"All's Well"; or, Alice's Victory. Emily Sarah Holt

responded Patience, instantly making a practical application. “Toby and Silas, that is. But they didn’t see you spread the table, Pen. They were out playing on the green.”

      Penuel tried to “improve” this very literal rendering of the Psalm, but found it impossible to advance further than the awakening in Patience’s mind an expectation of a future, but equally literal table, the dainties on which Toby and Silas would not be privileged to share.

      “I won’t give them the lessest bit, ’cause they’re my foes,” said Patience stubbornly. “You shall have some, Pen, and so shall Beatie—and Abbafull, if he’s good. He tied my shoe.”

      “Aphabell, not Abbafull,” corrected Penuel. “But, Patience, that won’t serve: you’ve got to forgive your enemies.”

      “They shan’t have one bit!” announced Patience, putting her hands behind her back, as if to emphasise her statement. “Pen, what does ‘anoint my head’ mean?”

      “Pour oil on it,” said Penuel.

      “I won’t have oil on my head! I’ll pour it on Silas and Toby. It’ll run down and dirt their clothes, and then Mother Pardue’ll thwack ’em.”

      “Patience, Patience! Little maids mustn’t want to have people thwacked.”

      “I may want my foes thwacked, and I will!” replied Patience sturdily.

      “Look at the people coming up the road,” answered Penuel, thinking it well to make a diversion. “Why, there’s Master Benden and his mistress, and Mistress Hall, and ever so many more. What’s ado, I marvel?”

      About a dozen persons comprised the approaching group, which was brought up by a choice assortment of small boys, among whom Penuel’s brothers, Esdras and Silvanus, were conspicuous. Mr. Benden walked foremost, holding his wife by her wrist, as if he were afraid of her running away; whilst she went with him as quietly as if she had no such intention. Almost in a line with them was Tabitha Hall, and she was pouring out a torrent of words.

      “And you’ll rue it, Edward Benden, you take my word for it! You savage barbarian, to deal thus with a decent woman that never shamed you nor gave you an ill word! Lack-a-day, but I thank all the saints on my bended knees I’m not your wife! I’d—”

      “So do I, Mistress!” was Mr. Benden’s grim answer.

      “I’d make your life a burden to you, if I were! I’d learn you to ill-use a woman! I’d give it you, you white-livered dotipole (cowardly simpleton) of a Pharisee! Never since the world began—”

      “Go to!” shrieked the boys behind, in great glee. “Scratch him, Tabby, do!”

      Alice never uttered a word, either to her husband or her sister-in-law. She heard it all as though she heard not. Catching the eye of her brother Esdras, Penuel beckoned to him, and that promising youth somewhat reluctantly left the interesting group, and shambled up to his eldest sister at the stile.

      “Esdras, what is all this? Do tell me.”

      “ ’Tis Master Benden, a-carrying of his mistress afore the Justices, and Mistress Hall’s a-showing him the good love she bears him for it.”

      “Afore the Justices! Mistress Benden! Dear saints, but wherefore?”

      “Oh, I wis nought of the inwards thereof,” said Esdras, pulling a switch from the hedge. “Some saith one thing, and some another. But they saith she’ll go to prison, safe sure.”

      “Oh, Esdras, I am sorry!” said Penuel, in a tone of great distress. “Mother will be sore troubled. Everybody loves Mistress Benden, and few loveth her master. There’s some sorry blunder, be thou sure.”

      “Very like,” said Esdras, turning to run off after the disappearing company.

      “Esdras,” said little Patience suddenly, “you’ve got a big hole in you.”

      “Oh, let be! my gear’s alway in holes,” was the careless answer. “It’ll hold together till I get back, I reckon. Here goes!”

      And away went Esdras, with two enormous holes in his stockings, and a long strip of his jacket flying behind him like a tail.

      “Oh dear, this world!” sighed Penuel. “I’m afraid ’tis a bad place. Come, little Patience, let us go home.”

      When the girls reached Mrs. Pardue’s cottage, they found there the mother of Patience, Mrs. Bradbridge. She sat talking earnestly to Mrs. Pardue, who was busy washing, and said little in answer beyond such replies, compatible with business, as “Ay,” “I reckon so,” or “To be sure!”

      “Mother!” said Penuel, as she led Patience in, “have you heard of this matter of Mistress Benden’s?”

      “Nay, child,” replied Collet, stopping in the process of hanging up a skirt to dry. “Why, whatso? Naught ill, I do hope and trust, to Mistress Benden. I’d nigh as soon have aught hap evil to one of my own as her.”

      “Eh, neighbour, ’tis all a body need look for,” sighed poor Widow Bradbridge, lifting Patience on her knee. “This world’s naught save trouble and sorrow—never was sin’ the Flood, more especially for women.”

      “She’s had up to the Justices, Mother, but I couldn’t hear for why; and her own husband is he that taketh her.”

      “He’ll get his demerits, be sure,” said Mrs. Bradbridge.

      “Well, and I wouldn’t so much mind if he did,” was Mrs. Pardue’s energetic comment. “He never was fit to black her shoes, he wasn’t. Alice Benden afore the Justices! why, I’d as soon believe I ought to be there. If I’d ha’ knowed, it should ha’ cost me hot water but I’d ha’ been with her, to cheer up and stand by the poor soul. Why, it should abhor any Christian man to hear of such doings!”

      “Mistress Hall’s withal, Mother: and I guess Master Benden ’ll have his water served not much off the boil.”

      “I’m fain to hear it!” said Collet.

      “Eh, she was at him, I can tell you! and she handled the matter shrewdly too. So was Esdras and Silas, and a sort more lads, a-crying, ‘Scratch him, Tabby!’ and she scraught him right well.”

      “The naughty caitiffs!” exclaimed their mother. “Howbeit, when they come home we shall maybe know the inwards of the matter.”

      The boys did not come home for some hours. When they did, Esdras slunk up the ladder, his garments being in a state which, as Silas had just kindly informed him, “smelt of the birch,” and not desiring the application of that remedy sooner than could be helped. Silas flung his cap into the furthest corner, with a shout of “Hooray!” which sent his mother’s hands to her ears.

      “Bless the lad!—he’ll deafen a body, sure enough! Now then, speak, caitiff, and tell us what’s ado with Mistress Benden. Is she let off?”

      “She’s sent a-prison,” shouted Silas, in tones which seemed likely to carry that information down the row. “Justice axed her why she went not to church, and quoth she, ‘That can I not do, with a good conscience, since there is much idolatry committed against the glory of God.’ And then she was committed. Justice didn’t love his work o’er well, and Master Benden, as he was a-coming away, looked as sour as crabs. And old Tabby—Oh, lack-a-daisy-me! didn’t she have at him! She’s a good un, and no mistake! She stuck to his heels all the way along, and she beat him black and blue with her tongue, and he looked like a butt of alegar with a hogshead o’ mustard in it. Hooray for old Tabby!”—and Silas announced that sentiment to the neighbourhood at the top of his very unsubdued voice.

Chapter Five.

       Table of Contents