The King's Daughters Part 2

"And who looks after you?"

"Will looks after Baby," answered Cissy demurely, "and I look after Will."

"And who looks after thee?" asked Alice much amused.

"I'm older than I look," replied Cissy, drawing herself up; but she was not big enough to go far.

"I'm nine--going in ten. I can make porridge, and clean the room and wash Baby. And Will's learning to wash himself, and then he'll be off my hands."

It was irresistibly funny to hear this small mite talk like a woman, for she was very small of her age; and Alice and Margaret could not help laughing.

"Well, but thou knowest thou canst not do a many things that must be done. Who takes care of you all? I dare be bound thou does thy best: but somebody there must be older than thee. Who is it now?"

"Have you e'er an aunt or a grandmother?" added Margaret.

Cissy looked up quietly into Alice's face.

"G.o.d takes care of us," she said. "Father helps when his work's done; but when he's at work, G.o.d has to do it all. There's n.o.body but G.o.d."

Alice and Margaret looked at each other in astonishment.

"Poor little souls!" cried Margaret.

"Oh, but we aren't!" said Cissy, rather more eagerly. "G.o.d looks after us, you know. He's sure to do it right, Father says so."

Alice Mount laid her hand softly on Cissy's head.

"Ay, little maid, G.o.d will do it right," she said. "But maybe He'd let me help too, by nows and thens. Thou knowest the Black Bear at Much Bentley--corner of lane going down to Thorpe?"

Yes, Cissy knew the Black Bear, as her face showed.

"Well, when thou gets to the Black Bear, count three doors down the lane, and thou'lt see a sign with a bell. That's where I live. Thee rap at the door, and my daughter shall go along with you to Thorpe, and help to carry the meal too. Maybe we can find you a sup of broth or milk while you rest you a bit."

"Oh, thank you!" said Cissy in her grown-up way. "That will be good.

We'll come."

CHAPTER THREE.

ROSE.

"Poor little souls!" repeated Margaret Thurston, when the children were out of hearing.

Alice Mount looked back, and saw the small pair still toiling slowly on, the big jar between them. It would not have been a large jar for her to carry, but it was large and heavy too for such little things as these.

"However will they get home!" said she. "n.o.body to look after them but 'G.o.d and Father'!"

The moment she had said it, her heart smote her. Was that not enough?

If the Lord cared for these little ones, did it matter who was against them? How many unseen angels might there be on that road, watching over the safety of the children, and of that homely jar of meal for their sakes? It was not the first time that angels had attended to springs of water and cakes baken on the coals. No angel would dream of stopping to think whether such work degraded him. It is only men who stoop low enough for that. The highest work possible to men or angels is just doing the will of G.o.d: and G.o.d was the Father of these little ones.

"What is their Father?" asked Alice Mount.

"Johnson? Oh, he is a labouring man--a youngish man, only four-and-thirty: his mistress died a matter of six months back, and truly I know not how those bits of children have done since."

"They have had 'G.o.d and Father,'" said Alice "Well, I've no doubt he's a good father," answered Margaret. "John Johnson is as good a man as ever stepped, I'll say that for him: and so was Helen a rare good woman. I knew her well when we were maids together. Those children have been well fetched up, take my word for it."

"It must have been a sad matter to lose such a wife," said Alice.

"Well, what think you?" answered Margaret, dropping her voice. "Agnes Love told me--Jack Love's wife, that dwells on the Heath--you'll maybe know her?"

"Ay, I know her, though not well."

"I've known her ever since she was a yard long. Well, she told me, the even it happed came Jack Johnson to their house, and when she oped the door, she was fair feared of him, he looked so strange--his face all white, and such a glitter of his eyes--she marvelled what had taken him.

And says he, 'Agnes, my Helen's gone.' 'Gone? oh dear!' says she.

'Ay, she's gone, thank G.o.d!' says he. Well, Agnes thought this right strange talk, and says she, 'Jack Johnson, what can you mean? Never was a better woman than your Helen, and you thanking G.o.d you've lost her!'

'Nay, Agnes, could you think that?' says he. 'I'm thanking G.o.d because now I shall never see her stand up on the waste by Lexden Road,' says he. 'She's safe from that anguish for evermore!' And you know what that meant."

Yes, Alice Mount knew what that meant--that allusion to the waste ground by Colchester town wall on the road to Lexden, where the citizens shot their rubbish, and buried their dead animals, or threw them unburied, and burned their martyrs. It was another way of saying what the Voice from Heaven had cried to the Apostle--"Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth!"

"It's a marvel they haven't done somewhat to them Loves afore now," said Margaret, after a minute's silence.

"I thought they had?" replied Alice. "Wasn't John Love up afore the Sheriff once at any rate?"

"Oh, ay, they've had him twice o'er; don't you mind they gat them away in the night the last time, and all his goods was taken to the Queen's use? But now, see, he's come back, and they let him alone. They've done all they mean to do, I reckon."

"G.o.d grant it!" said Alice, with a sigh. "Meg, I cannot forget last August. Twenty-two of us had up afore the Bishop, and we only escaped by the very skin of our teeth, as saith Job. Ay me! I sometimes marvel if we did well or no, when we writ our names to that submission."

"Truly, neighbour, so have I," replied Margaret rather bluntly. "I would not have set mine thereto, I warrant you."

Alice sighed heavily. "G.o.d knoweth we meant not to deny His truth,"

said she; "and He looketh on the heart."

After that they were silent till they came to Much Bentley. Turning down the lane which led to Thorpe, they came in sight of a girl of twenty years, sitting on a low stool at the door of the third cottage in the lane, weaving worsted lace on a pillow with bobbins. Over the door hung a signboard bearing a bell painted blue. The lace-maker was a small-built girl, not in any way remarkable to look at, with smooth dark hair, nicely kept, and a rosy face with no beauty about it, but with a bright, kind-hearted expression which was better than outside beauty.

If a person accustomed to read faces had been there, he might perhaps have said that the small prominent chin, and the firm setting of the lips, suggested that Rose Allen occasionally had a will of her own. The moment that Rose saw who was coming, she left her stool with a bright smile which lighted up all her face, and carrying the stool in one hand, and her lace pillow in the other, disappeared within the house.

"She's quick at her work, yonder maid," said Margaret.

"Ay, she's a good la.s.s, my Rose!" was her mother's answer. "You'll come in and sit a bit, neighbour?"

"Well, thank you, I don't mind if I do--at any rate till them children comes up," responded Margaret, with a little laugh. "Will you have me while then?"

"Ay, and as long after as you've a mind," said Alice heartily, leading the way into her cottage.

As Margaret had a mile yet to walk, for she lived midway between Much Bentley and Thorpe, she was glad of a rest. In the kitchen they found Rose, very busy with a skillet over the fire. There was no tea in those days, so there was no putting on of the kettle: and Rose was preparing for supper a dish of boiled cabbage, to which the only additions would be bread and cheese. In reply to her mother's questions, she said that her step-father had been in, but finding his wife not yet come from market, he had said that he would step into the next neighbour's until she came, and Rose was to call him when supper was ready.

William Mount, the second husband of Alice, was twenty years older than his wife, their ages being sixty-one and forty-one. He was a tall, grey, grave-looking man,--a field labourer, like most of the dwellers in Much Bentley. This was but a small place, nestling at one corner of the large park of the Earl of Oxford, the owner of all the property for some distance round. Of course he was _the_ great man in the esteem of the Much Bentley people. During the reign of Edward the Sixth, when Protestantism was in favour at Court, Lord Oxford had been a Protestant like other people; but, also like many other people, he was one of those of whom it has been well said that:

"He's a slave who dare not be In the right with two or three."