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Under the Storm

by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #6006 · 369,375 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Under the Storm

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge


        
Release date: July 1, 2004 [eBook #6006]
                Most recently updated: September 30, 2009

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6006

Credits: Produced by Sandra Laythorpe, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE STORM ***




Produced by Sandra Laythorpe





UNDER THE STORM

or

STEADFAST'S CHARGE


By Charlotte M. Yonge

Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe," &c.


[Illustration: Cover]


CONTENTS.

Chapter I.--The Trust

   "       II.--The Stragglers

   "      III.--Kirk Rapine

   "       IV.--The Good Cause

   "        V.--Desolation

   "       VI.--Left to Themselves

   "      VII.--The Hermit's Gulley

   "     VIII.--Stead in Possession

   "       IX.--Wintry Times

   "        X.--A Terrible Harvest Day

   "       XI.--The Fortunes of War

   "      XII.--Farewell to the Cavaliers

   "     XIII.--Godly Venn's Troop

   "      XIV.--The Question

   "       XV.--A Table of Love in the Wilderness

   "      XVI.--A Fair Offer

   "     XVII.--The Groom in Grey

   "    XVIII.--Jeph's Good Fortune

   "      XIX.--Patience

   "       XX.--Emlyn's Service

   "      XXI.--The Assault of the Cavern

   "     XXII.--Emlyn's Troth

   "    XXIII.--Fulfilment



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

    Farewell to the Cavaliers
    The Hiding of the Casket
    Stead Stirring the Porridge
    Finding of Emlyn
    Stead before the Roundheads
    Emlyn at Market



UNDER THE STORM:

OR

STEADFAST'S CHARGE.




CHAPTER I. THE TRUST.



     "I brought them here as to a sanctuary."
                                   SOUTHEY.


Most of us have heard of the sad times in the middle of the seventeenth
century, when Englishmen were at war with one another and quiet villages
became battlefields.

We hear a great deal about King and Parliament, great lords and able
generals, Cavaliers and Roundheads, but this story is to help us to
think how it must have gone in those times with quiet folk in cottages
and farmhouses.

There had been peace in England for a great many years, ever since the
end of the wars of the Roses. So the towns did not want fortifications
to keep out the enemy, and their houses spread out beyond the old walls;
and the country houses had windows and doors large and wide open, with
no thought of keeping out foes, and farms and cottages were freely
spread about everywhere, with their fields round them.

The farms were very small, mostly held by men who did all the work
themselves with the help of their families.

Such a farm belonged to John Kenton of Elmwood. It lay at the head of a
long green lane, where the bushes overhead almost touched one another
in the summer, and the mud and mire were very deep in winter; but that
mattered the less as nothing on wheels went up or down it but the hay
or harvest carts, creaking under their load, and drawn by the old mare,
with a cow to help her.

Beyond lay a few small fields, and then a bit of open ground scattered
with gorse and thorn bushes, and much broken by ups and downs. There,
one afternoon on a big stone was seated Steadfast Kenton, a boy of
fourteen, sturdy, perhaps loutish, with an honest ruddy face under his
leathern cap, a coarse smock frock and stout gaiters. He was watching
the fifteen sheep and lambs, the old goose and gander and their nine
children, the three cows, eight pigs, and the old donkey which got their
living there.

From the top of the hill, beyond the cleft of the river Avon, he could
see the smoke and the church towers of the town of Bristol, and beyond
it, the slime of the water of the Bristol Channel; and nearer, on one
side, the spire of Elmwood Church looked up, and, on the other, the
woods round Elmwood House, and these ran out as it were, lengthening and
narrowing into a wooded cleft or gulley, Hermit's Gulley, which broke
the side of the hill just below where Steadfast stood, and had a little
clear stream running along the bottom.

Steadfast's little herd knew the time of day as well as if they all had
watches in their pockets, and they never failed to go down and have a
drink at the brook before going back to the farmyard.

They did not need to be driven, but gathered into the rude steep path
that they and their kind had worn in the side of the ravine. Steadfast
followed, looking about him to judge how soon the nuts would be ripe,
while his little rough stiff-haired dog Toby poked about in search of
rabbits or hedgehogs, or the like sport.

Steadfast liked that pathway home beside the stream, as boys do love
running water. Good stones could be got there, water rats might be
chased, there were strawberries on the banks which he gathered and
threaded on stalks of grass for his sisters, Patience and Jerusha. They
used to come with him and have pleasant games, but it was a long time
since Patience had been able to come out, for in the winter, a grievous
trouble had come on the family. The good mother had died, leaving a
little baby of six weeks old, and Patience, who was only thirteen, had
to attend to everything at home, and take care of poor little sickly
Benoni with no one to help her but her little seven years old sister.

The children's lives had been much less bright since that sad day; and
Steadfast seldom had much time for play. He knew he must get home as
fast as he could to help Patience in milking the cows, feeding the pigs
and poultry, and getting the supper, or some of the other things that
his elder brother Jephthah called wench-work and would not do.

He could not, however, help looking up at the hole in the side of the
steep cliff, where one might climb up to such a delightful cave, in
which he and Patience had so often played on hot days. It had been their
secret, and a kind of palace to them. They had sat there as king and
queen, had paved it with stones from the brook, and had had many plans
for the sports they would have there this summer, little thinking that
Patience would have been turned into a grave, busy little housewife,
instead of a merry, playful child.

Toby looked up too, and began to bark. There was a rustling in the
bushes below the cave, and Steadfast, at first in dismay to see his
secret delight invaded, beheld between the mountain ash boughs and ivy,
to his great surprise, a square cap and black cassock tucked up, and
then a bit of brown leathern coat, which he knew full well. It was the
Vicar, Master Holworth, and his father John Kenton was Churchwarden,
so it was no wonder to see him and the Parson together, but what could
bring them here--into Steadfast's cave? and with a dark lantern too!
They seemed as surprised, perhaps as vexed as he was, at the sight of
him, but his father said, "'Tis my lad, Steadfast, I'll answer for him."

"And so will I," returned the clergyman. "Is anyone with you, my boy?"

"No, your reverence, no one save the beasts."

"Then come up here," said his father. "Someone has been playing here, I
see."

"Patience and I, father, last summer."

"No one else?"

"No, no one. We put those stones and those sticks when we made a fire
there last year, and no one has meddled with them since."

"Thou and Patience," said Mr. Holworth thoughtfully. "Not Jephthah nor
the little maid?"

"No, sir," replied Steadfast, "we would not let them know, because we
wanted a place to ourselves."

For in truth the quiet ways and little arrangements of these two had
often been much disturbed by the rough elder brother who teased and
laughed at them, and by the troublesome little sister, who put her
fingers into everything.

The Vicar and the Churchwarden looked at one another, and John Kenton
muttered, "True as steel."

"Your father answers for you, my boy," said the Vicar. "So we will e'en
let you know what we are about. I was told this morn by a sure hand that
the Parliament men, who now hold Bristol Castle, are coming to deal with
the village churches even as they have dealt with the minster and with
St. Mary's, Redcliffe."

"A murrain on them!" muttered Kenton.

"I wot that in their ignorance they do it," gently quoted the Vicar.
"But we would fain save from their hands the holy Chalice and paten
which came down to our Church from the ancient times--and which bearing
on them, as they do, the figure of the Crucifixion of our blessed Lord,
would assuredly provoke the zeal of the destroyers. Therefore have we
placed them in this casket, and your father devised hiding them within
this cave, which he thought was unknown to any save himself--"

"Yea," said John, "my poor brother Will and I were wont to play there
when we herded the cattle on the hill. It was climbing yon ash tree that
stands out above that he got the fall that was the death of him at
last. I've never gone nigh the place with mine own good will since that
day--nor knew the children had done so--but methought 'twas a lonesome
place and on mine own land, where we might safest store the holy things
till better times come round."

"And so I hope they will," said Mr. Holworth.

"I hear good news of the King's cause in the north."

Then they began to consult where to place the precious casket. They had
brought tinder and matches, and Steadfast, who knew the secrets of the
cave even better than his father, showed them a little hollow, far back,
which would just hold the chest, and being closed in front with a big
stone, fast wedged in, was never likely to be discovered readily.

[Illustration: The Hiding Of The Casket]

"This has been a hiding place already."

"Methinks this has once been a chapel," said the clergyman presently,
pointing to some rude carvings--one something like a cross, and a large
stone that might have served as an altar.

"Belike," said Kenton, "there's an old stone pile, a mere hovel, down
below, where my grandfather said he remembered an old monk, a hermit, or
some such gear--a Papist--as lived in hiding. He did no hurt, and was
a man from these parts, so none meddled with him, or gave notice to the
Queen's officers, and our folk at the farm sold his baskets at the town,
and brought him a barley loaf twice a week till he died, all alone in
his hut. Very like he said his mass here."

John wondered to find that the minister thought this made the place
more suitable. The whole cavern was so low that the two men could hardly
stand upright in it, though it ran about twelve yards back. There were
white limestone drops like icicles hanging above from the roof; and
bats, disturbed by the light, came flying about the heads of their
visitors, while streamers of ivy and old man's beard hung over the
mouth, and were displaced by the heads of the men.

"None is like to find the spot," said John Kenton, as he tried to
replace the tangled branches that had been pushed aside.

"God grant us happier days for bringing it forth," said the clergyman.

All three bared their heads, and Mr. Holworth uttered a few words of
prayer and blessing; then let John help him down the steep scramble
and descent, and looked up to see whether any sign of the cave could be
detected from the edge of the brook. Kenton shook his head reassuringly.

"Ah!" said Mr. Holworth, "it minds me that none ever found again the
holy Ark of the Covenant that King Josiah and the Prophet Jeremiah hid
in a cavern within Mount Pisgah! and our sins be many that have provoked
this judgment! Mayhap the boy will be the only one of us who will see
these blessed vessels restored to their Altar once more! He may
have been sent hither to that very end. Now, look you, Steadfast
Kenton--Steadfast thou hast ever been, so far as I have known thee, in
nature as well as in name. Give me thy word that thou wilt never give up
the secret of yonder cavern to any save a lawfully ordained minister of
the church."

"No doubt poor old Clerk North will be in distress about the loss," said
Kenton.

"True, but he had best not be told. His mind is fast going, and he
cannot safely be trusted with such a mighty secret."

"Patience knows the cavern," murmured Steadfast to his father.

"Best have no womenfolk, nor young maids in such a matter," said the
Vicar.

"My wench takes after her good mother," said John, "and I ever found my
secrets were safer in her breast than in mine own. Not that I would have
her told without need. But she might take little Rusha there, or make
the place known to others an she be not warned."

"Steadfast must do as he sees occasion, with your counsel, Master
Kenton," said the Vicar. "It is a great trust we place in you, my son,
to be as it were in charge of the vessels of the sanctuary, and I would
have thy hand and word."

"And," said his father, "though he be slower in speech than some, your
reverence may trust him."

Steadfast gave his brown red hand, and with head bare said, "I promise,
after the minister and before God, never to give up that which lies
within the cave to any man, save a lawfully ordained minister of the
Church."




CHAPTER II. THE STRAGGLERS.



     "Trust me, I am exceedingly weary."
                            SHAKESPEARE.


John Kenton, though a Churchwarden, was, as has been said, a very small
farmer, and the homestead was no more than a substantial cottage, built
of the greystone of the country, with the upper story projecting a
little, and reached by an outside stair of stone. The farm yard, with
the cowsheds, barn, and hay stack were close in front, with only a
narrow strip of garden between, for there was not much heed paid to
flowers, and few kitchen vegetables were grown in those days, only a few
potherbs round the door, and a sweet-brier bush by the window.

The cows had made their way home of their own accord, and Patience was
milking one of them already, while little Rusha held the baby, which was
swaddled up as tightly as a mummy, with only his arms free. He stretched
them out with a cry of gladness as he saw his father, and Kenton
took the little creature tenderly in his arms and held him up, while
Steadfast hurried off to fetch the milking stool and begin upon the
other cow.

"Is Jeph come home?" asked the father, and Rusha answered "No, daddy,
though he went ever so long ago, and said he would bring me a cake."

Upon this Master Kenton handed little Benoni back to Rusha, not without
some sounds of fretfulness from the baby, but the pigs had to be shut up
and fed, and the other evening work of the farmyard done; and it was
not till all this was over, and Patience had disposed of the milk in the
cool cellars, that the father could take him again.

Meantime Steadfast had brought up a bucket of water from the spring,
and after washing his own hands and face, set out the table with a very
clean, though coarse cloth, five brown bowls, three horn spoons and two
wooden ones, one drinking horn, a couple of red earthen cups and two
small hooped ones of wood, a brown pitcher of small ale, a big barley
loaf, and a red crock, lined with yellow glazing, into which Patience
presently proceeded to pour from a cauldron, where it had been simmering
over the fire, a mess of broth thickened with meal. This does not sound
like good living, but the Kentons were fairly well-to-do smock-frock
farmers, and though in some houses there might be greater plenty,
there was not much more comfort beneath the ranks of the gentry in the
country.

As for seats, the father's big wooden chair stood by the fire, and there
was a long settle, but only stools were used at the table, two being the
same that had served the milkers. Just as Rusha, at her father's sign,
had uttered a short Grace, there stood in the doorway a tall, stout,
well-made lad of seventeen, with a high-crowned wide-brimmed felt hat,
a dark jerkin with sleeves, that, like his breeches and gaiters, were of
leather, and a belt across his shoulder with a knife stuck in it.

"Ha! Jeph," said Kenton, "always in time for meat, whatever else you
miss."

"I could not help it, father," said Jephthah, "the red coats were at
their exercise!"

"And thou couldst not get away from the gape-seed, eh! Come, sit down,
boy, and have at thy supper."

"I wish I was one of them," said Jeph as he sat down.

"And thou'dst soon wish thyself back again!" returned his father.

"How much did you get for the fowls and eggs?" demanded Patience.

Jephthah replied by producing a leathern bag, while Rusha cried out for
her cake, and from another pocket came, wrapped in his handkerchief, two
or three saffron buns which were greeted with such joy that his father
had not the heart to say much about wasting pence, though it appeared
that the baker woman had given them as part of her bargain for a couple
of dozen of eggs, which Patience declared ought to have brought two
pence instead of only three halfpence.

Jephthah, however, had far too much news to tell to heed her
disappointment as she counted the money. He declared that the price
of eggs and butter would go up gallantly, for more soldiers were daily
expected to defend Bristol, and he had further to tell of one of the
captains preaching in the Minster, and the market people flocking in to
hear him. Jeph had been outside, for there was no room within, but he
had scrambled upon an old tombstone with a couple of other lads, and
through the broken window had seen the gentleman holding forth in his
hat and feather, buff coat and crimson scarf, and heard him call on all
around to be strong and hew down all their enemies, even dragging the
false and treacherous woman and her idols out to the horse gate and
there smiting them even to the death.

"Who was the false woman?" asked Steadfast.

"I wot not! There was something about Aholah, or some such name, but
just then a mischievous little jackanapes pulled me down by the leg,
and I had to thrash him for it, and by the time I had done, Dick, the
butcher's lad, had got my place and I heard no more."

Whether the Captain meant Aholah or Athaliah, or alluded to Queen
Henrietta Maria, or to the English Church, Jeph's auditors never knew.
The baby began to cry, and Patience to feed him with the milk and water
that had been warmed at the fire; his father and the boys went out to
finish the work for the night, little Rusha running after them.

Presently, she gave a cry and darted up to her father "The soldiers!
the soldiers!" and in fact three men with steel caps, buff coats, and
musquets slung by broad belts were coming into the yard.

Kenton took up his little girl in his arms and went forward to meet
them, but he soon saw they did not look dangerous, they were dragging
along as if very tired and footsore and as if their weapons were a heavy
weight.

"It's the goodman," said the foremost, a red-faced, good-natured looking
fellow more like a hostler than a soldier, "have you seen Captain
Lundy's men pass this way?"

"Not I!" said Kenton, "we lie out of the high road, you see."

"But I saw them, a couple of hours agone, marching into Bristol," said
Jephthah coming forward.

"There now," said the man, "we did but stop at the sign of the 'Crab'
the drinking of a pottle, and to bathe Jack's foot near there, and we
have never been able to catch them up again! How far off be Bristol?"

"A matter of four mile across the ferry. You may see it from the hill
above."

He looked stout enough though he gave a heavy sigh of weariness, and the
other two, who were mere youths, not much older than Jeph, seemed quite
spent, and heard of the additional four miles with dismay.

"Heart alive, lads," said their comrade, "ye'll soon be in good
quarters, and mayhap the goodman here will give you a drink to carry ye
on a bit further for the Cause."

"You are welcome to a draught for civility's sake," said Kenton, making
a sign to his sons, who ran off to the house, "but I'm a plain man, and
know nought about the Cause."

"Well, Master," said the straggler, as he leant his back against the
barn, and his two companions sat down on the ground in the shelter,
"I have heard a lot about the Cause, but all I know is that my Lord
of Essex sent to call out five-and-twenty men from our parish, and the
squire, he was in a proper rage with being rated to pay ship money,
so--as I had fallen out with my master, mine host of the 'Griffin,' more
fool I--I went with the young gentleman, and a proper ass I was to do
so."

"Father said 'twas rank popery railing in the Communion table, when it
was so handy to sit on or to put one's hat on," added one of the youths
looking up. "So he was willing for me to go, and I thought I'd like to
see the world, but I'd fain be at home again."

"So would not I," muttered the other lad.

"No," said the ex-tapster humorously, "for thou knowst the stocks be
gaping for thee, Dick."

By this time Jeph and Stead had returned with a jug of small beer, a
horn cup, and three hunches of the barley loaf. The men ate and drank,
and then the tapster returning hearty thanks, called the others on,
observing that if they did not make the best speed, they might miss
their billet, and have to sleep in the streets, if not become acquainted
with the lash.

On then unwillingly they dragged, as if one foot would hardly come after
the other.

"Poor lads!" said Kenton, as he looked after them, "methinks that's
enough to take the taste for soldiering out of thy mouth, son Jeph."

"A set of poor-spirited rogues," returned Jeph contemptuously, as he
nevertheless sauntered on so as to watch them down the lane.

"Be they on the right side or the wrong, father?" asked Steadfast, as he
picked up the pitcher and the horn.

"They be dead against our parson, lad," returned Kenton, "and he says
they be against the Church and the King, though they do take the King's
name, it don't look like the right side to be knocking out church
windows, eh?"

"Nay!" said Steadfast, "but there's them as says the windows be popish
idols."

"Never you mind 'em, lad, ye don't bow down to the glass, nor worship
it. Thy blessed mother would have put it to you better than I can, and
she knew the Bible from end to end, but says she 'God would have His
worship for glory and for beauty in the old times, why not now?'"

John Kenton had an immense reverence for his late wife. She had been far
more educated than he, having been born and bred up in the household
of one of those gentlemen who held it as their duty to provide for the
religious instruction of their servants.

She had been serving-woman to the lady, who in widowhood went to reside
at Bristol, and there during her marketings, honest John Kenton had won
her by his sterling qualities.

Puritanism did not mean nonconformity in her days, and in fact everyone
who was earnest and scrupulous was apt to be termed a Puritan. Goodwife
Kenton was one of those pious and simple souls who drink in whatever is
good in their surroundings; and though the chaplain who had taught her
in her youth would have differed in controversy with Mr. Holworth, she
never discovered their diversity, nor saw more than that Elmwood
Church had more decoration than the Castle Chapel. Whatever was done by
authority she thought was right, and she found good reason for it in
the Bible and Prayer-book her good lady had given her. She had named her
children after the prevailing custom of Puritans because she had heard
the chaplain object to what he considered unhallowed heathenish names,
but she had been heartily glad that they should be taught and catechised
by the good vicar. Happily for her, in her country home, she did not
live to see the strife brought into her own life.

She had taught her children as much as she could. Her husband was
willing, but his old mother disapproved of learning in that station of
life, and aided and abetted her eldest grandson in his resistance, so
that though she had died when he was only eleven or twelve years old,
Jephthah could do no more than just make out the meaning of a printed
sentence, whereas Steadfast and Patience could both read easily, and did
read whatever came in their way, though that was only a broadside ballad
now and then besides their mother's Bible and Prayer-book, and one or
two little black books.

The three eldest had been confirmed, when the Bishop of Bath and Wells
had been in the neighbourhood. That was only a fortnight after their
mother died, and even Jeph was sad and subdued.

Since that sad day when the good mother had blessed them for the last
time, there had been little time for anything. Patience had to be the
busy little housewife, and what she would have done without Steadfast
she could not tell. Jeph would never put a hand to what he called maids'
work, but Stead would sweep, or beat the butter, or draw the water,
or chop wood, or hold the baby, and was always ready to help her, even
though it hindered him from ever going out to fish, or play at base
ball, or any of the other sports the village boys loved.

His quiet, thoughtful ways had earned his father's trust, though he was
much slower of speech and less ready than his elder brother, and looked
heavy both in countenance and figure beside Jeph, who was tall, slim,
and full of activity and animation. He had often made his mother uneasy
by wild talk about going to sea, and by consorting with the sailors at
Bristol, which was their nearest town, though on the other side of the
Avon, and in a different county.

It was there that the Elmwood people did their marketing, often leaving
their donkeys hobbled on their own side of the river, being ferried over
and carrying the goods themselves the latter part of the way.




CHAPTER III. KIRK RAPINE.



     "When impious men held sway and wasted Church and shrine."
                                             LORD SELBORNE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"At Bristol with father," replied Jeph.

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

"What was the good?" said Steadfast.

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

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

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

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

"But we never worshipped them," said Stead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What will they do to our minister?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER IV. THE GOOD CAUSE.



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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You said the good Cause!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




CHAPTER V. DESOLATION.


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Several of the men had accompanied her, and after some consultation, it
was decided that the burial had better take place that very night, even
though there was no time to make a coffin.

"Many an honest man will be in that same case," said Harry Blane, the
smith, "if they come to blows down there."

"And He to Whom he is gone will not ask whether he lies in a coffin, or
has the prayers said over him," added Goody, "though 'tis pity on him
too, for he always was a man for churches and parsons and prayers."

"Vain husks, said the pious captain," put in Oates.

"Well," said Harry Blane, "those could hardly be vain husks that made
John Kenton what he was. Would that the good old times were back again;
when a sackless man could not be shot down at his own door for nothing
at all."

Reverently and carefully John Kenton's body was borne to the churchyard,
where he was laid in the grave beside his much loved wife. No knell was
rung: Elmwood, lying far away over the hill side in the narrow wooded
valley with the river between it and the camp, had not yet been visited
by any of the Royalist army, but a midnight toll might have attracted
the attention of some of the lawless stragglers. Nor did anyone feel
capable of uttering a prayer aloud, and thus the only sound at that
strange sad funeral was the low boom of a midnight gun fired in the
beleaguered city.

Then Patience with Rusha and the baby were taken home by kind old Goody
Grace, while the smith called the two lads into his house.




CHAPTER VI. LEFT TO THEMSELVES.


     "One look he cast upon the bier,
      Dashed from his eye the gathering tear,
      Then, like the high bred colt when freed
      First he essays his fire and speed,
      He vanished---"
                                SCOTT.


Steadfast was worn and wearied out with grief and slept heavily, knowing
at first that his brother was tossing about a good deal, but soon losing
all perception, and not waking till on that summer morning the sun had
made some progress in the sky.

Then he came to the sad recollection of the last dreadful day, and knew
that he was lying on Master Blane's kitchen floor. He picked himself up,
and at the same moment heard Jephthah calling him from the outside.

"Stead," he said, "I am going!"

"Going!" said poor Stead, half asleep.

"Yes. I shall never rest till I have had a shot at those barbarous
German princes and the rest of the villains. My father's blood cries to
me from the ground for vengeance."

"Would father have said like that?" said the boy, bewildered, but
conscious of something defective, though these were Bible words.

"That's not the point! Captain Venn called every man to take the sword
and hew down the wicked, and slay the ungodly and the murderers. I
will!" cried Jeph, "none shall withhold me."

He had caught more phrases from these fiery preachers than he himself
knew, and they broke forth in this time of excitement.

"But, Jeph, what is to become of us? The girls, and the little one! You
are the only one of us who can do a man's work."

"I could not keep you together!" said Jeph. "Our house burnt by those
accursed sons of Belial, all broken up, and only a lubber like you to
help! No, Goody Grace or some one will take in the girls for what's left
of the stock, and you can soon find a place--a strong fellow like you;
Master Blane might take you and make a smith of you, if you be not too
slow and clumsy."

"But Jeph--"

"Withhold me not. Is it not written--"

"I wish you would not say is it not written," broke in Stead, "I know it
is, but you don't say it right."

"Because you are yet in darkness," said Jeph, contemptuously. "Hold your
tongue. I must be off at once. Market folk can get into the town by the
low lane out there, away from the camp of the spoilers, early in the
morning, and I must hasten to enlist under Captain Venn. No, don't call
the wenches, they would but strive to daunt my spirit in the holy work
of vengeance on the bloodthirsty, and I can't abide tears and whining.
See here, I found this in the corn bin. I'm poor father's heir. You
won't want money, and I shall; so I shall take it, but I'll come back
and make all your fortunes when I am a captain or a colonel. I wonder
this is not more. We got a heap of late. Maybe father hid it somewhere
else, but 'tis no use seeking now. If you light upon it you are welcome
to do what you will with it. Fare thee well, Steadfast. Do the best you
can for the wenches, but a call is laid on me! I have vowed to avenge
the blood that was shed."

He strode off into the steep woodland path that clothed the hill side,
and Steadfast looked after him, and felt more utterly deserted than
before. Then he looked up to the sky, and tried to remember what was
the promise to the fatherless children. That made him wonder whether
the Bible and Prayer-book had been burnt, and then his morning's duty of
providing milk for the little ones' breakfast pressed upon him. He took
up a pail of Mrs. Blane's which he thought he might borrow and went off
in search of the cows. So, murmuring the Lord's Prayer as he walked,
and making the resolution not to be dragged away from his trust in the
cavern, nor to forsake his little sister--he heard the lowing of the
cows as he went over the hill, and found them standing at the gate of
the fold yard, waiting to be eased of their milk. Poor creatures, they
seemed so glad to welcome him that it was the first thing that brought
tears to his eyes, and they came with such a rush that he had much ado
to keep them from dropping into the pail as he leant his head against
Croppie's ruddy side.

There was a little smouldering smoke; but the rain had checked the fire,
and though the roof of the house was gone and it looked frightfully
dreary and wretched, the walls were still standing and the pigs were
grunting about the place. However, Steadfast did not stop to see what
was left within, as he knew Ben would be crying for food, but he carried
his foaming pail back to Goody Grace's as fast as he could, after
turning out the cows on the common, not even stopping to count the sheep
that were straggling about.

His sisters were watching anxiously from the door of Goody Grace's
hovel, and eagerly cried out "Where's Jeph?"

Then he had to tell them that Jeph was gone for a soldier, to have his
revenge for his father's death.

"Jeph gone too!" said poor Patience, looking pale. "Oh, what shall we
ever do?"

"He did not think of that, I'll warrant, the selfish fellow," said Goody
Grace. "That's the way with lads, nought but themselves."

"It was because of what they did to poor father," replied Stead.

"And if he, or the folks he is gone to, call that the Christian
religion, 'tis more than I do!" rejoined the old woman. "I wish I had
met him, I'd have given him a bit of my mind about going off to his
revenge, as he calls it, without ever a thought what was to become of
his own flesh and blood here."

"He did say I might go to service (not that I shall), and that some one
would take you in for the cattle's sake."

"O don't do that, Stead," cried Patience, "don't let us part!" He had
only just time to answer, "No such thing," for people were coming about
them by this time, one after another emerging from the cottages that
stood around the village green. The women were all hotly angry with Jeph
for going off and leaving his young brothers and sisters to shift for
themselves.

"He was ever an idle fellow," said one, "always running after the
soldiers and only wanting an excuse."

"Best thing he could do for himself or them," growled old Green.

"Eh! What, Gaffer Green! To go off without a word or saying by your
leave to his poor little sister before his good father be cold in his
grave," exclaimed a whole clamour of voices.

"Belike he knew what a clack of women's tongues there would be, and
would fain be out of it," replied the old man shrewdly.

It was a clamour that oppressed poor Patience and made her feel sick
with sorrow and noise. Everybody meant to be very kind and pitiful, but
there was a great deal too much of it, and they felt quite bewildered
by the offers made them. Farmer Mill's wife, of Elmwood Cross, two miles
off, was reported by her sister to want a stout girl to help her, but
there was no chance of her taking Rusha or the baby as well as Patience.
Goody Grace could not undertake the care of Ben unless she could have
Patience, because she was so often called away from home, nor could she
support them without the cows. Smith Blane might have taken Stead, but
his wife would not hear of being troubled with Rusha. And Dame Oates
might endure Rusha for the sake of a useful girl like Patience, but
certainly not the baby. It was an utter Babel and confusion, and in the
midst of it all, Patience crept up to her brother who stood all the
time like a stock, and said "Oh! Stead, I cannot give up Ben to anyone.
Cannot we all keep together?"

"Hush, Patty! That's what I mean to do, if you will stand by me," he
whispered, "wait till all the clack is over."

And there he waited with Patience by his side while the parish seemed
to be endlessly striving over them. If one woman seemed about to make a
proposal, half-a-dozen more fell on her and vowed that the poor orphans
would be starved and overworked; till she turned on the foremost with
"And hadn't your poor prentice lad to go before the justices to shew the
weals on his back?" "Aye, Joan Stubbs, and what are you speaking up
for but to get the poor children's sheep? Hey, you now, Stead
Kenton--Lack-a-day, where be they?"

For while the dispute was at its loudest and hottest, Stead had taken
Rusha by the hand, made a sign to Patience, and the four deserted
children had quietly gone away together into the copsewood that led
to the little glen where the brook ran, and where was the cave that
Steadfast looked on as his special charge. Rusha, frightened by the loud
voices and angry gestures, had begun to cry, and beg she might not be
given to anyone, but stay with her Patty and Stead.

"And so you shall, my pretty," said Steadfast, sitting down on the stump
of a tree, and taking her on his knee, while Toby nuzzled up to them.

"Then you think we can go on keeping ourselves, and not letting them
part us," said Patience, earnestly. "If I have done the house work all
this time, and we have the fields, and all the beasts. We have only lost
the house, and I could never bear to live there again," she added, with
a shudder.

"No," said Steadfast, "it is too near the road while these savage
fellows are about. Besides--" and there he checked himself and added,
"I'll tell you, Patty. Do you remember the old stone cot down there in
the wood?"

"Where the old hermit lived in the blind Popish times?"

"Aye. We'll live there. No soldiers will ever find us out there, Patty."

"Oh! oh! that is good," said Patience. "We shall like that, shan't we,
Rusha?"

"And," added Steadfast, "there is an old cowshed against the rock
down there, where we could harbour the beasts, for 'tis them that the
soldiers are most after."

"Let us go down to it at once," cried the girl, joyfully.

But Steadfast thought it would be wiser to go first to the ruins of
their home; before, as he said, anyone else did so, to see what could be
saved therefrom.

Patience shrank from the spectacle, and Rusha hung upon her, saying the
soldiers would be there, and beginning to cry. At that moment, however,
Tom Gates' voice came near shouting for "Stead! Stead Kenton!"

"Come on, Stead. You'll be prentice-lad to Dick Stiggins the tailor, if
so be you bring Whitefoot and the geese for your fee; and Goodman Bold
will have the big wench; and Goody Grace will make shift with the little
ones, provided she has the kine!"

"We don't mean to be beholden to none of them," said Steadfast,
sturdily, with his hands in his pockets. "We mean to keep what belongs
to us, and work for ourselves."

"And God will help us," Patience added softly.

"Ho, ho!" cried Tom, and proud of having found them, he ran before them
back to the village green, and roared out, "Here they be! And they say
as how they don't want none of you, but will keep themselves. Ha! ha!"

Anyone who saw those four young orphans would not have thought their
trying to keep themselves a laughing matter; and the village folk, who
had been just before so unwilling to undertake them, now began scolding
and blaming them for their folly and ingratitude.

Nothing indeed makes people so angry as when a kindness which has cost
them a great effort turns out not to be wanted.

"Look for nothing from us," cried Dame Bold. "I'd have made a good
housewife of you, you ungrateful hussy, and now you may thank yourself,
if you come to begging, I shall have nothing for you."

"Beggary and rags," repeated the tailor. "Aye, aye; 'tis all very fine
strolling about after the sheep with your hands in your pockets in
summer weather, but you'll sing another song in winter time, and be
sorry you did not know when you had a good offer."

"The babe will die as sure as 'tis born," added Jean Oates.

"If they be not all slain by the mad Prince's troopers up in that place
by the roadside," said another.

Blacksmith Blane and Goody Grace were in the meantime asking the
children what they meant to do, and Stead told them in a few words.
Goody Grace shook her head over little Ben, but Blane declared that
after all it might be the best thing they could do to keep their land
and beasts together. Ten to one that foolish lad Jephthah would come
back with his tail between his legs, and though it would serve him
right, what would they do if all were broken up? Then he slapped Stead
on the back, called him a sensible, steady lad, and promised always to
be his friend.

Moreover he gave up his morning's work to come with the children to
their homestead, and see what could be saved. It was a real kindness,
not only because his protection made Patience much less afraid to go
near the place, and his strong arm would be a great help to them, but
because he was parish constable and had authority to drive away the
rough lads whom they found already hanging about the ruins, and who had
frightened Patience's poor cat up into the ash tree.

The boys and two curs were dancing round the tree, and one boy was
stripping off his smock to climb up and throw poor pussy down among them
when Master Blane's angry shout and flourished staff put them all to
flight, and Patience and Rusha began to coax the cat to come down to
them.

Hunting her had had one good effect, it had occupied the boys and
prevented them from carrying anything off. The stable was safe. What had
been burnt was the hay rick, whence the flames had climbed to the house.
The roof had fallen in, and the walls and chimney stood up blackened and
dismal, but there was a good deal of stone about the house, the roof was
of shingle, and the heavy fall, together with the pouring rain, had
done much to choke the fire, so that when Blane began to throw aside the
charred bits of beams and of the upper floor, more proved to be unburnt,
or at least only singed, than could have been expected.

The great black iron pot still hung in the chimney with the very meal
and kail broth that Patience had been boiling in it, and Rusha's little
stool stood by the hearth. Then the great chest, or ark as Patience
called it, where all the Sunday clothes were kept, had been crushed
in and the upper things singed, but all below was safe. The beds and
bedding were gone; but then the best bed had been only a box in the wall
with an open side, and the others only chaff or straw stuffed into a
sack.

Patience's crocks, trenchers, and cups were gone too, all except one
horn mug; but two knives and some spoons were extracted from the ashes.
Furniture was much more scanty everywhere than now. There was not much
to lose, and of that they had lost less than they had feared.

"And see here, Stead," said Patience joyfully holding up a lesser box
kept within the other.

It contained her mother's Bible and Prayer-book. The covers were turned
up, a little warped by the heat, and some of the corners of the leaves
were browned, but otherwise they were unhurt.

"I was in hopes 'twas the money box," said Blane.

"Jeph has got the bag," said Patience.

"More shame for him," growled their friend. Steadfast did not think it
necessary to say that was not all the hoard.

Another thing about which Patience was very anxious was the meal chest.
With much difficulty they reached it. It had been broken in by the fall
of the roof, and some of the contents were scattered, but enough was
gathered up in a pail fetched from the stable to last for some little
time. There were some eggs likewise in the nests, and altogether Goodman
Blane allowed that, if the young Kentons could take care of themselves,
and keep things together, they had decided for the best; if they could,
that was to say. And he helped them to carry their heavier things to
the glen. He wanted to see if it were fit for their habitation, but
Steadfast was almost sorry to show anyone the way, in spite of his trust
and gratitude to the blacksmith.

However, of course, it was not possible to keep this strange
hiding-place a secret, so he led the way by the path the cattle had
trodden out through the brushwood to the open space where they drank,
and where stood the hermit's hut, a dreary looking den built of big
stones, and with rough slates covering it. There was a kind of hole for
the doorway, and another for the smoke to get out at. Blane whistled
with dismay at the sight of it, and told Stead he could not take the
children to such a place.

"We will get it better," said Stead.

"That we will," returned Patience, who felt anything better than being
separated from her brother.

"It is weather-tight," added Stead, "and when it is cleaned out you will
see!"

"And the soldiers will never find it," added Patience.

"There is something in that," said Blane. "But at any rate, though it be
summer, you can never sleep there to-night."

"The girls cannot," said Stead, "but I shall, to look after things."

These were long days, and by the evening many of the remnants of
household stuff had been brought, the cows and Whitefoot had been
tied up in their dilapidated shed, with all the hay Stead could gather
together to make them feel at home. There was a hollow under the rock
where he hoped to keep the pigs, but neither they nor the sheep could
be brought in at present. They must take their chance, the sheep on the
moor, the pigs grubbing about the ruins of the farmyard. The soldiers
must be too busy for marauding, to judge by the constant firing that had
gone on all day, the sharp rattle of the musquets, and now and then the
grave roll of a cannon.

Stead had been too busy to attend, but half the village had been
watching from the height, which accounted perhaps for the move from the
farm having been so uninterrupted after the first.

It was not yet dark, when, tired out by his day's hard work, Stead
sat himself down at the opening of his hut with Toby by his side. The
evening gold of the sky could hardly be seen through the hazel and
mountain-ash bushes that clothed the steep opposite bank of the glen and
gave him a feeling of security. The brook rippled along below, plainly
to be heard since all other sounds had ceased except the purring of a
night-jar and the cows chewing their cud. There was a little green glade
of short grass sloping down to the stream from the hut where the rabbits
were at play, but on each side the trees and brushwood were thick, with
only a small path through, much overgrown, and behind the rock rose like
a wall, overhung with ivy and traveller's joy. Only one who knew the
place could have found the shed among the thicket where the cows were
fastened, far less the cavern half-way up the side of the rock where
lay the treasures for which Steadfast was a watchman. He thought for a
moment of seeing if all were safe, but then decided, like a wise boy,
that to disturb the creepers, and wear a path to the place, was the
worst thing he could do if he wished for concealment. He had had his
supper at the village, and had no more to do, and after the long day
of going to and fro, even Toby was too much tired to worry the rabbits,
though he had had no heavy weights to carry. Perhaps, indeed, the poor
dog had no spirits to interfere with their sports, as they sat upright,
jumped over one another, and flashed their little white tails. He missed
his old master, and knew perfectly well that his young master was in
trouble and distress, as he crept close up to the boy's breast, and
looked up in his face. Stead's hand patted the rough, wiry hair, and
there was a sort of comfort in the creature's love. But how hard it was
to believe that only yesterday he had a father and a home, and that now
his elder brother was gone, and he had the great charge on him of being
the mainstay of the three younger ones, as well as of protecting that
treasure in the cavern which his father had so solemnly entrusted to
him.

The boy knelt down to say his prayers, and as he did so, all alone in
the darkening wood, the words "Father of the fatherless, Helper of the
helpless," came to his aid.




CHAPTER VII. THE HERMIT'S GULLEY.


     "O Bessie Bell and Mary Grey,
      They were twa bonnie lasses--
      They digged a bower on yonder brae,
      And theek'd it o'er wi' rashes."     BALLAD.


Steadfast slept soundly on the straw with Toby curled up by his side
till the morning light was finding its way in through all the chinks of
his rude little hovel.

When he had gathered his recollections he knew how much there was to be
done. He sprang to his feet, showing himself still his good mother's own
boy by kneeling down to his short prayer, then taking off the clothes in
which he had slept, and giving himself a good bath in the pool under the
bush of wax-berried guelder rose, and as good a wash as he could without
soap.

Then he milked the cows, for happily his own buckets had been at the
stable and thus were safe. He had just released Croppie and seen her
begin her breakfast on the grass, when Patience in her little red hood
came tripping through the glen with a broom over her shoulder, and
without the other children. Goody Grace had undertaken to keep them for
the day, whilst Patience worked with her brother, and had further lent
her the broom till she could make another, for all the country brooms
of that time were home-made with the heather and the birch. She had
likewise brought a barley cake, on which and on the milk the pair made
their breakfast, Goody providing for the little ones.

"We must use it up," said Patience, "for we have got no churn."

"And we could not get into the town to sell the butter if we had,"
returned her brother. "We had better take it up to some one in the
village who might give us something for it, bread or cheese maybe."

"I would like to make my own butter," sighed Patience, whose mother's
cleanly habits had made her famous for it.

"So you shall some day, Patty," said her brother, "but there's no
getting into Bristol to buy one or to sell butter now. Hark! they are
beginning again," as the growl of a heavy piece of cannon shook the
ground.

"I wonder where our Jeph is," said the little girl sadly. "How could he
like to go among all those cruel fighting men? You won't go, Stead?"

"No, indeed, I have got something else to do."

The children were hard at work all the time. They cleared out the inside
of their hovel, which had a floor of what was called lime ash, trodden
hard, and not much cracked. Probably other hermits in earlier times
had made the place habitable before the expelled monk whom the
Kentons' great-grandfather recollected; for the cell, though rude, was
wonderfully strong, and the stone walls were very stout and thick, after
the fashion of the middle ages. There was a large flat stone to serve as
a hearth, and an opening at the top for smoke with a couple of big slaty
stones bent towards one another over it as a break to the force of the
rain. The children might have been worse off though there was no window,
and no door to close the opening. That mattered the less in the summer
weather, and before winter came, Stead thought he could close it with
a mat made of the bulrushes that stood up in the brook, lifting their
tall, black heads.

Straw must serve for their beds till they could get some sacking to
stuff it into, and as some of the sheep would have to be killed and
salted for the winter, the skins would serve for warmth. Patience
arranged the bundles of straw with a neat bit of plaiting round them,
at one corner of the room for herself and Rusha, at the opposite one for
Stead. For the present they must sleep in their clothes.

Life was always so rough, and, to present notions, comfortless, that
all this was not nearly so terrible to the farmer's daughter of two
centuries ago as it would be to a girl of the present day. Indeed,
save for the grief for the good father, the sense of which now and then
rushed on them like a horrible, too true dream, Steadfast and Patience
would almost have enjoyed the setting up for themselves and all their
contrivances. Some losses, however, besides that of the churn were
very great in their eyes. Patience's spinning wheel especially, and the
tools, scythe, hook, and spade, all of which had been so much damaged,
that Smith Blane had shaken his head over them as past mending.

Perhaps, however, Stead might borrow and get these made for him. As to
the wheel, that must, like the churn, wait till the siege was over.

"But will not those dreadful men burn the town down and not leave one
stone on another, if Jeph and the rest of them don't keep them out?"
asked Patience.

"No," said Stead. "That is not the way in these days--at least not
always. So poor father said last time we went into Bristol, when he had
been talking to the butter-merchant's man. He said the townsfolk would
know the reason why, if the soldiers were for holding out long enough to
get them into trouble."

"Then perhaps there will not be much fighting and they will not hurt
Jeph," said Patience, to whom Jeph was the whole war.

"There's no firing to-day. Maybe they are making it up," said Steadfast.

"I never heeded," said Patience, "we have been so busy! But Stead, how
shall we get the things? We have no money. Shall we sell a sheep or a
pig?"

Stead looked very knowing, and she exclaimed "Have you any, Stead? I
thought Jeph took it all away."

Then Stead told her how his father had entrusted him with the bulk of
the savings, in case of need, and had made it over to the use of the
younger ones.

"It was well you did not know, Patty," he added. "You told no lie, and
Jeph might have taken it all."

"O! he would not have been so cruel," cried Patience. "He would not want
Rusha and Ben to have nothing."

Stead did not feel sure, and when Patience asked him where the hoard
was, he shook his head, looked wise, and would not tell her. And then he
warned her, with all his might and main against giving a hint to anyone
that they had any such fund in reserve. She was a little vexed and hurt
at first, but presently she promised.

"Indeed Stead, I won't say one word about it, and you don't think I
would ever touch it without telling you."

"No, Patty, you wouldn't, but don't you see, if you know nothing, you
can't tell if people ask you."

In truth, Stead was less anxious about the money than about the other
treasure, and when presently Patience proposed that the cave where they
used to play should serve for the poultry, so as to save them from the
foxes and polecats, he looked very grave and said "No, no, Patty, don't
you ever tell anyone of that hole, nor let Rusha see it."

"Oh! I know then!" cried Patience, with a little laugh, "I know what's
there then."

"There's more than that, sister," and therewith Stead told in her ear of
the precious deposit.

She looked very grave, and said "Why then it is just like church! O no,
Stead, I'll never tell till good Mr. Holworth comes back. Could not we
say our prayers there on Sundays?"

Stead liked the thought but shook his head.

"We must not wear a path up to the place," he said, "nor show the little
ones the way."

"I shall say mine as near as I can," said Patience. "And I shall ask God
to help us keep it safe."

Then the children became absorbed in seeking for a place where their
fowls could find safe shelter from the enemies that lurked in the wood,
and ended by an attempt of Stead's to put up some perches across the
beam above the cow-shed.

Things were forward enough for Rusha and Ben to be fetched down to their
new home that night; when Patience went to fetch them, she heard that
the cessation of firing had really been because the troops within the
town were going to surrender to the King's soldiers outside.

"Then there will be no more fighting," she anxiously asked of Master
Blane.

"No man can tell," he answered.

"And will Jeph come back?"

But that he could tell as little, and indeed someone else spoke to him,
and he paid the child no more attention.

Rusha had had a merry day among the children of her own age in the
village; she fretted at coming away, and was frightened at turning
into so lonely a path through the hazel stems, trotting after Patience
because she was afraid to turn back alone, but making a low, peevish
moan all the time.

[Illustration: Stead Stirring The Porridge.]

Patience hoped she would be comforted when they came out on their little
glade, and she saw Stead stirring the milk porridge over the fire he had
lighted by the house. For he had found the flint and steel belonging
to the matchlock of his father's old gun, and there was plenty of dry
leaves and half-burnt wood to serve as tinder. The fire for cooking
would be outside, whenever warmth and weather served, to prevent indoor
smoke. And to Patience's eyes it really looked pleasant and comfortable,
with Toby sitting wisely by his young master's side, and the cat
comfortably perched at the door, and Whitefoot tied to a tree, and the
cows in their new abode. But Jerusha was tired and cross, she said it
was an ugly place, and she was afraid of the foxes and the polecats, she
wanted to go home, she wanted to go back to Goody Grace.

Stead grew angry, and threatened that she should have no supper, and
that made her cry the louder, and shake her frock at him; but Patience,
who knew better how to deal with her, let her finish her cry, and come
creeping back, promising to be good, and glad to eat the supper, which
was wholesome enough, though very smoky: however, the children were used
to smoke, and did not mind it.

They said their prayers together while the sun was touching the tops of
the trees, crept into their hut, curled themselves up upon their straw
and went to sleep, while Toby lay watchful at the door, and the cat
prowled about in quest of a rabbit or some other evening wanderer for
her supper.

The next day Patience spent in trying to get things into somewhat better
order, and Steadfast in trying to gather together his live stock, which
he had been forced to leave to take care of themselves. Horse, donkey,
and cows were all safe round their hut; but he could find only three of
the young pigs and the old sow at the farmyard, and it plainly was
not safe to leave them there, though how to pen them up in their new
quarters he did not know.

The sheep were out on the moor, and only one of them seemed to be
missing. The goat and the geese had likewise taken care of themselves
and seemed glad to see him. He drove them down to their new home, and
fed them there with some of the injured meal. "But what can we do with
the pigs? There's no place they can't get out of but this," said Stead,
looking doubtfully.

"Do you think I would have pigs in here? No, I am not come to that!"

It ended in Stead's going to consult Master Blane, who advised that the
younger pigs should be either sold, or killed and salted, and nothing
left but the sow, who was a cunning old animal, and could pretty well
take care of herself, besides that she was so tough and lean that one
must be very hungry indeed to be greatly tempted by her bristles.

But how sell the pigs or buy the salt in such days as these? There was,
indeed, no firing.

There was a belief that treaties were going on, but leisure only left
the besiegers more free to go wandering about in search of plunder; and
Stead found all trouble saved him as to disposing of his pigs. They were
quite gone next time he looked for them, and the poor old sow had been
lamed by a shot; but did not seem seriously hurt, and when with some
difficulty she had been persuaded to be driven into the glen, she seemed
likely to be willing to stay there in the corner of the cattle shed.

The children were glad enough to be in their glen, with all its bareness
and discomfort, when they heard that a troop of horse had visited
Elmwood, and made a requisition there for hay and straw. They had used
no violence, but the farmers were compelled to take it into the camp
in their own waggons, getting nothing in payment but orders on the
treasury, which might as well be waste paper. And, indeed, they were
told by the soldiers that they might be thankful to get off with their
carts and horses.




CHAPTER VIII. STEAD IN POSSESSION.


     "At night returning, every labour sped,
      He sits him down, the monarch of a shed."
                                          GOLDSMITH.


Another day made it certain that the garrison of Bristol had surrendered
to the besiegers. A few shots were heard, but they were only fired in
rejoicing by the Royalists, and while Steadfast was studying his barley
field, already silvered over by its long beards, and wondering how soon
it would be ripe, and how he should get it cut and stacked, his name
was shouted out, and he saw Tom Oates and all the rest of the boys
scampering down the lane.

"Come along, Stead Kenton, come on and see, the Parliament soldiers come
out and go by."

Poor Steadfast had not much heart for watching soldiers, but it struck
him that he might see or hear something of Jephthah, so he came with the
other boys to the bank, where from behind a hedge they could look down
at the ranks of soldiers as they marched along, five abreast, the road
was not wide enough to hold more. They had been allowed to keep their
weapons, so the officers had their swords, and the men carried their
musquets. Most of them looked dull and dispirited, and the officers had
very gloomy, displeased faces. In fact, they were very angry with their
commander, Colonel Fiennes, for having surrendered so easily, and he was
afterwards brought to a court-martial for having done so.

Stead did not understand this, he thought only of looking under each
steel cap or tall, slouching hat for Jephthah. Several times a youthful,
slender figure raised his hopes, and disappointed him, and he began to
wonder whether Jeph could have after all stayed behind in the town, or
if he could have been hurt and was ill there.

By-and-by came a standard, bearing a Bible lying on a sword, and behind
it rode a grave looking officer, with long hair, and a red scarf, whom
the lads recognised as the same who had preached at Elmwood. His men
were in better order than some of the others, and as Steadfast eagerly
watched them, he was sure that he knew the turn of Jeph's head, in spite
of his being in an entirely new suit of clothes, and with a musquet over
his shoulder.

Stead shook the ash stem he was leaning against, the men looked up, he
saw the well-known face, and called out "Jeph! Jeph!" But some of the
others laughed, Jeph frowned and shook his head, and marched on. Stead
was disappointed, but at any rate he could carry back the assurance to
Patience that Jeph was alive and well, though he seemed to have lost all
care for his brothers and sisters. Yet, perhaps, as a soldier he could
not help it, and it might not be safe to straggle from the ranks.

There was no more fighting for the present in the neighbourhood. The
princes and their army departed, only leaving a garrison to keep the
city, and it was soon known in the village that the town was in its
usual state, and that it was safe to go in to market as in former times.
Stead accordingly carried in a basket of eggs, which was all he could
yet sell. He was ferried across the river, and made his way in. It was
strange to find the streets looking exactly as usual, and the citizens'
wives coming out with their baskets just as if nothing had happened.

There was the good-natured face of Mistress Lightfoot, who kept a
baker's shop at the sign of the Wheatsheaf, and was their regular
customer.

"Ha, little Kenton, be'st thou there? I'm right glad to see thee. They
said the mad fellows had burnt the farm and made an end of all of
you, but I find 'em civil enow, and I'm happy to see 'twas all
leasing-making."

"It is true, mistress," said Stead, "that they burnt our house and shot
poor father."

"Eh, you don't say so, my poor lad?" and she hurried her kind questions,
tears coming into her eyes, as she thought of the orphans deserted by
their brother. She was very anxious to have Patience butter-making again
and promised to come with Stead to give her assistance in choosing both
a churn and a spinning wheel if he would come in the next day, for he
had not ventured on bringing any money with him. She bought all his eggs
for her lodger, good Doctor Eales, who could hardly taste anything and
had been obliged to live cooped up in an inner chamber for fear of the
Parliament soldiers, who were misbehaved to Church ministers though
civil enough to women; while these new comers were just the other way,
hat in hand to a clergyman, but apt to be saucy to the lasses. But she
hoped the Doctor would cheer up again, now that the Cathedral was set in
order, so far as might be, and prayers were said there as in old times.
In fact the bells were ringing for morning prayer, and Stead was so glad
to hear them that he thought he might venture in and join in the brief
daily service. There were many others who had done so, for these anxious
days had quickened the devotion of many hearts, and people had felt what
it was to be robbed of their churches and forbidden the use of their
prayer-books. Moreover, some had sons or brothers or husbands fighting
on the one side or the other, and were glad to pray for them, so that
Stead found himself in the midst of quite a congregation, though the
choir had been too much dispersed and broken up for the musical service,
and indeed the organ had been torn to pieces by the Puritan soldiers,
who fancied it was Popish.

But Stead found himself caring for the Psalms and Prayers in a manner he
had never done before, and which came of the sorrow he had felt and the
troubles that pressed upon him. He fancied all would come right now, and
that soon Mr. Holworth would be back, and he should be able to give up
his charge; and he went home, quite cheered up.

When he came into the gulley he heard voices through the bushes, and
pressing forward anxiously he saw Blane and Oates before the hovel door,
Patience standing there crying, with the baby in her arms, and Rusha
holding her apron, and an elderly man whom Stead knew as old Lady
Elmwood's steward talking to the other men, who seemed to be persuading
him to something.

As soon as Stead appeared, the other children ran up to him, and Rusha
hid herself behind him, while Patience said "O Stead, Stead, he has come
to turn us all out! Don't let him!"

"Nay, nay, little wench, not so fast," said the steward, not unkindly.
"I am but come to look after my Lady's interests, seeing that we heard
your poor father was dead, God have mercy on his soul (touching his hat
reverently), and his son gone off to the wars, and nothing but a pack of
children left."

"But 'tis all poor father's," muttered Stead, almost dumbfounded.

"It is held under the manor of Elmwood," explained the steward, "on the
tenure of the delivery of the prime beast on the land on the demise of
lord or tenant, and three days' service in hay and harvest time."

What this meant Steadfast and Patience knew as little as did Rusha or
Ben, but Goodman Blane explained.

"The land here is all held under my Lady and Sir George, Stead--mine
just the same--no rent paid, but if there's a death--landlord or
tenant--one has to give the best beast as a fee, besides the work in
harvest."

"And the question is," proceeded the steward, "who and what is there to
look to. The eldest son is but a lad, if he were here, and this one is a
mere child, and the house is burnt down, and here they be, crouching in
a hovel, and how is it to be with the land. I'm bound to look after the
land. I'm bound to look after my Lady's interest and Sir George's."

"Be they ready to build up the place if you had another tenant?" asked
Blane, signing to Stead to hold his peace.

"Well--hum--ha! It might not come handy just now, seeing that Sir George
is off with the King, and all the money and plate with him and most
of the able-bodied servants, but I'm the more bound to look after his
interests."

That seemed to be Master Brown's one sentence. But Blane took him up,
"Look you here, Master Brown, I, that have been friend and gossip this
many years with poor John Kenton--rest his soul--can tell you that your
lady is like to be better served with this here Steadfast, boy though he
be, than if you had the other stripling with his head full of drums and
marches, guns and preachments, and what not, and who never had a good
day's work in him without his father's eye over him. This little fellow
has done half his share and his own to boot long ago. Now they are
content to dwell down here, out of the way of the soldiering, and don't
ask her ladyship to be at any cost for repairing the farm up there, but
will do the best they can for themselves. So, I say, Master Brown, it
will be a real good work of charity, without hurt to my Lady and Sir
George to let them be, poor things, to fight it out as they can."

"Well, well, there's somewhat in what you say Goodman Blane, but I'm
bound to look after my Lady's interests and Sir George's."

"I would come and work like a good one at my Lady's hay and harvest,"
said Stead, "and I shall get stronger and bigger every year."

"But the beast," said the steward, "my Lady's interests must come first,
you see."

"O don't let him take Croppie," cried Patience. "O sir, not the cows, or
baby will die, and we can't make the butter."

"You see, Master Brown," explained Blane, "it is butter as is their
chief stand-by. Poor Dame Kenton, as was took last spring, was the best
dairywoman in the parish, and this little maid takes after her. Their
kine are their main prop, but there's the mare, there's not much good
that she can do them."

"Let us look!" said the steward. "A sorry jade enow! But I don't
know but she will serve our turn better than the cow. There was a
requisition, as they have the impudence to call it, from the Parliament
lot that took off all our horses, except old grey Dobbin and the colt,
and this beast may come in handy to draw the wood. So I'll take her, and
you may think yourself well off, and thank my Lady I'm so easy with you.
'Be not hard on the orphans,' she said. 'Heaven forbid, my Lady,' says
I, 'but I must look after your interests.'"

The children hung round old Whitefoot, making much of her for the last
time, and Patience and Rusha both cried sadly when she was led away;
and it was hard to believe Master Blane, who told them it was best for
Whitefoot as well as for themselves, since they would find it a hard
matter to get food even for the more necessary animals in the winter,
and the poor beast would soon be skin and bone; while for themselves
the donkey could carry all they wanted to market; and it might be more
important than they understood to be thus regularly accepted as tenants
by the manor, so that no one could turn them out.

And Stead, remembering the cavern, knew that he ought to be thankful,
while the two men went away, Brown observing, "One can scarce turn 'em
out, poor things, but such a mere lubber as that boy is can do no good!
If the elder one had thought fit to stay and mind his own business now!"

"A good riddance, I say," returned Blane. "Stead's a good-hearted lad,
though clownish, and I'll do what I can for him."




CHAPTER IX. WINTRY TIMES.


     "Thrice welcome may such seasons be,
      But welcome too the common way,
      The lowly duties of the day."


There was of course much to do. Steadfast visited his hoard and took
from thence enough to purchase churn, spinning wheel, and the few tools
that he most needed; but it was not soon that Patience could sit down to
spin. That must be for the winter, and their only chance of light was in
making candles.

Rusha could gather the green rushes, though she could not peel them
without breaking them; and Patience had to take them out of her hands
and herself strip the white pith so that only one ribbon of green was
left to support it.

The sheep, excepting a few old ewes, were always sold or killed before
the winter, and by Blane's advice, Stead kept only three. The butcher
Oates took some of the others, and helped Stead to dispose of four more
in the market. Two were killed at different intervals for home use, but
only a very small part was eaten fresh, as a wonderful Sunday treat,
the rest was either disposed of among the neighbours, who took it in
exchange for food of other kinds; or else was salted and dried for the
winter's fare, laid up in bran in two great crocks which Stead had been
forced to purchase, and which with planks from the half-burnt house laid
over them served by turns as tables or seats. The fat was melted up in
Patience's great kettle, and the rushes dipped in it over and over again
till they had such a coating of grease as would enable them to be burnt
in the old horn lantern which had fortunately been in the stable and
escaped the fire.

Kind neighbours helped Stead to cut and stack his hay, and his little
field of barley. All the grass he could cut on the banks he also saved
for the animals' winter food, and a few turnips, but these were rare and
uncommon articles only used by the most advanced farmers, and his father
had only lately begun to grow them, nor had potatoes become known except
in the gardens of the curious.

The vexation was that all the manor was called to give their three days'
labour to Lady Elmwood's crops just as all their own were cut, and as,
of course, Master Brown had chosen the finest weather, every one went
in fear and trembling for their own, and Oates and others grumbled so
bitterly at having to work without wage, that Blane asked if they called
their own houses and land nothing.

There was fresh grumbling too that the food sent out to the labourers in
the field was not as it used to be, good beef and mutton, but only bread
and very hard cheese, and bowls of hasty pudding, with thin, sour small
beer to wash it down. Oates growled and vowed he would never come again
to be so scurvily used; and perhaps no one guessed that my lady was far
more impoverished than her tenants, and had a hard matter to supply even
such fare as this.

Happily the weather lasted good long enough to save the Kentons' little
crop, though there was a sad remembrance of the old times, when the
church bell gave the signal at sunrise for all the harvesters to come to
church for the brief service, and then to start fair in their gleaning.
The bell did still ring, but there were no prayers. The vicar had never
come back, and it was reported that he had been sent to the plantations
in America. There was no service on Sunday nearer than Bristol. It
was the churchwardens' business to find a minister, and of these, poor
Kenton was dead, and the other, Master Cliffe, was not likely to do
anything that might put the parish to expense.

Goodman Blane, and some of the other more seriously minded folk used to
walk into Bristol to church when the weather was tolerably fine. If it
were wet, the little stream used to flood the lower valley so that
it was not possible to get across. Steadfast was generally one of the
party. Patience could not go, as it was too far for Rusha to walk, or
for the baby to be carried.

Once, seeing how much she wished to go again to church, Stead undertook
to mind the children, the cattle, and the dinner in her place; but
what work he found it! When he tried to slice the onions for the broth,
little Ben toddled off, and had to be caught lest he should tumble into
the river. Then Rusha got hold of the knife, cut her hand, and rolled it
up in her Sunday frock, and Steadfast, thinking he had got a small bit
of rag, tied it up in Patience's round cap, but that he did not know
till afterwards, only that baby had got out again, and after some search
was found asleep cuddled up close to the old sow. And so it went on,
till poor Steadfast felt as if he had never spent so long a day. As to
reading his Bible and Prayer-book, it was quite impossible, and he never
had so much respect for Patience before as when he found what she did
every day without seeming to think anything of it.

She did not get home till after dark, but the Blanes had taken her to
rest at the friends with whom they spent the time between services, and
they had given her a good meal.

"Somehow," said Patience, "everybody seems kinder than they used to be
before the fighting began--and the parsons said the prayers as if they
had more heart in them."

Patience was quite right. These times of danger were making everyone
draw nearer together, and look up more heartily to Him in Whom was there
true help.

But winter was coming on and bringing bad times for the poor children
in their narrow valley, so close to the water. It was not a very cold
season, but it was almost worse, for it was very wet. The little brook
swelled, turned muddy yellow, and came rushing and tumbling along, far
outside its banks, so that Patience wondered whether there could be any
danger of its coming up to their hut and perhaps drowning them.

"I think there is no fear," said Steadfast. "You see this house has been
here from old times and never got washed away."

"It wouldn't wash away very easily," said Patience, "I wish we were in
one of the holes up there."

"If it looks like danger we might get up," said Steadfast, and to please
her he cleared a path to a freshly discovered cave a little lower down
the stream, but so high up on the rocky sides of the ravine as to be
safe from the water.

Once Patience, left at home watching the rushing of the stream, became
so frightened that she actually took the children up there, and set
Rusha to hold the baby while she dragged up some sheepskins and some
food.

Steadfast coming home asked what she was about and laughed at her,
showing her, by the marks on the trees, that the flood was already going
down. Such alarms came seldom, but the constant damp was worse. Happily
it was always possible to keep up a fire, wood and turf peat was
plentiful and could be had for the cutting and carrying, and though the
smoke made their eyes tingle, perhaps it hindered the damp from hurting
them, when all the walls wept, in spite of the reed mats which they had
woven and hung over them. And then it was so dark, Patience's rushes did
not give light enough to see to do anything by them even when they did
not get blown out, and when the sun had set there was nothing for it,
but as soon as the few cattle had been foddered in their shed and cave,
to draw the mat and sheepskins that made a curtain by way of door,
fasten it down with a stone, share with dog and cat the supper of broth,
or milk, or porridge which Patience had cooked, and then lie down on
the beds of dried leaves stuffed into sacking, drawing over them the
blankets and cloaks that had happily been saved in the chest, and
nestling on either side of the fire, which, if well managed, would
smoulder on for hours. There the two elder ones would teach Rusha her
catechism and tell old stories, and croon over old rhymes till both the
little ones were asleep, and then would hold counsel on their affairs,
settle how to husband their small stock of money, consider how soon it
would be expedient to finish their store of salted mutton and pork to
keep them from being spoilt by damp, and wonder when their hens would
begin to lay.

It could hardly be a merry Christmas for the poor children, though they
did stick holly in every chink where it would go, but there were not
many berries that year, and as Rusha said, "there were only thorns."

Steadfast walked to Bristol through slush and mire and rain, not even
Smith Blane went with him, deeming the weather too bad, and thinking,
perhaps, rather over much of the goose at home.

Bristol people were keeping Christmas with all their might, making the
more noise and revelry because the Parliament had forbidden the feast to
be observed at all. It was easy to tell who was for the King and who for
the Parliament, for there were bushes of holly, mistletoe, and ivy, at
all the Royalist doors and windows, and from many came the savoury steam
of roast beef or goose, while the other houses were shut up as close as
possible and looked sad and grim.

All the bells of all the churches were ringing, and everybody seemed to
be trooping into them. As Steadfast was borne along by the throng, there
was a pause, and a boy of his own age with a large hat and long feather,
beneath which could be seen curls of jet-black hair, walked at the head
of a party of gentlemen. Everyone in the crowd uncovered and there was
a vehement outcry of "God save the King! God save the Prince of Wales!"
Everyone thronged after him, and Steadfast had a hard struggle to
squeeze into the Cathedral, and then had to stand all the time with
his back against a pillar, for there was not even room to kneel down at
first.

There was no organ, but the choir men and boys had rallied there, and
led the Psalms which went up very loudly and heartily. Then the Dean
went up into the pulpit and preached about peace and goodwill to men,
and how all ought to do all in their power to bring those blessed gifts
back again. A good many people dropped off during the sermon, and more
after it, but Steadfast remained. He had never been able to come to the
Communion feast since the evil times had begun, and he had thought much
about it on his lonely walk, and knew that it was the way to be helped
through the hard life he was living.

When all was over he felt very peaceful, but so hungry and tired with
standing and kneeling so long after his walk, that he was glad to lean
against the wall and take out the piece of bread that Patience had put
in his wallet.

Presently a step came near, and from under a round velvet skull-cap a
kind old face looked at him which he knew to be that of the Dean.

"Is that all your Christmas meal, my good boy?" he asked.

"I shall have something for supper, thank your reverence," replied
Steadfast, taking off his leathern cap.

"Well, mayhap you could away with something more," said the Dean. "Come
with me."

And as Steadfast obeyed, he asked farther, "What is your name, my child?
I know your face in church, but not in town."

"No, sir, I do not live here. I am Steadfast Kenton, and I am from
Elmwood, but we have no prayers nor sermon there since they took the
parson away."

"Ah! good Master Holworth! Alas! my child, I fear you will scarce see
him back again till the King be in London once more, which Heaven grant.
And, meantime, Sir George Elmwood being patron, none can be intruded
into his room. It is a sore case, and I fear me the case of many a
parish besides."

Steadfast was so much moved by the good Dean's kindness as to begin to
consider whether it would be betraying the trust to consult him about
that strange treasure in the cave, but the lad was never quick of
thought, and before he could decide one of the canons joined the Dean,
and presently going up the steps to the great hall of the Deanery,
Steadfast saw long tables spread with snowy napkins, trenchers laid all
round, and benches on which a numerous throng were seating themselves,
mostly old people and little children, looking very poor and ragged.
Steadfast held himself to be a yeoman in a small way, and somewhat above
a Christmas feast with the poor, but the Dean's kindness was enough to
make him put away his pride, and then there was such a delicious steam
coming up from the buttery hatch as was enough to melt away all nonsense
of that sort from a hungry lad.

Grand joints of beef came up in clouds of vapour, and plum puddings
smoked in their rear, to be eaten with them, after the fashion of these
days, when of summer vegetables there were few, and of winter vegetables
none. The choirmen and boys, indeed all the Cathedral clergy who were
unmarried, were dining there too, but the Dean and his wife waited on
the table where the poorest were. Horns of ale were served to everyone,
and then came big mince pies. Steadfast felt a great longing to take
his home to his sisters, but he was ashamed to do it, even though he saw
that it was permissible, they were such beggarly-looking folks who set
the example.

However, the Dean's wife came up to him with a pleasant smile and asked
if he had no appetite or if he were thinking of someone at home, and
when he answered, she kindly undertook to lend him a basket, for which
he might call after evensong, and in the basket were also afterwards
found some slices of the beef and a fine large cake.

Then the young Prince and his suite came in, and he stood at the end of
the hall, smiling and looking amused as everyone's cup was filled with
wine--such wine as the Roundhead captains had left, and the Dean at the
head of the table gave out the health of his most sacred Majesty King
Charles, might God bless him, and confound all his enemies! The Prince
bared his black shining locks and drank, and there was a deep Amen,
and then a hurrah enough to rend the old vaulted ceiling; and equally
enthusiastically was the Prince's health afterwards drunk.

Stead heard the servants saying that such a meal had been a costly
matter, but that the good Dean would have it so in order that one more
true merry Christmas should be remembered in Bristol.




CHAPTER X. A TERRIBLE HARVEST DAY.


     "There is a reaper, whose name is death."
                                    LONGFELLOW.


Spring came at last, cold indeed but dry, and it brought calves, and
kids, and lambs, and little pigs, besides eggs and milk. The creatures
prospered for two reasons no doubt. One was that Stead and Patience
always prayed for a blessing on them, and the other was that they were
almost as tender and careful over the dumb things as they were over
little Ben, who could now run about and talk. All that year nothing
particular happened to the children. Patience's good butter and fresh
eggs had come to be known in Bristol, and besides, Stead and Rusha used
to find plovers' eggs on the common, for which the merchants' ladies
would pay them, or later for wild strawberries and for whortleberries.
Stead could also make rush baskets and mats, and they were very glad of
such earnings, some of which they spent on clothes, and on making their
hut more comfortable, while some was stored up in case of need in the
winter.

For another year things went on much in the same manner, Bristol was
still kept by the King's troops; but when Steadfast went into the place
there was less cheerfulness among the loyal folk, and the Puritans began
to talk of victories of their cause, while in the Cathedral the canon's
voice trembled and grew choked in the prayer for the King, and the
sermons were generally about being true and faithful to King and church
whatever might betide. The Prince of Wales had long since moved away,
indeed there were reports that the plague was in some of the low,
crowded streets near the water, and Patience begged her brother to take
care of himself.

There had been no Christmas feast at the Deanery, it was understood that
the Dean thought it better not to bring so many people together.

Then as harvest time was coming on more soldiers came into the place.
They looked much shabbier than the troops of a year ago, their coats
were worn and soiled, and their feathers almost stumps, but they made up
for their poverty by swagger and noise, and Steadfast was thankful
that it was unlikely that any of them should find the way to his little
valley with what they called requisitions for the King's service, but
which meant what he knew too well. Some of the villagers formed into
bands, and agreed to meet at the sound of a cowhorn, to drive anyone off
on either side, who came to plunder, and they even had a flag with the
motto--


     "If you take our cattle
      We will give you battle."


And they really did drive off some stragglers. Stead, however, accepted
the offer from Tom Gates of a young dog, considerably larger and
stronger than poor old Toby, yellow and somewhat brindled, and known as
Growler. He looked very terrible, but was very civil to those whom he
knew, and very soon became devoted to all the family, especially to
little Ben. However, most of the garrison and the poorer folk of the
town were taken up with mending the weak places in the walls, and
digging ditches with the earth of which they made steep banks, and there
were sentries at the gates, who were not always civil. Whatever the
country people brought into the town was eagerly bought up, and was paid
for, not often in the coin of the realm, but by tokens made of tin or
some such metal with odd stamps upon them, and though they could be used
as money they would not go nearly so far as the sums they were held to
represent--at least in anyone's hands but those of the officers.

There were reports that the Parliament army was about to besiege the
town, and Prince Rupert was coming to defend it. Steadfast was very
anxious, and would not let his sisters stir out of the valley, keeping
the cattle there as much as possible.

One day, when he had been sent for to help to gather in Lady Elmwood's
harvest, in the afternoon the reaping and binding were suddenly
interrupted by the distant rattle of musketry, such as had been heard
two years ago, in the time of the first siege but it was in quite
another direction from the town. Everyone left off work, and made what
speed they could to the top of the sloping field, whence they could see
what was going on.

"There they be!" shouted Tom Gates. "I saw 'em first! Hurrah! They be at
Luck's mill."

"Hush! you good-for-nothing," shrieked Bess Hart, throwing her apron
over her head. "When we shall all be killed and murdered."

"Not just yet, dame," said Master Brown. "They be a long way off, and
they have enow to do with one another. I wonder if Sir George be there.
He writ to my lady that he hoped to see her ere long."

"And my Roger," called out a woman. "He went with Sir George."

"And our Jack," was the cry of another; while Steadfast thought of
Jephthah, but knew he must be on the opposite side. From the top of the
field, they could see a wide sweep of country dipping down less than two
miles from them where there was a bridge over a small river, a mill, and
one or two houses near. On the nearer side of the river could be seen
the flash of steel caps, and a close, dark body of men, on the further
side was another force, mostly of horsemen, with what seemed like
waggons and baggage horses in the rear. They had what by its
colours seemed to be the English banner, the others had several
undistinguishable standards. Puffs of smoke broke from the windows of
the mill.

"Aye!" said Goodman Blane. "I would not be in Miller Luck's shoes just
now. I wonder where he is, poor rogue. Which side have got his mill,
think you, Master Brown?"

"The round-headed rascals for certain," said Master Brown, "and the
bridge too, trying to hinder the King's men from crossing bag and
baggage to relieve the town."

"See, there's a party drawing together. Is it to force the bridge?"

"Aye, aye, and there's another troop galloping up stream. Be they
running off, the cowards?"

"Not they. Depend on it some of our folks have told them of Colham ford.
Heaven be with them, brave lads."

"Most like Sir George is there, I don't see 'em."

"No, of course not, stupid, they'll be taking Colham Lane. See, see,
there's a lot of 'em drawn up to force the bridge. Good luck be with
them."

More puffs of smoke from the mill, larger ones from the bank, and a
rattle and roll came up to the watchers. There was a moment's shock and
pause in the assault, then a rush forward, and the distant sound of a
cheer, which those on the hill could not help repeating. But from the
red coats on and behind the bridge, proceeded a perfect cloud of smoke,
which hid everything, and when it began to clear away on the wind, there
seemed to be a hand-to-hand struggle going on upon the bridge, smaller
puffs, as though pistols were being used, and forms falling over
the parapet, at which sight the men held their breath, and the women
shrieked and cried "God have mercy on their poor souls." And then the
dark-coated troops seemed to be driven back.

"That was a feint, only a feint," cried Master Brown. "See there!"

For the plumed troop of horsemen had indeed crossed, and came galloping
down the bank with such a jingling and clattering, and thundering of
hoofs as came up to the harvest men above, and Master Brown led the
cheer as they charged upon the compact mass of red coats behind the
bridge, and broke and rode them down by the vehemence of the shock.

"Hurrah!" cried Blane. "Surely they will turn now and take the fellows
on the bridge in the rear. No. Ha! they are hunting them down on to
their baggage! Well done, brave fellows, hip! hip!--"

But the hurrah died on his lips as a deep low hum--a Psalm tune sung by
hundreds of manly voices--ascended to his ears, to the accompaniment
of the heavy thud of horsehoofs, and from the London Road, between
the bridge and the Royalist horsemen, there emerged a compact body of
troopers, in steel caps and corslets. Forming in ranks of three abreast,
they charged over the bridge, and speedily cleared off the Royalists who
were struggling to obtain a footing there.

There was small speech on the hill side, as the encounter was watched,
and the Ironsides forming on the other side, charged the already broken
troops before they had time to rally, and there was nothing to be
seen but an utter dispersion and scattering of men, looking from that
distance like ants when their nest has been broken into.

It was only a skirmish, not to be heard of in history, but opening the
way for the besiegers to the walls of Bristol, and preventing any of
the supplies from reaching the garrison, or any of the intended
reinforcements, except some of the eager Cavaliers, who galloped on
thither, when they found it impossible to return and guard the bridge
for their companions.

The struggle was over around the bridge in less than two hours, but no
more of Lady Elmwood's harvest was gathered in that evening. The people
watched as if they could not tear themselves from the contemplation
of the successful bands gathering together in their solid masses, and
marching onwards in the direction of Bristol, leaving, however, a strong
guard at the bridge, over which piled waggons and beasts of burthen
continued to pass, captured no doubt and prevented from relieving the
city. It began to draw towards evening, and Master Brown was beginning
to observe that he must go and report to my lady, poor soul; and as to
the corn, well, they had lost a day gaping at the fight, and they must
come up again to-morrow, he only hoped they were not carting it for the
round-headed rogues; when at that moment there was a sudden cry, first
of terror, then of recognition, "Roger, Hodge Fitter! how didst come
here?"

For a weary, worn-out trooper, with stained buff coat, and heavy boots,
stood panting among them. "I thought 'twas our folks," he said. "Be
mother here?"

"Hodge! My Hodge! Be'st hurt, my lad?" cried the mother, bursting
through the midst and throwing herself on him, while his father
contented himself with a sort of grunt. "All right, Hodge. How com'st
here?"

"And where's my Jack?" exclaimed Goody Bent.

"And where's our Harry?" was another cry from Widow Lakin.

While Stead longed to ask, but could not be heard in the clamour,
whether his brother had been there.

Hodge could tell little--seen less than the lookers on above. He had
been among those who had charged through the enemy, and ridden towards
Bristol, but his horse had been struck by a stray shot, and killed under
him. He had avoided the pursuers by scrambling through a hedge, and then
had thought it best to make his way through the fields to his own home,
until, seeing the party on the hill, he had joined them, expecting to
find his parents among them.

Sir George he knew to be on before him, and probably almost at Bristol
by this time. Poor Jack had been left weeks ago on the field of Naseby,
though there had been no opportunity of letting his family know. "Ill
news travels fast enough!" And as to Harry, he had been shot down by a
trooper near about the bridge, but mayhap might be alive for all that.

"And my brother, Jeph Kenton," Steadfast managed to say. "Was he there?"

"Jeph Kenton! Why, he's a canting Roundhead. The only Elmwood man as is!
More shame for him."

"But was he there?" demanded Stead.

"There! Well, Captain Venn's horse were there, and he was in them! I
have seen him more than once on outpost duty, prating away as if he had
a beard on his chin. I'd a good mind to put a bullet through him to stop
his impudence, for a disgrace to the place."

"Then he was in the fight?" reiterated Steadfast.

"Aye, was he. And got his deserts, I'll be bound, for we went smack
smooth through Venn's horse, like a knife through a mouldy cheese, and
left 'em lying to the right and left. If the other fellows had but stuck
by us as well, we'd have made a clean sweep of the canting dogs."

Hodge's eloquence was checked by the not unwelcome offer of a drink of
cider.

"Seems quiet enough down there," said Nanny Lakin, peering wistfully
over the valley where the shadows of evening were spreading. "Mayhap if
I went down I might find out how it is with my poor lad."

"Nay, I'll go, mother," said a big, loutish youth, hitherto silent;
"mayn't be so well for womenfolk down there."

"What's that to me, Joe, when my poor Harry may be lying a bleeding his
dear life out down there?"

"There's no fear," said Hodge. "To give them their due, the Roundheads
be always civil to country folk and women--leastways unless they take
'em for Irish--and thinking that, they did make bloody work with the
poor ladies at Naseby. But the dame there will be safe enough," he
added, as she was already on the move down hill. "Has no one a keg of
cider to give her? I know what 'tis to lie parching under a wound."

Someone produced one, and as her son shouted "Have with you, mother,"
Steadfast hastily asked Tom Oates to let Patience know that he was gone
to see after Jephthah, and joined Ned Lakin and his mother.

Jeph had indeed left his brothers and sisters in a strange, wild way,
almost cruel in its thoughtlessness; but to Stead it had never seemed
more than that elder brotherly masterfulness that he took as a matter of
course, and there was no resting in the thought of his lying wounded and
helpless on the field--nay, the assurance that Hodge shouted out that
the rebel dogs took care of their own fell on unhearing or unheeding
ears, as Steadfast and Ned Lakin dragged the widow through a gap in the
hedge over another field, and then made their way down a deep stony lane
between high hedges.

It was getting dark, in spite of the harvest moon, by the time they
came out on the open space below, and began to see that saddest of all
sights, a battlefield at night.

A soldier used to war would perhaps have scorned to call this a battle,
but it was dreadful enough to these three when they heard the sobbing
panting, and saw the struggling of a poor horse not quite dead, and his
rider a little way from him, a fine stout young man, cold and stiff, as
Nanny turned up his face to see if it was her Harry's.

A little farther on lay another figure on his back, but as Nanny stooped
over it, a lantern was flashed on her and a gruff voice called out,
"Villains, ungodly churls, be you robbing the dead?" and a tall man
stood darkly before them, pistol in hand.

"No, sir; no, sir," sobbed out Nanny. "I am only a poor widow woman,
come down to see whether my poor lad be dead or alive and wanting his
mother."

"What was his regiment?" demanded the soldier in a kinder voice.

"Oh, sir, your honour, don't be hard on him--he couldn't help it--he
went with Sir George Elmwood."

"That makes no odds, woman, when a man's down," said the soldier.
"Unless 'tis with the Fifth Monarchy sort, and I don't hold with them. I
have an uncle and a cousin or two among the malignants, as good fellows
as ever lived--no Amalekites and Canaanites--let Smite-them Derry say
what he will. Elmwood! let's see--that was the troop that forded higher
up, and came on Fisher's corps. This way, dame. If your son be down,
you'll find him here; that is, unless he be carried into the mill or one
of the houses. Most of the wounded lie there for the night, but the poor
lads that are killed must be buried to-morrow. Take care, dame," as poor
Nanny cried out in horror at having stumbled over a dead man's legs. He
held his lantern so that she could see the face while she groaned out,
"Poor soul." And thus they worked their sad way up to the buildings
about the water mill. There was a shed through the chinks of which light
could be seen, and at the door of which a soldier exclaimed--

"Have ye more wounded, Sam? There's no room for a dog in here. They lie
as thick as herrings in a barrel."

"Nay, 'tis a poor country woman come to look for her son. What's his
name? Is there a malignant here of the name of Harry Lakin?"

The question was repeated, and a cry of gladness, "Mother! mother!"
ended in a shriek of pain in the distance within.

"Aye, get you in, mother, get you in. A woman here will be all the
better, be she who she may."

The permission was not listened to. Nanny had already sprung into the
midst of the mass of suffering towards the bloody straw where her son
was lying.

Steadfast, who had of course looked most anxiously at each of the still
forms on the way, now ventured to say:--

"So please you, sir, would you ask after one Jephthah Kenton? On your
own side, sir, in Captain Venn's troop? I am his brother."

"Oh, ho! you are of the right sort, eh?" said the soldier. "Jephthah
Kenton. D'ye know aught of him, Joe?"

"I heard him answer to the roll call before Venn's troop went off to
quarters," replied the other man. "He is safe and sound, my lad, and
Venn's own orderly."

Steadfast's heart bounded up. He longed still to know whether poor Harry
Lakin was in very bad case, but it was impossible to get in to discover,
and he was pushed out of the way by a party carrying in another wounded
man, whose moans and cries were fearful to listen to. He thought it
would be wisest to make the best of his way home to Patience, and set
her likewise at rest, for who could tell what she might not have heard.

The moon was shining brightly enough to make his way plain, but the
scene around was all the sadder and more ghastly in that pallid light,
which showed out the dark forms of man and horse, and what was worse the
white faces turned up, and those dark pools in which once or twice he
had slipped as he saw or fancied he saw movements that made him shudder,
while a poor dog on the other side of the stream howled piteously from
time to time.

Presently, as he came near a hawthorn bush which cast a strangely shaped
shadow, he heard a sobbing--not like the panting moan of a wounded man,
but the worn out crying of a tired child. He thought some village little
one must have wandered there, and been hemmed in by the fight, and he
called out--

"Is anyone there?"

The sobbing ceased for a moment and he called again, "Who is it? I won't
hurt you," for something white seemed to be squeezing closer into the
bush.

"Who are you for?" piped out a weak little voice.

"I'm no soldier," said Steadfast. "Come out, I'll take you home
by-and-by."

"I have no home!" was the answer. "I want father."

Steadfast was now under the tree, and could see that it was a little
girl who was sheltering there of about the same size as Rusha. He tried
to take her hand, but she backed against the tree, and he repeated "Come
along, I wouldn't hurt you for the world. Who is your father? Where
shall we find him?"

"My father is Serjeant Gaythorn of Sir Harry Blythedale's troopers,"
said the child, somewhat proudly, then starting again, "You are not a
rebel, are you?"

"No, I am a country lad," said Steadfast; "I want to help you. Come, you
can't stay here."

For the little hand she had yielded to him was cold and damp with the
September dews. His touch seemed to give her confidence, and when he
asked, "Can't I take you to your mother?" she answered--

"Mother's dead! The rascal Roundheads shot her over at Naseby."

"Poor child! poor child!" said Steadfast. "And you came on with your
father."

"Yes, he took me on his horse over the water, and told me to wait by the
bush till he came or sent for me, but he has not come, and the firing is
over and it is dark, and I'm so hungry."

Steadfast thought the child had better come home with him, but she
declared that father would come back for her. He felt convinced that
her father, if alive, must be in Bristol, and that he could hardly come
through the enemy's outposts, and he explained to her this view. To
his surprise she understood in a moment, having evidently much more
experience of military matters than he had, and when he further told
her that Hodge was at Elmwood, and would no doubt rejoin his regiment
at Bristol the next day, she seemed satisfied, and with the prospect of
supper before her, trotted along, holding Steadfast's hand and munching
a crust which he had found in his pouch, the remains of the interrupted
meal, but though at first it seemed to revive her a good deal, the poor
little thing was evidently tired out, and she soon began to drag, and
fret, and moan. The three miles was a long way for her, and tired as he
was, Steadfast had to take her on his back, and when at last he reached
home, and would have set her down before his astonished sisters, she was
fast asleep with her head on his shoulder.




CHAPTER XI. THE FORTUNES OF WAR.


     "Hear and improve, he pertly cries,
      I come to make a nation wise."
                                    GAY


Very early in the morning, before indeed anyone except Patience was
stirring, Steadfast set forth in search of Roger Fitter to consult him
about the poor child who was fast asleep beside Jerusha; and propose to
him to take her into Bristol to find her father.

Hodge, who had celebrated his return by a hearty supper with his
friends, was still asleep, and his mother was very unwilling to call
him, or to think of his going back to the wars. However, he rolled down
the cottage stair at last, and the first thing he did was to observe--

"Well, mother, how be you? I felt like a boy again, waking up in the old
chamber. Where's my back and breast-piece? Have you a cup of ale, while
I rub it up?"

"Now, Hodge, you be not going to put on that iron thing again, when
you be come back safe and sound from those bloody wars?" entreated his
mother.

"Ho, ho! mother, would you have me desert? No, no! I must to my colours
again, or Sir George and my lady might make it too hot to hold you here.
Hollo, young one, Stead Kenton, eh? Didst find thy brother? No, I'll be
bound. The Roundhead rascals have all the luck."

"I found something else," said Steadfast, and he proceeded to tell about
the child while Dame Fitter stood by with many a pitying "Dear heart!"
and "Good lack!"

Hodge knew Serjeant Gaythorn, and knew that the poor man's wife had been
shot dead in the flight from Naseby; but he demurred at the notion
of encumbering himself with the child when he went into the town. He
suspected that he should have much ado to get in himself, and if he
could not find her father, what could he do with her?

Moreover, he much doubted whether the serjeant was alive. He had been
among those on whom the sharpest attack had fallen, and not many of them
had got off alive.

"What like was he?" said Steadfast. "We looked at a many of the poor
corpses that lay there. They'll never be out of my eyes again at night!"

"A battlefield or two would cure that," grimly smiled Hodge.
"Gaythorn--he was a man to know again--had big black moustaches, and
had lost an eye, had a scar like a weal from a whip all down here from a
sword-cut at Long Marston."

"Then I saw him," said Stead, in a low voice. "Did he wear a green
scarf?"

"Aye, aye. Belonged to the Rangers, but they are pretty nigh all gone
now."

"Under the rail of the miller's croft," added Stead.

"Just so. That was where I saw them make a stand and go down like
skittles."

"Poor little maid. What shall I tell her?"

"Well, you can never be sure," said Hodge. "There was a man now I
thought as dead as a door nail at Newbury that charged by my side only
yesterday. You'd best tell the maid that if I find her father I'll send
him after her; and if not, when the place is quiet, you might look at
the mill and see if he is lying wounded there."

Steadfast thought the advice good, and it saved him from what he had no
heart to do, though he could scarcely doubt that one of those ghastly
faces had been the serjeant's.

When he approached his home he was surprised to hear, through the
copsewood, the sound of chattering, and when he came in sight of the
front of the hut, he beheld Patience making butter with the long handled
churn, little Ben toddling about on the grass, and two little girls
laughing and playing with all the poultry round them.

One, of course, was stout, ruddy, grey-eyed Rusha, in her tight round
cap, and stout brown petticoat with the homespun apron over it;
the other was like a fairy by her side; slight and tiny, dressed in
something of mixed threads of white and crimson that shone in the
sun, with a velvet bodice, a green ribbon over it, and a gem over the
shoulder that flashed in the sun, a tiny scarlet hood from which such
a quantity of dark locks streamed as to give something the effect of a
goldfinch's crown, and the face was a brilliant little brown one, with
glowing cheeks, pretty little white teeth, and splendid dark eyes.

Patience could have told that this bright array was so soiled, rumpled,
ragged, and begrimed, that she hardly liked to touch it, but to
Steadfast, who had only seen the child in the moonlight, she was a
wonderful vision in the morning sunshine, and his heart was struck with
a great pity at her clear, merry tones of laughter.

As he appeared in the open space, Toby running before him, the little
girl looked up and rushed to him crying out--

"It's you. Be you the country fellow who took me home? Where's father?"

Stead was so sorry for her that he took her up in his arms and said--

"Hodge Fitter is gone into town to look for him, my pretty. You must
wait here till he comes for you," and he would have kissed her, but she
turned her head away, pouted, and said, "I didn't give you leave to do
that, you lubber lad."

Steadfast was much diverted. He was now a tall sturdy youth of sixteen,
in a short smock frock, long leathern gaiters, and a round straw hat
of Patience's manufacture, and he felt too clumsy for the dainty little
being, whom he hastened to set on her small feet--in once smart but very
dilapidated shoes. His sisters were somewhat shocked at her impertinence
and Rusha breathed out "Oh--!"

"I am to wait here for Serjeant Gaythorn," observed the little damsel
somewhat consequentially. "Well! it is a strange little makeshift of a
place, but 'tis the fortune of war, and I have been in worse."

"It is beautiful!" said Rusha, "now we have got a glass window--and
a real door--and beds--" all which recent stages in improvement she
enumerated with a gasp of triumph and admiration between each.

"So you think," said little Mistress Gaythorn. "But I have lived in a
castle."

She was quite ready to tell her history. Her name was Emlyn, and the
early part of the eight years of her life had been spent at Sir Harry
Blythedale's castle, where her father had been butler and her mother my
lady's woman. Sir Harry had gone away to the wars, and in his absence
my lady had held out the castle (perhaps it was only a fortified house)
against General Waller, hoping and hoping in vain for Lord Goring to
come to her relief.

"That was worst of all," said Emlyn, "we had to hide in the cellars when
they fired at us--and broke all the windows, and a shot killed my
poor dear little kitten because she wouldn't stay down with me. And
we couldn't get any water, except by going out at night; young Master
George was wounded at the well. And they only gave us a tiny bit of
dry bread and salt meat every day, and it made little Ralph sick and he
died. And at last there was only enough for two days more--and a great
breach--that's a hole," she added condescendingly,--"big enough to drive
my lady's coach-and-six through in the court wall. So then my lady
sent out Master Steward with one of the best napkins on the end of a
stick--that was a flag of truce, you know--and all the rascal Roundheads
had to come in, and we had to go out, with only just what we could
carry. My lady went in her coach with Master George, because he was
hurt, and the young ladies, and some of the maids went home; but the
most of us kept with my lady, to guard her to go to his Honour and the
King at Oxford. Father rode big Severn, and mother was on a pillion
behind him, with baby in her arms, and I sat on a cushion in front."

After that, it seemed that my lady had found a refuge among her kindred,
but that the butler had been enrolled in his master's troop of horse,
and there being no separate means of support for his wife and children,
they had followed the camp, a life that Emlyn had evidently enjoyed,
although the baby died of the exposure. She had been a great pet and
favourite with everybody, and no doubt well-cared for even after the sad
day when her mother had perished in the slaughter at Naseby. Patience
wondered what was to become of the poor child, if her father never
appeared to claim her; but it was no time to bring this forward, for
Steadfast, as soon as he had swallowed his porridge, had to go off to
finish his day's labour for the lady of the manor, warning his sisters
that they had better keep as close as they could in the wood, and not
let the cattle stray out of their valley.

He had not gone far, however, before he met a party of his fellow
labourers running home. Their trouble had been saved them. The Roundhead
soldiers had taken possession of waggons, horses, corn and all, as the
property of a malignant, and were carrying them off to their camp before
the town.

Getting up on a hedge, Stead could see these strange harvestmen loading
the waggons and driving them off. He also heard that Sir George had
come late in the evening, and taken old Lady Elmwood and several of the
servants into Bristol for greater safety. Then came the heavy boom of a
great gun in the distance.

"The Parliament men are having their turn now--as the King's men had
before," said Gates.

And all who had some leisure--or made it--went off to the church tower
to get a better view of the white tents being set up outside the city
walls, and the compact bodies of troops moving about as if impelled by
machinery, while others more scattered bustled like insects about the
camp.

Steadfast, however, went home, very anxious about his own three cows,
and seven sheep with their lambs, as well as his small patches of corn,
which, when green, had already only escaped being made forage of by the
Royalist garrison, because he was a tenant of the loyal Elmwoods. These
fields were exposed, though the narrow wooded ravine might protect the
small homestead and the cattle.

He found his new guest very happy cracking nuts, and expounding to Rusha
what kinds of firearms made the various sounds they heard. Patience had
made an attempt to get her to exchange her soiled finery for a sober
dress of Rusha's; but "What shall I do, Stead?" said the grave
elder sister, "I cannot get her to listen to me, she says she is
no prick-eared Puritan, but truly she is not fit to be seen." Stead
whistled. "Besides that she might bring herself and all of us into
danger with those gewgaws."

"That's true," said Stead. "Look you here, little maid--none can say
whether some of the rebel folk may find their way here, and they don't
like butterflies of your sort, you know. If you look a sober little
brown bee like Rusha here, they will take no notice, but who knows what
they might do it they found you in your bravery."

"Bravery," thought Patience, "filthy old rags, me seems," but she had
the prudence not to speak, and Emlyn nodded her head, saying, "I'll do
it for you, but not for her."

And when all was done, and she was transformed into a little
russet-robed, white-capped being, nothing would serve her, but to
collect all the brightest cranesbill flowers she could find, and stick
them in her own bodice and Rusha's.

Patience could not at all understand the instinct for bright colours,
but even little Ben shouted "Pretty, pretty."

Perhaps it was well that the delicate pink blossoms were soon faded and
crushed, and that twilight veiled their colours, for just as the cattle
were being foddered for the night, there was a gay step on the narrow
path, and with a start of terror, Patience beheld a tall soldier, in
tall hat, buff coat, and high boots before her; while Growler made a
horrible noise, but Toby danced in a rapture of delight.

"Ha! little Patience, is't thou?"

"Jephthah," she cried, though the voice as well as the form were greatly
changed in these two years between boyhood and manhood.

"Aye, Jephthah 'tis," he said, taking her hand, and letting her kiss
him. "My spirit was moved to come and see how it was with you all, and
to shew how Heaven had prospered me, so I asked leave of absence
after roll-call, and could better be spared, as that faithful man,
Hold-the-Faith Jenkins, will exhort the men this night. I came up by
Elmwood to learn tidings of you. Ha, Stead! Thou art grown, my lad. May
you be as much grown in grace."

"You are grown, too," said Patience, almost timidly. "What a man you
are, Jeph! Here, Rusha, you mind Jeph, and here is little Benoni."

"You have reared that child, then," said Jeph, as the boy clung to his
sister's skirts, "and you have kept things together, Stead, as I hardly
deemed you would do, when I had the call to the higher service." It was
an odd sort of call, but there was no need to go into that matter, and
Stead answered gravely, "Yes, I thank God. He has been very good to us,
and we have fared well. Come in, Jeph, and see, and have something to
eat! I am glad you are come home at last."

Jephthah graciously consented to enter the low hut. He had to bend his
tall figure and take off his steeple-crowned hat before he could enter
at the low doorway, and then they saw his closely cropped head.

Patience tarried a moment to ask Rusha what had become of Emlyn.

"She is hiding in the cow shed," was the answer. "She ran off as soon as
she saw Jeph coming, and said he was a crop-eared villain."

This was not bad news, and they all entered the hut, where the fire was
made up, and one of Patience's rush candles placed on the table with
a kind of screen of plaited rushes to protect it from the worst of the
draught. Jeph had grown quite into a man in the eyes of his brothers
and sisters. He looked plump and well fed, and his clothes were good and
fresh, and his armour bright, a contrast to Steadfast's smock, stained
with weather and soil, and his rough leathern leggings, although
Patience did her best, and his shirt was scrupulously clean every Sunday
morning.

The soldier was evidently highly satisfied. "So, children, you have done
better than I could have hoped. This hovel is weather-tight and quite
fit to harbour you. You have done well to keep together, and it is well
said that he who leaves all in the hands of a good Providence shall have
his reward."

Jeph's words were even more sacred than these, and considerably overawed
Patience, who, as he sat before her there in his buff coat and belt,
laying down the law in pious language, was almost persuaded to believe
that their present comfort and prosperity (such as it was) was owing to
the faith which he said had led to his desertion of his family, though
she had always thought it mere impatience of home work fired by revenge
for his father's death.

No doubt he believed in this reward himself, in his relief at finding
his brothers and sisters all together and not starving, and considered
their condition a special blessing due to his own zeal, instead of to
Steadfast's patient exertion.

He was much more disposed to talk of himself and the mercies he had
received, but which the tone of his voice showed him to consider as
truly his deserts. Captain Venn had, it seemed, always favoured him from
the time of his enlistment and nothing but his youth prevented him from
being a corporal. He had been in the two great battles of Marston Moor
and Naseby, and come off unhurt from each, and moreover grace had been
given him to interpret the Scriptures in a manner highly savoury and
inspiriting to the soldiery.

Here Patience, in utter amaze, could not help crying out "Thou, Jeph!
Thou couldst not read without spelling, and never would."

He waved his hand. "My sister, what has carnal learning to do with
grace?" And taking a little black Bible from within his breastplate, he
seemed about to give them a specimen, when Emlyn's impatience and hunger
no doubt getting the better of her prudence, she crept into the room,
and presently was seen standing by Steadfast's knee, holding out her
hand for some of the bread and cheese on the table.

[Illustration: Finding of Emlyn]

"And who is this little wench?" demanded Jeph, somewhat displeased
that his brother manifested a certain inattention to his exhortation
by signing to Patience to supply her wants. Stead made unusual haste to
reply to prevent her from speaking.

"She is biding with us till she can join her father, or knows how it is
with him."

"Humph! She hath not the look of one of the daughters of our people."

"Nay," said Steadfast. "I went down last night to the mill, Jeph, to see
whether perchance you might be hurt and wanting help, and after I had
heard that all was well with you, I lighted on this poor little maid
crouching under a bush, and brought her home with me for pity's sake
till I could find her friends."

"The child of a Midianitish woman!" exclaimed Jeph, "one of the Irish
idolaters of whom it is written, 'Thou shalt smite them, and spare
neither man, nor woman, infant, nor suckling.'" "But I am not Irish,"
broke out Emlyn, "I am from Worcestershire. My father is Serjeant
Gaythorn, butler to Sir Harry Blythedale. Don't let him kill me," she
cried in an access of terror, throwing herself on Steadfast's breast.

"No, no. He would not harm thee, on mine hearth. Fear not, little one,
he _shall_ not."

"Nay," said Jephthah, who, to do him justice, had respected the rights
of hospitality enough not to touch his weapon even when he thought
her Irish, "we harm not women and babes save when they are even as the
Amalekites. Let my brother go, child. I touch thee not, though thou
be of an ungodly seed; and I counsel thee, Steadfast, touch not the
accursed thing, but rid thyself thereof, ere thou be defiled."

"I shall go so soon as father comes," exclaimed Emlyn. "I am sure I
do not want to stay in this mean, smoky hovel a bit longer than I can
help."

"Such are the thanks of the ungodly people," said Jeph, gravely rising.
"I must be on my way back. We are digging trenches about this great
city, assuredly believing that it shall be delivered into our hands."

"Stay, Jeph," said Patience. "Our corn! Will your folk come and cart it
away as they have done my lady's?"

"The spoil of the wicked is delivered over to the righteous," said Jeph.
"But seeing that the land is mine, a faithful servant of the good cause,
they may not meddle therewith."

"How are they to know that?" said Steadfast, not stopping to dispute
what rather startled him, since though Jeph was the eldest son, the land
had been made over to himself. To save the crop was the point.

"Look you here," said Jeph, "walk down with me to my good Captain's
quarters, and he will give you a protection which you may shew to any
man who dares to touch aught that is ours, be it corn or swine, ox or
ass."

It was a long walk, but Steadfast was only too glad to take it for the
sake of such security, and besides, there was a real pleasure in being
with Jeph, little as he seemed like the same idle, easy-going brother,
except perhaps in those little touches of selfishness and boastfulness,
which, though Stead did not realise them, did recall the original Jeph.

All through the moonlight walk Jeph expounded his singular mercies,
which apparently meant his achievements in killing Cavaliers, and the
commendations given to him. One of these mercies was the retention of
the home and land, though he kindly explained that his brothers and
sisters were welcome to get their livelihood there whilst he was serving
with the army, but some day he should come home "as one that divideth
the spoil," and build up the old house, unless, indeed, and he glanced
towards the sloping woods of Elmwood Manor, "the house and fields of the
malignants should be delivered to the faithful."

"My lady's house," said Steadfast under his breath.

"Wherefore not? Is it not written 'Goodly houses that ye builded not.'
Thou must hear worthy Corporal Hold-the-Faith expound the matter, my
brother."

They crossed the ferry and reached the outposts at last, and Stead was
much startled when the barrel of a musquet gleamed in the moonlight, and
a gruff voice said "Stand."

"The jawbone of an ass," promptly answered Jephthah.

"Pass, jawbone of an ass," responded the sentry, "and all's well. But
who have you here, comrade!"

Jeph explained, and they passed up the narrow lane, meeting at the end
of it another sentinel, with whom the like watchword was exchanged, and
then they came out on a large village green, completely changed from its
usual aspect by rows of tents, on which the moonlight shone, while Jeph
seemed to know his way through them as well as if he were in the valley
of Elmwood. Most of the men seemed to be asleep, for snores issued
from sundry tents. In others there were low murmurings, perhaps of
conversation, perhaps of prayer, for once Stead heard the hum of an
"Amen." One or two men were about, and Jeph enquired of one if the
Captain were still up, and heard that he was engaged in exercise with
the godly Colonel Benbow.

Their quarters were in one of the best houses of the little village,
where light gleamed from the window, and an orderly stood within the
door, to whom Jeph spoke, and who replied that they were just in time.
In fact two officers in broad hats and cloaks were just coming out,
and Stead admired Jeph's military salute to them ere he entered the
farmhouse kitchen, where two more gentlemen sat at the table with a
rough plan of the town laid before them.

"Back again, Kenton," said his captain in a friendly tone. "Hast heard
aught of thy brethren?"

"Yes, sir, I have found them well and in good heart, and have brought
one with me."

"A helper in the good cause? Heaven be gracious to thee, my son. Thou
art but young, yet strength is vouchsafed to the feeble hands."

"Please, sir," said Steadfast, who was twisting his hat about, "I've got
to mind the others, and work for them."

"Yea, sir," put in Jeph, "there be three younger at home whom he cannot
yet leave. I brought him, sir, to crave from you a protection for the
corn and cattle that are in a sort mine own, being my father's eldest
son. They are all the poor children have to live on."

"Thou shalt have it," said the captain, drawing his writing materials
nearer to him. "There, my lad. It may be thou dost serve thy Maker as
well by the plough as by the sword."

Steadfast pulled his forelock, thanked the captain, was reminded of the
word for the night, and safely reached home again.




CHAPTER XII. FAREWELL TO THE CAVALIERS.

[Illustration: Farewell To The Cavaliers]


     "If no more our banners shew
      Battles won and banners taken,
      Still in death, defeat, and woe,
      Ours be loyalty unshaken."
                                 SCOTT


The next day the whole family turned out to gather in the corn. Rusha
was making attempts at reaping, while Emlyn played with little Ben, who
toddled about, shouting and chasing her in and out among the shocks. Now
and again they paused at the low, thunderous growl of the great guns
in the distance, in strange contrast to their peaceful work, and once a
foraging party of troopers rode up to the gate of the little field, but
Steadfast met them there, and showed the officer Captain Venn's paper.

"So you belong to Kenton of Venn's Valiants? It is well. A blessing on
your work!" said the stern dark-faced officer, and on he went, happily
not seeing Emlyn make an ugly face and clench her little fist behind
him.

"How can you, Stead?" she cried. "I'd rather be cursed than blessed by
such as he!"

Stead shook his head slowly. "A blessing is better than a curse any
way," said he, but his mind was a good deal confused between the piety
and good conduct of these Roundheads, in contrast with their utter
contempt of the Church, and rude dealing with all he had been taught to
hold sacred.

His harvest was, however, the matter in hand, and the little patch of
corn was cut and bound between him and his sisters, without further
interruption. The sounds of guns had ceased early in the day, and a
neighbour who had ventured down to the camp to offer some apples for
sale leant over the gate to wonder at the safety of the crop, "though to
be sure the soldiers were very civil, if they would let alone preaching
at you;" adding that there was like to be no more fighting, for one of
the gentlemen inside had ridden out with a white flag, and it was said
the Prince was talking of giving in.

"Give in!" cried Emlyn setting her teeth. "Never. The Prince will soon
make an end of the rebels, and then I shall ride-a-cock horse with our
regiment again! I shall laugh to see the canting rogues run!"

But the first thing Steadfast heard the next day was that the royal
standard had come down from the Cathedral tower. He had gone up to
Elmwood to get some provisions, and Tom Oates, who spent most of his
time in gazing from the steeple, assured him that if he would come up,
he would see for himself that the flags were changed. Indeed some of the
foot soldiers who had been quartered in the village to guard the roads
had brought the certain tidings that the city had surrendered and that
the malignants, as they called the Royalists, were to march out that
afternoon, by the same road as that by which the parliamentary army had
gone out two years before.

This would be the only chance for Emlyn to rejoin her father or to
learn his fate. The little thing was wild with excitement at the news.
Disdainfully she tore off what she called Rusha's Puritan rags, though
as that offended maiden answered "her own were _real_ rags in spite
of all the pains Patience had taken with them. Nothing would make them
tidy," and Rusha pointed to a hopeless stain and to the frayed edges
past mending.

"I hate tidiness. Only Puritan rebels are tidy!"

"We are not Puritans!" cried Rusha.

Emlyn laughed. "Hark at your names," she said. "And what's that great
rebel rogue of a brother of yours?"

"Oh! he is Jeph! He ran away to the wars! But Stead isn't a Puritan,"
cried Rusha, growing more earnest. "He always goes to church--real
church down in Bristol. And poor father was churchmartin, and knew all
the parson's secrets."

"Hush, Rusha," said Patience, not much liking this disclosure, however
Jerusha might have come by the knowledge, "you and Emlyn don't want to
quarrel when she is just going to say good-bye!"

This touched the little girls. Rusha had been much enlivened by the
little fairy who had seen so much of the world, and had much more
playfulness than the hard-worked little woodland maid; and Emlyn, who
in spite of her airs, knew that she had been kindly treated, was drawn
towards a companion of her own age, was very fond of little Ben, and
still more so of Steadfast.

Ben cried, "Em not go;" and Rusha held her hand and begged her not to
forget.

"O no, I won't forget you," said Emlyn, "and when we come back with the
King and Prince, and drive the Roundhead ragamuffins out of Bristol,
then I'll bring Stead a protection for Croppie and Daisy and all, a
silver bodkin for you, and a Flanders lace collar for Patience, and a
gold chain for Stead, and--But oh! wasn't that a trumpet? Stead! Stead!
We must go, or we shall miss them." Then as she hugged and kissed them,
"I'll tell Sir Harry and my lady how good you have been to me, and get
my lady to make you a tirewoman, Rusha. And dear, dear little Ben shall
be a king's guard all in gold."

Ben had her last smothering kiss, and Rusha began to cry and sob as the
gay little figure, capering by Stead's side, disappeared between
the stems of the trees making an attempt, which Steadfast instantly
quenched, at singing,

               "The king shall enjoy his own again."

Patience did not feel disposed to cry. She liked the child, and was
grieved to think what an uncertain lot was before the merry little
being, but her presence had made Rusha and Ben more troublesome than
they had ever been in their lives before, and there was also the anxiety
lest her unguarded tongue should offend Jeph and his friends.

Emlyn skipped along by Steadfast's side, making him magnificent
promises. They paused by the ruins of the farm where Stead still kept up
as much of the orchard and garden as he could with so little time and
so far from home, and Emlyn filled her skirt with rosy-cheeked apples,
saying in a pretty gentle manner, "they were such a treat to our poor
rogues on a dusty march," and Stead aided her by carrying as many as he
could.

However, an occasional bugle note, clouds of dust on the road far below
in the valley, and a low, dull tramp warned them to come forward, and
station themselves in the hedge above the deep lane where Steadfast had
once watched for his brother. Only a few of the more adventurous village
lads were before them now, and when Stead explained that the little
wench wanted to watch for her father, they were kind in helping him to
perch her in the hollow of a broken old pollard, where she could see,
and not be seen. For the poor camp maiden knew the need of caution. She
drew Steadfast close to her, and bade him not show himself till she
told him, for some of the wilder sort would blaze away their pistols
at anything, especially when they had had any good ale, or were out of
sorts.

Poor fellows, there was no doubt of their being out of sorts, as they
tramped along, half hidden in dust, even the officers, who rode before
them, with ragged plumes and slouched hats. The silken banners, which
they had been allowed to carry out, because of their prompt surrender,
hung limp and soiled, almost like tokens of a defeat, and if any one
of those spectators behind the hawthorns had been conversant with Roman
history, it would have seemed to them like the passing under the yoke,
so dejected, nay, ashamed was the demeanour of the gentlemen. Emlyn
whispered name after name as they went by, but even she was hushed and
overawed by the spectacle, as four abreast these sad remnants of the
royal army marched along the lane, one or two trying to whistle, a few
more talking in under tones, but all soon dying away, as if they were
too much out of heart to keep anything up.

She scarcely stirred while the infantry, who were by far the most
numerous, were going by, only naming corps or officer to Stead, then
there came an interval, and the tread of horses and clank of their
trappings could be heard. Then she almost forgot her precautions in her
eagerness to crane forward. "They are coming!" she said. "All there are
of them will be a guard for the Prince."

Stead felt a strange thrill of pain as he remembered the terrible scene
when he had last beheld that tall, slight young figure, and dark face,
now far sterner and sadder than in those early days, as Rupert went to
meet the bitterest hour of his life.

Several gentlemen rode with him, whom Emlyn named as his staff, and
then came more troopers, not alike in dress, being, in fact, remnants of
shattered regiments. She was trembling all over with eagerness, standing
up, and so leaning forward, that she might have tumbled into the lane,
had not Steadfast held her.

At last came a scream. "There's Sir Harry! There's Dick! There's
Staines! Oh! Dick, Dick, where's father?"

There was a halt, and bronzed faces looked up.

"Ha! Who's there?"

"I! I! Emlyn. Oh! Dick, is father coming?"

"Hollo, little one! Art thou safe after all?"

"I am, I am. Father! father! Come! Where is he?"

"It is poor Gaythorn's little wench," explained one of the soldiers, as
Sir Harry, a grey-haired man, looking worn and weary, turned back, while
Steadfast helped the child out on the bank with some difficulty, for
her extreme haste had nearly brought her down, and she stood curtseying,
holding out her arms, and quivering with hope that began to be fear.

"Poor child!" were the old gentleman's first words. "And where were
you?"

"Please your honour, father left me in the thorn brake," said Emlyn,
"and said he would come for me, but he did not; it got dark, and this
country lad found me, and took me home. Is father coming, your honour?"

"Ah! my poor little maid, your father will never come again," said Sir
Harry, sadly. "He went down by the mill stream. I saw him fall. What is
to be done for her?" he added, turning to a younger gentleman, who rode
by him, as the child stood as it were stunned for a moment. "This is the
worst of it all. Heaven knows we freely sacrifice ourselves in the cause
of Church and King, but it is hard to sacrifice others. Here are these
faithful servants, their home broken up with ours, their children dying,
and themselves killed--she, by the brutes after Naseby, he, in this last
skirmish. 'Tis enough to break a man's heart. And what is to become of
this poor little maid?"

"Oh! I'll go with your honour," cried Emlyn, stretching out her arms.
"I can ride behind Dick, and I'll give no one any trouble. Oh! take me,
sir."

"It cannot be done, my poor child," said Sir Harry. "We have no women
with us now, and we have to make our way to Newark by forced marches to
His Majesty. I have no choice but to bestow you somewhere till better
times come. Hark you, my good lad, she says you found her, and have been
good to her. Would your mother take charge of her? I'll leave what I can
with you, and when matters are quiet, my wife, or the child's kindred,
will send after her. Will your father and mother keep her for the
present?"

"I have none," said Steadfast. "My father was killed in his own yard by
some soldiers who wanted to drive our cows. Mother had died before, but
my sister and I made a shift to take care of the little ones in a poor
place of our own."

"And can you take the child in? You seem a good lad."

"We will do our best for her, sir."

"What's your name?" and "Where do you live?" followed. And as Steadfast
replied the old Cavalier took out his tablets and noted them, adding,
"Then you and your sister will be good to her till we can send after
her."

"We will treat her like our little sister, sir."

"And here's something for her keep for the present, little enough I am
afraid, but we poor Cavaliers have not much left. The King's men
were well to do when I heard last of them, and they will make it up
by-and-by. Or if not, my boy, can you do this for the love of God?"

"Yes, sir," said Steadfast, looking up with his honest eyes, and
touching his forelock at the holy Name.

"Here, then," and Sir Harry held out two gold pieces, to which his
companion added one, and two or three of the troopers, saying something
about poor Gaythorn's little maid, added some small silver coins. There
was something in Steadfast's mind that would have preferred declining
all payment, but he was a little afraid of Patience's dismay at having
another mouth to provide for all the winter, and he thought too that
Jeph's anger at the adoption of the Canaanitish child might be averted
if it were a matter of business and payment, so he accepted the sum,
thanked Sir Harry and the rest, and renewed his promise to do the best
in his power for the little maiden. He rather wondered that no questions
were asked as to which side he held; but Sir Harry had no time to
inquire, and could only hope that the honest, open face, respectful
manner, clean dress, and the kindness which had rescued the child on
the battlefield were tokens that he might be trusted to take care of
the poor little orphan. Besides, many of the country people were too
ignorant to understand the difference between the sides, but only took
part with their squire, or if they loved their clergyman, clung to him.
So the knight would not ask any questions, and only further called out
"Fare thee well, then, poor little maid, we will send after thee when
we can," and then giving a sharp, quick order, all the little party
galloped off to overtake the rest.

Emlyn had been bred up in too much awe of Sir Harry to make objections,
but as her friends rode off she gave a sharp shriek, screamed out one
name after another, and finally threw herself down on the road bank in a
wild passion of grief, anger, and despair, and when Steadfast would
have lifted her up and comforted her, she kicked and fought him away.
Presently he tried her again, begging her to come home.

"I won't! I won't go to your vile, tumble-down, roundhead, crop-eared
hole!" she sobbed out.

"But, Sir Harry--"

"I won't! I say."

He was at his wits' end, but after all, the sound of other steps coming
up startled her into composing herself and sitting up.

"Hollo, Stead Kenton! Got this little puppet on your hands?" said young
Gates. "Hollo, mistress, you squeal like a whole litter of pigs."

"I am to take charge of her till her friends can send for her," said
Stead, with protecting dignity.

"And that will be a long day! Ho, little wench, where didst get that
sweet voice?"

"Hush, Tom! the child has only just heard that her father is dead."

This silenced the other lads, and Emlyn's desire to get away from them
accomplished what Steadfast wished, she put her hand into his and let
him lead her away, and as there were sounds of another troop of cavalry
coming up the lane, the boys did not attempt to follow her. She made no
more resistance, though she broke into fresh fits of moaning and crying
all the way home, such as went to Steadfast's heart, though he could not
find a word to comfort her.

Patience was scarcely delighted when Rusha darted in, crying out that
Emlyn had come back again, but perhaps she was not surprised. She took
the poor worn-out little thing in her arms, and rocked her, saying kind,
tender little words, while Steadfast looked on, wondering at what girls
could do, but not speaking till, finding that Emlyn was fast asleep,
Patience laid her down on the bed without waking her, and then had time
to listen to Stead's account of the interview with Sir Harry Blythedale.

"I could not help it, Patience," he said, "we couldn't leave the poor
fatherless child out on the hedge-side."

"No," said Patience, "we can't but have her, as the gentleman said, for
the love of God. He has taken care of us, so we ought to take care of
the fatherless--like ourselves."

"That's right, Patience," said Steadfast, much relieved in his mind,
"and see here!"

"I wonder you took that, Stead, and the poor gentlemen so ill off
themselves."

"Well, Patience, I thought if you would not have her, Goody Grace might
for the pay, but then who knows when any more may come?"

"Aye," said Patience, "we must keep her, though she will be a handful.
Anyway, all this must be laid out for her, and the first chance I have,
some shall be in decent clothes. I can't a-bear to see her in those
dirty gewgaws."




CHAPTER XIII. GODLY VENN'S TROOP.


     "Ye abbeys and ye arches,
      Ye old cathedrals dear,
      The hearts that love you tremble,
      And your enemies have cheer."
                          BP. CLEVELAND COXE.


"What would Jeph say?" was the thought of both Steadfast and Patience,
as Emlyn ran about with Rusha and Ben, making herself tolerably happy
and enlivening them all a good deal. After one fight she found that she
must obey Patience, though she made no secret that she liked the sober
young mistress of the hut much less than the others, and could even
sometimes get Steadfast to think her hardly used, but he seldom showed
that feeling, for he had plenty of sense, and could not bear to vex his
sister; besides, he saw there would be no peace if her authority was not
supported. It was a relief that there was no visit from Jeph for some
little time, though the fighting was all over, and people were going in
and out of Bristol as before.

Stead took the donkey with the panniers full of apples and nuts on
market day, and a pile of fowls and ducks on its back, while he carried
a basket of eggs on his arm, and in his head certain instructions from
Patience about the grogram and linen he was to purchase for Emlyn, in
the hope of making her respectable before Jeph's eyes should rest upon
her. Stead's old customers were glad to see him again, especially Mrs.
Lightfoot, who had Dr. Eales once again in her back rooms, keeping
out of sight, while the good Dean was actually in prison for using the
Prayer-book. Three soldiers were quartered upon her at the Wheatsheaf,
and though, on the whole, they were more civil and much less riotous
than some of her Cavalier lodgers had been, she was always in dread of
their taking offence at the doctor and hauling him off to gaol.

Steadfast confided to her Patience's commission, which she undertook
to execute herself. It included a spinning-wheel, for Patience was
determined to teach Emlyn to spin, an art of which no respectable woman
from the Queen downwards was ignorant in those days. As to finding his
brother, the best way would be to ask the soldiers who were smoking in
the kitchen where he was likely to be.

They said that the faithful and valiant Jephthah Kenton of Venn's horse
would be found somewhere about the great steeple house, profanely
called the Cathedral, for there the troops were quartered; and thither
accordingly Stead betook himself, starting as he saw horses gearing or
being groomed on the sward in the close which had always been kept in
such perfect order. Having looked in vain outside for his brother, he
advanced into the building, but he had only just had a view of horses
stamping between the pillars, the floor littered down with straw, a
fire burning in one of the niches, and soldiers lying about, smoking or
eating, in all manner of easy, lounging attitudes, when suddenly there
was a shout of "Prelatist, Idolater, Baal-worshipper, Papist," and
to his horror he found it was all directed towards himself. They were
pointing to his head, and two of them had caught him by the shoulders,
when another voice rose "Ha! Let him alone. I say, Bill! Faithful! It's
my brother. He knows no better!" Then dashing up, Jeph rammed the great
hat down over Stead's brow, eyes and all, and called out, "Whoever
touches my brother must have at me first."

"There," said one of the others, "the old Adam need not be so fierce in
thee, brother Jephthah! No one wants to hurt the lad, young prelatist
though he be, so he will make amends by burning their superstitious
books on the fire, even as Jehu burnt the worshippers of Baal."

Steadfast felt somewhat as Christians of old may have felt when called
on to throw incense on the altar of Jupiter, as a handful of pages torn
from a Prayer-book was thrust into his hands. Words did not come
readily to him, but he shook his head and stood still, perhaps stolid in
resistance.

"Come," said Jeph, laying hold of his shoulder to drag him along.

"I cannot; 'tis Scripture," said Stead, as in his distress his eye fell
on the leaves in his hand, and he read aloud to prove it--

"Thy Word is a lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

There was one moment's pause. Perhaps the men had absolutely forgotten
how much of their cherished Bible was integral in the hated Prayer-book;
at any rate they were enough taken aback to enable Jeph to pull his
brother out at the door, not without a fraternal cuff or two, as he
exclaimed:

"Thou foolish fellow! ever running into danger for very dullness."

"What have I done, Jeph?" asked poor Stead, still bewildered.

"Done! Why, doffed thy hat, after the superstitious and idolatrous
custom of our fathers."

"How can it be idolatrous? 'Twas God's house," said Stead.

"Aye, there thou art in the gall of bitterness. Know'st thou not that no
house is more holy than another?" and Jeph would have gone on for
some time longer, but that he heard sounds which made him suspect
that someone had condemned the version of the Psalms as prelatical and
profane, and that his comrades might yet burst forth to visit their
wrath upon his young brother, whom he therefore proceeded to lead out
of sight as fast as possible into the Dean's garden, where he had the
entree as being orderly to Captain Venn, who, with other officers, abode
in the Deanery.

There, controversy being dropped for the moment, Stead was able to tell
his brother of his expedition, and how he had been obliged to keep the
child, for very pity's sake, even if her late father's master had not
begged him to do so, and given an earnest of the payment.

Jeph laughed a little scornfully at the notion of a wild Cavalier ever
paying, but he was not barbarous, and allowed that there was no choice
in the matter, as she could not be turned out to starve. When he heard
that Stead had come with market produce he was displeased at it not
having been brought up for the table of his officers, assuring Stead
that they were not to be confounded with the roistering, penniless
malignants, who robbed instead of paying. Stead said he always supplied
Mistress Lightfoot, but this was laughed to scorn. "The rulers of the
army of saints had a right to be served first, above all before one who
was believed to harbour the idolater, even the priest of the groves."

Jeph directed that the next supply should come to the Deanery, as one
who had the right of ownership, and Stead submitted, only with the
secret resolve that Dr. Eales should not want his few eggs nor his pat
of fresh butter.

Jeph was not unkind to Stead, and took him to dine with the other
attendants of the officers in the very stone hall where he had eaten
that Christmas dinner some twenty months before. There was a very
long grace pronounced extempore, and the guests were stout, resolute,
grave-looking men, who kept on their steeple-crowned hats all the
time and conversed in low, deep voices, chiefly, as far as Stead could
gather, on military matters, but they seemed to appreciate good beef and
ale quite as much as any Cavalier trooper could have done. One of them
noticing Stead asked whether he had come to take service with the saints
and enjoy their dominion, but Jeph answered for him that his call lay at
home among those of his own household, until his heart should be whole
with the cause.

On the whole Stead was proud to see Jeph holding his own, though the
youngest among these determined-looking men. These two years had made
a man of the rough, idle, pleasure-loving boy, and a man after the
Ironsides' fashion, grave, self-contained, and self-depending. Stead had
been more like the elder than the younger brother in old times, but he
felt Jeph immeasurably his elder in the new, unfamiliar atmosphere; and
yet the boy had a strong sense that all was not right; that these were
interlopers in the kind old Dean's house; that the talk about Baal was
mere absurdity; and the profanation of the Cathedral would have been
utterly shocking to his good father. His mind, however, worked slowly,
and he would have had nothing to say even if he could have ventured to
speak; but he was very anxious to get away; and when Jeph would have
kept him to hear the serjeant expound a chapter of Revelation, he
pleaded the necessity of getting home in time to milk the cows, and made
his escape.

On the whole it was a relief that Jeph was too much occupied with his
military duties to make visits to his home. It might not have been over
easy to keep the peace between him and Emlyn, fiery little Royalist as
she was, and too much used to being petted and fascinating everyone by
her saucy audacity to be likely to be afraid of him.

If Patience crossed her she would have recourse to Stead, and he could
seldom resist her coaxing, or be entirely disabused of the notion that
his sister expected too much of her. And perhaps it was true. Patience
was scarcely likely to understand differences of character and
temperament, and not merely to recollect that Emlyn was only eighteen
months younger than she had been when she had been forced into the
position of the house mother. So, while Emlyn's wayward fancies were a
great trial, Steadfast's sympathy with them was a greater one.

Stead continued to see Jeph when taking in the market produce, for which
he was always duly paid. Jeph also wished the whole family to come in
on Sunday to profit by the preaching of some of the great Independent
lights; but Stead, after trying it once, felt so sure that Patience
would be miserable at anything so unaccustomed, so thunderous, and, as
it seemed to him, so abusive, that he held to it that the distance was
too great, and that the cattle could not be left. The soldiery seemed to
him to spend their spare time in defacing the many churches of the city,
chiefly in order to do what they called purifying them from all idols,
in which term they included every sort of carving or picture, or even
figures on monuments.

And in this work of destruction a chest containing church plate had been
come upon, making their work greedy instead of only mischievous.

When all the churches in Bristol had been ransacked, they began to
extend their search to the parish churches in the neighbourhood, and
Stead began to be very anxious, though he hoped and believed that the
cave was a perfectly safe place.




CHAPTER XIV. THE QUESTION.


     "Dogged as does it."--TROLLOPE.


"Stead, Stead," cried Rusha, running up to him, as he was slowly digging
over his stubble field to prepare it for the next crop, "the soldiers
are in Elmwood."

"Yes," said Emlyn, coming up at the same time, "they are knocking about
everything in the church and pulling up the floor."

"Patience sent us to get some salt," explained Rusha, "and we saw them
from Dame Redman's door. She told us we had better be off and get home
as fast as we could."

"But I thought we would come and tell you," added Emlyn, "and then
you could get out the long gun and shoot them as they come into the
valley--that is if you can take aim--but I would load and show you how,
and then they would think it was a whole ambush of honest men."

"Aye, and kill us all--and serve us right," said Stead. "They don't
want to hurt us if we don't meddle with them. But there's a good wench,
Rusha, drive up the cows and sheep this way so that I can have an eye on
them, and shew Captain Venn's paper, if any of those fellows should take
a fancy to them."

"They are digging all over old parson's garden," said Rusha, as she
obeyed.

"Was Jeph there?" asked Stead.

"I didn't see him," said the child.

Steadfast was very uneasy. That turning up the parson's garden looked
as if they might be in search of the silver belonging to the Church, but
after all they were unlikely to connect him with it, and it was wiser
to go on with his regular work, and manifest no interest in the matter;
besides that, every spadeful he heaved up, every chop he gave the
stubble, seemed to be a comfort, while there was a prayer on his soul
all the time that he might be true to his trust.

By-and-by he saw Tom Oates running and beckoning to him, "Stead, Stead
Kenton, you are to come."

"What should I come for?" said Stead, gruffly.

"The soldiers want you."

"What call have they to me?"

"They be come to cleanse the steeple house, they says, and take the
spoil thereof, and they've been routling over the floor and parson's
garden like so many hogs, and are mad because they can't find nothing,
and Thatcher Jerry says, says he, 'Poor John Kenton as was shot was
churchwarden and was very great with Parson. If anybody knows where the
things is 'tis Steadfast Kenton.' So the corporal says, 'Is this so,
Jephthah Kenton?' and Jeph, standing up in his big boots, says, 'Aye,
corporal, my father was yet in the darkness of prelacy, and was what in
their blindness they call a Churchwarden, but as to my brother, that's
neither here nor there, he were but a boy and not like to know more than
I did.' But the corporal said, 'That we will see. Is the lad here?' So
I ups and said nay, but I'd seen you digging your croft, and then they
bade me fetch you. So you must come, willy-nilly, or they may send worse
after you."

Stead was a little consoled by hearing that his brother was there. He
suspected that Jeph would have consideration enough for his sisters and
for the property that he considered his own to be unwilling to show the
way to their valley; and he also reflected that it would be well that
whatever might happen to himself should be out of sight of his sisters.
Therefore he decided on following Oates, going through on the way the
whole question whether to deny all knowledge, and yet feeling that
the things belonging to God should not be shielded by untruth. His
resolution finally was to be silent, and let them make what they would
out of that, and Stead, though it was long since he had put it on, had a
certain sullen air of stupidity such as often belongs to such natures as
his, and which Jeph knew full well in him.

They came in sight of the village green where the soldiers were
refreshing themselves at what once had been the Elmwood Arms, for though
not given to excess, total abstinence formed no part of the discipline
of the Puritans; and one of the men started forward, and seizing hold of
Steadfast by the shoulder exclaimed--

"As I live, 'tis the young prelatist who bowed himself down in the house
of Rimmon! Come on, thou seed of darkness, and answer for thyself."

If he had only known it, he was making the part of dogged silence and
resistance infinitely easier to Steadfast by the rudeness and abuse,
which, even in a better cause, would have made it natural to him to act
as he was doing now, giving the soldier all the trouble of dragging him
onward and then standing with his hands in his pockets like an image of
obstinacy.

"Speak," said the corporal, "and it shall be the better for thee. Hast
thou any knowledge where the priests of Baal have bestowed the vessels
of their mockery of worship."

Stead moved not a muscle of his face. He had no acquaintance with
priests of Baal or their vessels, so that he was not in the least
bound to comprehend, and one of them exclaimed "The oaf knows not your
meaning, corporal. Speak plainer to his Somerset ears. He knows not the
tongue of the saints."

"Ho, then, thou child of darkness. Know'st thou where the mass-mongering
silver and gold of this church be hidden from them of whom it is written
'haste to the spoil.' Come, speak out. A crown if thou dost speak--the
lash if thou wilt not answer, thou dumb dog."

Stead was really not far removed from a dumb dog. All his faculties were
so entirely wrought up to resistance that he had hardly distinguished
the words.

"Come, come, Stead," said Jeph, "thou art too old for thine old sulky
moods. Speak up, and tell if thou know'st aught of the Communion Cup and
dish, or it will be the worse for thee. Yes or no?"

Stead made a move with his shoulder to push away his brother, and still
stood silent.

"There," said Jeph, "it is all Faithful's fault for his rough handling.
His back is set up. It was always so from a boy, and you'll get nought
out of him."

"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction
shall drive it far from him," quoted the Corporal, taking up a
waggoner's whip which stood by the inn door, and the like of which had
no doubt once been a more familiar weapon to him than the sword.

"Speak lad--or--" and as no speech came, the lash descended on Stead's
shoulders, not, however, hurting him much save where it grazed the skin
of his face.

"Now? Not a word? Take off his leathern coat, Faithful, then shall he
feel the reward of sullenness."

That Jeph did not interfere, while Faithful and another soldier tugged
off his leathern coat, buffeting and kicking him roughly as they did so,
brought additional hardness to Stead. He had been flogged in his time
before, and not without reason, and had taken a pride in not giving in,
or crying out for pain; and the ancient habit acquired in a worse cause,
came to his help. He scarcely recollected the cause of his resistance;
all his powers were concentrated in holding out, and when after another
"Now, vile prelatic spawn, is thy heart still hardened? Yes or no?" the
terrible whip came stinging and biting down on his shoulders and
back, only protected by his shirt, he was entirely bound up in the
determination to endure the pain without a groan or cry.

But after blows enough had fallen to mark the shirt with streaks of
blood, Jeph could bear it no longer.

"Hold!" he said. "You will never make him speak that way. Father and
mother never could. Strokes do but harden him."

"The sure token of a fool," said the corporal, and prepared for another
lash.

"'Tis plain he knows," said one of the others. "He would never stand
this if a word would save him."

"Mere malice and obstinacy," said Faithful, "and wilfulness. He will
not utter a word. I would beat it out of him, as I was wont with our old
ass."

Another stroke descended, worse than all the others after the brief
interval, but Jeph again spoke, "Look you, I know the lad of old and
you'll get no more that way than if you were flogging the sign-post
there. Whether he knows where the things are or not, the temper that is
in him will never answer while you beat him, were it to save his life.
Leave him to me, and I'll be bound to get an answer from him."

"And I am constable, and I must say," said Blacksmith Blane, moving
forwards, with a bar of iron in his hand, and four or five stout men
behind him, "that to come and abuse and flog a hard-working, fatherless
lad, that never did you no harm, nor anyone else, is not what honest men
look for from soldiers that talk so big about Parliament and rights and
what not!"

"'Twas for contumacy," began the corporal.

"Contumacy forsooth, as though 'twas the will of the honest gentlemen in
Parliament that boys should be misused for nothing at all!"

"If the young dog would have spoken," began the corporal, but somehow he
did not like the look of Blane's iron bar, and thought it best to look
up at the sun, and discover that it was time to depart if the party were
to be in time for roll-call. As it was a private marauding speculation,
it might not be well to have complaints made to Captain Venn, who never
sanctioned plunder nor unnecessary violence. Even Jeph had to march off,
and Steadfast, who had no mind to be pitied, nor asked by the neighbours
what was the real fact, had picked up his spade and jerkin, and was out
of sight while the villagers were watching the soldiers away.

The first thing he did was to give thanks in heart that he had been
aided thus far not to betray his trust, and then to feel that Corporal
Dodd's flogging was a far severer matter than the worst chastisement he
had ever received from his father, even when he kept Jeph's secret about
the stolen apples. Putting on his coat was impossible, and he was so
stiff and sore that he could not hope to conceal his condition from
Patience.

At home all were watching for him. They ran up in anxiety, for one
of the ever ready messengers of evil had rushed down the glen to tell
Patience that the soldiers were beating Stead shamefully, and Jeph
standing by not saying one word. Little Ben broke out with "Poor, poor!"
and Rusha burst into tears at sight of the blood, while Emlyn said "Just
what comes of going among the rascal Roundheads," and Patience looked up
at him and said "Was it--?" he nodded, and she quietly said "I'm glad."
He added, "Jeph's coming soon," and she knew that the trial was not
over. The brother and sister needed very few words to understand one
another, and they were afraid to say anything that the younger ones
could understand. Patience washed the weals with warm water and milk,
and wrapped a cloak round him, but even the next morning, he could not
use his arms without fresh bleeding, and the hindrance to the work
was serious. He could do nothing but herd the cattle, and he was much
inclined to drive them to the further end of the moorland where Jephthah
would hardly find him, but then he recollected that Patience would be
left to bear the brunt of the attack, so that he would not go far
off, never guessing, poor fellow, that in his dull, almost blundering
fashion, he was doing like the heroes and the martyrs, but only feeling
that he must keep his trust at all costs. Jeph, however, did not come
that day or the next, so that inwardly, the wound-up feeling had passed
into a weariness of expectation, and outwardly the stripes had healed
enough for Stead to go about his work as usual only a little stiffly.
He went into Bristol on market day as usual, and then it was, on his way
out that Jeph joined him, saying it was to bid Patience and the little
ones farewell, since the marching orders were for the morrow. He was
unusually kind and good-natured; he had a load of comfits for Rusha and
Ben, and a stout piece of woollen stuff for Patience which he said was
such as he was told godly maidens wore, and which possibly the terror of
his steel cap and corslet had cheapened at the mercer's; also he had
a large packet of tractates for Stead's own reading, and he enquired
whether they possessed a Bible.

Stead wondered whether all this was out of regret at the treatment he
had undergone, or whether it was to put him off his guard, and this
occupied him when Jeph began to preach, as he did uninterruptedly for
the last mile, without any of the sense, if there were any, reaching the
mind of the auditor.

They reached the hut, the gifts were displayed; and when the young ones,
who were all a little afraid of the elder brother, had gone off to feast
upon the sweets, Jeph began with enquiries after Steadfast's back, and
he replied that it was mending fast, while Patience exclaimed at the
cruelty and wickedness of so using him.

"Why wouldn't he speak then?" said Jeph. "Yea or nay would have ended it
in a moment, but that's Stead's way. He looks like it now!" and he did,
elbows on knees, and chin on hands.

"Come now, Stead, thou canst speak to me! Was it all because Faithful
hauled thee about?"

"He did, and he had no call to," said Stead, surlily.

"Well, that's true, but I'm not hauling thee. Tell me, Stead, I mind now
that thou wast out with father that last day ere the Parson was taken
to receive his deserts. I don't believe that even thy churlishness
would have stood such blows if thou hadst known naught of the idolatrous
vessels, and couldst have saved thy skin by saying so! No answer. Why,
what have these malignants done for thee that thou shouldst hold by
them? Slain thy father! Burnt thine house! No fault of theirs that thou
art alive this day! Canst not speak?"

Jeph's temper giving way at the provocation, he forgot his conciliatory
intentions and seizing Stead by the collar shook him violently. Growler
almost broke his chain with rage, Patience screamed and flew to the
rescue, just as she had often done when they were all children together,
and Jeph threw his brother from him so that he fell on the root of a
tree, and lay for a moment or two still, then picked himself up again
evidently with pain, though he answered Patience cheerfully that it was
nought.

"Thou art enough to drive a man mad with thy surly silence," exclaimed
Jeph, whom this tussle had rendered much more like his old self, "and
after all, knowing that even though thou art not one of the holy ones,
thou wilt not tell a lie, it comes to the same thing. I know thou
wottest where these things are, and it is only thy sullen scruples that
hinder thee from speaking. Nevertheless, I shall leave no stone unturned
till I find them! For what is written 'Thou shalt break down their
altars.'"

"Jeph," said Stead, firmly. "You left home because of your grief and
rage at father's death. Would you have me break the solemn charge he
laid on me?"

"Father was a good man after his light," said Jeph, a little staggered,
"but that light was but darkness, and we to whom the day itself is
vouchsafed are not bound by a charge laid on us in ignorance. Any
way, he laid no bonds on me, but I must needs leave thee alone in thy
foolishness of bondage! Come, Patience, wench, and aid me, I know
this rock is honeycombed with caves, like a rabbit warren, no place so
likely."

"I help thee--no indeed'" cried Patience. "Would I aid thee to do what
would most grieve poor father, that thou once mad'st such a work about!
I should be afraid of his curse."

Possibly if Jeph had not pledged himself to his comrades to overcome
his brother's resistance, and bring back the treasures, he might have
desisted; but what he did was to call to Rusha to bring him a lantern,
and show him the holes, promising her a tester if she would. She brought
the lantern, but she was a timid, little, unenterprising thing, and was
mortally afraid of the caverns, a fear that Patience had thought it well
not to combat. Emlyn who had already scrambled all over the face of the
slope, and peeped into all, could have told him a great deal more about
them; but she hated the sight of a rebel, and sat on the ground making
ugly faces and throwing little stones after him whenever his back was
turned.

Stead, afraid to betray by his looks of anxiety, when Jeph came near the
spot, sat all the time with his elbows on his knees, and his hands
over his face, fully trusting to what all had agreed at the time of the
burial of the chest, that there was no sign to indicate its whereabouts.

He felt rather than saw that Jeph, after tumbling out the straw and fern
that served for fodder in the lower caves, where the sheep and pigs
were sheltered in winter, had scrambled up to the hermit's chapel, when
suddenly there was a shout, but not at all of exultation, and down among
the bushes, lantern and all came the soldier, tumbling and crashing into
the midst of an enormous bramble, whence Stead pulled him out with the
lantern flattened under him, and his first breathless words were--

"Beelzebub himself!" Then adding, as he stood upright, "he made full at
me, and I saw his eyes glaring. I heard him groaning. It is an unholy
popish place. No wonder!"

Patience and Rusha were considerably impressed, for it was astonishing
to see how horribly terrified and shaken was the warrior, who had been
in two pitched battles, and Ben screamed, and needed to be held in
Stead's arms to console him.

Jeph had no mind to pursue his researches any further. He only tarried
long enough to let Patience pick out half-a-dozen thorns from his cheeks
and hands, and to declare that if he had not to march to-morrow, he
should bring that singular Christian man, Captain Venn, to exorcise the
haunt of Apollyon. Wherewith he bade them all farewell, with hopes that
by the time he saw them again, they would have come to the knowledge of
the truth.

No sooner was he out of sight among the bushes than Emlyn seized on
Rusha, and whirled her round in a dance as well as her more substantial
proportions would permit, while Steadfast let his countenance expand
into the broad grin that he had all this time been stifling.

"What _do_ you think it was?" asked Patience, still awestruck.

"Why--the old owl--and his own bad conscience. He might talk big, but he
didn't half like going against poor father. Thank God! He has saved His
own, and that's over!"




CHAPTER XV. A TABLE OF LOVE IN THE WILDERNESS.


     "Yet along the Church's sky
      Stars are scattered, pure and high;
      Yet her wasted gardens bear
      Autumn violets, sweet and rare,
      Relics of a Spring-time clear,
      Earnests of a bright New Year."    KEBLE


No more was heard or seen of Jephthah, or of Captain Venn's troop. The
garrison within Bristol was small and unenterprising, and in point of
fact the war was over. News travelled slowly, but Stead picked up scraps
at Bristol, by which he understood that things looked very bad for the
King. Moreover, Sir George Elmwood died of his wounds; poor old Lady
Elmwood did not long survive him, and the estate, which had been left
to her for her life, was sequestrated by the Parliament, and redeemed
by the next heir after Sir George, so that there was an exchange of
the Lord of the Manor. The new squire was an elderly man, hearty and
good-natured, who did not seem at all disposed to interfere with any one
on the estate. He was a Presbyterian, and was shocked to find that
the church had been unused for three years. He had it cleaned from the
accumulation of dirt and rubbish, the broken windows mended with plain
glass, and the altar table put down in the nave, as it had been before
Mr. Holworth's time; and he presented to the living Mr. Woodley, a
scholarly-looking person, who wore a black gown and collar and bands.

The Elmwood folk were pleased to have prayers and sermon again, and
Patience was glad that the children should not grow up like heathens;
but her first church going did not satisfy her entirely.

"It is all strange," she said to Stead, who had stayed with the cattle.
"He had no book, and it was all out of his own head, not a bit like old
times."

"Of course not," said Emlyn. "He had got no surplice, and I knew him for
a prick-eared Roundhead! I should have run off home if you had not held
me, Patience. I'll never go there again."

"I am sure you made it a misery to me, trying to make Rusha and Ben as
idle and restless as yourself," said Patience.

"They ought not to listen to a mere Roundhead sectary," said Emlyn,
tossing her head. "I couldn't have borne it if I had not had the young
ladies to look at. They had got silk hoods and curls and lace collars,
so as it was a shame a mere Puritan should wear."

"O Emlyn, Emlyn, it is all for the outside," said Patience. "Now, I
did somehow like to hear good words, though they were not like the old
ones."

"Good, indeed! from a trumpery Puritan."

Stead went to church in the afternoon. He was eighteen now, and that
great struggle and effort had made him more of a man. He thought much
when he was working alone in the fields, and he had spent his time on
Sundays in reading his Bible and Prayer-book, and comparing them with
Jeph's tracts. Since Emlyn had come, he had made a corner of the cowshed
fit to sleep in, by stuffing the walls with dry heather, and the
sweet breath of the cows kept it suf

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