Kit had tried in various directions to find a lady of his vows before Vara came. For lack of better, he had even tried to imagine his aunt as a divinity, beautiful and cruel. But something was always happening to destroy this illusion. Nothing is more hurtful to exalted sentiment than a box on the ear, administered unexpectedly. So, after a fair trial, Kit was compelled definitely to give his aunt up, as a possible queen of love and courtesy. It could not be done, even with all Kit's very generous good-will. So, instead, he called her the False Duessa, the black hag Sycorax, and especially and generally Beelzebubba, for the last name pleased him greatly. And whenever she mocked him with her bitter tongue, Kit hugged himself, saying, "Ah! if only I were to call her Beelzebubba! Little knows she that in the history of my mighty and knightly deeds, she is condemned to go down to posterity yet unborn under the name of the Loathly Beelzebubba!"
So Kit carried the Lady Gloriana's silver vessels to the fountain of the Elixir of Life, swinging them lightly and talking briskly all the way.
Vara looked often at Kit, with his free breezy ways and erect carriage. Indeed, she looked so often, that if Cleg had been within sight there would certainly have been another fight.
But Vara was constantly mindful of Cleg. She prayed for him night and morning. She remembered all his goodness, and she wished that he could oftener come to see her. But in the meantime it was undoubtedly pleasant to have some one at hand, so ready to help with sympathy for herself and abuse of the enemy as Kit Kennedy.
The lad and the girl stood awhile at the well, leaning elbows upon the dyke, while Vara confided to Kit all the morning enormities of Mistress McWalter, and Kit bade her be of good cheer, for there was a good time coming for them both. And also, doubtless, a very bad time for Beelzebubba. It always was so in the story books.
"How splendid," said Kit, "if the devil were just to come for her as he did for poor Faust! He will some day, you may depend. Beelzebubba would be coming after me with a stick. She would run on and on, getting nearer and nearer to the barn end. I would show the devil exactly where to wait for her. Then I should put my hat on a stick and she would come, crawling, crawling slowly—to get a whack at me. By-and-bye she would get to the corner, and then—pouch! the devil would jump at her and catch her, the earth fly open, and nothing be left of Beelzebubba but a smell of sulphur, as there is after a bee-killing."
The vision was monstrously comfortable as Kit painted it. But Vara did not laugh.
"I think it's wicked to speak that gate," she said.
"What?" said Kit, hardly able to believe his ears, yet scenting a new and unsuspected perfection in his lady Gloriana; "it is only my aunt. It is Beelzebubba."
Vara shook her head. She could not give reasons, but she did not think such talk could be right even to imagine.