“She says such things, Aunt Kezia, you can’t imagine, about you and all of us.”
“I am sure I never said anything about you, Aunt Kezia,” I sobbed.
“If you did, my dear, I dare say it was nothing worse than all of you have thought in turn,” saith my Aunt Kezia, drily. “Hester, you will go to bed as soon as the dark comes. Take your book, Cary; and remember, my dear, whenever you write in it again, that God is looking at every word you write.”
Hatty made a horrid face at me behind my Aunt Kezia’s back; but I don’t believe she really cared anything about it. She went to bed, of course; and it is dark now by half-past five. But she was not a bit daunted, for I heard her singing as she lay in bed, “Fair Rosalind, in woful wise,” (Note 2.) and afterwards, “I ha’e nae kith, I ha’e nae kin.” (Note 3.) If Father had heard that last, my Aunt Kezia would have had to forgive her and let her off the rest of her sentence.
I have found a new hiding-place for my book, where I do not think Hatty will find it in a hurry. But when I sit down to write now, my Aunt Kezia’s words come back to me with an awful sound. “God is looking at every word you write!” I suppose it is so: but somehow I never rightly took it in before. I hardly think I should have written some words if I had. Was that what my Aunt Kezia meant?
Note 1. This and similar expressions are Northern provincialisms.
Note 2.
“Fair Rosalind, in woful wise,
Six hearts has bound in thrall;
As yet she undetermined lies
Which she her spouse shall call.”
Note 3. Perhaps the most plaintive and poetical of all the popular Jacobite ballads.