One Snowy Night Part 7

"But, Isel, I will finish de work for you. Go you and take your pleasure to see de Queen, meine friend. You have not much de pleasure."

"You're a good soul, Agnes, and it was a fine day for me when I took you in last winter. But as for pleasure, it and me parted company a smart little while ago. Nay, let the maids go; I'll tarry at home. You can go if you will.--Stephen! are you bound elsewhere, or can you come and look after the girls?"

"I can't, Aunt Isel; I'm on duty in the Bayly in half an hour, and when I shall be free again you must ask my Lord or Master Mayor."

"Never mind: the boys are safe to be there. Catch them missing a show!

Now, Flemild, child, drop that was.h.i.+ng; and leave the gavache [Note 1], Ermine, and get yourselves ready. It's only once in three or four years at most that you're like to see such a sight. Make haste, girls."

There was little need to tell the girls to make haste. Flemild hastily wrung out the ap.r.o.n she was was.h.i.+ng, and pinned it on the line; Ermine drew the thread from her needle--the entire household owned but one of those useful and costly articles--and put it carefully away; while Derette tumbled up the ladder at imminent risk to her limbs, to fling back the lid of the great coffer at the bed-foot, and inst.i.tute a search, which left every thing in wild confusion, for her sister's best kerchief and her own. Just as the trio were ready to start, Gerhardt came in.

"Saint Frideswide be our aid! wherever are them boys?" demanded Isel of n.o.body in particular.

"One on the top of the East Gate," said Gerhardt, "and the other playing at quarter-staff in Pary's Mead."

Pary's Mead lay between Holywell Church and the East Gate, on the north of the present Magdalen College.

"Lack-a-daisy! but however are the girls to get down to the gate? I daren't let 'em go by themselves."

The girls looked blank: and two big tears filled Derette's eyes, ready to fall.

"If all you need is an escort, friend, here am I," said Gerhardt; "but why should the girls go alone? I would fain take you and Agnes too."

"Take Agnes and welcome," said Isel with a sigh; "but I'm too old, I reckon, and poor company at best."

A little friendly altercation followed, ended by Gerhardt's decided a.s.sertion that Agnes should not go without her hostess.

"But who's to see to Baby?" said Derette dolefully.

"We will lock up the house, and leave Baby with old Turguia," suggested Isel.

"Nay, she tramped off to see the show an hour ago."

"Never mind! I'll stop with Baby," said Derette with heroic self-abnegation.

"Indeed you shall not," said Ermine.

A second war of amiability seemed likely to follow, when a voice said at the door--

"Do you all want to go out? I am not going to the show. Will you trust me with the child?"

Isel turned and stared in amazement at the questioner.

"I would not hurt it," pleaded the Jewish maiden in a tremulous voice.

"Do trust me! I know you reckon us bad people; but indeed we are not so black as you think us. My baby brother died last summer; and my aims are so cold and empty since. Let me have a little child in them once more!"

"But--you will want to see the show," responded Isel, rather as an excuse to decline the offered help than for any more considerate reason.

"No--I do not care for the show. I care far more for the child. I have stood at the corner and watched you with him, so often, and have longed so to touch him, if it might be but with one finger. Won't you let me?"

Agnes was looking from the girl to Gerhardt, as if she knew not what to do.

"Will you keep him from harm, and bring him back as soon as we return, if you take him?" asked Gerhardt. "Remember, the G.o.d in whom we both believe hears and records your words."

"Let Him do so to me and more also," answered Countess solemnly, "if I bring not the child to you unhurt."

Gerhardt lifted little Rudolph from his mother's arms and placed him in those of the dark-eyed maiden.

"The Lord watch over thee and him!" he said.

"Amen!" And as Countess carried away the baby close pressed to her bosom, they saw her stoop down and kiss it almost pa.s.sionately.

"Holy Virgin! what have you done, Gerard?" cried Isel in horror. "Don't you know there is poison in a Jew's breath? They'll as sure cast a spell upon that baby as my name's Isel."

"No, I don't," said Gerhardt a little drily. "I only know that some men say so. I have placed my child in the hands of the Lord; and He, not I, has laid it in that maiden's. It may be that this little kindness is a link in the chain of Providence, whereby He designs to bring her soul to Him. Who am I, if so, that I should put my boy or myself athwart His purpose?"

"Well, you're mighty pious, I know," said Isel. "Seems to me you should have been a monk, by rights. However, what's done is done. Let's be going, for there's no time to waste."

They went a little way down Fish Street, pa.s.sing the Jewish synagogue, which stood about where the northernmost tower of Christ Church is now, turned to the left along Civil School Lane--at the south end of Tom Quad, coming out about Canterbury Gate--pursued their way along Saint John Baptist Street, now Merton Street, and turning again to the left where it ended, skirted the wall till they reached the East Gate. Here a heterogeneous crowd was a.s.sembled, about the gate, and on the top were perched a number of adventurous youths, among whom Haimet was descried.

"Anything coming?" Gerhardt called to him.

"Yes, a drove of pigs," Haimet shouted back.

The pigs came grunting in, to be sarcastically greeted by the crowd, who immediately styled the old sow and her progeny by the ill.u.s.trious names of Queen Eleonore and the royal children. Her Majesty was not very popular, the rather since she lived but little in England, and was known greatly to prefer her native province of Aquitaine. Still, a show was always a show, and the British public is rarely indifferent to it.

The pigs having grunted themselves up Cat Street--running from the east end of Saint Mary's to Broad Street--a further half-hour of waiting ensued, beguiled by rough joking on the part of the crowd. Then Haimet called down to his friends--

"Here comes Prester John, in his robes of estate!"

The next minute, a running footman in the royal livery--red and gold-- bearing a long wand decorated at the top with coloured ribbons, sped in at the gate, and up High Street on his way to the Castle. In ten minutes more, a stir was perceptible at the west end of High Street, and down to the gate, on richly caparisoned horses, came the Earl and Countess of Oxford, followed by a brilliant crowd of splendidly-dressed officials. It was evident that the Queen must be close at hand.

All eyes were now fixed on the London Road, up which the royal cavalcade was quickly seen approaching. First marched a division of the guard of honour, followed by the officials of the household, on horseback; then came the Queen in her char, followed by another bearing her ladies. The remainder of the guard brought up the rear.

The char was not much better than a handsomely-painted cart. It had no springs, and travelling in it must have been a trying process. But the horses bore superb silken housings, and the very bits were gilt. [Note 2.] Ten strong men in the royal livery walked, five on each side of the char; and their office, which was to keep it upright in the miry tracks--roads they were not--was by no means a sinecure.

The royal lady, seated on a Gothic chair which made the permanent seat of the char, being fixed to it, was one of the most remarkable women who have ever reigned in England. If a pa.s.sage of Scripture ill.u.s.trative of the life and character were to be selected to append to the statue of each of our kings and queens, there would be little difficulty in the choice to be made for Eleonore of Aquitaine. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." She sowed the wind, and she reaped the whirlwind. A youth of the wildest giddiness was succeeded by a middle life of suffering and hards.h.i.+p, and both ended in an old age of desolation.

But when Eleonore rode in that spring noon-day at the East Gate of Oxford, the reaping-time was not yet. The headstrong giddiness was a little toned down, but the terrible retribution had not begun.

The Queen's contemporaries are eloquent as to her wondrous loveliness and her marvellous accomplishments. "Beauty possessed both her mind and body," says one writer who lived in the days of her grandson, while another expatiates on her "_clairs et verds yeux_," and a third on her "exquisite mouth, and the most splendid eyes in the world." Her Majesty was attired with equal stateliness and simplicity, for that was not an era of superb or extravagant dress. A close gown with tight sleeves was surmounted by a pelisse, the sleeves of which were very wide and full, and the fur tr.i.m.m.i.n.g showed the high rank of the wearer. A long white veil came over her head, and fell around her, kept in its place by a jewelled fillet. The gemmed collar of gold at the neck, and the thick leather gloves (with no part.i.tions for the fingers) heavily embroidered on the back, were also indicative of regal rank.

The Queen's char stopped just within the gate, so that our friends had an excellent view of her. She greeted the Earl and Countess of Oxford with a genial grace, which she well knew how to a.s.sume; gave her hand to be kissed to a small selection of the highest officials, and then the char pa.s.sed on, and the sight was over.

Isel and her friends turned homewards, not waiting for the after portion of the entertainment. There was to be a bull-baiting in the afternoon on Presthey--Christ Church Meadow--and a magnificent bonfire at night in Gloucester Meadows--Jericho; but these enjoyments they left to the boys.

There would be plenty of women, however, at the bull-baiting; as many as at a Spanish _corrida_. The idea of its being a cruel pastime, or even of cruelty being at all objectionable or demoralising, with very few exceptions, had not then dawned on the minds of men.

They returned by the meadows outside the city, entering at the South Gate. As they came up Fish Street, they could see Countess on a low seat at her father's door, with little Rudolph on her knee, both parties looking very well content with their position. On their reaching the corner, she rose and came to meet them.