Alls Well | Page 6

something of
more moment than autumn evenings. He sat down opposite the Justice,
buttoned his long gown up to the neck, as if to gird himself for action,
and cleared his throat with an air of importance.
"Master Roberts, I am come on a grave matter and a sad."
"Can't deal with grave matters after supper," said the Justice. "Come
again in the morning. Take a pear."
"Sir, this is a serious business."
"Business hours are over. I never do business out of hours."
"To-night, Master Roberts, and to-night only, shall serve for this
business."
"I do no business out of hours!" solemnly repeated the officer of the
law. "Take a pear--take two pears, and come again in the morning."
Mr Benden shook his head in a tragic manner, and let the pears alone.
"They are good pears," said the Justice. "If you love no pears, put one

in your pocket with my commendations to good Mistress Benden. How
doth she?--well, I hope."
"Were I able, Sir," replied the visitor impressively, "to bear your
commendations to good Mistress Benden, I were the happier man. But,
alas! I am not at that pass."
"What, come you hither to complain of your wife? Fie, Master Benden!
Go you home and peace her, like a wise man as you are, and cast her
half a suffering for some woman's gear."
Mr Benden might most truthfully have made reply that he had ere that
evening bestowed on his wife not half a suffering only, but many whole
ones: but he knew that the Justice meant half a sovereign, which was
then pronounced exactly like suffering.
"Sir!" he said rather angrily, "it pleases you to reckon lightly of this
matter: but what, I pray you, if you have to make account thereon with
the Queen's Grace's laws, not to speak of holy Church? Sir, I give you
to wit that my wife is an ill hussy, and an heretic belike, and lacketh a
sharp pulling up--sharper than I can give her. She will not go to church,
neither hear mass, nor hath she shriven her this many a day. You are set
in office, methinks, to administer the laws, and have no right thus to
shuffle off your duty by hours and minutes. I summon you to perform it
in this case."
Mr Justice Roberts was grave enough now. The half-lazy, half-jocose
tone which he had hitherto worn was cast aside entirely, and the
expression of his face grew almost stern. But the sternness was not all
for the culprit thus arraigned before him; much of it was for the
prosecutor. He was both shocked and disgusted with the course Mr
Benden had taken: which course is not fiction, but fact.
"Master Benden," said he, "I am two men--the Queen's officer of her
laws, and plain Anthony Roberts of Cranbrook. You speak this even
but to Anthony Roberts: and as such, good Master, I would have you
bethink you that if your wife be brought afore me as Justice, I must
deal with her according to law. You know, moreover, that in case she

shall admit her guilt, and refuse to amend, there is no course open to
me save to commit her to prison: and you know, I suppose, what the
end of that may be. Consider well if you are avised to go through with
it. A man need count the cost of building an house ere he layeth in a
load of bricks."
"You are not wont, Master Justice, to be thus tender over women," said
Benden derisively. "Methinks ere now I have heard you to thank the
saints you never wedded one."
"And may do so yet again, Master Benden. I covet little to have a wife
to look after."
Like many men in his day, Mr Roberts looked upon a wife not as
somebody who would look after him, in the sense of making him
comfortable, but rather as one whom he would have the trouble of
perpetually keeping out of all sorts of ways that were naughty and
wrong.
"But that is not your case," he continued in the same stern tone. "You
set to-night--if you resolve to persevere therein--a ball rolling that may
not tarry till it reach the fire. Are you avised thereon?"
"I am. Do your duty!" was the savage reply.
"Then do you yours," said Mr Roberts coldly, "and bring Mrs Benden
before me next sessions day. There is time to forethink you ere it
come."
Unconscious of the storm thus lowering over her, Alice Benden was
sitting by little Christie's sofa. There were then few playthings, and no
children's books, and other books were scarce and costly. Fifty volumes
was considered a large library, and in few houses even of educated
people were there more books