One Snowy Night Part 45

"You found him then?" answered David. "Had you much trouble?"

"I found him. Never mind the trouble."

"Has he settled the puzzle for you, then?"

"I think I settled it for him."

"I ask your pardon, but I don't understand you."

"I don't suppose you do."

"Countess," said Christian, coming down the ladder, "I bought the herrings as you bade me; but there is no salt salmon in the market to-day."

"To whom are you speaking?" inquired Countess, with an expression of fun about the corners of her lips.

"You," replied Christian in surprise.

"Then, perhaps you will have the goodness to call me by my Christian name, which is Sarah."

"O Countess! have you been baptised?"

"I have."

"By the hermit?"

"By the hermit."

"But how?"

"How? With water. What did you expect?"

"But--all at once, without any preparation?"

"What preparation was needed? I made my confession of Christ, and he baptised me in His name. The preparation was only to draw the water."

"What on earth did you do for sponsors?"

"Had none."

"Did he let you?"

A little smothered laugh came from Countess. "He had not much choice,"

she said. "He did try it on. But I told him plainly, I was not going to give in to that nonsense: that if he chose to baptise me at once, I was there ready, and would answer any questions and make any confession that he chose. But if not--not. I was not coming again."

"And he accepted it!" said David, with a dozen notes of exclamation in his voice.

"Did I not tell you he was the most sensible Christian I ever found? He said, 'Well!--after all, truly, any thing save the simple baptism with water was a man-made ordinance. The Ethiopian eunuch had no sponsors'-- I don't know who he was, but I suppose the hermit did--'and he probably made as true a Christian for all that' 'In truth,' said I, 'the inst.i.tution of sponsors seems good for little children--friends who promise to see that they shall be brought up good Christians if their parents die early; but for a woman of my age, it is simply absurd, and I won't have it. Let me confess Christ as my Messiah and Lord, and baptise me with water in His name, and I am sure he will be satisfied with it. And if any of the saints and angels are not satisfied, they can come down and say so, if they think it worth while.' So--as he saw, I suppose, that _I_ was not going to do it--he gave in."

"I hope it's all right," said David, rather uneasily.

"David, I wish I could put a little sense into you. You are a good man, but you are a very foolish one. 'All right!' Of course it is all right. It is man, and not G.o.d, who starts at trifles like a frightened horse, and makes men offenders for a word. The Lord looketh on the heart."

"Ay, but Moses (on whom be peace!) was particular enough about some details which look very trifling to us."

"He was particular enough where they concerned the honour of G.o.d, or where they formed a part of some symbolism which the alteration would cause to be wrongly interpreted so as to teach untruth. But for all else, he let them go, and so did our Lord. When Aaron explained why he had not eaten the goat of the sin-offering, Moses was content. Nor did Christ condemn David the King, but excused him, for eating the shewbread. I am sure Moses would have baptised me this morning, without waiting for sponsors or Lucca oil. This is a very silly world; I should have thought the Church might have been a trifle wiser, and really it seems to have less common sense of the two. How could I have found sponsors, I should like to know? I know n.o.body but you and Christian."

"They told us, when we were baptised, that the Church did not allow a husband and wife to be sponsors to the same person. So we could not both have stood for you. It would have had to be Christian and Rudolph, and some other woman."

"Rudolph! That baby! [Note 1.] Would they have let him stand?"

"Yes--if you could not find any one else."

"And promise to bring me up in the Catholic faith? Well, if that is not rich!--when I have got to bring him up! I will tell you what, David--if some benevolent saint would put a little common sense into the Church, it would be a blessing to somebody. 'The Church!' I am weary of that ceaseless parrot scream. The Church stands in the way to Jesus of Nazareth, not as a door to go in, but as a wall to bar out. I wish we had lived in earlier days, before all that rubbish had had time to grow.

Now, mind you," concluded Countess, as she rose to go to bed, "David and Christian, I don't mean to be bothered about this. Don't talk to me, nor to Rudolph, nor to any body else. I shall read the Book, and teach him to do it; but I shall not pray to those gilded things; and he shall not. What Gerhardt taught is enough for him and me. And remember, if too much be said, the King's officers may come and take every thing away. I do not see that it is my duty to go and tell them.

If they come, let them come, and G.o.d be my aid and provider! Otherwise, we had better keep quiet."

Note 1. That little children were at times allowed to be sponsors in the Middle Ages, is proved by the instance of John Earl of Kent in 1330, whose brother and sister, the former probably under ten years of age, and the latter aged only eighteen months, stood sponsors for him.

(_Prob. aet. Johannis Com. Kant._, 23 Edward Third, 76.)

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

WELL MET.

"O G.o.d, we are but leaves upon Thy stream, Clouds in Thy sky."

Dinah Mulock.

A busy place on a Monday morning was Bread Street, in the city of London. As its name denotes, it was the street of the bakers; for our ancestors did not give names, as we do, without reason, for mere distinction's sake. If a town gate bore the name of York Gate, that was equivalent to a signpost, showing that it opened on the York road. They made history and topography, where we only make confusion.

The fat, flour-besprinkled baker at the Harp, in Bread Street, was in full tide of business. His shelves were occupied by the eight different kinds of bread in common use--wa.s.sel, used only by knights and squires; c.o.c.ket, the kind in ordinary use by smaller folk; maslin, a mixture of wheat, oats, and barley; barley, rye, and brown bread, the fare of tradesmen and monks; oaten, the food of the poorest; and horse bread.

There were two or three varieties finer and better than these, only used by the n.o.bles, which were therefore made at home, and not commonly to be found at the baker's: simnel, manchet or chet, and paynemayne or _pain de main_ (a corruption of _panis dominicus_). We read also of _pain le Rei_, or the King's bread, but this may be paynemayne under another name. Even in the large towns, at that time, much of the baking was done at home; and the chief customers of the bakers were the cookshops or eating houses, with such private persons as had not time or convenience to prepare their own bread. The price of bread at this time does not appear to be on record; but about seventy years later, four loaves were sold for a penny. [Note 1.]

The cooks, who lived mainly in Eastcheap and along the water-side, of course had to provide bread of various kinds, to suit their different customers; and a young man, armed with a huge basket, came to have it filled with all varieties. Another young man had entered after him, and now stood waiting by the wall till the former should have finished his business.

"Now then," said the baker, turning to the man in waiting, as the other trudged forth with his basket: "what shall I serve you with?"

"I don't want you to serve me; I want to serve you," was the answer.

The baker looked him over with a good-natured but doubtful expression.

"Want to serve me, do you? Whence come you?"

"I'm an upland man." [From the country.]