Joyce Morrell's Harvest. Emily Sarah Holt
off ere it begin. And when that were o’er—and I do love the last Amen of all—went all we to dinner with Mistress Huthwaite, at whose house we do ever dine of a Sunday: and mighty late it is of a communion Sunday; and I am well-nigh famished ere I break bread. And for dinner was corned beef and carrots, and for drink sherris-sack and muscadel. Then, at three o’ the clock, all we again to church: and by the same token, if Dr. Meade gave us not two full hours of a sermon, then will I sell my gold chain for two pence. And at after church, in the porch were my Lord Dilston and fair Mistress Jane; and my Lord was pleased to take Father by the hand, and Mother and Aunt Joyce likewise; but did but kiss us maids. (Note 1.) But Mistress Jane took us all three by the hand, and did say unto me that she would fain be better acquainted. And in very deed, it should be a feather in my cap were I to come unto close friendship with my Lord Dilston his daughter, as I do right heartily trust I may. Nor, after all, were it any such great preferment for me, that am daughter unto Sir Aubrey Louvaine of Selwick Hall, Knight, which is cousin unto my right honourable Lord the Earl of Oxenford, and not so far off neither. For my most honourable Lord, Sir Aubrey de Vere, sometime Earl of Oxenford, was great-great-great-grandfather unto my Lord that now is: and his sister, my Lady Margaret, wife to Sir Nicholas Louvaine, was great-great-grandmother unto Father: so they twain be cousins but four and an half times removed: and, good lack, what is this? Surely, I need not to plume me upon Mistress Jane Radcliffe her notice and favour. If the Radcliffes be an old house, as in very deed they be, so be the Veres and the Louvaines both: to say nought of the Edens, that have dwelt in Kent-dale these thousand years at the least. But one thing will I never own, and that is of Mynheer Stuyvesant, which shall say, and hold to it like a leech, that our family be all Dutch folk. He will have it that the Louvaines must needs have sprung from Louvain in the Low Countries; but of all things doth he make me mad (angry: a word still used in the north of England) when he saith the great House of Vere is Dutch of origin. For he will have it a weir to catch fish, when all the world doth know that Veritas is Latin for truth, and Vere cometh of that, or else of vir, as though it should say, one that is verily a man, and no base coward loon. And ’tis all foolishness for to say, as doth Mynheer, that the old Romans had no surnames like ours, but only the name of the family, such like as Cornelius or Julius, which ran more akin unto our Christian names. I believe it not, and I won’t. Why, was there not an Emperor, or a Prince at the least, that was called Lucius Verus? and what is that but Vere? ’Tis as plain as the barber’s pole, for all Mynheer, and that will I say.
Howbeit, I am forgetting my business, and well-nigh that it is Sunday. So have back. Church over, all we come home, in the very order as we went: and in the hall come Moses a-purring to us, and a-rubbing of her head against Nell; and there was Dan a-turning round and round after his tail, and Nan, that had a ball of paper, on her back a-laking therewith. So we to doff our hoods, and then down into the hall, where was supper served: for it was over late for four-hours (Note 2), and of a communion Sunday we never get none. Then Nell to read a chapter from Master Doctor Luther his magnifical commentary: and by the mass, I was glad it was not me. Then—(Eh, happy woman be my dole! but if Father shall see that last line, it shall be a broad shilling out of my pocket at the least. He is most mighty nice, is Father, touching that make of talk. I believe I catched it up of old Matthias. I must in very deed essay to leave it off; and I do own, ’tis not over seemly to swear of a Sunday, for I suppose it is swearing, though ’tis not profane talk. Come, Father, you must o’erlook it this once: and I will never do so no more—at the least, not till the next time.)
Well then, had we a chapter of Luke, and a long prayer of Father: and I am sore afeared I missed a good ten minutes thereof, for I wis not well what happed, nor how I gat there, but assuredly I was a-dancing with my Lord of Oxenford, and the Queen’s Majesty and my Lord Dilston a-looking on, and Mistress Jane as black as thunder, because I danced better than she. I reckon Father’s stopping woke me, and I said Amen as well as any body. Then the Hundredth Psalm, Nell a-playing on the virginals: and then (best of all) the blessing, and then with good-night all round, to bed. I reckon my nap at prayers had made me something wakeful, for I heard both Nell and Edith asleep afore me.
Selwick Hall, November ye iii.
Now have I read o’er every line my philosophical sister hath writ: and very nigh smothered me o’ laughing at divers parts. The long discourses she putteth in, touching all manner of dreary matters! I warrant, you shall not see me to deal with the Queen’s Majesty’s injunctions touching the apparel of parsons, nor with the Dutch Mennonites, nor with philosophical questions touching folks’ thoughts and characters, nor no such rubbish. I like sunlight, I do. Catch me a-setting down Master Stuyvesant his dreary speeches! (I go not further, for then should it cost me sixpence: but Master Stuyvesant hath no authority over me, so I may say what I will of him for two pence.) But it seemeth me, for all her soberness and her killing looks, that Mistress Helena is something diverted with my speeches, else had she not put so many in. But I ought not to have said what I did, quotha, touching Father’s nose! Ought I not, forsooth? Mistress Helena, that shall cost you two pence, and I shall be fain to see the fine paid.
(Eh, lack-a-day! but that shall cost me two pence! Dear heart, whatever was Father a-thinking of? I shall be as clean ruined as the velvet doublet that Ned dropped in the fish-pond!)
It seemeth me Father must have desired to make a good box for the poor. I would it had not been at my cost.
One thing is plain—that Mistress Nell keeps a conscience. I scarce think I do. There is a cushion full of pins somewhere down near my stomach, and now and then I get a prick: but I do but cry pish and turn the pin end into the cushion. Nell, on the contrary, pulleth forth the pin and looketh on it, holding it in all lights. But there was one time, I mind, that I did not cry pish, and methinks every pin in the cushion had set a-work to prick me hard. ’Twas ever so long gone, when Wat and I dressed up the mop in a white sheet, and set it on the stairs for to make Anstace and Nell scream forth, a-taking it for a ghost: but as ill luck would have it, the first came by was Mother, with Edith in her arms, that was then but a babe, and it so frighted her she went white as the very sheet, and dropped down of a dead faint, and what should have come of Edith I wis not, had not Anstace, that came after, been quick to catch at her. Eh, but in all my life never saw I Father as he then were! It was long time ere Mother come to, and until after said he never a word, for he was all busied with her: but when she was come to herself and well at ease—my word! but he did serve out Wat and me! Wat gat the worst, by reason he was the elder, and had (said Father) played the serpent to mine Eva: but I warrant you I forgat not that birch rod for a week or twain. Good lack! we never frighted nobody again.
And after all, I do think Father’s talk was worser than the fustigation (whipping). How he did insense it into us, that we might have been the death of our mother and sister both, and how it was rare wicked and cruel to seek to fright any, and had been known to turn folks’ heads ere this! You see, Father, I have not forgot it, and I reckon I never shall.
But one thing Father alway doth, and so belike do all in this house, which I hear not other folks’ elders for to do. When Alice Lewthwaite gets chidden, Mistress Lewthwaite saith such matters be unseemly, or undutiful, and such like. But Father, he must needs pull forth his Bible, and give you chapter and verse for every word he saith. And it makes things look so much worser, some how. ’Tis like being judged of God instead of men. And where Mistress Lewthwaite talks of faults, Father and Mother say sins. And it makes ever so much difference, to my thinking, whether a matter be but a fault you need be told of, or a sin that you must repent. Then, Mistress Lewthwaite (and I have noted it in other) always takes things as they touch her, whereas Father and Mother do look on them rather as they touch God. And it doth seem ever so much more awfuller thus. Methinks it should be a sight comfortabler