Clare Avery Part 44

"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."

"And now tell me, Tremayne, what shall I do with this lad?"

"I am afeared, Sir Thomas, you shall find it hard matter to deal with him."

"Good lack, these lads and la.s.ses!" groaned poor Sir Thomas. "They do wear a man's purse--ay, and his heart. Marry, but I do trust I gave no such thought and sorrow to my father! Yet in very deed my care for the future pa.s.seth it for the past. If Jack go on thus, what shall the end be?"

Mr Tremayne shook his head.

"Can you help me to any argument that shall touch the lad's heart?"

"Argument ne'er touched a man's heart yet," said the Rector. "That is but for the head. There is but one thing that will touch the heart to any lasting purpose; and that is, the quickening grace of G.o.d the Holy Ghost."

"Nay, all they seem to drift further away from Him," sighed the father sadly.

"My good friend, it may seem so to you, mainly because yourself are coming nearer."

Sir Thomas shook his head sorrowfully.

"Nay, for I ne'er saw me to be such a sinner as of late I have. You call not that coming nearer G.o.d?"

"Ay, but it is!" said Mr Tremayne. "Think you, friend; you _were_ such a sinner all your life long, though it be only now that, thanks to G.o.d, you see it. And I do in very deed hope and trust that you have this true sight of yourself because the Lord hath touched your eyes with the ointment of His grace. Maybe you are somewhat like as yet unto him whose eyen Christ touched, that at first he could not tell betwixt men and trees. The Lord is not like to leave His miracle but half wrought.

He will perfect that which He hath begun."

"G.o.d grant it!" said Sir Thomas feelingly. "But tell me, what can I do for Jack? I would I had listed you and Rachel, and had not sent him to London. Sir Piers, and Orige, and the lad himself, o'er-persuaded me.

I rue it bitterly; but howbeit, what is done is done. The matter is, what to do now?"

"The better way, methinks, should be that you left him to smart for it himself, an' you so could."

"Jack will ne'er smart for aught," said his father. "Were I to stay his allowance, he should but run into further debt, ne'er doubting to pay the same somewhen and somehow. The way and the time he should leave to chance. I see nought but ruin before the lad. He hath learned over ill lessons in the Court,--of honour which is clean contrary to common honesty, and courtesy which standeth not with plain truth."

"Ay, the Devil can well glose," [flatter, deceive] said Mr Tremayne sadly.

"The lad hath no conscience!" added Sir Thomas. "With all this, he laugheth and singeth as though nought were on his mind. Good lack! but if I had done as he, I had been miserable thereafter. I conceive not such conditions."

"I conceive them, for I have seen them aforetime. But I would not have such a conscience for the worth of the Queen's Mint."

Indeed, Jack did seem perfectly happy. His appet.i.te, sleep, and spirits, were totally unaffected by his circ.u.mstances. Clare, to whom this anomaly seemed preposterous, one day asked him if he were happy.

"Happy?" repeated Jack. "For sure! Wherefore no?"

Clare did not tell him.

One evening in the week of Jack's return, to the surprise of all, in walked Mr John Feversham. He did not seem to have much to say, except that Uncle Piers and Aunt Lucrece were well. In fact, he never had much to say. Nor did he think it necessary to state what had brought him to Lancas.h.i.+re. He was asked to remain, of course, to which he a.s.sented, and slipped into his place with a quiet ponderosity which seemed to belong to him.

"An oaken yule-log had as much sense, and were quicker!" [livelier]

said Jack aside to Blanche.