Clare Avery Part 40

"I will, old friend, when mine amaze is o'er at hearing of such words from one Ned Underhill."

"Amaze!--what need, trow?"

"But little need, when one doth call to mind that the most uncommon of all things is consistency. Only when one hath been used for forty years and more to see a man (I name him not) ever foremost in all perilous aventure, and thrusting him forward into whatsoever danger there were as into a bath of rosewater, 'tis some little surprise that taketh one to hear from the self-same party that 'tis never so much sweeter to keep safe and sound at home."

Mr Underhill threw his head back, and indulged in a hearty peal of laughter.

"On my word, Robin, thou ticklest me sore! But what, lad!--may a man not grow prudent in his old age?"

"By all manner of means, or in his youth no less; but this will I say, that the last prudent man I looked to set eyes on should bear the name of Underhill."

"Well-a-day! Here is Eunice made up of prudence."

"She taketh after her mother, trow," replied the Rector dryly.

"Come, I'll give o'er, while I have some bones left whole.--And what thinkest, lad, of the outlook of matters public at this time?"

"Nay, what think you, that have been of late in London?"

"Robin," said Mr Underhill gravely, "dost mind, long years gone, when King Edward his reign was well-nigh o'er, the ferment men's minds gat in touching the succession?"

"_Eh, la belle journee_!" said Mrs Rose waggishly. "I do well mind the ferment _you_ were in, Mr Underhill, and how you did push your Queen Mary down all the throats of your friends: likewise how sweetly she did repay you, bidding you for a month's visit to her palace of Newgate!

Pray you, shall it be the same again, _hermano_?"

"Dear heart! What a memory have you, Mistress Rose!" said Mr Underhill, with another hearty laugh. "It shall scantly be Newgate again, metrusteth: the rather, since there is no Queen Mary to thrust adown your throats--thank the Lord for that and all other His mercies.

He that we may speak of is no Papist, whatso else; but I mistake greatly, Robin, if somewhat the same matter shall not come o'er again, should it please G.o.d to do a certain thing."

Mr Underhill spoke thus vaguely, having no wish to finish his days on the gallows; as men had done ere now, for little more than a hint that the reigning Sovereign might not live for ever.

"And when the ferment come, under what flag must we look for you, Mr Underhill?" asked. Mrs Tremayne.

"Well," said he, "Harry Eighth left a lad and two la.s.ses, and we have had them all. But Harry Seventh left likewise a lad and two la.s.ses; and we have had the lad, but ne'er a one of the la.s.ses."

"Both these la.s.ses be dead," responded the Rector.

"They be so. But the first left a lad and a la.s.s; and that lad left a la.s.s, and that la.s.s left a lad--which is alive and jolly."

This meant, that Queen Margaret of Scotland, elder sister of Henry the Eighth, had issue King James the Fifth, whose daughter was Mary Queen of Scots, and her son was James the Sixth, then living.

"You count the right lieth there?" queried Mr Tremayne.

Mr Underhill nodded his head decidedly.

"And is--yonder party--well or ill affected unto the Gospellers?--how hear you?"

"Lutheran to the back-bone--with no love for Puritans, as men do now begin to call us Hot Gospellers."

"Thus is the Queen, mecounteth: and we have thriven well under her, and have full good cause to thank G.o.d for her."

"Fifty years gone, Robin--when she was but a smatchet [a very young person]--I said that la.s.s would do well. There is a touch of old Hal in her--not too much, but enough to put life and will into her."

"There shall scantly be that in him."

"Nay, I'll not say so much. Meg had a touch of Hal, too. 'Twas ill turning her down one road an' she took the bit betwixt her teeth, and had a mind to go the other. There was less of it in Mall, I grant you.

And as to yon poor luckless loon, Mall's heir,--if he wit his own mind, I reckon 'tis as much as a man may bargain for. England ne'er loveth such at her helm--mark you that, Robin. She may bear with them, but she layeth no affiance in them."

Mr Underhill's hearers knew that by the poor luckless loon, he meant Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp, the representative of the Princess Mary, younger sister of Henry the Eighth. He was heir of England under Henry's will, and might, if he had chosen it, have been a very formidable opponent of King James.

"There was trial made, in King Harry's days," said the Rector thoughtfully, "to join the two Crowns of England and Scotland, by marrying of King Edward, that then was Prince, with their young Queen Mary."

"Well-a-day!--what changes had been, had that matter come to perfection!"

"It were a mighty great book, friend, that should be writ, were all set down that might have happened if things had run other than they have done. But I pray you, what outlook is now for the Gospellers--or Puritans, if they be so called--these next few years? Apart from the Court--be they in good odour in London, or how?"

"Be they in good odour in Heaven, you were better to ask. What is any great town but a sink of wickedness? And when did ill men hold good men in esteem?"

"Ah, Mr Underhill, but there is difficulty beside that," said Mrs Rose, shaking her head. "Wherefore, will you tell me, cannot the good men be content to think all the same thing, and not go quarrel, quarrel, like the little boys at play?"

"So they should, Mistress Rose!--so they should!" said Mr Underhill uncompromisingly. "What with these fantasies and sectaries and follies--well-a-day! were I at the helm, there should be ne'er an opinion save one."

"That is the very thing Queen Mary thought," said Mr Tremayne, looking amused.

"Dear heart! what will the lad say next?" demanded Mr Underhill in a surprised tone.

"'Tis truth, old friend. See you not that to keep men of one opinion, the only way is to slay them that be of the contrary? Living men must differ. Only the dead ne'er wrangle touching aught."

"Eh, Robin, man! 'Live peaceably with all men.'"

"'As much as lieth in you.' Paul was wiser than you, saving your presence."

"But, Robin, my son," said Mrs Rose, "I would not say only, for such matters as men may differ in good reason. They cannot agree on the greater things, _mon cheri_,--nay, nor on the little, littles no more.-- Look you, Mr Underhill, we have in this parish a man that call himself a Brownist--I count he think the brown the only colour that is right; if he had made the world, all the flowers should be brown, and the leaves black: eh, _ma foi_! what of a beautiful world to live in!--_Bien_! this last May Day, Sir Thomas Enville set up the maypole on the green.

'Come, Master,' he said to the Brownist, 'you dance round the maypole?'--'Nay, nay,' saith he, 'it savoureth of Popery.' 'Well,'

quoth he, 'then you come to prayer in the church! There is nothing against that, I trow?'--'Good lack, nay!' saith he, ''tis an idle form.

I cannot pray without the Spirit aid me; and the Spirit will not be bounden down unto dead forms.' And so, Mr Underhill, they fall to wrangling. Now, is it not sad? Not only they will not take their pleasure together, but they will not say their prayers together no more.

Yet they all look to meet in Heaven. They will not wrangle and quarrel there, I trow? Then why can they not be at peace these few days the sooner?"

This was a long speech for Mrs Rose.

"Well, to speak truth," said Mr Underhill, "I could find in mine heart to cry 'Hail, fellow!' to your Brownist over the maypole: though I see not wherein it savoureth of Popery, but rather of Paganism. Howbeit, as I well know, Popery and Paganism be sisters, and dwell but over the way the one from the other. But as to the Common Prayer being but a form, and that dead,--why, I pray you, what maketh it a dead form save the dead heart of him that useth the same? The very Word of G.o.d is but a dead thing, if the soul of him that readeth it be dead."

A certain section of the laity are earnestly pet.i.tioning the clergy for "a hearty service." Could they make a more absurd request? The heart is in the wors.h.i.+pper, not in the service. And who can bring his heart to it but himself?

"_Ma foi_!" said Mrs Rose, with a comical little grimace, "but indeed I did think, when we were set at rest from the Queen Mary and her burnings, that we could have lived at peace the ones with the others."

"Then which counted you to be rid of, Mistress Rose--the childre of G.o.d or the childre of the devil?. So long as both be in the world, I reckon there'll not be o'er much peace," bluntly replied Underhill.

"Mind you what my dear father was used to say," asked Mr Tremayne,--"'Afore the kingdom must come the King'? Ah, dear friends, we have all too little of Christ. 'We shall be satisfied,' and we shall be of one mind in all things, only when we wake up 'after His likeness.'"