ONCE UPON A TIME. for Sir John says, 'You make you surer than I deer be, for I deem that her friends will not be content Bedingfield's surety nor yours.' They made hard an bargains, these dealers in wares matrimonial. For however, is at length propitious. Dame Elizabeth hath a daughter Margery; and the dame looks fav upon John, who is Margery's cousin. Sir Thomas I will give a hundred pounds, and her grandfather marks; and the good mother writes, 'an we accord I give you a great treasure, that is a witty gentlewoman. if I say it, both good and virtuous; for if I should money for her I would not give her for a thousand po This, at last, is a pretty wooing, with some heart: on one side at least. The lady-mother writes to Upon Friday is Saint Valentine's day, and every chooseth him a mate; and if it like you to come on 'I day at night, and so purvey you that you may abide till Monday, I trust to God that ye shall so speak to husband; and I shall pray that we bring the matter conclusion.' The young lady soon came to a conci herself after that Valentine's day. Here is as 1 prettya unto doubt or disguise: Right Reverend and Worshipful. my right well-beloved Valentine, I recommend met you, full heartily desiring to hear of I beseech Almighty God long for to preserve your welfare, wi pleasure and your heart's desire. And if it please y heart, nor shall be till I hear from you. And my lady hear of my welfare, I am not in good health of body no of mother hath laboured the matter to my father full diligen but she can no more get than ye know of. for the wh ye love me therefore; God knoweth I am full sorry. But if that I trust verily ye do, ye will not leave me that ye had not half the livelihood that ye have, the greatest labour that any woman alive might, not forsake you.' for for to I WOL a disgrace to manhood is it that cold John Paston went Charming Margery Brews! chaffering for months about the ready penny; whilst omas Brews would in no wise depart from the final proal-two hundred marks, and board for three years if the rried people chose to accept it. In a year they are rried; and the Right well-beloved Valentine' is adssed by Margery as Right reverend and worshipful sband.' But the old trouble of the house is still hangover them. John Paston writes in 1479, 'It is told that Nicholas Barley, the squire, hath taken an action debt against me this term. I pray you let Wheatly or nebody speak with him, and let him weet that if he sue me tly this term, that he shall be paid ere the next term be an end. It is about six pounds, and in faith he should ve had it ere this time, an our threshers of Swainsthorp d not died.' There was a grievous sickness in the land. hn has corn in his barns. The threshers die; and Squire rley must be asked to sue John softly till the wheat can turned into cash. The great landed proprietors of that eenth century had some troubles of which their descendts of the nineteenth are happily ignorant, sorely as they ve been complaining from that day to this, of their culiar burdens and injuries. The Pastons, brave souls, ight against fortune, but they made slight moaning. Whilst John Paston had been wooing and marrying, ister has been recovered by the ejected family. The ike of Norfolk dies, and Sir John Paston walks in. He surrounded by troubles. A lawsuit starts up with Incle Clement;' and there is an old suit with the Duke Suffolk; and poor Sir John, with his castle of Caister, d his manors here and there, is in pitiful straits; and od ancient Margaret, the mother, is the depositary of his iefs, his friend and best counsellor. He has taken his ›wn of velvet and other gear out of pledge, at the cost of ve marks: he had hoped to have borrowed of Townsend, it Townsend is ill. If he has not ten pounds, he can do ttle good, and wots not how to come home. This gear ath troubled me so that it hath made me more than halfck, as God help me.' Poor solitary Sir John, within a rtnight, is dead in London, and buried in the White Friars. ONCE UPON A TIME. Old Agnes, the grandmother, dies about the same John, the second brother, is now Lord of Caister he seems to have prospered better than his brother father; for he is high-sheriff of Norfolk, and a k banneret before he is gathered to his ancestors in! He and his Margery dwell in Caister. On the 24 December, 1484, the loving and careful wife w 'Right worshipful husband, I recommend me unto please it you to weet that I send Lady Morley, to have knowledge what sports were use your eldest son t her house in Christmas next following after the deceas my lord her husband; and she said that there were disguisings, nor harping, nor luting, nor singing, nor loud disports; but playing at the tables, and chess, cards; such disports she gave her folks leave to play, none other.' Who is sorrowed for, so that the harp and the lute the voice of song are hushed this Christmas at Ca Margaret Paston, who wore her bright sanguine 'wed gown in 1440, is gone to sleep beside her husband Broomholm Priory. bef P Pri for These Paston Letters were written in the days before Post. Carriers there were, and pack-horses, and tra who went from Norwich to London at Bartholomew F I could afford to send a letter by a special messenger," and these might convey a letter safely. The great pe 'Ride, ride, ride for your life.' But the Pastons ava themselves of less costly modes of communication. The Paston Letters were written in the days Newspapers. They tell of public events as fully a private. Their news is a little old in its date-but wh matters that? The light of a star may be centuries comi to us, as the astronomers hold; but it is not less a! his mother in the spring of 1475, to tell the news o Sir John Paston writes, in a battle of Morat, which was fought in the autumn of 14 Our own Correspondent' would have despatched t when it has come. letter and tory Of H lings somewhat more quickly; but perhaps not quite so mpendiously: After this conquest of Lorraine, the ike of Burgundy took great courage to go upon the land the Swiss to conquer them; but they bearded him at an set place, and hath distressed him, and hath slain the ost part of his vanward, and won all his ordnance and tillery, and moreover all stuff that he had in his host, cept men and horse that fled not; but they rode that ght twenty miles; and so the rich salets, helmets, rters, nowches, gelt, and all is gone, with tents, pavilions id all, and so men deem his pride is abated.' Look at ɔmines, and you will find that Sir John had got to the ot of the matter. The Paston Letters were written in the days before anks. This distressed family seem luckily to have kept it of the hands of the Jews; but if it had been thought nest in those days to take interest, the perpetual labour id humiliation to scrape together a few pounds might ve been avoided. But what could bankers have done for em in anticipation of rents, when there was little change of commodities, in a country where producers and nsumers were widely separated? The Paston Letters were written in the days before ower-looms; so that a new coat and a new gown were atters to be very earnest about, even with a knight ́anneret and a lady of the manor. The Paston Letters were written in the days before the rinting-Press; and so, some may marvel that they are so learly expressed, and have so many just thoughts, and are or the most part earnest and to the purpose. The very bsence of any character derived from a current literature is, ghtly considered, a charm of this correspondence. Rolances, indeed, the ladies had to read, of Arthur, and Guy, nd Richard Coeur de Lion: and they had many an old allad, now preserved or lost; and they had legends of the aints. Sir John Paston had a library of which an invenory is left, consisting altogether of thirty-four volumes. Of these one was 'in print.' Anne Paston (of whom we ONCE UPON A TIME. 6 hear little) had a book, The Siege of Thebes.' Bute gentleman nor lady had much opportunity for literat even though one of the greatest of poets had long b opened his 'well of English undefiled.' There is not allusion to Chaucer in all this correspondence of fifty y The Paston Letters were written in the days before 1 Reformation, although the morning sky showed strea that day-spring; and so we have glimpses of friars pilgrims; and Sir John Paston tells a tale of a vision s about the walls of Boulogne, as it had been a woman a marvellous light; men deeming that Our Lady there show herself a lover of that town.' Let us not laugh at undoubting mind of Sir John Paston. With touches what we call superstition, there was, amongst these pet a deep abiding sense of God over all-a part of the rever for parents, of servants for masters, of wives for husbands th great characteristic of our nation-of child ha that was a of the laity for the church-ONCE UPON A TIME. Ethe |