Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: "'NOW LET GOD ARISE!'"]
_*The
Lion's Whelp*_
_A Story of Cromwell's Time_
_By
Amelia E. Barr_
_Author of
"The Bow of Orange Ribbon," "I, Thou, and the
Other One," "The Maid of Maiden Lane," etc._
_With Illustrations by
Lee Woodward Zeigler_
_New York
Dodd, Mead & Company
1901_
_Copyright, 1901, by
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY_
_All rights reserved_
THE CAXTON PRESS
NEW YORK.
*Contents*
CHAP.
I. SWAFFHAM AND DE WICK
II. DOCTOR JOHN VERITY
III. WOVEN OF LOVE AND GLORY
IV. SO SWEET A DREAM
V. SHEATHED SWORDS
VI. ON THE TIDE TOP
VII. TWO LOVE AFFAIRS
VIII. UPON THE THRESHOLD
IX. CROMWELL INTERFERES
X. RUPERT AND CLUNY
XI. OLIVER PROTECTOR
XII. HOLD THOU MY HANDS
XIII. CHANGES AT DE WICK
XIV. A LITTLE FURTHER ON
XV. THE FATE OF LORD CLUNY NEVILLE
XVI. OLIVER THE CONQUEROR
*List of Illustrations*
"'Now let god arise!'" Frontispiece
"When he came again it was harvest time."
"Then he dropped his blade into the sheathe with a clang."
"Beheld Cromwell standing upon the threshold."
"The hawthorns were in flower."
"Rupert stood still, and bowed gravely."
"Three ominous-looking papers."
"'Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and the King of Glory shall come in.'"
_*BOOK I*_
_*The Hour and The Man*_
"Unknown to Cromwell as to me,
Was Cromwell's measure or degree.
* * * * *
He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs,
With 'squires, lords, kings, his craft compares,
Till late he learned, through doubt and fear,
Broad England harbored not his peer."
--_Emerson_.
*The Lion's Whelp*
*CHAPTER I*
*SWAFFHAM AND DE WICK*
"Sway the tide of battle which way it will, human existence is held
together by its old, and only tenure of earnest thoughts, and quiet
affections."
During the seventeenth century Swaffham Manor House was one of the most
picturesque dwellings in Cambridgeshire. It was so old that it had a
sort of personality. It was Swaffham. For as the Yorkshireman, in
speaking of his beloved rivers, disdains the article "the" and calls
them with proud familiarity, Aire, Ure, Ribble, so to the men of the
country between Huntingdon and Cambridge, this ancient dwelling was
never the Manor House; it was the synonym of its builders, and was
called by their name--Swaffham. For it was the history of the Swaffham
family in stone and timber, and no one could enter its large, low rooms
without feeling saturated and informed with the spiritual and physical
aura of the men and women who had for centuries lived and died under its
roof.
The central tower--built of the white stone of the neighbourhood---was
the fortress which Tonbert Swaffham erected A.D. 870, to defend his
lands from an invasion of the Danes; and five generations of Tonbert's
descendants dwelt in that tower, before William of Normandy took
possession of the crown of England. The Swaffham of that date became a
friend of the Conqueror; the Manor was enriched by his gifts; and the
Manor House--enlarged and beautified by various holders--had the
singular fortune to be identified with the stirring events of every
dynasty.
In the middle of the seventeenth century it still retained this
character. Puritan councils of offense and defense had been held in its
great hall, and parliamentary soldiers drilled in its meadows. For
Captain Israel Swaffham was the friend of General Cromwell, and at the
time this story opens was with Cromwell in Scotland. Nothing of good in
the old race was lacking in Captain Israel. He was a soldier going
forth on a holy errand, hurrying to serve God on the battle-field;
faithful, as a man must be who could say after a hard day's fighting,
"Tired! No. It is not for me to let my right hand grow tired, if God's
work be half-done."
A great fighter, he had no parliamentary talent, and no respect for
parliaments. He believed England's religious and civil liberties were
to be saved by the sword, and the sword in the hand of his great leader,
Oliver Cromwell; and when the King's fast-and-loose proposals had been
discussed by the men of Cambridgeshire, in Swaffham, he had closed the
argument with this passionate declaration:
"There is no longer disputing with such a double mind as the mind of
Charles Stuart. The very oath of God would not bind him. Out,
instantly, all of you who can!"
His three sons rose at his words and the rest of the council followed,
for all felt that the work was but half done--there was to be a Second
Civil War. Then home was again deserted for the battle-field, and
Captain Swaffham's wife and daughter were once more left alone in the
old Manor House.
Mrs. Swaffham was the child of a Puritan minister, and she had strong
Puritan principles; but these were subject to passing invasions of
feeling not in accord with them. There were hours when she had pitied
the late King, excused his inexcusable treacheries, and regretted the
pomps and ceremonies of royal state. She had even a feeling that
England, unkinged, had lost prestige and was like a dethroned nation.
In such hours she fretted over her absent husband and sons, and said
words hard for her daughter Jane to listen to with any sympathy or
patience.
For Jane Swaffham was of a different spirit. She had a soul of the
highest mettle; and she had listened to those English mystics, who came
out of the steel ranks of triumphant Puritanism, until she had caught
their spirit and been filled through and through with their faith. The
Swaffhams were a tall race; but Jane was a woman of small stature and
slender frame, and her hair, though abundant, wanted the rich brown hue
that was the heritage of the Swaffham beauties. No one spoke of Jane as
a beauty; the memory of her sister Amity--who had married Lord
Armingford--and of her aunt, Cicely Compton, both women of rare
loveliness, qualified Jane's claim to this family distinction. And yet
she had a fresh, bright face, a face like a sweet single rose of the
wood; one could see straight to her heart through it--a loving, cheerful
daughter of righteousness; not perfect by any means; subject to little
bursts of temper, and to opinions so positive they had the air of
bigotry; but with all her faults holding that excellent oneness of mind,
which has no doubts and no second thoughts.
This was the maiden who was sitting, one sunny afternoon, at the open
window of the household parlour in Swaffham. The lazy wind brought her
delicious puffs of sweetbrier scent, and in the rich fields beyond the
garden she could hear the voices of the reapers calling to each other as
they bound the wheat. On the hearthstone, her mother's wheel hummed in
a fitful way, now rapidly, now slowly, anon stopping altogether. Jane
was quite idle. A tray full of ripe lavender spikes was at her side and
a partly finished little bag of sheer muslin was in her hand, but the
work was not progressing. When thoughts are happy, the needle flies,
when they are troubled or perplexed, the hands drop down and it becomes
an effort to draw the thread. Jane was thinking of her father and
brothers, of the unhappy condition of England, and of the unrest in
their own household. For she knew that her mother was worried about
many things, and the fret that was bred in the kitchen and the farm
offices--in spite of all her efforts--insinuated itself into the still
order of the handsome room in which she was sitting. She felt her
mother's silence to be unpleasantly eloquent. The fitful wheel
complained. It was a relief when Mrs. Swaffham brought to audible
conclusions, the voiceless tension in which they were sitting.
"My work is never out of hand, Jane," she said fretfully. "I am fairly
downhearted to-day--so put to the push as I have been, with women in the
kitchen and men in the fields."
"Dear mother, it may not be for long."
"It will be long enough to bring everything to wrack and ruin. The
dairy is twenty-four shillings short this week."
"There are perhaps fewer cows in milk."
"The wool is short weight also; one of the gray horses is sick; the best
thresher has gone soldiering, like the rest of the fools."
"Mother!"
"And Will Will-be-so has the rheumatism, and in spite of his Bible and
his psalm-singing, has been to Dame Yodene for a charm."
"Why did he not come to you for flannel and a plaster?"
"Come to me! That goes without saying. I went out of my way to help
him, and then he wished Master Israel was home, and said 'there was no
rheumatics when he was round looking after his men.' I fired up, then,
when he spoke that way--laying to my account the wettings he gets coming
from the ale-house at nights; and then he muttered 'Women's
ways--Will-be-so.'"
"Will is very provoking. I wish he would go to the wars."
"He likes the tap at Widow Tasburgh's, and the blacksmith's forge too
well--let alone the women in the kitchen, who are all quarreling about
him. And then there is this new girl, Susannah, who is more pretty than
need be; her face gets her too much favour with the men and too little
with the women. When Doctor Verity comes next, I must tell him to give
a few words suitable at the Evening Service. They are a lazy,
quarreling set, and every one of them does their work against the
collar."
"Father told me he was led to believe he would not be long away. He
said this campaign would be short and fierce, for General Cromwell looks
on its necessity as the unpardonable sin in Charles Stuart."
"Short and fierce! Well, then, General Cromwell is well able to put
fighting men up to that kind of thing."
"You are out with the General, mother, and all because you miss father
so much."
"I am out with the war, Jane. What is the good of it? Charles Stuart
alive, stands for his Prerogative just where Charles Stuart dead, did."
"The war is now an appeal to God. That is the good of it. You heard
what Doctor Verity said of its necessity--and you agreed with him.
Indeed, who could gainsay his words? He spoke as if he had heard God's
command 'Up and be doing, and I will help you.'"
"Is God, then, the God of war? No, Jane. I will not believe it."
"God is the God of blessings, mother; but as the ploughshare breaks up
the earth for the corn seed, so does the red ploughshare of war break up
the heart of the nation for the blessing of freedom which shall follow
it."
"I know not; I know not; but I am sure if there were no kings and queens
in the world it would be little loss to God Almighty, or to any one
else."
At this moment there was the sound of wheels and the tramp of horses,
and Jane said, "It is Matilda de Wick. I know the roll of the carriage.
Dear mother, keep a bright face in her presence. She will see
everything, and draw conclusions from the smallest matter." Then Jane
lifted her sewing, and the wheel began to hum, and the door opened
swiftly and Matilda de Wick entered.
"I have just been at Ely," she said, "and if I live seven-and-fifty
years longer in this sinful world, I shall not forget the visit." Then
she laughed with a merry scorn, kissed Jane on the cheek, and laid off
her hat, heavy with white plumes. "It is good-bye to my senses," she
continued; "I am out of wisdom this afternoon--lend me your sobriety,
Jane. I have been visiting Lady Heneage, and I have heard so much of
the Cromwell's full cup that, in faith, I think it has gone to my head.
Do I look sensible? I have no hope of my words, and I pray you excuse
whatever I may say."
"I trust Lady Heneage is well," said Mrs. Swaffham.
"She had need to be well. Her house is as full as the ark. Mrs.
Elizabeth Hampden is there, and daughter Flambord, and daughter Clayton,
and all their children and retainers. It is their last gathering before
they go away. Do you wish to know where they are going? To London, of
course. When people carry themselves to such a height, no other city is
big enough. But I ask pardon; I told you my words had lost their
senses."
"Why do you go to see Lady Heneage if you like her not and surely you
like her not, or you would not make a mock of her doings."
"I like to go where good fortune sits, Jane--and in these days no one
can expect honour that deserves it. You know also that the last Heneage
baby was named for me, and I got word that it was short-coated last
Sunday; and so I went to see the little brat. It is a beauty, if it
hold on to its good looks; and 'tis like to do so, for whatever Heneage
gets, Heneage keeps."
"And they are going to London? Is it really so?" asked Jane.
"'Tis not very civil to doubt it. I dare be sworn it is as true as a
thing can be, when the world is topsy-turvy. But that is not all of my
news--I heard also that Jane Swaffham was going to London--a thing I
would not believe without Jane's assurance."
"It is very uncertain," replied Mrs. Swaffham. "Jane has an invitation
from Mary Cromwell, and if Doctor Verity comes here soon, he may find
the time to take her to London with him. We know not assuredly, as
yet."
"Jane must move mountains to go. The Cromwells are now living in the
stately Cockpit. They will hold court there, and Jane Swaffham will be
of it. 'Tis said all this honour for the Irish campaign."
"Then it is well deserved," answered Jane with some heat.
"Jane," said Mrs. Swaffham, "I can not abide any more quarreling to-day.
If you and Matilda get on that subject, truth and justice will go to the
wall. Monstrous lies are told about Ireland, and you both suck them
down as if they were part of the Gospels." Then turning to Matilda she
asked, "Why does the Heneage family go to London?"
"Indeed, madame, now that Mr. Cromwell has become Captain-General, and
Commander-in-Chief, why should not all his old friends go to London?
London has gone mad over the man; even that supreme concourse of rebels
called Parliament rose up, bareheaded, to receive him when he last
honoured them with a visit."
"Just what they ought to have done," said Jane. "Is there any corner of
England not coupled gloriously with his name?"
"And Ireland?"
"Gloriously also."
"Pray, then, is it not extremely natural for his old friends to wish to
see his glory?"
"I am sure of one thing," answered Jane. "Public honours please not
General Cromwell. He would thank God to escape them."
"I do not say that the wish to see him honoured is universal," continued
Matilda. "Father Sacy thinks there are a few thousand men still living
in England who have not bowed the knee to this Baal."
"It is wicked to liken a good man to a devil, Matilda; and if mother
will sit and listen to such words, I will not. And, look you, though
Charles Stuart's men turn up their noses and the palms of their hands at
General Cromwell, he stands too high for them to pull him down.
Cromwell will work and fight the time appointed him--and after that he
will rest in the Lord. For he is good, and just, and brave as a lion,
and there is not a man or woman can say different--not a man or woman
treading English ground to-day that can, in truth, say different!
Always he performs God's will and pleasure."
"Or the devil's."
"He is a good man. I say it."
"And he knows it; and that is where his hypocrisy comes in--I----"
"Children! Children! can you find nothing more lovely to talk about?
Matilda, you know that you are baiting Jane's temper only that you may
see her lose it."
Then Matilda laughed, and stooping to her friend, kissed her and said,
"Come, little Jane, I will ask your pardon. It is the curse of these
days, that one must lie to one's own heart, or quarrel with the heart
one loves. Kiss and be friends, Jane. I came to get your receipt for
lavender conserves, and this is nothing to it."
"Jane was conserving, yesterday," answered Mrs. Swaffham, "and she has a
new receipt from her sister Armingford for brewing a drink against
sleeplessness. It is to be made from the blue flowers picked from the
knaps."
"That is fortunate," said Matilda. "You know that my father has poor
health, and his liking for study makes him ailing, of late. He sleeps
not. I wish that I had a composing draught for him. Come, Jane, let us
go to the still-room." She spoke with an unconscious air of authority,
and Jane as unconsciously obeyed it, but there was a coldness in her
manner which did not disappear until the royalist lady had talked with
her for half-an-hour about the spices and the distilled waters that were
to prevail against the Earl's sleeplessness.
When the electuary had been prepared, the girls became silent. They
were as remarkably contrasted as were the tenets, religious and civil,
for which they stood. But if mere physical ascendency could have
dominated Jane Swaffham, she was in its presence. Yet it was not
Matilda, but Jane, who filled the cool, sweet place with a sense of
power not to be disputed. Her pale hair was full of light and life; it
seemed to shine in its waving order and crown-like coil. Her eyes had a
steady glow in their depths that was invincible; her slight form was
proudly poised; her whole manner resolute and a little cold, as of one
who was putting down an offense only half-forgiven.
Matilda was conscious of Jane's influence, and she called all her own
charms forth to rival it. Putting out of account her beautiful face and
stately figure as not likely to affect Jane, she assumed the manner she
had never known to fail--a manner half-serious and wholly affectionate
and confidential. She knew that Swaffham was always a safe subject, and
that a conversation set to that key went directly to Jane's heart. So,
turning slowly round to observe everything, she said,
"How cool and sweet is this place, Jane!"
"It is, Matilda. I often think that one might receive angels among
these pure scents."
"Oh, I vow it is the rosemary! Let me put my hands through it," and she
hastily pulled off her white embroidered gloves, and passed her hands,
shining with gems, through the deliciously fragrant green leaves.
"I have a passion for rosemary," she continued. "It always perfigures
good fortune to me. Sometimes if I wake in the night I smell it--I
smell miles of it--and then I know my angel has been to see me, and that
some good thing will tread in her footsteps."
"I ever think of rosemary for burials," said Jane.
"And I for bridals, and for happiness; but it
"'Grows for two ends, it matters not at all,
Be it for bridal, or for burial.'"
"That is true, "answered Jane. "I remember hearing my father say that
when Queen Elizabeth made her joyful entry into London, every one
carried rosemary posies; and that Her Grace kept in her hand, from the
Fleet Bridge to Westminster, a branch of rosemary that had been given
her by a poor old woman."
"That was a queen indeed! Had she reigned this day, there had been no
Cromwell."
"Who can tell that? England had to come out of the Valley and Shadow of
Popery, and it is the Lord General's sword that shall lead her into the
full light--there is something round your neck, Matilda, that looks as
if you were still in darkness."
Then Matilda laughed and put her hand to her throat, and slipped into
her bosom a rosary of coral and gold beads. "It was my mother's," she
said; "you know that she was of the Old Profession, and I wear it for
her sake."
"It is said that Charles Stuart also wears one for his mother's sake."
"It is a good man that remembers a good mother; and the King is a good
man."
"There is no king in England now, Matilda, and no question of one."
"There is a king, whether we will or no. The king never dies; the crown
is the crown, though it hang on a hedge bush."
"That is frivolous nonsense, Matilda. The Parliament is king."
"Oh, the pious gang! This is a strange thing that has come to pass in
our day, Jane--that an anointed king should be deposed and slain. Who
ever heard the like?"
"Read your histories, Matilda. It is a common thing for tyrannical
kings to have their executioners. Charles Stuart suffered lawfully and
by consent of Parliament."
"A most astonishing difference!" answered Matilda, drawing on her gloves
impatiently, "to be murdered with consent of Parliament! that is lawful;
without consent of Parliament, that is very wicked indeed. But even as
a man you might pity him."
"Pity him! Not I! He has his just reward. He bound himself for his
enemies with cords of his own spinning. But you will not see the truth,
Matilda----"
"So then, it is useless wasting good Puritan breath on me. Dear Jane,
can we never escape this subject? Here, in this sweet room, why do we
talk of tragedies?"
Jane was closing the still-room door as this question was asked, and she
took her friend by the arm and said, "Come, and I will show you a room
in which another weak, wicked king prefigured the calamity that came to
his successor in our day." Then she opened a door in the same tower,
and they were in a chamber that was, even on this warm harvest day, cold
and dark. For the narrow loophole window had not been changed, as in
the still-room, for wide lattices; and the place was mouldy and empty
and pervaded by an old, unhappy atmosphere.
"What a wretched room! It will give me an ague," said Matilda.
"It was to this room King John came, soon after his barons had compelled
him to sign the Great Charter of Liberties. And John was only an earlier
Charles Stuart--just as tyrannical--just as false--and his barons were
his parliament. He lay on the floor where you are now standing, and in
his passion bit and gnawed the green rushes with which it was strewed,
and cursed the men who he said had 'made themselves twenty-four
over-kings.' So you see that it is not a new thing for Englishmen to
war against their kings."
"Poor kings!"
"They should behave themselves better."
"Let us go away. I am shivering." Then as they turned from the
desolate place, she said with an attempt at indifference, "When did you
hear from Cymlin? And pray in what place must I remember him now?"
"I know not particularly. Wherever the Captain-General is, there Cymlin
Swaffham is like to be."
"At Ely, they were talking of Cromwell as near to Edinburgh."
"Then we shall hear tidings of him soon. He goes not anywhere for
nothing."
"Why do you not ask after Stephen's fortune--good or bad?"
"I did not at the moment think of Stephen. When Cromwell is in the mind
'tis impossible to find him fit company. It is he, and he only."
"Yet if ever Stephen de Wick gets a glimpse of home, it is not home to
him until he has been at Swaffham."
Jane made no answer, and they walked silently to the door where
Matilda's carriage was waiting. Mrs. Swaffham joined them as Matilda
was about to leave, and the girl said, "I had come near to forgetting
something I wished to tell you. One of those men called Quakers was
preaching his new religion at Squire Oliver Leder's last night. There
was much disputing about him to-day."
"I wonder then," said Mrs. Swaffham, "that we were not asked. I have
desired to hear some of these men. It is said they are mighty in the
Scriptures, and that they preach peace, which--God knows--is the
doctrine England now needs."
"Many were there. I heard of the Flittons and Mossleys and the
Traffords and others. But pray what is the good of preaching 'peace'
when Cromwell is going up and down the land with a drawn sword. It is
true also that these Quakers themselves always bring quarreling and
persecution with them."
"That is not their fault," said Jane. "The preacher can only give the
Word, and if people will quarrel about it and rend it to and fro, that
is not the preacher's fault. But, indeed, all testify that these people
called Quakers quake at nothing, and are stiff and unbendable in their
own way."
"So are the Independents, and the Anabaptists, and the Presbyterians,
and the Fifth Monarchy Men, and the Root and Branch Men, and----"
"The Papists, and the Episcopalians," added Jane.
"Faith! No one can deny it."
"What said Lady Heneage of the preacher?" asked Mrs. Swaffham.
"She thought he ought to be put in the stocks; and her sister Isabel
said that he was a good man, and had the root of the matter in him.
Madame Flitton was of the same opinion, though she did not feel at
liberty to approve entirely. Others considered him full of temper and
very forward, and the argument was hot, and quite Christian-like. I
heard that he was to preach again at Deeping Den. Now I must make what
haste I can; my father will be angry at my delay. Good-bye! faithful
till we meet again."
"She says 'faithful,' yet knows not how to be faithful."
Mrs. Swaffham did not answer Jane's remark. She was thinking of the
Quaker sermon at Oliver Leder's, and wondering why they had not been
asked to hear it. "We ought to have been asked," she said to Jane as
they turned into the house. "Leaving out Swaffham was bad treatment,
and when I say bad, I mean bad. Did Matilda take the electuary for her
father?"
"She was very little in earnest, and had forgotten it but for my
reminding."
"She is much changed."
"It would be strange indeed if she was not changed. Before these
troubles she was a girl living at her mother's knee, petted by her
father, and the idol of her brothers. Two of her brothers fell fighting
by the side of Prince Rupert, her mother wept herself into the grave for
them, her father is still nursing the wound he got at Naseby, and her
only brother, Stephen, is with Charles Stuart, wherever he may be. If
such troubles did not change a girl, she would be hewn from the very
rock of selfishness. Matilda is far from that. She loves with a whole
heart, and will go all lengths to prove it. We do not know the new
Matilda yet."
Jane would have made this remark still more positively, if she could
have seen her friend as soon as Swaffham was left behind. She sat
erect, lost in thought, and her eyes had a look in them full of anxiety
and sorrow. The sadness of an immense disillusion was over her. But
she belonged to that imperial race who never lose heart in any trouble.
To the very last she must hope; to the very last believe even against
hope and against reason. Her life had gone to ruin, but she trusted
that some miracle would restore it. Not for long could any mood of
despair subdue her; infallibly she must shake it away. For there was no
egotism in her grief, she could suffer cheerfully with others; it was
her isolation that hurt her. All her old friends had departed. The
grave had some; others had taken different ways, or battle and exile had
scattered them. By the side of her sick father she stood alone, feeling
that even Jane--her familiar friend--doubted her, no longer took her at
her word, called in question what she said, and held herself so far
aloof that she could not reach her heart. Oppressed by such
considerations, she felt like a child that suddenly realises it has lost
its way and is left alone in a wilderness.
Nothing in her surroundings offered her any help. The road was flat and
dreary; a wide level intersected with deep drains and "droves"--a poor,
rough, moist land, whose horizon was only broken by the towers of Ely,
vast and gray in the distance. Large iron gates admitted her to de Wick
park, and she entered an avenue bordered with ash trees, veiled in mist,
and spreading out on either hand into a green chase full of tame deer.
The House--pieced on to the broad walls of an Augustine monastery--was
overshadowed by ash trees. It was a quadrangular building of various
dates, the gray walls rising from trim gardens with box-edged flower
plots and clipped yew hedges. There was a large fish pond teeming with
perch, and pike, and eels; and black colonies of rooks filled the
surrounding trees, and perched on the roof of the mansion. An old-world
sleepy air, lonely and apart and full of melancholy, pervaded the place.
But all these things were part and parcel of the word Home. Matilda
regarded them not in particular, they only affected her unconsciously as
the damp air or the gathering shadows of the evening did. The door
stood open, and she passed without delay into the wide entrance hall.
It was chill with the drifting fog, and dark with the coming night
shadows; but there was a good fire of ash logs at the upper end, and she
stood a few minutes before it, feeling a certain exhilaration in its
pleasant warmth and leaping flame. Then she went leisurely up the broad
stairway. It was of old oak with curiously carved balusters, surmounted
by grotesque animal forms; but she did not notice these ugly creations
as she climbed with graceful lassitude the dark steps, letting her silk
robe trail and rustle behind her. Her hat, with its moist drooping
feathers, was in her hand; her hair hung limply about her brow and face;
she was the very picture of a beauty that had suffered the touch of
adverse nature, and the depression of unsympathetic humanity.
But the moment she entered her own room she had the sense of covert and
refreshment. Its dark splendour of oak and damask was brought out by
the glow and flame of firelight and candle-light; and her maid came
forward with that air of affectionate service, which in Matilda's
present mood seemed of all things most grateful and pleasant. She put
off her sense of alienation and unhappiness with her damp clothing, and
as the comfort of renewal came to her outwardly, the inner woman also
regained her authority; and the girl conscious of this potent
personality, erected herself in its strength and individuality. She
surveyed her freshly clad form in its gown of blue lutestring; she
turned right and left to admire a fresh arrangement of her hair; she put
around her neck, without pretense of secrecy or apology, the rosary of
coral and gold; and admired the tint and shimmer of its beauty on her
white throat. Then she asked--
"Was any stranger with the Earl at dinner, Delia?"
"My lady, he dined with Father Sacy alone."
"And pray what did they eat for dinner?"
"There was a sucking pig roasted with juniper wood and rosemary
branches, and a jugged hare, and a pullet, and some clotted cream and a
raspberry tart. All very good, my lady; will you please to eat
something?"
"Yes. I will have some jugged hare, and some clotted cream, and a
raspberry tart--and a glass of Spanish wine, Delia, and a pitcher of new
milk. Have them served as soon as possible."
"In what room, my lady?"
"In what room is the Earl, my father, now sitting?"
"In the morning room."
"Then serve it in the morning room."
She took one comfortable glance at herself, and in the pleasure of its
assurance went down-stairs. Her step was now firm and rapid, yet she
paused a moment at the door of the room she wished to enter, and called
up smiles to her face and a sort of cheerful bravado to her manner ere
she lifted the steel hasp that admitted her. In a moment her quick eyes
took a survey of its occupants. They were only two men--Earl de Wick,
and his chaplain, Father Sacy. Both were reading; the Earl, Sir Philip
Sidney's _Arcadia_; the Chaplain, the Evening Service in the Book of
Common Prayer. Neither of them noticed her entrance, and she went
straight to her father's side, and covering the open page with her hand,
said in a merry tone--
"Here is a noble knight dwelling in Arcadia, while the great
Captain-General Cromwell----"
"The devil!"
"Is going up and down and to and fro in the land, seeking whom he may
devour. I have been at Ely and at Swaffham, gathering what news I can,
and I assure you, sir, there is none to our comfort."
"What have you heard? Anything about the Scots?"
"Cromwell is in Scotland. What do you expect from that news?"
"That Leslie will be his match."
"Then you will be disappointed. 'There is a tide in the affairs of
men,' and this tide of Cromwell and the Commonwealth is going to sweep
all royalty and all nobility into the deep sea."
"Well, then, I may as well return to my _Arcadia_ and learn how to be
rustical. We nobles may play at Canute if we like--but--but----"
"It is useless, while this man's star flames in the firmament. I hear
that the Parliament rose bareheaded to receive him when he last entered
the House. If he were king, they could have done no more. They have
also given to him and his family a royal lodging in the Cockpit, and
already the women are removed thither. If he conquers the Scotch army,
what more can they offer him but the crown?"
"Those unlucky Stuarts! They will swallow up all England's chivalry.
Oh, for one campaign with Queen Elizabeth at its head! She would send
old Oliver with his Commonwealth to the bottomless pit, and order him to
tell the devil that Elizabeth Tudor sent him there."
"The Stuarts are of God's anointing; and there are bad kings, and
unlucky kings in all royal houses. I stood to-day where King John lay
cursing and biting the rushes on the floor, because his barons had made
themselves his over-kings."
"John's barons had some light," said the Earl. "They hated John for the
reason England now hates the Stuarts. He perjured himself neck deep; he
brought in foreign troops to subjugate Englishmen; he sinned in all
things as Charles Stuart has sinned."
"Sir, are you not going too far?" asked the Chaplain, lifting his eyes
from his book.
"I thought you were at your prayers, father. No, by all that is
truthful, I am right! In the Great Charter, the barons specially
denounce King John as '_regem perjurum ac baronibus rebellem_.' The
same thing might fairly be said of Charles Stuart. Yet while a Stuart
is King of England, it is the de Wicks' duty to stand by him. But I
would to God I had lived when Elizabeth held the sceptre! No Cromwell
had smitten it out of her hand, as Cromwell smote it from the hand of
Charles on Naseby's field."
"That is supposition, my Lord."
"It is something more, father. Elizabeth had to deal with a fiercer
race than Charles had, but she knew how to manage it. Look at the
pictures of the de Wicks in her time. They are the pictures of men who
would stand for their rights against 'prerogative' of any kind, yet the
great Queen made them obey her lightest word. How did she do it? I
will tell you--she scorned to lie to them, and she was brave as a lion.
If she had wanted the Five Members in the Tower of London, they would
have gone to the Tower of London; her crown for it! It was my
great-grandfather who held her bridle reins when she reviewed her troops
going to meet the Spaniards of the Armada. No hesitating, no tampering,
no doubts, no fears moved her. She spoke one clear word to them, and
she threw herself unreservedly upon their love and loyalty. 'Let tyrants
fear!' she cried. 'I have placed my chief strength in the loyal hearts
of my subjects, and I am come amongst you resolved to live or die
amongst you all--to lay down for God, and my kingdom, and my people, my
honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak
woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of
England, too; and I think foul scorn that Spain, or any prince of Europe
should dare to invade the borders of my realm!' This was Elizabeth's
honest temper, and if Charles Stuart in throwing himself upon his nobles
and his country had been true to them, he would never have gone to the
scaffold. This I say boldly, and I mean what I say."
"Sir, many would mistake your words, and think you less than loyal."
"Father, I have proved my loyalty with my children and my blood; but
among my own people and at my own hearth, I may say that I would I had
better reason for my loyalty. I am true to my king, but above all else,
I love my country. I love her beyond all words, though I am grateful to
one great Englishman for finding me words that I have dipped in my
heart's blood; words that I uttered on the battle-field joyfully, when I
thought they were my last words--
"'----this blessed spot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land!'"
"If to this degree you love England, father, how would you like to see
this beggarly Cromwell upon her throne? How would you teach your head to
bow to this upstart majesty?"
"Matilda, to the devil we may give his due, and there is naught of
'beggary' in Cromwell or in his family. They have entertained kings,
and sat with nobles as equals, and as for the man himself, he is a
gentleman by birth and breeding. I say it, for I have known him his life
long, and if you add every crime to his name, I will still maintain that
he has sinned with a clear conscience. He stood by Charles Stuart, and
strove to save him until he found that Charles Stuart stood by no man,
and could be trusted by no man."
"My lord, you are very just to the man Cromwell. Some would not thank
you for it."
"If we cannot be just, father, we may doubt the fairness of our cause,
perhaps also of our motives. 'Tis impossible to consider this man's
life since he walked to the front of the Parliamentary army and not
wonder at it."
"He is but the man of the hour, events have made him."
"Not so! His success is in him, 'tis the breed of his own heart and
brain. Well, then, this Scotch campaign is the now or never of our
effort. If it fail, we may have a Cromwell dynasty."
"'Tis an impossible event. The man has slain the king of England and
throttled the Church of Christ. Even this holy Book in my hand has his
condemnation--these gracious prayers and collects, whose music is ready
made for every joy and sorrow--this noble Creed which we ought to sing
upon our knees, for nothing made of English words was ever put together
like it--yet you know how Cromwell's Root and Branch men have slandered
it."
"Alas, father! one kind of Christian generally slanders all other kinds.
The worshipers of the heathen gods were at least tolerant. A pagan
gentleman who had faith in his own image of Bona Dea could still be
friendly to an acquaintance who believed in Jupiter. But we are not
even civil to our neighbours unless they think about our God just as we
do."
"What say you if, for once, we part without Cromwell between our
good-wills and our good-nights? Father, I have seen to-day a fan of
ostrich feathers; 'tis with Gaius the packman, who will be here in the
morning. Also, I want some housewifery stores, and some embroidery
silks, and ballads, and a book of poems written by one Mr. John Milton,
who keeps a school in London."
"I know the man. We will have none of his poems."
"But, father, I may have the other things?"
"You will take no nay-say."
"Then a good-night, sir!"
"Not yet. I will have my pay for 'the other things.' You shall sing to
me. Your lute lies there. Come--'It is early in the morning.'" She
was singing the first line as she went for her lute, and de Wick closed
his eyes and lay smiling while the old, old ditty filled the room with
its sweetness--
"It is early in the morning,
At the very break of day,
My Love and I go roaming,
All in the woods so gay.
The dew like pearl drops bathes our feet,
The sweet dewdrops of May
"In the sweetest place of any,
'Mid the grasses thick and high
Caring nothing for the dewdrops,
That around us thickly lie.
Bathed in glittering May-dew,
Sit we there, my Love and I!
"As we pluck the whitethorn blossom,
As we whisper words of love,
Prattling close beside the brooklet,
Sings the lark, and coos the dove.
Our feet are bathed in May-dew,
And our hearts are bathed in love."
Happily, tenderly, fell the musical syllables to the tinkling lute, and
as she drew to a close, still singing, she passed smiling out of the
room; leaving the door open however, so that they heard her voice
growing sweetly softer and softer, and further and further away, until
it left nothing but the delightsome echo in their hearts--
"Our feet are bathed in May-dew
And our hearts are bathed in love."
*CHAPTER II*
*DOCTOR JOHN VERITY*
"Some trust in chariots and some in horses; but we will remember the
name of the Lord our God."
"The Lord strong and mighty; the Lord mighty in battle."
As Matilda went singing up the darksome stairway, the moon rose in the
clear skies and flooded the place with a pallid, fugitive light. In
that unearthly glow she looked like some spiritual being. It gave to
her pale silk robe a heavenly radiance. It fell upon her white hands
touching the lute, and upon her slightly raised face, revealing the rapt
expression of one who is singing with the heart as well as with the
lips. The clock struck nine as she reached the topmost step, and she
raised her voice to drown the chiming bell; and so, in a sweet crescendo
of melody, passed out of sight and out of hearing.
About the same time, Mrs. Swaffham and Jane stood together on the
eastern terrace of the Manor House, silently admiring the moonlight over
the level land. But in a few moments Jane began in a low voice to
recite the first verse of the one hundred and third Psalm; her mother
took the second verse, they clasped hands, and as they slowly paced the
grassy walk they went with antiphonal gladness through the noble
thanksgiving together. The ninety-first Psalm followed it, and then
Mrs. Swaffham said--
"Now, Jane, let us go to bed and try to sleep. I haven't been worth a
rush to-day for want of my last night's sleep. There's a deal to do
to-morrow, and it won't be done unless I am at the bottom of everything.
My soul, too, is wondrous heavy to-night. I keep asking it 'Why art
thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?' and I
get no answer from it."
"You must add counsel to inquiry, mother. Finish the verse--'Trust thou
in God, and thou shalt yet praise Him, who is the health of thy
countenance, and thy God.' You see, you are to answer yourself."
"I didn't think of that, Jane. A sad heart is poor company, isn't it?"
"There is an old saying, mother,--'A merry heart goes all the day.'"
"But who knows how much the merry heart may have to carry? There is
another saying still older, Jane, that is a good deal better than that.
It is God's grand charter of help, and you'll find it, dear, in Romans
eighth and twenty-eighth. I can tell you, my heart would have failed me
many and many a time, it would indeed, but for that verse."
"Are you troubled about my father and brothers?"
"Oh, Jane, that is the sword point at my heart. Any hour it may pierce
me. Cromwell went to Scotland, and what for but to fight? and my
men-folk have not charmed lives."
"But their lives are hid with Christ in God; nothing can hurt them, that
is not of His sending."
"Yes! Yes! But I am a wife and a mother, and you know not yet what
that means, Jane. All day I have been saying--no matter what my hands
were doing--let this cup pass me, Lord. If your father fell!--if John,
or Cymlin, or Tonbert were left on the battle-field! Oh, Jane! Jane!"
and the terror that had haunted her all day and shown itself in an
irrepressible fretfulness, now sought relief in tears and sobbing. Jane
kissed and comforted the sorrowful woman. She led her up-stairs, and
helped her into the sanctuary of sleep by many brave and hopeful words;
and it so happened that she finally uttered a promise that had once been
given to the anxious wife and mother, as a sacred secret token of help
and deliverance. And when she heard the gracious words dropping from
Jane's lips she said--"That is sufficient. Once, when I was in great
fear for your father, the Lord gave me that assurance; now He sends it
by you. I am satisfied. I will lay me down and sleep; the words will
sing in my heart all night long," and she said them softly as Jane
kissed her--"'From the beginning of our journey, the Lord delivered us
from every enemy.'"
Then Jane went to her own room. It was a large, low room on the morning
side of the house, and it was an illustration of the girl--a place of
wide, free spaces, and no furniture in it that was for mere ornament--a
small tent bed draped with white dimity, a dressing-table equally plain
and spotless, a stand on which lay her Bible, a large oak chair of
unknown age, and two or three chairs of the simplest form made of
plaited rushes and willow wands. Some pots of sweet basil and geranium
were in the casements, and the place was permeated with a peace and
perfume that is indescribable.
To this sweet retreat Jane went with eager steps. She closed the door,
slipped the iron bolt into its place, and then lit a rush candle. The
light was dim, but sufficient. In it she disrobed herself, and loosened
the long braids of pale brown hair; then she put out the candle and let
the moonlight flood the room, make whiter the white draperies, and add
the last ravishing touch of something heavenly, and something apart from
the sphere of our unrest and sorrow.
For some time she sat voiceless, motionless. Was she dreaming of
happiness, or learning to suffer? Neither, consciously; she was
"waiting" on the Eternal, waiting for that desire God Himself forms in
the soul--that secret voice that draws down mercies and spiritual
favours which no one knoweth but they who receive them. And Jane was
well aware that it was only in the serene depth of a quiescent will she
could rise above the meanness of fear and the selfishness of hope, and
present that acceptable prayer which would be omnipotent with
God:--omnipotent, because so wonderfully aided by all those strange
things and secret decrees and unrevealed transactions which are beyond
the stars; but which all combine in ministry with the praying soul.
That night, however, she could not escape the tremor and tumult of her
own heart, and the sorrowful apprehension of her mother. Peace was far
from her. She sat almost breathless, she rose and walked softly to and
fro, she stood with uplifted thoughts in the moonlit window--nothing
brought her clarity and peace of mind. And when at length she fell into
the sleep of pure weariness, it was haunted by dreams full of turmoil
and foreshadowings of calamity. She awoke weary and unrefreshed, and
with a sigh opened a casement and looked at the outer world again. How
good it seemed! In what gray, wild place of sorrow and suffering had
she been wandering? She did not know its moors and bogs, and the noise
of its black, rolling waters. How different were the green terraces of
Swaffham! the sweet beds of late lilies and autumn flowers! the rows of
tall hollyhocks dripping in the morning mist! A penetrating scent of
marjoram and lavender was in the air, a sense, too, of ended summer, in
spite of the lilies and the stately hollyhocks. She came down with a
smile, but her mother's face was wan and tired.
"I hoped I should have had a good dream last night, Jane," she said
sadly, "but I dreamt nothing to the purpose. I wonder when we shall
have a letter. I do not feel able to do anything to-day. I'm not all
here. My mind runs on things far away from Swaffham. I am going to let
some of the work take its own way for a week. In all conscience, we
should have news by that time."
So the anxious days went by for a week, and there was still no word.
Then Jane went over to de Wick, hoping that the Earl might have news
from his son, which would at least break the voiceless tension of their
fears. But the Earl was in the same state--restless, perplexed,
wistfully eager concerning the situation of the opposing armies. In
their mutual sorrowful conjectures they forgot their political
antipathies, and a loving apprehension drew them together; they could
not say unkind things, and Jane was even regretful for her cool attitude
towards Matilda on her last visit to Swaffham. They drew close to each
other, they talked in low voices of the absent, they clasped hands as
they walked together through the lonely park in the autumn afternoon.
They also agreed that whoever had news first should send a swift
messenger to the other, no matter what the tidings should be. When they
parted, Jane kissed her friend, a token of love she had not given her
for a long time, and Matilda was so affected by this return of sympathy
that she covered her face with her hands and wept. "Oh, Jane!" she
said, "I have been so lonely!"
And as Jane answered her with affectionate assurances, there came into
her heart a sudden anticipation of intelligence. Without consideration,
with no purpose of mere encouragement, she said confidently--"There is
some one on the way. I seem to hear them coming." So they parted, and
Jane brought home with her a hope which would not be put down. Her face
was so bright and her voice so confident that her mother felt the
influence of her spirit, and anon shared it. The night was too damp and
chill for their usual bedtime walk on the terrace, but they sat together
on the hearth, knitting and talking until the evening was far spent.
Then Mrs. Swaffham dropped her work upon her lap, and she and Jane began
their private evening exercise:
"Then said he unto me, thou art sore troubled in mind for Israel's sake;
lovest thou that people better than He that made them?
"And I said, No, Lord, but of very grief have I spoken; for my reins
pain me every hour, while I labour to comprehend the way of the most
High, and to seek out part of His judgment.
"And he said unto me, thou canst not. And I said wherefore, Lord,
whereunto was I born then? or why was not my mother's womb my grave,
that I might not have seen the travail of Jacob, and the wearisome toil
of the stock of Israel?