a chamber to which I have never invited you. Will you go back to your
own?"
He bowed with a courteous apology and muttered something about the
temptation being too great. Then he left us alone.
"Child," she said to me, "has that man told you anything of his own
affairs?"
"Only that he is in trouble, and must fly beyond seas."
"Pray God he may go quickly," she said devoutly. "I fear he is no man to
be trusted."
"Yet you help him," I answered.
"I help many that I could not trust," she said with quietness; "they
have the more need of help." And in truth I know that much of her good
work was among those evil-doers that others shrank from.
"This man seems strong enough to help himself," I said.
"Would that he may go quickly," was all her answer. "If the means could
but be found!"
Then she spoke to me with great urgency, commanding me to hold no
discourse with him nor with any concerning him.
I did my best to fulfil her bidding, yet it was difficult; for he was a
man who knew the world and how to take his own way in it. He contrived
more than once to see me, and to pay a kind of court to me, half in jest
and half in earnest; so that I was sometimes flattered and sometimes
angered, and sometimes frighted.
Then other circumstances happened unexpectedly, for I had a visitor that
I had never looked to see there.
I kept indoors altogether, fearing to be questioned by the neighbours;
but on a certain afternoon there came a knocking, and when I went to
open Tom Windham walked in.
I gave a cry of joy, because the sight of an old friend was pleasant in
that strange place, and it was not immediately that I could recover
myself and ask what his business was.
"I came to seek you," he said, "for I had occasion to leave my own part
of the country for the present."
[Illustration: "LOOKING AT HIM, I SAW THAT HE WAS HAGGARD AND STRANGE."]
Looking at him, I saw that he was haggard and strange, and had not the
confidence that was his formerly.
"There has been a rising there," I answered him, "and trouble among
many?"
"Much trouble," he said with gloom. Then he fell to telling me how such
of the neighbours were dead, and others were in hiding, while there were
still more that went about their work in fear for their lives, lest any
should inform against them.
"Your father's brother was taken on Sedgemoor with a pike in his hand,"
he added, "and your father has been busy ever since, raising money to
buy his pardon--for they say that money can do much."
"That is ill news, indeed," I said.
"I have come to London on my own affairs, and been to seek you at your
cousin Alstree's. When I learnt of the trouble that had befallen I
followed you to this house, and right glad I am that you are safe with
so good a woman as Mrs. Gaunt."
"But why should you be in London when the whole countryside at home is
in gaol or in mourning? Have you no friend to help? Did you sneak away
to be out of it all?" I asked with the silly petulance of a maid that
knows nothing and will say anything.
"Yes," he said, hanging his head like one ashamed, "I sneaked away to be
out of it all."
It vexed me to see him so, and I went on in a manner that it pleased me
little afterwards to remember. "You, that talked so of the Protestant
cause! you, that were ready to fight against Popery! you were not one of
those that marched for Bristol or fought at Sedgemoor?"
"No," he said, "I did neither of these things."
"Yet you have run away from the sight of your neighbours' trouble--lest,
I suppose, you should anyways be involved in it. Well, 'twas a man's
part!"
He was about to answer me when we both started to hear a sound in the
house. There was a foot on the stairs that I knew well. Tom turned aside
and listened, for we had now withdrawn to the kitchen.
"That is a man's tread," he said; "I thought you lived alone with Mrs.
Elizabeth Gaunt."
"Mrs. Gaunt spends her life in good works," I answered, "and shows
kindness to others beside me."
I raised my voice in hopes that the man might hear me and come no
nearer, but the stupid fellow had waxed so confident that he came right
in and stood amazed.
[Sidenote: "You!"]
"You!" he said; and Tom answered, "You!"
So they stood and glared at one another.
"I thought you were in a safe place," said Tom, swinging round to me.
"She is in no danger from me," said the man.
"Are you so foolish as to think so?" asked Tom.
"If you keep your mouth shut she is in no danger," was the answer.
"That may be," said Tom. Yet he turned to me and said, "You must come
away from here."
"I have nowhere to go to--and I will not leave Mrs. Gaunt."
"I am myself going away," the man said.
"How soon?"
"To-night maybe; to-morrow night at farthest."
"'Tis a great danger," said Tom, "and I thought you so safe." Again he
spoke to me.
"Is there danger from _you_?" the man asked.
"Do you take me for a scoundrel?" was the wrathful reply.
"A man will do much to keep his skin whole."
"There are some things no man will do that is a man and no worse."
"Truly you might have easily been in my place; and you would not inform
against a comrade?"
"I should be a black traitor to do it."
Yet there was a blacker treachery possible, such as we none of us
conceived the very nature of, not even the man that had the heart to
harbour it afterwards.
Tom would not leave me until Mrs. Gaunt came in, and then they had a
private talk together. She begged him to come to the house no more at
present, because of the suspicions that even so innocent a visitor might
bring upon it at that time of public disquiet.
"I shall contrive to get word to her father that he would do well to
come and fetch her," he said, in my hearing, and she answered that he
could not contrive a better thing.
The man that, as I now understood, we had in hiding went out that night
after it was dark, but he came back again; and he did so on the night
that followed. Mrs. Gaunt, perceiving that she could not altogether keep
him from my company, and that the hope of his safe departure grew less,
began to show great uneasiness.
"I see not how I am to get away," the man said gloomily when he found
occasion for a word with me; "and the danger increases each day. Yet
there is one way--one way."
"Why not take it and go?" I asked lightly.
"I may take it yet. A man has but one life." He spoke savagely and
morosely; for his manner was now altered, and he paid me no more
compliments.
There came a night on which he went out and came back no more.
"I trust in God," said Mrs. Gaunt, who used this word always in
reverence and not lightly, "that he has made his escape and not fallen
into the hands of his enemies."
The house seemed lighter because he was gone, and we went about our work
cheerfully. Later, when some strange men came to the door--as I, looking
through an upper window, could see--Mrs. Gaunt opened to them smiling,
for the place was now ready to be searched, and there was none to give
any evidence who the man was that had lately hidden there.
[Sidenote: Arrested]
But there was no search. The men had come for Elizabeth Gaunt herself,
and they told her, in my hearing, that she was accused of having given
shelter to one of Monmouth's men, and the punishment of this crime was
death.
It did not seem to me at first possible that such a woman as Elizabeth
Gaunt, that had never concerned herself with plots or politics, but
spent her life wholly in good works, should be taken up as a public
enemy and so treated only because she had given shelter to a man that
had fled for his life. Yet this was, as I now learnt, the law. But there
still seemed no possibility of any conviction, for who was there to give
witness against her of the chief fact, namely, that she had known the
man she sheltered to be one that had fought against the King? Her house
was open always to those that were in trouble or danger, and no question
asked. There were none of her neighbours that would have spied upon her,
seeing that she had the reputation of a saint among them; and none to
whom she had given her confidence. She had withheld it even from me, nor
could I certainly say that she had the knowledge that was charged
against her. For Windham was out of the way now--on my business, as I
afterwards discovered; and if he had been nigh at hand he would have had
more wisdom than to show himself at this juncture.
When I was taken before the judge, and, terrified as I was, questioned
with so much roughness that I suspected a desire to fright me further,
so that I might say whatever they that questioned me desired, even then
they could, happily, discover nothing that told against my mistress,
because I knew nothing.
In spite of all my confusion and distress, I uttered no word that could
be used against Elizabeth Gaunt.
I saw now her wise and kind care of me, in that she had not put me into
the danger she was in herself. It seemed too that she must escape,
seeing that there was none to give witness against her.
And then the truth came out, that the villain himself, tempted by the
offer of the King to pardon those rebels that should betray their
entertainers, had gone of his own accord and bought his safety at the
cost of her life that had sheltered and fed him.
When the time came that he must give his evidence, the villain stepped
forward with a swaggering impudence that ill-concealed his secret shame,
and swore not only that Elizabeth Gaunt had given him shelter, but
moreover that she had done it knowing who he was and where he came from.
And so she was condemned to death, and, in the strange cruelty of the
law, because she was a woman and adjudged guilty of treason, she must be
burnt alive.
She had no great friends to help her, no money with which to bribe the
wicked court; yet I could not believe that a King who called himself a
Christian--though of that cruel religion that has since hunted so many
thousands of the best men out of France, or tortured them in their homes
there--could abide to let a woman die, only because she had been
merciful to a man that was his enemy. I went about like one distracted,
seeking help where there was no help, and it was only when I went to the
gaol and saw Elizabeth herself--which I was permitted to do for a
farewell--that I found any comfort.
"We must all die one day," she said, "and why not now, in a good cause?"
"Is it a good cause," I cried, "to die for one that is a coward, a
villain, a traitor?"
"Nay," she answered, "you mistake. I die for the cause of charity. I die
to fulfil my Master's command of kindness and mercy."
"But the man was unworthy," I repeated.
"What of that? The love is worthy that would have helped him; the
charity is worthy that would have served him. Gladly do I die for having
lived in love and charity. They are the courts of God's holy house. They
are filled full of peace and joy. In their peace and joy may I abide
until God receives me, unworthy, into His inner temple."
"But the horror of the death! Oh, how can you bear it?"
"God will show me how when the time comes," she said, with the
simplicity of a perfect faith.
[Sidenote: Death by Fire]
And of a truth He did show her; for they that stood by her at the last
testified how her high courage did not fail; no, nor her joy either; for
she laid the straw about her cheerfully for her burning, and thanked God
that she was permitted to die in this cruel manner for a religion that
was all love.
I could not endure to watch that which she could suffer joyfully, but at
first I remained in the outskirts of the crowd. When I pressed forward
after and saw her bound there--she that had sat at meals with me and
lain in my bed at night--and that they were about to put a torch to the
faggots and kindle them, I fell back in a swoon. Some that were merciful
pulled me out of the throng, and cast water upon me; and William Penn
the Quaker, that stood by (whom I knew by sight--and a strange show this
was that he had come with the rest to look upon), spoke to me kindly,
and bid me away to my home, seeing that I had no courage for such
dreadful sights.
So I hurried away, ashamed of my own cowardice, and weeping sorely,
leaving behind me the tumult of the crowd, and smelling in the air the
smoke of the kindled faggots. I put my fingers in my ears and ran back
to the empty house: there to fall on my knees, to pray to God for mercy
for myself, and to cry aloud against the cruelty of men.
Then there happened a thing which I remember even now with shame.
The man who had betrayed my mistress came disguised (for he was now at
liberty to fly from the anger of the populace and the horror of his
friends) and he begged me to go with him and to share his fortunes,
telling me that he feared solitude above everything, and crying to me to
help him against his own dreadful thoughts.
I answered him with horror and indignation; but he said I should rather
pity him, seeing that many another man would have acted so in his place;
and others might have been in his place easily enough.
"For," said he, "your friend Windham was among those that came to take
service under the Duke and had to be sent away because there were no
more arms. He was sorely disappointed that he could not join us."
"Then," said I suddenly, "this was doubtless the reason why he fled the
country--lest any should inform against him."
"That is so," he answered; "and a narrow escape he has had; for if he
had fought as he desired he might well have been in my place this day."
"In Elizabeth Gaunt's rather!" I answered. "He would himself have died
at the stake before he could have been brought to betray the woman that
had helped him."
"You had a poorer opinion of him a short while ago."
"I knew not the world. I knew not men. I knew not _you_. Go! Go! Take
away your miserable life--for which two good and useful lives have been
given--and make what you can of it. I would--coward as I am--go back to
my mistress and die with her rather than have any share in it!"
He tarried no more, and I was left alone. Not a creature came near me.
It may be that my neighbours had seen him enter, and thought of me with
horror as a condoner of his crime; it may be that they were afraid to
meddle with a house that had fallen into so terrible a trouble; or that
the frightful hurricane that burst forth and raged that day (as if to
show that God's anger was aroused and His justice, though delayed, not
forgotten) kept them trembling in their houses.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A Knocking at Nightfall]
What would have befallen me if I had been left long alone in that great
and evil city I know not, for I had no wits left to make any plans for
myself. At nightfall, however, there came once more a knocking, and when
I opened the door my father stood on the threshold. There seemed no
strangeness in his presence, and I fell into his arms weeping, so that
he, seeing how grievous had been my punishment, forbore to make any
reproach.
The next day began our journey home, and I have never since returned to
London; but when I got back to the place I had so foolishly left I found
it sadder than before. Many friends were gone away or dead. Some honest
lads, with whom I had jested at fair-times, hung withering on the
ghastly gallows by the wayside; others lay in unknown graves; others
languished in gaol or on board ship. My father's own brother, though his
life was spared, had been sent away to the plantations to be sold, and
to work as a slave.
It was some time before Tom Windham--that had, at considerable risk to
himself, sent my father to fetch me--ventured to settle again in his old
place; and for a long time after that he was shy of addressing me.
But I was changed now as much as he was. I had seen what the world was,
and knew the value of an honest love in it. So that, in the end, we came
to an understanding, and have been married these many years.
[Sidenote: What is girl life like in newer Canada--in lands to which so
many of our brothers are going just now? This article--written in the
Far North-West--supplies the answer.]
Girl Life in Canada
BY
JANEY CANUCK
If you leave out France, Canada is as large as all Europe; which means
that the girls of our Dominion live under climatic, domestic, and social
conditions that are many and varied. It is of the girls in the newer
provinces I shall write--those provinces known as "North-West
Canada"--who reside in the country adjacent to some town or village.
It is true that many girls who come here with their fathers and mothers
often live a long distance from a town or even a railroad.
Where I live at Edmonton, the capital of the Province of Alberta, almost
every day in the late winter we see girls starting off to the Peach
River district, which lies to the north several hundred miles from a
railroad.
[Sidenote: A Travelling House]
How do they travel? You could never guess, so I may as well tell you.
They travel in a house--a one-roomed house. It is built on a sled and
furnished with a stove, a table that folds against the wall, a cupboard
for food and dishes, nails for clothing, and a box for toilet
accessories. Every available inch is stored with supplies, so that
every one must perforce sleep on the floor. This family bed is, however,
by no means uncomfortable, for the "soft side of the board" is piled
high with fur rugs and four-point blankets. (Yes, if you remind me I'll
tell you by and by what a "four-point" blanket is.)
The entrance to the house is from the back, and the window is in front,
through a slide in which the lines extend to the heads of the horses or
the awkward, stumbling oxen.
You must not despise the oxen, or say, "A pretty, team for a Canadian
girl!" for, indeed, they are most reliable animals, and not nearly so
delicate as horses, nor so hard to feed--and they never, never run away.
Besides--and here's the rub--you can always eat the oxen should you ever
want to, and popular prejudice does not run in favour of horseflesh.
Oh, yes! I said I would tell you about "four-point" blankets. They are
the blankets that have been manufactured for nearly three hundred years
by "the Honourable Company of Gentlemen Adventurers of England trading
into Hudson's Bay," known for the sake of conciseness as the "H.B.
Company." These blankets are claimed to be the best in the world, and
weigh from eight to ten pounds. The Indians, traders, trappers, boatmen,
and pioneers in the North use no others. They are called "four-point"
because of four black stripes at one corner. There are lighter blankets
of three and a half points, which points are indicated in the same way.
By these marks an Indian knows exactly what value he is getting in
exchange for his precious peltry.
After travelling for three or four weeks in this gipsy fashion, mayhap
getting a peep at a moose, a wolf, or even a bear (to say nothing of
such inconsequential fry as ermine, mink, beaver, and otter), the family
arrive at their holding of 160 acres.
It does not look very pleasant, this holding. The snow is just melting,
and the landscape is dreary enough on every side, for as yet Spring has
not even suggested that green is the colour you may expect to see in
Nature's fashion-plate. Not she!
But here's the point. Look you here! the house is already built for
occupancy, and has only to be moved from the sled to the ground. There
is no occasion for a plumber or gasfitter either, and as for water and
fuel, they are everywhere to be had for the taking.
Presently other rooms will be added of lumber or logs, and a cellar
excavated. But who worries about these things when they have just become
possessors of 160 statute acres of land that have to be prepared for
grain and garden stuff? Who, indeed?
Here is where the girl comes in. She must learn to bake bread and cakes,
how to dress game and fish, and how to make bacon appetising twice a
day. She must "set" the hens so that there may be "broilers" against
Thanksgiving Day, and eggs all the year round. She has to sow the
lettuces, radishes, and onions for succulent salads; and always she must
supply sunshine and music, indoors and out, for dad and mother and the
boys.
Perhaps you think she is not happy, but you are sadly mistaken. She is
busy all day and sleepy all night. She knows that after a while a
railroad is coming in here, and there will be work and money for men and
teams, which means the establishment of a town near by, where you may
purchase all kinds of household comforts and conveniences, to say
nothing of pretty blouses, hats, and other "fixings." Oh, she knows it,
the minx! She is the kind of a girl Charles Wagner describes as putting
"witchery into a ribbon and genius into a stew."
But let us take a look at the girl who lives in the more settled parts
of the country, near a town.
If she be ambitious, or anxious to help the home-folk, she will want to
become a teacher, a bookkeeper, Civil Service employee, or a
stenographer. To accomplish this end, she drives to town every day to
attend the High School or Business College. Or perhaps she may move
into town for the school terms.
Of all these occupations, that of the teacher is most popular. Teachers,
in these new provinces, are in great demand, for the supply is entirely
inadequate. As a result, they are especially well paid.
If the teacher is hard to get, she is also hard to hold; for the
bachelor population being largely in the majority, there are many
flattering inducements of a matrimonial character held out to the girl
teacher to settle down permanently with a young farmer, doctor, real
estate agent, lawyer, or merchant. You could never believe what
inducements these sly fellows hold out. Never!
In town our girls find many diversions. She may skate, ride, play golf,
basket-ball, or tennis, according as her purse or preference may
dictate.
If there be no municipal public library, or reading-room in connection
with the Young Women's Christian Association, she may borrow books from
a stationer's lending-library for a nominal sum, so that none of her
hours need be unoccupied or unprofitable.
[Sidenote: Young Men and Maidens]
In Canadian towns and villages the Church-life is of such a nature that
every opportunity is given young girls to become acquainted with others
of their own age. There are literary, temperance, missionary, and social
clubs in connection with them, some one of which meets almost every
night. In the winter the clubs have sleigh-rides and suppers, and in the
summer lawn-socials and picnics much as they do in England, or in any
part of the British Isles.
Compared with girls in the older countries, it is my opinion that the
Canadian lassie of the North-West Provinces has a keener eye to the
material side of life. This is only a natural outcome of the commercial
atmosphere in which she lives.
She sees her father, or her friends, buying lots in some new town site,
or in a new subdivision of some city, and, with an eye to the main
chance, she desires to follow their example. These lots can be
purchased at from £10 to £100, and by holding them for from one to five
years they double or treble in value as the places become populated.
As a result, nearly all the girls employed in Government offices, or as
secretaries, teachers, or other positions where the salaries are fairly
generous, manage to save enough money to purchase some lots to hold
against a rise. After investing and reinvesting several times, our girl
soon has a financial status of her own and secures a competency. She has
no time for nervous prostration or moods, but is alert and wideawake all
the time.
Does she marry? Oh, yes! But owing to her financial independence,
marriage is in no sense of the word a "Hobson's choice," but is
generally guided entirely by heart and conscience, as, indeed, it always
should be.
Some of the girls who come from Europe or the British Isles save their
dollars to enable the rest of the family to come out to Canada.
"Wee Maggie," a waitress in a Winnipeg restaurant, told me the other day
that in three years she had saved enough to bring her aged father and
mother over from Scotland and to furnish a home for them.
Still other girls engage in fruit-farming in British Columbia, or in
poultry-raising; but these are undertakings that require some capital to
start with.
An increasingly large number of Canadian girls are taking University
courses, or courses in technical colleges and musical conservatoires,
with the idea of fitting themselves as High School teachers or for the
medical profession.
In speaking of the girls of Western Canada, one must not overlook the
Swedish, Russian, Italian, Galician, and other Europeans who have made
their home in the Dominion.