Clare Avery Part 41

Clare Avery and Eunice Underhill struck up a warm friendship. Eunice [name and dates true, character imaginary] was one of the few women who keep "the dew of their youth," and in freshness, innocence, and ignorance of this evil world, she was younger than many girls not half her age. Her simplicity put Clare at ease, while her experience of life awoke respect. Clare seized her opportunity one day, while taking a long walk with Eunice, to obtain the opinion of the latter on the point which still interested her, and compare it with that of Mrs Tremayne.

Why it was easier to talk to Eunice than to those at home, Clare could not decide. Perhaps, had she discovered the reason, she might not have found it very flattering to her self-love.

"Mistress Eunice, think you it easy to be content with small gear?"

"You would say with lack of goods?" asked Eunice.

"Nay; but with the having to deal with petty, pa.s.sing matter, in the stead of some n.o.ble deed that should be worthy the doing."

"I take you now, Mistress Clare. And I can feel for your perplexity, seeing I have known the same myself."

"Oh, you have so?" responded Clare eagerly.

"Ay, I have felt as though the work set me to do were sheer waste of such power and knowledge as G.o.d had given unto me; and have marvelled (I would speak it with reverence) what the Lord would be at, that He thus dealt with me. Petty things--mean things--little pa.s.sing matter, as you said, that none shall be the better for to-morrow; wherefore must I do these? I have made a pudding, maybe; I have shaken up a bed; I have cut an old gown into a kirtle. And to-morrow the pudding shall be eaten, and the bed shall lack fresh straw, and ere long the gown shall be worn to rags. But I shall live for ever. Wherefore should a soul be set to such work which shall live for ever?"

"Ay,--you know!" said Clare, drawing a deep breath of satisfaction.

"Now tell me, Mistress Eunice, what answer find you to this question?

Shall it be with you, as with other, that these be my tasks at school?"

"That is verily sooth, Mistress Clare; yet there is another light wherein I love the better to look thereat. And it is this: that in this world be no little things."

"What would you say, Mistress Eunice? In good sooth, it seemeth me the rather, there be few great."

"I cry you mercy," said Eunice, with her bright smile. "Lo' you,--'tis after this fashion. The pudding I have made a man shall eat, and thereby be kept alive. This man shall drop a word to another, which one pa.s.sing by shall o'erhear,--on the goodness and desirableness of learning, I will say. Well, this last shall turn it o'er in his mind, and shall determine to send his lad to school, and have him well learned. Time being gone, this lad shall write a book, or shall preach a sermon, whereby, through the working of G.o.d's Spirit, many men's hearts shall be touched, and led to consider the things that belong unto their peace. Look you, here is a chain; and in this great chain one little link is the pudding which I made, twenty years gone."

"But the man could have eaten somewhat else."

"Soothly; but he did not, you see."

"Or another than you could have made the pudding."

"Soothly, again: but I was to make it."

Clare considered this view of the case.

"All things in this world, Mistress Clare, be links in some chain. In Dutchland [Germany], many years gone now, a young man that studied in an university there was caught in an heavy thunderstorm. He grew sore affrighted; all his sins came to his mind: and he prayed Saint Anne to dispel the storm, promising that he would straightway become a monk.

The storm rolled away, and he suffered no harm. But he was mindful of his vow, and he became a monk. Well, some time after, having a spare half-hour, he went to the library to get him a book. As G.o.d would have it, he reached down a Latin Bible, the like whereof he had ne'er seen aforetime. Through the reading of this book--for I am well a.s.sured you know that I speak of Luther--came about the full Reformation of religion which, thanks be to G.o.d! is now spread abroad. And all this cometh--to speak after the manner of men--in that one Martin was at one time affrighted with the thunder; and, at another time, reached him down a book. Nay, Mistress Clare--in G.o.d's world be no little things!"

"Mistress Eunice, in so saying, you make life to look a mighty terrible thing, and full of care."

"And is life not a most terrible thing to them that use it not aright?

But for them that do trust them unto G.o.d's guidance, and search His Word to see what He would have them do, and seek alway and above all things but to do His will,--it may be life is matter for meditation, yea, and watchfulness; but methinks none for care. G.o.d will see to the chain: 'tis He, not we, that is weaver thereof. We need but to be careful, each of his little link."

"My links be wearyful ones!" said Clare with a little sigh. "'Tis to cut, and snip, and fit, and sew, and guard, and mend. My cousin Lysken dealeth with men and women, I with linen and woollen. Think you it strange that her work should seem to me not only the n.o.bler, but the sweeter belike?"

"Methinks I have seen Mistress Lysken to deal pretty closely with linen and woollen, sithence Father and I came hither," said Eunice smiling.

"But in very deed, Mistress Clare, 'tis but nature that it so should seem unto you. Yet did it ever come into your mind, I pray you, that we be poor judges of that which is high and n.o.ble? I marvel if any save Christ and Gabriel e'er called John Baptist a great man. Yet he was great in the sight of the Lord. Yea, that word, 'more than a prophet'

was the very accolade of the King of the whole world. You know, Mistress Clare, that if the Queen's Majesty should call a man 'Sir Robert,' though it were but a mistake, and he no knight, that very word from her should make him one. And the King of Heaven can make no mistake; His great men be great men indeed. Now whether would you rather, to be great with men, or with G.o.d?"

"Oh, with G.o.d, undoubtedly!" said Clare shyly.

"It seemeth me," said Eunice, knitting her brows a little, "there be three questions the which your heart may ask himself touching your work.

_Wherefore_ do I this? You will very like say, Because you be bidden.

Good. But then--_How_ do I this?--is it in the most excellent way I can? And yet again, _For whom_ do I this? That last lieth deepest of all."

"Why, I do it for my mother and Aunt Rachel," said Clare innocently.

"Good. But wherefore not, henceforward, do it for G.o.d?"

"For G.o.d, Mistress Eunice!"

"'Tis the true touchstone of greatness. Nought can be little that a man doth for G.o.d; like as nought can be great that a man doth but for himself."

"Lysken can work for G.o.d," said Clare thoughtfully; "but I, who do but draw needles in and out--"

"Cannot draw them for G.o.d? Nay, but Paul thought not so. He biddeth you 'whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do _all_ to the glory of G.o.d.' But mind you, only the very best work is to His glory: that is to say, only _your_ very best. He measures not Mall's work by Jane's, but he looketh at the power of both, and judgeth if they have wrought their best or no. Jane may have finished the better piece of work, but if Mall have wrought to her utmost, and Jane not so, then Mall's work shall take first rank, and Jane's must fall behind."

"That is a new thought unto me, Mistress Eunice--that I can do such work for G.o.d. I did indeed account that I could be patient under the same, for to please Him: and I could have thought that the saving of a child from drowning, or the leading of a ship to battle, and so forth, might be done as unto G.o.d: but to cut and sew and measure!"

"I would 'twere not a new thought to many another," answered Eunice.

"But I guess we can sew well or ill; and we can cut carefully or carelessly; and we can measure truly or untruly. Truth is no little matter, Mistress Clare; neither is diligence; nor yet a real, honest, hearty endeavouring of one's self to please the Lord, who hath given us our work, in every little thing. Moreover, give me leave to tell you,-- you may be set a great work, and you may fail to see the greatness thereof. I mind me, when I was something younger than you be, and my brother Hal was but a little child, he fell into sore danger, and should belike have been killed, had none stretched out hand to save him. Well, as the Lord in His mercy would have it, I saw his peril, and I ran and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the child in the very nick of time. There was but an half-minute to do it. And at afterward, men praised me, and said I had done a great thing. But think you it bare the face of a great thing to me, as I was in the doing thereof? Never a whit. I ne'er tarried to think if it were a great thing or a small: I thought neither of me nor of my doing, but alonely of our Hal, and how to set him in safety. They said it was a great matter, sith I had risked mine own life. But, dear heart! I knew not that I risked aught--I ne'er thought once thereon.

Had I known it, I would have done the same, G.o.d helping me: but I knew it not. Now, whether was this a great thing or a small?"

"I have no doubt to say, a great."

"Maybe, Mistress Clare, when you and I shall stand--as I pray G.o.d we may!--among the sheep at the right hand of Christ our Saviour,--when the books be opened, and the dead judged according to that which is written of them,--He may pick out some little petty deed (to our eyes), and may say thereof, This was a great thing in My sight. And it may be, too, that the deeds we counted great He shall pa.s.s by without any mention.

Dear heart, let us do the small deeds to our utmost, and the great are sure to follow. 'He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.' And you know what He saith touching that poor cup of cold water, which a.s.suredly is but a right small thing to give.

Think you, if the Queen's Highness were pa.s.sing here but now, and should drop her glove, and you picked up the same and offered it to Her Grace,--should you e'er forget it? I trow not. Yet what a petty matter--to pick up a dropped glove! 'Ah, but,' say you, 'It was the Queen's glove--that wrought the difference.' Verily so. Then set the like gilding upon your petty deeds. It is the King's work. You have wrought for the King. Your guerdon is His smile--is it not enough?--and your home shall be within His house for ever."

"Ay!" said Clare, drawing a long sigh--not of care: "it is enough, Mistress Eunice."

"And He hath no lack of our work," added Eunice softly. "It is _given_ to us to do, like as it was given unto Peter and John to suffer.

Methinks he were neither a good child nor a thankful, that should refuse to stretch forth hand for his Father's gift."

Note 1. I have not been able to ascertain the true date of Underhill's death, but he was living on the 6th of March 1568. (Rot. Pat., 10 Elizabeth, Part Two.)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

GENTLEMAN JACK.

"He is transformed, And grown a gallant of the last edition."

_Ma.s.singer_.