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

I would you were as ’shamed of yourself as I am of you.”

      “Well, Mother,” responded Silas, with a twinkle in a pair of shining brown eyes, “if you’ll run up yonder ladder and take half a look at Esdras, you’ll not feel nigh so ’shamed of me at after!”

      This skilful diversion of the attack from himself to his brother—a feat wherein every son of Adam is as clever as his forefather—effected the end which Master Silvanus had proposed to himself.

      “Dear heart alive!” cried Mrs. Pardue, in a flutter, “has that lad tore his self all o’ pieces?”

      “There isn’t many pieces left of him,” calmly observed Silas.

      Mrs. Pardue disappeared up the ladder, from which region presently came the sound of castigation, with its attendant howls from the sufferer, while Silas, having provided himself with a satisfactory cinder, proceeded, in defiance of Penuel’s entreaties, to sketch a rather clever study of Mrs. Tabitha Hall in the middle of his mother’s newly washed table-cloth.

      “Eh, Pen, you’ll never do no good wi’ no lads!” lamented Mrs. Bradbridge, rising to depart. “Nought never does lads a bit o’ good save thrashing ’em. I’m truly thankful mine’s both maids. They’re a sight o’ trouble, lads be. Good even.”

      As Mistress Bradbridge went out, Mr. Pardue was stepping in.

      “Silas, let be!” said his father quietly; and Silas made a face, but pocketed the cinder for future use. “Pen, where’s Mother?”

      Mrs. Pardue answered for herself by coming down the ladder.

      “There! I’ve given it Esdras: now, Silas, ’tis thy turn.”

      No pussy cat could have worn an aspect of more exquisite meekness than Mr. Silvanus Pardue at that moment, having dexterously twitched a towel so as to hide the work of art on which he had been engaged the moment before.

      “I’ve done nothing, Mother,” he demurely observed, adding with conscious virtue, “I never tear my clothes.”

      “You’ve made a pretty hole in your manners, my master,” replied his mother. “Nicholas, what thinkest a lad to deserve that nicks Mistress Hall with the name of ‘Old Tabby’?”

      Nicholas Pardue made no answer in words, but silently withdrew the protecting towel, and disclosed the sufficiently accurate portrait of Mistress Tabitha on the table-cloth.

      “Thou weary gear of a pert, mischievous losel!” (wretch, rascal) cried Collet. “Thou shalt dine with Duke Humphrey (a proverbial expression for fasting) this morrow, and sup on birch broth, as I’m a living woman! My clean-washed linen that I’ve been a-toiling o’er ever since three o’ the clock! Was there nought else to spoil but that, thou rascal?”

      “Oh ay, Mother,” said Silas placidly. “There’s your new partlet, and Pen’s Sunday gown.”

      Mrs. Pardue’s hand came down not lightly upon Silas.

      “I’ll partlet thee, thou rogue! I’ll learn thee to dirt clean gear, and make work for thy mother! If ever in all my born days I saw a worser lad—”

      The door was darkened. Collet looked up, and beheld the parish priest. Her hold of Silas at once relaxed—a fact of which that lively gentleman was not slow to take advantage—and she dropped a courtesy, not very heartfelt, as the Reverend Philip Bastian made his way into the cottage. Nicholas gave a pull to his forelock, while Collet, bringing forward a chair, which she dusted with her apron, dismissed Penuel with a look.

      The priest’s face meant business. He sat down, leaned both hands on his gold-headed cane, and took a deliberate look at both Nicholas and Collet before he said a word beyond the bare “Good even.” After waiting long enough to excite considerable uneasiness in their minds, he inquired in dulcet tones—

      “What have you to say to me, my children?”

      It was the woman who answered. “Please you. Father, we’ve nought to say, not in especial, without to hope you fare well this fine even.”

      “Indeed!—and how be you faring?”

      “Right well, an’t like you, Father, saving some few pains in my bones, such as I oft have of a washing-day.”

      “And how is it with thy soul, daughter?”

      “I lack not your help therein, I thank you,” said Collet somewhat spiritedly.

      “Do you not so? I pray you, where have you stood in the church since last May, that never once have I, looking from the altar, seen your faces therein? Methinks you must have found new standing-room, behind the rood-screen, or maybe within the font,” suggested the priest satirically. “Wit you that this is ever the beginning of heresy? Have you heard what has befallen your landlord’s wife, Mistress Benden? Doubtless she thought her good name and repute should serve her in this case. Look you, they have not saved her. She lieth this night in Canterbury Gaol, whither you may come belike, an’ you have not a care, and some of your neighbours with you. Moreover, your dues be not fully paid—”

      “Sir,” replied Nicholas Pardue, “I do knowledge myself behind in that matter, and under your good leave, I had waited on you ere the week were out. A labouring man, with a great store of children, hath not alway money to his hand when it most list him to pay the same.”

      “So far, well,” answered the priest more amiably. “I will tarry a time, trusting you shall in other ways return to your duty. God give you a good even!”

      And with seven shillings more in his pocket than when he entered, the Rev. Philip Bastian went his way. Nicholas and Collet looked at each other with some concern.

      “We’ve but barely ’scaped!” said the latter. “What do we now, Nick? Wilt go to church o’ Sunday?”

      “No,” said Nicholas quietly.

      “Shall I go without thee, to peace him like?”

      “Not by my good-will thereto.”

      “Then what do we?”

      “What we have hitherto done. Serve God, and keep ourselves from idols.”

      “Nick, I do by times marvel if it be any ill to go. We worship no idols, even though we bow down—”

      “ ‘Thou shalt not bow down to them’ is the command.”

      “Ay, but they were images of false gods.”

      “Read the Commandment, good wife. They were ‘any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in Heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth.’ Not a word touching false gods read I there.”

      “Why, but that were to condemn all manner of painting and such like—even yon rogue’s likeness of Mistress Hall yonder.”

      “Scarcely, methinks, so long as it were not made for worship. The cherubim were commanded to be made. But if so were, wife—whether were better, that the arts of painting and sculpture were forgotten, or that God should be dishonoured and His commands disobeyed?”

      “Well, if you put it that way—”

      “Isn’t it the true way?”

      “Ay, belike it is. But he’ll be down on us, Nick.”

      “No manner of doubt, wife, but he will, and Satan too. But ‘I am with thee, and no man shall invade thee to hurt thee,’ (see Note) saith the Lord unto His servants.”

      “They’ve set on Mistress Benden, trow.”

      “Nay, not to hurt her. ‘Some of you shall they cause to be put to death … yet shall not an hair of your head perish.’ ”

      “Eh, Nick, how shall that be brought about?”

      “I