“Ay, poor little boy!” said she. “Prithee, Faith, take him on thy lap and cuddle him, and dandle him well, and sing him a song o’ sixpence. Oh, my little rogue, my pretty bird! well, then, it shall have a new coral, it shall—Now, Madam, pray you look on this piece of wastry! (Dear heart, but a fool and his money be soon parted!) What think you ’tis like?”
“Truly, my dear, that cannot I say,” replied Lady Louvaine, looking at the pipe as Temperance held it out: “but either that or somewhat else, it strikes me, hath a marvellous ill savour.”
“Ill savour, Madam!” cried Temperance. “Would you even such mean scents as roses and lilies to this celestial odour? Truly, this must it be the angels put in their pouncet-boxes. I am informed of my Lord of Tobago here that all the gentlemen of the Court do use to perfume their velvets with it.”
“Well, I can tell you of two which so do,” said Aubrey in a nettled fashion—“my Lord of Northumberland and Sir Walter Raleigh: and you’ll not call them fools, Aunt Temperance.”
“I’ll give you a bit of advice, Mr Louvaine: and that is, not to lay your week’s wages out in wagers what I shall do. I call any man fool that is given to folly: and as to this filthy business, I should scarce stick at the King’s Majesty himself.”
“Nay, the King is clean contrary thereto,” saith Aubrey, with a rather unwilling air: “I hear of my Lord that he saith it soils the inward parts of men with oily soot, and is loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, counted effeminate among the Indians themselves, and by the Spanish slaves called sauce for Lutheran curs.”
“Well, on my word!” cried Aunt Temperance. “And knowing this, thou Lutheran cur, thou wilt yet soil thine inward parts with this oily soot?”
“Oh, Aunt, every one so doth.”
Lady Louvaine and Edith exchanged sorrowful looks, and the former said—
“Aubrey, my boy, no true man accounts that a worthy reason for his deeds. It was true of the Israelites when they fell to worship the golden calf, and of the scribes and priests when they cried, ‘Crucify Him!’ Hadst thou been in that crowd before Pontius Pilate, wouldst thou have joined that cry?”