The King's Daughters Part 39

"Of course I do, Cis."

"I think the only thing in the world that could break my heart would be to see you or Nell 'giving in', as you call it. I couldn't stand that, Will. I can stand anything else. I hoped you cared for G.o.d and Father: but if you won't heed them, I must see if you will listen to me. It would kill me, Will."

"Oh, come, Cis, don't talk so."

"Won't you go on trying a bit longer, Will? Any day the tide may turn.

I don't know how, but G.o.d knows. He can bring us out of this prison all in a minute. You know He keeps count of the hairs on our heads. Now, Will, you know as well as I do what G.o.d said,--He did not say only, 'Thou shalt not worship them,' but 'Thou shalt not bow down to them.'

Oh Will, Will! have you forgotten all the texts Father taught us?--are you forgetting Father himself?"

"Cis, I wish you wouldn't!"

"I wish _you_ wouldn't, Will."

"You don't think Father can hear, do you?" asked Will uncomfortably glancing around.

"I hope he can't, indeed, or he'll be sore grieved, even in Heaven, to think what his little Will's coming to."

"Oh, well--come, I'll try a bit longer, Cis, if you--But I say, I do hope it won't be long, or I _can't_ stand it."

That night, or rather in the early hours of the following morning, a horseman came spurring up to the Head Gate of Colchester. He alighted from his panting horse, and threw the reins on its neck.

"Gate, ho!"

Nothing but silence came in answer.

"Gate, ho!" cried the horseman in a louder voice.

"Somebody there?" asked the gatekeeper in a very sleepy voice. "Tarry a minute, will you? I'll be with you anon."

"Tarry!" repeated the horseman with a contemptuous laugh. "Thou'd not want me to tarry if thou knewest what news I bring."

"Good tidings, eh? let's have 'em!" said the gatekeeper in a brisker voice.

"Take them. 'G.o.d save the Queen!'"

"Call that tidings? We've sung that this five year."

"Nay you've never sung it yet--not as you will. How if it be 'G.o.d save Queen Elizabeth'?"

The gate was dashed open in the unsleepiest way that ever gate was moved.

"You never mean--is the Queen departed?"

"Queen Mary is gone to her reward," replied the horseman gravely. "G.o.d save Queen Elizabeth!"

"G.o.d be thanked, and praised!"

"Ay, England is free now. A man may speak his mind, and not die for it.

No more burnings, friend! no more prison for reading of G.o.d's Word! no more hiding of men's heads in dens and caves of the earth! G.o.d save the Queen! long live the Queen! may the Queen live for ever!"

It is not often that the old British Lion is so moved by anything as to roar and dance in his inexpressible delight. But now and then he does it; and never did he dance and roar as he did on that eighteenth of November, 1558. All over England, men went wild with joy. The terrible weight of the chains in which she had been held, was never truly felt until they were thus suddenly knocked from the shackled limbs. Old, calm, sober-minded people--nay, grave and stern, precise and rigid-- every manner of man and woman--all fairly lost their heads, and were like children in their frantic glee that day Men who were perfect strangers were seen in the streets shaking hands with each other as though they were the dearest friends. Women who ordinarily would not of thought of speaking to one another were kissing each other and calling on each other to rejoice. n.o.body calmed down until he was so worn-out that wearied nature absolutely forced him to repose. It was seen that day that however she had been oppressed, compelled to silence, or tortured into apparent submission, England was Protestant. The prophets had prophesied falsely, and the priests borne rule, but the people had not loved to have it so, as they very plainly showed. Colchester had declared for Mary five years before, because she was the true heir who had the right to reign, and rebellion was not right because her religion was wrong: but now that G.o.d delivered them from her awful tyranny, Colchester was not behind the rest of England in giving thanks to Him.

We are worse off now. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means. It has not reached to the point it did then; but how soon will it do so?--for, last and worst of all, the people love to have it so. May G.o.d awake the people of England! For His mercies'

sake, let us not have to say, England flung off the chains of bondage and the sin of idolatry under Queen Elizabeth; but she bound them tight again, of her own will, under Queen Victoria!

CHAPTER FORTY ONE.

A BLESSED DAY.

"Dorothy! Dorothy Denny! Wherever can the woman have got to?"

Mr Ewring had already tapped several times with his stick on the brick floor of the King's Head kitchen, and had not heard a sound in answer.

The clock ticked to and fro, and the tabby cat purred softly as she sat before the fire, and the wood now and then gave a little crackle as it burned gently away, and those were all the signs of life to be seen on the premises.

Getting tired at last, Mr Ewring went out into the courtyard, and called in his loudest tones--"Do-ro-thy!"

He thought he heard a faint answer of "Coming!" which sounded high up and a long way off: so he went back to the kitchen, and took a seat on the hearth opposite the cat. In a few minutes the sound of running down stairs was audible, and at last Dorothy appeared--her gown pinned up behind, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and her entire aspect that of a woman who had just come off hard and dirty work.

"Eh, Master Ewring! but I'm sorry to have kept you a-waiting. Look you, I was mopping out the--Dear heart, but what is come to you? Has the resurrection happened? for your face looks nigh too glad for aught else."

The gladness died suddenly away, as those words brought to Mr Ewring the thought of something which could not happen--the memory of the beloved face which for thirty years had been the light of his home, and which he should behold in this world never any more.

"Nay, Dorothy--nay, not that! Yet it will be, one day, thank G.o.d! And we have much this morrow to thank G.o.d for, whereof I came to tell thee."

"Why, what has come, trow?"

The glad light rose again to Mr Ewring's eyes.

"Gideon has come, and hath subdued the Midianites!" he answered, with a ring of triumph in his voice. "King David is come, and the Philistines will take flight, and Israel shall sit in peace under his vine and fig-tree. May G.o.d save Elizabeth our Queen!"

"Good lack, but you never mean _that_!" cried Dorothy in a voice as delighted as his own. "Why then, Mistress 'll be back to her own, and them poor little dears 'll be delivered from them black snakes, and there 'll be Bible-reading and sermons again."

"Ay, every one of them, I trust. And a man may say what he will that is right, without looking first round to see if a spy be within hearing.

We are free, Dorothy, once more."

"Eh, but it do feel like a dream! I shall have to pinch myself to make sure I'm awake. But, Master, do you think it is sure? She haven't changed, think you?"

Mr Ewring shook his head. "The Lady Elizabeth suffered with us," he said, "and she will not forsake us now. No, Dorothy, she has not changed: she is not one to change. Let us not distrust either her or the Lord. Ah, He knew what He would do! It was to be a sharp, short hour of tribulation, through which His Church was to pa.s.s, to purify, and try, and make her white: and now the land shall have rest forty years, that she may sing to Him a new song on the sea of gla.s.s. Those five years have lit the candle of England's Church, and as our good old Bishop said in dying, by G.o.d's grace it shall never be put out."

"Well, sure, it's a blessed day!"

"Dorothy, can you compa.s.s to drive with me to Hedingham again? I think long till those poor children be rescued. And the nuns will be ready and glad to give them up; they'll not want to be found with Protestant children in their keeping--children, too, of a martyred man."

"Master Ewring, give me but time to get me tidied and my hood, and I'll go with you this minute, if you will. I was mopping out the loft. When Mistress do come back, she shall find her house as clean as she'd have had it if she'd been here, and that's clean enough, I can tell you."