The White Rose of Langley | Page 8

fit of the palsy took him as he
stood at the altar at mass, and they bare him home to die. And the eve
of the Circumcision [December 31st, 1384], two days thereafter, the
good man was commanded to God."
"Good man, forsooth!" growled Warine.
"Master Warine," said Hugh Calverley's voice behind him, "the day
may come when thou and I would be full fain to creep into Heaven at
the heels of the Lutterworth parson."
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Note 1. The anointing at baptism, when a white cloth was always
placed on the head.
Note 2. Bertram, Ursula, Parnel, Warine, and Maude and her family,
are all fictitious persons.
Note 3. The herbs were to be boiled and the liquid drunk, for a sprain,
bruise, or broken bone.
Note 4. Wright's Political Poems, one 304, et seq. The date of the poem
given by Wright is anticipated by about nine years.
Note 5. Why is Peter called the "Prince of the Apostles?"
CHAPTER TWO.
SOMEBODY'S CHILD.
"`Now God, that is of mightes most, Grant him grace of the Holy Ghost
His heritage to win: And Mary moder of mercy fre Save our King and

his meynie Fro' sorrow and shame and sin.'"
The song was trilled in a pleasant voice by an old lady who sat spinning
in an upper chamber of Langley Palace. She paused a moment in her
work, and then took up again the latter half of the strain.
"`And Mary moder of mercy fre'--Called any yonder?"
"May I come in, Dame Agnes?" said a child's voice at the door.
The old lady rose hastily, laid down her distaff, and opening the door,
courtesied low to the little girl of ten years old who stood outside.
"Enter freely, most gracious Lady! Wherefore abide without?"
It was a pretty vision which entered. Not that there was any special
beauty in the child herself, for in that respect she was merely on the
pretty side of ordinary. She was tall for her age--as tall as Maude,
though she was two years younger. Her complexion was very fair, her
hair light with a golden tinge, and her eyes of a peculiar shade of blue,
bright, yet deep--the shade known as blue eyes in Spain, but rarely seen
in England. But her costume was a study for a painter. Little girls
dressed like women in the fourteenth century; and this child wore a
blue silk tunic embroidered with silver harebells, over a brown velvet
skirt spangled with rings of gold. Her hair was put up in a net of golden
tissue, ornamented with pearls. The dress was cut square at the neck;
she wore a pearl necklace, and a girdle of turquoise and pearls. Two
rows of pearls and turquoise finished the sleeves at the wrist; they were
of brown velvet, like the skirt. This finery was evidently nothing new to
the little wearer. She came into the room and flung herself carelessly
down on a small stool, close to the chair where Dame Agnes had been
sitting--to the unfeigned horror of that courtly person.
"Lady, Lady! Not on a stool, for love of the blessed Mary!"
And drawing forward an immense old arm-chair, Dame Agnes
motioned the child to take it.

"Remember, pray you, that you be a Prince's daughter!" [See Note 1.]
The child rose with some reluctance, and climbed into the enormous
chair, in which she seemed almost lost.
"Prithee, Dame Agnes, is it because I be a Prince's daughter that I must
needs be let from sitting whither I would?"
"There is meetness in all things," said the old lady, picking up her
distaff.
"And what meetness is in setting the like of me in a chair that would
well hold Charlemagne and his twelve Peers?" demanded the little girl,
laughing.
"The twelve Peers of Charlemagne, such saved as were Princes, were
not the like of you, Lady Custance," said Dame Agnes, almost severely.
"Ah me!" and Constance gaped (or, as she would herself have said,
"goxide.") "I would I were a woodman's daughter."
Dame Agnes de La Marche, [see Note 2], whose whole existence had
been spent in the scented atmosphere of Court life, stared at the child in
voiceless amazement.
"I would so, Dame. I might sit then of the rushes, let be the stools, or in
a fieldy nook amid the wild flowers. And Dona Juana would not be
ever laying siege to me--with `Dona Constanca, you will soil your
robes!'--or, `Dona Constanca, you will rend your lace!'--or, `Dona
Constanca, you will dirty your fingers!' Where is the good of being rich
and well-born, if I must needs sit under a cloth of estate [a canopy] all
the days of my life, and dare not so much as to lift a pin from the floor,
lest I