Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century. Fullerton Georgiana
holy as herself. And, as I said before, being then in a humor as prone to tears at one moment as laughter at another, I fell to weeping for the noble lady who had been in so sore a strait that she must needs have chosen between complying with her savage lord's conditions or the misery of her poor clients. When Mr. Page noticed my tears, which flowed partly for myself and partly for one who had been long dead, but yet lived in the hearts of these citizens, he sought to cheer me by the recital of the fair and rare pageant which doth take place every year in Coventry, and is of the most admirable beauty, and such as is not witnessed in any other city in the world. He said I should not weep if I were to see it, which he very much desired I should; and he hoped he might be then alive, and ride by my side in the procession as my esquire; at the which I smiled, for the good gentleman had a face and figure such as would not grace a pageant, and methought I might be ashamed some years hence to have him for my knight; and I said, "Good Mr. Page, be the shutters closed on those days as when the Lady Godiva rode?" at the which he laughed, and answered,
"No; and that for one Tom who then peeped, there were a thousand eyes to gaze on the show as it passed."
"Then if it please you, sir, when the time comes," I said, "I would like to look on and not to ride;" and he replied, it should be as I pleased; and with such merry discourse we spent the time till supper was ready. And afterward that good gentleman slackened not his efforts in entertaining us; but related so many laughable stories, and took so great notice of me, that I was moved to answer him sometimes in a manner too forward for my years. He told us of the queen's visit to that city, and that the mayor, who had heard her grace's majesty considered poets, and herself wrote verses, thought to commend himself to her favor by such rare rhymes as these, wherewith he did greet her at her entrance into the town:
"We, the men of Coventry,
Be pleased to see your majesty,
Good Lord! how fair you be!"
at the which her highness made but an instant's pause, and then straightway replied,
"It pleaseth well her majesty
To see the men of Coventry.
Good Lord! what fools you be!"
"But," quoth Mr. Page, "the good man was so well pleased that the Queen had answered his compliment, that 'tis said he has had her majesty's speech framed, and hung up in his parlor."
"Pity 'tis not in the town-hall," I cried; and he laughing commended me for sharpness; but Mistress Ward said:
"A sharp tongue in a woman's head was always a stinging weapon; but in a queen's she prayed God it might never prove a murtherous one." Which words somewhat checked our merriment, for that they savored of rebuke to me for forward speech, and I ween awoke in Mr. Page thoughts of a graver sort.
When we rode through the town next day, he went with us for the space of some miles, and then bade us farewell with singular courtesy, and professions of good will and proffered service if we should do him the good at any time to remember his poor house; which we told him he had given us sufficient reason not to forget. Toward evening, when the sun was setting, we did see the towers of Warwick Castle; and I would fain have discerned the one which doth bear the name of the great earl who in a poor pilgrim's garb slew the giant Colbrand, and the cave 'neath Guy's Cliff where he spent his last years in prayer. But the light was declining as we rode into Leamington, where we lay that night, and darkness hid from us that fair country, which methought was a meet abode for such as would lead a hermit's life.
The next day we had the longest ride and the hottest sun we had yet met with; and at noon we halted to rest in a thicket on the roadside, which we made our pavilion, and from which our eyes did feast themselves on a delightful prospect. There were heights on one side garnished with stately oaks, and a meadow betwixt the road and the hill enamelled with all sorts of pleasing flowers, and stored with sheep, which were feeding in sober security. Mistress Ward, who was greatly tired with the journey, fell asleep with her head on her hand, and I pulled from my pocket a volume with which Mr. Page had gifted me at parting, and which contained sundry tales anent Amadis de Gaul, Huon de Bordeaux, Palmerin of England, and suchlike famous knights, which he said, as I knew how to read, for which he greatly commended my parents' care, I should entertain myself with on the road. So, one-half sitting, one-half lying on the grass, I reclined in an easy posture, with my head resting against the trunk of a tree, pleasing my fancy with the writers' conceits; but ever and anon lifting my eyes to the blue sky above my head, seen through the green branches, or fixed them on the quaint patterns the quivering light drew on the grass, or else on the valley refreshed with a silver river, and the fair hills beyond it. And as I read of knights and ladies, and the many perils which befel them, and passages of love betwixt them, which was new to me, and what I had not met with in any of the books I had yet read, I fell into a fit of musing, wondering if in London the folks I should see would discourse in the same fashion, and the gentlemen have so much bravery and the ladies so great beauty as those my book treated of. And as I noticed it was chiefly on the high-roads they did come into such dangerous adventures, I gazed as far as I could discern on the one I had in view before me with a foolish kind of desire for some robbers to come and assail us, and then a great nobleman or gallant esquire to ride up and fall on them, and to deliver us from a great peril, and may be to be wounded in the encounter, and I to bind up those wounds as from my mother's teaching I knew how to do, and then give thanks to the noble gentleman in such courteous and well-picked words as I could think of. But for all my gazing I could naught perceive save a wain slowly ascending the hill loaden with corn, midst clouds of dust, and some poorer sort of people, who had been gleaning, and were carrying sheaves on their heads. After an hour Mistress Ward awoke from her nap; and methinks I had been dozing also, for when she called to me, and said it was time to eat somewhat, and then get to horse, I cried out, "Good sir, I wait your pleasure;" and rubbed my eyes to see her standing before me in her riding-habit, and not the gentleman whose wounds I had been tending.
That night we slept at Northampton, at Mistress Engerfield's house. She was a cousin of Mr. Congleton's, and a lady whose sweet affability and gravity would have extorted reverence from those that least loved her. She was then very aged, and had been a nun in King Henry's reign; and, since her convent had been despoiled, and the religious driven out of it, having a large fortune of her own, which she inherited about that time, she made her house a secret monastery, wherein God was served in a religious manner by such persons as the circumstances of the time, and not their own desires, had forced back into the world, and who as yet had found no commodity for passing beyond seas into countries where that manner of life is allowed. They dressed in sober black, and kept stated hours of prayer, and went not abroad unless necessity compelled them thereunto. When we went into the dining-room, which I noticed Mistress Engerfield called the refectory, grace was said in Latin; and whilst we did eat one lady read out loud out of a book, which methinks was the life of a saint; but the fatigue of the journey, and the darkness of the room, which was wainscotted with oak-wood, so overpowered my senses with drowsiness, that before the meal was ended I had fallen asleep, which was discovered, to my great confusion, when the company rose from table. But that good lady, in whose face was so great a kindliness that I never saw one to be compared with it in that respect before or since, took me by the hand and said, "Young eyes wax heavy for lack of rest, and travellers should have repose. Come to thy chamber, sweet one, and, after commending thyself by a brief prayer to him who sleepeth not nor slumbereth, and to her who is the Mother of the motherless, get thee to bed and take thy fill of the sleep thou hast so great need of, and good angels will watch near thee."
Oh, how I did weep then, partly from fatigue, and partly from the dear comfort her words did yield me, and, kneeling, asked her blessing, as I had been wont to do of my dear parents. And she, whose countenance was full of majesty, and withal of most attractive gentleness, which made me deem her to be more than an ordinary woman, and a great servant of God, as indeed she was, raised me from the ground, and herself assisted to get me to bed, having first said my prayers by her side, whose inflamed devotion, visible in her face, awakened in me a greater fervor than I had hitherto experienced when performing this duty. After I had slept heavily for the space of two or three hours I awoke, as is the wont of those who be over-fatigued, and could not get to sleep again, so that I heard the clock of a church strike twelve; and as the last stroke fell on