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The Broken Font: A Story of the Civil War, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Moyle Sherer · English · Gutenberg #43262 · 340,337 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Broken Font: A Story of the Civil War, Vol. 2 (of 2)

Author: Moyle Sherer


        
Release date: July 20, 2013 [eBook #43262]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BROKEN FONT: A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAR, VOL. 2 (OF 2) ***

  THE BROKEN FONT

  A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAR.

  BY THE
  AUTHOR OF “TALES OF THE WARS OF OUR TIMES,”
  “RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PENINSULA,” &c. &c. &c.


  IN TWO VOLUMES.

  VOL. II.


  LONDON:

  PRINTED FOR

  LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN,

  PATERNOSTER-ROW.

  1836.




THE BROKEN FONT.




CHAPTER I.

    And now, good morrow to our waking soules,
    Which watch not one another out of feare.
                                        DONNE.


The noble spirit of Katharine Heywood was severely exercised by those
disclosures of Jane Lambert which have been related in a former
chapter.

She regretted, too late, that she had ever asked that true-hearted
girl to perform an office so difficult in itself, and which had
proved, in its consequences, so hazardous to her reputation and her
peace. The chance of such a misfortune as that which had befallen Jane
never remotely presented itself to her mind at the moment when she
made the request, yet she could not but feel compunction as she
reflected on the trouble to which the generous constancy of a delicate
mind had subjected her affectionate friend. One slight reparation was
in her power. It became her plain duty to undeceive the mind of Juxon
on the subject; and the thought that she should be thus instrumental
in bringing together two fine characters, formed for each other, made
all selfish considerations about her own sorrow, and every pang which
her maidenly pride must suffer, vanish before that proper resolution.

No opportunity of speaking in private with Juxon occurred on the
evening of Jane’s disclosure to Katharine, nor did any offer itself
until the arrival of her young cousin Arthur from Oxford. It was a
mournful trial to Katharine to observe the high and joyous spirits of
the ardent youth, as he embraced and thanked Sir Oliver for acceding
to his request. The silent house became suddenly full of cheerful
echoes as the brave boy passed to and fro on its oaken staircase and
along the pleasant gallery, singing snatches of loyal songs, or making
his spurs jingle as he ran. All his preparations for the solemn work
of war were made with a light heart, and with little or no
consideration that fellow-countrymen were to be his enemies. Such
little sympathy as the boy once felt for the tortured Prynne existed
no longer for any one of that party, which he had learned to look upon
as traitors.

One would have thought that he was volunteering in a foreign
expedition, by his gay-hearted alacrity in getting ready.

“Cousin Kate,” said he, turning towards her as they sat at breakfast
in the hall, “you must make us a couple of King’s rosettes,--and I
hope you have both of you,” he added, looking at Jane Lambert, “nearly
finished embroidering the small standard for our troop:--you have
laughed at me, and called me boy, Jane; but when I bring you back your
own embroidery, stained with the blood of traitors, you shall reward
me as a man.”

“I am not so very blood-thirsty, Arthur,” said Jane Lambert, “as to
wish it shed to do honour to my embroidery; and if I see you come
safe back with your sword bright and a peace branch in your hand, I
will tell a fib for you, and call you a man before your beard comes.
Now don’t frown--it does not become your smooth face:--when all is
over, you shall play the part of a lady in the first court masque, and
shall wear my rose-coloured gown.”

“Why, Jane,” said Sir Oliver, “what is come to you, girl? It was but
five minutes ago that I saw you with your kerchief at your eyes,
looking as sad as though you were sitting at a funeral; and now thou
mockest poor Arthur, as if he were a vain boaster, instead of a
gallant boy, as thou well knowest.--Never mind her, Arthur: she is a
true woman, and teazes those most whom she loves the best. She will
cry peccavi to thee a few weeks hence, and suffer thee to give her a
full pardon in honest kisses.”

“Marry, Sir Oliver,” said Jane, smiling, “you will spoil the boy, an
you talk thus to him.”

“She shall not wait so long for my pardon,” said the good-tempered
Arthur, with quickness; and rising from his seat, he went to Jane,
and, with the permitted familiarity of boyhood and cousinship, he
gave her a kiss. “There,” he added: “a bird in the hand is worth two
in the bush. ‘To-morrow’ is a word I never liked, and it is a season
which I may never find. Now, remember, if I should have the ill luck
to be cut down by the sword of a traitor, I die in peace with you,
dear coz, and forgive you for your merriment beforehand.”

“She will not be merrier, Arthur, than she is now,” said Katharine;
“and to say truth, the very thought is enough to make us sad, if we
were not melancholy already:--but I must not hear, my dear father, of
your going to the field. It will be at the cost of your life, and
that, too, without your having the satisfaction to be of use.”

“An example, Kate, must always be of service, if it be a good one; and
though I never stood opposite a shotted cannon hitherto, methinks, to
do that once by the side of my King would make the short remnant of my
life all the brighter for it. Besides, my dear girl, for all the talk
which these Parliament men make about their levies, let the country
gentlemen of the western counties arm in right earnest, and the loyal
cavaliers of England will make these praying rogues bend the knee and
cry out for quarter.”

“To be sure they will,” said the excited Arthur: “I will bring cousin
Jane a live specimen of the genuine round-headed rebel, with his hands
tied behind him, and the whites of his eyes where the pupils should
be.”

At this moment Juxon entered the hall from Old Beech:--he caught the
last sentence; and putting one hand on Arthur’s shoulder, as he gave
the other to Sir Oliver.--“Remember, my young master,” he said, “that
thy game must be caught before it can be cooked, at least so says the
cookery book in my old housekeeper’s room; and, believe me, you will
find a day’s fighting with these Parliament boys rather harder work
than a morning’s hare-hunting, and little game bagged at the close of
it.”

“Why, George Juxon! this from you!” said Sir Oliver. “Why, you are the
very last man that I expected to hear croak in this fashion. Why, I
expect to see the vagabonds turn tail, before a charge of well mounted
cavaliers, like a flock of sheep.”

“You could not see such a runaway flight with greater pleasure than I
should; but take my word for it, the King’s enemies are made of
sterner stuff than you give them credit for. Many a great spirit is
reckoned among their leaders; and of the meaner folk that follow them
numbers have put their hearts into the cause, under a notion that it
is that of the people. No, sir, Arthur will act in these troubles, I
am well assured, with the same manliness of spirit with which he wrote
to you from Oxford, and, therefore, I do not wish to hear him talk
like a school boy.”

Arthur coloured with a little confusion at this grave rebuke; but,
with the frank grace of a generous spirit, confessed himself to have
spoken idly, and to be wrong; excusing it, at the same time, by
saying, that he was only vapouring so to plague Jane Lambert a little,
who, he verily believed, to be in love with one of the rebels. The
eyes of Katharine fell, and her gaze was fixed silently upon the
ground, and a slight contraction of her brow showed to Jane how very
keenly she was suffering. It was not possible, at the moment, to leave
the table without an abruptness which must, of necessity, attract
notice, or she would have done so; but Jane, with a ready
cheerfulness, replied, “Perhaps I am: now, guess for me, most noble
cavalier, whether my Puritan suitor be tall or short; young or old;
how many hairs grow on his chin; whether his cheeks be red and white,
like summer apples; how much buff it may take to make him a war coat;
and if he do not wear high boot heels and jingling spurs for bravery?”

The fine temper of Arthur enabled him to take this playful raillery of
Jane’s as pleasantly as it was meant; and Sir Oliver came to the boy’s
aid, observing, “The sly maiden is laughing at us both, Arthur; and it
is too true that I must have a broad seam let into my old buff
coat.--See thou have it done quickly,” said he, “Philip,” turning to
the old serving man behind his chair.

The announcement, however, which Sir Oliver had before made of his
intentions, confirmed by the order thus gaily given, seemed to take
away the old man’s breath; for to old Philip none of these sad changes
were matters for laughter.

Juxon did not discourage these intentions of Sir Oliver for the
present: he had satisfied his own mind that the family must, of
necessity, soon quit the mansion at Milverton for a season. The spirit
in Warwick and in Coventry was decidedly favourable to the cause of
the Parliament; and although many of the gentlemen and yeomen in the
country villages declared for his Majesty, yet whatever men could be
raised under the commission of array would, of course, be marched
away. However, it was agreed among the gentry, that the King should be
invited to show himself in the county, and that some effort should be
made to arouse the loyalty and enlist the feelings of the people in
his quarrel. Should this fail, they all looked to Nottingham or
Shrewsbury as favourable rallying points for the Royalists.

In the mean time secret preparations were made for concealing or
removing valuable effects, and for transporting families and
households, when the approach of the parliamentary forces should
render it no longer safe for the more distinguished and wealthy of the
Royalists to remain in their stately homes.

The conversation at the breakfast table at Milverton was changed from
the jocular mood of the moment to a graver tone.

The news of the day,--the last movements of the King,--the rumours of
his approach,--conjectures of his reception,--by turns engaged the
attention of all, and were discussed between Juxon and Sir Oliver with
earnestness and forethought.

The calm clear judgment of George Juxon made him look far on to
consequences; and Sir Oliver, conscious of his own deficiency of
information, and of the indolence of his inquiries, deferred more
readily to the opinions of Juxon than obstinate men are found willing
to do in general.

When the party rose and quitted the hall, Katharine, under the
pretence of asking Juxon’s advice about packing a valuable picture,
led him to the gallery alone, while Arthur and Jane Lambert were
settling their playful quarrel upon the terrace.

At the far end of the gallery was a windowed niche, with an antique
seat of carved oak. Katharine sat down, and entreating the attention
of Juxon to something of consequence, which it was her desire to
impart to him, he placed himself on the bench by her side.

“You must be at a loss, Master Juxon, I fear, thoroughly to understand
our dear friend, Jane Lambert.”

“It is true--she is a very strange girl.”

“Yes, strangely excellent: her idle words and idle ways do veil a
character of rare and precious worth.”

“I would fain think so, lady; but I do sometimes fear that she is of a
nature too open and too free for this hollow world. Already, to my
thought, she is unhappy from this very cause: whatever may be her
sorrow, I wish she would confide it to you.”

“I have discovered it.”

“Can it be possible? If so, I am truly happy to think that she will
have a friend, whose maidenly reserve and heavenly wisdom may guide
her through all dangers and difficulties in safety.”

“Ah! there’s the pang; ’twas I betrayed her to them.”

“You wrong yourself, lady,--I am convinced you do. I am afraid that I
can make a better guess at what causes the melancholy of Jane Lambert
than you can; however, I do not feel at liberty to speak more
plainly.”

“I tell you it was I who placed her in the painful perplexity in which
you once surprised her. The gentleman from whom you saw her part was
an unhappy relative of mine: mine was the errand she was doing; mine
was the secret that she kept with so noble a constancy:--that
gentleman was nought to her.”

“Indeed! was he not her lover?”

“No: would he were! and yet the wish were selfish, and not kind, for
she loves another.”

“I am utterly confused:--how much have my suspicions wronged her:--she
is a generous girl;--how can I have been so deceived? And yet the
gallant kissed her hand upon his knees.”

“I know it; but even in that action he only charged her with his
homage to another: she was but love’s messenger.”

“Lady, I am troubled in my thoughts at this sad business: it is plain
I wronged her; plain that she is constant as a star to friend or to
lover. What she has done in friendship may well command my lasting
admiration. You tell me that she loves. Why is her lover unknown and
unavowed? What is his condition? Where is he? What barriers divide
their fortunes and their hopes?”

“One only--he knows not of her love.”

“Whoever he may be, wherever he may dwell, in ignorance of such a vast
possession as such a woman’s love--methinks, lady, it is your duty,
your solemn and sweet duty, to make it known to him. I envy you the
joy: let me be the bearer of your words or letter; so shall I some
atonement make for my unworthy suspicions of her danger.”

“You forget--these are no times for lovers’ vows; these are no times
for marrying and giving in marriage: such knowledge might depress the
object of her love with care:--to see happiness offered to our heart’s
want, and then, in the self-same instant, wrested from us by the iron
hand of war, and scared away by the blast of discord, is to make
acquaintance with a sorrow which, by ignorance, we might have
escaped.”

“I think not with you, lady: it were pity for any man to die in his
first field unconscious of such a blessing.”

“As I have a human heart, I can conceive of such a feeling, and like
the noble thought.--Long may you live, Master Juxon, to prove how well
Jane Lambert loves you!” So saying, Katharine rose and left the
gallery.

Juxon remained fixed where he sat, in a state of mind which no
language could faithfully depict. His heart swelled; his eyes became
dim; and as the blinding tears fell fast away, the first object on
which they rested was the figure of Jane Lambert, walking under the
shade of the lime-trees alone. He went down to join her in a tumult
of rapture; but before he reached the end of the avenue the reflection
crossed him, “What am I about to do? what am I about to utter? This is
no moment, this is no mood, in which, for the first time, to address
her as a lover. Katharine said true, ‘These are no times for lovers’
vows.’ ‘For better’ I would have her mine, but not ‘for worse.’ She
shall know no misery that I can shield her from now, as a friend; and
when peace smiles on my country once more, may God then join our
hands, as even now our hearts!”




CHAP. II.

    Thus would I teach the world a better way,
    For the recovery of a wounded honour,
    Than with a savage fury, not true courage,
    Still to run headlong on.
                                    MASSINGER.


There is no earthly consolation under sorrow of a more noble kind than
that of witnessing and of promoting the happiness of those whom we
know to deserve our affection. Katharine had not experienced for a
long time a feeling of joy so true as that, with which, in the
solitude of her chamber, she reflected upon what had just passed
between herself and Juxon. She saw him go out, with hasty steps,
towards the avenue where Jane was walking alone, and she rightly
interpreted that check and change of his resolutions which made him
turn suddenly away. But she determined that the work which she had
begun should not be left long incomplete, and that Jane Lambert should
at once know of the revelation which she had made to Juxon that
morning. She regretted having uttered a syllable during their
interview which could operate to discourage Juxon from an immediate
avowal of the impression which Jane’s conduct had made upon his heart.
Most true it was that, in the present posture of public affairs, it
could not be advisable for any one, and more especially for a
clergyman, to enter into the state of matrimony, and it was a
melancholy thing to form engagements which might never be fulfilled.
Here, however, she could not but admit there was room for an exception
to the common rules of prudence. Juxon and Jane Lambert were not
ordinary characters. She knew that Juxon had of late taken a most
serious view of the duties which were imposed on him as the rector of
a parish, and that he had decided to guide and guard his flock with
vigilance and courage as long as the spirit of persecution would
suffer him to do so. While, therefore, many of the clergy were for
arming themselves, and for accompanying the King’s forces in the
field, he resisted that natural inclination, and that easy escape into
the security of a camp, by preparing to abide the visitations of the
storm at his appointed post. The path of duty, however dangerous and
exposed, is always that of peace; nevertheless, the age, the active
habits, and the resolute spirit of Juxon made a vast and necessary
difference between his course and that of the mild old parson of
Cheddar. As Katharine revolved all these matters in her mind, she
became reconciled to the thought of seeing her beloved Jane united at
once to the man so well worthy of possessing her. The sole difficulty
would be the reluctance of Juxon to expose a woman to those chances of
distress and privation which alone he could cheerfully endure.

Katharine had long foreseen that the moment would arrive when Sir
Oliver and herself must quit Milverton; and until the late disclosure
of Jane, she had fully reckoned upon that dear girl as the companion
of their wanderings and the friend of her bosom; but now it seemed a
duty to resign that comfort. However, there was one procedure by which
it might be retained. If, when it became necessary for the royalist
gentry to quit their homes, George Juxon would accompany the family to
whatever city they might select as a temporary and secure residence,
his marriage with Jane might soon take place, and there would be no
interruption of her own sweet intercourse with her friend. Some
thoughts like these had passed through the mind of Juxon as he paced
up and down the terrace, full of that hope which is dashed with fear.
While he was thus taking counsel of his own heart, Sir Charles Lambert
arrived at Milverton, and, in company with Sir Oliver and Arthur,
descended the steps and joined him. Sir Charles had for some time past
appeared to so great advantage by the manner in which he had come
forward in the royal cause, that he was considered, even by Juxon, a
thoroughly changed man. There was a carefulness in his language, which
greatly contrasted with his former coarseness. His manners were not
only grave and composed, but there was an urbanity in his address,
which made a frank-hearted person like Juxon ashamed of not being able
to like him. He thought him of a better capacity than he had once
given him credit for, and was not willing to believe that, under all
this outward improvement of his words and ways, his heart could remain
unaffected. Moreover, there seemed no adequate reason for his assuming
a false exterior, nor for any design which he might not openly avow.
He attributed this amendment of character to secret compunction for
his violence and brutality towards Cuthbert Noble; to that elevation
of sentiment which a new position and great duties might and ought to
produce; and to those considerations of death as an event possible and
near, which the hazards of the approaching contest might naturally
suggest to the least serious of men. “What think you, Master Juxon,”
said Sir Oliver, “our cousin Charles hath just had a letter from
Yorkshire from Sir Thomas Leigh, who saith that we may soon expect his
most gracious Majesty in these parts, and that he hopes to possess
himself of Coventry and raise Warwickshire, and make a good stand in
this county, if Essex should march hither: in that case, you see, we
shall not need to quit Milverton; and the battle may be fought so near
home, that even Kate will see how fit it is that I should be in the
field. Gout or no gout, I can get as far as Stoneleigh Abbey, and meet
his Majesty.”

“I am afraid the King reckons without his host,” answered Juxon: “I
doubt if the gates of Coventry will open more readily for him than
those of Hull:--the citizens there are all for the parliament.”

“The citizens of Coventry be hanged,” said Sir Charles: “they have
only their own train bands to man the walls,--a set of knock-knee’d
rascals:--why, a squib in their breeches would clear their
market-place.”

“Yes,” said Arthur; “and they would run like rats to their holes at
the very clatter of a horse-hoof.”

“Perhaps they might, Arthur,” said Juxon smiling; “but the matter will
be to get this horse into the streets, and this squib into the
market-place.”

Sir Charles, who well knew that Juxon was no coward, bit his lips,
and said, “Really I cannot think what is come to you, parson: you are
always now a prophet of evil:--why the cause of the King would soon be
down, if all had such faint hearts about it as you have.”

“Faint hearts, sir, are fond of feeding on false hopes; stout hearts
look at naked dangers without blenching. The notion that a rebellion
of citizens can be put down by a few horses is foolish. It prevents,
first, earnest preparations to subdue it; and, at last, when these are
attempted, they prove too late, and altogether ineffectual.”

“Well, Juxon, Sir Oliver here and I have done our parts, and shall do
them to the last: your words don’t touch me; but I must say, you love
to damp us; I hope, however, that the boy cares as little for you as I
do.”

“You need not to be rude as well as angry, Sir Charles.”

“Rude! methinks you forget yourself!--a truce to all compliments. Did
you not call me faint-hearted?”

“Your memory is short indeed, Sir Charles, not to remember who first
used the word.”

“Come, come,” interrupted the old knight, “I wo’n’t have any falling
out between friends. Are we not all king’s men, loyal and true? It may
be, Sir Charles, that Juxon sees further into matters than we do; but
his heart is with us.”

“That may seem clear to you, Sir Oliver:--time will show us all men in
their true colours: I have been right once before, and I may be right
again.”

“What do you mean?” asked Juxon, reddening with anger: “do you doubt
my loyalty, sir?”

The evil temper of Sir Charles was so strong within him, that,
desirous only of vexing Juxon to the uttermost, he replied with a
sneer, “You have taken care to secure yourself a friend in the enemy’s
camp; so that your parsonage at Old Beech will be quite safe, come
what may; and you mean to stick by it, as I am told.”

“It is an insinuation as false as it is base to suspect and utter it:
try me not farther, or you will make me forget my sacred calling.”

“You are not likely to do that by what I hear of your doings at Old
Beech. You preach like a Puritan already: it were a pity to lose a fat
rectory if the Parliament get uppermost.”

The mean and cruel turn, which Sir Charles thus gave to his malicious
charge, so startled and affected Juxon, who had always been both
honest and earnest in his pulpit, that he paused in his reply,--and
was sending up a swift ejaculation to Heaven for the grace of
patience, when Sir Oliver angrily interposed.

“Zounds and thunder, Sir Charles, you might have remembered, among the
doings of Friend Juxon, that he has furnished right stout troopers
from his own purse, and that every man in his parish, capable of
bearing arms, who can be spared from home, has been sent off already
to carry a pike for King Charles. I think the devil is in thee, or
that yellow Margery hath crossed thy path this morning.”

The mention of yellow Margery was never pleasant to Sir Charles, and a
scowl came over his brow at the sound of her name; but he answered in
a dogged and sullen manner,--“Ay, that is all very well: it is good to
have two strings to one’s bow. I suppose, Master Juxon will not deny
that that canting fanatic, Cuthbert Noble, is his friend. My steward,
who came last night from Hertfordshire, saw the vile hypocrite, with
tuck and partizan, on guard in the market-place at St. Albans. Your
grave tutor is a lieutenant of pikemen. I hope I shall ride over the
rascal some fine day.”

“A fanatic he may be--a hypocrite he cannot be; and you say truly that
I am his friend; but I will not trust myself with another word--I must
return home. Sir Charles, from henceforth I shall look on you as a
stranger; and did it become my cloth I would chastise you.”

“Insolent priest! thy cloth is thy protection,” said Sir Charles,
advancing with a lifted hunting whip, as if to strike Juxon.

“You need not come between us, Sir Oliver,” said Juxon, with a look of
quiet scorn: “in spite of the anger in his heart, he knows when to be
prudent.”

“Odd’s life!” said the old knight, “I will have no more ill blood at
Milverton:--look you, go your ways, both of you, and sleep over it,
and come here again to-morrow, and let us make all up. You are both
right, and both wrong--faults on both sides; that is always the story
of a quarrel.”

With these words he took Juxon by the hand and shook it kindly,
adding, “There go, man, get your horse; you’ll be yourself again
before you reach home. Here, Arthur, boy, go with him, and call
Richard to saddle his hobby.--I’ll make Sir Charles listen to reason.”

This easy and indolent mode of confounding right and wrong, and
escaping out of the proper and severe course of honourable judgment,
was by no means agreeable to the upright and manly Juxon. He coldly
gave his hand, and wishing Sir Oliver a good morning, ascended the
steps with Arthur, casting a look of silent and expressive indignation
at Sir Charles, who regarded him in return with violent eyes and
cheeks livid with rage.

As Juxon and Arthur passed round to the side of the mansion facing the
court-yard, they saw Katharine Heywood and Jane Lambert standing
together under the shade of a tree, in earnest conversation. At the
sound of the approaching footsteps they turned their heads; and it was
evident to George Juxon that the subject of their discourse was
connected with what had already passed at the interview between
Katharine and himself that very morning.

    “Oh! what a thing is man! how far from power,
    From settled peace and rest!
    He is some twenty sev’ral men, at least,
    Each sev’ral hour.”

The sweet and sudden calm which fell upon the roused and troubled
passions of Juxon at the very sight of Jane Lambert brought that
stanza of Herbert’s to his memory, and he gave utterance to it as he
joined and stood with them for a few moments, while Arthur went
forward to order out his horse.

If Katharine had not already told her friend that Juxon was now truly
informed of all those circumstances which, at the time, must of
necessity have perplexed him about her conduct and her probable
engagement, the expression of his fine eyes would have revealed to her
that grateful fact. There is a silent eloquence in the look of one
who truly and fondly loves which needs no interpreter. The avowal of
his attachment, which he had upon principle resolved to suppress, his
eyes, prompted by the pulses of his heart, spoke as plainly to Jane as
though she had heard it from his lips in all the language of ardour
and admiration.

Katharine questioned him reproachingly on the cause of his sudden
return to Old Beech, but he excused himself without betraying the true
reason. They gave credit to his simple assurance that it was not
possible for him to prolong his visit at present; and with a tender
pressure of the hand he took his leave of Jane, promising Katharine
that he would soon ride over to Milverton again.

It was not till his horse had turned the distant corner of the road,
and was lost to view, that Arthur came in from the outer gate; and the
distress and dejection of the youth were so plainly to be read in his
countenance, that Katharine took him aside to ask what was the matter.
He related to her the quarrel between Juxon and Sir Charles Lambert
just as it had occurred. She heard it with more pain than surprise,
for she was well aware of the unaltered nature of Sir Charles; and she
knew that he cherished mean and vindictive feelings towards Juxon for
his conduct at the time of his own ferocious assault on Cuthbert
Noble, and for all his subsequent kindness and friendship to that
injured student. On one account she very deeply regretted this
occurrence. It could not fail to put a very serious obstacle in the
way of that union between Jane Lambert and Juxon which she had just
indulged herself with the hope she might soon have the happiness of
seeing perfected at the altar.

The reflections of Juxon himself, as he rode homewards, were of a
complexion as varied as the face of an April sky. His thoughts were
overshadowed by many a cloud of fear, and care, and coming sorrow,
while ever and anon they became glad and bright as if coloured with
blue sky and sunbeams, and the rainbow of hope. Notwithstanding his
uncomfortable quarrel with Sir Charles, it was a day to be marked in
his calendar with a white stone. The day was so hot, that he walked
his horse leisurely all the way; and when he had gone about half the
distance between Milverton and Old Beech, he pulled up near a water
trough, under the shadow of a majestic old oak, and dismounted. There
was a bank of earth round the trunk of the tree, on which he seated
himself: his beast stood indolently still, after having dipped its
nose in the trough; and both rider and horse luxuriated in the cool
shade. The murmur of the spring that fed the trough was the only sound
to be heard; and the loneliness of the spot, for it was in the middle
of a common, suggested pleasing thoughts of gratitude for the human
charity which had thus provided for the comfort and refreshment of man
and his dumb companions in labour. By a natural train of associations
the mind of Juxon was led to reflect on charity in its more high and
heavenly signification, and on those works which it should produce. He
considered what the earth would be if subjected to the law of love,
and what it really was. He bethought him of the mission and office of
the Prince of Peace: he remembered that he was a minister of that new
and glorious covenant announced by the voice of angels in a heavenly
melody,--“Peace on earth, good will towards men.” He mused upon the
titles by which ministers are designated,--watchmen, shepherds,--and
he was more than ever confirmed in his resolution to remain with his
flock at Old Beech during the coming troubles. “‘The hireling
fleeth,’” said he to himself, “‘because he is an hireling.’ Why was I
so moved at the taunt of malignity and ignorance? How strong a thing
must be the fear of man, when I can allow myself to fear the opinion
of one whom I despise, and whom, in truth, I ought to pity; when I can
dare to wish for an opportunity of showing on the battle-field that my
heart is English, loyal, and true. I am priest of the temple; I will
defend my church porch to the last, and keep out the wolf as long as I
can.” As Juxon was thus occupied in sober meditation, he heard the
tramp of a horse galloping across the common, in the direction of
Milverton. On looking up, he instantly knew the horse and the figure
of Sir Charles Lambert. He felt certain that nothing but a fit of
boiling and ungovernable anger would have led to this swift pursuit of
him, and was at no loss to conjecture the nature of the trial for
which he must prepare. Juxon never rode from home in those unquiet
days without pistols; but come what might from the violence of this
infuriated man, he resolved that nothing should induce him to use them
in his defence. Although as a clergyman he could not wear a sword, yet
he often carried with him a cane of Italian invention, which contained
a sword-blade, and by means of a secret spring threw out a small guard
at the handle, which supplied a hilt, and thus, if at any time
assaulted with the sword, he was furnished with some, though an
imperfect, weapon of resistance. He was fortunately thus provided on
the present occasion.

Sir Charles no sooner reached the spot than he threw himself
impetuously from his horse, and said with a loud oath, “This shall
settle our difference for ever.” At the same time he drew his rapier,
and advanced upon his antagonist.

Juxon, without a word, took a defensive posture, and opposing his
cane-sword to that of Sir Charles, parried his fierce passes with such
a quick eye and so strong a hand, that, in a rencontre which could not
have lasted two minutes, he twisted the sword of his opponent from his
angry grasp, and made it fly several yards off. He as immediately
secured it. “By hell, you shall not escape me!” said Sir Charles,
frantic with vexation; and plucking a pistol from his belt, he
discharged it at Juxon as he returned from picking up the sword. The
ball struck the buckle of Juxon’s hat-band, and glanced off. He felt a
slight shock, but, as it came aslant upon it, the concussion was not
so violent as to stun him.

Sir Charles dropped the pistol, seized upon a second, which was in his
belt, but, ere he could deliver his fire, Juxon had beaten aside his
arm, and the bullet spent its force harmlessly on the yielding air.

“Madman!” said Juxon with an earnest and solemn tone, “let us from our
hearts thank God. He has preserved you from the sin of murder, and me
from being hurried into the holy presence of the Prince of Peace from
a scene of guilty contention, in the cause of which I am far from
innocent. There is your sword:--there is my hand:--by these lips no
human being shall ever be informed of what has just occurred. Your
present situation and your present duties call upon you to use your
sword in the field of honour and in the service of your king: do so in
a good spirit, and forget this hour as fully as I forgive it.”

The burning coal fell, guided by Heaven, upon the humbled head of the
proud one. Scalding tears stood in his eyes; the blood rushed hotly to
his cheeks. His embarrassment was so great, that for a while he could
utter nothing. “Let me hope,” said Juxon, “that I have lost an enemy,
and gained a friend.”

“You have done more, much more,” answered Sir Charles: “you are the
first person on earth who ever touched my heart with a feeling
altogether new:--I shall bless this day for ever. You shall never
repent your noble consideration for my character. This sword shall
never again be dishonoured.” Here Sir Charles fell upon his knees. “I
ask pardon of God and of you, Juxon, for my murderous purpose. I feel
that the hand of Providence has been in this strange work--I am not
yet an utter reprobate.”

“God forbid!” said Juxon, as he raised him up: “we will talk together
of better hopes. Suppose we return together to Milverton, and show
ourselves as reconciled heartily--it will, I think, spare that kind
family many hours of uneasiness.”

Sir Charles acceded with eagerness to the proposal, and mounting their
horses they rode back quietly together.




CHAP. III.

    And is there care in heaven? and is there love
      In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
    That may compassion of their evils move?
      There is; else much more wretched were the case
    Of men than beasts. But O th’ exceeding grace
      Of highest God! that loves his creatures so,
    And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
      That blessed angels he sends to and fro,
      To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe.
                                              SPENSER.


The village of Old Beech, which has been often named in this story as
the living of George Juxon, was a retired and picturesque place,
containing about three hundred inhabitants. Here, as at Cheddar, there
was no lord of the manor in residence. The principal owner of the
village lands for the last twenty years had been a Roman Catholic
gentleman, who, being single, and of a severe and gloomy temper of
mind, had, before this accession of property, embraced the monastic
life in Italy, and taken the vows as a brother of the Carthusian
order. The lessee of his estates had let them advantageously to four
substantial farmers; one of whom occupied the venerable old
manor-house. Its quaint wooden gables and ornamental carpentry always
arrested the attention of the passer by their venerable appearance.

A bay window, with five lights in two divisions, marked very
distinctly the situation of the great hall; a noble apartment used
only by the tenant as a vast store-room for the produce of his orchard
and his garden. The broad gates hung broken and decaying from the
square stone columns in which their hinges had been fastened by iron
staples, and the pavement of the court was half hid by rank weeds. The
church was small and ancient, and stood, not far from the manor-house,
on a gentle eminence, which commanded a beautiful flat of meadow-land,
watered by a small clear river that meandered through the fields in
fine and graceful curves, was richly fringed with willows, and turned
in its course two clean-looking busy mills. Not far from the
churchyard stood a tall and stately beech-tree, about two centuries
old, and near it the stump of the very tree from which the village had
been first named was still visible.

The smooth bark of this noble old beech was covered with initial
letters, true love knots, and joined hearts, rudely carved by rustic
hands, many of which, it might be seen by the dates affixed, had long
since mouldered under the grassy heaps, to which lowly beds of peace
the very same bell still tolled the parting summons of their lineal
descendants.

One of the most remarkable features in this pretty village was the
rectory. The basement story was completely built of glazed bricks in
checkered patterns, while that over it was constructed of fine massive
black timbers, the walls being plastered between; the whole was
surmounted with elevated overhanging roof and lofty gables. The
entrance was through a fine long porch of timber, and the woodwork of
this, as well as of the projecting portions of the roofs and gables,
was elaborately ornamented after the fashion of the fifteenth
century. Of Juxon’s habits something has already been said, but a
more particular account of his home life is necessary to show him
faithfully in the relation in which he stood to his parish. Having a
private fortune, in addition to the proceeds of his living, he was as
able as he proved himself always willing to benefit his people. When
he came first among them he found them much neglected and in great
darkness: his first step was to establish a school, and to win the
hearts of the parents through their children, all of whom he had
taught to read, and many of the most promising yet further instructed
in writing and arithmetic. A few of the old villagers, and one of the
most acute of his farmers, who, though unable to read himself, was
well furnished with all that worldly wisdom which may be orally
conveyed in pithy proverbs, and committed to memory for practical
guidance in life, resisted this strange innovation. But steady
perseverance and good-humoured resolution soon conquered all
opposition; and Juxon had the satisfaction of seeing around him much
improvement in that knowledge which makes the mind, and _the heart_
of man, accessible to the light of divine truth.

He was diligent in his duties, open in his manners, cheering in his
words, and wise in his charities; he distinguished well between the
objects of them, knew how to give, and when and what; he farmed his
own glebe, partly as an amusement, and also to set a good example
before his farmers of just behaviour to labourers. He understood
cottage economy as well as the most prudent among them; could talk
with them over the wickets of their little gardens about their
succession crops, and about the fattening of their pigs and poultry,
and knew every poor man’s cow upon the village common.

The happy children upon the green never paused in their merry games
when he passed them, and the winner of a race was doubly pleased if
Master Juxon’s eye had seen his triumph. The rough blacksmith, when,
at breathing times, he stood out under the shade of the ancient and
hollow oak near which his shed had been erected, always tried to
engage him in a little talk; and although these brief colloquies were
commonly of simple occurrences, yet the sturdy smith forgot not the
dropped word of advice, and he sung his part in the village quire
o’Sundays with his understanding as well as with his fine deep voice.
It might be truly said, that the parson of Old Beech was popular in
his parish, and deserved to be so. A hogshead of wheat, and another of
pease or barley, stood ever in his hall, out of which the aged widows
and the poor housekeepers of the village were always liberally
supplied in their need. He would patiently listen to their long and
prosy tales about their family as they sat in his hospitable porch,
without hurrying them, though perhaps they had told him the same story
for weeks in succession. But if an angel from heaven dwelt among three
hundred human beings, and passed his life in acts of love and kindness
towards them, he should not want enemies, nor should he reap gratitude
and good will from all; therefore Juxon was regarded by a small and
envious knot with evil eyes. Of this party, a small chandler or
grocer, a publican, and one of the millers, who was sinking into
poverty from slothful habits, were the leaders, and the worthy rector
had sense enough to know that in due time they would show their enmity
openly.

However, with the answer of a good conscience, he walked about daily,
without the shadow of a fear, and lay down to sleep in peace, well
knowing that God alone can make any of us to dwell in safety. Within
the last two years many things had occurred to awaken his own mind to
more serious views than those with which he had at first entered upon
the ministerial office. The questions concerning scandals among the
clergy engaged his serious attention; and his opinions about the
lawfulness, or rather the expediency, of some practices, the good or
evil of which he had never previously considered, now underwent a
change.

He would never admit for a moment, that to hunt, or to shoot, or to
fish, were diversions _inherently_ sinful; but he began to look on
time as a talent, for which every man must render a solemn account,
and the time of a clergyman as more especially given him to be
employed to graver ends than could be honestly and effectually
attained, if sports and amusements of a nature so idle and absorbing
were not resigned. Nor was this the only change in his opinions;--a
closer study of the sacred volume, for the purpose of preaching its
saving truths more plainly to his people; an earnest desire to set
before them the glory of gospel hopes, and the comfort of Scripture
promises; and a lively recollection of some of his conversations with
Cuthbert Noble, satisfied him that if he would be found faithful he
must preach, with authority and with persuasion, free reconciliation
to God through a willing and all-sufficient Saviour.

The prayerful exercises to which the composition of his sermons now
compelled him produced a blessed influence on his own spirit; and he
never stood up in his pulpit, as an ambassador for Christ, without a
most affectionate solicitude for the welfare of immortal souls, and a
present sense of the high privilege and deep responsibility of his
sacred office. His growing seriousness, as a clergyman, had been more
apparent to Katharine Heywood than to any one else at Milverton; for
she was too deeply taught to be deceived in the evidences of a living
grace. In his parish his earnestness in his pulpit was well known, as
might be seen from the report of it which had reached Sir Charles
Lambert, and which partly caused those taunts and insinuations, the
issue of which, in the quarrel and the encounter that followed, has
been already related; but to common observers, as Juxon’s language had
no peculiar religious phraseology, and as his manners, his happy
countenance, and his manly habits, prepossessed their good opinion,
without alarming any of their prejudices, he seemed one of themselves,
and they neither knew nor cared to know his inner man.

However, as Juxon and Sir Charles rode back slowly to Milverton after
the violent scene which might have terminated so awfully for both, he
was determined not to lose so favourable an occasion for setting
before the softened transgressor the great and common evil of man’s
nature, and the blessed remedy. He did this with a feeling, a
faithfulness, and a humility which surprized and affected his silent
companion greatly, and which at last drew from him a confession of a
most interesting kind. He told Juxon that, from his earliest
childhood, he had found himself an object of dislike and aversion to
all his family; that his elder brother, his senior only by one year,
had been the indulged and favoured pet both of his father and mother,
while he had been always either treated with neglect or addressed in
the language of unkindness and reproach; that hate had begotten hate,
and that he had passed his early youth hating and hateful; that at the
age of sixteen, as his brother was out shooting on the manor, he lost
his life by the accidental discharge of his own gun, as he was
carelessly forcing his way through some thick furze bushes. He
confessed that he was inwardly rejoiced at this calamity; that he
looked upon the corpse without one emotion of sorrow or even of pity,
and that he viewed with a malignant satisfaction the agony of his
parents, more especially that of his mother, whose persecution of him
had been perpetual, and of a petty and irritating nature. This feeling
of his was so irrepressible as to be seen. The thought that their
despised boy should inherit the estates and the title had proved so
very intolerable to his mother that she could not endure his presence
at home. He was therefore sent away, and placed under the charge of a
severe tutor, who, finding him the ignorant and evil-disposed youth
which the letters of his father had represented him, governed him with
strictness, and instructed him with an evident contempt for his want
of capacity and for his backwardness in those attainments which, in
truth, it had been impossible for him to acquire; it having been the
mean pleasure of his mother to deny him the advantages enjoyed by his
brother. He related the story of his mother’s funeral, to which he was
called after an absence of two years, and the death of his father,
which had taken place four years later, while he himself was abroad.
It appeared by these accounts that subsequent to the death of his
brother he had never enjoyed or indeed desired any intercourse with
his parents, and that when he came to take possession of the estates,
he found his sisters, who were much younger than himself, grown up and
left to his protection. As they were not mixed up in his mind with the
injuries of his childhood, such little kindness as he had ever felt
capable of he had entertained for them. But even here he stated he had
found disappointment; for one being timid and of no character, feared
him, while his sister Jane, the only being who had ever behaved well
to him, he nevertheless knew did not, and perhaps could not, love him
as a brother.

This confession was poured into the ear of a generous and a thoughtful
Christian, deeply skilled in the diseases of the human heart. It was
evident to Juxon that the depravity of our fallen nature, common to
all, had, in the miserable heart now laid bare before him, been
inflamed by the early unkindness of parents, and had taken the dark
colours of a rancorous and cruel disposition. Yet, even in this
apparently desperate case, there was a ray of hope, there was a light
of that mysterious something which may be observed in the human heart,
as a fragment of its better nature that has survived the fall,--_a
capacity of loving_; which, as it could find no issue towards man,
exhibited itself in a rare kindness and affection to dogs, horses, and
birds. To these living creatures Sir Charles, who was to man
indifferent or cruel, showed himself gentle, patient, and fond. Juxon
had often observed this with pleasure: he now caught this golden
string, and by it he led up the mind of his hearer to contemplate the
God of creation upon a throne of universal love, caring for the
meanest of his creatures, and revealing himself more especially to man
in the relation of Father. Thence, by a swift transition, he painted
man (_the whole race_) prodigal, miserable, naked, feeding with swine,
till returning to their Father they were forgiven and with embraces;
nor, while he fixed attention upon the mighty Saviour, from whose
gracious lips this parable proceeded, did he fail to preach Jesus as
the incarnation of Divine love, reconciling the lost children of earth
to their heavenly Father, waiting to be gracious. He did not thus
speak in vain:--who shall dare to look down upon any human being as
lost, hardened, reprobate? Who maketh men to differ? Who can make the
rock yield water, and dry up the Euphrates? He who can change flesh
into stone when it is his pleasure.

But we return to show the connection of what has passed with the
progress of our story.

It was a most welcome sight to the family at Milverton, to see Juxon
and Sir Charles return amicably together after the quarrel of the
morning; but there was something, nevertheless, very inexplicable in
the manners of both. Those of the former were far more serious and
absorbed than Katharine had ever observed them before; while the
latter had an embarrassed air, a softened tone of voice, and an
expression of deep, real, unaffected sorrow in his countenance.

Whatever had passed between them, it was evident that the
reconciliation was on both sides of the sincere nature of hearty
forgiveness. As Katharine contemplated the brow and the features of
Sir Charles, she discerned traces of a mental working such as she had
never seen at any previous period of their frequent intercourse; and,
for the first time, she looked on him without aversion and without
suspicion.

To his great honour, and as the strongest proof of the good effect
wrought on him by the events of that memorable day, he took the first
opportunity that offered, to declare, in the absence of Juxon, the
circumstances of their rencontre, and the generous conduct of his
noble antagonist.

There is a something in the honest avowal of shame, and the honest
recognition of another’s excellence, which, as it can only proceed
from a humbled and subdued heart, so it will instantly engage the
approval of every well constituted mind.

From that very hour Sir Charles found himself regarded by all at
Milverton with a new feeling,--all countenances were changed towards
him: he had gotten a friend in Katharine,--he found the eyes of his
sister Jane ever resting upon him, with a new and strange delight: Sir
Oliver, to whom discord was trouble, and who had never wholly
resigned the hope of having Sir Charles for a son-in-law, was beyond
measure gratified; and Arthur felt a more undoubting confidence and
ease at the thought of serving under him than he had hitherto
admitted.

A sense of all these mercies, a consciousness that he was drawn with
the cords of love by an invisible hand, deepened his repentance and
humility, and gave life, strength, and love to his new-born faith; but
all this was a secret work, in which he was wisely assisted by the
prudent counsel and the sound judgment of Juxon. It was fortunate,
that, amid the stirring and necessary duties of those times, he was
provided with so plain, so manly, so healthy an adviser. Side by side,
with a profound self-abasement, grew a sentiment of self-respect, that
prevented his spirit being paralysed, or cast down below the right
degree of energy required of him by his position at the moment. He was
now truly prepared, in a more noble frame of mind, to render good and
faithful service wherever the cause of his king and country might
lead him. Now, too, he understood and respected the motives which
decided Juxon to remain at his own proper post, and to perform his own
sacred duties to the last moment.

In the fortnight which passed about this period he lived long; that
is, he gathered the experience which is usually the fruit of a much
longer space of time.

Swiftly as the days glided by, they fully developed the love of Juxon
and Jane Lambert; and, although Katharine could not persuade Juxon to
hear of Jane’s being exposed to the inconvenience and danger of
becoming his wife, at a time when the clergy might expect a
persecution, yet she did enjoy the happiness of seeing them seated
before her in the sweet and interesting relation of avowed and
betrothed lovers.




CHAP. IV.

    Food for powder, food for powder; they’ll fill a pit as well
    as better: tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.
                                                _King Henry IV._


Although Cuthbert Noble was by degrees gaining a little experience in
his new and unsuitable calling, yet it must be confessed that a little
of his enthusiasm evaporated under the necessary process of being
drilled and taught his exercise; and not only so, but he began to be
very much puzzled and perplexed at the opinions and the conduct of
many with whom he was now to live and to act. The Colonel of the
regiment in which he had received his appointment was, indeed, a man
eminently worthy of respect and esteem. He was a devout, reserved
person, of a noble and grave presence,--an approved soldier, and a
sincere and sound patriot. He considered himself to be opposing the
crown upon strict constitutional principles; and, being
conscientiously attached to the Presbyterian form of church
government, desired the overthrow of the prelacy, and the total
abolition of episcopacy. Nevertheless, he viewed with distaste and a
cold sufferance the extravagant proceedings of the various independent
sects now loose upon society; and discouraged, as far as he could,
without danger to the one great and common cause, the practices which
already obtained in the ranks of the Parliament levies. Every vain and
intoxicated fanatic, who had the power of uttering a few dozen
unconnected and rambling sentences without book, claimed for his
shallow babbling the authority of inspiration, and asserted his gift
of speech as a divine commission, by which he was called to the office
of a preacher of the word of God. His own religion was serious,
practical, intelligible; and he had a sternness of sound judgment,
before which all flighty pretensions and false confidences fell down
or fled away. His name was Maxwell: he had been a friend of the father
of Francis Heywood, and was very well acquainted with Francis. Owing
to this circumstance Cuthbert was favourably introduced to him, and
was always very considerately treated; but their characters, their
ages, and their relative situations in the regiment, made it
impossible for them to become intimate with each other. Moreover, the
earliest and latest waking thoughts of Colonel Maxwell were wholly
taken up with the very important duties of preparing his corps by
strict discipline and close training for the day of trial, which could
not be very far distant; therefore Cuthbert was left, soon after he
joined, to make out as well as he could with the society of the
captain of his company and his brother lieutenant. At first, indeed,
for a very few days, he had enjoyed the comfort of having Francis
Heywood in the same quarters, but the horse had marched down to
Northampton, and they were thus separated. Now the captain of
Cuthbert’s company had been a master butcher, of the name of Ruddiman,
about forty years of age: a fine portly man, standing about six feet
three inches in height, with ample chest and broad shoulders, little
eyes, red cheeks, a low forehead, and coarse greasy black hair. He
had a fist that would fell a bullock, and a voice that would frighten
a herd of them. In spite of the very hardening influence of his
calling, he had nothing unkind in his temper. He had thrived greatly
in his business, was honest and just in all his dealings, a good
husband, a good father, and a good citizen--with a house full of
children, and a pretty pasture farm in the county of Hertfordshire. He
was as bold as he was strong; but was here, nevertheless, solely in
obedience to the wishes of an active, ambitious, meddling wife, who
was a bitter, censorious, religious politician, and whose pride it was
that her husband should be a down-king man, and a captain in the
Parliament army. The good captain himself, meanwhile, barring his
wife’s sovereign will, and the honour of the title, would much rather
have looked after his business at home; or, at all events, have been
permitted to join a horse regiment, though only as a sergeant. But
Mrs. Ruddiman had decided otherwise, and had told him that, if he only
served for a few weeks or months as a captain, and looked well about
him, he might get made a commissary and get a contract, and make his
fortune. This last consideration was not without its weight; for
Master Ruddiman had always a keen eye to the main chance. The brother
lieutenant of Cuthbert was a very different sort of personage. He was
a thin man, of middle stature, with a pale face and red hair, under
thirty years of age. His trade had been that of a dyer: he had
rendered conspicuous service at the last election, in securing the
return of a Puritan to Parliament, and had been rewarded thus: he was
needy, and the pay of his humble rank an object to him. He had great
fluency of words, and was a raving Independent of the most virulent
order. His name was Elkanah Sippet: he was ignorant, irritable, and
vain. He knew a little Latin, with which he was wont to garnish his
talk when he wanted to pass off for a scholar, and puzzle big Captain
Ruddiman; and he could fill his mouth with Scripture phrases and texts
when he wished to impress Cuthbert with a favourable notion of his
piety. Ruddiman and Sippet hated each other with about as natural and
as cordial a hatred as might consist with their being on the same side
in this contest. Neither of them could understand or like poor
Cuthbert; but both took refuge from the uneasy contempt with which
they regarded each other, by endeavouring to conciliate his good
opinion, or rather his preference.

To choose between them was easy: Ruddiman was worth a dozen Sippets in
the qualities of his nature; nor was there any thing of the hypocrite
in him. He was dull, and slow of comprehension; therefore he seldom
suffered himself to speak about religion, but passively knelt and
passively listened to the long prayers and longer preachings of the
chaplain. He had been so stupified and subdued at home about points of
faith and church government by his wife’s brother, a warm and wordy
brazier, the godly elder of the congregation to which his wife
belonged, that he yielded, partly for the sake of peace, and partly in
distrust of his own reason. Thus, in plain fact, he feared God truly
for himself, and received the interpretations of Scripture delivered
by the clergy, and the lay elders of his sect, with a submission as
implicit, and an apprehension as confused, as the Italian peasant
listens to the Latin oration of a Franciscan friar. His politics were
more simple; and he was in the habit of expressing what he felt about
them by always calling the King _the man Charles Stuart_, and all the
principal leaders of the Parliament party right honest and God-fearing
worthies. “A man’s a man,” he would say: “I don’t see why any one
should be called lord over another; and as for bishops, bless us, why
should they live in palaces, and hold forth about taxes in the House
of Lords?--Don’t you think that’s wrong, Master Noble, quite wrong?
Why it is writ in the Bible that the kingdom of Christ is not of this
world.” To this political creed Cuthbert would give assent; but a
quick memory whispered to his inner man, “Why then do my servants
fight?” As for his brother lieutenant, his tone was always rancorous
and unchristian: he was of a mean and narrow mind, without charity and
without patience; selfish and tricky, and, withal, quite intent on
rising upon the ruin of his betters. He felt a sort of inferiority in
the presence of Cuthbert that a little awed him; but his nature would
break out occasionally. It was no small advantage to Cuthbert that his
two companions had seen him, for a few days, often walking and
conversing with Francis Heywood, whose soldierly appearance had
attracted general attention among the troops. Moreover, though far
indeed from the aptitude desired by Colonel Maxwell, the intelligence
of Cuthbert in the field of exercise was greater than that of either
Ruddiman or Sippet. Perhaps, after all, the greatest trial of Cuthbert
arose from the manners of those with whom he was now compelled, by the
distribution of quarters, to live night and day. As officers of the
same company, Captain Ruddiman, Sippet, and himself, took their meals
together, and he was compelled to occupy a stretcher in the same
sleeping chamber with Sippet. Now Ruddiman was a very gross and
unclean feeder, and had a most disgusting habit of hawking and
spitting on the floor all day long; while Sippet, who secretly
indulged in the too frequent use of strong waters, always stunk of
spirits, and snored through his nights so loudly, as very seriously to
disturb the rest of Cuthbert: nor was it possible, with so irritating
an accompaniment, to comfort his wakeful hours with those meditations
with which he had often solaced his night watches at Milverton while
confined by his wound. However, his spirit, though fretted, did not
sink under these annoyances: he rose constantly with the first glimmer
of dawn: he did his utmost to perfect himself in all matters of drill
and discipline. He gave his best attention to all his instructors, and
he performed all his duties with manly cheerfulness, and in the best
possible spirit. Colonel Maxwell saw this with silent satisfaction;
but he was not a man for lavish praises and sudden intimacies, nor was
he without a clear perception that Cuthbert would never make a
thorough soldier; indeed his immovable gravity was sometimes very near
being altogether conquered by a burst of laughter at the mode in which
Cuthbert exhibited the solemn earnestness of his desire to learn his
exercises thoroughly, and to command his men properly.

One day, for instance, very soon after Cuthbert’s arrival, as he rode
through the different squads of recruits who were learning their
facings, he found Cuthbert in one corner of the field, with his head
in the air, and a corporal giving him private instructions; and,
unperceived by the former, he heard the following strange
query:--“Now, my brave man, pray have the goodness to explain to me,
very exactly, how it is, that is, upon what principle it is, that, if
I place my feet in this extraordinary manner, I shall come to what you
call ‘the right about face?’”

“Principle! God save you, master! I know nothing at all about
principles; but I know, if you do as I bid you, and put the ball of
your right toe to your left heel, and raise the fore part of your
feet, and come smartly, heel round, on your two heels, and bring back
your right sharply and square with the left, you will come to the
right about like a man and a musketeer.”

Again, at an after period, as the Colonel passed the spot where a
company of pikemen was parading under the orders of Cuthbert, the
warlike student, who was just fresh from the perusal of a military
treatise in Greek, having taken post at a farther distance than usual
in the front, and noticing a little whispering and unsteadiness,
called out with most innocent seriousness,--“Silence, men, silence:
the Lacedæmonians never spoke in the ranks.”

The pikemen seeing the Colonel near became silent, rather in respect
to his presence than obedience to their simple-hearted lieutenant, and
wondered the while what county militia these Lacedæmonians might be.
The commanding officer, averting his head to conceal his irrepressible
smiles, went forward; and Cuthbert, quite unconscious of any thing
strange or ridiculous, proceeded to number off, and prove his pikemen
according to the intricate system of the slow and cumbrous movements
of those days.

Never, however, was a human being more thoroughly out of his element
than Master Cuthbert as lieutenant in this said company of pikemen
under the orders of Captain Ruddiman. He could contrive, indeed, a
little leisure and a little solitude most days; but even those brief
seasons of meditation and enjoyment were often broken in upon by a
sergeant hurrying after him to say that perhaps eleven set of new
straps for back and breast pieces were wanting, or that two pikes were
broken, and three men had lost the scabbards of their tucks.

Moreover, he could hardly find a private path or walk near St. Albans,
where he did not come suddenly upon a few military sinners, who had
stolen out of the sight of their preaching officers and praying
comrades to have a game of trap-ball, tip-cat, or the greater
abominations of cross and pile, pitch and hustle, and chuck farthing.
Nay, upon one occasion, he surprised a little party under a buttress
of the abbey playing at primero, trump, put, or beat the knave out of
doors, with two dollys sitting in their company, of whom it might be
plainly seen that they had no business in a garrison of Puritans. But
he was in these moments usually in too absorbed a mood to take notice
of and reprove these transgressors, and was quite as anxious to turn
away his eyes as the soldiers were to see them so averted.

One day, as he wandered into the abbey a little before sunset, and was
standing lost in thought before the monument of Lord Bacon, and
contemplating the fine alabaster effigy of that great philosopher, he
heard himself gently addressed by name, and turning to the speaker, he
recognised, with as much surprise as delight, his worthy and
invaluable friend Randal, the surgeon of Warwick, to whose skilful
care and kind treatment he held himself indebted, under God, for his
life.

Their pleasure at meeting was mutual, and was increased when they
found that they were again providentially brought together, and held
commissions in the same corps. Randal had offered his services to the
Parliament, and had been appointed the surgeon of this levy.
Henceforth Cuthbert would enjoy the comfort of his society and the
advantage of his counsel. They agreed instantly to live and mess
together; and, after a long and interesting conversation about
Milverton, the Heywoods, and his friend Juxon, they walked together to
the Colonel’s quarter, where Randal had been invited to sup; and
Cuthbert returned, in high spirits, and with a heart full of joy and
thanksgiving, to take his own meal with Ruddiman and Sippet, and to
make known to them his intention of leaving their mess, and living in
future with his old friend Randal. Ruddiman was sincerely vexed, ate
less, and hawked rather more than usual, and proposed as an
arrangement, not unnatural, that the surgeon should join their party
instead of this breaking up; and Lieutenant Sippet, who wished much to
avoid being left alone with Ruddiman, very earnestly seconded this
proposal; observing, that he thought it a very proper subject for most
serious consideration, and that they ought to seek the Lord for
guidance, that they might plainly discern his will in this important
matter.

This, Cuthbert said, he deemed to be an occasion on which so solemn a
proceeding was altogether uncalled for and improper. Sippet misquoted
and misapplied a shower of texts, which, in a sadder mood, would have
made poor Cuthbert’s head ache. Ruddiman did not see what they were to
pray about, for his part, and thought a man might do his duty to God
and his neighbour very well without so much prayer. “But if you must
pray,” said he, “Friend Sippet, pray to be kept from putting your
mouth so often to that stone bottle of strong waters at the corner of
your bed, and from snoring so loud every night, man. Why, though I am
next room, you waked me this morning before cock-crow; and I doubt if
Master Noble has had a sound night’s sleep since he joined us.”
Cuthbert hastily wished them good night, and withdrew; so in what
manner the wrathful Sippet resented this affront, or whether he did so
at all, he never heard.




CHAP. V.

    Pray now buy some: I love a ballad in print, a’ life; for
    then we are sure they are true.
                                             _Winter’s Tale._


Although the good parson of Cheddar was as yet unmolested, and
continued his ministrations in peace, he was far too sagacious not to
perceive the growing strength of Parliament, and never partook of
those extravagant hopes, which, upon the arrival of the Marquis of
Hertford, at the city of Wells, animated so many of the gentlemen and
the clergy in Somersetshire. But he gave such attendance at the
meetings of a public nature as was necessary to show plainly the part
which he had taken,--and he set a faithful example of loyalty in his
parish. The son and the son-in-law of old Blount the franklin, and
most of the yeomen of Cheddar, offered their services to the Marquis,
and repaired to his quarters well mounted and armed.--It was a deeply
mortifying reflection to Noble and his wife that their son Cuthbert
had joined the forces of the Parliament, and was already in arms
against his king. Their spirits were far more depressed by this
consideration than by any other. Compared to this heavy trial all
others, which could possibly arrive, seemed light and undeserving of
careful or anxious deprecation; but for this one chastisement, they
humbled themselves before God daily with tears and supplications.
Nevertheless they sorrowed not as without hope, and they did not
murmur. They knew that their prayers were poured out before a Father
of mercies, who heareth always, and gives or withholds the blessing
implored, with a wisdom that cannot err, and with a mysterious love.

Therefore they were enabled to preserve a calm and resigned aspect
before the village, and before their household, though plain Peter and
the good maidens were not to be deceived as to their silent
sufferings; for master did not notice the flowers and birds in the
garden so much now, and walked up and down thinking, instead of
talking pleasant; and mistress had not looked after her
fruit-preserves and her home-made wines this year with the heart she
used to do; and, worst sign of all, the dinner was often carried away
hardly touched by either. The apprehensions of Noble as to the
progress of disaffection to the royal cause proved but too well
founded. The private agents and emissaries of the Parliament party
wrought underhand to persuade the people, that, by the commission of
array, a great part of the estates of all substantial yeomen and
freeholders would be taken from them, alleging, that some lords had
said that “twenty pounds by the year was enough for every peasant to
live on;” and they further said, that all the meaner and poorer sort
of people were appointed by the same commission to pay a tax of one
day’s labour in every week to the King. These reports, however little
deserving of credit, were received by the more ignorant with implicit
belief, and circulated by the interested and designing with most
persevering activity. The people were thus taught that, if they did
not adhere to the Parliament, and submit to the ordinance for the
militia, they would soon be no better than slaves to the lords, and
the victims of a most cruel oppression.

The ignorance and credulity of the vulgar were by these arts widely
and successfully imposed upon; but the population of Cheddar was
preserved from these corrupting falsehoods by the prudence of Noble.
He early obtained a copy of the commission of array, which was written
in Latin, and having translated it with fidelity, distributed copies
from house to house. The word of the good parson was ever held in
reverence by his flock, therefore, with few exceptions, and those
confined to the worst characters in the village, his account of the
matter was received as true; while in many other places the crafty
supporters of the levelling party, taking advantage of the commissions
being in Latin, translated it into what English they pleased, and
abused simple folk in the manner related.

While the Marquis of Hertford maintained himself at Wells all things
continued quiet at Cheddar; but as Noble had foreseen, there was soon
a very powerful party brought against him, and he was compelled to
retire, before the increasing forces and the active officers of the
Parliament, to Sherborne, in Dorsetshire.

Master Daws, the artful and the covetous enemy of Noble, who had been
already baffled in his endeavour to drag him before a committee, and
whose eyes were steadily fixed upon the living of Cheddar, had not
been inactive while the Royalists lay at Wells.

He had, it is true, seldom ventured from home for fear his precious
carcass might receive some weighty mark of the wrath or merriment of a
royal trooper, though he might have gone to and fro in his clerical
garb as safe as an innocent child: but conscience made a coward of
him; for he had employed the period of his confinement to his house in
preparing certain lying and inflammatory papers, which, through the
agency of a near relation, who was a scrivener’s clerk at Bristol, he
procured to be secretly printed in that city. These papers were of the
most indecent and outrageous nature, directed chiefly against
prelacy, and all supporters of the church of England and the episcopal
form of government. Now, this scrivener’s clerk, though he knew and
despised the hypocrisy of Master Daws, and laughed at all religion,
whether real or pretended, lent himself as a most ready agent in this
charitable work. “There are diversities of gifts, my dear Matty,” said
his crafty uncle Daws in the letter which accompanied his manuscript
libels,--“diversities of gifts, but the same spirit:--thou hast a
lively wit, and a playful hand with thy pencil; prithee put a little
device of some facetious kind at the head of each of these
papers,--such an one as may be easily struck off in a wood-cut of the
kind, which the profane Italians call caricature: but what need I say
more? Thou knowest what I would have:--see thou do it. I wish to have
them done before Cheddar fair, which is held, thou knowest, at the
latter end of September. They are a bigoted, base, priest-ridden herd
of swine in that parish, and as blind as the moles and the bats:--we
must let in a little light on them:--see thou do it broadly.”

The sharp-visaged, pale-faced nephew grinned as he read his worthy
uncle’s epistle, and secretly resolved at once to gratify the mean
desire expressed in it, and to amuse himself, at his uncle’s expense,
when it was too late for him to make any alteration should he detect
it. Of the ungainly figure, and the hideous features of his uncle, he
had caricatures without number; and as they were so strongly marked,
that the rudest engraver of a wooden block could not fail to copy them
faithfully, he determined that the long visage of Daws himself should
find a place in his performance.

The fair-day of Cheddar was that one day in the year which was always
most trying to Noble. All the other holydays were home festivals, and
were kept by the villagers among themselves, being seldom intruded on
by strangers; but the annual fair always brought with it a herd of
idle vagabonds from Bristol, and other towns within a convenient
distance, and seldom terminated without many profligate, disgusting
scenes, or an open brawl. The state of public affairs, and the
presence of a Puritan force in Somersetshire, had such an effect on
the fairs throughout the county this autumn, that they were in general
but thinly attended, and little or no business was done among the
farmers and dealers, by whom they were commonly frequented.

Nevertheless, fairs were too important in the social economy to the
convenience of the people to be wholly suspended. Therefore, on the
appointed morning, early in September, a pleasant peal of five bells
(not as yet silenced by force or law) gave due notice from the tower
of Cheddar church that the day of fairings and gilt gingerbread had
arrived; but although a certain quantity of booths had been erected,
only one, and that but scantily supplied, was set apart for the
profane display of those glittering temptations. Among the farm
servants standing for hire, there were no stout young carters with
their whips, no hale shepherds with their crooks and green sprigs in
their hats; and though there was no lack of maids, yet, as they
crowded together, they looked lonesome and sad, and their bonny brown
hair was not tied up with ribands. The few children present were held
fast by the hand, and led by their parents to see the common purchases
made for the household; but even in these matters the traffic was
dull. There were, indeed, a few cattle; a few pens of sheep; some
piles of Cheddar and other Somersetshire cheese; a store of salted
meats; one stall with fair garnishes of pewter for the cupboard;
another with wooden bowls, and trenchers, and vessels for the dairy;
and one great one, at which groceries, cloths, linens, and articles of
hardware, were promiscuously set forth, and where the neighbouring
housewives were wont to lay in their store of useful necessaries for
the coming year. But now it was so uncertain what a day might bring
forth, that not many cared to make their annual outlay.

It might be supposed, that, in such unsettled times, mountebanks,
tumblers, and conjurers could hardly reckon on a sufficient harvest of
pence to find them in beer and shoe leather; but some of them still
ventured their exhibitions, and with a ready wit practised boldly,
wherever they came, upon the popular prejudices of the hour, and lent
themselves to the crafty suggestions of the designing, who well knew
that the vulgar mind may be artfully seduced to join in the ridicule
of those very persons and things, which, in its better moments, it has
respected.

Now the nephew of Daws had been a most willing and active agent in
forwarding the objects of his uncle; for he had not only procured his
libellous papers to be printed, but he had provided them each with a
caricature engraving on wood; and he had, in like manner, caused
certain ribald songs to be headed for distribution at Cheddar fair; so
that they who could not read the slanders and calumnies contained in
the printed matter might see them pictured to their senses. Nor did he
stop here; but he procured a base fellow, the son of a drunken
saddler, who was a noted posture master in Bristol, to carry these
papers and prints to Cheddar on the fair day, and to commend them to
the people. This knave, taking with him a merriman and a fire-eater to
assist him in attracting a crowd, repaired thither, and about noon
began his operations on a scaffold near the market cross. They had
been followed by a rabble of disorderly persons, among whom the report
of some fun at Cheddar fair had been already spread by the rogues
engaged on the occasion.

Master Daws, who had been advised by his nephew of the preparations
that were made for bringing the church and its ministers into contempt
before the population of Cheddar, walked to the village at an early
hour in company with his nephew, under the pretence of buying a
hundred weight of cheese and a salted mutton; and, though the day was
fine, he took care to appear in the blue Geneva cloak, which was
commonly worn by the Puritan divines. Having engaged an upper room in
a public house facing the market place, he had no sooner stalked
through the vacant crowd, and made his purchases, than he retired to
feast his malignant envy from the window of this chamber.

The sound of the pipe and tabor, and the nasal tones of Master
Merriman, soon gathered all the idle folk in the fair round the
mountebank’s scaffold. The fool began with their favourite egg-dance;
and they stood with gaping mouths to see him hop about on one leg, and
then, being blindfolded, dance backwards and forwards between the eggs
without touching one of them: their mouths gaped yet wider, as this
performer was succeeded by the fire-eater, who, after commencing by
the trick of drawing forth from his mouth yard after yard of ribands,
as if his stomach had been a riband loom, put a bundle of lighted
matches into his mouth, and blew the smoke of the sulphur through his
nostrils. Last came the posture-master, whose art consisted in making
all sorts of uncouth faces, and exhibiting in a natural but shocking
manner every species of deformity and dislocation. Now he showed a
huge rising of his left shoulder; now shifted the deformity into the
other; now represented a humpback; accompanying these changes of his
figure with sundry comical contortions of countenance, to which the
crowd responded in roars of laughter. Having thus got them into good
humour for his purpose, he went on to imitate the cries and voices of
sundry animals and birds; the crow of the cock, the gabble of the
geese, the gobble of the turkey, the quaak of the duck, the squeak of
the sucking pig, the bleat of the lamb, the grunt of the old sow, and
the braying of the ass. The crowd was on the broad grin while he went
through these imitations. He now therefore disappeared for a minute,
leaving the merriman to amuse them, by way of interlude, with a
jocular dance, and returned in robes made of coarse materials to
imitate those of a bishop. His figure was stuffed out to Falstaff-like
proportions; his hands were crossed with due gravity; he had plumpers
in his cheeks; and he forthwith began to intone an anthem with
burlesque solemnity. The words were in mockery of the coronation
anthem; and the petition for the growth of the King’s beard, and the
shaving thereof, was delivered in all those varieties of note which he
had before given when mimicking the animals of the farm-yard. He thus
excited the mirth of the rabble vastly. He closed this mischievous
performance by a comic song about tithes; and, after imitating the
squeak of a sucking pig, and the clack of a hen, he produced upon the
stage, by sleight of hand, as if from his paunch, a basket filled with
curious samples of the small tithe, in which the tenth egg was not
forgotten. His place was now taken by the mountebank, who professed to
be appointed grand physician to the state, and purifier of the church.
The fool stood by his side making all the uncouth faces which he could
think of, taken, it must be confessed, most chiefly from the sour
_kill-joys_ of the time; and holding a large bundle of printed papers,
each headed by a wood-cut, he distributed them down among the people
for due consideration of pence and farthings dropped into his cap.
These papers, though ridiculous devices were prefixed to them,
contained a venom of no laughable matter, and were eagerly bought up.

The nephew of old Daws had been at little pains to rack his invention
for the subject of these curious cuts. On one, he had engraven the
figure of a fox, vested in canonicals, with a crosier in his hand and
a mitre on his head, hanging upon a tree, with a flock of geese and
other fowl beneath chattering at him; on another, he had represented a
fox in chains, with his right paw on a bag of money, and a monkey at
prayers by his side, trying to steal it away. On the next was given
the figure of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, bearing a close resemblance
to his own uncle, puffing a large fire with a pair of bellows, on
which was inscribed “Groans and sighs;” while above was depicted an
owl, with a wolf and a lamb joining in prayers. By a self-deception
not uncommon, Master Daws had not the slightest suspicion that the
said wolf bore any likeness to himself, and, to the secret diversion
of his nephew, he gave a most ghastly smile of approval as he looked
over the rude caricatures, three of which we have described. The time
was now come for directing the wayward crowd to a stronger expression
of their contempt for the church than laughter. Accordingly, the
nephew of Daws descended among them, and proposed that they should
burn a bishop’s effigy before the parson’s house. While the effigy was
preparing, the people stood in groups reading the papers; and sundry
charitable suggestions were made by the baser among them. “Let’s get
into his cellar,” said one, “and drink a little of the sacrament
wine.”--“Let’s lay hold of the church plate,” said another:--“Or give
the parson a ride on old Bruin here,” was the cruel proposal of a
third, pointing to a huge bear in a string, led by a wandering
showman. All things were soon ready; and, led by the posture master in
front, and guided behind by the mischievous nephew of Master Daws, off
the rabble moved, noisy and half drunk, and ready for all evil. They
had no sooner reached the yew-tree in the churchyard, and were
advancing towards the wicket, than out rushed an old beggar, stumping
on his wooden leg, followed by plain Peter and two more old labourers,
and immediately behind them, as if in pursuit, a fine young bull. The
old beggar, who was no other than the worn-out veteran before
mentioned, shouted, “_Mad bull!_” at the top of his voice, with an
earnestness and passion that made him at once believed; and the crowd
fled, tumbling over each other, as they ran, in inextricable
confusion: nor were they allowed time to detect the deception
practised on them; for the old soldier and plain Peter slipping behind
the frightened beast, and goading him forward, he performed his
friendly office as well as the maddest of all bulls, and very
effectually dispersed the mob, and defeated their base and cruel
intentions for that day. Master Daws, who had from his post of
observation at the window witnessed the scenes in the market-place
with the most malignant satisfaction, as soon as the crowd marched off
towards the vicarage with the effigy, and he saw the coast clear,
could not repress his curiosity, and, stealing down, followed afar off
to watch their operations. In the luckless moment of their panic and
flight, he was so terrified and puzzled, that he could not regain the
house, but ran with the crowd, and was thrown down by a pig; nor was
this the worst, for it so happened that a man, leading a monkey, fell
at the same moment, and jocko flew upon Daws and bit his right ear,
till he screamed for agony: beyond this, however, and the tearing of
his clothes, he sustained no injury. A worse fate waited the
posture-master, the bear being infuriated at the hubbub, and having
broken away from his master, seized him fiercely, and embraced him in
a hug so fatal, that it produced contortions of countenance and a
dislocation of bones very different from those he had so lately been
exhibiting, and left him a cripple for life. The warning of his
master’s danger had been communicated to plain Peter, that very
morning, by the grateful old soldier, who had come to that fair with
no other intention than rendering this service, he having heard a
whisper of the intended doings in a tap at Bristol. It so chanced that
old Noble was confined to the house by a sprain of the ankle, and his
mistress was not well; so Peter kept from them all mention of these
fears. The stratagem he adopted for putting the mob to flight was
suggested by the old soldier, and cheerfully aided by a neighbouring
farmer and two of his servants. Thus was the worthy parson protected
in peace, and kept safe from the strife of tongues and the violence of
a base rabble, throughout a day that was very threatening:
unconscious himself how Daws had been undermining him, he had passed
it in a frame of mind more than usually composed.

Daws and his nephew continued their retreat without staying to pay
their reckoning at the public-house. The greater part of the crowd,
finding themselves on the road to Axbridge, proceeded there, to make
up for their disappointment at Cheddar by a riot at that place
instead. So few, indeed, returned, after they had got beyond the reach
of danger, to find out the truth of it, and they squabbled so much
among themselves, that Master Blount and the villagers were able to
prevent further disturbance at that time. Before evening all the
strange rabble departed; and the sun set on Cheddar as tranquilly as
in happier times.




CHAP. VI.

    It’s a hard fate to be slain for what a man should never
    willingly fight.
                                                    RALEIGH.


The prediction of Juxon concerning the city of Coventry proved
correct:--not only was the disposition of the inhabitants such as he
described, but the Parliamentarians, whose vigilance and activity were
very great, sent forward a small force to assist the citizens in
defending the place,--and the King had the mortification of summoning
it in vain. The gates were shut against him, and the burghers sent out
a message of defiance. His Majesty came to Stoneleigh Abbey the same
afternoon, much dejected; and being there joined by several of the
most considerable gentlemen in the county, he decided on raising his
standard at Nottingham, which was accordingly done on the 25th of
August; but he found that place much emptier than he expected, and
learned that the army of the Parliament, composed of horse, foot, and
cannon, was at Northampton. His own few cannon and stores were, as
yet, at quarters in York; and the levy gathered immediately under his
own person was at this moment very inconsiderable. Among the
cavaliers, who had brought their contingent of horsemen for the royal
service, was Sir Charles Lambert, with young Arthur Heywood and a
small troop of stout yeomanry. The age of boyhood is so impressible,
that the mind readily admits an omen for good or for evil; and Arthur
felt, and was angry with himself for feeling, uncomfortable, because
the very first evening of its erection the royal standard was blown
down by a violent storm of wind and rain.

A short time was now consumed in messages between the King and the two
Houses; but on neither side were the negotiations conducted in a
spirit which could issue otherwise than they did. The declaration of
the two Houses to the kingdom was a trumpet note that gave no
uncertain sound, and it was answered to by the King with a princely
courage.

He now removed to Derby; and having clear information that Shrewsbury
was at his devotion, continued his march to that town; and, collecting
all his forces in that strong and pleasant situation, was enabled to
organise them for taking the field in security, and to keep up his
correspondence with Worcester,--a city zealously affected to the royal
cause. Soon after the King left Nottingham, the Earl of Essex marched
from Northampton with his whole army towards Worcester, and, as he
traversed Warwickshire, placed garrisons of foot both in Warwick and
Coventry. It so chanced that, by these dispositions, the regiment to
which Cuthbert belonged was stationed for a time at Warwick.

Sir Oliver Heywood had been disappointed of his wishes by an attack of
gout so very severe, that it quite disabled him; and although he had
contrived to present himself before the King at Stoneleigh, the effort
had thrown him back, and reduced him to the helplessness of a
cripple. He was therefore compelled to forego his intention of
repairing to Nottingham and joining the levy. Under these
circumstances he was willing to remain shut up at Milverton House, and
to abide all chances and all consequences which might follow on that
course, when the army of the Parliament should enter the county. But
Juxon warmly represented to him the great imprudence of this
unnecessary risk, and advised him to seek a temporary residence in a
more protected situation. With a wise forethought he recommended
Oxford; observing that it was at present occupied for the King; and,
if his Majesty could make head against his enemies, would undoubtedly
become the royal quarters, in the event of his not being fortunate
enough to recover the capital before winter. It was true that in the
interval which must pass before the King could take the field, and
advance in strength, the University of Oxford might be exposed to a
visit of some division of the Parliamentary forces; but it was not
probable that private families lodging there without show would be
seriously molested:--whereas it was almost certain that the country
mansion of any Royalist of like consideration with himself would be
subjected to a visitation of a very insulting and rude nature. Sir
Oliver yielded to this sensible advice; and as soon as the King
quitted Nottingham he departed from Milverton. Jane and Sophia Lambert
accompanied Katharine Heywood to Oxford; and Juxon having escorted the
party on their first day’s journey, took leave of them with the best
composure which he could, and, without betraying the depth and
tenderness of his solicitude by one look or tone of dejection,
returned with all speed to Old Beech.

It was near midnight when he approached the village; and by the
obscure light of a moonless but clear sky he discerned in the lane
before him two men moving about at a point where another road crossed
it. As a gate on his right hand opened into a large field, he
dismounted, and leading in his horse, fastened it to a hedge-stake,
and stole forward softly on foot by a pathway, leading to the point
where the roads crossed. Just as he reached the spot, a disturbed
bird nestled in a bush. “Who goes there?” said a gruff voice. Juxon
remained perfectly still, and saw two sentinels, one a pikeman, and
the other a musketeer, who now ceased their pacing, and stood halted,
fronting the lane end.

“It is nobody,” replied the comrade of the soldier who had given the
challenge:--“this is the second time thou hast been fooled to-night.”

“Thou art the fool, deaf dunderhead, and wouldst not hear a troop of
horse till they were down on thee:--what dost thou know of the wars,
bumpkin? I tell thee I heard a horse at the far end of yon lane as
clear as I hear thy clapper; and there may be royal troopers closer
than we think for. Dost mind? when I fire, take to thy scrapers, and
join the post at the barn.”

“Well, call me bumpkin as you will, you may be right: I warn’t
thinking about horses, nor listening, you see. Your ears are sharp
enough for both;--a plague o’ the Parliament folk;--I was thinking
about them pretty bodies that wear white caps and yellow kerchiefs. I
was to ha’ been wed, man, at Michaelmas, but for all this to do about
the litia: what’s the King done to me?”

“Why you talk like a fool: hold your tongue.--Who goes there?” again
roared the old musketeer,--but Juxon kept a breathless silence.--“You
talk like a fool. Pay is pay, and victuals victuals, and one side as
good as t’ other; and ours will be the best for booty, man.”

“Booty! what’s that?”

“Why you must be a queer simpleton not to know: why money, and plate,
and rich gear, and wines, and grub of all sorts; all’s fish that comes
to net, man: that’s the best part of a soldier’s life.”

“Why what’s he got to do with them things, if they beynt his’n?”

“Beynt his’n!” said the old soldier with a tone of contempt: “why make
’em his’n.”

“Why that’s what I call plain picking and stealing; and it’s taught in
the Catechiz that you musn’t do that.”

“Ay, that’s all very well for brats at a parson’s village school; but
that wo’n’t do for them that know better. Besides, the Catechiz, as
you call it, is no good now; it’s all wrong foundation.”

“Well, while I ha’ got hands to get my living I don’t want gold nor
silver: I never heard one of your rich folk whistle in all my born
days; and as for your madams, why my Madge has a laughing face that
shames them. Dang it, I wish I were back with her, and you might
soldier and the Roundheads might preach long enough afore I’d come
among ye.”

“Why I don’t say any thing for those fellows that pray and preach; and
sometimes I am afraid they’ll stand between a good soldier and his
right, and wo’n’t let him have his fair share of plunder. There’s that
grave, demure leeftenant they call Cuthbert drove me and two more out
of the parson’s orchard this very afternoon before I mounted duty. He
looks too sharp after other people’s business, that godly rogue; and
if ever I catch him tripping in a thick smoke, I’ll give him a rap on
the sconce shall make him sleep sound enough ever after.”

“Thou shalt never hurt a hair of his head while I am by,” said the
rustic soldier: “he’s a kind, fair-spoken gentleman as ever stepped in
shoe-leather.”

“Tut! you’re both of a kidney--both fools alike--I’ve been throwing
away my breath on. Keep your own path, and keep moving,” said the
musketeer, and resumed his own cross beat in a surly silence.

Warned by this adventure that Parliament soldiers were quartered for
the night in Old Beech, and by the mention of Cuthbert’s name, and the
anecdote connected with it, that he had a friend among the hostile
party, who would, as far as possible, protect his interests, Juxon
instantly resolved to pass round by another road, and put up at a
detached farm-house a quarter of a mile to the north of the village,
where he could gain more accurate information of their doings, and
judge how to act in the morning. He was turning about quietly, to
steal off and get back to his horse, when his attention was again
arrested by the musketeer saying suddenly and bluntly to the pikeman,
“You want to be off home, I’m sure.”

“You’re right enough there, and no conjurer:--I told you so.”

“I mean, you want to desert.”

“No, I doant.”

“Yes you do, and you’ll run off when the fighting comes.”

“No I wunt: there’s no man shall ever say that Bob Hazel gave back in
a fair stand-up fight.”

“Well, then, you’ll change your side as soon as we come near the
King’s troops, and fight on the other.”

“Why for the matter o’ that, I didn’t choose my side, to be sure, any
more than if I had been called by him that won the toss at football;
but now I’m in for it, I’ll fight it out with the best of them on my
own side.”

“That’s more than I’ll say,” muttered the musketeer: “I’m always for
the uppermost cause and the best paymaster: after the first battle we
shall see which has the good luck.”

They were again silent, and Juxon moved away, and regaining his horse
led it round by paths and gaps well known to himself to the farm-house
above mentioned. He found the farmer out and on the watch, and his
family had not gone to bed. The information which he here obtained of
the conduct of the Parliament troops in Old Beech was very
satisfactory. They had been peaceable and orderly, and had done
violence to no man. The commanding officer, it seems, had taken up his
quarters at the rectory, and a safeguard was appointed to protect the
church from injury. It was reported that they would march forwards the
next morning, or in the course of the day. But although the Colonel
had maintained a strict control over the soldiers during the day, the
farmer was naturally afraid that in the course of the night some
evil-disposed marauders might visit the farm, and therefore all his
people kept watch. Juxon’s horse was instantly put up,--and before the
large fire in the farmer’s kitchen a homely but welcome supper was
cheerfully provided. Although fatigued, he was far too restless to
sleep; and when he had refreshed himself with a little food and a cup
of strong ale he went out again, and walked towards the village. In
the clear gloom of night it presented the fine outline of a
picturesque cluster of habitations, of which the principal feature was
the small church, with its ancient tower, looking black and solemn. To
the surprize, however, of Juxon, a light, the only one to be seen in
all the dark mass of buildings, gleamed steadily from the window of
his chancel. The sight attracted him; and under the impulse of
curiosity, to see what the guard might be doing, he crossed the
intervening fields, leaped over the wall of the churchyard, and gained
the window without seeing or being noticed by any one. A lamp in the
chancel had been lighted, and threw around an illumination, faint
indeed, but sufficient to show very distinctly to the eyes of Juxon
the reverend figure within. Directly opposite the window, with his
face so slightly averted towards a monument on the same side, that not
a feature nor an expression was lost, stood a tall grave person in a
clerical habit. His features were noble and sad: his eyes were very
bright, but severe withal; and his complexion was pale as marble. He
wore a small skullcap of black velvet; and beneath it his hair fell,
on either side, in a large wavy mass, and lay upon the broad white
collar that turned over his narrow and close-buttoned cassock. His
upper lip was shaded with a small quantity of the blackest hair; a
tuft of the same filled the indenture beneath his under lip, and thus
the pallor of his long thin cheeks, and of his high forehead, appeared
more deadly. His pale hand, which held a closed volume, was pressed
against his bosom; and he stood so very motionless, and so deeply
absorbed in meditation, that a less healthy fancy than that of Juxon
would have deemed him some ghostly visitant, permitted, during the
witching hour of night, to haunt that holy place. The slow heavy tread
of a man in arms, turning the distant corner of the church, warned
Juxon to conceal himself; and passing quickly round under the altar
window to the other side, he came to the small door of the chancel. It
stood ajar; and pushing it gently, he entered, and again closing it,
found himself in the presence of the venerable stranger, and alone
with him. He turned at the sound of Juxon’s entrance without
abruptness or discomposure; but as the light showed him an unknown
face, and an athletic form in garments dusty with travel, he demanded
of him in a tone of authority how he had come thither, and what was
his business.

“But yesterday,” said Juxon, “I might have asked that question of
thee: but a day has brought forth a sudden change; and the shepherd
must enter his own fold by stealth, or with the permission of others.”

“I understand thee. Thou art the minister of this place: thou hast
nothing to fear: I have watched in thy sanctuary, and no one has
violated or defiled it. You may go home to your own chamber in peace:
it was allotted as my quarter by the commander of this band, but I
resolved to keep a vigil here, and would continue it alone. Go, and
God speed thee. We shall march in the morning; and I pray that you may
be kept safe in all future visitations.”

“March!--have I heard aright? Does such an one as you march in the
ranks of rebels? Does a minister of the Gospel preach war, and that
against the Lord’s anointed?”

“Against the person of the King we do not war: we fight against his
false and dangerous friends. The sword of the Lord is with us, and it
must go through the land; but we march as mourners to the field of
blood. Witness these walls that have heard my groanings, yon tomb that
has been watered by my tears. In that tomb lie the ashes of my
grandfather, who was the first Protestant of his race. The
Reformation, begun by the godly men of that day, has never yet been
completed: that work remains for us.”

“Miserable delusion!” cried Juxon aloud; “miserable delusion! Is it by
kindling and diffusing the false fire of fanaticism? is it in arms? is
it by a path of blood that you move? Then is your work a work of evil,
and your light darkness.”

“So called they the work and the light of our forefathers, when they
led them forth, and burned them at the stake. You have a zeal for the
church, but not according to knowledge. I have heard of you from your
friend Cuthbert Noble.”

“Call him not friend of mine: give to all things their right names. He
that stands in arms against his king is a traitor; and if he had lain
in my heart’s core, I would pluck him out, and cast him from me.”

At this moment, a man in arms entered the small door of the chancel,
and taking off his steel cap, advanced towards Juxon, and put forth
his hand:--it was Cuthbert Noble. He was much altered in his
appearance: his countenance was severe and sad, but resolute withal;
and his corslet, with the broad buff girdle beneath, had produced a
change in his aspect and bearing incredible to the mind of Juxon, if
he had not witnessed it with his eyes.

“Do you refuse my hand? do you turn away from me, Juxon? I have not
deserved this at your hands,” said Cuthbert, still stretching forth
his hand. Juxon turned his face and looked steadfastly upon him.

“Cuthbert,” said he with a slow, grave utterance, “I and your revered
father are upon the same side, and we fill the same sacred office.
Even now, perhaps, his fold is broken into by some furious zealots,
who will not show the same lingering compunction which is now, for a
moment, sparing mine. No, Cuthbert, the hand that grasps a sword, and
wields it against my king, shall never more be clasped with
friendliness by me.”

Cuthbert’s hand fell down, and his knees shook, and his whole frame
trembled with the strength of his emotion.

“Dare to repent,” added Juxon, observing the internal struggle,--“dare
to repent. Here in the house of God, and before the altar of God, lay
down the arms of rebellion, and go home to comfort, and, if possible,
to protect, your father and mother.”

What effect this appeal might have had upon Cuthbert had he been alone
with Juxon, and subjected to all the strength with which it would have
been urged home upon him, we cannot say; for it was no sooner spoken,
than the Puritan chaplain fell upon his knees, and poured forth a
prayer for the cause of the Parliament, which, by its solemn tone and
intense fervency, commanded the silent and breathless attention of
both. It was evident that this petitioner, with an enthusiasm that has
been felt perhaps in common by some of every creed and party under the
cope of heaven, identified the particular cause which he himself had
espoused with that of truth and of God. Before he had uttered the
first brief sentence of adoration, Cuthbert had fallen down in a lowly
posture of worship,--and his spirit was soon carried by his leader in
prayer whithersoever he would.

Juxon leaned his head against the wall where he stood, and kept his
eyes fixed on them. He had before him one of those rarely endowed
beings on whom gifts without measure had been poured:--for a quarter
of an hour he listened, with a painful and solemn interest, to a flow
of real eloquence. The petitions touched in succession every point at
issue. They justified, as by divine command, the appeal to arms, and
proclaimed the end thereof to be reformation and peace. They
recognised the sacredness of the King’s anointed head; and they ended
in a prophetic anticipation of the days of millennial glory, and the
universal reign of a manifested God.

In the course of the prayer he had not forgotten to pray for all
mankind, and especially for all those enemies who now stood opposed to
them in the present contest, and again in a yet more especial manner
for the near and dear relations, whose wishes and entreaties they were
now called on to resist, and whose hearts they might now afflict.
Painting this resistance most truly, as the highest order of
self-denial, he urged it as a sacred duty, and a sacrifice well
pleasing to the Lord.

Juxon saw by the expression of Cuthbert’s mouth the new and stronger
resolutions he was making;--nor did it surprise him to see that, when
they rose together at the conclusion of this fervent prayer, the
chaplain took Cuthbert by the hand, that was passively yielded, and
led him forth from the church without either of them addressing one
word to himself. They looked at him, indeed, with seriousness, if not
with compassion, and they moved their lips, but the whispered
ejaculations of their hearts had no voice; and their departing
footsteps were the only sounds that broke the silence of the place and
of the hour.




CHAP. VII.

    Thy friend put in thy bosom: wear his eyes,
    Still in thy heart, that he may see what’s there.
                                             HERBERT.


By the care of Juxon, who had written to an old college servant of
Christ-church, a lodging was provided for Sir Oliver Heywood and his
party in a retired street at Oxford; and, having accomplished their
journey without any accident, they took possession of their new abode
early in September. The house though small was clean, and by no means
incommodious; but a part of it was already in the occupation of
another lodger. However, he was a quiet man, and was employed all day
in his labours, as a painter of coloured glass, having been engaged to
execute the windows of a chapel then building at University College.
Moreover, he was a Fleming, and spoke English so imperfectly that he
could not understand what was said to him, except on the most common
and necessary matters. But Sir Oliver, who suffered great pain with
his gout, and was really mortified at not being able to join the army,
began to show a fretfulness and discontent at his position, very
trying to Katharine and all about him. He was perpetually finding
fault with every thing, and every person; and his anger at the
language of alarm and doubt, which he found prevalent at Oxford, knew
no bounds. The secret of all this peevishness lay deeper than his
gouty sufferings; for, upon the very day of his arrival, he read in
“The Perfect Diurnall” that two squadrons of horse under Sergeant
Major Francis Heywood had joined the head quarters of the Lord Say,
who was the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, and stoutly opposed to the
King. Nor was this the simple announcement; but the news went on to
say, that these horsemen were well accoutred, and disciplined very
exactly under the training of Sergeant Major Heywood, a soldier of
excellent promise, who had served under the great Gustavus, and was
nearly allied to Sir Oliver Heywood of Milverton House, Warwickshire.
The old gentleman cursed and swore heartily when he first read this
aloud to Katharine and the Lamberts, but he never afterwards named the
subject or Francis; however, the thought lay rankling under every
expression of anger which daily events drew forth.

The cloisters and the groves on the banks of the Isis were no longer
the solemn and silent haunts of peaceful, meditative scholars,--they
now echoed to the harsh beating of drums; and the young students,
instead of pacing slowly in their black academic habits, were dressed
in the garb of soldiers, with blue scarfs suspended across their
bodies from the shoulder, and with pikes in their hands. At a
convocation held in July the University had, with one consent, voted
his Majesty all the public money which they had in hand; and, besides
this, several of the colleges, as well as private persons, sent in
their plate and their ready money also. This act of the convocation,
however, was immediately pronounced null and void by Parliament; and
any such actions were forbidden for the future. This proclamation
pronounced those criminal who had been concerned in advising this
diversion of the treasures of their colleges, and commanded each
society to secure its own. It also ordered that the Dean of
Christ-church, the President of Magdalen, and the Provost of Queen’s,
who had been most active in this matter, should be seized and brought
to the bar of the House to answer for their conduct. But this could
not be accomplished, because the High Sheriff and the Mayor of Oxford,
acting upon the commission of array, had called out the train bands of
the city, and the scholars had taken arms. To support this show of
resistance, Sir John Biron marched to Oxford, and took possession of
it for the King. Sir John had with him about five hundred horse; and
thus he secured the contributions for the King’s service, and was
enabled, though compelled soon afterwards to retire from the city, to
carry a considerable portion of it safe to the royal quarters. It was
during the period that Oxford was thus held for the King that Sir
Oliver and his family came there to reside. They were visited by
several of the stanch Royalists and their ladies: these visitors
consisted for the most part of the troubled and alarmed clergy, who
were connected by office with the University. To some of their wives
it was a delight to have a new family into whose ears they might pour
all the bitter scandals against the Nonconformists, and others of the
Parliament party, which they eagerly collected and minutely detailed.
Nor was there any deficiency in spirit; for some of them went so far
as to declare that, happen what might, nothing should make them stir
from their own houses; that their husbands might run away if they
pleased; but no canting Roundheads should ever eject them from their
own arm chairs; and generally concluded by observing, that if their
husbands were not such a poor set of creatures, they would drive the
odious Lord Say out of the county; and that, as it was, there was no
chance whatever of his getting into the city. Then they reckoned upon
their fingers,--the five hundred men of Sir John Biron, and the four
hundred pikes of the train bands, and the two hundred scholars with
pikes, and the fifty doctors and masters of arts that had horses and
pistols, and spirit to use them. Mrs. Veal, the lady of a doctor of
Christ-church, was the most eloquent in these invectives, and the most
exact in these calculations; and, to her honour be it spoken, she kept
her word; and when the day of trial came, and Oxford was abandoned to
the Parliamentarians, she would not accompany her husband, but
remained obstinately fixed in her own arm-chair, and most successfully
defended her house with a scolding tongue.

Amid all these bitter and uncongenial elements Katharine Heywood was
perplexed and troubled, and found little rest for her spirit, save
that which passeth man’s understanding, and that which she found in
the affectionate friendship of Jane Lambert. Nothing more cruelly
jarred her feelings than the language in which, by common consent,
almost all around her seemed to talk of the Parliamentarians. Her own
loyalty was firm and pure, but it was of an exalted character; and
under no circumstances could it have stooped to so low a hatred of the
persons, or to so mean an opinion of the motives, of the King’s
enemies, as that generally entertained and daily expressed before her.
She did every thing which it was in the power of a daughter to do for
the comfort and tranquillity of her father, but her efforts were not
very successful.

As soon as it became known that the Lord Say was advancing upon Oxford
with superior forces, and that Sir John Biron was about to retire upon
Worcester, nothing would pacify Sir Oliver but an endeavour to
accompany that movement. However, the means of conveyance were not to
be obtained for money, and he was compelled to remain where he was.

On the morning of the 14th of September the greatest possible
consternation prevailed in the city; and early in the forenoon a
strong body of horse, headed by the Lord Say, marched into the
University. His first act was to cause all the colleges to be strictly
searched for plate and arms, and to secure whatever plate had not
been hidden, or despatched under escort of Sir John Biron. He also
broke into their treasuries, but found little in them, save in that of
Christ-church, where, after a day’s labour, and breaking through a
plastered wall to an iron chest, he discovered in the bottom thereof a
groat and a halter;--a pleasant surprize for a man of his morose
temper, and provided for him by the wit of the doctor’s lady who has
been mentioned above.

It was not till late in the evening of the 14th that Sir Oliver and
his daughter got any distinct information of what was passing. Their
street was retired; not a soldier entered it; nor a sound, save that
of trumpets from the market-place, reached their anxious ears. The
worthy knight forbade Katharine and Jane to leave the house, and old
Philip the butler was not at all inclined to volunteer any inquiries.
But the Flemish painter had been absent from a very early hour; on
which account Sir Oliver charitably pronounced him a Dutch
Presbyterian rascal, who had been acting as a spy for the Roundheads.
It was in vain that Katharine observed that he was an artist employed
by a college upon its chapel windows: the knight pronounced him a
foreign scoundrel, gone to join in the plunder. Towards evening the
painter returned, and came to their apartment, to tell them in his
broken stammering language, with tears in his eyes, that a fine young
officer, who spoke Dutch, had saved all his painted glass from being
broken, and had put a safeguard at all the chapels.

The officer of whom the painter related this was no other than Francis
Heywood. The throb of Katharine’s heart told her so at the instant,
but it was confirmed to her afterwards.

It was the habit of Katharine and Jane to walk daily in the afternoon
in the fair meadows on the banks of the river to which they had quick
and easy access, from the retired quarter in which they dwelt, without
passing through any of the more public streets of the town.

Their friendship had strengthened under all the adverse and anxious
circumstances of the times; and the piety of Jane had become so
deepened by her constant intercourse with Katharine that their
spirits held communion together in these walks, whether they conversed
or were silent.

The arrival of the Parliamentarians put a stop to these rambles for
the first few days after they took possession of the city; but, by the
strictness of their discipline and the quietness of their behaviour
towards the citizens of the place, confidence was soon restored, and
the people went about the streets and ventured into the neighbouring
fields as usual.

It was on a fine glowing afternoon, about a week after the entrance of
Lord Say’s horsemen, that Katharine and Jane went forth together to
their favourite meadow. The sun had such power, that, instead of
keeping the open and more public path, they confined themselves to a
short and shady promenade beneath a few stately trees on the margin of
the river. No one chanced to be in the meadow but themselves: the
glorious hues of autumn were already beginning to tinge the tops of
trees, and the hedge rows were blushing with bird fruit. In the
distance, too, on the low hills, the naked and yellow stubble of the
corn fields told that the harvest was ended, and the season of the
last fruits was come. The friends were carrying forward their hopes
and fears as to the future, and were comforting themselves with the
vain hope that, even yet, before the fall of the leaf, some change for
the better might come.

It was rumoured that, through the Lord Falkland, who was highly
considered by many of the Parliamentary leaders, and who was known to
be a Royalist far too generous and right minded to wish well to
despotic government, expectations of a reconciliation between the King
and his Commons were yet entertained. But Katharine, though she wished
not to depress her more sanguine friend, could not but fear that these
rumours of peace were begotten rather of the wishes of those who
uttered them than of their judgment: that too many resolute men were
on horseback and in arms; and that they would assuredly draw the sword
and try the issues of battle. As thus they walked together, softened
by the repose and beauty of the scene around, Jane ventured upon a
theme which seldom or ever passed her lips. She spoke of love, and of
its many crosses; but withal that better it was to love, though life
were passed separated from the object of it, than not to feel so sweet
an influence.

“It is true, Jane,” said Katharine mournfully, “it is most true; yet
misplaced affections do greatly wear the spirit.”

“You do not mean misplaced, dear cousin, surely; but fixed hopelessly
on one most worthy of our love. Such is your destiny, for Francis is a
noble being. You never told me of the first growth of your attachment:
how did it first spring? what moved you? did he woo you? Love, they
say, does ever beget love; but yet, methinks, nothing of outward show
or manliest beauty, no mere words of admiration, would have availed to
fix any man firmly in a heart like yours.”

“Albeit the subject pains me, I will tell thee, Jane. Yes, he is
worthy of a woman’s love. From his first youth he has been, as thou
knowest well, a soldier. It was his father’s pride to see him, when
but a stripling, not so tall as the boy Arthur, intrusted with a
standard in the day of battle. In his first field, a bullet struck him
down upon his knees; still, with uplifted arms, he waved his ensign,
and strove to keep his place in the close ranks, till faint with pain
he fell: but, even then, he grasped the colour staff so firmly, that a
stout lieutenant, who, for its safety, took it from him, was forced to
bruise his boyish hands ere they would let go their sacred charge. On
the morrow, as he lay upon his bloody straw in the field hospital, the
great Gustavus gave him the Iron Cross of Honour, and with it a
commission in his guard of horse,--rewards for this first proof of
constancy.

“This, at our table, his father did relate with such a pride as doth
become a parent. Francis the while coloured a little, and looked down
for modesty, but said nothing. I felt hot tears upon my cheek; and
when they drank his health, and I did pledge him, he saw those tears.
Such was the birth of our attachment; and kind words, and gentle
actions, and books, and music, and many things, did feed it, till it
grew to love; and then came trouble. Thou knowest well the bitter feud
that blazed forth suddenly between our fathers. The quarrel was of
public matters; for my father never knew nor even guessed our love.
’Tis long, long past that blissful season: let’s talk of it no more.”

“Thank you, dear Katharine,” said Jane, with swimming eyes and
faltering tongue; “I feel for you. I love you so, it was but right to
tell me this. You wish for silence; be it so: for the world I would
not pain you.” Their conversation dropped, and they gave themselves to
the grave thoughts it had called up.

It had been late in the afternoon before they came out: evening drew
on; and the sun was setting in a fine autumnal sky, when they were
surprised by the sound of approaching voices: as they became more
distinct, Jane observed that they must proceed from some persons on
the river or on the opposite bank. They went to a tree near the water,
and there, concealed by the overhanging branches, they saw a small
boat dropping down the stream, and gliding to the very bank on which
they stood. It came close, but neither of the persons in it stepped
ashore: they continued talking in a foreign language, and comparing a
distant outline of ground with papers which they held in their hands.
Their backs were towards Katharine and Jane; but these almost
immediately recognised one as the Flemish painter, who lodged in the
same house with them, the other was a tall stately man in a helmet and
a buff war coat, with an orange scarf depending from his right
shoulder. The heart of Katharine throbbed violently. Under the
disguise of a foreign tongue, she was not certain about the voice; but
she thought it was that of Francis. He lifted his helmet from his
head, and turned to catch the evening breeze. It was her cousin. Her
cheek became deadly pale: she trembled excessively, and caught at the
trunk of the tree for support. A sudden exclamation from Jane Lambert
gave alarm. Francis sprang instantly to the shore, eager to quiet any
fears which he might innocently have caused. Nor was the surprise
greater to them than to himself, when he saw Katharine Heywood and
Jane Lambert before him.




CHAP. VIII.

    My true love hath my heart, and I have his.
                                        SIDNEY.


When the painter, who followed Francis Heywood from the boat, saw the
affecting situation of the parties, and discerned clearly, at a
glance, that they were not only well acquainted with each other, but
apparently suffering from very deep and embarrassing emotions, he
withdrew. There was a something in this meeting of Francis and
Katharine, under present circumstances, so mournful, that Jane
Lambert, from a sympathy with their sacred feelings, walked to a short
distance from the spot, and left them together. They stood alone; they
were both pale; both trembling; the greeting of the embrace, and the
utterance of each other’s names, had already passed in the presence of
Jane. Silence was first broken by Francis. “I bless the leading of my
better angel for bringing me here this evening. Oh, Katharine, how I
have longed for an interview with you: that blessing is come; it is a
boon of Providence; we meet again: once more I have heard your lips
pronounce my name; once more I gaze upon the living form which has
dwelt with me as a bright shadow; the comfort of my wanderings and
toils; the cherished idol of my lonesome hours; the household image
that gladdened my solitary lodging. Nay, do not seek to silence me; do
not avert your eyes from me; let not displeasure cloud your glorious
brow. I have loved you long, faithfully, and well. I hail this meeting
as an omen of Heaven’s favour: the hour will come that I may dare ask
thee of thy father without shame or fear.”

“Francis, that hour will never come; it was an unhappy hour in which
we first became acquainted.”

“Oh, say not so: from that sweet hour I date a happiness that cannot
die: why look so grave upon me? You cannot quench my love:--it grew as
does the flower which with a constancy looks ever to the sun. Thou
art a sun to me; and till I am cut down by the swift scythe of war, or
wither in decay, thus will it ever be.”

“Oh, Francis, who hath bewitched you? Why did you return to England?
Why did you leave the green savannas of the New World, and your pure
and peaceful labours, for scenes of strife and of rebellion?
Away--afar--separated from me by the stormy ocean--and too painfully
conscious myself that the course of our true love never could run
smooth--I had a comfort in your absence. We are divided in time, was
my thought--but not for ever. There is a high and distant region,
where we may meet again to part no more;--but now, Francis--it is not
too late--put off these arms--return to America. Here, now, let us
take our last and long farewell. Return to your father, and give me
back the happiness of knowing that he who loves me may be, without a
crime, beloved again. Yes--I have loved you well. I have known that
our union was impossible:--to honour a parent’s will is the duty of a
child. But hear me, Francis:--if all such obstacles were by some magic
power removed,--if fortune crowned you with all those gifts of wealth
and station, which so generally secure the consent of fathers and the
approval of the world,--never would I accept the hand of that man, who
had raised his sword against his king.”

While Katharine was delivering this earnest, fond remonstrance, with
all the tenderness of a woman, but with a tone of decision towards the
close at once solemn and mournful, Francis stood pale and attentive,
with eyes that regarded her countenance admiringly. He remained silent
for more than a minute after she had ceased from speaking, as if
waiting to hear more; then coming closer to her, he took her hand,
gazed on her with intense affection, and slowly answered,--

“With due deliberation of my deed, I took commission of the
Parliament, and swore the oath prescribed; and I will keep it,
Katharine, as a soldier should. You live at home, as women use to do,
and therefore cannot know the truth of this great nation’s quarrel
with its king. Spirits there are in this bad world, to whom their own
security and peace bring no content, while any are debarred a common
right. Such lead the people now; such, standing up in arms, demand for
all, true liberty--and I am with them. The anointed head of England’s
king is to me, as to you, sacred, and I would defend it from the
swords of my own squadrons should any dare to threaten it. You have
none near you, my beloved Katharine, to show you things in their true
colours, and your gentle and pious fear of evil misleads your better
judgment.”

“Francis, I thank God I live apart from the great world, and hear but
little of their teaching; but this I know, nations are families, and
he that slays his brother in any quarrel commits a sin, and he that
puts forth his hand against a nation’s father is tempted to a crime so
like to parricide, that the laws do visit treason with the same
punishment. I’ll pray for thee, cousin,--pray that some power divine
may turn thy deceived heart,--may touch it with the spirit of peace,
and love, and holy fear. Lay not the flattering unction to your soul,
that the cause of true religion, or of true liberty, can be promoted
by the sword of rebellion. It will turn into your own generous bosom
hereafter, and pierce you through with sorrows.”

“Well, Katharine, a nation is a family; but if some of the children do
poison a father’s mind against others, and these last rise up to
punish their treachery, at whose door lieth the sin?”

“My heart is too heavy, Francis, to deal with you in argument. Sure I
am, that you feel persuaded in your own mind of the truth of that view
which lures you on to misery. Oh, that I could move thee. Francis,
from the tender age at which I kneeled upon a mother’s lap, and lisped
my infant prayer, I was taught to love and to reverence the church in
which I was baptized; to worship in her courts; to kneel before her
altars; and now I may not see her in the dust without a pang.”

“Katharine, I would sooner this arm should rot than that it should
violate a church, or desecrate one pillar of the temple; but all that
are called Israel are not Israel. There are unseemly spots upon the
raiment of the King’s daughter. She will come forth more glorious for
purification. Fear not, my gentle cousin, fear not, all will yet be
well.”

“Not so--not so; my heart more truly tells some fatal end. What scarf
is that upon thy shoulder? Where is thy king? Doth not his sacred head
even now pillow upon thorns? His throne! his crown! where are they? by
whom assailed? by whom defended?”

“The true enemies of the King, the true foes of the church, are
gathered about the royal person; have poisoned his ear; have turned
the generous blood of a princely heart to the black and bitter stream
that swells the veins of tyrants. The best friends both of the church
and of the King march to free them and to reinstate them in the love
of all the people.”

“Oh, that it were so, Francis--were truly so! Is Falkland in your
ranks? Oh, that I had a tongue of persuasion to win you back again!
Oh, that you were riding among your king’s defenders!”

“Katharine, by the sweet sacredness of my deep and constant love for
you, ask me not that which I could never do with honour. Beneath the
cope of heaven there walks no being whose wish is such a law to me as
thine. My services are pledged--my colours chosen. My heart is in the
cause. If thou couldst give to me thy precious self in marriage, as
the mighty price of my desertion, I were unworthy of thee--we should
be unworthy of each other. Our fall would be beyond the common lapse
of false mankind. Even in our wedding garments our love would die.”

“Lord of my constant heart, forget my words:--I know not what they
meant--I know not how I spake them. Sorrow, and fear, and love, and
dark forebodings, do half bewilder me. I would not have thee other
than thou art in any thing. Thy heart is no traitor’s heart. Delusion,
bright as is the garment of an archangel, goes before thee; and in
Heaven’s chosen squadrons you shall be one day marshalled. Whene’er
thou fallest in the battle, I shall know it:--the stars will tell it
me: Francis, thou wilt be taken away from me,--I know it:--a presage
dark and cold overshadows me.”

“Nay, love, that fear is idle; ’tis a passing weakness. Nor time, nor
space, nor life, nor death, can e’er divide our loves. In all I think,
in all I do, you are present with me. Spirits are not confined:--in
lonely forest haunts, across the wide Atlantic, I have had thee with
me, Katharine, _visibly with me_; and I do know by the mysterious
sympathy between us, that thou hast seen me sit with thee, beneath thy
favourite cedar, when ocean rolled between us. This is the high and
glorious privilege of love like ours. Come to my heart:--be folded
there in one such fond embrace as may live in memory’s cup to be a
daily nectar.” He pressed her majestic form to his manly breast, and
bowed his head upon her shoulder. Just then a trumpet sounded from the
city. He strained her yet closer to his heart, then cast his eyes
around with eager glance, and made signal with his hand till Jane
observed him and came up:--to her he passed his pale and silent charge
with soft and reverent action, and, with the quick farewell of
soldiers’ partings, broke suddenly away.




CHAP. IX.

    He calls us rebels, traitors; and will scourge with haughty
    arms this hateful name in us.
                                                    _Henry IV._


On the cold foggy evening of October the 22d, 1642, the brigade of
foot to which the regiment of Cuthbert Noble belonged took up its
ground for the night in an open field to the north of the village of
Keinton, in which the Earl of Essex fixed his head-quarters. The
armies of the King and the Parliament had been several days on the
march, both moving in the same direction, on lines of route some
twenty miles asunder. Both the King and Essex were well resolved to
fight a battle when the fit opportunity should offer; and it was the
common talk of the soldiers on both sides that they should soon come
to blows. Nevertheless, there was little thought in either camp that
they were on the very eve of an engagement, or, indeed, that the main
bodies lay so convenient to each other as to fight on the morrow. As
soon as the guards were posted, the pikemen and musketeers of
Maxwell’s regiment piled their arms in ranks, and were allowed to make
such fires as they could. The country being open, and bare of wood,
these fires were comfortless and short lived. By a flickering flame,
fed with the small wood of the few bushes that grew near, Cuthbert
Noble and Randal ate a slender supper of dry bread and salt herring,
which they washed down with a weak draught of cold mixture, but
faintly tinged with strong waters. “The Saxons,” said Randal, who was
a very hardy man, “call this month the wine month, or _Wyn Monath_;
certainly there must have been milder seasons in England formerly than
we experience now; for it is impossible to fancy a vintage during such
sharp frosts as these.”--“Yes,” said Cuthbert, “yes.” Randal smiled at
a reply which bespoke inattention and discomposure, then added,
“Master Cuthbert, I counted on seeing you a little proud of your
first night in camp: we must all endure hardness as good soldiers.”

“True,” answered Cuthbert, recovering himself: “what is a little cold
and a little hunger compared to what thousands of Christian men have
in all ages endured, and do in all ages endure for the truth? It is a
great cause--a holy cause. I was only thinking at the moment that it
is a pity we had not taken a little better care of our bread and of
that bottle of strong waters: there is a loaf missing, and the bottle
is almost empty. But what petty trifles these are; how much below the
dignity of our nature: you are right, Randal; I am, and I ought to be,
happy; see how comfortable the Colonel has made himself;” so saying,
he pointed to where Maxwell sat, near the only good fire on the
ground, with a few officers round him. He was enveloped in a large
cloak,--a fur cap was drawn over his ears,--he was leaning with his
back against a pack-saddle; and as the smoke of his pipe issued in
warm clouds from his mouth he looked as much at his ease as if seated
in a chimney corner by the brightest fireside in the kingdom.

“Ay,” said Randal, “he is an old campaigner, and use is second nature;
for myself, as long as I am warmly clad, for no other comfort do I
care: I hate a pipe, and am not fond of a fire.” Now Randal was
wrapped up in an outer coat of the thickest woollen; and Cuthbert
himself, being also clothed in a large warm mantle, checked his
disposition to complain, and, after a little conversation of a better
kind, they both composed themselves to sleep. About two or three hours
after he had lain down he was awakened by a sensation of extreme cold.
He instantly discovered the cause: his mantle had been stripped off,
and he was left without any other covering than the clothes in which
he stood. Most of the camp fires were already extinguished, or only
emitted a very faint light from the expiring embers. The stars in the
deep blue sky above shone with the most vivid lustre: the fog had
disappeared; and through the clear gloom of night he could see
outlines of the piles of arms and of the groups of sleeping soldiers.
Immediately near him lay Randal in a profound sleep: lifting a
half-burned brand, he saw by the light which it gave as he waved it
around that the mantle was nowhere near the spot. He went among the
groups which were not far off to search for it; but the growl and the
curse of a brawny pikeman, over whom he chanced to stumble, deterred
him from his pursuit; and he had no other resource than to pace up and
down in a vacant space of ground, that he might keep himself warm by
exertion. In vain he tried to raise his mind to heavenly
contemplations; in vain he sought to warm his zeal by picturing the
sad and severe sublimities of battle and of victory; and the price of
blood which he might soon be called upon, and which he was ready to
pay, for the triumph of his cause. For great sacrifices he was eager;
for petty troubles he was wholly unprepared; therefore the night wore
away in coldness and discontent.

Just as the day was breaking, he observed a man, in the garb of a
Puritan, riding leisurely along the lines, and apparently taking a
very particular notice of the position and number of the troops. What
it was in the manner of the man that awakened the suspicions of
Cuthbert is uncertain, but he felt impelled to go closer, and examine
him. Accordingly, he crossed towards the quarter-guard, where he
observed him stop and enter into conversation with the sergeant. The
man’s back was towards Cuthbert,--thus he was able to approach the
quarter-guard without being perceived by the stranger. No sooner did
Cuthbert catch the tone of his voice than he immediately recognised it
to be that of the roguish hypocrite who had slept in the same chamber
with him at the inn in Aylesbury, two years before, and had stolen his
purse and the horse lent him by Sir Oliver Heywood. The knave, not
recollecting Cuthbert in his new dress, continued to pursue his
inquiries after he came up in the same canting phraseology, and even
addressed some questions to Cuthbert himself; but the latter,
suddenly seizing the bridle of his beast, directed the sergeant to
pull him out of his saddle, which was instantly and adroitly done, and
gave him in charge as a thief and a horse-stealer, and on suspicion of
being a spy. The wretch was so panic-stricken that he made no effort
to conceal or destroy any of the proofs which were found upon him,
when they proceeded to search his person. These papers consisted of a
letter to Prince Rupert--another, without a signature, saying that two
squadrons of the Parliamentarian horse were prepared to desert as soon
as the armies met--and a third, containing an accurate return of the
strength of Essex’s main body, and an estimate of the numbers left
behind in garrisons, and on other duties. He was taken before Colonel
Maxwell; by him sent forthwith to the Earl of Essex, who, having
gotten all the information which the confused hypocrite could give,
directed him to be hanged in front of the lines, before the troops
marched. The rogue died like a dog and a dastard, imploring mercy with
loud and feverish howls, till, the noose being fastened tight about
his neck, and made secure to a strong branch on the only tree near
the camp, the forage cart, on which he had been dragged beneath it,
was driven away, and he suddenly fell, and swung slowly to and fro
before the silent and stern battalions which were assembled upon the
ground in arms.

Such was the Sabbath morning of October the 23d,--far different in
prospect and in promise from those of his youthful days at Cheddar.
The distant sound of trumpets told that the divisions of horse were
already in motion; the drums beat; many a shrill fife pierced the ear;
and the columns of foot slowly followed. The army had scarcely
advanced a mile before the troops were halted; and they could all
distinctly see a fair body of horse on the top of a high level, called
Edge Hill, not more than a good mile in front. At the same moment, the
Earl of Essex rode past Maxwell’s regiment, and said, in the hearing
of Cuthbert,--

“Maxwell, I shall give you plenty of work to-day, for I know I may
reckon on your regiment safely.”

“My Lord, we’re all ready and willing,” was the Colonel’s brief reply.

The order now came for drawing up the army in order of battle. Near
Keinton, on the right, were some hedges and enclosures: among these
were placed the musketeers and pikemen; and one of the most important
posts was assigned to the regiment in which Cuthbert served. There
were not above two regiments of horse in this wing, where the ground
was narrowest; but in the left wing was placed a thousand horse under
Ramsey. The reserve of horse was commanded by the Earl of Bedford,
assisted by Sir William Balfour: between the Parliamentarians and the
royal position, on Edge Hill, it was a fair open country. Essex having
thus chosen his ground, stood still in a defensive posture, and
directed three cannon to be discharged as a defiance and a challenge
to the royal army: they answered readily on their part with two shot
from a battery of field guns on the brow of their position. However,
many of their foot regiments were quartered seven or eight miles from
the main body, and had that distance to march to the rendezvous. It
was past one of the clock before the King’s forces marched down the
hill, with the King’s standard waving in the centre of his regiment of
guards. They made a very fine and gallant appearance, especially their
horse. Their trumpets sounded out in the distance, very grand to hear,
and those upon Essex’s left wing sounded also. It was a glorious sight
to see the royal forces move steadily on, in two lines, with bodies of
reserve. They numbered not less than eighteen thousand men, and the
army of Essex was very little superior in strength; for two of his
best regiments of foot, and one of his horse regiments, were a day’s
march behind him. However, the Parliament soldiers were no less ready
for the fray than their eager adversaries.

During the solemn pause before the battle, while the hosts were
drawing up face to face, and the dispositions for the attack were
completing, Cuthbert felt an unaccountable sadness on his spirits. He
could well imagine, from all that he heard and saw, that the feelings
of a true soldier, standing opposite an army of hostile invaders, and
about to fight for the altars and the hearths of his native land, must
be of a most exalted and enviable description,--but how different were
his. The royal standard of England was floating in the adverse line,
and English voices were marshalling it for the onset: his own pupil,
young Arthur Heywood, was riding in those ranks.

“Remember, men,” said the commanding voice of Maxwell, “to be silent
and steady: wait for the order: reserve your fire to the last moment,
musketeers; and keep your ranks, pikemen, when it comes to the push.
By God’s help, we’ll drive them up that hill in worse order than they
are coming down.”

In another minute there broke a sudden flash from the enemy’s line:
close followed the white smoke and the thundering echo; and, by the
very side of Cuthbert, a sergeant was struck down dead.

“Pick up Sergeant Bond’s partisan,” said the sergeant-major of the
regiment as he was passing by: “pick it up, you Tibbs,” he repeated,
in a sharp cold tone, to a supernumerary sergeant attached to the same
company, and who had only a sword.

“Is this the glorious battle death?” said Cuthbert to himself,--but he
had no leisure for thought: the roar of shotted guns began on both
sides, and the battle fiercely opened. The musketeers of the regiment
were thrown out towards a hedge, a little in front of the ground
occupied by the pikemen; and a canopy of smoke soon rose above them
all, veiling the golden sun and the blue heavens, and giving to all
the forms and faces of those around, whether friends or foes, a
shadowy indistinctness.

In the midst of all this apparent confusion, governing commands were
given by beat of drum, or by the swift and intelligent service of
chosen aides, or by the personal presence and loud voice, at the
particular point were they were needed, of Essex himself, who
commanded and fought with his foot throughout the day. Captain
Ruddiman, who commanded the company of pikemen to which Cuthbert
belonged, did not appear to relish the cannon balls; feeling very
naturally, that however ready and able to encounter the Royalists at
close quarters, there was no mode of guarding against a round iron
shot; nor was he much better pleased with the spitting and whistling
of musket-balls. However, being a very brave man, he stood them all as
steady as a signpost, and rebuked Lieutenant Sippets for bobbing up
and down in a very unsoldier-like fashion. Meanwhile Cuthbert was
expressly called by Maxwell to go to the front, and take charge of a
company of musketeers, the officers of which were all killed or
wounded. He ran eagerly forward and was soon hotly engaged; but the
royal dragoons coming up to the support of their foot, and both
forcing their way on with ardour, the musketeers were withdrawn by
Maxwell behind the reserve of pikemen; and these moving up in good and
compact order soon came to a gallant push of pike, and drove back the
enemy with severe loss; at the same time the musketeers stoutly
supported the push of pike with their clubbed muskets, and made a
bloody carnage in the royal ranks. In this mêlée Cuthbert owed his
life to that expertness at the sword exercise for which he was
indebted to the lessons of George Juxon; for by a dexterous parry he
beat off the assault of a stout Royalist officer, who ran at him as he
was grasping at a colour, the bearer of which had stumbled, and,
killing him by a home thrust through the body, succeeded in taking the
colour.

In the pause which followed on the repulse of this attack Cuthbert
received the high praise of Maxwell, and the honest congratulations of
Captain Ruddiman, who, at close quarters, had himself done good
service among the Royalists, making not a few bite the dust beneath
the blows of a heavy poll-axe which he had found upon the field. Both
parties now for awhile took wind and breath; but soon again the horse
of Essex’s right wing was led by Sir William Balfour against the point
of the King’s left. Their squadrons passed the flank of Maxwell’s
regiment, as they advanced at a walk to take their ground before they
formed up for the charge; and Francis Heywood, already distinguished
by his brilliant conduct at the unfortunate affair of Pershore, passed
so close to Cuthbert that they shook hands. It scarcely seemed a
minute from this friendly greeting ere their trumpets sounded the
charge, and with a desperate fury they galloped towards the enemy. The
first line broke before them: the second was staggered; but two
regiments of the royal dragoons, in reserve, came swiftly to their
aid, and by the fire of their long carbines struck down a great many
of the Parliament horse, and following this up by a charge, compelled
them to wheel about. The royal foot now advanced again, and made a
furious attack upon the right of Essex, and pushed up to the very
mouths of his cannon, and drove away the gunners and spiked several of
the guns; but this artillery was valiantly won back by the
Parliamentarians: and the brigade of foot in which Maxwell’s regiment
fought actually charged the royal dragoons with their pikes, and drove
them back in disorder, with the loss of a great many men and horses.
It so happened, in this last movement, that when the two parties were
close together, Cuthbert caught a momentary but a very distinct view
of the fine countenance of young Arthur Heywood, and heard him cry
aloud, “Strike home, lads, for God and the King!” The smoke of battle
soon hid the vision, and the royal dragoons were compelled to retire.

Prince Rupert had beaten the left wing of Essex, and was in full
pursuit; but as night drew on the horsemen of the Prince were seen
returning to the field of battle; and as the right wing had maintained
its ground stubbornly, the battle ended by the King retiring to the
hills, and leaving Essex in possession of the field, where he kept his
troops together throughout the night. Both sides laid claim to the
victory, and both gained some advantages in the fight, but their
losses were very heavy and nearly equal. However, Essex slept upon the
field of battle, and was joined in the night by most of the fugitives
from his left wing, and was further reinforced by the arrival of two
good regiments of foot and one of horse.

The sun had no sooner set on the evening of the battle than it began
to freeze hard; and it being Cuthbert’s turn for outline guard, he was
posted at the end of a considerable enclosure, near some large gaps,
which had been made by the enemy in their attacks to admit of their
bringing up their cannon and their cavalry. The slaughter near this
spot had been considerable, and Cuthbert had to plant his sentinels
among mangled and naked corpses; but in the gloom and obscurity of
night the only appearance they presented was that of pallid and stony
objects without a shape. He was surprised to find himself insensible
to any feeling but the low animal sensations of hunger, cold, and
weariness. He sat round the watch fire with the men composing the
guard, and ate ravenously of such coarse provisions as were issued.
His share of the plunder had been a large warm horseman’s cloak, which
his corporal had found among the slain of the King’s guards, and which
he now folded about him as he lay down to rest with a very thankful
but somewhat a selfish sense of comfort. He gave orders that he
should be waked at every relief of the sentinels, and then sunk into a
deep slumber, from which he was aroused, within two hours, to go his
rounds. When he returned from them all disposition for sleep had
departed. He trimmed the watch fire, and was soon the only one awake
near the spot except the sentinel. A little book, with silver corners
and clasps, lay on the ground, where it had apparently been thrown by
one of the soldiers: it attracted the eye of Cuthbert by the gleaming
of its silver clasps,--he took it up; the covers were smeared with
dirt: he opened it,--it was a Book of Common Prayer: a leaf was folded
down at the collect for the day; and in the inside of the cover was
written the following quotation from George Herbert:--

    “Sundays observe:--think, when the bells do chime,
    ’Tis angels’ music.”

He knew the handwriting; it was that of Katharine: he knew the book;
he remembered the Sabbath morning when she first presented it to her
cousin Arthur. He thought upon that glimpse which he had caught of his
pupil’s countenance in the battle, and he shuddered with
apprehensions.




CHAP. X.

    Great God! there is no safety here below;
    Thou art my fortress; thou that seem’st my foe,
    ’Tis thou that strik’st the stroke, must guard the blow.
                                                    QUARLES.


Although the malice of the hypocrite Daws had been disappointed by the
result of his wicked artifices at Cheddar fair, and the worthy Noble
had been saved from the injury and ruin which a lawless rabble were
instigated to inflict on that peaceful man of God, yet Daws, being
unsuspected and secure from detection, did not relax his efforts for
the persecution and ejectment of Noble.

He contrived to have him haled before a committee of religious inquiry
which visited those parts soon after; but here again he was baffled:
for one of the commissioners being pricked in his conscience by
observing the godly simplicity of the good parson of Cheddar, and the
sincerity of his love to the blessed Saviour of the world, procured
his dismissal from that ordeal unharmed. Nevertheless Daws continued
to work secretly for his own ends, and gave himself no rest in the
pursuit of his great object. He had the reputation of great strictness
and sanctity as a minister,--and the outward man imposed upon many; in
his heart he cared not for the souls of men; his sins were those which
often and long escape the detection of the world, and which can be
indulged under the cloak of religious zeal without exciting the
suspicions of any, but those honest and sagacious persons who can
detect a character by indications of its spirit too slight and fine to
be admitted as important by the multitude. He was avaricious and
tyrannical: money was his idol; and to subject the minds of a
congregation was his next delight. From his pulpit he dealt forth the
most fierce and cruel fulminations against all unbelievers. Nor was he
without many trembling followers, whom he scolded and comforted,
according to the caprice of his own temper.

    “He damned the sins he had no mind to,
    And spared the few he was inclined to.”

In his creed, the prayers and alms of any one who did not exactly
entertain his notions of faith were sins, and would be visited as
such. Now Parson Noble was a minister who bowed his knees before the
Father of mercies as a self-abased sinner, confessing himself without
grace or strength to will or to do, save of God’s free mercy,
communicated through and for Christ’s sake. He taught all his people
that if they asked the gifts and graces of repentance and faith in
that precious name they could not be denied, and should never be sent
empty away: to proclaim the message of peace and reconciliation was
his delight; to invite all freely, to tell of a pardon to the human
race, which, under the present dispensation of mercy, was the common
right of all who were _willing_ to accept it, was his constant
practice; and he showed them plainly that if they came not to the
light, it was because they loved darkness; because they could not part
with their sins, and shrunk from the Gospel as a rule of life. “Love,”
he would say, “worketh no ill to his neighbour, therefore love is the
fulfilling of the law. Love is keeping the commandments: God is love,
from whom they came. Jesus is love, by whom they were taught,
magnified, and perfectly obeyed, that in his sacrifice of himself, as
a pure and spotless victim, we might have an all-sufficient atonement,
and hope towards a God who had taken our nature upon him, and been
manifest in the flesh.” Now Daws held that Noble was a blind leader of
the blind, and that both would fall into the ditch; and he desired,
first, the proceeds of Cheddar living in his pocket, and, next, the
gratification of telling the flock of Noble that they were one and all
in the broad road to destruction.

Nor did this insidious priest fail to spread all sorts of calumnies
about the poor unconscious vicar, and to irritate many furious
zealots against him. He kept up a constant correspondence with a
political partisan in London, to whom he gave much information on
local and county matters, stretching his invention not a little when
he had to tell any thing against the Royalists of those parts. By this
means he got a name as a person well affected to the Parliament, and
greatly interested in the cause of religious liberty.

It so happened, that, in the November immediately following the
breaking out of the war, and the great battle of Keinton, a body of
Parliamentarian horse being quartered in his neighbourhood, Daws found
a fit instrument for his purposes on Cheddar, in a most furious and
bigotted fanatic, who commanded a troop of horse. This man was easily
persuaded that he could not render a more acceptable service to God
than by destroying with fire and sword all places, all persons, and
all things, which were, in his own view, defiled, and idolatrous, and
impure; and he therefore sallied forth against the church and the
parson of Cheddar as he would against a temple and a priest of Baal.

On the day on which old Noble was ejected from Cheddar, with many
circumstances of cruelty and hardship, he arose, as usual, with some
fears, but with unshaken trust in the goodness and mercy of an
all-wise and almighty Father. The day was cold, and not a sunbeam was
admitted through the cloud and gloom which brooded over all things. It
chanced that the stout and resolute old franklin Blount had determined
that his grandchild should be publicly baptized at the same ancient
font at which his own venerable forehead had been signed with the sign
of the cross. There was some doubt in the mind of his son-in-law,
Hargood, whether it was prudent at that moment of busy persecution, on
the part of the county committee, to make so open a display of devout
attachment to the hallowed ceremony of a christening. His loving
daughter, from a tender apprehension about her infant’s safety, if any
thing should fall out amiss, would have stolen to church, at the
earliest possible hour, and in the most quiet manner. However, habits
of submission to her father, formed by an admiration of his character,
were of so long a growth, and so deeply rooted, that the remonstrance
of her fears was not ventured on; indeed Blount would have held it
craven to yield to the timid suggestions of prudence, where he looked
to a principle in his conduct. It is not improbable that some shadow
of a domestic tragedy had been cast upon the old man’s solitary
thoughts; for, within a few days past, there had been observable in
his manner a mixture of severity and gentleness at once strange and
affecting. He had twice been found in the large oak parlour alone,
reading from the Book of Martyrs, which was there chained upon a tall
desk. It is true that on both these occasions he had whistled and
walked away quick; but it was afterwards remembered. Howbeit, at ten
o’clock in the forenoon, there issued from the porch of the franklin’s
old mansion a small party consisting of about eight persons, male and
female: one of the last bore in her arms an infant so folded up and
hidden in a large mantle of thick white woollen, that nothing but a
little outline of the babe could be seen, and not a breath of the keen
wintry wind could penetrate to its tender frame. They moved slowly,
and in a formal order up the long straggling street; and all the
villagers who met them by the way, or looked at them from their doors,
saluted them with bows and good words, but with evident and anxious
wonder. A faithful woodman ventured to go close and whisper to Master
Blount that he was just come in from Axbridge, and saw some of the
rascal Roundheads mustering, and that he heard say, at the Old
Pack-horse Inn, that they were going to march for Wells by the road of
Cheddar. “Well, let them come,” said the franklin; “we are not doing
any thing to be ashamed of: let them see us doing as their forefathers
did before us, and redden in the face for their own falsehood; ‘church
and king’ is an old cry and a good one: out upon the knaves!--God will
defend his own.”

The party went forward; and having reached the churchyard, passed
into the church by the low chancel door, walked down the great aisle,
and turned into the southern transept. Here stood the font; here the
worthy parson awaited them, and his wife also, who was by a promise of
long date to stand as godmother to the child. The old stone font,
round which this pious family were assembled, had long been an object
of great veneration to the inhabitants of Cheddar. It was octagonal in
form, and supported upon a clustered shaft of Purbeck marble. The
compartments on its sides were sculptured with scenes from Holy Writ.
In one was represented the circumcision of Christ; in another the same
blessed Lord was figured in manhood, with a little child in his arms,
and his disciples standing round: through age and injury the subjects
in the other compartments were no longer discernible.

Above the font was a window of painted glass, which, as there was no
light of the sun to illuminate its gorgeous groups, did only present
to the eye a dim cold grandeur;--a grave and visionary glory, through
which, as in the pages of unaccomplished prophecy, might be caught
bright glimpses of pale and celestial faces, and yet garments crimson
withal, as though they had been rolled in blood.

In this solemn light, and around this sacred font, the family of
Blount reverently kneeled, and the service proceeded. The babe lay
still and unconscious in the arms of the old franklin’s wife; and
nothing told of its young life but a soft breath from parted lips, and
a faint flush upon a waxen cheek. By its side knelt the fair mother,
delicate and colourless, with eyes bent on the ground, and a forehead
over which fears flitted, and disturbed her prayers.

Of all the party none save the sweet infant was so calm as Blount
himself. Upon the throne of the old man’s heart his God was seated,
and his soul was at peace. In fancy and in spirit he was again the
subject of that holy rite. When Noble took the babe in his arms, and
it opened its blue eyes and stretched out its little helpless hands,
and as it felt the sprinkled water, and was signed with the sign of
the cross, gave that little cry for which mother and nurse listen so
fondly, a few large tears dropped from the eyelids of the stalwart
franklin, and the voice of Noble faltered a little as he saw them
fall. The solemn declaration by which the child is received into
Christ’s flock was completed, and was responded to by the deep and
fervent Amen of Blount, and the gentler tones of those around him; and
the good parson was proceeding to the thanksgiving that follows, when
that fearful sound, which is made up of the trampling of horses, and
the rattle of harness, and the blast of the trumpet, was heard at the
church doors in the opposite transept. Their heavy leaves were thrown
open with a sudden and violent crash, and two of the horsemen rode
into the body of the church, accompanied by three severe and sour
looking persons in sad coloured doublets, and narrow crowned hats, and
followed by some low rabble, with whom, in fear and curiosity, a few
of the good folk of Cheddar intermingled.

“I have a message for thee, thou priest of Baal,--thou blind leader of
the blind,--thou whited wall,” said he, whose caparisons bespoke him
the chief, laying the flat of his sword with a smart stroke upon the
neck of Noble. “Thou art weighed in the balance, and found wanting:
thou must come with me; thy mummeries and thy knaveries shall no more
pollute the sanctuary.”

“Dost thou not fear God?” said the meek but undaunted Noble, with a
firm voice and unshrinking mien. “Dost thou not fear God, that thus
thou comest to his holy temple? To what manner of man was it told,
that it were better for him a millstone were tied about his neck, and
he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little
ones? I tell thee, the angel of that helpless babe doth, even now,
behold the face of his Father, which is in heaven, and beareth witness
against thee.--Go forth. I myself will follow thee, whithersoever thou
wouldest, be it to judgment or to death; but this hoof-clatter in the
courts of the Lord is a most abominable sin.”

“Now will I do so, and yet more, thou hypocrite, thou whitened
sepulchre!” so saying, the fanatic plunged his spurs into the flanks
of his frightened war-horse, but the fretted and gallant beast did
only rear, and chafe, and champ the bit. Meanwhile, the young mother,
with her child in her bosom, and the other women round her, had sunk
back into the corner of the transept in terror. Old Blount and his
son-in-law interposed between the horsemen and Noble, and demanded of
them loudly to quit the sacred building.

“I ask ye not,” said he, “as Christians, for that ye cannot be, but
for your manhood’s sake, to suffer, that these poor terrified women
pass forth with the infant in peace; for ourselves, though we be
unarmed, we will abide your wrath as best we may.”

“Let not thine eye pity,” said a harsh voice from behind the horsemen:
“blessed be he that taketh her children and dasheth them against the
stones. Woe to the idolaters! woe!--The priest shall be slain at the
altar, and the water of the Babylonish font shall be red with the
blood of sacrifice.”

The frenzied zeal of the willing fanatic being thus excited, he urged
on his powerful steed, and raised his glittering sword. The hot animal
by a weighty plunge came breast upon the font, and overthrew and brake
it, and the consecrated water was spilled upon the ground. At this
sight old Blount, with the strong arm of a Samson, caught at the
bridle, and threw back the horse and his rider with so violent a
force, that the hoofs slipped upon the smooth pavement, and they fell
together; and before they had risen, the old man had caught up a heavy
bar of wood near him, and raising the ponderous weapon with both
hands, aimed so true and so deadly a blow at the sacrilegious chief
that he never moved after; and the life-blood ran from his mouth and
ears, and flowing onward, mingled with the water from the BROKEN FONT.

Every voice was silenced,--every foot was rivetted there where it
stood. All were hushed and motionless, and every face looked ghastly.
During this awful pause, the aged franklin, exhausted by the mighty
and energetic deed, fell back against a seat, and, sinking into it,
turned pale, and his eye-sight became dim. Noble went over and took
his hand in alarm, and eagerly inquired, “What is this? what is this?
Are you wounded?”

“No,” he faintly answered, “not wounded, but--this is--death. Heavenly
Father, forgive me, for thy dear Son’s sake, for I knew not what I
did.”

His wife and daughter and his sons now gathered round him; but he was
dying, and his words were few. He tried to kiss his infant grandchild,
and he said to Noble, with a heavy sigh,--

“Your trials are coming:--I count myself happy, and commit my own dear
family and yours to him who remembers mercy in judgment;” and now,
letting fall his head on his wife’s bosom, he breathed a few times in
a struggling convulsive manner, and his spirit returned to the God who
gave it.




CHAP. XI.

                              Even my prayers,
    When with most zeal sent upward, are pull’d down,
    With strong imaginary doubts and fears,
    And in their sudden precipice o’erwhelm me.
                                           MASSINGER.


The close of the December following the battle of Keinton found
Cuthbert in winter quarters at Warwick. His regiment marched into that
city on the day before Christmas-day; and, as soon as the men were
distributed in their quarters, he walked towards Milverton, from that
natural impulse which inclines us all to revisit any spot where we
have passed a part, however small, of our mysterious lives.

It was a bright, clear, invigorating day: the ground was firm under
the foot, and, though the sun shone out in a cloudless sky, there was
so hard a frost that the pathways were clean. The trees glittered in
the sun’s rays like frosted silver, and the face of nature looked
healthy and cheerful, like the winter season of a hale old age.

The step of Cuthbert was not so fast or active as travellers use in
such weather. He walked like one who reluctantly takes exercise, and
in company in which he takes no pleasure. He was alone, indeed, but
with care and doubt for his companions. Since the battle, he had been
advanced to the command of a company of musketeers, and Maxwell had
distinguished him by particular attentions. Randal was still his more
constant associate; and the petty and disagreeable perplexities to
which he had been at first subjected by the uncongenial persons with
whom he had been thrown, and by the novelty of the duties to which he
had been called, had altogether vanished: for in three months habits
are formed, and we become accustomed to any mode of life. To be
accustomed, however, is not to be reconciled to it. But this was the
least, and the most trifling and despised ingredient in the bitter cup
from which Cuthbert daily drank,--his conscience was not at peace. He
drugged it with an opium, extracted, by a very common process, from
the precepts and the promises of Scripture; but there was not a day of
his life that it did not awake to some doubts and horrors, and the
same medicine, dangerous where it is unskilfully applied, was taken to
excess. He felt himself embarked in a black ship, with a wild and
motley crew, and he dared not own to himself that he mistrusted those
who navigated the vessel. Her way was through gloom and danger, and
the voyage might, after all, end in shipwreck.

From the day of the battle, he was never seen to smile by any one; and
from the severity of his thoughts, his countenance had gathered a sad
yet stern complexion, which was not unsuitable to his present
fortunes.

In a sort of hope that the sight of Milverton House might beguile his
melancholy, might soothe him, by reviving sweet images of past and
precious hours, and building, as he walked along, a new fabric of
happy and peaceful liberty for his distracted country, he reached the
well known gates of the once hospitable mansion. Absorbed in his
reflections, he never raised his eyes to direct them towards the
house, till he stood at the very portal. The gates lay upon the
ground; the noble edifice was a blackened and a yawning ruin. A sudden
and terrific thunder clap, bursting from a serene sky, could not so
painfully have startled him. All around was silent--desolately,
dreadfully silent; and the sun was bright, and the stony skeleton of
the vast dwelling was black. He poured a passionate cry to God: he
fell down upon the earth, and petitioned feverishly that the evil one
might not hunt him to despair.

When he had in some measure recovered his composure, he rose and
walked through the lonely and roofless ruins. The rubbish, which had
fallen in when the floors and ceilings of the upper chambers gave way,
or were consumed, had been disturbed, and removed in large quantities,
to be sifted for any valuable metals which they might contain, so that
he could make his way without difficulty, and could still trace
distinctly all the lower apartments.

Near the fire-place in the large kitchen, on a part of the wall that
had only been scorched, might still be read one of those rude and
homely posies which were the delight of our honest forefathers, and
might be found alike in the manor-house and the humbler cottage of the
husbandman:--

    “At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal,
    And feast thy poor neighbours, the great with the small;
    Yea all the year long, to the poor let us give,
    God’s blessing to follow us while we do live.”

And upon the other side of the fire-place was written up,--

    “Play thou the good fellow; seek none to misdeem;
    Disdain not the honest, though merry they seem;
    For oftentimes seen, no more very a knave,
    Than he that doth counterfeit most to be grave.”

These posies brought more to Cuthbert’s mind than the memory of the
happy Christmas he had once passed within these very walls. The lines,
which he had known from his boyhood, were taken from old Thomas
Tusser’s Book of Husbandry, the favourite manual of the old franklin
Blount, and a work of which he remembered his father had always been
very fond, and which stood upon the book-shelf at Cheddar next the
Country Parson of Master George Herbert. All these recollections came
upon him at once, and overwhelmed his spirit. He was totally ignorant
of all that had been lately enacted at Cheddar, and of the present
situation of his father. He had not heard of or from his parents for
several months; but his fears for their safety had been quieted by a
promise, that especial orders should be sent to all the forces of the
Parliament to respect both the persons and the dwellings of all such
relations of the officers and men serving the Parliament as did not
take up arms against them, whatever might be their known sentiments on
affairs of church and state.

How far this line of forbearance had been broken through, and how
violently, the ruins around most plainly declared; for he was well
assured that Francis Heywood would have omitted no precaution which
could possibly have availed to protect the property of Sir Oliver; nor
had he been present with the division by whom this wanton crime was
effected would he have failed to repress it. But when “Havoc!” is once
cried, and the dogs of war are once let slip, who shall, who can,
restrain them, but he who sitteth in the circle of the heavens?

His fancy became bewildered with the thought of his mother’s grief,
and the dangers to which she might possibly be exposed, and of the
possibility that his father might be suffering the penalty of some
bitter persecution by his adherence to the royal cause. He, as was his
wont in all extremities of doubt and sorrow, betook himself to the
only source of true comfort, when men are guided by the Spirit of
truth to a right use of it:--he drew from the bosom of his doublet a
small Bible. He implored direction from above; and yet, when he had
done so, yielded to the petty superstition of opening the sacred
volume suddenly, and taking the first text that presented itself to
his eye for his counsellor. The words which he thus read were, “Where
envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.” He
smote upon his breast with agony, perused the chapter of James the
Apostle, from whence it was taken, and that which followed. All his
resolutions were staggered and shaken. He was in a mood to unbuckle
his sword, and to find a lodge in some wilderness where man could not
penetrate. “Yet,” said he aloud, as pleading his own cause before the
invisible throne, “Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I
am not moved by the spirit that lusteth to envy in this great
contention against apostasy and spiritual wickedness in high places.”
In the fervour and agitation of his appeal his Bible fell from his
hand, and when he took it up, it opened at that same epistle at the
beginning of it; and reading there that he was to count it all joy
falling into divers temptations, and that the trying of his faith
worked patience, he was again as suddenly recovered to steadfastness,
in what he blindly persuaded himself was the battle of the Lord; thus
giving a most sad practical proof that he was a waverer, tossed and
driven to and fro like a wave of the sea. What further doubts and
changes might have coloured his meditations, and his prayers in that
desolate and afflicting scene, had he been left alone to brood over
all his fears, it is not possible to say; but he was roused and
interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the paved path, which led up
from the terrace towards the principal entrance, the steps of which
yet remained. He stood aside, that the intruder, whoever it might be,
should not discover him. To his surprise, it was no other than old
Margery of the sand pit. She turned towards the offices as soon as she
entered the Hall, and went winding her way through heaps of rubbish,
towards an outhouse in the court-yard, the roof of which was still
entire. Her aspect, and the echo of her staff and of her footsteps, in
that solitary ruin, were very strange and affecting. Afraid of too
suddenly alarming the aged and unhappy being, he followed her with
light and noiseless steps to the low building, which she entered. Of
the two small windows that gave it light one was half open, and having
gained it, he could see and hear what was passing within. Laying down
her bag and staff, she seated herself on a very low stool, close by
the little fire-place, and applied her breath to the embers. The white
ashes flew off, and laid bare the glowing embers. To these she applied
a few dry sticks which she had brought with her, and a warm and
cheerful flame, accompanied by a light crackling noise, soon blazed
comfortably before her.

“I wonder where the master is this blessed day,” were her first words,
“and Mistress Kate, that was God’s angel to me, and the rest of them.
Wherever they are, Christ comfort them, and bless them: they were good
friends to me, and to many. I never came to the gate, and went away
without a measure of meal and a kind word; and it was a good day for
my poor soul when the beautiful lady first talked to me:”--she
stopped, and put on another stick or two;--“and Parson Juxon, that
made me leave the pit, and gave me a bit of a cot to myself at Old
Beech, where he and I would have been now but for the wars and the
villainies of those devils that burned his house over his head, and
made a bonfire to roast me, if it had not been God’s will to make ’em
fall out about it. They called me ‘a child of hell,’ I mind:--well, it
is not the first time--many a score times gentle and simple have
called me the same, till within the last two years, and I thought it
was all over, and I got to heaven already; but there’s a weary bit yet
for me. I hope it wo’n’t be long. Now, if parson was here, he’d scold
and look pleasant at me, and say, ‘God’s time’s the best time,
Margery.’ Well, now, I’ve lost him--God’s will be done. I’ve been a
poor sinful body all my days; but I never harmed any more than a curse
might, and little ill could that do to any but my own poor self. It’s
well it couldn’t; for if it had been able to kill, I should have sent
it after many a one, and might again. God help me! I’ll be burnt for a
witch some day yet; and, truth to say, I’ve many a time wished I was
one,--but that’s all over. I say the Lord’s Prayer different now.”

Here she clasped and raised her lean and withered hands, and said it
in a humble whisper on her knees.

Cuthbert was agitated terribly; but he dared not speak, he dared not
enter.

“Who shall say,” thought his better mind, “who shall say that the
blessed One, who taught his disciples thus to pray, is not present,
dimly seen, perhaps, but felt with secret reverence and affection?”

Her prayer said, the old woman put a little earthen pot on the fire,
and again seated herself on the stool by the side of it.

“Ah! it’s no merry Christmas,” said she, “here, or any where else; but
I have known a worse; and I think this is safe hiding, for the folk
all think the place haunted. Well, I must thank God, and make the best
of it.”

As she ended these words, she began humming the air of an old
Christmas carol, and at last sung, in the mournful voice of age, this
ancient fragment:--

    “He neither shall be clothed
      In purple nor in pall,
    But all in fair linen,
      As were babies all;
    He neither shall be rocked
      In silver nor in gold,
    But in a wooden cradle,
      That rocks on the mould.”

At the close he went to the door, and before he entered called her
gently by name. The tone of voice in which he spoke had the effect
which he intended, and, without any cry of alarm, she rose up quietly
and turned round; but she no sooner beheld his military dress than her
terror became excessive. It was quite in vain that he attempted to
bring himself to her recollection: the fear of being dragged forth and
led to the stake was uppermost, and entirely bewildered her. In his
person she saw only one of those from whose hands she had so recently
escaped, and her shrieks and implorations were agonising to hear. To
relieve her he quitted the ruin; and before he was many hundred yards
from it had the pain of seeing her on the far side of it hobbling fast
towards the cover of the adjoining wood for concealment. He walked to
his quarters in a miserable and dejected mood; and as he passed an
open church which had apparently been occupied by Parliamentary
soldiers, he went in for a moment. It was empty: the tombs and
monuments had been broken and their inscriptions defaced: not a pane
of glass in the tall windows had escaped destruction: a painting over
the altar had been hacked to pieces; and, as if in mockery, the tables
of God’s commandments were left on either side plainly legible, and
above, in the midst, might be seen, in letters of gold, the words of
that message of mercy which the angels of God sang to the shepherds
keeping watch by night, when they announced the advent of
Messiah,--_Peace on earth,--good will towards man_.




CHAP. XII.

    Thus see we how these ugly furious spirits
    Of warre are cloth’d, colour’d, and disguis’d,
    With stiles of vertue, honour, zeale, and merits,
    Whose owne complexion, well anatomis’d,
      A mixture is of pride, rage, avarice,
      Ambition, lust, and every tragicke vice.
                                        LORD BROOKE.


It is now necessary to relate that treatment of George Juxon to which
old Margery alluded in the last chapter. For six weeks after the first
visit of the Parliamentary soldiers to Old Beech he successfully
maintained his post, and continued to officiate every Sabbath among
his people. His house, indeed, had been often beset by small parties
of soldiers or by other godly reformers deputed to arrest him, but he
was so beloved by the villagers that he was always warned, and was
thus enabled to escape their hands or evade their search; nor were any
of these parties of a strength sufficient for attempting acts of
violence upon the church or the parsonage. Indeed one of them was
fairly braved and driven away by Juxon himself, disguised like a
farmer, and aided by his faithful friend the blacksmith and half a
dozen more. One Sabbath morning, as he was out upon the watch, in the
disguise of a belted woodman, he met a party coming to seize him about
a mile from Old Beech, and, having put them on a wrong scent, went
joyfully home, and preached to a glad and attentive congregation.
However, his popularity and his very name were offences too great in
the sight of the Roundheads of Coventry to suffer him much longer to
elude his enemies. A squadron of horse made a sudden march from that
city on a Sunday afternoon, and surprised both pastor and flock while
engaged at divine service. They rode into the churchyard; and having
there dismounted, their commander, followed by a dozen or more
officers and troopers, entered the church with their steel caps on
their heads, and, by the noise of their steps, would have drowned the
voice of Juxon if he had not instantly made a pause to consider his
best course. One look at the leader of this band satisfied him that
any appeal to the spirit of love and of a sound mind would be vain;
and a glance through the window had shown him that any resistance by
force on the present occasion would only expose his people to a very
great calamity.

The commander of the troops was no other than Sir Roger Zouch.
Accordingly Juxon said, with a loud voice, “My Christian brethren, the
worship of God in this place being thus interrupted, I dismiss you to
your homes.” His manly tone caused an attention on the part of the
soldiery, which produced a short and silent pause, and, taking
advantage of this, he solemnly pronounced the blessing with which the
service of the church always concludes. Sir Roger, after stammering
with anger, now broke out most violently, “Peace, peace! thou criest
peace where there is no peace, thou son of perdition. Come out of thy
calves’ coop, and make an end of thy pottage. I know thee, who thou
art; thy very name savoureth of all evil: take him out, thou good and
faithful soldier of the cross, Zachariah Trim, and that book of
abomination with him, and make my passage to yon pulpit pure;--verily
I will speak a word to these poor, perishing, and neglected people.”
If it had not been for Juxon’s discretion at this moment the church
would soon have become a scene of blood; for the stout blacksmith,
seeing Zachariah move towards the desk with an action as if he would
lay hands on Juxon, interposed with so hasty and resolute a manner, as
caused Zachariah to step back two or three paces and draw his sword.
His example was instantly followed by many comrades; and the shrieks
of alarm among the women and children were dreadful. But Juxon came
forth in a collected mood, and so spoke, that the swords were returned
to their scabbards, and his people submitted, though in fear yet in
silence, while the few among them, who, like the blacksmith, were
ready for any hazards, forebore any further attempt at resistance.

Sir Roger ascended the pulpit, put down his steel cap by his side,
poured forth a long, rambling, confused prayer, took out his pocket
Bible, and preached for two hours; till the sweat streamed down his
bony cheeks, and his voice became hoarser than any raven that ever
croaked his sad predictions at a sick man’s window. Juxon listened
with profound and with indignant astonishment to his wild and
blasphemous perversions of divine truth; but he was comforted, as far
as his own flock was concerned, in the consciousness that they were
better instructed than to be moved by his fanaticism. His manner
corresponded with his matter; and if he had not been accompanied by
too many and too formidable and ready ministers of his violent will he
would only have excited sentiments of disgust and ridicule. But as he
thundered forth his curses upon the church in which the poor villagers
had been brought up, and described her by a flood of reproachful names
and epithets, of which last, Babylonish was the most gentle, no one
could listen to his ravings without serious fears that they were a
plain preface to deeds of crime. It was, therefore, with a heart full
of devout and sincere thanksgiving for his people that Juxon heard
this strange and fierce iconoclast promise with solemnity that their
houses and their little property should be respected, and that no one
of them should suffer any harm from his soldiers; but that he would
take away with him their blind and wicked guide, and would only purge
and purify the polluted temple and the priest’s dwelling.

The surplice and hood of Juxon had been torn from his back before this
precious discourse began, and he had been placed in custody between
two armed troopers, with pistols in their hands, and was frequently
addressed by the heated Sir Roger in those words which are applied
both in the Old Testament and the New to false and unfaithful
teachers. All this he had borne with a calm and admirable
courage,--feeling within the answer of a good conscience, and
supported by an unshaken faith in a God of wisdom and love.

“It is the Lord,” he said within himself, “let him do what seemeth him
good,”--and all the unuttered petitions which his heart sent up to
the throne of grace were for the spiritual and temporal preservation
of his little flock.

When Sir Roger concluded his sermon, he gave forth one of those
psalms, which, being directed against idolatry, he considered as
appropriate to the work he now meditated. It was sung in loud and
harsh notes by his gloomy looking troopers, after which, descending
into the body of the church, he directed fire to be brought, and
burned the Book of Common Prayer before the communion table; heaping
on the same fire all those rags and fragments of the whore of Babylon,
as he was pleased to designate pulpit and altar cloth, and all the
decent vestments of the minister.

At this gross outrage, Juxon burst forth with a holy zeal, in a most
earnest tone of faithful remonstrance; but he was instantly gagged in
a painful mode, and was forced in this state to witness their after
proceedings.

The people were now forcibly driven out of the church, and as many
troopers as could find room were directed to come in and stable there
for the night. The order was obeyed with tumultuous joy; and they had
no sooner taken possession of their once sacred quarters, than they
began and completed the work of demolition,--breaking the coloured
windows, destroying the tombs, and crowning their work of hell by
bringing in a baggage ass, and baptizing it with mock ceremonies at
the font. This last work was not witnessed by Sir Roger, who was
busily superintending the burning of poor George Juxon’s library, and
of many _curiosa_ in the way of antiquities, which his father had
collected in foreign countries, and bequeathed to him at his death.

It so chanced, that the first thing on which the eyes of Sir Roger
rested, when he entered the parsonage, was a glass case, or cabinet,
in which, among other ancient relics, was a small crucifix,
exquisitely wrought in ivory. The sight of this inflamed his zeal to
the boiling pitch; and declaring that so great an abomination could
only be punished by the utter destruction of the dwelling in which it
was found, he called in two or three assistants, whom he judged
qualified to overlook the books on the shelves, to the end that any
godly ones might be saved from the general ruin;--declaring, at the
same time, that all the silver, and the gold, and the raiment, and the
furniture, and the pictures, and the vessels, of what sort soever,
whether in hall or kitchen, were polluted, and must be consumed, and
denouncing the wrath of God on any of his followers who should
presume, like Achan, to appropriate a single article of the unhallowed
heap. Accordingly, on the lawn before the windows, a huge fire was
made of all these goods, which were cast forth from the windows; the
shell only of the house being spared for the use of such godly
minister as the Parliament might appoint.

The attention of Sir Roger and the few zealots with him was confined
to the contents of the library: not a few valuables, however, from
other parts of the mansion, were stolen and secreted by the sly rogues
of the squadron. But it so chanced that, as the house was spared, in a
concealed recess, behind a false wainscot, his family plate and a few
heirlooms were preserved. Of five hundred volumes, however, only
three copies of the Bible, also one work in folio, two small thin
quartos, and a heap of loose pamphlets of a controversial nature,
written by Puritans, escaped the sentence of fire. Upon the same pile,
and doomed to blaze in the same flame, were thrown fine copies of the
ancient fathers; the works of sound Protestant divines, and ponderous
lives and legends of Romish saints; the tomes of Bacon, and old
worthless folios on astrology and divination; the plays and poems
produced by the genius of a Shakspeare and a Spenser, and the
interminable and prosaic romances which, in the preceding age, our
ancestors had found leisure and patience to peruse.

During the night, Juxon was confined as a prisoner in one of the
out-houses in his own yard, and, in the morning, he was mounted on a
lean, bony cart-horse, without saddle or bridle, and led by a small
escort to Warwick, where, before he was committed to the gaol of the
Castle, he was subjected to the odious and vile insults of an
examination before a Committee of Religion. Three witnesses appeared
against him: two of these were base knaves from his own parish, and
the third was from Coventry.

Thomas Slugg, the first of these, a lazy hypocrite, who found it
easier to affect the office of an itinerant singer of psalms than to
dig, deposed that Parson Juxon was an enemy to all godly persons, and
a teacher of falsehoods, caring nothing for the souls of his people;
and, as a proof, stated that, when, on one occasion, he, the witness,
had asked him, “whether there were many or few that should be saved?”
he had turned his back upon him, and entered the church saying,--

“What is that to thee? follow thou me.”

Another, who was a turned-off journeyman of the blacksmith’s, deposed
that he saw Parson Juxon one day in a field behind his own garden
casting the bar and hammer; and that he, the parson, threw a bar, and
a heavy stone, and a sledge hammer, and that the smith, and two
farmers, and one Strong, a warrener, threw against him.

The third was no other than the witch-finder from Coventry, who swore
that the parson consorted with dealers in magic and the black art;
that books on those arts were found in his house, and burned (this was
confirmed eagerly by some of the escort), and that he even kept in his
pay and service a notorious witch named Yellow Margery.

Juxon listened to these charges with a grave smile, and made no reply.
Hereupon one of the commissioners observed, in great wrath,--

“That he was a most godless and obstinate Malignant, as was plain to
see by his laughing, and the redness of his face; and that if not
drunk, he was merry; but that a gaol and bread and water would soon
take away the colour from his cheeks, and bring down the naughtiness
of his spirit.”

They forthwith committed him to Warwick Castle, as a soul-destroying
hypocrite, who held communion with idle and lewd fellows, and
consorted with witches; and they appointed one Mr. Blackaby, a true
brother, and bold as a lion for the faith, to succeed him at Old
Beech, directing that he should be protected in his settlement by a
detachment from the garrison, until the stubborn people of that
village were reduced to submit heartily to God and the Parliament.

The room of the Castle to which Juxon was now removed was a large
comfortless apartment with damp stone walls and no fire, containing
about fourteen other prisoners, ten of whom were, like himself,
incumbents. The two windows of this room looked down upon the river,
which washed the very walls of the Castle; and the windows were not
only securely barred, but even were it possible to force that
obstacle, the fall being very great, any notion of the escape of a
prisoner would have been judged an idle fear. However, the faithful
blacksmith and George Juxon’s groom had followed the escort into
Warwick, and watched the courageous parson as he walked with an
upright carriage and manly step between the guards who took him to
prison.

Having gained information concerning the part of the Castle in which
he was confined, they laid a plan for his deliverance, which, from
their knowledge of his strength and activity, they thought possible,
though extremely difficult.

They conveyed to him in a loaf of brown bread, which was sent by one
of the charity children of the place, and was given him without
suspicion, a small cord, of sufficient strength to bear his weight, a
small steel saw, and a phial of aqua-fortis.

It was not possible to conceal this from his fellow-prisoners, nor
could he desire to do so. They promised secrecy, but dissuaded him
from the attempt. That it was very perilous, he well knew; but he
resolved upon it at once. In the afternoon of the day on which he
received the cord, he saw the blacksmith standing on the river bank in
the opposite meadow. The man did not pretend to take any notice of the
Castle, but stripped off his clothes and plunged into the water; and
it being a cold frosty day, he was loudly laughed at by a group of
soldiers standing on the bridge. He swam out into the middle of the
stream and back again; then putting on his clothes, he disappeared.

By two o’clock on the following morning Juxon had cut away a bar, and
made fast his cord. Amid the breathless good wishes of his
fellow-prisoners he began to descend, clad only in a pair of stout
drawers and his shirt. The cord, though strong enough, was so small,
that it cut his hands like a knife; but he got safely down to within
twelve feet of the water, and from hence dropped into the river; and
gaining the opposite side, was helped up the bank by the stout arm of
his faithful blacksmith, and hurried to a hedge, behind which he found
dry clothes and his groom with two horses. To dress himself, to snap a
hunter’s mouthful, and to take one draught of cordial spirit from the
leathern bottle of his servant, was the glad work of a few minutes;
and by eight o’clock on the same morning he was forty miles on the
road to Shrewsbury. Among other friends at the royal head-quarters he
found Sir Charles Lambert and Arthur Heywood, and at once resolved to
follow the fortunes of the camp as a volunteer chaplain to the
regiment of horse with which they were serving. He was present with
them in the battle of Keinton; and though decided himself not to use
arms, he rode upon the flank of the regiment when it charged.

The horse of Sir Charles being killed under him, Juxon alighted, in an
exposed and perilous position, and instantly gave his own to remount
his friend. Here it was that, soon after, the gallant boy Arthur,
returning wounded from the front, fell fainting from his saddle; and
his frightened horse flying fast away, he would have been left
helpless on the field before the advancing enemy, had not Juxon been a
witness of his distress and danger. Hastening to the bleeding boy, he
lifted him on his back, and so carried him a mile and a half to the
top of Edge Hill, where a surgeon dressed his hurt, and pronounced it
to be severe, but not dangerous, or likely to be attended with loss of
limb or any very serious consequences. Having seen Arthur placed
safely in a cart with other wounded officers going to a village in the
rear, Juxon remained upon the hill, to which the royal army retired
at sunset; and, as he saw Sir Charles and his own favourite roan horse
coming safely back at the head of a squadron which had suffered severe
losses, his heart swelled thankfully within him. He shook the hand of
Sir Charles with a tearful cordiality; and they ate their cold and
scanty supper by a little fire in the open fields, with sentiments of
grat

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