WHERE ENGLAND SETS
HER FEET
A ROMANCE
BY
BERNARD CAPES
‘Whate’er the bans the wind may waft her,
England’s true men are we and Pope’s men after.’
LONDON: 48 PALL MALL
W. COLLINS SONS & CO, LTD.
GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND
COPYRIGHT.
First Impression March 1918
Second Impression April 1918
[DEDICATION.]
OCTOBER 1917
TO
GARETH WILFRID CAPES
LIEUT. HAMPSHIRE REGT. IN PALESTINE
THIS EARLIER STORY OF
‘ENGLAND’S TRUE MEN’
CONTENTS.
I. THE PRETTY PLEDGE
II. THE PLEDGE REDEEMED
III. THE JOURNEY WEST
IV. THE END OF THE JOURNEY
V. THE HOUSE BY THE MOOR
VI. SOME NEW FRIENDS
VII. THE OLD WELL HOUSE
VIII. THE APPARITION
IX. TRANSFORMATION
X. CONFIDENCES
XI. TWO’S COMPANY
XII. IL PENSEROSO
XIII. DESOLATION
XIV. AN EMOTION AND A DISCOVERY
XV. THE RETURN OF THE WANDERERS
XVI. THE TRUTH AT LAST
XVII. CERTAIN VISITORS
XVIII. HOPE DEFERRED
XIX. MARKING TIME
XX. MISTRESS JOAN MEDLEY
XXI. THE DECOY
XXII. A POIGNANT INTERVIEW
XXIII. HOME AGAIN
XXIV. COMMITTED
XXV. THE FUGITIVE
XXVI. AN INCUBUS
XXVII. THE VOYAGE
XXVIII. THE TAKING OF THE CARACK
XXIX. THE VIPER ON THE HEARTH
XXX. L’ALLEGRO
XXXI. ‘BACK TO A WORLD OF DEATH’
XXXII. RETRIBUTION
XXXIII. BEREAVEMENT
XXXIV. A LAST DISCOVERY
CHAPTER I.
THE PRETTY PLEDGE
When, in the second year of Elizabeth, the Act of Supremacy was
passed, there were found only some two hundred in all of the clergy
bold enough to dissent from it. Many, it is true, who conformed, did
so without sincerity, fearing to lose their livings, and of these was
Mr Robert Angell, Vicar of Clapham, or Clappenham village in Surrey,
which was in the advowson of the lords of Larkhall and a very good
cure. This Mr Angell, a worthy but weak divine, gained nothing,
however, by his accommodation, for being suspected, whether rightly or
wrongly, of Romanist sympathies, he was shortly deprived of his
benefice, and forced to look elsewhere than to the Establishment for a
means to subsistence. In this pass he bethought himself to set up a
little private school, or palestra, for the sons of such of his
neighbours as were well disposed towards him; and this he did, and
with fair success, many coming to receive of him their early grounding
in the A.B.C.-darius, Lily’s grammar, the _Sententiæ Pueriles_, and
so on by way of Erasmus’s Colloquies to Cæsar and the Georgics, so
that they were well ripe for College and University when their time
came. For the Vicar was a sound scholar no less than an amiable man,
and ruled by love without much authority, being little addicted to the
harsh methods which obtained, and indeed were expected, in his day. He
had a dame, a stupid woman but as benevolent as himself, and two or
three little children, who tumbled up anyhow and were for ever in hot
water, save when they most needed it.
Now to these was presently added another, a stranger, who came to
board and lodge with the household when he was no more than a babe in
years. His name was Brion Middleton, and he was brought in person, by
one Mr Justice Bagott of the Queen’s Bench, thenceforth to be and
remain a member of the Angel curriculum until otherwise notified, and
eke to form an item of the Angell family--a minute ‘paying guest’, as
we should now describe him. He had no parents to speak of; nor did the
overbearing Justice deem it necessary to speak of them, imposing the
lovely brat, without any leave asked or given, on the clergyman, over
whom, it seemed, he possessed a certain hold. For so he asserted that,
having professional cognizance of those Papish proclivities which had
already broken the poor man, he could very well use it, if he chose,
to bring about his utter destruction; which claim might or might not
be true, yet in any event was supererogatory, seeing that the divine
was far too meek a soul ever to question into, much less reject, the
service so truculently demanded of him. Indeed, of his charity, no
less than for his potential profit, he welcomed it; observing which
the manner of the visitor changed, and, abating much of his
imperiousness, which he found uncalled for, he proceeded forthwith in
gentler speech to discuss the terms and provisions of the
accommodation he desired for this derelict infant ‘ward’ of his.
Planned on no grudging scale, these were to imply a virtual, if
indefinite adoption by the couple, who were to do their best by their
charge, make no curious inquiries regarding him, and expect no
communications whatever save such as turned upon the periodic
remittances for his keep, which would arrive duly dated from the
Judge’s own office in Gray’s Inn. For the rest the boy was to be
brought up as one of the Vicar’s own family, and in all respects given
the dues of gentle birth. Having pronounced which ultimatum the
visitor, casting not one look on the little wide-eyed whimpering
infant, departed, as he had come, by night.
‘Poor curst imp of destiny!’ cried the clergyman, in a burst of
emotion, when the other was gone.
‘Thou pretty, pretty pledge of a misguided love!’ cried his admiring
lady, gazing on the babe. And then they looked at one another
guiltily.
‘This,’ says he, ‘is already to break the spirit of the compact.
Henceforth, silence--if for no other reason, Dame, because he hath us
in his toils.’
She sighed, and caught the child to her bosom. ‘These be my toils,’
said she. ‘I will hold my tongue, lest by loosing it I loose them.’
This happened in the year 1560, and thereafter for the space of
thirteen summers, his numbering but two when he arrived, Brion abode
and throve sweetly under that friendly roof.