“These were issued through the Bishops,” saith Father, “though determined on in the Privy Council.”
“Then did the ministers not obey?” asks Mynheer.
“Many did. But some counted the surplice a return towards Popery, and utterly refused to wear it. I mind (remember) there was a burying at that time at Saint Giles’ Church in London, without (outside) Cripplegate, where were six clerks that ware the white surplice: and Master Crowley, the Vicar, stood in the church door to withstand their entering, saying that no such superstitious rags of Rome should come into his church. There should have been a bitter tumult there, had not the clerks had the wit to give way and tarry withoutside the door. And about the same time, a Scots minister did preach in London right vehemently against the order taken for the apparel of ministers. Why, at Saint Mildred’s in Bread Street, where a minister that had conformed was brought of the worshipful of that parish for the communion service, he was so withstood by the minister of the church and his adherents, that the Deputy of the Ward and other were fain to stand beside him in the chancel to defend him during the service, or the parson and his side should have plucked him down with violence. And at long last,” saith Father, laughing, “the Scots minister that had so inveighed against them was brought to conform; but no sooner did he show himself in the pulpit of Saint Margaret Pattens in a surplice, than divers wives rose up and pulled him forth of the pulpit, tearing his surplice and scratting his face right willingly.”
“Eh, good lack!” cries Mynheer. “Your women, they keep silence in the churches after such a manner?”
“There was not much silence that morrow, I warrant,” quoth Hal, laughing right merrily.
“Eh, my gentlemen, I pray you of pardon,” saith Cousin Bess, looking up earnestly from her flannel, “but had I been in yon church I’d have done the like thing. I’d none have scrat his face, but I’d have rent a good tear in that surplice.”
“Thou didst not so, Bess, the last Sunday morrow,” quoth Father, laughing as he turned to look at her.
“Nay, ’tis all done and settled by now,” saith she. “I should but get took up for brawling. But I warrant you, that flying white thing sticketh sore in my throat, and ever did. An’ I had my way, no parson should minister but in his common coat.”
“But that were unseemly and undecent, Bess,” quoth Aunt Joyce.
“Nay, Mistress Joyce, but methinks ’tis a deal decenter,” answers she. “Wherefore, if a man can speak to me of earthly things in a black gown, must he needs don a white when he cometh to speak to me of heavenly things? There is no wit in such stuff.”
“See you, Mynheer,” saith Father, again laughing, “even here in Selwick Hall, where I trust we be little given to quarrel, yet the clocks keep not all one time.”
“Eh! No!” saith Mynheer, shrugging of his shoulders and smiling. “The gentlewomen, they be very determined in their own opinions.”
“Well, I own, I like to see things decent,” saith Aunt Joyce. “I desire not to have back the Popish albs and such like superstitious gauds—not I: but I do like to see a parson in a clean white surplice, and I would be right sorry were it laid aside.”
Cousin Bess said nought, but wagged her head, and tare her flannel in twain.
“Now, I dare be bound, Bess, thou countest me gone half-way back to Rome,” saith Aunt Joyce.
“That were nigh the Via Mala,” quoth Father.
“Eh, Mistress Joyce, I’ll judge no man, nor no woman,” makes answer Cousin Bess. “The Lord looketh on the heart; and ’tis well for us He doth, for if we were judged by what other folk think of us, I reckon we should none of us come so well off. But them white flying kites be rags of Popery, that will I say—yea, and stand to.”
“Which side be you, Father?” asks Anstace.
“Well, my lass,” saith he, “though I see not, mine own self, the Pope and all his Cardinals to lurk in the folds of Dr. Meade’s white surplice, and I am bound to say his tall, portly figure carrieth it off rarely, yet I do right heartily respect Bess her scruple, and desire to abstain from that which she counteth the beginnings of evil.”
“Now, I warrant you, Bess shall reckon that, of carrying it off well, to be the lust of the eye,” saith Aunt Joyce. “She’s a bit of a Mennonite, is Bess.”
“Eh, Mistress Joyce, pray you, give me not such an ill word!” saith Cousin Bess, reproachfully. “I never cared for Mammon, not I. I’d be thankful for a crust of bread and a cup of water, and say grace o’er him with Amen.”
We all laughed, and Father saith—
“Nay, Bess, thou takest Joyce wrong. In that of the Mennonites, she would say certain men of whom Mynheer told us a few days gone, that should think all things pleasurable and easeful to be wrong.”
“Good lack, Mistress Joyce, but I’m none so bad as that!” saith Bess. “I’m sure, when I make gruel for whoso it be, I leave no lumps in, nor let it burn neither.”
“No, dear heart, thou art only a Mennonite to thyself, not to other folk,” saith Aunt Joyce. “Thou shouldst be right well content of a board for thy bed, but if any one of us had the blanket creased under our backs, it should cost thee thy night’s rest. I know thee, Bess Wolvercot.”
“Well, and I do dearly love to see folk comfortable,” quoth she. “As for me, what recketh? I thank the Lord, my health is good enough; and a very fool were I to grumble at every bit of discomfort. Why, only do think, Mistress Joyce, how much worser I might have been off! Had I been born of that country I heard Master Banaster a-telling of, where they never see the sun but of the summer, and dwell of huts full o’ smoke, with ne’er a chimney—why, I never could see if my face were clean, nor my table rubbed bright. Eh, but I wouldn’t like that fashion of living!”
“They have no tables in Greenland for to rub, Bess,” quoth Hal.
“Nor o’er many clean faces, I take it,” saith Father.
“Ah! did you hear, Sir,” saith Mynheer, “of Mynheer Heningsen’s voyage to Greenland the last year?”
“I have not, Mynheer,” saith Father. “Pray you, what was notable therein?”
“Ah! he was not far from the coast of Greenland, when he found the ship go out of her course. He turned the rudder, or how you say, to guide the ship—I am not sea-learned, I ask your pardon if I mistake—but the ship would not move. Then they found, beneath a sunken rock, and it was—how you say?—magnetical, that drew to it the iron of the ship. Then Mynheer Heningsen, he look to his charts, for he know no rock just there. And what think you he found? Why, two hundred years back, exactly—in the year of our Lord 1380, there were certain Venetians, the brothers Zeni, sailing in these seas, and they brought word home to Venice that on this very spot, where Heningsen found nothing but a sunken rock, they found a beautiful large island, where were one hundred villages, inhabited by Christian people, in a state of great civility (civilisation), but so simple and guileless that hardly you can conceive. Think you! nothing now but a sunken rock.”
“But what name hath the island?” asks Hal.
“No name at all. No eyes ever saw it but