The White Rose of Langley

The White Rose of Langley, by
Emily Sarah Holt

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Title: The White Rose of Langley A Story of the Olden Time
Author: Emily Sarah Holt
Release Date: October 31, 2007 [EBook #23276]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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WHITE ROSE OF LANGLEY ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

The White Rose of Langley
a Story of the Olden Time
by Emily Sarah Holt.

CHAPTER ONE.
NOBODY'S CHILD.
"Oh, how full of briars is this working-day world!"
Shakspere.
"It is so cold, Mother!"
The woman addressed languidly roused herself from the half-sheltered
nook of the forest in which she and her child had taken refuge. She was
leaning with her back supported by a giant oak, and the child was in her
arms. The age of the child was about eight. The mother, though still
young in years, was old before her time, with hard work and exposure,
and it might be also with sorrow. She sat up, and looked wearily over
the winter scene before her. There was nothing of the querulous,
complaining tone of the little girl's voice in hers; only the dull, sullen
apathy of hopeless endurance.
"Cold, child!" she said. "'Tis like to be colder yet when the night
cometh."
"O Mother! and all snow now!"
"There be chiller gear than snow, maid," replied the mother bitterly.
"But it had been warmer in London, Mother?--if we had not lost our
road."
"May-be," was the answer, in a tone which seemed to imply that it did
not signify.
The child did not reply; and the woman continued to sit upright, and
look forward, with an absent expression in her face, indicating that the
mind was not where the eyes were.
"Only snow and frost!" she muttered--not speaking to the child.

"Nought beyond, nor here ne there. Nay, snow is better than snowed-up
hearts. Had it been warmer in London? May-be the hearts there had
been as frosty as at Pleshy. Well! it will be warm in the grave, and we
shall soon win yonder."
"Be there fires yonder, Mother?" asked the child innocently.
The woman laughed--a bitter, harsh laugh, in which there was no mirth.
"The devil keepeth," she said. "At least so say the priests. But what wit
they? They never went thither to see. They will, belike, some day."
The little girl was silent again, and the mother, after a moment's pause,
resumed her interrupted soliloquy.
"If there were nought beyond, only!" she murmured; and her look and
tone of dull misery sharpened into vivid pain. "If a man might die, and
have done with it all! But to meet God! And 'tis no sweven, [dream] ne
fallacy, this dread undeadliness [immortality]--it is real. O all ye
blessed saints and martyrs in Heaven! how shall I meet God?"
"Is that holy Mary's Son, Mother?"
"Ay."
"Holy Mary will plead for us," suggested the child. "She can alway
peace her Son. But methought He was good to folks, Mother. Sister
Christian was wont to say so."
"To saints and good women like Sister Christian, may-be."
"Art thou not good, Mother?"
The question was put in all innocence. But it struck the heart of the
miserable mother like a poisoned arrow.
"Good!" she cried, again in that tone of intense pain. "I good? No,
Maude!--I am bad, bad, bad! From the crown of mine head to the sole
of my foot, there is nothing in me beside evil; such evil as thou,

unwemmed [undefiled, innocent] dove as thou art, canst not even
conceive! God is good to saints--not to sinners. Sister Christian--and
thou, yet!--be amongst the saints. I am of the sinners."
"But why art thou not a saint, Mother?" demanded the child, as
innocently as before.
"I was on the road once," said the woman, with a heavy sigh. "I was to
have been an holy sister of Saint Clare. I knew no more of ill than thou
whiteling in mine arms. If I had died then, when my soul was fair!"
Suddenly her mood changed. She clasped the child close to her breast,
and showered kisses on the little wan face.
"My babe Maude, my bird Maude!" she said. "My dove that God sped
down from Heaven unto me, thinking me not too ill ne wicked to have
thee! The angels may love thee, my bird in bower! for thou art white
and unwemmed. The robes of thy