Mr Benden’s reflections were not so pleasant as they might have been, and they were no pleasanter for having received curt and cold welcome that morning from several of his acquaintances in Cranbrook. People manifestly disapproved of his recent action. There were many who sympathised but little with Alice Benden’s opinions, and would even have been gratified by the detection and punishment of a heretic, who were notwithstanding disgusted and annoyed that a quiet, gentle, and generally respected gentlewoman should be denounced to the authorities by her own husband. He, of all men, should have shielded and screened her. Even Justice Roberts had nearly as much as told him so. Mr Benden felt himself a semi-martyr. The world was hard on disinterested virtue, and had no sympathy with self-denial. It is true, the world did not know his sufferings at the hands of Mary, who could not send up a decent hash—and who was privately of opinion that an improper hash, or no hash at all, was quite good enough for the man who had accused her dear mistress to the authorities. Mr Benden was growing tired of disinterested virtue, which was its own reward, and a very poor one.
“I can’t stand this much longer; I must have Alice back!” was his reflection as he alighted from the bay horse.
But Nemesis had no intention of letting him off thus easily. Mistress Tabitha Hall had carried home her geese and frying-pan, and after roasting and eating the former with chestnut sauce, churning the week’s supply of butter, setting the bread to rise, and indicating to Friswith and Joan, her elder daughters, what would be likely to happen to them if the last-named article were either over or under-baked, she changed her gown from a working woollen to an afternoon camlet, and took her way to Briton’s Mead. Mr Benden had supped as best he might on a very tough chicken pie, with a crust not much softer than crockery, and neither his digestion nor his temper was in a happy condition, when Mary rapped at the door, and much to her own satisfaction informed her master that Mistress Hall would fain have speech of him. Mr Benden groaned almost audibly. Could he by an act of will have transported Tabitha to the further side of the Mountains of the Moon, nobody in Staplehurst would have seen much more of her that year. But, alas! he had to run the gauntlet of her comments on himself and his proceedings, which he well knew would not be complimentary. For a full hour they were closeted together. Mary, in the kitchen, could faintly hear their voices, and rejoiced to gather from the sound that, to use her own expression, “the master was supping his broth right well peppered.” At last Mistress Tabitha marched forth, casting a Parthian dart behind her.
“See you do, Edward Benden, without you want another basin o’ hot water; and I’ll set the kettle on to boil this time, I promise you!”
“Good even, Mary,” she added, as she came through the kitchen. “He (without any antecedent) has promised he’ll do all he can to fetch her forth; and if he doesn’t, and metely soon too, he’ll wish he had, that’s all!”
So saying, Mistress Tabitha marched home to inspect her bread, and if need were, to “set the kettle on” there also.
Note: E-la is the highest note in the musical system of Guido d’Aretino, which was popular in the sixteenth century. “A strain beyond E-la,” therefore, signified something impossible or unreasonable.