[Frontispiece: "If Miss Bee is willing I can drive her to the
Towers."]
BEATRICE OF OLD YORK
BY
E. A. TAYLOR
_Illustrated by_
L. A. GOVEY
TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LIMITED
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1929
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LTD.
PUBLISHERS TORONTO
PRINTED IN CANADA
T. H. BEST PRINTING CO., LIMITED
TORONTO, ONT.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. How Bee Goode of Boston, came to England
II. The Man who Preached in Noah's Ark and Some of His Hearers
III. A Voyage to Canada in 1812
IV. How Ned came to York (Toronto)
V. How the Americans came to York, April 27, 1813
VI. How Ned Lost His Good Name and Vere His Soul
VII. How Ned Planned to Justify Bee's Faith in Him
VIII. How Ned Had Many Adventures, and Bee becomes a Woman
IX. How Ned Won the "Bubble Reputation", at the Cannon's Mouth
X. How Vere came to Newark, and Bee consented to be Betrothed to Him
XI. Kawque takes a Hand in the Game
XII. How Bee was Abducted--and the End
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"If Miss Bee is willing I can drive her to the Towers." ...
_Frontispiece_
"Miss Bee," exclaimed Ned, "are you hurt? What is the matter?"
"Dropped noiselessly overboard and swam ashore."
"Outside in the bitter cold a crowd of women and children moved about
aimlessly."
"Take that! you coward!"
"Then on the other side of the tree they saw her--or her spirit."
BEATRICE OF OLD YORK
Beatrice of Old York
CHAPTER I.
How Bee Goode, of Boston, Came to England.
The stage coach from Plymouth to London had left two passengers at
Liddon, a little manufacturing town in a dimple of the great chalk
downs of Dorsetshire. Dobson, the coachman with the big carriage
from Haslem Towers looked at them perplexed. His orders from his
master, Colonel Sir John Haslem, were to meet the stage. Vere
Haslem, Sir John's fifteen-year-old grandson and heir, had gone to
Plymouth to meet his cousin, Beatrice Haslem, from York, in the
mysterious far-off Canadas. But Vere was not to be seen, and there
only alighted from the coach an enormous negress with a scarlet and
orange turban and a small white girl whom Dobson did not notice for a
minute. He was wondering in horror if this awful-looking savage
could possibly be his master's granddaughter. He knew that Mary
Haslem had made a runaway marriage with an unknown American twenty
years before, and that her father had sworn never to forgive her.
But she and her husband were dead, and he had consented that the
Canadian guardians of her youngest child, Beatrice, should send her
to him, and call her by her mother's name of Haslem.
Dobson had a vague idea that all Americans were Red Indians, and
thinking that this black woman might be a variation of the race, he
touched his cap in some trepidation, saying questioningly: "Miss
Beatrice Haslem?"
"I am Miss Bee Goode, of Boston," said the child by the side of the
woman, in a composed, distinct voice. Dobson looked at her; a slip
of an eleven-year-old girl, pale-faced beside the rosy English
children, and wearing the miniature woman's dress which was the
fashion of the day--a green stuff gown, short-sleeved and cut low at
the neck, with its waist-line under her arms, and a straight, narrow
skirt. On her yellow curls she wore a very large straw bonnet
trimmed with flowers, and tied under her chin with huge bows of
ribbon. Long black lace mitts and a handbag of gay flowered chintz
completed her costume.
"She's Haslem all right--furren too, though," thought Dobson
embarrassed by her unchildlike, shrewd, gray eyes. Then he said
aloud, "I was to meet Mr. Vere, and Miss Beatrice Haslem, Miss."
"I do not like my cousin Vere," said the child calmly, "and he stayed
behind at Plymouth. Also my name is Goode, and unless you call me by
it I will not go with you to see my grandfather."
Dobson looked helpless, and a boy came forward from among the
interested spectators of the little scene. He looked about fifteen,
with a sturdy figure, and honest, good-tempered face. He wore a tall
black silk hat, and a man's suit of bright blue cloth, the coat with
long flapping tails and a very high stiff collar. "Dobson," he said,
"I have the pony here, and if Miss Bee is willing I can drive her to
the Towers, while you take her maid and the baggage. And Dobson, you
needn't mention Mr. Vere not being here." Then turning to Bee he
added formally, "I am Ned Edgar, at your service, Miss Bee, I think
you may have heard of me."
Ned had thought Bee very homely till he spoke to her; then he saw her
eyes grow soft in an instant, and her cold little face flashed with
smiles that made her fascinating, if not lovely. "Oh, I know your
father," she exclaimed, "He is Mr. Edgar, fur-trader, of York in
Upper Canada. I love him and Mrs. Edgar, your step-mother. I have
lived with them since my mother died; and I was hoping to meet you
when I came here."
So Ned drove Bee through the narrow streets of the town, pointing out
the old house in its big garden, where he lived with Dr. Brown, his
dead mother's father. "He is a Friend," said Ned, "but as the
Friends have no meeting house here we go to the Methodist
chapel--that's it there--we call it Noah's Ark."
"I know Mr. Edgar went to Canada when you were born and your mother
died," said Bee. "But he never said you were a Methodist; he don't
like them at all."
"I'm not a professor yet," Ned answered, then had some trouble to
explain to Bee what it meant. The woollen workers of Liddon were
almost all Methodists, while out of the town the gentry and their
farmer tenants went to the Church of England, the two classes living
entirely separate lives. Ned went to school with Vere Haslem, and a
friendship had grown between the boys, partly because it was
discouraged by the elders on both sides. To Sir John, Ned was a
tradesman's son, brought up in the unspeakable religion of the
Quakers, and a most unfit companion for a Haslem, all of whom were
"soldiers and gentlemen". While in straight-laced Liddon to become a
professor--to profess conversion--was the one aim in life. They took
their religion very seriously; classes, preachings, and quarterly
meetings were their only dissipations, and many heads were shaken
over Ned's friendship with handsome, idle Vere, brought up to think a
gentleman's business was war, his amusements heavy drinking and
hunting, and his only religion a soldier's code of honour. And
Liddon groaned over Sundays at the Towers, spent in cock-fighting,
hunting or cards, winding up with the dinner, where often every man,
including the parish rector, got drunk.
Ned wondered how bright, odd, Bee would get on with her autocratic
grandfather; then asked how it happened Vere was not with her.
"I detest the creature," said Bee decidedly. "He laughed at my name,
and went with some horrid boys to a cock-fight. And as it was time
for the stage to start I came on with Mammy Chloe and left him."
"Vere generally wriggles out of his scrapes," said Ned, "and I expect
he posted up after you, but Sir John will be very angry with him if
he knows he didn't obey him and come with you."
"I don't tell tales," said Bee contemptuously; then she exclaimed in
delighted wonder, for they had left the town, and driven through
great gates into a wooded park.
It was Haslem Towers, Ned told her, and Bee forgot to keep up her air
of American indifference to all things English as they drove up the
long winding avenue of glorious oaks and elms. Large-eyed deer moved
among the trees, and Bee exclaimed again as she saw a flash of water.
They came out by a little lake where white swans sailed, and beyond
it, flanked by pleasure gardens, rose a stately pile of white
stone--the Towers.
"The three towers are two hundred feet high and the newest part of it
is three hundred years old," said Ned. "I don't know when a Haslem
didn't live here."
"Cousin Vere said he would have it all when grandfather dies," said
Bee. "It's too good for him. Who will have it when he dies?"
"Oh, he'll grow up and have children most likely, but just now the
next heir is Captain Percy Haslem. His wife, Mrs. Betty, is staying
at the Towers, and he is visiting there, for his regiment is marching
from Ireland across England, and is camping to-night in this
neighbourhood."
They went through the great doors into a vast hall, where Bee was
welcomed by Sir John, a militant looking old gentleman,
sharp-tongued, rather thick-headed, and very soft-hearted where his
own were concerned. With him was Betty Haslem, a very pretty young
woman, with affectedly languid manners, and dressed in a
high-waisted, narrow-skirted Empire gown of flowered muslin. Her
fair hair was piled on the top of her head, and ringlets hung down on
either side.
They were both prepared to be very kind to a nervous child, but Bee
was not at all shy. She said she had let Ned bring her because she
knew his father, and no one asked after Vere. Betty's afternoon
"dish of tea" was brought in, with more solid refreshments, which Ned
found he had to sit down to with Bee. He refused to touch the fruit
pie which was pressed on him, then the sweet cakes too, while he felt
himself growing furiously red under Betty's disdainful eyes.
"I protest, uncle," she said to Sir John, "I never knew a boy to
refuse everything sweet before. What ails the creature?"
"He is a Methodist, Betty," said Sir John dryly, "and I believe that
it's one of the articles of their faith not to eat sugar."
"A Methodist! I hear of them everywhere," exclaimed Betty. "But I
shall die of curiosity if someone doesn't tell me at once why the
creatures won't eat sweets."
"It is only sugar that Friends and many Methodists won't eat, Mrs.
Haslem," said Ned flushing. "We are pledged not to taste sugar or
rum till slavery is abolished in our West Indies. We use honey for
sweetening."
"Then you can't make pastry or light cakes," said Betty; "honey would
make them soggy."
"I have never tasted pie in my life, Mrs. Haslem," smiled Ned.
"You can when you go to your father in Canada," said Bee, "for there
they get their sugar out of maple trees, and anyhow Canada abolished
slavery in 1797."
Sir John asked Bee about her voyage, and she answered directly, "We
had a very quick one, sir, only twenty-seven days. We left Quebec on
July 14 and reached Plymouth on August 10. There were forty-two
ships in our convoy, with the warship 'Primrose' to guard us from the
wicked French."
Sir John chatted with her, so pleased with her intelligence and
fearlessness, that when at last she boldly said that she must be
called by her father's name, he only laughed. "She's too fine for
rough handling," he thought.
"A little thoroughbred all through," he told Mrs. Betty later, "and a
few years of proper English living will make her ashamed to own that
she had such a scoundrel father. I'll wager that she's all Haslem,
not a low drop of blood in her. Queer too, when her father was one
of that crew of pirates and matricides who, with less morals than
savages, fought us under Washington, and made most of our American
colonies into an infernal Republic. Ay, and now in 1810, when we're
fighting single-handed with that crowned hyena Bonaparte, all their
sympathy is with those French assassins."
Meanwhile Betty talked to Ned, dropping her scorn and affection. The
boy's simple manliness had won her respect, and when he left she
shook hands with him, though Sir John raised his eyebrows. "It's no
kindness, Betty, to give the lower class ideas above their station,"
he said. "Ned will do well unless he thinks he ought to be better
than his birth made him, then he'll go wrong, mark my words. He's
being educated too much as it is."
"La, uncle," yawned Betty, "it's easy to see you were born long
before the French Revolution; since that upset nobody really believes
in anything. I'm an atheist in politics as well as in religion."
"Don't, Betty, before the child. I'm thankful you are a lady-born."
"And so can't go wrong, eh? Well, I was taught that as long as a
man's not a coward or liar, everything can be excused, and I really
think Methodism is as excusable as some things I have been required
to overlook in fine gentlemen. A boy who refuses sweets for
conscience' sake, and won't give way even when a woman ridicules him
can never be a coward or tell a lie. And if I were Vere's guardian,
I should encourage his friendship with Ned Edgar."
Sir John frowned, but before he could retort, Vere, a very handsome
boy, came in. He was followed by Percy Haslem in his captain's
uniform, who, like Betty, his wife, spoke and moved with affected
langour.
Sir John spoke irritatedly to Vere. "How is it, sir, that you left
your cousin to be brought home by that doctor's boy?"
"Oh, Ned's all right, sir. He met the coach and claimed Bee because
his father was her guardian in Canada, so I rode over to meet Cousin
Percy."
"Insolence," growled Sir John. "To think he had such assurance, and
I was blaming you for running off and letting him do it. Mark my
words, it would be a kindness to give that boy a lesson that would
break his proud spirit, otherwise he'll end on the gallows."
"Don't uncle, before the child!" mimicked Betty. "You'll frighten
her."
"I'm not ever afraid of white men," said Bee calmly. "I'm only
afraid of Red Indians when they have war paint on. I hate them; and
I despise white men who tell lies."
"Haslem all through," chuckled Sir John, but Vere flushed angrily.
He knew by instinct that Bee would not tell tales, but he hated her
for her contempt of him, as he had never hated anyone before.
Sir John was talking to Percy who had just returned from unhappy
south Ireland to whom England then was too busy to show justice, much
less mercy. His regiment had been recruited there, and the country
was in such dangerous ferment that all Irish soldiery had been
withdrawn, and English sent there. Sir John denounced all Irish,
"Traitors and papists!" he growled. "A heavy hand and the cat o'
nine tails is the only way to keep them down."
"This regiment isn't all Papists, sir," put in Vere. "A little
soldier spoke to me, saying he was a Methodist, and asking if there
were any 'serious people' near. I told him that Liddon was the prize
serious town in England, and that it had a Methodist chapel called
Noah's Ark, because only those who go to it can be saved. I made him
think I was 'serious', and he told me--Cousin Betty, you'll die of
laughing when you hear--he, a private in the ranks, and Irish at
that, preaches, yes preaches, in the streets, and in Methodist
chapels when the regiment halts over Sunday near one. He'll be
trying to speak in Noah's Ark to-morrow."
"Impossible," said Sir John angrily. "Percy, do you know what Vere
means?"
"Very much what he says, sir. The man is George Ferguson, north
Irish, born in Derry. He worked there in a muslin factory till a
year ago, when the hard times caused by the war threw him out of
work. There was nothing to do anywhere, he had a young wife, and
finding she would be taken on the strength of the regiment if he
enlisted, he did so, to save them both from starving. He is a strong
Methodist, with a taste for preaching, and the regiment, who are
nearly all Catholics, nick-named him the Swaddler Priest."
"The what?" exclaimed Betty.
"Swaddler, my dear. The first Methodist preacher who went to Ireland
in the days of Mr. Wesley, preached his first sermon on the text,
'She brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling
clothes', and Irish Methodists are always called Swaddlers."
"And whenever did you become an authority on Methodism?" exclaimed
Sir John.
"Ferguson has been my servant, sir, and while I am an infidel myself,
I find him interesting. He can read and write, but he must have a
hard life. He probably thought that entering the ranks would only
mean the irksomeness of a discipline he had never been accustomed to,
and the possible dangers of war. He didn't realize he would have to
live in the closest companionship with men of, unfortunately, our
lowest class, and their brutish tastes must hurt his self-respect.
Yet I have never known him anything but serenely cheerful. He not
only keeps himself above his surroundings, but he does it as if the
effort were enjoyable, and tries to preach somewhere each Sunday."
"I should have thought it impossible for a north Irish Protestant to
live in a south Irish regiment," commented Betty.
"I don't usually know much of what happens in barracks," said Percy,
"but I was told--not by Ferguson--that when we were in Dublin he
joined some Methodists who were preaching on the streets, and they
gave out he would speak in their chapel the next Sunday. His
comrades told him they would whip him if he did, but of course he
went, and coming back, lay down on his cot and went to sleep quietly.
No one disturbed him; the man who told me said they thought they
might find themselves up against something bigger than they liked if
they did. I think that men of our people, no matter if they are
unsaintly themselves, respect a saint. Ferguson lives a strictly
correct life, never touches drink, always does his duty, and is
always cheerful and ready to do a kind act for a comrade."
"What does the fellow preach about?" growled Sir John.
"I heard him once speaking just outside the barracks to a crowd of
soldiers and passers-by, and he spoke so strongly against swearing,
that I refrain from profanity in his presence, fearing that he might
think it his duty to reprove me if I did."
"What's England coming to," shouted Sir John, "when a private soldier
is allowed to set himself up as a teacher? The end will be like when
she let cobblers and tinkers usurp the place of ordained clergymen,
and under that man whose name shall never be spoken in Haslem Towers
while I live, dipped sacrilegious hands in the blood of her sainted
king, Charles I. And when you allow a man to go as far as this
Ferguson does, Percy Haslem, you are a traitor to your king."
"My dear uncle," said the unruffled Percy, "when Mr. Wesley began his
work many thought as you do, but since then, the Supreme Being, or
Fate, put a full stop to that period of the world's history by the
French Revolution. Now no one is sure when our dear lower classes
may not demand our heads; but we are quite sure that we would rather
have a revolution of Bible readers than of atheists, so we let men
like Ferguson alone."
* * *
So Bee spent her first evening at Haslem Towers, and on the Sunday
morning went with the family to the beautiful old parish church,
which only lacked a preacher and congregation to make it a perfect
place of worship, for in the pulpit a curate dashed through the
magnificent liturgy, and the congregation was a handful of farmers
and the Towers' servants.
Bee sat in the great square pew trying to follow the service as she
had learned to in York with Mrs. Edgar, while Betty lolled in a
corner with a novel, and Vere was studying out a trick with a pack of
cards. Sir John worshipped by doing nothing whatever, and only
Percy, good-humouredly, thinking Bee might feel alone, looked at his
prayer book when he remembered it.
In the afternoon Vere slipped off to the Methodist Sunday School,
which he attended sometimes when his grandfather forgot to forbid it.
He brought home the news that Ferguson had come to the school and
been asked to speak, which he did so well, that it was announced he
would preach that evening. "I was with Ned," said Vere, "when one of
the elders asked Ferguson. Dr. Brown was there too; he looked odd in
his drab coat and broad-brimmed hat by the soldier's scarlet.
Ferguson seemed taken aback. He said, 'How do you know that I am not
an impostor?' And the elder said directly, 'You would be the very
first I ever met in the army; a hypocrite could never stand it there.
He would be in torment indeed if he tried to wear a mask as a soldier
among soldiers.' Then Dr. Brown asked him to have a dish of tea with
them. Methodism is awfully upsetting. Think of even a Quaker, who
is a doctor, asking a private soldier, the lowest class of all, to
sit down with his wife!"
"Vere," said Betty, "you shall take me to this ridiculous Noah's Ark
to-night. I am dying to hear this Ferguson creature. We will take
Bee too, and Percy can come to keep us out of mischief."