[Frontispiece: Edward's Escape]
ASHCLIFFE HALL
A TALE OF THE LAST CENTURY.
BY
EMILY SARAH HOLT
"No joy is true, save that which hath no end;
No life is true save that which liveth ever;
No health is sound, save that which God doth send;
No love is real, save that which fadeth never."
--REV. HORATIUS BOMAR, D.D.
SAINT PAUL
D. D. MERRILL COMPANY
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. Old Cicely has her Thoughts
II. A Rat behind the Wainscot
III. Alone in the World
IV. My Lady Ingram
V. The Harrying of Lauchie
VI. The Troubles of Greatness
VII. The Night Roswith Died
VIII. Wanted, Diogenes' Lantern
IX. Inside and Outside
X. Anent John Paterson
XI. How Philip Came Back
XII. Traitors--Human and Canine
XIII. Lady Griselda's Ruby Ring
ASHCLIFFE HALL.
I.
OLD CICELY HAS HER THOUGHTS.
"I ask Thee for the daily strength
To none that ask denied,
A mind to blend with outward things
While keeping at Thy side;
Content to fill a little space
So Thou be glorified."
Miss Waring.
In a large bedroom, on an autumn afternoon, two girls were divesting
themselves of their out-door attire after a walk. They were dressed
alike, though their ages were eleven and nineteen. Their costume
consisted of brown stuff petticoats, over which they wore cashmere
gowns of a white ground, covered with brown-stemmed red flowers, and
edged with quillings of green ribbon. These dresses were high in the
back and on the shoulders, but were cut down square in the front.
The sleeves reached to the elbows, and were there finished by white
muslin frills. The girls wore high-heeled shoes, the heels being
red, and brown worsted stockings, which the petticoat was short
enough to show plainly. On the dressing-table before them lay two
tall white muslin caps, called _cornettes_, abundant in frills and
lace, but having no strings. The hair of both girls was dressed high
over a frame, standing up some three inches above their heads; and
when the elder put on her cap, it increased her apparent height by at
least three inches more.
The chamber in which they were dressing was long and low, two large
beams being visible in the ceiling; and the casement, not two feet in
height, ran nearly across the width of the room. There was a faint,
delicate scent of lavender. The furniture comprised a large
four-post bedstead, an unwieldy wardrobe, a washstand, a
dressing-table, and two chairs. The carpet was only round the bed
and washstand, the rest of the floor being left uncovered, and
shining with age and use. The walls were wainscoted about half-way
to the ceiling, the higher portion being painted a dull light-green.
The girls turned to leave the room.
"O Lucy! your _cornette_!"
Lucy--aged eleven--made a dash at the dressing-table, and seizing her
cap by its frills, to the severe detriment of the lace, stuck it on
her head in the first way that occurred to her, and was about to rush
down-stairs without further ceremony.
"That will not do, Lucy," said the elder girl. "You know what
Henrietta will say. Go to the mirror and put your _cornette_ on
properly."
Muttering something which sounded like a statement that she did not
care what Henrietta said, Lucy retraced her steps to the glass,
pulled off the _cornette_, and stuck it on again, in a style very
little better than before. This done, she joined her sister, who was
half-way down the stairs. It was a fine old wooden staircase which
the girls descended, "worn by the feet that now were silent,"[1] and
at its base a long, narrow passage stretched right and left. Our
young friends turned to the right, and after passing on for a few
feet, entered a door on the left hand, which led to the family
parlor. This room had already three occupants, two young ladies and
a boy of fourteen. The two former were dressed like Lucy and her
sister, except that the younger of them, who sat at a tapestry-frame
in the corner of the room, wore broad pieces of brown velvet round
her neck and wrists. The boy, who was equipped in out-door costume,
part of which consisted of a pair of thick and pre-eminently splashed
boots, sat on a low chair, staring into the fire, whistling, and
playing with a riding-whip.
"Lucy! your hair!" was the shocked exclamation with which the
new-comers were received.
"Oh, my hair is all right! I brushed it--this morning," said Lucy,
the last words in a much lower tone than the rest; and then she asked
of her whistling brother, "Have you heard anything, Charley?"
Charley shook his head without ceasing to whistle.
"Harry is not come yet?"
"No," said Charley, in a very discontented tone; "and he has taken
Bay Fairy, and I can't go out. 'Tis enough to provoke a saint."
"That ben't you, Master Charley!" said a new and cheery voice, as an
elderly woman appeared, carrying a little tea-tray, from behind the
heavy, japanned screen which stood near the door. She was dressed in
a black woollen gown, low in the neck, with a white muslin kerchief
above, and a cap of more modest pretensions than those of the young
ladies.
"What does the impertinent old woman mean by calling me a sinner?"
inquired Charley, addressing himself to his boots.
"You ben't?" said old Cicely, setting down the tea-tray. "Well!
stand up and let us look at you, do! You are the first ever I see
that wasn't no sinner!"
To which cutting observation Charley replied only by banging the door
between himself and the unwelcome querist.
"Ay, it ben't for none of us to set ourselves up i' thatn's!"
meditatively remarked old Cicely, in her turn to the teapot. "Mrs.
Henrietta, there's a poor old man at the yard-door, my dear, and I
can't tell where to look for Madam; maybe you'd see to him, poor
soul?"
Henrietta, the eldest sister, answered by quitting the room. Cicely
arranged the tea-cups--large shallow cups of delicate china--on a
small round table in the window.
"The tea is ready, Mrs. Bell," she said; "will you please to pour it?"
The decorated young lady who sat at the tapestry-frame rose
languidly, and began to pour out the tea, while Cicely set four
chairs round the little table; having done which, the latter calmly
took one of them herself, and producing a large colored handkerchief
from her pocket, carefully spread it over her black woollen dress.
"Well, truly," said she, for she was in a talkative mood this
evening, "there is no end to the good in a dish of tea. I am sorry I
ever said what I have done against it, my dears, and I wish Madam
would drink it. 'Tis so heartening like! It is a new-fangled sort
of drink, there's no denying; but surely, I wonder how we ever got on
without it!"
"Cicely," said Henrietta, coming in, "I have told Dolly to give the
poor man some meat and dry straw in the shed for to-night."
"Very good, Mrs. Henrietta," answered Cicely; "I'll see as he gets
it. Mrs. Bell, I'll be obliged to you of another dish of tea."
There were only four tea-drinkers in this family, and, until a few
months previous, there had been only three. The gentlemen despised
what they considered a washy and exclusively feminine beverage, and
the mistress of the house could by no means be induced to taste it.
It was a new-fangled drink, she said, and new-fangled things, of
whatever description, she abhorred. People never drank tea when she
was a child, and why should they want it now? This was Madam
Passmore's logic, and under its influence she drank no tea. Still
she did not forbid her daughters' indulging in it. Young people, she
allowed, were given to new-fangled things; and could be expected to
be wiser only as they grew older. She was a little annoyed when the
logic of the young people, adverse to her own, made a tea-convert of
Cicely Aggett, who was about twenty-five years her senior; but Madam
Passmore was a quiet, passive sort of woman, who never kept anger
long, and was in her heart a fatalist. "What must be must be," she
used to say; and many a time had she consoled herself with this
comforting adage under troubles of various kinds. She said so when
her son Harry went into the army; she said so when her husband broke
his leg in fox-hunting; and she said so, but with tears, when her
little daughter Margaret died. She had no political opinions but
those of her husband, who was a fervent Whig; but deep down in her
heart she was a profound Tory in all domestic matters, for she
disliked change and novelty beyond everything. She never put down a
new carpet until the old carpet was quite beyond endurance; not from
any parsimonious motive, but simply because she liked best those
things to which she was most accustomed. She never would have slept
with comfort if her bed had been turned with its side to the wall
instead of its back; nor would she ever have conceded that a new lamp
burnt half so brightly as the old one. Her surviving family
consisted of two sons and four daughters, who were remarkably alike
in person--all but one. The neighbors who were sufficiently high in
position to visit with Squire Passmore of Ashcliffe, often wondered
how it was that Celia Passmore was so unlike every other member of
the family. They were tall and stately in figure, she was small and
slight; they had abundant light hair, hers was thin and dark; their
eyes were blue or gray, hers brown. Most of all was she unlike her
twin-sister, Isabella, who was considered the beauty of the family,
and was very well aware of it. There was nothing remarkable about
any of the others; but Celia, some said, was sadly plain, poor girl!
and it must be a great mortification to Madam Passmore, who had been
a country belle in her young days.
Cicely Aggett, whom we have seen seated at the table with her young
mistresses, was one of a class wholly extinct in our days. She was a
dependent, but not a servant. She had, some fifty years before this,
been Madam Passmore's nurse, and she now filled a nondescript
position in the family of her nursling. She was always ready to help
or advise, and considered nothing beneath her which could add to the
comfort of any member of the family; but she took all her meals in
the parlor, and was essentially one of themselves. She was the
confidante of everybody, and all knew that she never abused a trust.
Madam Passmore would as soon have thought of turning the dog out of
the room before making a confidential communication, as of turning
out Cicely, simply because Cicely's dog-like fidelity was completely
above suspicion.
The tea was now finished. Lucy, who had not yet arrived at the
dignity of a tea-drinker, was roaming about the room as Cicely
departed with the tea-tray.
"There is Harry!" she exclaimed, looking out of the window. "He must
have some news--he is waving something above his head. Henrietta,
may I run and meet him?"
Henrietta gave consent, and away went Lucy at the top of her speed
down the broad avenue which led from the house through the park. The
young officer was trotting up on Bay Fairy, with his spaniel Pero
panting after him; but he reined in his horse as Lucy came up to him.
"A victory!" he cried. "A victory at Malplaquet! a glorious victory!
Run, Lucy!--a race! who will tell Father first?"
Lucy--if it were possible; there was very little doubt of that. She
ran back as fast as she had come, turning her head once to see how
Harry was getting on. He was not urging his horse beyond a walk; it
was evident that he meant to give her a chance of winning. She ran
towards the stable-yard, where she knew that the Squire was, and at
last, arriving triumphantly first at the yard-gate, burst suddenly
into the arms of her father, as he was just opening the gate to come
out.
"Hallo!" said the Squire, when this unexpected apparition presented
itself. "Hoity-toity! What is the matter, Lucibelle?"
"A--victory!" was all that Lucy could utter.
"Where? who told you?" he asked, excitedly.
"Harry," said the panting Lucy. "Somewhere in--France, I think--'tis
a--queer name."
"In France, Sir, at Malplaquet," said Harry, who now rode up quickly,
having good-naturedly allowed his little sister the pleasure of
winning the race; "a great victory under the Duke of Marlborough."
And he handed the _Gazette_ to his father.
"That is glorious!" said the Squire. "I will go in and tell Mother."
Not that Mother--that is, Madam Passmore--cared anything about
victories, but she liked to see her husband pleased, and would have
welcomed equally a victory or a defeat which had wrought that
desirable end. Harry walked into the house with his father, and
Lucy, having regained her breath, followed them.
"Why, Charley, where have you been?" asked the Squire, as that young
gentleman made his appearance. "Here is a splendid victory over the
French, and you are not here to cheer!"
"Where have I been?" repeated Charley, in a very glum tone. "Well, I
like that! I have been at home, Sir, kicking my heels together for
want of anything else to do: your party and Harry had taken all the
horses."
"I did not know you wanted Fairy, Charley," said Harry, kindly. "I
am sorry I took her."
"Come, my lad, no use in crying over spilt milk," said the Squire.
"It is Saturday night, Charley, and people ought to be at peace on
Saturday night."
"I hate Saturday nights, and Sundays too, and I don't want to be at
peace!" said Charley, walking off.
On that afternoon, while Harry was riding home with the news of the
victory of Malplaquet, an event was taking place in London Which the
family at Ashcliffe little imagined, yet which very nearly concerned
one of them.
In an upper room of a house in Holborn Bars sat half a dozen men in
conclave. The door of the chamber was double, the inner of green
baize, the outer of strong oak, barred and bolted, as if the
conference were desirous to avoid eavesdroppers.
At one side of the table sat three men, all of whom had passed middle
age. We have little to do with them, so they may be succinctly
described as two short men and one tall one. Opposite stood three
others, who were all young; and it is with one of these alone that we
are intimately concerned.
He was about twenty-six years of age, tall and slight; he wore a
black wig, and his eyes, also black, were peculiarly brilliant and
penetrating. Yet his complexion was moderately fair, and he was not
devoid of a fresh, healthy color. There was great quickness,
combined with some natural grace, in all his motions; and he
evidently comprehended the meaning of his elder and slower companions
before their sentences were above half-finished.
"Here, Brother Cuthbert, are your instructions," the tall man was
saying. "You remember, I am sure, the private orders which I gave
you a week past, with reference to certain information to be gained
and brought to the King?"
"Perfectly, Father--all of them," replied Cuthbert, in a clear,
pleasant voice.
"Very well. Now listen to another order. My Lady Ingram writ to the
General a month past, to send on an errand for her--(if it might be
done with any other we should have)--one of our number, who could be
trusted for secrecy, speed, diligence, and discretion. We have named
you."
Brother Cuthbert bowed low in answer.
"This matter of her Ladyship's," pursued the tall man, "is, of
course, of secondary importance, and may not, indeed, directly
conduce to the interests of the Church. It must, nevertheless, be
borne in mind, that should the sons die unmarried (as it is desirable
the elder should), the daughter will become heir to the Ingram
estates. I mentioned something of this to you last night."
Brother Cuthbert bowed again.
"Moreover, for other reasons known to the General, it was thought
desirable to grant her Ladyship's request. Your destination, in the
first place, is Exeter, where you will be met by my Lady Ingram's
gentleman-usher, Mr. Gilbert Irvine, who is able to give you any
information concerning her affairs which you may find it necessary to
ask. From Exeter, you will proceed (after doing your business there)
to Ashcliffe Hall, an old mansion on the road to Moreton Hampstead,
belonging to one John Passmore, a Whig country gentleman. Here is a
sealed paper, which you will open at Exeter. It contains further
instructions, a plan of Ashcliffe Hall, and various notes which you
may find useful. And here are ten guineas, which my Lady Ingram has
transmitted. Mr. Irvine will accompany you to Ashcliffe; and you can
employ or dismiss him at that place, as circumstances may arise. In
the mean time, we recommend to you not on any consideration to
neglect either the general and constant necessity of serving the
Church, as the opportunity may present itself, nor the special secret
service on which you go, touching the King and cause. If you require
more money, apply to any one of us three. We rely upon you, not, on
the one hand, to be more lavish of either time or money than is
necessary, nor, on the other, to leave the work only half-finished."
"I will do my utmost, Father, to order myself by your instructions,"
replied Cuthbert, lifting his head.
"You will supply yourself with a surname, which even Mr. Irvine must
not know not to be your real name. Select one which shall not be so
uncommon as to attract notice, nor so common that letters would be
likely to miscarry. You can consider this at your leisure, and let
us know to-morrow of what name you have thought, since we shall not
require you to set out before to-morrow evening."
"What say you to 'Stevens?'" suggested Cuthbert in a moment.
A grave consultation among the elder Jesuits followed, ending with
the approval of Cuthbert's suggestion.
"You are very young, my Brother, to be trusted with so grave and
important a matter as His Majesty's errands are," warned the elder
priest in conclusion. "We have relied upon your ingenuity and
devotion. Let us not have cause to regret choosing you."
"You will not do that, Father," answered Cuthbert, not so much
proudly as coolly and confidently.
And making his adieux to the conclave, Mr. Cuthbert Stevens--for so
we must henceforth call him--withdrew from the room.
We shall see him again shortly; but for the present we must return
(rather more rapidly than he could travel) to Ashcliffe Hall.
"Celia!" said Lucy to her sister, a few hours later, as the latter
tucked her up in bed, "do you think--is it very--did you hear what
Charley said about Sunday?"
"Yes, dear. Charley was in a passion, and did not mean what he said,
I hope."
"But do you think that it is--very wicked--to get so tired on
Sunday?" asked Lucy, slowly, as if she were half afraid of bringing
her thoughts to light. "For I do get dreadfully tired, Celia.
Sermons, endless sermons all day long! for, as if the sermon in
church were not enough, Father must needs read another at home on
Sunday nights! Celia, do you think it is very wrong to get tired of
sermons?"
"I suppose," said Celia, thoughtfully, "that must depend on the sort
of sermon."
"I never seem to get a chance of hearing any sort but one," said
Lucy; "and I can't understand them."
"Well, Lucy, it is not pleasant to be obliged to sit still and listen
to what you do not understand," Celia admitted.
"Oh, I get so tired!" said Lucy, flinging herself on another part of
the bed, as if the very thought of the coming Sunday fatigued her.
"Don't take the light away just yet, Celia."
"No, dear; I have my clean ruffles to sew on for to-morrow," answered
Celia, sitting down to her work.
"Celia, do you understand Dr. Braithwaite's sermons?"
"Not always. Remember what a learned man he is, Lucy; we must not
expect very wise men to talk like you and me."
"I wish he did not know quite so much, then," said Lucy. "I could
understand him if he would talk like you."
"Aught I can do for you, Mrs. Celia, my dear?" asked old Cicely,
looking in. "Prithee give me those ruffles. You have been sewing
all day."
"Cicely," asked Lucy, returning to the charge, "do you understand Dr.
Braithwaite's sermons?"
"No, my dear, scarce a word," said Cicely.
"I wonder at your listening so quietly!"
"Well, you see, my dear, I has my thoughts," said Cicely, fitting the
ruffle. "If aught goes on that I can't understand, why, I has my
thoughts. When Master reads a sermon of an evening, well, sometimes
I understand, and sometimes not. If I do, well and good; but if I
don't, I can sit and think. And I think, Miss Lucy, that there's a
deal of difference between you and me; but there's a cruel deal
bigger difference between either of us and Him up yonder. It must be
a sight harder for us to understand Him than it is to understand
Parson Braithwaite."
"But what has that to do with it, Cicely?" asked Lucy, wonderingly.
"Why, my dear, ben't that what all sermons is for--to teach us to
understand God? Just the beginning, you know, must be hard; it
always is. Why, when Madam had me learned to read--old Madam, your
grandmother, my dears--do you think I liked learning the
Christ-Cross-Row?[2] Wasn't it very hard, think you, keeping day
after day a-saying, 'A, B, C, D,' when there wasn't no sense in it?
But 'tis all through the Christ-Cross-Row that I've learned to read
the Book. Eh! but I have thanked old Madam many a hundred times for
having me learned to read the Book! Well, my dears, 'tis always hard
at the beginning; and sure the beginning of learning Him must be
harder nor learning to read."
"Why, Cicely, you are as bad to understand as Dr. Braithwaite!"
"Maybe so, my dear. If a little one asked you for to tell him what
big A was like, I think you'd scarce make him understand without
showing him. And if you want to know what He is like, I think you
must read the Book. 'Tis like a picture of Him. I don't know any
other way, without you read the Book."
"Do you mean the Bible, Cicely? But Dr. Braithwaite does not say
much about that."
"I haven't got nought to say about Parson Braithwaite, Miss Lucy.
But surely all that is good in any sermon or aught else must come out
of the Book."
"But we could read that at home."
"So we could, my dear; more's the pity as we don't! But there's
somewhat in the Book about that--as we ben't to stop going to
church."[3]
"Where is that, Cicely? I never saw it."
"I haven't a good memory, not for particular words, my dear, and I
can't tell you without I had the Book; but 'tis there, certain sure."
Celia had been quietly looking in her little book-case while Cicely
was speaking. It contained many things beside books--baskets,
pincushions, bottles of Hungary and lavender water, and other
heterogeneous articles. But there were about half a dozen books
absolutely her own, and one of them was a Bible--a Bible which she
very rarely opened, she acknowledged to herself, with a feeling of
shame. Looking for it, and bringing it out, she secretly wiped the
dust from the covers, and offered it to Cicely.
"Here is one, Cicely; can you show us what you mean?"
"Not in your Book, Mrs. Celia. If I had my own Book, I could. My
dear, 'tis choke-full of marks--bits of worsted mostly. I often have
it lying open by me when I'm a-darning stockings or some such work,
and if I finds a particular nice bit, why, down there goes a bit of
worsted into him. Eh! but I have some fine bits marked with them
worsted! My dears, if you haven't read the Book you don't know what
nice reading there is."
"I think I will read it," said Lucy, gaping.
"You can't without you have glasses, my dear," said Cicely, quietly,
finishing off the ruffle.
"Glasses! Why Cicely!" exclaimed Lucy.
"Yes, Miss Lucy, glasses," was Cicely's persistent answer. "Not such
like as I works with, my dear: them is earthly glasses. But there is
heavenly glasses, and you can't rend the Book without, and you must
ask Him for them. He is sure to give them if you ask Him. I think I
could find that bit, Mrs. Celia, if you will give me bold."
Celia passed the Bible to the old woman, and she, opening at the
first chapter of St. Matthew, slowly traced the lines until she
reached the passage which she wanted.
"Now, look here, Mrs. Celia. This is him."
Celia took the book, and read where Cicely pointed.
"'If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give
good things to them that ask Him?'"[4]
"Stop a bit!" said old Cicely; "that ben't just the one I meant.
Let's look a bit on."
After a little more searching she discovered her text. "Read that,
please, Mrs. Celia," she said.
Celia read in a low tone: "'If ye, then, being evil, know how to give
good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?'"[5]
Lucy seemed to have dropped asleep.
"Cicely," asked Celia, "how shall we know if we have the Holy Spirit?"
"Feel Him, my dear,--feel Him!" said Cicely, with a light in her
eyes. "I reckon you don't want telling whether you are happy or not,
do you?"
"No, indeed," replied Celia, smiling.
"No more you'll want to be told whether you have Him," resumed old
Cicely, triumphantly.
"But how did you get Him given?" pursued Celia.
"Why, my dear, I wanted Him, and I asked for Him, and I got Him.
'Tis just so simple as that. I never knew aught about it till I read
the Book. I'm only a very simple, ignorant, old woman, my dear.
Maybe the reason why I don't know no more is just that I am such a
dunce. He can't learn me no more, because I haven't no wits to be
learned. You've got plenty of wit, Mrs. Celia--you try! Why, just
think the lots of things you know more than me! You can write, and
make figures, and play pretty music, and such like, and I know nought
but sewing, and dressing meat and drink, and reading the Book.
Mayhap the Lord gives me fine things to think about, just because I
know so little of other things--a sort of making up like, you see.
But you try it, Mrs. Celia, my dear!"
"I fear I scarce have your glasses, Cicely," answered Celia, with a
sigh.
"I've done the ruffles now," said Cicely, rising. "You come to me
into my little room when you've time, Mrs. Celia, and I'll show you
some of them fine bits--any time you like. And as to the glasses,
you ask for 'em. Good-night, Mrs. Celia."
Ashcliffe Hall was up at six on week-days, but when the Sunday came
round, it was not its custom to rise before eight. Costumes were
resplendent on that day, and took some time in assuming. On Sundays
and special gala-days only, the young ladies wore hoop-petticoats and
patched their faces.[6] Their attire to-day comprised quilted
petticoats of light-blue satin, silk brocaded gowns, extremely long
in the waist, _cornettes_ of lace, lace-trimmed muslin aprons, white
silk stockings, and shoes with silver buckles. Their gowns, too, had
trains, which for comfort were fastened up behind, looking like a
huge burden on the back of the wearer. They looked very stiff as
they rustled down the stairs,--all except Lucy, whom no costume on
earth could stiffen, though even she wore a graver and more demure
air than usual, which perhaps was partly due to the coming sermons.
The girls drank their tea, Lucy joining them in the meal, but using
milk instead of the fashionable beverage. By the time they had done,
Madam Passmore and the Squire were down-stairs; they always
breakfasted in their own room on Sunday mornings. Then John, the old
coachman, slowly drove up to the front door the great family-coach,
drawn by two large, dappled, long-maned and heavy-looking horses.
The coach held eight inside, so that it conveniently accommodated all
the family, Cicely included, with the exception of Charley, who
generally perched himself on the great box, which was quite large
enough to admit him between John and the footman. The church was
barely half a mile from the Hall, but none of the Ashcliffe family
ever thought of walking there; such a proceeding would have involved
a loss of dignity. It was a fine old Gothic edifice, one of those
large stately churches which here and there seem dropped by accident
into a country village, whose population has dwindled far below its
ancient standard. The pews were about five feet high, the church
having been recently and fashionably repewed. There was a great
pulpit, with a carved oak sounding-board, an equally large
reading-desk, and a clerk's desk, the last occupied by a little old
man who looked coeval with the church. The Squire bestowed great
attention upon the responses, which he uttered in a loud, sonorous
tone; but when the psalm was over--one of Sternhold and Hopkins'
version, for Ashcliffe Church was much too old and respectable to
descend to the new version of Tate and Brady--and when the clergyman
had announced his text, which the Squire noted down, that in the
evening he might be able to question Charley and Lucy concerning
it--no further notice did anything obtain from the owner of Ashcliffe
Hall. Settling himself into a comfortable attitude, he laid his head
back, and in a few minutes was snoring audibly. Madam Passmore
generally made efforts, more or less violent, to remain awake, for
about a quarter of an hour; and then, succumbing to the inevitable,
followed her husband's example. Henrietta kept awake and immovable;
so did Harry; but Isabella generally slept for above half the sermon,
and Lucy would have followed her example had she dared, the fear of
her eldest sister just opposite her keeping her decorous. The
discourse was certainly not calculated to arouse a somnolent ear.
Dr. Braithwaite generally began his sermon in some such style as
this:--"That most learned doctor of the schools, styled by them of
his age the Angelical Doctor,[7] whose words were as honey, yea, were
full of sweetness and delight unto the ears of such as followed him,
did in that greatest and most mellifluent of the writings wherewith
he regaled his study, did, I say, observe, for the edification of the
whole Church, and the great profit of them that should come
after"--and then came a shower-bath of Latin dashing down upon the
unlearned ears of his congregation. Greek he rarely quoted, since
there was no one in the parish who understood it but himself; so that
it was but seldom that he impressed the farmers with a due sense of
the heights and depths of his learning by uttering a few words of
that classic tongue; and whether his quotation were from Pindar or
St. Paul, made no difference to them.
Until her conversation with Lucy and old Cicely on the previous
evening, Celia had been in the habit of considering the sermon as
something with which she had nothing to do, except to sit it out with
patience and decorum. She was beginning to think differently now,
and she tried hard to follow Dr. Braithwaite this morning through his
discourse of an hour and three-quarters. But the sentences were
long, the style involved, and the worthy Doctor had got hold of a
very unpromising subject. He was preaching upon the ceremony of
baptism in the primitive Church, and its relation to the heresy of
the Manichæans; and after half an hour, during which she felt
confused amid a throng of exorcisms, white robes, catechumens,
deacons, immersions, fire-worshippers, Arians, Pelagians, and
Gnostics, Celia gave up her hopeless task. Old Cicely sat quite
still, her eyes fixed on the closed prayer-book on her knee, a soft,
pleased smile every now and then flitting across her countenance; and
Celia longed to know of what she was thinking, which appeared to be
so much more interesting than Dr. Braithwaite's Manichæans.
In a cheery, sunny little room, on the afternoon of the same Sunday,
sat old Cicely, with her Bible on her lap. There were several
unoccupied rooms in Ashcliffe Hall, and Cicely had chosen this as
hers, where the evening sun came lovingly in, and dwelt for a season
with lingering beams on walls and furniture. The same pleased smile
rested on the old woman's lips, as she slowly traced the words with
her finger along the page, for Cicely read with little fluency; and
she said half aloud, though she was alone,--"'He hath made Him to be
sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him.'[8] Ben't that good, now?"
"May I come in, Cicely?" asked a soft voice at the door.
"Surely, my dear, surely," was the answer. "I'm just a-looking over
some of them fine bits where I has my marks. I'll set a chair, Mrs.
Celia."
But the chair was set already, and Celia sat down by the old woman.
"Now show me what you like best," she said.
"Well, my dear, I do read most of these here four. 'Tis all good,
you know--the very best of reading, of course; but I can understand
these here best--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There's nice reading
in Luke--very pretty reading indeed; but the beautifullest of 'em
all, my dear, that's John. He is up-and-down like, is John. You see
I can't get used to the Book like as you would. There's five bits of
John--two long uns and two little uns, and one middling. Now the
last of 'em I don't understand; 'tis main hard, only a bit here and
there; but when I do come to a bit that I can understand, 'tis fine,
to be sure! But 'tis this piece of him after Luke that I reads
mostly, and the next piece of him after that. Look!"
It was an old, worn book, bound in plain brown calf, which lay on
Cicely's lap. The pages were encumbered with an infinitude of ends
of worsted,--black, brown, and gray. These were Cicely's
guide-posts. She was slowly pursuing the lines with her finger, till
she came upon the passage which she wished to find.
"Now, my dear, you read that."
Celia read, "'And this is the promise which He hath promised us, even
eternal life.'"[9]
"Wait a bit!" cried old Cicely; "there's another in this big piece--a
rare good un. Let me find him!"
And turning hastily over the leaves of her book, she picked out, by
the help of the worsteds, the verse she wished.
"Read that, Mrs. Celia."
"'And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.'"[10]
"Ben't that nice?" delightedly asked old Cicely.
"But how are we to know Him?" said Celia, wearily. "O Cicely! I
wanted to ask you of what you were thinking this morning in the
sermon which pleased you so mightily. You smiled as if you were so
happy."
"Did I, my dear?" answered old Cicely, smiling again. "Well, I dare
say I did. And I was cruel happy, that's sure! 'Twas just these two
verses, Mrs. Celia, as I've been a-showing you. I'd read 'em last
thing yesterday, and surely they did feel just like honey on my
tongue. So, as I couldn't nohow make out what Parson Braithwaite
were a-saying about them many keys, I falls back, you see, on my two
verses. Well, thinks I, if He has promised us, sure we need not be
afeard of losing none of it. If you promise somebody somewhat, my
dear, mayhap afore you come to do it you'll feel sorry as you've
promised, and be thinking of harking back, as Jack says; but there is
no harking back with Him. I think, afore He promises, He looks of
all sides, and you know, if he sees everything, no wonder He promises
so sure. Well, then, I thinks again, what has He promised us?
Eternal life. Why, that's another bolt, like, put on the door. If
'tis eternal life, surely we can't never let it go no more."
"But, Cicely," interrupted Celia, "don't you feel that you are often
doing wrong?"
"Of course I am so, my dear!" said Cicely. "Every day in the
year--ay, and every minute in the day. But then, you see, I just go
to the Book. Look what I was a-reading when you came in."
She pointed to the verse which had engaged her. "For He hath made
Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we should be made the
righteousness of God in Him."
"Look there, Mrs. Celia! Here's One that did no sin, and yet bare
the punishment that our sin must needs have. And if He bare the
punishment that did no sin, then belike we must go free for whom He
bare it. Don't you see? 'Tis just a matter of fair dealing. The
law can't punish both--him as did the wrong and him as didn't. So
the other must go free."
"But we must do something to please God, Cicely? We must have
something to bring to Him? It cannot be that Jesus Christ hath done
all for us, and we have but to take to ourselves what He hath done,
and to live as we list!"
"Well, my dear," said Cicely, "I've got my thoughts upon that, too.
You look here! I don't find as ever I did a thing to please God
afore I took Him that died to stand for me. I never cared aught
about pleasing Him; and do you think He'd be like to be pleased with
such work as that? If He can see into our hearts, why, it must be
just like talking. And do you think Madam would be pleased with me,
however well I sewed and swept, if I just went saying forever, ''Tis
not to please you I'm working; I don't care a bit about you?'
"I think I do want to please Him," said Celia slowly.
"Don't you stick at thinking, child," said old Cicely, with a pleased
look; "go on to knowing, my dear. Well, then, as to bringing
something to Him, look here in this other part."
Cicely turned to Isaiah, and after a little search, pointed out a
verse which Celia read.
"'But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities,
like the wind, have taken us away.'"[11]
"If the Queen was a-coming this way, my dear, and we was all of us
a-going out to see her, what would you think of me if you see me
ransacking the house for all the foul clothes I could find, to tie up
in a bundle, and saying, 'There! I'm a-going to give these to the
Queen!' Wouldn't you think I was only fit for Bedlam? You see it
don't say 'all our _iniquities_ are as filthy rags;' we should be
ready to own that. Dear, no! 'tis all our _righteousnesses_. Will
you tell me, then, what we have to bring to Him that is above all
Kings and Lords? Well, and last of all, as to living as we list. I
do find that mostly when we have made it up like with Him, we list to
live after His ways. Not always--surely not always!" she added,
sadly shaking her head; "truly we are a pack of good-for-noughts,
e'en the best of us; yet it do hurt to think as we've grieved Him
when we come to see all He has done and will do for us. Them's my
thoughts upon that, Mrs. Celia."
"Why did you never speak to me--to any of us--in this way before now,
Cicely?" asked Celia, very thoughtfully and gravely.
"Truly, my dear, I take shame to myself that I never did," replied
Cicely; "but you see there was two reasons. Firstly, 'tisn't so very
long since I come to know it myself--leastwise not many years. Then,
you see, when I did know, I hadn't the face, like, for a good while.
Seemed so bold and brassy like for me to be a-talking i' thatn's to
the likes of you, as knowed so much more than me. And somehow it
never seemed to come natural till last night, and then it come all at
once out of what Miss Lucy she said about Parson's sermons."
Celia remained silent for a minute. The mention of Dr. Braithwaite's
sermons had opened up a vein of thought. She wondered if anywhere
there were men who preached sermons of a different kind from his,
such as she and even old Cicely might understand, and from which they
could derive benefit. Was there any preacher who, instead of
enlarging on the Angelical Doctor, was satisfied to keep to Jesus
Christ and Him crucified? A wild desire sprang up in her heart to go
to London, and hear the great men who preached before the Queen. She
did not mention this to Cicely. Celia knew full well that it would
appear to her not only preposterous, but absolutely perilous. Harry
was the only member of the family who had ever visited the
metropolis, and this by virtue of Her Majesty's commission. The
Squire considered it a hot-bed of all evil, physical, moral, and
political. Had he walked down the Strand, he would honestly have
suspected every man he met to be a Jesuit in disguise, or at the
least a Jacobite, which he thought scarcely better. He believed that
the air of the capital was close and pestilential, that all honesty
and morality were banished from its borders, that all the men in
it--with the exception of the Duke of Marlborough and the Whig
Ministers--were arrant rogues, and all the women--excluding the Queen
and the Duchess of Marlborough--were heartless and unprincipled.
There was some ground for his belief, but he sometimes excepted the
wrong persons.
All these facts and feelings floated through Celia's mind, and she
felt that to bring her wishes to light would probably hinder their
accomplishment. She sat silent and thoughtful.
"Cicely," she asked at length, rather abruptly, "do you not find some
parts of the Bible very hard to understand?"
"A vast sight, my dear!" said Cicely; "a vast sight! Sure there's a
deal that's main hard to a poor old ignorant body such as me."
"Then what do you do, Cicely, when you come to a piece that you
cannot understand?"
"Leave it alone, my dear. There's somewhat about the middle of the
Book--I can't say the words right, never has 'em pat--about the road
being made so straight and smooth like that the very fools can't
shape to lose the way. Well, I think the Book's a bit like that
itself. For I am a fool, Mrs. Celia, and I won't go to deny it.
Surely God will show me all I want, and all that's meant for me,
thinks I; and so what I can't understand I think ben't for the likes
of me, and I leave it to them 'tis meant for."
"Now all about those Jews, on their way to the Promised Land, and the
forty years they spent in the wilderness,--I cannot see what that has
to do with us."
"Eh! Mrs. Celia, my dear, don't you go to say that!" urged old
Cicely, earnestly. "Wasn't they hard-hearted and stiff-necked folks?
and ben't we hard-hearteder and stiff-neckeder?"
"But is it not very gloomy, Cicely, to be always thinking of death,
and judgment, and such horrid things?" said Celia, with a little
shudder.
"Never thinks about 'em, my dear," was old Cicely's short answer.
"Why, Cicely! I thought religious people were always thinking about
them?"
"Don't know nought about religious people, as you call 'em," said
Cicely; "never came across one. All I know is, _I_ never thinks--not
any while--about death, and judgment, and such like. You see, I
haven't got to die just now,--when I have, it'll be a hard pull, I
dare say; but there's dying grace, and there's living grace. He
don't give dying grace--at least so I think--till we come to dying.
So I leave that alone. He knows when I'm to die, and He'll be sure
to see to it that I have grace to die with. And as to the judgment,
my dear, I have no more to do with that than the other,--a sight
less, it seems to me. For we have all got to die; but if I
understand the Book right, them that trust in Him haven't no judgment
for to stand. If He has taken all my sins away, what am I to be
judged for? Don't you see, Mrs. Celia? Eh, no! 'tis not we need
think over the judgment, but the poor souls that have to stand
it--who will not take Christ, and have nought of their own."
Celia sat silently gazing out of the window on the fair sward and
trees of Ashcliffe Park. She had not found any answer when Lucy
burst in, with no previous ceremony, and with the exclamation, "What
are you doing here, Celia? Didn't you hear the bell for the sermon?
Oh, me! I wish it was over!"
Perhaps Lucy was not the only person who wished it. The
Sunday-evening sermon at Ashcliffe was a rather fearful institution
to more mature and sedate persons than she. First, one of the
Squire's sons--Harry, when he was at home, Charley, if not--read the
Psalms and Lessons for the day, and it was necessary that they should
be read very loud. This was disagreeable when they contained a
number of Hebrew names, which Charley, at least, had no idea how to
pronounce. He was consequently reduced to make hits at them, which
passed muster in all but very flagrant cases, as, fortunately for
him, his father was little wiser than himself. This ordeal over, the
sermon itself was read by the Squire, and commonly lasted about an
hour and a half. It was never very entertaining, being most
frequently a discourse on the moral virtues, in tone heathenish, and
in style dreary beyond measure. After the sermon, the whole family
repeated the Lord's Prayer,--any other prayers the Squire, being a
layman, would have thought it semi-sacrilege to read. Then, all
remaining in their places, Charley and Lucy were called up to repeat
their catechism, each answering alternately, and standing in as stiff
a position as possible. When this was over, they had to repeat the
text of Dr. Braithwaite's sermon, and that one who remembered it best
was rewarded with a silver groat. This was the last act of the
drama, the young lady and gentleman being then pounced upon by Cicely
and ordered off to bed, after saying good-night all round. The
Squire finished the day with a bowl of punch, and a game of cards or
backgammon, in which it never occurred to him to see any incongruity
with his previous occupations. Later came supper, after which the
ladies retired, leaving the Squire to finish his punch alone; and the
whole household was in bed by ten at the latest.
The sermon this evening was a discourse upon covetousness--a vice to
which none of the hearers were addicted; and after listening to a
learned prologue concerning the common derivation of misery and
miser, with a number of quotations and instances to show it, Celia's
thoughts began to wander, and roamed off once more to her
conversation with old Cicely.
"The _Gazette_, Sir!" said Harry, coming into the room in boots and
spurs one morning about three months after the Sunday in question.
"Great tumults in London regarding one Dr. Sacheverell,[12] who hath
preached a Jacobite sermon and much inflamed the populace; and 'tis
said the Queen will not consent to his being deprived. Likewise"--
"Hang all Jacobites!" cried the Squire.
"Likewise," pursued his son, "'tis said the Pretender will take a
journey to Rome to speak with the Pope, and"--
"Hang the Pretender twice over, and the Pope three times!" thundered
his father.
"Hardly necessary, Sir, though you might find it agreeable," observed
Harry, in his courtly way. "Moreover, 'tis thought he is gathering
an army, wherewith he means to come against our coasts, if any evil
should chance to Her Majesty."
"Let him come!" growled the Squire. "We'll send him packing in half
the time! Anything else?"
"I see nothing of import," replied Harry, handing the newspaper to
him.
"Who is Dr. Sacheverell, Harry?" asked Celia from the window, where
she sat with her work.
"There is but little regarding him," was the answer. "He is of
Derbyshire family, and was sometime tutor at Oxford. 'Twas on the
5th of November, Gunpowder Plot day last, that he preached before the
corporation of London, saith one of the newspapers--I brought the
_News-Letter_ as well as the _Gazette_--and speaking upon 'perils
among false brethren,' which he chose for his discourse, he denounced
the Bishops and the Lord Treasurer,[13] and spake of the Lords who
aided in the Revolution as men that had done unpardonable sin."
"Where is all that in the _Gazette_?" asked the Squire, turning the
little sheet of paper about, and looking down the columns to catch
the name of the obnoxious preacher.
"Not in the _Gazette_, what I said last, Sir," answered Harry; "'tis
in the sermon, whereof I brought a copy, thinking that you might wish
to see it. The bookseller of whom I had it told me that a prodigious
number had been sold. Methinks he said thirty thousand."
"Thirty thousand sermons!" exclaimed Lucy, under her breath.
"Leather and prunella!" observed the Squire from behind his _Gazette_.
"Maybe so, Sir," responded Harry, very civilly. "Yet a sermon sold
by the thousand, one would think, should be worth reading."
"Hold your tongue, lad! men don't buy what is worth reading by the
cart-load!" growled the Squire. "'Tis only trash that is disposed of
in that way."
"Very likely, Sir," responded Harry as before. "Yet give me leave to
ask how many prayer-books have been printed in England since the
reign of Queen Elizabeth?"
The Squire only grunted, being deep in the _Gazette_, and Harry
turned his attention elsewhere.
"I should like to have heard Dr. Sacheverell," said Celia, timidly.
"Nonsense, Celia!" answered Isabella from her embroidery-frame. "You
don't want to hear a man preach treason!"
"I was not thinking of the treason," sighed Celia.
"Celia, why do you want to hear Dr. Sacheverell?" asked Charley, as
he sat on the step of the dais which elevated the window above the
rest of the chamber.
Celia hesitated, colored, and went on with her work without
answering. She and Charley were alone in the room.
"If you wanted to hear what he had to say about what they call
treason, you don't need to be afraid of telling _me_," said Charley.
"I don't know whether I shall not take up with treason myself."
"O Charley!" exclaimed Celia. "Don't talk in that way. Think how
angry Father would be if he heard you!"