Joyce Morrell's Harvest. Emily Sarah Holt
” Father makes answer: “and so far thou art right, Joyce. Yet it is well we should remember, at times, that we be not yet in Heaven.”
“ ‘At times!’ ” quoth Aunt Joyce, with a laugh. “What a blessed life must be thine, if those that be about thee suffer thee to forget the same save ‘at times’! I never made that blunder yet, I can tell thee.”
And so she and I away, and left all laughing.
Selwick Hall, October ye xxii.
This afternoon come Hal and Anstace, with their childre. Milly soon carried off the childre, for she is a very child herself, and can lake (play) with childre a deal better than I: and Hal went (said he) to seek Father, with whom I found him an hour later in the great chamber, and both right deep in public matter, whereof I do love to hear them talk at times, but Milly and Edith be no wise compatient (the lost adjective of compassion) therewith. Anstace came with me to our chamber, and said she had list for a good chat.
“Whereof be we to chat?” said I, something laughing.
“Oh, there is plenty,” saith she. “We shall not be done with the childre this hour.”
“Thou wilt not, Anstace,” said I, “for in very deed all mothers do love rarely to talk over their childre, and I need not save thee. But I am no great talker, as thou well wist.”
“That do I,” saith she: “for of all young maids ever I saw, thou hast the least list (inclination) to discourse. But, Nell, I want to know somewhat of thee. What ails thee at Nym Lewthwaite?”
“Why, nothing at all,” I made answer: “save that I do right heartily desire him to leave me be.”
“Good sooth, but I thought it a rare chance for thee,” quoth she: “and I was fair astonied when Edith told me thou wouldst have none ado with him. But thou must mind thy shooting, Nell: if thou pitchest all thine arrows over high, thou wilt catch nought.”
“I want to pitch no arrows,” said I.
“Well, but I do desire thee to conceive,” saith she, “that too much niceness is not good for a young maid. ’Tis all very well to go a-picking and a-choosing ere thou art twenty: but trust me, Nell, by the time thou comest to thirty, thou shouldst be thankful to take any man that will have thee.”
“Nay!” said I, “that shall I not.”
“Eh, but thou wilt,” quoth she, “yea, if it were Nym Lewthwaite.”
“I won’t!” said I.
Anstace fell a-laughing. “Then thou wilt have to go without!” saith she.
“Well,” said I, “that could I do, may-be, nor break my heart o’er it neither. But to take any that should have me—Anstace, I would as soon sell me for a slave.”
“Come, Nell!—where didst pick up such notions?” quoth she.
“Verily, I might answer thee, of the Queen’s Majesty,” said I: “and if I be not in good company enough, search thou for better. Only, for pity’s sake, Sister Anstace, do let me a-be.”
“Eh, I’ll let thee be,” saith she, and wagged her head and laughed. “But in good sooth, Nell, thou art a right queer body. And if it should please the Queen’s Highness to wed with Mounseer (Note 1), as ’tis thought of many it shall, then thou wilt be out of her company, and I shall be in. What shalt thou do then for company?”
“Marry, I can content me with Aunt Joyce and Cousin Bess,” quoth I, “and none so bad neither.”
So at after that we gat to other discourse, and after a while, when Milly came in with the childre, we all went down into the great chamber, where Father, and Hal, and Mynheer, were yet at their weighty debates. Cousin Bess was sat in the window, a-sewing on some flannel: and Aunt Joyce, in the same window, but the other corner, was busied with tapestry-work, being a cushion that she is fashioning for a Christmas gift for some dame that is her friend at Minster Lovel. ’Tis well-nigh done; and when it shall be finished, it shall go hence by old Postlethwaite the carrier; for six weeks is not too much betwixt here and Minster Lovel.
As we came in, I heard Father to say—
“Truly, there is no end of the diverse fantasy of men’s minds.” And then he brought forth some Latin, which I conceived not: but whispering unto Aunt Joyce (which is something learned in that tongue) to say what it were, she made answer, “So many men, so many minds.” (Quot homines, tot sententiae.)
“Ha!” saith Mynheer. “Was it not that which the Emperor Charles did discover with his clocks and watches? He was very curious in clocks and watches—the Emperor Charles the Fifth—you know?—and in his chamber at the Monastery of San Yuste he had so many. And watching them each day, he found they went not all at one. The big clock was five minutes to twelve when the little watch was two minutes past. So he tried to make them at one: but they would not. No, no! the big clock and the little watch, they go their own way. Then said the Emperor, ‘Now I see something I saw not aforetime. I thought I could make these clocks go together, but no! Yet they are only the work of men like me. Ah, the foolish man to think that I could compel men to think all alike, who are the work of the great God.’ You see?”
“If His Majesty had seen it a bit sooner,” quoth Hal, “there should have been spared some ill work both in Spain and the Low Countries.”
Mynheer saith, “Ah!” more than once, and wagged his head right sadly.
“Why,” quoth Hal, something earnestly, “mind you not, some dozen years gone, of the stir was made all over this realm, when the ministers were appointed to wear their surplices at all times of their ministration, and no longer to minister in gowns ne cloaks, with their hats on, as they had been wont? Yea, what tumult had we then against the order taken by the Queen and Council, and against the Archbishop and Bishops for consenting thereto! And, all said, what was the mighty ado about? Why, whether a man should wear a black gown or a white. Heard one ever such stuff?”
“Ah, Hal, that shall scantly serve,” saith Father. “Mind, I pray thee, that the question to the eyes of these men was somewhat far otherwise. Thou wouldst not say that Adam and Eva were turned forth of Paradise by reason they plucked an apple?”
“But, I pray you, Sir Aubrey, what was the question?” saith Mynheer. “For I do not well know, as I fain should.”
“Look you,” quoth Father, “in the beginning of the Book of Common Prayer, and you shall find a rubric, that ‘such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of England, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of King Edward the Sixth.’ ”
“But they were not retained,” breaks in Hal, that will alway be first to speak of aught.
(Lack-a-day! shall that cost me two pence?)
“They were not retained,” repeateth Father, “but the clergy took to ministering in their gowns and other common apparel, such as they ware every day, with no manner of vestments of no sort. Whereupon, such negligence being thought unseemly, it pleased the Queen’s Majesty, sitting in her Council, and with consent of the Archbishop and Bishops, to issue certain injunctions for the better ordering of the Church: to wit, that at all times of their ministration the clergy should wear a decent white surplice, and no other vestment, nor should minister in their common apparel as aforetime.”
“Then the rubric touching the garments as worn under King Edward was done away?” saith Mynheer.
“Done