This seemed to divert him rarely. He laughed for a minute as though he should ne’er give o’er.
“My fairest Amiability,” saith he, “had I but thee in the Court, as is the only place meet for thee, then shouldst thou see how admired of every creature were thy wondrous wit and most incomparable beauties. Why, I dare be sworn on all the books in Cumberland, thou shouldest be of the Queen’s Majesty’s maids in one week’s time. And of the delights and jollities of that life, dwelling here in a corner of England, thou canst not so much as cast an idea.” Methought that should be right rare.
Selwick Hall, November ye xxvii.
With Aunt Joyce this morrow to visit old Nanny Crewdson, that is brother’s widow to Isaac, and dwelleth in a cot up Thirlmere way. I would fain have avoided the same an’ I might, for I never took no list in visiting poor folk, and sithence I have wist my right noble Protection do I take lesser than ever. In very deed, all relish is gone for me out of every thing but him and the jolly Court doings whereof he tells me. And I am ever so much happier than I was of old, with nought but humdrum matter; only that now and then, for a short while, I am a deal more miserabler. I cannot conceive what it is that cometh o’er me at those times. ’Tis like as if I were dancing on flowers, and some unseen hand did now and then push aside the flowers, and I saw a great and horrible black gulf underneath, and that one false step should cast me down therein. Nor will any thing comfort me, at those times, but to talk with my Protection, that can alway dispel the gloom. But the things around, that I have been bred up in, do grow more and more distasteful unto me than ever.
Howbeit, I am feared to show folk the same, so when Aunt Joyce called me to come with her to Nanny, I made none ado, but tied on mine hood and went.
We found old Nanny—that is too infirm for aught but to sit of a chair in the sunshine—so doing by the window, beside her a little table, and thereon a great Bible open, with her spectacles of her nose, that she pulled off and wiped, and set down of the book to keep her place.
“Well, Nanny!” saith Aunt Joyce. “‘Sitting down under His shadow,’ dear heart?”
“Ay, Mistress Joyce,” saith she, “and ‘with great delight.’”
I marvel if old folk do really like to read the Bible. I never did. And the older I grow, the lesser doth it like me. Can they mean it, trow? If they do, then I suppose I shall like it when I am as old as Nanny. But, good lack! what gloomsome manner of life must that be, wherein one shall find one’s diversion in reading of the Bible!
I know Father and Mother would say clean contrary. But they, see you, were bred up never to see a Bible in English till they were grown: which is as different as can be to the like of us maids, that never knew the day when it lay not of the hall table. But therein runs my pen too fast, for Anstace can well remember Queen Mary’s time, though Nell scarce can do so,—only some few matters here and there.