Selwick Hall, November ye xxv.
’Tis all well, and Blanche could not have meant to hint at my Protection. I asked at him if he knew one Blanche Lewthwaite, and he seemed fair astonied, and said he knew no such an one, nor that any of that name dwelt in all the vale. Then I told him wherefore I had asked it. And he said that to think I was jealous of any for him did him uttermost honour and pleasance, but did his fairest Amiability (quo’ he) think he could so much as look on any other face at after hers?
Then I asked at him (as I had often desired to wit) where he were of a Sunday, for that he never came to church. And he told me that he had an old friend, a parson, dwelling on Winander-side, and he did alway abide with him o’er the Sunday. Moreover he was something feared (saith he) to be seen at Keswick church, lest Father should get scent of him, wherefore he did deny himself the delight it had been (quoth he) to feast his eyes on the fair face of his most sweet Amiability.
“Then,” said I, laughing, “you did not desire for to see Father at the first?”
“Soft you now!” saith he, and laughed too. “‘All is fair in love and war.’”
“I doubt if Father should say the same,” said I.
“Well, see you,” quoth he, “Sir Aubrey is a right excellent gentleman, yet hath he some precise notions which obtain not at Court and in such like company. A man cannot square all his dealings by the Bible and the parsons, without he go out of the world. And here away in the country, where every man hath known you from your cradle, it is easier to ride of an hobby than in Town, where you must do like other folk or else be counted singular and ridiculous. No brave and gallant man would run the risk of being thought singular.”
“Why, Father’s notion is right the contrary,” said I. “I have heard him to say divers times that ’tis the cowards which dare not be laughed at, and that it takes a right brave man to dare to be thought singular.”
“Exactly!” saith he. “That is right the Puritan talk, as I had the honour to tell you aforetime. You should never hear no gentleman of the Court to say no such a thing.”
“But,” said I, “speak they alway the most truth in the Court?”