The King's Daughters Part 36

"Fivepence. It's good pay."

"It's none so bad. I'm in hopes you'll have a few more messages, Master Ewring. They're easy to carry when they come in a basket o' that metal."

"Ah, Bartle! wilt thou do that for a gold angelet which thou wouldst not for the love of G.o.d or thy neighbour? Beware that all thy good things come not to thee in this life--which can only be if they be things that pertain to this life alone."

"This life's enough for me, Master: it's all I've got."

"Truth, friend. Therefore cast it not away in folly."

"In a good sooth, Master Ewring, I love your angelets better than your preachment, and you paid me not to listen to a sermon, but to carry a message. Good den!"

"Good den, Bartle. May the Lord give thee good ending!"

Bartle stood looking from the wicket until the miller had turned the corner.

"Yon's a good man, I do believe," said he to himself. "I marvel what they burn such men for! They're never found lying or cheating or murdering. Why couldn't folks let 'em alone? We shouldn't want to hurt 'em, if the priests would let us alone. Marry, this would be a good land if there were no priests!"

Bartle shut the wicket, and prepared to carry in supper to his prisoners. John and Margaret Thurston were not together. The priests were afraid to let them be so, lest John, who stood more firmly of the two, should talk over Margaret. They occupied adjoining cells. Bartle opened a little wicket in the first, and called John to receive his rations of brown bread, onions, and weak ale.

"I promised to give you a message," said he, "but I don't know as it's like to do you much good. It's only one word."

"Should be a weighty one," said John. "What is it?"

"'Remember!'"

"Ah!" John Thurston's long-drawn exclamation, which ended with a heavy sigh, astonished Bartle.

"There's more in it than I reckoned, seemingly," said he as he turned to Margaret's cell, and opened her wicket to pa.s.s in the supper.

"Here's a message for you, Meg, from Master Ewring the miller. Let's see what _you'll_ say to it--'Remember!'"

"'Remember!'" cried Margaret in a pained tone. "Don't I always remember? isn't it misery to me to remember? And can't I guess what he means--'Remember from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works'? Eh, then there's repentance yet for them that have fallen! 'I will fight against thee, _except_ thou repent.' G.o.d bless you, Bartle: you've given me a buffet and yet a hope."

"That's a proper powerful word, is that!" said Bartle. "Never knew one word do so much afore."

There was more power in that one word from Holy Writ than Bartle guessed. The single word, sent home to their consciences by the Holy Ghost, brought quit different messages to the two to whom it was sent.

To John Thurston it did not say, "Remember from whence thou hast fallen." That was the message with which it was charged for Margaret.

But to John it said, "Call to remembrance the former days, in which, after that ye were illuminated, ye endured a great flight of afflictions ... knowing in yourselves that ye have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance. Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward." That was John's message, and it found him just on the brink of casting his confidence away, and stopped him.

Mr Ewring had never spent an angelet better than in securing the transmission of that one word, which was the instrument in G.o.d's hand to save two immortal souls.

As he reached the top of Tenant's Lane, he met Ursula Felstede, carrying a large bundle, with which she tried to hide her face, and to slink past. The miller stopped.

"Good den, Ursula. Wither away?"

"Truly, Master, to the whitster's with this bundle."

The whitster meant what we should now call a dyer and cleaner.

"Do you mind, Ursula, what the Prophet Daniel saith, that 'many shall be purified and made white'? Methinks it is going on now. White, as no fuller on earth can white them! May you and I be so cleansed, friend!

Good den."

Ursula courtesied and escaped, and Mr Ewring pa.s.sed through the gate, and went up to his desolated home. He stood a moment in the mill-door, looking back over the town which he had just left.

"'The night cometh, when no man can work,'" he said to himself. "Grant me, Lord, to be about Thy business until the Master cometh!"

And he knew, while he said it, that in all likelihood to him that coming would be in a chariot of fire, and that to be busied with that work would bring it nearer and sooner.

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

FILLING THE RANKS.

As Mr Ewring stood looking out, he saw somebody coming up from the gate towards the mill--a girl, who walked slowly, as if she felt very hot or very tired. The day was warm, but not oppressively so; and he watched her coming languidly up the road, till he saw that it was Amy Clere.

What could she want at the mill? Mr Ewring waited to see.

"Good den, Mistress Amy," said he, as she came nearer.

Amy looked up as if it startled her to be addressed.

"Good den, Master Ewring. Father's sending some corn to be ground, and he desired you to know the last was ground a bit too fine for his liking: would you take the pains to have it coa.r.s.er ground, an' it please you?"

"I will see to it, Mistress Amy. A fine even, methinks?"

"Ay, right fair," replied Amy in that manner which shows that the speaker's thoughts are away elsewhere. But she did not offer to go; she lingered about the mill-door, in the style of one who has something to say which she is puzzled or unwilling to bring out.

"You seem weary," said Mr Ewring, kindly; "pray you, sit and rest you a s.p.a.ce in the porch."

Amy took the seat suggested at once.

"Master Clere is well, I trust?--and Mistress Clere likewise?"

"They are well, I thank you."

Mr Ewring noticed suddenly that Amy's eyes were full of tears.

"Mistress Amy," said he, "I would not by my good-will be meddlesome in matters that concern me not, but it seemeth me all is scarce well with you. If so be that I can serve you any way, I trust you will say so much."

"Master Ewring, I am the unhappiest maid in all Colchester."

"Truly, I am right sorry to hear it."

"I lack one to help me, and I know not to whom to turn. You could, if--"

"Then in very deed I will. Pray give me to wit how?"

Amy looked up at him. "Master Ewring, I set out for Heaven, and I have lost the way."