“That must needs be thee, Edith,” saith Milly in a demure voice. “For it standeth with reason, as thou very well wist, that I shall never see mine elders to make no blunders of no sort whatever.”
“Thou art a saucy baggage, Milly,” quoth Aunt Joyce. “That shall cost thee six pence an’ it go down in the chronicle.”
“Oh, ’tis not yet my turn for to write, Aunt. And I am well assured Nell shall pay no sixpences.”
“Fewer than thou, I dare guess,” saith Aunt Joyce. “Who has been to visit old Jack Benn this week?”
“Not I, Aunt,” quoth Edith, somewhat wearily, as if she feared Aunt Joyce should bid her go.
“Oh, I’ll go and see him!” cries Milly. “There is nought one half so diverting in all the vale as old Jack. Aunt, be all Brownists as queer as he?”
“Nay, I reckon Jack hath some queer notions of his own, apart from his Brownery,” quoth she. “But, Milly,—be diverted as much as thou wilt, but let not the old man see that thou art a-laughing at him.”
“All right, Aunt!” saith Milly, cheerily. “Come, Nell. Edith shall bide at home, that can I see.”
So Milly and I set forth to visit old Jack, and Mother gave us a bottle of cordial water, and a little basket of fresh eggs, for to take withal.
He dwells all alone, doth old Jack, in a mud cot part-way up the mountain, that he did build himself, ere the aches in his bones ’gan trouble him, that he might scantly work. He is one of those queer folk that call themselves Brownists, and would fain have some better religion than they may find at church. Jack is nigh alway reading of his Bible, but never no man could so much as guess the strange meanings he brings forth of the words. I reckon, as Aunt Joyce saith, there is more Jack than Brownist in them.