All's Well Read online

  Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

  All's WellAlice's Victory

  By Emily Sarah Holt________________________________________________________________________This book is set in the sixteenth century, at the beginning of theReformation. The action is in the Weald of Kent, a hugely forested areathat extended as far as Hampshire. The family at the centre of thestory had been converted to Protestantism, but still outwardly clung toCatholicism. This meant that the local priest, through hearingconfessions, knew something of what was going on, and carried theinformation to the Bishop. One of the younger women of the family hadbeen particularly advanced in her Protestant action and beliefs. She istaken before the Bishop, and is condemned to jail, where she is verybadly treated, sleeping on straw, without change of clothing, and fedonly on bread and water. The place where she was kept was changed forthe better, after she had been brought for further interview before theBishop. But this was only because she was to be burnt alive, in themanner of Holy Church of those days.

  A moving story that makes a good audiobook, of little more than 7 hours'duration. NH________________________________________________________________________

  ALL'S WELLALICE'S VICTORY

  BY EMILY SARAH HOLT

  CHAPTER ONE.

  FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS.

  "Give you good-morrow, neighbour! Whither away with that great fardel[Bundle], prithee?"

  "Truly, Mistress, home to Staplehurst, and the fardel holdeth broadclothfor my lads' new jerkins." The speakers were two women, both on theyounger side of middle age, who met on the road between Staplehurst andCranbrook, the former coming towards Cranbrook and the latter from it.They were in the midst of that rich and beautiful tract of country knownas the Weald of Kent, once the eastern part of the great Andredes Weald,a vast forest which in Saxon days stretched from Kent to the border ofHampshire. There was still, in 1556, much of the forest about theWeald, and even yet it is a well-wooded part of the country, the oakbeing its principal tree, though the beech sometimes grows to anenormous size. Trees of the Weald were sent to Rome for the building ofSaint Peter's.

  "And how go matters with you, neighbour?" asked the first speaker, whosename was Alice Benden.

  "Well, none so ill," was the reply. "My master's in full work, andwe've three of our lads at the cloth-works. We're none so bad off assome."

  "I marvel how it shall go with Sens Bradbridge, poor soul! She'll bebad off enough, or I err greatly."

  "Why, how so, trow? I've not heard what ails her."

  "Dear heart! then you know not poor Benedict is departed?"

  "Eh, you never mean it!" exclaimed the bundle-bearer, evidently shocked."Why, I reckoned he'd taken a fine turn toward recovery. Well, besure! Ay, poor Sens, I'm sorry for her."

  "Two little maids, neither old enough to earn a penny, and she astranger in the town, pretty nigh, with never a 'quaintance saving themnear about her, and I guess very few pennies in her purse. Ay, 'tis asad look-out for Sens, poor heart."

  "Trust me, I'll look in on her, and see what I may do, so soon as I'veborne this fardel home. Good lack! but the burying charges 'll comeheavy on her! and I doubt she's saved nought, as you say, Benedict beingsick so long."

  "I scarce think there's much can be done," said Alice, as she movedforward; "I was in there of early morrow, and Barbara Final, she tookthe maids home with her. But a kindly word's not like to come amiss.Here's Emmet [See Note 1] Wilson at hand: she'll bear you company home,for I have ado in the town. Good-morrow, Collet."

  "Well, good-morrow, Mistress Benden. I'll rest my fardel a bit on thestile while Emmet comes up."

  And, lifting her heavy bundle on the stile, Collet Pardue wiped herheated face with one end of her mantle--there were no shawls in thosedays--and waited for Emmet Wilson to come up.

  Emmet was an older woman than either Alice or Collet, being nearly fiftyyears of age. She too carried a bundle, though not of so formidable asize. Both had been to Cranbrook, then the centre of the cloth-workingindustry, and its home long before the days of machinery. There werewoven the solid grey broadcloths which gave to the men of the Weald thetitle of "the Grey-Coats of Kent." From all the villages round about,the factory-hands were recruited. The old factories had stood from thedays when Edward the Third and his Flemish Queen brought over theweavers of the Netherlands to improve the English manufactures; and someof them stand yet, turned into ancient residences for the countrysquires who had large stakes in them in the old days, or peeping outhere and there in the principal streets of the town, in the form of oldgables and other antique adornments.

  "Well, Collet! You've a brave fardel yonder!"

  "I've six lads and two lasses, neighbour," said Collet with a laugh."Takes a sight o' cloth, it do, to clothe 'em."

  "Be sure it do! Ay, you've a parcel of 'em. There's only my man andTitus at our house. Wasn't that Mistress Benden that parted from youbut now? She turned off a bit afore I reached her."

  "Ay, it was. She's a pleasant neighbour."

  "She's better than pleasant, she's good."

  "Well, I believe you speak sooth. I'd lief you could say the same ofher master. I wouldn't live with Master Benden for a power o' money."

  "Well, I'd as soon wish it too, for Mistress Benden's body; but I'm notso certain sure touching Mistress Benden's soul. 'Tis my belief ifMaster Benden were less cantankerous, Mistress wouldn't be nigh sogood."

  "What, you hold by the old rhyme, do you--?

  "`A spaniel, a wife, and a walnut tree, The more they be beaten, the better they be.'"

  "Nay, I'll not say that: but this will I say, some folks be likecamomile--`the more you tread it, the more you spread it.' When yousqueeze 'em, like clover, you press the honey forth: and I countMistress Benden's o' that sort."

  "Well, then, let's hope poor Sens Bradbridge is likewise, for she's liketo get well squeezed and trodden. Have you heard she's lost hermaster?"

  "I have so. Mistress Final told me this morrow early. Nay, I doubtshe's more of the reed family, and 'll bow down her head like a bulrush.Sens Bradbridge'll bend afore she breaks, and Mistress Benden 'll breakafore she bends."

  "'Tis pity Mistress Benden hath ne'er a child; it might soften hermaster, and anyhow should comfort her."

  "I wouldn't be the child," said Emmet drily.

  Collet laughed. "Well, nor I neither," said she. "I reckon they'll notoften go short of vinegar in that house; Master Benden's face 'd turnall the wine, let alone the cream. I'm fain my master's not o' thatfashion: he's a bit too easy, my Nick is. I can't prevail on him tothwack the lads when they're over-thwart; I have to do it myself."

  "I'll go bail you'd not hurt 'em much," said Emmet, with an amusedglance at the round, rosy, good-humoured face of the mother of the six"over-thwart" lads.

  "Oh, will you! But I am a short mistress with 'em, I can tell you. OurAphabell shall hear of it, I promise you, when I get home. I bade himyester-even fetch me two pound o' prunes from the spicer's, and gave himthreepence in his hand to pay for 'em; and if the rascal went not andlost the money at cross and pile with Gregory White, and never a prunehave I in the store-cupboard. He's at all evers playing me tricks o'that fashion. 'Tisn't a week since I sent him for a dozen o' Pariscandles, and he left 'em in the water as he came o'er the bridge. Eh,Mistress Wilson, but lads be that pestiferous! You've but one, and thatone o' the quiet peaceable sort--you've somewhat to be thankful for, Ican tell you, that hasn't six like me, and they a set o' contrarious,outrageous, boisterous caitiffs as ever was seen i' this world."

  "Which of 'em would you wish to part with, Collet?"

  "Well, be sure!" was Collet's half-laughing answer, as she mentallyreviewed the young gentlemen in question--her giddy, thoughtlessAphabell,
her mischievous Tobias, her Esdras always out at elbows, hernoisy, troublesome Noah, her rough Silvanus, whom no amount of"thwacking" seemed to polish, and her lazy, ease-loving Valentine."Nay, come, I reckon I'll not make merchandise of any of 'em this bout.They are a lot o' runagates, I own, but I'm their mother, look you."

  Emmet Wilson smiled significantly. "Ay, Collet, and 'tis well for youand me that cord bears pulling at."

  "You and me?" responded Collet, lifting her bundle higher, into aneasier position. "'Tis well enough for the lads, I dare say; but whatado hath it with you and me?"

  "I love to think, neighbour, that somewhat akin to it is said by nowsand thens of us, too, in the Court of the Great King, when the enemyaccuseth us--`Ay, she did this ill thing, and she's but a poor blacksinner at best; but thou shalt not have her, Satan; I'm her Father.'"

  "You're right there, Emmet Wilson," said Collet, in a tone which showedthat the last sentence had touched her heart. "The work and care thatmy lads give me is nought to the sins wherewith we be daily angering theLord. He's always forgiving us, be sure."

  "A sight easier than men do, Collet Pardue, take my word for it."

  "What mean you, neighbour?" asked Collet, turning round to look hercompanion in the face, for Emmet's tone had indicated that she meantmore than she said.

  "I mean one man in especial, and his name's Bastian."

  "What, the priest? Dear heart! I've not angered him, trow?"

  "You soon will, _if_ you cut your cloth as you've measured it. How manytimes were you at mass this three months past?"

  "How many were you?" was the half-amused answer.

  "There's a many in Staplehurst as hasn't been no oftener," said Emmet,"that I know: but it'll not save you, Collet. The priest has his eye onyou, be sure."

  "Then I'll keep mine on him," said Collet sturdily, as she paused at herown door, which was that of the one little shoemaker's shop in thevillage of Staplehurst. "Good-morrow, neighbour. I'll but lay down myfardel, and then step o'er to poor Sens Bradbridge."

  "And I'll come to see her this even. Good-morrow."

  And Emmet Wilson walked on further to her home, where her husband wasthe village baker and corn-monger.

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  Note 1. Emmet is a very old variation of Emma, and sometimes speltEmmot; Sens is a corruption of Sancha, naturalised among us in thethirteenth century; and Collet or Colette, the diminutive of Nichola, acommon and favourite name in the Middle Ages.