Chapter XXII: A Precious Cargo

THE sight of the Gospels printed in English, made Margery Paton more eager than ever to teach some of the girls and boys of the village to read. There had been a school at the Monastery, where one or two of the monks undertook the task of teaching those who liked to come and learn; but it was closed when the tenants left their holdings, and the brethren did not seem disposed to re-open it again, although Sir Miles and his wife had both asked if it could not be done, now that so many had returned.

It may have been that the monks thought their school might only be turned against them, if this new learning spread much further. At any rate they declined to move in the matter, and so Mistress Margery Paton undertook the task, and by the end of that winter of 1524-5, nearly a dozen of the elder boys and girls were able to read from the New Testament for themselves. Margery wanted to lend one of the copies her brother had brought from Oxford, among her scholars, that they might take it home and read it to their parents. But her brother thought it would not do to press this part of their work too rapidly. It was enough to teach them to understand what they themselves read, and to make them see that it was a book whose teaching must be put into practice in their every day life.

And Margery tried to show them what to choose, and what to reject from the Mass book, which was used at the Monastery, and by the Church all over the land.

Altogether it was a very busy season, both indoors and out; for when the weather permitted, there was work on the land to be done, to bring more into cultivation; and when this could not be done, there was work on the houses,—strengthening the walls with baulks of timber to support a properly thatched roof, and make the whole wind and water tight in the face of any storm. Then there was the weaving for those who had the aptitude for this work. The craftsman, who had been sent over from Ghent by the Cardinal's agent, was a man who could build a loom as well as use one; and having brought one with him for a pattern, he soon set the men to work to fashion the frames of others, that more workmen might be employed in weaving, when they had once mastered the difficulties of learning.

The Cardinal himself took a great interest in this experiment, and had offered to bear the cost of the trial if it should prove a failure; for the workman from Flanders asked a high rate of remuneration, being a skilful workman.

But before the close of the winter, Sir Miles felt assured that the attempt would prove very successful in the course of another year; and that, from doing their own shearing, they would be able to carry through every process in the manufacture of the cloth, and without actual waste either; for the learners' efforts, if not fit for clothing, could be used for bed-covering for the old and feeble.

So, here in the heart of England, was a self-dependent, self-supporting little colony of working folk, trying to better their condition by using the means close at hand; and if More's Utopia was not realised, as Sir Miles often felt it was not by a very long way, still, he thought he had set the feet of these people on the first rung of the ladder towards its attainment, and he could scarcely hope to do more, and must not attempt too much at once.

The following summer proved a terrible one for the nation at large. Pestilence and famine stalked through the land, as the inevitable result of the policy of the landlords. Corn had to be brought from the Continent, and sold for almost fabulous prices, so great was the demand for it, and so short was the supply.

This state of things forced Miles to take a step he never dreamed of doing when he set about bringing the land into cultivation again.

The news that they had had a plentiful harvest, brought them customers for more rye and wheat than they could possibly spare, so that at last he had to refuse to sell a peck of wheat, even for its weight in gold, for fear his own tenants should want it before the next harvest came round.

Then came rumours of a deadly sickness, known as "the Black Death." Some said it had been brought over from France by some of the troops who had returned from the war. But, however it came, it spread with awful rapidity through the length and breadth of the land. The poor creatures, who had been driven from their holdings to find shelter in the woods, were its first victims; for hunger and exposure had enfeebled them, and they died at the first touch of the plague. In their selfish panic to escape, their companions left them to lie unburied, and thus spread the contagion through the air tenfold, so that towns and villages were almost depopulated in the course of a few weeks.

In the midst of the sickness Cicely's first baby was born, but mother and child were unaffected by the sickness around, which was in part due to the fact that in his anxiety to keep out all contamination, Sir Miles had banished rushes from the floors of the house, and even the arras was pulled down from the walls of the chamber where Lady Paton lay when her baby came. This was one of the secondary causes; but the chief was doubtless the fact that Cicely had learned to trust in the loving care of God, who ruled her life and that of her husband too.

"For your sake I hope the sickness will not come near me," she said to him one day; "but if it should, I know it will be because our Father in heaven sees that you can work for Him better without me than with me."

"Hush, hush, my darling," said Miles imploringly; and when he was compelled to go out among the plague-stricken people, he would not go near the room where his wife and child lay, until he had changed his clothes and washed himself, in a fashion that few Englishmen did at that time.

By the time the pestilence was over, so many rules as to cleanliness had been adopted at Paton Hall and the surrounding village, that it was scarcely likely that master or peasants would ever quite relapse into the old state of dirt and accumulated filth again, especially when it became known that they had lost fewer people from the pestilence than any other place of a similar population.

They were just recovering from the panic caused by the plague, and had gathered in another plentiful harvest, when Sir Miles received a letter from London, that made him decide to go there later in the year.

Of course Lady Paton and Mistress Margery were taken into the confidence of Sir Miles as to his journey to London, just before Christmas; but the servants and tenants supposed that their master was going to have a little junketing at Court, for they knew the position that Lady Paton's father held, and they were not surprised that their master should go to visit his relatives at Greenwich, or that their mistress should stay at home, seeing she had a young baby to care for.

So Sir Miles and one trusty servant went to London, and took up their quarters at "The Sign of the Golden Fleece."

Here Sir Miles learned that the King had gone to spend his Christmas at Eltham, and so it would be useless to go to Greenwich; and he decided that Thames Street would suit best, for the business that had brought him to London, which, his servant learned, was to watch for the arrival of corn ships from the Low Country.

Sir Miles found the neighbourhood of Thames Street much more cheerful than any other part of the city, although his servant rather despised this neighbourhood of wharves and ships.

His master left him free to do as he liked, and as the curate of All Hallows in Honey Lane seemed to be sufficient attendance for his master, the servant left these two to themselves.

And so at last they were left to welcome the grandest cargo that had ever reached the English shores. The merchants and captains who had brought over this carefully-hidden store of English New Testaments were glad enough to get them out of their hands; and Sir Miles, and the rector and curate of All Hallows, were ready enough to do the work of actual labourers, and lift and haul the heavy packages, until all were stored in a place of safety.

A few parcels of napery had been put up at "The Golden Fleece" for him to take home; but the strong mules that had been bought to carry back his London purchases, carried New Testaments for the most part, and these were to be hidden in a secure hiding-place in his own house, until it should be seen what the authorities were likely to do when some of the copies were sold in the open market, as it was intended they should be. A good many London merchants were ready to take copies to sell privately among friends; for some of these who had been educated at Colet's school were heartily tired of the Church and its teaching as they knew it, and ready to risk something for the sake of a purer faith and worship. Many were not without hope that the King and Cardinal, too, would also favour the new departure. But whatever hopes were based on the Cardinal's remaining neutral—at least in this "Quarrel of Friars," that was bound to follow, sooner or later,—were very quickly dashed.

It had been arranged with Master Garrett, the curate of Honey Lane, that as soon as he had disposed of some of the books in London, he should take a parcel of them to Oxford, and also send a trusty messenger with some to Cambridge. The secret was therefore obliged to be entrusted to several people, and, as might have been expected, the Cardinal's spies soon scented it, and then went in search of the treasure. They managed to trace it to Master Garrett's house, but by that time he was at Oxford, and most of the books either securely hidden, or in the hands of those who would value such a treasure. There were, however, enough found for a bonfire to be made of them, and the Cardinal read enough to fill him with rage and disappointment, especially when he heard that the poison, as he chose to consider it, had been taken to Oxford—his own Oxford, where he had spared no pains to secure that learned and enlightened men should be gathered to teach in the halls of his own college.

No time was lost in sending the necessary authority to seize all who were known to be favourers of this onslaught upon the authority of the Church; and it may be imagined what the Cardinal's feelings were when he heard that Master Clark, John Fryth, and eight others of his own college had been arrested, and New Testaments found in their possession. Magdalen, Corpus Christi, and St. Mary's, all furnished a contingent to this noble army; but he heard to his chagrin that his own college had been a hot-bed of heresy for a long time. This filled the Cardinal with such rage that all were thrown into prison and treated with the utmost rigour. Sir Miles Paton heard of it, and rode in hot haste from Woodstock, hoping and believing he would be able to arouse a public display of feeling on behalf of the prisoners, such as he had seen that May-day at Westminster, so that the authorities would be compelled to release them.

But alas, his words only aroused little interest. A few shrugged their shoulders, and said they were very sorry; but public protest, such as an illegal tax would have raised, was out of the question.

He was almost heart-broken as he went about from one to the other, trying to enlist their sympathy, for he saw in this apathy of the people themselves, a sure precursor of the persecution of those who would dare to do the right in the face of King and Cardinal.

In vain he told them that the balance of English liberties trembled, and if the scale went down on the wrong side now—if they would not speak up for God and conscience now—so surely would they lose that civil liberty,—that right for which they had contended again and again in recent years.

But he might as well have preached to the dead. At the time of trial two only of the prisoners were released, and the rest sent back to their foul prison, where, in a few months, evil smells and want of food did their deadly work, and four of them died, Clark among the number.

Strong as he was, the Cardinal did not dare to go further in his persecution, even of priests, until he saw what the temper of the people at large was likely to be. He knew as well as his old secretary, that if the voice of the people made itself heard, he dare not persecute the servants of God; but they suffered these men to die in the prison without protest, and for a generation English liberty, civil and religious, was lost, and England passed through such a reign of terror under her despots as has not been equalled in Europe since, not even by that better known terror that desolated France a hundred years ago. She knew not the time of her visitation; she refused to listen to the voice of those who would have led her into the path of peace, liberty, and progress. She chose darkness rather than light, and only through the mighty struggles and sore sufferings of a few of her heroic children in after years, could she regain the treasure she allowed to slip through her nerveless fingers in this fateful year, 1526.

Sir Miles Paton returned to his home after his unavailing efforts to befriend the prisoners, almost wishing that his own work on earth was done. But he remembered there were those at home who would need his care more than ever now, and for their sakes he resolved to be cautious and keep his Testaments hidden for the present. He could guide his household and his tenants on the law of the new learning and the new commandment given by Christ, and with this he must be content for the present, he decided. And although the monks only half-believed in Sir Miles and Lady Paton being true to the Church, they could prove nothing against them, and Sir Miles was allowed to carry on his work at Woodstock until brighter days dawned.

Wolsey may have thought, when the last of these silent martyrs died in his pestiferous dungeons at Oxford, that he had made an end of this unauthorised attempt to circulate the Word of God, and reform the Church. If he did, he soon had cause to know that he was mistaken.

This fountain of the water of life,—the Word of God,—being once opened, could never again be closed. God's Holy Spirit had inspired Tyndale to devote his life to the perfecting of the translation of the Scriptures, and though he was hunted from city to city on the Continent,—where alone he could get his New Testaments printed,—still he always contrived to carry his treasure with him.

Edition after edition, thus revised and rendered into clearer English, was poured into the various ports of the kingdom; and though some of them fell into the hands of the Cardinal's spies, and were publicly burned, these burnings served to arouse the desire of the people to know more of this condemned book. And so the numerous copies that escaped the vigilance of the Cardinal's agents were eagerly sought for, and found their way into many a quiet English home, both in London and the country.

In this way the seed of the Word was sown broadcast through the land, and brought forth fruit in the hearts and lives of many who counted not their lives dear to them, but for the truth and liberty of the Gospel were ready to suffer for the sake of conscience, and the true English Reformation, of which Tyndale's New Testament was the corner stone.

Meanwhile social and political changes were slowly developing in a fashion that must have been bewildering to an onlooker, and many may have doubted whether England was being ruled by God or by Satan at that particular juncture. But we, looking back to this dark page of English history, can see that an all-wise Providence controlled and guided tyrant and victim alike, although it may have seemed that God had forgotten His people for a time.