Books: Under the Storm
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> Under the Storm
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14 UNDER THE STORM
or
STEADFAST'S CHARGE
by
CHARLOTTE M YONGE
Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe," &c.
CONTENTS.
Chapter I.--The Trust
" II.--The Stragglers
" III.--Kirk Rapine
" IV.--The Good Cause
" V.--Desolation
" VI.--Left to Themselves
" VII.--The Hermit's Gulley
" VIII.--Stead in Possession
" IX.--Wintry Times
" X.--A Terrible Harvest Day
" XI.--The Fortunes of War
" XII.--Farewell to the Cavaliers
" XIII.--Godly Venn's Troop
" XIV.--The Question
" XV.--A Table of Love in the Wilderness
" XVI.--A Fair Offer
" XVII.--The Groom in Grey
" XVIII.--Jeph's Good Fortune
" XIX.--Patience
" XX.--Emlyn's Service
" XXI.--The Assault of the Cavern
" XXII.--Emlyn's Troth
" XXIII.--Fulfilment
UNDER THE STORM:
OR
STEADFAST'S CHARGE.
CHAPTER I.
THE TRUST.
"I brought them here as to a sanctuary."
SOUTHEY.
Most of us have heard of the sad times in the middle of the
seventeenth century, when Englishmen were at war with one another and
quiet villages became battlefields.
We hear a great deal about King and Parliament, great lords and able
generals, Cavaliers and Roundheads, but this story is to help us to
think how it must have gone in those times with quiet folk in
cottages and farmhouses.
There had been peace in England for a great many years, ever since
the end of the wars of the Roses. So the towns did not want
fortifications to keep out the enemy, and their houses spread out
beyond the old walls; and the country houses had windows and doors
large and wide open, with no thought of keeping out foes, and farms
and cottages were freely spread about everywhere, with their fields
round them.
The farms were very small, mostly held by men who did all the work
themselves with the help of their families.
Such a farm belonged to John Kenton of Elmwood. It lay at the head
of a long green lane, where the bushes overhead almost touched one
another in the summer, and the mud and mire were very deep in winter;
but that mattered the less as nothing on wheels went up or down it
but the hay or harvest carts, creaking under their load, and drawn by
the old mare, with a cow to help her.
Beyond lay a few small fields, and then a bit of open ground
scattered with gorse and thorn bushes, and much broken by ups and
downs. There, one afternoon on a big stone was seated Steadfast
Kenton, a boy of fourteen, sturdy, perhaps loutish, with an honest
ruddy face under his leathern cap, a coarse smock frock and stout
gaiters. He was watching the fifteen sheep and lambs, the old goose
and gander and their nine children, the three cows, eight pigs, and
the old donkey which got their living there.
From the top of the hill, beyond the cleft of the river Avon, he
could see the smoke and the church towers of the town of Bristol, and
beyond it, the slime of the water of the Bristol Channel; and nearer,
on one side, the spire of Elmwood Church looked up, and, on the
other, the woods round Elmwood House, and these ran out as it were,
lengthening and narrowing into a wooded cleft or gulley, Hermit's
Gulley, which broke the side of the hill just below where Steadfast
stood, and had a little clear stream running along the bottom.
Steadfast's little herd knew the time of day as well as if they all
had watches in their pockets, and they never failed to go down and
have a drink at the brook before going back to the farmyard.
They did not need to be driven, but gathered into the rude steep path
that they and their kind had worn in the side of the ravine.
Steadfast followed, looking about him to judge how soon the nuts
would be ripe, while his little rough stiff-haired dog Toby poked
about in search of rabbits or hedgehogs, or the like sport.
Steadfast liked that pathway home beside the stream, as boys do love
running water. Good stones could be got there, water rats might be
chased, there were strawberries on the banks which he gathered and
threaded on stalks of grass for his sisters, Patience and Jerusha.
They used to come with him and have pleasant games, but it was a long
time since Patience had been able to come out, for in the winter, a
grievous trouble had come on the family. The good mother had died,
leaving a little baby of six weeks old, and Patience, who was only
thirteen, had to attend to everything at home, and take care of poor
little sickly Benoni with no one to help her but her little seven
years old sister.
The children's lives had been much less bright since that sad day;
and Steadfast seldom had much time for play. He knew he must get
home as fast as he could to help Patience in milking the cows,
feeding the pigs and poultry, and getting the supper, or some of the
other things that his elder brother Jephthah called wench-work and
would not do.
He could not, however, help looking up at the hole in the side of the
steep cliff, where one might climb up to such a delightful cave, in
which he and Patience had so often played on hot days. It had been
their secret, and a kind of palace to them. They had sat there as
king and queen, had paved it with stones from the brook, and had had
many plans for the sports they would have there this summer, little
thinking that Patience would have been turned into a grave, busy
little housewife, instead of a merry, playful child.
Toby looked up too, and began to bark. There was a rustling in the
bushes below the cave, and Steadfast, at first in dismay to see his
secret delight invaded, beheld between the mountain ash boughs and
ivy, to his great surprise, a square cap and black cassock tucked up,
and then a bit of brown leathern coat, which he knew full well. It
was the Vicar, Master Holworth, and his father John Kenton was
Churchwarden, so it was no wonder to see him and the Parson together,
but what could bring them here--into Steadfast's cave? and with a
dark lantern too! They seemed as surprised, perhaps as vexed as he
was, at the sight of him, but his father said, "'Tis my lad,
Steadfast, I'll answer for him."
"And so will I," returned the clergyman. "Is anyone with you, my
boy?"
"No, your reverence, no one save the beasts."
"Then come up here," said his father. "Someone has been playing
here, I see."
"Patience and I, father, last summer."
"No one else?"
"No, no one. We put those stones and those sticks when we made a
fire there last year, and no one has meddled with them since."
"Thou and Patience," said Mr. Holworth thoughtfully. "Not Jephthah
nor the little maid?"
"No, sir," replied Steadfast, "we would not let them know, because we
wanted a place to ourselves."
For in truth the quiet ways and little arrangements of these two had
often been much disturbed by the rough elder brother who teased and
laughed at them, and by the troublesome little sister, who put her
fingers into everything.
The Vicar and the Churchwarden looked at one another, and John Kenton
muttered, "True as steel."
"Your father answers for you, my boy," said the Vicar. "So we will
e'en let you know what we are about. I was told this morn by a sure
hand that the Parliament men, who now hold Bristol Castle, are coming
to deal with the village churches even as they have dealt with the
minster and with St. Mary's, Redcliffe."
"A murrain on them!" muttered Kenton.
"I wot that in their ignorance they do it," gently quoted the Vicar.
"But we would fain save from their hands the holy Chalice and paten
which came down to our Church from the ancient times--and which
bearing on them, as they do, the figure of the Crucifixion of our
blessed Lord, would assuredly provoke the zeal of the destroyers.
Therefore have we placed them in this casket, and your father devised
hiding them within this cave, which he thought was unknown to any
save himself--"
"Yea," said John, "my poor brother Will and I were wont to play there
when we herded the cattle on the hill. It was climbing yon ash tree
that stands out above that he got the fall that was the death of him
at last. I've never gone nigh the place with mine own good will
since that day--nor knew the children had done so--but methought
'twas a lonesome place and on mine own land, where we might safest
store the holy things till better times come round."
"And so I hope they will," said Mr. Holworth.
"I hear good news of the King's cause in the north."
Then they began to consult where to place the precious casket. They
had brought tinder and matches, and Steadfast, who knew the secrets
of the cave even better than his father, showed them a little hollow,
far back, which would just hold the chest, and being closed in front
with a big stone, fast wedged in, was never likely to be discovered
readily.
***the hiding of the casket***
"This has been a hiding place already."
"Methinks this has once been a chapel," said the clergyman presently,
pointing to some rude carvings--one something like a cross, and a
large stone that might have served as an altar.
"Belike," said Kenton, "there's an old stone pile, a mere hovel, down
below, where my grandfather said he remembered an old monk, a hermit,
or some such gear--a Papist--as lived in hiding. He did no hurt, and
was a man from these parts, so none meddled with him, or gave notice
to the Queen's officers, and our folk at the farm sold his baskets at
the town, and brought him a barley loaf twice a week till he died,
all alone in his hut. Very like he said his mass here."
John wondered to find that the minister thought this made the place
more suitable. The whole cavern was so low that the two men could
hardly stand upright in it, though it ran about twelve yards back.
There were white limestone drops like icicles hanging above from the
roof; and bats, disturbed by the light, came flying about the heads
of their visitors, while streamers of ivy and old man's beard hung
over the mouth, and were displaced by the heads of the men.
"None is like to find the spot," said John Kenton, as he tried to
replace the tangled branches that had been pushed aside.
"God grant us happier days for bringing it forth," said the
clergyman.
All three bared their heads, and Mr. Holworth uttered a few words of
prayer and blessing; then let John help him down the steep scramble
and descent, and looked up to see whether any sign of the cave could
be detected from the edge of the brook. Kenton shook his head
reassuringly.
"Ah!" said Mr. Holworth, "it minds me that none ever found again the
holy Ark of the Covenant that King Josiah and the Prophet Jeremiah
hid in a cavern within Mount Pisgah! and our sins be many that have
provoked this judgment! Mayhap the boy will be the only one of us
who will see these blessed vessels restored to their Altar once more!
He may have been sent hither to that very end. Now, look you,
Steadfast Kenton--Steadfast thou hast ever been, so far as I have
known thee, in nature as well as in name. Give me thy word that thou
wilt never give up the secret of yonder cavern to any save a lawfully
ordained minister of the church."
"No doubt poor old Clerk North will be in distress about the loss,"
said Kenton.
"True, but he had best not be told. His mind is fast going, and he
cannot safely be trusted with such a mighty secret."
"Patience knows the cavern," murmured Steadfast to his father.
"Best have no womenfolk, nor young maids in such a matter," said the
Vicar.
"My wench takes after her good mother," said John, "and I ever found
my secrets were safer in her breast than in mine own. Not that I
would have her told without need. But she might take little Rusha
there, or make the place known to others an she be not warned."
"Steadfast must do as he sees occasion, with your counsel, Master
Kenton," said the Vicar. "It is a great trust we place in you, my
son, to be as it were in charge of the vessels of the sanctuary, and
I would have thy hand and word."
"And," said his father, "though he be slower in speech than some,
your reverence may trust him."
Steadfast gave his brown red hand, and with head bare said, "I
promise, after the minister and before God, never to give up that
which lies within the cave to any man, save a lawfully ordained
minister of the Church."
CHAPTER II.
THE STRAGGLERS.
"Trust me, I am exceedingly weary."
SHAKESPEARE.
John Kenton, though a Churchwarden, was, as has been said, a very
small farmer, and the homestead was no more than a substantial
cottage, built of the greystone of the country, with the upper story
projecting a little, and reached by an outside stair of stone. The
farm yard, with the cowsheds, barn, and hay stack were close in
front, with only a narrow strip of garden between, for there was not
much heed paid to flowers, and few kitchen vegetables were grown in
those days, only a few potherbs round the door, and a sweet-brier
bush by the window.
The cows had made their way home of their own accord, and Patience
was milking one of them already, while little Rusha held the baby,
which was swaddled up as tightly as a mummy, with only his arms free.
He stretched them out with a cry of gladness as he saw his father,
and Kenton took the little creature tenderly in his arms and held him
up, while Steadfast hurried off to fetch the milking stool and begin
upon the other cow.
"Is Jeph come home?" asked the father, and Rusha answered "No, daddy,
though he went ever so long ago, and said he would bring me a cake."
Upon this Master Kenton handed little Benoni back to Rusha, not
without some sounds of fretfulness from the baby, but the pigs had to
be shut up and fed, and the other evening work of the farmyard done;
and it was not till all this was over, and Patience had disposed of
the milk in the cool cellars, that the father could take him again.
Meantime Steadfast had brought up a bucket of water from the spring,
and after washing his own hands and face, set out the table with a
very clean, though coarse cloth, five brown bowls, three horn spoons
and two wooden ones, one drinking horn, a couple of red earthen cups
and two small hooped ones of wood, a brown pitcher of small ale, a
big barley loaf, and a red crock, lined with yellow glazing, into
which Patience presently proceeded to pour from a cauldron, where it
had been simmering over the fire, a mess of broth thickened with
meal. This does not sound like good living, but the Kentons were
fairly well-to-do smock-frock farmers, and though in some houses
there might be greater plenty, there was not much more comfort
beneath the ranks of the gentry in the country.
As for seats, the father's big wooden chair stood by the fire, and
there was a long settle, but only stools were used at the table, two
being the same that had served the milkers. Just as Rusha, at her
father's sign, had uttered a short Grace, there stood in the doorway
a tall, stout, well-made lad of seventeen, with a high-crowned wide-
brimmed felt hat, a dark jerkin with sleeves, that, like his breeches
and gaiters, were of leather, and a belt across his shoulder with a
knife stuck in it.
"Ha! Jeph," said Kenton, "always in time for meat, whatever else you
miss."
"I could not help it, father," said Jephthah, "the red coats were at
their exercise!"
"And thou couldst not get away from the gape-seed, eh! Come, sit
down, boy, and have at thy supper."
"I wish I was one of them," said Jeph as he sat down.
"And thou'dst soon wish thyself back again!" returned his father.
"How much did you get for the fowls and eggs?" demanded Patience.
Jephthah replied by producing a leathern bag, while Rusha cried out
for her cake, and from another pocket came, wrapped in his
handkerchief, two or three saffron buns which were greeted with such
joy that his father had not the heart to say much about wasting
pence, though it appeared that the baker woman had given them as part
of her bargain for a couple of dozen of eggs, which Patience declared
ought to have brought two pence instead of only three halfpence.
Jephthah, however, had far too much news to tell to heed her
disappointment as she counted the money. He declared that the price
of eggs and butter would go up gallantly, for more soldiers were
daily expected to defend Bristol, and he had further to tell of one
of the captains preaching in the Minster, and the market people
flocking in to hear him. Jeph had been outside, for there was no
room within, but he had scrambled upon an old tombstone with a couple
of other lads, and through the broken window had seen the gentleman
holding forth in his hat and feather, buff coat and crimson scarf,
and heard him call on all around to be strong and hew down all their
enemies, even dragging the false and treacherous woman and her idols
out to the horse gate and there smiting them even to the death.
"Who was the false woman?" asked Steadfast.
"I wot not! There was something about Aholah, or some such name, but
just then a mischievous little jackanapes pulled me down by the leg,
and I had to thrash him for it, and by the time I had done, Dick, the
butcher's lad, had got my place and I heard no more."
Whether the Captain meant Aholah or Athaliah, or alluded to Queen
Henrietta Maria, or to the English Church, Jeph's auditors never
knew. The baby began to cry, and Patience to feed him with the milk
and water that had been warmed at the fire; his father and the boys
went out to finish the work for the night, little Rusha running after
them.
Presently, she gave a cry and darted up to her father "The soldiers!
the soldiers!" and in fact three men with steel caps, buff coats, and
musquets slung by broad belts were coming into the yard.
Kenton took up his little girl in his arms and went forward to meet
them, but he soon saw they did not look dangerous, they were dragging
along as if very tired and footsore and as if their weapons were a
heavy weight.
"It's the goodman," said the foremost, a red-faced, good-natured
looking fellow more like a hostler than a soldier, "have you seen
Captain Lundy's men pass this way?"
"Not I!" said Kenton, "we lie out of the high road, you see."
"But I saw them, a couple of hours agone, marching into Bristol,"
said Jephthah coming forward.
"There now," said the man, "we did but stop at the sign of the 'Crab'
the drinking of a pottle, and to bathe Jack's foot near there, and we
have never been able to catch them up again! How far off be
Bristol?"
"A matter of four mile across the ferry. You may see it from the
hill above."
He looked stout enough though he gave a heavy sigh of weariness, and
the other two, who were mere youths, not much older than Jeph, seemed
quite spent, and heard of the additional four miles with dismay.
"Heart alive, lads," said their comrade, "ye'll soon be in good
quarters, and mayhap the goodman here will give you a drink to carry
ye on a bit further for the Cause."
"You are welcome to a draught for civility's sake," said Kenton,
making a sign to his sons, who ran off to the house, "but I'm a plain
man, and know nought about the Cause."
"Well, Master," said the straggler, as he leant his back against the
barn, and his two companions sat down on the ground in the shelter,
"I have heard a lot about the Cause, but all I know is that my Lord
of Essex sent to call out five-and-twenty men from our parish, and
the squire, he was in a proper rage with being rated to pay ship
money, so--as I had fallen out with my master, mine host of the
'Griffin,' more fool I--I went with the young gentleman, and a proper
ass I was to do so."
"Father said 'twas rank popery railing in the Communion table, when
it was so handy to sit on or to put one's hat on," added one of the
youths looking up. "So he was willing for me to go, and I thought
I'd like to see the world, but I'd fain be at home again."
"So would not I," muttered the other lad.
"No," said the ex-tapster humorously, "for thou knowst the stocks be
gaping for thee, Dick."
By this time Jeph and Stead had returned with a jug of small beer, a
horn cup, and three hunches of the barley loaf. The men ate and
drank, and then the tapster returning hearty thanks, called the
others on, observing that if they did not make the best speed, they
might miss their billet, and have to sleep in the streets, if not
become acquainted with the lash.
On then unwillingly they dragged, as if one foot would hardly come
after the other.
"Poor lads!" said Kenton, as he looked after them, "methinks that's
enough to take the taste for soldiering out of thy mouth, son Jeph."
"A set of poor-spirited rogues," returned Jeph contemptuously, as he
nevertheless sauntered on so as to watch them down the lane.
"Be they on the right side or the wrong, father?" asked Steadfast, as
he picked up the pitcher and the horn.
"They be dead against our parson, lad," returned Kenton, "and he says
they be against the Church and the King, though they do take the
King's name, it don't look like the right side to be knocking out
church windows, eh?"
"Nay!" said Steadfast, "but there's them as says the windows be
popish idols."
"Never you mind 'em, lad, ye don't bow down to the glass, nor worship
it. Thy blessed mother would have put it to you better than I can,
and she knew the Bible from end to end, but says she 'God would have
His worship for glory and for beauty in the old times, why not now?'"
John Kenton had an immense reverence for his late wife. She had been
far more educated than he, having been born and bred up in the
household of one of those gentlemen who held it as their duty to
provide for the religious instruction of their servants.
She had been serving-woman to the lady, who in widowhood went to
reside at Bristol, and there during her marketings, honest John
Kenton had won her by his sterling qualities.
Puritanism did not mean nonconformity in her days, and in fact
everyone who was earnest and scrupulous was apt to be termed a
Puritan. Goodwife Kenton was one of those pious and simple souls who
drink in whatever is good in their surroundings; and though the
chaplain who had taught her in her youth would have differed in
controversy with Mr. Holworth, she never discovered their diversity,
nor saw more than that Elmwood Church had more decoration than the
Castle Chapel. Whatever was done by authority she thought was right,
and she found good reason for it in the Bible and Prayer-book her
good lady had given her. She had named her children after the
prevailing custom of Puritans because she had heard the chaplain
object to what he considered unhallowed heathenish names, but she had
been heartily glad that they should be taught and catechised by the
good vicar. Happily for her, in her country home, she did not live
to see the strife brought into her own life.
She had taught her children as much as she could. Her husband was
willing, but his old mother disapproved of learning in that station
of life, and aided and abetted her eldest grandson in his resistance,
so that though she had died when he was only eleven or twelve years
old, Jephthah could do no more than just make out the meaning of a
printed sentence, whereas Steadfast and Patience could both read
easily, and did read whatever came in their way, though that was only
a broadside ballad now and then besides their mother's Bible and
Prayer-book, and one or two little black books.
The three eldest had been confirmed, when the Bishop of Bath and
Wells had been in the neighbourhood. That was only a fortnight after
their mother died, and even Jeph was sad and subdued.
Since that sad day when the good mother had blessed them for the last
time, there had been little time for anything. Patience had to be
the busy little housewife, and what she would have done without
Steadfast she could not tell. Jeph would never put a hand to what he
called maids' work, but Stead would sweep, or beat the butter, or
draw the water, or chop wood, or hold the baby, and was always ready
to help her, even though it hindered him from ever going out to fish,
or play at base ball, or any of the other sports the village boys
loved.
His quiet, thoughtful ways had earned his father's trust, though he
was much slower of speech and less ready than his elder brother, and
looked heavy both in countenance and figure beside Jeph, who was
tall, slim, and full of activity and animation. He had often made
his mother uneasy by wild talk about going to sea, and by consorting
with the sailors at Bristol, which was their nearest town, though on
the other side of the Avon, and in a different county.
It was there that the Elmwood people did their marketing, often
leaving their donkeys hobbled on their own side of the river, being
ferried over and carrying the goods themselves the latter part of the
way.
CHAPTER III.
KIRK RAPINE.
"When impious men held sway and wasted Church and shrine."
LORD SELBORNE.
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