LETTICE DAVENANT'S DIARY.
Oxford, _January_ 30_th_, 1644.--Another Christmas, and another
birthday, shut up within these monkish old stone walls. To my mother
the chapel, with the painted windows, and the organ, and the daily
services, makes up for much that we lose. But as to me, when I hear
the same sounds, and see the same sights, from day to day, I scarcely
seem to hear or see them at all. They do not wake my soul up. The
sacred music of the woods and fields seems to do me more good, at
least on week-days. For it is sacred, and it is never the same. And
the choristers there, while they are singing their psalms, are busy
all the time building their nests, and finding food for their
nestlings, which make their songs all the more tender and sacred to
me.
"Not a word from them at Netherby. And not a step nearer to the end.
"Yet it is wrong to complain. It is something to have my Father and
my seven brothers still untouched, after being exposed during all
this time to the risks of the war. I dread to think what a gulf
would yawn between me and Olive, and all of them, if once one very
dear to either of us fell in the strife.
"I have nothing to complain of, but that things do not change; and
with what a passion of regret I should long for one of these
unchanging days, if one of the terrible changes that might come, came.
"A wretched phantom of a Parliament appeared here on the 22nd of
January. I would the king had not summoned it. We should leave it
to the rebels, I think, to deal with shows and phantoms of real
things, with their presumptuous talk of colonels and generals. I
would his Majesty had not encountered their pretence of royal
authority, with this pretence of Parliamentary debate. Sixty Lords
and a hundred Commons, or thereabouts, moving helplessly about these
old University streets, with no more power or life in them than the
effigies of the saints and crusaders in the churches. Indeed far
less, for the effigies are memorials of persons who once were alive,
and this Parliament is nothing but a copy of the clothes and
trappings of a power now living. The king does not consult them, and
the nation does not heed them, and they only show how real the
division is amongst us. The king himself calls them the 'mongrel
Parliament.' His Majesty is so grand and majestic when he is grave,
I feel one could give up anything to bring a happy smile over his sad
and kingly countenance. But I would he did not make these jests.
Many grave persons, I have noticed, when they set about jesting, are
apt to do it rather cruelly. Their jests want feathers. They fall
heavily, weighted with the gravity of their character, and instead of
pleasantly pricking and stimulating, they wound. Therefore I wish
His Majesty would not jest. Especially about Parliaments and the
navy. People are apt not to see the wit of being called 'cats,' or
'water-rats,' or 'mongrel.' They only feel the sting.
"_March_.--The Scottish General Leslie has led an army over the
Borders. Traitor! When the king was so gracious as to create him
Earl of Leven but a few years since. Oh, faithless Scottish men!
Infatuated by a thing they call Presbytery, and treacherous to their
compatriot and anointed king!
"_June_, 1644.--Another summer within the walls of this old city.
Another summer away from the woods at home. I am tempted sometimes
to wish the war would end in any way. Politics perplex me more and
more. So many people wishing the same thing, for contrary reasons.
So many people wishing contrary things for the same reasons. So many
on our side whom one hates; so many against us whom we honour. The
best men doing the worst mischief by beginning the strife; and then
dying, or doubting, and giving place to the worst men, who finish
it--if ever it is to be finished. Hampden gone, and Lord Falkland;
and the names one hears most of now, Prince Rupert and this Oliver
Cromwell. They call him General now. What next? A country
gentleman, none of the most notable or of the greatest condition,
eking out his farming, some way, with brewing ale, at Huntingdon,
until he was forty-two--and at forty-five, forsooth, General
Cromwell, with men of condition capping to receive his orders. A
fanatic, moreover, who preaches in the open-air to his men between
the battles.
"A cheerful life for Roger Drayton, methinks! For commander, this
fanatic brewer; for comrades, preaching tailors and fighting
cobblers; for recreation, General Cromwell's sermons; and for martial
music, Sir Launcelot says, Puritan Psalms, entoned pathetically
through the nose. A change for Roger Drayton from Mr. Milton's
organ-playing, or the madrigals we sang at Netherby. And yet I
question whether our Harry would not find even that doleful Puritan
music more to his taste than many a mocking Cavalier ditty wherewith
our men entertain themselves. The times are grave enough, and I
doubt sometimes but the Puritan music suits them best.
"_July_ 20.--Terrible tidings, if true. Lord Newcastle and Prince
Rupert defeated at Marston Moor, on the 2nd of July, by the Earl of
Manchester and Cromwell. A hundred colours taken, and all the
baggage; the royal army scattered in all directions. And ten days
afterwards, York surrendered. Loyal York, in the heart of the loyal
North, His Majesty's first retreat from his faithless capital!
"Strange that men speak more of Oliver Cromwell than of the Earl of
Manchester in this battle. Strange, if it is true, as some say, that
this firebrand was already in a ship bound for flight to America a
few years since, when the king forbade him to go. My Father says,
however, that the man who really won the victory for the Parliament
was Prince Rupert, who, saith he, is no general, but a mere reckless
chief of foraging-parties. It was he who hurried the Marquis of
Newcastle into battle, against his judgment. And now it is reported
that my Lord Newcastle, despairing of himself, with such associates
(or of the cause with such leaders), has taken ship for France. I
would it were the Palatine princes instead. Their standard was taken
at Marston Moor.
"Three of my brothers were there; one wounded, but not severely; the
other two have gone northward we know not where.
"Harry is much with us, being about the king's person. He will have
nothing to do with the prince's plundering parties. But he chafes at
having missed this battle, and is eager for the king to go westward
to inspire and reward loyal Devon and Cornwall by his presence, and
to pursue my Lord Essex, who has gone thither with the rebel forces.
"_August_.--The queen embarked on the 14th of July for France. I
marvel she can bear to put the seas between her and the king at such
times as these. But my Mother says she could not help it, and
sacrifices herself most, and most to the purpose, by taking off the
burden, of her safety from His Majesty, and going among her royal
kindred, whom she may stir up to fight. And indeed she did essay to
rejoin the king. After the birth of the little princess at Exeter,
she asked my Lord Essex for a safe-conduct to the Bath to drink the
waters; but he offered her instead a safe-conduct to London, 'where,'
quoth he, 'she would find the best physicians.' A sorry jest I deem
this, inviting her to run into the very den of the disloyal
parliament, which lately dared to 'impeach' her.
"Rebel galleys followed her from Torbay, but she escaped safe to
Brest, and I trow the king's affection for her is so true he had
rather know her safe than have her with him. Yet, methinks, in her
case I would not have left it to him to decide. The more one I so
loved cared for my welfare and safety, the more I would delight to
risk and dare all.
"_August_.--They are off to the West, the faithful West--the king,
and my Father, and Harry, with an army enthusiastical in their
loyalty, and high in hope and courage. Prince Rupert not with them,
and Oliver Cromwell not with the rebels. Surely there must be great
things done!
"_September_.--The glorious news has come:--
"Lord Essex's army is ruined, gone, vanished. Not routed in a hard
fight, but steadily pursued to Fowey, in a corner of loyal Cornwall,
there cooped up ingloriously, closer and closer, until the general
was fain to flee by sea, and the whole of the foot had to surrender.
The cavalry, indeed, fought their way through, which, being
Englishmen, I excuse them. But never was ruin more complete.
"Harry writes from Tavistock, where His Majesty has retired, a small
town nestled among wooded hills at the foot of the wild moors, Mr.
Pym was member for it; nevertheless the place seems not ill-disposed.
"_November_.--Harry is with us. I have never seen him so in spirits
since the war began.
"The royal army received a slight check at Newbury, a place fatal
already with the blood of the brave Lord Falkland.
"But Harry seems to think nothing of that in comparison with the
state of things this battle hath revealed among the rebels.
Rebellion, saith he, is at last obeying its own laws, and crumbling
away by its own inherent disorganization.
"After the second battle of Newbury the quiet of our life was
effectually broken by a threatened attack on Oxford.
"Artillery booming at our gates, bullets falling in our streets. At
last I had a little taste of real war. I did not altogether dislike
it. There was something that made my heart beat firmer in the
thought of sharing my brothers' and my Father's danger. But then, I
must confess, it did not come very near. The walls were still
between us and the enemy. After a short cannonading the rebels drew
off, from a cause, Harry says, worth us many victories. Lord Essex
and Sir William Waller, their two generals, could not agree, and
between them the attack on Oxford was abandoned; and what was more,
the king, who was encamped outside the city, with a force in numbers
quite unequal to cope with their combined forces, was suffered to
retreat without a blow to Worcester.
"But better than all. Harry says the rebel generals are assailing
each other with all kinds of reproaches in the Parliament, accusing
each other as the cause of all the late failures. Lord Essex, Lord
Manchester, and Sir William Waller, none of them cordially uniting
with each other against us, but all most cordially uniting in
assailing Oliver Cromwell, who is the only one among them we have
cause to dread. And to complete the mêlée, the Scotch preachers are
having their say in the matter, and solemnly accuse Mr. Cromwell of
being an 'Incendiary!'
"Which is quite plain to us he is. So that now, when the
Incendiaries themselves have set about to fight each other, and to
put out the flames, it is probable the arson will be avenged, the
flames _will_ be put out, and we quiet and loyal subjects shall have
nothing left to do but to rebuild the ruins.
"Then we will try to say as little as we can about who began the
mischief, and only see who can work best in repairing it.
"The King and the Parliament throughout the land, and the Draytons
and the Davenants at dear old Netherby."
OLIVE'S RECOLLECTIONS.
At the end of July, 1644, we had a letter from Roger:--
"_Marston Moor, July_ 3_d._--To my dear sister Mistress Olive
Drayton.--On the battle-field. A messenger going south will take
these.
"Thank God we are here this day. And the enemy is not here, but
flying right and left, over moor and mountain. No such victory has
been vouchsafed us before.
"Yesterday, the 2nd July, early in the morning, we were moving off
the ground--Lord Manchester, General Leslie, and General Cromwell.
"Prince Rupert had gallantly thrown provisions into York, which we
were beleaguering; but the generals thought he would not venture an
attack on our combined forces.
"But when we were fairly in order of march the prince fell on our
rear.
"It took us till three in the day to face round, front them, and
secure the position we wanted. There is a rye field here with a
ditch in front, where the dead bear witness how we had to fight for
it.
"At three, Prince Rupert gave their battle-cry: '_For God and the
king;_' and we ours: '_God with us._' From three till five we
pounded each other with the great guns. But little impression was
made on either side. And at five there was a pause. Two hours'
silence, confronting each other, from five to seven. Such silence as
may be where many are wounded, and many are waiting in agonies for
the summons to die, while the rest were waiting for the summons to
charge. At last, at seven, it came.
"Our foot, under Lord Manchester, ran across the ditch before that
rye field for which they had fought so hard. Thus far was clear to
all. The rest we know only from comparing what we did, and seeing
what we had done afterwards. For immediately on the attack of the
foot came the charges of the horse. The left wing of the king's army
on our right they all but routed, driving the Lord Manchester, Lord
Fairfax, and the old veteran Leslie from the field. Meantime our
right--that is, we, the Ironsides with the general--charged their
left. We were not beaten. I trust we gave him no reason to be
ashamed of us. But everywhere the fighting was hard. Having
discharged our pistols, we flung them from us and fell to it with
swords. Then came the shock, like two seas meeting, each man
encountering the foe before him, but few knowing how the day was
speeding elsewhere, till we found ourselves with the whole front of
the battle changed, each victorious wing having wheeled round as they
fought, and standing where the enemy had stood when the fight began.
Then came up General Cromwell's reserves with General Leslie's, and
decided the day, sending Prince Rupert and his plunderers flying
headlong through the gathering dusk. It was the first time they had
encountered the Ironsides. Their broken horse trampled, as they
fled, on the broken and flying foot, we spurring after them, till
within a mile of York. Arms, ammunition, baggage, colours, all cast
away in the mad terror of the flight. To within a mile from York we
followed them, and then turned back, and slept on the battle-field.
"Another silence, Olive; not as before, in expectation of another
fight, but with our work done, and four thousand dead around us to be
buried.
"Job Forster is safe, and would have you tell Rachel that the Lord
has sent Israel a judge at last, and all must go right now.
"He went about with Dr. Antony all night, seeing to the wounded and
the dying.
"When I awoke, the summer morning was shining on the field, and I
wondered how I could have slept with all those sights and sounds
around me. But, thank God, I did, for there is more to be done yet.
York has to be taken.
"Tell Rachel, by using my military authority, I got Job to lie down
in my place, while I went round with Dr. Antony. At first he
wavered. But I said: 'The general is sharp on any of us who neglect
our arms or powder. And the body has to be looked to as well as the
powder.' Whereon he lay down in my cloak, and in a minute was beyond
the reach of any rousing, short of a cannonade.
"_N.B._--Two young Davenants fought well a few yards from me;
scarcely more than lads.
"God grant we gained yesterday a step towards peace."
A fortnight after, another letter, dated:--
"_York, the_ 15_th July_.--York has surrendered. The North is ours.
This moment returned from a thanksgiving in the minster. The
grandest music of the organ scarce, I think, could have echoed more
solemnly among the old roofs and arches than that psalm, sung by the
thousands of rough soldiers' voices. King David was a soldier, and
knew how to make such psalms as soldiers need. Nor do I think the
old minster has often seen a congregation more serious and devout.
If some on the Cavalier side had heard it, they could scarce have
said afterwards, our Puritan religion lacked its solemnities. Our
solemnities begin indeed within; but when the tide of devotion is
high and deep enough, no music like that it makes in overflowing."
To Roger, as to any one borne on the chariot of the sun, the whole
world seemed full of light. To us, however, meanwhile in the Fens,
things seemed verging more and more from twilight into night.
Not much more than a month after the letter of Roger's concerning the
surrender of York, came tidings which, it seemed to us, more than
counterbalanced these advantages.
The royal letter post, lately established on the great North Road
between London and Edinburgh, and southward between London and
Plymouth, had been interrupted during the war. Netherby lay in the
line of one of the more recent branch-posts; and we missed at first
the pleasant sound of the horn which the postman was commanded to
blow four times every hour, besides at the posting-stations.
At first Aunt Dorothy had rather rejoiced. She had been wont to say
it was a grievous interference with the liberty of the subject, that
we should be compelled to send all our letters by the hands of the
king's messengers, instead of by any private carrier we chose. And,
moreover, she deemed it highly derogatory to His Majesty to demean
himself to take a few pence each letter for such services. But a few
months of return to the old private method, with all its
uncertainties and suspenses, made her receive the public posts again
as a boon, when the Commonwealth government re-established them.
It was from Dr. Antony, therefore, that we first heard the tidings of
the Lord Essex's flight from Fowey, and the ruin of his whole army.
This was not until November.
He brought two letters from my Father and Roger. My Father's was
sad; Roger's was indignant. Both spoke of divisions among the
supporters of the Parliament. They were written at different times,
but reached us together by Dr. Antony's hand as the first safe
opportunity. The first was from Roger, dated late in September,
speaking of the surrender of Lord Essex's foot:--"Marston Moor with
the four thousand that lie dead there," he wrote, "was after all, it
seems, not a step towards the end. Everything gained there is thrown
away again by the indecisions of noblemen who are afraid to win too
much; and old soldiers who will not move a finger except in the
fashion some one else moved it a hundred years ago. As if when war
is once begun, there were any way to peace but by the ruin of one
party, except, indeed, by the ruin of both; as if a lingering war
were a kind of half peace, instead of being as it is, the worst of
wars; the opening of the nation's veins at a thousand points, whereby
she slowly bleeds to death. Lieutenant-General Cromwell takes sadly
to heart the sad conditions of our army in the West. He saith, had
we wings we would fly thither. Indeed, wings he hath at command, in
the hearts of his men, 'never so cheerful,' he says, 'as when there
is work to do.' But there are those whose chief business is to clip
these wings, lest affairs fly too fast. The general saith, 'If we
could all intend our own ends less, and our ease too, our business in
this army would go on wheels for expedition.' If he were at the head
of affairs, we should not, in sooth, lack wheels or wrings."
The second letter was from my Father written early in November, after
the second battle of Newbury (fought on the 27th of October).
He wrote,--
"It is the old story, I fear, of our Protestant lack of unity.
People do not seem able to see that the military unity of the Roman
Church being broken, the only ecclesiastical unity possible for us is
the unity as of an empire, like that of Great Britain, with different
races and local constitutions under one sovereign; or the unity as of
a family of grown-up children, in free obedience to one father. If
Lutherans and Calvinists could have merged their lesser differences
in their real agreement, probably that terrible war, which is still
crushing the life out of Germany, need never have begun. If
Prelatists, Presbyterians, and Independents could agree now to yield
each other liberty, this war of ours might end. But while they had
power, Prelatists would rather let the nation be torn asunder than
tolerate Presbyterians. And now the Presbyterians think they have
power, they had rather lose everything we have gained than tolerate
Independents. The merit of the Independents and Anabaptists being,
perhaps, only this, that they never have had the power to persecute.
I cannot see whither it is all tending.
"We have lost an army in Cornwall; but that is little. It seems to
me some of us are losing all hold of what we are fighting for. This
success at Newbury shows our weakness more than the ruin at Fowey.
Lord Manchester will not pursue the king, lest our last army should
be lost; in which case, he says, His Majesty might hang us all. As
if the block or the gallows had not been the alternative of success
from the beginning. In consequence of a disagreement between him and
Sir William Waller, the combined attack on Oxford failed; and eleven
days after our success at Newbury, His Majesty's troops were suffered
quietly to withdraw their artillery from Donington Castle, in face of
our victorious army lying inactive.
"The indignation in the army is unbounded. But all minor divisions
bid fair to resolve themselves into two great factions of
Presbyterians and Independents; Lieutenant-General Cromwell having
addressed a remonstrance to the Parliament against Lord Manchester,
and Lord Manchester, Lord Essex, and Hollis, with the Scotch
Commissioners, being set on crushing General Cromwell.
"The quarrel is of no new origin. The affair of Donington Castle did
but set the tinder to the train. It dates back to the first setting
of the Westminster Assembly, when the Presbyterians, not content with
absorbing the Church revenues, which would have been conceded to
them, would have had the magistrate imprison and confiscate the goods
of all whom they excommunicated. 'Toleration,' said one of them,
'will make the kingdom a chaos, a Babel, another Amsterdam, a Sodom,
an Egypt, a Babylon. Toleration is the grand work of the devil; his
masterpiece and chief engine to support his tottering kingdom. It is
the most compendious, ready, sure way to destroy all religion, lay
all waste, and bring in all evil. As original sin is the fundamental
sin, having the seed and spawn of all sin in it, so toleration hath
all errors in it and all evils.' They call toleration the 'great
Diana of the Independents.' Yet no one contends for toleration to
extend beyond the orthodox Protestant sects. These divisions set
many of us thinking what we are fighting for. It would be scarcely
worth so much blood-shedding to establish one hundred and twenty
popes at Westminster, instead of one at Lambeth. They are golden
words of General Cromwell's: 'All that believe have the real unity,
which is most glorious, because inward and spiritual, in the Body and
to the Head. For being united in forms, every Christian will, for
peace' sake, study and do, as far as conscience will permit. And for
brethren, in things of the mind, we look for no compulsion but that
of light and reason.'"
"What does my brother mean, Master Antony?" quoth Aunt Dorothy, when
she came to this passage. "And what doth General Cromwell mean? 'No
compulsion!' and 'light and reason!' Most dangerous words. An
assembly of godly divines at Westminster to settle everything! That
is precisely what we have been fighting for. Not for disorder; not
for each man to think what is right in his own judgment, and do what
is right in his own eyes. But for those who believe right to have
the power to instruct, or else to silence, those who believe wrong.
Light and reason indeed! The cry of all the heretics from the
beginning. Why, reason is the very source of all error. And light
is precisely what we lack, and what the Westminster Assembly is
providing for us; and when they have just kindled it, and set it up
like a city on a hill, does Mr. Cromwell, forsooth, think we are
going to let every tinker and tailor kindle his farthing candle
instead, and lead people into any wilderness he pleases?"
Said Dr. Antony,--
"There was a great light enkindled and set up on a Sorrowful Hill
sixteen hundred years ago. But it has only enlightened the hearts of
those who would look at it. And if the Sun does not put out these
poor farthing candles, Mistress Dorothy, I am afraid we shall find it
a hard matter to do so with our fingers."
"Well," said Aunt Dorothy, "I am sure I cannot see whither things are
tending."
And even Aunt Gretel remarked,--
"That Independents and Presbyterians should agree might indeed be
easy enough. But Lutherans and Calvinists are quite another
question. In the next world--well, it is to be hoped. Death works
miracles. But in this, scarcely. The dear brother-in-law is one of
the wisest of men. But it cannot be expected that the wisest
Englishman should quite fathom the religious differences of Germany."
Of toleration towards Papists, Infidels, or Quakers, no one dreamed.
Infidelity, all admitted, comes direct from the devil, and, of
course, no Christian should tolerate the devil or his works. The
Papists had within the memory of our older men sent fetters to bind
us, and fagots to burn us in the Armada, which the winds of God
scattered from our coasts. In France they had massacred our brethren
in cold-blood to the number of one hundred thousand in the slaughter
which began on St. Bartholomew's day. They had assassinated our
kindred by tens of thousands in Ireland in our own times. And they
were binding, and burning, and torturing, and making galley-slaves of
our brethren still on the Continent of Europe. Not as heretics we
kept them under, but as rebels. And as to the Quakers, they were
reported to be liable to attacks of objections to clothes very
perplexing to sober-minded Christians, and were probably many of them
lunatics. These should not indeed be burned, but they should at all
events be clothed, and, if possible, silenced, until they came to
their right mind.
The third letter which Dr. Antony had brought us was from Job
Forster. I went with Dr. Antony to take it to Rachel. In it Job
spoke much of Roger's courage and goodness, in a way it made my heart
beat quick to hear.
"Master Roger fights like a lion-like man of Judah," wrote Job, "and
commands like one of the chief princes. And at other times he can
tend a wounded man, friend or foe, or speak good words to the dying,
most as tender, Rachel, as thee."
Job's letter was by no means doubtful or desponding. He had the
advantage of those in the ranks. He saw only the rank and the step
immediately before him, and heard not the discussions of the
commanders but only the word of command. "I think," he concluded,
"we have come about to 1 Sam. xxii. 14. Some time back we were in 1
Sam. xxii. 1, in cave Adullam: 'Every one that was in debt, and every
one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto them,' and a
sorry troop they were. But that is over. The General saith himself:
'I have a lovely company; honest, sober Christians; you would respect
them did you know them.' And respect us they do; leastways the
enemy. And now David (that is, General Cromwell) is in Keilah. And
they inquired of the Lord and the Lord said, 'They will deliver thee
up.' _But God delivered him not_. The rest has to come in its
season."
Job wrote also of "the young gentleman the chirurgeon." "Of as good
a courage as the best," quoth Job. "For I hold it harder to stand
about among the whizzing bullets, succouring or removing the wounded
than to fight. It is always harder to stand fire than to charge.
And it is harder to spend days and nights tending poor groaning
suffering men than to suffer yourself. That is, if you have got a
heart. Which that doctor hath. But every man hath his calling. And
Dr. Antony hath his. Straight from headquarters, as I deem."
It was curious that what struck me first in those words of Job's was
his calling Dr. Antony "young." It set me wondering what his age
might be; and as we walked home together I glanced at him to see. I
had always thought of him as my Father's friend, and therefore of
another generation. Besides there was the doctor's cap, and a
physician is always, _ex officio_, an elder. But when I came to
consider his face, it had certainly nothing of old age in it. His
carriage was erect and easy; his hair, raven-black, had not a streak
of gray; his eyes, dark as they were, had fire enough in them. These
researches scarce took me a moment, but his eyes met mine, and it
seemed as if he half guessed what I was thinking of, for he said,--
"You wondered at Job's talking of the courage of a chirurgeon."
"Not at all," said I, somewhat confused. "I was only thinking how it
was you were always our Father's friend instead of ours."
"Was I not yours?" he said, half smiling.
"Oh, yes, of course," I said, "every one's."
"Every one's, Mistress Olive," he said inquiringly, "only, not yours?"
"Mine, of course," I said, feeling myself becoming hopelessly
entangled, "and every one's besides."
"Thank you," he said, gravely, "I should not have liked the exchange."
"Is it easier, do you think, Dr. Antony," I said, breaking hurriedly
from the subject, "to fight, than to be a chirurgeon on the
battle-field?"
"Easier, probably, to me," he said. "Fighting is in our blood. My
grandfather was a soldier, and fought in the French wars of religion.
He was assassinated at the St. Bartholomew with Coligny. My father,
then a child, was seized, baptized, and educated in a Catholic
seminary. But he escaped, at the risk of his life, to England. In
France we had enough of wars of religion. I have thought it better
work to devote myself as far as I may to succour the oppressed, and
heal such as can be healed of the wounds and sorrows of men. There
is enough of danger and of warfare in these days in such a calling to
satisfy a soldier's passion, and not to let the blood stagnate or
grow cold."
There was a subdued fire in his eye and a deep sonorous ring in his
voice, which gave force to his words.
"But Antony is not a French name," I said.
"It was my father's Christian name, which he adopted for safety. His
name was properly Antoine la Mothe Duplessis, from an estate our
family had held for some centuries. But, Mistress Olive," he said,
turning the discourse, as if it led to painful subjects, or as if he
shrank from continuing on a theme so unusual with him as himself, "I
understand you are accused of upholding witches."
Whereby I was led into an earnest defence of Gammer Grindle.
"But even if she had been a witch," I ventured to say, in conclusion,
"would it not have been more like the Sermon on the Mount to rescue
and then to instruct her, than to drown her? And is not the Sermon
on the Mount the highest law we have?"
"It is the last edition of the Divine law yet issued, Mistress
Olive," he said. "And one great glory of it is, it seems to me, that
it is not only so plain itself as to need no commentary of lawyer or
scribe, but if we try to keep it, it has a wonderful power of making
other things plain as we go on."
At which point we reached the porch at Netherby.
Said Aunt Dorothy, as Dr. Antony was taking leave the next day,--
"You must not trouble yourself to be our letter-carrier. Less useful
men can be spared on such errands. I wonder my brother should have
burdened you therewith."
"I thank you, Mistress Dorothy," said he; "but it was my free choice
to come. And I promise you I will only come when it is no burden."
Said she, holding his hand,--
"Pardon me; but I am old enough to be your mother. Suffer an aged
woman to warn you against new-fangled notions. Beware of 'light' and
'reason,' prithee, and such presumptuous pleas. The light that is in
us is darkness, and our reason is corrupt. The spiritual armour your
fathers fought in Master Antony, is proof still."
"I believe it, Mistress Dorothy," he replied; "and if in new times
and in new dangers I should need new weapons, believe me, I will only
go to my fathers' armoury for them."
I was provoked with myself when he had left, that of all the wise
discourse that had been held since he came, the things that kept
recurring to my mind were what Job had said of Dr. Antony, and how
foolish I had been in the answers I gave him on our way home from
Rachel's. He must deem me so unmannerly, I thought. And, besides,
so many fitting things now occurred which I might have said. Nothing
occupies one like a conversation in which one has failed to say what
one ought to have said. It haunts one like a melody of which you
cannot find the end.
It was evident, moreover, that Aunt Dorothy took the same view of Dr.
Antony's age as Job. It made Dr. Antony seem like some one quite
new, to think of this; new, and yet certainly not strange.
The next Christmas, the army being in winter-quarters, my Father
spent with us, which made it a holiday indeed.
In February, 1645, he read us a letter which Dr. Antony wrote to him,
narrating what was going on in London. At the beginning there was a
considerable piece which he did not read to us. He said it related
to family matters, which he could speak of hereafter, and contained
greetings to us. Thus the letter proceeded--it was dated January
21st, 1645:
"Sir Thomas Fairfax is this day appointed by the Commons' House
general-in-chief, in lieu of Lord Essex; Skipton major-general; while
the post of lieutenant-general is _left open_. Most men deem that he
who fills it will fill _more than it_, as his name and fame now fill
all men's mouths. There have been fierce debates, whisperings,
conspirings, mysterious midnight meetings at Essex House: the aim of
the whole of these conspirings, the bond of all these gatherings,
being to 'remove out of the way General-Lieutenant Cromwell, whom,'
said the Scottish Commissioners, 'ye ken very weel is no friend of
ours.' This 'obstacle,' this '_remora_' this 'INCENDIARY,' as they
called him (soaring high into Latin in their vain endeavours to find
words lofty enough to express their abhorrence), had hundreds of
grave English and Scottish Presbyterian divines, soldiers and
lawyers, been labouring for months to remove out of the way; yet,
nevertheless, on the 9th of December, there he stood in the Commons'
House, as immovable an obstacle and '_remora_' as ever, and about to
prove himself an 'Incendiary' indeed by kindling a flame which should
consume their eloquent Latin accusations and their authority at once.
"There was a long silence in the House. General Cromwell broke it,
speaking abruptly, and not in Latin.
"'It is now a time to speak,' he said, 'or for ever hold the tongue.
The important occasion now is no less than to save a nation out of a
bleeding, nay, almost dying condition, which the long continuance of
this war hath already brought it into; so that without a more speedy,
vigorous, effectual prosecution of the war--casting off all lingering
proceedings like those of soldiers of fortune beyond sea to spin out
a war--we shall make the kingdom weary of us, and hate the name of a
Parliament.
"'For what do the enemy say? Nay, what do many that were friends at
the beginning of the Parliament? Even this, that the members of both
Houses have got great places and commands, and the sword into their
hands, and what by interest in Parliament, what by power in the army,
will perpetually continue themselves in grandeur, and not permit the
war speedily to end, lest their own power should determine with it.
This that I speak here to our own faces, is but what others do utter
abroad behind our backs. I am far from reflecting on any. I know
the worth of those commanders. Members of both Houses who are still
in power; but if I may speak my conscience without reflection on any,
I do conceive if the army is not put into another method, and the war
more vigorously prosecuted, the people can bear the war no longer,
and will enforce you to a dishonourable peace.
"'But this I would recommend to your prudence. Not to insist upon
any complaint or oversight of any commander-in-chief upon any
occasion whatsoever, for as I must acknowledge myself guilty of
oversights, so I know they can rarely be avoided in military affairs.
Therefore, waiving a strict inquiry into the issues of these things,
let us apply ourselves to the remedy, which is most necessary. And I
hope we have such true English hearts, and zealous affections towards
the general weal of our mother-country, as no members of either House
will scruple to _deny_ themselves and their own private interests for
the public good, nor account it to be a dishonour done to them,
whatever the Parliament shall resolve upon in this weighty matter.'
"Another member followed and said,--
"'Whatever be the cause, two summers are passed over, but we are not
saved. Our victories (the price of blood invaluable) so gallantly
gotten, and (which is more pity) so graciously bestowed, seem to have
been put into a bag with holes; what we won one time, we lost
another; the treasure is exhausted, the country wasted, a summer's
victory has proved but a winter's story; the game, however, shut up
with autumn, was to be played again the next spring, as if the blood
that had been shed were only to manure the field of war for a more
plentiful crop of contention. Men's hearts have failed them with the
observation of these things.'
"The cause General Cromwell deemed to be the multiplication of
commanders. The remedy, that members of both Houses should _deny
themselves_ the right to appoint _themselves_ to posts of military
command. The 'Self-Denying Ordinance' and the 'New Model' of the
army were proposed, and soon passed the House of Commons. The Lords
debated and rejected it; but this day the Commons have appointed Sir
Thomas Fairfax commander-in-chief, superseding Lord Essex. And few
doubt but they will carry it through.
"Thus may, we trust, a few vigorous strokes bring peace; and peace,
order.
"But meanwhile, during these dark January days, another conflict has
ended; on Tower Hill.
"The fallen archbishop, whose name was a terror for so many years in
every Puritan home in England, there, on this 10th of January, laid
down his life heroically and calmly as a martyr, which he surely
believed himself to be. He read a prayer he had composed for the
occasion. I grieve to say, the scaffold was crowded, not with his
friends. He said he would have wished an empty scaffold, but if it
could not be so, God's will be done; he was more willing to go out of
the world than any could be to send him. A helpless, forsaken old
man, heavily laden with bodily infirmities, four years a prisoner,
uneasily dragged from trial to trial, I never heard that his courage
failed. I would they had let him die in quiet. But Sir John
Clotworthy, over zealous, as I think, asked him what text was most
comfortable to a man in his departure. 'Cupio dissolviet esse cum
Christo,' said the archbishop. 'That is a good desire,' was the
rejoinder; 'but there must be a foundation for that desire, an
assurance.' 'No man can express it,' was the calm reply, 'it must be
found within.' 'Yet it is founded on a word, and that word should be
known.' 'It is the knowledge of Jesus Christ,' said the archbishop,
'and that alone;' and to finish the discussion, he turned to the
headsman, gave him some money, and said, 'Here, honest friend, God
forgive thee, and do thy office on me in mercy;' and so, after a
short prayer, his head was struck off at one blow. The crowd
dispersed, and the fatal hill was left once more silent and deserted,
with the scaffold and the Tower facing each other, the weary prison
of so many, and the blood-stained key, which had for so many unbarred
its heavy gates, and also, we may trust, another gate, from inside
which our whole earth seems but a prison chamber.
"If we look at the world only as divided into _parties_, truly this
death of his were worth to those who think with him, more than many
victories in Parliament or in the field. But if we think of the One
Kingdom, surely we may rejoice that one who, as it seems to us, erred
much in head and heart, and did no little hurt, came right at last,
and took refuge with Him who receives us not as Archbishops, or
Presbyterians or Independents, but as repentant, weary, and
heavy-laden men and women.
"Some few friends reverently buried him in Barking Church to the
words of the old burial-service, prohibited by the Parliament a few
days before. All honour to them."
Said Aunt Gretel, when my Father had finished reading this letter,--
"It is a great pity the martyrs should not all be on the right side.
It would make it so very much easier to know which is the right."
"Martyrs on the wrong side," exclaimed Aunt Dorothy, indignantly;
"you might as well talk of orthodox heretics."
But my Father replied,--
"If obedience is better than sacrifice, then obedience is the best
part of the sacrifice of martyrdom; and may we not trust that the
Master may accept the act of obedience even of some who misread the
word of command?"
The next day he left us for London, and we saw him no more for many
months.
On the 29th of January, commissioners of the Parliament and of the
king met at Uxbridge to negotiate for peace. But they did not get on
at all. Dr. Stewart syllogistically defended the divine right of
Episcopacy, and Dr. Henderson the divine right of the Presbyterial
government. My Lord Hertford and my Lord Pembroke would have passed
this by, to proceed to the particular points to be settled; but the
divines declined to be hurried, insisting on disputing
syllogistically "as became scholars." So, after twenty days, Dr.
Stewart and Dr. Henderson, being each confirmed in their conviction
of his own orthodoxy, the commissioners separated with no further
result.
One evening, indeed, it is said, the king had consented to honourable
terms; but in the night a letter came from Montrose announcing
Royalist victories, and in the morning His Majesty retracted the
concessions of the evening.
Meanwhile the two armies continued fighting; not in two large bodies,
but in scattered skirmishes, sieges, surprises, all over the country,
making well-nigh every quiet home in England a sharer in the misery
and tumult of the war.
The moral difference between the forces of the Parliament and the
king became, it was said, more obvious. It could scarce be
otherwise. War must make men firmer in virtues or more desperate in
sin. Men must get less and less human with years of plundering, and
indulgence in every selfish sinful pleasure. No good woman durst
venture near the Royalist army, my Father said, and vice and
profaneness were scarcely punished; whereas in the Parliament camp,
as in a well-ordered city, passage was safe, and traffic free. It
was the armies of the great Gustavus and that of Wallenstein over
again. I think it would be blasphemy to deem such differences can
have no weight in a world where God is King.
I wonder if it can be that, after all, it leads to more good to fight
out the great battles of right and wrong in this way, than
syllogistically, in Dr. Stewart and Dr. Henderson's way. The logical
battles making good men fierce, and not hurting the bad at all; the
battles for life and death making good men nobler, at all events,
even if they make the bad men worse. Making good men better seems
the end of so many things that God permits or orders in this world.
And as to making bad men worse, it seems as if that could not be
helped, because everything does that until they change the direction
they are going in, which great troubles and dangers sometimes startle
them to do. If this be so, the pain and misery and death would cease
to be so perplexing. Aunt Dorothy used to say, a Church without a
rod in her hand is a Church without sinews. But a Church with a rod
seems sometimes as blind and severe in using it as the world. For
which reason, I suppose, the best periods of Church history seem
often to be those in which the world holds the rod instead of the
Church. And a war may sometimes be as effectual an instrument of
godly discipline as a synod.
LETTICE'S DIARY.
"_June_ 14_th_, 1645, _Davenant Hall, Three o'clock in the
morning_.--We came home yesterday, and I grudge to sleep away any of
these first hours in the old house. It is like travelling into some
marvellous foreign country, to rise at an unwonted hour in the
morning. The sky looks so much higher before the roof of daylight
has quite spread over it. For after all, daylight is a roof shutting
us in to our own green sunny home of earth. And that is partly what
makes the night so awful. We stand roofless at night, open to all
the other worlds, with no walls or bounds on any side. And at dawn
something of the boundlessness and awfulness are still left. With a
majestical slow pomp the morning sweeps the veil of sunlight over
star after star, falling in grand solemn folds of purple and crimson
as it touches the edge of our world, until the great spaces of the
upper worlds are all shut out, and we are shut in with our own kindly
sun, and our own many-coloured fleeting clouds, and our own green
earth.
"Then the other aspect of the dawn begins. Her first steps and
movements are all grand and silent. But when the awful infinity
beyond is shut out, and we are left alone, face to face with her, she
changes altogether.
"The stars pass away in silence. But the day awakes with all kinds
of joyful sounds. The clouds are transformed from solemn purple
banners in some great martial or sacred procession to royal or bridal
draperies. They garland the earth with roses, they strew pearls and
diamonds; they spread the path of the new sun with cloth of gold.
The whole world, earth, and sky, seems to blossom into colour, like a
flower from its sheath. Every leaf of the limes outside my window,
every spike of the horse-chestnuts seems to awake with a flutter of
joy.
"It seems as if infinity came back to us in a new way. For the
infinite spaces of night, we have the infinite numbers of day.
Instead of the heavy masses of foliage waving an hour or two dimly
since against the sky, there is a countless multitude of leaves
fluttering in and out of the sunlight, a countless multitude of birds
singing, chirping, twittering, among the branches, a countless throng
of insects hovering, wheeling, darting in and out among the leaves;
there are the infinite varieties of colour on every blade of grass,
on every blossom, on every insect's wing.
"It is a wonderful joy to be here again. Every creature seems to
welcome me. I seem to long to speak to every one of them, and just
add a little drop of happiness to the happiness of them all. I want
to take all of them, in some way, like little children, to my heart
and kiss them.
"Olive said that feeling was really the longing to be folded to the
Heart which is at the heart of all; but nearer us than any other
creature.
"'_He fell on his neck and kissed him_.'
"She thought it meant something like that.
"Leaning out of my window, looking down from the slopes of the Wolds,
as we do across the long space of fens which stretches before us like
a sea, I see the gables of Netherby.
"Olive is there asleep.
"Olive, and Mistress Dorothy and Mistress Gretel.
"And here, my mother and I.
"Fathers and brothers all at the war. In sight, yet how sadly out of
reach! This terrible war that seems as if it would never end.
Things have not been going on quite so prosperously with us lately;
although many strong places in the North are still loyal; and all the
West is ours, and much of Wales. A new vigour seems to have come
into the rebel councils. They say the soul of them all is this
Oliver Cromwell, that he and his friends have brought in some new
regulation, called by some of their unpleasant Parliament names.
They call everything a covenant or an ordinance, as if it were all
out of the Bible. They call this the Self-Denying Ordinance. The
meaning of it seems to be that they are all to deny themselves to
give Mr. Cromwell the real command. At least, Harry thinks so. And
he looks gloomily on our affairs. He was at home before we came, to
make the place ready for us. And he only left yesterday morning to
rejoin the king's army, which is in Leicestershire. Not so very far
off.
"I wonder, if there were a battle, if we should hear the sound of it!
"A few days since the troops stormed Leicester, and sacked it. Harry
would not tell us much about it. He said it was too much after the
fashion of those dreadful German wars of religion, which Prince
Rupert has taught our men to imitate too well.
"Poor wretched city! We could not hear anything of that. Groans and
even helpless cries for pity do not reach far. At least, not on
earth. I suppose nothing reaches heaven sooner.
"I wish that thought had not come into my head about hearing the roar
of a battle if there were one. Since it came, I cannot help
listening, through all the sweet cheerful country-sounds, the
twitterings of the swallows under the eaves, the soft cadences of the
thrushes, the stirring of the grasses, for something in the distance!
"If we did hear anything, it would be very, very far off, fainter
than the fluttering of the leaves: like the moan of distant thunder.
"In summer days there are often mysterious, far-off sounds one cannot
account for. And now I can do nothing but listen for it.
"For almost the last thing Harry said when he went away was, that
there would be a battle, probably, before long, and if a battle,
probably a great battle.
"The forces are gathering and approaching each other.
"He took leave of us gayly, my Mother and me. But ten minutes
afterwards, he galloped back to the place in the outer field where I
was standing looking after him (my Mother having gone to be alone, as
she always does when Harry leaves us). His face had lost all the
gaiety, and he said,--
"'Lettice, if things were not to prosper with the king, and the
rebels were to attack this house, I think it would be better not
attempt to stand a siege. The house extends too far to be defended,
except with a larger garrison than you could muster. And the country
is against us. If it came to the very worst, Mr. Drayton is a
generous enemy and a gentleman, and would give you safe harbour for a
time. If all on their side or ours had been like the Draytons, there
need have been no war. You may tell them that I said so, if you
like, if it ever comes to that.'
"'Comes to _what_, Harry?' I said, shuddering.
"He tried to smile. But then, his countenance suddenly changing, he
said,--
"'Lettice, we must think of all possibilities. You are young, and my
Mother is used to lean on others.'
"'Only on _you_, Harry,' I said.
"'Yes,' he said, hurriedly; 'too much, perhaps. But trust the
Draytons, if necessary, Lettice. They will never do anything unjust
or ungenerous. If you ask their advice, they will advise you for
your good, though it cut their own throats or broke their own hearts.'
"Then, after a moment's pause, he said,--
"'It is never any good to try to say out a farewell, Lettice. If one
had years to say it in, there would always be something left unsaid.
Partings are always sudden, whether we are snatched from each other
as if by pirates in the dead of night, or watch the lessening sail
till it becomes a speck in the horizon. The last step is always a
plunge into a gulf. But, Lettice,' he added, lowering his voice,
'death itself is not really a gulf, only to those on this edge of it.
Do not tell my Mother I came back. If she asks you anything about
it, tell her I never went away with a lighter heart. For I see less
and less what the end will be, or what to wish for, and I am content
more and more to make the day's march, and leave the conduct of the
campaign to God.'
"And he rode off, looking like a prince, and I watched him till he
disappeared behind the trees. He looked back once again and waved
his plumed hat to me, and then galloped out of sight in a moment.
"I crept back by a side-door near the stable, that my Mother might
not see me; and Cæsar, Harry's dog, made a dismal whining, and
crouched and fawned on me, so that it went to my heart not to be able
to grant him what he asked for so plainly in his poor dumb way, and
set him free to follow Harry.
"_June_ 14, _Ten o'clock at night_.--Some men who came from the North
this evening, say there has been fighting towards the North-west,
somewhere on the borders of Northamptonshire and Leicestershire The
roar of the guns began early in the day, and then there was sharp
interrupted firing, which went on till the afternoon, when it seemed
gradually to cease.
"All day it has been going on. All this quiet summer day. My Father
there, perhaps, and Harry certainly. And nothing to be heard until
to-morrow.
"My Mother will not seek rest to-night. I see the lamp in her
oratory-window. And far off across the fields, another light in the
gable of old Netherby, where Olive Drayton used to sleep. It is some
comfort to think we are watching together. Olive is so good. And
she will be sure to remember us.
"_June_ 20.--We heard before the morrow. The next morning, when the
dawn began to break again, a horseman galloped hastily up to the
door. I was in my mother's room; we were both dressed. We had
neither of us slept. I looked out. It was Roger Drayton. My Mother
sat up on the bed, when I had persuaded her to rest.
"'I will go down and ask,' I said.
"'We will go together, Lettice,' said she.
"Then came a cry from one of the maids.
"'Perhaps it is poor Margery,' I said. For Margery had come to stay
with us since we returned. It comforted us to keep together, all of
us who had kindred at the field.
"My Mother shook her head.
"She knelt down one moment, and drew me down beside her, by the
bedside, heart against heart, and murmured,--
"'Thy will, not mine! Oh, help us to say it. For His sake who said
it first.'
"Then she rose, and with a firm step went down into the hall with me.
"She held out her hand to Roger when she saw him.
"His face spoke evil-tidings only too plainly.
"'There has been a battle,' she said.
"'At Naseby, Lady Lucy,' he replied.
"'Was the victory for the king or not?' she asked; unable to utter
the question uppermost on her heart and mine.
"'There was hard fighting on both sides' he replied. 'The king and
Prince Rupert have gone westward towards Wales.'
"I could hear that his voice trembled.
"'Then the king has lost,' she said. 'But it was not to tell us this
you came. Who is hurt?'
"He hesitated an instant.
"'It is Harry!' she exclaimed. 'You have come to summon us to him.
Is the wound severe? Is there hope? Can we go to him at once?'
"There was a pause, and a dreadful irresponsive silence between each
of her questions. He answered only the last,--
"'He will be brought to you, Lady Lucy. They are bringing him now.'
"At once the whole depth of her sorrow opened beneath her. Not an
instant too soon. For the words had scarcely left Roger's lips when
the heavy regular tramp of men bearing a burden echoed through the
silence of the morning outside, and paused at the porch.
"My Mother took my hand, and led me forward.
"'He must not come home unwelcomed!' she said.
"For an instant I feared she had not yet grasped Roger's meaning.
For this awful burden they were bearing was _not Harry_, I knew. No
welcomes would ever greet him more. But I had not fathomed her
sorrow nor her strength.
"She met the bearers at the door. They stood with uncovered heads,
having laid down what they bore on the stone seat of the porch. They
were mostly old servants of the family.
"'My friends, I thank you,' she said. 'You have done all you could.
But not there. On the place of honour. He was worthy.'
"And she motioned them to the dais at the head of the Hall, where the
heads of our house are wont to receive the homage of their retainers.
"Silently they bore him there, and laid their sacred burden gently
down. She thanked them again for their good service. And then as
silently they withdrew. I saw many a rough hand lifted to brush away
the tears. But she did not weep. She stood motionless, with clasped
hands, beside the bier, and murmured to herself again and again, in a
low voice,--
"'He was worthy.'
"Then, turning with her own sweet, never-forgotten courtesy to Roger,
she held out her hand to him again, and said,--
"'You did kindly to come and tell us. He always honoured you.'
"He held her hand, and said rapidly, as if uncertain of the firmness
of his own voice,--
"'I was near him at the last, and he made me promise to see you, or I
could not have dared to come.'
"She looked up with trembling, parted lips, listening for more.
"'He made me promise to tell you he had little pain and no fear,'
Roger said, in a low voice. 'And he gave me this for you, and said,
"Tell my mother these words of hers have often helped me to believe,
through all these evil days, that God is living and commanding still.
But, more than all words, tell her my faith in God has been kept
unquenched by the thought of _herself_."'
"She took the packet from him. It was a little book, with Scriptures
and prayers written in it by her own hand, given to Harry when he was
a boy. On the crimson silk cover she had embroidered for it, was one
stain of a deeper crimson. As she opened it, a little well-worn leaf
dropped out, with a child's prayer on it she had written for him when
first he went to school.
"When she saw it, the thought of the hero dying on the battle-field
for the good cause vanished, and in its place came the memory of the
little hands clasped on her knees in prayer.
"And withdrawing her hand from Roger, a sudden quiver passed through
all her frame, and throwing her arms around me, she sobbed,--
"'My boy, my boy! O Lettice, it is Harry we have lost! It is our
Harry!'
"When I looked up again Roger was at the door. It seemed to me, from
the glance he gave he was waiting to say something more. And I
resolved, cost what it might, to hear it. We led my Mother into the
nearest chamber, and then leaving her with the maidens, I went back
to the Hall.
"Roger was still waiting in the porch.
"He came forward when he saw me.
"'Did he say anything more?' I asked.
"He hesitated an instant.
"He said, 'The Draytons and the Davenants might have to combat one
another in these evil times, but that we should never distrust each
other, and that he never had distrusted one of us.'
"He said so to me, the last thing before he left us. I said; 'And
that was all?'
"'The battle swept on; I had to mount again,' he said, 'and I could
not leave my men.'
"'You saw him no more,' I said. 'You could not even stay to watch
his last breath!'
"The moment I had uttered them I felt there was something like
reproach in my words, and I would have recalled them if I could.
"'I saw him no more until the fighting was over,' he said. 'Then I
came back and found him; and we brought him home. It was all we
could do,' he added; 'and it was little indeed.'
"'I am sure you did all you could, Roger,' I said; for I feared I had
wounded him. 'I should always be sure you would do all you could for
any of us.'
"'Should you, indeed!' he said. 'God knows I would.'
"And there was a tremor and a depth of pleased surprise in his tones
that startled me, and I could not look up.
"'Would to God I could do anything to comfort Lady Lucy or you,' he
said.
"'No one can comfort her, Roger,' I said; and the tears I had been
trying to put back choked my voice, 'Harry was everything to her. He
was everything to us all. No one will ever comfort her more.'
"'_You_ will comfort her, Lettice,' he said, with that quiet
commanding way he has sometimes. 'God gives it you to do; and He
will give you to do it.'
"And as he ceased speaking, and I went back to my Mother, I felt as
if there were indeed a strength through which I could do anything
that had to be done.
"_July_ 1.--Sir Launcelot Trevor has come with tidings of my Father
and my brothers.
"They are in the West, save the two younger, who went across the
Borders after the battle of Marston Moor, and have joined Montrose in
the Scottish Highlands, deeming that the king's cause will best rally
there.
"The good cause is low; lower than ever before. Soon after that
fatal day at Naseby the town of Bridgewater surrendered to General
Fairfax.
"Prince Rupert (with such courage as one might expect, I think, from
a chief of plunderers) thereon counselled the king to make peace.
But His Majesty, never so majestic as in adversity, said, 'That
although, as a soldier and a statesman, he saw no prospect but of
ruin, yet, as a Christian, he knew God would never forsake his cause,
and suffer rebels to prosper; that he knew his obligations to be,
both in conscience and honour, neither to abandon God's cause, to
injure his successors, or forsake his friends. Nevertheless, for
himself (he said) he looked for nothing but to die with honour and a
good conscience; and to his friends he had little prospect to offer,
but to die in a good cause, or, what was worse, to live as miserable
in maintaining it as the violence of insulting rebels could make
them.'
"What promises, or royal orders, could bind men, with any soul in
them, to their sovereign as words like these? Least of all those
who, like us, are bound to the cause by having given up our best for
it. Nothing, my Mother says, makes a thing so precious to us as what
we suffer for it. Indeed, nothing now seems able to kindle her to
anything like life, save aught associated with that sacred cause for
which Harry died.
"Sir Launcelot saith, moreover, that the rebels have been base enough
to lay bare to the eyes of the common people of London the private
letters from His Majesty to the queen, found in his cabinet on the
field at Naseby. And that these letters contain things which have
even lost the king some old loyal friends. Sorry friendship, indeed,
or loyalty, to be moved by discoveries, made only through treachery
and breach of confidence, which no gentleman would practice to save
his life.
"But there is one thing Sir Launcelot hinted to me which I dare not
breathe to my Mother. He said there was reason enough why Roger was
near Harry when he fell; for it was by the hand of one of the
Ironsides, beyond doubt, that he died.
"But never by Roger's hand! Or, if possibly such a curse could have
been suffered to fall on one like Roger, it must have been unknown to
him. Of this I am as sure as of my life.
"Sir Launcelot said that Roger's hand was wont to be a little too
ready to be raised. Ungenerous of him to say it, and yet too true.
Slowly roused; but once roused, blind to all results.
"How bitter his vain repentance would be if this terrible thing were
possible, and he once came to know it.
"How bitter and how vain!
"But even if it were possible, and he never knew it, but we knew it,
what a gulf from henceforth for ever between us and him!
"I cannot breathe this to my Mother. And yet, if Sir Launcelot's
fears could have any ground, it would seem a treachery, if ever Roger
came to us again to let her touch in welcome the hand that dealt that
blow!
"I know not what to do. It is the first perplexity I ever knew in
which I could not fly to her for aid and counsel.
"What a child I have been.
"What a child I am!
"Can it be possible that our Lord thought of His disciples being
perplexed and bewildered at all, as I am, when, just before He went
away, He called them 'little children?' Can it be possible that He
meant, Come to me, as little children to their mother; when you want
wisdom, come to Me!"