also," answered Countess solemnly, "if I
bring not the child to you unhurt."

Gerhardt lifted little Rudolph from his mother's arms and placed him in
those of the dark-eyed maiden.

"The Lord watch over thee and him!" he said.

"Amen!"  And as Countess carried away the baby close pressed to her
bosom, they saw her stoop down and kiss it almost passionately.

"Holy Virgin! what have you done, Gerard?" cried Isel in horror.  "Don't
you know there is poison in a Jew's breath?  They'll as sure cast a
spell upon that baby as my name's Isel."

"No, I don't," said Gerhardt a little drily.  "I only know that some men
say so.  I have placed my child in the hands of the Lord; and He, not I,
has laid it in that maiden's.  It may be that this little kindness is a
link in the chain of Providence, whereby He designs to bring her soul to
Him.  Who am I, if so, that I should put my boy or myself athwart His
purpose?"

"Well, you're mighty pious, I know," said Isel.  "Seems to me you should
have been a monk, by rights.  However, what's done is done.  Let's be
going, for there's no time to waste."

They went a little way down Fish Street, passing the Jewish synagogue,
which stood about where the northernmost tower of Christ Church is now,
turned to the left along Civil School Lane--at the south end of Tom
Quad, coming out about Canterbury Gate--pursued their way along Saint
John Baptist Street, now Merton Street, and turning again to the left
where it ended, skirted the wall till they reached the East Gate.  Here
a heterogeneous crowd was assembled, about the gate, and on the top were
perched a number of adventurous youths, among whom Haimet was descried.

"Anything coming?"  Gerhardt called to him.

"Yes, a drove of pigs," Haimet shouted back.

The pigs came grunting in, to be sarcastically greeted by the crowd, who
immediately styled the old sow and her progeny by the illustrious names
of Queen Eleonore and the royal children.  Her Majesty was not very
popular, the rather since she lived but little in England, and was known
greatly to prefer her native province of Aquitaine.  Still, a show was
always a show, and the British public is rarely indifferent to it.

The pigs having grunted themselves up Cat Street--running from the east
end of Saint Mary's to Broad Street--a further half-hour of waiting
ensued, beguiled by rough joking on the part of the crowd.  Then Haimet
called down to his friends--

"Here comes Prester John, in his robes of estate!"

The next minute, a running footman in the royal livery--red and gold--
bearing a long wand decorated at the top with coloured ribbons, sped in
at the gate, and up High Street on his way to the Castle.  In ten
minutes more, a stir was perceptible at the west end of High Street, and
down to the gate, on richly caparisoned horses, came the Earl and
Countess of Oxford, followed by a brilliant crowd of splendidly-dressed
officials.  It was evident that the Queen must be close at hand.

All eyes were now fixed on the London Road, up which the royal cavalcade
was quickly seen approaching.  First marched a division of the guard of
honour, followed by the officials of the household, on horseback; then
came the Queen in her char, followed by another bearing her ladies.  The
remainder of the guard brought up the rear.

The char was not much better than a handsomely-painted cart.  It had no
springs, and travelling in it must have been a trying process.  But the
horses bore superb silken housings, and the very bits were gilt.  [Note
2.]  Ten strong men in the royal livery walked, five on each side of the
char; and their office, which was to keep it upright in the miry
tracks--roads they were not--was by no means a sinecure.

The royal lady, seated on a Gothic chair which made the permanent seat
of the char, being fixed to it, was one of the most remarkable women who
have ever reigned in England.  If a passage of Scripture illustrative of
the life and character were to be selected to append to the statue of
each of our kings and queens, there would be little difficulty in the
choice to be made for Eleonore of Aquitaine.  "Whatsoever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap."  She sowed the wind, and she reaped the
whirlwind.  A youth of the wildest giddiness was succeeded by a middle
life of suffering and hardship, and both ended in an old age of
desolation.

But when Eleonore rode in that spring noon-day at the East Gate of
Oxford, the reaping-time was not yet.  The headstrong giddiness was a
little toned down, but the terrible retribution had not begun.

The Queen's contemporaries are eloquent as to her wondrous loveliness
and her marvellous accomplishments.  "Beauty possessed both her mind and
body," says one writer who lived in the days of her grandson, while
another expatiates on her "_clairs et verds yeux_," and a third on her
"exquisite mouth, and the most splendid eyes in the world."  Her Majesty
was attired with equal stateliness and simplicity, for that was not an
era of superb or extravagant dress.  A close gown with tight sleeves was
surmounted by a pelisse, the sleeves of which were very wide and full,
and the fur trimming showed the high rank of the wearer.  A long white
veil came over her head, and fell around her, kept in its place by a
jewelled fillet.  The gemmed collar of gold at the neck, and the thick
leather gloves (with no partitions for the fingers) heavily embroidered
on the back, were also indicative of regal rank.

The Queen's char stopped just within the gate, so that our friends had
an excellent view of her.  She greeted the Earl and Countess of Oxford
with a genial grace, which she well knew how to assume; gave her hand to
be kissed to a small selection of the highest officials, and then the
char passed on, and the sight was over.

Isel and her friends turned homewards, not waiting for the after portion
of the entertainment.  There was to be a bull-baiting in the afternoon
on Presthey--Christ Church Meadow--and a magnificent bonfire at night in
Gloucester Meadows--Jericho; but these enjoyments they left to the boys.
There would be plenty of women, however, at the bull-baiting; as many
as at a Spanish _corrida_.  The idea of its being a cruel pastime, or
even of cruelty being at all objectionable or demoralising, with very
few exceptions, had not then dawned on the minds of men.

They returned by the meadows outside the city, entering at the South
Gate.  As they came up Fish Street, they could see Countess on a low
seat at her father's door, with little Rudolph on her knee, both parties
looking very well content with their position.  On their reaching the
corner, she rose and came to meet them.

"Here is the baby," she said, smiling rather sadly.  "See, I have not
done him any harm!  And it has done me good.  You will let me have him
again some day?--some time when you all want to go out, and it will be a
convenience to you.  Farewell, my pretty bird!"

And she held out the boy to Agnes.  Little Rudolph had shown signs of
pleasure at the sight of his mother; but it soon appeared that he was
not pleased by any means at the prospect of parting with his new friend.
Countess had kept him well amused, and he had no inclination to see an
abrupt end put to his amusement.  He struggled and at last screamed his
disapprobation, until it became necessary for Gerhardt to interfere, and
show the young gentleman decidedly that he must not always expect to
have his own way.

"I t'ank you"--Agnes began to say, in her best English, which was still
imperfect, though Ermine spoke it fluently now.  But Countess stopped
her, rather to her surprise, by a few hurried words in her own tongue.

"Do not thank me," she said, with a flash of the black eyes.  "It is I
who should thank you."

And running quickly across Fish Street, the Jewish maiden disappeared
inside her father's door.

All European nations at that date disliked and despised the hapless sons
of Israel: but the little company to whom Gerhardt and Agnes belonged
were perhaps a shade less averse to them than others.  They were to some
extent companions in misfortune, being themselves equally despised and
detested by many; and they were much too familiar with the Word of God
not to recognise that His blessing still rested on the seed of Abraham
His friend, hidden "for a little moment" by a cloud, but one day to
burst into a refulgence of heavenly sunlight.  When, therefore, Flemild
asked Ermine, as they were laying aside their out-door garb--"Don't you
hate those horrid creatures?" it was not surprising that Ermine paused
before replying.

"Don't you?" repeated Flemild.

"No," said Ermine, "I do not think I do."

"_Don't_ you?" echoed Flemild for the third time, and with emphasis.
"Why, Ermine, they crucified our Lord."

"So did you and I, Flemild; and He bids us love one another."

Flemild stood struck with astonishment, her kerchief half off her head.

"I crucified our Lord!" she exclaimed.  "Ermine, what can you mean?"

"Sin crucified Him," said Ermine quietly; "your sins and mine, was it
not?  If He died not for our sins, we shall have to bear them ourselves.
And did He not die for Countess too?"

"I thought He died for those who are in holy Church; and Countess is a
wicked heathen Jew."

"Yes, for holy Church, which means those whom God has chosen out of the
world.  How can you know that Countess is not some day to be a member of
holy Church?"

"Ermine, they are regular wicked people!"

"We are all wicked people, till God renews us by His Holy Spirit."

"I'm not!" cried Flemild indignantly; "and I don't believe you are
either."

"Ah, Flemild, that is because you are blind.  Sin has darkened our eyes;
we cannot see ourselves."

"Ermine, do you mean to say that you see me a wicked creature like a
Jew?"

"By nature, I am as blind as you, Flemild."

"`By nature'!  What do you mean?  _Do_ you see me so?"

"Flemild, dear friend, what if God sees it?"

Ermine had spoken very softly and tenderly, but Flemild was not in a
mood to appreciate the tenderness.

"Well!" she said in a hard tone.  "If we are so dreadfully wicked, I
wonder you like to associate with us."

"But if I am equally wicked?" suggested Ermine with a smile.

"I wonder how you can hold such an opinion of yourself.  I should not
like to think myself so bad.  I could not bear it."

Flemild entertained the curious opinion--it is astonishing how many
people unwittingly hold it--that a fact becomes annihilated by a man
shutting his eyes to it.  Ermine regarded her with a look of slight
amusement.

"What difference would it make if I did not think so?" she asked.

Flemild laughed, only then realising the absurdity of her own remark.
It augured well for her good sense that she could recognise the
absurdity when it was pointed out to her.

Coming down the ladder, they found Anania seated below.

"Well, girls! did you see the Queen?"

"Oh, we had a charming view of her," said Flemild.

"Folks say she's not so charming, seen a bit nearer.  You know Veka, the
wife of Chembel?  She told me she'd heard Dame Ediva de Gathacra say the
Queen's a perfect fury when she has her back up.  Some of the scenes
that are to be seen by nows and thens in Westminster Palace are enough
to set your hair on end.  And her extravagance!  Will you believe it,
Dame Ediva said, this last year she gave over twenty pounds for one
robe.  How many gowns would that buy you and me, Aunt Isel?"

At the present value of money, Her Majesty's robe cost rather more than
500.

"Bless you, I don't know," was Isel's answer.  "Might be worth cracking
my head over, if I were to have one of 'em when I'd done.  But there's
poor chance of that, I reckon; so I'll let it be."

"They say she sings superbly," said Flemild.

"Oh, very like.  Folks may well sing that can afford to give twenty
pound for a gown.  If she'd her living to earn, and couldn't put a bit
of bread in her mouth, nor in her children's, till she'd worked for it,
she'd sing o' t'other side her mouth, most likely."

"Anania, don't talk so unseemly.  I'm sure you've a good enough place."

"Oh, are you?  I dress in samite, like the Queen, don't I?--and eat
sturgeon and peacocks to my dinner?--and drive of a gilt char when I
come to see folks?  I should just like to know why she must have all the
good things in life, and I must put up with the hard ones?  I'm as good
a woman as she is, I'm sure of that."

"Cousin Anania," said Derette in a scandalised tone, "you should not
tell us you're a good woman; you should wait till we tell you."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" snapped Anania.

"_I_ didn't tell you so because I don't think so," replied Derette with
severity, "if you say such things of the Queen."

"Much anybody cares what you think, child.  Why, just look!--tuns and
tuns of Gascon wine are sent to Woodstock for her: and here must I make
shift with small ale and thin mead that's half sour.  She's only to ask
and have."

"Well, I don't know," said Isel.  "I wouldn't give my quiet home for a
sup of Gascon wine--more by reason I don't like it.  `Scenes at
Westminster Palace' are not things I covet.  My poor Manning was
peaceable enough, and took a many steps to save me, and I doubt if King
Henry does even to it.  Eh dear! if I did but know what had come of my
poor man!  I should have thought all them Saracens 'd have been dead and
buried by now, when you think what lots of folks has gone off to kill
'em.  And as to `asking and having'--well, that hangs on what you ask
for.  There's a many folks asks for the moon, but I never heard tell as
any of 'em had it."

"Why do folks go to kill the Saracens?" demanded Derette, still
unsatisfied on that point.

"Saints know!" said her mother, using her favourite comfortable
expletive.  "I wish _he_ hadn't ha' gone--I do so!"

"It's a good work, child," explained Anania.

"Wouldn't it have been a good work for Father to stay at home, and save
steps for Mother?"

"I think it would, my child," said Gerhardt; "but God knoweth best, and
He let thy father go.  Sometimes what seems to us the best work is not
the work God has appointed for us."

Had Gerhardt wished to drive away Anania, he could not have taken a
surer method than by words which savoured of piety.  She resembled a
good many people in the present day, who find the Bread of Life very dry
eating, and if they must swallow a little of it, can only be persuaded
to do so by a thick coating of worldly butter.  They may be coaxed to
visit the church where the finest anthem is sung, but that where the
purest Gospel is preached has no attraction for them.  The porter's
wife, therefore, suddenly discovered that she had plenty to do at home,
and took her departure, much to the relief of the friends on whom she
inflicted herself.  She had not been gone many minutes when Stephen
looked in.

"Lads not come in yet?" said he.  "Well, have you seen the grand sight?
The Queen's gone again; she only stayed for supper at the Castle, and
then off to Woodstock.  She'll not be there above a month, they say.
She never tarries long in England at once.  But the King's coming back
this autumn--so they say."

"Who say?" asked Gerhardt.

"Oh, every body," said Stephen with a laugh, as he leaned over the
half-door.

"_Every_ body?" inquired Gerhardt drily.

"Oh, come, you drive things too fine for me.  Every body, that is
anybody."

"I thought every body was somebody."

"Not in this country: maybe in yours," responded Stephen, still
laughing.  "But I'm forgetting what I came for.  Aunt Isel, do you want
either a sheep or a pig?"

"Have you got 'em in that wallet on your back?"

"Not at present, but I can bring you either if you want it."

"What's the price, and who's selling them?"

"Our neighbour Veka wants to sell three or four bacon pigs and
half-a-dozen young porkers; Martin le bon Fermier, brother of Henry the
Mason, has a couple of hundred sheep to sell."

"But what's the cost?  Veka's none so cheap to deal with, though she
feeds her pigs well, I know."

"Well, she wants two shillings a-piece for the bacons, and four for the
six porkers."

"Ay, I knew she'd clap the money on!  No, thank you; I'm not made of
gold marks, nor silver pennies neither."

"Well, but the sheep are cheap enough; he only asks twopence halfpenny
each."

"That's not out of the way.  We might salt one or two.  I'll think about
it.  Not in a hurry to a day or two, is he?"

"Oh, no; I shouldn't think so."

"Has he any flour or beans to sell, think you?  I could do with both
those, if they were reasonable."

"Ay, he has.  Beans a shilling a quarter, and flour fourteen pence a
load.  [Note 3.]  Very good flour, he says it is."

"Should be, at that price.  Well, I'll see: maybe I shall walk over one
of these days and chaffer with him.  Any way, I'm obliged to you,
Stephen, for letting me know of it."

"Very good, Aunt Isel; Martin will be glad to see you, and I'll give
Bretta a hint to be at home when you come, if you'll let me know the day
before."

This was a mischievous suggestion on Stephen's part, as he well knew
that Martin's wife was not much to his aunt's liking.

"Don't, for mercy's sake!" cried Isel.  "She's a tongue as long as a
yard measure, and there isn't a scrap of gossip for ten miles on every
side of her that she doesn't hand on to the first comer.  She'd know all
I had on afore I'd been there one Paternoster, and every body else 'd
know it too, afore the day was out."

The space of time required to repeat the Lord's Prayer--of course as
fast as possible--was a measure in common use at that day.

"Best put on your holiday clothes, then," said Stephen with a laugh, and
whistling for his dog, which was engaged in the pointing of Countess's
kitten, he turned down Fish Street on his way to the East Gate.

Stephen's progress was arrested, as he came to the end of Kepeharme
Lane, by a long and picturesque procession which issued from the western
door of Saint Frideswide.  Eight priests, fully robed, bore under a
canopy the beautifully-carved coffer which held the venerated body of
the royal saint, and they were accompanied by the officials of the
Cathedral, the choir chanting a litany, and a long string of nuns
bringing up the rear.  Saint Frideswide was on her way to the bedside of
a paralysed rich man, who had paid an immense sum for her visit, in the
hope that he might be restored to the use of his faculties by a touch of
her miracle-working relics.  As the procession passed up the street, a
door opened in the Jewry, and out came a young Jew named Dieulecresse
[Note 4], who at once set himself to make fun of Saint Frideswide.
Limping up the street as though he could scarcely stir, he suddenly drew
himself erect and walked down with a free step; clenching his hands as
if they were rigid, he then flung his arms open and worked his fingers
rapidly.

"O ye men of Oxford, bring me your oblations!" he cried.  "See ye not
that I am a doer of wonders, like your saint, and that my miracles are
quite as good and real as hers?"

The procession passed on, taking no notice of the mockery.  But when,
the next day, it was known that Dieulecresse had committed suicide in
the night, the priests did not spare the publication of the fact, with
the comment that Saint Frideswide had taken vengeance on her enemy, and
that her honour was fully vindicated from his aspersions.

"Ah!" said Gerhardt softly, "`those eighteen, on whom the tower in
Siloam fell!'  How ready men are to account them sinners above all men
that dwell in Jerusalem!  Yet it may be that they who thus judge are the
worse sinners of the two, in God's eyes, however high they stand in the
world's sight."

"Well, I don't set up to be better than other folks," said Stephen
lightly.  He had brought the news.  "I reckon I shall pass muster, if
I'm as good."

"That would not satisfy me," said Gerhardt.  "I should want to be as
good as I could be.  I could not pass beyond that.  But even then--"

"That's too much trouble for me," laughed Stephen.  "When you've done
your work, hand me over the goodness you don't want."

"I shall not have any, for it won't be enough."

"That's a poor lookout!"

"It would be, if I had to rely on my own goodness."

Stephen stared.  "Why, whose goodness are you going to rely on?"

Gerhardt lifted his cap.  "`There is none good but One,--that is, God.'"

"I reckon that's aiming a bit too high," said Stephen, with a shake of
his head.  "Can't tell how you're going to get hold of that."

"Nor could I, unless the Lord had first laid hold of me.  `_He_ hath
covered me with the robe of righteousness'--I do not put it on myself."

Gerhardt never made long speeches on religious topics.  He said what he
had to say, generally, in one pithy sentence, and then left it to carry
its own weight.

"I say, Gerard, I've wondered more than once--"

"Well, Stephen?"

"No offence, friend?"

"Certainly not: pray say all you wish."

"Whether you were an unfrocked priest."

"No, I assure you."

"Can't tell how you come by all your notions!" said Stephen, scratching
his head.

"Notions of all kinds have but two sources," was the reply: "the Word of
God, and the corruption of man's heart."

"Come, now, that won't do!" objected Stephen.  "You've built your door a
mile too narrow.  I've a notion that grass is green, and another that my
new boots don't fit me: whence come they?"

"The first," said Gerhardt drily, "from the Gospel of Saint Mark; the
second from the Fourteenth Psalm."

"The Fourteenth Psalm makes mention of my boots!"

"Not in detail.  It saith, `There is none that doeth good,--no, not
one.'"

"What on earth has that to do with it?"

"This: that if sin had never entered the world, both fraud and suffering
would have tarried outside with it."

"Well, I always did reckon Father Adam a sorry fellow, that he had no
more sense than to give in to his wife."

"I rather think he gave in to his own inclination, at least as much.  If
he had not wanted to taste the apple, she might have coaxed till now."

"Hold hard there, man!  You are taking the woman's side."

"I thought I was taking the side of truth.  If that be not one's own, it
is quite as well to find it out."

Stephen laughed as he turned away from the door of the Walnut Tree.

"You're too good for me," said he.  "I'll go home before I'm infected
with the complaint."

"I'd stop and take it if I were you," retorted Isel.  "You're off the
better end, I'll admit, but you'd do with a bit more, may be."

"I'll leave it for you, Aunt Isel," said Stephen mischievously.  "One
shouldn't want all the good things for one's self, you know."

The Queen did not remain for even a month at Woodstock.  In less than
three weeks she returned to London, this time without passing through
Oxford, and took her journey to Harfleur, the passage across the Channel
costing the usual price of 7 pounds, 10 shillings equivalent in modern
times to 187 pounds, 10 shillings.

Travelling seems to have been an appalling item of expense at that time.
The carriage of fish from Yarmouth to London cost 9 shillings (11
pounds, 5 shillings); of hay from London to Woodstock, 60 shillings (75
pounds); and of the Queen's robes from Winchester to Oxford, 8 shillings
(10 pounds).  Yet the Royal Family were perpetually journeying; the hams
were fetched from Yorkshire, the cheeses from Wiltshire, and the
pearmain apples from Kent.  Exeter was famous for metal and corn;
Worcester and London for wheat; Winchester for wine--there were
vineyards in England then; Hertford for cattle, and Salisbury for game;
York for wood; while the speciality of Oxford was knives.

An old Jew, writing to a younger some thirty years later, in the reign
of Henry Second, and giving him warning as to what he would find in the
chief towns of southern England, thus describes such as he had visited:
"London much displeases me; Canterbury is a collection of lost souls and
idle pilgrims; Rochester and Chichester are but small villages; Oxford
scarcely (I say not satisfies, but) sustains its clerks; Exeter
refreshes men and beasts with corn; Bath, in a thick air and sulphurous
vapour, lies at the gates of Gehenna!"

But if travelling were far more costly than in these days, there were
much fewer objects on which money could be squandered.  Chairs were
almost as scarce as thrones, being used for little else, and chimneys
were not more common.  [Note 5.]  Diamonds were unknown; lace, velvet,
and satin had no existence, samite and silk being the costly fabrics;
and the regal ermine is not mentioned.  Dress, as has been said, was not
extravagant, save in the item of jewellery, or of very costly
embroidery; cookery was much simpler than a hundred years later.  Plate,
it is true, was rich and expensive, but it was only in the hands of the
nobles and church dignitaries.  On the other hand, fines were among the
commonest things in existence.  Not only had every breach of law its
appropriate fine, but breaches of etiquette were expiated in a similar
manner.  False news was hardly treated: 13 shillings 4 pence was exacted
for that [Pipe Roll, 12 Henry Third] and perjury [Ibidem, 16 ib] alike,
while wounding an uncle cost a sovereign, and a priest might be slain
for the easy price of 4 shillings 9 pence [Ibidem, 27 ib].  The Prior of
Newburgh was charged three marks for excess of state; and poor Stephen
de Mereflet had to pay 26 shillings 8 pence for "making a stupid reply
to the King's Treasurer"!  [Pipe Roll, 16 Henry Third] It was reserved
for King John to carry this exaction to a ridiculous excess, by taking
bribes to hold his tongue on inconvenient topics, and fining his
courtiers for not having reminded him of points which he happened to
forget.  [Misae Roll, I John.]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1.  A long undergarment then worn by men and women alike.

Note 2.  "For gilding the King's bit (_frenum_), 56 shillings."  (Pipe
Roll, 31 Henry First.)

Note 3.  Reckoned according to modern value, these prices stand about
thus:--Bacon pig, 2 pounds, 10 shillings; porkers, 5 pounds; sheep, 5
shillings 3 pence; quarter of beans, 25 shillings; load of flour, 30
shillings.

Note 4.  "_Dieu L'encroisse_," a translation of Gedaliah, and a very
common name among the English Jews at that time.  This incident really
occurred about twenty-five years later.

Note 5.  Some writers deny the existence of chimneys at this date; but
an entry, on the Pipe Roll for 1160, of money expended on "the Queen's
chamber and chimney and cellar," leaves no doubt on the matter.



CHAPTER FOUR.

THE FAIR OF SAINT FRIDESWIDE.

  "That's what I always say--if you wish a thing to be well done,
  You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others."

  Longfellow.

The month of May was the liveliest and gayest of the year at Oxford, for
not only were the May Day games common to the whole country, but another
special attraction lay in Saint Frideswide's Fair, held on Gloucester
Green early in that month.  Oxford was a privileged town, in respect of
the provision trade, the royal purveyors being forbidden to come within
twenty miles of that city.  In those good old times, the King was first
served, then the nobility, lay and clerical, then the gentry, and the
poor had to be content with what was left.  It was not unusual, when a
report of anything particularly nice reached the monarch--such as an
import of wine, a haul of fish, or any other dainty,--for the Sheriff of
that place to receive a mandate, bidding him seize for the royal use a
portion or the whole thereof.  Prices, too, were often regulated by
proclamation, so that tradesmen not unfrequently found it hard to live.
If a few of our discontented and idle agitators (I do not mean those who
would work and cannot) could spend a month or two in the olden time,
their next speeches on Tower Hill might be somewhat differently
flavoured.

Saint Frideswide's Fair was a sight to see.  For several days before it
was held, a multitude of carpenters were employed in putting up wooden
booths and stalls, and Gloucester Green became a very lively place.
Fairs in the present day, when they are held at all, are very different
exhibitions from what they were seven hundred years ago.  The stalls
then were practically shops, fully stocked with goods of solid value.
There was a butcher's row, a baker's row, a silversmith's row, and a
mercer's row--ironmongers, saddlers, shoemakers, vintners, coopers,
pelters (furriers), potters, hosiers, fishmongers, and cooks
(confectioners)--all had their several streets of stalls.  The Green--
larger than now--became a town within a town.  As the fair was held by
licence of Saint Frideswide, and was under her especial protection, the
Canons of that church exacted certain dues both from the Crown and the
stall-holders, which were duly paid.  From the Crown they received 25
shillings per annum.  It was deemed a point of honour to keep the best
of everything for the fair; and those buyers who wished to obtain good
value for their money put off their purchases when it grew near fair
time.  When the third of May came, they all turned out in holiday
costume to lay in necessaries, so far as possible, for the year--meat
excepted, which could be purchased again at the cattle fair in the
following September.

There was one serious inconvenience in shopping at that time, of which
we know nothing at the present day.  With the exception of the penny and
still smaller coins (all silver) there was no money.  The pound, though
it appears on paper, was not a coin, but simply a pound weight of pence;
the mark was two-thirds, and the noble (if used so early) one-third of
that amount.  When a woman went out to buy articles of any value, she
required to carry with her an enormous weight of small silver cash.
Purses were not therefore the toys we use, but large bags of heavy
leather, attached to the girdle on the left side; and the aim of a
pickpocket was to cut the leather bag away from its metal fastening--
hence the term _cut-purse_.

Every woman in Kepeharme Lane--and it might be added, in Oxford--
appeared in the street with a basket on her arm as soon as daylight had
well dawned.  The men went at their own time and convenience.  For many
of them a visit to the fair was merely amusement; but the ladies were on
business.  Even Derette followed her mother, armed with a smaller basket
than the rest.  Little Rudolph was left with Countess, who preferred him
to the fair; and such is the power of habit that our friends had now
become quite accustomed to this, and would give a nod and a smile to
Countess when they met, just as they did to any other neighbour.  This
does not mean that they entertained an atom less of prejudice against
Jews in general; they had merely got over their prejudice in the case of
that one Jewish girl in particular.

Isel's business was heavy enough.  She wanted a pig, half an ox, twenty
ells of dark blue cloth, a cloak for herself and capes for her
daughters, thirty pairs of slippers--a very moderate allowance for three
women, for slippers were laid in by the dozen pairs in common--fifty
cheeses (an equally moderate reckoning) [Note 1], a load of flour,
another of oatmeal, two quarters of cabbage for salting, six bushels of
beans, five hundred herrings, a barrel of ale, two woollen rugs for
bedclothes, a wooden coffer, and a hundred nails.  She had already
bought and salted two sheep from Martin, so mutton was not needed.

"Now, Agnes, what do you want?" she asked.

Agnes, who was following with another basket, replied that she wanted
some stuff for a dress, some flannel for Rudolph, and a few pairs of
shoes.  Shoes must have worn only a very short time, considering the
enormous quantity of them usually bought at once.

"And you, Ermine?"

"Nothing but a hood, Mother Isel."

"You're easily satisfied.  Well, I'll go first after my pig."

They turned into the Butcher's Row, where in a minute they could
scarcely hear each other speak.  The whole air seemed vocal with grunts,
lowing, and bleating, and, the poulterers' booths lying close behind,
crowing and cackling also.

"How much for a good bacon pig?" screamed Isel to a fat butcher, who was
polishing a knife upon a wooden block.

"Hertford kids?  I have none."

"Bacon pig!" screamed Isel a little louder.

"Oh!  Well, look you, there's a nice one--twenty pence; there's a rare
fine one--twenty-two; there's a--"

"Bless thee, man! dost thou think I'm made of money?"

"Shouldn't wonder if you'd a pot laid by somewhere," said the butcher
with a knowing wink.  He was an old acquaintance.

"Well, I haven't, then: and what's more, I've plenty to do with the few
marks I have.  Come now, I'll give you sixteen pence for that biggest
fellow."

The butcher intimated, half in a shout and half by pantomime, that he
could not think of such a thing.

"Well, eighteen, then."

The butcher shook his head.

"Nineteen!  Now, that's as high as I'll go."

"Not that one," shouted the butcher; "I'll take nineteen for the other."

Isel had to execute a gymnastic feat before she could answer, to save
herself from the horns of an inquisitive cow which was being driven up
the row; while a fat pig on the other side was driving Flemild nearly
out of the row altogether.

"Well!  I'll agree to that," said Isel, when she had settled with the
cow.

A similar process having been gone through for the half ox, for which
Isel had to pay seventeen pence [Salted cow was much cheaper, being only
2 shillings each.]--a shameful price, as she assured her companions--the
ladies next made their way to Drapers' Row.  The draper, then and for
some centuries later, was the manufacturer of cloth, not the retail
dealer only: but he sold retail as well as wholesale.  Isel found some
cloth to her mind, but the price was not to her mind at all, being
eighteen pence per ell.

"Gramercy, man! wouldst thou ruin me?" she demanded.

A second battle followed with the draper, from which Isel this time
emerged victorious, having paid only 1 shilling 5 pence per ell.  They
then went to the clothier's, where she secured a cloak for a mark (13
shillings 4 pence) and capes for the girls at 6 shillings 8 pence each.
At the shoemaker's she laid in her slippers for 6 pence per pair, with
three pairs of boots at a shilling.  The cheeses were dear, being a
halfpenny each; the load of flour cost 14 pence, and of meal 2
shillings; the beans were 1 shilling 8 pence, the cabbage 1 shilling 2
pence, the herrings 2 shillings.  The coffer came to 5 shillings, the
nails to 2 shillings 4 pence.  [Note 2.]  Isel looked ruefully at her
purse.

"We must brew at home," she said, easily dismissing that item; "but how
shall I do for the rugs?"

Rugs were costly articles.  There was no woollen manufacture in England,
nor was there to be such for another hundred years.  A thick,
serviceable coverlet, such as Isel desired, was not to be bought much
under two pounds.

"We must do without them," she said, with a shake of her head.  "Girls,
you'll have to spread your cloaks on the bed.  We must eat, but we
needn't lie warm if we can't afford it."

"Isel, have you de one pound?  Look, here is one," said Agnes timidly,
holding out her hand.

"But you want that, my dear."

"No, I can do widout.  I will de gown up-mend dat I have now.  Take you
de money; I have left for de shoes and flannel."

She did not add that the flannel would have to be cut down, as well as
the new dress resigned.

"And I can do very well without a hood," added Ermine quickly.  "We must
help Mother Isel all we can."

"My dears, I don't half like taking it."

"We have taken more from you," said Ermine.

Thus urged, Isel somewhat reluctantly took the money, and bought one
rug, for which she beat down the clothier to two marks and a half, and
departed triumphant, this being her best bargain for the day.  It was
then in England, as it yet is in Eastern lands, an understood thing that
all tradesmen asked extortionate prices, and must be offered less as a
matter of course: a fact which helps to the comprehension of the
Waldensian objection to trade as involving falsehood.

Isel returned to Agnes the change which remained out of her pound, which
enabled her to get all the flannel she needed.  Their baskets being now
well filled, Isel and her party turned homewards, sauntering slowly
through the fair, partly because the crowd prevented straightforward
walking, but partly also because they wished to see as much as they
could.  Haimet was to bring a hand-cart for the meat and other heavy
purchases at a later hour.

Derette, who for safety's sake was foremost of the girls, directly
following her mother and Agnes, trudged along with her basket full of
slippers, and her head full of profound meditation.  Had Isel known the
nature of those meditations, she certainly would never have lingered at
the silversmiths' stalls in a comfortable frame of mind, pointing out to
her companions various pretty things which took her fancy.  But she had
not the remotest idea of her youngest daughter's private thoughts, and
she turned away from Gloucester Green at last, quite ignorant of the
fashion wherein her feelings of all sorts were about to be outraged.

Derette was determined to obtain a dress for Agnes.  She had silently
watched the kindly manner in which the good-natured German gave up the
thing she really needed: for poor Agnes had but the one dress she wore,
and Derette well knew that no amount of mending would carry it through
another winter.  But how was a penniless child to procure another for
her?  If Derette had not been a young person of original ideas and very
independent spirit, the audacious notion which she was now entertaining
would never have visited her mind.

This was no less than a visit to the Castle, to beg one of the cast-off
gowns of the women of the household.  Dresses wore long in the Middle
Ages, and ladies of rank were accustomed to make presents of half-worn
ones to each other.  Derette was not quite so presumptuous as to think
of addressing the Countess--that, even in her eyes, seemed a
preposterous impossibility; but surely one of her waiting-women might be
reached.  How was she to accomplish her purpose?

That she must slip away unseen was the first step to be taken.  Her
mother would never dream of allowing such an errand, as Derette well
knew; but she comforted herself, as others have done beside her, with
the reflection that the excellence of her motive quite compensated for
the unsatisfactory details of her conduct.  Wedged as she was in the
midst of the family group, and encumbered with her basket, she could not
hope to get away before they reached home; but she thought she saw her
chance directly afterwards, when the baskets should have been discharged
of their contents, and every body was busy inspecting, talking about,
and putting away, the various purchases that had been made.

Young girls were never permitted to go out alone at that time.  It was
considered less dangerous in town than country, and a mere run into a
neighbouring house might possibly have been allowed; but usually, when
not accompanied by some responsible person, they were sent in groups of
three or four at once.  Derette's journey must be taken alone, and it
involved a few yards of Milk Street, as far as Saint Ebbe's, then a run
to Castle Street and up to the Castle.  That was the best way, for it
was both the shortest and comparatively the quietest.  But Derette
determined not to go in at the entrance gate, where she would meet
Osbert and probably Anania, but to make for the Osney Gate to the left,
where she hoped to fall into the kindlier hands of her cousin Stephen.
The danger underlying this item was that Stephen might have gone to the
fair, in which case she would have to encounter either the rough joking
of Orme, or the rough crustiness of Wandregisil, his fellow-watchmen.
That must be risked.  The opportunity had to be bought, and Derette made
up her mind to pay the necessary price.

The Walnut Tree was reached, the baskets laid down, and while Agnes was
divesting herself of her cloak, and Isel reiterating her frequent
assertion that she was "that tired," Derette snatched her chance, and
every body's back being turned for the moment, slipped out of the door,
and sped up Kepeharme Lane with the speed of a fawn.  Her heart beat
wildly, and until she reached Milk Street, she expected every instant to
be followed and taken back.  If she could only get her work done, she
told herself, the scolding and probable whipping to follow would be
easily borne.

Owing to its peculiar municipal laws, throughout the Middle Ages, Oxford
had the proud distinction of being the cleanest city in England.  That
is to say, it was not quite so appallingly smothered in mire and filth
as others were.  Down the midst of every narrow street ran a gutter,
which after rain was apt to become a brook, and into which dirt of every
sort was emptied by every householder.  There were no causeways; and
there were frequent holes of uncertain depth, filled with thick mud.
Ownerless dogs, and owned but equally free-spoken pigs, roamed the
streets at their own sweet will, and were not wont to make way for the
human passengers; while if a cart were met in the narrow street, it was
necessary for the pedestrian to squeeze himself into the smallest
compass possible against the wall, if he wished to preserve his limbs in
good working order.  Such were the delights of taking a walk in the good
old times.  It may reasonably be surmised that unnecessary walks were
not frequently taken.

Kepeharme Lane left behind, where the topography of the holes was
tolerably familiar, Derette had to walk more guardedly.  After getting
pretty well splashed, and dodging a too attentive pig which was intent
on charging her for venturing on his beat, Derette at last found herself
at the Osney Gate.  She felt now that half her task was over.

"Who goes there?" demanded the welcome voice of Stephen, when Derette
rapped at the gate.

"It's me, Stephen,--Derette: do let me in."

The gate stood open in a moment, and Stephen's pleasant face appeared
behind it, with a look of something like consternation thereon.

"Derette!--alone!--whatever is the matter?"

"Nothing, Stephen; oh, nothing's the matter.  I only came alone because
I knew Mother wouldn't let me if I asked her."

"Hoity-toity!--that's a nice confession, young woman!  And pray what are
you after, now you have come?"

"Stephen--dear, good Stephen, will you do me a favour?"

"Hold off, you coaxing sinner!"

"Oh, but I want it so much!  You see, she gave it up because Mother
wanted a rug, and she let her have the money--and I know it won't mend
up to wear any thing like through the winter--and I do want so to get
her another--a nice soft one, that will be comfortable, and--You'll help
me, won't you, Steenie?"

And Derette's small arms came coaxingly round her cousin's wrist.

"I'm a heathen Jew if I have the shadow of a notion what I'm wanted to
help!  `A nice soft one!'  Is it a kitten, or a bed-quilt, or a sack of
meal, you're after?"

"O Stephen!--what queer things you guess!  It's a gown--."

"I don't keep gowns, young woman."

"No, but, Steenie, you might help me to get at somebody that does.  One
of the Lady's women, you know.  I'm sure you could, if you would."

Steenie whistled.  "Well, upon my word!  _You'll_ not lose cakes for
want of asking for.  Why don't you go to Anania?"

"You know she'd only be cross."

"How do you know I sha'n't be cross?" asked Stephen, knitting his brows,
and pouting out his lips, till he looked formidable.

"Oh, because you never are.  You'll only laugh at me, and you won't do
that in an ugly way like some people.  Now, Steenie, you _will_ help me
to get a gown for Agnes?"

"Agnes, is it?  I thought you meant Flemild."

"No, it's Agnes; and Ermine gave up her hood to help: but Agnes wants
the gown worse than Ermine does a hood.  You like them, you know,
Steenie."

"Who told you that, my Lady Impertinence?  Dear, dear, what pests these
children are!"

"Now, Stephen, you know you don't think any thing of the sort, and you
are going to help me this minute."

"How am I to help, I should like to know?  I can't leave my gate."

"You can call somebody.  Now do, Steenie, there's a darling cousin!--and
I'll ask Mother to make you some of those little pies you like so much.
I will, really."

"You outrageous wheedler!  I suppose I shall have no peace till I get
rid of you.--Henry!"

A lad of about twelve years old, who was crossing the court-yard at the
other side, turned and came up at the call.

"Will you take this maid in, and get her speech of Cumina?  She's very
good-natured, and if you tell her your story, Derette, I shouldn't
wonder if she helps you."

"Oh, thank you, Steenie, so much!"

Derette followed Henry, who made faces at her, but gave her no further
annoyance, into the servants' offices at the Castle, where he turned her
unceremoniously over to the first person he met--a cook in a white cap
and apron--with the short and not too civil information that--

"She wants Cumina."

The cook glanced carelessly at Derette.

"Go straight along the passage, and up the stairs to the left," he said,
and then went on about his own business.

Never before had Derette seen a house which contained above four rooms
at the utmost.  She felt in utter confusion amid stairs, doors, and
corridors.  But she managed to find the winding staircase at the end of
the passage, and to mount it, wishing much that so convenient a mode of
access could replace the ladder in her mother's house.  She went up till
she could go no further, when she found herself on the top landing of a
round tower, without a human creature to be seen.  There were two doors,
however; and after rapping vainly at both, she ventured to open one.  It
led to the leads of the tower.  Derette closed this, and tried the
other.  She found it to open on a dark fathomless abyss,--the Castle
well [Note 3], had she known it--and shut it quickly with a sensation of
horror.  After a moment's reflection, she went down stairs to the next
landing.

Here there were four doors, and from one came the welcome sound of human
voices.  Derette rapped timidly on this.  It was opened by a girl about
the age of Flemild.

"Please," said Derette, "I was to ask for Cumina."

"Oh, you must go to the still-room," answered the girl, and would have
shut the door without further parley, had not Derette intercepted her
with a request to be shown where the still-room was.

With an impatient gesture, the girl came out, led Derette a little way
along the corridor running from the tower, and pointed to a door on the
left hand.

Derette's hopes rose again.  She was one of those persons whom delays
and difficulties do not weary out or render timid, but rather inspire to
fresh and stronger action.

"Well, what do you want?" asked the pleasant-faced young woman who
answered Derette's rap.  "Please, is there somebody here called Cumina?"

"I rather think there is," was the smiling answer.  "Is it you?"

"Ay.  Come in, and say what you wish."  Derette obeyed, and poured out
her story, rather more lucidly than she had done to Stephen.  Cumina
listened with a smile.

"Well, my dear, I would give you a gown for your friend if I had it,"
she said good-humouredly; "but I have just sent the only one I can spare
to my mother.  I wonder who there is, now--Are you afraid of folks that
speak crossly?"

"No," said Derette.  "I only want to shake them."  Cumina laughed.
"You'll do!" she said.  "Come, then, I'll take you to Hagena.  She's not
very pleasant-spoken, but if any body can help you, she can.  The only
doubt is whether she will."

Derette followed Cumina through what seemed to her endless corridors
opening into further and further corridors, till at last she asked in a
tone of astonishment--

"How can you ever find your way?"

"Oh, you learn to do that very soon," said Cumina, laughing, as she
opened the door of a long, low chamber.  "Now, you must tread softly
here, and speak very respectfully."

Derette nodded acquiescence, and they went in.

The room was lined with presses from floor to ceiling.  On benches which
stood back to back in its midst, several lengths of rich silken stuffs
were spread out; and on other benches near the windows sat two or three
girls busily at work.  Several elder ladies were moving about the room,
and one of them, a rather stout, hard-featured woman, was examining the
girls' work.  Cumina went up to her.

"If you please, Hagena," she said, "is there any where an old gown which
it would please you to bestow on this girl, who has asked the boon?"

Hagena straightened herself up and looked at Derette.

"Is she the child of one of my Lord's tenants?"

"No," answered Derette.  "My mother's house is her own."

"Well, if ever I heard such assurance!  Perchance, Madam, you would like
a golden necklace to go with it?"

If Derette had not been on her good behaviour, Hagena would have
received as much as she gave.  But knowing that her only chance of
success lay in civil and submissive manners, she shut her lips tight and
made no answer.

"Who sent you?" pursued Hagena, who was the Countess's mistress of the
household, and next in authority to her.

"Nobody.  I came of myself."

"_Ha, chetife_!  I do wonder what the world's coming to!  The impudence
of the creature!  How on earth did she get in?  Just get out again as
fast as you can, and come on such an errand again if you dare!  Be off
with you!"

Derette's voice trembled, but not with fear, as she turned back to
Cumina.  To Hagena she vouchsafed no further word.

"I did not know I was offending any body," she said, in a manner not
devoid of childish dignity.  "I was trying to do a little bit of good.
I think, if you please, I had better go home."

Derette's speech infuriated Hagena.  The child had kept her manners and
her dignity too, under some provocation, while the mistress of the
household was conscious that she had lost hers.

"How dare--" she was beginning, when another voice made her stop
suddenly.

"What has the child been doing?  I wish to speak with her."

Cumina hastily stopped Derette from leaving the room, and led her up to
the lady who had spoken and who had only just entered.

"What is it, my little maid?" she said kindly.

"I beg your pardon," said the child.  She was but a child, and her brave
heart was failing her.  Derette was very near tears.  "I did not mean
any harm.  Somebody had given up having a new gown--and she wanted it
very much--to let somebody else have the money; and I thought, if I
could beg one for her--but I did not mean to be rude.  Please let me go
home."

"Thou shalt go home, little one," answered the lady; "but wait a moment.
Does any one know the child?"

Nobody knew her.

"Stephen the Watchdog knows me," said Derette, drawing a long breath.
"He is my cousin.  So is Osbert the porter."

The lady put her arm round Derette.

"What sort of a gown wouldst thou have, my child?"

Derette's eyes lighted up.  Was she really to succeed after all?

"A nice one, please," she said, simply, making every one smile except
Hagena, who was still too angry for amusement.  "Not smart nor grand,
you know, but warm and soft.  Something woollen, I suppose, it should
be."

The lady addressed herself to Hagena.

"Have I any good woollen robe by the walls?"

When a dress was done with, if the materials were worth using for
something else, it was taken to pieces; if not, it was hung up "by the
walls," ready to give away when needed.

Hagena had some difficulty in answering properly.

"No, Lady; the last was given to Veka, a fortnight since."

"Then," was the quiet answer, which surprised all present, "it must be
one of those I am wearing.  Let Cumina and Dora bring such as I have."

Derette looked up into the face of her new friend.

"Please, are you the Lady Countess?"

"Well, I suppose I am," replied the Countess with a smile.  "Now, little
maid, choose which thou wilt."

Seven woollen gowns were displayed before the Countess and Derette, all
nearly new--blue, green, scarlet, tawny, crimson, chocolate, and
cream-colour.  Derette looked up again to the Countess's face.

"Nay, why dost thou look at me?  Take thine own choice."

The Countess was curious to see what the child's selection would be.

"I looked to see which you liked best," said Derette, "because I
wouldn't like to choose that."

"True courtesy here!" remarked the Countess.  "It is nothing to me, my
child.  Which dost thou like?"

"I like that one," said Derette, touching the crimson, which was a rich,
soft, dark shade of the colour, "and I think Agnes would too; but I
don't want to take the best, and I am not sure which it is."

"Fold it up," said the Countess to Cumina, with a smile to Derette; "let
it be well lapped in a kerchief; and bid Wandregisil go to the Osney
Gate, so that Stephen can take the child home."

The parcel was folded up, the Countess's hand kissed with heartfelt
thanks, and the delighted Derette, under the care of Cumina, returned to
the Osney Gate with her load.

"Well, you are a child!" exclaimed Stephen.  "So Cumina has really found
you a gown?  I thought she would, if she had one to give away."

"No," said Derette, "it is the Countess's gown."

"And who on earth gave you a gown of the Lady's?"

"Her own self!--and, Stephen, it is of her own wearing; she hadn't done
with it; but she gave it me, and she was so nice!--so much nicer than
all the others except Cumina."

"Well, if ever I did!" gasped Stephen.  "Derette, you are a terrible
child!  I never saw your like."

"I don't know what I've done that's terrible," replied the child.  "I'm
sure Agnes won't think it terrible to have that pretty gown to wear.
What is terrible about it, Stephen?"

They had left the Castle a few yards behind, were over the drawbridge,
and winding down the narrow descent, when a sharp call of "Ste-phen!"
brought them to a standstill.

"Oh dear, that's Cousin Anania!" exclaimed Derette.  "Let me run on,
Stephen, and you go back and see what she wants."

"Nay, I must not do that, child.  The Lady sent orders that I was to see
you home.  You'll have to go back with me."

"But she'll worry so!  She'll want to know all about the gown, and then
she'll want it undone, and I'm sure she'll mess it up--and Cumina folded
it so smooth and nice:" urged Derette in a distressed tone.

"We won't let her," answered Stephen, quietly, as they came to the
entrance gate.  "Well, what's up, Anania?"

"What's Derette doing here?  Who came with her?  Where are you going?--
and what's in that fardel?"

"Oh, is that all you're after?  I'll answer those questions when I come
back.  I've got to take Derette home just now."

"You'll answer them before you go an inch further, if you please.  That
child's always in some mischief, and you aid and abet her a deal too
often."

"But I don't please.  I am under orders, Anania, and I can't stop now."

"At least you'll tell me what's in the fardel!" cried Anania, as Stephen
turned to go on his way without loosing his hold of the parcel.

"A gown which the Lady has given to Derette," said Stephen
mischievously, "and she sent commands that I was to escort her home with
it."

"A gown!--the Lady!--Derette!" screamed Anania.  "Not one of her own?--
why on earth should she give Derette a gown?"

"That's the Lady's business, not mine."

"Yes, one of her own," said Derette proudly.

"But what on earth for?  She hasn't given me a gown, and I am sure I
want it more than that child--and deserve it, too."

"Perhaps you haven't asked her," suggested Derette, trotting after
Stephen, who was already half-way across the bridge.

"Asked her!  I should hope not, indeed--I know my place, if you don't.
You never mean to say you asked her?"

"I can't stop to talk, Cousin Anania."

"But which gown is it?--tell me that!" cried Anania, in an agony of
disappointed curiosity.

"It's a crimson woollen one.  Good morrow."

"What! never that lovely robe she had on yesterday?  Saints bless us
all!" was the last scream that reached them from Anania.

Stephen laughed merrily as Derette came up with him.

"We have got clear of the dragon this time," said he.

A few minutes brought them to the Walnut Tree.

"Haimet--Oh, it's Stephen!" cried Isel in a tone of sore distress, as
soon as he appeared at the door.  "Do, for mercy's sake--I'm just at my
wits' end to think whatever--Oh, there she is!"

"Yes, Mother, I'm here," said Derette demurely.

"Yes, she's here, and no harm done, but good, I reckon," added Stephen.
"Still, I think it might be as well to look after her a bit, Aunt Isel.
If she were to take it into her head to go to London to see the Lady
Queen, perhaps you mightn't fancy it exactly."

"What has she been doing?" asked Isel in consternation.

"Only paying a visit to the Countess," said Stephen, laughing.

By this time Derette had undone the knots on the handkerchief, and the
crimson robe was revealed in all its beauty.

"Agnes," she said quietly, but with a little undertone of decided
triumph, "this is for you.  You won't have to give up your gown, though
you did give Mother the money."

A robe, in the Middle Ages, meant more than a single gown, and the
crimson woollen was a robe.  Under and upper tunics, a mantle, and a
corset or warm under-bodice, lay before the eyes of the amazed Agnes.

"Derette, you awful child!" exclaimed her mother almost in terror, "what
have you been after, and where did you get all that?  Why, it's a new
robe, and fit for a queen!"

"Don't scold the child," said Stephen.  "She meant well, and I believe
she behaved well; she got more than she asked for, that's all."

"Please, it isn't quite new, Mother, because the Lady wore it yesterday;
but she said she hadn't one done with, so she gave me one she was
wearing."

Bit by bit the story was told, while Isel held up her hands in horrified
astonishment, which she allowed to appear largely, and in inward
admiration of Derette's spirit, of which she tried to prevent the
appearance.  She was not, however, quite able to effect her purpose.

"_Meine Kind_!" cried Agnes, even more amazed and horrified than Isel.
"Dat is not for me.  It is too good.  I am only poor woman.  How shall I
such beautiful thing wear?"

"But it is for you," pleaded Derette earnestly, "and you must wear it;
because, you see, if you did not, it would seem as if I had spoken
falsely to the Lady."

"Ay, I don't see that you can do aught but take it and wear it," said
Stephen.  "Great ladies like ours don't take their gifts back."

Gerhardt had come in during the discussion.

"Nor does the Lord," he said, "at least not from those who receive them
worthily.  Take it from Him, dear, with thankfulness to the human
instruments whom He has used.  He saw thy need, and would not suffer
thee to want for obeying His command."

"But is it not too fine, Gerhardt?"

"It might be if we had chosen it," answered Gerhardt with a smile; "but
it seems as if the Lord had chosen it for thee, and that settles the
matter.  It is only the colour, after all."

There was no trimming on the robe, save an edging of grey fur,--not even
embroidery: and no other kind of trimming was known at that time.  Agnes
timidly felt the soft, fine texture.

"It is beautiful!" she said.

"Oh, it is beautiful enough, in all conscience," said Isel, "and will
last you a life-time, pretty nigh.  But as to that dreadful child--"

"Now, Mother, you won't scold me, will you?" said Derette coaxingly,
putting her arms round Isel's neck.  "I haven't done any harm, have I?"

"Well, child, I suppose you meant well," said Isel doubtfully, "and I
don't know but one should look at folks' intentions more than their
deeds, in especial when there's no ill done; but--"

"Oh, come, let's forgive each other all round!" suggested Stephen.
"Won't that do?"

Isel seemed to think it would, for she kissed Derette.

"But you must never, never do such a thing again, child, in all the days
of your life!" said she.

"Thank you, Mother, I don't want to do it again just now," answered
Derette in a satisfied tone.

The afternoon was not over when Anania marched into the Walnut Tree.

"Well, Aunt Isel!  I hope you are satisfied _now_!"

"With what, Anania?"

"That dreadfully wicked child.  Didn't I tell you?  I warned you to look
after her.  If you only would take good advice when folks take the
trouble to give it you!"

"Would you be so good as to say what you mean, Anania?  I'm not at all
satisfied with dreadfully wicked children.  I'm very much dissatisfied
with them, generally."

"I mean Derette, of course.  I hope you whipped her well!"

"What for?" asked Isel, in a rather annoyed tone.

"`What for?'"  Anania lifted up her hands.  "There now!--if I didn't
think she would just go and deceive you!  She can't have told you the
truth, of course, or you could never pass it by in that light way."

"If you mean her visit to the Castle," said Isel in a careless tone,
"she told us all about it, of course, when she got back."

"And you take it as coolly as that?"

"How did you wish me to take it?  The thing is done, and all's well that
ends well.  I don't see that it was so much out of the way, for my part.
Derette got no harm, and Agnes has a nice new gown, and nobody the
worse.  If anybody has a right to complain, it is the Countess; and I
can't see that she has so much, either; for she needn't have given the
robe if she hadn't liked."

"Oh, she's no business to grumble; she has lots more of every thing.
She could have twenty robes made like that to-morrow, if she wanted
them.  I wish I'd half as many--I know that!"

Agnes came down the ladder at that moment, carrying one of her new
tunics, which she had just tried on, and was now going to alter to fit
herself.

"That's it, is it?" exclaimed Anania in an interested voice.  "I thought
it was that one.  Well, you are in luck!  That's one of her newest
robes, I do believe.  Ah, folks that have more money than they know what
to do with, can afford to do aught they fancy.  But to think of throwing
away such a thing as that on _you_!"

Neither words nor tone were flattering, but the incivility dropped
harmless from the silver armour of Agnes's lowly simplicity.

"Oh, but it shall not away be t'rown," she said gently; "I will dem all
up-make, and wear so long as they will togeder hold.  I take care of
dat, so shall you see!"

Anania looked on with envious eyes.

"How good lady must de Countess be!" added Agnes.

"Oh, she can be good to folks sometimes," snarled Anania.  "She's just
as full of whims as she can be--all those great folks are--proud and
stuck-up and crammed full of caprice: but they say she's kind where she
_takes_, you know.  It just depends whether she takes to you.  She never
took to me, worse luck!  I might have had that good robe, if she had."

"I shouldn't think she would," suddenly observed the smallest voice in
the company.

"What do you mean by that, you impudent child?"

"Because, Cousin Anania, I don't think there's much in you to take to."

Derette's prominent feeling at that moment was righteous indignation.
She could not bear to hear the gentle, gracious lady, who had treated
her with such unexpected kindness, accused of being proud and full of
whims, apparently for no better reason than because she had not "taken
to" Anania--a state of things which Derette thought most natural and
probable.  Her sense of justice--and a child's sense of justice is often
painfully keen--was outraged by Anania's sentiments.

"Well, to be sure!  How high and mighty we are!  That comes of visiting
Countesses, I suppose.--Aunt Isel, I told you that child was getting
insufferable.  There'll be no bearing her very soon.  She's as stuck-up
now as a peacock.  Just look at her!"

"I don't see that she looks different from usual," said Isel, who was
mixing the ingredients for a "bag-pudding."

Anania made that slight click with her tongue which conveys the idea of
despairing compassion for the pitiable incapacity of somebody to
perceive patent facts.

Isel went on with her pudding, and offered no further remark.

"Well, I suppose I'd better be going," said Anania--and sat still.

Nobody contradicted her, but she made no effort to go, until Osbert
stopped at the half-door and looked in.

"Oh, you're there, are you?" he said to his wife.  "I don't know whether
you care particularly for those buttons you bought from Veka, but Selis
has swallowed two, and--"

"_Those_ buttons!  Graven silver, as I'm a living woman!  I'll shake him
while I can stand over him!  And only one blessed dozen I had of them,
and the price she charged me--The little scoundrel!  Couldn't he have
swallowed the common leaden ones?"

"Weren't so attractive, probably," said Osbert, as Anania hurried away,
without any leave-taking, to bestow on her son and heir, aged six, the
shaking she had promised.

"But de little child, he shall be sick!" said Agnes, looking up from her
work with compassionate eyes.

"Oh, I dare say it won't hurt him much," replied Osbert coolly, "and
perhaps it will teach him not to meddle.  I wish it might teach his
mother to stay at home and look after him, but I'm afraid that's
hopeless.  Good morrow!"

Little Selis seemed no worse for his feast of buttons, beyond a fit of
violent indigestion, which achieved the wonderful feat of keeping Anania
at home for nearly a week.

"You've had a nice quiet time, Aunt Isel," said Stephen.  "Shall I see
if I can persuade Selis to take the rest of the dozen?"

Life went on quietly--for the twelfth century--in the little house in
Kepeharme Street.  That means that nobody was murdered or murderously
assaulted, the house was not burned down nor burglariously entered, and
neither of the boys lost a limb, and was suffered to bleed to death, for
interference with the King's deer.  In those good old times, these
little accidents were rather frequent, the last more especially, as the
awful and calmly-calculated statistics on the Pipe Rolls bear terrible
witness.

Romund married, and went to live in the house of his bride, who was an
heiress to the extent of possessing half-a-dozen houses in Saint Ebbe's
parish.  Little Rudolph grew to be seven years old, a fine fearless boy,
rather more than his quiet mother knew how to manage, but always
amenable to a word from his grave father.  The Germans had settled down
peaceably in various parts of the country, some as shoemakers, some as
tailors, some as weavers, or had hired themselves as day-labourers to
farmers, carpenters, or bakers.  Several offers of marriage had been
made to Ermine, but hitherto, to the surprise of her friends, all had
been declined, her brother assenting to this unusual state of things.

"Why, what do you mean to do, Gerard?" asked Isel of her, when the last
and wealthiest of five suitors was thus treated.  "You'll never have a
better offer for the girl than Raven Soclin.  He can spend sixty pound
by the year and more; owns eight shops in the Bayly, and a brew-house
beside Saint Peter's at East Gate.  He's no mother to plague his wife,
and he's a good even-tempered lad, as wouldn't have many words with her.
Deary me! but it's like throwing the fish back into the sea when
they've come in your net!  What on earth are you waiting for, I should
just like to know?"

"Dear Mother Isel," answered Ermine softly, "we are waiting to see what
God would have of me.  I think He means me for something else.  Let us
wait and see."

"But there is nothing else, child," returned Isel almost irritably,
"without you've a mind to be a nun; and that's what I wouldn't be, take
my word for it.  Is that what you're after?"

"No, I think not," said Ermine in the same tone.

"Then there's nothing else for you--nothing in this world!"

"This is not the only world," was the quiet reply.

"It's the only one I know aught about," said Isel, throwing her beans
into the pan; "or you either, if I'm not mistaken.  You'd best be wise
in time, or you'll go through the wood and take the crookedest stick you
can find."

"I hope to be wise in time, Mother Isel; but I would rather it were
God's time than mine.  And we Germans, you know, believe in
presentiments.  Methinks He has whispered to me that the way He has
appointed for my treading is another road than that."

Ermine was standing, as she spoke, by the half-door, her eyes fixed on
the fleecy clouds which were floating across the blue summer sky.

"Can you see it, Aunt Ermine?" cried little Rudolph, running to her.
"Is it up there, in the blue--the road you are going to tread?"

"It is down below first," answered Ermine dreamily.  "Down very low, in
the dim valleys, and it is rough.  But it will rise by-and-bye to the
everlasting hills, and to the sapphire blue; and it leads straight to
God's holy hill, and to His tabernacle."

They remembered those words--seven months later.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1.  The Pipe Rolls speak of _large_ cheeses, which cost from
threepence to sixpence each, and the ordinary size, of which two or
three were sold for a penny.  They were probably very small.

Note 2.  Modern value of above prices:--Pig, 1 pound, 19 shillings 7
pence; half ox, 1 pound, 15 shillings 5 pence; cloth, 1 pound 16
shillings 5 and a half pence per ell; cloak, 13 pounds 6 shillings 8
pence; cape, 6 pounds, 13 shillings 4 pence; pair of slippers, 12
shillings 6 pence; boots, per pair, 25 shillings; cheeses, 2 shillings 1
penny each; flour and cabbage, each 1 pound 9 shillings 2 pence; meal
and herrings, each 2 pounds, 10 shillings; beans, 2 pounds 1 shilling 8
pence; coffer, 6 pounds, 5 shillings; nails, 2 pounds, 18 shillings 4
pence; rug, 50 pounds.  It will be seen that money was far cheaper than
now, and living much more expensive.

Note 3.  For the sinking of which King Henry paid 19 pounds, 19
shillings 5 pence near this time.



CHAPTER FIVE.

WARNED.

  "Though briars and thorns obstruct the way,
  Oh, what are thorns and briars to me,
  If Thy sweet words console and stay,
  If Thou but let me go with Thee?"

  "G.E.M."

In the house of Henry the Mason, six doors from the Walnut Tree, three
of the Germans had been received--old Berthold, his wife Luitgarde, and
their daughter Adelheid.  Two years after their coming, Luitgarde had
died, and Berthold and his daughter were left alone Adelheid, though ten
years the elder, was a great friend of Ermine, and she seemed about as
much averse to matrimony as the latter, though being less well-favoured,
she had received fewer incentives to adopt it.  Raven Soclin, however,
did not allow his disappointment in love to affect his spirits, nor to
have much time for existence.  Ermine's refusal was barely six weeks old
when he transferred his very transferable affections to Flemild, and
Romund, the family dictator, did not allow any refusal of the offer.  In
fact, Flemild was fairly well satisfied with the turn matters had taken.
She knew she must be either wife or nun--there was no third course open
for a woman in England at that day--and she certainly had no proclivity
for the cloister.  Derette, on the other hand, had expressed herself in
terms of great contempt for matrimony, and of decided intention to adopt
single life, in the only form in which it was then possible.  It was
therefore arranged by Romund, and obediently sanctioned by Isel--for
that was an age of obedient mothers, so far as sons were concerned--that
Flemild should marry Raven Soclin, and Derette should become a novice at
Godstowe, in the month of September shortly about to open.

Nothing had yet been heard of Manning, the absent husband and father.
Isel still cherished an unspoken hope of his return; but Romund and
Flemild had given him up for dead, while the younger children had almost
forgotten him.

Another person who had passed out of their life was the Jewish maiden,
Countess.  She had been married the year after the arrival of the
Germans, and had gone to live at Reading: married to an old Jew whom she
only knew by name, then no unusual fate for girls of her nation.  From
little Rudolph, who was just beginning to talk, she had parted most
unwillingly.

"Ah! if you would give him to me!" she had said in German to Agnes, with
a smile on her lips, yet with tears in the dark eyes.  "I know it could
not be.  Yet if time should come that trouble befel you, and you sought
refuge for the child, my heart and my arms would be open.  Ah, you
think, what could a poor Jewess do for you?  Well, maybe so.  Yet you
know the fable of the mouse that gnawed the net in which the lion was
caught.  It might be, some day, that even poor Countess--"

Gerhardt laid his hand on the arm of the young Jewess, and Isel, who saw
the action, trembled for the consequences of his temerity.

"Friend," he said, "I would, if so were, confide my child to you sooner
than to any other outside this house, if your word were given that he
should not be taught to deride and reject the Lord that died for him."

"You would take my word?"  The dark eyes flashed fire.

"I would take it, if you would give it."

"And you know that no Court in this land would receive the witness of a
Jew!  You know it?" she repeated fierily.

"I know it," he answered, rather sadly.

"Yet you would take mine?"

"God would know if you spoke truth.  He is the Avenger of all that have
none other."

"He has work to do, then!" replied Countess bitterly.

"He would not be too busy, if need were, to see to my little Rudolph.
But I do not believe in the need: I think you true."

"Gerhardt, you are the strangest Christian that I ever knew!  Do you
mean what you say?"

"I mean every word of it, Countess."

"Then--you shall not repent it."  And she turned away.

Little Rudolph fretted for a time after his nurse and playfellow.  But
as the months passed on, her image grew fainter in his memory, and now,
at seven years old, he scarcely remembered her except by name, Ermine
having spoken of her to him on several occasions.

"I wonder you talk of the girl to that child!"  Isel remonstrated.  "It
were better that he should forget her."

"Pardon me, Mother Isel, but I think not so.  The good Lord brought her
in our way, and how do I know for what purpose?  It may be for Rudolph's
good, no less than hers; and she promised, if need arose, to have a care
of him.  I cannot tell what need may arise, wherein it would be most
desirable that he should at least recall her name."

"But don't you see, Ermine, even on your own showing, our Lord has taken
her out of your way again?"

"Yes, now.  But how do I know that it is for always?"

"Why, child, how can Countess, a married woman, living away at Reading,
do anything to help a child at Oxford?"

"I don't know, Mother Isel.  The Lord knows.  If our paths never cross
again, it will not hurt Rudolph to remember that a young Jewess named
Countess was his loving friend in childhood: if they should meet
hereafter, it may be very needful.  And--" that dreamy look came into
Ermine's eyes--"something seems to whisper to me that it may be needed.
Do not blame me if I act upon it."

"Well, with all your soft, gentle ways, you have a will of your own, I
know," said Isel; "so you must e'en go your own way.  And after
September, Ermine, you'll be the only daughter left to me.  Ah me!
Well, it's the way of the world, and what is to be must be.  I am sure
it was a good wind blew you in at my door, for I should have been
dreadful lonely without you when both my girls were gone."

"But, dear Mother Isel, Flemild is not going far."

"Not by the measuring-line, very like; but she's going far enough to be
Raven's wife, and not my daughter.  It makes a deal of difference, that
does.  And Derette's going further, after the same fashion.  I sha'n't
see her, maybe, again, above a dozen times in my life.  Eh dear! this is
a hard world for a woman to live in.  It's all work, and worry, and
losing, and giving up, and such like."

"There is a better world," said Ermine softly.

"There had need be.  I'm sure I deserve a bit of rest and comfort, if
ever a hard-working woman did.  I'll say nought about pleasure; more by
reason that I'm pretty nigh too much worn out and beat down to care
about it."

"Nay, friend," said Gerhardt; "we sinners deserve the under-world.  The
road to the upper lieth only through the blood and righteousness of our
Lord Christ."

"I don't know why you need say that," returned Isel with mild
resentment.  "I've been as decent a woman, and as good a wife and
mother, as any woman betwixt Grandpont and Saint Maudlin, let the other
be who she may,--ay, I have so, though I say it that hadn't ought.  But
you over-sea folks seem to have such a notion of everybody being bad, as
I never heard before--not even from the priest."

The Church to which Gerhardt belonged held firmly, as one of her most
vital dogmas, that strong view of human depravity which human depravity
always opposes and resents.  Therefore Gerhardt did but enunciate a
foundation-article of his faith when he made answer--

"`All the evil which I do proceeds from my own depravity.'"

"Come, you're laying it on a bit too thick," said Isel, with a shake of
her head.

"He only speaks for himself, don't you hear, Mother?" suggested Haimet
humorously.

Gerhardt smiled, and shook his head in turn.

"Well, but if all the ill we do comes of ourselves, I don't see how you
leave any room for Satan.  He's busy about us, isn't he?"

"He's `a roaring lion, that goeth about, seeking whom he may devour';
but he can devour no man without his own participation."

"Why, then, you make us all out to be witches, for it's they who enter
into league with Satan."

"Do you know, Gerard," said Haimet suddenly, "some folks in the town are
saying that you belong to those over-sea heretics whose children are
born with black throats and four rows of teeth, and are all over hair?"

"I don't see that Rudolph resembles that description," was the calm
reply of Gerhardt.  "Do you?"

"Oh, of course we know better.  But there are some folks that say so,
and are ready to swear it too.  It would be quite as well if you stayed
quiet at home for a while, and didn't go out preaching in the villages
so much.  If the Bishop comes to hear of some things you've said--"

Isel and her daughters looked up in surprise.  They had never imagined
that their friend's frequent journeys were missionary tours.  Haimet,
who mixed far more with the outer world, was a good deal wiser on many
points.

"What have I said?" quietly replied Gerhardt, stopping his carving--
which he still pursued in an evening--to sweep up and throw into the
corner the chips which he had made.

"Well, I was told only last week, that you had said when you spoke at
Abingdon, that `Antichrist means all that is in contrast to Christ,' and
that there was no such thing as a consecrated priest in the world."

"The first I did say: can you disprove it?  But the second I did not
say.  God forbid that I ever should!"

"Oh, well, I am glad to hear it: but I can tell you, Halenath the
Sacristan said he heard you."

"I wish that old chattering magpie would hold his tongue!" exclaimed
Isel, going to the door to empty the bowl in which she had been washing
the cabbages for supper.  "He makes more mischief than any man within
ten miles of the Four-Ways."

"Haimet," said Gerhardt, looking up from the lovely wreath of
strawberry-blossom which he was carving on a box, "I must not leave you
to misapprehend me as Halenath has done.  I never said there was no such
thing as a consecrated priest: for Christ our Priest is one, of the
Order of Melchizedek, and by His one offering He hath perfected His
saints for ever.  But I did say that the priests of Rome were not
rightly consecrated, and that the Pope's temporal power had deprived the
Church of true consecration.  I will stand as firmly to that which I
have said, as I will deny the words I have not spoken."

Isel stood aghast, looking at him, while the spoon in her hand went down
clattering on the brick floor.

"Dear blessed saints!" seemed to be all she could say.

"Why, whatever do you call that?" cried Haimet.  "It sounds to me just
as bad as the other, if it isn't worse.  I should think, if anything, it
were a less heresy to say there were no consecrated priests, than to say
that holy Church herself had lost true consecration.  Not that there's
very much to choose between them, after all; only that you cunning
fellows can split straws into twenty bits as soon as we can look at
them."

"Do you mean to say that the Church of England has lost true
consecration?" gasped Isel.

"If he means one, he means the other," said Haimet, "because our Church
is subject to the holy Father."

"There is one Church, and there are many Churches," answered Gerhardt.
"One--holy, unerring, indivisible, not seen of men.  This is the Bride,
the Lamb's wife; and they that are in her are called, and chosen, and
faithful.  This is she that shall persevere, and shall overcome, and
shall receive the crown of life.  But on earth there are many Churches;
and these may err, and may utterly fall away.  Yea, there be that have
done it--that are doing it now."

"I don't understand you a bit!" exclaimed Isel.  "I always heard of the
Catholic Church, that she was one and could not err; that our Lord the
Pope was her head, and the Church of England was a branch of her.  Isn't
that your doctrine?"

"You mean the same thing, don't you, now?" suggested Flemild, trying to
make peace.  "I dare be bound, it's only words that differ.  They are so
queer sometimes.  Turn 'em about, and you can make them mean almost
anything."

Gerhardt smiled rather sadly, as he rose and put away his carving on one
of the broad shelves that ran round the house-place, and served the uses
of tables and cupboards.

"Words can easily be twisted," he said, "either by ignorance or malice.
But he is a coward that will deny his words as he truly meant them.  God
help me to stand to mine!"

"Well, you'd better mind what I tell you about your preaching,"
responded Haimet.  "Leave preaching to the priests, can't you?  It is
their business, not a weaver's.  You keep to your craft."

"Had you not once a preacher here named Pullus?" asked Gerhardt, without
replying to the question.

"I think I have heard of him," said Haimet, "but he was before my time."

"I have been told that he preached the Word of God in this city years
ago," said Gerhardt.

"Whom did you say?  Cardinal Pullus?" asked Isel, standing up from her
cooking.  "Ay, he did so!  You say well, Haimet, it was before your day;
you were only beginning to toddle about when he died.  But I've listened
to him many a time at Saint Martin's, and on Presthey, too.  He used to
preach in English, so that the common folks could understand him.  Many
professed his doctrines.  I used to like to hear him, I did--when I was
younger.  He said nice words, though I couldn't call 'em back now.  No,
I couldn't."

"I am sorry to hear it; I rather hoped you could," replied Gerhardt.

"Bless you!  I never heard aught of that sort yet, that I could tell you
again, a Paternoster after I'd gone forth of the door.  Words never stay
with me; they run in at one ear and out at the other.  Seem to do me
good, by times; but I never can get 'em back again, no more than you can
the rain when it has soaked into the ground."

"If the rain and the words bring forth good fruit, you get them back in
the best way of all," said Gerhardt.  "To remember the words in your
head only, were as fruitless as to gather up rain-drops from the stone
or metal into which they cannot penetrate."

"Well, I never had nought of a head-piece," returned Isel.  "I've heard
my mother tell that I had twenty wallopings ere she could make me say
the Paternoster; and I never could learn nought else save the Joy and
the Aggerum."

"What do you mean by the `Aggerum,' Mother?" inquired Haimet.

"Well, isn't that what you call it?  Aggerum or Adjerum, or some such
outlandish name.  It's them little words that prayers begin with."

"`_Deus, in adjutorium_,'" said Gerhardt quietly.

Haimet seemed exceedingly amused.  He had attended the schools long
enough to learn Latin sufficient to interpret the common prayers and
Psalms which formed the private devotions of most educated people.  This
was because his mother had wished him to be a priest.  But having now,
in his own estimation, arrived at years of discretion, he declined the
calling chosen for him, preferring as he said to go into business, and
he had accordingly been bound apprentice to a moneter, or money-changer.
Poor Isel had mourned bitterly over this desertion.  To her mind, as to
that of most people in her day, the priesthood was the highest calling
that could be attained by any middle-class man, while trade was a very
mean and despicable occupation, far below domestic service.  She
recognised, however, that Haimet was an exception to most rules, and was
likely to take his own way despite of her.

Isel's own lack of education was almost as unusual as Haimet's
possession of it.  At that time all learning was in the hands of the
clergy, the monastic orders, and the women.  By the Joy, she meant the
Doxology, the English version of which substituted "joy" for "glory;"
while the _Adjutorium_ denoted the two responses which follow the Lord's
Prayer in the morning service, "O God, make speed to save us," "O Lord,
make haste to help us."

"Can't you say _adjutorium_, Mother?" asked the irreverent youth.

"No, lad, I don't think I can.  I'll leave that for thee.  One's as good
as t'other, for aught I see."

Haimet exploded a second time.

"Good evening!" said Romund's voice, and a cloaked figure, on whose
shoulders drops of rain lay glittering, came in at the door.  "I thought
you were not gone up yet, for I saw the light under the door.  Derette,
I have news for you.  I have just heard that Saint John's anchoritess
died yesterday, and I think, if you would wish it, that I could get the
anchorhold for you.  You may choose between that and Godstowe."

Derette scarcely stood irresolute for a moment.

"I should like the anchorhold best, Brother.  Then Mother could come to
me whenever she wanted me."

"Is that the only reason?" asked Haimet, half laughing.

"No, not quite," said Derette, with a smile; "but it is a good one."

"Then you make up your mind to that?" questioned Romund.

"Yes, I have made up my mind," replied Derette.

"Very good: then I will make application for it.  Good night! no time to
stay.  Mabel?  Oh, she's all right.  Farewell!"

And Romund shut the door and disappeared.

"Deary me, that seems done all of a hurry like!" said Isel.  "I don't
half like such sudden, hasty sort of work.  Derette, child, are you sure
you'll not be sorry?"

"No, I don't think I shall, Mother.  I shall have more liberty in the
anchorhold than in the nunnery."

"More liberty, quotha!" cried Isel in amazement.  "Whatever can the
child mean?  More liberty, penned up in two little chambers, and never
to leave them all your life, than in a fine large place like Godstowe,
with a big garden and cloisters to walk in?"

"Ah, Mother, I don't want liberty for my feet, but for my soul.  There
will be no abbess nor sisters to tease one in the anchorhold."

"Well, and what does that mean, but never a bit of company?  Just your
one maid, and tied up to her.  And the child calls it `liberty'!"

"You forget, Mother," said Haimet mischievously.  "There will be the
Lady Derette.  In the cloister they are only plain Sister."

Every recluse had by courtesy the title of a baron.

"As if I cared for that rubbish!" said Derette with sublime scorn.

"Dear!  I thought you were going on purpose," retorted her brother.

"Whom will you have for your maid, Derette?" asked her sister.

"Ermine, if I might have her," answered Derette with a smile.

Gerhardt suddenly stopped the reply which Ermine was about to make.

"No," he said, "leave it alone to-night, dear.  Lay it before the Lord,
and ask of Him whether that is the road He hath prepared for thee to
walk in.  It might be for the best, Ermine."

There was a rather sorrowful intonation in his voice.

"I will wait till the morning, and do as you desire," was Ermine's
reply.  "But I could give the answer to-night, for I know what it will
be.  The best way, and the prepared way, is that which leads the
straightest Home."

It was very evident, when the morning arrived, that Gerhardt would much
have liked Ermine to accept the lowly but safe and sheltered position of
companion to Derette in the anchorhold.  While the hermit lived alone,
but wandered about at will, the anchorite, who was never allowed to
leave his cell, always had with him a companion of his own sex, through
whom he communicated with the outer world.  Visitors of the same sex, or
children, could enter the cell freely, or the anchorite might speak
through his window to any person.  Derette, therefore, would really be
less cut off from the society of her friends in the anchorhold, than she
would have been as a cloistered sister at Godstowe, where they would
only have been permitted to see her, at most, once in a year.  But
outside the threshold of her cell she might never step, save for
imminent peril of life, as in the case of fire.  She must live there,
and die there, her sole occupation found in devotional exercises, her
sole pleasure in her friends' visits, the few sights she could see from
her window, and through a tiny slit into the chancel of the Church of
Saint John the Baptist, which we know as the chapel of Merton College.
Every anchorhold was built close to a church, so as to allow its
occupant the privilege of seeing the performance of mass, and of
receiving the consecrated wafer, by the protrusion of his tongue through
the narrow slit.

In those early days, and before the corruptions of Rome reached their
full development, this cloistered life was not without some advantages
for the securing of which it is not required now.  In rough, wild times,
when insult or cruelty to a woman was among the commonest events, it was
something for a woman to know that by wearing a certain uniform, her
person would be regarded as so sacred that he who dared to molest her
would be a man of rare and exceptional wickedness.  It was something,
also, to be sure, even moderately sure, of provision for her bodily
needs during life: something to know that if any sudden accident should
deprive her of the services of her only companion, the world deemed it
so good a deed to serve her, that any woman whom she might summon
through her little window would consider herself honoured and benefited
by being allowed to minister to her even in the meanest manner.  The
loss of liberty was much assuaged and compensated, by being set against
such advantages as these.  The recluse was considered the holiest of
nuns, not to say of women, and the Countess of Oxford herself would have
held it no degradation to serve her in her need.

Derette would dearly have liked to secure the companionship of Ermine,
but she saw plainly that it was not to be.  When the morning came,
therefore, she was much less surprised than sorry that Ermine declined
the offer.  Gerhardt pressed it on her in vain.

"If you command me, my brother," said Ermine, "I will obey, for you have
a right to dispose of me; but if the matter is left to my own choice, I
stay with you, and your lot shall be mine."

"But if our lot be hardship and persecution, my Ermine--cold and hunger,
nakedness, and peril and sword!  This might be a somewhat dull and
dreary life for thee, but were it not a safe one?"

"Had the Master a safe and easy life, Brother, that His servants should
seek it?  Is the world so safe, and the way to Paradise so hard?  Is it
not written, `Blessed are ye, when they shall persecute you'?  Methinks
I see arising, even now, that little cloud which shall ere long cover
all the sky with darkness.  Shall I choose my place with the `fearful'
that are left without the Holy City, rather than with them that shall
follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth?"

"It is written again, `When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into
another,'" replied Gerhardt.

"`_When_ they persecute you,'" repeated Ermine.  "It has not come yet."

"It may be too late, when it has come."

"Then the way will be plain before me."

"Well, dear, I will urge you no further," said Gerhardt at last, drawing
a heavy sigh.  "I had hoped that for thee at least--The will of the Lord
be done."

"If it were His will to preserve my life, even the persecutors
themselves might be made the occasion of doing so."

"True, my Ermine.  It may be thou hast more faith than I.  Be it as thou
wilt."

So Derette had to seek another maid.

"I'm sure I don't know who you'll get," said Isel.  "There's Franna's
Hawise, but she's a bit of a temper,"--which her hearers knew to be a
very mild representation of facts: "and there's Turguia's
grand-daughter, Canda, but you'll have to throw a bucket of water over
her of a morrow, or she'll never be out of bed before sunrise on the
shortest day of the year.  Then there's Henry's niece, Joan--" then
pronounced as a dissyllable, Joan--"but I wouldn't have such a sloven
about me.  I never see her but her shoes are down at heel, and if her
gown isn't rent for a couple of hand-breadths, it's as much as you can
look for.  Deary me, these girls! they're a sorry lot, the whole heap of
'em!  _I_ don't know where you're going to find one, Derette."

"Put it in the Lord's hands, and He will find you one."

"I'll tell you what, Gerard, I never heard the like of you," answered
Isel, setting her pan swinging by its chain on the hook over the fire.
"You begin and end every mortal thing with our Lord, and you're saying
your prayers pretty nigh all day long.  Are you certain sure you've
never been a monk?"

"Very certain, friend," said Gerhardt, smiling.  "Is not the existence
of Agnes answer enough to that?"

"Oh, but you might have run away," said Isel, whose convictions on most
subjects were of rather a hazy order.  "There are monks that do, and
priests too: or if they don't forsake their Order, they don't behave
like it.  Why, just look at Reinbald the Chaplain--who'd ever take him
for a priest, with his long curls and his silken robes, and ruffling up
his hair to hide the tonsure?"

"Ay, there are men who are ashamed of nothing so much as of the cross
which their Master bore for them," admitted Gerhardt sorrowfully.  "And
at times it looks as if the lighter the cross be, the less ready they
are to carry it.  There be who would face a drawn sword more willingly
than a scornful laugh."

"Well, we none of us like to be laughed at."

"True.  But he who denies his faith through the mockery of Herod's
soldiers, how shall he bear the scourging in Pilate's hall?"

"Well, I'm none so fond of neither of 'em," said Isel, taking down a
ham.

"It is only women who can't stand being touched," commented Haimet
rather disdainfully.  "But you are out there, Gerard: it is a disgrace
to be laughed at, and disgrace is ever worse to a true man than pain."

"Why should it be disgrace, if I am in the right?" answered Gerhardt.
"If I do evil, and refuse to own it, that is disgrace, if you will; but
if I do well, or speak truth, and stand by it, what cause have I to be
ashamed?"

"But if men believe that you have done ill, is that no disgrace?"

"If they believe it on false witness, the disgrace is equally false.
`Blessed are ye, when men shall persecute you, and shall say all evil
against you, lying, for My sake.'  Those are His words who bore all
shame for us."

"They sha'n't say it of me, unless they smart for it!" cried Haimet
hotly.

"Then wilt thou not be a true follower of the Lamb of God, who, when He
was reviled, reviled not again, but committed Himself unto Him that
judgeth righteously."

"Saints be with you!" said Anania, lifting the latch, and intercepting a
response from Haimet which might have been somewhat incisive.  "I
declare, I'm just killed with the heat!"

"I should have guessed you were alive, from the look of you," returned
Derette calmly.

"So you're going into the anchorhold, I hear?" said Anania, fanning
herself with her handkerchief.

"If Romund can obtain it for me."

"Oh, he has; it's all settled.  Didn't you know?  I met Mabel in Saint
Frideswide's Street [which ran close to the north of the Cathedral], and
she told me so.--Aunt Isel, I do wonder you don't look better after that
young woman!  She'll bring Romund to his last penny before she's done.
That chape [a cape or mantle] she had on must have cost as pretty a sum
as would have bought a flock of sheep.  I never saw such extravagance."

"The money's her own," responded Isel shortly.

"It's his too.  And you're his mother.  You never ought to let her go on
as she does."

"Deary me, Anania, as if I hadn't enough to do!"

"Other folks can slice ham and boil cabbage.  You've got no call to
neglect your duty.  I can tell you, Franna's that shocked you don't
speak to the girl; and Turguia was saying only the other day, she didn't
believe in folks that pretended to care so much for their children, and
let other folks run 'em into all sorts of troubles for want of looking
after a bit.  I'll tell you, Aunt Isel--"

"Anania, I'll tell _you_," cried Isel, thoroughly put out, for she was
hot and tired and not feeling strong, "I'll tell you this once, you're a
regular plague and a mischief-maker.  You'd make me quarrel with all the
friends I have in the world, if I listened to you.  Sit you down and
rest, if you like to be peaceable; and if you don't, just go home and
give other folks a bit of rest for once in your life.  I'm just worn out
with you, and that's the honest truth."

"Well, to be sure!" gasped the porter's wife, in high dudgeon and much
amazement.  "I never did--!  Dear, dear, to think of it--how ungrateful
folks can be!  You give them the best advice, and try to help them all
you can, and they turn on you like a dog for it!  Very well, Aunt Isel;
I'll let you alone!--and if you don't rue it one of these days, when
your fine lady daughter-in-law has brought you down to beggary for want
of a proper word, my name isn't Anania--that's all!"

"Oh, deary weary me!" moaned poor Isel, dropping herself on the form as
if she could not stand for another minute.  "If this ain't a queer
world, I just _don't_ know!  Folks never let you have a shred of peace,
and come and worrit you that bad till you scarce can tell whether you're
on your head or your heels, and you could almost find in your heart to
wish 'em safe in Heaven, and then if they don't set to work and abuse
you like Noah's wife [Note 1] if you don't thank 'em for it!  That girl
Anania 'll be the death of me one of these days, if she doesn't mend her
ways.  Woe worth the day that Osbert brought her here to plague us!"

"I fancy he'd say Amen to that," remarked Haimet.

"I heard him getting it pretty hot last night.  But he takes it easier
than you, Mother; however she goes on at him, he only whistles a tune.
He has three tunes for her, and I always know how she's getting on by
the one I hear.  So long as it's only the _Agnus_, I dare lift the
latch; but when it come to _Salve Regina_, things are going awkward."

"I wish she wasn't my niece, I do!" said poor Isel.  "Well, folks, come
and get your supper."

Supper was over, and the trenchers scraped--for Isel lived in great
gentility, seeing that she ate from wooden trenchers, and not on plates
made of thick slices of bread--when a rap on the door heralded the visit
of a very superior person.  Long ago, when a young girl, Isel had been
chamberer, or bower-woman, of a lady named Mildred de Hameldun; and she
still received occasional visits from Mildred's daughter, whose name was
Aliz or Elise de Norton.  Next to the Countess of Oxford and her two
daughters, Aliz de Norton was the chief lady in the city.  Her father,
Sir Robert de Hameldun, had been Seneschal of the Castle, and her
husband, Sir Ording de Norton, was now filling a similar position.  Yet
the lofty title of Lady was barely accorded to Aliz de Norton.  At that
time it was of extreme rarity; less used than in Saxon days, far less
than at a subsequent date under the later Plantagenets.  The only women
who enjoyed it as of right were queens, wives of the king's sons,
countesses, and baronesses: for at this period, the sole titles known to
the peerage were those of baron and earl.  Duke was still a sovereign
title, and entirely a foreign one.  The epithet of Dame or Lady was also
the prerogative of a few abbesses, who held the rank of baroness.  Very
commonly, however, it was applied to the daughters of the sovereign, to
all abbesses, prioresses, and recluses, and to earls' daughters; but
this was a matter rather of courtesy than of right.  Beyond the general
epithet of "my Lord," there was no definite title of address even for
the monarch.  The appropriation of such terms as Grace, Highness,
Excellence, Majesty, or Serenity, belongs to a much later date.  Sir,
however, was always restricted to knights; and Dame was the most
respectful form of address that could be offered to any woman, however
exalted might be her rank.  The knight was above the peer, even kings
receiving additional honour from knighthood; but the equivalent title of
Dame does not seem to have been regularly conferred on their wives till
about 1230, though it might be given in some cases, as a matter of
courtesy, at a rather earlier period.

Perceiving her exalted friend, Isel went forward as quickly as was in
her, to receive her with all possible cordiality, and to usher her to
the best place in the chimney-corner.  Aliz greeted the family
pleasantly, but with a shade of constraint towards their German guests.
For a few minutes they talked conventional nothings, as is the custom of
those who meet only occasionally.  Then Aliz said--

"I came to-day, Isel, for two reasons.  Have here the first: do you know
of any vacant situation for a young woman?"

Isel could do nothing in a hurry,--more especially if any mental process
was involved.

"Well, maybe I might," she said slowly.  "Who is it, I pray you, and
what are her qualifications?"

"It is the daughter of my waiting-woman, and grand-daughter of my old
nurse.  She is a good girl--rather shy and inexperienced, but she learns
quickly.  I would have taken her into my own household, but I have no
room for her.  I wish to find her a good place, not a poor one.  Do you
know of any?"

As Isel hesitated, Haimet took up the word.

"Would it please you to have her an anchorhold maid?"

"Oh, if she could obtain such a situation as that," said Aliz eagerly,
"there would be no more to wish for."

The holiness of an anchoritess was deemed to run over upon her maid, and
a young woman who wore the semi-conventual garb of those persons was
safe from insult, and sure of help in time of need.

"My youngest sister goes into Saint John's anchorhold next month," said
Haimet, "and we have not yet procured a maid for her."

"So that is your destiny?" said Aliz, with a smile to Derette.  "Well,
it is a blessed calling."

Her manner, however, added that she had no particular desire to be
blessed in that fashion.

"That would be the very thing for Leuesa," she pursued.  "I will send
her down to talk with you.  Truly, we should be very thankful to those
choice souls to whom is given the rare virtue of such holy
self-sacrifice."

Aliz spoke the feeling of her day, which could see no bliss for a woman
except in marriage, and set single life on a pinnacle of holiness and
misery not to be reached by ordinary men and women.  The virtues of
those self-denying people who sacrificed themselves by adopting it were
supposed to be paid into an ecclesiastical treasury, and to form a kind
of set-off against the every-day shortcomings of inferior married folks.
Therefore Aliz expressed her gratitude for the prospect, as affording
her an extra opportunity of doing her duty by proxy.

Derette was in advance of her age.

"But I am not sacrificing myself," she said.  "I am pleasing myself.  I
should not like to be a wife."

"Oh, what a saintly creature you must be!" cried Aliz, clasping her
hands in admiration.  "That you can _prefer_ a holy life!  It is given
to few indeed to attain that height."

"But the holy life does not consist in dwelling in one chamber,"
suggested Gerhardt, "nor in refraining from matrimony.  He that dwelleth
in God, in the secret place of the Most High--this is the man that is
holy."

"It would be well for you, Gerard, and your friends," observed Aliz
freezingly, "not to be quite so ready in offering your strange fancies
on religious topics.  Are you aware that the priests of the city have
sent up a memorial concerning you to my Lord the Bishop, and that it has
been laid before King Henry?"

The strawberry which Gerhardt's tool was just then rounding was not
quite so perfect a round as its neighbours.  He laid the tool down, and
the hand which held the carving trembled slightly.

"No, I did not know it," he said in a low voice.  "I thank you for the
warning."

"I fear there may be some penance inflicted on you," resumed Aliz, not
unkindly.  "The wisest course for you would be at once to submit, and
not even to attempt any excuse."

Gerhardt looked up--a look which struck all who saw it.  There was in it
a little surface trouble, but under that a look of such perfect peace
and sweet acceptance of the Divine will, as they had never before
beheld.

"There will be no penance laid on me," he said, "that my Father will not
help me to bear.  I have only to take the next step, whether it lead
into the home at Bethany or the judgment-hall of Pilate.  The Garden of
God lies beyond them both."

Aliz looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign tongue.

"Gerard," she said, "I do hope you have no foolish ideas of braving out
the censure of the Bishop.  Such action would not only be sin, but it
would be the worst policy imaginable.  Holy Church is always merciful to
those who abase themselves before her,--who own their folly, and humbly
bow to her rebuke.  But she has no mercy on rebels who persist in their
rebellion,--stubborn self-opinionated men, who in their incredible folly
and presumption imagine themselves capable of correcting her."

"No," answered Gerhardt in that same low voice.  "She has no mercy."

"Then I hope you see how very foolish and impossible it would be for you
to adopt any other course than that of instant and complete submission?"
urged Aliz in a kinder tone.

Gerhardt rose from his seat and faced her.

"Your meaning is kind," he said, "and conscientious also.  You desire
the glory of your Church, but you also feel pity for the suffering of
the human creatures who dissent from her, and are crushed under the
wheels of her triumphal car.  I thank you for that pity.  In the land
where one cup of cold water goeth not without its reward, it may be that
even a passing impulse of compassion is not forgotten before God.  It
may at least call down some earthly blessing.  But for me--my way is
clear before me, and I have but to go straight forward.  I thank God
that I know my duty.  Doubt is worse than pain."

"Indeed, I am thankful too," said Aliz, as she rose to take leave.
"That you should do your duty is the thing I desire.--Well, Isel, our
Lady keep you!  I will send Leuesa down to-morrow or the next day."

Aliz departed, and the rest began to think of bedtime.  Isel sent the
girls upstairs, then Haimet followed, and Agnes went at last.  But
Gerhardt sat on, his eyes fixed on the cold hearth.  It was evident that
he regarded the news which he had heard as of no slight import.  He rose
at length, and walked to the window.  It was only a wooden shutter,
fastened by a button, and now closed for the night.  Looking round to
make sure that all had left the lower room, he threw the casement open.
But he did not see Isel, who at the moment was concealed by the red
curtain drawn half-way across the house-place, at the other end where
the ladder went up.

"Father!" he said, his eyes fixed on the darkened sky, "is the way to
Thy holy hill through this thorny path?  Wheresoever Thou shalt guide, I
go with Thee.  But `these are in the world!'  Keep them through Thy
name, and let us meet in the Garden of God, if we may not go together.
O blessed Jesu Christ! the forget-me-nots which bloom around Thy cross
are fairer than all the flowers of the world's gardens."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1.  In the medieval mystery plays, Noah's wife was always
represented as a scolding vixen.



CHAPTER SIX.

TAKEN IN THE NET.

  "There is no time so miserable
  But a man may be true."

  Shakespeare.

"Berthold, hast thou heard the news?"

"I have, Pastor.  I was coming to ask if you had heard it."

"Ah, it was told me last night, by one that meant it kindly.  I knew it
would come sooner or later."

"What will they do, think you?"  Gerhardt hesitated.  It was not so easy
to guess in 1165 the awful depths to which religious hatred could
descend, as it would have been some two centuries later.  They knew
something then of the fury of the Church against open unbelievers or
political enemies; but persecution of Christians by Christians on
account of nothing but their belief and the confession of it, was
something new at that time.

"They will impose penance on us, I suppose," suggested old Berthold.

"Doubtless, if we stand firm.  And we must stand firm, Berthold,--every
one of us."

"Oh, of course," replied Berthold calmly.  "They won't touch the
women?--what think you?"

"I know not what to think.  But I imagine--not."

"Fine and scourging, perchance.  Well, we can stand that."

"We can stand any thing with God to aid us: without Him we can bear
nothing.  Thanks be to the Lord, that last they that trust Him will
never be called upon to do."

"I heard there was a council of the bishops to be held upon us,"
suggested Berthold a little doubtfully.

"I hope not.  That were worse for us than a summons before the King.
Howbeit, the will of the Lord be done.  It may be that the hotter the
furnace is heated, the more glory shall be His by the song of His
servants in the fires."

"Ay, there'll be four," said old Berthold, bowing reverently.  "Sure
enough, Pastor, whatever we are called upon to bear, there will be One
more than our number, and His form shall be that of the _Son_ of God.
Well! the children will be safe, no question.  But I am afraid the
hottest corner of the furnace may be kept for you, dear Teacher."

"Be it so," answered Gerhardt quietly.  "Let my Lord do with me what is
good in His sight; only let me bring glory to Him, and show forth His
name among the people."

"Ay, but it does seem strange," was the response, "that the work should
be stopped, and the cause suffer, and eloquent lips be silenced, just
when all seemed most needed!  Can you understand it, Pastor?"

"No," said Gerhardt calmly.  "Why should I?  He understands who has it
all to do.  But the cause, Berthold!  The cause will not suffer.  It is
God's custom to bring good out of evil--to give honey to His Samsons out
of the carcases of lions, and to bring His Davids through the cave of
Adullam to the throne of Israel.  It is for Him to see that the cause
prospers, in His own time and way.  We have only to do each our little
handful of duty, to take the next step as He brings it before us.
Sometimes the next step is a steep pull, sometimes it is only an easy
level progress.  We have but to take it as it comes.  Never two steps at
once; never one step, without the Lord at our right hand.  Never a cry
of `Lord, save me!' from a sinking soul, that the hand which holds up
all the worlds is not immediately stretched forth to hold him up."

"One can't always feel it, though," said the old man wistfully.

"It is enough to know it."

"Ay, when we two stand talking together in Overee Lane [Overee Lane ran
out of Grandpont Street, just below the South Gate], so it may be: but
when the furnace door stands open, an King Nebuchadnezzar's mighty men
are hauling you towards it, how then, good Pastor?"

"Berthold, what kind of a father would he be who, in carrying his child
over a bridge, should hold it so carelessly that he let it slip from his
arms into the torrent beneath, and be drowned?"

"Couldn't believe such a tale, Pastor, unless the father were either
drunk or mad.  Why, he wouldn't be a man--he'd be a monster."

"And is that the character that thou deemest it fair and true to give to
Him who laid down His life for thee?"

"Pastor!--Oh!  I see now what you mean.  Well--ay, of course--"

"Depend upon it, Berthold, the Lord shall see that thou hast grace
sufficient for the evil day, if thy trust be laid on Him.  He shall not
give thee half enough for thy need out of His royal treasure, and leave
thee to make up the other half out of thy poor empty coffer.  `My God
shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory'--`that ye,
always having all-sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good
work.'  Is that too small an alner [Note 1] to hold the wealth thou
wouldst have?  How many things needest thou beyond `_all_ things'?"

"True enough," said Berthold.  "But I was not thinking so much of
myself, Pastor--I've had my life: I'm two-and-fourscore this day; and if
I am called on to lay it down for the Lord, it will only be a few months
at the furthest that I have to give Him.  It wouldn't take so much to
kill me, neither.  An old man dies maybe easier than one in the full
vigour of life.  But you, my dear Pastor!--and the young fellows among
us--Guelph, and Conrad, and Dietbold, and Wilhelm--it'll be harder work
for the young saplings to stand the blast, than for the old oak whose
boughs have bent before a thousand storms.  There would most likely be a
long term of suffering before you, when my rest was won."

"Then our rest would be the sweeter," replied Gerhardt softly.  "`He
knoweth the way that we take; when He hath tried us, we shall come forth
as gold.'  He is faithful, who will not suffer us to be tried above that
we are able to bear.  And He can make us able to bear any thing."

Gerhardt was just turning into Kepeharme Lane, when a voice at his elbow
made him pause and look back.

"Did you want me, friend?"

"No," answered a hoarse voice, in a significant tone.  "You want me."

Gerhardt smiled.  "I thank you, then, for coming to my help.  I almost
think I know your voice.  Are you not Rubi, the brother of Countess, who
made such a pet of my little child?"

An affirmative grunt was the response.

"Well, friend?"

"If an open pit lay just across this street, between you and the Walnut
Tree, what would you do?" asked the hoarse voice.

"That would depend on how necessary it was that I should pass it, would
it not?"

"Life this way--death that way," said Rubi shortly.

"And what way honour?"

"Pshaw!  `All that a man hath will he give for his life.'"

"Truth: yet even life, sometimes, will a man give for glory, patriotism,
or love.  There is a life beyond this, friend Rubi; and for that, no
price were too high to pay."

"Men may weigh gold, but not clouds," answered Rubi in a rather scornful
tone.

"Yet how much gold would purchase the life-giving water that comes from
the clouds?" was Gerhardt's ready response.

"At how much do you value your life?" asked Rubi without answering the
question.

"Truly, friend, I know not how to respond to that.  Do you count my life
to be in danger, that you ask me?"

"Not if the morning light come to you in Aylesbury or Cricklade--at
least, perchance not.  But if it dawn on you where you can hear the bell
from yon tower--ay, I do."

"I perceive your meaning.  You would have me to fly."

In the evening twilight, now fast darkening, Gerhardt could see a nod of
Rubi's black head.

"`Should such a man as I flee?'  Friend, I am the leader of this band of
my countrymen--"

"Just so.  That's the reason."

"Were I to flee, would they stand firm?" said Gerhardt thoughtfully,
rather to himself than to the young Jew.

"Firm--to what?"

"To God," replied Gerhardt reverently, "and to His truth."

"What does a Gentile care for truth?  They want you to worship one dead
man, and you prefer to worship another dead man.  What's the odds to
you?  Can't you mutter your Latin, and play with your beads, before
both, and have done with it?"

"I worship no saints, and have no beads."

"Father Jacob!  You must be a new sort of a Gentile.  Never came across
a reptile of your pattern before.  Is that why Countess took to you?"

"I cannot say.  It was the child, I think, that attracted her.  Well,
friend, I am thankful for your warning.  But how come you to know?"

A smothered laugh, as hoarse as the voice, replied--

"Folks have ways and means, sometimes, that other folks can't always
guess."

"If you know more than others," said Gerhardt boldly, "suffer me to
question you a moment."

"Question away.  I don't promise to answer."

"Are we all to be taken and examined?"

"All."

"Before the King?"

"And the creeping creatures called Bishops."

"Will any thing be done to the women and children?"

"Does the lion discriminate between a kid and a goat?  `Let your little
ones also go with you.'  Even Pharaoh could say that--when he could not
help allowing it."

"I think I understand you, Friend Rubi, and I thank you."

"You are not so badly off for brains," said Rubi approvingly.

"But how far to act upon your warning I know not, until I lay it before
the Lord, and receive His guidance."

"You--a Gentile--receive guidance from the Holy One (blessed be He)!"
Rubi's tone was not precisely scornful; it seemed rather a mixture of
surprise, curiosity, and perplexity.

"Ay, friend, I assure you, however strange it may seem to you, the good
Lord deigns to guide even us Gentiles.  And why not?  Is it not written,
`Even them will I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My
house of prayer'? and, `O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all
flesh come'?"

"Those promises belong to the reign of the Messiah.  He is not come yet.
Do you new sort of Gentiles believe He is?"

It was a most difficult question to answer.  "Yes" would probably drive
Rubi away in anger--perhaps with a torrent of blasphemy on his lips.
"No" would be false and cowardly.

"I believe," said Gerhardt softly, "that He shall yet come to Zion, and
turn away iniquity from Jacob.  May thou and I, Rubi, be ready to
welcome Him when He cometh!"

"You are better than yonder lot," answered Rubi, with a scornful wave of
his hand towards Carfax behind them.  "Ay, I suppose the Blessed One has
some mercies even for Gentiles--decent ones such as you.  Well, remember
you've been warned.  Good night!"

"Good night, Rubi, and God go with thee!"

As Gerhardt stepped into the Walnut Tree, Isel's voice greeted him from
the top of the ladder leading to the upper chamber.

"Who is that--Gerard or Haimet?"

"It is I, Isel," said the German pastor.

"Well, now, don't put out your lantern, but do, like a good man, take
this girl back to the Castle.  I've been on thorns how to get her back,
for I've kept her talking a bit too long, and there hasn't a creature
come near that I could ask.  It's Leuesa, that Aliz de Norton spoke
about, and we've settled she's to be Derette's maid.  It's a mercy
you've come just in time!"

"The next step!" said Gerhardt to himself with a smile.  "Well, this at
least is no hard one."

The girl who came down the ladder and entrusted herself to Gerhardt's
escort, was very young-looking for an anchorhold: slim, fair, and frail
in appearance, with some timidity of manner.  They set out for the
Castle.

"You know the girl who is to be my mistr

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