"'Tis he, sweetheart," Judith said, quickly, and she kissed her friend, and gave a final touch to the ruff and the cap. "Get you down and welcome him; I will go out when that you have shut the door of the room. And be merry, good heart, be merry—be brave and merry, as you love me."
She almost thrust her out of the apartment, and listened to hear her descend the stairs; then she waited for the shutting of the chamber door; and finally she stole noiselessly down into the passage, and let herself out without waiting for the little maid Margery.
CHAPTER XV.
A FIRST PERFORMANCE.
"Nay, zur," said the sour-visaged Matthew, as he leaned his chin and both hands on the end of a rake, and spoke in his slow-drawling, grumbling fashion—"nay, zur, this country be no longer the country it wur; no, nor never will be again."
"Why, what ails the land?" said Judith's father, turning from the small table in the summer-house, and lying back in his chair, and crossing one knee over the other, as if he would give a space to idleness.
"Not the land, zur," rejoined goodman Matthew, oracularly—"not the land; it be the men that live in it, and that are all in such haste to make wealth, with plundering of the poor and each other, that there's naught but lying and cheating and roguery—God-a-mercy, there never wur the loike in any country under the sun! Why, zur, in my vather's time a pair o' shoes would wear you through all weathers for a year; but now, with their half-tanned leather, and their horse-hide, and their cat-skin for the inner sole, 'tis a marvel if the rotten leaves come not asunder within a month. And they be all aloike; the devil would have no choice among 'em. The cloth-maker he hideth his bad wool wi' liquid stuff; and the tailor, no matter whether it be doublet, cloak, or hose, he will filch you his quarter of the cloth ere you see it again; and the chandler—he be no better than the rest—he will make you his wares of stinking offal that will splutter and run over, and do aught but give good light; and the vintner, marry, who knoweth not his tricks and knaveries of mixing and blending, and the selling of poison instead of honest liquor? The rogue butcher, too, he will let the blood soak in, ay, and puff wind into the meat—meat, quotha!—'tis as like as not to have been found dead in a ditch!"
"A bad case indeed, good Matthew, if they be all preying on each other so."
"'Tis the poor man pays for all, zur. Though how he liveth to pay no man can tell; what with the landlords racking the rents, and inclosing the commons and pasturages—nay, 'tis a noble pastime the making of parks and warrens, and shutting the poor man out that used to have his cow there and a pig or two; but no, now shall he not let a goose stray within the fence. And what help hath the poor man? May he go to the lawyers, with their leases and clauses that none can understand—ay, and their fists that must be well greased ere they set to the business? 'Tis the poor man pays for all, zur, I warrant ye; nor must he grumble when the gentleman goes a-hunting and breaks down his hedges and tramples his corn. Corn? 'Tis the last thing they think of, beshrew me else! They are busiest of all in sending our good English grain—ay, and our good English beef and bacon and tallow—beyond the seas; and to bring back what?—baubles of glass beads and amber, fans for my ladies, and new toys from Turkey! The proud dames—I would have their painted faces scratched!"