"For what?" saith he. "To learn Mistress _Helena_ the _Latin_?
Excellent Sir, you rejoice me. When shall we begin, Mistress
_Helena_?--this morrow?"
_Helen_ laughed now, and quoth she,--"I thank you much, _Mynheer_,
though I am 'feared you reckon mine understanding higher than it
demerit: yet I fear there shall scantly be opportunity this morrow. I
have divers dishes to cook that shall be cold for this even, and a deal
of flannel-work to do."
"Ah, the dishes and the flannel, they are mine abhorrence!" saith
_Mynheer_. "They stand alway in the road of the learning."
"Nay, mine old _paedagogus_!" crieth _Ned_. "I reckon the dishes are
little your abhorrence at supper-time, nor the flannel of a cold night,
when it taketh the form of blankets. 'Tis right well to uphold the
learning, yet without _Nell's_ cates and flannel, your _Latin_ should
come ill off."
"The body is ever in the way of the soul!" saith _Mynheer_. "Were we
souls without bodies, what need had we of the puddings and the
flannels?"
"Or the _Latin_," sticketh in _Ned_, mischievously.
_Mynheer_ wagged his head at _Ned_.
"_Edward Van Louvaine_, thou wist better."
"Few folks but know better than they do, _Mynheer_," saith _Ned_. "Yet
think you there shall be lexicons needed to talk with King _David_ or
the Apostle _Paul_ hereafter?"
"I trow not," saith _Father_.
"Dear heart, Master _Stuyvesant_," cries Cousin _Bess_, "but sure the
curse of _Babel_ was an ill thing all o'er! You would seem to count it
had a silver side to it."
"It had a golden side, my mistress," made he answer. "Had all men ever
spoken but one tongue, the _paedagogus_ should scarce be needed, and
half the delights of learning had disappeared from the earth."
"Eh, lack-a-day!--but how different can folks look at matters!" saith
Cousin _Bess_. "Why, I have alway thought it should be a rare jolly
thing when all strange tongues were done away (as I reckon they shall
hereafter), and all folks spake but plain _English_."
"Art so sure it should be _English_, _Bess_?" saith _Father_, smiling.
"What an' it were _Italian_ or _Greek_?"
"Good lack, that could never be!" crieth she. "Why, do but think the
trouble all men should have."
"Somebody must have it," quoth he. "I take it, what so were the tongue,
all nations but one should have to learn it."
"I'll not credit it, Sir _Aubrey_," crieth _Bess_, as she trotteth off
to the kitchen. "It is like to be _English_ that shall become the
common tongue of the earth: it can't be no elsewise!"
_Mynheer_ seemed wonderful taken with this fantasy of Cousin _Bess_.
"How strange a thought that!" saith Aunt _Joyce_.
"_Bess_ is in good company," answereth _Father_. "'Tis right the
reasoning of Saint _Cyril_, when he maketh argument that the Temple of
God, wherein the Man of Sin shall sit (as _Paul_ saith), cannot signify
the _Christian_ Church. But wherefore, good Sir? say you. Oh, saith
he, because `God forbid it should be this temple wherein we now are!'"
"Well, it is a marvel to me," quoth Aunt _Joyce_, "that some folks seem
to have no brains!"
"Is it so great a marvel?" saith _Father_.
"But they have no wit!" saith she. "Why, here yestereven was _Caitlin_,
telling me the sun had put the fire out--she'd let it go out, the lazy
tyke as she is!--Then said I, `But how so, _Caitlin_, when there hath
been no sun?' (You wist how hard it rained all day.) `Ha!' saith she--
and gazed into the black grate, as though it should have helped her to
an other excuse. Which to all appearance it did, for in a minute quoth
my wiseacre,--`Then an' it like you, Mistress, it was the light.'"
"A lack of power to perceive the relation betwixt cause and effect,"
saith _Father_, drily, "A lack of common sense!" saith Aunt _Joyce_.
"The uncommonest thing that is," quoth _Father_.
"But wherefore should the sun put the fire out?" saith Sir _Robert_.
"Nay, I'll let alone the whys and the wherefores," quoth she. "It doth,
and that is enough for me."
_Father_ seemed something diverted in himself, but he said nought more.
All the morrow were we busy in the kitchen, and the afternoon a-work:
but in the even come all the young folks to keep _Nell's_ birthday--to
wit, the _Lewthwaites_, the _Armstrongs_, the _Murthwaites_, the
_Parks_, and so forth. Of course _Robin_ had no eyes nor ears for aught
but _Milisent_. And for all Master _Ned_ may say of his being so rare
heart-free, I did think he might have talked lesser with _Faith
Murthwaite_ had it liked him so to do. I said so unto him at after, but
all I gat of my noble admiral was "Avast there!" the which I took to
mean that he did desire me to hold my peace. _Wat_ was rare courtly
amongst all us, and had much praise of all the maidens. Me-wondered if
_Gillian Armstrong_ meant not to set her cap at him. But I do misdoubt
mine own self if any such rustical maids as be here shall be like to
serve _Walter's_ turn. I would fain hear more of this daughter of my
Lord of _Sheffield_, that was his _Excellency_, but I am not well
assured if I did well to ask at him or no.
SELWICK HALL, MARCH YE XX.
'Tis agreed that Aunt _Joyce_, in the stead of making an end of her
visit when the six months shall close, shall tarry with us until Sir
_Robert_ and his gentlewomen shall travel southward, the which shall be
in an other three weeks' time thereafter. They look therefore to set
forth in company as about the twentieth of _April_. I am rare glad (and
so methinks be we all) to keep Aunt _Joyce_ a trifle longer. She is
like a fresh breeze blowing through the house, and when she is away, as
_Ned_ saith, we are becalmed. Indeed, I would by my good will have her
here alway.
"Now, _Aunt_," said I, "you shall have time to write your thoughts in
the Chronicle, the which shall end with this month, as 'twas agreed."
"Time!" quoth she. "And how many pages, my sweet scrivener?"
"Trust me, but I'll leave you plenty," said I. "Your part shall be a
deal better worth the reading."
"Go to, Mistress _Edith_!" saith she. "`All the proof of a pudding is
in the eating.'"
"I am sure of that pudding," saith _Milisent_.
"These rash young women!" maketh answer Aunt _Joyce_. "When thou hast
lived fifty or sixty years in this world, my good maid, thou wilt be a
trifle less sure of most things. None be so sure that a box is white of
all sides as they that have seen but one. When thou comest to the
second, and findest it painted grey, thou wilt not be so ready to swear
that the third may not be red."
"But we can be sure of some things, at any years, _Aunt_," saith
_Milly_.
"Canst thou so?" saith Aunt _Joyce_. "Ah, child, thou hast not yet been
down into many deep places. So long as a goat pulls not at his tether,
he may think the whole world lieth afore him when he hath but
half-a-dozen yards. Let him come to pull, and he will find how short it
is. There be places, _Milly_, where a man may get to, that he can be
sure of nothing in all the universe save God. And thou shalt not travel
far, neither, to come to the end of that cord."
"O Aunt _Joyce_, I do never love to hear such talk as that!" saith
_Milly_. "It causeth one feel so poor and mean."
"Then it causeth thee feel what thou art," saith she. "'Tis good for a
man to find, at times, how little he can do."
"It may be good, but 'tis mighty displeasant," quoth _Milisent_.
"'Tis very well when it be no worse than displeasant," Aunt _Joyce_
makes answer. "I thought of places, _Milly_, which were not
displeasant, but awful--where the human soul feels nigh to being shut up
in the blackness of darkness for ever. Thou wist little of such things
yet. But most souls which be permitted to soar high aloft be made
likewise to descend deep down. _David_ went deep enough--may-be deeper
than any other save _Christ_. Look you, he was appointed to write the
_Psalter_. Throughout all the ages coming, of his words was the Church
to serve her when she should come into deep places. There must be
somewhat therein for every _Christian_ soul, and every _Jewish_ belike,
ere _Christ_ came. And to do that, I reckon _David_ had need to go very
deep down. He that shall help a man to climb forth of a well must know
whereto the water reacheth, and on which side the steps be. List
him--`Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord!' `I am come
into deep places, where the floods overflow me.'"
"But, _Aunt_," said I, yet was I something feared to say it, "was not
that hard on _David_? It scarce seems just that he should have to go
through all those cruel troubles for our good."
"Ah, _Edith_," saith she, "the Lord payeth His bills in gold of _Ophir_.
I warrant you _David_ felt his deep places sore trying. But ask thou
at him, when ye meet, if he would have missed them. He shall see
clearer then when he shall wake up after His likeness, and shall be
satisfied with it."
"What sort of deep places mean you, _Aunt_?" saith _Helen_, looking on
her somewhat earnestly.
"Thou dost well to ask, _Nell_," quoth she, "for there be divers sorts
of depths. There be mind depths, the which are at times, as _Milly_
saith, displeasant: at other times not displeasant. But there be soul
depths for the which displeasant is no word. When the Lord seems to
shut every door in thy face and to leave thee shut up in a well, where
thou canst not breathe, and when thou seest no escape, and when thou
criest and shoutest, He shutteth out thy prayer: when thine heaven above
thee is as brass, and thine earth below thee iron: when it seems as if
no God were, either to hear thee or to do for thee--that is a deep pit
to get in, _Helen_, and not a pleasant one."
"Aunt _Joyce_! can such a feeling be--at the least to one that feareth
God?"
"Ay, it can, _Nelly_!" saith Aunt _Joyce_, solemnly, yet with much
tenderness. "And when thou comest into such a slough as that, may God
have mercy upon thee!"
And methought, looking in Aunt _Joyce's_ eyes, that at some past time of
her life she had been in right such an one.
"It sounds awful!" saith _Milisent_, under her breath.
"It may be," saith Aunt _Joyce_, looking from the window, and after a
fashion as though she spake to herself rather than to us, "that there be
some souls whom the Lord suffers not to pass through such quagmires.
May-be He only leads the strongest souls into the deepest places. I say
not that there be not deeps beyond any I know. Yet I know of sloughs
wherein I had been lost and smothered, had He not held mine hand tight,
and watched that the dark waters washed not over mine head too far for
life. That word, `the fellowship of His passions,' hath a long tether.
For He went down to Hell."
"But, _Aunt_, would you say that meant the place of lost souls?" saith
_Helen_.
"I am wholesomely 'feared of laying down the law, _Nell_," saith Aunt
_Joyce_, "touching such matters as I can but see through a glass darkly.
What He means, He knoweth. But the place of departed spirits can it
scarce fail to be."
"Aunt _Joyce_," saith _Helen_, laying down her work, "I trust it is not
ill in me to say thus, but in very deed I do alway feel 'feared of what
shall be after death. If we might but know where we shall be, and with
whom, and what we shall have to do--it all looks so dark!"
"Had it been good for us, we should have known," saith Aunt _Joyce_.
"And two points we do know. `With _Christ_,' and `far better.' Is that
not enough for those that are His friends?"
"`If it were not so, I would have told you,'" saith my Lady _Stafford_.
"But not _how_, Madam, an' it please you?" asks _Helen_.
"If there were not room; if there were not happiness."
"I take it," saith Aunt _Joyce_, "if there were not all that for which
my nature doth crave. But, mark you, my renewed nature."
"Then surely we must know our friends again?" saith _Helen_.
"He was a queer fellow that first questioned that," saith Aunt _Joyce_.
"If I be not to know _Anstace Morrell_, I am well assured I shall not
know her sister _Joyce_!"
"But thereby hangeth a dreadful question, _Joyce_!" answereth my Lady
_Stafford_. "If we must needs know the souls that be found, how about
them that be missed?"