AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
"And ever at the loom of birth
The mighty mother weaves and sings,
She weaves fresh robes for mangled earth,
She sings fresh hopes for desperate things."
C. KINGSLEY.
Long after the light sound of Audrey's step had died away on the garden
path, Richard Harrison sat and dreamed. Of late, exhausted by cold and
fatigue, he had begun to lose control of his mind: he had sometimes
found himself forgetting what dangers threatened him, and in what
direction he had decided to turn his steps; and even when he could
force himself to think, he had grown too desperate to care what peril
might be in wait for him. It might be only the pestilential den men
then called a jail; it might be the slave-ship, and the chain-gang in
Barbadoes; it might be the gibbet, with the hand of the executioner
scrabbling in his entrails. Well, let it be, if it must. His
imagination seemed too dull to realize his danger, or work out any
coherent scheme of escaping it. It could only brood over one horrible
memory, till he felt he could have welcomed the pike thrust of a
soldier or the lash of a slave-driver, if only they roused him from the
dreams that bordered on insanity. Now, suddenly, he found himself
awake. He was his sane self again. A girl's calm voice, a girl's
clear eyes seemed to have exorcised the demon that had pursued him. He
remembered with a surprise that was full of relief that he had talked
to her for long that evening, and his words had been coherent--that he
had actually jested! He was not mad! That horrible execution was
true; it was no insane dream; but other things were real too. In what
strange world had he been living? Had that sullen, desperate wretch
been indeed Dick Harrison? He realized that he was alive; he could
still enjoy the common comforts of food and fire; he could think; he
could plan! His feet were once more treading solid earth; his brain
began to spin anew the projects that had delighted him of yore; his
heart began to stir with the hopes of old. Across the sea there were
still battles to fight, new states to found. Liberty was not an idle
word; love might still make life glorious. It seemed as if some
healing touch had awakened him from a fevered dream, and recalled him
to saner and earlier memories than those that tortured him; and when he
stretched his weary limbs on the unwonted luxury of a bed, the old
dreams awoke and bore him company all night long.
The sounds of a ballad carolled below, awoke him next morning to the
knowledge that his hostess was already at the house, and about her
morning tasks. He sprang refreshed from his pallet, and smiled as he
recognized the voice.
"'Tis a miracle," he muttered; "'tis nothing short of a miracle to find
her here. But how comes she to be alone in this ruined house, like an
enchanted damosel of a fairy tale? 'Tis a strange plight for such a
tenderly-nurtured maid, for old Sir Gyles guarded her as the very apple
of his eye! And what state did not he keep, and Hunstanton Hall! And
with what a retinue did he ride to visit us at Highgate! Yet here is
his grandchild without man or maid to serve her, working with her hands
like--was I about to say a farm wench? Fie, fie, like a nymph of
Arcadia, rather! I cannot but call to mind the romances my master
whipped me so soundly for wasting my lesson-hours over in Newcastle
Grammar School! I wonder would she flout me, did she guess how like
one of those enchanted princesses I deem her? But, in sad earnest, I
must needs ask how this change of fortune is come about; 'tis
unmannerly to ask questions, but she cannot look on me as all a
stranger, even if she hold no memory of those old days at Highgate.
Dare I ask her concerning them? That were a more perilous adventure; I
must take more council with myself ere I can hold I am armed to dare
it!"
He left his room, but such vehement sounds of sweeping and scrubbing
sounded from the kitchen that, when Richard reached the foot of the
stair, he held discretion the better part of valour, and strolled out
of the door into the bright morning air. The little yard was so
sheltered by walls and quaint outbuildings that the sunshine felt as
warm as May, and the frost was gone from the cobble-stones. A clink of
chains down the cart-track drew his attention, and in a minute more an
old man hobbled into the yard carrying a couple of milk pails on a yoke.
"Sarvent, sir," said he, endeavouring to touch his forelock.
Harrison saw his own imprudence in standing about so recklessly, but
put a good face on the matter, and answered the old man's greeting.
"Missis, her told us her'd got a visitor," continued the milkman,
resting his pails on the top of a low wall, and straightening his
shoulders; "her bides down at the cottage along o' we now--'tis too
lonesome for a young maid here o' nights."
"Oh, then you are Mistress Perrient's cowman," answered Harrison with
relief.
"Ees, sir, I be, and I was her grandfather's afore her. Ees--I minds
her father's christening, and our young lady's christening; I minds a
many things; but times is changed--changed terrible since then." He
shook his old head solemnly.
"I suppose it was at Hunstanton you were in Sir Gyles' household?"
asked Harrison, idly.
"Ees, sir; but you understand I was not rightly in his household, so to
say; I was allers an outside man, and about the pigs and cows--but
lawk! a man can see a lot if a man is only about the pigs and
cows--beautiful cows they was too, beautiful! but they be all gone."
Richard made a movement to pass on, but the old man had no mind to miss
his chance of a gossip.
"Seems to me as if I had seen 'ee afore, sir. You were a-visiting at
Hunstanton, warn't 'ee, in the old squire's time? I reckoned I knowed
'ee--fine young gentleman you was then, but not so lusty as you be
growed now. That was a fine house, now, warn't it? _And_ kept as
gentlefolks' houses should be."
"Yes, I suppose Sir Gyles was a very rich man."
"That he was--and respected. Why he might 'a been a king an' more than
a king the way he was thought on in the country. And our young
lady--she was always known by the name o' the Queen o' Hunstanton, even
when queens was in no great favour in the country; but there--our
parish clerk says, says he, there's a Scripture warrant for it--with
Queen Esther and a sight more on 'em. So why not Queen o' Hunstanton!"
"You made an excellent choice of a queen," said Harrison, willing to
humour the old man's desire for a talk.
"Ees, that us did; but things was mighty different then. A round dozen
serving-men with blue coats there was, not to speak of the butler and
the steward, and twenty or more in the stables; and where be 'un all
gone--gone like the leaves!" And he spread out his wrinkled hands with
a gesture that had a touch of pathos in it.
"Times are indeed changed. I suppose the wars brought troubles
everywhere."
"'Twarn't the wars, 'twarn't the wars," broke in the old man, eagerly.
"Squire was as big a man when the wars was done as when they
begun--only older--older, you understand. And no one 'ud ha' laid a
finger on ought belonging to him, not for gold untold; they had that
respect for him, and they bore fear on him too. A very plain-speaking
gentleman he was when he was pleased. But no--'twarn't the wars. He
was a great man, and a rich man to the day of his death. He was took
sudden, you understand--in some sort of fit like; and young
master--that's Passon Perrient as they calls him, our young missis'
father--and missis, they was away at Ipswich, and come back all of a
scuffle and finds him dead; and by all I hear, not the value of a
penny-piece in the house in money--plenty of silver and pewter you
understand, but no money whatsumever. And when all come to be settled,
why then Passon Perrient he was on the windy side of the hedge, and he
just sold the horses and cows and the old house and went across seas,
and our young missis, she come to her aunt, old Madam Isham, and Molly,
that's my wife, and I, we come along on her; but 'twas a change--that
it was."
"It was well that some of her old servants were so faithful as to stay
by her," said Harrison.
"Ees, ees we'd surely stay by her; but 'tis no fitting place here for a
young lady; why, there's no company--no coming and going; and the
coaches as used to come to the old Squires's; and the quality; and they
fare to have clean forgotten our young lady, dang 'em! And Squire's
great house turned into an inn! You think o' that! If so be as you
goo into Hun'ston, you'll see the name o' it, The Royal Oak, and a
great oak tree drawed for a sign over the front door. How's that for
impudence!"
"John, John!" called a clear voice from the door, "is that milk coming
in to-day? Good morrow, Captain Harrison; methinks you look as though
you had rested well."
No change of circumstances seemed to have saddened the bright creature
who stood on the doorstep, her pretty head rising like a flower from a
wide white collar, her coarse black gown pinned back under a great
white apron.
"'Tis many a long week since I have rested so well, madam," answered
Harrison, coming forward to greet her. "Methinks you have some spell
by which you strew pleasant dreams on the pillows you make ready for
your guests."
She laughed. "Well said; you pass compliments as nimbly as a courtier!
And, now, if you will but help me empty John's milk-pails into the
dairy-pans you shall taste farmhouse bread and butter for your wages."
"But have you no help in this work?" asked Harrison, as he lifted the
heavy pails from the doorstep.
"Why, no! I was a fine lady till two years ago, but when fortune
changes one is like to change with it. And so you find me a
dairywoman!"
"But, pardon me, surely your father cannot know it? He cannot know you
are working thus, and enduring the life of a peasant?"
"My dear daddy! He knows more of St. Augustine than of how many cows
feed in the five-acre meadow. But he knows very well I have few
pennies to jingle in my pocket, for he has fewer yet. But such matters
never trouble him; he only desired money to buy books, and give him but
a book and he would forget if he had eat his dinner or no."
She chatted away as she tripped from dairy to larder; it was a rare
holiday for the lonely girl to find a companion, and a companion of her
own age. Two long years of poverty and seclusion had not dulled
Audrey's gay spirits, which only waited a chance to bubble forth. Old
Madam Isham had sheltered her great niece out of family pride, not out
of family affection; and Audrey had left the love and luxury of her
grandfather's house to enter a life as dull and as cold as that of a
nunnery. Madam Isham considered most of her country neighbours to be
either parvenus or white-washed rebels, while she was too proud to show
her poverty to the few gentlefolk she considered worthy of her
acquaintance.
Old, sad, and sour, Audrey found the old lady's maundering lamentations
over the good times of King James a sad contrast to her grandfather's
discussions of public matters, or her father's learned conversation.
Morning prayers in the chilly little church, an occasional airing in
the shabby coach, with its moth-eaten cushions and patched harness,
were the only varieties in Audrey's life. She became better skilled in
the making of pickles and preserves than ever she could have been in
the masculine household at Hunstanton, where the old servants would
have broken their hearts if their little mistress had ever set her
dainty finger to anything rougher than gathering rose-leaves and
lavender to scent the best parlour. But the dull external life had no
real effect on Audrey's spirits; she bore her great-aunt's peevishness
and the monotony of her days with cheerful equanimity, for this all was
but a parenthesis; soon she would join the beloved father whom she
tended and petted and scolded and revered, and they would begin a new
life in a wonderful country, where she should see live savages with
painted faces and feather head-dresses, and valiant soldiers and
frontiersmen, whose adventures were as romantic as those of Robin Hood,
and saintly ministers who had fled from persecution, like the people in
Fox's Book of Martyrs; her brilliant fancy painted the Western land
with all the hues of the sunset. Full of healthful energy, it was a
relief to her to help the solitary maid in her household work; that was
the least dull part of her new life; and, in the kitchen, the Queen of
Hunstanton could still rule imperiously over the old cowman, and make
the dairywoman tremble before her royal displeasure.
But through the long dull hours of sewing in Aunt Isham's
dressing-room, her unfailing treasure of consolation was in repeating
to herself all the teachings she had received from her
grandfather--words that could never be breathed aloud in Madam Isham's
house; of liberty, and the rights of the people to representation and
civil justice, teachings that were drawn from writings as far asunder
as Bishop Taylor's "Liberty of Prophesying," and Mr. Milton's
"Areopagitica." The narrow formalism of Madam Isham's creed drove
Audrey more and more to dwell on the lessons she had loved, but hardly
comprehended, and in her solitude she rediscovered for herself the
reasonings which had led Sir Gyles Perrient to stand with Eliot and Pym
against the encroachments of the Crown. Sir Gyles' own memories ran
back to the time of Elizabeth, and he had taught his grand-daughter to
reverence those golden days when a wise Queen and a loyal Parliament
worked together for the good of the people. He loved the Church of
England as he loved the Queen and the Parliament; and Audrey had
wondered and admired as she realized how he had endured to see the
downfall of one cherished institution after another, still full of hope
in the future of England, and of faith that the Divine Providence would
bring good out of evil.
As she told one story after another of her old life, Harrison could
restrain himself no longer, and chimed in.
"I wonder," he cried, "if you can remember how, a many years ago, Sir
Gyles carried you up to London, and you lay for a week at our house at
Highgate? I had never seen his like! He seemed to me the very model
of the old courtier of the Queen in the ballad; he was so worshipful an
old gentleman, and carried such a train of old servants riding with
him. And if he was like the old lord in the ballad, there was a little
maid with him who seemed to me to have come straight from one of the
fairy tales my nurse used to tell me away in Staffordshire, when I was
a child."
"I trust the little maid behaved herself fittingly," laughed Audrey.
"Right royally did she bear herself, and rated me soundly for an
overgrown boy with no manners," answered Harrison. "I have endeavoured
ever since to lay the schooling to heart."
"Oh, this is past bearing!" cried Audrey, turning on him. "'Tis not
fair to make up such tales."
"Indeed, 'tis true," he protested, "and--and I liked the rating."
"I am afraid I was a pert poppet," she confessed; "my dear grandfather
spoilt me sadly, but I knew not that I had carried my bad manners up to
London town."
"Don't you mind the garden?" he urged. "There were stone figures in
it, of men blowing horns, and between them a little stone basin with
lilies in it."
"I do remember!" she cried. "And I tumbled in! And who pulled me out?
I do protest it was you! and right generous was it of you to risk a
wetting for such a peevish brat!"
"You were not peevish; it was all of your grace and favour that you
chid me, for you would say no word to any one else in the house at all!
And when you had done with chiding I was as proud and happy as a king.
I have never forgotten my little playfellow. But now, madam," cried
he, rising with a sudden change of tone, "I pray you set me some task
to do; I cannot lounge here in idleness and see you serving."
"Good lack," said she, "I know not what labours to set you to; for you
must surely not go outside the house lest you should be noted."
"But I thought no one ever came here save the crows and the gulls," he
answered.
"Human folk come not often, indeed; but of them one were too many.
Also, latterly, there have been more strangers on the road, tramping
from Lynn--pedlars, and fiddlers, and such like--and small pity have
they on our hen-roosts. And if any such wandered hither and saw you,
they might tattle."
"You are right," he answered gravely, "I will put you to no needless
risks, yet somewhat I must do to keep----" He broke off suddenly.
"Your pistols are in sorry case, Mistress Perrient," he went on in a
gayer tone. "I pray you let me clean them."
"'Tis five long years since they were touched," she answered; "not
since the day of the blue-coated serving-men you saw come riding out of
a ballad. Take them, sir, the pretty toys may serve to while away a
dull day."
The laughter faded from Harrison's face as he sat in his chamber oiling
the pistols. The smooth touch of the trigger under his finger, and the
click of the lock, brought back the memory of many a past fight when
hope was high and blood was warm. "Truly we fought our best," he
murmured, "and no man counted the cost or grudged his blood to the
cause. Was it indeed in vain? What does this people care for liberty,
when they are even now holding festival over the forging of their new
chains!"
He was roused from his brooding by steps under the window. From the
shelter of the curtain Harrison saw a swaggering figure in tawdry
finery lurch into the yard where Audrey was scouring her milk-cans by
the pump. It was a figure he remembered only too well. What cursed
chance had brought that knave Astbury begging at Inglethorpe? And was
it chance? The rascal might have dogged him. Richard pressed close to
the window and listened.
"Good mistress," began the whining voice, "here is a poor soldier, come
home after his blessed majesty, and hath ne'er a groat to carry him up
to London to seek the king's grace."
Audrey's first words in answer were inaudible; but then her voice rose
higher.
"I tell you I have nought here for you. Go down to the cottage yonder,
and perchance the good wife may find you some broken meat."
The fellow persisted in his demands. His actual words were inaudible
to the listener behind the curtain, but there was no mistaking the
canting professional tone, the whine which presently grew to a bullying
roar, when the ruffian found that no one else appeared about the place
or came to support the girl. The sound of that threatening voice was
too much for Harrison's prudence. Still holding the empty pistol in
his hand, he darted downstairs and reached the door just in time to see
the ruffian dash forward to seize the terrified girl, as he roared with
coarse jocularity--
"As ye'll give me no meat, I'll e'en take the sweet."
Audrey sprang back with a shriek, but with one bound Harrison was out
of the door and beside her, and his strong hand sent the ruffian
staggering against the wall.
For a moment the bully stopped, uncertain whether to fight or fly, but
then, discovering who his assailant was, he shouted--
"You cowardly Roundhead, you played me a scurvy trick t'other day, now
I'll be even with you," and pulling out a long sailor's knife, he
rushed on Dick; but as he raised his arm, Dick's hand went up too, and
Astbury found himself looking into the black muzzle of a great horse
pistol.
"Back, cur!" roared Dick, "or I'll shoot you like a dog."
Astbury staggered back, stared a moment, and then with an actual howl
of dismay the bold buccaneer turned and fled. He did not fly so fast,
however, as to escape a kick from Harrison's boot that sent him
blundering half across the yard.
"Be off, rascal," he shouted, "you are not worth powder and shot, but
an' you stop before you have put ten miles between yourself and this
door, the constable's whip and your back shall be the better
acquainted."
The last words seemed to revive such vivid recollections in the
pirate's mind, that he picked himself up and vanished down the lane at
his best speed, without waiting for further parley, while Harrison
lowered his empty pistol and turned to the girl.