WHITSUNTIDE, 1581
'The greater stroke astonisheth the more;
Astonishment takes from us sense of pain;
I stood amazed when others' tears begun,
And now begin to weep, when they have done.'
HENRY CONSTABLE, 1586.
After Lucy's departure from Penshurst, Mary Gifford kept her boy
continually in sight, and, however restive Ambrose might be under the
control which his grandmother exercised over him, he was generally obedient
to his mother.
His high spirit was curbed by a look from her, and, having promised that he
would not go beyond the gate leading from the farmyard on one side of Ford
Manor, or into the lane which led to the highroad on the other, Ambrose
held that promise sacred.
He trotted along by his mother's side as she performed the duties in the
dairy and poultry-yard, which Lucy's absence in the household had made it
necessary for her to undertake. Although it was a relief that peace reigned
now that the wranglings between their stepmother and Lucy had ceased, Mary
found the additional work a great strain upon her, however glad she was to
have her hands well occupied, that she might have less time to brood over
the fears which her husband's visit and threats had aroused.
Two weeks had now gone by, and these fears were comparatively laid to rest.
Mary thought that her husband would not risk being seen in the
neighbourhood, as news came through the Puritan friends of Mrs Forrester
that several Papists had been seized at Tunbridge, and had been thrown into
prison, on the suspicion that they were concerned in one of the Popish
plots of which the Protestants were continually in dread, and in one of
which Edmund Campion was implicated.
Indeed, there was an almost universal feeling throughout the country that
the Papists cherished evil designs against the Queen's life, and that they
were only biding their time to league with those who wished to place the
captive Queen of Scotland on the throne, and so restore England to her
allegiance to the Pope.
News of the imprisonment of this celebrated Edmund Campion had been
circulated about this time through the country, and stories of the manner
in which he had been mercilessly tortured to extract from him the
confession of a plot against Elizabeth's life.
On the Sunday after Ascension Day there were to be great shows and games in
the village of Penshurst, and Ambrose, hearing of them from his friend Ned
the cowherd, on Saturday evening, begged his mother to let him see the
sports.
'There's a wrestling match,' he urged, 'on the green, and a tilting between
horsemen in the outer park. Mother, I'd like to see it; do take me down to
see it. Oh! mother, do; I'll hold your hand all the time; I won't run away
from you, no, not an inch. I am six years old. I am big enough now to take
care of _you_, if there's a crowd or the horses plunge and kick. Ned says
it will be a brave show.'
'I will go down to church with you, Ambrose,' his mother said, 'and if I
can secure a safe place I will wait for a part of the sports, but you must
not fret if I do not stay to see the sports end, for I am tired, Ambrose,
and I would fain have rest on Sunday.'
The child looked wistfully into his mother's face.
'I'll be a very good boy, mother. I _have_ been a good boy,' he said, 'and
you will tell Mr Sidney that I didn't plague you, and tell Master Humphrey
too. He said I was a plague to you, and I hate him for saying it.'
'Hush, Ambrose, Master Ratcliffe will be a good friend to you, if--'
'If what? if _I_ am good?
'I meant, if ever you had no mother to care for you.'
'No mother!' the child repeated, only dimly catching her meaning. 'No
mother!' and there was a sudden change in his voice, which told of
something that was partly fear and partly incredulity. 'No mother! but you
said we should always have each other. I have you, and you have me. You
said I must not leave you, and,' with vehemence, 'you _sha'n't_ leave me.'
'Ambrose, God's will must be done, let us trust him.'
But the boy's serious mood passed, and he was now capering about and
singing as he went in a joyous monotone as he went to find Ned in the
farmyard.
'I am to see the sports on the morrow. I'm to see the sports on the green.'
The words reached other ears than Ned's. His grandmother came out of the
bakehouse, where she had been storing piles of loaves on a high shelf,
which had just been taken from the oven, and called out,--
'Sports on the Lord's Day, what does the child say? No one who eats my
bread shall see that day profaned. The wrath of the Almighty will fall on
their heads, whoever they be, mind that, Mary Gifford, mind that! Ay, I
know what you will say, that the Queen lends her countenance to them, and
your grand folk in the great house, but as sure as you live, Mary Gifford,
a curse will fall on your head if you let that child witness this
wickedness.'
Mary took refuge in silence, but her stepmother's words sounded in her ears
like a knell.
For herself she would willingly have dispensed with games and sports on
Sundays. Her sympathies were with those who, taking the just view of the
seventh day, believed that God had ordained it for the refreshment both of
body and soul--a day when, free from the labours of this toilsome world,
the body should rest, and the soul have quiet and leisure for meditation in
private, and for prayer and praise in the services appointed by the Church.
Sports and merry-making were quite as much out of harmony with Mary
Gifford's feelings as they were with her stepmother's, but, in the due
observance of Sunday, as in many other things, the extreme Puritan failed
to influence those around them by their harsh insistence on the letter
which killeth, and the utter absence of that spirit of love which giveth
life.
The villagers assembled in the churchyard on this Sunday morning were not
so numerous as sometimes, and the pew occupied by the Sidneys, when the
family was in residence at the Park, was empty.
Mary Gifford and her boy, as they knelt together by a bench near the
chancel steps, attracted the attention of the old Rector. He had seen them
before, and had many times exchanged a kindly greeting with Mary and
complimented Lucy on her 'lilies and roses,' and asked in a jocose way for
that good and amiable lady, their stepmother! But there was something in
Mary's attitude and rapt devotion as the light of the east window fell on
her, that struck the good old man as unusual.
When the service was over, he stepped up to her as she was crossing the
churchyard, and asked her to come into the Rectory garden to rest.
'For,' he added, 'you look a-weary, Mistress Gifford, and need refreshment
ere you climb the hill again.'
The Rectory garden was an Eden of delight to little Ambrose. His mother let
him wander away in the winding paths, intersecting the close-cut yew
hedges, with no fear of lurking danger, while, at the Rector's invitation,
she sat with him in a bower, over which a tangle of early roses and
honeysuckle hung, and filled the air with fragrance. A rosy-cheeked maiden
with bare arms, in a blue kirtle scarcely reaching below the knees, which
displayed a pair of sturdy legs cased in leather boots, brought a wooden
trencher of bread and cheese, with a large mug of spiced ale, and set them
down on the table, fixed to the floor of the summer bower, with a broad
smile.
As Ambrose ran past, chasing a pair of white butterflies, the Rector
said,--
'That is a fine boy, Mistress Gifford. I doubt not, doubly precious, as the
only son of his mother, who is a widow. I hear Master Philip Sidney looks
at him with favour; and, no doubt, he will see that he is well trained in
service which will stand him in good stead in life.'
'Ambrose is my only joy, sir,' Mary replied. 'All that is left to me of
earthly joy, I would say. I pray to be helped to bring him up in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord. But it is a great charge.'
'Take heart, Mistress Gifford; there are many childless folk who would envy
you your charge, but, methinks, you have the air of one who is burdened
with a hidden grief. Now, if I can, by hearing it, assuage it, and you
would fain bring it to me, I would do what in me lies as a minister of
Christ to give you counsel.'
'You are very good, kind sir, but there are griefs which no human hand can
touch.'
'I know it, I know it, for I have had experience therein. There was one I
loved beyond all words, and God gave her to me. I fell under heavy
displeasure for daring to break through the old custom of the
Church--before she was purged of many abuses, which forbids the marriage of
her priests--and my beloved was snatched from me by ruthless hands, even as
we stood before the altar of God.
'She died broken-hearted. It is forty years come Michaelmas, but the wound
is fresh; and I yet need to go to the Physician of Souls for healing.
'When the hard times of persecution came, and our blessed young King died,
and I had to flee for my life, I could thank God she was spared the misery
of being turned out in the wide world to beg her bread, with the children
God might have given us. Then, when the sun shone on us Protestants, and
our present Queen--God bless her!--ascended the throne, and I came hither,
the hungry longing for my lost one oppressed me. But the Lord gives, and
the Lord takes away: let us both say, "Blessed be His holy name." Now,
summon the boy to partake of this simple fare, and remember, Mistress
Gifford, if you want a friend, you can resort to me. I am now bound for
the parish of Leigh, where I say evensong at five o'clock.'
Mary called Ambrose, and said,--
'Bless my child, sir, and bless me also.'
Ambrose, at his mother's bidding, knelt by her side, and the Rector
pronounced the blessing, which has always a peculiar significance for those
who are troubled in spirit.
'To the Lord's gracious keeping I commit you. The Lord bless you and keep
you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you, and give you
peace--now, and for evermore.'
A fervid 'Amen' came from the mother's lips, and was echoed by the child's,
as the old man's footsteps were heard on the path as he returned to the
Rectory.
It was a very happy afternoon for Ambrose. He enjoyed his dinner of wheaten
bread and creamy cheese; and his mother smiled to see him as he buried his
face in the large mug, and, after a good draught of the spiced drink,
smacked his lips, saying,--
'That is good drink, sweeter than the sour cider of which grandmother gives
me a sup. Aunt Lou says it is as sour as grandmother, who brews it. Aunt
Lucy is having sweet drinks now, and pasties, and all manner of nice
things. Why can't we go to London, mother, you and I?'
'Not yet, my boy, not yet.'
And then Ambrose subsided into a noonday sleep, curled up on the rude
bench which was fixed round the summer bower. His mother put her arm round
him, and he nestled close to her.
Peace! the peace the old Rector had called down upon her seemed to fill
Mary Gifford's heart; and that quiet hour of the Sunday noontide remained
in her memory in the coming days, as the last she was to know for many a
long year.
'The sports, mother!' Ambrose said, rousing himself at last, and struggling
to his feet. 'Let us go to see the sports.'
'Would you please me, Ambrose, by going home instead?'
Ambrose's lips quivered, and the colour rushed to his face.
'I want to see the sports,' he said; 'you promised you would take me.'
Then Mary Gifford rose, and, looking down on the child's troubled face,
where keen disappointment was written, she took his hand, saying,--
'Come, then; but if the crowd is great, and you are jostled and pushed, you
must come away, nor plague me to stay. I am not stout enough to battle with
a throng, and it may be that harm will come to you.'
They were at the Rectory gates now, and people were seen in all their
Sunday trim hurrying towards the field where the tilting match was to take
place.
Mary turned towards the square, on either side of which stood the old
timbered houses by the lych gate, and asked a man she knew, if the horsemen
who were to tilt in the field were to pass that way.
'For,' she added, 'I would fain wait here till they have ridden on. I might
get into danger with the child from the horses' feet.'
'Better have a care, mistress,' was the reply, and he added; 'scant
blessings come to those who turn Sunday into a day of revelry.'
'Ah!' said another voice, 'you be one of the saints, Jeremy; but why be
hard on country folk for a little merry-making, when the Queen and all the
grand nobles and ladies do the same, so I've heard, at Court.'
'I tell you,' was the reply, 'it's the old Popish custom--mass in the
morning, and feasting and revelling all the rest of the day. I tell you, it
is these licences which make the Nonconformists our bitter foes.'
'Foes!' the other said. 'Ay, there's a pack of 'em all round. Some seen,
some unseen--Papists and Puritans--but, thank the stars, I care not a groat
for either. I am contented, any way. Saint or sinner, Puritan or Papist, I
say, let 'em alone, if they'll let me alone.'
'Ay, there's the rub,' said the other, 'there's no letting alone. You and I
may live to see the fires kindled again, and burn ourselves, for that
matter.'
[Illustration: OLD HOUSES BY THE LYCH GATE, PENSHURST.]
'I sha'n't burn. I know a way out of that. I watch the tide, and turn my
craft to sail along with it.'
And this easy-going time-server, of whom there are a good many descendants
in the present day, laughed a careless laugh, and then, as the sound of
horses' feet was heard, and that of the crowd drawing near, he
good-naturedly lifted Ambrose on his shoulder, and, planting his broad back
against the trunk of the great overshadowing elm, he told the boy to sit
steady, and he would carry him to the wall skirting the field, where he
could see all that was going on.
Mary Gifford followed, and, feeling Ambrose was safe, was glad he should be
gratified with so little trouble and risk. She rested herself on a large
stone by the wall, Ambrose standing above her, held there by the strong arm
of the man who had befriended them.
The tilt was not very exciting, for many of the best horses and men had
been called into requisition by the gentry of the neighbourhood, for the
far grander and more important show to come off at Whitehall in the
following week.
The spectators, however, seemed well satisfied, to judge by their huzzas
and cheers which hailed the victor in every passage of arms--cheers in
which little Ambrose, from his vantage ground, heartily joined.
At last it was over, and the throng came out of the field, the victor
bearing on the point of his tilting pole a crown made of gilded leaves,
which was a good deal battered, and had been competed for by these village
knights on several former occasions.
Like the challenge cups and shields of a later time, these trophies were
held as the property of the conqueror, till, perhaps, at a future trial, he
was vanquished, and then the crown passed into the keeping of another
victor.
Mary Gifford thanked the man, who had been so kind to her boy, with one of
her sweetest smiles, and Ambrose, at her bidding, said,--
'Thank you, kind sir, for letting me see the show. I'd like to see the game
of bowls now where all the folk are going.'
'No, no, Ambrose! you have had enough. We must go home, and you must get to
bed early, for your little legs must be tired.'
'Tired! I'd never be tired of seeing horses gallop and prance. Only, I long
to be astride of one, as I was of Mr Philip Sidney's.'
Mother and son pursued their way up the hill, Ambrose going over the events
of the day in childish fashion--wanting no reply, nor even attention from
his mother, while she was thinking over the different ways in matters of
religion of those who called themselves Christians.
These Sunday sports were denounced by some as sinful--and a sign of return
to the thraldom of Popery from which the kingdom had been delivered; others
saw in them no harm, if they did not actually countenance them by their
presence; while others, like herself, had many misgivings as to the
desirability of turning the day of rest into a day of merry-making, more,
perhaps, from personal taste and personal feeling than from principle.
When Mary Gifford reached Ford Manor, she found it deserted, and only one
old serving-man keeping guard. The mistress had gone with the rest of the
household to a prayer and praise meeting, held in the barn belonging to a
neighbouring yeoman, two miles away; and he only hoped, he said, that she
might return in a sweeter temper than she went. She had rated him and
scolded all round till she had scarce a breath left in her.
The old man was, like all the other servants, devoted to the gentle lady
who had gone out from her home a fair young girl, and had returned a sad
widow with her only child, overshadowed by a great trouble, the particulars
of which no one knew.
The rest of that Sabbath day was quiet and peaceful.
Mary read from Tyndale's version of the Testament her favourite chapter
from the Epistle of St John, and the love of which it told seemed to fill
her with confidence and descend dove-like upon her boy's turbulent young
heart.
He was in his softest, tenderest mood, and, as Mary pressed him close to
her side, she felt comforted, and said to herself,--
'While I have my boy, I can bear all things, with God's help.'
Mary Gifford was up long before sunrise the next morning, and, calling
Ambrose, she bid him come out with her and see if the shepherd had brought
in a lamb which had wandered away from the fold on the previous day. The
shepherd had been afraid to tell his mistress of the loss, and Mary had
promised to keep it from her till he had made yet another search; and then,
if indeed it was hopeless, she would try to soften Mistress Forrester's
anger against him.
'We may perchance meet him with the news that he has found the lamb, and
then there will be no need to let grannie know that it had been lost,' she
said.
It was a dull morning, and the clouds lay low in a leaden sky, while a mist
was hovering over the hills and blurring out the landscape.
The larks were soon lost to sight as they soared overhead, singing faintly
as they rose; the rooks gave prolonged and melancholy caws as they took
their early flight, and the cocks crowed querulously in the yard, while now
and then there was a pitiful bleat from the old ewe which had lost her
lamb.
In the intervals of sound, the stillness was more profound, and there was a
sense of oppression hanging over everything, which even Ambrose felt.
The moor stretched away in the haze, which gave the hillocks of gorse and
heather and the slight eminences of the open ground an unnatural size.
Every moment Mary hoped to see the shepherd's well-known figure looming
before her in the mist with the lamb in his arms, but no shepherd appeared.
'We must turn our steps back again, Ambrose. Perhaps the shepherd has gone
down into the valley, and it is chill and damp for you to be out longer;
when the sun gets up it will be warmer.'
She had scarcely spoken, when a figure appeared through the haze, like
every other object, looking unnaturally large.
'Quick, Ambrose,' she said, 'quick!' and, seizing the child's hand, she
began to run at her utmost speed along the sheep-path towards the stile
leading into the Manor grounds, near the farmyard.
The child looked behind to see what had frightened his mother.
'It's the big black man!' he said.
But Mary made no answer. She ran on, regardless of hillocks and big
stones--heedless of her steps, and thinking only of her pursuer.
Presently her foot caught in a tangle of heather, and she fell heavily, as
she was running at full speed, and struck her head against some sharp
stones lying in a heap at the edge of the track, which could hardly be
called a path.
'Mother! mother!' Ambrose called; and in another moment a hand was laid on
his shoulder--a strong hand, with a grasp which the child felt it was
hopeless to resist. 'Mother! mother!'
The cry of distress might well have softened the hardest heart; but men
like Ambrose Gifford are not troubled with what is commonly understood by
a heart. He spoke, however, in gentle tones.
'My poor child, your mother is much hurt. We must seek for the aid of a
surgeon. We must get help to carry her home. Come with me, and we will soon
get help.'
'No, no; I will not leave my mother,' Ambrose said, throwing himself on the
ground by her side. 'Why doesn't she speak or move? _Mother!_'
Alas! there was no answer; and a little red stream trickling down from a
wound on the forehead frightened Ambrose still more.
'It is blood!' he cried, with the natural shrinking which children always
show when their own fingers are cut. 'It is blood! Oh, mother!'
But Ambrose was now quietly lifted in a pair of strong arms, and the words
spoken in his ear,--
'We must seek help; we will get a surgeon. Your mother will die if we do
not get help, boy. Hush! If you cry out your mother may hear, and you will
distress her. Hush!'
Poor little Ambrose now subsided into a low wail of agony as he felt
himself borne along.
'Where are you going, sir? Set me down, set me down.'
'We go for help for your mother. Let that suffice.'
Ambrose now made a renewed struggle for freedom. It was the last; he felt
something put over his face, so that he could neither see where he was
going nor utter another cry; he only knew he was being carried off by this
strange man he knew not where, and that he had left his mother lying pale
and still, with that terrible red stream trickling from her forehead, on
the hillock of heather on the moor.
It is said, and perhaps with truth, that the bitterest hate is felt by the
sinner against the sufferer for his sin. This hatred was in Ambrose
Gifford's heart, and was the primary cause of his thus forcibly taking from
the wife whom he had so cruelly betrayed, the child who was so infinitely
precious to her.
Ambrose Gifford had, no doubt, by subtle casuistry persuaded himself that
he was doing good to the boy. He would be educated by the Jesuits, with
whom he had cast in his lot; he would be trained as a son of the Catholic
Church, and by this he hoped to gain favour, and strike off a few years of
purgatorial fire for his past sins!
He had confessed and done penance for the disgraceful acts of which he had
been guilty, and he had been received into the refuge the Roman Church was
ready to offer to him.
At this time she was making every effort to strengthen her outposts, and to
prepare for the struggle which at any moment she might be called upon to
make to regain her coveted ascendency in England.
The seminary founded at Douay by a certain Dr Allen, a fine scholar, who
was educated at Oxford, was much resorted to by persecuted Catholics who
sought a refuge there. Or by men like Ambrose Gifford, who, obliged to
leave the country under the shadow of a crime committed, were glad to throw
themselves into the arms ready to receive them, and, as they would have
expressed it, find pardon and peace by fasting and penance in the bosom of
the Catholic Church. Doubtless, the great majority of those who gathered at
Douay at this time were devout and persecuted members of the Church, from
the bondage of which Elizabeth had delivered her country, with the hearty
approbation of her loyal subjects.
But, black sheep like Ambrose Gifford went thither to be washed and
outwardly reformed; and he, being a man of considerable ability and
shrewdness, had after a time of probation been despatched to England to
beat up recruits and to bring back word how the Catholic cause was
prospering there.
He had, therefore, every reason to wish to take with him his own boy, whose
fine physique and noble air he had noted with pride as he had, unseen,
watched him for the last few weeks when haunting the neighbourhood like an
evil spirit.
He would do him credit, and reward all the pains taken to educate him and
bring him up as a good Catholic.
The motives which prompted him to this were mixed, and revenge against his
wife was perhaps the dominant feeling. She loved that boy better than
anything on earth; she would bring him up in the faith of the Reformed
Church, and teach him, probably, to hate his father.
He would, at any rate, get possession of this her idol, and punish her for
the words she had spoken to him by the porch of the farm, on that summer
evening now more than two weeks ago.
Ambrose Gifford had deceived Mary from the first, professing to be a
Protestant while it served his purpose to win favour in the household of
the Earl of Leicester, but in reality he was a Catholic, and only waited
the turn of the tide to declare himself. He led a bad, immoral life, and it
was scarcely more than two years after her marriage that Mary Gifford's
eyes were opened to the true character of the man who had won her in her
inexperienced girlhood by his handsome person--in which the boy resembled
him--his suave manner, and his passionate protestations of devotion to her.
Many women have had a like bitter lesson to learn, but perhaps few have
felt as Mary did, humbled in the very dust, when she awoke to the reality
of her position, that the love offered her had been unworthy the name, and
that she had been betrayed and deceived by a man who, as soon as the first
glamour of his passion was over, showed himself in his true colours, and
expected her to take his conduct as a matter of course, leaving her free,
as he basely insinuated, to console herself as she liked with other
admirers.
To the absolutely pure woman this was the final death-blow of all hope for
the future, and all peace in the present. Mary fled to her old home with
her boy, and soon after heard the report that her husband had been killed
in a fray, and that if he had lived he would have been arrested and
condemned for the secret attack made on his victim, and also as a disguised
Catholic supposed to be in league with those who were then plotting against
the life of the Queen.
About a year before this time, a gentleman of the Earl of Leicester's
household, when at Penshurst, had told Mary Gifford that Ambrose Gifford
was alive--that he had escaped to join the Jesuits at Douay, and was
employed by them as one of their most shrewd and able emissaries. From that
moment her peace of mind was gone, and the change that had come over her
had been apparent to everyone.
The sadness in her sweet face deepened, and a melancholy oppressed her,
except, indeed, when with her boy, who was a source of unfailing delight,
mingled with fear, lest she should lose him, by his father's machinations.
* * * * *
It was not till fully half-an-hour after Ambrose had been carried away,
that the shepherd, with his staff in his hand and the lost lamb thrown over
his shoulder, came to the place where Mary was lying.
She had recovered consciousness, but was quite unable to move. Besides the
cut on her forehead, she had sprained her ankle, and the attempt to rise
had given her such agony that she had fallen back again.
'Ay, then! lack-a-day, Mistress Gifford,' the shepherd said, 'how did this
come about. Dear heart alive! you look like a ghost.'
'I have fallen,' gasped Mary. 'But where is my boy--where is Ambrose? Get
me tidings of him, I pray you, good Jenkyns.'
'Lord! I must get help for you before I think of the boy. He has run home,
I dare to say, the young urchin; he is safe enough.'
'No, no,' Mary said. 'Oh! Jenkyns, for the love of Heaven, hasten to find
my boy, or I shall die of grief.'
The worthy shepherd needed no further entreaty. He hastened away, taking
the stile with a great stride, and, going up to the back door of the house,
he called Mistress Forrester to come as quick as she could, for there was
trouble on the moor.
Mistress Forrester was at this moment engaged in superintending the feeding
of a couple of fine young pigs, which had been bought in Tunbridge a few
days before. Her skirts were tucked up to her waist, and she had a large
hood over her head, which added to her grotesque appearance.
'Another lamb lost? I protest, Jenkyns, if you go on losing lambs after
this fashion you may find somebody else's lambs to lose, and leave mine
alone. A little more barleymeal in that trough, Ned--the porkers must be
well fed if I am to make a profit of 'em and not a loss.'
'Hearken, Madam Forrester,' Jenkyns said, 'the lamb is safe, but Mistress
Gifford is lying yonder more dead than alive. Ned, there! come and help me
to lift her home--and where's the boy, eh?'
'What boy?' Mrs Forrester asked sharply.
'Mistress Gifford's son,' Jenkyns said, 'his mother is crying out for him
amain, poor soul! She is in a bad case--you'd best look after her, there's
blood running down from a cut on her forehead. Here!' calling to one of the
women, 'here, if the Mistress won't come, you'd best do so--and bring a
pitcher of water with you, for she is like to swoon, by the looks of her.'
'You mind your own business, Amice,' Mistress Forrester said, as she
smoothed down her coarse homespun skirt, and settled the hood on her head.
'You bide where you are, and see the poultry are fed, as she who ought to
have fed 'em isn't here.'
'Nor ever will be again, mayhap,' said Jenkyns wrathfully. 'Come on, Ned,
it will take two to bear her home, poor thing. Don't let the boy see her
till we've washed her face--blood always scares children.'
'I daresay it's a scratch,' Mistress Forrester said, as she filled a pewter
pot with water, and followed the shepherd and Ned to the place where Mary
lay.
Even Mistress Forrester was moved to pity as she looked down on her
stepdaughter's face, and heard her murmur.
'Ambrose! my boy! He is stolen from me. Oh! for pity's sake, find him.'
'Stolen! stolen! not a bit of it,' Mistress Forrester said. 'I warrant he
is a-bed and asleep, for he is seldom up till sunrise.'
'He was with me,' Mary gasped, 'he was with me, when I fell. I was running
from _him_--and--he has stolen him from me.'
'Dear sake! who would care to steal a child? There, there, you are
light-headed. Drink a drop of water, and we'll get you home and a-bed. I'll
plaister the cut with lily leaves and vinegar, and I warrant you'll be well
in a trice.'
They moistened Mary's lips with water, and Jenkyns sprinkled her forehead;
and then Jenkyns, with Ned's help, raised Mary from the ground and carried
her towards the house.
A cry of suppressed agony told of the pain movement caused her, and
Mistress Forrester said,--
'Where's the pain, Mary? Sure you haven't broke your leg?'
But Mary could not reply. A deadly faintness almost deprived her of the
power of speaking.
As they passed through the yard the lamb, which Jenkyns had set down there
when he passed through, came trotting towards him, the long thick tail
vibrating like a pendulum as it bleated piteously for its mother.
Mary turned her large sorrowful eyes upon it, and whispered,--
'The lost lamb is found. Let it go to its mother. Oh! kind people,
find--find my boy, and bring him back to me--to me, his mother.'
By this time there was great excitement amongst the people employed on the
farm, and a knot of men and maidens were standing by the back door,
regardless of their mistress's anger that they should dare to idle away a
few minutes of the morning.
'Back to your work, you fools!' she said. 'Do you think to do any good by
staring like a parcel of idiots at Mistress Gifford. Ask the Lord to help
her to bear her pain, and go and bring her boy to her, Amice.'
But no one had seen the child that morning, and Amice declared he was not
in the house.
They carried Mary to her chamber, and laid her down on the low truckle bed,
the shepherd moving as gently as he could, and doing his best to prevent
her from suffering.
But placing her on the bed again wrung from her a bitter cry, and Jenkyns
said,--
'You must e'en get a surgeon to her, Mistress, for I believe she is sorely
hurt.'
'A surgeon! And, prithee, where am I to find one?'
'As luck will have it,' Jenkyns said, 'Master Burt from Tunbridge puts up
at the hostel every Monday in Penshurst.'
'Send Ned down into the village and fetch him, then,' Mistress Forrester
said, who was now really frightened at Mary's ghastly face, which was
convulsed with pain. 'Send quick! I can deal with the cut on her forehead,
but I can't set a broken limb.'
'Stop!' Mary cried, as Jenkyns was leaving the room to despatch Ned on his
errand. 'Stop!' Then with a great effort she raised herself to speak in an
audible voice. 'Hearken! My boy was stolen from me by a tall man in a long
black cloak. Search the country, search, and, oh! if you can, find him.'
This effort was too much for her, and as poor Jenkyns bent down to catch
the feeble halting words, Mary fell back in a deep swoon again, and was,
for another brief space, mercifully unconscious of both bodily and mental
agony. Hers was literally the stroke which, by the suddenness of the blow,
deadens the present sense of pain; that was to come later, and the loss of
her boy would bring with it the relief of tears when others had dried
theirs and accepted with calmness the inevitable.