Part 41 (1/2)
Clare Avery and Eunice Underhill struck up a warm friends.h.i.+p. Eunice [name and dates true, character imaginary] was one of the few women who keep ”the dew of their youth,” and in freshness, innocence, and ignorance of this evil world, she was younger than many girls not half her age. Her simplicity put Clare at ease, while her experience of life awoke respect. Clare seized her opportunity one day, while taking a long walk with Eunice, to obtain the opinion of the latter on the point which still interested her, and compare it with that of Mrs Tremayne.
Why it was easier to talk to Eunice than to those at home, Clare could not decide. Perhaps, had she discovered the reason, she might not have found it very flattering to her self-love.
”Mistress Eunice, think you it easy to be content with small gear?”
”You would say with lack of goods?” asked Eunice.
”Nay; but with the having to deal with petty, pa.s.sing matter, in the stead of some n.o.ble deed that should be worthy the doing.”
”I take you now, Mistress Clare. And I can feel for your perplexity, seeing I have known the same myself.”
”Oh, you have so?” responded Clare eagerly.
”Ay, I have felt as though the work set me to do were sheer waste of such power and knowledge as G.o.d had given unto me; and have marvelled (I would speak it with reverence) what the Lord would be at, that He thus dealt with me. Petty things--mean things--little pa.s.sing matter, as you said, that none shall be the better for to-morrow; wherefore must I do these? I have made a pudding, maybe; I have shaken up a bed; I have cut an old gown into a kirtle. And to-morrow the pudding shall be eaten, and the bed shall lack fresh straw, and ere long the gown shall be worn to rags. But I shall live for ever. Wherefore should a soul be set to such work which shall live for ever?”
”Ay,--you know!” said Clare, drawing a deep breath of satisfaction.
”Now tell me, Mistress Eunice, what answer find you to this question?
Shall it be with you, as with other, that these be my tasks at school?”
”That is verily sooth, Mistress Clare; yet there is another light wherein I love the better to look thereat. And it is this: that in this world be no little things.”
”What would you say, Mistress Eunice? In good sooth, it seemeth me the rather, there be few great.”
”I cry you mercy,” said Eunice, with her bright smile. ”Lo' you,--'tis after this fas.h.i.+on. The pudding I have made a man shall eat, and thereby be kept alive. This man shall drop a word to another, which one pa.s.sing by shall o'erhear,--on the goodness and desirableness of learning, I will say. Well, this last shall turn it o'er in his mind, and shall determine to send his lad to school, and have him well learned. Time being gone, this lad shall write a book, or shall preach a sermon, whereby, through the working of G.o.d's Spirit, many men's hearts shall be touched, and led to consider the things that belong unto their peace. Look you, here is a chain; and in this great chain one little link is the pudding which I made, twenty years gone.”
”But the man could have eaten somewhat else.”
”Soothly; but he did not, you see.”
”Or another than you could have made the pudding.”
”Soothly, again: but I was to make it.”
Clare considered this view of the case.
”All things in this world, Mistress Clare, be links in some chain. In Dutchland [Germany], many years gone now, a young man that studied in an university there was caught in an heavy thunderstorm. He grew sore affrighted; all his sins came to his mind: and he prayed Saint Anne to dispel the storm, promising that he would straightway become a monk.
The storm rolled away, and he suffered no harm. But he was mindful of his vow, and he became a monk. Well, some time after, having a spare half-hour, he went to the library to get him a book. As G.o.d would have it, he reached down a Latin Bible, the like whereof he had ne'er seen aforetime. Through the reading of this book--for I am well a.s.sured you know that I speak of Luther--came about the full Reformation of religion which, thanks be to G.o.d! is now spread abroad. And all this cometh--to speak after the manner of men--in that one Martin was at one time affrighted with the thunder; and, at another time, reached him down a book. Nay, Mistress Clare--in G.o.d's world be no little things!”
”Mistress Eunice, in so saying, you make life to look a mighty terrible thing, and full of care.”
”And is life not a most terrible thing to them that use it not aright?
But for them that do trust them unto G.o.d's guidance, and search His Word to see what He would have them do, and seek alway and above all things but to do His will,--it may be life is matter for meditation, yea, and watchfulness; but methinks none for care. G.o.d will see to the chain: 'tis He, not we, that is weaver thereof. We need but to be careful, each of his little link.”
”My links be wearyful ones!” said Clare with a little sigh. ”'Tis to cut, and snip, and fit, and sew, and guard, and mend. My cousin Lysken dealeth with men and women, I with linen and woollen. Think you it strange that her work should seem to me not only the n.o.bler, but the sweeter belike?”
”Methinks I have seen Mistress Lysken to deal pretty closely with linen and woollen, sithence Father and I came hither,” said Eunice smiling.
”But in very deed, Mistress Clare, 'tis but nature that it so should seem unto you. Yet did it ever come into your mind, I pray you, that we be poor judges of that which is high and n.o.ble? I marvel if any save Christ and Gabriel e'er called John Baptist a great man. Yet he was great in the sight of the Lord. Yea, that word, 'more than a prophet'
was the very accolade of the King of the whole world. You know, Mistress Clare, that if the Queen's Majesty should call a man 'Sir Robert,' though it were but a mistake, and he no knight, that very word from her should make him one. And the King of Heaven can make no mistake; His great men be great men indeed. Now whether would you rather, to be great with men, or with G.o.d?”