"Yet along the Church's sky
Stars are scattered, pure and high;
Yet her wasted gardens bear
Autumn violets, sweet and rare,
Relics of a Spring-time clear,
Earnests of a bright New Year." KEBLE
No more was heard or seen of Jephthah, or of Captain Venn's troop. The
garrison within Bristol was small and unenterprising, and in point of
fact the war was over. News travelled slowly, but Stead picked up scraps
at Bristol, by which he understood that things looked very bad for the
King. Moreover, Sir George Elmwood died of his wounds; poor old Lady
Elmwood did not long survive him, and the estate, which had been left
to her for her life, was sequestrated by the Parliament, and redeemed
by the next heir after Sir George, so that there was an exchange of
the Lord of the Manor. The new squire was an elderly man, hearty and
good-natured, who did not seem at all disposed to interfere with any one
on the estate. He was a Presbyterian, and was shocked to find that
the church had been unused for three years. He had it cleaned from the
accumulation of dirt and rubbish, the broken windows mended with plain
glass, and the altar table put down in the nave, as it had been before
Mr. Holworth's time; and he presented to the living Mr. Woodley, a
scholarly-looking person, who wore a black gown and collar and bands.
The Elmwood folk were pleased to have prayers and sermon again, and
Patience was glad that the children should not grow up like heathens;
but her first church going did not satisfy her entirely.
"It is all strange," she said to Stead, who had stayed with the cattle.
"He had no book, and it was all out of his own head, not a bit like old
times."
"Of course not," said Emlyn. "He had got no surplice, and I knew him for
a prick-eared Roundhead! I should have run off home if you had not held
me, Patience. I'll never go there again."
"I am sure you made it a misery to me, trying to make Rusha and Ben as
idle and restless as yourself," said Patience.
"They ought not to listen to a mere Roundhead sectary," said Emlyn,
tossing her head. "I couldn't have borne it if I had not had the young
ladies to look at. They had got silk hoods and curls and lace collars,
so as it was a shame a mere Puritan should wear."
"O Emlyn, Emlyn, it is all for the outside," said Patience. "Now, I
did somehow like to hear good words, though they were not like the old
ones."
"Good, indeed! from a trumpery Puritan."
Stead went to church in the afternoon. He was eighteen now, and that
great struggle and effort had made him more of a man. He thought much
when he was working alone in the fields, and he had spent his time on
Sundays in reading his Bible and Prayer-book, and comparing them with
Jeph's tracts. Since Emlyn had come, he had made a corner of the cowshed
fit to sleep in, by stuffing the walls with dry heather, and the
sweet breath of the cows kept it sufficiently warm, and on the winter
evenings, he took a lantern there with one of Patience's rush lights,
learnt a text or two anew, and then repeated passages to himself and
thought over them. What would seem intolerably dull to a lad now, was
rest to one who had been rendered older than his age by sorrow and
responsibility, and the events that were passing led people to consider
religious questions a great deal.
But Stead was puzzled. The minister was not like the soldiers whom he
had heard raving about the reign of the saints, and abusing the church.
He prayed for the King's having a good deliverance from his troubles,
and for the peace of the kingdom, and he gave out that there was to be
a week of fasting, preaching, and preparation for the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper.
The better sort of people in the village were very much pleased, nobody
except Goody Grace was dissatisfied, and people told her that was only
because she was old and given to grumbling at everything new. Blane the
Smith tapped Stead on the shoulder, and said, "Hark ye, my lad. If it
be true that thou wast in old Parson's secrets, now's the time for thou
know'st what."
Stead's mouth was open, and his face blank, chiefly because he did not
know what to do, and was taken by surprise, and Blane took it for an
answer.
"Oh! if you don't know, that's another thing, but then 'twas for nothing
that the troopers flogged you? Well," he muttered, as Stead walked
off, "that's a queer conditioned lad, to let himself be flogged, as I
wouldn't whip a dog, all out of temper, because he wouldn't answer a
question. But he's a good lad, and I'll not bring him into trouble by a
word to squire or minister."
The children went off to gather cowslips, and Stead was able to talk it
over with Patience, who at first was eager to be rid of the dangerous
trust, and added, with a sigh, "That she had never taken the Sacrament
since the Easter before poor father was killed, and it must be nigh upon
Whitsuntide now."
"That's true," said Stead, "but nobody makes any count of holy days now.
It don't seem right, Patience."
"Not like what it used to be," said Patience. "And yet this minister is
surely a godly man."
"Father and parson didn't say ought about a godly man. They made me take
my solemn promise that I'd only give the things to a lawfully ordained
minister."
"He is a minister, and he comes by law," argued Patience. "Do be
satisfied, Stead. I'm always in fear now that folks guess we have
somewhat in charge; and Emlyn is such a child for prying and chattering.
And if they should come and beat thee again, or do worse. Oh, Stead!
surely you might give them up to a good man like that; Smith Blane says
you ought!"
"I doubt me! I know that sort don't hold with Bishops, and, so far as
I can see, by father's old Prayer-book, a lawful minister must have a
Bishop to lay hands on him," said Stead, who had studied the subject
as far as his means would allow, and had good though slow brains of his
own, matured by responsibility. "I'll tell you what, Patience, I'll go
and see Dr. Eales about it. I wot he is a minister of the old sort, that
father would say I might trust to."
Dr. Eales was still living in Mrs. Lightfoot's lodgings, at the sign of
the Wheatsheaf, or more properly starving, for he had only ten pounds a
year paid to him out of the benefice that had been taken away from him;
and though that went farther then than it would do now, it would not
have maintained him, but that his good hostess charged him as little as
she could afford, and he also had a few pupils among the gentry's sons,
but there were too many clergymen in the same straits for this to be a
very profitable undertaking. There were no soldiers in Mrs. Lightfoot's
house now, and the doctor lived more at large, but still cautiously, for
in the opposite house, named the "Ark," whose gable end nearly met the
Wheatsheaf's, dwelt a rival baker, a Brownist, whose great object seemed
to be to spy upon the clergyman, and have something to report against
him, nor was Mrs. Lightfoot's own man to be trusted. Stead lingered
about the open stall where the bread was sold till no customer was at
hand, and then mentioned under his breath to the good dame his desire to
speak with her lodger.
"Certainly," she said, but the Doctor was now with his pupils at
Mistress Rivett's. He always left them at eleven of the clock, more
shame of Mrs. Rivett not to give the good man his dinner, which she
would never feel. Steadfast had better watch for him at the gate which
opened on the down, for there he could speak more privately and securely
than at home.
He took the advice, and passed away the time as best he could, learning
on the way that a news letter had been received stating that the King
was with the Scottish army at Newcastle, and that it was expected that
on receiving their arrears of pay, the Scots would surrender him to the
Parliament, a proceeding which the folk in the market-place approved or
disapproved according to their politics.
Mrs. Rivett's house stood a little apart from the town, with a court and
gates opening on the road over the down; and just as eleven strokes were
chiming from the town clock below, a somewhat bent, silver-haired man,
in a square cap and black gown, leaning on a stick, came out of it.
Stead, after the respectful fashion of his earlier days, put his knee to
the ground, doffed his steeple-crowned hat and craved a blessing, both
he and the Doctor casting a quick glance round so as to be sure there
was no one in sight.
Dr. Eales gave it earnestly, as one to whom it was a rare joy to find a
country youth thus demanding it, and as he looked at the honest face he
said:
"You are mine hostess' good purveyor, methinks, to whom I have often
owed a wholesome meal."
"Steadfast Kenton, so please your reverence. There is a secret matter on
which I would fain have your counsel, and Mistress Lightfoot thought I
might speak to you here with greater safety."
"She did well. Speak on, my good boy, if we walk up and down here we
shall be private. It does my heart good to commune with a faithful young
son of the Church."
Steadfast told his story, at which the good old Canon was much affected.
His brother Holworth, as he called him, was not in prison but in the
Virginian plantations. He was still the only true minister of Elmwood,
and Mr. Woodley, though owned by the present so-called law of the land,
was not there rightly by the law of the Church, and, therefore, Stead
was certainly not bound to surrender the trust to him, but rather the
contrary.
The Doctor could have gone into a long disquisition about Presbyterian
Orders, contradicting the arguments many good and devout people adduced
in favour of them, but there was little time, so he only confirmed with
authority Stead's belief that a Bishop's Ordination was indispensable
to a true pastor, "the only door by which to enter to the charge of the
fold."
Then came the other question of attendance on his ministry, and whether
to attend the feast given out for the Sunday week, after the long-forced
abstinence: Patience's, ever since the break-up of the parish;
Steadfast's, since the siege of Bristol. Dr. Eales considered, "I cannot
bid you go to that in the efficacy of which neither you nor I believe,
my son," he said. "It would not be with faith. Here, indeed, I have
ministered privately to a few of the faithful in their own houses, but
the risk is over great for you and your sister to join us, espied as we
are. How is it with your home?"
"O, sir, would you even come thither?" exclaimed Steadfast, joyfully,
and he described his ravine, which was of course known to the Elmwood
neighbours, but very seldom visited by them, never except in the
middle of the day, and where the thicket and the caverns afforded every
facility for concealment.
Whitsun Day was coming, and Dr. Eales proposed to come over to the glen
and celebrate the Holy Feast in the very early morning before anyone was
astir. There were a few of his Bristol flock who would be thankful for
the opportunity of meeting more safely than they could do in the city,
since at Easter they had as nearly as possible been all arrested in a
pavilion in Mr. Rivett's garden which they had thought unsuspected.
There would be one market day first, and on that Stead would come and
explain his preparations, and hear what the Doctor had arranged. And
so it was. The time was to be three o'clock, the very dawn of the long
summer day, the time when sleep is deepest. Dr. Eales and Mrs. Lightfoot
would come out the night before, he not returning after his lesson to
the Rivetts, and she making some excuse about going to see friends for
the Sunday.
The Rivetts, living outside the gates where sentries still kept guard,
could start in the morning, and so could the four others who were to
form part of the congregation. Goody Grace was the only person near home
whom Patience wished to invite, for she too had grieved over the great
deprivation, and had too much heart for the Church to be satisfied with
Mr. Woodley's ministrations. Perhaps even she did not understand the
difference, but she could be trusted, and the young people knew how
happy it would make her.
Little can we guess what such an opportunity was to the faithful
children of the Church in those sad days. Goody Grace folded her hands
and murmured, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace," when
Patience told her of the invitation, and Patience, though she had all
her ordinary work to do, went quietly about it, as if she had some great
thought of peace and awe upon her.
"Why, Patience, you seem as if you were making ready for some guest, the
Prince of Wales at least!" said Emlyn, on Saturday night.
Patience smiled a sweet little happy smile and in her heart she said
"And so I am, and for a greater far!" but she did say "Yes, Emlyn, Dr.
Eales is coming to sleep here to-night, and he will pray with us in the
early morning."
It had been agreed that the Celebration should take place first, and
then after a short pause, the Morning Service. Jerusha was eleven years
old, and a very good girl, and since Confirmation was impossible, her
brother and sister would have asked for her admission to the Holy Feast
without it, but she could not be called up without the danger of awaking
Emlyn; and Patience was so sure that it was not safe to trust that
damsel with the full knowledge of the treasure that, though Steadfast
always thought his sister hard on her, he was forced to give way. The
children were to be admitted to Matins, for if any idea oozed out that
this latter service had been held, no great danger was likely to come
of it. Dr. Eales arrived in the evening, Steadfast meeting him to act
as guide, and Patience set before him of her best. A fowl, which she had
been forced to broil for want of other means of dressing it; bread baked
in a tin with a fire of leaves and small sticks heaped over it; roasted
eggs, excellent butter and milk. She apologised for not having dared
to fetch any ale for fear of exciting suspicion, but the doctor set her
quite at ease by his manifest enjoyment of her little feast, declaring
that he had not made so good a meal since Bristol was taken.
Then he catechised the children. Little Ben could say the Lord's Prayer,
the Belief, and some of the shorter Commandments, and the doctor patted
his little round white cap, and gave him two Turkey figs as a reward.
Jerusha, when she got over her desperate fright enough to speak above a
whisper, was quite perfect from her name down to "charity with all men,"
but Emlyn stumbled horribly over even the first answers, and utterly
broke down in the Fourth Commandment; but she smiled up in the doctor's
face in her pretty way, and blushed as she said "The chaplain at
Blythedale had taught us so far, your reverence."
"And have you learnt no further?"
"If you were here to teach me, sir, I would soon learn it," said the
little witch, but she did not come over him as she did with most people.
"You have as good an instructor as I for your needs, in this discreet
maiden," said Dr. Eales, and as something of a pout descended on
the sparkling little face, "when you know all the answers, perchance
Steadfast here may bring you to my lodgings and I will hear you."
"I could learn them myself if I had the book," said Emlyn.
The fact being that the Catechism was taught by Patience from memory
in those winter evenings when all went to bed to save candle light, but
that when Steadfast retired to the cow-house, Emlyn either insisted
on playing with the others or pretended to go to sleep; and twitted
Patience with being a Puritan. However, the hopes of going into Bristol
might be an incentive, though she indulged in a grumble to Rusha, and
declared that she liked a jolly chaplain, and this old doctor was not a
bit better than a mere Puritan.
Rusha opened her big eyes. She never did understand Emlyn, and perhaps
that young maiden took delight in shocking her. They were ordered off to
bed much sooner than they approved on that fair summer night, when the
half-moon was high and the nightingales were singing all round--not that
they cared for that, but there was a sense about them that something
mysterious was going on, and Emlyn was wild with curiosity and vexation
at being kept out of it.
She would have kept watch and crept out; but that Patience came in, and
lay down, so close to the door that it was impossible to get out without
waking her, and besides if Emlyn did but stir, she asked what was the
matter.
"They mean something!" said Emlyn to herself, "and I'll know what it
is. They have no right to keep me out of the plot; I am not like
stupid little Rusha! I have been in a siege, and four battles, besides
skirmishes! I'll watch till they think I'm asleep, if I pull all the
hulls out of my bed! Then they will begin."
But nothing moved that Emlyn could hear or see. She woke and slept, but
was quite aware when Patience rose up after a brief doze, and found the
first streaks of dawn in the sky, a cuckoo calling as if for very life
in the nearest tree, and Steadfast quietly sweeping the dew from the
grass in a little open space shut in by rocks, trees, and bushes, close
to the bank of the brook.
A chest which he kept in the cow-shed, and which bore traces of the fire
in the old house, had been brought down to serve as an Altar, and it was
laid over, for want of anything better, with one of poor Mrs. Kenton's
best table-cloths, which Patience had always thought too good for use.
The next thing was to meet the rest of the scanty congregation at the
entrances of the wood, and guide them to the spot. This was safely done,
Goody Grace knew the way, and had guided one of the old Elmwood maid
servants whom she had managed to shelter for the night. Mrs. Lightfoot
was there with Mrs. Rivett, her daughter, elder son, and a grave-looking
man servant, Mr. Henshaw, a Barbados merchant, with his wife, and a very
worn battered shabby personage, but unmistakably a gentleman of quality,
and wounded in the wars, for he was so lame that the merchant had to
help him over the rough paths.
It was a wonderful Whitsun-day morning that none of the little party
could ever forget. The sunrise could not be seen in that deep, narrow
place, but the sky was of a strange pale shining blue, and the tender
young green of the trees overhead was touched with gold, the glades
of the wood were intensely blue with hyacinths, and with all sorts of
delicate greens twined above in the bushes over them. A wild cherry, all
silver white, was behind their Altar, the green floor was marbled with
cuckoo flowers and buttercups, and the clear little stream whose voice
murmured by was fringed with kingcups and forget-me-nots. The scents
were of the most delicious dewy freshness; and as to the sounds! Larks
sang high up in the sky, wood pigeons cooed around, nightingales,
thrushes, every bird of the wood seemed to be trying to make music and
melody.
And in the midst the grey-haired priest stood close to an ivy-covered
rock, with the white covered Altar, and the bright golden vessels which
he had carefully looked to in the night, and the little congregation
knelt close round him on cloaks and mats, the women hooded, the old
Cavalier's long thin locks, the merchant's dark ones, and the close
cropped heads of the servant and of Steadfast bared to the morning
breeze in its pure, dewy, soft freshness, fit emblem of the Comforter.
No book was produced, all was repeated from memory. They durst not raise
their voices, but the birds were their choir, and as they murmured
their _Gloria in Excelsis_, the sweet notes rang out in that unconscious
praise.
When the blessing of peace had been given there was a long hush, and no
one rose till after the vessels had been replaced in their casket, and
Stead was climbing up with it again to the hiding place. Then there
was a move to the front of the hut, where Rusha was just awakening, and
Emlyn feigned to be still asleep. It was not yet four o'clock, but the
sweet freshness was still around everything. Young Mistress Alice Rivett
and her brother were enchanted to gather flowers, and ran after their
hosts to see the cows milked, and the goats, pigs, and poultry fed,
sights new to them; but the elder ladies shivered and were glad to warm
themselves at the little fire Patience hastily lighted, after cleaning
the hut as fast as she could, by rolling up the bedding, and fairly
carrying Ben out to finish his night's rest in the cow-house.
The guests had brought their provisions, and insisted that their young
hosts should eat with them, accepting only the warm milk that Patience
brought in her pail, and they drank from the horn cups of the family.
Dr. Eales observed to the Cavalier that it was a true _Agape_ or
love-feast like those of the ancient Church, and the gentleman's
melancholy, weather-beaten face relaxed into a smile as he sighed and
hoped that the same endurance as that of the Christians of old would be
granted in this time of persecution.
Emlyn was gratified at being a good deal noticed by the company as so
unlike the others. She was not shy and frightened like Rusha, who hung
her head and had not a word to say for herself, but chattered away to
the young Rivetts, showing them the kid, the calves, and the lambs,
taking Mistress Alice to the biggest cowslips and earliest wild roses,
and herself making a sweet posy for each of the ladies. The old Cavalier
himself, Colonel Harford, was even amused with the pretty little maid,
who, he told Dr. Eales, resembled Mirth as Master John Milton had
depicted her, ere he took up with General Cromwell and his crew; and was
a becoming figure for this early morn.
On learning the child's history, he turned out to know Sir Harry
Blythedale, but not to have heard of him since they had parted at
Newark, he to guard the king to Oxford, Sir Harry to join Lord Astley,
and he much feared that the old knight had been killed at Stowe, in the
fight between Astley and Brereton. This would account for nothing having
been heard from him about Emlyn, but Colonel Harford promised, if any
opportunity should offer, to communicate with Lady Blythedale, whom he
believed to be living at Worcester; and he patted Emlyn on the head,
called her a little loyal veteran, accepted a tiny posy of forget-me-not
from her, and after fumbling in his pocket, gave her a crown piece.
Steadfast and Patience were afraid it was his last, and much wished
she had contrived not to take it, but she said she should keep it for a
remembrance.
After this rest, the beautiful Whitsuntide Matins was said in the fair
forest church, and before six o'clock this strange and blessed festival
had ended, though not the peace and thankfulness in the hearts of the
little flock.
Indeed, instead of a sermon, Dr. Eales's parting words were "And he went
in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights."