“Sir!” crieth Walter, in a voice of very despair.
“I can see thou art not he that can stand temptation. I had hoped otherwise. But ’tis plain that this temptation, at the least, hath been too much for thee.”
Wat’s face was as though his whole life should be ruined if so were.
“Come, Wat, take heart o’ grace!” cries Ned. “I wouldn’t cruise in those muddy waters if thou shouldst pay me two thousand pound to do the same. Think but of men scenting themselves—with aught but a stiff sea-breeze. Pish! And as to dancing, cap in hand, afore a woman, and calling her thine Excellency, or thy Floweriness, or thy Some-Sort-of-Foolery, why, I’d as lief strike to a Spanish galleon, very nigh. When I want a maid to wed me, an’ I ever do—at this present I don’t—I shall walk straight up to her like a man, and say, ‘Mistress Cicely (or whatso she be named), I love you; will you wed me?’ And if she cannot see an honest man’s love, or will not take it, without all that flummery, why, she isn’t worth a pail o’ sea-water: and I can get along without her, and I will.”
“Hurrah for Ned!” saith Aunt Joyce. “’Tis a comfort to find we have one man in the family.”
“I trust we may have two, in time,” quoth Father. “Wat, my lad, I know this comes hard: and as I count thee not wicked, but weak, I would fain help thee all I may. But thou canst not be suffered to forget that my fortune is but three hundred pound by the year; and I have yet three daughters to portion. I could not pay thy debts without calling in that for which thou hast pledged my credit—for it is mine, Wat, rather than thine, seeing thine own were thus slender.”
“But, Sir!” crieth Wat, “that were punishing you for mine extravagance. I never dreamed of that!”
“Come, he is opening his eyes a bit at last,” saith Aunt Joyce to me, that was next her.
“May-be, Wat,” saith Father, with a kindly smile, “it had been better if thou hadst dreamed thereof a little sooner. I think, my boy, it will be punishment enough for one of thy nature but to ’bide at home, and to see the straits whereto thou hast put them that love thee best.”
“Punishment!” saith Wat, in a low, ’shamed voice. “Yes, Father, the worst you could devise.”