ANIMADVERSIONS.
From the time when the conversation recorded had in some measure
dispelled the fog between them, Roger and Richard Heywood drew rapidly
nearer to each other. The father had been but waiting until his son
should begin to ask him questions, for watchfulness of himself and
others had taught him how useless information is to those who have not
first desired it, how poor in influence, how soon forgotten; and now
that the fitting condition had presented itself, he was ready: with less
of reserve than in the relation between them was common amongst the
puritans, he began to pour his very soul into that of his son. All his
influence went with that party which, holding that the natural flow of
the reformation of the church from popery had stagnated in episcopacy,
consisted chiefly of those who, in demanding the overthrow of that form
of church government, sought to substitute for it what they called
presbyterianism; but Mr. Heywood belonged to another division of it
which, although less influential at present, was destined to come by and
by to the front, in the strength of the conviction that to stop with
presbyterianism was merely to change the name of the swamp--a party
whose distinctive and animating spirit was the love of freedom, which
indeed, degenerating into a passion among its inferior members, broke
out, upon occasion, in the wildest vagaries of speech and doctrine, but
on the other hand justified itself in its leaders, chief amongst whom
were Milton and Cromwell, inasmuch as they accorded to the consciences
of others the freedom they demanded for their own--the love of liberty
with them not meaning merely the love of enjoying freedom, but that
respect for the thing itself which renders a man incapable of violating
it in another.
Roger Heywood was, in fact, already a pupil of Milton, whose anonymous
pamphlet of 'Reformation touching Church Discipline' had already reached
him, and opened with him the way for all his following works.
Richard, with whom my story has really to do, but for the understanding
of whom it is necessary that the character and mental position of his
father should in some measure be set forth, proved an apt pupil, and was
soon possessed with such a passion for justice and liberty, as embodied
in the political doctrines now presented for his acceptance, that it was
impossible for him to understand how any honest man could be of a
different mind. No youth, indeed, of simple and noble nature, as yet
unmarred by any dominant phase of selfishness, could have failed to
catch fire from the enthusiasm of such a father, an enthusiasm glowing
yet restrained, wherein party spirit had a less share than
principle--which, in relation to such a time, is to say much. Richard's
heart swelled within him at the vistas of grandeur opened by his
father's words, and swelled yet higher when he read to him passages from
the pamphlet to which I have referred. It seemed to him, as to most
young people under mental excitement, that he had but to tell the facts
of the case to draw all men to his side, enlisting them in the army
destined to sweep every form of tyranny, and especially spiritual
usurpation and arrogance, from the face of the earth.
Being one who took everybody at the spoken word, Richard never thought
of seeking Dorothy again at their former place of meeting. Nor, in the
new enthusiasm born in him, did his thoughts for a good many days turn
to her so often, or dwell so much upon her, as to cause any keen sense
of their separation. The flood of new thoughts and feelings had
transported him beyond the ignorant present. In truth, also, he was a
little angry with Dorothy for showing a foolish preference for the
church party, so plainly in the wrong was it! And what could SHE know
about the question by his indifference to which she had been so
scandalised, but to which he had been indifferent only until rightly
informed thereon! If he had ever given her just cause to think him
childish, certainly she should never apply the word to him again! If he
could but see her, he would soon convince her--indeed he MUST see
her--for the truth was not his to keep, but to share! It was his duty to
acquaint her with the fact that the parliament was the army of God,
fighting the great red dragon, one of whose seven heads was prelacy, the
horn upon it the king, and Laud its crown. He wanted a stroll--he would
take the path through the woods and the shrubbery to the old sun-dial.
She would not be there, of course, but he would walk up the pleached
alley and call at the house.
Reasoning thus within himself one day, he rose and went. But, as he
approached the wood, Dorothy's great mastiff, which she had reared from
a pup with her own hand, came leaping out to welcome him, and he was
prepared to find her not far off.
When he entered the yew-circle, there she stood leaning on the dial, as
if, like old Time, she too had gone to sleep there, and was dreaming
ancient dreams over again. She did not move at the first sounds of his
approach; and when at length, as he stood silent by her side, she lifted
her head, but without looking at him, he saw the traces of tears on her
cheeks. The heart of the youth smote him.
'Weeping, Dorothy?' he said.
'Yes,' she answered simply.
'I trust I am not the cause of your trouble, Dorothy?'
'You!' returned the girl quickly, and the colour rushed to her pale
cheeks. 'No, indeed. How should you trouble me? My mother is ill.'
Considering his age, Richard was not much given to vanity, and it was
something better that prevented him from feeling pleased at being thus
exonerated: she looked so sweet and sad that the love which new
interests had placed in abeyance returned in full tide. Even when a
child, he had scarcely ever seen her in tears; it was to him a new
aspect of her being.
'Dear Dorothy!' he said, 'I am very much grieved to learn this of your
beautiful mother.'
'She IS beautiful,' responded the girl, and her voice was softer than he
had ever heard it before; 'but she will die, and I shall be left alone.'
'No, Dorothy! that you shall never be,' exclaimed Richard, with a
confidence bordering on presumption.
'Master Herbert is with her now,' resumed Dorothy, heedless of his
words.
'You do not mean her life is even now in danger?' said Richard, in a
tone of sudden awe.
'I hope not, but, indeed, I cannot tell. I left master Herbert
comforting her with the assurance that she was taken away from the evil
to come. "And I trust, madam," the dear old man went on to say, "that my
departure will not long be delayed, for darkness will cover the earth,
and gross darkness the people." Those were his very words.'
'Nay, nay!' said Richard, hastily; 'the good man is deceived; the people
that sit in darkness shall see a great light.'
The girl looked at him with strange interrogation.
'Do not be angry, sweet Dorothy,' Richard went on. 'Old men may mistake
as well as youths. As for the realm of England, the sun of righteousness
will speedily arise thereon, for the dawn draws nigh; and master Herbert
may be just as far deceived concerning your mother's condition, for she
has been but sickly for a long time, and yet has survived many winters.'
Dorothy looked at him still, and was silent. At length she spoke, and
her words came slowly and with weight.
'And what prophet's mantle, if I may make so bold, has fallen upon
Richard Heywood, that the word in his mouth should outweigh that of an
aged servant of the church? Can it be that the great light of which he
speaks is Richard Heywood himself?'
'As master Herbert is a good man and a servant of God,' said Richard,
coldly, stung by her sarcasm, but not choosing to reply to it, 'his word
weighs mightily; but as a servant of the church his word is no weightier
than my father's, who is also a minister of the true tabernacle, that
wherein all who are kings over themselves are priests unto God--though
truly he pretends to no prophecy beyond the understanding of the signs
of the times.'
Dorothy saw that a wonderful change, such as had been incredible upon
any but the witness of her own eyes and ears, had passed on her old
playmate. He was in truth a boy no longer. Their relative position was
no more what she had been of late accustomed to consider it. But with
the change a gulf had begun to yawn between them.
'Alas, Richard!' she said, mistaking what he meant by the signs of the
times, 'those who arrogate the gift of the Holy Ghost, while their sole
inspiration is the presumption of their own hearts and an overweening
contempt of authority, may well mistake signs of their own causing for
signs from heaven. I but repeat the very words of good master Herbert.'
'I thought such swelling words hardly sounded like your own, Dorothy.
But tell me, why should the persuasion of man or woman hang upon the
words of a fellow-mortal? Is not the gift of the Spirit free to each who
asks it? And are we not told that each must be fully persuaded in his
own mind?'
'Nay, Richard, now I have thee! Hang you not by the word of your father,
who is one, and despise the authority of the true church, which is
many?'
'The true church were indeed an authority, but where shall we find it?
Anyhow, the true church is one thing, and prelatical episcopacy another.
But I have yet to learn what authority even the true church could have
over a man's conscience.'
'You need to be reminded, Richard, that the Lord of the church gave
power to his apostles to bind or loose.'
'I do not need to be so reminded, Dorothy, but I do not need to be shown
first that that power was over men's consciences; and second, that it
was transmitted to others by the apostles waiving the question as to the
doubtful ordination of English prelates.'
Fire flashed from Dorothy's eyes.
'Richard Heywood,' she said, 'the demon of spiritual pride has already
entered into you, and blown you up with a self-sufficiency which I never
saw in you before, or I would never, never have companied with you, as I
am now ashamed to think I have done so long, even to the danger of my
soul's health.'
'In that case I may comfort myself, mistress Dorothy Vaughan,' said
Richard, 'that you will no longer count me a boy! But do you then no
longer desire that I should take one part OR the other and show myself a
man? Am I man enough yet for the woman thou art, Dorothy?--But,
Dorothy,' he added, with sudden change of tone, for she had in anger
turned to leave him, 'I love you dearly, and I am truly sorry if I have
spoken so as to offend you. I came hither eager to share with you the
great things I have learned since you left me with just contempt a
fortnight ago.'
'Then it is I whose foolish words have cast you into the seat of the
scorner! Alas! alas! my poor Richard! Never, never more, while you thus
rebel against authority and revile sacred things, will I hold counsel
with you.'
And again she turned to go.
'Dorothy!' cried the youth, turning pale with agony to find on the brink
of what an abyss of loss his zeal had set him, 'wilt thou, then, never
speak to me more, and I love thee as the daylight?'
'Never more till thou repent and turn. I will but give thee one piece of
counsel, and then leave thee--if for ever, that rests with thee. There
has lately appeared, like the frog out of the mouth of the dragon, a
certain tractate or treatise, small in bulk, but large with the wind of
evil doctrine. Doubtless it will reach your father's house ere long, if
it be not, as is more likely, already there, for it is the vile work of
one they call a puritan, though where even the writer can vainly imagine
the purity of such work to lie, let the pamphlet itself raise the
question. Read the evil thing--or, I will not say read it, but glance
the eye over it. It is styled "Animadversions upon--." Truly, I cannot
recall the long-drawn title. It is filled, even as a toad with poison,
so full of evil and scurrilous sayings against good men, rating and
abusing them as the very off-scouring of the earth, that you cannot yet
be so far gone in evil as not to be reclaimed by seeing whither such men
and their inspiration would lead you. Farewell, Richard.'
With the words, and without a look, Dorothy, who had been standing
sideways in act to go, swept up the pleached alley, her step so stately
and her head so high that Richard, slowly as she walked away, dared not
follow her, but stood 'like one forbid.' When she had vanished, and the
light shone in full at the far end, he gave a great sigh and turned
away, and the old dial was forsaken.
The scrap of title Dorothy had given was enough to enable Richard to
recognise the pamphlet as one a copy of which his father had received
only a few days before, and over the reading of which they had again and
again laughed unrestrainedly. As he walked home he sought in vain to
recall anything in it deserving of such reprobation as Dorothy had
branded it withal. Had it been written on the other side no search would
have been necessary, for party spirit (from which how could such a youth
be free, when the greatest men of his time were deeply tainted?), while
it blinds the eyes in one direction, makes them doubly keen in another.
As it was, the abuse in the pamphlet referred to, appeared to him only
warrantable indignation; and, the arrogance of an imperfect love leading
him to utter desertion of his newly-adopted principles, he scorned as
presumptuous that exercise of her own judgment on the part of Dorothy
which had led to their separation, bitterly resenting the change in his
playmate, who, now an angry woman, had decreed his degradation from the
commonest privileges of friendship, until such time as he should abjure
his convictions, become a renegade to the truth, and abandon the hope of
resulting freedom which the strife of parties held out--an act of
tyranny the reflection upon which raised such a swelling in his throat
as he had never felt but once before, when a favourite foal got staked
in trying to clear a fence. Having neither friend nor sister to whom to
confess that he was in trouble--have confided it he could not in any
case, seeing it involved blame of the woman his love for whom now first,
when on the point of losing her for ever, threatened to overmaster
him--he wandered to the stables, which he found empty of men and nearly
so of horses, half-involuntarily sought the stall of the mare his father
had given him on his last birthday, laid his head on the neck bent round
to greet him, and sighed a sore response to her soft, low, tremulous
whinny.
As he stood thus, overcome by the bitter sense of wrong from the one he
loved best in the world, something darkened the stable-door, and a voice
he knew reached his ear. Mistaking the head she saw across an empty
stall for that of one of the farm-servants, Goody Rees was calling aloud
to know if he wanted a charm for the toothache.
Richard looked up.
'And what may your charm be, mistress Rees?' he asked.
'Aha! is it thou, young master?' returned the woman. 'Thou wilt marvel
to see me about the place so soon again, but verily desired to know how
that godly man, Faithful Stopchase, found himself after his fall.'
'Nay, mistress Rees, make no apology for coming amongst thy friends. I
warrant thee against further rudeness of man or beast. I have taken them
to task, and truly I will break his head who wags tongue against thee.
As for Stopchase, he does well enough in all except owing thee thanks
which he declines to pay. But for thy charm, good mistress Rees, what is
it--tell me?'
She took a step inside the door, sent her small eyes peering first into
every corner her sight could reach, and then said:
'Are we alone--we two, master Richard?'
'There's a cat in the next stall, mistress: if she can hear, she can't
speak.'
'Don't be too sure of that, master Richard. Be there no one else?'
'Not a body; soul there may be--who knows?'
'I know there is none. I will tell thee my charm, or what else I may
that thou would wish to know; for he is a true gentleman who will help a
woman because she is a woman, be she as old and ugly as Goody Rees
herself. Hearken, my pretty sir: it is the tooth of a corpse, drawn
after he hath lain a se'en-night in the mould: wilt buy, my master? Or
did not I see thee now asking comfort from thy horse for the--'
She paused a moment, peered narrowly at him from under lowered eyebrows,
and went on:
'--heartache, eh, master Richard? Old eyes can see through velvet
doublets.'
'All the world knows yours can see farther than other people's,'
returned Richard. 'Heaven knows whence they have their sharpness. But
suppose it were a heartache now, have you got e'er a charm to cure
that?'
'The best of all charms, my young master, is a kiss from the maiden; and
what would thou give me for the spell that should set her by thy side at
the old dial, under a warm harvest moon, all the long hours 'twixt
midnight and the crowing of the black cock--eh, my master? What wilt
thou give me?'
'Not a brass farthing, if she came not of her own good will,' murmured
Richard, turning towards his mare. 'But come, mistress Rees, you know
you couldn't do it, even if you were the black witch the neighbours
would have you--though I, for my part, will not hear a word against
you--never since you set my poor old dog upon his legs again--though to
be sure he will die one of these days, and that no one can help--dogs
have such short lives, poor fools!'
'Thou knows not what old mother Rees can do. Tell me, young master, did
she ever say and not do--eh, now?'
'You said you would cure my dog, and you did,' answered Richard.
'And I say now, if thou will, I will set thee and her together by the
old dial to-morrow night, and it shall be a warm and moonlit night on
purpose for ye, an ye will.'
'It were to no good purpose, mistress Rees, for we parted this day--and
that for ever, I much fear me,' said Richard with a deep sigh, but
getting some little comfort even out of a witch's sympathy.
'Tut, tut, tut! Lovers' quarrels! Who knows not what they mean? Crying
and kissing--crying and kissing--that's what they mean. Come now--what
did thou and she quarrel about?'
The old woman, if not a witch, at least looked very like one, with her
two hands resting on the wide round ledge of her farthingale, her head
thrown back, and from under her peaked hat that pointed away behind, her
two greenish eyes peering with a half-coaxing, yet sharp and probing
gaze into those of the youth.
But how could he make a confidante of one like her? What could she
understand of such questions as had raised the wall of partition betwixt
him and Dorothy? Unwilling to offend her, however, he hesitated to give
her offer a plain refusal, and turning away in silence, affected to have
caught sight of something suspicious about his mare's near hock.
'I see, I see!' said the old woman grimly, but not ill-naturedly, and
nodded her head, so that her hat described great arcs across the sky;
'thou art ashamed to confess that thou lovest thy father's whims more
than thy lady's favours. Well, well! Such lovers are hardly for my
trouble!'
But here came the voice of Mr. Heywood, calling his groom. She started,
glanced around her as if seeking a covert, then peered from the door,
and glided noiselessly out.