One Snowy Night Part 23

"'He that is an hireling, when he seeth the wolf coming, leaveth the sheep and fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.'

Is that conduct you recommend, Stephen?"

"I recommend you to get outside of Oxford as fast as you can, and take your womankind with you; and if you don't, you'll be sorry, that's all.

Now be off, and don't forget that you've been warned. Good night!"

"I have been warned thrice, friend. But where G.o.d has need of me, there is my post, and there am I. There are penalties for desertion in the army of the Lord. I thank you for your kindly meaning. Good night!"

"Poor fool!" said Stephen to himself as he fastened the postern behind Gerhardt. "Yet--'penalties for desertion'--I don't know. Which is the fool, I wonder? If I could have saved _her_!"

Gerhardt went back to the Walnut Tree, where they were sitting down to the last meal. It consisted of "fat fish," apple turnovers, and spiced ale.

"Eh dear!" said Isel, with a sigh. "To think that this is pretty nigh the last supper you'll ever eat in this house, Derette! I could cry with the best when I think of it."

"You can come to see me whenever you wish, Mother--much better than if I were at G.o.dstowe."

"So I can, child; but you can't come to me."

"I can send Leuesa to say that I want to see you."

"Well, and if so be that I've broken my leg that very morning, and am lying groaning up atop of that ladder, with never a daughter to serve me--how then? Thou gone, and Flemild gone, and not a creature near!"

"You'll have Ermine. But you are not going to break your leg, Mother, I hope."

"You hope! Oh ay, hope's a fine tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, but it's poor stuff for a gown. And how long shall I have Ermine? She'll go and wed somebody or other--you see if she doesn't."

Ermine smiled and shook her head.

"Well, then, you'll have Agnes."

"I shall have trouble--that's what I shall have: it's the only thing sure in this world: and it's that loving it sticks to you all the tighter if you've got nothing else. There's nought else does in this world--without it's dogs."

"'There's a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother,'" quoted Gerhardt softly.

"There's precious few of them," returned Isel, who naturally did not understand the allusion. "You'll not find one of that sort more than once in a--Mercy on us! here's a soldier walking straight in!--whatever does the man want?"

Gerhardt's quick eyes had caught the foreign texture of the soldier's mantle--the bronzed face with its likeness to Derette--the white cross of the English Crusader.

"He wants his wife and children, I should think," he answered calmly; and at the same moment the soldier said--

"Isel! Wife! Dost thou not know me?"

n.o.body in the room could have given a clear and connected account of what happened after that. Isel cried and laughed by turns, the majority all talked at once, and little Rudolph, divided between fear and admiration, clung to his mother, and cast furtive glances at the new-comer. Manning was naturally astonished to see how his family had grown, and much had to be explained to him--the presence of the Germans, the approaching marriage of Flemild, the past marriage of Romund, and the profession of Derette. The first and third he accepted with bluff good-humour. As to the second, he said he would have a talk with Raven Soclin--very likely he was all right now, though he remembered him a troublesome lad. But Derette's fate did not appear quite to please him.

She had been his pet, and he had pictured her future differently and more according to his own notion of happiness.

"Well, she seems to like it best herself," said Isel, "and I don't see but you have to leave folks to be happy their own way, though the way some folks choose is mighty queer. Father Dolfin says we must always give G.o.d the best, and if we grudge it to Him, it wipes out the merit of the sacrifice."

"Ay, Father Dolfin knows how they do things up yonder," answered Manning. "Do thy duty, and leave the priest to see thou comest safe-- that's my way of thinking."

"But suppose he fails to 'see'?" suggested Gerhardt.

Manning eyed him rather suspiciously.

"I hope you aren't one of that new lot that talk against the priests,"

said he. "I've heard something of them as I came through Almayne and Guienne: saw one fellow flogged at the market-cross, that had let his tongue run too freely. And I can tell you, I'm not one of that sort.

You're welcome to stay while you behave decently, as I see you've been a help and comfort to my women here: but one word against the priests, or one wag of your head in irreverence to the holy ma.s.s, and out you go, bag and baggage!--ay, down to that child."

Rudolph seemed frightened by the harsh tones and loud words, and when Manning ended by striking his hand upon his thigh with a resounding slap to enforce his threat, the child began to whimper.

"I trust, friend, you will never see any irreverence in me towards aught to which reverence is due," replied Gerhardt; "but if you do, fulfil your words, and I shall not trouble you longer."

"Well, look out!" said Manning. "I don't much like your long prayers just now: they're a bad sign. As to Haimet's Latin grace, I suppose he's learnt that in the schools; and praying in Latin isn't so bad. But a cross over the supper-table is plenty good enough for me. I never did believe in folks that are always saying their prayers, and reckoning to be better than their neighbours."

"I believe in being as good as I can be," said Gerhardt with a smile.

"If that should make me better than my neighbours, it would hardly be my fault, would it? But in truth, Friend Manning, I do not think myself any better, for I know too much of the evil of mine own heart."

"Ay, that's the lingo of the pestilent vipers in Guienne! I could find in my heart to lay a silver penny you'll turn out to be one of that brood. Girls, I hope you haven't caught the infection? We'll wait a few days and see--what we shall see."

"Eh, Manning, they're the peaceablest set ever came in a house!"

exclaimed Isel. "Helped me over and over, they have, and never one of 'em gave me an ill word. And Gerard's made a pretty penny with weaving and wood-carving, and every farthing he's given me, save what they wanted for clothes. Do, for mercy's sake, let 'em be! Flemild married, and Derette away to the anchorhold--I shall be a lost woman without Agnes and Ermine! Nigh on seven years they've been here, and I haven't been so comfortable in all my life afore. They may have some queer notions in their heads--that I can't say; most folks have one way or another--but they're downright good for help and quietness. They are, so!"

"What says Father Dolfin about them?"

"Well, he don't say much of no sort," answered Isel doubtfully, with an uneasy recollection of one or two things he had lately said. "But I say they're as good folks as ever walked in shoe-leather, and you'll not find their match in Oxford, let be Kepeharme Lane."

"Well," said Manning, "let them bide a few days: we shall see. But I shall brook no heresy, and so I give you fair warning. No heretic, known to me, shall ever darken the doors of a soldier of the cross!"

"I pray you, hold to that!" was Gerhardt's answer.

The next morning dawned a fair autumn day. Manning seemed somewhat more inclined to be friendly than on the previous evening, and matters went on pleasantly enough until the hour of dinner. They had just risen from table when a rap came on the door. Flemild went to open it.

"Holy saints!" they heard her cry.

Then the door opened, and in walked two men in red and white livery, with four golden crosses patee embroidered on the left arm. With a glance round, they addressed themselves to Manning.

"Are you the owner of this house?"

Manning knew in a moment who his visitors were--official sumners of the Bishop of Lincoln.

"I am," he said. "What would you have?"

One of the sumners unrolled a parchment deed.

"We have here a writ to take the bodies of certain persons believed to be in your house, and we bid you, in the name of holy Church, that you aid us in the execution of our office."

Isel, terribly frightened, was muttering Ave Marias by the dozen. To Gerhardt's forehead the blood had surged in one sudden flush, and then subsiding, left him calm and pale.

"When holy Church bids, I am her lowly servant," was Manning's answer.

"Do your duty."