Chapter Four.
Beneath Blue Sky.
“Ere suns and moons could wax and wane
Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled
The heavens, God thought on me His child,
Ordained a life for me, arrayed
Its circumstances every one
To the minutest; ay, God said
This head this hand should rest upon
Thus, ere He fashioned star or sun.”
Robert Browning.
The 24th of October brought the expected letter from Simon Pendexter to the master of Bradmond, and another from Marian to the mistress. Simon’s epistle was read first; but it proved to require both an English dictionary and a Latin lexicon. Simon wrote of “circumstances,” (then a new and affected word), of the “culpable dexterity” of the rebels who had visited Bradmond, of their “inflammatory promulgation,” of the “celerity” of his own actions in reply, and of his “debarring from dilation the aforesaid ignis.” He left them in a cloud of words, of which Dr Thorpe understood about half, and Isoult much less. John, being a little wiser, was called upon for a translation. “Hang me if I know what the fellow is a-writing about!” testily cried Dr Thorpe. “Jack, do thou put this foolery into decent English!”
“The enclosure men burnt your house, old friend,” said John. “Have there the English.”
“Plain enough at last, by my troth!” cried he.
A little more progress was made with Mr Pendexter’s missive, when Isoult interrupted it by exclaiming—
“Do tell me what he meaneth, Jack!”
“They set our house afire, dear heart, but he soon put it out,” translated John.