"How now?" asked Dr Thorpe, coming in from the barber. "Sir Tristram looketh as woebegone as may lightly be. I am afeard the Princess Isoude hath been sore cruel."

John told him the reason.

"And both be such ancient folk," resumed he, "they are afeard to be dead and buried ere then. How now, Robin! take heart of grace, man! and make a virtue of necessity. Thou art neither seventy nor eighty, nor is Mistress Thekla within a month or twain of ninety. Good lack! a bit of a younker of nineteen, quotha, to be a-fretting and a-fuming to be let from wedding a smatchet of a la.s.s of seventeen or so, until either have picked up from some whither a sc.r.a.p of discretion on their green shoulders!"

"Thekla hath but sixteen years," said John; "and Rose thinketh her too young to be wed yet."

"So should any man with common sense," replied Dr Thorpe. "Why, lad!

what can a maid of such tender years do to rule an house? I warrant thee she should serve thy chicken at table with all the feathers on, and amend thy stockings wrong side afore!"

"Nay," said Isoult, laughing; "her mother shall have learned her something better than that."

"Get thee to thine accidence," said Dr Thorpe to Robin. "_Hic, haec, hoc_, is a deal meeter for the like o' thee than prinking of wedding doublets!"

"Dr Thorpe!" answered Robin, aggrievedly, "you alway treat me as though I were a babe."

"So thou art! so thou art!" said the old man. "But now out of thy cradle, and not yet fit to run alone; for do but see what folly thou hadst run into if Jack and Mr Rose had not been wiser than thou!"

Robin's lip trembled, and he walked slowly away. Isoult was sorry for the lad's disappointment, for she saw that it was sore; yet she felt that John and Mr Rose were right, and even Dr Thorpe.

"Rose saith," resumed John, "that he thinketh not his daughter to be as yet of ripe judgment enough to say more than shall serve for the time; and he will therefore have no troth plighted for this present. In good sooth, had not her mother much urged the consulting of her, methinks he should rather have said nought unto her of the matter. 'But (quoth he) let three years pa.s.s, in the which time Robin shall have years twenty-two, and Thekla nineteen; and if then both be of like mind, why, I will say no further word against it.'"

"Bits o' sc.r.a.ps o' childre!" said Dr Thorpe, under his voice, in a tone of scorn and yet pity which would sorely have grieved Robin, had he not gone already.

"Be not too hard on the lad, old friend," urged John, gently. "Many younger than he be wed daily, and I take it he hath had a disappointment in hearing my news. I thought best not to make too much thereof in the telling; but scorn not the lad's trouble."

"I want not to scorn neither the lad nor the trouble," answered the Doctor. "I did but tell him it was folly; and so it is."

After this, for a while, there were fewer visits exchanged between the Minories and West Ham; and Robin found himself quietly set to the study of larger books, which took longer to get up than heretofore, so that his appearances at the Vicarage were fewer also. When the families did meet, it was as cordially as ever. Manifestly, Mr Rose's feelings were not a whit less kindly than before; but he thought it better for Robin that his affections should not be fed too freely.

"Jack," said Isoult, suddenly, "what discoursedst thou with Mr Rose o'

Wednesday morn, whereof I heard thee to say there was no likelihood?

Was it touching this matter of Robin?"

John had to search his memory before he could recall the incident.

"Dear heart, no!" he said, when he had done so; "it touched my Lord of Somerset."

On the last day of July, Esther, going to the market, came in with news which stirred Isoult's heart no little. Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, had died on the previous day, at his house in London, to which he had been confined by order of the King.

"An ill man and an unkindly," wrote Isoult in the diary she always kept, "specially unto them which loved the Gospel. But how those tidings taketh me back to the days that be over and gone! For the last time that ever I saw this man was that black third of March, the year of our Lord 1542, when the King that then was, sent him to bear his diamond and message unto my dear master [Lord Lisle] in the Tower. Can I ever forget that even?

"Of this Thomas Wriothesley I dare say nothing. I would think rather of him whose voice I did hear last after his, in the commending of his blessed and gentle spirit into the hands of G.o.d. How many times sithence that day have I thanked G.o.d for him! Ay, Lord, we thank Thee for Thy saints, and for Thy care and guidance of them. For the longer I do live, the surer am I that Thy way Home is not only the right way, but for each of Thine, the only way. I take it, we shall not think of the thorns that tare us, nor shall we be ready for tears over the sharp stones that wounded us, in that day when I and my dear-loved Lord may sing to Thee together--'Thou hast redeemed us, O Lord G.o.d of truth!'"

Mrs Underhill walked into the Lamb, one warm afternoon in the beginning of August, and remained to four-hours. And of course the conversation turned before long upon the Protestant controversy with Rome. In the Hot Gospeller's family, it rarely kept off that subject for many minutes together.

"Mother!" said Kate, when she was gone, "what meaneth Mistress Underhill by confession? She said it was bad. But it is not bad, is it, for me to tell you and Father when I have done wrong?"

"No, sweeting, neither to tell G.o.d," answered Isoult. "Mrs Underhill meant not that, but spake only of confession unto a priest."

"Thou must know, Kate," explained Robin, "that some men will tell their sins unto any priest, in the stead of seeking forgiveness of G.o.d in their own chamber."

"But what toucheth it the priest?" asked the child.

"Why, never a whit," he answered.

"If the man have stole from the priest," resumed she, "it were right he should tell him; like as I tell Father and Mother if I have done any wrong, because it is wrong to them. But if I had disobeyed Mother, what good were it that I should ask Mr Rose to forgive me? I should not have wronged him."

"She hath a brave wit, methinks, our Kate," observed Isoult to Robin, when the child had left the room.

Robin a.s.sented with a smile; but Dr Thorpe was so rude as to say, "All mothers' geese be swans."

The smile on Robin's lips developed into laughter; Isoult answered, with as much indignant emphasis as her gentle nature could indulge in, "Were you no swan to yours, Dr Thorpe?"

Dr Thorpe's reply disarmed all the enemy's forces.

"Ah, child, I never knew her," the old man said, sadly. "Maybe I had been a better man had I known a mother."

It was not in Isoult Avery, at least, to respond angrily to such a speech as that.

Before mid-winter was reached, the swans were increased by one in the house in the Minories. On the 29th of November, a baby daughter was born to John and Isoult Avery; and on the 4th of December the child was christened at Saint Botolph's, Mr Rose officiating. The name given her was Frances. The sponsors were the d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, for whom Mrs Rose stood proxy; and Lady Frances Monke, whose deputy was Mrs Underhill; and, last and greatest, the young King, by Sir Humphrey Ratcliffe, Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, and a Gospeller. The mania for asking persons of distinction to stand as sponsors was at its height during the reigns of the Tudor sovereigns. Every one of them was G.o.dfather or G.o.dmother to countless mult.i.tudes of his or her subjects, though they rarely, if ever, acted in person. We shall find on a later page, that even "the nine days' queen," Lady Jane Grey, was not without this distinction during her momentary reign.

During the illness of Isoult--for she was so ill that for some days Dr Thorpe considered her life in danger--the breach, if it may be called so, with West Ham was made up. Both Mr and Mrs Rose were in constant attendance at the Minories, and Thekla came with them several times, her charge being the children, so that Esther might be entirely free to wait on her sick mistress. The subject was not discussed again, but from this date, on both sides, it appeared to be quietly taken for granted that Robin and Thekla henceforward belonged to each other. The Underhills, too, were very kind, Mrs Underhill undertaking to sit up with her invalid friend for several nights.

On the 13th of February 1551, Dr Gardiner was fully deprived of his bishopric. The Gospellers hoped it was for ever, but it will shortly be seen how deceived they were.

And at Easter the holy table in Saint Paul's Cathedral was carried down below the veil that had been hung up to hide from the non-communicants the consecration of the elements, and set north and south; for, as yet, the customary place of the table was east and west.

Strange tales were told this Lent of fearful and marvellous visions and sights seen by many persons. Beside Merton Abbey, and in other places, men in armour were seen in the air, who came down to the earth and faded; and in Suss.e.x were three suns shining at once. John Avery made himself merry over these rumours, in which he had no faith. "The three suns," said he, "were but some matter of optical philosophy, which could readily be expounded of such as were learned in it; and for the men in armour, when he saw them he would believe them." Dr Thorpe considered the wonderful sights omens of coming ill, but from Esther they won very scant respect.

In May the party from the Lamb dined with Mr Holland, at whose house they met Mr Rose, and Mr and Mrs Underhill. The last-named gentleman could talk of nothing but the expected marriage of the young King with a Princess of France. This Princess was the hapless Elizabeth, afterwards affianced to Don Carlos, and eventually married to his father, the wretched Philip the Second. At this time she was just five years old.

"But," said Isoult, "she shall be a Papist, trow?"

"She shall be a Papist of mighty few years old," said Mr Underhill, laughing; "and we will quickly make a Protestant of her. I hear she is a mighty pretty child, her hair dark and shining, her eyes wondrous bright, and her smile exceeding sweet."

"Sweeter than Thekla Rose's?" asked Mrs Underhill, herself smiling.

"Scantly, methinks," answered Mr Underhill. "How like to a man's fantasy of an angel doth that maid look!"

Robin looked very unlike an angel, for he appeared extremely uncomfortable, but he said nothing.

From the King's marriage they came to that of the Princess Mary; and Mr Underhill--who, being a Gentleman Pensioner, with friends at Court, was allowed to speak with authority--gave the name of her projected bridegroom as "the Lord Lewis of Portugal. Wherein," pursued he, "Father Rose and I may amend our differences, seeing that she should first be called to renounce the succession."

Mr Rose smiled, and said, "A happy ending of a troublous matter, if it were so."

But, as the reader well knows, the troublous matter was not doomed to have so happy an end.