“But lo’ you, there is another wonder abroad, as I do hear tell,” remarked Mistress Winter, “and ’tis certain matter the which, being taken—Agnes, thou dolt! what hast done wi’ the salad?—being taken hendily (gently, delicately) off the top of ale when ’tis a-making, shall raise bread all-to (almost) as well as sour dough. I know not what folk call it.—Thou idle, gaping dizzard (fool)! and I have to ask thee yet again what is come of aught, it shall be with mine hand about thine ears! Find a spoon this minute!”
“Ha!” said Father Dan, helping himself to sack (Note 3), which had been brought out specially to do him honour. “Yeast is it I have heard the same called. ’Tis said the bread is better tasted therewith, rather than sour dough.”
“Pray you, good Father, to eat of this salad,” entreated his hostess. “I had it of one of my Lord of Ely his gardeners; and there is therein the new endive, and the Italian parsley, that be no common matter.”
That the Cordelier was by no means indifferent to the good things of this life might be seen in his face, as he drew the wooden salad bowl a little nearer.
“Have you beheld the strange bird that Mistress Flint hath had sent to her over seas?” inquired he. “I do hear that great lords and ladies have kept such like these fifty years or so; but never saw I one thereof aforetime. ’Tis bright yellow of plumage, and singeth all one as a lark: they do call his name canary.”
“Nay, forsooth, I never see aught that should do me a pleasure!” said Mistress Winter crustily. “Gossip Flint might have told me so much.—Take that, thou lither hussy! I’ll learn thee to let fall the knives!”
And on the ear of the unfortunate Agnes, as she was stooping to recover the dropped knife, came Mistress Winter’s hand, with sufficient heaviness to make her grow white and totter ere she could recover her balance.
Father Dan took no notice. He could not have afforded to quarrel with Mistress Winter, especially now when priests of the old style were at a discount; and in his eyes such creatures as Agnes were made to be beaten and abused. He merely saw in his hostess a notable housewife, and in Agnes a kind of animated machine, with just soul enough to be kept to the duty of confession, and require a careless absolution, three times in the year. Such people had no business, in Father Dan’s eyes, to have thoughts or feelings of any sort. They were sent into the world to mop and cook and serve their betters. Of course, when the animated machines did take to thinking for themselves, and to showing that they had done so, the Cordelier regarded it as most awkward and inconvenient—a piece of insubordinate presumption that must be stamped out at once, and not suffered to infect others.
After further conversation in the same style, being unable to go on eating and drinking for ever, Father Dan rose to depart. It was not confession-time, and on all other occasions Father Dan’s pastoral visits came very much under the head of revelling. There was not a syllable of religious conversation; that was considered peculiar to the confessional.
Mistress Winter and Dorothy, after a little needlework and some more scolding of Agnes, tramped upstairs to bed; and Joan, coming in half an hour later, excessively cross after her day’s pleasuring, followed the example. Having put away the supper things, and laid every thing in readiness for the morrow’s work. Agnes stood for a moment before she too lay down on her hard pallet in the one chamber above that served all four as bedroom. Through the uncurtained window high up in the room the June stars looked down upon her. She had no notion of prayer, except telling beads to Latin Paters and Aves; but the instinct of the awakened spirit rose in something like it.