Joyce Morrell's Harvest. Emily Sarah Holt
of Milly’s writing. Well! ’tis not my fault, so I trust shall not be my blame.
And it is true, as Milly saith, that she is better-favoured than I. As for Anstace, I wis not, only I know and am well assured, that I am least comely of the four. But she should never have writ what she did touching Father’s nose, and if it cost me two pence, that must I say. I do love every bit of Father, right down to the tip of his nose, and I never thought if it were well-favoured or no. ’Tis Father, and that is all for me. And so should it be for Milly—though it be two pence more to say so.
Selwick Hall, October ye vi.
We had been sat at our sewing a good hour this morrow—that is, Mother, and Aunt Joyce, and we three maids—when all at once Milly casts hers down with a sigh fetched from ever so far.
“Weary of sewing, Milly?” saith Mother with a smile.
“Ay—no—not right that, Mother,” quoth she. “But here have I been this hour gone, a-wishing I had been a man, till it seemed me as if I could not abide for to be a woman no longer.”
“The general end of impossible wishes,” saith Mother, laughing a little.
“Well!” quoth Aunt Joyce, a-biting off her thread, “in all my wishing never yet wished I that.”
“Wherefore is it, Milly?” saith Mother.
“Oh, a man has more of his own way than a woman,” Milly makes answer. “And he can make some noise in the world. He is not tied down to stupid humdrum matters, such like as sewing, and cooking, and distilling, and picking of flowers, with a song or twain by now and then to cheer you. A man can preach and fight and write books and make folk listen.”
“I misdoubt if thou art right, Milly, to say that a man hath the more of his own way always,” saith Mother. “Methinks there be many women get much of that.”
“Then a man is not tied down to one corner. He can go and see the world,” saith Milly.
“In short,” quoth Aunt Joyce, “the moral of thy words, Milly, is—‘Untie me.’ ”
“I wish I were so!” mutters Milly.
“And what should happen next?” saith Aunt Joyce.
“Why, I reckon I could not do much without money,” answereth Milly.
“Oh, grant all that,” quoth Aunt Joyce—“money, and leave, and all needed, and Mistress Milisent setting forth to do according to her will. What then?”
“Well, I would first go up to London,” saith she, “and cut some figure in the Court.”
Aunt Joyce gave a dry little laugh.
“There be figures of more shapes than one, Milly,” saith she. “Howbeit—what next?”
“Why, then, methinks, I would go to the wars.”
“And bring back as many heads, arms, and legs, as thou tookest thither?”
“Oh, for sure,” saith Milly. “I would not be killed.”
“Just. Very well—Mistress Milisent back from the wars, and covered with glory. And then?”
“Well—methinks I would love to be a judge for a bit.”
“Dry work,” saith Aunt Joyce. “And then a bishop?”
“Ay, if you will.”
“And then?”
“Why, I might as well be a king, while I went about it.”
“Quite as well. I am astonished thou hast come thither no sooner. And then?”
“Well—I know not what then. You drive one on, Aunt Joyce. Methinks, then, I would come home and see you all, and recount mine aventures.”
“Oh, mightily obliged to your Highness!” quoth Aunt Joyce. “I had thought, when your Majesty were thus up at top of the tree, you should forget utterly so mean a place as Selwick Hall, and the contemptible things that inhabit there. And then?”
“Come, I will make an end,” saith Milly, laughing. “I reckon I should be a bit wearied by then, and fain to bide at home and take mine ease.”
“And pray, what hindereth that your Grace should do that now?” saith Aunt Joyce, looking up with a comical face.
“Well, but I am not aweary, and have no aventures to tell,” Milly makes answer.
“Go into the garden and jump five hundred times, Milly, and I will warrant thee to be aweary and thankful for rest. And as to aventures—eh, my maid, my maid!” And Aunt Joyce and Mother smiled one upon the other.
“Now, Mother and Aunt, may I say what I think?” cries Milly.
“Prithee, so do, my maid.”
“Then, why do you folks that be no longer young, ever damp and chill young folks that would fain see the world and have some jollity?”
“By reason, Milly, that we have been through the world, and we know it to be a damp place and a cold.”
“But all folks do not find it so?”
“God have mercy on them that do not!”
“Now, Aunt, what mean you?”
“Dear heart, the brighter the colour of the poisoned sweetmeat, the more like is the babe to put in his mouth.”
“Your parable is above me, Aunt Joyce.”
“Milly, a maiden must give her heart to something. The Lord’s word unto us all is, Give Me thine heart. But most of us will try every thing else first. And every thing else doth chill and disappoint us. Yet thou never sawest man nor Woman that had given the heart to God, which could ever say with truth that disappointment had come of it.”
“I reckon they should be unready to confess the same,” saith she.
“They be ready enough to confess it of other things,” quoth Aunt Joyce. “But few folks will learn by the blunders of any but their own selves. I would thou didst.”
“By whose blunders would you have me learn, Aunt?” saith Milly in her saucy fashion that is yet so bright and coaxing that she rarely gets flitten (scolded) for the same.
“By those of whomsoever thou seest to blunder,” quoth she.
“That must needs be thee, Edith,” saith Milly in a demure voice. “For it standeth with reason, as thou very well wist, that I shall never see mine elders to make no blunders of no sort whatever.”
“Thou art a saucy baggage, Milly,” quoth Aunt Joyce. “That shall cost thee six pence an’ it go down in the chronicle.”
“Oh, ’tis not yet my turn for to write, Aunt. And I am well assured Nell shall pay no sixpences.”
“Fewer than thou, I dare guess,” saith Aunt Joyce. “Who has been to visit old Jack Benn this week?”
“Not I, Aunt,” quoth Edith, somewhat wearily, as if she feared Aunt Joyce should bid her go.
“Oh, I’ll go and see him!” cries Milly. “There is nought one half so diverting in all the vale as old Jack. Aunt, be all Brownists as queer as he?”
“Nay, I reckon Jack hath some queer notions of his own, apart from his Brownery,” quoth she. “But, Milly—be