Mistress Margery | Page 2

lions rampant sable, and who owns the bend engrailed argent on a
field gules. These are but the ordinary acquirements 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