Our Little Lady Part 11

"Then see, daughter, that when the Bishop of thy soul lifteth the latch to come in and sup with thee, He find not the soiled floor and the unclean vessel, and turn sorrowfully away, saying, 'I thought to sup with My child this night, but this is no place for Me.' Trust me, thou wilt lose more than He, if He close the door and depart."

Avice's eyes filled with tears.

"O Father, pray for me! I cannot bear to think of that."

Father Thomas rose and laid his hand on Avice's head. His words, as coming from a priest, rather surprised her.

"My child," he said softly, "let us pray for each other."

Avice stood looking out of the window after him as he went down the street.

"I wonder," she said to herself, "if our Lord ever turned away thus because Father Thomas's chamber was not clean! He seemed to know what it was so well--yet how could such a good, holy man know anything about it?"

Note 1. Aubrey is now a man's name only, but in the earlier hall of the Middle Ages it was used for both s.e.xes.

Note 2. This collect was slightly altered from that in the Sarum Missal. The form here quoted is the older one.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

AS A LITTLE CHILD.

If you put a single straw into an eddying stream, other straws and bits of rubbish of all sorts will come and join it, until by and bye it looks like a little island in the midst of the water. And we often see something like this going on in men's minds. A man drops one idea, which another man takes up and considers, till ideas of his own come to join it, many things seen and heard contribute their help, and at last the single sentence grows into a mountain of action.

Avice would have been astonished if any one had told her that she had made an island. But her simple suggestion fell like an odd straw into the stream of Father Thomas's thoughts, and grew and grew there, until a few days later it led to decided action.

Father Thomas was by nature a quiet man. His temper was gentle and even; he hated everything like noise and bustle, far more tumult and quarrelling. He was not fond even of conversation, except now and then as a pleasant variety to a quiet life, full of thinking and reading. A man of this sort is generally an innocent man--by which I mean, a man who does no harm to his neighbours: and considering how many men and women spend their lives in doing their neighbours harm of one sort or another, that is a good deal to say of any man. But there is another point to be taken into account, namely, what good does such a man do?

Why, no more than a chrysalis. And he is a poor specimen of manhood who is content to be of no more use in the world than a chrysalis, and to be as little missed when he goes out of it. This was the point which troubled Father Thomas's meditations. It was as if an angel had come down to him, and pointed to the old smithy on the green, and said, "What are you doing for those people? G.o.d will demand an account of their souls, some day, and from somebody. Are you not your brothers' keeper?"

Hitherto Father Thomas had gone on very comfortably, with a reflection which serves a great many of us to excuse our pride or our laziness--I wish it might never be heard again from human lips--"It is not my place." It was true, in one sense. The smithy was in Newport parish, and Father Thomas belonged to the Cathedral. He tried to quiet the angel--which was really his own conscience--with the thought that he had no business to intrude into somebody else's parish. But the angel would not be quiet.

"Will G.o.d take that answer at the Judgment Day?" he said. "You know very well that the Vicar of Newport is an idle, careless man, who never troubles himself about the souls of his people: that so long as you observe the proper forms of civility, and ask his leave to visit these people, he will give it you in a minute, and be glad enough to think he is saved the trouble. That is the truth, and you know it."

Now, it is very unpleasant when one's conscience says in that blunt, downright, cutting way, "You know it:" and Father Thomas found it so.

He made a few more excuses, which his conscience blew to the winds before they were well finished: and at last it laid hold of him, as it were, by the shoulders, and said, "Look there!"

Father Thomas looked there--at the cross which then hung in every clergyman's room. There were two lines carved on the wood at the bottom of this--lines which it was then not unusual to put at the bottom of these crosses.

"This did I for thee; What dost thou for Me?"

"Look there!" cried the Angel Conscience. "Christ bore that heavy cross for you--bore the reviling and the agony, the spitting, the scourging, and the shame; and you won't face the Vicar of Newport for Him! You can't walk half a mile, and ask a civil question of a man from whom you expect a civil answer, for love of the Man who came down all the way from Heaven to earth, and endured all the contradiction of sinners for three-and-thirty years, and faced all the malice of the devil, for the love of you! Are you ashamed of yourself, Thomas de Vaux, or are you not?"

When it reached that point, Father Thomas was painting in a book. Books in those days were often ornamented with very beautiful paintings: and the one on which the priest was working, represented Peter denying Christ in the High Priest's palace. He had just painted one side of Peter's hair, but the other side was still blank. But when the Angel asked that question, down went the brush.

"Lord, pardon Thy servant!" said Father Thomas humbly. "I am not worthy to carry so much as the corner of Thy cross after Thee. But I will take it up, and go forth. Indeed, I did not know I was such a selfish, lazy, ease-loving man as I am!"

Saint Peter had to put up with only half his hair for the rest of that day, for Father Thomas determinately washed and wiped his brush, threw a cloth over his book and painting tools to keep them from the dust, put on his fur cap, and went off to see the Vicar of Newport.

When a man braces himself up to do something which he does not like for the love of G.o.d, sometimes G.o.d makes it a great deal easier and less disagreeable than he expected to find it. The Vicar was just coming out of his door as Father Thomas reached it.

"A fine day--peace be with thee!" said he. "Whither go you, Brother?"

"May I have your leave, Father, to visit one of your paris.h.i.+oners--the smith that dwells about a mile hence, on the Newport road?"

"The saints love you! you may visit every man Jack of my paris.h.i.+oners, and take my blessing with you!" said the Vicar with a hearty laugh. "I am not over fond of that same visiting of smiths and tailors and fellows of that sort. I never know what to say to them, save hear confession, and they never have nought to say to me. You are cut from another quality of stuff, I reckon. Go your way, Brother Thomas, and make decent Christians of them if you can. There's a she-bear lives there: I wish you luck with her."

And with a farewell nod, the careless Vicar strode away.

"And into such hands as these, men's souls are given!" thought Father Thomas. "Lord, purify Thy Church! Ah, dear old Bishop! you might well weep in dying."

He walked on rapidly till he came within sight of the forge. Daniel Greensmith's ringing blows on the anvil grew more and more distinct and at last the words he was singing as he worked came to the priest's ears:

"All things turn unto decay, Fall, and die, and pa.s.s away.

Sinketh tower and droppeth wall, Cloth shall fray and horse shall fall, Flesh shall die and iron rust, Pa.s.s and perish all things must.

Well I understand and say, All shall die, both priest and lay; And small time, for praise or blame, When man dieth, lives his fame."

Note. This is translated from an old French poem, written before the time of the story.

Father Thomas stopped beside the anvil, but the smith's back was turned, so that he did not see him.

"A sad song, my friend--if that were all."

"Eh?" said Dan, looking behind him, and then immediately throwing down the hammer, and giving a pull to his forelock. Great respect was paid to priests at that day. "Axe your pardon, Father! Didn't see who it were."

"I came to see thy wife, my son. Shall I go forward?"

"Not if you're o' my mind. Happen you aren't."

"Is she not at home?"

"Oh, ay, she's at home!"

The smith's tone might have meant that he could have wished she was somewhere else. Father Thomas waited, till Dan flung down the hammer, and looked up at him.

"Had ye e'er a mother?" asked he.

"Ay," replied the priest.

"Was she one 'at took th' andirons to you when you didn't suit her?"

"Truly, no. She was a full good and gentle woman."

"And had ye e'er a sister?"

"Ay; three."

"Was they given to rugging your hair when they wasn't pleased?"