The Kings Daughters | Page 5

jar between them. It would not have been a large jar for her to
carry, but it was large and heavy too for such little things as these.
"However will they get home!" said she. "Nobody to look after them
but `God and Father'!"
The moment she had said it, her heart smote her. Was that not enough?
If the Lord cared for these little ones, did it matter who was against
them? How many unseen angels might there be on that road, watching
over the safety of the children, and of that homely jar of meal for their
sakes? It was not the first time that angels had attended to springs of
water and cakes baken on the coals. No angel would dream of stopping
to think whether such work degraded him. It is only men who stoop
low enough for that. The highest work possible to men or angels is just
doing the will of God: and God was the Father of these little ones.

"What is their Father?" asked Alice Mount.
"Johnson? Oh, he is a labouring man--a youngish man, only
four-and-thirty: his mistress died a matter of six months back, and truly
I know not how those bits of children have done since."
"They have had `God and Father,'" said Alice "Well, I've no doubt he's
a good father," answered Margaret. "John Johnson is as good a man as
ever stepped, I'll say that for him: and so was Helen a rare good woman.
I knew her well when we were maids together. Those children have
been well fetched up, take my word for it."
"It must have been a sad matter to lose such a wife," said Alice.
"Well, what think you?" answered Margaret, dropping her voice.
"Agnes Love told me--Jack Love's wife, that dwells on the
Heath--you'll maybe know her?"
"Ay, I know her, though not well."
"I've known her ever since she was a yard long. Well, she told me, the
even it happed came Jack Johnson to their house, and when she oped
the door, she was fair feared of him, he looked so strange--his face all
white, and such a glitter of his eyes--she marvelled what had taken him.
And says he, `Agnes, my Helen's gone.' `Gone? oh dear!' says she. `Ay,
she's gone, thank God!' says he. Well, Agnes thought this right strange
talk, and says she, `Jack Johnson, what can you mean? Never was a
better woman than your Helen, and you thanking God you've lost her!'
`Nay, Agnes, could you think that?' says he. `I'm thanking God because
now I shall never see her stand up on the waste by Lexden Road,' says
he. `She's safe from that anguish for evermore!' And you know what
that meant."
Yes, Alice Mount knew what that meant--that allusion to the waste
ground by Colchester town wall on the road to Lexden, where the
citizens shot their rubbish, and buried their dead animals, or threw them
unburied, and burned their martyrs. It was another way of saying what
the Voice from Heaven had cried to the Apostle--"Blessed are the dead

that die in the Lord from henceforth!"
"It's a marvel they haven't done somewhat to them Loves afore now,"
said Margaret, after a minute's silence.
"I thought they had?" replied Alice. "Wasn't John Love up afore the
Sheriff once at any rate?"
"Oh, ay, they've had him twice o'er; don't you mind they gat them away
in the night the last time, and all his goods was taken to the Queen's use?
But now, see, he's come back, and they let him alone. They've done all
they mean to do, I reckon."
"God grant it!" said Alice, with a sigh. "Meg, I cannot forget last
August. Twenty-two of us had up afore the Bishop, and we only
escaped by the very skin of our teeth, as saith Job. Ay me! I sometimes
marvel if we did well or no, when we writ our names to that
submission."
"Truly, neighbour, so have I," replied Margaret rather bluntly. "I would
not have set mine thereto, I warrant you."
Alice sighed heavily. "God knoweth we meant not to deny His truth,"
said she; "and He looketh on the heart."
After that they were silent till they came to Much Bentley. Turning
down the lane which led to Thorpe, they came in sight of a girl of
twenty years, sitting on a low stool at the door of the third cottage in
the lane, weaving worsted lace on a pillow with bobbins. Over the door
hung a signboard bearing a bell painted blue. The lace-maker was a
small-built girl, not in any way remarkable to look at, with smooth dark
hair, nicely kept, and a rosy face with no beauty about it, but with a
bright, kind-hearted expression