LETTICE'S DIARY.
"_Rouen_.--We have not yet been able to enter Paris. The city is in
great excitement with the wars of the Fronde. The queen-mother, Anne
of Austria, and the young king Louis XIV., have been compelled to fly
to St. Germains. It is strange to be exiled from one Civil War to
another. The French Court is so poor in consequence of these
tumults, that they have had to dismiss some of their pages; and it is
reported that our own youngest princess, Henrietta, was obliged to
stay in bed to keep herself warm for lack of fuel to light a fire.
"I have not had to wait long for the fulfilment of my murmuring wish,
that some simple, homely woman's duty were separating me from Roger,
instead of a political crime.
"When my father returned from paying such farewell courtesies as he
might to Mistress Dorothy, he said, fixing a penetrating look on me
(who, if I cast down my eyes, could not hide from him my eyelids
swollen with weeping),--
"'Master Roger Drayton was longer than need be in fetching Mistress
Dorothy's mantle. I trust, Lettice, thou gavest him no cause.'
"Then I told him all, as well as brief words might tell it.
"'Thou hast done well,' said he. 'Could I think daughter of mine
would have felt otherwise to one of those who have made England a
reproach and a curse on the earth, I would sooner she had died. For
to eternity my curse would rest on her, and never would I see her
face again.'
"Then seeing me grow pale, he added, in a cheery voice,--
"'But what need to speak of curses? Thou art a true maiden, Lettice,
as true as fair. And many a hand there is that would be glad to be
linked with this little hand, none the less that it has rejected a
traitor.'
"Then I gathered courage once for all, and said,--
"'Father, they were good as angels to mother and to me. I shall
always love them better than any in the world, save thee; I shall
always think them holier and wiser, and more true and good than any
in the world, save mother. For my sake, father, say no ill of them.
It wounds me to the heart. And, father, say no more of any other
wooer. I will live for thee and for no other.'
"He was not moved as I hoped by my pleading. He only smiled and
said,--
"'No need for me to say anything of other wooers, child. They may
speak for themselves. But as to living for me, I fear thou wilt find
me a rough old tyrant enough to live with, say nothing cf living for.
See already, when I meant to cheer thee I have made thee weep.
Maidens are mysterious,' he added, going to the window and whistling
uneasily. Then returning, he laid his hand kindly on my shoulder,
saying, 'Come, come child. Thou shalt be as good to me as thou wilt.
And I will say as little evil of any thou carest for as I can, though
as to picking my words it is what I am little used to. Only no
tragedy, Lettice, and no heroics! Your mother knew I had no capacity
for the heroics, and she never troubled me with them. I knew that
she loved the mountain-tops, and now and then I should hear her
singing there as it were like a lark or an angel. But she never
expected me to climb. She had her divine songs, and her heroic
epics, and her lays, and her romaunts, and I loved her all the better
for them, but to me she always talked in prose, so that we understood
each other. Thou and I will do the same."
"And then the horses were ready, and we rode away together to Rouen.
"But his words are very mournful to me. Are only the streets and
market-places, as it were, of our souls to be open to each other, and
the inmost places, the hearth and the church, always to be closed?
"Yet there is a kind of unreasonable consolation in the prohibition
of my father's as to Roger. It is a terrible strain to have to keep
that door closed myself; whilst, at the same time, the barrier of
another's will seems less impenetrable than that of my own purpose.
"_May_ 3_rd_.--I am not sure that my father's words were not the best
medicine in the world for me. It is so much better to have to meet
others than to expect them to meet us.
"I have not to erect my cross into an idolatry, serving it with a
ritual of passionate kisses and tears. I have to carry it; and to do
my work carrying it.
"'_Si tu crucem portas; ipsa te vicissim portabit_,' saith my
mother's A Kempis.
"Shall I indeed ever prove that? Not as a sufferer only, but as a
conqueror? Then how? Not surely by looking at my cross, but by
bearing it. Not by bearing it with downcast eyes, but with eyes
upward to the redeeming Cross now empty;--to the living Conqueror who
once suffered there!
"_May_ 4_th_.--Mistress Dorothy left a sermon of Dr. Owen's with me.
It was preached on occasion of a Parliament victory over the king at
Colchester and Romford. She asked my forbearance with the occasion.
'Not difficult to exercise (I said), since victor and vanquished,
King and Parliament, are both banished now before this new
usurpation.'
"I read it with interest. Little of the cant some think
characteristic of the Puritan speech there. Dr. Owen calls
Colchester, Colchester, and not Gilead or Manasseh; and England,
England, not Canaan; and Naseby, Naseby, not Jezreel or Armageddon;
and his enemies their own English names, not bulls of Bashan, or
Amorites, or Edomites, or Hagarenes.
"But it is for what he saith therein on trouble, that she gave it me.
The text is the prayer of Habakkuk the prophet upon Shigionoth.
Shigionoth, saith the doctor, means 'variety, a song in various
metres.' 'Are not God's variable dispensations held out under these
variable tunes, not all alike fitted to one string? Are not several
tunes of mercy and judgment in those songs? "_By terrible things in
righteousness wilt thou answer us_." Nothing more refreshes the
panting soul than an "answer" of its desires; but to have this answer
by "_terrible things_"--that string strikes a humbling, a mournful
note.
"'We are clothed by our Father in a party-coloured coat; here a piece
of unexpected deliverance, and there a piece of deserved correction.
The cry of every soul is like the cry of old and young at the
foundation of the second temple. A mixed cry is in our streets.
"'A full wind behind the ship drives her not so fast forward as a
side wind that seems almost as much against her as with her; and the
reason, they say, is, because a full wind fills but some of her
sails, which keep it from the rest that they are empty, when a side
wind fills all her sails, and sends her speedily forward.
"'Labour to have your hearts right tuned for these variable songs,
and sweetly to answer all God's dispensations in their choice
variety. It is a song that reacheth every line of our hearts, to be
framed by the grace and Spirit of God. Therein hope, fear,
reverence, with humility and repentance have a space, as well as joy,
delight, and love, with thankfulness.
"'That instrument will make no music that hath but some strings in
tune. If, when God strikes on the string of joy and gladness, we
answer pleasantly; but when He touches upon that of sorrow and
humiliation, we suit it not; we are broken instruments that make no
melody unto God. A well-tuned heart must have all its strings, all
its affections, ready to answer every touch of God's finger. He will
make everything beautiful in its time. Sweet harmony cometh out of
some discords. When hath a gracious heart the soundest joys, but
when it hath the deepest sorrows? When hath it the humblest
meltings, but when it hath the most ravishing joys?
"'In every distress learn to wait with patience for the appointed
time. Wait for it believing, wait for it praying, wait for it
contending. Waiting is not a lazy hope, a sluggish expectation.
"'Ye must be weary and thirsty, ye must be led into the wilderness
before the rock-waters come. Yet (to those who wait) they shall
come. Though grace and mercy seem to be locked up from them like
water in a flint, whence fire is more natural than water,--yet God
will strike abundance out of Christ for their refreshment with His
rod of mercy.
"'He would have His people wholly wrapt up in His all-sufficiency.
Have your souls never in spiritual trial been drawn from all your
outworks to this main fort? God delights to have the soul give up
itself to a contented losing of all its reasonings even in the
infinite unsearchableness of His goodness and power. Here He would
have us secure our shallow barks in this quiet sea, this infinite
ocean whither neither wind nor storm do once approach.
"'Those blustering temptations which rage at the shore, when we are
half at land and half at sea, half upon the bottom of our own reason
and half upon the ocean of Providence, reach not at all into this
deep. Oh, that we could in all our trials lay ourselves down in
these arms of the Almighty, His all-sufficiency in power and
goodness. Oh, how much of the haven should we have in our voyage;
how much of home in our pilgrimage, how much of heaven in this
wretched earth!'
"Words of strong consolation, Dr. Owen, to reach even to us
'malignant' exiles in this foreign land.
"_May_ 4_th_.--It was well I copied these words out; for my father,
seeing the superscription of the pamphlet, grew very fierce at it,
called it a firebrand and a seditious libel, and bade Barbe, our
servant, light her next fire therewith.
"And to-day he hath brought me the 'Icon Basilike,' daintily bound
like a missal.
"'Here is reading fitter for a loyal maiden,' quoth he. Since which
I have done little else but lament ever the sorrows and heavenly
patience of His Sacred Majesty.
"If Olive and the rest could but see this, they would surely be
melted to repentance, and enkindled to counterwork their sad
misdoings. And who shall say any repentance is vain?
"My father is full of hope at present. We have had fearful accounts
of the disorders in the city of London and in the army; the very
strongholds of the rebels. The whole country seems to be in a blaze.
Executions, funeral processions in honour of the people executed,
mutiny suppressed only by the strongest measures. Surely this tumult
must spend itself, or exhaust the nation soon. And, as if smitten
with madness, they say the substance of the army and its greatest
chiefs are to depart for Ireland, leaving this half-suppressed
conflagration behind them.
"These things nourish great hopes among us.
"Meanwhile, from Scotland there are the most encouraging tidings, the
whole nation seeming to be awaking to their duty. His Majesty the
young king will depart before long, to be a rallying point for this
reviving loyalty."
_August_ 20, _Paris_.--The tumults of the Fronde are over. The
French Court has returned to Paris, and it is my work at present to
give as much a look of home as I can to these four or five great
rooms on one floor of an hotel belonging to one of the ancient
decayed nobility, where we are to make our sojourn. (_Abode_ is a
word I will never use in relation to this land of our exile.)
"These rooms open into each other, and command an inner courtyard,
where a fountain flows all day from a classical marble urn held by a
nymph. The cool trickle is very pleasant to hear in this great heat.
On this nymph and on other classical statues, the cook of the French
family who live below us irreverently hangs his pots and pans to dry
singing, meanwhile, snatches of chansons, which end high up in the
scale, with all kinds of unexpected and indescribable flourishes.
"Our family is enlarged. Besides our own cook, we have a French
waiting-maid, who also does work about my rooms. She has wonderfully
lissom fingers, turning everything out of her hands, from my coiffure
to my father's chocolate, with a finish and neatness which give to
our little household arrangements such a grace and order as if we had
a splendid establishment. Indeed, few of our fellow-exiled have the
comforts we have. Our revenues come to us regularly, my father knows
not (or will not know) how. But I feel little doubt to whose hands
and hearts we owe them. They enable us to keep something like an
open table in a simple way for our countrymen, so that we hear much
of what is going on.
"_August_ 26_th_.--Our rooms do begin to have something of a home
feeling. My youngest brother, Walter, has joined us. Roland, now
our eldest, is not hopeful as to the king's prospects while Oliver
Cromwell lives, and has offered his sword to the Spanish Court. But
Walter is a marvellous solace and delight to us. He was always the
gayest and lightest-hearted of the band of brothers, and (except
Harry) the kindest and gentlest. In all other respects he resembled
my mother more than any of us. The bright auburn hair (such a crown,
when flowing in the Cavalier love-locks); the soft eyes. And, next
to Harry, he was most on her heart. In a different way--Harry as her
stay and rest; Walter as her tenderest anxiety. So much she thought
there was of promise in him, yet so much to cause solicitude. None
amongst us were so moved in childhood by devotional feeling. As a
child, he said lovely things to her, having an angelic insight, she
deemed, into the beauty of heavenly truth. She would weep in
repeating these sayings, and say she feared ('but ought to hope') it
betokened early death. But this passed away with early childhood.
As a boy, he was the merriest, and, in some ways, the wildest of all;
the oftenest in difficulties, though the soonest out of them. But
she had ever the strongest influence over him. And up to her death,
although he had done many things to make her anxious, he had done
nothing to make her despond.
"In her last illness she spoke of him more than of any one, and
charged me to care for him.
"And now he is once more at home with us, and seems to cling to me
with much of the fond reverence he had for her. In the twilight on
Sundays he likes me to talk of her, and sing the heavenly songs she
loved.
"And for his sake mainly I tune my lute, and sing old English songs,
and learn some new French ones, and mind the fashions of the Court;
not that for my own sake I like to have ill-made or miscoloured
clothes. (I think, too, there is one who would care; and whether he
ever see me again or not, I have a kind of self-regard due to him.
Who can tell if Oliver might repent, or die, and England be England
once more?)
"_August_ 27_th_.--This day my father has presented me to a sweet
aged French lady, Madame la Motha St. Rémy. She knew my mother, in
long past days, at the English Court, and for her sake has welcomed
me as a child (having none of her own), embracing me tenderly,
kissing me on both cheeks. A most lovely lady, with a sweet grandeur
in her demeanour, which made me feel as if I had been given the
honour of the Tabouret at Court, when she seated me on a low seat
beside her, clasping my hands in hers.
"When we were left alone together, after some conversation on
indifferent topics, pushing my hair back from my forehead, she said,--
"'The same face, my child! but different tints; and a different soul.
More colour, I think, without and within. The brown richer, the gold
brighter, the eyes darker, and a look in them which seems to say,
life will not easily conquer what looks through them. Of colour
here,' she said, stooping and kissing my cheek, 'perhaps I must not
judge at this moment. Pardon me, my child, that I spoke as if I was
speaking to a picture. When we see the children of those whom we
loved in early years, we see our youth in their faces. To me thou
art not only Mademoiselle Lettice, thou art a whole lost world of
love and delight. When I look at thee I see not thee only, I see
visions and dream dreams. Ah, pardon, my child, I have made thee
weep; I have brought back her image indeed into thine eyes.'
"Tell me of her, madame,' I said.
"How shall I tell thee of her? She was a St. Agnes--a beautiful soul
lent for a season to this world never belonging to it. Some called
her an angel; that she never was. When first I knew her, she was
simple, joyous, guileless as a child, but always tender, with tears
near the brim, a heart sensitive to every touch of delight or pain;
not strong, radiant, triumphant, like the angels who have never
suffered.'
"'She had suffered even then,' I said, 'when you knew her, madame?'
"'She never told thee? Ah then, perhaps, I make treacherous
revelations. What right have I to lift the veil she kept so
faithfully drawn?'
"'You can tell me nothing of my mother, madame,' I said, 'which will
not make her memory more sacred.'
"'Again, that look is not hers! Your face bewilders me, my child.
This moment soft like hers; now all enkindled, full of fire; to do
battle for her, I know,'--she added. 'But, as thou sayest, there is
nothing which needs to be concealed.'
"'Madame,' I said, 'her life belongs to me, does it not? any
recollection of her is my legacy and treasure. I also may have to
endure. Most women have.'
"'It was my brother, my child,' she said. 'The sorrow was half mine,
which perhaps gives me some right to speak. He was in the embassy in
London, and I, recently married, was there also. They loved each
other. They were all but betrothed. But they were separated.
Calumnious cabals, I know not what. The misery of these things is,
that one never knows how they go wrong. A bewildering mist, a breath
of gusty rumour, and the souls which saw into each other's depths
with a glance, which revealed to each other life-secrets in a tone,
which were as one, which are as one, lose each other on the sea of
life, drifting for ever further and further apart, beyond reach of
look, or tone, or cry of anguish. So it was with them. He came back
to France, bewildered, despairing; sought death on more than one
battle-field; at last found it. And then we learned how true she was
to him; what a depth of passionate love dwelt in the child-like
heart. But two years afterwards your father entreated and your
grandfather insisted, till at length she yielded and was married.
They thought the old love was dead. But when I &aw her afterwards,
pale, meek, and passive, like the ghost of herself, I thought it was
not the love that was dead, but the heart.'
"'But her heart was not dead, madame,' I said. 'She loved us all at
home with a love tender, and living, and fervent as ever warmed heart
or home.'
"'Without doubt, my child,' said madame. 'Duty was a kind of passion
with her always. She was ardent in goodness, as others are in love.
There is the passion of maternal love, and there is the flame of
devotion. A great passion may leave fuel for other fires in a pure
heart, but it leaves no place for a second like itself. But why
should I speak to thee thus? thou who art but a child. After all,
have I been a traitor?'
"'It is my English fairness and colour, perhaps, which make madame
think me younger than I am. Do not repent what you have told me; I
may need such memories yet to strengthen me.'
"She smiled, one of those smiles which always bring youth into the
faces that have them; a smile from the heart, which lit up her dark
eyes so that my heart was warmed at their light--and turned the
wrinkles into dimples, and seemed to bring sunshine on the silky
white hair.
"'No, no, my friend,' she said, 'thou wilt never suffer as she did.
Thou wilt conquer thy destiny.'
"'She conquered,' I said; 'she was the joy and blessing of every
heart that knew her.'
"'As to heaven and duty, yes, my child; she was a saint. But thou
wilt conquer as to earth also; I see it in thine eyes.'
"How little she knows!
"This history has made so many things clear to me. I know now what
my mother meant when she said I could never save Sir Launcelot by
marrying him, unless I loved him. I know now how it was she bore so
passively some things which I could have wished otherwise at home.
She felt, I think, that, give what she might in patience, and duty,
and loyal regard, she could not give my father what he had given her.
And therefore, perhaps, she could not, as he said, help him to
'climb.' She could come down to him in all loving, lowly ministries
and forbearances; but love only (I think), in that relationship, can
have that instinctive sympathy, that secret irresistible constraint
which, with a thousand wilfulnesses and blunderings, yet could have
drawn his soul up to hers. When so much of the strength of the
nature is spent in keeping doors of memory rigidly closed, perchance
too little is left to meet the little daily difficulties of life with
the play and freedom which makes them light. And this awakens a new
strong hope in my heart, binding me as never before with a fond,
regretful reverence to my father. Something she has left me to do.
"Something, perhaps, which she could never have done for him. I (so
far beneath her!) may, by virtue of there being no locked-up world of
the past between us, help a little more to lead him to those other
heights which he protested to her he could never climb. By virtue,
moreover, of not having to stoop from any heights to him, but being
in the valley with him, so that I can honestly say and feel, 'we will
try to climb together.'
"For in this at least I am sure the Puritans are right. The up-hill
path is no exceptional supererogatory excursion for those who have a
peculiar fancy for mountain-tops; it is the one necessary path for
every one of us, and it is always up-hill to the end; the only other
being, not along the levels, but downward, downward, every step
downward, out of the pure air, out of the sun-light; downward for
ever!
"_August_ 23_d_.--To-day I kissed our queen's hand. She embraced me,
and said gracious words about my mother. She was in deep mourning;
and with her was the little Princess Henrietta, a child cf marvellous
vivacity and grace. Her Majesty graciously have taken me into closer
connection with her Court, and with the French Court also. But my
father seems not solicitous for this. He is all the more an
Englishman for being an exile; and he misliketh their Popish doings,
and some other doings of which probably the Pope would disapprove as
much as the Puritans. He saith the French courtiers, many of them,
seem to think of nothing but making love, without sufficiently
considering to whom; not making love and settling it once for all
like reasonable people, but going on making it the amusement of their
lives all the way through, which is quite another thing. And he
thinks the less I hear of all this the better.
"He saith, moreover, that the company around the young king, if fit
enough for His Majesty and for young men like Walter, who 'must sow
their wild oats on some field,' is not the fittest for me.
"But it seems to me I should be ten thousand times safer in such
company than Walter, impetuous and gay, and easily moved, and with no
great love in his heart to keep it pure and warm. I would I could
find him some such French maiden as Madame la Mothe must have been
when she was young. Are these wild oats, then, the only seeds in the
world that yield no harvest? My heart aches for Walter in that bad
world where I cannot follow him, and whence he so often comes back
flushed, and hasty, and impatient, and unlike himself.
"Last Sunday we attended the English service, which our queen has
obtained permission to be held in a hall at the palace of the Louvre.
Bishop Cosins officiated.
"It was the happiest hour I have spent in this strange land. The
sacred old words, how they come home to the heart. Not heaven alone
is in them; but England, home, childhood.
"Unhappy Puritans! to have banished the old prayers from
parish-church, hall, and minster.
"Unhappy Papistical people! to banish them into a dead ancient
language. The other day I went with my father into the Cathedral of
Notre Dame. The priests were chanting in Latin at the altar. Those
Catholic children can have none of the memories so dear to us of the
gradual breaking of the light into the dear old words, as in our
childhood we wake up to them one by one to see they are not music
only, but words: to find a joyful significance in each sentence of
the creeds and hymns and prayers.
"I wonder what they have instead?
"_September_ 8_th_.--To-day Madame la Mothe came into my bed-chamber.
Seeing the little table with the picture of the Crucifixion my mother
loved, resting on it, and her Bible and A Kempis on it (with the
'Icon Basilike'), she crossed herself and embraced me, pointing to
the picture.
"'It was my mother's,' I said.
"'Had she then come back to the Church?'
"'She was always in the Church, madame,' I said; 'she was no Sectary.'
"'Excuse me, I do not understand your English terms. I mean the
true, the ancient Church,' she rejoined.
"'My mother believed ours to be the ancient Church, madame,' I said.
'We are not mere Calvinists or Lutherans.'
"'No doubt, my child, I would not give you offence; but it is not to
be expected a Catholic should recognize those little distinctions
among those we must consider heretics. You understand, I mean no
offence, it is simply that I am ignorant. Perplex me not with those
subtleties, my child; I ask, can it be possible that thou and thine
are returning to allegiance to His Holiness the Pope, and the holy
Roman Church?'
"'Our Church does not indeed acknowledge the Pope, madame, nor the
Roman Church,' I said, trying to recall some of the debates I had
heard on the matter, which had in itself never much occupied me. 'We
are English, not Roman. But I have heard our chaplain speak with the
greatest respect of some popes who lived, I think, a little more than
a thousand years ago, and say he would gladly have received
consecration from them.'
"'No doubt, my friend, no doubt,' said madame, becoming a little
excited, 'but the priests of to-day cannot be consecrated by popes
who lived a thousand years ago. I would ask, are any of you willing
to return to the popes of to-day? We used to hear your Bishop Laud
well spoken of, and were not without hopes of you all at that time.
It was once reported he had been offered a Cardinal's hat--of course
on conditions. Have you advanced a little nearer since then? Are
you coming back to the fold in earnest?'
"'To the Pope who lives now, madame?' I said; 'I do not think the
archbishop or our chaplain ever dreamed of that. Our chaplain was
always hoping the Church of Rome would come back towards us.'
"'Towards you! towards heresy, my child! You speak of what you know
not,' she replied, waving her hands rapidly, as if to brush away a
swarm of insects. 'Any one of us, our priests, His Holiness himself
may indeed move towards a Protestant, as the good Shepherd towards
the wandering sheep, to bring it back. But the Church, never! She
is the rock, my friend, on which the world rests. She moves not.
The world moves, the sand shifts, the sea beats, but she is the rock.'
"'But, madame, pardon me,' I said, 'the chaplain thought the Church
of Rome _had_ changed. There is a Rock, he thought, on which all the
Churches rest. All we want (he said) is to remove some accumulations
with which the lapse of time has encumbered this rock; and then he
thought we might all be one again.'
"'My child,' she replied, 'the Church does not move; but most surely
she _builds_, or rather she grows. She is living, and all things
living grow. She is as one of our great cathedrals. Age after age
adds to its towers, its chapels, its side aisles. Heart after heart
adds to its shrines. But it is still one cathedral. We do not need
to hunt out obsolete books to see if we are building according to the
oldest rules. New needs create new rules. When we want to know what
to believe, we do not need to send for antiquaries. We do not need
to grope back among the far-off centuries and see what those
excellent popes, of whom your good chaplain spoke, said a thousand
years ago. We have a living Pope now. He is the vicar of Christ; we
listen, he can speak, he can teach, he can command. We do not need
to go to ancient worm-eaten books for our creeds. They were living
voices in their age, and spoke for it. We have the living voice for
our age, and we listen to it. Tell me then, quite simply; are your
English people, or any of them, coming back to the true ancient
Catholic Church?'
"'Many among us have sighed for a union with the rest of Catholic
Christendom,' I said. 'Our chaplain used to speak much of it. We
are not of the sects, he said, who have overrun Germany and other
Protestant countries, Lutheran, Zwinglian, Calvinist, Huguenot. He
used to speak much of their errors. One or two little concessions,
he said, and all might be one again.'
"'Concessions from us, my child!' said madame, shaking her head.
'What would you have? The doors of the Church stand open. You have
but to enter. The arms of His Holiness are outstretched. You have
but to fly to them. You have pardon, welcome, reconciliation, not a
reproach for the past, all forgotten! What would you have more?'
"'Madame,' I said, 'we think we _are_ in the Catholic Church.'
"'Ah, my charming child,' she said, smiling compassionately. 'I see
it is in vain to speak of these things. In your island you have the
ideas of an island. You have so many things to yourselves that you
think you may have everything to yourselves. You have your
constitution, your seas, your mountains and plains, your clouds, your
skies, all to yourselves. But the Catholic Church! Ah, my child,
that is impossible; you are a remarkable people, and have remarkable
ambitions. But there are things possible and things impossible. You
cannot have a Catholic Church all to yourselves. It is not a thing
possible.'
"Then the slight excitement there had been in her manner passed away,
and she said,--
"'My child, we will not perplex ourselves much with these difficult
things. I have a very holy cousin among the ladies of Port Royal.
Perhaps one day I may introduce her to you. For women, happily, if
they can help to welcome each other within the sacred doors, have not
the keys to close them. And with regard to thy mother, all this has
nothing to do. Heavenly beings are not subject to earthly laws. And
that among the heathen there were such, my director assures me there
is no doubt. I trust even there were such among the Huguenots; for
some of my ancestors were unhappily 'gentlemen of the religion.'"
"'Did any of them suffer in the St. Bartholomew?' I asked; 'and do
you know if any among them took refuge in London?'
"'I have heard there is one of their descendants established in
London as a physician,' she said.
"'I know him, madame,' I said. And it made me feel a kind of kindred
with the gentle French lady that a connection of hers, however
remote, had married Olive.
"But this evening, when Barbe, the waiting-woman, was arranging my
hair, and I was consoling her with telling her some of Dr. Owen's
thoughts about sorrow (for Barbe has lately lost her mother, and is a
destitute orphan, and has had a sorrowful life in many ways), she
said, in a choked voice,--
"'Ah, if mademoiselle could only hear the minister at the prêche.
For the people of the religion are allowed to meet again, in a quiet
way.'
"'You belong to the religion then, Barbe?'
"'Without doubt, mademoiselle. Have not my kindred fought and been
massacred for it these hundred years? This is what made me so glad
when the chevalier engaged me to wait on mademoiselle. I knew at
once it was the good hand of God. For the English are also of the
religion, my father said; and although they have sometimes perplexed
our people by promising much and doing little for us, we always knew
these were mere Court intrigues; and that in heart we were one.'
"'But, Barbe,' I said, with some hesitation, wishing not to mislead,
nor yet to pain her, 'we are not exactly of "the religion." The
English Church is not like yours. We are not Calvinists. We have
bishops and a liturgy, and have changed as little as possible the old
Catholic ritual.'
"'Ah, what does that matter?' replied Barbe, unmoved; 'to each
country its customs! These little distinctions are affairs of the
clergy. They aro not for such as me. And I have known from my
infancy that the English are Protestant. They do not acknowledge the
Pope nor the Mass. They do not burn for these things; on the
contrary, they have been burned for them. They may, indeed, have
their little eccentricities,' continued Barbe charitably. 'Bishops
even, and a Book of Prayers! Do they not live on an island? Which
in itself is an eccentricity. But they are Protestant. I have
always known it, and now I see it. Mademoiselle does not go to
Confession; she does not adore the Host. Every morning and evening
she reads her Bible in her own language. She consoles me with the
excellent words of a Protestant minister, as good as we hear at our
prêche. Therefore mademoiselle is doubtless of "the religion." And
to me it is a privilege, for which I thank God day and night, that I
am called to wait on her.'
"It is very strange how differently things look a little way off.
Neither Barbe nor Madame la Mothe seem able even to perceive the
differences which to us have been so important. In spite of all I
can say, Madame la Mothe regards me as outside; 'very good, very
dear, very charming,' but still outside; as a heretic, as a Huguenot.
And in spite of all I can say, Barbe regards me as within; of her
community, of her Church, of her religion, of her family; as a sister.
"What are we to do?
"We offer our hands courteously to all the ancient Churches. And
they turn scornfully away, saying, On your knees, as penitents, we
will receive you, but, otherwise, never! You are outcasts,
prodigals, in the 'far country.'
"On the other hand we turn away from the new Protestant Churches
saying, In some respects you are right, but you have lost the ancient
priesthood you have rent yourselves from Catholic antiquity. And
nevertheless they persist in embracing us, in calling us kindred,
sisters and brethren.
"What are we to do?
"In England it was in comparison easy. We had things to ourselves.
Across the seas, where these foreign Churches loomed on our vision in
rocky masses through the mist and distance, it was easy to maintain
our theory about them. But here, where we are amidst them, and
Churches break into communities of men and women, it is difficult to
continue stretching out peaceable hands to those who scornfully pass
by on the other side, and not to clasp in brotherly greeting the
hands held out in welcome to us. Barbe and her Huguenots (since they
have will it so) I must then acknowledge as kindred.
"Yet whether they heed or not, I must and will also honour as our
brethren every Catholic who is just, and good, and Christian. Their
treasures of goodness are ours, in as far as they are our delight and
our example, and none can deprive us of the possession.
"It seems to me, if the English Church shuts her heart against the
Protestants on one side, and the Roman Church on the other, her fold
becomes the narrowest corner of Christendom a Christian can creep
into. But if, on the contrary, she stretches out her hands to both,
bound on one side by her creeds and liturgies to the Catholic past,
and on the other free to receive all the truth yet to be revealed in
the free Word of God, what field on earth so fertile and so free,
enriched by all the past, free to all the future?
"It is those who exclude who are really the excluded. The more our
hearts can find to love and honour, the richer they are.
"The outlaws, I think, in God's Church are not those who are cast out
of the synagogue, but those who cast others out."
OLIVE'S RECOLLECTIONS.
At five o'clock on the evening of the 10th of July, 1649, the
trumpets sounded again in London streets, not for a soldier's
funeral, and not for a triumph, but for an army going forth to war.
To battle with a whole nation in insurrection, or rather in tumult;
every man's hand practised in cruel and treacherous warfare against
every man through those blood stained eight years since the massacre
of 1641, now all combined against the Commonwealth and Oliver.
With hopeful hearts they went forth with Cromwell, as Lord-Lieutenant.
It was the first time General Cromwell had taken on him much show of
outward state. But men said it seemed to fit him well, as I think
state must which grows out of power, like the pomp of summer leaves
around massive trunks. He rode in a coach drawn by six gray Flanders
mares; many coaches in his train; his life-guard eighty gentlemen,
none of them below the rank of an esquire; the trumpets echoing
through the city, stirring the hearts of the Ironsides, who, when he
led them, "thank God, were never beaten." His colours were white, as
of one who made war to ensure peace; who was going not as a soldier
only and a conqueror, but as a ruler and judge to bring order into
chaos, and law into lawlessness. This state beseemed the occasion
well.
The army went with a good heart, and in unshaken trust that he was
leading them to a good work, and that it was "necessary and therefore
to be done;" the most part, like Roger, proud of being the men who
had never mistrusted him; a few, like Job Forster, all the more eager
in their loyalty for the shame of having once mistrusted; and many,
like the chief himself, all the stronger in this and every work for
sharing his conviction that all earthly work (to say nothing of
pleasure), compared with the inward spiritual work from which it drew
its strength, was only done "upon the Bye."
But we women who watched them go, looked on them with anxious hearts.
They were plunging into a chaos, which for hundreds of years no man
had been able to bring into light and order. What they would do
there seemed doubtful; who would return thence terribly uncertain;
that all could never return terribly certain.
Poor Bridget Cromwell, then young Mistress Ireton, and many beside,
could the veil have been lifted, would, instead of festive white
banners, have seen funeral draperies, and for the call to arms would
have heard the trumpets peal for the soldier's knell.
Mistress Lucy Hutchinson needed not to speak scornfully of the fine
clothing which became General Cromwell's daughters "as little as
scarlet an ape." They did not wear it long. And indeed holiday
garments at the longest are scarcely worn long enough in this world
for it to be worth while that any should envy or flout at them.
For the rest, the Lord-Lieutenant's life was no holiday; nor did he
or his Ironsides look that it should be. Not for merry-making or
idling, he thought, but "for public services a man is born." If
victories and successes came, "these things are to strengthen our
faith and love," he said, "against more difficult times."
We are always in a warfare, he believed; the scenes change, but the
campaign ends not.
As Mr. John Milton wrote of him: "In a short time he almost surpassed
the greatest generals in the magnitude and rapidity of his
achievements. Nor is this surprising, for he was a soldier
disciplined to perfection in the knowledge of himself. He had either
extinguished, or by habit had learned to subdue, the whole host of
vain hopes, fears, and passions which infest the soul; so that on the
first day he took the field against the external enemy he was a
veteran in arms, consummately practised in the toils and exigencies
of war."
The portion of the army which went before the General gained a
victory in July over the Marquis of Ormond, who was besieging Dublin;
so that when Oliver landed, with hat in hand, and spoke gently to the
people in Dublin, and told them he wished, by God's providence, to
spread the gospel among them, to restore all to their just rights and
liberties, and the bleeding nation to happiness, many hundreds
welcomed him and vowed they would live and die with him.
Three letters are preserved among my old Diaries which came to us
during that Irish Campaign. One was from Job not long after the
storming of Wexford.
"We have had to do '_terrible things in righteousness_,'" he wrote.
"For years the land has been like one of the wicked old Roman
wild-beast shows in the Book of Martyrs; the wild beasts first
tearing the Christians in pieces, and then in their fury falling on
each other. This the General is steadfastly minded shall not any
longer be. Whereon all the people of the land have for a time given
over rending each other in pieces, to fall on us. We, how ever,
praised be God, are not, like the ancient Christians, thrown to the
wild beasts unarmed, nor untrained in fighting. For which cause, and
through the mercy of God, the wild beasts have not slaughtered us,
but we not a few of them. And the rest we hope in good time to send
to their dens, that the peaceable folk may have rest, may till their
fields in peace, and may have freedom to worship God.
"For peaceable folk there are in the land. It has lightened my heart
to find that the natives are not all savages, like the Irish women
with knives we found on the field at Naseby. Many of the more kindly
creatures, well understand fair treatment, and generously return it.
Their countenances are many of them open, and their understandings
seem quick, to a marvel, for poor folks who have been brought up
without knowing either the English tongue or the Christian religion.
It seems as if they had been seduced with evil reports of us; for at
first they ran away, and hid themselves in caves and dens of the
earth, whenever we came near them. But since they understand that we
are no persecutors nor plunderers, the common people begin to come
freely to the camp, and bring us meat for man and horse, for which we
pay.
"The Lord-General is very stern against all misuse or plundering of
these poor folk. Two of ours have been hanged for dealing ill with
them; which was a wonderful sight to the natives, and hath encouraged
them much.
"The storm of Tredah was no child's-play. The Lord-General offered
the garrison (mostly Englishmen) mercy. 'But if upon refusing this
offer, what you like not befalls you,' he said, 'you will know whom
to blame.' They refused mercy. Wherefore, after winning the place
by some hard fighting (being once driven back, a thing we were not
used to), the garrison had justice. They were three thousand.
Scarce any of them survived to dispute on whom to lay the blame. It
was not so bad as some of the things Joshua had to do; the judgment
not going beyond the fighting men. But praised be God, that for the
most part it pleases Him to work his terrible things by the stormy
winds, the earthquakes, and pestilence, and not by the hands of men.
"The General saith, 'I trust this bitterness will save much effusion
of blood, through the goodness of God.'
"And truly, after Tredah, few garrisons waited for our summons, and
fewer still refused the Lord-General's mercy. We had but one piece
of storming work since then. That was at Wexford. There was some
confusion; the Lord-General wishing to save the town from plunder.
His summons by words scorned, he summoned them by batteries. Then
the captain would have yielded the castle, and the enemy left the
walls of the town, whereon our men got the storming ladders, and
scaled the walls. In the market-place there was again a hot fight,
and near two thousand of the enemy fell; some were drowned in trying
to escape in boats by the harbour. A notable judgment, we thought,
for some eight score of poor Protestants, who had been sent out not
long before in a ship into the harbour, then the ship scuttled, and
they left to sink; also for other Protestants shut up in one of their
mass-houses, and famished to death.
"Since then the enemy has been scattered before us like dust before
the whirlwind. Their strong places yield to our summons one by one.
Please God we may have no more of the work of the whirlwind and
pestilence to do! For these poor towns, on the day after the
storming, with the blackened walls and the empty houses, from which
the poor foolish folks have fled away into the fields, are a sad
desolation to behold. It hath cast some little light on the slaying
of the women and little ones in the Bible; in that when the men are
slain, the lot of the widows and orphaned little ones is sure to see.
But war is not peace; and they who try to mix up the two, most times
but put off the peace, and in the end make the war more cruel. The
surgeon who laid down his knife at every groan of the patient, would
make a sorry cure. The Lord-General has great hope of yet bringing
the land to be a place for honest and godly men and women to live in,
which, they say, it hath not been since the memory of man. But one
thing will by no means be suffered; and that is the Mass. Some say
this is cruel mercy (since the deluded people hang their salvation on
it); and that it is contrary to the Lord-General's promises of
freedom of conscience. But liberty to think is one thing, and
liberty to do another. The poor folk may believe what lies they
will; but that they should be suffered to act falsehoods in the sight
of a godly Church and army is an abomination not to be borne."
The letter from Roger came later. In it he wrote much of the
Lord-Lieutenant. It was dated February, from Fethard in Tipperary,
which, with Cashe, and other towns in the west, had lately come under
the Commonwealth.
"Six months since," Roger wrote, "only three cities were for the
Commonwealth--Dublin, Belfast, and Derry, and Derry besieged. The
Lord Lieutenant stormed two, after mercy refused, with severity of
the severest--Tredah and Wexford, since which, none but have yielded
in time to avoid the same fate: and in a little while, we have good
hopes, if matters go on as they have, not a town or a stronghold will
be left in the enemy's hands. The misery and desolation of the
country is sore indeed; but it has not been the fruit of only these
six months' war. Scarce, I think, of the terrible eight years'
tumult since the massacre of 1641; rather, perhaps, of no one can say
how many centuries of misrule, or no rule at all.
"The people united at first against us; loyal Catholics of the Pale,
disloyal Catholics beyond the Pale, Presbyterian Royalists, and
Papists of the massacre. Now their union seems crumbling to pieces
again, being founded, not on love, but on hatred; and out of hatred
no permanent bonds can, I think, be woven, even as my Lord-Lieutenant
told them last month in his Declaration.
"Divers priests met at the Seven Churches of Clonmacnoise, on the
Shannon, to patch up this crumbling 'union' against us, if they
could. Upon this was issued the 'Declaration for the Undeceiving of
Deluded and Seduced People;' wherein the Lord-Lieutenant told these
clergymen many things which, perhaps, they thought little to the
point, but which to him (and to us) are the root of all things, and
therefore must naturally be to the point, especially when it is a
question of uprooting.
"'The terms "laity and clergy,"' he said, 'are dividing,
anti-christian terms.
"'_Ab initio non fuit sic_. The most pure and primitive times, as
they best know what true union is, so in all addresses unto the
churches, not one word of this.
"'The members of the churches are styled "brethren," and saints of
the same household of faith; and although they had orders and
distinctions among them for administrating of ordinances (of a far
different use and character from yours), yet it nowhere occasioned
them to say _contemptim_, and by way of lessening or
contra-distinguishing, "laity and clergy." It was your pride that
begat this expression; and ye (as the Scribes and Pharisees of old
did by their "laity") keep the knowledge of the law from them, and
then be able in their pride to say, "This people that know not the
law are cursed."
"'Only consider what the Master of the apostles said to them--"So
shall it not be among _you_: whoever will be chief shall be servant
of all." For He Himself came "_not to be ministered unto but to
minister_." And by this he that runs may read of what tribe you are.
"'This principle, that people are for kings and churches, and saints
are for the pope and churchmen, begins to be exploded.
"'Here is your argument. "The design is to extirpate the Catholic
religion. But this is not to be done but by the massacring and
banishing or otherwise destroying the Catholic inhabitants; ergo, it
is designed to massacre, banish, and destroy the Catholic
inhabitants." This argument doth agree well with your principles and
practice, you having chiefly made use of fire and sword in all the
changes in religion you have made in the world. But I say there may
be found out another means than massacring, destroying, and
banishing, to wit, the Word of God, which is able to convert.
"'Therefore in these words your false and twisted dealing may be
discovered. Good now! Give us an instance of one man, since my
coming into Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished,
concerning the massacre or destruction of whom justice hath not been
done or endeavoured to be done.
"'If ever men were engaged in a righteous cause in the world, this
will scarce be second to it. We are come to ask an account of
innocent blood that hath been shed. We come to break the power of a
company of lawless rebels, who, having cast off the authority of
England, live as enemies to human society. We come, by the
assistance of God, to hold forth and maintain the lustre and glory of
English liberty; wherein the people of Ireland, if they listen not to
seducers such as you are, may equally participate in all benefits; to
use their liberty and fortune equally with Englishmen, if they keep
out of arms.'
"Then the Lord-Lieutenant offers peace, their estates, and fortunes,
to all except the leading contrivers of the Rebellion, to soldiers,
nobles, gentle and simple, who will lay down arms and live peaceably
and honestly; and promises justice on all soldiers or others who
insolently oppress them.
"The which (Roger wrote) we have hopes the people will listen to; and
so, some ringleaders being banished, some of the murderers of the
massacre of 1641 having after fair trial been hanged, this terrible
war end in order and blessing to all who will be orderly. It hath
been no beating the air, this campaign in Ireland. Of courage there
is no lack among this people. And many of ours have suffered by the
country sickness, which, with the famine, came in the train of such
wild lawlessness and fierce factions as have long desolated this
unhappy country. The Lord-Lieutenant himself has been but crazy in
health, and has been laid up more than once. But, as he said, _God's
worst is better than the world's best_. He writes to the Parliament
that he hopes before long to see Ireland no burden to England, but a
profitable part of the Commonwealth. And we are not without hope
that our rough work here has ploughed up the land for better harvests
than it has yet yielded."
Then, some weeks later, another letter from Job to Rachel, mentioning
the storming of Clonmel on the 10th of May, 1650, after many hours
fiery fighting.
"Against the stoutest enemy," Job writes, "we have yet encountered in
Ireland. Not that the Irish are enemies to be despised. Their
faculty for fighting seems of the highest, indeed it seems their
taste, and the thing they like best, since they are always ready, it
seems, to be at it at the shortest notice, and for the smallest
cause, or none--which is not the way of the Ironsides. We are
peaceful quiet men, as thou knowest, and went into the fighting, not
for the love of it, but for the love of what they would not let us
have without fighting. Which is a difference.
"It is said our Oliver hath permitted such officers as lay down their
arms to gather regiments of such as will join them and to cross the
seas to Spain or France, there to fight for whoever will pay them,
They say 45,000 of these Kurisees are going. Which seems to me
pretty nearly the worst thing human beings can do. Worse than
slavery, inasmuch as it must be worse for men to sell themselves than
to be bought and sold. Who can say what such courses may end in?
For the Almighty does not buy his soldiers; He has no mercenaries.
But the devil has. And he pays; though not as he promises. However,
no doubt the country is better without them."
We thought again often of Job's words, when three regiments of these
"Kurisees" were found, in after years, massacring and torturing the
peaceable Vaudois peasants in their valleys, in the pay of the Duke
of Savoy, doing some of the direst devil's work that perhaps was ever
done on this earth.
This letter reached us at Netherby, where about this time our little
Dorothea was born.
I remember well how it cheered my heart as I sate at my open
chamber-window in some of the soft days which now and then break the
sharpness of our early spring, and are as like a foretaste of heaven
as anything may be, to think that perchance the long night of tumult
and disorder which had hung over that distracted land was passing
away, and a new kingdom was arising of liberty and righteousness and
truth.
Our little Magdalen (Maidie) playing at my feet with the first
snowdrops she had ever seen, and the baby Dorothea (Dolly) asleep on
a pillow on my knee. Spring-time, I thought, for the earth, and for
these darling; and for the nations. When _life_ is given, who minds
through what throes or storms?
The old home was much changed by the absence of Aunt Dorothy. I
missed the force of her determined will and her sharp definite
beliefs and disbeliefs. The music seemed too much all treble. I
missed the decisive discords which give force and meaning to the
harmonies. There seemed no one to waken us up with a hearty vigorous
No!
In the village, too, her firm straight-forward counsels and rebukes
were missed. Aunt Gretel and my father seemed to have grown quieter
and older. Forcible, truthful, militant characters like Aunt
Dorothy's make a healthy stir about them, which tends to keep youth
alive in themselves and those around. They are as necessary in this
world, where so much has to be fought against, as the frosts which
destroy the destructive grubs. The foes of our foes are often our
best friends; and none the less because they are the foes of our
indolent peace.
My father had been, moreover, not a little shaken by the loss of his
arm. He had withdrawn from war and politics, and had thrown himself
with new vigor into his old pursuits, investigating the earth and sky
and all things therein.
But the more we stay together the more needful we all grew to each
other. Maidie especially so twined herself around her grandfather's
heart, that we made a compact to spend the larger portion of the
years henceforth together; we with them in the summers at Netherby,
and they with us in the winters in London. In this way, moreover, my
father would be able to attend the meetings and weekly lecturings of
the association of gentlemen, for the prosecution of the "new
experimental philosophy," which met during the Commonwealth chiefly
at Gresham College, and was, after the Restoration, incorporated as
the Royal Society.
Aunt Dorothy's absence, with the cause of it, was much on my mind
during those quiet spring days. Every error, she thought, had seeds
of death in it, and carried out to its consequences must lead to
death; therefore no error ought to be tolerated. This perplexed me
much, until I learned a lesson from the old beech tree outside my
chamber window.
"Aunt Gretel," I said one day as we were sitting there quietly with
the babes, "I have learned a lesson which makes me glad."
"From whom?" said she.
"From that old beech-tree," I said. "The old dead leaves are hanging
on it still. Now, if the world were governed on Aunt Dorothy's
principles, strong winds would have been sent to sweep every one of
them away weeks ago. But God carries on his controversy with dead
things, simply by making the living things grow. The young leaves
are pushing off the old, one by one, and will displace them all when
the hour is come when all things are ready. It seems as if the old
things hold on just as long as they have any life left in them
wherewith to serve the new."
"Yes, that is it, sweet heart," she said as if assenting to what she
had long known. "I, at least, know no way of fighting with what is
wrong, like helping everything good and true to grow."
So April grew into May. The snowdrops, hawthorns, and blue
hyacinths, and all the early flowers were lost in the general tide of
colour and song which suffused the earth. These "first-born from the
dead" were succeeded by the universal resurrection which they
prefigured and promised.
The first forerunners of spring which come one by one, like saints or
heroes, bearing solitary witness to the new kingdom of life, which
meanwhile is secretly and surely expanding round their roots, had
fought the fight with snows and storms, had borne their testimony and
then had vanished in the growing dawn of the year.
A thousand happy thoughts came to me as I wandered in the old
gardens, and sat on the old terrace, with Aunt Gretel and Placidia,
while Placidia's little Isaac and our little Maidie played around us;
and none of them were happier than those suggested by little Isaac
himself. Again and again he recalled to me Aunt Gretel's words, "The
good God has more weapons than we wot of, and more means of grace
than are counted in any of our catechisms and confessions. The touch
of a little child's hand has opened many a door through which the
Master has afterwards come in, and sate down and supped."
It seemed as if the child were ever leading his mother on (all the
more surely because so unconsciously to him and to her,) opening her
heart to love, and, what is not less essential, opening her eyes to
see the truth about herself. For it in not only through their
trustfulness and their helplessness that little children are such
heavenly teachers in our homes. It is by their truthfulness, or
rather by their incapacity to understand hypocrisy. They are simply
unable to see the filmy disguises with which we cover and adorn our
sins and infirmities. The disguises are invisible to them. They see
only (and so help to make us see) the reality within; and thus confer
on us, if we will attend, the inestimable blessing of calling our
faults by their right names.
I remember one little incident among many.
I was sitting by the fireside in the Parsonage hall, and had just
finished reading a letter from Roger, and telling my father about the
Irish war.
"It is a conflict between light and darkness," said my father. "And
the Mornings of the Ages do not dawn silently like the morning of the
days, but with storms and thunders, like the spring, the morning of
the year."
As he spoke, I looked out through the door to the sunshine. Placidia
was sitting at the porch at her spinning-wheel, Maidie at her feet
pulling some flowers to pieces with great purpose and earnestness,
singing to herself the while, when little Isaac came running to her
across the farmyard hugging a struggling cackling hen, which he
plumped in a triumphant way into Maidie's lap. "I give it you,
Maidie," said he, "for your very own." But Maidie, far more
overwhelmed by the hen than by the homage; began to cry; whereon
Placidia, leaving her spinning-wheel, rescued the hen and Maidie, and
said--
"I was very foolish, Isaac. You should ask me before you give
presents. Maidie is too little to understand hens. If you wanted to
give her anything, you should have asked mother."
"But I was afraid you might say no," said Isaac. "And I had been
planning it all night. I thought it would be so nice for Maggie."
"Maggie is a very little girl," rejoined Placidia; "and if you wanted
to give her something, a very little thing would please her quite as
much. There is your little gilt bauble, that you used to play with
when you were Maidie's age. It is of no use to you now, and it would
be nice for her."
"But," said Isaac scornfully, "that would not be giving, that would
be only _leaving_. I want to give Maidie something. And I love
Maidie dearly, and and so I want to give her the nicest thing I have.
Don't you understand, mother," he continued, in the eager hasty way
natural to him, knitting his brows with earnestness. "I want to
_give_ something to Maidie. There is no pleasure in throwing old
things away, to Maidie or any where else. It is giving that is so
pleasant."
The colour came into Placidia's face. She said in a hesitating way,--
"But the hen will lay ever so many eggs, Isaac. You could give
Maidie the eggs, and keep the hen, which would lay more."
"But I want the hen to lay the eggs _for Maidie_," he replied. "I
have thought of it all. It is a great pity you don't understand,
Maidie," he continued, seriously appealing to Maidie's reason in a
way she could not at all appreciate. "It is the prettiest hen in the
yard, and she will give you a new egg every morning, and it would be
your very own, and you could give it Aunt Olive yourself."
But this extensive future was entirely beyond Maidie's powers of
vision. She shook her head, apparently hesitating between
encountering a fresh assault from Isaac and the hen, and sacrificing
the precious bits of flowers she had so diligently pulled to pieces
and thought so beautiful; until at length, as Isaac again approached,
terror won the day, and gathering up her treasures as best she could,
in her lap, she fled to me for protection, and hid her face in my
skirt.
"It is a great pity Maidie cannot understand," murmured Isaac in the
porch, not venturing, however, to follow and renew his homage. "But
mother, don't you understand?"
It is not the mother, it was the child that did not understand. But
she made no further explanation nor opposition. She only said
softly,--
"Never mind, Isaac. You shall have the pleasure of giving. You
shall keep the hen for Maidie, and give it her when she is old enough
to know what it means."
She would not, for much, that her child should see into the dark
place he had revealed to her in her own heart. So ennobling it is to
be believed incapable of being ignoble.
I seemed to see the mother, through the coming years, led gently away
from all that kept her spirit down, and on to the best of which she
was capable by the hallowing trust of the child.
It seemed to me that a conflict between light and darkness was going
on in the quiet parsonage at Netherby, as well as on the
blood-stained fields in Ireland.
And I thought that hour had witnessed one of its silent victories.