Part 44 (1/2)

”Of all the born fools that e'er gat me in a pa.s.sion, Jack, thou art very king and captain! I would give my best gown this minute thou wert six in the stead of six-and-twenty--my word, but I would leather thee!

I would whip thee till I was dog-weary, whatever thou shouldst be. The born patch [fool]!--the dolt [dunce]!--the lither loon [idle, good-for-nothing fellow]!--that shall harbour no malice against me because--he is both a fool and a knave! If thou e'er hadst any sense, Jack (the which I doubt), thou forgattest to pack it up when thou earnest from London. Of all the long-eared a.s.ses ever I saw--”

Mistress Rachel's diatribe came to a sudden close, certainly not from the exhaustion of her feelings, but from the want of suitable words wherein to express them.

”Aunt!” said Jack, still in an injured tone, ”would you have me to govern myself by rule and measure, like a craftsman?”

”Words be cast away on thee, Jack: I will hold my peace. When thy brains be come home from the journey they be now gone, thou canst give me to wit, an' it like thee.”

”I marvel,” murmured Sir Thomas absently, ”what Master Tremayne should say to all this.”

”He!” returned Jack with sovereign scorn. ”He is a Puritan!”

”He is a good man, Jack. And I doubt--so he keep out of ill company-- whether Arthur shall give him the like care,” said his father sighing.

”Arthur! A sely milksop, Sir, that cannot look a goose in the face!”

”Good lack! how shall he ever win through this world, that is choke-full of geese?” asked Rachel cuttingly.

”Suffer me to say, Sir, that Puritans be of no account in the Court.”

”Of earth, or Heaven?” dryly inquired Sir Thomas.

”The Court of England, I mean, Sir. They be universally derided and held of low esteem. All these Sectaries--Puritans, Gospellers, Anabaptists, and what not--no gentleman would be seen in their company.”

”Dear heart!” growled the still acetic Rachel. ”The angels must be mighty busy a-building chambers for the gentry, that they mix not in Heaven with the poor common saints.”

”'Tis the general thought, Aunt, among men of account.--and doth commend itself for truth,--that 't will take more ill-doing to d.a.m.n a gentleman than a common man.” [Note 2.]

”Good lack! I had thought it should be the other way about,” said Rachel satirically.

”No doubt,” echoed Lady Enville--in approbation of Jack's sentiment, not Rachel's.

”Why, Aunt!--think you no account is taken of birth and blood in Heaven?”

”Nay, I'll e'en let it be,” said Rachel, rising and opening the door.

”Only look thou, Jack,--there is another place than Heaven; and I don't reckon there be separate chambers there. Do but think what it were, if it _should_ chance to a gentleman to be shut up yonder along with the poor sinners of the peasantry!”

And leaving this Parthian dart, Rachel went her way.

”I will talk with thee again, Jack: in the mean while, I will, keep these,” said his father, taking up the bills.

”As it like you, Sir,” responded Jack airily. ”I care not though I never see them again.”

”What ado is here!” said Lady Enville, as her husband departed. ”I am sore afeared thou wilt have some trouble hereabout, Jack. Both thy father and aunt be of such ancient notions.”

Jack bent low, with a courtier's grace, to kiss his step-mother's hand.

”Trouble, Madam,” he said--and spoke truly--”trouble bideth no longer on me than water on a duck's back.”