“Which side be you, Father?” asks Anstace.
“Well, my lass,” saith he, “though I see not, mine own self, the Pope and all his Cardinals to lurk in the folds of Dr Meade’s white surplice, and I am bound to say his tall, portly figure carrieth it off rarely, yet I do right heartily respect Bess her scruple, and desire to abstain from that which she counteth the beginnings of evil.”
“Now, I warrant you, Bess shall reckon that, of carrying it off well, to be the lust of the eye,” saith Aunt Joyce. “She’s a bit of a Mennonite, is Bess.”
“Eh, Mistress Joyce, pray you, give me not such an ill word!” saith Cousin Bess, reproachfully. “I never cared for Mammon, not I. I’d be thankful for a crust of bread and a cup of water, and say grace o’er him with Amen.”
We all laughed, and Father saith—
“Nay, Bess, thou takest Joyce wrong. In that of the Mennonites, she would say certain men of whom Mynheer told us a few days gone, that should think all things pleasurable and easeful to be wrong.”
“Good lack, Mistress Joyce, but I’m none so bad as that!” saith Bess. “I’m sure, when I make gruel for whoso it be, I leave no lumps in, nor let it burn neither.”
“No, dear heart, thou art only a Mennonite to thyself, not to other folk,” saith Aunt Joyce. “Thou shouldst be right well content of a board for thy bed, but if any one of us had the blanket creased under our backs, it should cost thee thy night’s rest. I know thee, Bess Wolvercot.”
“Well, and I do dearly love to see folk comfortable,” quoth she. “As for me, what recketh? I thank the Lord, my health is good enough; and a very fool were I to grumble at every bit of discomfort. Why, only do think, Mistress Joyce, how much worser I might have been off! Had I been born of that country I heard Master Banaster a-telling of, where they never see the sun but of the summer, and dwell of huts full o’ smoke, with ne’er a chimney—why, I never could see if my face were clean, nor my table rubbed bright. Eh, but I wouldn’t like that fashion of living!”
“They have no tables in Greenland for to rub, Bess,” quoth Hal.