Books: Under the Storm
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> Under the Storm
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She supposed Stead might be right, but what would it not have been to
have the old house built up, and all decent about them as it was in
mother's time, and fit places to sleep in, now that the wenches were
growing bigger?
"But you know, Patty, we are saving for that."
"Aye, and how long will it take? And now this pestilent woodward
will be always finding fault--killing the fowls and ducks, and
seizing the swine and sheep, and very like slaughtering the dogs and
getting us turned out of house and home; for now you have offended
the squire, he will believe anything against us."
"Come, Patty, you know I could not help it. This is sorest of all,
you that have always stood by me and father's wish."
"Yes, yes," sobbed Patience. "I wot you are right, Stead. I'll hold
to you, though I wish--I wish you would think like other folk."
Yet Patience knew in her secret soul that then he would not be her
own Steadfast, and she persuaded him no more, though the discomforts
and deficiencies of their present home tried her more and more as the
family grew older. Stead had contrived a lean-to, with timbers from
the old house, and wattled sides stuffed with moss, where he and
little Ben slept in summer time, and they had bought or made some
furniture--a chair and table, some stools, bedding, and kitchen
utensils, and she toiled to keep things clean, but still it was a
mere hovel, with the door opening out into the glade. Foxes and
polecats prowled, owls hooted, and the big dog outside was a needful
defender, even in summer time, and in winter the cold was piteous,
the wet even worse, and they often lost some of their precious
animals--chickens died of cold, and once three lambs had been carried
away in a sudden freshet. Yet Patience, when she saw Steadfast
convinced, made up her mind to stand by him, and defended him when
the younger girls murmured.
Rusha was of a quiet, acquiescent, contented nature, and said little,
as Emlyn declared, "She knew nothing better;" but Emlyn was more and
more weary of the gulley, and as nothing was heard of her friends,
and she was completely one of the home, she struggled more with the
dullness and loneliness. She undertook all errands to the village
for the sake of such change as a chatter with the young folk there
afforded her, or for the chance of seeing the squire's lady or sons
and daughters go by; and she was wild to go on market days to
Bristol.
In spite of Puritan greyness, soldiers, sailors, gentlemen, ladies,
and even fashions, such as they were, could be seen there, and news
picked up, and Emlyn would fain have persuaded Steadfast that she
should be the most perfect market woman, if he would only let her
ride in on the donkey between the panniers, in a broad hat, with
chickens and ducks dangling round, eggs, butter, and fruit or nuts,
and even posies, according to the season, and sit on the steps of the
market-place among the other market women and girls.
Steadfast would have been the last to declare that her laughing dark
eyes, and smiling lips, and arch countenance would not bring many a
customer, but he knew well that his mother would never have sent his
sister to be thus exposed, and he let her pout, or laughed away her
refusal by telling her that he was bound not to let a butler's
daughter demean herself to be stared at by all the common folk, who
would cheapen her wares.
And when she did coax him to take her to Bristol on any errand she
could invent, to sell her yarns, or buy pins, or even a ribbon, he
was inexorable in leaving her under Mrs. Lightfoot's care, and she
had to submit, even though it sometimes involved saying her catechism
to Dr. Eales. Yet that always ended in the old man's petting her.
It was only from her chatter that the old clergyman ever knew of the
proposal that Stead had rejected for conscience's sake. It vexed the
lad so much that he really could not bear to think of it, and it
would come over him now and then, was it all for nothing? Would the
Church ever lift up her head again? or would Mr. Woodley be always in
possession at Elmwood Church, where everyone seemed to be content
with him. The Kentons went thither. It was hardly safe to abstain,
for a fine upon absence was still the law of the land, though seldom
enforced; and Dr. Eales who considered Presbyterianism by far the
least unorthodox and most justifiable sect, had advised Stead not to
allow himself or the others altogether to lose the habit of public
worship, but to abstain from Communions which might be an act of
separation from the Church, and which could not be accepted by her
children as genuine. Such was the advice of most of the divines of
the English Church in this time of eclipse; and though Stead, and
still less Patience, did not altogether follow the reasoning, they
obeyed, while aware that they incurred suspicion from the squire by
not coming to "the table."
The new woodward, Peter Pierce, was not one of the villagers as
usual, but had been a soldier in one of the regiments of the Earl of
Essex, in which Mr. Elmwood's eldest son had served.
Instead of succeeding to old Tomkins's lodge in the great wood, he
had a new one built for him, so as to command the opening of Hermit's
Gulley towards the village, and one of the Bristol roads. Could this
be for the sake of watching over anything so insignificant as the
Kentons?
The copse on their side of the brook was their own, free to do what
they chose with except cutting down the timber trees, but the further
side was the landlord's, as they had now to remember; and as, when
the brook was at its lowest, their pigs and goats were by no means
likely to recollect; though Steadfast was extremely anxious to give
no occasion for the mistrust and ill-will with which Pierce regarded
him, as a squatter, trespasser, and poacher, almost as a matter of
course, and likewise a prelatist and plotter.
Once he did find a kid on the wrong side, standing on a rock,
browsing a honeysuckle, and was about either to seize it or shoot it,
as it went off in three bounds, when Emlyn darted out, and threw
herself between. It was her darling kid, it should never trespass
again, she would--she would thank him ever more--if he would spare it
this once.
And Emlyn as usual had touched the soft place in the heart of even a
woodward. He told her not to cry, and contented himself with
growling a tremendous warning to Steadfast and Patience.
There were several breezes about Growler, who was only too apt to use
his liberty in pursuing rabbits on the wrong side, and whom Peter
more than once condemned; but Emlyn and Ben begged him off, and he
was kept well chained up. At last, however, he won even the
woodward's favour by the slaughter of a terrible wild cat and her
brood, after all Peter's dogs had returned with bleeding faces from
the combat.
The woodward had another soft place in his heart. He had a pretty
young wife and a little son. Nanny Pierce was older in years, but
far more childish than Patience, and the life in this gulley seemed
to her utter solitude and desolation, and if Patience had been ten
times a poacher and a prelatist, she could not have helped making
friends with the only creature of her own kind within a mile. And
when Patience's experience with Ben and other older babes at rest in
the churchyard, had aided the poor little helpless woman through a
convulsion fit of her baby's before Goody Grace could arrive, Peter
himself owned that "the Kenton wench was good for somewhat," though
he continued to think Steadfast's great carefulness not to
transgress, only a further proof that "he was a deep one"--all the
more because he refused to let anyone but himself have a search for a
vanished polecat in "them holes," which Peter was persuaded contained
some mystery, though Steadfast laid it, and not untruly, on the
health of the young stock he kept penned in the caves, which were
all, he hoped, of which Peter was aware.
All this was harassing, but a greater trouble came in the second
winter. Good Dr. Eales was failing, and the tidings of the King's
execution were a blow that he never recovered. Mrs. Lightfoot had
tears in her eyes when Stead asked after him, week by week, and she
could only say that he was feebler, and spent all his days in prayer
--often with tears.
At last came peace. He lay still and calm, and sent a message that
young Kenton should be brought to him for a last farewell.
And as Stead stood sorrowful and awed by his bed side, he bade the
youth never despair or fall away from his hope of the restoration of
the Church.
"Remember," he said, "she is founded on a rock, and the gates of hell
shall never prevail against her. She shall stand forth for evermore
as the moon, which wanes but to wax again; and I have good hope that
thou wilt see it, my son. He that shall endure unto the end, the
same shall be saved."
Then Dr. Eales pointed to a small parcel of books, which he had
caused Mrs. Lightfoot to put together, telling Steadfast that he had
selected them alike for devotion and for edification, and that if he
studied them, he would have no doubt when he might deliver up his
trust to a true priest of the Church.
"And if none should return in my time?" asked Steadfast.
"Have I not told thee never to despair of God's care for His Church?
Yet His time is not as our time, and it may be--that young as thou
art--the days of renewal may not be when thou shalt see them. Should
it thus be, my son, leave the secret with one whom thou canst
securely trust. Better the sacred vessels should lie hidden than
that thou shouldst show thy faith wanting by surrendering them to
any, save according to the terms of thy vow. See, Steadfast, among
these books is a lighter one, a romance of King Arthur, that I loved
well in my boyhood, and which may not only serve thee as fair pastime
in the winter nights, but will mind thee of thine high and holy
charge, for it goeth deeper than the mere outside."
His voice was growing weak. Mrs. Lightfoot gave him a cordial, and
Stead knelt by his bedside, felt his hand on his head, and heard his
blessing for the last time. The next market day, when he called at
the good bakester's stall, she told him in floods of tears that the
guest who had brought a blessing on her house, was gone to his rest.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE GROOM IN GREY.
"Heroes and kings, in exile forced to roam,
Leave swelling phrase and seven-leagued words at home."
SCOTT.
Another summer and winter had gone by and harvest time had come
again, when Steadfast with little Ben, now seven years old, for
company, took two sacks of corn to be ground at the mill, where the
skirmish had been fought in which Emlyn's father had been killed.
The sacks were laid across a packsaddle on a stout white horse, with
which, by diligent saving, Steadfast had contrived to replace
Whitefoot, Ben was promised a ride home when the sacks should have
been emptied, and trotted along in company with Growler by his
brother's side, talking more in an hour than Stead did in a week, and
looking with great interest to be shown the hawthorn bush where Emlyn
had been found. For Stead and Ben were alike in feeling the bright,
merry, capricious, laughing, teasing Emlyn the charm and delight of
home. In trouble, or for real aid, they went to Patience, but who
was like Emlyn for drollery and diversion? Who ever made Stead laugh
as she could, or who so played with Ben, and never, like Rusha, tried
to be maidenly, discreet, nay, dull?
It was very inconvenient that just as they reached the famous thorn
bush, the white horse began to demonstrate that his shoe was loose.
They were very near the mill, and after disposing of the sacks, the
brothers led the horse on to a forge, about a furlong beyond. It was
not a place of which Stead was fond, as the smith was known to be
strong for the Covenant, and he could not help wishing that the shoe
had come off nearer to his good friend Smith Blane.
Original-Sin Hopkins, which was the name of the blacksmith, was in
great excitement, as he talked of the crowning mercy vouchsafed at
Worcester, and how the son of the late man, Charles Stewart, had been
utterly defeated, and his people scattered like sheep without a
shepherd. Three or four neighbours were standing about, listening to
the tidings he had heard from a messenger on the way to Bristol. One
was leaning on the unglazed window frame, and a couple of old men
basking, even in that September day, in the glow of the fire, while a
few women and children loitered around, thinking it rather fine to
hear Master Original-Sin declaim on the backsliding of the Scots in
upholding the son of the oppressor.
The shoeing of Stead Kenton's horse seemed a trivial matter beneath
the attention of such an orator; but he vouchsafed to bid his lad
drive in a few nails; and just as the task was commenced, there came
to the forge a lady in a camlet riding dress and black silk hood,
walking beside a stout horse, which a groom was leading with great
care, for it had evidently lost a shoe. And it had a saddle with a
pillion on which they had been riding double, after the usual fashion
of travelling for young and healthy gentlewomen in those days of bad
roads.
The lady, a quiet, self-possessed person, not in her first youth,
came forward, and in the first pause in the blacksmith's declamation,
begged that he would attend to her horse.
He gave a nod as if intending her to wait till Steadfast's work was
done, and went on. "And has it not been already brought about that
the man of blood hath--"
"So please you," interrupted the lady, "to shoe my horse at once. I
am on my way to Abbotsleigh, and my cousin, Mr. Norton, knows that my
business brooks no delay."
Mr. Norton, though a Royalist, was still the chief personage in that
neighbourhood, and his name produced sufficient effect on Original-
Sin to make him come forward, look at the hoof, and select a shoe
from those hung on the walls of his forge. Little Ben looked on,
highly delighted to watch the proceedings, and Steadfast, as he
waited, glanced towards the servant, a well-made young man, in a
trim, sober suit of grey cloth, with a hat a good deal slouched over
a dark swarthy face, that struck Stead as having been seen by him
before.
After all, the lady's horse was the first finished. Hopkins looked
at all the other three shoes, tapped them with his hammer, and found
them secure, received the money from the lady, but gave very slight
salutations as the pair remounted, and rode away.
Then he twisted up his features and observed, "Here is a
dispensation! As I am a living soul, this horse shoe was made at
Worcester. I know the make. My cousin was apprenticed there."
"Well, outlandish work goes against one's stomach," said one of the
bystanders, "but what of that, man?"
"Seest thou not, Jabez Holt? Is not the young man there one of them
who trouble Israel, and the lady is striving for his escape. Mr.
Norton is well known as a malignant at heart, and his man Pope hath
been to and fro these last days as though evil were being concerted.
I would that good Master Hatcham were here."
"Poor lad. Let him alone. 'Tis hard he should not get off," said
one of the bystanders.
"I tell thee he is one of the brood of Satan, who have endeavoured to
break up the godly peace of the saints, and fill this goodly land
with blood and fire. Is it not said 'Root them out that they be no
more a people?'"
"Have after them, then," said another of the company. "We want no
more wars, to be taking our cows and killing our pigs. After them, I
say!"
"You haven't got no warrant, 'Riginal," said a more cautious old man.
"Best be on the safe side. Go after constable first, and raise the
hue-and-cry. You'll easy overtake them. Breakneck Hill be sore for
horseflesh."
"I'd fain see Master Hatcham," said the smith, scratching his head.
Stead had meantime been listening as he paid his pence. It flashed
over him now where he had beheld those intensely dark eyes, and the
very peculiar cut of features, though they had then been much more
boyish. It was when he had seen the Prince of Wales going to the
Cathedral on Christmas Day, in the midst of all his plumed generals,
with their gay scarfs, and rich lace collars.
He had put little Ben on horseback, and turned away into the long,
dirty lane, or rather ditch, that led homeward, before, through his
consternation, there dawned on him what to do. A gap in the hedge
lay near, through which he dragged the horse into a pasture field, to
the great amazement of Ben, saying "See here, Ben, those folk want to
take yonder groom in grey. We will go and warn them."
Ben heartily assented.
"I like the groom," he said. "He jumped me five times off the
horseblock, and he patted Growler and called him a fine fellow, who
didn't deserve his name--worth his salt he was sure. We won't give
Growler salt, Stead, but don't let that ugly preaching man get the
good groom!"
Steadfast was by this time on the horse behind his little brother,
pressing through the fields, which by ancient custom were all thrown
open from harvest time till Christmas; and coming out into the open
bit of common that the travellers had to pass before arriving at
Breakneck Hill, he was just in time to meet them as they trotted on.
He hardly knew what he said, as he doffed his hat, and exclaimed--
"Madam, you are pursued."
"Pursued!" Both at once looked back.
"There's time," said Steadfast; "but Smith Hopkins said one of the
shoes was Worcester make, and he is gone to fetch the constable and
raise the hue-and-cry."
"And you are a loyal--I mean an honest lad--come to warn us," said
the groom.
"Yes, sir. I think, if you will trust me, they can be put off the
track."
"Trusty! Your face answers for you. Eh, fair Mistress Jane?"
"Sir, it must be as you will."
"This way then, sir," said Steadfast, who was off his own horse by
this time, and leading it into a rough track through a thicket whence
some timber had been drawn out in the summer.
"They will see where we turned off," whispered the lady.
"No, ma'am, not unless you get off the hard ground. Besides they
will go on the way to Breakneck Hill. Hark! I hear a hallooing.
Not near--no--no fear, madam."
They were by this time actually hidden from the common by the
copsewood, and the distant shouts of the hue-and-cry kept all silent
till they were fairly out beyond it, not far from Stead's own fields.
Happily they had hitherto met no one, but there was danger now of
encountering gleaners, and indeed Stead's white horse could be seen
from a distance, and might attract attention to his companions.
"Hallo!" exclaimed the groom, as they halted under shelter of a
pollard willow. "I've heard tell that a white horse is the surest
mark for a bullet in a battle, and if that be Breakneck Hill, as you
call it, your beast may bring the sapient smith down on us. Had we
not best part?"
"Aye," said Steadfast. "I was thinking what was best. Whither were
you going?'
He blurted it out, not knowing to whom to address himself, or how to
frame his speech. The lady hesitated, but her companion named Castle
Carey.
"Then, please your honour," said Stead, impartially addressing both,
"methinks the best course would be, if this--"
"Groom William," suggested that personage.
"Would go down into yonder covert with my little brother here, where
my poor place is, and where my sister can show a safe hiding-place,
in case Master Hopkins suspects me, and follows; but I scarce think
he will. Then meanwhile, if the lady will trust herself to me--"
"O! there is no danger for me," she said.
"Go on, my Somerset Solomon," said the groom.
"Then would I take the lady on for a short space to a good woman in
Elmwood there. And on the way this horse shall lose his Worcester
shoe, and I will get Smith Blane, who is an honest fellow, to put on
another; and when the chase is like to be over, I will come back for
him and put you on the cross lane for Castle Carey, which don't join
with the road you came by, till just ere you get into the town."
"There's wit as well as cheese in Somerset. What say you, my
guardian angel?" said Groom William.
"It sounds well," she reluctantly answered. "Does Mr. Norton know
you, young man?"
"No, madam," said Stead, with much stumbling. "But I have seen him
in Bristol. My Lady Elmwood knew of me, and Sir George Elmwood too,
and the Dean could say I was honest."
"Which the face of you says better than your tongue," said the groom.
"Have with you then, my bold little elf," he added, taking the bridle
of the horse on which Ben was still seated. "Or one moment more.
You knew me, my lad--are there any others like to do so?"
"I had seen you, sir, at Bristol, and that is why I would not have
you shew yourself in Elmwood. But my sister has never seen you, and
the only neighbours who ever come in are the woodward and his wife.
He served in my Lord of Essex's army, but he has never seen you.
Moreover, he was to be at the squire's to-day helping to stack his
corn. Ben, do you tell Patience that _he_"--again taking refuge in a
pronoun--"is a gentleman in danger, and she must see to his safety
for an hour or two till I come back for him."
"A gentleman in danger," repeated Ben, anxious to learn his lesson.
"He and I will take care of that," said the grey-coated groom gaily,
as he turned the horse's head, and waved his hat in courtly fashion
to the lady so that Steadfast saw that his hair was cropped into
black stubble.
"Ah!" said the lady with a sigh, for the loss of a Cavalier's locks
was a dreadful thing. "You know him then."
"I have seen him at Bristol," said Steadfast, with considerably less
embarrassment, though still in the clownish way he could not shake
off.
"And you know how great is the trust you--nay, we have undertaken.
But, as he says, he has learnt the true fidelity of a leathern
jerkin."
Then Jane Lane told Steadfast of the King's flight from Worcester,
and adventures at Boscobel with the Penderells, and how she had
brought him to Abbotsleigh, in hopes of finding a ship at Bristol,
but that failing, it was too perilous for him to remain there, so
that she was helping him as far as Castle Carey on his way to Trent.
Before they were clear of the wood, Stead asked her to pause. He
knocked off the tell-tale shoe with the help of a stone, threw it
away into the middle of a bramble, and then after a little
consultation, she decided on herself encountering the smith, not
perhaps having much confidence in the readiness of speech or
invention of her companion.
When they arrived at the forge, where good-humoured, brawny Harry
Blane was no small contrast to his gaunt compeer Original-Sin
Hopkins, she averred that she was travelling from her relations, and
having been obliged to send her servant back for a packet that had
been forgotten, this good youth, who had come to her help when her
horse had cast a shoe, had undertaken to guide her to the smith's,
and to take her again to meet her man, if he did not come for her
himself. Might she be allowed in the meantime to sit with Master
Blane's good housewife?
Master Blane was only too happy, and Mistress Jane Lane was
accordingly introduced to the pleasant kitchen, with sanded floor,
and big oak table, open hearth, and beaupots in the oriel window
where the spinning-wheel stood, and where the neat and hospitable
Dame Blane made her kindly welcome.
Steadfast, marvelling at her facility of speech, and glad the king's
safety did not depend on his uttering such a story, told Blane that
he must go after his cattle and should look after the groom on the
way.
As he walked through the wood, and drew near the glade, he was
dismayed to hear voices, and to see Peter Pierce leaning against the
wall of the house, but Rusha came running up to him exclaiming, "Oh!
Stead, here is this good stranger that you met, telling us all about
brother Jeph."
"Yes, my kind host," said the grey-coated guest, with a slight nasal
intonation, rising as Stead came near, "I find that you are the very
lad my friend and brother Jephthah Kenton, that singular Christian
man, bade me search out. 'If you go near Bristol, beloved,' quoth
he,' search me out my brothers Steadfast and Benoni, and my sisters,
Patience and Jerusha, and greet them well from me, and bear witness
of me to them. They dwell, said he, in a lonely hut in the wood
side, and with them a fair little maiden, sprung of the evil and
idolatrous seed of the malignants, but whom their pious nurture may
yet bring to a knowledge of the truth,' and by that token, I knew
that it was the same." There was an odd little twinkle towards Emlyn
just then.
"And Stead, Jeph is an officer," said Patience, who was busied in
setting before the visitor on a little round table, the best ale,
bread, cheese, and butter that her hut afforded, together with an
onion, which, he declared, was "what his good grandfather, a valiant
man for the godly, had ever loved best."
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