“Amphillis, that worst enemy, the enemy that bindeth these fetters upon her, that bars these gates against her going forth, that hath quenched all the sunlight of her life, and hushed all the music out of it—this enemy is her own son, that she nursed at her bosom—the boy for whose life she risked hers an hundred times, whose patrimony she only saved to him, whose welfare through thirty years hath been dearer to her than her own. Dost thou marvel if her words be bitter, and if her eyes be sorrowful? Could they be aught else?”
Amphillis looked as horrified as she felt.
“Mistress Perrote, it is dreadful! Can my said Lord Duke be Christian man?”
“Christian!” echoed Perrote, bitterly. “Dear heart, ay! one of the best Catholics alive! Hath he not built churches with the moneys of his mother’s dower, and endowed convents with the wealth whereof he defrauded her? What could man do better? A church is a great matter, and a mother a full little one. Mothers die, but churches and convents endure. Ah, when such mothers die and go to God, be there no words writ on the account their sons shall thereafter render? Is He all silent that denounced the Jewish priests for their Corban, by reason they allowed man to deny to his father and mother that which he had devote to God’s temple? Is His temple built well of broken hearts, and His altar meetly covered with the rich tracery of women’s tears? ‘The hope of the hypocrite shall perish, when God taketh away his soul.’”
Never before had Amphillis seen any one change as Perrote had changed now. The quiet, stolid-looking woman had become an inspired prophetess. It was manifest that she dearly loved her mistress, and was proportionately indignant with the son who treated her so cruelly.
“Child,” she said to Amphillis, “she lived for nought save that boy! Her daughter was scarce anything to her; it was alway the lad, the lad! And thus the lad a-payeth her for all her love and sacrifice—for the heart that stood betwixt him and evil, for the gold and jewels that she thought too mean to be set in comparison with him, for the weary arms that bare him, and the tired feet that carried him about, a little wailing babe—for the toil and the labour, the hope and the fear, the waiting and the sorrow! Ay, but I marvel in what manner of coin God our Father shall pay him!”
“But wherefore doth he so?” cried Amphillis.
“She was in his way,” replied Perrote, in a tone of constrained bitterness. “He could not have all his will for her. He desired to make bargains, and issue mandates, and reign at his pleasure, and she told him the bargains were unprofitable, and the mandates unjust, and it was not agreeable. ’Twas full awkward and ill-convenient, look you, to have an old mother interfering with man’s pleasure. He would, have set her in a fair palace, and given her due dower, I reckon, would she but there have tarried, like a slug on a cabbage-leaf, and let him alone; and she would not. How could she? She was not a slug, but an eagle. And ’tis not the nature of an eagle to hang hour after hour upon a cabbage-leaf. So, as King Edward had at the first kept her in durance for his own ends, my gracious Lord Duke did entreat him to continue the same on his account. As for my Lady Duchess, I say not; I know her not. This only I know, that my Lady Foljambe is her kinswoman. And, most times, there is a woman at the bottom of all evil mischief. Ay, there is so!”
“Mistress Perrote, it seemeth me this is worser world than I wist ere I came hither.”
“Art avised o’ that? Ay, Phyllis, thou shalt find it so; and the further thou journeyest therein, the worser shalt thou find it.”