THE BOATMAN'S REFUSAL.
"So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me!
Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we!
Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face!
God is soul, souls I and thou: with souls should souls have
place."
--ROBERT BROWNING.
Old Jack the boatman bore his grief at his daughter's death in
resolute silence, although his rapidly whitening hair and the new
furrows of pain on his weather-beaten face showed plainly the inward
suffering he endured. As before her death he had steadily refused to
allow himself to be publicly made known as her father, so now he
obstinately adhered to his resolution in spite of the earl's efforts
to move him.
"Nay, my lord," he said, "the village wept with me over her supposed
death when I was a young man and alone in my misery, and I was glad
of their comfort; but now that I am old and near to my own grave I
have no craving for their sympathy, and as I told her many a time ere
she passed hence, I can better bear alone at my years either joy or
sorrow than brook their strife of tongues, and perchance the words of
blame they might cast upon her. My heart is grown too aged to bear
the ceaseless chatter, from which it were vain to try and escape,
were it known that my daughter had wedded an Earl of Bryn Afon; and
moreover I will ne'er suffer your noble name to be miscalled, as it
would surely be, were it known that you had chosen for your bride one
of your own villagers. I can keep my secret, my lord, and though I
thank you for the honour you would fain do me in making known my
relation to your noble house, I do still refuse it with as steadfast
a will as when first my daughter made herself known to me. Let me
but look from time to time upon my grand-daughter's sweet face, and
come and go in your castle as her humble foster-father and your
devoted servant, and I will die more content with my secret within
mine own breast than blazoned forth among all the curious folk of the
country-side. Verily, my lord, they would in a few short hours wear
out my poor heart with their gossiping tongues whatever!"
"So be it, Jack," answered the earl; "but as my true father-in-law,
it seemed to me the only reparation I could make for the past, to
acknowledge you as such. Think how in past days, with her, whom you
believed long since dead, dwelling, unknown to you, here at my side
within these walls, I could come and go with you on yon river, and
talk lightly of my marriage and my wife! Yet, Jack, my love for her
was my excuse, for fain would I have confessed our marriage many a
time, and did but keep silence because of her pleadings, which I was
verily wont at times to look upon as strange and unnatural, but which
now, in the light of that mother's love, burning secretly like a
fierce fire in her poor breast, do fully explain themselves to my
mind. You were her child's best guardian, and since that fair little
being, to whom my heart was ever strangely drawn, must needs be
hidden from my knowledge, if not wholly from my sight, she was unable
to reveal herself to you without betraying to me her cherished
secret. And so--well, Jack--my sin in luring her from your side to a
secret marriage has been bitterly punished by its own fruits! And to
my dying day the pale sweet face of our child, innocent victim of the
sins of her forefathers, must haunt me, as I first looked upon it,
now nearly a year ago, with all a father's pride in its wondrous
beauty, and beheld in it those terrible marks of suffering which the
sacrifice of her love had wrought! Never shall I forget that day of
our first meeting as father and daughter, nor the anguish with which
I received those first sweet caresses from her whom the curse of my
house had bereaved of her heart's love, and from whom it demanded so
bitter a sacrifice! Jack, I would give my life to restore the light
to her eyes, and the radiancy of youthful health and spirits to her
countenance! Yet I am chained beneath the curse--powerless to free
myself from its weight--doomed through its toils to die at last a
horrible death, and in my miserable lifetime to wound again and again
the tender spirit of my only child by the helplessness of my
struggles."
"Nay, my lord, say not so!" exclaimed the boatman earnestly.
"Remember the last prayer of your dying wife for you, and trust that,
although your name must needs perish with your fair daughter, you may
at least, in God's mercy, leave it to her unstained with the horrors
of past years, to wear it after you, till she shall be called hence,
in a dignity and unblemished honour unknown to your forefathers for
many long generations."
"I would to God it might be so!" said the earl, his restless blue
eyes dimmed with sudden tears. "Perchance," and he smiled sadly, "my
young chaplain, your vicar, may yet make a convert of me. I hear his
tongue is never silent on the subject of this evil, which has been
the ruin of my house, and of how many more God knows! Yet I fear me
he is before his time, and, like many another prophet, may fall a
victim to his own intrepidity; for nowhere else do I hear his
doctrines get publicly unfolded, and be they true they are likely to
fall on unwilling ears, and reap but a tardy harvest, which he is not
like to gather. I hear he hath already a band of trusty followers in
the village, who form a league or what not, pledged to do deadly
battle against the drinking customs of the country. Ah me, I trow he
speaks more truly of the evil than the world will yet choose to
believe, and hath a knowledge and insight into the matter which I
warrant me no bishop on the bench can boast! Were I a trustworthy
member of his solemn covenant, I could verily back up his preaching
with experiences of which I have alas but too many at command; but I
fear me my membership is yet far distant, for his old ancestor Ap
Gryffyth cursed too well! Poor youth! He would fain undo the bitter
consequences of those hideous words, but after all the old Bryn Afon,
poor fool, brought them on himself, and well deserved them for his
treachery! Jack, when I am presently summoned to the king, you will
watch over our sweet Primrose tenderly? The Lady Rosamond has
promised me to stay awhile with her here during my absence, her lord
being also chosen to follow our king's fallen fortunes. I have
bidden my chaplain remain here in his cure, rather than accompany me
in my wanderings, seeing that my faithful Rhiwallon will e'en give me
all the care I can desire, and that I would fain leave to my child
the comfort of his continual presence, and to the valley the benefit
of his preachings. He and my child have indeed forsworn all earthly
love, but their hearts are knit in a bond which would make separation
but a living death! And since I can trust Percival Vere as I would a
saint in heaven, I can depart, leaving my darling safely to enjoy the
shelter of his friendship and counsel. Fain would I bid her
accompany me, as she hath oft entreated me, fearing lest her mother's
spirit should chide her for suffering me out of her sight; but these
are troublous times, and I dare not risk her safety. Every fighting
man is being summoned to the banner of the king or parliament, and I
carry with me, when I depart hence in some three days' time, many
stout youths, who will, I trow, show Charles of what bravery our
little Wales is capable. Poor youths, the Royal Commission of Array
spares none whom Providence hath gifted with a sturdy arm and a brave
heart, and I doubt not, good Jack, an you were now a fiery youth as
of yore, you would be the first to follow me to the field! Ah, well,
fain would I die on the battlefield, and so outwit the curse! Who
knows?"
* * * * * * *
Not many days after this conversation between the earl and his
faithful servant, the Royal Standard was uplifted at Nottingham, and
ere many months had passed the Battle of Edgehill had begun the war,
and Primrose and Lady Rosamond, dwelling together, in the absence of
father and husband, in the lonely fastness of Bryn Afon, were daily
watching with keen anxiety for the news which reached but tardily the
solitary Welsh hamlet, wherein, nevertheless, a fierce strife
reigned, and ever increased in bitterness, between the loyal
followers of the king and the zealous partisans, led by Master Jones,
of the opposing party. A mimic warfare raged likewise perpetually
between Cavaliers and Roundheads of tender years, who, arrayed in
lines on either side of the river, aimed harmless missiles across the
foaming stream, and oft made the old boatman tremble for the fate of
his bridge, which was stormed and taken by each party in turn till
the rush of young feet made its light weight to quiver, and its
timbers to creak ominously, and threaten to plunge the youthful
armies into the swiftly-flowing current below.
And while the war waged ever more fiercely, and England was convulsed
with a struggle hitherto unknown, the young chaplain fought a gallant
fight in his troubled parish, and was the innocent cause of almost as
much discussion in the neighbourhood as was the king himself; for
Master Jones, finding that he could make no headway against the
powerful eloquence of the new vicar, nor stem the tide of popular
opinion in his favour, stirred up continual strife against him among
his own few devoted adherents, and threatened to burn, plunder, and
destroy on the first opportunity the church on the hillside, where a
new offence in the shape of a beautiful stained window, given by the
earl to his wife's memory, together with some other fresh adornments
added to the hitherto plain little building, served as fuel to the
fire of Puritanical opposition. Not least among these standing
offences was the beautiful organ presented by Lady Shanno, and played
Sunday after Sunday by her own hand, despite the din which often
throughout a great part of the service was wont to be made outside
the walls by certain youths, who with pipe and tabor strove, with the
authority of Master Jones, to drown the Popish sounds within.
Moreover, it was not in the hamlet alone that the worthy preacher's
ears were set a-tingling with jealousy, but that go where he might
over hill and dale, whether to sell his wares on a week-day or to
discourse on the Sabbath upon his favourite text--"Put not your trust
in princes"--he ever found that the fame of Lord Bryn Afon's chaplain
had already eclipsed his own; for Master Vere, in the enthusiasm of
his crusade against the frightful intemperance reigning in the
country villages, lost no opportunity of preaching and lecturing
against this crying evil, whether in the open air at fairs, or in the
pulpits of such among his brother clergy who would countenance his
new doctrines. And in the town of Caer Cynau he gained no small
notoriety by a certain course of lectures there delivered upon the
"Testimony of the renowned Master Shakespeare upon the evils of
strong drink," wherein his masterly learning and acquaintance with
the works of the great poet and also his marvellous eloquence drew
men and women from far and wide to hear him, and by means of which
not a few of his brother clergy were brought to look more closely
into a matter as yet but little considered by them. And although
there were perhaps but few among them who did not regard him as a mad
enthusiast, yet so powerful were his words, and so irresistible the
sweetness of his voice and the purity of his countenance, that all
were fain to love him heartily, and to think upon his discourses when
his presence was withdrawn from them as upon the words of some
prophet of God. And the chaplain, knowing that "one man must sow and
another reap," was content to deliver his message, leaving others to
see its results; but that results would surely follow he doubted not
for a moment, nor that one day, it might be in the far distant
future, his message would ring throughout England and find an echo in
thousands of noble hearts, filled, like his own, with the spirit of
self-sacrifice and love for their weak brethren--a love which should
make some strong ones ready to renounce for themselves even the good
creatures of God, might they by so doing remove a stumbling-block
from some erring brother's path.
Meanwhile, whether his message were received in love or in derision,
he continued to utter it faithfully, ever cheered by the growing
support of a chosen few among his parishioners, his "League of the
Holy Cross," who were ready to labour with him to the death, and
above all, by the loving friendship and faithful love of the fair
young mistress of the doomed castle, who, in her anxious solitude,
cheered only by the companionship of Lady Rosamond and her little son
Elidore, and by the devotion of her aged foster-father, followed his
every footstep with her prayers, and entered into his labours with a
zeal and devotion which ever inspired him to fresh effort. And ever
and anon some shepherd on the solitary hillside would tell how he had
seen the faithful lovers wandering over hill and dale together on
their mutual errands of mercy, and the tale of many a hidden deed of
charity would be whispered from one lonely cot to another, wherein
the footsteps of the beautiful Lady Shanno, whose golden locks were
so strangely strewn with silver, and those of her holy knight, Sir
Galahad, were blessed as the footsteps of angels, and their faces
welcomed as those of bright visitants from another world. And there
were some who said, that as these holy friends crossed the lonely
hilltops together, the shadow of the cross might at times be seen
falling athwart their path as they walked, and more than one honest
countryman would vouch for the truth of this tale, and testify that
his own eyes had witnessed the strange sight.