“Let be!—and then?”
“Then, in very deed,” resumed Isabel, warming with her subject, “thou shouldst have chance to make good alliance for Nib and Dickon, and see them well set in fair estate.”
“Ah!—and then?”
“Why, then thou mayest match thy grandchildre yet better,” answered Isabel, laughing.
“And after all, Isabel,” returned Custance, in a manner much graver than was usual with her, “there abideth yet one further then—death, and God’s judgment.”
“Holy Mary aid us!—avaunt with such thoughts!”
“Canst thou avaunt with such thoughts, child?” said Custance, with a heavy sigh. “Ah me! they come unbidden, when the shadows of night be over the soul, and the thick darkness hath closed in upon the life. And I, at the least, have no spell to bid them avaunt. If holy Mary aid thee in that avoidment, ’tis more than she doth for me.”
Isabel seemed at a loss for a reply. “I have had no lack of time for thought, fair Cousin, while I yonder lay. And the thought would not away,—when we stand together, I and Harry of Bolingbroke, at that Bar of God’s judgment, shall I desire in that day that I had said ay or nay to him now?”
“Forsooth, Custance, I am not thy confessor. These be priests’ matters—not gear for women like thee and me.”
“What, child! is thy soul matter for the priest’s concernment only? Is it not rather matter for thee—thee by thyself, beyond all priests that be? Thou and the priest may walk handed (walk hand in hand) up to that Bar, but methinks he will be full fain to leave thee to bide the whipping.”