Rushes were strewn on the raised floor of the square bay window. A spinning-wheel stood there, and the stool of carved oak, where Mistress Ratcliffe sat when at her work, that she might have an eye to any who came in at the gate, and perhaps catch one of the serving-maids gossiping with a passer-by.
There was a settle in one corner of the parlour, and a cupboard with shelves in a recess in the thick wall. Here the silver was kept, and some curious old figures which had been, like the plate, handed down from the ancestors of whom Mistress Ratcliffe was so proud.
In another recess were a few books, in heavy vellum bindings—Tyndale's translation of the Bible, with silver clasps; and some dull sermons, roughly bound, with an early edition of the Boke of Chess; the prayer-book of Edward the Sixth, and some smaller and insignificant volumes, completed Mistress Ratcliffe's library.
Mistress Ratcliffe did not concern herself with the awakening life of these remarkable times in literature and culture.
It was nothing to her that numerous poets and authors, from Edmund Spenser to many humbler craftsmen of the pen, were busy translating from the Italian the tales of Boccaccio, or the Latin of Virgil.
The horizon had not yet widened to the small landed proprietors of these days, and education, as we understand the word, was confined to the few, and had not reached the people to whom the concerns of everyday life were all-important. Women like Mistress Ratcliffe could often scarcely write their own names, and read slowly and with difficulty the psalms in their prayer-book, or the lessons of the Church in their Bible.
Spelling was eccentric, even in the highest circles, as many letters still preserved in family archives prove, and was made to suit the ear and eye of the writer, without reference to rule or form.
The evening passed somewhat slowly. There was an evident restraint upon every one present.
Dorothy's performance on the mandoline did not elicit much praise, except from Mistress Ratcliffe, who was annoyed that George should seat himself on the settle, by Lucy's side, and encourage her to talk, instead of listening while his cousin sang a melancholy ditty, in anything but a musical voice.
When Dorothy had finished, she laid down the mandoline in a pet, and yawning, said,—