Order.

Taking no further notice of Agnes, he marched within, to be cordially welcomed, and his blessing begged, by Mistress Winter and Dorothy; for Joan was gone to see the bear-baiting in Southwark.

Father Dan was a priest of the popular type—florid, fat, and jovial. His penances were light and easy to those who had it in their power to ask him to dinner, or to make gifts to his Order. It might be that they were all the harder to those from whom such favours were not expected.

The Cordelier took his seat at the supper-table just laid by Dorothy, this being an easy and dainty style of work in which that young lady condescended to employ her delicate hands. Mistress Winter was busily occupied with a skillet containing some savoury compound, and the Friar’s eyes twinkled with expectant gastronomic delight as he watched the proceedings of his hostess. Supper being at last ready, the three prepared to do justice to it, while Agnes waited upon them. A golden flood of buttered eggs was poured upon the dish in front of the Friar, a cherry pie stood before Dorothy, while Mistress Winter, her sleeves rolled up, and her widow’s barb (Note 2) laid aside because of the heat, was energetically attacking some ribs of beef.

“Had Joan no purpose to be back for supper, Doll?” demanded her mother.

“Nay,” said Dorothy; “Mall Whitelock bade her to supper in Long Lane. I heard them discoursing of the same.”

“And what news abroad, Father?” asked Mistress Winter. “Pray you, give me leave to help you to another shive of the beef. Agnes, thou lither (wicked) jade, whither hast set the mustard?”

Father Dan’s news was of a minute type. He was no intellectual philosopher, no profound conspirator; he was indeed slightly interested in the advancement of the Church, and much more deeply so in that of his own particular Order; but beyond this, his mind was one of those which dwell rather on the game season than the government of the country, and was likely to feel more pleasure in an enormous gooseberry, or a calf with two heads, than in the outbreak of a European war, or the discovery of an unknown continent. The great subject in his mind at the moment was starch. Somebody—Father Dan regretted that he was not able to name him—had discovered the means of manufacturing a precious liquid, which would impart various colours, and indescribable powers of standing alone, to any texture of linen, lawn, or lace.

“Good heart! what labour it shall save!” cried lazy Dorothy—who did assist in the more delicate parts of the household washing, but shirked as much of it as she could.

“Ay, and set you off, belike, Mistress Doll,” added the complimentary Friar. “As for us, poor followers of Saint Francis, no linen alloweth us our Rule, so that little of the new matter is like to come our way. They of Saint Dominic shall cheapen well the same (buy plenty of it), I reckon,” he added, with a contemptuous curl of his lip, intended for the rival Order.

“But lo’ you, there is another wonder abroad, as I do hear tell,” remarked Mistress Winter, “and ’tis certain matter the which, being taken—Agnes, thou dolt! what hast done wi’ the salad?—being taken hendily (gently, delicately) off the top of ale when ’tis a-making, shall raise bread all-to (almost) as well as sour dough. I know not what folk call it.—Thou idle, gaping dizzard (fool)! and I have to ask thee yet again what is come of aught, it shall be with mine hand about thine ears! Find a spoon this minute!”

“Ha!” said Father Dan, helping himself to sack (Note 3), which had been brought out specially to do him honour. “Yeast is it I have heard the same called. ’Tis said the bread is better tasted therewith, rather than sour dough.”

“Pray you, good Father, to eat of this salad,” entreated his hostess. “I had it of one of my Lord of Ely his gardeners; and there is therein the new endive, and the Italian parsley, that be no common matter.”

That the Cordelier was by no means indifferent to the good things of this life might be seen in his face, as he drew the wooden salad bowl a little nearer.

“Have you beheld the strange bird that Mistress Flint hath had sent to her over seas?” inquired he. “I do hear that great lords and ladies have kept such like these fifty years or so; but never saw I one thereof aforetime. ’Tis bright yellow of plumage, and singeth all one as a lark: they do call his name canary.”

“Nay, forsooth, I never see aught that should do me a pleasure!” said Mistress Winter crustily. “Gossip Flint might have told me so much.—Take that, thou lither hussy! I’ll learn thee to let fall the knives!”

And on the ear of the unfortunate Agnes, as she was stooping to recover the dropped knife, came Mistress Winter’s hand, with sufficient heaviness to make her grow white and totter ere she could recover her balance.

Father Dan took no notice. He could not have afforded to quarrel with Mistress Winter, especially now when priests of the old style were at a discount; and in his eyes such creatures as Agnes were made to be beaten and abused. He merely saw in his hostess a notable housewife, and in Agnes a kind of animated machine, with just soul enough to be kept to the duty of confession, and require a careless absolution, three times in the year. Such people had no business, in Father Dan’s eyes, to have thoughts or feelings of any sort. They were sent into the world to mop and cook and serve their betters. Of course, when the animated machines did take to thinking for themselves, and to showing that they had done so, the Cordelier regarded it as most awkward and inconvenient—a piece of insubordinate presumption that must be stamped out at once, and not suffered to infect others.

After further conversation in the same style, being unable to go on eating and drinking for ever, Father Dan rose to depart. It was not confession-time, and on all other occasions Father Dan’s pastoral visits came very much under the head of revelling. There was not a syllable of religious conversation; that was considered peculiar to the confessional.

Mistress Winter and Dorothy, after a little needlework and some more scolding of Agnes, tramped upstairs to bed; and Joan, coming in half an hour later, excessively cross after her day’s pleasuring, followed the example. Having put away the supper things, and laid every thing in readiness for the morrow’s work. Agnes stood for a moment before she too lay down on her hard pallet in the one chamber above that served all four as bedroom. Through the uncurtained window high up in the room the June stars looked down upon her. She had no notion of prayer, except telling beads to Latin Paters and Aves; but the instinct of the awakened spirit rose in something like it.

“God, Thou lovest me!” she said in her heart. He was there, somewhere beyond those stars. He would know what she was thinking. “I know but little of Thee; I desire to know more. Thou, who lovest me, tell some one to teach me!”

It would have astonished her to be told that such unuttered longings for the knowledge of God could be of the nature of prayer. Brought up in intense formalism, it never occurred to her that it was possible to pray without an image, a crucifix, or a pair of beads. She crept to her poor straw pallet, and lay down. But the latest thought in her heart, ere she dropped asleep, was, “God loves me; God will take care of me, and teach me.” She would have been startled to hear that this was faith. Faith, to her, meant relying on the priest, and obeying the Church. But was there no whisper—unheard even by herself—

“O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt?”

Note 1. This, I am sorry to say, was a lady without a head. It probably indicated the residence of an old bachelor.

Note 2. The barb was a plaiting of white linen, which was fastened at the chin, and entirely covered the neck.

Note 3. Sack appears to