CHAPTER XII.

MOTHER GOOSE'S TALES.

Lovelier spring than this one now passing into early summer had not been within living memory. Never had the trees budded more green and fresh-looking, and the roses and larkspurs shown more hurry to break forth and mingle their fragrance with the breath of the soft sweet air; and yet Ruth Rumbold's heart felt as wintry as if some load of ice-bound earth weighed it down.

Poor old Maudlin wondered sorely what ailed her pet, that she went about the place, doing her little household duties as carefully and deftly indeed as she always did do them, but not to the tune of her own sweet young voice, as her wont was. No, the child had grown silent as any stock and stone, and as grave--and that wasn't saying a little neither--as the master himself; and then Maudlin set about concocting a variety of messes and electuaries in the still-room with a view to restoring the roses to the pale cheeks, and charming back the lost music. And then, after all her trouble, to think that Ruth refused to swallow a mouthful of her medicaments, and vowed that nothing ailed her--if only Maudlin would leave her to herself!

For three whole days this sort of thing has been going on; and to-night, tired out with her ineffectual expostulations, the old woman has gone off, not without dudgeon, to "get a mouthful of fresh air," as she says. And truly the atmosphere is heavy--as if a storm were not so far off--and to indulge in a little interchange of ideas in the gate-house parlour; for there you are always safe to pick up the latest news stirring, trifling and important, just as you would come upon it in the Mall or the Covent Garden coffee-houses.

[Sidenote: Ruth at her studies.]

And so Ruth is left to her musings; for though at the first glance you might call them studies, since one book of the little heap piled up on the broad ledge of the window where she is seated, lies open on her lap, you have but to look again, to see she is not reading it.

As, however, the sound of a heavy step descending the stairs falls upon her ear, she drops her eyes to the page, not even raising them again when the maltster enters, and crossing slowly to her side, stands gazing out absently into the rays of the setting sun, which are luridly firing the yew-tree peacock into a blaze of red and yellow.

Presently, however, he turned his eyes upon Ruth. "Does not the book please you?" he asked, pointing to the volume before her. "I see," he went on, when she looked up, but made no answer, "that you have not turned the page since you opened it haphazard when I bid you be reading it half an hour ago. Or is it that the picture of the blessed martyrdom of Mistress Anne Askew so fascinates you?"

"'Tis a fearful thing!" said Ruth, shuddering, as she looked, for the first time, if truth must be owned, at the pictured page. "Poor Mistress Askew! She must have been a right brave lady."

"A bold Christian woman, rather," quickly corrected the maltster, "who counted her life for nought beside the truth."

"Truth is indeed a pure noble thing to live for," acquiesced Ruth.

"And to die for. Yes," said Rumbold; "that blessed work of Master Fox's is indeed a mighty treasure-house of the scores who have shed their blood for it."

"Ay," sighed Ruth, "'tis indeed a book of death, and ghastliness, and--"

[Sidenote: A batch of books.]

"And wholesome teaching, and fitter far for thy recreation moments than all this farrago of chap-book trash I found you head over ears upon. Where did you get it?"

"I bought it of the old packman who came to the gatehouse yesterday morning; and a fine collection there was in his wallet," continued Ruth, her eyes waxing bright. "He had come straight by way of Bow and Waltham, and on here across the Rye, from the 'Looking Glass,' the big chap-bookseller's shop that stands on London Bridge, father, dear, and he'd got _Reynard the Fox_, the sly wicked creature. Father, what an odious hypocrite he was--eh? And _Mother Bunch_, and _Jack and the Giants_--

"'Fe! Fi! Fo! Fum! I smell the blood of an English--_mun_! Let him be alive, or let him be dead, I'll grind his bones--'"

"Tut! tut! tut!" frowned the maltster.

[Sidenote: The maltster hates romance.]

"To make my bread!" went on Ruth, absorbed in the vision of the valiant little Cornishman's attack on the three-headed monster. "Yes, and then there was _Tarlton's Jests_," she hurried on, all unconscious of the deepening frowns of Rumbold, "and _Guy of Warwick_, and--let me see, what came next? Why, to be sure, 'twas the _Blind Beggar's Daughter of Bethnal Green_--'Pretty Bessee,' you know, father; and the history of the _Two Children in the Wood_, poor pretty dears! with a picture running all along atop of the page, showing all the sad woes they suffered, and ending up with the hanging of the cruel uncle. And then--well, I protest, there was such a heap, that I cannot remember them half. But I know he had _John Barleycorn_, because--well, father, it made me think"--and a merry smile rippled on Ruth's mobile lips--"of somebody we know, eh? and how they squeezed the poor old fellow to death. And then," chattered on Ruth, encouraged by the faint smile that dawned on the maltster's stolid face, "then there was _The World Turned Upside Down_. Well, I had half a mind for that; but just then I came upon this, and it looked the very best of all, and as I--" Ruth hesitated to explain that her resources had not reached to the purchase of all the chap-books she had coveted, and the thrilling woodcuts of the one she now held towards him had carried the day with her. "Well, 'twill divert you, I'm sure, father, dear."

It was _The Seven Champions of Christendom_!

"Seven dunderheads!" frowned Rumbold, turning the book's pages with a contemptuous finger. "Harkye, Ruth," he continued, in stern tones, "not a groat more of pocket-money will I waste on you till you have learned to spend it something more discreetly than on trash like this. I had rather see my money at the bottom of the moat than frittered so. Pah! dragons, forsooth, and fair captive ladies! and knights-errant, and saints--beshrew them, all! Mighty saints, I'll warrant me they were. Pagans in motley! Saint David of Scotland. If he set foot there now the presbytery would be for hanging him high as Holyrood tower. And Saint Patrick of Ireland, with his superstitious shamrock symbol, and Saint George of England."

"Merry England, father," corrected Ruth.

[Sidenote: A burning shame.]

"Pah! pish! a seemly time this for England to be merry! when she needs bow her head even to the dust for the weight of her sins!" and he turned and threw the book angrily into the fire. "That for your chap-book saints!"

"Now," thought poor Ruth, "he would be as cruel to them, if they were real flesh and blood men, as ever Bishop Bonner and Queen Mary were to the poor Protestant martyrs;" and silently, for she dared not trust herself to speak, she began to turn the pages of the volume on her knee; but Rumbold took it from her.

"Read no more," he said, "till your spirit is better attuned to such profitable instruction. Lay it by till to-morrow," he went on, in less harsh tones; "mayhap when you have slept on what you have read, and digested it--"

"I doubt I shall not do that," despairingly answered Ruth, "for the woodcuts alone would serve to give bolder hearts than mine a nightmare."

[Sidenote: A soft place in his heart.]

"And yet," went on Rumbold, softening still more at the notion that his favourite reading had impressed Ruth more strongly than he had at first assumed, "I do not think yours is lacking in courage. Your father's daughter would dare much in a righteous cause were she called upon to do it. Eh, Ruth?"

She did not answer; but sat gazing dreamily at the fire as it reduced the poor chap-book to a few filmy shreds. "But now, little one," went on the maltster, "to your room. Good-night!" and he bent and kissed her forehead,

"Nay, father!" she rejoined, looking up in surprise; "not good-night yet awhile. 'Tis hours too early."

"I like not thy trick of exaggerating," rebukefully said he. "One hour, and barely, for the clock has already struck seven--it may be sooner--"

"Yes, indeed," briskly interrupted she, "and I am not for going to sleep at sunset, with the little chits of sparrows--"

[Sidenote: Cross-questioning.]

"And magpies! You grow pert, mistress. Come!" sternly added Rumbold, "I'll have no more of the May-day wantonness we wot of. Do as I bid you."

"But, father--"

"Do you hear me?" thundered the maltster. "I desire to be alone. That is--I need not your company."

"'Twill be so lonesome for you," said Ruth; "I think it would have cheered you in this twilight time if--"

"I need it not, I tell you," quickly interrupted Rumbold. "I expect--visitors," and he coughed huskily.

"Visitors!"

"Ay; that is to say," stammered Rumbold, "it--it is possible."

"Visitors! and nothing prepared for them to eat!" cried the little housemistress aghast.

"They are not of the sort who set store by rich meats and costly wine-bibbing. They come--to confer with me, on--on important questions."

"Is it the price of grain, father? I heard Parson Alsides saying to Master Lockit only this very morning that it was at a most ruinous price--seventy shillings a quarter, he said; and that if the farmers and the employers--such as you, father, dear, and Lawrence Lee, I suppose, would but put their heads together to devise how it could be cheapened for the poor, 'twould be, he said, a right blessed day's work, and a vast deal better than the hatching of all sorts of plots, and--"

"Eh! eh! eh! Parson Alsides is a chattering old sycophant, who is always prating for the pensions he gets out of the king's own privy purse. Though, mind you, child, I don't say I would not spare the matter consideration when more serious concerns allow me leisure."

"I hoped you had done with those for ever, father," said Ruth gravely; "'twas a serious concern, indeed, when poor King Charles was killed, and you--"

"I! how now?" cried Rumbold, turning sharply upon her. "What had I to do with that?"

"What had you not, father?" said Ruth, in tones of sturdy reproach. "Why, many's the time Maudlin has told me how you stood by and saw it done."

[Sidenote: A bitter-sweet story.]

"And beshrew her chattering old tongue for her pains! I'd have had it cut out, had I caught her at her tales. 'Tis no fit one for your ears, Ruth," he added, in sad slow tones.

"Indeed, father; I could always stop them with my fingers when she begins about it; and yet still I must listen. 'Tis such a bitter-sweet story--poor king!"

"And yet," went on Rumbold, changing his mood, "after all, why should I be sorry to think that you know your father can look his duty in the face."

"Oh, father!" she began reproachfully.

"Let be, child," he interrupted, turning away, and thrusting his hands gloomily down into his pockets, "'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do,' saith the Scripture, 'do it with all thy might.' 'Tis enough."

"Indeed, indeed enough," said Ruth, stealing beside him, "and you will meddle no more in such things, eh, father?"

"And who told you I dreamed of doing so?" he demanded in unsteady and excited tones.

"You must rest and be comfortable," went on Ruth, twining her arms about his neck, and stroking his rugged face; "so snug here, isn't it, in our beautiful old Rye House? And you must be content to rest now, and have your little Ruth take care of you, and sing--for you say I have a tuneful voice, eh, dear--of the Land 'where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest,' and the gentle green pastures, and the godly hymns you taught me when I was a small thing you could dandle on your knee. Promise me, dear heart," she went on coaxingly, when Rumbold's only answer was an attempt to shake her off, "never to meddle more. Let the bad cruel-hearted men make their plots, for 'tis all their wits can reach to, I doubt. But for one like you, who can make such malt as is not to be found besides in all Hertfordshire, oh, I'd stick to it."

[Sidenote: Rumbold's changes of mood.]

"And stick you to your churn and your wheel, Mistress Oracle," said the maltster, fondly stroking her soft brown hair, "and discourse not so glibly of what you do not understand a whit more than your own frisky Tab there, who is tearing up your fine chap-books with her claws. What should kings, and such kittle cattle's doings be to you?"

[Sidenote: Words about majesty.]

"Nay, little enough," said Ruth, turning to rescue her precious books, and taking the destructive Tab in her arms, "though in truth sometimes I think I should like to see our King Charles," she went on, dreamily twiddling the kitten's ears.

"Have you not seen him many a time, silly child?" said Rumbold.

"In a fashion, ay, yes, as he has ridden by yonder in his coach, and his Grace of York too of course, but 'tis such a glimpse; just enough to set one caring to look him face to face. Have you ever done that, father?"

"No--yes--I scarcely know," frowned Rumbold.

"'Tis a right kind merry face, isn't it?"

"I see no such things in it," growled Rumbold; "an ordinary swarthy one enough to my thinking."

"Yet Goodman Speedwell, when he went up to London last year to sell his pigs, said 'twas a rare and gracious one, and a pure fine sight to see him playing with his little dogs in Saint James's Park, and feeding the ducks in the canal with his own royal hands. Oh, he must be a pleasant-humoured gentleman!"

"He's just a mortal man, I take it, very mortal, and when he's angered spares none, for all his fine forgetting and forgiving talk."

"There it is," said Ruth, "'tis scarce to be expected that he who has been so wronged, should be so forgiving as the Bible would have us. Nowadays, if a man sin against his brother, and kings are our brothers, eh, father? in a fashion of speaking they are our elder brothers, eh, father, dear?"

"Beshrew thee, child," impatiently frowned the maltster, "what has come to you?"

"I say 'tis a stretch if that man shall be forgiven twice, that is what I am thinking of; and those who plotted the killing of Charles the First, and were pardoned, would scarce be let go a second time, if--if--" she faltered, and coloured deeply.

"If what, mistress?" sternly challenged Rumbold.

"If they should harbour ill thoughts against Charles the Second."

It was the maltster's turn to look aside, as she lifted her appealing eyes to his face. "Come, come," he said, "a truce to this silly chatter. Good-night; and hark you, give me the key of the communicating door between your chamber and the Warder's Room. Have it you about you?"

[Sidenote: The key of the warder's room.]

"Yes, father; here," and she disengaged one of the keys from the bunch hanging at her girdle, and handed it to him, wonderingly.

"Very good," he said, taking it from her and pocketing it, "'tis your own fault, for your carelessness, Ruth," he went on; "this morning was the second time I found that door ajar. If I find it so ever again, I'll have it walled up. For the present I'll hold the key in my keeping."

"But, father," protested Ruth, "Adam Lockit--"

"Adam Lockit grows stupid and deaf, and Diggles is but one remove from an idiot, and the arrantest coward breathing."

"Only about ghosts, father; you should see him lay about him with the cudgels on double his size in flesh and blood. And he's keen as any hare for the slightest sound or stir."

[Sidenote: An abrumpt "good-night."]

"Humph!" said the maltster, "flibbertigibbets, all should be abed and snoring by nine o' the clock. So good-night, child, and pleasant dreams." And with another kiss, Rumbold dismissed his daughter.