The King's Daughters Part 37

"Why, Mistress Amy! surely you know well enough--"

"No, I don't," she said, cutting him short. "Lack-a-day! I never took no heed when I might have learned it: and now have I no chance to learn, and everything to hinder. I don't know a soul I could ask about it."

"The priest," suggested Mr Ewring a little constrainedly. This language astonished him from Nicholas Clere's daughter.

"I don't want the priest's way. He isn't going himself; or if he is, it's back foremost. Master Ewring, help me! I mean it. I never wist a soul going that way save Bessy Foulkes: and she's got there, and I want to go _her_ way. What am I to do?"

Mr Ewring did not speak for a moment. He was thinking, in the first place, how true it was that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church"; and in the second, what very unlikely subjects G.o.d sometimes chooses as the recipients of His grace. One of the last people in Colchester whom he would have expected to fill Elizabeth Foulkes' vacant place in the ranks was the girl who sat in the porch, looking up at him with those anxious, earnest eyes.

"Mistress Amy," he said, "you surely know there is peril in this path?

It were well you should count the cost afore you enter on it."

"Where is there not peril?" was the answer. "I may be slain of lightning to-morrow, or die of some sudden malady this next month. Can you say surely that there is more peril of burning than of that? If not, come to mine help. I must find the way somehow. Master Ewring, I want to be _safe_! I want to feel that it will not matter how or when I go, because I know whither it shall be. And I have lost the way. I thought I had but to do well and be as good as I could, and I should sure come out safe. And I have tried that way awhile, and it serves not. First, I can't be good when I would: and again, the better I am-- as folks commonly reckon goodness--the worser I feel. There's somewhat inside me that won't do right; and there's somewhat else that isn't satisfied when I have done right; it wants something more, and I don't know what it is. Master Ewring, you do. Tell me!"

"Mistress Amy, what think you religion to be?"

"Nay, I always thought it were being good. If it's not that, I know not what it is."

"But being good must spring out of something. That is the flower. What is the seed--that which is to make you 'be good,' and find it easy and pleasant?"

"Tell me!" said Amy's eyes more than her words.

"My dear maid, religion is fellowship; living fellowship with the living Lord. It is neither being good nor doing good, though both will spring out of it. It is an exchange made between you and the Lord Christ: His righteousness for your iniquity; His strength for your weakness; His rich grace for your bankrupt poverty of all goodness. Mistress Amy, you want Christ our Lord, and the Holy Ghost, which He shall give you--the new heart and the right spirit which be His gift, and which He died to purchase for you."

"That's it!" said Amy, with a light in her eyes. "But how come you by them?"

"You may have them for the asking--if you do truly wish it. 'Whosoever _will_, let him take the water of life.' Know you what Saint Austin saith? 'Thou would'st not now be setting forth to find G.o.d, if He had not first set forth to find thee.' 'For by grace ye are saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of G.o.d.' Keep fast hold of that, Mistress Amy."

"That 'll do!" said Amy, under her breath. "I've got what I want now-- if He'll hearken to me. But, O Master Ewring, I'm not fit to keep fellowship with Him!"

"Dear maid, you are that which the best and the worst man in the world are--a sinner that needeth pardon, a sinner that can be saved only through grace. Have you the chance to get hold of a Bible, or no?"

"No! Father gave up his to the priest, months agone. I never cared nought about it while I had it, and now I've lost the chance."

"Trust the Lord to care for you. He shall send you, be sure, either the quails or the manna. He'll not let you starve. He has bound Himself to bring all safe that trust in Him. And--it looks not like it, verily, yet it may be that times of liberty shall come again."

"Master Ewring, I've given you a deal of trouble," said Amy, rising suddenly, "and taken ever so much time. But I'm not unthankful, trust me."

"My dear maid, how can Christian men spend time better than in helping a fellow soul on his way towards Heaven? It's not time wasted, be sure."

"No, it's not time wasted!" said Amy, with more feeling than Mr Ewring had ever seen her show before.

"Farewell, dear maid," said he. "One thing I pray you to remember: what you lack is the Holy Ghost, for He only can show Christ unto you. I or others can talk of Him, but the Spirit alone can reveal Him to your own soul. And the Spirit is promised to them that ask Him."

"I'll not forget, Master. Good even, and G.o.d bless you!"

Mr Ewring stood a moment longer to watch Amy as she ran down the road, with a step tenfold more light and elastic than the weary, languid one with which she had come up.

"G.o.d bless the maid!" he said half aloud, "and may He 'stablish, strengthen, settle' her! 'He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy.'

But we on whom He has had it aforetime, how unbelieving and hopeless we are apt to be! Verily, the last recruit that I looked to see join Christ's standard was Nicholas Clere's daughter."

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

THE LAST MARTYRDOM.

"Good-morrow, Mistress Clere! Any placards of black velvet have you?"

A placard with us means a large handbill for pasting on walls: in Queen Mary's time they meant by it a double stomacher,--namely an ornamentation for the front of a dress, put on separate from it, which might either be plain silk or velvet, or else worked with beautiful embroidery, gold twist, sometimes even pearls and precious stones.

Mrs Clere came in all haste and much obsequiousness, for it was no less a person than the Mayoress of Colchester who thus inquired for a black velvet placard.

"We have so, Madam, and right good ones belike. Amy, fetch down yonder box with the bettermost placards."

Amy ran up the little ladder needful to reach the higher shelves, and brought down the box. It was not often that Mrs Clere was asked for her superior goods, for she dealt chiefly with those whose purses would not stretch so far.

"Here, Madam, is a fine one of carnation velvet--and here a black wrought in gold twist; or what think you of this purple bordered in pearls?"

"That liketh me the best," said the Mayoress taking up the purple velvet. "What cost it, Mistress Clere?"

"Twenty-six and eightpence, Madam, at your pleasure."

"'Tis dear."

"Nay, Madam! Pray you look on the quality--velvet of the finest, and pearls of right good colour. You shall not find a better in any shop in the town." And Mrs Clere dexterously turned the purple placard to the light in such a manner that a little spot on one side of it should not show. "Or if this carnation please you the better--"

"No, I pa.s.s not upon that," said the Mayoress; which meant, that she did not fancy it. "Will you take four-and-twenty shillings, Mistress Clere?"

It was then considered almost a matter of course that a shopkeeper must be offered less than he asked; and going from shop to shop to "cheapen"

the articles they wanted was a common amus.e.m.e.nt of ladies.

Mrs Clere looked doubtful. "Well, truly, Madam, I should gain not a penny thereby; yet rather than lose your good custom, seeing for whom it is--"

"Very good," said the Mayoress, "put it up."

Amy knew that the purple placard had cost her mother 16 shillings 8 pence, and had been slightly damaged since it came into her hands. She knew also that Mrs Clere would confess the fraud to the priest, would probably be told to repeat the Lord's Prayer three times over as a penance for it, would gabble through the words as fast as possible, and would then consider her sin quite done away with, and her profit of 7 shillings 4 pence cheaply secured. She knew also that the Mayoress, in all probability, was aware that Mrs Clere's protestation about not gaining a single penny was a mere flourish of words, not at all meant to be accepted as a fact.

"Is there aught of news stirring, an' it like you, Madam?" asked Mrs Clere, as she rolled up the placard inside out, and secured it with tape.

"I know of none, truly," answered the Mayoress, "save to-morrow's burning, the which I would were over for such spectacles like me not-- not that I would save evil folks from the due penalty of their sins, but that I would some less displeasant manner of execution might be found.

Truly, what with the heat, and the dust, and the close crowds that gather, 'tis no dainty matter to behold."

"You say truth, Madam. Indeed, the last burning we had, my daughter here was so close pressed in the crowd, and so near the fire, she fair swooned, and had to be borne thence. But who shall suffer to-morrow, an' it like you? for I heard nought thereabout."

Mrs Clere presented the little parcel as she spoke.

"Only two women," said the Mayoress, taking her purchase: "not nigh so great a burning as the last--so very likely the crowd shall be less also."