to debt,
and was looking unto thee to defray the charges! 'Tis tother way about,
Jack. Call thy wits together!" exclaimed his aunt.

"Well, Aunt Rachel, you seem determined to use me hardly," said Jack,
with an air of reluctant martyrdom; "but you will find I harbour no
malice for your evil conception of mine intents."

To see this Jack, who had done all the mischief and made everybody
uncomfortable, mount on his pedestal and magnanimously forgive them, was
too much for Rachel's equanimity.

"Of all the born fools that e'er gat me in a passion, 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 asses 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
mig