The King's Daughters Part 3

Lord Oxford was a slave in this sense--a slave to what other people said and thought about him--and very sad slavery it is. I would rather sweep a crossing than feel that I did not dare to say what I believed or disbelieved, what I liked or did not like, because other people would think it strange. It is as bad as being in Egyptian bondage. Yet there are a great many people quite contented to be slaves of this kind, who have not half so much excuse as Lord Oxford. If he went against the priests, who then were masters of everything, he was likely to lose his liberty and property, if not his life; while we may say any thing we like without need to be afraid. It is not always an advantage to have a great deal to lose. The poor labourers of Much Bentley, who had next to no property at all, and could only lose liberty and life, were far braver than the Earl whom they thought such a grand man, and who carried a golden wand before the Queen.

Supper was over at the Blue Bell, and Margaret Thurston was thinking about going home, when a little faint rap came on the door of the cottage. Rose opened it, and saw a big jar standing on the door-sill, a little boy sitting beside it, and an older girl leaning against the wall.

"Please, we're come," said Cissy.

CHAPTER FOUR.

ON THE WAY TO THORPE.

"Please, we're come," said Cissy. "We've been a good while getting here, but we--Oh, it isn't you!"

"What isn't me?" said Rose, laughing--for people said _me_ where it should have been I, then, as they do still. "I rather think it is me; don't you?"

"Yes, but you are not she that spake to us on the road," said Cissy.

"Somebody told us to call here as we went down the lane, and her daughter should go home with us, and help us to carry the big jar.

Perhaps you're the daughter?"

"Well, I guess I am," answered Rose. "Where's home?"

"It's at the further end of Thorpe."

"All right. Come in and rest you, and I'll fetch a sup of something to do you good, poor little white faces."

Rose took a hand of each and led them forward.

"Mother, here be two bits of Maypoles," said she, "for they be scarce fatter; and two handfuls of snow, for they be scarce rosier--that say you promised them that I should go home with them and bear their jar of meal."

"So I did, Rose. Bring them in, and let them warm themselves," answered Mrs Mount. "Give them a sup of broth or what we have, to put a bit of life in them; and at after thou shalt bear them company to Thorpe. Poor little souls! they have no mother, and they say G.o.d looks after them only."

"Then I shall be in His company too," said Rose softly. Then, dropping her voice that the children might not hear, she added, "Mother, there's only that drop of broth you set aside for breakfast; and it's scarce enough for you and father both. Must I give them that?"

Alice Mount thought a moment. She had spoken before almost without thinking.

"Daughter," she said, "if their Father, which is also ours, had come with them visible to our eyes, we should bring forth our best for Him; and He will look for us to do it for the little ones whose angels see His Face. Ay, fetch the broth, Rose."

Perhaps Cissy had overheard a few words, for wheel the bowl of broth was put into her hands, she said, "Can you spare it? Didn't you want it for something else than us?"

"We can spare it, little maid," said Alice, with a smile.

"Sup it up," added Rose, laying her hand on the child's shoulder; "and much good may it do thee! Then, when you are both warmed and rested, I'll set forth with you."

Cissy did not allow that to be long. She drank her broth, admonished Will by a look to finish his--for he was disposed to loiter,--and after sitting still for a few minutes, rose and put down the bowl.

"We return you many thanks," she said in her prim little way, "and I think, if you please, we ought to go home. Father 'll be back by the time we get there; and I don't like to be away when he comes. Mother bade me not. She said he'd miss her worse if he didn't find me. You see, I've got to do for Mother now, both for Father and the children."

Alice Mount thought it very funny to hear this little mite talking about "the children," as if she were not a child at all.

"Well, tarry a minute till I tie on my hood," said Rose. "I'll be ready before you can say, 'This is the house that Jack built.'"

"What do you with the babe, little maid, when you go forth?" asked Alice.

"Baby?" said Cissy, looking up. "Oh, we leave her with Ursula Felstede, next door. She's quite safe till we come back."

Rose now came in from the inner room, where she had been putting on her hood and mantle. There were no bonnets then. What women called bonnets in those days were close thick hoods, made of silk, velvet, fur, or woollen stuff of some sort. Nor had they either shawls or jackets--only loose mantles, for out-door wear. Rose took up the jar of meal.

"Please, I can carry it on one side," said Cissy rather eagerly.

"Thou mayest carry thyself," said Rose. "That's plenty. I haven't walked five miles to-day. I'm a bit stronger than thou, too."

Little Will had not needed telling that he was no longer wanted to carry the jar; he was already off after wild flowers, as if the past five miles had been as many yards, though he had a.s.sured Cissy at least a dozen times as they came along that he did not know how he was ever to get home, and as they were entering Bentley had declared himself unable to take another step. Cissy shook her small head with the air of a prophetess.

"Will shouldn't say such things!" said she. "He said he couldn't walk a bit further--that I should have to carry him as well as the jar--and I don't know how I could, unless I'd poured the meal out and put him in, and he'd never have gone, I'm sure; and now, do but look at him after those b.u.t.tercups!"

"He didn't mean to tell falsehoods," said Rose. "He was tired, I dare say. Lads will be lads, thou knowest."

"Oh dear, I don't know how I'm to bring up these children to be good people!" said Cissy, as gravely as if she had been their grandmother.

"Ursula says children are great troubles, and I'm sure it's true. If there's any place where Will should be, that's just where he always isn't; and if there's one spot where he shouldn't be, that's the place where you commonly find him. Baby can't walk yet, so she's safe; but whatever I shall do when she can, I'm sure I don't know! I can't be in all the places at once where two of them shouldn't be."

Rose could not help laughing.

"Little maid," she said kindly, "thy small shoulders will never hold the world, nor even thy father's cottage. Hast thou forgot what thou saidst not an half-hour gone, that G.o.d takes care of you all?"

"Oh yes, He takes big care of us," was Cissy's answer. "He'll see that we have meat and clothes and so forth, and that Father gets work. But He'll hardly keep Will and Baby out of mischief, will He? Isn't that too little for Him?"

"The whole world is but a speck, little Cicely, compared with Him. If He will humble Himself to see thee and me at all, I reckon He is as like to keep Will out of mischief as to keep him alive. It is the very greatness of G.o.d that _He_ can attend to all the little things in the world at once. They are all little things to Him. Hast thou not heard that the Lord Jesus said the very hairs of our heads be numbered?"

"Yea, Sir Thomas read that one eve at Ursula's."

Sir Thomas Tye was the Vicar of Much Bentley.

"Well," said Rose, "and isn't it of more importance to make Will a good lad than to know how many hairs he's got on his head? Wouldn't thy father think so?"

"For sure he would," said Cissy earnestly.

"And isn't G.o.d thy Father?"

Just as Rose asked that, a tall, dark figure turned out of a lane they were pa.s.sing, and joined them. It was growing dusk, but Rose recognised the Vicar of whom they had just been speaking. Most priests were called "Sir" in those days.

"Christ bless you, my children!" said the Vicar.

Both Rose and Cissy made low courtesies, for great respect was then paid to a clergyman. They called them priests, for very few could read the Bible, which tells us that the only priest is our Lord Jesus Christ. A priest does not mean the same thing as a clergyman, though too many people thoughtlessly speak as if it did. A priest is a man who offers a sacrifice of some living thing to G.o.d. So, as Jesus Christ, who offered Himself, is our sacrifice, and there can never be any other, there cannot be any priests now. There are a great many texts which tell us this, but I will only mention one, which you can look out in your Bibles and learn by heart: the tenth verse of the tenth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is easy to remember two tens.

Cissy was a little frightened when she saw that Sir Thomas walked on with them; but Rose marched on as if she did not care whether he came or not. For about a year after Queen Mary's accession Sir Thomas had come pretty regularly to the prayer-meetings which were held sometimes at the Blue Bell, and sometimes at Ursula Felstede's at Thorpe, and also sometimes at John Love's on the Heath. He often read the Bible to them, and gave them little sermons, and seemed as kind and pleasant as possible. But when Queen Mary had been about a year on the throne, and it could be plainly seen which way things were going--that is, that she would try to bring back the Popish religion which her brother had cast off--Sir Thomas began to come less often. He found it too far to John Love's and to Thorpe; and whenever the meeting was at the Blue Bell, which was only a few hundred yards from the Vicarage,--well, it certainly was odd that Sir Thomas was always poorly on that night.

Still, n.o.body liked to think that he was making believe; but Alice Mount said so openly, and Rose had heard her.