"Eh, lack-a-day!--but how different can folks look at matters!" saith Cousin _Bess_. "Why, I have alway thought it should be a rare jolly thing when all strange tongues were done away (as I reckon they shall hereafter), and all folks spake but plain _English_."

"Art so sure it should be _English_, _Bess_?" saith _Father_, smiling.

"What an' it were _Italian_ or _Greek_?"

"Good lack, that could never be!" crieth she. "Why, do but think the trouble all men should have."

"Somebody must have it," quoth he. "I take it, what so were the tongue, all nations but one should have to learn it."

"I'll not credit it, Sir _Aubrey_," crieth _Bess_, as she trotteth off to the kitchen. "It is like to be _English_ that shall become the common tongue of the earth: it can't be no elsewise!"

_Mynheer_ seemed wonderful taken with this fantasy of Cousin _Bess_.

"How strange a thought that!" saith Aunt _Joyce_.

"_Bess_ is in good company," answereth _Father_. "'Tis right the reasoning of Saint _Cyril_, when he maketh argument that the Temple of G.o.d, wherein the Man of Sin shall sit (as _Paul_ saith), cannot signify the _Christian_ Church. But wherefore, good Sir? say you. Oh, saith he, because 'G.o.d forbid it should be this temple wherein we now are!'"

"Well, it is a marvel to me," quoth Aunt _Joyce_, "that some folks seem to have no brains!"

"Is it so great a marvel?" saith _Father_.

"But they have no wit!" saith she. "Why, here yestereven was _Caitlin_, telling me the sun had put the fire out--she'd let it go out, the lazy tyke as she is!--Then said I, 'But how so, _Caitlin_, when there hath been no sun?' (You wist how hard it rained all day.) 'Ha!' saith she-- and gazed into the black grate, as though it should have helped her to an other excuse. Which to all appearance it did, for in a minute quoth my wiseacre,--'Then an' it like you, Mistress, it was the light.'"

"A lack of power to perceive the relation betwixt cause and effect,"

saith _Father_, drily, "A lack of common sense!" saith Aunt _Joyce_.

"The uncommonest thing that is," quoth _Father_.

"But wherefore should the sun put the fire out?" saith Sir _Robert_.

"Nay, I'll let alone the whys and the wherefores," quoth she. "It doth, and that is enough for me."

_Father_ seemed something diverted in himself, but he said nought more.

All the morrow were we busy in the kitchen, and the afternoon a-work: but in the even come all the young folks to keep _Nell's_ birthday--to wit, the _Lewthwaites_, the _Armstrongs_, the _Murthwaites_, the _Parks_, and so forth. Of course _Robin_ had no eyes nor ears for aught but _Milisent_. And for all Master _Ned_ may say of his being so rare heart-free, I did think he might have talked lesser with _Faith Murthwaite_ had it liked him so to do. I said so unto him at after, but all I gat of my n.o.ble admiral was "Avast there!" the which I took to mean that he did desire me to hold my peace. _Wat_ was rare courtly amongst all us, and had much praise of all the maidens. Me-wondered if _Gillian Armstrong_ meant not to set her cap at him. But I do mis...o...b.. mine own self if any such rustical maids as be here shall be like to serve _Walter's_ turn. I would fain hear more of this daughter of my Lord of _Sheffield_, that was his _Excellency_, but I am not well a.s.sured if I did well to ask at him or no.

SELWICK HALL, MARCH YE XX.

'Tis agreed that Aunt _Joyce_, in the stead of making an end of her visit when the six months shall close, shall tarry with us until Sir _Robert_ and his gentlewomen shall travel southward, the which shall be in an other three weeks' time thereafter. They look therefore to set forth in company as about the twentieth of _April_. I am rare glad (and so methinks be we all) to keep Aunt _Joyce_ a trifle longer. She is like a fresh breeze blowing through the house, and when she is away, as _Ned_ saith, we are becalmed. Indeed, I would by my good will have her here alway.

"Now, _Aunt_," said I, "you shall have time to write your thoughts in the Chronicle, the which shall end with this month, as 'twas agreed."

"Time!" quoth she. "And how many pages, my sweet scrivener?"

"Trust me, but I'll leave you plenty," said I. "Your part shall be a deal better worth the reading."

"Go to, Mistress _Edith_!" saith she. "'All the proof of a pudding is in the eating.'"

"I am sure of that pudding," saith _Milisent_.

"These rash young women!" maketh answer Aunt _Joyce_. "When thou hast lived fifty or sixty years in this world, my good maid, thou wilt be a trifle less sure of most things. None be so sure that a box is white of all sides as they that have seen but one. When thou comest to the second, and findest it painted grey, thou wilt not be so ready to swear that the third may not be red."

"But we can be sure of some things, at any years, _Aunt_," saith _Milly_.

"Canst thou so?" saith Aunt _Joyce_. "Ah, child, thou hast not yet been down into many deep places. So long as a goat pulls not at his tether, he may think the whole world lieth afore him when he hath but half-a-dozen yards. Let him come to pull, and he will find how short it is. There be places, _Milly_, where a man may get to, that he can be sure of nothing in all the universe save G.o.d. And thou shalt not travel far, neither, to come to the end of that cord."

"O Aunt _Joyce_, I do never love to hear such talk as that!" saith _Milly_. "It causeth one feel so poor and mean."

"Then it causeth thee feel what thou art," saith she. "'Tis good for a man to find, at times, how little he can do."

"It may be good, but 'tis mighty displeasant," quoth _Milisent_.

"'Tis very well when it be no worse than displeasant," Aunt _Joyce_ makes answer. "I thought of places, _Milly_, which were not displeasant, but awful--where the human soul feels nigh to being shut up in the blackness of darkness for ever. Thou wist little of such things yet. But most souls which be permitted to soar high aloft be made likewise to descend deep down. _David_ went deep enough--may-be deeper than any other save _Christ_. Look you, he was appointed to write the _Psalter_. Throughout all the ages coming, of his words was the Church to serve her when she should come into deep places. There must be somewhat therein for every _Christian_ soul, and every _Jewish_ belike, ere _Christ_ came. And to do that, I reckon _David_ had need to go very deep down. He that shall help a man to climb forth of a well must know whereto the water reacheth, and on which side the steps be. List him--'Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord!' 'I am come into deep places, where the floods overflow me.'"

"But, _Aunt_," said I, yet was I something feared to say it, "was not that hard on _David_? It scarce seems just that he should have to go through all those cruel troubles for our good."

"Ah, _Edith_," saith she, "the Lord payeth His bills in gold of _Ophir_.

I warrant you _David_ felt his deep places sore trying. But ask thou at him, when ye meet, if he would have missed them. He shall see clearer then when he shall wake up after His likeness, and shall be satisfied with it."

"What sort of deep places mean you, _Aunt_?" saith _Helen_, looking on her somewhat earnestly.

"Thou dost well to ask, _Nell_," quoth she, "for there be divers sorts of depths. There be mind depths, the which are at times, as _Milly_ saith, displeasant: at other times not displeasant. But there be soul depths for the which displeasant is no word. When the Lord seems to shut every door in thy face and to leave thee shut up in a well, where thou canst not breathe, and when thou seest no escape, and when thou criest and shoutest, He shutteth out thy prayer: when thine heaven above thee is as bra.s.s, and thine earth below thee iron: when it seems as if no G.o.d were, either to hear thee or to do for thee--that is a deep pit to get in, _Helen_, and not a pleasant one."

"Aunt _Joyce_! can such a feeling be--at the least to one that feareth G.o.d?"

"Ay, it can, _Nelly_!" saith Aunt _Joyce_, solemnly, yet with much tenderness. "And when thou comest into such a slough as that, may G.o.d have mercy upon thee!"

And methought, looking in Aunt _Joyce's_ eyes, that at some past time of her life she had been in right such an one.

"It sounds awful!" saith _Milisent_, under her breath.

"It may be," saith Aunt _Joyce_, looking from the window, and after a fashion as though she spake to herself rather than to us, "that there be some souls whom the Lord suffers not to pa.s.s through such quagmires.

May-be He only leads the strongest souls into the deepest places. I say not that there be not deeps beyond any I know. Yet I know of sloughs wherein I had been lost and smothered, had He not held mine hand tight, and watched that the dark waters washed not over mine head too far for life. That word, 'the fellowship of His pa.s.sions,' hath a long tether.

For He went down to h.e.l.l."

"But, _Aunt_, would you say that meant the place of lost souls?" saith _Helen_.

"I am wholesomely 'feared of laying down the law, _Nell_," saith Aunt _Joyce_, "touching such matters as I can but see through a gla.s.s darkly.

What He means, He knoweth. But the place of departed spirits can it scarce fail to be."

"Aunt _Joyce_," saith _Helen_, laying down her work, "I trust it is not ill in me to say thus, but in very deed I do alway feel 'feared of what shall be after death. If we might but know where we shall be, and with whom, and what we shall have to do--it all looks so dark!"

"Had it been good for us, we should have known," saith Aunt _Joyce_.

"And two points we do know. 'With _Christ_,' and 'far better.' Is that not enough for those that are His friends?"

"'If it were not so, I would have told you,'" saith my Lady _Stafford_.

"But not _how_, Madam, an' it please you?" asks _Helen_.

"If there were not room; if there were not happiness."