CALEB FIELD.
A Tale of the Puritans.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
“PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MRS. MARGARET MAITLAND,”
“MERKLAND,” &c.
“Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do;
Not light them for ourselves: for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch’d,
But to fine issues: nor Nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,
Both thanks and use.”--MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
82 CLIFF STREET. 1851.
TO
ROBERT BARBOUR, ESQ.,
MANCHESTER,
AS ONE OF THE MOST LIBERAL AND WISE SUPPORTERS
OF THAT CHURCH IN ENGLAND
WHICH CLAIMS TO REPRESENT
THE BRAVE AND GENTLE PRESBYTERIANS OF 1665,
THIS TALE
OF THE TRUE CHIVALRY OF THOSE TIMES
Is respectfully Inscribed.
PREFACE.
On no period of English history has so much been written, as on that
singular age in which this kingdom acknowledged the sway of the Stuarts.
Rife with controversies, which still are alive and strong, its every
inch of ground contested, as vehemently almost by modern pens, as when
the chivalry of England were met by the only army which could meet their
high-born courage--the godly soldiers of Cromwell--the party feeling of
its civil wars exists still among us. But we fight no longer with rapier
and dagger; when death is braved, there is always a certain dignity in
the warfare; but in these days we fall upon a safer mode of carrying on
the struggle. We are not called upon to measure swords with the fiery
Royalist, or the stern Ironside: so we betake ourselves to more ignoble
weapons, which they did not at all times scorn to use--we call names.
And whereas the Royalist forces had decidedly the advantage of their
graver antagonists in the use of these offensive weapons, it is
perfectly natural, and in keeping, that this superiority should
continue; and that as we find the hosts of epithets applied to the
rulers of the Commonwealth and their followers, with all the
accumulation of adjectives naturally conjoined to these, met only by the
one stern word “malignant,” so by legitimate succession, the inheritors
of Royalist opinions bring out the old projectiles still in all their
original abundance, while those who represent the Roundheads, and
fanatics of those days, not choosing to retain their own epithet of
reproach, find little in the ancestral armory to meet these arrows
withal. The more pacific mode is, perhaps, in this case the better
policy, for there is little profit, and less honor, in maintaining a war
of retaliation.
The Cavaliers! they have retained as advocates and special pleaders, the
most gifted of modern writers; high birth, high courage, and the still
more potent spell of misfortune has thrown magic over their names. Let
us say no evil of the dead--
“The knights are dust,
And their good swords rust,
Their souls are with the saints, we trust.”
We will call them no names; but their honor stands in no need of
vindication; they have had ample justice done them. Let the generous
world look gently on another picture, and say to whom belongs the
purest renown of chivalry:--to those who fighting for their King’s
crown, fought also for their own inheritance, and for the dazzling
chance of greater rank and riches; or to those, who, following the
banners of a higher King, encountered poverty, reproach, and hardship
for the sake of One who offered them no tangible reward, nor any visible
glory on this side death.
* * * * *
When the reign of Charles II. began, the Church of England, with a fate
which seems to pursue her like her shadow, contained within her ample
breast the greatest variety of opinions. The High Church clergy were at
the head of the greater bulk, which softened down, as it does still,
into the indifferent mass who take color and fashion from the times; and
on the opposite side were a body of Presbyterians, who, during the reign
of the Commonwealth, had been able to set up their peculiar
ecclesiastical organization, and to rule themselves in tolerable
quietness. A floating background of individuals holding other views,
Independents and Baptists, completed the tale; and, singular enough,
when we leave the political histories of the time, and come to the story
of these separate men, we find a strange amount of good-will and
gentleness subsisting among the differing divines. The very noticeable
national feature, the individuality or sectarianism--for the words come
to be nearly identical--which set these men afloat, each on his several
voyage, can not fail forcibly to strike any one who studies the history
of this great Church in England. A careful student, we should almost
fancy, must find himself compelled to conclude, that there is wisdom in
the latitude which leaves so wide a space between the “high” and the
“low” of English churchmanship, and gives the genius of the people so
much room to develop itself, while still within the consecrated bounds.
On the other side of the Border we find divisions enough. Churches
separate from each other, and bearing separate names; but all cling with
like tenacity to the same standards, the same forms, the same doctrine,
and the same discipline. There is nothing in which the national
characteristics are more clearly displayed. The intense Scottish mind
moves on strongly in one direction--unanimous in all the greater
points--aiming always when it marches to march as a nation. The English
mind asserts its individuality, and strikes out alone, breaking into
sections even in the one Church which professes to be undivided; and out
of that pale, in the freer regions of Dissent, multiplying in constant
diversity.
It was thus with the church when the Restoration intoxicated the
kingdoms with its brief joy. Among the best friends of Charles were the
Presbyterians. The death of his father had shocked and horrified them,
and none had shown themselves more eager to celebrate his return.
Holding London as their stronghold, they were scattered in very
considerable numbers throughout the whole country, were held in much
esteem by the people, and dwelt quietly among their brethren, holding
their diverse views in peace and charity, protected, as they thought, by
the royal proclamation, and strong in the King’s promise of religious
liberty to all.
Their dream of safety was destined to have but a short existence. Two
years after the memorable Restoration, the Act of Uniformity expelled
from the Church two thousand of her most exemplary clergymen; not
bigots--not fanatics--not the bold, strong, uncompromising men, who in
Scotland denounced their successors as hirelings, and proclaimed
themselves lawful pastors still of the parishes from which they had been
driven. The English Nonconformists did not so; meekly they laid down
their arms, uncomplainingly withdrew themselves, with their last words
bidding their parishioners receive in all honor and respect those
appointed to succeed them, and retaliating no otherwise than by quiet
good works, and an occasional sigh or lament, upon their persecutors.
One almost marvels at the romance of conscientiousness which displays
itself in the lives of these quaint divines. Many of them could receive
and approve of the greater part of the service-book enforced upon them;
many remained as lay members and communicants, in the churches which
they could no longer serve as pastors; many used voluntarily the Liturgy
which caused their expulsion; and yet, with all worldly benefits and
comforts weighing down the scale, the delicate conscience which, while
it approved of much, could not “assent and consent” to all, asserted its
superior importance, and triumphed. It is a singular history. We can
understand--intensely distasteful as these observances of the Episcopal
Church were to Scotland--how the men who strongly resisted them all,
should have been able to cast away every thing earthly, rather than
submit to their imposition; but when we look upon these milder men--when
we see Philip Henry leading his family to worship in the little church
at Worthenbury, which so lately had been his own--and hear Wesley’s
gentle self-defense before the not unfriendly Bishop, and observe the
reluctance which they had to do any thing that looked like
resistance--it becomes a matter more difficult to understand. Yet they
did it--peaceful, unobtrusive, gentle men, on whom the bitter nicknames
of their adversary fall so strangely inappropriate.
The consequences of this English Bartholomew’s Day were hard upon those
ministers. Some forsook the high vocation, in which they could no
longer have the simple maintenance they needed; some fell upon the usual
resource of poor clergymen, and taught schools; while very many were
received into the households of gentlemen who favored their views, or
honored their piety, and a very comfortable number retired to the
happier provision of their own private resources. But no attempt was
made to organize a church, no resistance offered to the acknowledged
law. The good men, prohibited from addressing a greater audience than
five individuals in addition to their own households, preached three or
four times in a day within their houses, to congregations of that scanty
number, laboring with simple painstaking to make the frequent repetition
of their teachings atone for the limited assembly to which each sermon
was delivered. So straightforward in their obedience, so devout in their
simplicity, so charitable in their diversities of opinion, one can not
help but smile at the singular blindness which upbraids these gentle men
with the name of fanatic.
This state of matters continued until the great scourge, known as the
Plague of London, had come and gone. As it is endeavored in the
following chapters to sketch something of that singular calamity, we do
not need to do more than mention it here. It has been often painted, but
few have cared to look under the noisome vail of it for the heroisms of
the time, though these were not wanting. The visitation passed away;
the panic abated. The Nonconformists who had ventured forth in the heat
of the day, to bear the burden which many of their successors feared to
bear, were cast out from the city for which they had labored in the
utmost peril; and a still more severe enactment sent the ejected
ministers wandering over the face of the country in which there seemed
no rest for them. The Five-Mile Act of Oxford made it penal for any of
the silenced preachers to be found within five miles of any corporate
town, or of any parish in which they had formerly officiated--a law most
hard for the competent, most miserable for the poor.
And then there began to be resistances and imprisonments, the bolder
spirits being roused to courage; but still the many submitted. Quietly
they left their homes; with touching gentleness refused to be persuaded
into rebellion by the voice of their oppressor; and so in their meekness
lived on, at war with no man, until indulgences were grudgingly granted
to them, and until the Stuarts, with their hereditary aptitude for
persecution, had in their turn succumbed.
Let those who are unacquainted with this by-way of history, glance over
the somewhat monotonous pages of the Nonconformists’ Memorial. They will
find no hard words or denunciations there; the bitterness, so much as
there is of it, slumbers innoxiously in the foot-notes of the
dissenting editor; the first Dissenters breathed another atmosphere. The
tones of the picture are subdued and mellow, the foreground full of
quiet figures; smiles about the lips of some of them, tell of the old
quaint jesting which, like themselves, is now dead and out of date. Some
sit, with thought upon their faces, writing unweariedly, toiling to
produce those great volumes which are piled up, like masses of
mason-work, behind. Some are going happily, like the sower, about the
fields, scattering their winged seed, or by the side of waters, casting
forth the bread which many days hence shall return to them. Some with
children clambering about their knees, speak to the little ones, with
scarce less simplicity than their own, of the Gospel which maketh the
simple wise. The sky above them is dim with soft clouds, yet there is
sunshine on the picture--the quiet light of peace.
It is pleasant to come into the atmosphere of this old-world devoutness,
humility, and quiet--to read how Lord Bishops reasoned with these
non-conforming Presbyters, and yet remained no less their very good
friends, that their kindly eloquence proved unavailing. How knights and
noble gentlemen did honor to the good men in their poverty--how one,
whose life was evil, acknowledged that he had no creditable point about
him save the love he bore to one of these--and how the little provision
they had, like the widow’s cruse of old, seemed to multiply under the
blessing of the Master to whom they looked up with so vivid faith. It is
true that there was the clang and din of polemic arms abroad in the same
England, but the broader, calmer atmosphere does only on that account
deserve notice the more.
There were two thousand of them, the greater part being Presbyterians.
Where are they now? In their own country there remains little trace of
their footsteps: here and there an old scantily endowed chapel, long ago
fallen into Socinian hands, marks where they once were; but name and
fame of them as a Church have long since departed. The Presbyterianism
of England is now an exotic, scarcely yet taking kindly to the soil;
and, save in the far away Border counties, there are no ecclesiastical
descendants remaining to the Presbyterian Nonconformists of 1662.
For their very virtue and patience made these good men weak. Had they
been bigots, as they are called--had they been more fanatical and
warlike, more decided in their love, and more capable of hatred, the
result we fancy must have been different. As it is, the fact is
noticeable. Nearly two thousand devout and able ministers were ejected
by the Act of Uniformity. Now, two hundred years later, there scarcely
remains, out of the old Whig county of Northumberland, a single
native-born Presbyterian preacher, in the whole extent of England.
It is pleasant, we say, to rest the eye upon them, in the midst of those
turbulent scenes of history--the quaint, patient, unresistent men, with
their voluminous books, and manifold commentaries, and pious pains of
working. A different picture waits us if we look over the Border into
that heaving, agitated Scotland, fighting for its faith, as for bare
life. Bigot, fanatic--the names are not desirable--but it seems that
these human spirits of ours can never have a necessary good, without an
attendant evil. When we go far enough, the righteous impulse does
oftenest carry us a little too far. We must accept the evil with the
good; for men are rarely embarked heart and soul in any enterprise,
without a little bigotry and prejudice. Too tolerant, too gentle, to
leave any “footprint on the sands of time,” the Presbyterian Divines
have passed away, leaving behind them only books innumerable, and a
memory devout and holy. While the more violent spirits in the northern
quarter of the empire have left the stamp of their mind upon their
country still.
There is another singular anomaly, as it seems to us, in the times of
those Puritans. In scarcely any other age, do we find so great an amount
of devotional piety--in scarcely any other age, was vice so rampant. The
severe self-examination of the friend of Evelyn, the maid of honor, Mrs.
Godolphin, comes strangely to us, out of the impure court of Charles.
Mystic and contemplative, this religion of vows and prayers, breathed
the same air with the boldest and most daring sin; and abroad in the
country, more healthy and life-like, the piety of the time bore still
the same guise. Like the Divine charity, hoping and believing all
things, esteeming itself little, abounding in fasting, in meditation,
and in prayer, it yet seems to have been powerless to restrain the might
of evil which possessed the land. The question is a difficult one. It is
true that we judge the morality of the time by the standard of the
Court, and in that we do wrong; but the fact remains, that even in the
Court, and its immediate vicinity, this gentle piety lived and
flourished, and that the royal iniquity flourished with it, side by
side.
There has been much written on this crisis of the national existence,
and there is room, we fancy, for still more. These contradictions that
meet us as we venture into the depths--this wayward, changeful, human
mood, which seems to make it impossible to have great principles brought
into immediate contact without those strange anomalies--he would do
well, who should treat of those on a broader ground than that of
vindication or reproach of the actors on either side. We ourselves, at
this day, are producing contradictions and paradoxes as strange as
these; and many combining circumstances point us back to the days of the
Stuarts, the climax of the old world--the seed-time of the new.
For the little story subjoined, the Author has nothing to say, unless it
were to beg for it that gentle consideration which the lovers of art do
sometimes extend to those sketches, which the artist intends only as
studies for a larger painting.
APRIL, 1851.
CALEB FIELD.
CHAPTER I.
“Behold
Beneath our feet a little lowly vale.
A lowly vale, and yet uplifted high
Among the mountains; even as if the spot
Had been from eldest time, by wish of theirs,
So placed to be shut out from all the world!
Urnlike it was in shape, deep as an urn
With rocks encompassed, save that, to the south,
Was one small opening, where a heath-clad ridge
Supplied a boundary less abrupt and close--
A quiet, treeless nook, with two green fields,
A liquid pool that glittered in the sun,
And one bare dwelling, one abode, no more!
It seemed the home of poverty and toil,
Though not of want: the little fields made green
By husbandry of many thrifty years,
Paid cheerful tribute to the moorland house.
The small birds find in spring no thicket there
To shroud them--only from the neighboring vales,
The cuckoo, straggling up to the hill-tops,
Shouteth faint tidings of a gladder place.”
WORDSWORTH.
The May sun shone hopefully over the fair heights of Cumberland. Wide
slopes of far-stretching hills, with that indescribable soft blue mist
hovering about them, which one can fancy the subdued and silent
breathing of those great inhabitants who dwell upon the northern border,
lay many-tinted below the wayward sky of spring--breaking out into soft
verdure here and there, while tracts of dry heather, with the wintry
spell not yet departed from them, made the swelling hill-sides piebald.
Far up in a lone valley of those hills stood a herdsman’s cottage--a
rude and homely hut, with mossy thatch and walls of rough red stone,
scarcely distinguishable from the background of dark heather, on which
it appeared an uncouth _bas-relief_. Surrounding it, on the sunniest
slope of the little glen, was a garden of tolerable dimensions, in which
the homely vegetables which supplied the shepherd’s family were
diversified with here and there a hardy flower or stunted bush. A
narrow, winding thread of pathway ran from the entrance of the glen,
down the hill-side, to the low country; it seemed the only trace of
communication with the mighty world without.
A troublous world in those days! Over the Border the demon of
persecution was abroad in Scotland. Within this merry England--sadly
misnamed, alas! at that time--was oppression also, cruel and fierce, if
shedding less blood than in the sister country. Enmity and contention
were in the land--worse than that, and more fatal, foul pollution and
sin; for the second Charles reigned over a distracted and unhappy
empire, in which the rival forces of good and evil, light and darkness,
had measured their strength already on various fields of battle, and had
yet intervening, before there could be any peace, a time of bitterest
and hottest strife.
Very still, below the changeful sky, the cot-house of the Cumberland
shepherd stood secure in the fastness of its solitude. Some half-dozen
miles away, far down in the low country, the farmer whose flocks he
managed had his substantial dwelling. In the extreme distance were
visible the towers and spires of Carlisle; and saving the occasional
descent of Ralph Dutton to his employer’s house, or the half-yearly
pilgrimage of his good dame for the few household stores which she
needed to purchase, there were few footsteps trod the lonely pathway
over the hills.
At this time, however, while Dame Dutton hobbled busily about her
earthen-floored apartment preparing her good-man’s dinner, a slight
young figure hovered on the watch about the entrance of the glen.
Woman-grown and grave, as girls become in times of trial, this watcher
wore the soberest of Puritan dresses, dark, plain, and simple as of some
youthful nun. Her face had an earnest, devout simplicity about it, the
product of such times; for the Puritan maidens of those days, with
fathers and brothers in constant peril, holding by their faith at the
risk of all things else, had need to be prompt and clear of eye, as they
were single-minded, and strong of faith. She was looking anxiously down
the winding foot-road, the lines of her soft, girlish forehead curved
with graver care than is wont to sit upon such brows. It was no gay
wooer’s visit she looked for--it was the coming of an imperiled,
banished man, the expelled minister of antique Hampstead, a wanderer
now, having no certain home. He had found a refuge for his daughter
here, in the house of the leal old Presbyterian shepherd, while he
himself followed his high vocation, in peril and fears, as he could. On
the previous morning his daughter had received a message from him, that
this day at noon he would visit her.
The unusual warning had alarmed her; it seemed to portend some especial
crisis in their eventful history. She had been on the watch a full hour,
though it was not yet noon; her dark dress pressing the bed of faded
heather she leaned upon; her small head, with its hood of black silk,
bending out under shadow of an overhanging bush of furze; her clear
hazel eyes fixed upon the way--very anxious, very grave, entirely
absorbed in anticipation of this interview, yet with only a clear
atmosphere of truth, and honor, and purity round about her, and spite of
plain dress, and grave face, nothing perceptible of the unnatural
austerity and gloom with which men upbraid these, our strong and brave
predecessors in the faith.
At last she saw him quickly ascending the hill, and ran to meet him.
There was a greeting of subdued and yet overflowing tenderness--it did
not express itself in any exaggeration of word or action, as intense
feeling seldom does; but drawing his daughter’s arm within his own, the
stranger turned into a lonely ravine of those hills where human footstep
seldom passed.
He was a tall, athletic man, spare and strong, such an one as you would
choose from a crowd to endure and do to the uttermost, for whatever was
dear to him. Happily the thing dear above all others to the stout soul
of Caleb Field, was the Evangel of Jesus Christ in the simplicity of its
unassisted might. “Thy kingdom come,” was the continual prayer of his
life--spoken in words, morning and night, as the strong current of his
days flowed on; but graven in deeds hour by hour upon his history, and
upon every span of earth he trod on. “For the Lord’s sake,” Caleb
Field, praying, preaching, scheming, struggling, like a good soldier
taking no rest, had labored all his days.
The father and the daughter were alone in the narrow pass of the hills.
“Edith,” said the minister, gravely, “I have somewhat to say to you.”
He paused. He had been in great haste to make the communication,
whatever it was, and yet he hesitated now.
“Yes, father.”
“We are alone in the world, Edith,” said her father, dwelling on the
words with a sad cadence in his voice. “We two, alone--and earthly
comfort I have sought none else, thou knowest, since thy mother left
thee in my arms; yet, Edith, there is One demanding closer service from
me than thou canst, and better love from thee than I can. For His sake,
and for his royal and holy cause I must go forth again--Edith, at peril
of my life--at peril of leaving thee, a helpless orphan maiden in this
inclement world, alone. What sayest thou?”
She clasped his arm with a tremulous, clinging motion--she looked up
wistfully into his face.
“Father, what is this? tell me.”
“It is the last trial,” said the Puritan; “heretofore I have been ever
in danger, living so much a life of peril that I heeded it
not--perchance, Edith, that I gave not due thanks for manifold and oft
deliverance; but now this last peril into which I go, is sure, as men
say, and parts not with its victim. As men say--it is not for me, a
servant of Him who ruleth all things, to think that any created
desolation carries in it certain fate; but where he sends this scourge
of His anger, there straightway departs all hope. Edith, I am lingering
on these words, thou seest--I would have thee make up thy mind to this,
and yet I would not. It is hard to part with thee, my little one! and
yet--for the Lord’s sake, Edith, bid thy father God-speed. If I leave
thee alone, He is yet with thee.”
“Father,” exclaimed Edith Field, “you speak to me in parables, what is
this? You can trust me, father; I am ready to bear any thing--to do any
thing; father, you can trust me.”
“I can trust thee, Edith,” said the minister, sadly, “if it concerned my
life only--if it concerned His cause for whom we labor. In every thing
needing honor and truth, a brave young heart, and a pure spirit, I can
trust thee, Edith; but can I trust thee alone, poor child, in this
troublous and evil country? can I leave thee without one living heart
whose blood is kindred to thine own in all this earth? Edith, Edith! the
tempter assaileth us through our nearest and dearest. He would have me
choose--choose between my Lord and thee--thee, my sole child! my little
one!”
“And if it is so,” said Edith, firmly, “if it is so, father, choose!
I--I owe all things to thee, but thou owest all things to Him, and there
is naught to make thee waver. I also, who can do little, would do all
for His cause; but thou, father, choose!”
There was a pause--they went on together in silence, the solemn hills
rising over them on either side--the still air stirred by no mortal
breath but theirs, alone before God. The strong man, moved with some
deep struggle, was contending with himself--the girl, with her clear
eyes fixed upon him, looked on anxiously, yet with the thrilling,
youthful enthusiasm of resolve, shining in her face. She did not
speak--she left the elder spirit, scarce stouter, bold and manlike
though it was, than her own, to fight its battle out in silence.
It ended at last. The lips of the Puritan moved; he looked at his
daughter, and then, lifting his hat reverently from his head, gazed with
a yearning, solemn look upward into the sky--the soft, balmy, spring
sky, serene and calm and beautiful, undimmed by all those angry vapors,
which darkened the human air below--and as he looked he became calm. He
had committed his one treasure into the keeping of his King.
“Now, Edith,” he said, “let me tell you whither I go, and why. I have
come from Hampstead. Edith, from our old home. It would grieve you
sorely to see it now.”
“Have they made so great a change, father?” said Edith, following this
sudden turn of the conversation with an anxious smile, though she
wondered why he avoided telling her the nature of the solemn errand to
which he had devoted himself.
“They have changed it, Edith; it is sorrowfully changed, and you may
trace, alas! the steps of the rejected Gospel, which they have cast out
from among them, but I meant not that. The Lord is among them, Edith, a
man of war. The king and his flatterers, it is said, are about to flee
from the terror of His presence. The hireling to whom they gave my flock
has fled, and I go back, Edith, to meet the great messenger of the
Lord’s anger--the Plague!”
“The Plague!” The light, and hope, and enthusiastic youthful firmness
faded from her face, like the latest sunbeams from the sky of even.
Peril, want, labor, hardship, she was prepared to meet, but not this
deadly certainty; the young soul was stricken down in a moment before
that terrible name.
“The plague! Edith,” said her father, calmly; “the heavy scourge of
God’s well-earned indignation. As yet it hath not entered our old home,
but in London it has begun its reign, a terrific life in death; it slays
its thousands day by day; it is not to be intimidated, or bribed, or
bought. Steadily it is cutting down, godly and ungodly, green and ripe.
It is our just meed; we have sinned, and He afflicts us. Ah! that it may
be but chastisement, and not destruction.”
“And, father, why do you go? What is your call to this certain death?”
“Edith,” said the Puritan, “I am vowed, as thou knowest, by stronger
oaths than bind any temporal soldier, to the service of my King; and
where men are perishing--blaspheming, godless, unrepentant men--there is
my place. For what cause have I the sword of the Spirit put into my
hand, Edith, if it is not to defy the enemy where he is most potent? For
what is God’s message of sovereign grace and mercy committed to me, if
it is not for the succor of my own people stricken by God’s terrible
retributive hand? Edith, I must pursue them to the grave’s brink with my
Gospel. I must go plead with them, strive with them, suffer with them.
If I save but one it is hire enough.”
The flush of hopeful enthusiasm had altogether departed from her face;
instead of it there was a steadfast, resolute whiteness. This was no
slight matter to be undertaken hastily, and the young spirit bowed in
solemn awe, even while its determination was formed.
“Father,” she asked, “do you go alone?”
“Nay, Edith, not so; we are all ready; the brethren, I thank God, do not
falter. Master Chester and Titus Vincent are in the field already. There
are others who only wait for me to set out upon the way. Young Janeway
is at Greenwich; he will have entered on the labor before us; we have
not a day to lose. Alas! Edith, those terrible streets of the city! the
paleness in all faces--the hurrying away of the dead--men hastening to
bury their best beloved, their dearest, the desire of their eyes--out of
their sight. Ah! Edith, it is not in our bright days that we think of
the import of that word--mercy; but now, when He is visibly among us, a
Great Avenger, fulfilling that fearful word of His, ‘I will repay,’ lo!
men are opening their terror-stricken souls _now_, to think what it
means, and to cry for it, with the voices of despair. God save us! it is
a terrible time.”
“And father, do all die?” said Edith, with a shudder of natural terror;
“is there no hope where it comes?”
“Alas! I can not tell,” said the Puritan, “for thou may’st think, Edith,
how it would fare with one stricken with any sickness, if those about
him rushed forth from his bedside in affright, and fled from his
presence in terror of their lives. It is thus now--for where this
fearful malady goeth, he carrieth another spectre behind him--fear,
Edith, terror, panic--fear, which brings our humanity down, and strips
it of its boasting--so great cowards are we all, and with so much
thought of self. Whither this plague comes, Edith, it snaps all tender
bands of kindred; and when a man is stricken, he is straightway, as we
say in our worldly speech, without hope, for all forsake him.”
They proceeded on in silence--the pale girlish face was changing--her
lips quivered, her nostril dilated, her eyes were looking far into the
clear blue air of the hills, in the vacant earnestness of thought--but
her father observed not the change. He himself was mightily absorbed.
Some such swelling of the heart as the brave soldier may have on the eve
of a great battle--a noble, grave, chivalrous bravery, that yearned to
be in the thickest combat, the deadliest jeopardy, if need were, for his
Lord’s sake, and his people’s, was rising within the stout breast of the
Puritan--nor was it unmingled with the “climbing sorrow,” the “hysterica
passio,” of the old king. His strong affections were but intensified by
their concentration, and to leave his one child, his sole treasure, in
the world, alone!
“And now, Edith,” he said gently, as they paused at the end of the
ravine, and turned toward the cottage, “I must speak to these humble
guardians of thine. It is a sad lot for thee, my poor child, in thy
first youth--but we must yield us, Edith, to His will who knoweth our
weal best. They are very kind, and very true, and thou hast the hills
and the heavens to commune withal, and the word and presence of our
Lord--blame not thy father, Edith, that he can add nothing more. I would
have thee keep thyself from the maidens of the village yonder--save in
so far as thou canst serve them, they are not fellows for thee. I can
leave thee with but One sure companion, Edith; and thou wilt seek Him,
my child, continually?”
Her head was bent--she did not answer.
“Nay, nay,” said the minister, his lip quivering as he tried to smile,
“I can not have thee make thy sacrifice grudgingly, Edith, or with
weeping. The Lord’s soldier must depart hopefully, with joy and trust
in the magnificent name of his king. Thou knowest that men march to
temporal battles with the gay sounds of music, and if mirth would ill
become us, Edith, hope is fittest of all moods for a servant of the
Lord. Let us go down to speak to this good dame of thine, and then,
Edith--then we must part.”
She lifted her head--she had not been weeping--there were traces in her
face of an emotion too great for tears.
“Father,” she said, “we are but two of us in the world alone--no
kindred--no brethren--if we have friends they are strangers; we have
none of our own blood. We are two--only two--in this great world alone.”
Her father raised his hand in appeal--he feared her entreaties. This
trial was the greatest of all--his Lord’s cause and his sole child--how
painful was the choice that lay between them.
“Only two,” said Edith, with nervous haste. “If thou were taken away,
father, ah! then I should rebel against the Lord; my heart would not
submit, if my words did. Father, what wouldst thou say in heaven, if thy
sole child were shut out for this blasphemy? for I would be alone,
alone! Thou hast not thought what a terrible word that is.”
“Edith! Edith!”
“Listen to me, father. If the Lord called us both home, who would weep
for us? who would be tempted to this rebellion because we had fallen
asleep? Father, if thou wentest up alone, would not my mother ask thee
for her child? Ah! the Lord knoweth, surely the Lord knoweth best; but
alone, father, alone, a stranger and an exile, when ye are all in
heaven--is this meet?”
“Spare me, Edith,” said the minister; “I am vowed to render up all for
His cause--all. My people, whom the Lord gave me to watch for their
souls night and day, can I let them die, with no man caring for them, no
man pointing them to heaven? Remember, Edith! thou hast prayed for them;
they are those who shall be my joy and crown if they be brought to
righteousness. It is thy grief blindeth thee; think of this.”
“I think of it, father. Yea, I see them, stricken down, and no man
caring for their souls; stricken down, and no hand to tend them in their
sickness. Ah! father, so desolate it must be, that forsaken sick-bed; so
forlorn, so miserable, with only pain living there, and the dark death
drawing near in the silence, stealing among the shadows. Father, I have
a petition to you; let me go to this labor also? I am here only to pine
and brood, and forget our Lord, who will not be served in slothfulness,
and yonder they are dying who have need of me--even of _me_. Father, I
will go also; you will not deny me?”
“I feared this,” said the Puritan; “it must not be, Edith; speak not of
it again.”
“Father, it is not your wont to be more merciful to yourself than to me.
I, too--have not I somewhat to answer for in the sight of Him who
judgeth righteously. You would have me dwell here in sloth, receiving
all mercies and returning no thankful service. But look at me, father, I
am strong; I do not fear. We will go together. If He wills it so, we
shall return in peace; if He wills it not so, then shall we travel
together to his own country in joy. Be it as He wills; I am ready,
father. Let us go.”
The Puritan was overcome; his voice trembled.
“Edith, I can not bear this; the Lord demands no martyrdom of thee, my
poor child. Rememberest thou not how even He, the Lord, our Holy One,
refused in His wondrous patience to tempt God? And why thrust thyself
into this deadly peril, Edith? I am called to the labor, not thou; speak
not any more of this, it must not be.”
“Yea, father,” said Edith, hurriedly, “but it was to a vain temptation
that he answered: ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord.’ It was not to a call
to render service to the dying, to comfort the stricken, to minister to
the sick. Hitherto I have never rebelled against thy kind will; now,
father, I rebel! I also am one responsible to God. I also must go to
help in thy ministry. Do not say me nay, but sanctify this my dedication
with thine approval--with thy blessing.”
And so he did at last. The girl Edith was a woman now, taking her first
step in the checkered life on whose threshold she stood: a strange
beginning, yet made in modest boldness, and with a resolute youthful
gravity, against which entreaties and expostulations could not stand.
Her humble guardian was less easily satisfied; it was mere madness, as
she thought; and Dame Dutton clung to the youthful gentlewoman, who had
brought into the shepherd’s homely cottage a grace of high culture and
tender nurturing, which threw its magic over even them, and wept and
apostrophized the blessed mother of her sweet Mistress Edith to stay the
rash steps of her child.
And Edith fought her battle over again, less effectively than
before--for Dame Dutton would listen to no representations; while the
minister stood by in grave silence, repenting of his hasty consent. But
it was arranged at last. Master Field agreed to remain behind his
companions; and on the next morning Edith and he were to set out alone
on their momentous journey.
He had to leave the cottage immediately to meet with his brethren, and
make the necessary arrangements. Early on the morrow the good dame
herself was to conduct Edith to a hostel in Carlisle, from whence they
would set out; a duty which the kindly shepherd’s wife undertook with
much reluctance, and had even laid some simple schemes to prevent, such
as darkening the chamber of her gentle guest, and forbearing the usual
cheery call with which she was wont to awaken her to a new day. But
Edith, in the promptitude of excitement, was beforehand with her
affectionate hostess, and left her apartment, dressed in her plain
traveling hood and mantle, while Dame Dutton was still donning her
homely gown in stealthy silence, fearful of disturbing her.
They had a walk of ten miles to Carlisle, and not a smooth one. Ralph
had been out on the hill-side with his flocks since earliest dawn; and
at six o’clock, when Dame Dutton had broken her fast after the
substantial fashion of the time--for _she_ was not overbrimming with
high youthful resolve and subdued excitement--they set out.
It was a very clear, bright, hopeful day; and the breath of the great
mountains rose up to heaven, and the undulating breadths of the green
country lay fair below the sunshine--peace, and health, and gentle
security. Edith Field lifted up her eyes to the pure sky, and
sighed--to relieve her full heart not for sorrow; for what very
different scenes was she about to exchange these!
“Ay, thou wilt go, wilt thou?” said good Dame Dutton, as they reached
the level highway. “Well-a-day! young folk are willful; but I would fain
ask thee, Mistress Edith, what Master Field will be the better o’ the
like o’ thee? a gentle lady-thing, that’s liker a down bed, and a silk
mantle, and folk serving thee hand and foot, than aught else. If
thou’dst been a handy lass, wi’ an arm like our Raaf’s, and cheeks like
the miller’s maiden o’er the fell, thou might’st have thought on’t; but
thou, that ever wast liker a lily in a garden than a stout heatherbloom
on the hills, that thou should’st stir thee on such an errand!
Well-a-day! but I have telled thee; thou know’st my mind.”
“But I am strong, dame,” said Edith, tremulously. “Cicely Whitbread at
the mill, can work better than I, but she could not bear so well. When
we left Hampstead--you do not know what a hard journey it was, Dame
Dutton--I was not a burden on my father; he will tell you, if you ask
him. I rode behind him for whole days, traveling down to Cumberland, but
I never wearied. I never felt myself weak until I was safe in the
cottage, and my father away again laboring dangerously, when I could not
go forth with him. So you must not speak so to me, Dame Dutton, because
I am sure I go justly, and will be no hindrance to my father; and here
we are at Thornleigh now, half-way to Carlisle, and you have never told
me yet, dame, why this house is so desolate.”
“It is none so desolate this fine morning,” said the dame; “thou
would’st have me believe, I reckon, that thou did’st not mark the brave
gentleman and his train that rode out of the old gate as we came round
the shoulder of the fell? Ah! Mistress Edith, thou’s none so still, for
all thy sad apparel, as to take no note of young Sir Philip, and his
serving-men behind him.”
“I thought no one lived here,” said Edith; “and I never saw Sir Philip,
dame, that I should know yonder horseman was he.”
“Nay, I say not thou knowest,” said the shepherd’s wife; “but prithee
make thy pace slower, Mistress Edith, for my breath fails me. I had a
light foot enow in my day; alack, but that bides not forever! But, as I
say, it is e’en as well that we be behind yonder gallant, for an thou
knowest him not, it is as well for thee; and thou might’st, if thou
did’st see him near at hand; and there is a wrong done between his house
and thine, Mistress Edith, that it would but grieve thee to hear of.
Alas, thy blessed mother! Well, surely it is a dark world, for yonder
proud lady hath all she lacks, and does naught in this earth, but waste
and spend, and harden the heart of her;--and the other gentle face is in
its grave many a year ago. Well-a-day!”
“What is that, Dame Dutton?” asked Edith, eagerly.
“An thy father told thee not, Mistress Edith,” said the Dame, “it is
none of my business to tell thee; and forsooth it is just and right that
there should be little mentioning of old wrongs among folk that strive
to fear God; for thou knowest the carnal mind is fain to have something
against its neighbor, and it is not aye we do well to be angry. He was
but an ill body, that prophet Jonah, that could set up his face to say
the like.”
“But I am not angry, dame,” said Edith. “Tell me this--tell me about my
mother.”
“Ay, and what could I tell thee of her, sweet soul, but what was good
and pleasant? She was like thee, Mistress Edith--nay, for that matter,
the other lady was well favored enow. Thou could’st see at a glance they
were gentlefolks, and come of good blood, but they were none like each
other, for all their kindred. Alack! folk thought it a poor lot for her,
when she wedded the minister, but it might have been a good lot if there
had been no bad laws. Well, we know not who may be hearing us, but this
is a distressed land and a dark; and I would there might come better
times in my day, for it’s hard upon old folk to have to go dozens of
miles ere they can hear a preaching, and Raaf gets to limp now when the
road’s long, and I’m sadly hampered with the breath. But any way we may
be thankful that there’s no word of such a scourge as that plague coming
hereaway, or of us canny Cumberland folk being cut down upon the hills,
as they do the Scots. But we mind our troubles more than our mercies!”