“Scantly, methinks,” answered Mr Underhill. “How like to a man’s fantasy of an angel doth that maid look!”
Robin looked very unlike an angel, for he appeared extremely uncomfortable, but he said nothing.
From the King’s marriage they came to that of the Princess Mary; and Mr Underhill—who, being a Gentleman Pensioner, with friends at Court, was allowed to speak with authority—gave the name of her projected bridegroom as “the Lord Lewis of Portugal. Wherein,” pursued he, “Father Rose and I may amend our differences, seeing that she should first be called to renounce the succession.”
Mr Rose smiled, and said, “A happy ending of a troublous matter, if it were so.”
But, as the reader well knows, the troublous matter was not doomed to have so happy an end.
The next topic was the new Act to allow the marriage of priests. All the party being Gospellers, were, of course, unanimous upon this subject. But Mr Underhill, who was not in the family secrets, unfortunately took it into his head to clap Robin rather smartly on the back, and congratulate him that he might now be a priest without being necessarily a bachelor. Poor Robin looked unhappy again, but still wisely remained silent, not relishing the opening of the subject in Mr Rose’s presence. But Mr Rose only smiled, and quietly suggested that it would be well for Mr Underhill to satisfy himself that he was not making his friends sorrier instead of merrier, by coming down upon them with such personal assaults. John, by way of corollary, intimated in an aside to Isoult, that the gentleman in question “had a sore heavy hand when he was in right earnest.”
The night after this day was one not soon forgotten in London. In the still darkness came an earthquake—that most terrible of phenomena held in God’s hand, whereby He saith to poor, puny, arrogant man, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Isoult awoke to hear sounds on all sides of her—the bed creaking, and below the dishes and pans dancing with a noisy clatter. In the next chamber she heard Walter crying, and Kate asking if the end of all the world were come; but John would not permit her to rise and go to them. And she also heard Esther talking with them and comforting them in a low voice, so she was comparatively satisfied. The baby, Frances, slept peacefully through all.
The next morning Kate said,—“Mother, were you affrighted last night with the great rocking and noise?”
“A little afeard lest some of us should be hurt, sweet heart, if any thing should chance to fall down, or the like; but that was all.”
“I thought,” said she, “that the end of the world was come. What should have come unto us then, Mother?”