One Snowy Night Part 15

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 peac.o.c.k. 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 compa.s.sion 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.

n.o.body 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 b.u.t.tons you bought from Veka, but Selis has swallowed two, and--"

"_Those_ b.u.t.tons! 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 compa.s.sionate 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 b.u.t.tons, 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 n.o.body was murdered or murderously a.s.saulted, 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 a.s.senting 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d'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 G.o.dstowe, in the month of September shortly about to open.