Books: Under the Storm
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> Under the Storm
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Several of the men had accompanied her, and after some consultation,
it was decided that the burial had better take place that very night,
even though there was no time to make a coffin.
"Many an honest man will be in that same case," said Harry Blane, the
smith, "if they come to blows down there."
"And He to Whom he is gone will not ask whether he lies in a coffin,
or has the prayers said over him," added Goody, "though 'tis pity on
him too, for he always was a man for churches and parsons and
prayers."
"Vain husks, said the pious captain," put in Oates.
"Well," said Harry Blane, "those could hardly be vain husks that made
John Kenton what he was. Would that the good old times were back
again; when a sackless man could not be shot down at his own door for
nothing at all."
Reverently and carefully John Kenton's body was borne to the
churchyard, where he was laid in the grave beside his much loved
wife. No knell was rung: Elmwood, lying far away over the hill side
in the narrow wooded valley with the river between it and the camp,
had not yet been visited by any of the Royalist army, but a midnight
toll might have attracted the attention of some of the lawless
stragglers. Nor did anyone feel capable of uttering a prayer aloud,
and thus the only sound at that strange sad funeral was the low boom
of a midnight gun fired in the beleaguered city.
Then Patience with Rusha and the baby were taken home by kind old
Goody Grace, while the smith called the two lads into his house.
CHAPTER VI.
LEFT TO THEMSELVES.
"One look he cast upon the bier,
Dashed from his eye the gathering tear,
Then, like the high bred colt when freed
First he essays his fire and speed,
He vanished---"
SCOTT.
Steadfast was worn and wearied out with grief and slept heavily,
knowing at first that his brother was tossing about a good deal, but
soon losing all perception, and not waking till on that summer
morning the sun had made some progress in the sky.
Then he came to the sad recollection of the last dreadful day, and
knew that he was lying on Master Blane's kitchen floor. He picked
himself up, and at the same moment heard Jephthah calling him from
the outside.
"Stead," he said, "I am going!"
"Going!" said poor Stead, half asleep.
"Yes. I shall never rest till I have had a shot at those barbarous
German princes and the rest of the villains. My father's blood cries
to me from the ground for vengeance."
"Would father have said like that?" said the boy, bewildered, but
conscious of something defective, though these were Bible words.
"That's not the point! Captain Venn called every man to take the
sword and hew down the wicked, and slay the ungodly and the
murderers. I will!" cried Jeph, "none shall withhold me."
He had caught more phrases from these fiery preachers than he himself
knew, and they broke forth in this time of excitement.
"But, Jeph, what is to become of us? The girls, and the little one!
You are the only one of us who can do a man's work."
"I could not keep you together!" said Jeph. "Our house burnt by
those accursed sons of Belial, all broken up, and only a lubber like
you to help! No, Goody Grace or some one will take in the girls for
what's left of the stock, and you can soon find a place--a strong
fellow like you; Master Blane might take you and make a smith of you,
if you be not too slow and clumsy."
"But Jeph--"
"Withhold me not. Is it not written--"
"I wish you would not say is it not written," broke in Stead, "I know
it is, but you don't say it right."
"Because you are yet in darkness," said Jeph, contemptuously. "Hold
your tongue. I must be off at once. Market folk can get into the
town by the low lane out there, away from the camp of the spoilers,
early in the morning, and I must hasten to enlist under Captain Venn.
No, don't call the wenches, they would but strive to daunt my spirit
in the holy work of vengeance on the bloodthirsty, and I can't abide
tears and whining. See here, I found this in the corn bin. I'm poor
father's heir. You won't want money, and I shall; so I shall take
it, but I'll come back and make all your fortunes when I am a captain
or a colonel. I wonder this is not more. We got a heap of late.
Maybe father hid it somewhere else, but 'tis no use seeking now. If
you light upon it you are welcome to do what you will with it. Fare
thee well, Steadfast. Do the best you can for the wenches, but a
call is laid on me! I have vowed to avenge the blood that was shed."
He strode off into the steep woodland path that clothed the hill
side, and Steadfast looked after him, and felt more utterly deserted
than before. Then he looked up to the sky, and tried to remember
what was the promise to the fatherless children. That made him
wonder whether the Bible and Prayer-book had been burnt, and then his
morning's duty of providing milk for the little ones' breakfast
pressed upon him. He took up a pail of Mrs. Blane's which he thought
he might borrow and went off in search of the cows. So, murmuring
the Lord's Prayer as he walked, and making the resolution not to be
dragged away from his trust in the cavern, nor to forsake his little
sister--he heard the lowing of the cows as he went over the hill, and
found them standing at the gate of the fold yard, waiting to be eased
of their milk. Poor creatures, they seemed so glad to welcome him
that it was the first thing that brought tears to his eyes, and they
came with such a rush that he had much ado to keep them from dropping
into the pail as he leant his head against Croppie's ruddy side.
There was a little smouldering smoke; but the rain had checked the
fire, and though the roof of the house was gone and it looked
frightfully dreary and wretched, the walls were still standing and
the pigs were grunting about the place. However, Steadfast did not
stop to see what was left within, as he knew Ben would be crying for
food, but he carried his foaming pail back to Goody Grace's as fast
as he could, after turning out the cows on the common, not even
stopping to count the sheep that were straggling about.
His sisters were watching anxiously from the door of Goody Grace's
hovel, and eagerly cried out "Where's Jeph?"
Then he had to tell them that Jeph was gone for a soldier, to have
his revenge for his father's death.
"Jeph gone too!" said poor Patience, looking pale. "Oh, what shall
we ever do?"
"He did not think of that, I'll warrant, the selfish fellow," said
Goody Grace. "That's the way with lads, nought but themselves."
"It was because of what they did to poor father," replied Stead.
"And if he, or the folks he is gone to, call that the Christian
religion, 'tis more than I do!" rejoined the old woman. "I wish I
had met him, I'd have given him a bit of my mind about going off to
his revenge, as he calls it, without ever a thought what was to
become of his own flesh and blood here."
"He did say I might go to service (not that I shall), and that some
one would take you in for the cattle's sake."
"O don't do that, Stead," cried Patience, "don't let us part!" He
had only just time to answer, "No such thing," for people were coming
about them by this time, one after another emerging from the cottages
that stood around the village green. The women were all hotly angry
with Jeph for going off and leaving his young brothers and sisters to
shift for themselves.
"He was ever an idle fellow," said one, "always running after the
soldiers and only wanting an excuse."
"Best thing he could do for himself or them," growled old Green.
"Eh! What, Gaffer Green! To go off without a word or saying by your
leave to his poor little sister before his good father be cold in his
grave," exclaimed a whole clamour of voices.
"Belike he knew what a clack of women's tongues there would be, and
would fain be out of it," replied the old man shrewdly.
It was a clamour that oppressed poor Patience and made her feel sick
with sorrow and noise. Everybody meant to be very kind and pitiful,
but there was a great deal too much of it, and they felt quite
bewildered by the offers made them. Farmer Mill's wife, of Elmwood
Cross, two miles off, was reported by her sister to want a stout girl
to help her, but there was no chance of her taking Rusha or the baby
as well as Patience. Goody Grace could not undertake the care of Ben
unless she could have Patience, because she was so often called away
from home, nor could she support them without the cows. Smith Blane
might have taken Stead, but his wife would not hear of being troubled
with Rusha. And Dame Oates might endure Rusha for the sake of a
useful girl like Patience, but certainly not the baby. It was an
utter Babel and confusion, and in the midst of it all, Patience crept
up to her brother who stood all the time like a stock, and said "Oh!
Stead, I cannot give up Ben to anyone. Cannot we all keep together?"
"Hush, Patty! That's what I mean to do, if you will stand by me," he
whispered, "wait till all the clack is over."
And there he waited with Patience by his side while the parish seemed
to be endlessly striving over them. If one woman seemed about to
make a proposal, half-a-dozen more fell on her and vowed that the
poor orphans would be starved and overworked; till she turned on the
foremost with "And hadn't your poor prentice lad to go before the
justices to shew the weals on his back?" "Aye, Joan Stubbs, and what
are you speaking up for but to get the poor children's sheep? Hey,
you now, Stead Kenton--Lack-a-day, where be they?"
For while the dispute was at its loudest and hottest, Stead had taken
Rusha by the hand, made a sign to Patience, and the four deserted
children had quietly gone away together into the copsewood that led
to the little glen where the brook ran, and where was the cave that
Steadfast looked on as his special charge. Rusha, frightened by the
loud voices and angry gestures, had begun to cry, and beg she might
not be given to anyone, but stay with her Patty and Stead.
"And so you shall, my pretty," said Steadfast, sitting down on the
stump of a tree, and taking her on his knee, while Toby nuzzled up to
them.
"Then you think we can go on keeping ourselves, and not letting them
part us," said Patience, earnestly. If I have done the house work
all this time, and we have the fields, and all the beasts. We have
only lost the house, and I could never bear to live there again," she
added, with a shudder.
"No," said Steadfast, "it is too near the road while these savage
fellows are about. Besides--" and there he checked himself and
added, "I'll tell you, Patty. Do you remember the old stone cot down
there in the wood?"
"Where the old hermit lived in the blind Popish times?"
"Aye. We'll live there. No soldiers will ever find us out there,
Patty."
"Oh! oh! that is good," said Patience. "We shall like that, shan't
we, Rusha?"
"And," added Steadfast, "there is an old cowshed against the rock
down there, where we could harbour the beasts, for 'tis them that the
soldiers are most after."
"Let us go down to it at once," cried the girl, joyfully.
But Steadfast thought it would be wiser to go first to the ruins of
their home; before, as he said, anyone else did so, to see what could
be saved therefrom.
Patience shrank from the spectacle, and Rusha hung upon her, saying
the soldiers would be there, and beginning to cry. At that moment,
however, Tom Gates' voice came near shouting for "Stead! Stead
Kenton!"
"Come on, Stead. You'll be prentice-lad to Dick Stiggins the tailor,
if so be you bring Whitefoot and the geese for your fee; and Goodman
Bold will have the big wench; and Goody Grace will make shift with
the little ones, provided she has the kine!"
"We don't mean to be beholden to none of them," said Steadfast,
sturdily, with his hands in his pockets. "We mean to keep what
belongs to us, and work for ourselves."
"And God will help us," Patience added softly.
"Ho, ho!" cried Tom, and proud of having found them, he ran before
them back to the village green, and roared out, "Here they be! And
they say as how they don't want none of you, but will keep
themselves. Ha! ha!"
Anyone who saw those four young orphans would not have thought their
trying to keep themselves a laughing matter; and the village folk,
who had been just before so unwilling to undertake them, now began
scolding and blaming them for their folly and ingratitude.
Nothing indeed makes people so angry as when a kindness which has
cost them a great effort turns out not to be wanted.
"Look for nothing from us," cried Dame Bold. "I'd have made a good
housewife of you, you ungrateful hussy, and now you may thank
yourself, if you come to begging, I shall have nothing for you."
"Beggary and rags," repeated the tailor. "Aye, aye; 'tis all very
fine strolling about after the sheep with your hands in your pockets
in summer weather, but you'll sing another song in winter time, and
be sorry you did not know when you had a good offer."
"The babe will die as sure as 'tis born," added Jean Oates.
"If they be not all slain by the mad Prince's troopers up in that
place by the roadside," said another.
Blacksmith Blane and Goody Grace were in the meantime asking the
children what they meant to do, and Stead told them in a few words.
Goody Grace shook her head over little Ben, but Blane declared that
after all it might be the best thing they could do to keep their land
and beasts together. Ten to one that foolish lad Jephthah would come
back with his tail between his legs, and though it would serve him
right, what would they do if all were broken up? Then he slapped
Stead on the back, called him a sensible, steady lad, and promised
always to be his friend.
Moreover he gave up his morning's work to come with the children to
their homestead, and see what could be saved. It was a real
kindness, not only because his protection made Patience much less
afraid to go near the place, and his strong arm would be a great help
to them, but because he was parish constable and had authority to
drive away the rough lads whom they found already hanging about the
ruins, and who had frightened Patience's poor cat up into the ash
tree.
The boys and two curs were dancing round the tree, and one boy was
stripping off his smock to climb up and throw poor pussy down among
them when Master Blane's angry shout and flourished staff put them
all to flight, and Patience and Rusha began to coax the cat to come
down to them.
Hunting her had had one good effect, it had occupied the boys and
prevented them from carrying anything off. The stable was safe. What
had been burnt was the hay rick, whence the flames had climbed to the
house. The roof had fallen in, and the walls and chimney stood up
blackened and dismal, but there was a good deal of stone about the
house, the roof was of shingle, and the heavy fall, together with the
pouring rain, had done much to choke the fire, so that when Blane
began to throw aside the charred bits of beams and of the upper
floor, more proved to be unburnt, or at least only singed, than could
have been expected.
The great black iron pot still hung in the chimney with the very meal
and kail broth that Patience had been boiling in it, and Rusha's
little stool stood by the hearth. Then the great chest, or ark as
Patience called it, where all the Sunday clothes were kept, had been
crushed in and the upper things singed, but all below was safe. The
beds and bedding were gone; but then the best bed had been only a box
in the wall with an open side, and the others only chaff or straw
stuffed into a sack.
Patience's crocks, trenchers, and cups were gone too, all except one
horn mug; but two knives and some spoons were extracted from the
ashes. Furniture was much more scanty everywhere than now. There
was not much to lose, and of that they had lost less than they had
feared.
"And see here, Stead," said Patience joyfully holding up a lesser box
kept within the other.
It contained her mother's Bible and Prayer-book. The covers were
turned up, a little warped by the heat, and some of the corners of
the leaves were browned, but otherwise they were unhurt.
"I was in hopes 'twas the money box," said Blane.
"Jeph has got the bag," said Patience.
"More shame for him," growled their friend. Steadfast did not think
it necessary to say that was not all the hoard.
Another thing about which Patience was very anxious was the meal
chest. With much difficulty they reached it. It had been broken in
by the fall of the roof, and some of the contents were scattered, but
enough was gathered up in a pail fetched from the stable to last for
some little time. There were some eggs likewise in the nests, and
altogether Goodman Blane allowed that, if the young Kentons could
take care of themselves, and keep things together, they had decided
for the best; if they could, that was to say. And he helped them to
carry their heavier things to the glen. He wanted to see if it were
fit for their habitation, but Steadfast was almost sorry to show
anyone the way, in spite of his trust and gratitude to the
blacksmith.
However, of course, it was not possible to keep this strange hiding-
place a secret, so he led the way by the path the cattle had trodden
out through the brushwood to the open space where they drank, and
where stood the hermit's hut, a dreary looking den built of big
stones, and with rough slates covering it. There was a kind of hole
for the doorway, and another for the smoke to get out at. Blane
whistled with dismay at the sight of it, and told Stead he could not
take the children to such a place.
"We will get it better," said Stead.
"That we will," returned Patience, who felt anything better than
being separated from her brother.
"It is weather-tight," added Stead, "and when it is cleaned out you
will see!"
"And the soldiers will never find it," added Patience.
"There is something in that," said Blane. "But at any rate, though
it be summer, you can never sleep there to-night."
"The girls cannot," said Stead, "but I shall, to look after things."
These were long days, and by the evening many of the remnants of
household stuff had been brought, the cows and Whitefoot had been
tied up in their dilapidated shed, with all the hay Stead could
gather together to make them feel at home. There was a hollow under
the rock where he hoped to keep the pigs, but neither they nor the
sheep could be brought in at present. They must take their chance,
the sheep on the moor, the pigs grubbing about the ruins of the
farmyard. The soldiers must be too busy for marauding, to judge by
the constant firing that had gone on all day, the sharp rattle of the
musquets, and now and then the grave roll of a cannon.
Stead had been too busy to attend, but half the village had been
watching from the height, which accounted perhaps for the move from
the farm having been so uninterrupted after the first.
It was not yet dark, when, tired out by his day's hard work, Stead
sat himself down at the opening of his hut with Toby by his side.
The evening gold of the sky could hardly be seen through the hazel
and mountain-ash bushes that clothed the steep opposite bank of the
glen and gave him a feeling of security. The brook rippled along
below, plainly to be heard since all other sounds had ceased except
the purring of a night-jar and the cows chewing their cud. There was
a little green glade of short grass sloping down to the stream from
the hut where the rabbits were at play, but on each side the trees
and brushwood were thick, with only a small path through, much
overgrown, and behind the rock rose like a wall, overhung with ivy
and traveller's joy. Only one who knew the place could have found
the shed among the thicket where the cows were fastened, far less the
cavern half-way up the side of the rock where lay the treasures for
which Steadfast was a watchman. He thought for a moment of seeing if
all were safe, but then decided, like a wise boy, that to disturb the
creepers, and wear a path to the place, was the worst thing he could
do if he wished for concealment. He had had his supper at the
village, and had no more to do, and after the long day of going to
and fro, even Toby was too much tired to worry the rabbits, though he
had had no heavy weights to carry. Perhaps, indeed, the poor dog had
no spirits to interfere with their sports, as they sat upright,
jumped over one another, and flashed their little white tails. He
missed his old master, and knew perfectly well that his young master
was in trouble and distress, as he crept close up to the boy's
breast, and looked up in his face. Stead's hand patted the rough,
wiry hair, and there was a sort of comfort in the creature's love.
But how hard it was to believe that only yesterday he had a father
and a home, and that now his elder brother was gone, and he had the
great charge on him of being the mainstay of the three younger ones,
as well as of protecting that treasure in the cavern which his father
had so solemnly entrusted to him.
The boy knelt down to say his prayers, and as he did so, all alone in
the darkening wood, the words "Father of the fatherless, Helper of
the helpless," came to his aid.
CHAPTER VII.
THE HERMIT'S GULLEY.
"O Bessie Bell and Mary Grey,
They were twa bonnie lasses--
They digged a bower on yonder brae,
And theek'd it o'er wi' rashes." BALLAD.
Steadfast slept soundly on the straw with Toby curled up by his side
till the morning light was finding its way in through all the chinks
of his rude little hovel.
When he had gathered his recollections he knew how much there was to
be done. He sprang to his feet, showing himself still his good
mother's own boy by kneeling down to his short prayer, then taking
off the clothes in which he had slept, and giving himself a good bath
in the pool under the bush of wax-berried guelder rose, and as good a
wash as he could without soap.
Then he milked the cows, for happily his own buckets had been at the
stable and thus were safe. He had just released Croppie and seen her
begin her breakfast on the grass, when Patience in her little red
hood came tripping through the glen with a broom over her shoulder,
and without the other children. Goody Grace had undertaken to keep
them for the day, whilst Patience worked with her brother, and had
further lent her the broom till she could make another, for all the
country brooms of that time were home-made with the heather and the
birch. She had likewise brought a barley cake, on which and on the
milk the pair made their breakfast, Goody providing for the little
ones.
"We must use it up," said Patience, "for we have got no churn."
"And we could not get into the town to sell the butter if we had,"
returned her brother. "We had better take it up to some one in the
village who might give us something for it, bread or cheese maybe."
"I would like to make my own butter," sighed Patience, whose mother's
cleanly habits had made her famous for it.
"So you shall some day, Patty," said her brother, "but there's no
getting into Bristol to buy one or to sell butter now. Hark! they
are beginning again," as the growl of a heavy piece of cannon shook
the ground.
"I wonder where our Jeph is," said the little girl sadly. "How could
he like to go among all those cruel fighting men? You won't go,
Stead?"
"No, indeed, I have got something else to do."
The children were hard at work all the time. They cleared out the
inside of their hovel, which had a floor of what was called lime ash,
trodden hard, and not much cracked. Probably other hermits in
earlier times had made the place habitable before the expelled monk
whom the Kentons' great-grandfather recollected; for the cell, though
rude, was wonderfully strong, and the stone walls were very stout and
thick, after the fashion of the middle ages. There was a large flat
stone to serve as a hearth, and an opening at the top for smoke with
a couple of big slaty stones bent towards one another over it as a
break to the force of the rain. The children might have been worse
off though there was no window, and no door to close the opening.
That mattered the less in the summer weather, and before winter came,
Stead thought he could close it with a mat made of the bulrushes that
stood up in the brook, lifting their tall, black heads.
Straw must serve for their beds till they could get some sacking to
stuff it into, and as some of the sheep would have to be killed and
salted for the winter, the skins would serve for warmth. Patience
arranged the bundles of straw with a neat bit of plaiting round them,
at one corner of the room for herself and Rusha, at the opposite one
for Stead. For the present they must sleep in their clothes.
Life was always so rough, and, to present notions, comfortless, that
all this was not nearly so terrible to the farmer's daughter of two
centuries ago as it would be to a girl of the present day. Indeed,
save for the grief for the good father, the sense of which now and
then rushed on them like a horrible, too true dream, Steadfast and
Patience would almost have enjoyed the setting up for themselves and
all their contrivances. Some losses, however, besides that of the
churn were very great in their eyes. Patience's spinning wheel
especially, and the tools, scythe, hook, and spade, all of which had
been so much damaged, that Smith Blane had shaken his head over them
as past mending.
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