The White Lady of Hazelwood Part 17

"Hast alway done thy duty, Amphillis?"

"Alack, no, Mistress. Yet meseemeth there be worser folks than I. I am alway regular at shrift."

"The which shrift thou shouldst little need, if thou hadst never failed in duty. But how shall our Lord make thee safe?"

"Why, forgive me my sins," replied Amphillis, looking puzzled.

"That saith what He shall do, not how He shall do it. Thy sins are a debt to G.o.d's law and righteousness. Canst thou pay a debt without cost?"

"But forgiveness costs nought."

"Doth it so? I think scarce anything costs more. Hast ever meditated, Amphillis, what it cost G.o.d to forgive sin?"

"I thought it cost Him nothing at all."

"Child, it could only be done in one of two ways, at the cost of His very self. Either He should forgive sin without propitiation--which were to cost His righteousness and truth and honour. Could that be? In no wise. Then it must be at the cost of His own bearing the penalty due unto the sinner. Thy sins, Amphillis, thine every failure in duty, thine every foolish thought or wrongful word, cost the Father His own Son out of His bosom, cost the Son a human life of agony and a death of uttermost terribleness. Didst thou believe that?"

A long look of mingled amazement and horror preceded the reply.

"Mistress Perrote, I never thought of no such thing! I thought--I thought," said Amphillis, struggling for the right words to make her meaning clear, "I thought our Lord was to judge us for our sins, and our blessed Lady did plead with Him to have mercy on us, and we must do the best we could, and pray her to pray for us. But the fashion you so put it seemeth--it seemeth certain, as though the matter were settled and done with, and should not be fordone [revoked]. Is it thus?"

If Perrote de Carhaix had not been gifted with the unction from the Holy One, she would have made a terrible mistake at that juncture. All that she had been taught by man inclined her to say "no" to the question.

But "there are a few of us whom G.o.d whispers in the ear," and those who hear those whispers often go utterly contrary to man's teaching, being bound only by G.o.d's word. So bound they must be. If they speak not according to that word, it is because there is no light in them--only an _ignis fatuus_ which leads the traveller into quagmires. But they are often free from all other bonds. Perrote could not have told what made her answer that question in the way she did. It was as if a soft hand were laid upon her lips, preventing her from entering into any doctrinal disputations, and insisting on her keeping the question down to the personal level. She said--or that inward monitor said through her--

"Is it settled for thee, Amphillis?"

"Mistress, I don't know! Can I have it settled?"

"'He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.' 'I give unto them eternal life.'" [John three verse 36; ten, verse 28.] Perrote said no more.

"Then, if I go and ask at Him--?"

"'My Lord G.o.d, I cried unto Thee, and Thou madest me whole.' 'All ye that hope in the Lord, do manly, and your heart shall be comforted.'"

[Psalm thirty, verse 3; thirty-one, verse 25; Hereford and Purvey's version.]

Once more it was as by a heavenly instinct that Perrote answered in G.o.d's words rather than in her own. Amphillis drew a long breath. The light was rising on her. She could not have put her convictions into words; and it was quite as well, for had she done so, men might have persuaded her out of them. But the one conviction "borne in upon her"

was--G.o.d, and not man; G.o.d's word, not men's words; G.o.d the Saviour of men, not man the saviour of himself; G.o.d the Giver of His Son for the salvation of men, not men the offerers of something to G.o.d for their own salvation. And when man or woman reaches that point, that he sees in all the universe only himself and G.o.d, the two points are not likely to remain long apart. When the one is need longing for love, and the Other is love seeking for need, what can they do but come close together?

Sir G.o.dfrey set forth for his tournament in magnificent style, and Lady Foljambe and Mistress Margaret with him. Young G.o.dfrey was already gone. The old knight rode a fine charger, and was preceded by his standard-bearer, carrying a pennon of bright blue, whereon were embroidered his master's arms--sable, a bend or, between six scallops of the second. The ladies journeyed together in a quirle, and were provided with rich robes and all their jewellery. The house and the prisoner were left in the hands of Matthew, Father Jordan, and Perrote.

Norman Hylton accompanied his master.

Lady Foljambe's mind had grown tolerably easy on the subject of Ivo, and she only gave Perrote a long lecture, warning her, among other things, never to leave the door unlocked nor the prisoner alone. Either Perrote or Amphillis must sleep in the pallet bed in her chamber during the whole time of Lady Foljambe's absence, so that she should never be left unguarded for a single moment. Matthew received another harangue, to which he paid little attention in reality, though in outward seeming he received it with due deference. Father Jordan languidly washed his hands with invisible soap, and a.s.sured his patrons that no harm could possibly come to the prisoner through their absence.

The Tuesday evening was near its close. The sun had just sunk behind the western hills; the day had been bright and beautiful in the extreme.

Amphillis was going slowly upstairs to her turret, carrying her little work-basket, which was covered with brown velvet and adorned with silver cord, when she saw Kate standing in the window of the landing, as if she were waiting for something or some person. It struck Amphillis that Kate looked unhappy.

"Kate, what aileth thee?" she asked, pausing ere ere she mounted the last steps. "Dost await here for man to pa.s.s?"

"Nay, Mistress--leastwise--O Mistress Amphillis, I wis not what to do!"

"Anentis what, my maid?"

"Nay, I'd fain tell you, but--Lack-a-day, I'm all in a tumblement!"

"What manner of tumblement?" asked Amphillis, sitting down in the window-seat. "Hast brake some pottery, Kate, or torn somewhat, that thou fearest thy dame's anger?"

"Nay, I've brake nought saving my word; and I've not done that _yet_."

"It were evil to break thy word, Kate."

"Were it so?" Kate looked up eagerly.

"Surely, without thou hadst pa.s.sed word to do somewhat thou shouldst not."

Kate's face fell. She had thought she saw a way out of her difficulty; and it was closing round her again.

"It's none so easy to tell what man shouldn't," she said, in a troubled tone.

"What hast thou done, Kate?"

"Nay, I've done nought yet. I've only pa.s.sed word to do."

"To do what?"

Before Kate could answer, Agatha whisked into the corner.

"Thank goodness they're all gone, the whole lot of them! Won't we have some fun now! Kate, run down stairs, and bring me up a cork; and I want a long white sheet and a mop. Now haste thee, do! for I would fain cause Father Jordan to skrike out at me, and I have scarce time to get my work done ere the old drone shall come buzzing up this gait. Be sharp, maid! and I'll do thee a good turn next time."

And Agatha fairly pushed Kate down the stairs, allowing her neither excuse nor delay--a piece of undignified conduct which would bitterly have scandalised Lady Foljambe, could she have seen it. By the time that Kate returned with the articles prescribed, Agatha had possessed herself of a lighted candle, wherein she burnt the end of the cork, and with it proceeded to delineate, in the middle of the sheet, a very clever sketch of a ferocious Turk, with moustaches of stupendous length.

Then elevating the long mop till it reached about a yard above her head, she instructed Kate to arrange the sheet thereon in such a manner that the Turk's face showed close to the top of the mop, and gave the idea of a giant about eight feet in height.

"Now then--quick! I hear the old b.u.mble-bee down alow yonder. Keep as still as mice, and stir not, nor laugh for your lives!"

Kate appeared to have quite forgotten her trouble, and entered into Agatha's mischievous fun with all the thoughtless glee of a child.

"Agatha," said Amphillis, "my Lady Foljambe should be heavy angered if she wist thy dealing. Prithee, work not thus. If Father Jordan verily believed thou wert a ghost, it were well-nigh enough to kill him, poor sely old man. And he hath ill deserved such treatment at thine hands."

In the present day we should never expect an adult clergyman to fall into so patent a trap; but in the Middle Ages even learned men were credulous to an extent which we can scarcely imagine. Priests were in the habit of receiving friendly visits from pretended saints, and meeting apparitions of so-called demons, apparently without the faintest suspicion that the spirits in question might have bodies attached to them, or that their imaginations might be at all responsible for the vision.

"Thank all the Calendar she's away!" was Agatha's response. "Thee hold thy peace, and be not a spoil-sport. I mean to tell him I'm a soul in Purgatory, and none save a priest named Jordan can deliver me, and he only by licking of three crosses in the dust afore our Lady's altar every morrow for a month. That shall hurt none of him! and it shall cause me die o' laughter to see him do it. Back! quick! here cometh he.

I would fain hear the old snail skrike out at me, 'Avaunt, Sathanas!'

as he surely will."

Amphillis stepped back. Her quicker ear had recognised that the step beginning to ascend the stairs was not that of the old priest, and she felt pretty sure whose it was--that healthy, st.u.r.dy, plain-spoken Meg, the cook-maid, was the destined victim, and was likely to be little injured, while there was a good chance of Agatha's receiving her deserts.

Just as Meg reached the landing, a low groan issued from the uncanny thing. Agatha of course could not see; she only heard the steps, which she still mistook for those of Father Jordan. Meg stood calmly gazing on the apparition.

"Will none deliver an unhappy soul in Purgatory?" demanded a hollow moaning voice, followed by awful groans, such as Amphillis had not supposed it possible for Agatha to produce.

"I rather reckon, my Saracen, thou'rt a soul out o' Purgatory with a body tacked to thee," said Meg, in the coolest manner. "Help thee? Oh ay, that I will, and bring thee back to middle earth out o' thy pains.