hat suffride such aghenseiynge of synful men
aghens himsilff, that ghe be not maad weri, failynge in ghoure soulis.'
Bethink ye: the which signifieth, meditate on Him, arm ye with His
patience. Look on Him, and look to Him."
Bertram stared in astonishment. The cautious scriptorius, who never
broke bread with Wycliffe, and declined to decide upon his great or
small position, was quoting his Bible word for word.
Hugh looked up in Wilfred's face, with the expression of one who had at
last found somebody to understand him.
"Father," he said, "did you ever doubt of _every_ thing?"
"Ay," said Wilfred, quietly.
"Even of God's love? yea, even of God?"
"Ay."
Bertram was horrified to hear such words. And from Hugh, of all people!
But Wilfred, to his surprise, took them as quietly as if Hugh had been
repeating the Creed.
"And what was your remedy?"
"I know but one remedy for all manner of doubt, and travail, and sorrow,
Master; and that is to take them unto Christ."
"Yet how so," asked Hugh, heaving a deep sigh, "when we cannot see
Christ to take them to Him?"
"I know not that your seeing matters, Master, so that He seeth. And
when your doubts come in and vex you, do you but call upon Him with a
true heart, desiring to find Him, and He will soon show you that He is.
Ah!" and Wilfred's eyes lighted up, "the solving of all riddles touching
Christ's being, is only to talk with Christ."
Bertram could not see that Wilfred had offered Hugh the faintest shadow
of comfort; but in some manner inexplicable to him, Hugh seemed
comforted thenceforward.
There was a great stir at Langley in the April of 1389; for the King and
Queen stayed there a night on their way to Westminster. Maude was in
the highest excitement: she had never seen a live King before, and she
expected a formidable creature of the lion-rampant type, who would order
every body about in the most tyrannical manner, and command Master
Warine to be instantly hanged if dinner were not punctual. She saw a
very handsome young man of three and twenty years of age, dressed in a
much quieter style than any of his suite; of the gentlest manners, a
model of courtesy even to the meanest, delicately considerate of every
one but himself, and especially and tenderly careful of that darling
wife who was the only true friend he had left. Ever after that day, the
faintest disparagement of her King would have met with no reception from
Maude short of burning
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