"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.