In the mud.

Here comes the rain!” one of his servants called out.

The lord stopped his horse and looked over his shoulder, “Yes, the clouds are getting darker and darker. We must get to Gloucester before it hits us.”

The troop of 20 horses and riders picked up speed, but they were not to be so lucky! The rain hit them a mile or so outside the city. It soaked hats, cloaks, clothes, everything. It fell in torrents making the road muddy and slippery.

“Of course, we’ve got to be at the very end of the troop,” complained young Thomas to his sister Edith. They were distant relatives of the lord but not too important relatives and not too wealthy!

“Be careful Thomas, it’s getting too slippery. Maybe you should slow down,” Edith cautioned.

The rain that fell outside the city of Gloucester also fell in the city itself. The usually dusty roads turned wet; the wet roads turned to pools of water; the pools turned to mud; and the mud became deeper and deeper.

People slipped, slithered, and fell over. What a day! What a muddy day!“Look here’s a lord coming with his troop of servants,” cried a ragged little girl.“Maybe he’ll give us some money,” said her mother who was holding her baby wrapped around in a clean but ever so ragged shawl.

“All lords do that,” said an old man, leaning on his staff. “They care for us. All we have to do is wait for this lord to come by and say, “Please, kind sir, alms for the poor. Please kind sir, alms for the poor. Please kind sir, alms for the poor.”

What they didn’t know was this lord was definitely not a kind man. He should have been. He was very wealthy, spoke and wrote Latin, had every advantage that life could offer but he was not kind!

His servants were scared of him and made sure they did nothing to make him angry with them. “Watch what you say and do,” they said to each other, “or he’ll get you!!”

The lord and his servants were soaked, totally soaked, by the rain. It dripped off their hats and down their collars, making them shiver with cold. They were not happy. The lord was not happy. In fact he was angry and cold and irritable and looking for a fight with anyone who got in his way!

Poor ragged people; mothers and babies in rags; little children in rags; out of work grown ups in rags; old women and old men in rags all needing food, medicine, extra clothes; anything to make their harsh lives a tiny bit better all had great hope in their hearts.

They waited for the “kind, caring, helpful” lord to ride by.They all cried out:“Please kind sir, alms for the poor. Please kind sir, alms for the poor.Please kind sir, alms for the poor.”

But the “kind lord” looked down his nose at them.“No money for the poor,” he said, and his word had to be obeyed…or else!

One after the other, his servants rode their horses by. No one dared give any money to help the poor and needy. Their hands were raised in hope of some little coins. Then one by one their hands dropped; their smiles dropped; their hearts dropped.

Some of the lord’s servants looked very sad, but they were too scared to give any money to the poor ragged boys and girls; men and women.

Thomas and Edith, the lord’s distant relatives, were the last to ride by. By this time, the lord had ridden along another muddy street. Thomas and Edith quietly called to a man and woman who seemed to be leaders in the community of poor people.“We’re so sorry,” whispered Thomas and Edith.

“Here, please take this money and share it out. “Oh, we’re so very sorry!”

“Thank you kind master and mistress,” the man and woman said. “We’ll always remember you and if you are ever in trouble come to Gloucester, we’ll hide you. We’ll make you invisible in our rags so no one will know you.”

“Thank you - good friends,” said Edith and Thomas.Then they rode on, following the lord and his servants, into the next street.What a sight!Problems galore.Horses and ridersStuck, stuck, stuckIn the deep, deep mud!And in the middle of all this was the lord himself. His horse had fallen into a muddy hole right up to its waste!

“Good people,” begged the lord, “please help us.” But no one moved!

Thomas and Edith got off their horses and walked through the thick mud to the crowd of ragged people.“Please, of your kindness, help him,” they begged.

The man and women they’d given the money to in the other street, came forward. They whispered, “Not for his sake,” pointing at the lord, “but for their sake.”

The people gathered old planks and bits of wood and put them under the lord’s horse. They pushed the horse and pulled the horse until it scrambled free of the iron-fist hold of the mud.

Once he was free from the mud he growled, It's your duty to help me,” shouted the rich lord, “No money for you!”

His men got back on their horses helped by the ragged people. One by one they pressed money, quietly, into the hands of their helpers. “Please don’t say anything,” they said, “or we’ll be in trouble!!”

Then the lord, covered from head to toe in mud, rode out of Gloucester saying, “I’ll never come back here again.”

That evening, the ragged people all met together after a good meal. One of them was a poet and he made up a rhyme: a secret rhyme that only they would understand. He called the “kind” lord, “Dr. Foster,” so the lord wouldn’t know they were making fun of him.

Oh yes, years later, when Edith and Thomas had to escape from the “kind” lord – they were taken in and helped by the ragged people of Gloucester who dressed them in rags so they became ‘invisible’ and smuggled them on board ship to safety, overseas.

Here’s the rhyme the people would sing out. Sing out with peals of laughter as they remembered the “kind” lord up to his stomach in the mud.

Doctor Foster
Went to Gloucester
In a shower of rain.

He stepped in a puddle
Right up to his middle
And never went there again!
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