The King's Daughters Part 34

"Have you had to eat, Dorothy?" was his first question when she had climbed up beside him.

"Never a bite or sup in _that_ house, Master, I thank you," was Dorothy's rejoinder. "If I'd been starving o' hunger, I wouldn't have touched a thing."

"Have you seen the children?"

"I've seen Cissy. That was enough and to spare."

"What do they with her?"

"They are working hard with both hands to make an angel of her at the soonest--that's what they are doing. It's not what they mean to do.

They want to make her a devil, or one of the devil's children, which comes to the same thing: but the Lord 'll not suffer that, or I'm a mistaken woman. They are trying to bend her, and they never will.

She'll break first. So they'll break her, and then there'll be no more they can do. That's about where it is, Master Ewring."

"Why, Dorothy, I never saw you thus stirred aforetime."

"Maybe not. It takes a bit to stir me, but I've got it this even, I can tell you."

"I could well-nigh mistake you for Mistress Wade," said Mr Ewring with a smile.

"Eh, poor Mistress! but if she could see that poor little dear, it would grieve her to her heart. Master Ewring, how long will the Lord bear with these sons of Satan!"

"Ah, Dorothy, that's more than you or I can tell. 'Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried': that is all we know."

"How much is many?" asked Dorothy almost bitterly.

"Not one too many," said the miller gravely: "and not one too few. We are called to wait until our brethren be accomplished that shall suffer.

It may be shorter than we think. But, Dorothy, who set you among the prophets? I rather thought you had not over much care for such things."

"Master Ewring, I've heard say that when a soldier's killed in battle, another steppeth up behind without delay to fill his place. There's some places wants filling at Colchester, where the firing's been fierce of late: and when most of the old warriors be killed, they'll be like to fill the ranks up with new recruits. And if they be a bit awkward, and don't step just up to pace, maybe they'll learn by and by, and meantime the others must have patience."

"The Lord perfect that which concerneth thee!" said the miller, with much feeling. "Dorothy, was your mistress not desirous to have brought up these little ones herself?"

"She was so, Master Ewring, and I would with all my heart she could.

Poor little dears!"

"I would have taken the lad, if it might have been compa.s.sed, when he was a bit older, and have bred him up to my own trade. The maids should have done better with good Mistress Wade."

"Eh, Master, little Cicely's like to dwell in other keeping than either, and that's with her good father and mother above."

"The Lord's will be done!" responded Mr Ewring. "If so be, she at least will have little sorrow."

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

INTO THE LION'S MOUTH.

"Give you good den, Master Hiltoft! May a man have speech of your prisoner, Mistress Bongeor?"

"You're a bold man, Master Ewring."

"Wherefore?"

"Wherefore! Sotting your head in the lion's mouth! I should have thought you'd keep as far from Moot Hall as you could compa.s.s. Yourself not unsuspected, and had one burned already from your house--I marvel at you that you hide not yourself behind your corn-measures and flour-sacks, and have a care not to show your face in the street. And here up you march as bold as Hector, and desire to have speech of a prisoner! Well--it's your business, not mine."

"Friend, mine hearth is desolate, and I have only G.o.d to my friend. Do you marvel that I haste to do His work whilst it is day, or that I desire to be approved of Him?"

"You go a queer way about it. I reckon you think with the old saw, [Proverb.] 'The nearer the church the further from Heaven'!"

"That is true but in some sense. Verily, the nearer some churches, and some priests, so it is. May I see Mistress Bongeor?"

"Ay, you would fain not commit yourself, I see, more than may be. Come, you have a bit of prudence left. So much the better for you. Come in, and I'll see if Wastborowe's in a reasonable temper, and that hangs somewhat on the one that Audrey's in."

The porter shut the gate behind Mr Ewring, and went to seek Wastborowe.

Just then Jane Hiltoft, coming to her door, saw him waiting, and invited him to take a seat.

"Fine morning, Master."

"Ay, it is, Jane. Have you yet here poor Johnson's little maid?"

"I haven't, Master, and I feel fair lost without the dear babe. A rare good child she was--never see a better. The Black Ladies of Hedingham has got her, and I'm all to pieces afeard they'll not tend her right way. How should nuns (saving their holy presences) know aught about babes and such like? Eh dear! they'd better have left her with me. I'd have taken to her altogether, if Simon'd have let me--and I think he would after a bit. And she'd have done well with me, too."

"Ay, Jane, you'd have cared her well for the body, I cast no doubt."

"Dear heart, but it's sore pity, Master Ewring, such a good man as you cannot be a good Catholic like every body else! You'd save yourself ever so much trouble and sorrow. I cannot think why you don't."

"We should save ourselves a little sorrow, Jane; but we should have a deal more than we lost."

"But how so, Master? It's only giving up an opinion."

"Maybe so, with some: but not with us. They that have been taught this way by others, and never knew Christ for themselves--with them, as you say, it were but the yielding of opinion: but to us that know Him, and have heard His voice, it would be the betraying of the best Friend in earth or Heaven. And we cannot do that, Jane Hiltoft--not even for life."

"Nay, that stands to reason if it were so, Master Ewring; but, trust me, I know not what you mean, no more than if you spake Latin."

"Read G.o.d's Book, and pray for His Spirit, and you shall find out, Jane.--Well, Hiltoft?"

"Wastborowe says you may see Mistress Bongeor if you'll give him a royal farthing, but he won't let you for a penny less. He's had words with their Audrey, and he's as savage as Denis of Siccarus."

"Who was he, Hiltoft?" answered Mr Ewring with a smile, as he felt in his purse for the half-crown which was to be the price of his visit to Agnes Bongeor.

"Eh, I don't know: I heard Master Doctor say the other day that his dog was as fierce as him."

"Art sure he said not 'Syracuse'?"

"Dare say he might. Syracuse or Siccarus, all's one to me."

At the door of the dungeon stood the redoubtable Wastborowe, his keys hanging from his girdle, and looking, to put it mildly, not particularly amiable.

"Want letting out again by and by?" he inquired with grim satire, as Mr Ewring put the coin in his hand.