Joyce Morrell's Harvest Part 6

"There'll not be many of them, I reckon," saith Aunt _Joyce_.

"More than you should think," saith he. "There be to join them every year."

"Well, I'll not join them this bout," quoth she.

"Now, wherein doth that differ from the old monks?" saith _Father_, as in meditation. "Be we setting up monasteries for _Protestants_ already?"

_Mynheer_ shrugged up his shoulders. "They say, the _Mennonites_," he made answer, "that all pleasing of self is contrary unto G.o.d's Word. I must do nothing that pleases me. Are there two dishes for my dinner? I like this, I like not that. Good! I take that I love not. Elsewise, I please me. A Christian man must not please himself--he must please G.o.d.

And (they say) he cannot please both."

"Ah, therein lieth the fallacy," saith _Father_. "All pleasing of self counter unto G.o.d, no doubt, is forbidden in Holy Scripture. But surely I am not bid to avoid doing G.o.d's commandments, if He command a thing I like?"

"Why, at that rate," quoth Aunt _Joyce_, "one should never search G.o.d's Word, nor pray unto Him,--except such as did not love it. Methinks these _Mennonites_ stand o' their heads, with their heels in air."

"Ah, but they say it is G.o.d's command that thou shalt not please thyself," saith _Mynheer_. "Therefore, that which pleases thee cannot be His will. You see?"

"They do but run the old monks' notions to ground," quoth _Father_.

"They go a bit further--that is all. I take it that whensoever my will is contrary unto G.o.d's, my will must go down. But when my will runneth alongside of His, surely I am at liberty to take as much pleasure in doing His will as I may? 'Ye have been called unto liberty,' saith _Paul_: 'only, let not your liberty be an occasion to the flesh, but in love serve one another.'"

"And if serving one another be pleasant unto thee, then give o'er,"

quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "Good lack, this world doth hold some fools!"

"Pure truth, _Joyce_," saith _Father_. "Yet, for that of monks, in good sooth I do look to see them back, only under other guise. Monachism is human nature: and human nature will out. If he make not way at one door, trust him to creep forth of an other."

"But, _Aubrey_, the Church is reformed. There is no room for monks and nuns, and such rubbish," saith Aunt _Joyce_.

"The Church is reformed,--ay," saith he: "but human nature is not. That shall not be until we see the King in His beauty,--whether by our going to Him in death, or by His coming to us in the clouds of heaven."

"Dear heart, man!--be not alway on the watch for black clouds," quoth she. "As well turn _Mennonite_ at once."

"Well, 'sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,'" _Father_ makes answer: "and so far thou art right, _Joyce_. Yet it is well we should remember, at times, that we be not yet in Heaven."

"'At times!'" quoth Aunt _Joyce_, with a laugh. "What a blessed life must be thine, if those that be about thee suffer thee to forget the same save 'at times'! I never made that blunder yet, I can tell thee."

And so she and I away, and left all laughing.

SELWICK HALL, OCTOBER YE XXII.

This afternoon come _Hal_ and _Anstace_, with their childre. _Milly_ soon carried off the childre, for she is a very child herself, and can lake [play] with childre a deal better than I: and _Hal_ went (said he) to seek _Father_, with whom I found him an hour later in the great chamber, and both right deep in public matter, whereof I do love to hear them talk at times, but _Milly_ and _Edith_ be no wise compatient [the lost adjective of compa.s.sion] therewith. _Anstace_ came with me to our chamber, and said she had list for a good chat.

"Whereof be we to chat?" said I, something laughing.

"Oh, there is plenty," saith she. "We shall not be done with the childre this hour."

"Thou wilt not, _Anstace_," said I, "for in very deed all mothers do love rarely to talk over their childre, and I need not save thee. But I am no great talker, as thou well wist."

"That do I," saith she: "for of all young maids ever I saw, thou hast the least list [inclination] to discourse. But, _Nell_, I want to know somewhat of thee. What ails thee at _Nym Lewthwaite_?"

"Why, nothing at all," I made answer: "save that I do right heartily desire him to leave me be."

"Good sooth, but I thought it a rare chance for thee," quoth she: "and I was fair astonied when _Edith_ told me thou wouldst have none ado with him. But thou must mind thy shooting, _Nell_: if thou pitchest all thine arrows over high, thou wilt catch nought."

"I want to pitch no arrows," said I.

"Well, but I do desire thee to conceive," saith she, "that too much niceness is not good for a young maid. 'Tis all very well to go a-picking and a-choosing ere thou art twenty: but trust me, _Nell_, by the time thou comest to thirty, thou shouldst be thankful to take any man that will have thee."

"Nay!" said I, "that shall I not."

"Eh, but thou wilt," quoth she, "yea, if it were _Nym Lewthwaite_."

"I won't!" said I.

_Anstace_ fell a-laughing. "Then thou wilt have to go without!" saith she.

"Well," said I, "that could I do, may-be, nor break my heart o'er it neither. But to take any that should have me,--_Anstace_, I would as soon sell me for a slave."

"Come, _Nell_!--where didst pick up such notions?" quoth she.

"Verily, I might answer thee, of the Queen's Majesty," said I: "and if I be not in good company enough, search thou for better. Only, for pity's sake, Sister _Anstace_, do let me a-be."

"Eh, I'll let thee be," saith she, and wagged her head and laughed.

"But in good sooth, _Nell_, thou art a right queer body. And if it should please the Queen's Highness to wed with _Mounseer_ [Note 1], as 'tis thought of many it shall, then thou wilt be out of her company, and I shall be in. What shalt thou do then for company?"

"Marry, I can content me with Aunt _Joyce_ and Cousin _Bess_," quoth I, "and none so bad neither."

So at after that we gat to other discourse, and after a while, when _Milly_ came in with the childre, we all went down into the great chamber, where _Father_, and _Hal_, and _Mynheer_, were yet at their weighty debates. Cousin _Bess_ was sat in the window, a-sewing on some flannel: and Aunt _Joyce_, in the same window, but the other corner, was busied with tapestry-work, being a cushion that she is fashioning for a _Christmas_ gift for some dame that is her friend at _Minster Lovel_.

'Tis well-nigh done; and when it shall be finished, it shall go hence by old _Postlethwaite_ the carrier; for six weeks is not too much betwixt here and _Minster Lovel_.

As we came in, I heard _Father_ to say--

"Truly, there is no end of the diverse fantasy of men's minds." And then he brought forth some _Latin_, which I conceived not: but whispering unto Aunt _Joyce_ (which is something learned in that tongue) to say what it were, she made answer, "So many men, so many minds."

[_Quot homines, tot sententiae_.]

"Ha!" saith _Mynheer_. "Was it not that which the Emperor _Charles_ did discover with his clocks and watches? He was very curious in clocks and watches--the Emperor _Charles_ the Fifth--you know?--and in his chamber at the Monastery of _San Yuste_ he had so many. And watching them each day, he found they went not all at one. The big clock was five minutes to twelve when the little watch was two minutes past. So he tried to make them at one: but they would not. No, no! the big clock and the little watch, they go their own way. Then said the Emperor, 'Now I see something I saw not aforetime. I thought I could make these clocks go together, but no! Yet they are only the work of men like me. Ah, the foolish man to think that I could compel men to think all alike, who are the work of the great G.o.d.' You see?"

"If His Majesty had seen it a bit sooner," quoth _Hal_, "there should have been spared some ill work both in _Spain_ and the Low Countries."

_Mynheer_ saith, "Ah!" more than once, and wagged his head right sadly.

"Why," quoth _Hal_, something earnestly, "mind you not, some dozen years gone, of the stir was made all over this realm, when the ministers were appointed to wear their surplices at all times of their ministration, and no longer to minister in gowns ne cloaks, with their hats on, as they had been wont? Yea, what tumult had we then against the order taken by the Queen and Council, and against the Archbishop and Bishops for consenting thereto! And, all said, what was the mighty ado about?

Why, whether a man should wear a black gown or a white. Heard one ever such stuff?"

"Ah, _Hal_, that shall scantly serve," saith _Father_. "Mind, I pray thee, that the question to the eyes of these men was somewhat far otherwise. Thou wouldst not say that _Adam_ and _Eva_ were turned forth of _Paradise_ by reason they plucked an apple?"

"But, I pray you, Sir _Aubrey_, what was the question?" saith _Mynheer_.

"For I do not well know, as I fain should."

"Look you," quoth _Father_, "in the beginning of the Book of Common Prayer, and you shall find a rubric, that 'such ornaments of the church and of the ministers thereof, at all times of their ministration, shall be retained and be in use, as were in this Church of _England_, by the authority of Parliament, in the second year of King _Edward_ the Sixth.'"

"But they were not retained," breaks in _Hal_, that will alway be first to speak of aught.