Books: Under the Storm
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> Under the Storm
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"Hearken, little sweet," said Stead. "'Tis nought but that I wot
that it would be ill for you to be bound to a poor frail man that
will never be able to keep you as you should be kept. All I had put
by is well nigh gone, and I'm not like to make it up again for many a
year, even if I were as strong as ever."
"And you won't go to the Jew, or the wise man, or the Bath?"
"I have not the money."
"But I will--I will save it for you!" cried Emlyn, who never had
saved in her life. "Or look here. Master Henshaw might give you a
place in his office, and then there would be no need to dwell in that
nasty, damp gulley, but we could be in the town. I'll ask my
mistress to crave it from him."
Stead could not but smile at her eagerness, but he shook his head.
"It would be bootless, sweetheart, I cannot carry weights."
"No, but you can write."
"Very scurvily, and I cannot cypher."
For Stead, like everyone else at Elmwood, kept his accounts by tally
and in his head, and the mysteries of the nine Arabic figures were
perfectly unknown to him. However, Emlyn stuck to the hope, and he
was so far inspired by it that he ceased to insist on giving up the
pledges of the betrothal, and he lay on the settle in quiet enjoyment
of Emlyn's castle building, as she sat on a stool by his side, his
hand on her shoulder, somewhat as it was wont to lie on Growler's
head. And in spite of Master Willis's opinion, he rode home to the
gulley a new man, assuring Patience, on the donkey by his side, that
there was more staunchness and kindness in little Emlyn than ever
they had thought for. Even the ferryman who put them over the river
declared that the doctor must have done Master Kenton a power of
good, and Stead smiled and did not contradict him.
Stead actually consulted Mr. Woodley how to learn cyphering beyond
what Ben had acquired at school; and the minister lent him a
treatise, over which he pored with a board and a burnt stick for many
an hour when he was out on the common with the cattle, or on the
darkening evenings in the hut. Ben saw his way into those puzzles
with no more difficulty than whetted his appetite, worked out sum
after sum, and explained them to his brother, to the admiration of
both his elders, till frowns of despair and long sighs from Stead
brought Patience to declare he was mazing himself, and insist on
putting out the light.
Stead had more time for his studies than he could wish, for the cold
of winter soon affected the injured lungs; and, moreover, the being
no longer able to move about rapidly caused the damp and cold of the
ravine to produce rheumatism and attendant ills, of which, in his
former healthy, out-of-door life, he had been utterly ignorant, and
he had to spend many an hour breathless, or racked with pain in the
poor little hovel, sometimes trying to give his mind to the abstruse
mysteries of multiplication of money, but generally in vain, and at
others whiling away the time with his books, for though there were
only seven of them, including Bible and Prayer-book, a very little
reading could be the text of so much musing, that these few perfectly
sufficed him. And then he was the nurse of any orphaned lamb or sick
chicken that Patience was anxious about, and his care certainly saved
many of those small lives.
The spring, when he came forth again, found him on a lower level,
less strong and needing a stick to aid his rheumatic knee.
Not much was heard of Emlyn that spring. She did not come to market
with her mistress, and Patience was not inclined to go in quest of
her, having a secret feeling that no news might be better for Stead
than anything she was likely to hear; while as to any chance of their
coming together, the Kentons had barely kept themselves through this
winter, and Steadfast's arithmetic was not making such progress as
would give him a place at a merchant's desk.
Patience, however, was considerably startled when, one fine June day,
she saw Mrs. Henshaw's servant point her out to two tall soldierly-
looking men, apparently father and son.
"Good morrow to you, honest woman," said the elder. "I am told it is
you who have been at charges for many years for my brother's
daughter, Emlyn Gaythorn."
Patience assented.
"You have been right good to her, I hear; and I thank you for that
same, and will bear what we may of the expense," he added, taking out
a heavy bag from his pouch.
He went on to explain that he and his son having gone abroad with his
master had been serving with the Dutch, and had made some prize
money. Learning on the peace that a small inheritance in
Worcestershire had fallen to the family, they had returned, and found
from Lady Blythedale that the brother's daughter was supposed to be
alive somewhere near Bristol. She had a right to half, and being
honourable men, they had set out in search of her, bringing letters
from the lady to Mr. Henshaw, whose house was still a centre of
inquiry for persons in the Cavalier interest. There, of course, they
had discovered Emlyn; and Master Gaythorn proceeded to say that it
had been decided that the estate should not be broken up, but that
his son should at once wed her and unite their claims.
"But, sir," exclaimed Patience, "she is troth plight to my brother."
"So she told me, but likewise that he is a broken man and sickly, and
had offered to restore her pledge."
Patience could not deny it, though she felt hotly indignant.
"She charged me to give it back to you," added the uncle; "and to bid
you tell the young man that we are beholden to you both; but that
since the young folk are to be wedded to-morrow morn, and then to set
forth for Worcestershire, there is no time for leave-takings."
"I do not wonder!" exclaimed Patience, "that she has no face to see
us. She that has been like a child or a sister to us, to leave us
thus! O my brother!"
"Come, come, my good woman, best not make a pother." Poor Patience's
homely garb and hard-worked looks shewed little of the yeoman class
to which she belonged. "You've done your duty by the maid and here's
the best I have to make it up."
Patience could not bring herself to take the bag, and he dropped it
into her basket "I am sorry for the young man, your brother, but he
knew better than to think to wed her as he is. And 'tis better for
all there should be no women's tears and foolishness over it."
"Is she willing?" Patience could not but ask.
"Willing?" Both men laughed. "Aye, what lass is not willing to take
a fine, strapping husband, and be a landed dame? She gave the token
back of her own free will, eh, Humfrey; and what did she bid us say?"
"Her loving greetings to-- What were their Puritanical names?" said
the son contemptuously. "Aye, and that she pitied the poor clown
down there, but knew he would be glad of what was best for her."
"So farewell, good mistress," said Master Gaythorn, and off they
clanked together; and Patience, looking after them, could entirely
believe that the handsome buff coat, fringed belt, high boots, and
jauntily cocked hat would have driven out the thought of Stead in his
best days. And now that he was bent, crippled, weak, helpless,--"and
all through her, what hope was then," thought Patience, "yet if she
had loved him, or there had been any truth in her, she could have
wedded him now, and he would have been at ease through life! A
little adder at our hearth! We are well quit of her, if he will but
think so, but how shall I ever tell him?"
She did not rush in with the tidings but came home slowly, drearily,
so that Stead, who was sitting outside by the door, peeling rushes,
gathered that something was amiss, and soon wormed it out of her,
while her tears dropped fast for him. Still, as ever, he spoke
little. He said her uncle was right in sparing tears and farewells,
no doubt reserving to himself the belief that it was against her
will. And when Patience could not help declaring that the girl might
have made him share her prosperity, he said, "I'm past looking after
her lands. Her uncle would say so. 'Tis his doing; I am glad of
what is best for my darling as was. There's an end of it, Patience--
joy and grief. And I thank God that the child is safely cared for at
last."
He tried to be as usual, but he was very ill that night.
Patience found the money in her basket. She hated it and put it
aside, and it was only some time after that she was constrained to
use it, only then telling Stead whence it came, when he could endure
to hear that the uncle had done his best to be just.
CHAPTER XXIII.
FULFILMENT.
"My spirit heats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory glides,
And mingles with the stars."
TENNYSON.
The year 1660 had come, and in the autumn, just as harvest was over,
and the trees on the slopes were taking tints of red, yellow, and
brown, an elderly clergyman, staff in hand, came slowly up the long
lane leading to Elmwood, whence he had been carried, bound to his
horse, seventeen years before.
He had not suffered as much as some of his fellow priests. After a
term of imprisonment in London, he had been transported to the
plantations, namely, the American settlements, and had fallen in with
friends, who took him to Virginia. This was chiefly colonized by
people attached to the Church, who made him welcome, and he had
ministered among them till the news arrived of the Restoration of
Charles II, and likewise that the lawful incumbents of benefices, who
had been driven out, were reinstated by Act of Parliament. Mr.
Holworth's Virginian friends would gladly have kept him with them,
but he felt that his duty was to his original flock, and set out at
once for England, landing at Bristol. There, however, he waited,
like the courteous man he was, to hold communication with his people,
till he had written to Mr. Elmwood, and made arrangements with him
and Master Woodley.
They were grieved, but they were both men who had a great respect for
law and parliament, so they made no difficulties. Mr. and Mrs.
Woodley retired to the hall and left the parsonage vacant, after the
minister had preached a farewell sermon in the church which made
everyone cry, for he was a good man and had made himself loved, and
there were very few in the parish who could understand that
difference between the true Church and a body without bishops. Mr.
Holworth had in the meantime gone to Wells to see his own Bishop
Piers, an old man of eighty-six, and it was from thence that he was
now returning. He had not chosen to enter his parish till the
intruded minister had resigned the charge, but he had been somewhat
disappointed that none of his old flock, not even any Kentons, who
had so much in charge, had come in to see him. He now arrived in
this quiet way, thinking that it would not be delicate to the
feelings of the squire and ex-minister to let the people get up any
signs of joy or ring the bells, if they were so inclined. Indeed, he
was much afraid from what he had been able to learn that it would be
only the rougher sort, who hated Puritan strictness and wanted sport
and revelry, who would give him an eager welcome.
So he first went quietly up to the church, which he found full of
benches and pews, with the Altar table in the middle of the nave, and
the squire's comfortable cushioned seat at the east end. He knelt on
the step for a long time, then made a brief visit to his own house,
where the garden was in beautiful order, but only a room or two were
furnished with goods he had bought from the Woodleys, and these were
in charge of a servant he had hired at Bristol.
Thence the old man went out into the village, and his first halt was
at the forge, where Blane, who had grown a great deal stouter and
more grizzled, started at sight of his square cap.
"Eh! but 'tis the old minister! You have come in quietly, sir! I am
afraid your reverence has but a sorry welcome."
"I do not wonder you are grieved to part with Master Woodley."
"Well, sir, he be a good man and a powerful preacher, though no doubt
your reverence has the best right, and for one, I'm right glad to see
an old face again. We would have rung the bells if we had known you
were coming."
"That would have been hard on Master Woodley. I am only glad they
are not melted. But how is it with all my old friends, Harry? Poor
Sir George writ me that old clerk North died of grief of the rifling
of the church; and that John Kenton had been killed by some
stragglers. What became of his children?"
"That eldest lad went off to the Parliament army, and came swaggering
here in his buff coat and boots like my Lord Protector himself, they
say he has got a castle and lands in Ireland. Men must be scarce,
say I, if they have had to make a gentleman of Jeph Kenton."
"And the rest?"
"Well, sir, I'm afraid that poor lad, Stead, is in poor plight. You
mind, he was always a still, steady, hard-working lad, and when his
father was killed, and his house burnt, and his brother ran away, the
way he and his sister turned to was just wonderful. They went to
live in an old hut in the gulley down there, and they have made the
place so tidy as it does your heart good to look at it. They bred up
the young ones, and the younger girl is well married to one of the
Squire's folks, and everyone respected them. But, as ill-luck would
have it, some robbers from Bristol seem to have got scent of their
savings. Some said that the Communion Cup was hid somewhere there."
Mr. Holworth made an anxious sound of interrogation.
"Well, I did see the corporal, when the Parliament soldiers were at
Bristol, flog Stead shamefully to know where it was, and never get a
word out of him, whether or no; and as he was a boy who would never
tell a lie, it stands to reason he knew where they were."
"But how did anyone guess at his knowing?" asked Mr. Holworth.
"His brother might have thought it likely, poor John being thick with
your reverence," said Blane. "After that I thought, myself, that he
ought to give them up to Master Woodley, if so be he had them; but I
could never get a hint from him. The talk went that old Dr. Eales,
you mind him, sir, before he died, came out and held a prelatist
service, begging your pardon, sir, and that the things were used.
Stead got into trouble with Squire about it."
"But the robbers, how was that? You said he was hurt!"
"Sore hurt, sir; and he has never got the better of it, though 'tis
nigh upon four years ago. There was a slip of a wench he picked up
as a child after the fight by Luck's mill, and bred up; a fair lass
she grew up to look on, but a light-headed one. She went to service
at Bristol, and poor Stead was troth plight to her, hoped to save and
build up the house again, never knowing, not he, poor rogue, of her
goings on with the sailors and all the roistering lads about her
master's house. 'Tis my belief she put those rascals on the track,
whether she meant it or not. Stead made what defence he could, stood
up like a man against the odds, three to one, and got a shot in the
side, so that he was like to die then. Better for him, mayhap, if he
had at once, for it has been nought but a lingering ever since, never
able to do a day's work, though that wench, Patience, and the young
lad, Ben, have fought it out wonderfully. That I will say."
Mr. Holworth had tears in his eyes, and trembled with emotion.
"The dear lad," he said. "Where is he? I must go and see him."
"He bides in the gulley, sir; he has been there ever since the farm-
house was burnt."
Ere long Mr. Holworth was on his way to the gulley. What had been
only a glade reaching from rock to stream, hidden in copsewood, was
now an open space trodden by cattle, with the actual straw-yard more
in the rear, but with a goat tethered on it and poultry running
about. It was a sunny afternoon, and in a wooden chair placed so as
to catch the warmth, with feet on a stool, sat, knitting, a figure
that Mr. Holworth at first thought was that of an aged man; but as he
emerged from the wood, and the big dog sprang up and barked, there
was a looking up, an instant silencing of the dog, a rising with
manifest effort, a doffing of the broad-brimmed hat, and the
clergyman beheld what seemed to him his old Churchwarden's face, only
in the deadly pallor of long-continued illness, and with the most
intense, unspeakable look of happiness and welcome afterwards
irradiating it, a look that in after years always came before Mr.
Holworth with the "Nunc dimittis."
Dropping the knitting, and holding by the chair, he stood trembling
and quivering with gladness, while, summoned by the dog's bark,
Patience, pail in hand, appeared on one side, and Ben, tall and
slight, with his flail, on the other.
"My dear lad," was all Mr. Holworth could say, as he took the thin,
blanched hand, put his arm round the shoulders, and reseated Stead,
still speechless with joy. Patience, curtseying low, came up
anxiously, showing the same honest face as of old, though work and
anxiety had traced their lines on the sun-burnt complexion, and Ben
stood blushing, and showing his keener, more cultivated face, as the
stranger turned to greet them so as to give Steadfast time to recover
himself.
"Oh! sir, but we are glad to see your reverence," cried Patience.
"Will you go in, or sit by Stead? Ben, fetch a chair."
"And is this fine strapping fellow, the sickly babe that you were
never to rear, Patience?"
"God has been very good to us, sir," said Patience.
"And this is best of all," said Stead, recovering breath and speech.
"I thank Him that I have lived to see this day! It is all safe,
sir."
"And you, you faithful guardian, you have suffered for it."
If it had not been for Blane's partial revelations, Mr. Holworth
never would have extracted the full story of how for that sacred
trust, Steadfast Kenton had endured threats and pain, and had
foregone ease, prosperity, latterly happiness, and how finally it had
cost him health, nay life itself, for he was as surely dying of the
buccaneer's pistol shot, as though he had been slain on the spot.
Long illness, with all the thought and reflection it had brought, had
so far changed and refined Stead that his awkward bashfulness and
lack of words had passed from him, and when he saw the clergyman
overcome with emotion at the thought of all he had undergone he said,
"Never heed it, your reverence, it has come to be all joy to me to
have had a little to bear for the Master! 'Tis hard on Patience and
Ben, but they are very good to me; and being sick gives time for such
comforts as God sends me. It is more than all I could have had
here."
"I am sure of that, my dear boy. I was not grieving that I gave you
the trust, but thinking what a blessed thing it is to have kept it
thus faithfully."
Two Sundays later, the Feast was again meetly spread in Elmwood
Church, the Altar restored to its place, and all as reverently
arranged as it could yet be among the broken carved work.
In some respects it was a mournful service, few there were who after
the lapse of seventeen years even remembered the outlines of the old
forms; and the younger people knew not when to kneel or stand. There
were few who could read, and even for those who could there were only
four Prayer-books in the church, the clergyman's, the clerk's, the
Kentons', and one discovered by an old Elmwood servant. The Squire's
family came not; Goody Grace was dead, and though Rusha tried to
instruct her husband and her little girl, she herself was much at a
loss.
To Mr. Holworth it was almost like that rededication of the Temple
when the old men wept at the thought of the glory of the former
house, but there were some on whom his eye rested with joy and peace.
There were Blane and his wife, good and faithful though ignorant;
there were the old miller and his son, who had come all that distance
since there had as yet been no restoration in their church, and the
goings on of Original-Sin Hopkins and his friends had thoroughly
disgusted them, and made the old man yearn towards the church of his
youth, and there was the little group of three, the toil-worn but
sweet-faced sister, calm and restful, though watchful; the tall youth
with thoughtful, earnest, awe-struck face, come for his first
Communion, for which through those many years he had been taught to
pray and long, and between them the wasted form and wan features
lighted up with that wonderful radiance that had come on them with
the sense that the trust was fulfilled, only it was brighter, calmer,
higher, than even at the greeting of the vicar. Did Steadfast see
only the burnished gold of the Chalice and paten he had guarded for
seventeen years at the cost of toil, danger, suffering, love, and
life itself? Did he not see and feel far beyond those outward
visible signs in which others, who had not yet endured to the end,
could only as yet put their trust by faith?
Mr. Holworth, as he stood over him and saw the upturned eye, was sure
it was so. No doubt indeed Ben thought so too, but poor imaginative
Ben had somehow fancied it would be with his brother as with the King
who guarded that other sacred Cup, and when all was over, was quite
disappointed that Stead needed his strong arm as much as ever, nay
more, for on coming out into the air and sunshine a faintness and
exhaustion came on, and they had to rest him in the porch before he
could move.
"O Stead, I thought it would have healed you," the lad said.
Stead slightly smiled. "Healed? I shall soon be healed altogether,
Ben," he said. He had with great difficulty and very slowly walked
to church, and Mr. Holworth wished him to come and rest at the
Vicarage, but he was very anxious to get home, and after he had taken
a little food, Andrew Luck offered to share with Ben and Rusha's
husband the carrying him back between them on an elbow chair.
This pleased him, and he looked up to Andrew and said, "You are in
the same mind as long ago?"
"I never found anyone else I could lay my mind to, since my poor
Kitty," said Andrew.
"She will come to you--soon," said Stead. "She'll have a sore heart,
but you will be good to her."
"That I will. And little Bess and Kate shall come and tell her how
they want her."
Stead smiled and his lips moved in thankfulness.
"And if Ben would come with her," added Andrew, "I'd be a brother to
him."
"Parson wants Ben," said Stead. "He says he can make a scholar of
him, and maybe a parson, and it will not be so lonesome in the
vicarage."
"And your farm?"
"Rusha and her man take that. They have saved enough to build the
house. Yes, all is well. It is great peace and thankfulness."
Patience returned with the cushions she had borrowed and they brought
Steadfast home, very much exhausted, and not speaking all the way.
Perhaps the unusual motion and exertion had made the bullet change
its place, for he hardly uttered another word, and that night, as he
had said to Ben, he was healed for ever of all his ills.
The funeral sermon that Mr. Holworth preached the next Sunday, was on
the text so dear to all the loyal hearts who remembered the White
King's coronation text--
"Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."
THE END
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