Mistress Margery | Page 2

of a gentlewoman; but our heroine knows more than this. Mistress Margery can read; and the handmaidens furthermore whisper to each other, with profound admiration of their young mistress's extraordinary knowledge, that Mistress Margery can write. Dame Lovell cannot do either; but Sir Geoffrey, who is a literary man, and possesses a library, has determined that his daughter shall receive a first-rate education. Sir Geoffrey's library is a very large one, for it consists of no less than forty-two volumes, five of which are costly illuminated manuscripts, and consist of the Quest of the Sangraal [see Note 1], the Travels of Sir John Maundeville, the Chronicle of Matthew Paris, Saint Augustine's City of God, and a Breviary. Dame Lovell has no Breviary, and as she could not read it if she had, does not require one; but Margery, having obtained her father's permission to do so, has employed her powers of writing and illuminating in making an elaborate copy of his Breviary for her own use; and from an illumination in this book, not quite finished, representing Judas Iscariot in parti-coloured stockings, and Saint Peter shooting at Malchus with a cross-bow, is Margery now summoned away to the kitchen.
Margery entered the kitchen with a noiseless step, and making a low courtesy to her mother, said, in a remarkably clear, silvery voice, "It pleased you to send for me, good mother."
"Yea, lass; give a hand to the blanch-porre, for Al'ce knows no more than my shoe; and then see to the grewall, whilst I scrape these almonds for the almond butter."
Margery quietly performed her task, and spoke to the mortified Al'ce in a much gentler tone than Dame Lovell had done. She was occupied in the preparation of "eels in grewall," a kind of eel-stew, when a slender youth, a little older than herself, and attired in the usual costume of a page, entered the kitchen.
"Why, Richard Pynson," cried Dame Lovell, "thou art a speedy messenger, in good sooth. I looked not for thee until evensong."
"I finished mine errand, good mistress," replied the youth, "earlier by much than I looked for to do."
"Hast heard any news, Richard?"
"None, mistress mine, unless it be news that a homily will be preached in Bostock Church on Sunday next ensuing, by a regular of Oxenforde, one Master Sastre."
The grewall was standing still, and Margery was listening intently to the words of Richard Pynson, as he carelessly leaned against the wall.
"Will you go, Mistress Margery?"
Margery looked timidly at her mother. "I would like well to go," said she, "an' it might stand with your good pleasure."
"Ay, lass, go," replied Dame Lovell, good-naturedly. "It is seldom we have a homily in Bostock Church. Parson Leggatt is not much given to preaching, meseemeth."
"I will go with you, Master Pynson," said Margery, resuming the concoction of the dainty dish before her, "with a very good will, for I should like greatly to hear the Reverend Father. I never yet heard preach a scholar of Oxenforde."
Dame Lovell moved away to take the pottage off the fire, and Pynson, approaching Margery, whispered to her, "They say that this Master Sastre preacheth strange things, like as did Master John Wycliffe a while agone; howbeit, since Holy Church interfereth not, I trow we may well go to hear him."
Margery's colour rose, and she said in a low voice, "It will do us no harm, trow?"
"I trust not so," answered Richard; and, taking up his hunting-bag, he quitted the room.
"Why, Cicely!" exclaimed Dame Lovell, turning round from the pottage, "had I wist thou hadst put no saffron herein, thou shouldst have had mine hand about thine ears, lass! Bring the saffron presently! No saffron, quotha!"
Before we accompany Margery and Richard to hear the homily of Master Sastre, it might perhaps be as well to prevent any misunderstanding on the part of the reader with respect to Richard Pynson. He is the page of Sir Geoffrey Lovell, and the son of Sir John Pynson of Pynsonlee; for in the year 1395, wherein our story opens, it is the custom for young gentlemen, even the sons of peers, to be educated as page or squire to some neighbouring knight of wealth and respectability. Richard Pynson, therefore, though he may seem to occupy a subordinate position, is in every respect the equal of Margery.
The morning on which Master Sastre was to deliver his homily was one of those delicious spring days which seem the immediate harbingers of summer. Margery, in her black dress, and with a warm hood over her cote-hardie, was assisted by her father to mount her pillion, Richard Pynson being already seated before her on the grey palfrey; for in the days of pillions, if the gentleman assisted the lady on her pillion before he mounted himself, he ran imminent risk of knocking her