"Methinks," I said, willing to excuse myself like the lawyer in the gospel, "that should not be my fault, who made not mine own eyes."
"Then he also says, that you have so sharp an apprehension of wrongs done to others, that if you hear of an injustice committed, or some cruel treatment of any one, you are so moved and troubled, that he has known you on such occasions to shed tears, which do not flow with a like ease for your own griefs. Do you cry mercy to this accusation, Mistress Sherwood?"
"Indeed," I answered, "God knoweth I do, and my ghostly father also. For the strong passions of resentment touching the evil usage our Catholics do meet with work in me so mightfully, that I often am in doubt if I have sinned therein. And concerning mine own griefs, they have been but few as yet, so that 'tis little praise I deserve for not overmuch resentment in instances wherein, if others are afflicted, I have much ado to restrain wrath."
"Ah," he said, "methinks if you answer in so true and grave a manner my rude catechizing. Mistress Sherwood, I be not bold enough to continue the inventory of your faults."
"I pray you do," I answered; for I felt in my soul an unusual liking for his conversation, and the more so when, leaving off jesting, he said, "The last fault Mr. Roper did charge you with was lack of prudence in matters wherein prudence is most needed in these days."
"Alas!" I exclaimed; "for that also do I cry mercy; but indeed, Master Rookwood, there is in these days so much cowardice and time-serving which doth style itself prudence, that methinks it might sometimes happen that a right boldness should be called rashness."
Raising my eyes to his, I thought I saw them clouded by a misty dew; and he replied, "Yea, Mistress Constance, and if it is so, I had sooner that myself and such as I have a friendship for should have to cry mercy on their death-beds for too much rashness in stemming the tide, than for too much ease in yielding to it. And now," he added, "shall I repeat what Mr. Roper related of your virtues?"
"No," I answered, smiling. "For if the faults he doth charge me with be so much smaller than the reality, what hope have I that he should speak the truth in regard to my poor merits?"
Then some persons moving nearer to where we were sitting, some general conversation ensued, in which several took part; and none so much to my liking as Basil, albeit others might possess more ready tongues and a more sparkling wit. In all the years since I had left my home, I had not found so much contentment in any one's society. His mind and mine were like two instruments with various chords, but one key-note, which maintained them in admirable harmony. The measure of our agreement stood rather in the drift of our desires and the scope of our approval, than in any parity of tastes or resemblance of disposition. Acquaintanceship soon gave way to intimacy, which bred a mutual friendship that in its turn was not slow to change into a warmer feeling. We met very often. It seemed so natural to him to affection me, and to me to reciprocate his affection, that if our love began not, which methinks it did, on that first day of meeting, I know not when it had birth. But if it be difficult precisely to note the earliest buddings of the sweet flower love, it was easy to discern the moment when the bitter root of jealousy sprang up in Hubert's heart. He who had been suspicious of every person whose civilities I allowed of, did not for some time appear to mislike the intimacy which had arisen betwixt his brother and me. I ween from what he once said, when on a later occasion anger loosened his tongue, that he held him in some sort of contempt, even as a fox would despise a nobler animal than himself. His subtle wit disdained his plainness of speech. His confiding temper he derided; and he had methinks no apprehension that a she-wit, as he was wont to call me, should prove herself so witless as to prefer to one of his brilliant parts a man notable for his indifferency to book learning, and to his smooth tongue and fine genius the honest words and unvarnished merits of his brother.