the strong affection which old men generally
feel towards a playful and endearing child.
He had no children of his own, and little
Margery was therefore a real solace to the
ancient warrior. There was another child,
a few years older than Margery, who was
admitted to play, and to learn out of the same
book, with the daughter of the Pastons.
This was Richard Calle, the only son of an
honest and painstaking man, who acted in
the capacity of a steward for Sir John Fastolf,
and conducted many of the complicated affairs
with which the old knight amused himself in
the evening of a busy life—his friends
complaining of "the yearly great damage he
beareth in disbursing his money about
shipping and boats, keeping a house up at
Yarmouth to his great harm, and receiveth
but chaffer and ware for his corns and his
wools, and then must abide a long day to
make money." *
* " Paston Letters; " edited by A. Ramsay.

Richard Calle has now grown into
manhood. He is reputed to have received a
goodly inheritance from his father, which he
has increased by provident enterprises in
trade. When the Pastons wanted money, he
was once always to be applied to. But he has
presumed to address his playfellow Margery
with the language of affection; and though Sir
John Paston had once said that, for his part,
Richard Calle might have his dowerless sister
and welcome, for he had always been a warm
friend of the Pastons, his mother is indignant
that a trader should presume to think
of marrying into a gentle family; and John
of Gelston, the second son, in an hour when
the fortunes of the house seemed in the
ascendant, has vowed that Richard Calle
"should never have my good-will for to make
my sister to sell candles and mustard at
Framlingham." †
†"Paston Letters."

Margery Paston sits in the Brown chamber,
with her bright blue eyes dimmed with tears.
She is endeavouring to forget her own sorrows
by reading a tale of imaginary griefs, which
for four hundred years has never been read
with a tearless eye. She is at that passage
of "The Clerk's Tale" of Chaucer, where
Grisildis has her infant daughter taken from
her, under pretence that it is to be put to
death:—

"But, at the last, to speaken she began,
And meekely she to the serjeant pray'd
(So as he was a worthy gentleman)
That she might kiss her child ere that it deid [died];
And in her barne [lap] this little child she laid
With full sad face, and 'gan the child to bliss,
And lulled it, and after 'gan it kiss."

The door of the chamber is hastily opened,
and an old servant stands before Margery
with a face of affright. All in that household
love the gentle maiden; and so the old man,
seeing the tear in her eye, bids her be of good
cheer, for though his worshipful mistress is
now in a somewhat impatient humour, and
demands her instant attendance in the Oaken
parlour, she is a good lady at heart, and
would soon forgive any slight cause of
offence.

Dame Paston has called in two allies to
constitute, with herself, the tribunal that is
about to sit in judgment on Margery Paston.
Dame Agnes Paston, the aged mother of the
late heir of Caister, sits at the table with her
daughter-in-law and the priest.

Margery enters; and, in a moment, is
kneeling at the feet of her mother, with the
accustomed reverence of child to parent.
"Oh, minion," says the mother, "rise, I
beseech you; it is not for such as you to
kneel to a poor forlorn widow, left with few
worldly goods. Mistress Calle has plenteousness
all around her, and has nothing to ask of
the world's gear. She has her good house at
Framlingham, and her full store at Norwich.
Mistress, know you the price of salted hams
at this present? Are pickled herrings
plenteous? We have some wool in loft, which
we should not be unwilling to exchange for
worsteds. How say you, Mistress Dry-goods;
will you deal, will you chaffer?"

"My mother, what mean you?"

"Oh, minion, you know full well my meaning.
You are an alien from your family.
You are betrothed to a low trader, with no
gentle blood in his veins."

"The good Sir William Paston, Knight, and
whilom Judge of His Majesty's Court of the
Common Pleas, would rise from his grave to
save a grand-daughter of his from
intermarrying with mustard and candle," quoth
the ancient lady. "Faugh! a factor!"

"And one whom I shrewdly suspect to be
a heretic," says the priest, looking earnestly
at Mistress Margaret Paston.

"Oh, my mother, why am I thus
persecuted?"

"Persecuted, forsooth! " responds the
elder dame; "I took other rule with my
daughters; and well do I remember that
when Elizabeth Clere, my niece, tried to
intercede with me for her wilful cousin Mary,
forasmuch as she had been 'beaten once in the
week or twice, and sometimes twice in a day,
and had her head broke in several places,' *
I told her that it was for warning and
ensample to all forward maidens, who dared to
think of love or marriage without their
parents' guidance. And with the help of my
worthy lord, the good Sir William Paston,
Knight, and Judge of His Majesty's Court of
the Common Pleas—His Majesty Henry the
Sixth gave him two robes and a hundred
marks yearly; and may God him preserve
upon his throne—"
* "Paston Letters.'

The priest and Mistress Margaret drown
the good old lady's somewhat disloyal gratitude
(seeing that the House of York is in
the ascendant) by judicious clearings of the