"Thou art not used to answer so short," she replied. "Hast thou heard any thing, Jack?"

"I have heard--nothing--certain," he answered, hesitatingly.

"Jack, what hast thou heard?" she cried in terror.

"With any surety, dear heart, nothing whatever," he said, lovingly; "only that Austin hath spoken to me touching him, and therefore I could not say I had heard nothing. And at most 'tis only a guess. I cry thee mercy not to have told thee, but seeing how unsure it were, I thought it more kindlier not to trouble thee. Well, sweeting, what Austin said was this: he hath made all search in every prison he hath visited, and spake unto divers prisoners, but no word of the dear lad may he have. And he is afeard, Isoult--it is but a guess, thou wist!--that all is over already."

Before he had half finished, his meaning struck on her heart, like a pa.s.sing bell. "All over!" she knew what that meant.

"O my G.o.d! wilt thou not give us one word that we may know? This watching and waiting is so hard to bear. I desire to be, to do, to suffer Thy will; but, Father, it is very weary work to wait! 'If it be possible,' send us some word of our lost darling! 'Make no long tarrying, O my G.o.d!'"

It was not to John, and not aloud, that this was spoken.

It is not only children who are afraid of the dark. We all love to walk by sight. We are rarely content to see only the next step we must take; yet it is all we need see, and often all that G.o.d will show us. The darkness and the light are both alike to Him; and if only we would let Him see for us, we should act the part of wise children. It is easy, when the light comes, to cry out at our past foolishness in being afraid of the dark. We never think so while the darkness is upon us.

A few days later came Philippa Ba.s.set, full of Court news, which she had from her brother James.

"Yesterday," said she, "came a letter or messenger from King Philip, denying his present return hither: whereupon the Queen fell into so great a chafe, that she commanded his picture borne out of the privy chamber. Thus far my brother; but Jack Throgmorton saith that she fetched a knife and scored the picture twice or thrice all the way down, and then kicked it out of the chamber. [Throgmorton denied having said this, when a judicial inquiry was held.] 'Saint Mary worshipped might she be!' said I to James, 'is her Grace a woman like to do that?'

'Nay,' saith he, 'not half so like as thou shouldst be in her place.'"

Whereat Philippa laughed merrily.

Isoult was in a mood for any thing rather than laughter. It was too near Easter for mirth. Easter, which should be the most blessed festival of the year, was now turned into an occasion of offence and of mourning to the servants of G.o.d.

In the evening all from the Lamb were at Mr Underhill's farewell supper, at his house in Wood Street, whence he purposed to set out for Coventry the next day as soon as the gates were opened. He said he would not remain another Easter in London.

The last day of June came a letter to John Avery from Mr Underhill, saying that they had all arrived safely at Coventry, and he had taken a house a mile out of the city, "in a wood side," where he trusted to keep quiet until the tyranny were overpast.

The darkness was growing thicker.

In that month of June began the procession in every church, at which the Bishop commanded the attendance of every child in London, bearing books or beads in hand, and of one adult from each house to take charge of them. "Ours are not like to go," said Isoult, tenderly; "but 'tis harder work to set them in peril than to go therein one's self."

Sir John Gage died on the 18th of April, an old man full of years. It was he who had been on the Commission to Calais, and had brought Isoult to England after Lord Lisle's arrest; and he had also endeavoured to have Mr Underhill sent to Newgate.

The search against Lutheran books was now very strict (and laughable enough in less sorrowful circ.u.mstances). Among these Lutheran books the most strictly forbidden were my Lord Chancellor's book "_De Vera Obedientia_" and one written by the Queen herself when a girl, under the auspices of Katherine Parr,--a translation of a work of Erasmus.

Another letter came from Mr Rose in July, bringing good news of his welfare; and in August Annis Holland was married to Don Juan de Alameda.

Writing on the 21st of August, in her diary, Isoult said--

"Not one word more touching Robin. There be times when I feel as though I could bear it no longer, though what I could do to end it, soothly I cannot tell. I conceive well what David signified, when he saith he did roar through the very disquietness of his heart. I dare not tell this to Marguerite, for she is too nearly of the same complexion to give me any comfort; and to say a word to Esther is no good, for she silenceth me at once with some pa.s.sage of Holy Writ as 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' And what can I say to that but Amen? Jack is always loving and tender, but he can (I well perceive) see little comfort herein himself; and to do so much as name the thing to Thekla were wanton cruelty, though I do fancy she should be the best comforter.

So I must wait on, and cry unto G.o.d. It may be that is the very thing He would have of me."

Bad news came by Austin, early in 1557--the death of the Earl of Suss.e.x [Note 4], Mr Rose's chief friend in high places. Poor Marguerite was much downcast, saying they had now lost their best friend.

"No, Mother dear," answered Thekla, "not our best Friend. He is in an higher place; and He dieth no more."

Another Easter came and pa.s.sed; and King Philip returned to England.

Every now and then Austin visited the Lamb; but he brought no news of Robin. Isoult thought she had never realised how dearly she loved the lad till now. It was hard to thank G.o.d for such a blank in the home as this; and yet deep in the inmost heart she knew, as every Christian knows, that the Father was doing all things well, and that "there was no must be without a needs be." To wait on the Lord is no easy task to flesh and blood; but there is one thing yet harder, and that is to rest in the Lord while waiting.

And meanwhile Thekla drooped and faded, day by day. She never spoke now of Robin; but it was easy to see that she had not forgotten him. Slower and more languid grew her step, and her face whiter and graver, with an expression of sorrowful patience, which did not quit its hold upon the lips even when they smiled.

"She is worn to a shadow," said Marguerite, bitterly. "Why cannot we go home to G.o.d? What profit is it to Him that we do suffer?"

And Isoult was silent; but she remembered Robin's words about "believers in the dark."

On the 7th of June, which was Whit Monday, there was a Pa.s.sion Play at Court. Isoult, coming in from a call upon her neighbour, Mrs Brent, observed in a rather disgusted tone--

"Gillian Brent must needs go to see this mystery. For me, I might as easily or as willingly go to see a martyrdom. She saith 'tis right sweet and devotional, and maketh her to feel so good she cannot tell how much. 'Tis a sort of goodness I covet not. It were like murdering the Son of G.o.d over again, to see His blessed name taken upon himself of a sinful man, and His bitter pa.s.sion set forth to divert men. Gillian saith none will see the thing as I do; but that cannot I help.

Perchance He may, when He looketh down upon it."

At her house at Chelsea, on the 16th of July, died Anna of Cleve, one of the two widows of Henry the Eighth. She came to England a Lutheran, and died a Papist. King Philip went to Flanders on the 5th of July; on the 14th of August came news of the great victory of Saint Quentin, which the King had won there; and the next day there were great thanksgivings and rejoicings over all the City. And on the 20th of October died Mary Countess of Arundel, at Arundel House; she was cousin of Philippa Ba.s.set, and when she was Countess of Suss.e.x, Isoult had lived for some time in her house with Anne Ba.s.set.

A fortnight previous, London was requested to rejoice again, for peace was concluded with the Pope.

"Verily," said Dr Thorpe, "this is a marvellous thing, to bid us rejoice, and to give us cause for mourning."

"Marry," responded Mr Ferris, "for me, when the war brake forth, I sang the _Te Deum_ under my breath; now will I clothe me in sackcloth under my raiment, and so shall I have both sorrowed and rejoiced, and none can grudge against me."

The year 1557 closed heavily. The burnings went on, but they were chiefly of poor men and women: sometimes, but not often, of children or girls. On the 12th of December a Gospellers' meeting was dispersed, and many taken by the Sheriff; but no friends of the Averys. All this time Mr Holland, with his wife and child, were at his father's house in Lancashire, and Mr Underhill with his household at Coventry. Isoult's last entry in her diary for this year ran as follows:--

"Austin came yesterday, to tell us my Lady of Suffolk and Mr Bertie did quit Germany, where they had refuged, in April last, and be now safe in Poland, at a town called Crossen, and the King's Grace of Poland hath set Mr Bertie over a province of his. I am glad to hear this. They had, nathless, many and great troubles in their journey, but sith 'tis all over, it is not worth grieving for.

"Ah, faithless heart and foolish! and will not all troubles be so, when the last mile of the journey cometh? Yea, may we not find we had most cause to thank G.o.d for the roughest parts of the way? So saith my sense and judgment: yet for all this will mine heart keep crying out, and will not be silent. O Robin, Robin! an other year!"

The Gospellers never entered on any year with heavier hearts than on the year 1558. The year of all the century! the year that was to close so gloriously--to go out with trumpets, and bells, and bonfires, and _Te Deums_, and all England in a wild ferment of delight and thanksgiving!

And how often do we enter on a year of mourning with our hearts singing anthems?

It is well that it should be so. We have abundant cause to thank G.o.d that He has hidden the future from us. It is enough for us to know that all things work together for good to them that love Him, to them that are the called according to His purpose.

But very, very mournfully came this year in; for it opened with the loss of Calais. Isoult had dwelt there for two years with Lady Lisle; and there were few places nearer to her heart. Perhaps we can hardly picture to ourselves how nearly that loss touched every English heart.

It was as if each man in the land had lost a piece of his estate.

Calais belonged to every Englishman.

"Well, my friends in the monastery!" was the greeting of Mr Ferris, "that I promised Underhill I would look to by times. Hath your secluded ear been yet pierced with the tidings this morrow--that be making every man all over London to swear and curse, that loveth not his soul better than his anger?"

"What now?" said John. "Nay, the Courts be not yet opened again, so I have bidden at home."

"And I am an old man, burdened with an access," [a fit of the gout] said Dr Thorpe. "Come, out with your news! What platform [Note 5] toucheth it?"

"Every platform in the realm. Have it here--Calais is lost."

"Calais!" They said no more.

But a vision rose before the eyes of Isoult--of George Bucker in the pulpit of the Lady Church, and Lord and Lady Lisle in the nave below: of the Market Place, where his voice had rung out true and clear: of the Lantern Gate whereon his head had been exposed: of the gallows near Saint Pierre whereon he had died. His voice came back to her, and Lord Lisle's--both which she had heard last in the Tower, but both which were to her for ever bound up with Calais. Her eyes were swimming, and she could not speak. And before another word had been uttered by any one, the latch was lifted by Philippa Ba.s.set.

"There is not a man left in England!" she cried. "Calais had never been lost, had _I_ been there to fire the culverins."