"I'll fetch you Mr. Wycherly's 'Euripides,'" Montagu cried eagerly, "and read it to you in English as he used to read it to me. I really think, Aunt Esperance, if you'll only listen carefully you'll like it almost as well as the Bible!"
And Montagu fled from the room before his aunt's horrified expostulations reached him.
Then began a series of readings from Euripides, followed by arguments between Miss Esperance and Montagu which would have convulsed Mr. Wycherly had he been there to hear them.
Their extreme earnestness bridged over the gulf of years between them, and it must be confessed that Miss Esperance took the greatest delight in picking holes in the characters of some of Montagu's heroes.
It was quite useless for Montagu, in imitation of Mr. Wycherly's methods, to point out that such and such ideas were so deeply rooted in the national character as to be a part of it. Miss Esperance would only shake her pretty white head, exclaiming: "Na! na! my dear laddie—right is right, and wrong wrong, and that man Admetus was just no better than a coward: grumbling at his parents, forsooth, because they wouldn't die in his place; accepting his wife's sacrifice and then blaming those poor old people. Oh, I've no patience with him, a poor-spirited creature—no man he!"
In spite, however, of the shortcomings in the character of Admetus, the most human of the Greek dramatists certainly attracted Miss Esperance. She inquired in a detached and impersonal manner whether there was not a printed translation of "Ion" in the house, and looked distinctly disappointed when Montagu informed her that there was no such thing. She had perforce to leave the characters in no matter what impasse whenever Montagu stopped reading, as he would occasionally for very mischief, at the most exciting place, just for the pleasure of being asked to "go on a little longer, dear laddie, I shall not sleep if I don't know for certain whether that poor body Kreusa knew that fine young man Ion for her son or no'."
But directly afterward her conscience smote her, and she herself stopped Montagu; fearing that, entertaining as these plays undoubtedly were, they were apt perhaps to distract her mind from higher things; and she bade him take Euripides back to Mr. Wycherly's room, and bring her Jeremy Taylor instead. When Montagu would read "The Remedies Against Wandering Thoughts," "The Remedies of Temptations Proper to Sickness," or "General Exercises Preparatory to Death."
CHAPTER XIX
THE FOND ADVENTURE
But warily tent, when ye come to court me,
And come na unless the back—yett be ajee.
Old Song.