"Nay, _Bess_, thou takest _Joyce_ wrong. In that of the _Mennonites_,
she would say certain men of whom _Mynheer_ told us a few days gone,
that should think all things pleasurable and easeful to be wrong."
"Good lack, Mistress _Joyce_, but I'm none so bad as that!" saith
_Bess_. "I'm sure, when I make gruel for whoso it be, I leave no lumps
in, nor let it burn neither."
"No, dear heart, thou art only a _Mennonite_ to thyself, not to other
folk," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "Thou shouldst be right well content of a
board for thy bed, but if any one of us had the blanket creased under
our backs, it should cost thee thy night's rest. I know thee, _Bess
Wolvercot_."
"Well, and I do dearly love to see folk comfortable," quoth she. "As
for me, what recketh? I thank the Lord, my health is good enough; and a
very fool were I to grumble at every bit of discomfort. Why, only do
think, Mistress _Joyce_, how much worser I might have been off! Had I
been born of that country I heard Master _Banaster_ a-telling of, where
they never see the sun but of the summer, and dwell of huts full o'
smoke, with ne'er a chimney--why, I never could see if my face were
clean, nor my table rubbed bright. Eh, but I wouldn't like that fashion
of living!"
"They have no tables in _Greenland_ for to rub, _Bess_," quoth _Hal_.
"Nor o'er many clean faces, I take it," saith _Father_.
"Ah! did you hear, Sir," saith _Mynheer_, "of Mynheer _Heningsen's_
voyage to _Greenland_ the last year?"
"I have not, _Mynheer_," saith _Father_. "Pray you, what was notable
therein?"
"Ah! he was not far from the coast of _Greenland_, when he found the
ship go out of her course. He turned the rudder, or how you say, to
guide the ship--I am not sea-learned, I ask your pardon if I mistake--
but the ship would not move. Then they found, beneath a sunken rock,
and it was--how you say?--magnetical, that drew to it the iron of the
ship. Then Mynheer _Heningsen_, he look to his charts, for he know no
rock just there. And what think you he found? Why, two hundred years
back, exactly--in the year of our Lord 1380, there were certain
_Venetians_, the brothers _Zeni_, sailing in these seas, and they
brought word home to _Venice_ that on this very spot, where _Heningsen_
found nothing but a sunken rock, they found a beautiful large island,
where were one hundred villages, inhabited by _Christian_ people, in a
state of great civility [civilisation], but so simple and guileless that
hardly you can conceive. Think you! nothing now but a sunken rock."
"But what name hath the island?" asks _Hal_.
"No name at all. No eyes ever saw it but the brothers _Zeni_ of
_Venice_."
"Nay, _Mynheer_, I cry you mercy," saith _Father_ of his thoughtful
fashion. "If the brothers _Zeni_ told truth (as I mean to signify no
doubt), there was One that saw it, from the time when He pronounced all
things very good, to the day when some convulsion of nature, whatso it
were, by His commandment engulfed that fair isle in the waters.
`Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He,--in heaven, and in earth, and
in the sea, and in all deep places.' Not one hair from the head of
those unknown _Christians_, that were _Christians_ in truth, perished in
those North waters. We shall know it when we meet them in the Land that
is very far off."
SELWICK HALL, OCTOBER YE XXXI.
Mine hand was so weary when I was come to the last sentence afore this,
that I set down no more. Truly, there was little at after that
demerited the same.
And now I be come to the end of my month, I have been a-reading over
what I writ, to see how much I must needs pay. There be but two blots,
the which shall be so many pence: and two blank spaces of one week or
over, the which at two pence each brings the account to sixpence. I
cannot perceive that I have at any time writ disrespectfully of my
betters--which, I take it, be _Father_, and _Mother_, and Aunt _Joyce_,
and Cousin _Bess_, and Mynheer _Stuyvesant_, But for speaking unkindly
of other, I fear I am not blameless. I can count six two-pences, which
shall be one shilling and sixpence. I must try and do better when my
month cometh round again. Verily, I had not thought that I should speak
unkindly six times in one month! 'Tis well to find out a body's faults.
So now I pass my book over to _Milly_--and do right earnestly desire
that she may be less faultful than I. What poor infirm things be we, in
very sooth!
Note 1. Francois Duke of Anjou, who visited the Queen in September,
1579, to urge his suit. Elizabeth hesitated for some time before she
gave a decided negative.