e enter on a year of mourning with our hearts singing
anthems?

It is well that it should be so. We have abundant cause to thank God
that He has hidden the future from us. It is enough for us to know that
all things work together for good to them that love Him, to them that
are the called according to His purpose.

But very, very mournfully came this year in; for it opened with the loss
of Calais. Isoult had dwelt there for two years with Lady Lisle; and
there were few places nearer to her heart. Perhaps we can hardly
picture to ourselves how nearly that loss touched every English heart.
It was as if each man in the land had lost a piece of his estate.
Calais belonged to every Englishman.

"Well, my friends in the monastery!" was the greeting of Mr Ferris,
"that I promised Underhill I would look to by times. Hath your secluded
ear been yet pierced with the tidings this morrow--that be making every
man all over London to swear and curse, that loveth not his soul better
than his anger?"

"What now?" said John. "Nay, the Courts be not yet opened again, so I
have bidden at home."

"And I am an old man, burdened with an access," [a fit of the gout] said
Dr Thorpe. "Come, out with your news! What platform [Note 5] toucheth
it?"

"Every platform in the realm. Have it here--Calais is lost."

"Calais!" They said no more.

But a vision rose before the eyes of Isoult--of George Bucker in the
pulpit of the Lady Church, and Lord and Lady Lisle in the nave below: of
the Market Place, where his voice had rung out true and clear: of the
Lantern Gate whereon his head had been exposed: of the gallows near
Saint Pierre whereon he had died. His voice came back to her, and Lord
Lisle's--both which she had heard last in the Tower, but both which were
to her for ever bound up with Calais. Her eyes were swimming, and she
could not speak. And before another word had been uttered by any one,
the latch was lifted by Philippa Basset.

"There is not a man left in England!" she cried. "Calais had never been
lost, had _I_ been there to fire the culverins."

"No, Madam," said Mr Ferris (who did not know that she was a Papist).
"They have all been burned or beheaded."

"Upon my word, but I am coming to think so!" cried she. "Shame upon
every coward of them! Were there not enough to fill the first breach
with a wall of men's bodies, rather than lose the fairest jewel of the
Crown? Beshrew the recreants! but I had never com