“Never a whit!” crieth he. “Eh, Cousin Bess, I could tell you queerer matters than that.”
“Nay, I’ll hear none, o’ my good will,” saith she. “Paul saith we be to think on whatsoever things be lovely: and I reckon he wasn’t like to mean on a parcel o’ big babes, playing at make-believe.”
“They have nought else to do, it appears,” quoth Father.
“Dear heart!” saith she. “Could they ne’er buy a bale of flannel, and make some doublets and petticoats for the poor? He must be a poor silly companion that shall call a woman Excellency, when she hath done nought all her life but to pluck roses and finger her gold chain. Where’s her excellency, belike?”
“Things were ill enough in the Court of old,” saith Father, “but it doth seem me we were scantly so brainless of old time as this. I shall send a letter to my cousin of Oxenford touching Walter. He must not be suffered to drift into—”
Father did not end his sentence. But methought I could guess reasonable well how it should have been finished.
Verily, I am troubled touching Wat, and will pray for him, that he may be preserved safe from the snares of the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Oh, what a blessed place must Heaven be, seeing there shall be none of them!
One thing, howbeit, doth much comfort me,—and that is, that Ned is true and staunch as ever to the early training he had of Father and Mother out of God’s Word. Some folk might think him careless and too fond of laughter, and fun, and the like: but I know Ned—of early days I was ever his secret fellow—and I am well assured his heart is right and true. He shall ’bide with us until Sir Humphrey Gilbert his next voyage out to the Spanish seas, but we know not yet when that shall be. He had intended to make the coast of Virginia this last time, but was beat back by the tempest. ’Tis said that when he goeth, his brother of the mother’s side, Sir Walter Raleigh, shall go with him. This Sir Walter, saith Ned, is a young gentleman that hath but eight and twenty years, yet is already of much note in the Court. He hath a rare intelligence and a merry wit. Aunt Joyce was mightily taken by one tale that Ned told us of him,—how that, being at the house of some gentleman in the country, where the mistress of the house was mightily set up and precise, one morrow, this Sir Walter, that was a-donning (dressing) himself, did hear the said his precise and delicate hostess, without his door, to ask at her servants, “Be the pigs served?” No sooner had they met below, than saith Sir Walter, “Madam, be the pigs served?”
But my Lady, that moved not a muscle of her face, replied as calm as you will, “You know best, Sir, whether you have had your breakfast.” Aunt Joyce did laugh o’er this, and said Sir Walter demerited to have as good given him as he brought.
“I do like,” quoth she, “a woman that can stand up to a man!”