Books: Under the Storm

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Under the Storm

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Patience, in her tight little white cap, sat spinning by the door,
rocking the cradle with her foot, while Rusha sometimes built what
she called houses with stones, sometimes trotted to look down the
lane to see whether father and the lads were coming home from market.

Presently she brought word, "Stead is coming. He is leading
Whitefoot, but I don't see father and Jeph."

Patience jumped up to put her wheel out of the way, and soon she saw
that it was only Steadfast leading the old mare with the large crooks
or panniers on either side. She ran to meet him, and saw he looked
rather pale and dazed.

"What is it, Stead? Where's daddy?"

"Gone up to Elmwood! They told us in town that some of the soldiers
and the folk of that sort were gone out to rabble cur church and our
parson, and father is Churchwarden, you know. So he said he must go
to see what was doing. And he bade me take Whitefoot home and give
you the money," said Steadfast, producing a bag which Patience took
to keep for her father.

She watched very anxiously, and so did Stead, while relieving
Whitefoot of her panniers and giving her a rub down before turning
her out to get her supper.

It was not long however before Kenton and Jeph both appeared, the one
looking sad, the other sulky. "Too late," Jeph muttered, "and father
won't let me go to see the sport."

"Sport, d'ye call it?" said Kenton. "Aye, Stead, you may well gape
at what we have seen--our good parson with his feet tied to his
stirrups on a sorry nag, being hauled off to town like a common
thief!"

"Oh!" broke from the children, and Patience ventured to ask, "But
what for, father?"

"They best know who did it," said the Churchwarden. "Something they
said of a scandalous minister, as though his had not ever been a
godly life and preaching. These be strange times, children, and for
the life of me, I know not what it all means. How now, Jeph, what
art idling there for? There's the waggon to be loaded for to-morrow
with the faggots I promised Mistress Lightfoot."

Jeph moved away, murmuring something about fetching up the cows, to
which his father replied, "That was Steadfast's work, and it was not
time yet."

In fact Jeph was very curious to know what was going on in the
village. If there was any kind of uproar, why should not he have his
part in it? It was just like father to hinder him, and he had a
great mind to neglect the faggots and go off to the village. He was
rather surprised, and a good deal vexed to see his father walking
along on the way to the pasture with Steadfast.

It was for the sake of saying "Aye, boy, best not go near the sorry
sight! They would not let good Master Holworth speak with me; but I
saw he meant to warn me to keep aloof lest Tim Green or the like
should remember as how I'm Churchwarden."

"Did they ask after those things?" inquired Steadfast in a lowered
voice.

"I can't say. But on your life, lad, not a word of them!"

After work was done for the evening, Jeph and Stead were too eager to
know what had happened to stay at home. They ran across the bit of
moorland to the village street and the grey church, whose odd-shaped
steeple stood up among the trees. Already they could see that the
great west window was broken, all the glass which bore the picture of
the Last Judgment, and the Archangel Michael weighing souls in the
balance was gone!

"Yes," said Tom Oates, leaping over two or three tombstones to get to
them. "'Twas rare sport, Jeph Kenton. Why were you not there too?"

"At Bristol with father," replied Jeph.

"Worse luck for you. The red coat shot the big angel right in the
eye, and shivered him through, and we did the rest with stones. I
sent one that knocked the wing of him right off. You should have
seen me, Stead! And old Clerk North was running about crying all the
time like a baby. He'll never whack us over the head again!"

"What was the good?" said Steadfast.

"You never saw better sport," said the boys.

And indeed, since, when once begun, destruction and mischief are apt
to be only too delightful to boys, they had thoroughly and
thoughtlessly delighted in knocking down the things they had been
taught to respect. A figure of a knight in a ruff kneeling on a tomb
had had its head knocked off, and one of the lads heaved the bits up
to throw at the last fragment of glass in the window.

"What do you do that for?" asked Stead.

"'Tis worshipping of idols," said a somewhat graver lad. "'Break
down their idols,' the man in the black gown said, 'and burn their
graven images in the fire.'"

"But we never worshipped them," said Stead.

"Pious preacher said so," returned the youth, "and mighty angered was
he with the rails." (Jeph and Will were sparring with two fragments
of them.) "'Down with them,' he cried out, so as it would have done
your heart good to hear him."

"And the parson is gone! There will be no hearing the catechism on
Sundays!" cried Ralph Wilkes, making a leap over the broken font.

"Good luck for you, Ralph," cried the others. "You, that never could
tell how many commandments there be."

"Put on your hat, Stead," called out another lad. "We've done with
all that now, and the parson is gone to prison for it."

"No, no," shouted Tom Oates, "'twas for making away with the
Communion things."

"I heard the red coat say they had a warrant against scandalous
ministers," declared Ralph Wilkes.

"I heard the man with the pen and ink-horn ask for the popish
vessels, as he called them, and not a word would the parson say,"
said Oates.

"I'd take my oath he has hid them somewheres," replied Jack Beard, an
ill-looking lad.

"What a windfall they would be for him as found them!" observed
Wilkes.

"I'd like to look over the parsonage house," said Jeph.

"No use. Old dame housekeeper has locked herself in, as savage as a
bear with a sore head."

"Besides, they did turn over all the parson's things and made a
bonfire of all his popish books. The little ones be dancing their
rounds about it still!"

Stead had heard quite enough to make him very uneasy, and wish to get
home with his tidings to his father. There was a girl standing by
with a baby in her arms, and she asked:

"What will they do to our minister?"

"Put him in Little Ease for a scandalous minister," was the ready
answer. "But he _is_ a good man. He gave us all broth when father
had the fever!"

"And who will give granny and me our Sunday dinner?" said a little
boy.

"But there'll be no more catechising. Hurrah!" cried Oates,
"hurrah!"

"'Tis rank superstition, said the red coat, Hurrah!" and up went
their caps. "Halloa, Stead Kenton, not a word to say?"

"He likes being catechised, standing as he does like a stuck pig, and
answering never a word," cried Jack.

"I do," said Steadfast, "and why not?"

"Parson's darling! Parson's darling!" shouted the boys. "A
malignant! Off with him." They had begun to hustle him, when Jeph
threw himself between and cried:

"Hit Steadfast, and you must hit me first."

"A match, a match!" they cried, "Jeph and Jack."

Stead had no fears about Jeph conquering, but while the others stood
round to watch the boxing, he slipped away, with his heart perplexed
and sad. He had loved his minister, and he never guessed how much he
cared for his church till he saw it lying desolate, and these rude
lads rejoicing in the havoc; while the words rang in his ears, "And
now they break down all the carved work thereof with axes and with
hammers."

CHAPTER IV.

THE GOOD CAUSE.

"And their Psalter mourneth with them
O'er the carvings and the grace,
Which axe and hammer ruin
In the fair and holy place."
Bp. CLEVELAND COXE.

When next John Kenton went into Bristol to market he tried to
discover what had become of Mr. Holworth, but could only make out
something about his being sent up to London with others of his sort
to answer for being Baal worshippers! Which, as he observed, he
could not understand.

There seemed likely to be no service at the church on Sunday, but
John thought himself bound to walk thither with his sons to see what
was going on, and they heard such a noise that they looked at each
other in amazement. It was not preaching, but shouting, laughing,
screaming, stamping, and running. The rude village children were
playing at hide-and-seek, and Jenny Oates was hidden in the pulpit.
But at Master Kenton's loud "How now, youngsters" they all were
frightened, some ran out headlong, some sneaked out at the little
north door, and the place was quiet, but in sad confusion and
desolation, the altar-table overthrown, the glass of the windows
lying in fragments on the pavement, the benches kicked over.

Kenton, with his boys' help, put what he could straight again, and
then somewhat to their surprise knelt down with bowed head, and said
a prayer, for they saw his lips moving. Then he locked up the church
doors, for the keys had been left in them, and slowly and sadly went
away.

"Thy mother would be sad to see this work," he said to Steadfast, as
he stopped by her grave. "They say 'tis done for religion's sake,
but I know not what to make of it."

The old Parish Clerk, North, had had a stroke the night after the
plunder of the church, and lay a-dying and insensible. His wife gave
his keys to Master Kenton, and on the following Sunday there was a
hue-and-cry for them, and Oates the father, the cobbler, a meddling
fellow, came down with a whole rabble of boys after him to the farm
to demand them. "A preacher had come out from Bristol," he said, "a
captain in the army, and he was calling for the keys to get into the
church and give them a godly discourse. It would be the worse for
Master Kenton if he did not give them up."

John had just sat down in the porch in his clean Sunday smock with
the baby on his knee, and Rusha clinging about him waiting till Stead
had cleaned himself up, and was ready to read to them from the
mother's books.

When he understood Gates' message he slowly said, "I be in charge of
the keys for this here parish."

"Come, come, Master Kenton, this wont do, give 'un up or you'll be
made to. Times are changed, and we don't want no parsons nor
churchwardens now, nor no such popery!"

"I'm accountable to the vestry for the church," gravely said Kenton.
"I will come and see what is doing, and open the church if so be as
the parish require it."

"Don't you see! The parish does--"

"I don't call you the parish, Master Gates, nor them boys neither,"
said Kenton, getting up however, and placing the little one in the
cradle, as he called out to Patience to keep back the dinner till his
return. The two boys and Rusha followed him to see what would
happen.

Long before they reached the churchyard they heard the sound of a
powerful voice, and presently they could see all the men and women of
the parish as it seemed, gathered about the lych gate, where, on the
large stone on which coffins were wont to be rested, stood a tall
thin man, in a heavy broad-brimmed hat, large bands, crimson scarf,
and buff coat, who was in fiery and eager words calling on all those
around to awaken from the sleep of sloth and sin, break their bonds
and fight for freedom and truth. He waved his long sword as he spoke
and dared the armies of Satan to come on, and it was hard to tell
which he really meant, the forces of sin, or the armies of men whom
he believed to be fighting on the wrong side.

Someone told him that the keys of the church were brought, but he
heeded not the interruption, except to thunder forth "What care I for
your steeple house! The Church of God is in the souls of the
faithful. Is it not written 'The kingdom of heaven is within you?'
What, can ye not worship save between four walls?" And then he went
on with the utmost fervour and vehemence, calling on all around to
set themselves free from the chains that held them and to strive even
to the death.

He meant all he said. He really believed he was teaching the only
way of righteousness, and so his words had a force that went home to
people's hearts as earnestness always does, and Jephthah, with tears
in his eyes, began begging and praying his father to let him go and
fight for the good Cause.

"Aye, aye," said Kenton, "against the world, the flesh, and the
devil, and welcome, my son."

"Then I'll go and enlist under Captain Venn," cried Jeph.

"Not so fast, my lad. What I gave you leave for was to fight with
the devil."

"You said the good Cause!"

"And can you tell me which be the good Cause?"

"Why, this here, of course. Did not you hear the Captain's good
words, and see his long sword, and didn't they give five marks for
Croppie's bull calf?"

"Fine words butter no parsnips," slowly responded Kenton.

"But," put in Steadfast, "butter is risen twopence the pound."

"Very like," said Kenton, "but how can that be the good Cause that
strips the Churches and claps godly ministers into jail?"

Jephthah thought he had an answer, but fathers in those times did not
permit themselves to be argued with.

Prices began going up still higher, for the Cavaliers were reported
to be on their way to besiege Bristol, and the garrison wanted all
the provisions they could lay in, and paid well for them. When
Kenton and his boys went down to market, they found the old walls
being strengthened with earth and stones, and sentries watching at
the gates, but as they brought in provisions, and were by this time
well known, no difficulty was made about admitting them.

One day, however, as they were returning, they saw a cloud of dust in
the distance, and heard the sounds of drums and fifes playing a
joyous tune. Kenton drew the old mare behind the bank of a high
hedge, and the boys watched eagerly through the hawthorns.

Presently they saw the Royal Standard of England, though indeed that
did not prove much, for both sides used it alike, but there were many
lesser banners and pennons of lords and knights, waving on the
breeze, and as the Kentons peeped down into the lane below they saw
plumed hats, and shining corslets, and silken scarves, and handsome
horses, whose jingling accoutrements chimed in with the tramp of
their hoofs, and the notes of the music in front, while cheerful
voices and laughter could be heard all around.

"Oh, father! these be gallant fellows," exclaimed Jephthah. "Will
you let me go with these?"

Kenton laughed a little to himself. "Which is the good Cause, eh,
son Jeph?"

He was, however, not at all easy about the state of things. "There
is like to be fighting," he said to Steadfast, as they were busy
together getting hay into the stable, "and that makes trouble even
for quiet folks that only want to be let alone. Now, look you here,"
and he pulled out a canvas bag from the corner of the bin. "This has
got pretty tolerably weighty of late, and I doubt me if this be the
safest place for it."

Stead opened his eyes. The family all knew that the stable was used
as the deposit for money, though none of the young folks had been
allowed to know exactly where it was kept. There were no banks in
those days, and careful people had no choice but either to hoard and
hide, or to lend their money to someone in business.

The farmer poured out a heap of the money, all silver and copper, but
he did not dare to wait to count it lest he should be interrupted.
He tied up one handful, chiefly of pence, in the same bag, and put
the rest into a bit of old sacking, saying, "You can get to the brook
side, to the place you wot of, better than I can, Stead. Take you
this with you and put it along with the other things, and then you
will have something to fall back on in case of need. We'll put the
rest back where it was before, for it may come handy."

So Steadfast, much gratified, as well he might be, at the confidence
bestowed on him by his father, took the bag with him under his smock
when he went out with the cows, and bestowed it in a cranny not far
from that in which that more precious trust resided.

CHAPTER V.

DESOLATION.

"They shot him dead at the Nine Stonerig,
Beside the headless Cross;
And they left him lying in his blood,
Upon the moor and moss."
SURTEES.

More and more soldiers might be seen coming down the roads towards
the town, not by any means always looking as gay as that first troop.
Some of the feathers were as draggled as the old cock's tail after a
thunderstorm, some reduced even to the quill, the coats looked
threadbare, the scarves stained and frayed, the horses lean and bony.

There was no getting into the town now, and the growling thunder of a
cannon might now and then be heard. Jeph would have liked to spend
all his time on the hill-side where he could see the tents round the
town, and watch bodies of troops come out, looking as small as toy
soldiers, and see the clouds of smoke, sometimes the flashes, a
moment or two before the report.

He longed to go down and see the camp, taking a load of butter and
eggs, but the neighbours told his father that these troops were bad
paymasters, and that there were idle fellows lurking about who might
take his wares without so much as asking the price.

However, Jeph grew suddenly eager to herd the cattle, because thus he
had the best chance of watching the long lines of soldiers drawn out
from the camp, and seeing the smoke of the guns, whose sound made
poor Patience stay and tremble at home, and hardly like to have her
father out of her sight.

There was worse coming. Jeph had been warned to keep his cattle well
out of sight from any of the roads, but when he could see the troops
moving about he could not recollect anything else, and one afternoon
Croppie strayed into the lane where the grass grew thick and rank,
and the others followed her. Jeph had turned her back and was close
to the farmstead when he heard shouts and the clattering of
trappings. Half-a-dozen lean, hungry-looking troopers were clanking
down the lane, and one called out, "Ha! good luck! Just what we
want! Beef and forage. Turn about, young bumpkin, I say. Drive
your cattle into camp. For the King's service."

"They are father's," sturdily replied Jeph, and called aloud for
"Father."

He was answered with a rude shout of derision, and poor Croppie was
pricked with the sword's point to turn her away. Jeph was wild with
passion, and struck back the sword with his stick so unexpectedly
that it flew out of the trooper's hand. Of course, more than one
stout man instantly seized the boy, amid howls of rage; and one heavy
blow had fallen on him, when Kenton dashed forward, thrusting himself
between his son, and the uplifted arm, and had begun to speak, when,
with the words "You will, you rebel dog?" a pistol shot was fired.

Jeph saw his father fall, but felt the grasp upon himself relax, and
heard a voice shouting, "How now, my men, what's this?"

"He resisted the King's requisition, your Grace," said one of the
troopers, as a handsome lad galloped up.

"King's requisition! Your own robbery. What have you done to the
poor man, you Schelm? See here, Rupert," he added, as another young
man rode hastily up.

"Rascals! How often am I to tell you that this is not to be made a
place for your plunder and slaughter," thundered the new comer,
rising in his stirrups, and striking at the troopers with the flat of
his sword, so that they fell back with growls about "soldiers must
live," and "curs of peasants."

The younger brother had leapt from his horse, and was trying to help
Jephthah raise poor Kenton's head, but it fell back helplessly, deaf
to the screams of "Father, father," with which Patience and Rusha had
darted out, as a cloud of smoke began to rise from the straw yard.
Poor children, they screamed again at what was before them. Rusha
ran wildly away at sight of the soldiers, but Patience, with the baby
in her arms, came up. She did not see her father at first, and only
cried aloud to the gentlemen.

"O sir, don't let them do it. If they take our cows, the babe will
die. He has no mother!"

"They shall not, the villains! Brother, can nothing be done?" cried
the youth, with a face of grief and horror. And then there was a
great confusion.

The two young officers were vehemently angry at sight of the fire,
and shouted fierce orders to the guard of soldiers who had
accompanied them to endeavour to extinguish it, themselves doing
their best, and making the men release Steadfast, whom they had
seized upon as he was trying to trample out the flame, kindled by a
match from one of the soldiers who had scattered themselves about the
yard during the struggle with Jephthah.

But either the fire was too strong, or the men did not exert
themselves; it was soon plain that the house could not be saved, and
the elder remounted, saying in German, "'Tis of no use, Maurice, we
must not linger here."

"And can nothing be done?" again asked Prince Maurice. "This is as
bad as in Germany itself."

"You are new to the trade, Maurice. You will see many such sights, I
fear, ere we have done; though I hoped the English nature was more
kindly."

Then using the word of command, sending his aides-de-camp, and with
much shouting and calling, Prince Rupert got the troop together
again, very sulky at being baulked of their plunder. They were all
made to go out of the farm yard, and ride away before him, and then
the two princes halted where the poor children, scarce knowing that
their home was burning behind them, were gathered round their father,
Patience stroking his face, Steadfast chafing his hands, Jephthah
standing with folded arms, and a terrible look of grief and wrath on
his face.

"Is there no hope?" asked Prince Maurice, sorrowfully.

"He is dead. That's all," muttered Jeph between his clenched teeth.

"Mark," said Prince Rupert, "this mischance is by no command of the
King or mine. The fellow shall be brought to justice if you can
swear to him."

"I would have hindered it, if I could," said the other prince, in
much slower, and more imperfect English. "It grieves me much. My
purse has little, but here it is."

He dropped it on the ground while setting spurs to his horse to
follow his brother.

And thus the poor children were left at first in a sort of numb
dismay after the shock, not even feeling that a heavy shower had
begun to fall, till the baby, whom Patience had laid on the grass,
set up a shriek.

Then she snatched him up, and burst into a bitter cry herself--
wailing "father was dead, and he would die," in broken words.
Steadfast then laid a hand on her, and said "He won't die, Patience,
I see Croppie there, I'll get some milk. Take him."

There were only smoking walls, but the fire was burning down under
the rain, and had not touched the stable, the wind being the other
way. "Take him there," the boy said.

"But father--we can't leave him."

Without more words Jephthah and Steadfast took the still form between
them and bore it into the stable, the baby screaming with hunger all
the time, so that Jephthah hotly said--

"Stop that! I can't bear it."

Steadfast then said he would milk the cow if Jeph would run to the
next cottage and get help. People would come when they knew the
soldiers were gone.

There was nothing but Steadfast's leathern cap to hold the milk, and
he felt as if his fingers had no strength to draw it; but when he had
brought his sister enough to quiet little Ben, she recollected Rusha,
and besought him to find her. She could hardly sit still and feed the
little one while she heard his voice shouting in vain for the child,
and all the time she was starting with the fancy that she saw her
father move, or heard a rustling in the straw where her brothers had
laid him.

And when little Ben was satisfied, she was almost rent asunder
between her unwillingness to leave unwatched all that was left of her
father, still with that vain hopeless hope that he might revive, all
could not have been over in such a moment, and her terrible anxiety
about her little sister. Could she have run back into the burning
house? Or could those dreadful soldiers have killed her too?

Steadfast presently came back, having found some of the startled
cattle and driven them in, but no Rusha. Patience was sure she could
find her, and giving the baby to Steadfast ran out in the rain and
smouldering smoke calling her; all in vain. Then she heard voices
and feet, and in a fresh fright was about to turn again, when she
knew Jephthah's call. He had the child in his arms. He had been
coming back from the village with some neighbours, when they saw the
poor little thing, crouched like a hare in her form under a bush. No
sooner did she hear them, than like a hare, she started up to run
away; but stumbling over the root of a tree, she fell and lay, too
much frightened even to scream till her brother picked her up.

Kind motherly arms were about the poor girls. Old Goody Grace, who
had been with them through their mother's illness, had hobbled up on
hearing the terrible news. She looked like a witch, with a tall hat,
short cloak, and nose and chin nearly meeting, but all Elmwood loved
and trusted her, and the feeling of utter terror and helplessness
almost vanished when she kissed and grieved over the orphans, and
took the direction of things. She straightened and composed poor
John Kenton's limbs, and gave what comfort she could by assuring the
children that the passage must have been well nigh without pain.
"And if ever there was a good man fit to be taken suddenly, it was
he," she added. "He be in a happier place than this has been to him
since your good mother was took."

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