OLIVE'S RECOLLECTIONS.
As Aunt Dorothy continued to recover, I knew the dreaded clash of
arms with Annis Nye could not be long delayed; and I had been casting
about in my mind for some means of settling Annis for the time
elsewhere, when the storm burst suddenly upon me. Maidie and I had
come from a ramble near the town; Maidie enraptured with her first
experience of the treasures of the woods, having that day discovered
that in the autumn the trees drop showers of inestimable jewels in
the form of spiky green balls, which, when opened, proved to be each
a casket containing a glossy, brown lump of delight, called in the
tongues of men a horse-chestnut, but in the tongue of Maidie having
no word adequate to express its beauty and preciousness. I was
bringing home a store of these treasures in a kerchief; while Maidie
held my hand, discoursing, like a person just entered on a fortune,
as to how much of her wealth she would bestow on Annis, and how much
on Aunt Dorothy; baby she considered not able to appreciate; but in
time, perhaps, she might grow up to it, and then she should have her
share.
But at the door Aunt Dorothy met us, pale and agitated.
"Child!" she said, in the tone of one deeply wronged--"Olive! I did
not look for this from thee!"
In her hand was a sheet of writing. She gave it me with a trembling
hand.
"Read it, Olive," she said. "It is from George Fox, now in the House
of Correction at Derby! a person concerning whom no sober person can
entertain a hope, save that he may be mad. And it is sent to your
maid Annis Nye; and is by her acknowledged. He is a Quaker, Olive!
One of that mad sect opposed to all rule in Church, Army, and State.
I knew the perilous latitude of thy husband's courses. I had even
fears as to his being entirely free from Arminian heresies; but this,
I confess, I had not looked for from thee!"
We came into the parlour; and while I was reading, Maidie took
advantage of the silence to display her treasures.
"Poor innocent!" said Aunt Dorothy, taking her on her knee, and
kissing her. "Poor innocent lamb! entrusted to a very wolf in
sheep's clothing. I little thought to live to see this! Pretty!
yes, pretty, my lamb!" she added, absently, as the little hands were
held up to her with the new wonders.
But this reception of her treasures was far too absent and
parenthetical to satisfy Maidie, who slipped off to the ground, and,
calling on Annis, was making her way to the kitchen, when Aunt
Dorothy anticipated her by closing the door and planting the little
one summarily on the table, with an injunction to be quiet.
"The moment is come!" she said, solemnly, to me. "This house shall
never be profaned by the presence of a person who calls Mr. Baxter a
'priest,' his church a steeple-house, and George Fox a servant of the
Lord."
"She is fatherless and motherless, Aunt Dorothy," I said. "What
would you have me to do? She cannot be turned houseless on the world
to starve."
"Let her go to her Friends, as she calls them," said Aunt
Dorothy--"her 'children of light!' Alas for the land! there is no
lack of them. Although in the town Mr. Baxter has silenced them, by
a remarkable discussion he held with them in the church, I doubt not
they lie, like other foxes, in the holes and corners of the hills
around. Although, in good sooth, the safest and mercifulest place
for Quakers, in my judgment, is a prison, where they cannot spread
their poison, or make everybody angry with them, as they do
everywhere else. And to the inside of a prison, it seems, the maid
is no stranger already. I am no persecutor, Olive. But when people
scatter fire-brands, the only mercy to them and to the world is to
tie their hands. Do you know," she added, "for what George Fox is in
the House of Correction? For brawling in the church; in a solemn
congregation of ministers, soldiers, and people, which had assembled
to hear godly Colonel Barton preach!"
"Is Colonel Barton a minister?" I said.
"Belike not," she replied, a little testily. "I am not for defending
Colonel Barton, nor the times, nor the ways of those in power ('in
_authority_' I will not call them, for authority in these disorderly
days there is none). But there are degrees in disorder. Colonel
Barton preaching in the pulpit is one thing, and George Fox the
weaver's son crying out in the pews is another."
"Did he say anything very bad?" I said.
"What need we care what an ignorant upstart like that said, Olive?
It was _where_ he said it that was the crime. No place is sacred to
the youngster. He preaches in market-places against cheating and
cozening, in fairs against mountebanks, in courts of justice against
the magistrates, in churches against the ministers."
"But, Aunt Dorothy," I ventured to say, "if he must preach at all, at
least this way seems to me better than preaching in church against
the mountebanks, and in the markets against the priests. To tell
people their own sins to their faces is more like right preaching, is
it not, than telling them of other people's sins behind their backs?
Whether it is wrong or not for George Fox to exhort the ministers
before their own congregations who _dislike_ it, I think it would be
meaner and more wrong to rail at them in a congregation of Quakers
who might _like_ it."
"If you can defend George Fox, Olive," she said, "we may as well give
up debating anything! At all events, I am thankful to say, whatever
divisions there may be on other questions, the professing Church in
general is of one opinion as to the Quakers. Whatever you may think
of the mercy of imprisoning Quakers as regards their souls, there is
no doubt it is a mercy to their bodies. For George Fox is no sooner
at liberty from the prison, than he begins exhorting every one,
making every one so angry that he is whipped and hunted from one town
to another, and finds no rest until he is mercifully shut up in
another prison. And I much doubt if you will not find it the same
with Annis Nye."
I was not without fears of the kind. But I said,--
"She has shown a marvellous tenderness and love for the babes, Aunt
Dorothy; and since she came to us, she has been as quiet as any other
Christian. I dare not do anything to drive her forth into the cruel
world; for she is tender and gentle as any gentlewoman born."
"Tender and gentle indeed!" exclaimed Aunt Dorothy. "Yes, she told
me George Fox's letter was written to the Friends, and other 'tender
people,' wherever they might be. I, at least, am not one of the
tender people, to tolerate such ways. I hear much talk of
toleration; and I will not deny that even Mr. Baxter has looser
thoughts on Christian concord than I altogether like. He would be
content if all Christians would unite on the ground of the Apostles'
Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. Whereas, in my
opinion, you might nigh as well have no walls at all around the fold
as walls any wolf can leap in over to devour the sheep, and any poor
lamb may leap out over to lose itself in the wilderness. Why, a
Socinian, an Arminian, a Papist, for I ought I know, might sign the
Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments (praying
and keeping them is, no doubt, another thing.) Belike any one might,
but a Quaker; for the Quakers will sign nothing, so that they are
safe to be out of a fold that has any walls, which is some
consolation. Everybody's toleration must stop somewhere; yours, I
suppose, would stop at house-breaking. Mine stops at sacrilege or
church-breaking; and that I consider every Quaker may be considered
to be guilty of. So, Olive, you must e'en choose between Annis Nye
and me. Your company, and that of the babes, poor lambs, is pleasant
to me. But I have not lifted up my testimony against my mother's
son, whom I love as my own soul, and forsaken the only place I shall
ever feel a home on earth, to have my house made a refuge, or a
madhouse, for Quakers, Jews, Turks, and Infidels."
At this point Aunt Dorothy's face was considerably flushed, and her
voice raised in a way which was altogether too much for Maidie's
feelings. Her eyes were fixed anxiously on Aunt Dorothy's; two large
tears gathered in them, and her lip began to quiver ominously, when I
caught her softly in my arms, just in time to hush a great sob on my
bosom.
Poor little Maidie! I do not think she had ever seen any one really
angry before, except herself; and not being able to distinguish
between righteous ecclesiastical anger and ordinary unecclesiastical
hastiness of temper, it was some time before she could be induced to
respond to all the helpless blandishments and tender epithets which
poor Aunt Dorothy lavished on her, with anything but "Naughty,
naughty! go away!"--an insult which Aunt Dorothy bore in patience
once, but on its repetition, observed, "That comes of Antinomian
serving-wenches, Olive! The child has no idea of any one being angry
about anything; a most dangerous delusion! Mark my words, Olive! the
world is not Eden, and Antinomianism is the natural religion of us
all; and it is too plain Maidie is not free from the infection of
nature; and if you bring up the babes to look for nothing but fair
weather, they will find the Lord's rough winds only the harder to
bear. Thou wast not brought up altogether on sweetmeats, Olive!
Though may be on too many after all. It seems, however, that her
poor old aunt's ways are not to the babe's mind; so I suppose I had
better withdraw."
Nothing makes one feel more helpless than the uncontrollable
repugnance of a child to some one it ought to love. I knew that Aunt
Dorothy loved Maidie dearly, and that her sharp voice and manner were
nothing but the pain of repressed and wounded feeling. But there
were no words by which I could translate those harsh tones into
Maidie's language of love. On the other hand, I knew that Maidie's
repugnance was not naughtiness, but a real uncontrollable terror,
which nothing but soothing and caressing could allay. Yet, while
thus seeking to soothe the child, I felt conscious I was regarded by
Aunt Dorothy as one of Solomon's unwise parents; and I knew that, if
it had been in her power, she would have sentenced me, as in our
childhood, to learn a punitive "chapter in Proverbs."
My confusion was still worse confounded by the gentle opening of the
door, and the sudden appearance of Annis with a bundle in her arms,
at sight of whose calm face Maidie's countenance brightened, and she
stretched out her hands to go to her.
Annis softly laid down her bundle and took the child in her arms, the
little hands clinging fondly round her neck.
It was the last drop in Aunt Dorothy's cup and mine. "The babe at
least has chosen, Olive!" she said, in a dry, hard voice. "And I
suppose the mother will obey, according to the rule of these
republican days." Aunt Dorothy was really "naughty" at that moment,
in the fullest acceptation of the word; and she knew it, which made
her worse.
Gently Annis replaced the child in my arms, but there was a tremor in
her voice when she spoke.
"Olive Antony," she said, "thee and thine have been true friends to
me. But it is best I should leave thee. I have gathered my goods
together" (they were easily gathered, poor orphan maid), "and I am
going. Fare thee well!"
My heart ached. I knew her determined ways so well; I knew so well
the hard things that must await her in the world; and I felt as if by
even for a moment debating in my mind the possibility of letting her
depart, I was accessory to her banishment, and so betraying my
husband's trust.
"Not so, Annis," I said; "this once I must be mistress. How else
could I answer to my husband for his trust of the fatherless;--or,
what is more, to the Father of the fatherless?"
"Thy husband had no power to entrust thee with me," she replied,
gently; "nor have I the power to commit myself to the care of any
mortal. God has entrusted me with myself, soul and body, and I
answer only to Him."
"But think, Annis, of the ruthlessness of the world," I said; a weak
argument, I felt, the moment I had uttered it, and one which with
Annis would be sure to turn the wrong way. The softness which
Maidie's caresses had brought into her eyes left them, and a lofty
courage came instead.
"Bonds and imprisonments may await me," she said. "If it were death,
who that loved God was ever turned from His ways by that?"
"But the babes," I pleaded, "the little ones, will miss thee so
sorely."
A tender smile came over her face as she glanced at Maidie.
"I have thought of that. I have pleaded it rebelliously with my Lord
many days," she said; "but it is of no avail. His fire burneth in
me, and who can stand it? I must go."
"But whither, Annis?" I said.
"There is a concern on my spirit," she said, "for my people and my
father's house. They reviled me, and drove me from them. I must
return. They have smitten me on the right cheek; I must turn to them
the left. Maybe they will hear; but if not, I must speak. Or if
they will not let me speak, I must be silent among them, and suffer.
Sometimes silence speaks best.--Fare thee well, Olive Antony, and
thou, aged Dorothy Drayton! I have said to thee what was given me to
say. Thou hast done me no despite. It is not for thy words I
depart. If they had been softer than butter, I dared not have
tarried. The Power is on my spirit, and I must go."
She kissed Maidie, and I kissed her serene forehead. Further
remonstrance was in vain. I would have pressed money on her, but she
refused.
"I have no need," she said, with a smile. "I shall not be forsaken.
And I have not earned it. Little enough have I done for all thee and
thine hath been to me."
With tears I stood at the door and watched her quietly pass down the
street, not knowing whither she went. But before she had gone many
steps Aunt Dorothy appeared with a basket laden with meat, bread, and
wine, which, hurrying after Annis, she succeeded in making her take.
"It is written, 'Thou shalt not receive him into thy house, or bid
him God speed,'" said she apologetically to me, as she re-entered the
door. "But it is not written, 'Thou shalt send him out of thy house
hungry and fasting.'"
"It is written, 'If thine enemy hunger, feed him,'" I said.
"I had thought of that text also, Olive," said she, "but I do not
think it quite fits. For the pool maid is not mine enemy. God knows
I would not have shut house or heart against her if she had been only
that!"
We were very silent that day. The house seemed very empty and quiet,
when Maidie's last sobbing entreaties for Annis were hushed, and, the
babes being asleep, Aunt Dorothy and I seated ourselves by the
fireside.
"It was a hard duty, Olive, to speak as I did; and belike, after all,
the flesh had its evil share in the matter," she said, as we parted
for the night. "But I did it. And I think it has been owned."
But I did not think her conscience was as easy as she tried to
persuade herself.
The night was wild and stormy, and I heard her pacing unquietly about
her room and opening her casement more than once, as I sat watching
Maidie in a restless sleep, and reading the papers by George Fox
which Annis had left behind her. The words were such as no
Christian, it seemed to me, could but deem good. Some of them rang
like an ancient hymn out of some grand old liturgy.
"Oh, therefore," he wrote from his prison, "mind the pure spirit of
the everlasting God, which will teach you to use the creatures in
their right place, and which judgeth the evil. To Thee, O God, be
all glory and honour, who art Lord of all, visible and invisible! To
Thee be all praise, who bringest out of the deep to Thyself, O
powerful God, who art worthy of all glory. For the Lord who created
all, and gives life and strength to all, is over all, and is merciful
to all. So Thou who hast made all, and art over all, to Thee be all
glory! In Thee is my strength and refreshment, my life, my joy, and
my gladness, my rejoicing and glorying for evermore. For there is
peace in resting in the Lord Jesus."
"Love the cross; and satisfy not your own minds in the flesh, but
prize your time, while you have it, and walk up to that you know, in
obedience to God; then you shall not be condemned for that you know
not; but for that you know and do not obey."
So I read on, watching Maidie's restless tossings and her flushed
cheek, hearing now and then Aunt Dorothy's uneasy footsteps, and
wondering whether Annis Nye had found shelter, or whether she were
still wandering along the wet and windy roads; whilst beneath these
thoughts every now and then I kept falling back on the things that
were never long absent from me: those two Puritan armies watching
each other in Scotland, with the "covenanted king" at the head of
one, and Oliver at the heart of the other, where my husband, and
Roger, and Job Forster were. I thought also of my father and Aunt
Dorothy journeying through the desolations made by the Thirty Years'
religious war in Germany. Who could say when our war would cease,
and what further desolations it would leave behind? Then my mind
wandered to Lettice Davenant, from whom Aunt Dorothy had lately
received a letter, which had made her uneasy, from its comparing
certain godly Catholic people who live in a nunnery called Port Royal
with the godly people in England. Thence, reverting to my early days
I thought how small the divisions of the great battle-field seemed
then, and how complicated now! And, looking fondly at Maidie and the
babe, it occurred to me whether the child's simple divisions of
"good" and "naughty" might not after all be more like those of the
angels than we are apt to think.
Aunt Dorothy looked pale and haggard the next morning, but she
betrayed nothing of her nightly investigations into the weather, only
manifesting her uneasiness by looking up anxiously when a peculiarly
violent gust of wind drove the rain against the windows, and by an
unusual tolerance and gentleness with Maidie, who was in a very
fretful temper.
In the evening, when the children were asleep, and Aunt Dorothy and I
were left alone: "It is very strange!" she said; "something in that
Quaker woman's ways seems to have marvellously moved my little maid
Sarah. I found the child crying over her Bible, and she said, 'Annis
Nye had told her _God would teach her_; but she wished He would send
her some one like Annis again to help her to learn.'
"It is very strange, Olive," she added. "The directions about
heretics coming to one's house are so very plain. But then I always
thought of a heretic as a noisy troublesome person, puffed up with
vanity and conceit, whom it would be quite a pleasure to put down.
It is rather hard that a heretic should come to me in the shape of a
poor, lonely orphan maid, for the most part quiet and peaceable, and
so like a sober Christian; that I should have to send her away alone
no one knows where; and that such a night would follow, just as if on
purpose to make right look like wrong. I begin to see a mercy in the
persecutions of the Church. When one comes to know the heretics, the
natural man gets such a terrible hold of one, that it would certainly
be easier to suffer the punishment than to inflict it. Although, of
course, I am not going to shrink from my duty on account of its not
being easy."
It was Aunt Dorothy's first experience of being at the board of the
Star-chamber instead of its bar. And she certainly did not enjoy it.
The year 1651 seemed to roll on rather heavily at Kidderminster.
Aunt Dorothy kept her private fasts, in loyal contempt of the
Parliament, especially that one which Mr. Philip Henry, and other
Royalist Presbyterians, so faithfully held until some years after the
Restoration, in memory of the death of King Charles the First.
Mr. Baxter helped to make many people good by his fervent sermons,
and meantime made many good people angry by his "convincing"
controversial books, calling out fifty angry, controversial books in
reply.
Meantime, in a quiet hollow of the hills near the town, I discovered
a small manor-house where certain Episcopal Christians met secretly
to hear a deprived clergyman read the proscribed liturgy. And more
than once I crept in among them to join in the familiar prayers. The
calm, ancient words seemed to lift me so far above the dust and din
of our present strifes. Once I heard Dr. Jeremy Taylor preach a
sermon to this little company. And the rich intertwining harmonies
of his poetical speech, and the golds, crimsons, and purples of his
eloquent imagery, seemed to transform the plain old hall, in which we
listened to them, into a cathedral glorious with organ music and
choristers' voices, and with the shadows and illuminations of
richly-sculptured shrines and richly-coloured windows.
So the year passed on. To us, chronicled in skirmishes and sieges
and political changes; and to Maidie in daisies and cowslips,
primroses, violets, strawberries, and heart-stirring promises of
another Eldorado of those living jewels known among men as
horse-chestnuts.
Letters came frequently, after the Battle of Dunbar, from Scotland.
One from Job Forster, forwarded by Rachel:--
"Godly Mr. Baxter puzzled me sore at Naseby by miscalling us poor
soldiers who had left our farms and honest trades to fight his
battles, as if we had been mere common hirelings or fanatic praters.
It was a bewilderment in Ireland to see how angry the poor natives
were with us for trying to bring them law and order. But all the
puzzles, and bewilderments, and subtleties were nothing to these
Scottish covenanted ministers and their kirk.
"They slander us behind our backs to the country people, calling us
'monsters of the world,' till the poor deluded people run away from
us as if we were savage black Indians. And when the few who stay
behind find we are sober Christians who eat not babes but bread (and
little enough, in this poor stripped county, of that), and pay for
what we eat, and the women-folk (who, I will say, have quicker wits
than the men) come back and peaceably brew and bake for us, they
still go on slandering us to those who have not seen us.
"They calls us names to our faces in their pulpits, 'blasphemers,
sectaries,' and what not. And when we deal softly with them and are
as dumb as lambs (when we could chase them into their holes like
lions), and let them talk on, even that does not convince them that
we mean no one any harm.
"Meantime they drag about the late king's son, poor young gentleman,
until one cannot but pity him, chief mangnant as he is. For they
will not let any of his old friends and followers come near him. The
other day he made off, like a poor caged bird, to get among his true
malignants near Perth. But his friends had no gilded cage and
sugared food to suit his taste, and after spending a dismal night
among them in a Highland hut, he had to creep back to the ministers,
and take some more oaths, and hear some more sermons.
"Very dark it is to me the notions these Kirkmen have concerning many
things, especially kings, oaths, and sermons. Concerning oaths.
They seem to think the more a man swears the more he cares for it,
instead of the less; as if a second oath made a first worth more,
instead of showing that it was worth nothing. It is enough to make
one turn Quaker--(But this I would not have known to Annis Nye, poor
perverse maid)! Concerning sermons. As if they did a man good,
whether he will or no, like physic, if he only takes enough of them!
Concerning kings. As if dragging a poor young gentleman, like a bear
in a show, with a crown on his head, about with them, and scolding
him (on their knees), and doing what they like without asking him,
and never letting him do what he likes, or see whom he likes, was
having a _king_! If they have their way, and drive Oliver and us
into the sea, and make their covenanted show-king into a real king, I
wonder how he will show them his gratitude. Scarcely, I think, by
listening to sermons, such as they like. Perhaps by making them
listen to sermons such as he likes, whether they will or no.
"But, thank God, Oliver lives, though more than once this spring he
has been sick and like to die; and we are little likely (God helping
us) to be chased into the sea by enemies who already cannot agree
among themselves. Meantime, Dr. Owen has been preaching to them with
his plain words, in Edinburgh, and Oliver with his guns; and it is
yet to be hoped the wise among them may open their ears and hear.
"Not that I think it any wonder that any poor mortal should blunder,
and get into a maze. A poor soul that went so far astray as to
misdoubt Oliver, and to think of bringing in the Fifth Monarchy by
muskets and pikes, and could not be got right again without being
stuck on the leads of Burford Church to see his comrades shot, has no
great reason to wonder at the strange ways of others, be they Kirk
ministers or Quakers."
My husband wrote:--
"I have watched by many death-beds.
"I have seen many die these last months, Olive. The hails, and
frosts, and scanty food, and scanty clothing, have done more despatch
than the muskets or great guns. I have saved some lives, I trust,
but I have seen many die; men of all stamps, Covenanted,
Uncovenanted, Resolutioners, Protesters, Presbyterians, Sectaries;
and within all these grades of theological men (and outside them all)
I have seen not a few, thank God, to whom dying was not death. Death
brings back to any soul which meets it awake, the hunger and thirst
which nothing but God can satisfy. Resolutions, Covenants, and
Confessions may, like other perishable clothes, be needful enough on
earth. But they have to be left entirely behind, as much as money,
or titles, or any other corruptible thing. If they have been
garments to fit us for earthly work, well; they have had their use,
and can be gently laid aside. If they have been veils to hide us
from God and ourselves, how terribly bare they leave us! Alone,
unclothed, helpless, the only question then is, can we trust
ourselves to the Father as a babe to the bosom of its mother?
"Does the Christ, the Son, who has died for us, offering Himself up,
without spot, to God, and lives for ever; does He who, dying,
committed His spirit to the Father's hands, enable us to offer
ourselves up, in Him,--commit our spirits, helpless, but redeemed,
into the Father's hands? Then the sting is plucked out. I have seen
it again and again. Death is abolished. It is not seen. It is not
tasted. Christ is seen instead. The eternal life no more begins
than it ends at death. It continues. The cramping chrysalis shell
is thrown off, and it expands. But it no more begins then than it
ends.
"If ever there is to be a Confession of Faith which is to unite
Christendom, I think it should be drawn from dying lips. For these
will never freeze the Confession into a profession. On dying lips
the Creed and the Hymn are one; for they are uttered not to man, but
to God."
And later Roger wrote:--
"This campaign has aged the Captain-General sensibly. He has had
ague, and has more than once been near death. I think the cold in
godly men's hearts has struck at his heart more than the cold of the
country at his life. The other day a gentleman who is much near him,
said to me: '_My lord is not aware that he has grown an old man_.'
So do deeds count for years. For, as we know, he is barely fifty
years of age. But as he wrote to one not long since, he knows where
the life is that never grows old. 'To search God's statutes for a
rule of conscience, and to seek grace from Christ to enable him to
walk therein,--this _hath life in it, and will come to somewhat_.
What is a poor creature without this?'
"Some, indeed, call him a tyrant and usurper; some very near him. (A
_hypocrite_ I think none very near him dare call him; though men are
ever too ready to think that no one can honestly see things otherwise
than they do.)
"But I know not what they mean. He would respect every trace of the
ancient laws, every hard-won inch of the new liberties, and every
honest scruple of the conscience,--if men would have it so. I see
not what tyranny he exercises, save to keep men from tyrannizing over
each other. But this power to tyrannize over others seems, alas!
what too many mean by liberty.
"Sometimes, Olive, I am ashamed to feel myself growing old. Hope is
faint in me sometimes for the country and myself. And when hope is
gone, youth is gone, be our age what it may. In the General, I
think, this youth never fails, as one who knows him said: 'Hope shone
in him like a pillar of fire when it had gone out in all others.'
"_P.S._--There is talk of the Scottish army faring southward with
their king. Scarce credible. But if true, we shall follow swift on
their trail, and swiftly be in old England and with thee."
They came, the two armies, as swiftly as Roger could have dreamed.
The Scottish Covenanted-Royalist force, 14,000 strong, sweeping down
through the west, by Carlisle, Lancashire, Cheshire, Shrewsbury, to
Worcester; the English Uncovenanted-Puritan army through the east by
Yorkshire.
Two tides to meet in deadly shock for the last time at Worcester.
Two tides between which the difference became more and more apparent
as they swept on: the one flowing like a summer torrent through some
dark valley in a tropical country, receiving no tributaries, welcomed
in no quiet resting-places, becoming ever shallower and narrower as
it advanced; the other swelling as it swept on like a thing that was
at home, and was to last, gathering force here, gathering bulk there,
ever deepening and widening as it went.
King Charles and his Scottish leaders summoned place after place, but
they met with no response. His trumpeters went to the gates of
Shrewsbury and proclaimed the king, but the gates remained closed,
and the unwelcome tide had to sweep sullenly past the walls. I
scarce know how this came to pass. Oliver, as I think, was never
popular throughout the nation; nothing of the old unquestioning
loyalty which slumbered everywhere (as time proved) in the dumb heart
of the people was accorded to him. Even those who acknowledged him,
with some few exceptions, acknowledged him rather sullenly as a
break-water against tyranny, than enthusiastically as a hero and a
chief. It might be dread of the Ironsides pursuing; it might be
bitter memories of the Star-chamber and of Prince Rupert's
plunderings, not yet effaced by years of liberty and security. It
might be, as Mr. Baxter said, that the Scots came into England rather
in the manner of fugitives; it being hard for the common people to
distinguish between an army going before another following it, and an
army running away; and into a flying army few men will enlist. But
however this may have been, all along that dreary progress scarce a
note of welcome cheered the Scottish army and their king, until
Worcester received them under the shadow of her Cathedral (ominously
tenanted by the remains of the King of the Magna Charta), opening her
gates to give them the shelter which so soon was to become to
thousands of them the shelter of a grave.
Part of the Scots army passed not further than a field's length from
Kidderminster; and a gallant orderly company they seemed, being
governed, as Mr. Baxter said, far differently from Prince Rupert's
troopers; "not a soldier of them durst wrong any man the worth of a
penny." Honest, hard-fighting, covenanted men, sorely bewildered, I
should think, with the ways of King and Kirk, and not a little also
with the ways of Providence; but true, nevertheless, to the Covenant
and to the Ten Commandments.
Divers messages were sent from the army (and, it was believed, from
the king himself) to Mr. Baxter, to request him to come to them. But
Mr. Baxter was at that time "under so great an affliction of sore
eyes, that he was not scarce able to see the light, nor to stir out
of doors; and being (moreover) not much doubtful of the issue which
followed, he thought if he had been able it would have been no
service to the king--it being so little that, on such a sudden, he
could add to his assistance."
It was not until some days after this that Oliver and his army came
up. I knew it first from my husband, who came for an hour to see me
and the babes on the 2nd of September, the day before the battle,
bringing good tidings of Roger and of Job Forster. I thought he
might have tarried with us until after the fight, when his skill
would be in request. But he took not that view of his duty.
Skirmishes might occur at any moment, he said, and he must be on the
spot. He had little doubt what the end would be; but he deemed the
struggle would be hard, being, so to speak, a death-struggle. And so
it proved.
On the 3d of September the shock of battle came. It was Oliver's
White Day, the first anniversary of his victory at Dunbar (to be made
memorable to England afterwards by another death-struggle, which
would have no anniversary on earth to him, but which, none the less,
I think, made it the White Day of his hard and toilsome life).
Soon after noon, stragglers came in and told us what was going on;
and all through the rest of the day the town was in unquiet
expectation, the people thronging at a moment's notice from loom, and
forge, and household work, into the market-place in front of Mr.
Baxter's house, to hear any report brought by any passing traveller.
The first news was that Oliver was making two bridges of boats,
across the Severn and the Teme; that the young king and his generals
had seen him from the spire of Worcester Cathedral, and had
despatched troops to contest the passage of the river, and that a
hard struggle was going on by its banks. Then, after these tidings
had been eagerly turned over and over until no more could be made of
them, the townsmen returned to their homes. For some hours there was
a cessation of tidings, and the whole town seemed unusually still.
The ordinary interests were suspended, and the minds of men were not
sufficiently united for any general assembling together. There was
no gathering for prayer in the church. Mr. Baxter was sitting apart
in his house, unable to bear the light; certainly not praying for
Oliver to win, yet, I think, scarce wishing very earnestly for the
complete success of the Scots.
Aunt Dorothy, on the first rumour of the fight, had rigidly shut
herself up in her chamber for a day of solitary fasting. But if we
had been together, we should each have been none the less solitary;
perhaps more, shut out from each other by the door of our lips. The
lives dearest to us both on earth were at stake. Of these we could
neither of us have spoken. The things dearest to each of us were at
stake. But of these we thought not alike, and would not have spoken.
It was almost a boon for me that Annis Nye had departed, so that the
babes were thrown entirely on my care. It kept me from straining my
hearing with that vain effort to catch the terrible sounds which I
knew were to be heard not far off. It kept me from straining my
heart with that vain effort to catch some intimation of what might be
the will of God, and from distracting self-questioning whether I had
done as much as I could, by praying, to help those who were certainly
doing as much as they could for us, by fighting. And instead, it
left me only leisure to lift up my soul from time to time in one
brief simple reiteration: "Father, Thou seest, Thou carest; I commit
them to Thee."
Towards evening further tidings came, putting an end to our suspense
in one direction. After hours of stiff fighting, from hedge to
hedge, the Scots army had been driven into Worcester, out of
Worcester, out of reach of Worcester.
The issue of the day as to victory was no longer doubtful. But its
issue as to the lives so precious to us remained to us unknown.
So the slow hours of the afternoon wore on, until the declining
autumn sun threw the shadow of the opposite houses over the room, and
with the babe on my knee, and Maidie singing to herself low lullabies
as she dressed and undressed her wooden baby at my feet, my thoughts
went back to the October Sunday nine years before (1642), when the
stillness of the land was terribly broken by the first battle of the
Civil War, the fight of Edgehill.
How simple it all seemed to me then; how complex now. Then there
seemed visibly two causes, two ends, two ways, two armies, the choice
being plainly that between wrong and right. Now so perplexed and
interlaced were convictions, parties, leaders, followers, that it
seemed as if to our eyes the causes and armies were legion; and to
none but the Divine eyes, which see, through all temporary party
differences, the eternal moral differences, could the divisions of
the hosts be clear.
Partly no doubt this perplexity was simply the consequence of the
armies having encountered; no longer couched expectant opposite each
other on their several opposite heights, but grappling in deadly
struggle on the plains between.
Partly, perhaps, also because the eternal moral differences on which
we believed the final judgment must be based, had become more the
basis of ours.
And Maidie and the babe, I thought, poor darlings, had all this yet
to learn! How could I help them, so that they might have less than I
to unlearn?
How! except by engraving deep on their hearts Aunt Gretel's trust in
God. "Put the darkness anywhere but there, sweetheart; anywhere but
in Him!" By slowly dyeing their hearts in grain, as Mr. Baxter would
have wished, in the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten
Commandments, so that any after surface-colouring, if it modified
these heavenly tints, should never be able to efface them.
There are qualities in some waters, it is said, as at Kidderminster,
which tend to fix dyes, and give value to the fabrics of the places
where they flow.
Has not God given a mother's love this fixing power for all truths
that come to a child's heart steeped in its living waters?
So far, therefore, Maidie and the babe might have something through
my lessons, which the combined teaching of Aunt Gretel and Aunt
Dorothy, each in herself so much better than I, could not quite
possess for Roger's childhood and mine.
The thought made me glad and strong; and I was still going in the
strength of it, when Job Forster appeared at the door.
I ran out and met him on the threshold.
He brought good news of my husband and Roger. The fight was over.
Leonard was attending to the wounded. Roger was still engaged in the
pursuit. But the Scots were scattered hither and thither among the
woods and harvest-fields. The reapers and labourers had taken up the
pursuit, and before night-fall, probably, not a stray party would
hold together strong enough to offer ten minutes' resistance.
"And His Majesty?" said a grim voice behind us.
"The King of Scots is in hiding, Mistress Dorothy," said Job
controversially, but very respectfully. "No one knows the road he
has taken."
"Then there is something to pray for yet," said she. "That this
blood-stained land may imbrue her hands no deeper in the blood of her
kings."
"Aunt Dorothy," I ventured to say, "you will give thanks as well as
pray? Leonard and Roger are safe."
"I know," said she, "it is written, 'In everything give thanks.'"
And without further concession she turned back to her chamber. But
on her way she halted, and said, turning to me,--
"Olive, see that Job is fed and lodged. We must make a difference.
A heretic is one thing, and a rebel another."
Without giving Job the privilege of reply, she remounted the stairs.
I asked him into the kitchen. But Job was somewhat hard to persuade.
"It is hard, Mistress Olive," said he, "to have bread and shelter
flung at you like a dog, without a chance to explain. When Mistress
Dorothy herself was one of the keenest to set us against the
oppressors! And when, but for Oliver, though I say it, she herself
might have been in Newgate among the Quakers years ago."
Yet without Maidie I doubt whether I should have prevailed. She,
poor lamb, seeing nothing in Job but a bit of home, and a
never-failing storehouse of kindnesses, had already enthroned herself
in his arms, undaunted by breast-plate or sword, and with her arms
clinging around him constrained him to come into the kitchen, if it
were only to set her down.
Once there, to make him stay was easier. For he was wounded in the
left shoulder, so that he could not hold the horse's reins, and had
little strength to walk further. But for that, indeed, he would not
have been Roger's messenger. The pallor of his countenance, when his
helmet was unlaced, startled me; yet, after refreshing him with ale
and meat, it was with no little difficulty that I persuaded him to
let me dress and bandage his wound.
After that he seemed easier, and his first inquiries were for Annis
Nye, concerning whom we had had no tidings for some weeks. "When I
am set up a bit, mistress," said he, "I must see after that poor maid
the first thing, for she is a godly maid, although a Quakeress. And
I misdoubt whether she be not in jail. It's beyond the wisest of us
to keep a Quaker safe anywhere. Only," he added, "I must be set up a
bit first. I don't feel sure flesh and blood could stand her
discourse on the wickedness of war, until the pain's a bit less
sharp. She's so terrible quiet, Mistress Olive, and so shut up
against reason."
At night we were roused by the clattering of flying horsemen through
the streets, Kidderminster being but eleven miles from Worcester.
Then came a party of thirty of the Parliament troopers and took
possession of the market-place. Then hundreds more of the flying
Royalists, who "not knowing in the dark how few they were that
charged them," when the Parliament troopers cried "stand," either
hasted away, or cried quarter. And so, as Mr. Baxter said, "as many
were taken there, as so few men could lay hold on; and until midnight
the bullets flying towards my doors and windows, and the sorrowful
fugitives hasting for their lives, did tell me the calamitousness of
war."
So ended the last battle of the Civil War.
Maidie, terrified, clung to me and would not leave my arms. Aunt
Dorothy remained in her chamber; the little maid Sarah took shelter
in mine. Only the babe and Job Forster were unmoved by the noise.
The babe slept peacefully on, the storm of war in the streets being
no more to her on her mother's knee, than an earthquake to the planet
Jupiter's satellites; and Job being wearied out with pain and
fatigue, and lulled by the absence of the duty of soldierly
vigilance, which had kept him on the stretch so long.
The next day Roger passed through the town, pausing a minute at the
door to see me and the babes. He told us my husband would come in a
few days to take us home. He told us also how complete the ruin of
the enemy was.
"Now," he said, as he remounted at the door, "we shall see what peace
and Oliver can make of England."
And there was a ring of hope in his voice, as ha rode away, I had not
heard in it for many a day.
England he thought was to be made such a kingdom of righteousness and
peace, that all the nations far and wide must see and acknowledge it.
And amongst them, I felt sure he dreamed also of one fair loyal
maiden, whose verdict I knew was worth more to him than he dared to
own to himself.
But Job watching him up the street, turned back to us shaking his
head.
"It remains to be seen, on the other hand, what England will do with
peace and Oliver!" he said. "Sometimes my heart misgives me that we
may have longer to wait for the Fifth Monarchy than Master Roger or
most of us dream. There do seem so many things to be set right
first. The Kirk ministers and the Quakers do puzzle a plain
Cornishman sore!"
Roger had not been gone more than a few seconds, and we had not yet
ceased looking after him, when he came galloping back to the door.
Bending low from his saddle as I went up to him, "Olive," he said, "I
saw some constables in a village near Worcester taking Annis Nye to
prison. I could have rescued her, but she refused my aid, saying
that I was a man of war, and she chose rather to be set in gaol by a
man of peace than to have her bonds broken by the carnal sword. On
second thoughts, I concluded that at present she might be safer in
gaol, while men's minds are so disturbed. But I thought it best to
let thee know."
And he was away once more.
This tidings cost Job and me many heavy musings. At length he
resolved on losing no time (his wound having proved less severe than
we feared); but to set out on the morrow to rescue Annis, and bring
her back, if possible to return with us to London.
Accordingly early on the morrow he went forth.
In the evening, to my relief, and to Maidie's joy, he returned, with
Annis, looking very pale and worn; but with her face as serene and
her eyes as steady and clear as ever.
I embraced her on the threshold. Beyond that she would not step.
"Dorothy Drayton would have none of me," said she. "We are to give
our coat to him who takes away our cloak. But it never says we are
to take a cloak from him that denied us his coat. I may not enter
this house."
"But it is night-fall," said I. "Whither would you turn?"
"It is not the first night-fall I have been content with such lodging
as the fowls of the air," said she, and quietly went her way.
I would have followed her; but Job Forster restrained me.
"Let her be, Mistress Olive!" he whispered, "She is as hard to catch
as a wild colt, and far harder to hold. There be reins to turn
colts, and there be corn to coax them; but there be no reins to hold
and no lure to coax a Quaker. Their ways are wonderful. Let her be:
maybe she'll come back of herself and, if not, neither love nor fear
will bring her. It is not to be told, Mistress Olive," he added, as
we reluctantly turned back into the kitchen, "what I've borne from
that poor maid this day. I had some work to get her off on bail, for
she had angered the justices and the constables grievously, and I had
to contrive; for the Quakers will not let any one go bail for them.
They're as lofty as the apostle Paul with his Roman rights, and would
rather stay in prison than be set free as guilty. When I came to the
gaol and gave her joy that I had come to set her free, she smiled at
me as innocent as a babe, as meek (seemingly) as one of Fox's
martyrs, and yet bold as a lion, and said: 'Thee cannot set me free,
Job Forster. What is the bondage of bars and stocks to such bondage
as thine?' And then she railed, that is, railed in her way, as soft
as if she were saying the civilest things--at Oliver and the
Ironsides, and the war, and all war, until it was a harder trial of
patience to stand quiet before her than before any pounding of great
guns. I could only get her off at last by getting her put in my
charge, as if I had been a constable, to bring home to her mistress;
and all the way back, from time to time she discoursed on the
wickedness of soldiering,--mixing up Bible texts in a way to make a
man mazed, and at times 'most think he might as well have been at
home by the forge at Netherby, as raging over the world fighting the
Lord's battles. Although I knew, of course, Mistress Olive, that was
only a temptation. At last I gave her my mind plain. 'Mistress
Annis,' I said, 'of all the fighting men of the time, it's my belief
there's none who have more fight in them than you and your friends.
It's very well to say you won't fight, when you rouse every drop of
fighting blood there is in other people by your words. For Scripture
saith there be words which are fiercer weapons of war than any
swords. You talk a deal of keeping to the spirit, and not to the
letter; and you talk of giving the left cheek to him that smites the
right. But it's my belief, the spirit of those words is, you shall
not provoke your enemies; and it's my belief that it's dead against
the spirit when, by keeping to the letter and turning the left cheek,
you are just doing the provokingest thing you can. It's not the
virtues of _war_, it seems to me, you are lacking in,' I said, 'but
the virtues of _peace_. You and yours, from first to last, have had
courage enough to lead a forlorn hope. The thing you want most, to
my seeming, is meekness. I would give somewhat for thee and my
mistress to meet. She is real meek, and, withal, brave as a lion, if
need be; and she would treat thee like a child, as thou art, instead
of like a martyr--which would, belike, do thee more good. Yet she
would give thee a hearty welcome, with all thy wilfulness.' And,
after that, she was quiet a good bit. And then she said, quite
simple and natural: 'Job Forster, I am but a child; and one day,
belike, I may have a call to see thy wife. I feel as if she would be
like a mother. From all thou sayest, she must be a woman of a tender
spirit and an understanding heart.'"
In the morning Aunt Dorothy came down from her solitary chamber. She
looked pale, but relieved in spirit. "Olive," said she, "I heard
that poor bewildered maid come to the house last night, and go away;
and I do not mean to pass through such another night as these two she
has cost me. I have wrestled the thing out in my heart. On the one
side, there is the heretic the Apostle John spake of in the epistle.
But I consider that heretic was a tempter, and a man. Now Annis,
poor soul, is tempted, and a maid; which makes a difference, to begin
with. Then, on the other hand, there is the man who fell among
thieves. I consider Annis Nye has fallen among thieves; and I don't
think one of Mr. Baxter's people, in this year of our Lord sixteen
hundred and fifty-one, ought to be outdone by an ignorant Samaritan,
who lived in no year of our Lord at all."
"Then, Aunt Dorothy," I suggested, "there were the Samaritans all
through the Gospels, and our Lord's pitiful ways with them
altogether. I think the Samaritans must have been at least as wrong
as the Quakers."
"Maybe, my dear; I am not so well informed as I should wish as to the
theology of the Samaritans. I should think it was a great medley.
But our Saviour knew all things, and could do what He pleased."
"And may not we do what pleased Him?"
"Olive," said Aunt Dorothy, turning on me, "I am not going to have
Scripture quoted against me by one I taught to read it. I never did
call down fire from heaven on any one, nor wished to do so, and I am
not to be enticed by any smooth by-paths into such tolerations as
yours and your husband's. You need not think it. But, with regard
to Annis Nye, my conscience is satisfied; and you may bring her at
once to the house. Besides," she added, "I do not mean to let any of
you depart without bearing my testimony."
Whereon Job Forster departed in search of Annis Nye; whom, with some
difficulty, he persuaded to place herself again within range of Aunt
Dorothy's hospitalities and admonitions.
The day passed in much stillness. Aunt Dorothy herself moved
heavily, like a thunder-cloud with lightnings in it; and the weight
of her impending "testimony" made the air heavy.
Towards evening my husband came, and all thunder-clouds naturally
grew much lighter to me.
He brought more tidings of the campaign in Scotland and the Battle of
Worcester. He believed it would be the last of the war. Aunt
Dorothy loaded us with every kind of bodily refreshment and comfort.
But she kept herself apart from the conversation, and never
vouchsafed to ask one question, save concerning the safety of the
king, of whom no news had been heard. It was decided we were to
leave on the morrow; and often I saw her eyes moisten tenderly as she
glanced at Maidie, who, in her sweet trustful way, kept drawing her
amongst us by claiming her sympathy with her joy in the little
treasures her father had brought her.
In the night, before the dawn of the next morning, Aunt Dorothy and
her little maid were astir, and wonderful cookings and bakings must
have gone forward. For when we came down to breakfast, a huge basket
stood laden with provisions for the way, substantial and dainty, with
special reference to Maidie's tastes; little tender preparations
which often brought tears to my eyes on the journey, as I found them
out one by one, and thought of the self-repressed rigour of the dear
old rock from which those springs of kindness flowed.
Yet all the while we were at breakfast together at the great table in
the kitchen, every slightest want watched and anticipated by Aunt
Dorothy, I felt as if she were looking on every morsel as a coal of
fire heaped on our heads; while the weight of the impending testimony
hung over us.
At length it came.
"Nephew and niece, Leonard and Olive Antony," said she, as we were
about to rise; "and thou, Annis Nye and Job Forster, I have somewhat
to say to you."
And then she testified against us all, and also against Oliver
Cromwell, the army, and the country; comparing us to the people who
built Babel to make themselves a name, to Jeroboam who made priests
of the lowest of the people, to Absalom, to Jezebel, to the evil
angels who speak evil of dignities, and to the Laodiceans, in a way
which made the blood rush to my face on behalf of my husband.
Finally, turning to Annis Nye, she launched on her a separate
denunciation; beginning with the devil who clothed himself as an
angel of light, and ending with the Anabaptists of Münster, and the
Jesuits, who, Mr. Baxter believed, had emissaries among the Quakers.
I knew that the more tenderness Aunt Dorothy felt at heart for
offenders, the more severe were her denunciations of their offences.
But Annis could not be expected to be aware of this, and I trembled
to see how she would bear it, lest it should drive her once more from
us into the world, so hard on Quakers. The calm on her countenance,
however, was not even ruffled. She kept her eyes, all the time,
fully opened, fixed with an expression, not of defiance, but of
wonder and compassion, on Aunt Dorothy, until Aunt Dorothy herself at
length paused, apparently checked by the strength of her own
language, held out her hand to Annis and added,--
"Now I have said what was on my mind. I did not mean to anger thee;
but less, in conscience, I dared not say."
Annis took the hand offered to her with a tender compassion, as she
might that of an aged sick person.
"Why should I be angered, friend?" said she in her softest voice.
"Can thy words touch the truth? It was there when they began; and it
is there when they end. And one day we shall all have to see it;
whatever it is, wherever we be, thee, and Olive Antony and her
husband, and all."
Aunt Dorothy had no further words to lavish on obduracy so hopeless.
She only struck her palms together, shook her head slowly, and looked
up in speechless dismay.
Job muttered under his breath, as he rose to saddle the horses,--
"Poor souls! poor dear souls! They have got somewhat yet to learn.
They have got to learn the lesson Oliver taught us on old Burford
steeple!"
But my husband only replied,--.
"Mistress Dorothy, you have been the truest of friends to me and
mine. We cannot agree on all things, although I shall always honour
you in my heart more than nine-tenths of the people I do agree with.
But there is one admonition of Oliver Cromwell's which I should like
to have engraved deep on the hearts of us all. It is one which he
addressed last year, in a letter, to the General Assembly of the Kirk
of Scotland. 'I beseech you,' he wrote, 'in the bowels of Christ,
_think it you may be mistaken_?'"