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THE DRAYTONS
AND
THE DAVENANTS:
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"CHRONICLES OF THE SCHUNBERG-COTTA FAMILY."
COPYRIGHT EDITION.
, IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LEIPZIG
BERN HARD TAUCHNITZ
18 68.
The Right of Translation is reserved.
HM53
iU^2 THE
DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS.
INTRODUCTORY.
1 ESTERDAY at noon, when the house and all the
land were still, and the men, with the lads and
lasses, were away at the harvesting, and I sat alone,
with barred doors, for fear of the Indians (who have
of late shown themselves unfriendly), I chanced to
look up from my spinning-wheel through the open
window, across the creek on which our house stands.
And something, I scarce know what, carried me back
through the years and across the seas to the old house
on the borders of the Fen Country, in the days of
my childhood. It may have been the quiet rustling
of the sleepy air in the long grasses by the water-
side that wafted my spirit back to where the English
winds sigh and sough among the reeds on the borders
6 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
of the fens; it may have been the shining of the
smooth water, furrowed by the track of the water-
fowl, that set my memory down beside the broad
Mere, whose gleam we could see from my chamber-
window. It may have been the smell of this year's
hay, which came in in sweet soft gusts through the
lattice, that floated me up to the top of the tiny hay-
stack, made of the waste grass in the orchard at old
Netherby Manor, at the foot of which Eoger, my
brother, used to stand while I turned up the hay,
assisted by our Cousin Placidia (when she was con-
descending), and by our Aunt Gretel, my mother's
sister, whenever we had need of her. Most probably
it was the hay. For, as the excellent Mr. Bunyan
has illustriously set forth in his work on the Holy
War, the soul hath five gates through which she
holdeth parlance with the outer world. And cor-
respondent with these outer gates from the sensible
world in space, meseemeth, are as many inner gates
into the inner, invisible world of thought and time;
which inner gates open simultaneously with the outer,
by the same spring. But of all the mystic springs
which unlock this wondrous inward world, none act
with such swift, secret magic as those of the Gate of
Odours. There stealeth in unobserved some delicate
perfume of familiar field flower or garden herb, and
straightway, or ere she is aware, the soul is afar off
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. i
in the world of tlie past, gathering posies among the
fields of childhood, or culling herbs in the old corner
of the old garden , to be laid , by hands long since
cold, in familiar chambers, long since tenanted by-
other owners.
Wherefore, I deem it was the new, sweet smell
of our New England hay which more than anything
carried me back to the old house in Old England,
and the days so long gone by.
With my heart in far-off days, I continued my
spinning, as women are wont, the hand moving the
more swiftly for the speed wherewith the thoughts
travel, until my thoughts and my work came to a
pause together by the flax on my distaff being ex-
hausted. I went to an upper chamber for a fresh
stock; and while there my eye lighted on an old
chest, in the depths whereof lay many little volumes
of an old journal written by my hand through a
series of buried years.
An irresistible attraction drew me to them; and
as I knelt before the old chest, and turned over these
yellow leaves, in some cases eaten with worms, and
read the writing — the earlier portions of it in large,
laborious, childish characters, as if each letter were a
solemn symbol of weighty import — the later scrawled
hastily in the snatched intervals of a busy and
tdngled life — I seemed to be looking through a
8 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVBNANTS :
series of stained windows into the balls of an ancient
palace. On the windows were the familiar portraits
of a little eager girl, and a yonng maiden familiar
to me, yet strange. But the paintings were also
window panes; and, after the first glance, the painted
panes seemed to vanish, and I saw only the palace
chambers on which they looked. Not empty cham-
bers, or shadowy, or silent, but solid, and fresh, and
vivid, and full of the stir of much life; so that, when
I laid down those old pages, and looked out through
the declining light over these new shores, across this
new sea, towards the far-off England which still lives
beyond, it seemed for a moment as if the sun setting
behind the wide western woods, the strip of golden
corn-fields, the reapers returning slowly over the hill,
the Indian burial-mounds beside the creek, the trim
new house, my old quiet self, were the shadows,
and that old world, in which my spirit had been so-
journing, still the living and the real.
Neighbour Hartop's cheery voice roused me out
of my dream, and I hurried down to open the door,
and to set out the harvest supper.
But as I look at the old crumpled papers again
to-day, the past lives again once more before me,
and I will not let it die.
There is an hour in the day, when the sun has
set, and all the dazzle of day is gone, and the dusk
A STORY OF THK CIVIL WARS. »
of night has not set in, when I think the world looks
larger and clearer than at any other time. The sky
seems higher and more heavenly than at other hours ;
and yet the earth, tinted here and there on its high
places with heavenly colour, seems more to belong
to heaven. The little landscape within our horizon
becomes more manifestly a portion of a wider world.
And is there not such an hour in life? Before it
passes, let me use the light, and fix in my mind the
scenes which will so soon vanish into dreams and
silence.
^ The first entry in those old Journals of mine is: —
'■'■The ticenty-cighth day of March, in the year of our Lord
sixteen hundred and thirty-seven. — On this day, tv/elve years
since , King Charles was pi-oclaimed king at Whitehall
Gate , and in Cheapside , the while the rain fell in heavy
showers. My father heard the herald; and my Aunt
Dorothy well remembers the rain, because it spoiled a
slashed satin doublet of my father's (the last he ever
bought, having since then been habited more soberly):
also because many of the people said the weather was of
evil promise for the new reign. But father saith that is a
superstitious notion, unworthy of Christian people.
"Also , my father was present at the king's coronation,
on the 5th of February in the following year. Our French
queen would not enter the abbey on account of her Popish
faith. When the king was presented bareheaded to the
people, all were silent, none crying, 'God save the king,'
until the Earl of Arundel bade them; which, my father
saith, was a worse omen than if the clouds had jioured
down rivei's."
10 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVEXANTS:
These in large characters, eacli letter formed
with conscientious pains.
The second entry is diverse from the first. It
runs thus: —
"April the tenth. — The brindled cow hatli died, leaving
an orphan calf. Aunt Gretel saith I may bring up the calf
for my own, with the help of Tib the dairywomau.
The diversity between these entries recalls many
things to me. On the day before the first entry,
father brought to Roger my brother, my Cousin
Placidia, and me, three small books stitched neatly
together, and told us these were for us to use to note
down any remarkable events therein. "For," said
he, "we live in strange and notable times, and you,
children, may see things before you are grown; yea,
and perchance do or suffer such things as history is
made of."
The stipulation was, that we were each to write
independently, and not to borrow from the other.
Which was a hard covenant for me, who seldom
then meditated or did anything without the co-opera-
tion or sanction of Roger.
After much solitary pondering, therefore, I ar-
rived at the conclusion that history especially con-
cerns kings and queens, and lesser people only as
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 11
connected with them. That is, when there are kings
and queens. lu the old Greek history I remembered
there were heroes who were not kings, but I sup-
posed they did instead. But the English history
was all made up of what happened to the kings.
One was shot while hunting; another was murdered
at Berkeley Castle; the little princes were smothered
in the Tower. King Edward III. gained a great
victory at Cre9y in France; King Henry V. gained
another at Agincourt. Of course other people were
concerned in these things. Sir Walter Tyrrel shot
the arrow by accident that killed King William, and
some wicked people must have murdered King Ed-
ward and the little princes on purpose. And, of
course, there were armies who helped King Edward
and King Henry to gain their victories; but none of
these people would have been in history, I thought,
except as connected with the kings. At the same
time, I thought it was of no use to relate things
which no one belonging to me had had anything to
do with, because any one else could have done that
without my taking the trouble to write a note-book
at all. Therefore it seemed to me that my father,
and even my father's slashed satin doublet, fairly
became historical by having been present at the
king's proclamation, and Aunt Dorothy by having
commented thereon.
12 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
The second entry was caused by an entirely dif-
ferent theory of history, having its origin in a talk
with Eoger. Roger said that we never can tell what
things are historical until afterwards, and that, there-
fore, the only way was to note down what honestly
interested us. If these things prove afterwards to be
things which interest the world, our story of them
becomes part of the world's story. If not, they are
at least our own true story, and as such, history to
the people who care for us. But to note down
feeble echoes of far-off great events, in which we
think we ought to be interested, is no human speech
at all, Roger thought, but mere monkey's imitative
chattering. Every one, Roger thinks, sees every-
thing just a little differently from any one else; and
therefore, if every one would describe truly the little
bit they do see, in that way by degrees we might
have a perfect picture. But to copy what others
have seen, is simjjly to depart with every fresh copy
a little further from the original. If, for instance,
said he, the nurse of Julius Caesar had told us nur-
sery stories of what Julius Csesar did when he was
a little boy, it would have been history, but the
opinions of Julius Caesar's nurse on the politics of
the Roman republic would probably not have been
history at all, but idle tattle.
With respect to kings and queens being the only
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 13
true subjects for history, also, Roger was very scoru-
ful. He had lately been paying a visit to Mr. John
Hampden, Mr. Oliver Cromwell, and others of my
father's friends, and he had returned full of indigna-
tion against the tyranny of the court and the pre-
lates. The nation, he said, wise men thought, was
not made for the king, but the king for the nation.
And, to say nothing of the Greek history, the Bible
history was certainly not filled up with kings and
queens, but with shepherds, herdsmen, preachers, and
soldiers; or if with kings, with kings who had been
shepherds and soldiers, and who were saints and
heroes as well as kings.
All which reasoning decided me to make my
next entry concerning the calf of the brindled cow,
which at that time was the subject in the world
which honestly interested me the most. If my
father, or Roger, or Cousin Placidia, or Aunt Gretel,
ever became historical personages (and, as Roger
said, who could tell?), then anecdotes concerning the
calf of the cow which my father owned and Aunt
Gretel cherished, and which Cousin Placidia thought
it childish to care so much about, might become, in
a secondary sense, historical also. At all events, I
resolved I would not be, like Julius Caesar's nurse,
babbling of politics.
The next entry was: —
14 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
^'■August 4, 1637. — Di-. Antony has spent the evening
with us , and is to remain some days , at father's entreaty,
to recruit his strength; Aunt Dorothy having knowledge
of medicinal herbs, and Aunt Gretel of savoury dishes,
which may be of use to him. He hath narrowly escaped
the jail-sickness, having of late visited many afflicted good
peojjle in the prisons through the country, as is his custom.
'Sick and in jjrison,' Dr. Antony saith, 'and ye visited me,'
is plain enough to be read by the dimmest light, whatever
else is hard to understand. He told us of two strange
things which happened lately. At least they seem very
strange to me.
"In the Palace Yard at Westminster, "on the 30th of
last June (while Roger and I were making hay in the
pleasant simshine in the orchard) , Dr. Antony saw three
gentlemen stand in the pillory. The pillory is a wooden
frame set up on a platform, where wicked people are
fastened helplessly, like savage dogs, with their heads and
hands coming through holes, to make them look ridiculous,
that jjeople may mock and jeer at them. But father and
Dr. Antony did not think these gentlemen wicked, only
at worst a little hasty in speech. And the jieople did not
think them ridiculous; they did not mock and fleer at them,
but kept very still, or wejit. Theu' names were j\Ii'. Prynne,
a gentleman at the bar; Dr. John Bastwick, a physician;
and Mr. Burton, a clergyman of a parish in London. There
they stood many hours , while the hangman came to each
of them in turn and sawed oif their ears with a rough knife,
and then burnt in two cruel letters on their cheeks, S.L.,
for seditious libeller. Dr. Antony did not say the three
poor gentlemen made one cry or complaint, but bore them-
selves like brave men. But the bravest of all, I think, was
IVIi-s. Bastwick, the doctor's wife. She stayed on the
scaffold, and bore to see all her husband's pain, without a
word or a moan, lest she should make him flinch, and then
received his ears in her lap , and kissed his poor wounded
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 15
face before all the people. Sweet brave heart! I would
fain have her home amongst us here, and kiss her faithful
hands like a queen's, and lay my head on her brave heart,
as if it were my mother's! The sufferers made no moan;
but the 'people broke their pitiful silence once with an
angry shout, and many times with low hushed groans, as
if the jjain and shame were theirs (Dr. Antony said), and
they would remember it. And Mr. Prynne, Avhen the irons
were burning his face, said to the executioner, 'Cut me,
tear me, I fear not thee; I fear the fire of hell.' Mr. Bur-
ton spoke to the jjeojjle of God and his truth , and how it
was worth while to suffer anything rather than give up
that. He said, moreover, alluding to the pillory: 'The
gospel shall yet shine on England through those holes.'
And at last he nearly fainted; but when he was borne
away into a house near, he said, with good cheer, 'It is
too hot to last.' (He meant the pei-secution.) But the thi-ee
gentlemen are now shut ujj in three prisons — in Launces-
ton, Lancaster, and Caernarvon. And father and Dr.
Antony say it is Archbishop Laud who ordered it all to
be done. But could not the king have stopped it if he
liked!
"But will Koger and I ever turn over the hay again in
the pleasant June sunshine, without thinking how it burned
down on these poor, maimed, and woundied gentlemen?
And one day I do hope I may see brave Mistress Bastwick,
and tell her how I love and honour her, and how the
thought of her will help me to be brave and patient more
than a hundred sermons.
"Dr. Antony's other story was of one Jenny or Janet
Geddes, not a gentlewoman, for she kept an apple-stall in
Edinburgh streets, and, moreover, does not appear to have
used good language at all. The Scotch, it seems, do not
like bishops, and, indeed, will not have bishops. But Ai-ch-
bishop Laud and the king will make them. On Sunday,
the 23rd of last July, a month since , one of Archbishop
16 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Laud's bishops began the Collect for the clay in St. Giles's
Cathedral, Edinburgh. Jenny Geddes had brought her
folding-stool (on wliich she sat by her apple-stall, 1 sup-
pose) into the church, and when the bishop came out in his
robes (which Archbishop Laud likes of many colours,
while the Scotch , it seems , will have nothing but black),
she took up her stool and flung it at the bishop's head, calling
the service the mass , and the bishop a thief, and wishing
him very ill wishes in a curious Scottish dialect, which,
I suppose, I do not quite understand; for it sounded like
swearing, and if Jenny Geddes was a good woman (though
not a gentlewoman) she would scarcely, I should think,
swear, at least not in church. Whether the bishop was
hurt or not , no one seems to know or care. I suppose the
stool did not reach his head. But it stojiped the service.
For all the people rose in great fury, not against Jenny
Geddes , but against the bishop , and the archbishop , and
the prayer-book, and against all bishops and all prayers
in books, not in Ediubm-gh only, but throughout the laud.
Which shows, father said, that a great deal of angTy talk
had been going on beforehand in the streets around Jenny
Geddes' apple-stall. There must always be some angry
person, father said , to throw the folding-stool, but no one
heeds the angry person unless there is something to be
angry about."
A very long entry, wliich cost me many hours
and many pages.
And' about the passages in my own history which
it led to, not a word. Indeed, throughout these
Journals I notice that it is more what they recall
than what they say which brings back the past to
me. I wonder if it is not thus with most diaries.
. A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 17
For to keep to Roger's rule of writing the things
which really interest us at the time seems to me
scarcely possible; because at the time we scarcely
know what things are most deeply interesting us,
and if we do, they are the very things we cannot
write about. Underneath the things we see and
think and speak about, are the great, dim, silent
places out of which we ourselves are growing into
being, and where God is at work. The things we
are beginning to see we can not see, the things we
are feeling without knowing what we feel, the dim
struggling thoughts we cannot utter or even think.
Without form and void is the state of a world being
created. When the world is created, the creation is
a history, and can be written. While it is being
created, it is chaos; and from without can only be
described as without form and void — from within,
in the chaos, not at all. The Creator only under-
stands chaos, and knows the chaos before the new
creation from the mere waste and ruin of the old.
To understand the past is only partly possible
for the wisest men.
To understand the present is only possible to
God.
Because to understand the present would be to
foresee the future. To see through the chaos would
be to foresee the new creation.
The Drayions and the Davenauts. I. ^
18 TUE DRATTOKS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Wherefore it seems to me all diaries are of value
not as records, but as suggestions. And all self-
examination resolves itself at last into prayer, say-
ing, "What I see not, teach Thou me."
"Search me and try me, and see Thou, and lead
Thou me."
The passages in my history that this story of
Dr. Antony led to, arise before me as clearly as if
they happened yesterday, although in the Journal
not a hint of them is given.
The Sunday after Dr. Antony had told us those
terrible things about the sufiPerers in the pillory,
Roger and I had gone to our usual Sunday after-
noon perch in an apple-tree in the corner of the
orchard furthest from the house. We had taken with
us for our contemj)lation a very terrible delineation,
which was the nearest approach to a picture Aunt
Dorothy would let us have on the Sabbath-day. This
she permitted us, partly, I believe, because it was
not the likeness of anything in heaven or earth (nor,
I hope, under the earth), and partly on account of
the very awful thoughts it was calculated to in-
spire.
It was a huge branching thing, like our old fa-
mily tree. But at the root of the tree, where would
be the name of Adam or Noah, or ^neas of Troy,
or Cassibelaun, or whoever else was recognised as
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 19
the head of the family, stood the sacred name of the
Holy Trinity. From this trunk forked ofF two lead-
ing branches, one representing the wicked and the
other the just, with words written along them to
show that the very same mercies and means of grace
which produce repentance and faith and love in the
hearts of the just, produce bitterness and false
security and hatred of God in the hearts of the
wicked. Further and further the branches diverged,
until one ended in an angel with wings, and the
other in the mouth of a horrible hobgoblin with a
whale's mouth, a dragon's claws, and a lion's teeth;
and both were united by the lines, —
" Wliether to heaven or hell you bend,
God will have glory in the end." *
Most terrible was this delineation to me, sitting
that sunny autumn day in the apple-tree, especially
because if you were once on the wrong branch, it
was not at all pointed out how you were ever to get
on the right. All seemed as irrevocable and in-
evitable as that point in our own pedigree where
Edwy, the eldest son, became a Benedictine monk
and vanished into a thin flourish, and Walter, the
* A similar tree is to be seen in the beginning of Bunyan's Pilgrim's
Progress , in the edition of 1698.
(142)
2*
20 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAYENANTS :
second son, married Adalgiva, heiress of Netlierby
Manor, and branched off into us. And it looked so
terribly (with unutterable terror I felt it) as if it
mattered as little to tlie Holy Trinity what became
of any one of us, as to Cassibelaun or Noah what
became of his descendants, Edwy or Walter.
So it happened that Roger and I sat very awe-
stricken and still in our perch in the apple-tree,
while the wind fluttered the green leaves around us,
and the sunbeams ripened the rosy apples for their
work, and then danced in and out on the grass below
for their play. And I remember as if it were yester-
day how the thought shuddered through my heart,
that the same sun which was shining on Roger and
me, on that last 30th of June, making hay in the
orchard, was at the very same moment scorching
those poor wounded gentlemen in the pillory in
Palace Yard, and not losing a whit of its glory to
us by all the anguish it was inflicting, like a blazing
furnace, on them. And if this fearful tree were
true, did it not seem as if it were the same with
God?
I sat some time silent under the weight of this
dread. , It made me shiver with cold in the sunshine,
and at length I could keep it in no longer, and said
to Roger in a whisper, for I was half afraid to hear
my own words, —
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 21
"0, Eoger, why did not God kill the devil?"
At that moment something shook the tree, and I
clung to Roger in terror. I could not see what it
was from among the thick leaves where we were
sitting. I trembled at the echo of my own voice.
The dark thoughts within seemed to have brought
night with its nameless terrors into the heart of
day. But Roger leant down from the branch, and
said, —
"Cousin Placidia! For shame! You shook the
tree on purpose. I heard the apples fall on the
ground, and you are picking them up. That is
cheating."
For the fallen fruit was the right of us chil-
dren.
Said Placidia, in a smooth unmoved voice, —
"I came against the stem of the tree by accident,
and perhaps I did shake it a little more than I need,
when I heard what Olive said. They were very
wicked words, and I shall tell Aunt Dorothy."
"You may tell any one you like," said Roger
indignantly. "Olive did not mean to say anything
wrong. You are cruel enough to sit in the Star-
chamber, Placidia."
"She is exactly like our gray cat," he continued
to me, as she glided away, "with her soft noiseless
ways, and her stealthy, steady following of her own
22 THE DRAYTONS ANB THE DAVENANTS:
interests. Wlien the fowl-house was burnt down last
year, and the turkeys were screaming, and the hens
cackling, and every one flying hither and thither
trying to save something or somebody, I saw the
gray cat quietly licking her lips in a corner over a
poor singed chicken. I believe she thought the
whole thing had been set on foot to roast her supper.
And Placidia would have done precisely the same.
If London were on fire, and she in it, I believe she
would contrive to get her supper roasted on the
cinders. And the provoking thing is, she thinks no
one sees."
Eoger was not often vehement in speech, but
Placidia was our standing grievance — his and
mine. There were certain little unfairnesses, not
quite cheating; certain little meannesses, not quite
dishonesties ; and certain little prevarications , not
quite lies, which always excited his greatest wrath,
especially when, as often happened, I was the loser
or the sufferer by them.
"Do you think she will tell Aunt Dorothy?" I
said; for that very morning Placidia and I had had
a quarrel, she having pinched my arm where it could
not be seen, and I having, to my shame, bitten her
finger where it could be seen.
"I don't know, and I don't care," said Eoger
loftily. "What is the good of minding? I siippose
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 23
we must all go through a certain quantity of punish-
ment, Olive; and it is to be hoped it will do us
good for the futvn-e, if we did not deserve it by the
past. At least Aunt Dorothy says so. Go on with
what you were saying."
So I recurred to my question.
"Oh, Roger, I wish I knew why God did not
destroy the devil in the beginning, or at least not
let him come into the garden. Because then nothing
would have gone wrong, would it? Eve would not
have eaten the fruit. Mr. Prynne and Dr. Bastwick
would not have been set in the pillory. And I
should not, most likely, have quarrelled with Pla-
cidia, because, I suppose, Placidia would not have
been provoking."
"I wish I knew why my father lets Cousin Pla-
cidia live with us, and always be making us do
wrong," said Roger.
"She is an orphan, and some one must take care
of her, you know," I said. "Besides, surely, father
has reasons, only we don't always know."
"And I suppose God has reasons," said Roger
reverently, "only we don't always know."
"But the devil is all bad," said I, "and will
never be better, and Cousin Placidia may. It could
not be for the devil's own sake God did not kill
24 THE DRAYXONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
him, for lie only gets worse; and I do not see liow
it could be for ours."
"The devil was not always the devil, Olive,"
said Roger, after thinking a little while. "He was
an angel at first."
"Then, Roger," said I eagerly, for the per-
plexity lay heavy on my heart, "why did not God
stop the devil from ever being the devil? That
would have been better than anything."
Roger made no reply.
"It cannot be because God could not," I pursued,
"because Aunt Dorothy says He can do everything.
And it cannot be because He would not, because
Aunt Gretel says He hates to see any one do wrong
or be unhappy. But there must be some reason;
and if we only knew it, I think everything else
would become quite plain."
"I do not see the reason, Olive," said Roger,
after a long pause. "I cannot see it in the least. I
remember hearing two or three people discuss it once
with father and Aunt Dorothy; and I think they all
thought they explained it. But no one thought any
one else did. And they used exceedingly long and
learned words, longer and more learned the further
they went on. But they could not agree at all, and
at last they became angry, so that I never heard
the end. But in two or three years, you know, I
A STORY OF TUB CIVIL WARS. 25
am going to Oxford, and tlien I will try and find
out the reason. And when I have found it out,
Olive, I will be sure to tell you."
"But that is not at all the most perplexing thing
to me, Olive," he began, after a little silence; "be-
cause, after all, if we or the angels were to be per-
sons^ and not things, I don't see how it could be
helped that we might do wrong if we liked. The
great puzzle to me is, why we do anything, or if we
can help doing anything we do; that is, if we are
really persons at all, and not a kind of puppets."
"Of course we are not puppets, Roger," said I.
"Of course we can help doing things if we like. I
do not think that is any puzzle at all. I could have
helped biting Placidia's finger if I had liked — that
is, if I had tried. And that is what makes it
wrong."
"But you did not like," said Roger, "and so
you did not help it. And what was to make you
like to help it, if you did not?"
"If I had been good, I should not have liked to
hurt Placidia, however provoking she was," I said.
"And what is it to be good?" said he.
"To like to do right," I said. "I think that is
to be good."
"But what is to make you like to do right?"
26 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"Being good, to be svire," said I, feeling myself
helplessly drawn into a whirlpool.
"That is going ronnd and round, and coming to
nothing," said Roger. "But leaving alone about
right and wrong, what is to make you do any-
thing?"
"Because I choose," said I, "or some one else
chooses."
"But what makes you choose?" said he. "What
made you choose, for instance, to come here this
afternoon?"
"Because you wished it, and because it was a
fine afternoon ; and we always do when it is," said I.
"Then you chose it because of something in you
which makes you like to please me, and because the
sun was shining. Neither of which you could help;
therefore you could not help choosing-, therefore you
did not really choose at all."
"I did choose, Roger," said I. "I might have
felt cross, and chosen to disappoint you, if I had
liked."
"But you are not cross; you are good-tempered,
on the whole, so you could not help liking to please
me.
"But I am cross sometimes with Placidia," I
said.
"That is because, as Aunt Gretel says, your
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 27
temper is like what our mother's was, quick but
sweet," said he; "and that is a deeper puzzle still,
because it goes further back than you and your
character, to our mother's character, that is to say,
and if to hers, no one can say how much further,
probably as far as Eve."
"But sometimes," said I, "for instance, when
you talk like this, my temper is tempted to be cross
even with you, Roger. But I choose to keep my
temper, and it must be I myself that choose, and
not my temper or my mother's."
"That is because, of the two motives, the one
which inclines you to keep your temper is stronger
than the one which inclines you to lose it," said he.
"But there is always something before your choice
to make you choose, so that really you must choose
what you do, and therefore you do not really choose
at all."
"But I do choose, Roger," said I. "I choose
this instant to jump down from this tree — so —
and go home."
"That proves nothing," said he, following me
down from the tree with provoking coolness; "you
chose to jump down, because there is a wilful feel-
ing in you which made you choose it, and that is
part of your character, and probably can be traced
back to Eve, and proves exactly what I say."
28 THE DRAY TONS AND THE DAVEXAXTS:
"I am not free to do right or wTong, or any-
thing, Eoger!" I said. "Then I might as well be
a horse, or a tree, or a stone."
"I suppose you might, if you were," said Roger
drily.
"Is there no way out of the puzzle, Eoger?" I
said.
"I do not see any," he said, "at least, not by
thinking. But there seems to me no end to the
puzzles, if one begins to think."
He did not seem to mind it at all, but rather to
enjoy it, as if it were a mere tossing of mental balls
and catching them.
But I, on the other hand, was in great bewilder-
ment and heaviness; for I felt like being a ball my-
self, tossed helplessly round and round, without
seeing any beginning or end to it, and it made me
very unhappy.
We came back to the house at supper-time with
a vague sense of some judgment hanging over our
heads. Aunt Dorothy met us in the porch with a
switch in her hand.
"Naughty children," said she; "Placidia says she
heard you using profane language in the apple-tree,
taking God's holy name in vain."
"I was not speaking so much of God, Aunt
Dorothy," said I in confusion, "as of the devil."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL AVARS. 29
"Worse again," said Aunt Dorothy, "that is
swearing downright. It is as bad as the cavaliers
at the Court. Hold out your hand, Roger; and Olive,
go to bed without supper."
Roger scorned any self-defence. He held out his
hand, and received three sharp switches without
flinching. Only at the end he said, —
"Now I shall tell my father how Placidia stole
the apples, and get justice done to Olive."
"You will tell your father nothing, sir," said
Aunt Dorothy. "I have sent Placidia to bed three
hours ago for tale-bearing, and given her the chapter
in the Proverbs to learn. And you will sit down
and learn the same, and both of you say it to me
to-morrow morning before breakfast."
This was what Aunt Dorothy considered even-
handed justice. Time, she said, was too precious to
spend in searching out the rights of children's quar-
rels, and human nature being depraved as it is, all
accusations had probably some ground of truth, and
all accusers some wrong motive. And in all quar-
rels there is always, said she, fault on both sides.
She therefore punished accused and accuser alike,
without further investigation. I have observed some-
thing of the same plan pursued since by some per-
sons who aspire to the character of impartial historians.
But it never struck me as quite fair in the historians
30 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
or in Aunt Dorotliy. However, I must say, in Aunt
Dorothy's case tliis mode of administering justice had
a tendency to check accusations. It must have been
an unusually strong desire of vengeance, or sense of
wrong, which induced us to draw up an indictment
which was sure to be visited with equal severity on
plaintiff and defendant. And although our sense of
justice was not satisfied, and Eoger and I in con-
sequence formed ourselves into a permanent Com-
mittee of Grievances, the peace of the household
was perhaps on the whole promoted by the system.
The embittering effects were, moreover, softened in
our case by the presence of other counteracting ele-
ments.
I had not been long in bed according to the de-
crees of Justice in the person of Aunt Dorothy, when
Mercy, in the person of Aunt Gretel , came to bind
up my wounds.
"Olive, my little one," said she, sitting down on
the side of my bed, "what hast thou been saying?
Thou wouldst not surely say anything ungrateful
against the dear Lord and Saviour?"
Whereupon I buried my face in the bed-clothes,
and sobbed so that the bed shook under me.
She took my hand, and bending over me, said
tenderly, —
"Poor little one! Thou must not break thy
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 31
heart. The good Lord will forgive, Olive, will
forgive all. Tell me what it is, darling, and don't
be afraid."
Still I sobbed on; when she said, —
"If thou canst not tell me, tell the dear Saviour.
He is gentler than poor Aunt Gretel, and knows
thee better. Only, do not be afraid of Him; no-
thing grieves Him like that, sweet heart; anything
but that."
Then I grew a little calmer, and moaned out, —
"Indeed, Aunt Gretel, I did not mean anything
wicked. But it is so hard to understand. There are
so many things I cannot make out. And oh, if I
should be on the wrong side of the tree after all! If
I should be on the wrong side of the tree!"
And at the thought my sobs burst forth afresh.
Aunt Gretel was sorely perplexed. She said, —
"What tree, little one? Where is thy poor brain
wandering?"
"The tree with God at the beginning," said I,
"and with heaven at one end and hell at the other,
and no way to cross over if once you get wrong,
and God never seeming to mind."
"A very wicked tree," said Aunt Gretel. "I
never heard of it. The only tree in the Bible is the
Tree of Life. And of that the blessed Lord will
give freely to every one who comes — the fruit for
32 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
life, aud tlie leaves for healing. Never mind the
other, sweet heart."
"If there were only a way across!" said I; "and
if I could be sure God did care!"
"There is a way across, my lamb," said she.
"Only it is not a way. It is but a step. It is a
look. It is a touch. For the way across is the
blessed Saviour himself. And He is always nearer
than I am now, if you could only see."
"And Grod does care," said I, "whether we are
lost or saved?"
"Care! little Olive," said she. "Hast thou for-
gotten the manger and the cross? That comes of
trying to see back to the beginning. He was in the
beginning, sweet heart, but not thou or I! He is
the beginning every day and for ever to us. Look
to Him. His face is shining on you now, watching
you tenderly, as if it were your mother's, my poor
motherless lamb. Whatever else is dark , that is
plain. And you never meant to grieve or question
Him! You did not mean to say tlje darkness was
in Him, Olive! You never meant that. Put the
darkness anywhere but there, sweet heart; anywhere
but there. There is darkness enough, in good sooth.
But in Him is no darkness at all." And then she
murmured half to herself, "It is very strange. Dr.
Luther made it all so plain, more than a hundred
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 33
years ago. And it seems as if it all bad to be done
over again."
"Didst tbou say tby prayers, my lamb?" sbe
added. /
I bad. But it was sweet to kneel down witb
Aunt Gretel again, witb ber arms and ber warm
dress folded around me, and say tbe words after ber
— tbe Our Fatber, and tbe prayer for fatber, and
Roger, and all.
But wben I came to ask a blessing on Cousin
Placidia, my lips seemed unable to frame tbe words.
"Tbou didst not pray for tby cousin, Olive,"
said Aunt Gretel.
"Sbe is so very difficult to love, Aunt Gretel,"
said I; "sbe often makes me do wrong. And I bit
ber finger tins morning."
Aunt Gretel sbook ber bead.
"Poor little one," said sbe. "Ab, yes! it is
always bardest to forgive tbose we bave burt."
"But sbe pincbed my arm wbere no one could
see," said I.
"It will not belp tbee to tbink of tbat, poor
lamb," said Aunt Gretel-, "wbat tbou bast to do is
to forgive. Tbink of wbat will belp tbee to do tbat."
"I can't tbink of anytbing tbat belps me," said I.
"Dost tbou wisb anytbing bad to bappen to thy
cousin?" said Aunt Gretel after a pause. "If tbou
The DraijfoHs and the Davenauts. I. 3
34 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
couldst bring txouble on lier by praying for it, wouldst
tliou do it?"
"No; not from God," said I. "Of course I could
not ask anything bad from God."
"Then wouldst thou ask thy father to send
her away, poor neglected orphan child that she
was?"
"No, no, Aunt Gretel," I said; "not that. But
I should like to see her punished by Aunt Dorothy."
"How much?" said Aunt Gretel.
"I am not sure. Only as much as she quite de-
serves."
"That would be a good deal for us all," said she;
" perhaps even for thee a little more than going to bed
one night without supper."
"Then, until she was good," said I.
"Thou wishest thy cousin to be good, then?"
said Aunt Gretel. "Then thou canst at least pray
for that."
"It would make the house like the garden of
Eden, I think," I said, "before the tempter came, if
Placidia were only not so provoking."
"Would it?" said she gravely. "Art thou then
always so good? Then perhaps thou canst ask that
thy cousin's trespasses may be forgiven even if thou
canst not forgive her, and hast none of thine own to
be forgiven!"
A STOUY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 35
"0 Aunt Gretel," said I, suddenly perceiving
her meaning, "I see it all now! It is the bit of ice
in my own heart that made everything dark and cold
to me. It is the bit of ice in my own heart!"
She smiled, and folded me to her heart.
And then she prayed once more for Placidia the
orphan, and for me, and Roger, that God in His
great pity would bless us, and forgive us, and make
us good, and loving, and like Himself, and his dear
Son who suffered for us and bore our sins.
And after that I did not so much care even whether
Roger brought the answer he promised from Oxford
or not.
And it flashed on me for an instant, as if the
answer to Roger's other puzzle might come some-
how from the same point; as if it answered every-
thing to the heart to think, that light and not dark-
ness, love and not necessity, are at the innermost
heart of all. For love is at once perfect freedom
and inevitable necessity.
But before I fell asleep, while Aunt Gretel was
still sitting on the bedside with her knitting, I heard
her say to herself, —
"Not so very strange — not so strange after all,
although Dr. Luther did make it all clear as sun-
shine more than a hundred years ago. It is that bit
3*
36 THE DRA.YXONS AND THE DAVEKANTS:
of ice in the heart — that bit of ice that is always
freezing afresh in the heart."
But Aunt Dorothy, on a night's consideration,
thought the affair of the apple-tree too important to
be passed over, as most of our childish quarrels were,
without troubling my father about them.
Accordingly, the next morning we were sum-
moned into my father's 2)rivate room, where he re-
ceived his rents as a landlord, and sentenced offenders
as a magistrate, and kept his law books, and many
other great hereditary folios on divinity, philosophy,
and things in general. A very solemn proceeding
for me that morning, my conscience oppressed with
a sense of having done some wrong intentionally,
and I knew not how much more without intend-
ing it.
Gradually, Koger and I standing on the other
side of the table, with the law books and the mathe-
matical instruments my father was so fond of be-
tween us, he drew from us what had been the sub-
ject of our conversation.
Then, to my surj)rise, as we stood awaiting our
sentence, he called me gently to him, and seating
me on his knee, pointed out a paper spread on a
huge folio volume which lay open before him. It
was a diagram of the sun and the planets, with the
four moons of Jupiter, the earth and the moon, com-
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 37
plicated by circles and lines mysteriously intersect-
ing each other.
"Olive," said he, "be so good as to explain that
to me. It is made by a gentleman who learned about
it from the great astronomer Galileo, and is meant
to explain how the earth and the sun are kept in
their places." I looked at the complication of figures
and lines and magical-looking signs, and then in his
face to see what he could mean.
"You do not understand it!" he said, as if he
were surprised.
"Father," said I, "a little child like me!"
"And yet this is only a drawing of a little corner
of the world, Olive — the sun and the earth and a
few of the planets in the nook of the world in which
we live. The whole universe is a good deal harder
to understand than this."
"Father," said I, ashamed and blushing, "indeed
I never thought I could understand these things, at
least not yet-, I only thought you might, or some
wise people somewhere."
"Olive," said he, in a low voice, tenderly and
reverently stroking my head while he spoke, "be-
fore the great mysteries you and Roger have fallen
on, I can only wonder, and wait, and say like you,
''Father, a little child like me!'' And I do not think
the great Galileo himself could do much more."
do THE DRAYIONS AND THI;; DAVENANTS:
But to Eoger he said, rising and laying' liis liaud
on his shoulder, —
"Exercise your wits as much as you can, my
boy, but there are two kinds of roads I advise you
for the most part to eschew. One kind are the roads
that lead to the edge of the great darkness which
skirts our little patch of light on every side. The
other are the roads that go in a circle, leading you
round and round with much toil to the point from
which you started. I do not say, never travel on
these; you cannot always help it. Nor do I think
you should always wish to help it if you could. I
deem it one of our highest means of grace to stand
alone at times, on the edge of this world of ours,
when the veil of our daylight is drawn back, and to
look out into the infinite spaces of the night; hum-
bling and most exalting, if we remember that the
night is really only on the earth whence we are
looking, not among the stars at which we gaze. But
for the most part exercise yourself on the roads
which lead somewhere. The exercise is as good,
and the result better." And he was about to send
us away.
But Aunt Dorothy was not at all satisfied. "That
Signor Galileo was a very dangerous person," she
said. "He said the sun went round, and the earth
stood still, which was contrary at once to common
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 39
sense, the five senses, and Scripture; and if chits
like Roger and me were allowed to enter on such
false philosophy at our age, where should we have
wandered by hers?"
"Not much further, sister Dorothy," said my
father, " if they reached the age of Methuselah. Not
much further into the question, and not much nearer
tlie answer."
"I see no difficulty in the question at all," said
Aunt Dorothy. "The Almighty does everything
because it is His will to do it. And we can do no-
thing except He wills us to do it. Which answers
Olive and Roger at once. All doubts are sins, and
ought to be crushed at the beginning."
"How would you do this, sister Dorothy?" asked
my father; "a good many persons have tried it be-
fore and failed."
"How! the simplest thing in the world," said
Aunt Dorothy. "In the first place, set people to
work, so that tliey have no time for such foolish
questions, and genealogies, and contentions."
"A wholesome plan, which seems to be very
generally pursued with regard to the whole human
race," said father. "It is mercifully provided that
those who have leisure for such questions are few.
But what else would you do?"
"For the children there is the switch," said Aunt
40 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Dorothy. "They would be thankful enough for it
when they grew wiser."
"So think the Pope and Archbishop Laud," re-
plied my father; "and so they set up the Inquisition
and the Star Chamber."
"I have no fault to find with the Inquisition and
the Star Chamber," said Aunt Dorothy, "if they
would only punish the right people."
"But sometimes we learn we have been mistaken
ourselves," said father. "How can we be sure we
are absolutely right about everything?"
" /am," said Aunt Dorothy, emphatically. " Thank
Heaven, I have not a doubt about anything. Heresy
is worse than treason, for it is treason against God,
and worse than murder, for it is the murder of im-
mortal souls. The fault of the Pope and Arch-
bishop Laud is, that they are heretics themselves,
and punish the wrong people.
This was a point often reached in discussions
between my father and Aunt Dorothy, but this time
it was happily closed by the clatter of a horse's
hoofs on the pavement of the court before the
house.
My father's face brightened, and he rose hastily,
exclaiming, "A welcome guest, sister Dorothy —
the Lord of the Fens — set the table in the wain-
scotted parlour."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 41
He left the room, and we cliildren watched a
tall, stalwart gentleman, well known to ixs, with a
healthy, sunburnt face, alight from his horse.
"The Lord of the Fens, indeed!" said Aunt
Dorothy, in a disappointed tone, as she looked ou.t
of the window. "Why, it is only Mr. Oliver Crom-
well of Ely, with his coat as slovenly as usual, and
his hat without a hat-baud. I am as much against
gewgaws as any one. If I had my way, not a
slashed doublet, or ribboned hose, or feather, or
lace, should be seen in the kingdom. But there is
reason in all things. Gentlemen should look like
gentlemen, and a hat withou.t a hat-band is going
too far, in all conscience. The wainscotted parlour,
in good sooth! Why, his boots are covered with
mud, and I dare warrant it, he will never think of
rubbing them on the straw in the hall. And they
will get talking, no one knows how long, about that
everlasting draining of the Fens. I can't think why
they won't let the Fens alone. They did very well
for our fathers as they were, and they were better
men than we see now-a-days; and if the Almighty
made the Fens wet, I suppose He meant them to be
wet; and people had better take care how they run
against His designs. And they say the king is
against it, or against somebody concerned in it, so
that there is no knowing what it may lead to. All
42 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Scotland in a tumult, and the godly languishing in
prison, and our parson puttirig on some new fur-
below and setting up some new fandango every
Sabbath; and a godly gentleman like Mr. Oliver
Cromwell (for he is that, I don't deny) to have no-
thing better to do than to try and squeeze a few
acres more of dry land out of the Fens!"
But Eoger whispered to me —
"Mr. Hampden says Mr. Cromwell would be the
greatest man in England if things should come to
the worst, and there should be any disturbance with
the king."
At that moment my father called Roger, and to
his delight he was allowed to accompany him and
our guest over the farm.
And the next entry in my Journal is this: —
"]Mr. Oliver CromweU of Ely was at our house yester-
day. Roger walked over the farm with him aud my father.
Their discoui'se was concerning twenty shillings which the
king wants to obhge Mr. Hamjiden of Great Hampden to
lend him , which Mr. Hampden will not 5 not because he
cannot aiford it, but because the king would then be able
to make every one lend him money whether they like it or
not, or whether they are able or not. They call it the ship-
money. Concerning this, and also concerning some good
men, ministers or lecturers , whom Mr. Cromwell wishes to
set to preach the Gosj^el to the jjeople in jilaces where no
one else preaches, so that they can understand, but whom
Archbishop Laud has silenced with fines and many thi'eats.
A STOKY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 43
Aunt J)orotliy thinks it a pity godly men like Mr. Hampden
and Mr. Cromwell ahould concern themselves about such
poor worldly tilings as shillings and pence, liegarding the
lecturers, she says they have more reason. Only, she says,
it is a wonder to her they will begin with such small in-
significant things. Let them set to work, root and brauch
(says she) , against Popery under false names and in high
places, and these lesser matters will take care of them-
selves. But father says, 'jjoor worldly things' are just the
things by which Ave are tried and proved whether we Avill
be faithful to the higli unworldly calling or not. And
'small, insignificant things' are the beginnings of every-
thing that lives and eudm-es, from a British oak to the
kingdom of heaven."
44 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
n.
"May Dm/, 1658.
This morning, before break of day, I went to bathe my
face in !tlie IMay dew by the Lady Well. There I met
Lettice Davenant with her maidens. She was dressed in
a kirtle of grass-green silk, with a blue taffetas i^etticoat;
and her eyes were like wet \'iolets, and her brown hair like
wavy tangles of soft glossy mispun silk, specked and
woven with gold; and she looked like a sweet May flower,
just lifting itself out of its green sheath into the sunshine,
and all the colours changing and interweaving into each
other, as they do in the flowers. And she laid her soft,
little hand in mine , and said her mother loved mine , and
she wished I would love her, and be her friend. And she
kissed me with her dear, sweet little mouth, like a rosebud
— like a child's. And I held her close in my anns, with
her silky hair falling on my shoidder. She is just so much
shorter than I am. And her heart beat on mine. And 1
will love her all my life. No wonder Roger thinks her fail-.
"I will love her all my life, whatever Aunt Dorothy
says.
"Firstly, because I cannot help it. And secondly, be-
cause I am sure it is right — right — right to love; always
right to love — to love as much, as dearly, as long, as
deep as we can. Always right to love , never right to de-
spise, or keep aloof, or turn aside. Sometimes right to
hate, at least I think so; sometimes right to be angry, I
am sm-e of that; but never right to despise; and always,
always right to love.
"For Roger and I have looked well all through the
A STORY or THE CIVIL WARS. 45
Gospels to sec. And the Pharisee despised, the priest and
the Levite passed by, and the disciples said once or twice,
Send her away. But the Lord drew near, called them to
Him, touched, took in His arms, loved, always loved.
Loved Avhen they were wandering — loved when they would
not come; loved even when they 'went away.'
"And Aunt Gretel thinks the same. Only I sometimes
wish we had lived in the times she speaks of, told of in
certain Family Chronicles of hers, a century old. For then
it was the peojile with the wrong religion who despised
others , and were harsh and severe. And they went into
convents , which must have been a great relief to the rest
of the family. And now it seems to be the peoj)le with the
right religion who do like the Pharisees. And they stay
at home , which is more difficult to understand , and more
unpleasant to bear."
A very veliement utterance, crossed througli with
repentant lines in after times, but still quite legible,
and of interest to me for the vanished outer world
of life, and the tumultuous inward world of revolt it
recalls.
For that May morning, on my way home through
the wood, I met the village lads and lasses bringing
home the May; and when I reached the house, it
was late; the serving men and maidens had finished
their meal at the long table in the hall, and Aunt
Dorothy sat at one end of the table, which crossed
it at the top, and span; and Cousin Placidia sat
silent at the other end and span, the whirr of their
spinning-wheels distinctly reproaching me in a steady
46 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVEUANTS:
hum of displeasure, until I was constrained to reply
to it and to Aunt Dorothy's silence.
"Aunt Dorothy, prithee, forgive me. I only went
to bathe my face in the May dew by the Lady Well.
And there I met Lettice Davenant."
"I never reproached thee, child," said Aunt
Dorothy. "There is too much license in this house
for that. But this I will say, the excuse is worse
than the fault. How often have I told thee not to
stain thy lips with the idolatrous title of that well?
And as to bathing thy face in the May dew, Olive,
it is Popery — sheer Popery."
"Not Popery, sister Dorothy," said my father,
looking up from his sheet of news just brought from
London. "Not Popery; Paganism. The custom
dates back to the ancient Romans, probably to the
festival of the goddess Maia, mother of Mercury;
but here antiquarians are divided."
"And well they may be," said Aunt Dorothy;
"what but sects and divisions can be expected from
such tampering with vanities and idolatries? For my
part, it matters little to me whether the custom dates
to the modern or the ancient Romans, or to the
Hittites, the Perizzites, the Amorites, and the Jebu-
sites. Wlioever painted the idol, I have little doubt
who made it. And of the two, I like the unchristened
idols best."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 47
"Not quite, sister Dorothy, not always," remon-
strated my father. "It is certainly a great mistake
to worship the Virgin Mary. But the Moloch to
whom they burned little children was worse, much
worse."
"If he was, the less we hear about him the better,
brother," said Auut Dorothy. "But as to the burn-
ing, I see little difference. You can see the black
sites of Queen Mary's fires still. And Lettice Dave-
nant has been up at the court of the new Queen
Marie (as they call her); — an unlucky name for
England. And little good she or hers are like to do
to ovir Olive."
On which I turned wholly into a boiling caldron
of indignation; and to what it might have led I
know not, had not Aunt Gretel at that moment in-
tervened, ruddy from the kitchen fire, and with the
glow of a pleasant purpose in her kindly blue eyes.
"They are like to have the blithest May to-day
they have seen for many a year," said she. "Our
Margery, the daughter of Tib the dairywoman, is to
be qiieen. And a better maiden or a sweeter face
tliere is not in all the country side. And Dickon,
the gardener's son at the Hall, is her sweetheart;
and the Lady Lucy Davenant has let them deck the
bower with posies from her own garden; and they
are coming from the Hall — the Lady Lucy and Sir
48 THE DRAYTONS AND THfi DAVENANTS :
Walter, and Mistress Lettice and her seven brothers
— to see the jollity."
"Tell Tib's goodman to broach a barrel of the
best ale, sister Gretel," said my father, "and we will
go and see."
This was said in the tone Aunt Dorothy never
answered, and she made no remonstrance except
through the whirr of her spinning-wheel, which always
seemed to Roger and me to be a kind of "/«»^«Z^w,"
or a secondself to Aunt Dorothy (of course of a
white, not a black kind), saying the thing she meant
but would not say, and in a thousand ways spinning-
out and completing, not her thread only, but her life
and thought.
My father soon rose and went to the farm. Aunt
Dorothy span silent at one end of the table, and
Cousin Placidia at the other, while I sat too in-
dignant to eat anything, and Aunt Gretel moved
about in a helpless, conciliatory state between.
"The Bible does speak of being merry, sister
Dorothy," said she at length, metaphorically putting
her foot into Aunt Dorothy's spiritual spinning, as
she was wont to do.
"No doubt it does," said Aunt Dorothy. "'Is
any merry among you, let him sing psalms.' "
"lam sure I wish they would," said Aunt Gretel ;
"there is nothing I enjoy so much. And," pursued
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 49
she, waxing bold, "after all, sister Dorothy, the whole
world does seem to sing and dance in the green May:
the little birds hop and sing (sing love-songs too,
sister Dorothy), and the leaves dance and rustle, and
the flowers don all the colours of the rainbow."
"As to the flowers," said Aunt Dorothy, "they
did not choose their own raiment, so no blame to
them, poor perishing things. I hold they were clothed
in their scarlet and purple, like fools in motley, for
the very purpose of shaming us into being sober and
grave in our attire. The birds, indeed, may hop and
sing if they like it. Not that I think they have
much cause, poor inconsiderate creatures, what with
the birds'-nesting, and the poaching, and Mr. Crom-
well draining the fens. But they have no foresight,
and they have not immortal souls; and if they're to
be in a pie to-morrow they don't know it, and they
are no worse for it the day after."
"But," said Aunt Gretel, "we have immortal
souls, and I think that ought to make us sing a
thousand-fold better than the birds."
"We have not only souls, we have sins," said
Aunt Dorothy; "and there is enough in sin, I hold,
to stop the sweetest music in the world when the
burden is felt."
"But we have the Gospel and the Saviour," said
Aunt Gretel; "glad tidings of great joy to all people."
The Draytons and the Davenants. I. 4
50 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"Tell tbem, then, to the people," said Aunt
Dorottiy, "get a godly minister to go and preach
them to the poor sinners in the village, and that will
be better than setting vip May-poles and broaching
beer barrels."
"I do tell them whenever I can, sister Dorothy,"
said Aunt Gretel meekly, "as well as I can. But
the best of us cannot always be listening to ser-
mons."
"We might listen much longer than we do if we
tried," said Aunt Dorothy, branching off from the
subject. "In Scotland, I am told, the Sabbath ser-
vices last twelve hours."
Aunt Gretel sighed; whether in compassion for
the Scottish congregations, or in lamentation over her
own shortcomings, she did not explain.
"But," she resumed, "it does seem that if the
good God meant that there should have been no
merry-making in the world, he would have arranged
that people should have come into the world full-
grown."
"Probably it would have been better if it could
have been so managed," said Aunt Dorothy; "but I
suppose it could not. However that may be, the best
we can do now is to make people grow up as soon
as they can, and not keep them babies with May
games, and junketings, and possetings."
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 51
"But," said Aunt Grretel timidly, "after all, sister
Dorothy, the Bible does not give us any strict rules
by which we can judge other people in such things."
"I confess," replied Aunt Dorothy, "that if there
could be a thing to be wished for in the Bible (with
reverence I say it), it is just that there loere a few
plain rules. St. Paul came very near it when he
was speaking of the weak brethren at the idol-feasts ;
but I confess I do think it would have been a help
if he had gone a little further while he was about it.
Then, people would not have been able to pretend
they did not know what he meant. I do think it
would have been a comfort if there could have been
a book of Leviticus in the New Testament."
"But your Mr. John Milton," said Aunt Gretel,
"in his new masque of Comus, which your brother
thinks beautiful, introduces mnsic and dancing."
"Mr. Milton is a godly man," said Aunt Dorothy,
"but, poor gentleman, he is a poet; and poets cannot
always be expected to keep straight, like reasonable
people."
"But Dr. Martin Luther himself dearly loved
music," said Aunt Gretel, driven to her final court of
appeal, "and even sanctioned dancing, in a Christian-
like way, without rioting and drunkenness."
" Dr. Luther might," rejoined Aunt Dorothy. " Dr.
Luther believed in consubstantiation , and rejected
4*
52 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
the Epistle of St. James. And, besides, by tliis time
he has been in heaven, it is to be hoped, for nearly
a hundred years, and there can be no doubt he knows
better."
Aunt Gretel was roused.
"Sister Dorothy," she said, "Dr. Luther does not
need to be defended by me. But I sometimes think,
if he came to England in these days, he would think
some of you had gone some way towards painting
again that terrible jjicture of God, which made the
little ones fly from Him instead of taking refuge
with Him, and which it took him so much toil to
destroy."
And she fled to the kitchen, rosier than she
came , but with tears instead of smiles in her eyes.
"If people could enjoy themselves harmlessly,
without rioting and drunkenness," said Aunt Dorothy,
half yielding, "there might be less to be said
against it."
"What is rioting, Aunt Dorothy?" asked Placidia
from her spinning-wheel.
"Idling and romping, and doing what had better
not be done or talked about."
"Because, Aunt Dorothy," said Placidia solemnly,
"I saw Dickon trying to kiss our Tib's daughter,
Margery, behind the door; and she would not let
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 53
him. But she laughed, and did not seem angry. Is
that rioting?"
"Dickon may kiss Margery as often as he likes
without hurting you or any one, Placidia," said
Aunt Dorothy incautiously. "Margery is a good
honest girl, and can take care of herself And you
have no right to watch what any one does behind
doors. You, at least, shall not go to the May-pole
to-day, but shall stay with me and learn the thir-
teenth of First Corinthians."
"I do not wish to go to any rioting or May
games," said Placidia. "I like my spinning and
my book. I never did care for dancing and play-
ing and fooling, Aunt Dorothy, I am thankful to
say."
"Don't be a Pharisee, Placidia," said Aunt
Dorothy, turning hotly on her unwelcome ally.
"Better play and dance like a flipperty-gibbet , than
watch what other people do behind doors, and tell
tales."
And I left them to settle the controversy, while
I went to join Aunt Gretel, who was in my father's
chamber, preparing for me such sober decorations in
honour of the festivities as our Puritan wardrobes
admitted of It was a great day for me; chiefly for
the expectation of meeting the Lady Lucy and the
sweet maiden Lettice.
54 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
I was Starting full of glee when the sight of
Auut Dorothy, spinning silently in the hall as we
passed the door, with Placidia beside her, threw a
little shadow over my contentment. Aunt Dorothy
so completely represented to me the majesty of law,
and at the bottom of onr hearts both Roger and I
so trusted and honoured her, that in spite even of
my father's sanction, something of misgiving troubled
me at the sight of her grave face. With a sudden
impulse I ran back, and, standing before her,
said: —
"Aunt Dorothy, you are not angry? I shall not
dance, only look, and soon be at home again, and
all will go on the same as ever."
She shook her head, but more sorrowfully than
angrily.
"Eve only looked," said she, "but nothing went
on the same evermore."
At that moment my father came back to seek
me, and catching Auut Dorothy's last words, he
said kindly but gravely, "Do not let us trouble the
child's conscience with our scruples. It is a serious
danger to force our scruples on others. When ex-
perience of their own peculiar weaknesses and
besetments has led them to scruple at things for
themselves, it is another matter. But to add to
God's laws is almost as tremendous a mistake as to
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. OO
subtract from them. Our additions, moreover, are
sure to end in subtractions in some other direction.
Indifferent things done with a guilty conscience
lead to guilty things done with an indifferent con-
science. In inventing imaginary sins you create real
sinners."
"Well, brother, it is as you please," said Aunt
Dorothy; "but I should have thought our new par-
son reading from that blasphemous 'Book of Sports'
from the pulpit, commanding the people to dance
around the May-poles on the Sabbath afternoons,
was enough to turn any serious person against
them."
"Nay; that is exactly one of the strongest reasons
why I go to-day," said my father. "I go to show
that it is not the May-poles we scruple at, but the
cruel robbing of the poor by the desecration of the
day given them by God for higher things."
And he led me away. But my free, innocent
gladsomeness was gone.
Conscience had come in with her questionings,
and her discemings, and her dividings. I was not
sure whether God was pleased with me or with any
of us. Even when I looked at the garlanded May-
pole, I thought of the old tree in Eden with its
pleasant fruit, which I had embroidered with a ser-
56 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
pent coiled round it, darting out his forked tongue
at Eve. I wondered whether if my eyes were
opened I should see him there, writhing among the
hawthorn garlands, or hissing envenomed words
into the ear of our Tib's Margery as she sat in her
royal bower of green boughs crowned with flowers,
or gliding in and out among the dancers, as hand
in hand they moved singing around the May-pole,
wreathing and unwreathing the long garland which
united them, and making low reverences, as they
passed, to their blushing Queen. I wondered
whether the whole thing had some mysterious con-
nection with idolatry, and heaven itself were after
all watching us with gi-ieved displeasure, like Aunt
Dorothy, and secretly preparing fiery sei'pents, or a
rain of fire and brimstone, or a thunderstorm, or
whatever came instead of fiery serpents and fire and
brimstone in these days when there were no more
miracles.
These thoughts, however, all vanished when the
family appeared from the Hall. The Lady Lucy
was borne by two nien in a sedan-chair which she
had brought from London, a thing I had never seen
before. It so happened that I had never seen the
Lady Lucy until that day. The family had been
much about the court, and on the few occasions on
which they had spent any time at the Hall, the
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 57
Lady Lucy's health had been too feeble to admit
of her attending at the parish-church with the rest
of the family. From the moment, therefore, that
Sir Walter handed her out of the chair and seated
her on cushions prepared for her, I could not take
my eyes from her, not even to look at Lettice. So
queenly she appeared to me, such a perfection of
grace and dignity and beauty. Her complexion
was fair like Lettice's, but very delicate and pale,
like a shell; and her hair, still brown and abundant,
was arranged in countless small ringlets around her
face. On her neck and her forehead there was a
brilliant sparkle and a glitter, which must, of course,
have been from jewels; and her dress had a sheen
and a gloss, and a delicate changing of gorgeous
colours on it which must have been that of velvet
and brocade and rare laces. But in my eyes she
sat wrapped in a kind of halo of unearthly glory.
I no more thought of resolving it into the texture of
any earthly looms than if she had been a lily or a
star. All around her seemed to belong to her, like
the moon-beams to the moon or the leaves to a
flower. Not her dress only, but the green leaves
which bent lovingly down to her, and the flowery
turf which seemed to kiss her feet. If I thought of
any comparison, it was Aunt Gretel's fairy tale of
the princess with the three magic robes, enclosed in
58 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
the magic nut-shells, like the sun, like the moon,
and like the stars.
Even Sir Walter, burly, and sturdy, and noisy,
and substantial as he was, seemed to me to acquire
a kind of reflected glory by her speaking to him.
And her seven sons girdled her like the planets
around the sun, or like the seven electors Aunt
Gretel told us about around the emperor. But when
at last her eyes rested on me, and she whispered
something to Sir Walter, and he came across and
doffed his plumed hat to my father, and then led
me across to her, and she looked long in my face,
and then up in my father's, and said, "The likeness
is perfect," and then kissed me, and made me sit
down on the cushion beside her with her hand in
mine, I thought her voice like an angel's, and her
touch seemed to me to have something hallowing in
it which made me feel safe like a little bird under
its mother's wing. The silent smile of her soft eyes
under her smooth, broad, unfurrowed brow, as she
turned every now and then and looked at me, fell
on my heart like a kiss. And I thought no more
of Eve and the serpent, or Aunt Dorothy, or any-
thing, until she rose to go. And then she kissed
me again. But I scarcely seemed to care that she
should kiss me. Her presence was an embrace; her
smile was a kiss; every tone of her voice was a
A STOnV OF THE CIVIL WARS. 59
caress. A tender motherliness seemed to fold me
all round as I sat by her. As she left me she said
softly, —
"Little Olive, you must come and see me. Your
mother and I loved each other." Then holding out
her hand to my father, she added, —
"Politics and land-boundaries, Mr. Drayton, must
not keep us any longer apart."
He bowed, and they conversed some time longer;
but the only thing I heard was that he promised I
should go and see her at the Hall,
I think every one felt something of the soft
charm there was in her. For, quiet and retiring as
she was, when she left, a light and gladness
seemed to go with her. Before long the dancing
and singing stopped, the tables were set on the
green, and the feasting began, and we left and went
home.
"Oh, Roger," said I, when we were alone that
evening, "there can be no one like her in the
world."
"Of course not," said Eoger decisively. "Did I
not always say so?"
"But you never saw her before."
"Never saw her, Olive? How can I help seeing
her every Sunday. She sits at the end of the pew
just opposite mine."
60 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"She never came to church, Roger."
"Never came to church! Who do you mean?"
"Mean? The Lady Lucy, to be sui-e."
"Oh," saidEoger, "I thought, of course, you were
speaking of Mistress Lettice."
But when we came back to I\ etherby, full as my
heart was of my new love, there was something in
Aunt Dorothy's manner that quite froze any utterance
of it, and brought me back to Eve and the apple.
Yet she spoke kindly, —
"Thou lookest serious, Olive," said she. "Per-
haps thou didst not find it such a paradise after
all. Poor child, the world's is a shallow cup, and
the sooner we drain it the better. I think better
of thee than that thou wilt long be content with
such May games and vanities. Come to thy sup-
per."
But my honesty compelled me to speak. I did
not wish Aunt Dorothy to think better of me than
I deserved.
"It loas rather like Paradise, Aunt Dorothy," I
said.
"Paradise around a May-pole," said she compas-
sionately. "Poor babe, poor babe!"
"It was not the May-pole," said I, my face
burning at having to bring out my hidden treasure
of new love; "not the May-pole, but Lady Lucy."
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 61
"Lady Lucy took a fancy to tlie cliild, sister
Dorothy," said my father, "and asked her to the
HaU." And h)wering his voice, he added, "She
thought her like Magdalene."
1 had scarcely ever heard him utter my mother's
Christian name before, and now it seemed to fall
from his lips like a blessing.
Aunt Dorothy's brow darkened.
"Thou wilt never let the child go, brother?"
He did not at once reply.
"Into the very jaws of Babylon, brother? The
Lady Lucy is one of the favourites, they say, of the
Popish queen."
"Very probably," said my father dryly; "I do
not see how the queen or any one else could help
honouring or favouring the Lady Lucy."
My heart bounded in acquiescence.
" They say she has a chapel at the Hall fitted up
on the very pattern of Archbishop Laud, and priests
in coats of no one knows how many colours, and
painted glass, and incense. Thou wilt never let the
poor unsuspecting lamb go into the very lair of the
Beast?"
"There are jewels in many a dust-heap, sister
Dorothy, and the Lady Lucy is one," said my father
a little impatiently, for Aunt Dorothy had the faculty
of arousina: the latent wilfulness of the meekest of
G2 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
men. "Let us say uo more about it. I liave made
up my mind."
Had he known liow deep was tlie spell on me,
he might have thought otherwise. For, ungrateful
that I was, having lost my heart to this fair strange
lady, I sat chafing at Aunt Dorothy's injustice, in
a wide-spread inward revolt, which bid fair to ex-
tend itself to everything Aunt Dorothy believed or
required. All her life-long care and affection, and
patient (or impatient) toiling and planning for me
and mine, blotted out by what I deemed her blind
injustice to the object of my worship, who had
but kissed me twice, and smiled on me, and said
half-a-dozen soft words, and had won all my childish
heart!
And yet, looking back from these sober hours, I
still feel it was not altogether an infatuation. Such
true and tender motherliness as dwelt in Lady Lucy
is the greatest power, it seems to me, that can invest
a woman.
All mothers certainly do not possess it. On some,
on the contrary, the motherly love which passionately
enfolds those within is too like a bristling fortifica-
tion of jealousy and exclusiveness to those without.
Or rather (that I dishonour not the most sacred thing
in our nature), I should say, the mother's love which
is from above is lowered and narrowed into a passion
A STORY OP THE ClVII; WA1?S. 63
by the selfisliness which is not from above. And
some unmarried -women possess it; some little maidens
even, who from infancy draw the little ones to them
by a soft irresistible attraction, and seem to fold
them under soft dove-like plumage. "Without some-
thing of it, women are not women, but only weaker,
and shriller, and smaller men. But where, as in
Lady Lucy, the whole being is steeped in it, it seems
to me the sweetest, strongest, most irresistible gpwer
on earth to control, and bless, and purify, and raise,
and the truest incarnation (I cannot say anything so
cold as image), the truest embodying and ensouling
of what is divine.
But that night it so chanced that I, who had
fallen asleep lapped in sweet memories of Lady Lucy
and in the protection of Aunt Gretel's presence, was
awakened by the long roll of a thunder-peal, which
seemed as if it never would end.
For some time I tried to hide myself from the
flash and the terrific sound under the bed-clothes.
But it would not do. At length I sprang speechless
from my little bed to Aunt Gretel's. She took me
in close to her. And there, with my head on her
shoulder, speech came back to me, and I said, in a
frightened whisper (for it seemed to me like speaking
in church), —
64 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"Aunt Gretel, will the last trumpet be like
that?"
"I do not know, Olive," said ske quietly. "More
awful, I tkink, yet plainer, for we shall all under-
stand it; even those in the graves; and it will call
us home."
"Oh, Aunt Gretel," I said at last, "can it have
anything to do with the May-pole?"
'^What, sweet heart! the thunder?"
"It is God's voice, is it not? Does not the Bible
say so? And it does sound like an angry voice," I
whispered, for the windows were rattling and the
house was quivering with the repeated peals, as if in
the grasp of a terrible giant.
"There is much indeed to make the good God
angry, my lamb, much more than May-poles."
"Yes," said I, "there were the three gentlemen
in the pillory! That must have been worse certainly.
But do you think God can be angry with me, Aunt
Gretel?"
"For what, sweet heart?"
"For loving Lady Lucy," said I; "she is so very
sweet."
"God is never angry with any one for loving,"
said Aunt Gretel, "only for not loving. But there
is a better voice of God than the thunder, Olive,"
A STORY OF THE CIVIIi WARS. 65
added she. "A voice that does not roar but speaks,
sweet heart. Hast thou never heard that?"
I was silent, for I half guessed what she
meant.
"'/i( is /, he not afraid^'''''' she said, in a low,
clear tone, contrasting with my awe-stricken whisper.
"Whenever thou dost not understand the voice that
thunders, sweet heart, go back to the voice that
speaks, and that will tell thee what the voice that
thunders means."
"Aunt Gretel," said I, after a little silence, "it
seemed to me as if Lady Lacy were like some words
of our Saviour's. As if everything in her were
saying in a soft dove's voice, 'Suffer the little
children to come unto Me.' Was it wrong to think
so? It seemed as if I were sitting beside my mother,
and then I thought of those very words. Was it
wrong?"
"Not wrong, my poor motherless lamb," said
she; "no, surely not wrong. Remember, Olive, from
Paradise downwards the worst heresy has been slander
of the love of God; distrust of His love, and dis-
belief of the awful warnings His love gives against
sin. Whenever we feel anything very tender in any
human love, we should feel as if the blessed God
were stretching out His arms to us through it, and
The Draytons and the Vavenmits. I. 5
66 THE DKAYTOXS A>"D THB DAVEXANTS :
saying, 'That is a little like tlie way I love tLee.
But only a little, only a little.'"
And the thunder rolled on, and the lightning
that night cleft the great elm by the gate, so that
in the morning it stood a scorched and blackened
trunk.
And Aunt Dorothy said what an awful warning
it was. But to me, if it was an "awful warning,"
it stood also like a parable of mercy. I could not
exactly have explained why, but I thought I could
read the meaning of the Voice that thundered by the
Voice that spoke.
I thought how He had been scathed and bruised
for us.
And I pleaded hard with my farther that the old
scathed tree might not be felled. For to me its
great bare blackened branches seemed to shelter the
house like that accursed tree which had spread its
bare arms one Good Friday night outside Jerusalem,
and had pleaded not for vengeance, but for pity and
for pardon.
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 67
m.
I THINK the resentment of injustice is one of the
first-born and strongest passions in an ingenuous
heart. And to this, I believe, is often due the falling
off of children from the party of their parents. They
hear hard things said of opponents; on closer ac-
quaintance they find these to be exaggerations, or,
at least, suppressions; the general gloom of a picture
being even more produced by effacing lights than by
deepening shadows. The discovery throws a doubt
over the whole range of inherited beliefs, and it is
well if in the heat of youth the revulsion is not far
greater than the wrong; if in their indignation at
discovering that the heretic is not an embodied
heresy, but merely a human creature belie%'iug some-
thing wrong, they do not glorify him into a martyr
and a model.
For Roger and me, it was the greatest blessing
that our father was just and candid to the extent of
seeing (often to his own great distress and per-
plexity) even more clearly the defects of his own
party which he might correct, than of the other side,
which he could not; and that Aunt Gretel was apt
5*
68 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVESANTS :
to see all opiuions and characters melted into a haze
of indiscriminate sunshine by the light of her own
loving heart.
Our indignation, therefore, during the period of
our lives which followed on this May-day was al-
most entirely directed against Aunt Dorothy.
My idol remained for some time precisely at the
due idolatrous distance, enshrined in general behind
a screen of sweet mystery, with occasional flashes of
beatific vision; the intervals filled up with rumours
of the music, and breaths of the incense of the inner
sanctuary, enhanced by what I deemed the unjust
murmurs of the profane outside.
My father fulfilled his promise of taking me to
the Hall. On our way to Lady Lucy's drawing-
chamber I caught a glimpse through a half-open
door into her private chapel, which left on my me-
mory a haze and a fragrance of coloured light falling
on the marble pavements thi'ough windows like
rubies and sapphires, of golden chalices and cande-
labras, of aromatic perfumes, with a rise and fall of
sweet chords of sacred music, all blended together
into a kind of sacred spell, like the church bells on
Sunday across the Mere. The Lady Lucy herself
was embroidering a silken church vestment with gold
and crimson; skeins of glossy silk of brilliant
colours lay around her, which thenceforth invested
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 69
the descriptions of the broidered work of the
tabernacle for me with a new interest. She received
my father with a courtly grace, and me with her
own motherly sweetness. She made me sit on a
tabouret at her feet, while she conversed with my
father, and gave me a French ivory puzzle to un-
ravel. But I could do nothing but drink in the soft
modulations of her voice, without heeding what she
said, except that the discourse seemed embroidered
with the names of the king and the queen , and the
princes and princesses, which seemed as fit for her
lips as her rich dress was for her person. She
seemed to speak with a gentle raillery, reminding
him of old times, and asking why he deserted the
court. But his words and tones were very grave.
Then, as he spoke of leaving, she unlocked a little
sandal- wood cabinet, and took out a locket contain-
ing a curl of fair hair, and she said softly, "This
was Magdalene's!" and held it beside mine. And
then, as she carefully laid it aside again, the con-
versation for a few moments rose to higher things,
and a Name higher than those of kings and queens >
was in it. And she said reverently, "In whatever
else we differ, that good part, I trust, may be mine
and yours, as we know so well it was hers." And
my father seemed moved, took leave, and said no-
thing more until we had passed through the outer
70 THE DRAYTOI\S AND THE DAVENANTS:
gate, when in tlie avenne Lettice met us, cantering
on a white palfrey, in a riding coat laced with red,
blue, and yellow, and springing off, left her horse to
go whither it would, as she ran to welcome me,
saying a thousand pretty, kindly things, while I, in
a shy ecstasy, could only stand and hold her hand,
and feel as if I had been transported, entirely un-
prepared, straight into the middle of a fairy tale.
After that for some weeks there was a stream of
courtly company at the Hall, and Roger and I only
saw Lettice and occasionally the Lady Lucy at
church, or met them now and then in our rides and
rambles by the Mere or through the woods. But
whenever we did meet there was always the same
eager cordial greeting from Lettice, and the same
affectionate manner in her mother. And from time
to time we heard, through Margery's sweetheart
Dickon, of the gracious little kindnesses of both
mother and daughter, of their thoughtful care for
tenant and servant, of the honour in which they
were held by prince and peasant. And so on me
and on Roger the spell worked on.
The Draytons were of as old standing in the
parish as the Davenants. Indeed, if tradition and
our family tree spoke true, many a broad acre
around Xetherby had been in the possession of our
ancestors, maternal or paternal, when the forefathers
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 71
of the Davenants bad been bolding insignificant
fiefs under Norman dukes, or cruising on very doubt-
ful errands about tbe nortbern seas. Our pedigree
dated back to Saxon times; tbe porcb of tbe oldest
transept of tbe cburcb bad, to Aunt Dorotby's
mingled pride and borror, an inscription on it re-
questing prayers for tbe soul of one of our pro-
genitors; and tbe oldest tomb in tbe cburcb was
ours. But wbile our family bad remained stationary
in place as well as in rank, tbe Davenants bad
climbed far above us. Our old Manor House bad
received no additions since tbe reign of Elizabetb,
wben tbe tbird gable bad been built witb the large
embayed window, and tbe tbree terraces sloping to
tbe fisli-pond and tbe orchards, wbile on tbe other
side of the court extended, as of old, tbe cattle-sheds
and stables. Meantime the old Hall of tbe Dave-
nants bad been degraded into farm-buildings, whilst
a new mansion, witb sumptuous banqueting balls,
and dainty ladies' withdrawing -chamber like a
palace, bad gradually sprung up ai'ound the remains
of the suppressed priory, which bad been granted to
tbe family; tbe ancient Priory Cburcb serving as
Lady Lucy's private chapel, the monk's refectoiy
as the family dining ball, whilst all signs of farm
life bad vanished out of sight, and scent, and
bearing.
7-2
THE DRAYTOXS A:s'D THE DAYEXAl^TS ;
During' the same period, tlie new transept of our
parish-cliurch, •wlaicli had been the Davenants' family
chapel, had become enriched with stately mouu-
ments, where the effigies of knight and dame rested
under decorated canopies. The titles and armorial
bearings of many a noble family were mingled with
theirs on monumental brass and stained window;
whilst the plain massive ai'chitecture of our hereditary
portion of the chm'ch was not more contrasted with
the rich and delicate carving of theirs than were we
and our serving-men and maidens, in our plain, sad-
coloured stuffs, unplumed, unadorned hats, caps or
coifs, and white linen kerchiefs, with the brocades,
satins, and velvets, ostrich feathers and jewels, rib-
boned hosen and buckled shoes of the Hall.
The contrast had gone deeper than mere ex-
ternals, as external contrasts mostly do in this sym-
bolical world. In the Civil Wars, when no political
principle was involved, it had chanced that the
Draytons and the Davenants had seldom been on
the same side. But at and after the Reformation
the difference manifested itself plainly and steadily.
The Davenants had recognised Henry the Eighth's
supremacy to the extent of receiving from him a
grant of the lauds belonging to the neighbouring-
abbey. But it had probably cost them little change
of belief to return zealously to the old religion under
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 73
the rule of Queen Mary; whereas the Dray tons, ad-
hering with Saxon immobility to the Papal authority
when Henry VIII. discarded it, had slowly come
round to the conviction of the truth of the reformed
religion by the time it became dangerous; and we
hold it one of our chief family distinctions that we
have a name closely connected with us enrolled
among the noble army in Fox's "Book of Martyrs."
Indeed, throughout their history our family had an
unprosperous propensity to the dangerous side. The
religious convictions, so painfully adopted and so
dearly proved, had throughout the reign of Eliza-
beth given our ancestors a leaning to the Puritan
side; deep religious conviction binding them from
generation to generation to the noblest spirits of
their times, whilst a certain almost perverse honesty
and inflexibility of temper naturally drove them to
resist any kind of pressure from without, and a taste
for what is solid and simple rather than for what is
elegant and gorgeous, whether in life or in ritual, in-
clined them to the simplest forms of ecclesiastical
ceremonial.
It was this strong hereditary Protestantism which
had led my father to join the religious war in Ger-
many. He held King Gustavus Adolphus, the
Swede, to be the noblest man and the greatest
general of ancient or modern times. And he held
74 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
that the fearful conflict by which that great king
turned the tide against the Popish arms was little
less than a conflict between trnth and falsehood, bar-
barism and civilization, light and darkness. It was
enough to make any one believe in the necessity of
hell, he said, to have seen, as he had, the city of
Magdeburg, ten days after Tilly's soldiers had sacked
it, when scarce three thousand corpse-like survivors
crept around the blackened ruins where lay buried
the mangled remains of their fourteen thousand hap-
pier dead. To see that, said my father, would make
any one understand what is meant by the icrath of
the Laiiib; and that there are things which can make
a gospel of vengeance as precious to just men as a
gospel of mercy. And some foretaste of that merci-
ful vengeance, he said, had been given abeady. For
after Magdeburg, it was said, Tilly never won a
battle. My father fought with the Swedish army
till the death of the king, on the 6th of November
1632 •, and that day of his victory and death at
Liitzen, was always kept in our household as a day
of family mourning.
Had Elizabeth been on the throne, my father
used to say, and Cecil at the helm of state, it would
not have been the little northern kingdom of Sweden
which should have stemmed the torrent of Popish
and Imperial tyranny, while England stood by
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 75
wringing helpless womanish hands, beholding her
brethren in the faith tortured and slaughtered, her
own king's daughter exiled and dethroned, and, at
the same time, her brave soldiers and sailors trifled
to inglorious death by thousands, at the bidding of
a musked and curled court favourite at Rh^ and
Rochelle.
It was in Germany that my father met my
mother. She was a Saxon from Luther's own town,
Wittenberg. Her name was Reichenbach, and her
family retained affectionate personal memories of
the great Reformer, as well as an enthixsiastic devo-
tion to his doctrines. She and Aunt Gretel (Magda-
lene and Margarethe) were orphan daughters of an
officer in the Protestant armies. And I often count
it among my mercies, that our family history linked
us with more forms of our religion than one, and
extended our horizon beyond the sects and parties
of England.
Our mother died two years after my father's re-
turn to England, leaving him us two children, and
the memory of a love as devoted, and a piety as
simple, as ever lit up a home, by keeping it open to
heaven.
It was during these years she made the acquaint-
ance of Lady Lucy. They had been very closely
attached, although political differences, and the long
76 THE DRAYTONS AND THE BAVENANTS:
absences of the Davenants at Court, had prevented
much intercourse between the families since her
death.
Roger recollected her face and voice, and her
foreign accent, and one or two things she said to
him. I remember nothing of her but a kind of
brooding warmth and care, tender caressing tones,
and being watched by eyes with a look in them un-
like any other, and then a day of weeping and
silence and black dresses and sad faces, and a wan-
dering about with a sense of something lost. Lost
for ever out of my life. As much as by any possi-
bility could be. Aunt Glretel made up the tenderness,
and Aunt Dorothy the discipline; and my father did
all he could to supply her place by a fatherly care,
softened into an uncommon passion by his sorrow,
and deepened into the most sacred principle by his
desire to remedy our loss. Yet, in looking back, I
feel more and more we did indeed inevitably lose
much. All these balancing and compensating cares
and affections and restraints from every side, yet
missed something of the tender constraint and the
heart -quickening warmth they would have had all
living, blended, and consecrated in the one mother's
heart. Yet to Roger, perhaps, the loss was at various
points in his life even greater than to me.
If she had lived, perchance the lessons we had
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 77
to learn after that May-day would have been learned
with less of blundering and heat. Yet how can I
tell? It seems to me the true painter keeps his pic-
tures in harmony not by mixing the colours on the
palette, but by blending them on the canvas-, not by
painting in leaden, monotonous grays, but by inter-
weaving and contrasting countless tints of pure and
varied colour. And in nature, in history, in life, it
seems to me the Creator does the same.
Yes; God forbid that in lamenting what we lost
I should blaspheme the highest love — the love
which, as Aunt Gretel says, takes every image of
human affection, and fills and overfills it, and casts
it away as too shallow; in its unutterable intensity
putting, as it were, a tender paradox of slander on
even a mother's love for her babes, and saying,
"They may forget, yet will not I."
For that Love, we believe, gave and took away,
and has led us through fasting and feasting, dangers
and droughts, Marahs and Elims, chastenings and
cherishings, ever since.
78 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
IV.
At lengtli the time arrived when my dark ages
of mystery and adoration were to close. The pesti-
lence so constantly hovering over the wretched
wastes of devastated Germany had been brought to
Netherby by a cousin of my mother's, who had come
on a visit to us. He fell sick the day after his
arrival, and died on the third day. That evening
Tib, the dairy woman, sickened; and before the next
morning Margery, her daughter. A panic seized
the household. My father accepted Lady Lucy's
generous offer to take charge of Roger and me, we
happening to have been from the first secluded from
all contact with the sick Aunt Dorothy made a
faint remonstrance. There were, said she, contagions
worse than any plague. If her brother would answer
for it to his conscience, it was welh She, at least,
would wash her hands of the whole thing. But my
father had no scruples. "He only hoped," he said,
"that Lady Lucy might touch us with the infection
of her gracious kindliness. Olive would be only
with her; and as to Roger and the rest of the house-
hold, if he was ever to be a true Protestant, the
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 79
time must come when be must learn, if necessary, to
protest."
So mucli to Aunt Dorothy. To Eoger himself
he said, in a low voice, as we were riding off, with
his hand on the horse's mane, —
"Remember, my lad, there is no true manliness
without godliness."
Aunt Gretel watched and waved her hand to us
from the infected chamber window, where she sat
nursing Margery, and when I opened my bundle of
clothes that evening, I found in the corner a little
book containing my mother's favourite psalms copied
in English for us — the 4Gth (Dr. Luther's own
psalm), the 23rd, and the 139th.
Thus armed, Roger and I sallied forth into our
enchanted castle.
To be disenchanted. Not to be repelled, but
certainly to be disenchanted. Not by any subtle
spell of countermagic, or rude shock of bitter dis-
covery, but by the slow changing of the world of
misty twilight splendours, of dreams and visions,
guesses and rumours, into a world of daylight, of
sight and touch.
My first disenchantment was the Lady Lucy's
artificial curls. She allowed me to remain with her
while her gentlewoman disrobo'l her that evening. I
shalF never forget the dismay with which I beheld
80 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
one dainty ringlet after another, of tlie kind called
"heart-breakers," disentangled from among her hair
— itself still brown and abundant — and laid on
the dressing-table. The perfumes, essences, powders,
ointments, salves, balsams, crystal phials, and porce-
lain cups, among which these "heart-breakers" were
laid (mysterious and strange as they were to me,
who knew of no cosmetics but cold water and fresh
air), seemed to me only so many appropriate decora-
tions of the shrine of my idol. But the hair was
false, and perplexed me sorely, Puritan child that I
was, brought up with no habits of subtle discern-
ment between a deception and a lie.
The next morning brought me yet greater per-
plexity. I slept in a light closet in a turret off the
Lady Lucy's chamber. The Lady Lucy's own
gentlewoman came in to dress me-, but before she
appeared I was already arrayed, and was kneeling
at the window-seat of my little arched window, read-
ing my mother's psalms.
I thought she came to call me to prayers, with
which we always began the day at home — my
father reading a psalm at daybreak, and offering a
short solemn prayer in the Hall, where all the men
and maidens were gathered, after which we sat down
at one table to breakfast, as the family had done
since the days of Queen Elizabeth. But when I
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 81
asked her if she came for this, she smiled, and said
it was not a saint's day, so that it was not likely the
whole household would assemble, though no doubt
my Lady and Mistress Lettice would attend service
with the chaplain in the chapel. But she said I
might attend Lady Lucy in her chamber, before she
rose. I gladly accepted, and Lady Lucy invited
me to partake of a new kind of confection called
chocolate, brought from the Indies by the Spaniards,
which finding I could not relish, she sent for a cup
of new milk and a manchet of fine milk-bread, on
which I breakfasted. Then she began her dressing;
and then ensued my second stage of disencliantment.
Out of the many crystal and porcelain vases on the
table, her gentlewoman took powders and paints,
and, to my unutterable amazement, actually began
to tint with rose-colour Lady Lucy's cheeks, and to
lay a delicate ivory-white on her brow. She made
no mystery of it; but I suppose she saw the horror
in my eyes, for she laughed and said, —
"You are watching me, little Olive, with great
eyes, as if I were Eed Riding Hood's wolf-grand-
mother. What is the matter?"
I could not answer, but I felt myself flush crim-
son; and I remember that the only word that seemed
as if it could come to my lips, was "Jezebel." I
quite hate myself for the thought — the Lady Lucy
The Diaytons and the Davenants. I. O
82 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
was SO tender aud good! Yet all tlie day, through
the service in the chapel, and my plays with Lettice,
and my quiet sitting on my favourite footstool at
Lady Lucy's feet, those terrible words haunted me
like a bad dream: "And she painted her face, and
tired her head, and looked out at a window." A
thousand times I drove them away. I repeated to
myself how she loved my mother, how my father
honoured her, how gracious and tender she was to
me and to all. Still the words came back, with the
visions of the false curls, and the paint, and the
powder. And I could have cried with vexation that
I had ever seen these. For I felt sure Lady Lucy
was inwardly as sweet and true as I had believed,
and that these were only little court customs quite
foreign to her nature, to which she, as a great lady,
had to submit, but which no more made her heart
bad than the washed hands and platters made the
Pharisees good. Yet the serene and perfect image
was broken, and do what I would I could not re-
store it.
My third disenchantment was more serious.
At the ringing of the great tower bell for dinner,
summoning the household, and inviting all within
hearing to share the hospitality of the Hall, a caval-
cade swept up the avenue, consisting of the family
of a neighbouring country gentleman. Lady Lucy,
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 83
wlio was seated at her broidery-frame in the drawing-
chamber, was evidently not pleased at this announce-
ment. "They always stay till dark," she said, "and
question me till I am wearied to death, about what
the queen wears, what the princesses eat, or how the
king talks, as if their majesties were some strange,
foreign beasts, and I some Moorish showman hired
to exhibit them. Lettice, my sweet, take them into
the garden after dinner, or I shall not recover it."
Yet, when the ladies entered she received them
with a manner as gracious as if they had been anx-
iously expected friends. 1 reasoned with myself
that this graciousness was an inalienable quality of
hers, as little voluntary or conscious as the soft tones
of her voice; or that probably she repented of having
spoken hastily of her visitors, and compensated for
it by being more than ordinarily kind. But when
it proved that they had to leave early, and she la-
mented over the shortness of the visit, and yet im-
mediately after their departure threw herself languidly
on a couch, and sighed, "What a deliverance!" I
involuntarily shrank from her to the farthest corner
of the room, and watching the departing strangers,
wished myself departing with them.
I stood there long, until she came gently to
me and laid her hand kindly on my head. I looked
6*
84 THE DRAYTOKS AND THE DAVENANTS:
up at her, and longed to look straight into ter
heart.
"Tears on the long laslies!" said she caressingly.
"What is the matter, little one?"
My eyelids sank, and the tears fell.
"What ails thee, little silent woman?" said she,
stooping to me.
I threw. my arms aroitnd her and sobbed, "You
are really glad to have me. Lady Lucy; are you not?
You would not like me to go?"
She seemed at first perplexed.
"You take things too much to heart, Olive, like
your poor mother," she said at last, very gently.
"Those ladies are nothing to me; and your mother
was dear to me, Olive, and so are you."
But in the evening, when I was in bed, she came
herself into my little chamber, and sat by my bed-
side, like Aunt Gretel, and played with my long
hair in her sweet way; and then, before she left,
said tenderly, —
"My poor little Olive, you must not doubt your
mother's old friend. I am not all, or half I would
be; but I could not bear to be distrusted by you.
But you have lived too much shut up in a world of
your own. You wear your heart too near the sur-
face. You bring heart and conscience into things
which only need courtesy and tactics. You waste
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 85
your gold where beads and copper are as valuable.
I must be courteous to my enemies, little one, and
gracious to people who weary me to death; but to
you I give a bit of my heart, and that is quite a
different thing."
And she left me reassured of her affection, but
not a little perplexed by this double code of morals.
That one region of life should be governed by the
rules of right and wrong, and another by those of
politeness, was altogether a strange thing to me.
Meantime Lettice and I were rapidly advancing
from the outer court of courtesies into the inner one
of childish friendship, spiced with occasional sharp
debates, and very undisguised honesties towards each
other; as Lettice and her brothers initiated me and
Roger into the various plays and games in which
they were so much superior to us, and we became
eager on both sides for victory. A very new world
this play world was to us, who had known scarcely
any toys but such as we made for ourselves, and no
amusements but such as we had planned for our-
selves.
Very charming it was to us at first, the billiard-
table, the tennis-court, or pall-mall; and great de-
light Roger took in learning to vault and throw the
dart on horseback, to wheel and curvet, or pick up
a lady's glove at full speed, and in the various
86 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
courtly exercises and feats, Spanish, Frencii, or
Arabian, wliicli tlie young Davenants had learned
from their riding-master. Naturally agile, he had
been trained to thorough command of his horse by
following my father through flood and fen, while his
eye had learned quickness and accuracy from hunt-
ing the wild-fowl, and tracking hares and foxes
through the wild country around us; and these ac-
complishments came easily enough to him. Yet,
with all these ingenious arrangements for passing the
time, it seemed to hang more heavily on hand at the
Hall than at Netherby; it came, indeed, to Roger
and me as something completely new that any ar-
rangements should be needed to make the time pass
quickly. What with spinning, and sewing, and my
helping my aunts, and his learning Greek, and
Latin, and Italian of my father, and helping him
about the farm, our holiday hours had always seemed
too brief for half the things we had to do in them.
Every morning found an eager welcome from us,
and every evening a reluctant farewell; and it was
not until we spent those days at the Hall that the
question, "What are we to do next?" ever occurred
to us, not in hesitation which to select of the count-
less things we had to do in our precious spare hours,
but as an appeal for some new excitement.
Moreover, while in outward accomplishments and
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 87
graces we felt our inferiority, in many things we
could not but feel that our education had been far
more extensive than that of the Davenants.
Allusions to Greek and Eoman history, and to
new discoveries in art and science, and even to
stories of the modern European wars, which were as
natural to us as household words, were plainly an
unknown tongue to them. Even on the lute and
the harpsichord, Lettice's instructions had fallen
short of those my father had procured for me, al-
though her sweet clear voice, and her graceful way
of doing everything, made all she did seem done
better than any one else could have done it.
The brothers, for the most part, laughed off their
deficiencies, and often made them seem for the mo-
ment a kind of gentlemanlike distinction, bantering
Roger as if learning were but a little better kind of
servile labour, beneath the attention of any but those
who had to earn their bread. All that kind of thing,
they said, was going out of the mode. The late
King James had tired the court out with overmuch
pedantry and learning; the present king, indeed, was
a grave and accomplished gentleman, but merrier
days would come in with the French cjueen's court
and the young princes, when the "gay science"
would be the only one much worth cultivating by
men of condition. Meantime the elder brothers paid
88 t:ie drayto2^s and the davenants:
me many choice and graceful compliments on my
hands and my hair, my eyes and my eye-lashes, my
learning and my accomplishments, jesting now and
then in a conrtly way on my sober attire; and, child
that I was, sent me looking with much interest and
wonder at myself in the long glass in Lady Lucy's
drawing-chamber, to see if what they said was true.
I remember, one afternoon, after a long survey of
myself, I concluded that much of it was, and thanked
God that evening for having made me pleasant to
look at. A few years later, the danger would have
been different.
But Lettice was of a different nature from all
her brothers except one. Generously alive to what-
ever was to be loved or admired in others, and ready
to depreciate herself, she wanted Roger and me to
teach her all we knew. She made him hunt out the
books which would instruct her in Sir Walter's
neglected library. She sat patiently three sunny
mornings trying to learn from Roger the Italian
grammar, which she had pleaded hard he should
teach her. She made him read the poetry to her,
and said it was sweeter than her mother's lute. But
on the fourth morning her patience was exhausted; —
she declared it was a wicked prodigality to waste
the sunny hours in-doors, and danced us away to
the woods; and all Roger's remonstrances could not
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WAKS. 89
bring her back to such unwonted work. Indeed,
the more he remonstrated, the more idle and indif-
ferent she chose to be, insisting instead on showing
him some new French dance, or singing him some
snatch of French song she had learned from the
cj^ueen's ladies, until he gave up in despair; when
she declared that, but for his want of patience, she
had been fau-ly on the way to become a feminine
Solomon.
90 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
It was Monday when our visit commenced, so
that we were no longer strangers in tlie Louse by
the following Sunday. But we were not prepared
for the contrast between the Suijdays at Davenant
Hall with those at Nether by. At our own home,
grave as the day was, there was always a quiet
festival air about it. The hall was fresh swept, and
strewn with clean sand. My father and my aunts,
the maids and men, had on their holiday dresses.
That morning at prayers we always had a psalm,
and the mere thrill of my voice against my father's
rich deep tones was a pleasure to me. Then after
breakfast Roger and I had a walk in the fields with
him, and he made us hear and see a hundred things
in the ways of birds and beasts and insects that we
should never have known without him. One day it
was the little brown and white harvest-mouse, which,
by cautiously approaching it, we saw climbing by
the help of its tail and claws to its little round nest
woven of grass suspended from a corn-stalk. Another
day it was a squirrel, with its summer house hung
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 91
to the branch of a tree with its nursery of little
squirrels ; and its warm winter house, lined with hay,
in the fork of an old trunk; or a colony of ants
roofing their dwellings in the wood with dry leaves
and twigs. Or he would turn it into a parable, and
show us how every creature has its enemies, and
must live on the defensive, or not live at all. Or
he Avould watch with us the butterfly struggling
from the chrysalis, or the dragon-fly soaring from its
first life in the reedy creeks of the Mere to the new
life of freedom in the sunshine. Or he would point
out to us how the field-spider had anticipated mili-
tary science; how she threw up her bulwarks and
strengthened every weak point by her fairy buttresses,
and kept up the communication between the citadel
and the remotest outwork. Or he would teach us
to distinguish the various songs of the birds — the
throstles, the chaffinches, the blackbirds, or the
nightingales. God, he said, had filled the woods
with throngs of sacred carollers, and melodious
troubadours, and merry minstrels; some with one
sweet monotonous cadence, one bell-like note, one
happy little "peep" or chirp, and no more, and
others overflowing with a passion of intricate and
endlessly varied song; and it was a churlish return
for such a concert not to give heed enough to learn
one song from another. Or, together, we would
92 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
watch the rooks in the great elm grove behind the
house, how strict their laws of property were, the
old bu'ds claiming the same nest every year, and the
young ones having to construct new ones. Or he
would tell us of the different forms of government
among the various creatures: how the bees had an
hereditary monarchy, yet owned no aristocracy but
that of labour, killing their drones before winter,
that if any would not work neither should he eat;
and how the rooks held parliaments. Everywhere
he made us see, wonderfully blended and balanced,
fixed order, with free, spontaneous action; freaks of
sportive merriment, free as the wildest play of child-
hood, with a fixedness of law more exact than the
nicest calculations of the mathematician; "service
which is perfect freedom;" delicate beauty with
homely utility; lavish abundance with provident care.
And everywhere he made us feel that the spring of
all this order, the source of all this fulness, the smile
through all this humour and play of nature, the soul
of all this law, was none other than God. So that
often after these morning walks with him we fell
into an awed silence, feeling the warm daylight
solemn as a starry midnight, with the Great Presence;
and entered the church-porch almost with the feeling
that we were rather stepping out of the temple than
into it; that, sacred as was the place of worship and
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 93
of the dead, it was not more sacred or awful than
the world of life we left to enter it.
The other golden hour of our golden day (for
Sunday was ever that to us), was when, in the
evening, he read the Bible with Roger and me in
his own room. I cannot remember much that he
iTsed to say about it. I only remember how he
made us reverence and love it-, its fragments of bio-
graphy which make you know the pecTple better
than volumes of narrative; its characters that are
never mere incarnations of principles, but men and
women; its letters that are never mere sermons con-
centrated on an individual; its sermons that are never
mere dissertations, peculiarly applicable to no one
time or place, but sfeeclies intensely directed to the
needs of one audience, and the circumstances of one
place, and, therefore^ containing guiding wisdom for
all; its prayers that are never sermons from a pulpit,
but brief cries of entreaty from the dust, or flaming
torrents of adoration piercing beyond the stars, or
quiet asking of little children for daily bread; its
confessions that are as great drops of blood wrung
slowly from the agony of the heart; its hymns that
dart upward, singing and soaring in a wild passion
of praise and joy.
I can recall little of what my father said to us
in those evening hours; but I remember that they
94 THE DEAYTONS AND THE DAYEXANTS :
left on our minds the same kind of joyous sense of
having found something inexhaustible which came
from our morning walks. They made us feel that
in coming to the Bible, as to nature, we come not
to a cistern or a stream or a ponded store, though
it might be abundant enough for a nation; but to a
Fountain, which, though it might seem at times but
a gentle bubbling up of waters just enough for the
thirsty lips which pressed it, was, nevertheless, living,
inexhaustible, eternal, because it welled up from the
fulness of God.
The usual name for the Sabbath in our home
was the Lord's Day, because of our Lord's resurrec-
tion. On other days my father read to us, and
made us read and love other books — books of
history and science, as well as of religion, Shakspeare,
Spenser, the early poems of Mr. John Milton, and,
when we could understand them, the Italian poet
Dante, or Davila, and other great Italians who spoke
nobly of order and liberty.
But on this day of God he never read but
from these two divine books. Nature and the Holy
Scriptures.
In church we had not always any sermon at all.
Preaching had not been much encouraged since the
days of Queen Elizabeth. Occasionally one of the
lecturers, or gospel preachers, whom Mr. Cromwell
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 95
and other good men were so anxious to supply at
their own cost, used, in our earlier days, to enter
our pulpit and arouse us children with bursts of
earnest warning or entreaty (our parish minister
then being a meek and conformable person). But
Archbishop Laud soon put a stop to this, and sent
us a clergyman of his own type, who fretted Aunt
Dorothy by changing the places and colours of things,
moving the communion-table from the middle of the
church, where it had stood since the Reformation,
to the east end, wearing white where we were used
to black, and coats of many colours where we were
used to white, and in general moving about the
church in what appeared to us Puritan children, un-
instructed in symbolism, a restless and unaccountable
manner; standing when we had been wont to sit,
kneeling Avlien we had been wont to stand, making
little unexpected bows in one direction and little in-
explicable turns in another, in a way which provided
matter of lively speculation to Roger and me during
the week, since we never knew what new movement
might be executed on the following Sunday. But
to Aunt Dorothy these innovations were profanities,
which would have been utterly intolerable had she
not consoled herself by regarding them as signs of
the end of all things. For what to Mr. Nicholls,
the parson, was the "beauty of holiness," and to our
96 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
father "personal peculiarities of Mr, Nicbolls," and
to Aunt Gretel but one more of our "incompre-
hensible English customs," were to Aunt Dorothy
the infernal insignia of the "Mother of abomina-
tions."
She therefore remained resolutely and rigidly
sitting and standing as she had been wont, a target
for fiery darts from Mr. Nicbolls' eyes, and a sore
perplexity to Aunt Gretel, who, never having mas-
tered our Anglican rubric, had hitherto had no cere-
monial rule but to do what those around her did,
and was thus thrown into inextricable difficulties be-
tween the silent reproaches of Aunt Dorothy's com-
pressed lips if she did one thing, and the suspicious
glances of the parson's eyes if she did another.
On our return, Aunt Dorothy frequently made
us repeat the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of
the Revelation. We understood that she regarded
both these chapters as in some way directed against
]VIr. Nicbolls. In what way — we discussed it often
— Eoger and I at that time could never make out.
The great wicked city, with ships, and merchants,
and traders, and pipers, and harpers, seemed to us
more like London town, with the Court of the king,
than like the parish-church at Netherby. But how-
ever that may be, I am always thankful for having
learned those chapters. Many and many a time,
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 97
when in after-life tlie world lias tempted me with its
splendours, or straitened me with its cares, and I
have been assailed with the Psalmist's old temptation
at seeing the wicked in great prosperity, the grand
wail over the doomed city has pealed like a triumphal
march through my soul, and the whole gaudy pomp
and glory of the world has lain beneath me in the
power of that solemn dirge, like the tinsel decorations
of a theatre in the sunbeams, whilst above me has
arisen, snow-white and majestic, the vision of the
Bride in her fine linen "clean and white" — of the
City coming down from heaven "having the glory
of God."
Aunt Gretel, on the other hand, would frequently
quiet her ruffled spirits after her perplexities, by
making Roger and me read to her the fourteenth
chapter of the Romans, ending with, "We then that
are strong ought to bear with the infirmities of the
weak. Let every one of us please his neighbour
for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased
not himself." — A rubric which secretly seemed to
us to have two edges, one for Aunt Dorothy and one
for Mr. Nicholls, but of which Aunt Gretel contrived
to turn both on herself.
"You see, my dears," she would say, "that is a
rule of which I am naturally very fond. Because,
of course, I am one of the weak. And it certainly
The DrcujtoHs and the Davenants. I. '
98 TEE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
would be a relief to me if ttose wlio are strong- would
have a little more patience with me. But then it is
a comfort to think that He who is stronger than all
does hear with me. For he knows I do not wish to
please myself, and would be thankful indeed if I
could tell how to please my neighbours." Which
seemed to us like the weak bearing the infirmities of
the strong.
After this learning and repeating our chapters
from the Bible, while my father and my aunts were
going about the cottages and villages near us on
various errands of mercy, Eoger and I had a free
hour or two, during which we commonly resorted in
summer to our perch on the apple-tree, and in winter
to the chamber over the porch where the dried herbs
were kept, where we held our weekly convocation
as to all matters that came under our cognizance,
domestic, personal, ecclesiastical, or political. Placi-
dia was not excluded, but being four years older,
she preferred "her book" and tbe society of our
aunts. Then came the sacred hour with our father
in his own chamber. Afterwards, in winter, we
often gathered round the fire in tbe great hall, we
in the chimney-nook, and the men and maidens in
an outer circle, while my father told stories of the
sufferings of holy men and women for conscience'
sake, or while Dr. Antony (when he was visiting us)
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 99
narrated to us his interviews witli those wlio were
languishing for truth or for liberty in various prisons
throughout the realm.
And so the night came, always, it seemed to us,
sooner than on any other day. Although never until
our visit at Davenant Hall did I understand the un-
speakable blessing of that weekly closing of the doors
on Time, and opening all the windows of the soul
towards Eternity; the unspeakable lowering and nar-
rowing of the whole being which follows on its
neglect and loss. To us the Lord's Day was a day
of Paradise; but I believe the barest Sabbath which
was ever fenced round with prohibitions by the most
rigid Puritanism, looking rather to the fence than
the enclosure, rather to what is shut out than to what
is cultivated within, is a boon and a blessing com-
pared with the life without pauses, without any con-
secrated house for the soul built oxit of Time, with-
out silences wherein to listen to the Voice that is
heard best in silence.
It was a point of honour and a badge of loyalty
with many of the Cavaliers to protest practically
against the Puritan observance of the Sabbath. The
Lady Lucy, indeed, welcomed the sacred day, as she
did everything else that was sacred and heavenly.
She sang to her lute a lovely song in praise of the
day from the new "Divine Poems" of Mr. George
7*
100 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVEKAKTS.'
Herbert, and told me liow lie had sung it to Ms lute
on his deatli-bed only a few years before, in 1632.
"On Sunday heaven's gates stand ope,"
she sang; and I am sure they stood ever open to
lier.
But the rest of the family, while reverencing her
devout and charitable life, seemed to have no more
thought of following it than if she had been a nun
in a convent. Indeed, in a sense, she did dwell
apart, cloistered in a hallowed atmosphere of her
own.
Her husband and her sons requested her prayers
when they went on any expedition of danger, as their
ancestors must have sought for the intercessions of
priest or canonized saint. The heavier oaths, except
under strong provocation, were dropped (by instinct
rather than by intention) in her presence; and mild ad-
jurations, as by heathen gods or goddesses, or by a
lover's troth, or by a Cavalier's honour, substituted for
them. They would listen fondly as she sang "divine
poems" to her lute, and declare she had the sweetest
warbling voice and the prettiest hands in His Majesty's
three kingdoms. But it never seemed to occur to them
that her piety was any condemnation or any rule to
them. Indeed, she had so many minute laws and
ceremonies that, easily as they suited her, it would
A STORY OF THE CIVIL, WAKS. 101
have been difficult to fit them into any but a lady's
life of leisure. She had special prayers and hymns
for nine o'clock, mid-day, three o'clock, six o'clock.
And once awaking in the night, I heard sounds like
those of her lute stealing from the window of the
little oratory next her chamber. She had what seemed
to me countless distinctions of days and seasons,
marked by the things she ate or did not eat, which
she observed as strictly as Aunt Dorothy her pro-
hibitions as to not wearing things. Only in one thing
Lady Lucy was happier than Aunt Dorothy; for
whilst Aunt Dorothy fondly wished for a book of Leviti-
cus in the New Testament, and could not find it, Lady
Lucy had her book of Leviticus — not indeed exactly
in the New Testament, but solemnly sanctioned by
the authority of Archbishop Laud.
A complex framework to adapt to the endless
varieties and inexorable necessities of any man's life,
rich or poor, in court, or camp, or city; or indeed
of any woman's, unless provided with waiting gentle-
women.
In fact, the Lady Lucy herself sometimes spoke
with wistful looks and sighs of Mr. Farrar's Sacred
College at Little Gidding (not far from us), between
Huntingdon and Cambridge , where the voice of
prayer never ceased day nor night, and the psalter
was chanted through in a rotatory manner by suc-
TTBTlARY
102 TIIE DRAYTOKS AND THE DAVBNANTS:
cessive worshippers once iu every four-and-twenty
hours.
Sir Walter and her sons never attempted to im-
itate her. She floated, in their imagination, in a land
of clouds between earth and heaven. Her religion
had a dainty sweetness and solemn grace about it
most becoming, they considered, to a noble lady;
but for men, except for a few clergymen, as in-
applicable as Archbishop Laud's priestly vestments
for the street or the battle-field.
In our Puritan homes there was altogether another
stamp of religion. Whatever it might lack iu grace
aud taste, it was a religion for men as much as for
women, a religion for the camp as much as the ora-
tory. Eough it might be often, and stern. It was
never feeble. It had no two standards of holiness
for clergy aud laity, men aud women. All men and
women, we were taught, were called to love God
with the whole heart; to serve Him at all times. If
we obeyed, we were still (in our sinfulness) ever
doing less than duty. If we disobeyed , we were in
revolt against the King of heaven. There were
no neutrals in that war, no reserves in that obedi-
ence.
And unhappily the Lady Lucy's family, in sur-
rendering any hope of reaching her eminence of piety,
surrendered more. For it is not elevating , it is
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 103
lowering, to liave constantly before us an image of
holiness which we admire but do not imitate.
In the morning the household met in the family-
chapel (the parish-church being for the present avoided
until danger of the infectious sickness was over). In
the afternoon, Sir Walter and his sons loyally played
at tennis and bowls with the young men of the house-
hold. And in the evening there was a dance in the
hall, in which all joined.
The merriment was loud, and reached Lettice
and me Avhere we sat with the Lady Lucy and her
lute.
Yet now and then one of the boys would come
in and complain of the tedium of the day. It was
such an interruption, they said, to the employments
of the week, and just at the best season in the year
for hunting, and with their father's hounds in per-
fect condition and training. Tennis, they said, was
all very well for boys, and morris-dancing for girls,
but there was no real sport in such things after all^
except to fill up an idle hour or two. The next day
there was to be a rare bear-baiting at Hunting-
don, and the day after a cock-fight in the next vil-
lage. And at the beginning of the following week
Sir Walter had promised to give them a bull to be
baited. And the "Book of Sports," in their opinion,
let the Puritans say what they like, was too rigid
104 THE DRAYXOHS AND THE DAVENANTS :
by half in proHbiting sucb true old English sports
on Sundays.
The Lady Lucy said a few pitiful tender words
on behalf of Sir "Walter's bull, which they listened
to without the slightest disrespect, or the slightest
change of mind — kissing her hand, and laughingly
vowing she was too tender and sweet for this
world at all, and that if she had had the making
of it she would certainly have left bears and bulls
altogether out of the creation.
It was without doubt a long and dreary Sunday
to Eoger and me. It would naturally have been
long and melancholy anywhere without our fa-
ther.
I missed the busy work of the week, which made
it not only a sacred day but a holiday. I missed
Aunt Dorothy's laws, which made our liberty pre-
cious.
But to Roger the day had had other trials.
In the evening he and I had a few minutes
alone together in the window of the drawing-
chamber.
"Oh, Eoger," said I, "I am afraid it cannot be
right; but I am so glad Sunday is over."
"So am I — rather," he said.
"Has it seemed long to you? I thought I heard
your voice in the tennis-court all the afternoon."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS, 105
"You did not hear mine," he said.
"You did not think it right?" I asked. "I won-
dered how they could."
"I am not sure ahout its being right or wrong
for other people," said Eoger. "But I was sure it
was wrong for me. My father would not have liked
it, and therefore I could not think of doing it; espe-
cially when he was away."
"Were they angry?" I asked.
"Not exactly," he said. "They only laughed."
'■''Only laughed!" said I. "I think that is worse
to bear than anything."
"So do I," he said.
"But you did not hesitate?"
"Not after they laughed, certainly," said he.
"That set my blood up, naturally; for it was not so
much at me, as at my father and all of us. They
said I was too much of a man for such a crew."
"They laughed at our father!" said I, in horror.
"Not by name," said he, "but at all he thinks
right — at the Puritans, or Precisians, as they
call us."
"What did you do, Roger?" I said.
"Walked away into the wood," he replied.
"Why did you not come to us?" I asked.
"Because they told me to go to you," he said,
flushing.
106 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"That was a pity; we were singing sweet
hymns."
"I heard yon," he said. "Bnt I do not think
it was a pity I did not come."
"What did you find in the wood, then?" said I.
"I do not know that I found anything," he
said.
"What did you do then, Eoger?"
"I went to the Lady Well, and lay down among
the long grass by the stream which flows from it to-
wards the Mere , and separates my father's land from
Sir Walter's , at the place where you can see Davenant
Hall on one side and Netherby among its woods on
the other. And I thought."
"What did you think of?" said I.
"I thought I had rather live as a hired servant
at my father's than as master here," said he.
"Was that all?" said I.
"I thought of our talk in the apple-tree about
our being puppets, or free."
I was silent.
"And Olive," he continued, "I seemed like some
one waking up, and it flashed on me that God has
no puppets. The devil has puppets. But God has
free, living creatures, freely serving him. And I
thought how glorious it would be to be a free servant
and son of his. And then I thought of the words.
A STORY OP THE CIVIL Vv^AKS. 107
Thou bast redeemed us to God by tby blood-,' not
Tom God, Olive, but to God, to be bis free servants
'or ever."
"That was a great deal to think, Eoger," said
"I think you did find something in the wood."
,"I found I wanted something, Olive," he said
T^ery gravely; "and I thought of something Mr.
Jromwell once said when people were talking about
ects and parties — 'To be a seeker is to be of the
)est sect next to being a finder.' He meant not a
eeker of happiness, or wealth, or peace, or any-
hing in the world, Olive, but a seeker of God."
We were looking out across the wolds to the
MCere, which we could also see from Netherby. The
'Vater was crimson in the sunset, and beyond it the
lats stretched on and on, dark and shadowy, except
vhere the rows of willows and alders in the distance,
md some cattle on an embankment, stood out dis-
inct and black, like an ink etching, against the
golden sky.
And something in Roger's words made the sky
ook higher and the world wider to me than ever
jefore.
108 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
VI.
The next week, Lady Lucy's eldest son Harry
came from London to the Hall , with an acquaintance
of his, Sir Launcelot Trevor.
I thought Hany Davenant the most polished
gentleman I had ever seen. He was the first person
who ever called me Mistress Olive, and treated me
with a gentle deference, as if I had been a woman,
I admired his manners exceedingly. His voice,
though deep and strong, had something of the soft
cadence of Lady Lucy's. He always saw what
every one wanted before they knew it themselves. |
He always seemed to listen to what you said as ifl
he had something to learn from everyone. His whole
soul always appeared to be in what he was saying
or what you were saying, and yet there seemed to
be another kind of porter-soul outside, quite inde-
pendent of this inner soul, always on the watch to
render any little courtesy to all around. I supposed
these courtly attentions had become an instinct to
him, so that he could attend to them and to other
things at the same time , as easily as we can talk 1
while we ai'e eating or walking. 1
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 109
He was his motlier's greatest friend. Sir Walter
never was this. He was always almost lover-like in
lis deference and attention to her, stormy and soldier-
ike as his usual manner was. But into her thoughts
le did not seem to care to enter, any more than into
ler oratory. They had some portion of their worlds
n common, but the largest portion, by far, apart.
A.nd the younger boys were like him, more or less.
But whatever Lady Lucy might have missed in him
,va.s made up to her in her eldest son.
He was a cavalier to her heart — grave, reli-
gions, cultivated; a soldier from duty — but finding
lis delight in poetry and music, and all beautiful
liiiigs made by God or by man. It was a great
nterest to me to sit at Lady Lucy's feet and listen
i;o their discourse about music and painting — about
;he great Flemish painter Eubens, who had painted
;he ceiling of the king's banqueting-house at White-
lall, the grand building which Mr. Inigo Jones had
ust erected ; and about the additions the king had
ately made to his superb collection of pictures. He
ind Lady Lucy spoke of the purchase of the car-
;oons of Raffaelle and of other pictures by this great
naster, and by Titian, Coreggio, and Giulio Romano,
)r by Cornelius Jansen and other Flemish painters,
ivith as much triumph as if each picture had been a
Drovince won for the crown. He spoke also with
110 Tin^ DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS;
the greatest enthusiasm of the painter Vandyke, who
was painting the portraits of the Eoyal Family, and
the great gentlemen and ladies of the Covirt. He
had brought a portrait of himself by Vandyke as a
present to his mother (only, he said, as a bribe for
her own by the same hand); and it seemed to me
that Mr. Vandyke mu.st be as fine a gentleman as
Harry Davenant himself, or he never could have
painted so perfectly and nobly the noble features, the
grave — almost sad — look of the eyes, the long
chestnut-coloured love-locks, the courtly air, and the
dress so easy and yet so rich.
All this was very new discourse to me; paintings^
especially religious paintings, such as the Holy
Families and Crucifixions by the foreign masters
which Harry Davenant described, never having been
)nuch encouraged among us.
When he spoke of music and poetry I was more
at home, and when he alluded with admiration to*
the Masque of Comus, by Mr. John Milton, I feltl
myself flush as at the praise of a friend.
For the names revered at Davenant Hall and a<|
Netherby were usually altogether different. For in-
stance, of Archbishop Laud and Mr. Wentworth
(afterwards Lord Strafford), whom Lady Lucy and.|
her son seemed to regard as the two pillars of Church-
and State, I had only heard as the persecutors of^
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS, 111
Mr. Prynne, and tlie subvertors of tlie liberties of
the nation.
But indeed the nation itself seemed to be little
in Harry Davenant's esteem, except as a royal estate
with very troublesome tenants, wlio had to be kept
down; and liberty, which in om- home was a kind
of sacred word, fell from his lips as if it had been
a mere pretext for every kind of disorder.
With all his refinement, however, it did seem
strange to me that Harry Davenant should enter
with apparent zest into the bull-baiting, bear-baiting,
and cock-fighting, which were the festivities of the
next week. But he said these were fine old English
amusements, and it was right to show the people
that the polish of the Court did not make the courtiers
dainty or womanish, or prevent their entering into
these manly sports.
Sir Launcelot Trevor was a man of a different
stamp. He had bold handsome features, black hair,
black eyes, a low forehead, a face Avith those sharp
contrasts of colour some people think handsome. But
there was something in him from which, even as a
child, I shrank, although he paid the most finished
compliments to the Lady Lucy, Lettice, and me,
and to everything we did or said. His compliments
always seemed to me like insults. When Harry
Davenant spoke of beauty in women, or pictures, or
112 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
nature, lie made you feel it sometliing akin to God
and truth, to reverence and give tlaanks for. Wlien
Sir Launcelot spoke of beauty, lie made you feel it
a tiling akin to tke dust, to be fingered and smelt
and tasted, and then to fade and perish.
Harry Davenant's was a polish bringing out the
grain, as in fine old oak. Sir Launcelot's was like
a glittering crust of ice over a stagnant pond, with
occasionally a flaw giving you a glimpse into the
black depths beneath.
: But I suppose it was the way in which he be-
haved to Eoger that more than anything opened my
eyes to what he was. So that, behind all his bland
smiles on us, I always seemed to see the curl of the
mocking smile with which he so often addressed
Roger. From the first they seemed to recognize each
other as antagonists. '
Two days after his coming, Sir Walter's bull
was to be baited in a field near the village. Lettice
and I were standing in the hall porch, debating
whether we ought at once to report to Lady Lucy a
dangerous adventure from which we had just escaped,
or whether it would alarm her too much, when we
heard voices approaching in eager and rather angry
conversation. First, Sir Walter's, rather scorn-
ful, —
"Let the boy alone. If his father chose to bring
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 113
liim up as a monk or a mercer, it is no concern of
yours or mine."
Then Sir Launcelot's smooth tones, —
"Far from it. Is there not indeed something
quite amiable in such compassion as Mr. Roger dis-
plays for your bull? In a woman it would be
irresistible. Should we not almost regret that the
hardening years are too likely to destroy that delight-
ful tenderness?"
Then Roger's voice, monotonous and low, as
always when he was much moved, —
"I see nothing more manly. Sir Launcelot, in
tormenting a bull than a cockchafer, when neither
of them can escape. My father says it is not so
much because it is savage, as because it is mean,
that he will have nothing to do with cock-fighting,
or bear and bull-baiting."
Then a chorus of indignant disclaimers of the
comparison from the boys, —
"If you are too tender to stand a bull-baiting,
how would you like a battle?"
But the next moment little Lettice, sweet, gener-
ous Lettice (herself Roger's prime tormentor when
he was left to her), confronting the whole company
— the five brothers and Sir Launcelot — and seizing
her father's hand in both hers, exclaimed, —
"For shame on you all, Robert, and George, and
The Draytons and the Davettants. 1. o
114 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Roland, and Dick, and Walter" (Harry was not
there, and she scornfully omitted Sir Launcelot);
"you are all baiting Roger. And that is worse than
baiting a dozen bulls. Don't let them, father. He
has done a braver thing this very day for us than
baiting a hundred bulls. This very morning he
faced that very bull in the Priory meadow; not an
hour ago. We were crossing it, Olive and I, and
the bull ran at us, and Roger saw him, and leapt
over the hedge and fronted him, holding up my
scarlet kerchief, which I had dropped, and then
moved slowly backward, never turning till we were
safe over the paling beyond the bull's reach."
Sir Walter's eyes kindled as he turned and held
out his hand to Roger.
"Why did you not tell me of tbis, my boy?"
he said.
"I did not think it had anything to do with it,"
said Roger, quietly. "I did not know any one
thought I was a coward."
Sir Laiincelot took off his plumed hat and bowed
low to Lettice.
"Heaven send me such a fair defender. Mistress
Lettice, when I am assailed."
She looked up in his face with her large deep
eyes, and said indignantly, —
"I am not Roger's defender. He was mine."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 115
He lauglied, but not pleasantly.
"Few would take much lieed of sucli a danger
for such a reward," he said.
After this he professed to treat Roger with the
profoundest deference.
"A hero and a saint, a Don Quixote and one of
the godly all in one," he said; "and such a paragon
at sixteen! What might not England expect from
such a son?"
He was, moreover, continually referring questions
of conscience to Eoger: asking him whether it was
consistent with Christian compassion to play at tennis ;
he had heard of a tennis-ball once hitting a man in
the eye, and who could say but that it might happen
again? or whether he seriously thought it charitable
to ride horses with sharp bits, since it was almost
certain they did not like it; or whether certain
equestrian feats were not positively profane, since
they were brought to Europe.by the Moors ; or whether,
indeed, there was not a text forbidding the riding of
horses altogether.
He did not venture on these taunts when Harry
Davenant was present. But he generally contrived
to make them with such a quaint and good-humoured
air, that the boys joined in the laugh, and Roger,
having neither so nimble nor so practised a wit, could
only flush with indignation, and then with vexation
8*
116 THE DEAYTONS AND THE DAYENANTS:
at himself that he couM not control the quick rush
of blood which always betrayed that he felt the
sting.
Sir Lanncelot had many of the qualities which
command the regard of boys: an indifference to ex-
penditure sustained by the Fortunatus purse of an
unbounded capacity for getting into debt, which
passed for generosity ("If the worst comes to the
worst," said he, "I can but make interest with the
king for a monopoly"); a wit never too heavily
weighted to wheel sharp round on an assailant; skill
and quickness in all the accomplishments of a cava-
lier, from commanding a squadron of horse to tuning
a lady's lute; a dashing courage which shrank from
no bodily danger {brave I could not call him, for to
be brave is a quality of the spirit, and spirit it was
very difficult to conceive Sir Launcelot had, except
such as there is in a mettlesome horse); a kindly in-
stinct which would make him take care of his horses
or dogs, or fling a piece of money to a crying child,
or in the wars share his rations with a hungry soldier
(plundering the next Puritan cottage to repay him-
self). For cruel he was not, at least not for cruelty's
sake; if his pleasures, whether at the bull-baiting or
bear-baiting, or of other baser kinds, proved cruelty
to others, that was not his intention, it was only an
attendant accident, not ("of course") to be avoided,
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 117
since life was short, and enjoyment must be had,
follow what might.
But of all that went on in the tennis-court and
the riding-ground I knew little, except such glimpses
as I have given, until long afterwards, when Lettice,
who heard it from her brothers, told me — Roger
scorning to breathe a word of complaint on the sub-
ject, either while at the Hall or after our return.
But oh! the joy when one morning my father
came up to the Hall with two led horses following
him; the sjjeechless joy with which, rushing down
from Lady Lucy's drawing-chamber, I met him at
the great door, and threw myself into his arms as he
dismounted.
"Why, Olive," he said, "you are like a small
whirlwind."
Yet I shed many tears when the moment came
to go. Lady Lucy, if no more a serene goddess,
and embodiment of perfect womanhood to me, was
in some sense more by being less. I loved her as
a dear, loving, mother-like woman. Her tender
words that night by my bedside, — "Olive, I am
not all or half I would be. But I could not bear to
be distrusted by you!" and all her frank, gracious,
considerate, self- forgetful ways had made my heart
cling with a true, reverent tenderness to her, far
deeper rooted than my old idolatry. And Lettice,
118 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
generous, eager, wilful as the wind, truthful as the
light, now imperious as an empress, now self-distrust-
ful and confiding as a little child; her sweet chang-
ing beauty seemed to me only the necessary raiment
of the ever-changing, varying, yet constant heart,
that glowed in the brilliant flush of her cheek, and
beamed or flashed through her eyes.
Lettice and I were friends by right of our dif-
ferences and our sympathies, by right of a common
antagonism to Sir Launcelot Trevor, and our com-
mon conviction of our each having, in Roger and in
Harry Davenant, the best brothers in the world.
Lettice and Harry royalists, and Roger and I patriots
to the core ; they devoted to the King and the Queen
Marie, and we to England and her liberties; they
persuaded that Archbishop Laud was a new apostle,
we that he was a new Diocletian.
I shall never forget the joy of waking early the
next morning in my old chamber, and looking up
and seeing the sheen of the morning in the Mere,
and watching Aunt Gretel asleep in the bed close to
mine, and hearing the first solitary crow of the king
of the cocks, and then the clacking of his family as
they woke up one by one; the bleating of the sheep
in the orchard meadow, and the lowing of cows in
the sheds — the lowing of Whiteface, and Beauty,
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 119
my own orphaned calf, and Meadow-sweet; and tten
the cheery voice of Tib, the dairy-woman, recovered
from the sickness, remonstrating with them on their
impatience; and the calls of Bob, Tib's husband, to
his oxen, as he yoked them and drove his team
afield; and, mingled with all, the deep soldierly bay
of old Lion, the watch-mastiff, and the sharp busi-
ness-like bark of the sheep-dogs driving the flocks
to fresh pastures. It was such a delight to be among
all the living creatures again. It felt like coming
out of an enchanted castle, drowsy with perfumes
and languid strains of music, into the fresh open air
of God's own work-a-day world — a world of day-
light, and truth, and judgment, and righteousness,
and duty.
I was dressed before Aunt Gretel was fairly
awake, and down among the animals, eager to learn
from Tib the latest news of all my friends in field
and poultry-yard.
But Roger was out before me. And before
breakfast we had visited nearly all our familiar
haunts — the heronry by the Mere, the creek where
the water- fowl loved to build among the rushes, the
swan's nest on the reedy island, the shaded fish-
ponds in the orchard, the little brook below where
he and I had made the weir, the bit of waste low
ground which the brook used to flood, which, with
120 THE BRAYIONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Bob's help, we liacl dyked and embanked into corn-
ground for Roger's pigeons.
My very spinning task witb Aunt Dorothy was
a luxury. I could scarcely help singing with a loud
voice as I span; my heart was singing and dancing
every moment of the day. The lessons for my father
were a keen delight, like a race on the dykes in a
fresh wind-, the Latin grammar was like poetry to
me. It was such a liberation to have come into a
busy, every-day, working world again-, — a world
of law, and therefore of liberty, where every one had
his task, and every task its time, and the play-hours
were as busy as the working-hours to heads and
hands vigorous with the rebound of real necessary
labour.
All the world became thus again our play-ground,
and all the creatures our play-mates, by the mere
fact that when not at play we, too, were fellow-
workers with them — working as hard in our way
as ant, or bee, or happy building bird, or cleansing
winds, or even the glorious ministering sunbeams
themselves, whose work was all joyous play, and
whose play was all world-helpful work.
And then it was insjjiring to hear once more the
great old honoured names of our childhood — Sir
John Eliot (honoured in his dishonoured grave), and
Hampden, and Pym, and Sir Bevill Grenvil (loyal
A STORT OF THE CIVIL WARS. 121
tlieu to Lis country and Lis king, and afterwards, as
Le believed, to Lis king for Lis country's sake), and
Mr. Cromwell, wLo, wLetLer in Parliament, in tLe
Fens, or on tlie "Soke of SomersLam," understood
liberty to be, liberty to restrain tlie strong from op-
pressing tLc weak — liberty to speak tLe trutL loud
enougL for all tLe world to Lear.
I tLougLt I began to understand wLat was meant
by, "TLou Last set my feet in a large room." For
it seemed like coming fortli from tLe ante-room of a
court presence-cLamber, witL low-toned voices, per-
fumed atmospLere, constrained, soft movements, into
our own dear, free Old England, wLere we migLt
run, and sing, and freely use every free faculty to
tLe utmost, beneatL tLe glorious open Leavens, wLicL
are tLe presence-cLamber of tLe Great King.
122 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAYENANTS:
VII.
The very afternoon of Roger's and my return
from Davenant Hall, Dr. Antony came on one of his
ever-welcome visits. He had, by dint of much
trouble and perseverance, obtained access to Mr.
Prynne, in his solitary cell at Caernarvon, and to
Mr. Bastwick and Mr. Burton in theirs, in Laun-
ceston and Lancaster Castles; and afterwards to the
prisons to which they were removed, in Guernsey,
Jersey, and the Scilly Islands, and also to old Mr.
Alexander Leighton, in his prison, after his most
cruel mutilations.
Often, in the summer. Dr. Antony left his patients
for a season, to visit such throughout the land as
were in bonds for conscience' sake, bearing them the
tidings, so precious to the solitary captive, that in
the rush of life outside they were not forgotten;
taking them food or physic, and such poor bodily
comforts as were permitted by the hard rules of their
imprisonment, and bringing back messages to their
friends and kinsfolk. This last year Dr. Antony
himself (as we heard from others) had been some-
what impoverished by a fine of ,£250 sterling, to which
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 123
he had been sentenced by the Star-Chamber on ac-
count of these visits of compassion; although there
was no law against them.
This time he brought us grievous tidings from
many quarters; and very grave was the discourse
between him and my father.
Everywhere disgrace and disaster to our country :
the French Huguenots cursing our Court for encour-
lagiiig them to insurrection, and then sending ships
against them to Rochelle (though, thank Heaven!
scarcely one of our brave sailors would bear arms
against their Protestant brethren — officers and men
Ideserting in a body when they discovered against
whom they had been treacherously sold to fight);
our own fisheries on the east coast sold to the Hol-
landers , and the capture of one of our Indiamen by
Dutch ships; the Barbary corsairs landing on the
I coast near Plymouth, and kidnapping our country-
jmen and countrywomen from their village homes,
to sell them as slaves to the Moors in Africa; the
king of Spain , the very pillar of Popery and perse-
jcution, the sworn foe of our religion and our race
from the days of the Armada, permitted to recruit
for his armies in Ireland; the Government, with
jWentworth (traitor to liberty) and Archbishop Laud
at the head of it, weak as scorched tow to chastise
our enemies abroad, yet armed with scorpions against
124 THE DRAYTOXS AND THE DAVLNANTS :
every defender of our ancient rights at home. The
decision but lately given by the judges against the
brave and good Mr. Hampden as to ship-money,
placing our fortunes at the mercy of the Court, who
chiefly valued them as means wherewith to destroy
our liberties; Justice Berkeley declaring from the
judgment-seat that Lex was not Rex, but that Rex
was Lex; thirty-one monopolies sold, thus making
nearly every article of consumption at once dear and
bad. The sweeping, steady pressure of Lord Straf-
ford's (Mr. Wentworth) "Thorough" wi-ought into a
vexation for every housewife in the kingdom, by the
king's petty monopolies. The heavy links of Weut-
worth's imperious despotism, filed and twisted by
Archbishop Laud's petty tyrannies into needles where-
with to torture tender consciences, and wiry ligatures
wherewith to tie and bind every limb. "Regulations
as to the colours and cutting of vestments, worthy
(Aunt Dorothy said) of a court tailor, enforced by .
cruelties minute and persevering enough for a ma-
lignant witch." Dark stories, too, of private wrong
wrought by Wentworth in Ireland, worthy of the
basest days of the Roman emperors; tales of royal
forests arbitrarily extended from six miles to sixty,
to the ruin of hundreds of gentlemen and peasants;
disgraceful news of faith broken with Dutch and
French refugees welcome to the heart of England]
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 125
since the clays of Elizabeth, made secure with rights
confirmed to them by James and by King Charles
himself, now forbidden by Archbishop Laud to wor-
ship God in the way for which their fathers had suf-
fered banishment and loss of all things — driven to
seek another home in Holland, and in their second
exile ruining the flourishing town of Ipswich , where
they had lived, and carrying over the cloth-trade,
which was the support of our eastern counties, to
our rivals the Dutch.
"You have a copy of Fox's Book of Martyrs?"
Dr. Antony asked of my father, after he had been
speaking of these lamentable things.
"What good Protestant English household is
without one?" exclaimed Aunt Dorothy, "least of
all such as this, whose forefathers are enrolled in its
lists."
"Take good care of it, then," Dr. Antony re-
plied, "for the Primate hath forbidden another copy
to be printed, under penalties the Star-Chamber will
not fail to enforce."
"The times are dark," he continued; "dark and
silent. I stood this spring by the grave of Sir John
Eliot , in the church of the Tower — as brave, and
loyal, and devout a gentleman as this nation ever
knew, killed by inches in prison for calmly pleading
the ancient rights of England in his place in Parlia-
126 THE DIIA.YTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
ment, and then liis body refused to liis family for
honourable burial among bis kindred in bis parish-
cburcb in Cornwall, and cast like a felon's into a
dishonoured grave in the precincts of the prison where
he died. And I thought how it might have thrown
a deeper shadow over his deathbed if he could have
foreseen how, during these six years, the tyranny |
would be tightened, and the voice of the nation never j
once be heard in her lawful Parliaments."
"The voice of the nation is audible enough to
those who have ears to hear," said my father.
"Yea, verily," said Dr. Antony, "if you had jour-
neyed through the country as I have, you would say
so. When will kings learn that moans and subdued
groans between set teeth are more dangerous from
human lips than any torrents of passionate speech?"
"And," added my father, "that the*re is a silence
even more significant and perilous than these!"
"But there are two points of hope," said Dr.
Antony. "One is the Puritan colony in New Eng-
land, where our brethren have exchanged the vain
struggle with human blindness and tjTanny for the
triumphant struggle with Nature in her primeval
forests and untrodden wilds. Four thousand good
English men and women, and seventy-seven clergy-
men, have taken refuge there during these last
twenty years. Not poor men only, for they have
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. ■ 127
taken many thousand pounds of English money, or
money's worth, with them, forsaking country and
comfortable homes for the dear liberty to obey God
rather than man. And these plantations, after the
severest struggles and privations, are beginning to
grow.
"What they hope and mean to be is shown by
this, that two years since, while food was still hard
to win from the wilderness, and roads and bridges
had yet to be made, the plantation of Massachusetts
voted ,£'400 for the founding of a college. Such an
act might seem more like the foresight of the fathers
of a nation than the care of a little exiled band
struggling for existence with the Indians, the wilder-
'ness, and a hostile Court at home.
"The other point of hope is the Greyfriars' Church
in Edinburgh, where, on the ist of last March, after
long prayers and preachings, the great congregation
rose, gathered from all corners of the kingdom —
nobles, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers — lifted their
hands solemnly to heaven, and swore to the Cov-
enant." Then Dr. Antony took a manuscript paper
from the breast of his coat, and read: — " 'We ab-
ijure,' they swore, 'the Roman Anti-christ; all his
tyrannous laws made upon indifferent things against
our Christian liberty; his erroneous doctrine against
the written Word, the perfection of the law, the office
128 THE DRAYTOXS AXD THE DAYENAXTS :
of Clirist, and His blessed Evangel; liis cruel judg-
ments against infants departing this life without the
sacraments ; his blasphemous priesthood ; his canoniza-
tion of men; his dedicating of kirks, altars, days,
■^ows, to creatures; his purgatory, prayers for the
dead, praying or speaking in a strange language; his
desperate and uncertain repentance; his general and
doubtsome faith; his holy water, baptizing of bells,
conjuring of spirits, crossing, saving, anointing, con-
juring, hallowing of God's good creatures.' 'We,
noblemen, barons, gentlemen, burgesses, ministers,
and coramons, considering the danger of the true
Reformed religion, of the king's honour, and of the
public peace of the kingdom, by the manifold inno-
vations and evils generally contained and particularly
mentioned in our late supplications, complaints, and
protestations, do hereby profess, and before God, his
angels, and the world, solemnly declare, that with
our whole hearts we agree and resolve all the days
of our life constantly to adhere unto and defend the
foresaid true religion, and forbearing the practice of
all novations already introduced in the matter of the
worship of God, or approbation of the corruptions of
the public government of the Kirk, till they be tried
or allowed in free Assemblies and in Parliaments, to
labour by all means lawful to recover the purity and
liberty of the gospel.' 'Neither do we fear the asper-
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 129
sious of rebellion, combination, or what else our ad-
versaries, from their craft and malice, could put upon
us, seeing what we do is well warranted, and ariseth
from an unfeigned desire to maintain the true wor-
ship of God, the majesty of our king, and the peace
of the kingdom, for the common happiness of our-
selves and posterity. And because we cannot look
for a blessing of God on our proceedings, except with
our subscription we gave such a life and conversation
as becometh Christians who have renewed their cov-
enant with God, we therefore promise to endeavour to
be good examples to others of all godliness, sober-
ness, and righteousness, and of every duty we owe
to God and man. And we call the living God, the
Searcher of hearts, to witness, as we shall answer to
Jesus in that great day, under pain of God's ever-
lasting wrath and of infamy; most humbly beseech-
ing the Lord to strengthen us with his Holy Spirit
for this end.' And this," added Dr. Antony, "has
been sworn to, not in the Greyfriars' Church alone,
but by crowds, signed with their blood on parchment
spread on the stones of the churchyards in Edinburgh
and Glasgow; yea, in church after church, in city,
village, and on hill-side, from John o'Groat's House
to the Borders, from Mull to Fife, with tears, and
shouts, and fervent prayers."
"And this means?" said my father.
The Dray tons and the Davenants. L "
130 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAYENANTS:
"It means that the Scottish nation will rather
die than submit to Archbishop Laud's ceremonies and
canons; but that they mean neither to die nor to
submit; that every covenanted congregation will be
a recruiting-ground, if necessary, for a covenanted
army; that the oath sworn in the Kirk they are pre-
pared to fulfil on the battle-field."
"And a goodly army they might soon discipMne,"
said my father, "with the military officers they have
trained under the great Gustavus."
"It means," added Dr. Antony, lowering his voice,
"that they are ready to kindle a fire for religion and
liberty in Scotland which will not stop at the Bor-
ders, and will find fuel enough in every county in
England."
"The Court had better, for its own peace, have
heeded Jenny Geddes' folding-stool," said my father.
"For its own peace," rejoined Aunt Dorothy,
"but scarcely for ours."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 131
VIU.
From that time (1638), through more than a
quarter of a century, public and private life were so
intertwined, that no faithful history can divide them.
In quieter times, while the great historical paintings
are being wrought in parliament-houses and palaces,
countless small family- pictures are being woven, en-
tirely independent of these, in countless homes. But
in times of revolution, national history and private
story are interwoven into one great tapestry, from
Avhich the humblest figure cannot be detached with-
out unravelling the whole web.
Such times are hard, but they are ennobling; or
at least they are enlarging. Faults and ordinary
virtues become crimes or heroical virtues by mere
force of temperature and space. Principles are tested;
pretences are dissolved by the fact of being pre-
tences. Such times are ennobling, but they are also
necessarily tragical. All noble lives — all lives'
worth living — are expanded from the small circles
of every-day domestic circumstance into portions of
the grand orbits of the worlds. Yet, doubtless,
thereby in themselves such lives must often become
9*
132 THE DRAYTONS AND THE UAVENANTS:
fragments instead of wholes, must seem in them-
selves unfinished, must be in themselves inexplicable.
But, indeed, are not the histories of nations and
revolutions themselves, even the grandest, but frag-
ments of those greater orbits of which we scarcely,
even in centuries, can trace the movement? Is it any
wonder, then, that national histories as well as per-
sonal should often seem tragical? As now, alas! to
us, poor tempest-tossed fragments of the ship's com-
pany which we deemed should have brought home
the argosies for ages to come, driven to these un-
trodden far-off shores; whilst to England, instead of
the golden fleece of peace and liberty, our enterprise
may seem but to have brought a tyranny more cruel
and a court more corrupt. Yet may there be some-
thing in the future which, to those who look back,
will explain all!
For England; and perhaps even for these wild
shores which we fondly call New England!
Can it be possible that we have won the Golden
Fleece, and have brought it Jdther?
There is something, moreover, in having lived in
times of storm. The temperature is raised at such
times; all life is keener, colour more vivid, and
growth more rapid.
A nation in revolution is, in more ways than one,
like a ship in a storm. The dividing barriers of
A STORY OP THK CIVIL WAKS. 133
selfishness are dissolved for a time into a common
passion of patriotic hope, purpose, and endeavour.
We feel our common humanity in our common throbs
of hope and fear, in our common efforts for deliver-
ance. And we are (or ought to be) nobler, and
more large of heart for ever afterwards. And I think
the greater part are. Perhaps, in some measure, all;
unless, indeed, it be the ship's cats, who, no doubt,
privately pursue the ship's mice with undeviating
purpose through the raging of winds and waves,
and look on the strife of the elements as a provi-
dential arrangement to enable them to fulfil their
mousing destinies with less interruption.
And what such times of revolution do for a na-
tion, ought not Christianity, the great perpetual
revolution, to do for us always?
The great hindrance seems to me to be, that it
is so much easier to be partizans than patriots,
whether in the Church or State.
If men would do for the country what they do
for the party, what a country we should have!
If Christians would do for the Church what
they do for their sect, what a world we should
have!
For a quarter of a century, from the signing of
the Covenant in the High Kirk of Edinburgh, the
long struggle went on. Nor has it ceased yet.
131 TUB DRAYTOKS AND THE DAVEKANTS :
though the combatants have changed, and the battle-
field.
The Scottish covenanted congregations grew
c[uickly indeed into a covenanted army, and ad-
vanced to the Border. The king, by Archbishop
Laud's counsel, disbelieving in the Covenant, pro-
claimed that if within six weeks the Scotch did not
renounce it, he would come and chastise them (in
a fatherly way) with an army. The king and
Ai'chbishop Laud regarded the Covenant as a freak
of rebellious, misguided children. The Scotch re-
garded it as the portion of the eternal law of God
which they then had to keep — and would keep, or
die.
A difference not to be settled by royal proclama-
tion.
The Scotch had the advantage of being their own
army, ready to fight for their divine law; while the
king had to pay his army with the coin of the
realm, and never could inspire them to the end with
the conviction that they were fighting for anything
but coin of the realm.
The coin of the realm, moreover, lay in the
keeping of those dragons called Parliaments, which
His Majesty had termed "vipers" at their last
meeting, and, in a letter to Strafford, had compared
to "cats," tameable when young, "cursed" if allowed
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 135
to grow old, and wliich he had therefore banished
underground for eleven years, into shadow and
silence.
When, therefore, the king and the covenanted
army met on the Borders, it was found that the
Scotch were commanded, as my father said, by old
Gustavus Adolphus' officers, — every regiment as
in that old Swedish army, also a congregation, meet-
ing morning and evening round its banner of
"Christ's Crown and Covenant" for prayer, — was
a rock against which the English army might vainly
break; but from which, as the event proved, it pre-
ferred to ebb silently away, the pay for which only
it professed to fight being, moreover, exhausted.
The king took refuge in a treaty, promising to
leave Kirk affairs in the hands of the Kirk, and to
call a free assembly. Poor gentleman, his promises
were still believed to have some small amount of
truth in them, and a pacification was effected.
Then came the moment of hope for those who had
been watching those movements with the intensest
interest in England.
Of the two evils , a remonstrating Parliament in
London and a fighting Kirk in Scotland , the former
now appeared to the king the least. In the keeping
of the Parliament, dragon-monster as it seemed to
him, lay the gold. And once more, after a silence
136 THE DRAYTONS AND THK DAVENANTS :
of eleven years, on tlie 15tli of April 1640, the Par-
liament was summoned — a weapon welded by the
wrongs and the patience of eleven years into a temper
the king had done well to heed.
Pym and Hampden were the chief spokesmen,
and Mr. Cromwell sat for Huntingdon.
At the last Parliament they, and brave men like
them, had wept bitter tears at the king's arbitrary
measures, and at his false dealing.
At this Parliament there were no tears shed.
There were no disrespectful or hasty words spoken.
It was as if in spirit they met around the grave
of the martyred Sir John Eliot, and would do or
say nothing to dishonour the grave to which, since
last they met, he had been brought for liberty.
But no portion of the hoarded treasure could the
king force or cajole from their grasp. The Court
insisted on supplies. The Parliament insisted on
grievances.
And on May the 5 th the king dissolved the Par-
liament.
My father's voice trembled with emotion when
he heard it. "They would have saved him!" he
said. "They would have saved the country and the
king!"
Said Aimt Dorothy grimly, — "The king pre-
A STOUY OF THK ClVlIi WARS. 137
fers armies to parliaments ; and no doubt lie will
have his choice."
A second royal army was raised by enforcing
ship-money, seizing the pepper of the Indian mer-
chants, and compelling loans — filling the towns
and cities with angry men who dared not resist, and
the prisons with brave men who dared. And to
rouse the country further, the queen appealed pub-
licly for aid to the Roman Catholics, whilst Arch-
bishop Laud demanded contributions of the clergy.
Earl Strafford, recalled from Ireland, was appointed
commander-in-chief The Court endeavoured also to
enkindle the fury of the old Border war-memories;
but the Borderers were brethren in the faith, and,
refusing to hate each other, combined in hating the
bishops.
The second army melted like the first, after some
little heartless fighting in a cause they hated; having
distinguished itself mainly by shouting its sympathy
with the Puritan preachers in the various towns
through which it passed; by insisting on testing
whether its commanders were Papists before it would
follow them to the field; and by draining the king's
treasury, so that he could proceed no further without
once more looking to the dreaded guardians of the
gold.
"They meet in a different temper from the last,"
138 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
my father said, as we walked home from the vil-
lage, where we had eagerly hastened to meet the
flying Post, who galloped from one patriot's house
to another with printed sheets and letters containing
the account of the king's opening speech on the 3d
of November; "as different as the sweet May days
of promise, during which the Little Parliament de-
bated, from the gray fogs which creep along the
Fens before our eyes to-day. Summer, and hope,
and restitution brightened before that April Parlia-
ment. Over this lower winter, storms, and retribu-
tion; slow clearing of the stubble-fields of centuries,
stern ploughing of the soil for better harvests, not to
be reaped, perchance, by the hands that sow."
For the six months between had been ill filled
by the Court party.
I remember now how, one day during those
months, my father's hands trembled, and his voice
grew low as a whisper, as he read to us a letter
telling how a poor reckless young drummer lad,
who, when on leave from the army in the north,
had joined a wild mob of London apprentices in an
attack on Lambeth Palace, had been racked and
tortured in the Tower to make him confess his ac-
complices; and torture failing to make him base, poor
boy, how he had been hanged and quartered the day
after.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 139
"They dared not torture Felton a few years
since for the murder of Buckingham," my father
said-, "and now they twist this boy's offence into
treason, because, forsooth, a drum chanced to be
sounded by the mob, that the poor misguided lad
may suffer the traitor's doom, and the honour of his
Holiness, their Pontifex Maximus, their Archangel,
as they call him, be avenged."
(These were the things that silenced the plead-
ings of pity in good and merciful men when, in
after-years, the archbishop was brought to the scaf-
fold.
Now that the crime and its avenging all are past,
and victim, slayer, avenger, all have met before the
great Bar, it is hard to recall the passion of indig-
nation these deeds awakened in the gentlest hearts
when they were being done with little chance of
ever being avenged. But is not the most inflexible
judgment the offspring of outraged mercy?)
All through that summer the king, the arch-
bishop, and Strafford went on accumulating wrongs
on the nation, too surely to recoil on themselves.
There may have been many tyrannies more ter-
rible. Never could there have been one more irri-
tating, more ingenious in sowing discontents in every
corner of the land.
The archbishop, in convocation, made a new
140 THE DRAYTONS AND THK DAVKNANTS:
canon, requiring every clergyman and every graduate
of the universities to take an oath that all things
necessary to salvation were contained in the doctrine
and discipline of the Church of England, as distin-
guished from Presbyterianism and Papistry.
I remember that canon especially, because it
brought Roger home from Oxford, where he had
been studying during the past two years, and was
about to take his degree, and led to results sad in-
deed for us, though not exactly among the miseries
to be set down to the archbishop. Roger would
not swear, he said, against the religion of half the
kingdom, at least without understanding it better.
From Northamptonshire, Kent, Devonshire —
old conservative Kent and the loyal West — came
up indignant petitions against this canon. London
was exasperated by the committal of four aldermen
who refused to set before the king the names of
those persons within their wards who were able to
lend His Majesty money, every borough in the king-
dom was aroused by the presence of its members
ignorainiously dismissed from the dissolved Parlia-
ment; nine boroughs were still more deeply moved
by the absence of their members, imprisoned the day
after the dissolution in the Tower. Every day
brought reports of some fresh victim fined in the
Star-Chamber on account of the odious ship-money.
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 141
Especial complaints came from the North, which
Strafford was grinding with the steady pressure of
his presence in the council at York.
And meantime, the friendly Scots were practically
inculcating Presbyterianism and the advantages of
armed resistance in the four counties beyond the
Tees, where they had been left in possession until
they received the price wherewith the king had paid
them for rebellion.
There was much stir and movement in the land
all through those months. Netherby lay close to
the high road, and we had many visitors. Mr. Crom-
well once, on his way to Cambridge (for which place
he then sat in Parliament), brief in speech and to
the point, hearty in look, and word, and gesture,
and also at times in laughter. Mr. Hampden, digni-
fied and courtly as any nobleman of the king's court.
Mr. Pym, with firm, close-set lips and grave eyes.
He came more than once on horseback, and put up
for the night, on one of the many rides he took at
that time around the country to stir up the patriots
to act together. My father also was often absent
attending meetings of the country party at Brough-
ton Hall (the Lord Brook's mansion), near Oxford,
where Roger, being at the university, sometimes met
him.
So the summer parsed on, its perishable things
142 THE DRAYTOXS AND THE DAVENANTS:
fading, and its enduring things ripening into autumn.
Crop after crop of royal promises budded and
bloomed and bore no fruit, until the people grew
sorrowfully to landerstand that royal words, like
flowers cultivated into barrenness in royal gardens,
were never purposed to bear fruit, but only to at-
tract with empty show of blossom. The nobles
petitioned for a Parliament; ten thousand citizens
of London, in spite of threats, petitioned for a
Parliament; and at last, once more the king sum-
moned it.
A month afterwards, early in December, my father
called the household around the great hall fire to
hear a letter from Dr. Antony:
" To my very loving friend,
^^Roger Drayton, Esq.
^'- Novemler 28th.
'"'■ Present these.
"HoNouKED Sir, — Let us rejoice and praise God to-
gether. My occupation is gone. The prisons bid fau- to
be cleared of all save their rightful tenants. Parish after
parish will welcome back faithful ministers, undone and
imprisoned by Star- Chamber and High Commission.
Heaven grant that persecutions and imprisonments have
made their voices strong and gentle, and not shar2D and
shrill ; for I have found the de^al not locked out by prison-
bolts. And too siu-ely also he will find his way into
triumphal processions such as we have had in London to-
day, on behalf of Mistress Olive's old friends, Mr. Prynne,
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAKS. 143
Mr. Bastwick , and Mr. Biu-tou. But let me set my nar-
rative in order.
"A fortnight before the Parliament was opened, two
thousand rioters had torn down the benches in St. Paul's
— where the cruel High Commission were sitting — shout-
ing that they would have no bishop, no High Commission.
Now these disorders cease. Once more the gag is off the
lips of every borough and county in Old England; and the
bitter helj^less moans and wild inarticulate cries which
have vainly filled the land these eleven years , give place
to calm and temperate speech. Petitions and remon-
strances pour in fi-om north, south, east, and west; some
brought by troops of horsemen. The calmest voices are
heard most clearly.
'"He is a great stranger in Israel,' said Lord Falkland,
'who knoweth not that this kingdom hath long labom-ed
imder great oppression both in religion and liberty. Under
pretence of uniformity they have brought in superstition
and scandal; under the titles of reverence and decency
they have defiled oiu* Church by adorning our churches.
They have made the conforming to ceremonies more im-
portant than the conforming to Christianity.'
" Said Sir Edward Deering, in attacking the High Com-
mission Court, —
" 'A pope at Rome will do me less hm-t than a patriarch
at Lambeth.'
"Said Sir Benjamin Rudyard, —
"'We have seen ministers, their wives and families,
undone against law, against conscience, about not dancing
on Sundays. They have brought it so to jiass, that under
the name of Puritans all our religion is branded. Whoso-
ever squares his actions by any rule , divine or human , he
is a Puritan ; whosoever would be governed by the king's
laws, he is a Puritan; he that will not do whatsoever other
men will have him do, he is a Puritan.'
144 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"The Commons had not sate fom^' days when, on the
7th of November , by warrant of the House , they sent for
Mr. Prynne, Mr. Bastwick, and Mr. Burton, from their
pi'isons beyond the seas, to certify by whose authority
they had been mutilated, branded, and imprisoned.
"And now, after three weeks, these thi'ee gentlemen —
freed from their sea- washed dungeons in Jersey, Guernsey,
and the Scilly Islands — have this day arrived in the city.
All the way from the coast they have been eagerly wel-
comed, escorted by troops of friends with songs and gar-
lands, from town to town.
"Five thousand citizens of condition rode forth on
horseback to meet them, among them many a citizen's
wife, and all with bay and rosemary in their hats and caps,
to do honoiu" to those their enemies had vainly sought to
shame. I trow brave Mrs. Bastwick, who stood tearless
by her husband at the pillory, and who hath not been suf-
fered to see him in his prison since, thought it no shame to
imman bim by shedding tears of joy to-day. Old gray-
haired Mr. Leighton, moreover, bent with imprisonment
and torture, and yomig John Lilburu, for whom Mr. Crom-
well so fervently pleaded, were there to share the triumph,
all marked with honourable scars from the Star-Chamber.
This outside the city. And within, at Westminster, an-
other victory — not a triumph, but a victory — not festive,
but solemn and tragical, as victories on battle-fields are
wont to be.
" This day , at the bar of the House of Peers , about
three of the clock in the afternoon, Mr. Pym, in the name
of all the Commons of England, impeached Thomas, Earl
of Strafford , of high treason. And this night Lord Straf-
ford lodges in the Tower.
"He is too stately a cedar that there should not be
something great in his fall.
" Scorning the Commons' message, with a proud gloom-
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 145
ing countenance tlie earl made towards his place at the
head of the board. But at once many bade him void the
house. Sullenly he had to move to the door till he was
called. There he , at whose door so many vainly waited,
had to wait till he was summoned. Loftily he stood to
hear the sentence of the House. He was commanded to
kneel, and on his knees he was committed prisoner to the
Kpeper of the Black Rod. He would have spoken, but he
who had silenced England for eleven years Avas sternly
silenced now, and had to go without a word. In the outer
room they demanded his sword. The earl cried to liis
serving-man with a loud voice to take my Lord-Lieute-
nant's sword. A crowd thronged the doors of the House
as he stepped out to his coach. No fellow capjicd to him
before whom yesterday not a noble in England would have
stood uncovered with impunity. One ci'ied to another,
'What is the matter?' 'A small matter, I warrant you,'
quoth the earl. Coming to where he had left his coach he
fomid it not, and had to walk back again through the
gazing, gaping crowd. He was not suffered to enter his
own coach, but was carried away a prisoner in that of the
Keeper of the Black Eod.
"And this night he lodges — scarce, I trow, rests or
sleeps — in the Tower. Will the memoiy of his old com-
panion in the days before he tui-ned traitor to England and
liberty, our noble murdered patriot Eliot, haunt his
memory there? From his ghost the eai'l is safe enough.
Such ghosts are in other keeping and other company. And
for the earl's memory^ darker recollections than that of
Eliot, with all his wrongs, may well haunt it, if report
speaks truth; recollections which the old Tower itself,
with all its chambers of death, can scarce outgloom.
"But Lord Strafford is not a man to dream while there
is work to be done , or to look back when life may hang
on his wisdom in looking forward.
The Draytons and the Davenants. I. 10
146 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"The first stroke Is struck, but the cedar is not felled
yet. Nor can any surmise what it may bring down with
it if it falls.
"Your faithful servant and loving friend,
"Leonard Antony.
"Koger will like to hear that his friend Mr. Cromwell
presented the petition for poor John Lilburn (some time
writer for Mr. Piynne), that was scom-ged from West-
minster to the Fleet prison. And also that he hath warmly
espoused the cause of cei-tain poor countrymen whom he
knows near St. Ives, robbed of their ancient pasture-rights
on a common tyrannously enclosed by one of the queen's
servants.
"]\L-. Cromwell seemed to take these poor men's wrongs
sorely to heart, and spoke with a flushed face and much
vehement eloquence concerning them, in a voice which
certain courtiers thought loud and imtunable, clad in a
coat and band they thought unhandsome and made by an 'ill
country-tailor,' and in a hat without a hat-band. But the
Parliament hearkened to him with much regard , and gave
great heed to what he counselled."
Roger's eye kindled.
"Mr. Cromwell will never forget the old friends
for tlie new," said my father, "nor pass by little
duties in hurrying to great ends."
Then our household broke into twos and threes,
debating the news.
Aunt Dorothy shook her head. "I do mourn
over it," said she. "Mr. Cromwell might do great
A STORY OP THE ClVIIi WARS. 147
tilings. And here are the Church and State all on
fire, and the Almighty sending his lightnings on the
cedars of Lebanon and the oaks of Bashan, while
Mr. Cromwell keeps harping on these petty worldly
things; on the wrongs of an insignificant servant of
Mr. Prynne's, which no doubt would get set right
of themselves when once the great battle is fought;
and on whether some poor clodpoles near St. Ives
get a few acres more or less to feed their sheep on.
And, meanwhile, the sheep of the Lord's pasture
wandering on the mountains without pasture or
shepherd! I do think it a pity, too, that Mr. Crom-
well does not change his tailor; we ought to provide
things honest in the sight of all men. Not but that
I will say," she concluded, "Mrs. Cromwell and her
maidens might take some of these matters on her-
self."
I remember that night asking Aunt Gretel if she
thought it would be wrong to put Earl Strafford's
name into my prayers. He was not exactly an
enemy of mine, or there would be a command to do
so; and he certainly was not a friend, nor, now, any
longer "one in authority." But it went to my heart
to think how in a moment all his glory seemed turned
to dishonour, the crowd gaping on him, and no man
capping to him.
10*
148 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVBNANTS:
"What wouldst tliou pray for, Olive?" said Aunt
Gretel, "Certainly not ttat lie may Lave power
again, and set up the Star-Chamber, and send the
three gentlemen to the pillory once more."
"Would he do that if he got out of the Tower?"
said I.
"The wise and good men think so, or they would
not have sent him there," said she.
"But might he not be better always afterwards?"
I asked.
"People cannot trust that he would," she said.
"Even if he promised ever so much, and intended
it, they could not at once trust him."
"Is it too late then for him to be forgiven?" I
said.
"Too late, it seems, for men to forgive him,"
said she, very gravely.
"But never too late for God?" I said.
"No, never too late for God," said she, slowly.
"Because God knows when we really intend to give
up sinning, even when we can do nothing to show it
to men. So it is never too late for Him to take His
prodigals home to His bosom."
"Then I can ask for that," said I. And I
did.
But that night there sank down on my heart for
the first time (the first time of so many in the
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 149
solemn years that followed) the terrible words, ''''Too
late;'''' the terrible sense that an hour may come
when, if repentance towards God is still possible, re-
paration to man and mercy from man are possible
no longer.
150 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS I
IX.
This fervour of patriotic life wliicli animated us
all at Netherby made us rather hard, I am afraid, on
Cousin Placidia.
Throughout the year, after our sojourn at Dave-
nant Hall, she had tried Roger and me (and I be-
lieve also secretly Aunt Dorothy) very seriously by
becoming in her way exceedingly religious. One
winter morning, when Roger and I were busy with
my father about our Italian lessons at one end of
the hall, the following discussion took place between
Placidia and Aunt Dorothy over their spinning near
the hearth. Placidia had seen, she informed Aunt
Dorothy, the vanity of all things under the sun, the
folly of pride, and the wickedness of all worldly
pomp, and she wished decidedly to take her place
"on the Lord's side," to work out betimes her own
salvation, and to secure for herself an abundant en-
trance into the kingdom. Aunt Dorothy spoke of
the heart being deceitful, and hoped Placidia would
make sure of her foundation. Placidia rejoined with
some slight resentment as to any doubts of her ortho-
doxy, that she humbly trusted that she knew as well
A STORY or THE CIVIL WARS. 151
as any one that every one's heart was indeed deceit-
ful above all things and desperately wicked — that
is, every ungodly person's; indeed, one only needed
to look around in any direction to see it. Aunt
Dorothy replied that, for her part, she found her own
heart still very ingenious in deceiving her, and in
need of a great deal of daily watching.
Placidia admitted the necessity. Indeed, she said
that, on a review of her life, she felt that, although
she had been mercifully preserved from many in-
firmities which beset other people (her temper being
naturally even, and her tastes sober), still, no doubt,
she shared in the universal depravity. But she had,
like Jacob at Bethel, she said, made a solemn cove-
nant with God, promising to give Him henceforth
His due portion of her*affections and substance; she
had signed and sealed it on her knees, and she be-
lieved she was accepted, that she was on the Lord's
side, and that, as with Jacob, He would henceforth
be on hers.
Aunt Dorothy's spinning-wheel flew with ominous
rapidity, but some moments passed before she replied.
Then she said:
"My dear, I trust you know the difference be-
tween a covenant and a bargain. The patriarch Jacob,
on the whole, no doubt meant well, but I never
much liked his 'ifs' and 'thens' with the Almighty.
152 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
The best kind of covenants, I think, are those which
begin on the other side. As when the Lord said to
Abraham, 'Fear not, Abraham; I am thy shield and
thy exceeding great reward.' Or, 'I am the Almighty
God, walk before me and be thou perfect.' Then
follow the promises, lavish as His riches, which fill
heaven and earth — free as the air he gives us to
breathe. When God gives there is no limit, no re-
serve, no condition. But, on the other hand, neither
is there reserve, or condition, or limit when He de-
mands. It is not so much for so much, but all sur-
rendered in absolute trust. It is, 'Be thou perfect;'
it is, 'Leave thy country, and thy kindred, and thy
father's house;' it is, 'Give me thy son, thine only
son Isaac, whom thou lovest.' Is this what you
mean by a covenant with God? Think well, for
He 'is not mocked.' His hand is larger than ours,
as the sea is larger than a drinking-cup ; but he will
not accept our hands half full."
Said Placidia:
"Aunt Dorothy, I have no intention whatever of
being half for the world and half for God. I have
no opinion at all of the religion which can dance
round May-poles on the week-day, and attend the
worship of God on Sundays; or fast and pray on
Fridays, wear mourning in Lent, and be decked out
in curls, and laces, and jewels on feast-days. I have
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS, 153
made up my mind never to wear a feather, or a
trinket, or a bit of lace to my band, or a laced
stomacher; nor to use crisping-tongs , nor to indulge
in any kind of 'dissoluteness in hair,' nor ever to
sport any gayer colour in mantle or wimple than
gray, or at the most 'liver colour.' I have not the
least intention, Aunt Dorothy, of trying to serve
two masters. I know in that way we gain nothing.
But I do believe that those that honour Him He
will honour, and that godliness hath promise of
the life that now is as well as of that which is to
come."
"The Lord's honours are not often like King
Ahasuerus's," said Aunt Dorothy gravely ; " the crowns
of those He delighted to honour have sometimes
been of fire, and their royal apparel of sackcloth.
There is such a thing," she continued, her wheel
whirling like a whirlwind, "as serving only one
master, yet that not the right one, though taking
His name. And we are near the brink of that pre-
cipice whenever we seek any reward from the Master
beyond His 'Well done.' '/ am thy shield,'" she
concluded, "'/, the Lord Himself;'' not what He pro-
mises or what He gives, though it were to be the
half of His kingdom."
By this time my father's attention had been
154 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
aroused to the discussion, and rising from the table
and approaching the spinners, he said, —
"What you say, sister Dorothy, reminds me of
some words I heard lately in a letter of Mr. Crom-
well's. 'Truly no creature hath more cause,' he
wrote , ' to put himself forth in the cause of his God
than I. I have had plentiful wages beforehand, and
I am sure I shall never earn the least mite.'"
"Yea, verily," said Aunt Dorothy, "Mr. Crom-
well may waste too much thought on draining and
dykiug; but he is a godly gentleman, and he under-
stands the Covenant."
Cousin Placidia, however, pursued her course,
and continued a living rebuke to Roger and me if
we indulged in too noisy merriment, and to any of
the maids who were tempted into a gayer kirtle or
ribbon than ordinary. On Sunday she was never
known to smile, nor on any other day to laugh,
except in a mild and moderate manner, as a polite
concession to any one who expected it in response
to a facetious remark.
Her conversation meantime became remarkably
scriptural. She did not allow herself an indulgence
which she did not justify by a text; if her dresses
wore longer than usual, so as to spare her purse,
she looked on it as a proof that she had been mar-
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 155
vellously helped with wisdom in the choice. If she
escaped the various accidents which not unfrequently
brought me into disgrace, and my clothes to pre-
mature ruin, she regarded it as an interference of
Providence, like to that which watched over the
Israelites in the wilderness.
Indeed, it seemed to Roger and me, that Placidia's
primary meaning of being "on the Lord's side" was,
•that in a general way the Almighty should do what
she liked; and that in particular the weather should
be arranged with considerate reference as to whether
she had on her new taffetas or her old woolsey.
Great therefore was our relief, although great also
our astonishment, when Aunt Dorothy announced to
us one day that Cousin Placidia was about to be
married to Mr. Nicholls, the vicar of Netherby.
"Are you not surprised?" I ventured to ask of
my father. "Cousin Placidia is such a Precisian,
as they call it, and Mr. Nicholls thinks so much of
Archbishop Laud."
"Not much surprised, Olive," he said. "I think
Placidia's religion and Mr. Nicholls' are a little alike.
Both have a great deal to do with the colour and
shape of clothes, and with the places and times at
which things are done, and the way in which they
are said. And both are prudent persons, desirous of
156 THE DRAYTOKS AND THE DAVEXANTS :
taking a respectable place in the world in a religious
way. I should think they would agree very well."
Aunt Dorothy was at once indignant and con-
soled.
"I never quite trusted Placidia's professions,"
said she; "but this, I confess, goes beyond my fears.
A person who never passes what he calls the altar
without making obeisances such as the old heathens
made to the sun and the moon, and who, not six
months ago, defiled the house of God with Popish
incense!"
But Cousin Placidia had explanations which were
quite satisfactory to herself.
"She had had so many providential intimations,"
she said (one of the habits of Placidia that always
most exasperated Roger was her way of always
doing what she wished, because, she said, some one
else wished it; and since she had become religious,
she usually threw the responsibility on the Highest
Quarter) — "intimations so plain, that she could not
disregard them without disobedience. Mr. Nicholls'
coming to Netherby at all was the consequence of a
series of most remarkable circumstances, entirely
beyond his own control. The way in which the
prejudice against each other, with which they began,
had by degrees changed into esteem, and then into
something more, was also very remarkable. And
A STORY OF TUB CIVIIi WARS. 157
what was most remarkable of all was, that on the
very morning of the day when he proposed to her,
she had — quite by chance, as it might seem, but
that there was no such thing as chance — opened
the Bible on the passage, 'Get thee out from thy
country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's
house, into a land that I will shew thee: and I will
bless thee.'"
"But, my dear," remarked Aunt Gretel, to whom.
Aunt Dorothy being unapproachable, Placidia had
made this explanation — "my dear, you are not
going to leave your country, are you? and you do
know the land to which you are going."
"Of course," said Placidia, "there are always
differences. But the application was certainly very
remarkable. Mr. Nicholls quite agreed with me,
Avhen I told him of it."
"No doubt, my dear; no doubt," said Aunt Gretel,
retreating. "But there does seem a little difference
in your opinions."
"Uncle Drayton says we should look on the
things in which we agree, more than on those in
which we differ," said Placidia. "Besides, if Aunt
Dorothy would only see it, I really trust I have
been already usefixl to Mr. Nicholls. He said, only
yesterday, he thought there was a good deal to be
said in favour of some late ordinances of the Parlia-
158 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
ment against too close approacli to Papistical cere-
monies. Mr. Nicholls bad never any propension to-
wards the Pope; and he thinks now that, it may be,
his canonical obedience to Archbishop Laud led him
to some unwise compliances. But the powers that
be, he says, must always have their due honour.
The great point is, to ascertain which powers be,
and which only seem to be. And now that the
Parliament has impeached Archbishop Laud, and
sent him to the Tower, this is really an exceedingly
difficult question for a conscientious clergyman, who
is also a good subject, to determine."
Aunt Gretel did not pursue the subject, she
being always in fear of losing her way, and straying
into wildernesses, when English politics or rubrics
came into question.
And in due time Placidia became Mistress
Nicholls, and removed to the parsonage, with a
generous dowry from my father, and everything that
by the most liberal interpretation could in any way
be construed into belonging to her, down to a pair
of perfumed Cordova gloves which had been given
her by some gay kinswoman, and, having been
thrown aside in a closet as useless vanities, cost
Aunt Dorothy a long and indignant search. Every-
thing might be of use, said Placidia, in their humble
housekeeping. And she had always remembered a
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 159
sajing she had once heard Aunt Gretel quote from
Dr. Luther, — "That what the husband makes by
earning, the wife multiplies by sparing."
"An invaluable maxim," she remarked, "for
people in narrow circumstances, who had married
from pure godly affection, without passion or ambi-
tion, despising all worldly considerations, like her-
self and Mr. Nicholls."
160 THE DRAYTOXS AND THE DAVENANTS:
It was a strange Christmas to many in England,
that first in the stormy life of the Long Parliament.
Earl Strafford had been in the Tower since the
28th of November. A week before Christmas-day
Archbishop Laud had been impeached and com-
mitted to custody. There was no thought of the
Parliament dispersing. Mr. Pym and others of the
patriot members were occupied with preparing for
Lord Strafford's trial, which did not begin until tlie
22nd of the following March.
On the other hand, faithful voices, long silent in
prisons, were heard again in many pulpits through-
out the land.
Judge Berkeley, who had given the unjust deci-
sion in favour of ship-money, was seized on the
bench in his ermine, and taken to prison like a
common felon.
The thunder-cloud of the Star-Chamber and the
High Commission Court had dispersed. The Puritans
and patriots breathed once more, and the great voice
of the nation, speaking at Westminster the words
which were deeds, while it quieted the cries and
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 161
groans of the oppressed country, set men's tongues
free for earnest and determined speech by every
hall hearth, and every blacksmith's forge, and ale-
house, and village-green, and place of public or
social talk throughout the country.
The blacksmith's forge in Netherby village was,
indeed, a place well known to Koger and me. Job
Forster, the smith, a brave, simple-hearted giant
from Cornwall (given to despising our inland pea-
sants, who had never seen the sea, and suspected of
being the mainstay of a little band of sectaries in
the neighbourhood), having always been Roger's
chief friend; while Eachel, his gentle, sickly, saintly
little wife (whom he cherished with a kind of timor-
ous tenderness, like something almost too small and
delicate for him to meddle with), had always given
me the child's place in her motherly heart, which no
child had been given to their house to fill. When-
ever we were missed in childhood, it was commonly
by Job Forster's forge we were sought and found.
And by this means we learned a great deal of poli-
tics from Job's point of view, as well as many mar-
vellous stories of God's providence by sea and land,
which seemed to us to show that God was as near to
those who trust Him now, as to the Israelites of old,
which, also. Job and Rachel most surely believed.
But, meantime, while the clouds over England
27(6 Draytons and the Davenauts. I. 11
162 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
seemed scattering, a lieavy cloud gathered over us
at Netherby.
The Davenant family bad come to tbe Hall for
tbe Christmas festivities. We met often during the
time they were there, more than ever before. The
ties of friendship and of neighbourhood seemed to
prevail over the party strife which had so long kept
us apart.
Hope there was, also, that those party conflicts
at last might cease with the disgrace of the hated
Lord-Lieutenant.
His sudden abandonment of the patriot side, his
rapid rise, and his lofty, imperious temper, had not
failed to make enemies even among those of his own
party. Sir Walter Davement said he had no liking
for turncoats. They always over -acted their new
part, and commonly did more to injure the party
they joined than the party they betrayed. The haughty
earl once out of the way, the king would listen to
truer men and better servants.
The Lady Lucy held in detestation the earl's
private character. The king, she said, was a high-
minded gentleman, an affectionate husband and
father — his presence and life had done much to
reform the Court; the earl was a man of commanding
ability, but his hands were not pure enough to de-
fend so lofty a cause. Better men, she thought, if
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 163
in tliemselves weaker, would yet form stronger stays
for tlie tLrone of the anointed of God. If Lord
Strafford were displaced, slie tliouglit, the best men
of all parties would unite-, would understand each
other, would understand their king, and all might
yet go well. My father, though less sanguine, was
not without hope, although on rather different
grounds. While Lady Lucy believed that Lord
Strafford's violence and evil life were a weakness to
the cause she deemed in itself sacred, my father
thought that Lord Strafford's power of character and
mind were a fatal strength to the cause he deemed
in itself evil. The earl once gone, he believed the
king would never find such another prop for his
arbitrary measures; the lesser tyrants would fall like
an arch with the key-stone out, and the king would
yield, perforce, to the just demands of the nation.
Thus it happened that for the time Lord Strafford's
imprisonment formed a bond of sympathy between
the two families, to Roger's and my great content.
Much friendly rivalry there was in the Christmas
adornment of the two transepts with wreaths of ivy
and holly, ending in a free confession of defeat on
our part, as our somewhat clumsy bunches of ever-
green stood out in contrast with the graceful wreaths
and festoons with which Lettice had made the mem-
ory of the Davenants green.
11*
164 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVEKANTS:
For a moment she enjoyed her triumph, and
then begging permission to make a little change in
our arrangements, with that quick perception of hers,
and those fairy fingers which never could touch any-
thing without weaving something of their own grace
into it, in an hour or two she had made the massive
columns and arches of our ancestral chapel light and
graceful as the most decorated monument of the
Davenants, with traceries of glossy leaves and
berries.
Lettice's birthday was on Twelfth Xight. She
was fifteen, nearly two years younger than I was,
and three than Roger.
There was great merry-making at the Hall that
day. In the morning distributings of garments to all
the maidens in the parish of Lettice's age, by her
own hands. She had some kindly or merry word
for every one, and throughout the day was the soul
of all the festivities. There was such a fulness of
life and enjoyment in her; such a power of going
out of herself altogether into the pleasures or wants
of others. She seemed to me the centre of all, just
as the sun is, by sending her sunbeams everywhere.
While every one else was full of the thought of her,
she was full only of shining into every neglected
corner and shy blossom, making every one feel glad
and cared for, down to Gammer Grindle's idiot boy.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 165
It was a wonderful joy for me to be Lettice's
friend. I bad almost as mucb deligbt in ber as Sir
Walter, wbo watcbed ber witb sucb pride; or Lady
Lucy, wbose eyes so oft moistened as they rested on
ber. She would bave it tbat Roger and I must be
at ber rigbt band in everytbing.
In tbe afternoon Harry Davenant came witb Sir
Launcelot Trevor. Harry looked ratber grave, I
tbougbt, but be was naturally tbat; and Lettice's
gaiety soon infected bim so tbat be became foremost
in tbe games, wbicb lasted until tbe sun went down,
and tbe servants and villagers dispersed to kindle up
tbe twelve bonfires. But Sir Launcelot looked
sorely out of temper. His beavy brows qnite
lowered over bis keen, dark eyes, so tbat tbey
flasbed out beneatb like tbe stormy liglit under a
tbunder-cloud. He scarcely bent to my fatber or to
any of us; and altbougb be was lavisb as ever of
compliments to Lady Lucy and Lettice, bis brow
scarcely relaxed to correspond witb tbe lip-smiles
witb wbicb be accompanied tbem.
Wben tbe sun was fairly set, tbe twelve fires
were kindled, tbis time on tbe field in front of tbe
Hall, in bonour of Lettice, instead of, as usual, on
tbe village green.
We waited to see tbem kindle iip, and tben we
left. Eoger stayed bebind us. Tbere were to be
166 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
songs and dances round tlie fires, and then feasting
in the Hall late into the night. But Roger only in-
tended to remain a little while, to see the merri-
ment begin.
I remember looking back for a last glimpse of
the fires as tliey leapt and sank, one moment light-
ing up every battlement of the turrets and every
carving of the windows with lurid light, and flashing
back from the glass so that it glowed like carbuncles ;
the next substituting for the reality their own fan-
tastic light and goblin shadows, so that not a corner or
gable of the old building looked like itself. And I
remembered afterwards that close by one of the
fires were standing Roger, and Lettice and Sir Launce-
lot, near each other; Roger piling wood on the fire
at Lettice's direction, and Sir Launcelot standing a
little apart with folded arms watching them. His
face looked red and angry. I thought it was per-
haps because of the angry glare of the flames. Yet
something made me long to turn back and bring
Roger away with us. It was impossible. But in-
voluntarily I looked back once more; the flames
leapt up at the moment, and then I saw Sir Launce-
lot and Roger as clearly as in daylight, apparently
in eager debate.
I lingered to watch them, but just then the fitful
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 167
flames fell ; I could see no more, and I had to hasten
on to follow my father and Aunt Gretel home.
Before we reached home, the clouds, which had
been threatening all day, began to fall in showers of
hail. We had not been in an hour when, as we
were sitting over the hall fire, talking cheerily over
the doings of the day, Roger suddenly entered, his
face ashen-white, his eyes like burning coals, and, in
a low voice, called my father out to speak to him
outside. For a few minutes, which seemed to me
hours, we sat in suspense, Aunt Gretel's knitting
falling on her lap, in entire disregard of consequence
to the stitches; Aunt Dorothy's spinning-wheel
whirling as if driven by the Furies. Then my
father returned alone, as pale as Roger.
He seated himself again, with his arms on his
knees and his hands over his face — an attitude I
had never seen him in before. It made him look
like an old man; and I remember noticing for the
first time that his hair was growing gray.
No one asked any questions.
At length, in a calm, low voice, my father
said, —
"Roger and Sir Launcelot Trevor have quar-
relled. Roger struck Sir Launcelot, and he fell
against one of the great logs of the bonfires. He is
168 THE DRAYTONS AND THK DAVENANTS :
wounded severely, and Eoger is going to ride to
Cambridge for a physician."
"In sucli a night!" said Aunt Gretel; "not a
star; and the hail has been driving against the panes
this half hour!"
"It is the best thing Eoger can do," said my
father, quietly.
The next minute we heard the ring of a horse's
hoofs on the pavement of the court, and then the
sound of a long gallop dying slowly away on the
road amidst the howling of the wind and the clatter-
ing of the hail.
But no one spoke until the household were
gathered for family prayer.
There was no variation in the chapter read or in
the usual words of prayer; only a tremulous depth
in my father's voice as he asked for blessings on
the son and daughter of the house.
And afterwards, as I wished him good night, he
leant his hand on my head, and said, —
"Watch and pray, Olive; watch and pray, my
child, lest ye enter into temptation."
Then I knelt down, and hid my face on his
knee, and said, —
"0 father, Roger must have been sorely pro-
voked — I am sure he was. I am sure it was not
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 169
Roger's fault — I am sure; so sure! Sir Launcelot
is so wicked; and I will never forgive him."
"Roger said it toas his fault, my poor little Olive,"
replied my father, very tenderly, "and that he will
never forgive himself. And whatever Sir Launcelot
said or did, you must forgive him, and pray that
God may forgive him; for he is very seriously hurt,
and may die."
"Roger would be sure to say that," I said. "He
is always ready to blame himself and excuse every
one else. But, father, God will not let Sir
Launcelot die! What can we do?"
"Pray! Olive," he said in a trembling voice —
"pray!" and he went to his own room.
But all night long, whenever I woke from fitful
snatches of sleep, and went to the window to look
if the storm had passed, and if Roger wei'e com-
ing, I saw the light burning in my father's
window.
The last time Aunt Gretel crept up softly be-
hind me, and, throwing her large wimple over me,
drew me gently away.
"I have kept such a poor watch for Roger!" I
said; "and see! my father's lamp is burning still.
He has been watching all night."
"There is Another watching, Olive," she said,
170 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
softly, " night and day. The Intercessor slumbers
not, nor sleeps. It is never dark now in the Holiest
Place, for he is ever there; and never silent, for he
is ever interceding."
A STOUY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 171
XI.
"When I awoke again, the cheerful stir of life
had begun within .and without the house — the
ducks splashing in the pond in the front court; the
unsuccessful swine and poultry grunting and cackling
out their bill of grievances against their stronger-
snouted or quicker-witted rivals; Tib's cheery voice
instructing her cows and calves; while the absence
of the pleasant regular beat of the flail in the barn,
where at this season they were threshing the corn,
striking steady time to all the busy irregular sounds
of animal life, and bringing them into a kind of
unity, — reminded me that it was Sunday.
All these homely, quiet sounds seemed stranger
to me than the howling of the winds, and fitful
clattering of the hail, through the night. They made
me feel impatient with the animals, and with Tib,
and with the inflexible every-day course of things.
Was not Roger — our own Roger — in agony
worse than mortal sickness; in suspense whether or
not his hand had dealt a death-blow? Were not we
in dreadful suspense whether his whole life might
172 THE DRAYIONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
not be oversliadowed from this moment as with a
curse ?
And yet the calves must be fed, and the swine
snufi" at their troughs, and grudge if they be not
satisfied, and the ducks splash and preen themselves
as if nothing was the matter.
There are many seasons in life when the quiet
flow of the stream of every-day life, as it prattles
past our door among the familiar grasses and pebbles,
falls on the heart with a sense of inflexibility more
terrible than the storm which ploughs the waves of
the Atlantic into mountains, and snaps the masts of
great ships like withered corn-stalks.
But that morning was the first on which I
learned it.
The storm had quite passed. The da^oi was
still struggling with the cold winter moonlight. Far
ofi" the gray morning shone with a steely gleam on
the creek of the Mere, where I used to sit quite still
for hours while Roger angled, holding his fish-
basket, amply rewarded at last by his dictum that
there was one little woman in the world who knew
when to hold her tongue, and by the reflected glory
of his triumph when he brought the basket of fish
to Tib for my father's supper. Only last autumn,
and now it seemed as if it had happened in another
life!
I
A STOKY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 173
Close to us, in tlie high-road, the moonlight still
glimmered on the pools.
Aunt Gretel was dressed and gone. My last
sleep had been sound. I reproached myself for my
hard-heartedness in sleeping at all.
It was still dusk enough to show the faint
red light in my father's chamber. Was he still
watching? ^
My question was answered by the sound of the
psalm coming up from the hall, where the household
were gathered for family prayer. I knelt at the
window while they sang. I heard my father's voice
leading the psalm, and Aunt Dorothy's deep second,
and Aunt Gretel's tremulous treble; but not Roger's.
It felt so strange to be listening, instead of joining
in the song. Such a thing had never happened to
me before. Aunt Gretel must have thought it good
for me to sleep on, and have crept down-stairs like
a ghost. But the feeling of being outside was ter-
rible to me that morning. It brought back my old
terror about being "on the wrong side of the tree."
But not so much for myself. For Eoger! for Roger!
What if he should be feeling left outside like this!
— outside the prayers, outside the hymns, outside
the holy family gatherings, outside the light and the
welcome! That morning I felt something of what
must be meant by the outer darkness. The dark-
174 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENAKTS :
ness outside! Even the "darkness" did not seem to
me so terrible as the being outside! For it showed there
was a within — a home; light within, miisic within,
the father's welcome within, and we ontside! Could it
be that Roger was feeling this now?
All this rushed through my heart as I knelt to
the music of the family psalm.
Then, dressing hastily, I weftit down.
"Roger has been here, Olive," said my father,
answering my looks. "He brought the chirurgeon.
to the hall, and came home an hour since, and then-
went back again to watch."
"Then Sir Launcelot is not out of danger," I said
"No," he replied; "but there is hope."
There was no morning walk for us that day
My father went to his chamber, my aunts to theirs,
and I to the chamber where the dried herbs lay,
partly because it was Roger's and my Sunday par-
liament-house, and partly because from it I could see
the towers of Davenant Hall.
In our Puritan household we were brought up
with great faith in the virtues of solitude. A very
solemn part of our ritual was, "Thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet, and shut thy door, and
pray to thy Father which is in secret." "The one
minute and unmistakable rubric," my father called
it, "in the New Testament." For he used to say,
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 175
"Not only is tlie solitary jilace tlie place for tlie
Redeemer's agonies and the apostle's bitter weeping;
it is the place of the largest assemblies. For therein,
passing the barriers of the congregation, we enter
into the assembly and Church of the first-born, and
into the temple not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens. Any religion," said he, "whose secret
springs do not exceed its surface waters, will eva-
porate in the burden and heat of the day."
We went to church as usual, and slowly and
silently we were coming away, avoiding as much as
possible the usual greetings with neighbours, and I
feeling especially anxious to escape Placidia's sym-
pathy.
But that was impossible. However, as she joined
us she looked really anxious; too anxious even to
find an appropriate text. She took my hand kindly,
and said, —
"We must hope for the best, Olive."
And there was something in the "we," and the
briefness of her words, which brought tears into my
eyes, and made me think I might still have been
keeping a hard place in my heart which would have
to be melted.
But we had only just left the churchyard, and
gone a few steps beyond the gate on the field-path
to Netherby (I walking behind the rest), when a soft
176 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
hand was laid on my slioulder, and my face was
drawn down to Lettice Davenant's kisses, as in a
low voice sLe said, —
"Oh, Olive, I am sure Sir Lancelot will get
well. My mother has been saying prayers all night.
And Roger is so good. Indeed, it was not nearly
half Roger's fault. Sir Launcelot did say terribly
provoking things about the Precisians, and hypocrisy,
and your father."
" What did he say, Lettice?" I asked passion-
ately.
"My mother says we ought to forget bitter
words," she said; "and I think we ought — at all
events, until he gets better."
"Oh, Lettice," I implored, "tell me, only me!
that I may know if he should not get better. Roger
told my father it was all his fault; but I know — I
always knew — it was not. I shall know this if you
will not tell me another word, and perhaps think
even worse things than were said."
"It was not so much the words — they were
ordinary enough — it was the tone," said she. And,
besides, it is so difficult to repeat any conversation
truly; and it was all in such a moment, I can
scarcely tell. It began about Lord Strafford, and
about Mr. Hampden and Mr. Pym being canting
hypocrites, and Mr. Cromwell being a beggarly
A STORY OF THK CIVIL WAKS. 177
brewer; and tbeu Sir Lauucelot muttered sometliing
in a whining tone about wondering that Roger's
father permitted him to indulge in such ungodly-
amusements as bonfires; and Roger said it was not
fair to attack when he knew there could be no
retort (meaning because I was there); and Sir Laun-
celot said he believed the Precisians never thought
it fair to be attacked except behind some good city-
walls. And then followed a fire of words about
cowardice, and hypocrisy, and treason; and then
something about your father ha-ving taken care to
leave the German wars in good time for his own
safety. Then I saw Roger's hand up, thrusting Sir
Launcelot away, rather than striking him, I thought.
But the next insljant Sir Launcelot lay on the
ground, with his head against a jagged log, the
other end of which was in the bonfire, and Roger
was pulling him back, and Sir Launcelot swearing
something about a 'Puritan dog,' and being 'mur-
dered.' And then I saw the blood flowing from a
wound in his head. I gave Roger my veil to staunch
it with. But it would not stop. Sir Lauucelot
fainted; and Roger told me to run to my mother.
In five minutes all the people were on the spot, and
Roger was on horseback riding ofi" for the physician.
There! I have told you all I know," she said,
"whether I ought or not. But don't tell Roger; for
The Draijtous and the Bavenauts. I. 12
178 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
I tried to comfort liim by saying liow lie bad been
provoked. But it did not comfort bim in tbe least.
He looked quite fierce at me — at me!" said little
Lettice, tbe tears overflowing, "wben be was always
so kind! And be said tbere was no excuse for
murder. He was wild witb trouble," sbe continued,
sobbing; "not a bit like bimself, Olive. And since
tbat, I cannot tell wbat to say to bim. Your ways
and ours are not exactly tbe same, you know. So
I bave been witb my motber in ber oratory. It is
so hard to understand anybody. But I bope God
understands us all. I do bope He does. My motber
could not find one of tbe cburcb prayers tbat quite
fitted; but sbe joined tM^o or tbree togetber in tbe
Collects, and tbe Visitation of tbe Sick, and tbe
Litany, wbicb seemed to say all sbe wanted wonder-
fully. I never knew bow mucb tbey meant before.
And it does seem as if God must bear; and Roger
always so good. He may say wbat be likes — always
so good, to me and to every one."
Lettice's tears opened tbe sluices of mine, and
were a great comfort; and it was a comfort, too, to
tbink of tbose dear kind voices joining in Lady
Lucy's oratory.
Wben we reacbed bomc, tbe great table was
spread in tbe ball, and tbe serving-men and maidens
were standing: round it.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 179
My father moved to the head, and asked the
blessing on the meal; then he said: —
"Friends, the hand of God is heavy on me to-
day, and you will not look that I should eat bread
while a life is in peril through deed of one who is to
me as my own soul. I might brave it out, and put
on a cheerful countenance. But I would have you
know I am humbled. The blows of an enemy we may
face as men. Beneath the rod of the Lord we must
bow like smitten children. And I would have you
know I do. Yet I cannot refrain from telling you
also that it was for bitter words against good men
that the blow was struck. So much I must say for
the boy, though God forbid I should hide the sin."
He left the hall, and every eye was moist as it
followed him.
The general judgment was anything but harsh
against Roger, as was easy to see from the few low,
broken words which interrupted the silence of that
sorrowful meal, and from the response of Tib, to
whom I secretly ventured to tell how sorely Roger
had been provoked.
"No need to tell me, Mistress Olive," said she.
"That Sir Launcelot is enough to rouse a saint, his
groom told my Margery's Dickon. And they may
say what they like, but I wouldn't give a farthing
for any saint that can't be roused."
12*
180 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVEXANTS:
It was not tlie public verdict Roger bad to fear.
Aunt Dorotby took my fatber's place at tbe bead of
tbe table, ber face wbite and rigid, carving tbe
meat, but eating not a morsel, nor uttering a word.
Aunt Gretel moved about on one pretence and
anotber, bolding balf-wbispered discourse witb tbe
elder servants of tbe house, from tbe broken snatcbes
of wbicb I gathered tbat slie fell into great historical
difficulties in her double anxiety to say nothing
harsh of the wounded gentleman, and at the same
time to prove that Roger bad meant no harm. And
I, meantime, could scarce have sat through that
terrible meal at all, but for Roger's stag-hound Lion,
who nestled in close to me, pressing bis great head
under my hand, and calling my attention, by a soft
moan, and from time to time secretly relieving me
of the food I could not touch, bolting it in a sur-
reptitious manner, regardless of consequences, wbicb
said as plainly as possible, "Thou and I understand
each other. Our hearts are in the same place. I
eat, not because I care a straw about it, but to
please thee and help /«'/«." Only once, when my
tears fell fast on his nose, as I stooped over him to
hide them, his feelings betrayed him, and his great
paws appeared for a moment on tbe clean Sabbath
cloth, as with an inquiring whine he started up and
tried to lick my face, which I supposed was his way
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 181
of figuratively wiping away my tears. But at the
gentlest toucli on Ms paws he subsided, casting one
anxious glance at Aunt Dorothy, who, however,
neither saw him nor the brown footprints on the
table-cloth. Always afterwards he maintained his
gentleman-like reserve, limiting all further expression
of his feelings to spasmodic movements of his tail,
and to his great soft wistful eyes, which he never
took off from me. For dogs always know when
anything is the matter. Their misfortune is, they
can never make out what it is. Roger's ancient
foe, the old gray cat, meantime made secretly off
with a piece of meat which Lion had dropped.
And I caught sight of her slowly luxuriating over
it in a corner, entirely regardless of the family
circumstances.
Every most trivial incident in that day glows as
vividly and distinctly in my memory, in the fire of
the passion that burned through it all, as every de-
tail of the carving of Davenant Hall in the flames of
the twelve bonfires.
The meal passed in a silence so deep that every
whisper of Aunt Gretel's, and every moan of Lion's,
were clearly heard. But afterwards the men slunk
hastily away to the farm-yard and stables, and Tib
with bones and fragments to her hens and pigs, and
.the maidens began to clear away the wooden trench-
182 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
ers and our pewter dishes, the clatter and rattle
sounding singularly noisy without the cheerful talk
which generally accompanied it.
Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Gretel, and I, went, at
his summons, into my father's justice-room. "Where
two or three are gathered together," said he; and
without further j)reamhle we all knelt down, while
he prayed, in few words and quiet (to the ear).
For he seemed to feel the great, loving, omnipotent
Presence; not far off, where cries only could reach,
but near, close, overshadowing, indwelling — too
near almost for speech. And we felt the same.
When he ceased, it was some minutes before we
rose. And the silence fell on me like an answer,
like an "Amen," like one of those "Verilys" which
shine through so many of the Gospel words, and
illumine them so that they maybe read in the dark;
in the dark, when we most need them.
Before we left, I told him of Lady Lucy and
Lettice praying the Collects for Eoger in her
oratory.
My father turned away with trembling lips to the
window. Aunt Gretel sobbed. Aunt Dorothy said,
with a faint voice, —
"God forgive me if I said anything of Lady
Lucy I should not have said."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 183
We liad not left the room when Lettice's white
palfrey flashed past the door, and in another moment
she had met, us in the porch.
"Sir Launcelot will live!" she said. "The phy-
sician says there is every hope; and he sleeps. If
he wakes better, all will be rig-ht; and Roger waits
to see, because he still fears. But I am sure all will
be well. And I could not bear you should wait-, so
my mother let me come."
In his thankfulness my father forgot the stately
courtesy with which he usually treated Lettice, and
stooping down, took her in his arms, as if she had
been me, and kissed and blessed her, and called her
"God's sweet messenger and dove of hope!" and
prayed she might be so all her life. And Aunt
Gretel disappeared to tell every one. But Aunt
Dorothy stood still where she was, and covered her
face with her hands, and wept unrestrainedly in a
way most uncommon with her.
Lettice, with her own sweet instinct when to
come and when to go, was on the steps by the door
in a moment (anticipating her groom's ready hand),
on her white pony, waving her hand to us as we
watched her in the porch, and away out of sight,
escaping our thanks, and leaving us to our hope.
Slowly the dispersed household — who had all been
invisibly bound to the centre they nevertheless would
184 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENAXTS :
not approach — gatliered in the hall fiom stall, and
shed, and field.
And then my father said, —
"Friends, God has given lis hope. Therefore
let us pray." And for a few minutes we all knelt
together while he prayed, in brief trustful words,
ending with the Lord's Prayer, in which all the
voices joined, at least all that could, for there were
many tears.
Then my father read Luther's psalm, "God is
our refuge and strength, a very present help in time
of trouble."
And we felt it was true. And so the service
ended. And once more the household scattered.
For Roger had yet to return, and we all felt a
family-gathering would be a welcome he could ill
bear. So Aunt Dorothy went to her chamber, and
Aunt Gretel to her German hymn-book by the fire-
side, and I to my place at her feet, and then to
watch from the porch. For my father went out to
meet Roger.
And of that meeting neither of them ever spoke.
They came back together, my father's hand on
Roger's shoulder, half as on a child's for tenderness,
half as an old man's on a son's for support.
"Sir Launcelot is out of danger!" said my father,
when he came into the hall.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 185
Roger kissed me and Aunt Gri*etel as he passed,
and took my hand and tried to say something; but
said nothing, only let me sob a minute on his shoulder,
and then went up to his chamber.
We were used rather to repress than to give
utterance to feeling in our Puritan households. And
Lion was the only person who made much show of
what he felt, twisting and twining and fondling round
Roger in a way very unsuited to his giant bulk. We
heard him pacing after Roger to the foot of the great
staircase. Up-stairs no dog under Aunt Dorothy's
rule would venture, under the strongest excitement;
so after lying expectant at its foot for some time,
Lion returned to express his satisfaction in a more
composed manner to me.
At family-prayer that night, my father made one
brief allusion of fervent thankfulness to the mercy
of the day. More neither he nor Roger could have
borne.
And so that Sabbath of unrest ended. To us,
but not to Roger; although I only learned this long
afterwards. For no lamp marked the watch of agony
he kept that night. And on his haggard counte-
nance, when he came down the next morning, no
one dared question nor comment.
For' while others rejoiced in the deliverance, he
writhed in agony under the burden and in the coils
186 THE DRAYTONS AMD THE DAVENANTS:
of his sin. The accident of the log being at hand,
that might have made it murder; and the other ac-
cident, that the wound had not been an inch nearer
the temple or a barley-corn deeper, made absolutely
no difference in the burden that weighed on him.
If Sir Launcelot had died, the punishment would
have been heavier; but not the remorse. And al-
though his living was the deepest cause of thank-
fulness, yet it was no lightening of the sin. For it
was the fountain of the sin, within, that was Roger's
misery; the fountain deep in the heart.
Now he began fo feel the meaning of the words,
"Out of the heart." Now the old difficulties he and
I had discussed in the apple-tree and in the herb-
chamber rushed back on him. Now he began to feel
that it was no mere entertaining question in meta-
physical dynamics whether he was a free agent
or not, but a question of moral and eternal life or
death.
Could he have resisted the temptation to strike
Sir Launcelot? Or could he not? His hand had
stirred to deal that blow, at the bidding of the bitter
anger in his heart, as instinctively and almost as
unconsciously as the indignant blood had rushed to
the cheek. What had stirred the sudden movement
of anger in his heart? Far bitterer words from the
lips of a stranger had not moved him as those mocking
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 187
tones of Sir Launcelot's. The strength of that fatal
impulse was but the accumulated force of the irrita-
tion of countless petty provocations, not retaliated
outwardly, but suffered to ferment in the heart. Nor
was that last sin altogether rooted in sin. Roger's
search into his own heart was made with too intense
a desire of being true to himself and to God for him
to fall into that blind passion of self-accusing. It
had been more than half-rooted in justice, just anger
against injustice, generous indignation against un-
generous slander, truth revolting against ftilsehood.
And so gradual (and in part so just) had been the
growth of deep-rooted detestation of Sir Launcelot's
character, that the last act — which might have
been crime in the eyes of man, which was crime in
the eyes of God, whose judgm-ent is not measured
by consequences — had become almost as irresistible
and instinctive as the movement of the eyelid to
sweep a grain of dust from the eye.
When, then, could he have begun to resist?
Wlien would it have been possible to stem the little
stream which had swollen into a torrent that had all
but swept his life into ruin? Where was the point
where sin and virtue, hatred which leads to murder,
and justice which is the foundation of all virtue,
began to intertwine until they were ravelled inex-
tricably beyond his power to sever or distinguish?
188 TKE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Had there ever been sucli a point? Must not all,
he being as he was by nature, and things being as
they were, and Sir Launcelot being as he was, have
necessarily gone on as it had, and led to the result
it led to?
But here came in the low, inextinguishable voice
of conscience, —
"This anguish is no fruit of inevitable necessity.
It was sia — it was sin. I have sinned." And
then, —
"I have sinned, because there is sin in me. Sin
in me; no mere detached faults, no isolated wrong
acts, but a fountain of evil within me, from which
every evil thing proceeds. Out of the heart — out
of the heart; not from without, not something merely
in me. It is / myself that am sinful, that have
sinned. This one evil thing, which, unlike all other
seemingly evil things — storms or frosts, or corrup-
tion and death itself — never produces good frviit,
but only evil fruit, is springing in an inexhaustible
flow from the depths of my inmost being.
"Free? I am not free! I am in bondage. I
am a slave. I am tied and bound. Yet this bon-
dage is no excuse; it is the very essence of my sin.
I cannot explain it; but I feel it. I feel it in this
anguish which I cannot escape any more than we
can escape from anguish in the bones by writhing.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAllS. 189
For this is not tlie anguish of blows or of wounds,
but of disease within , growing from my inmost heart,
preying on my inmost life. God, I have sinned,
I am a sinful man. In me is no help. Is there
none in the universe, none in Thee?"
Then from the depth of the anguish came the
relief. The thought flashed through him, — •
"Unless one worse than the worst conception
man ever formed of the devil is the Maker of man
and the Omnipotent Euler of the world, it is im-
j^ossible that we should be so powerless in ourselves
to overcome sin , and so agonized in remorse for it,
and yet that there should be no deliverance."
That thought made a lull in his anguish for a
time, a silence; that thought, and the mere exhaustion
of the conflict. For his thoughts had whirled him
round until thought, with the mere rapidity of motion,
became imperceptible. In the centre of the whirl-
wind there was stillness, and therein he lay prostrate,
dumb, and exhausted.
But not alone.
On his mind, wearied out with vain thinking, on
his heart, numb with suffering, fell in the pause of
the storm old sweet, familiar words, still small voices,
soft echoes of sacred hymns learned in childhood;
these old familiar, sim23le words, wherewith the Spirit,
moving like a dove on the face of the waters, knows
190 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVEXANTS:
how to win entrance into souls tempest-tossed, when
new words, though wise and deep as an archangel's,
would only sweep past its closed doors undistinguished
from the wail of the winds , or the raging of the seas
on which it tosses.
Old familiar words, —
"Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee."
Words of healing to so many!
Forgiveness; not as a far-oflF result of a life of
expiation, but free, complete, present. Peace; not
after years of doubtful conflict, but now, to strengthen
for the conflict. Yet these were not the words he
most wanted then. It was not so much that guilt
pressed on him as a burden, as that sin bound him like
a chain. Not peace he most wanted, but power;
freedom to fight, jpower to overcome. It seemed to
him as if what he longed for was not so much "Go
in peace," as "Come! and I will chasten thee, smite
thee low, humble thee in the dust; but make thee
whole."
Not soft words of comfort, but strong words of
hope and promise, were what he needed, aud they
did not seem to come.
He crept out of the house before dawn, to ob-
tain tidings at the Hall of Sir Launcelot, and to
quiet the restlessness of his heart by outward move-
ment.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 191
On Lis way lie passed the forge where Job Forster,
the blacksmith, lived alone with his wife at the edge
of the village opposite to ours, on the way to the
Hall.
There was a light in Job's window; a strange
sight in his orderly and childless home. The red
glare it cast across the road was struggling with the
growing dawn. As Roger approached it was put out;
and just when he reached the door it was opened, and
Job's tall figure issued forth.
Job strode forward and grasped Roger's hand.
"Thee had best not be roaming about the country
by theeself in the dark like a ghost," said he. "It's
wisht!"
"Is anything the matter?" asked Roger, diverting
the conversation from himself.
"There's nought the matter with us," said Job.
"There was a light in your window, so I thought
Rachel might be ill," said Roger.
"There's nought ailing with us," repeated Job;
and after some hesitation he added, "we were but
thinking of thee."
"You used not to need a lamp to think by," said
Roger, touched more than he liked to show.
"No, nor to pray by," said Job. "But we
wanted a promise, she and I." (Job seldom called
his wife anything but she) "We wanted a promise,
192 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
master, for tbee. For sLe thought the devil would
be sure to be busy with thee just now , and so
did I."
"Did you find one?" asked Roger.
"They are as plenty as the stars," said Job, "but
we couldn't light on the one that would fit. And
it's bad work hammering them promises to fit, if they
don't go right at first."
"As many as the stars, and not one that fits me!"
said Eoger, unintentionally betraying the struggles
of the night. "Peace, and pardon, and everything
every one wants, but not what I want. You found
none. Job? Then, of course, there was nothing more
to be done. You and Rachel wouldn't give in
easily."
"Well, Master Roger," said Job, "we didn't.
But we came to a stand, and for a while gave up
looking altogether. And I sat down on one edge of
the bed and she on the other, and we said nothing.
But she wept nigh as bitter as Esau; for she ever
had a tender heart for thee, having none of her own,
and thee no mother. When all at once she flashed
up through her tears, and said, 'Why, Job, we've
gone a-hunting for a promise, and we've got them
all to our hand. All in Him! Yea and amen, in
Him! We've forgotten the blessed Lord!' Then it
struck me all of a heap what fools we were; and I
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 193
could have laughed for gladness, but that she might
have thought I'd goue mazed. So I only said, 'Why,
child, here we've been chattering like cranes, as if
we'd been all in the twilight, like poor old Hezekiah.
We've been hunting for the promises, and we've got
the Gift! We've been groping for words, and we've
got the Word.' So we knelt down again, and begged
hard of the Lord to mind how he was tempted
and forsaken, and to mind thee, Master Roger, and
help thee any way He could. And we rose up won-
derful lightened, she and I. And then the promises
came falling about us as thick as hail; and upper-
most of them all, 'If the Son shall make you free,
you shall be free indeed;' 'Eeconciled to God by
His death; saved by His life;' and, 'I am come that
they might have life!' "
"Job," said Roger, "I think that will do; I think
that will fit me."
"Maybe, Master Roger," said Job. "They're
mighty words. But, please God, thee and she and
I never forget what we learnt to-night. Words are
not so strong always the thousandth time as the first.
But His voice goes deeper every time we hearken to
it. And every sore needs a fresh salve. But His
touch is a salve for all sores. Never you be such a
fool as we were, Master Roger. Never you go creep-
ing back into the dark hunting for a promise, and
The Draijtons and the Davcnanis. I. . 1«^
194 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
forget that they are all, yea and amen, in the Lord.
No more ifs, or maybe's, or perad venture's, but
yea and amen in Him for us all for ever."
Eoger grasped Job's hand in silence, and went
on to hear tidings of Sir Launcelot.
The night had been quiet; the fever had sub-
sided, and the danger was over. And Roger came
back to his chamber at Netherby to give thanks to
God: for danger averted from others, for a curse
averted from himself, but above all, for the glorious
promise of freedom now and for ever — freedom to
overcome sin, freedom to serve God. Freedom in
the liberating Saviour, life in the Life, sonship in the
Son, now and for ever.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 195
xn.
The various streams of the various lives which
had been flooded into one by the common anxiety
about Roger and Sir Launcelot soon shrank back into
their various separate channels.
Ah! if we could all keep at the point, "/ ivill
arise ^'' or, better still, at the place where the Father
meets us, how good, and lowly, and tender-hearted
we should be! No, ''''Thou never gavest me a kid;''''
no, ''''This thy son, which hath devoured thy stibstance!''''
Strange that the memory of such moments (and what
Christian life can be without such?) should not keep
the heart ever broken and open. The best way to-
wards this, no doubt, is to have such an arising and
such an embracing every day we live. I am sure
we need it. However, we did not exactly do this
at that time at Nethei'by.
Aunt Dorothy, on thinking matters over with her
"sober judgment," thought it a duty to warn us
against the "spirit of bondage," which, with all her
sweetness, had restrained poor Lady Lucy's prayers
to the limits of the Prayer-book. Cousin Placidia,
13*
196 THE DRATTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
the immediate anxiety having subsided, could not
but feel that Roger's vehemence had added another
step to the distance which already separated them.
Once on that Pharisaic height, to which, alas! we so
easily rise without any trouble of climbing, being
puffed up thither by windy substances within and
without, other people's falls necessarily increase our
comparative elevation above them; and whether this
is caused by their descent or by our ascent is difficult
to determine; just as in the case of one boat passing
another, it is difficult by the mere sense of sight to
ascertain which is moving. Not that Placidia asserted
this conscious superiority by reproaches. Did she
need to descend to speech? Was not her life a re-
proach? That placid life, unbroken by any move-
ment deeper than the soft ripples of an approving
conscience; or a calm disajDproval of any one at-
tempting an encroachment on her rights — which,
of course, she never permitted. Had she not heard
of Archbishop Laud's cruelties to the three gentle-
men in the pillory with no further emotion than a
gentle regret that the three gentlemen could not have
held their tongues? Had she not, on the other hand,
heard the tidings of Lord Strafford's arrest, and the
destruction of the Star-Chamber Court, with no more
vehement feeling than a remark on the vanity of
human greatness, and a gentle hope that it might
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 197
lead to the abolition of the vei'y inconvenient mono-
polies on pepper and soap?
Had sLe not always warned Roger and me against
severity on Sir Launcelot? Had she not even gone
the length of pronouncing him a very fine gentle-
man? And what could be more striking ' than the
subsequent justification of her warnings by the re-
vengeful act to which Roger had been betrayed?
Under all these circumstances, Placidia's for-
bearance must have seemed to herself remarkable.
She uttered no rebuke, she pointed no moral, by
reminding us of her prophetical sayings. She merely
towered above us on her serene heights a little higher,
a little more serene — a very little — than before.
And she called me "Olive, my dear," and Roger
"poor Roger." But that was partly, no doubt, on
account of her being married.
Roger bore her superiority most meekly. In-
deed, I believe he felt it as much as she did. For
Roger did remain at that point of penitence and par-
don where the heart keeps sweet, and lowly, and
tender. Which, most certainly, I very often did not.
For Placidia's condescension, especially to Roger,
chafed me often past endurance.
Only once I remember his being roused.
She had been saying (I forget in what connection)
that she hoped Roger would not be too much cast
198 THE DRAYT0N3 AND THE DAVENANTS:
down. "It was never too late to turn over a new
leaf; and then there was the consoling example of
the Apostle Peter. There was reason to believe that
the Apostle Peter was a wiser and better man all
his life from his terrible fall. And we know that
all things work for good," said she, "to them that
are called."
Then Roger, sitting at the other end of the hall
cleaning his gun, as we believed out of hearing, sud-
denly rose, and coming to where we were sitting,
stood before Placidia with compressed lips and arms
folded tightly on his breast.
"Cousin Placidia," he said, "never, never say
that again. St. Peter was not wiser and better, or
even humbler, for denying Christ. No doubt he
was wiser, and better, and tenderer for that look, for
ever and ever; and better for the bitter weeping;
but not for the denial, not for the sin."
Said my father, who came in behind Roger as
he spoke, laying his hand on Roger's shoulder, —
"True, Roger, true; but though our sin can
never work for our good, the memory of sin may;
and at any point in the lowest depths where we turn
our back on the husks and our face to the Father's
house, God will meet us, and from that moment
make the consequences, bitter as they may be, begin
to work for good to us."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 199
"To us! father, to us!" said Eoger; "but to
others — how to others? To those our misdoing
may have misled or confirmed in evil? We may
stop a rotk hurled down a precipice. But who can
stop all it has set in motion, or undo the ruin it has
wrought in its way?"
'"'' Nothif.g works for good," said my father mourn-
fully, "to "ihose whose faces are turned from God.
But He can help us , and will , if we set our whole
hearts to it to counter- work the evil we have
wrought. Coiiuter-work , I say, not undo; for to
undo a deed done is impossible, even to Omni-
potence. And that makes sin the one terrible and
unalterably evil and sorrowful thing in the world,
and the only one.'
The words fell heavily on my heart. Was this
the gospel? I thougit. Evil never, never to be un-
done; sin never to be the same as if it had not been?
Placidia said no morv until Eoger and my father
went out on the farm together, and we were left
alone with Aunt Gretel, and then she observed, in
her deliberate way, with aslow shake of her head, —
"I hope Cousin Eoger is not still in the dark.
I trust he understands the gispel — "
"What do you mean by the gospel, Placidia?"
said I, half roused on Eoge's account and half
troubled on my own.
200 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Placiclia, always ready (at that time) with a theo-
logical definition, neatly folded and packed, entered
into a disquisition of some length as to what she
understood by "the gospel." In a deliberate and
business-like manner she undertook to explain the
purposes of the Almighty from the beginning, as if
she had, in some inexplicable way, been in the con-
fidence of Heaven before the beginning, and com-
prehended not only all the purposes of the Eternal,
but the reasons on which these purposes vere founded.
The effect produced on my mind was as if the whole
life-giving stream of redeeming love flowing fi-om
the glorious unity of the living God, the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit, had be^n frozen into a
rigid contract between certain high sovereign powers
for the purchase of a certain imeritance for their
own use, in which the utmost cire was taken on all
sides that the quantity paid ind the quantity re-
ceived should be precisely eqiivalent. It was as if
the whole living, breathing »vorld, with its infinite
blue heavens , its abounding rivers , its waving corn-
fields, its heaving seas, aid all the living creatures
therein, had been shriv(iled into a map of estates,
in which nothing was of importance but the dividing
lines. These "dividing lines" of her system might,
for aught I knew, be correct enough, might be those
of the Bible itself; K^t the awful Omnipresence, the
A STORY Oi'' THE CIVIL WARS. 201
real holy iuclignation against wrong, the love, the
life, the yearning, pitying, repenting, immutably just,
yet tenderly forgiving heart which beats in every
page of the Bible, had vanished altogether. All the
while she spoke, as it were in spite of myself,
the words kept running through my head, "They
that make them are like unto them."
At the close she said, turning to Aunt Gretel, —
"I think I have stated the gospel clearly. I only
hope Cousin Roger understands it."
"I am sure I do not know, my dear," said Aunt
Gretel (for Aunt Gretel, being always afraid of in
some way compromising Dr. Luther by any confu-
sion in her theological statements, seldom ventured
out of the text of Scripture). "I am sure, my dear,
I do not know. I am no theologian. And it is a
blessing that the Holy Scriptures provide what
Dr. Luther calls a gospel in miniature for those who
are no theologians — 'God so loved the world, that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever be-
lieveth in Him should not perish, but have ever-
lasting life.' That is my gospel, my dear. It is
shorter, you see, than yours, and I think rather
better news; especially for the wandering sheep and
prodigal sons, and all the people outside, and for
those who, like me, trust they have come back, but
still feel, as I do, very apt to go wrong again."
202 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"Mr. Nicliolls always says I have rather a re-
markably clear head for theology," said Placidia.
"But gifts difter, and we have none of us anything
to be proud of."
"No doubt, my dear," said Aunt Gretel. "At
least I am sure I have not. But I cannot say I
think the punishment, or at least the sad conse-
c[uences of sin are all exactly taken away for us, at
least in this life. For instance, there is Gammer
Grindle's grandchild, poor Cicely, as pretty a girl as
ever danced round the May-pole, that people say
Sir Lauucelot Trevor tempted away to London, and
left to no one knows what misery there. (If it was
not Sir Launcelot, may I be forgiven for joining in
an unjust accusation; but he was seen speaking to
her the evening before she left.) Now, if Sir Lauuce-
lot were to repent, as I pray he may, that would
not bring back the lost innocence to little Cicely,
nor do I see how the thought of her could ever
bring anything but a bitter agony of remorse to
him."
("Ah," interposed Aunt Dorothy, who had joined
us, '"''I did speak my mind, I am thankful to say,
about those May-poles.")
"What is forgiveness, then?" resumed Placidia.
"And what is the good of being religious, if we are
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 203
to be punished just tlie same as if we were uot for-
given?"
"The blessing of forgiveness," said Aunt Do-
rothy, "is leing forgiven; and the good of being
godly is, I should think, being godly."
"Forgiveness, my dear," added Aunt Gretel —
"what is forgiveness? It is welcome back to the
Father's heart. It is the curse borne for us, and
taken from us out of everything — out of death it-
self. It is God with us against all our sins, God
for us against all our real foes. It is the broken
link re-knit between us and God. It is the link
broken between us and sin. What would you have
better? what could you have more? Once on the
Father's heart, can we not well leave it to Him to
decide what pain we can be spared, and what we
can not be spared, without so much the more sin,
which is so infinitely worse than any pain?"
"My theology," Aunt Dorothy continued, "is the
doctrine Nathan taught when he said to David, 'The
Lord hath put away thy sin, but the child shall die:'
and to the Apostle Paul when he wrote, ' God is not
mocked; whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap:' the theology our Puritan fathers taught us —
no gospel of tolerating sin, but of forgiving and
destroying it. 'Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law, being made a curse for us.' He
204 THE DRAVXOKS AND THK DAVENANTS:
has brought i;s under the rod of the covenant, hav-
ing Himself 'learned obedience through the things
which He suflered.' There is as much mercy and
as much justice in one as in the other. 1 hope, my
dear," she concluded, "you and Mr. Nicholls do in-
deed understand the gospel. But, I confess, people
who get into the covenant so very easily do puzzle
me. They say the anguish all but cost Dr. Luther
his life, and Mr. Cromwell his reason."
Placidia, from her double height of spiritual
serenity and semi-clerical dignity, looked mildly
down on Aunt Dorothy's suggestions.
"Aunt Dorothy," said she, "I have often thought
you scarcely comprehend Mr. Nicholls and me. But
it is written, 'Woe unto you when all men speak
well of you.' And as to Cousin Roger's Gospel, I
should call it simply the Law."
Soon after, Placidia rose to leave. But as she
was putting on her mufflers, she remarked , as if the
thought had just occurred to her, —
"Aunt Dorothy, those three beautiful cows Uncle
Drayton gave me, I am a little anxious about them.
The glebe farm is on high ground, and the grass is
not so rich as they have been used to; and I was
saying to Mr. Nicholls yesterday morning that I was
sure Uncle Drayton would be quite distressed if he
A STORY OF Tlin CIVIL WAKS. 205
saw Low mucli less yellow and ricli tlie butter was
tban it used to be. And Mr. Nicholls said be quite
felt witli me. And Uncle Dray ton is always so kind.
So I said I tbougbt I bad better be quite frank witb
Uncle Drayton. You know I always ^m frank, and
speak out wbat I tbink. It is no merit in me. It
is my nature, and I cannot belp it. And Mr. Nicbolls
said be tbougbt I bad.. And yesterday evening it
bappened tbat we were passing tbe meadow by tbe
Mere, and tbere were no cattle on it. And I said to
Mr. Nicbolls at once, wbat a pity tbat beautiful grass
sbould run to seed, and our butter be sucb a poor
colour. And Mr. Nicbolls saw it at once. And be
advised me — ■ or I suggested and be approved of it,
I cannot be certain wbicb (and I am always so anx-
ious to report everytbiug exactly as it bappened) —
at once to go to Uncle Drayton and ask bim if be
would allow our tbree cows just to stand for a little
wbile in tbat meadow, wbile tbere are no otber
cattle to put in it, just to prevent tbe pasture run-
ning to waste, wbicb I know would be quite a trouble
to Uncle Drayton if be tbougbt of it; only no one
can be in every place at once, and no doubt be bad
forgotten it."
" Very few people's eyes can be in every place
at once, certainly, Placidia," said Aunt Dorotby witb
point. "But it so bappens tbat your uncle bad not
206 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
forgotten that meadow. And this morning Bob drove
all our cows there."
"Oh," said Placidia, "that is quite enough. I
only felt naturally anxious that nothing should he
wasted, especially when we happened to be wanting
it. But, of course, a poor parson's wife cannot ex-
pect such butter as you have at Netherby, only I
always remember the 'twelve baskets,' and how im-
portant it is 'nothing should be lost,' and the vir-
tuous woman at the end of the Proverbs. I shall
always have reason to be grateful to you. Aunt
Dorothy, for making me learn so much Scripture."
"Thank you, my dear," said Aunt Dorothy,
"you always had an excellent memory. But it is
very important with the Holy Scriptures, at least
the English version, not to read them from right to
left."
So Cousin Placidia departed, leaving Aunt Do-
rothy with a comfortable sense of having defeated
a plot.
But half an hour afterwards my father came in.
"Poor Placidia," said he; "I met her on her
way home, and I really was quite touched by her
gratitude for those few cows I gave her, and also by
the feeling she expressed about Roger. It seems the
glebe pasture does not agree with the beasts as well
as ours, and she had been rather troubled about the
A STORY OF THE CIVIL AVARS. 207
butter, but had not liked to speak of it, especially
when we were in such anxiety about Roger. It really
shows more delicacy of feeling than I thought Placidia
possessed, poor child. And it shows how careful we
ought to be not to form uncharitable judgments. So
I ordered Bob to put those three cows with ours in
the Mere meadow for a little while."
"Did Placidia mention the Mere meadow?" said
Aunt Dorothy.
"Well, I cannot be sure, but I think she did;
and I think it was a very sensible notion."
"What did Bob say?" said Aunt Dorothy grimly.
"Bob spoke rather sharply," said my father; "he
is apt to be very free-spoken at times. He said he
had like to look well to our pastures if we were to
give change of air to all Mistress Nicholls' cattle. It
was not likely. Bob thought, they would be in any
hurry to change back again."
"Well, there are men," murmured Aunt Dorothy,
"who are as harmless as doves, and there are women
who are as wise as serpents. And the less the two
meet the better. I don't care a rush who feeds
Placidia's cows; but it is almost more than I can
bear that she thinks no one sees through her schemes."
But Placidia had triumphed. And the parsonage
cows never needed any further change of residence.
It irks me somewhat to intertwine these coarse,
208 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
unlovely threads with the story of those so dear to
me; but the whole would drop into unmeaningness
without them. Placidia and Mr. Xicholls made many
a calumny of the enemy's comprehensible to me.
For in later days it became the fashion to assert that
characters of that stamp formed the staple of our
Commonwealth men and women. Characters of this
stamp winNaseby and Worcester! save the persecuted
Vaudois! make England the reverence of the world!
conceive the "Pilgrim's Progress," the "Axeopagitica,"
and the "Living Temple!" sacrifice two thousand
livings for conscience' .sake.
No! Pharisees, doubtless, there were among us,
as, alas, doubtless there is the root of Pharisaism
within us. But they were of the make of Saul, the
disciple of Gamaliel, not of those who tithed the
"mint, anise, and cummin."
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 209
xin.
At first it seemed to me that Placidia's "Gospel"
was more likely to be fulfilled in Roger's case tlian
his own forebodings.
Good seemed to come out of that hasty act of
his rather than evil. The feeling he, usually so self-
repressing, had shown about Sir Launcelot, revealed
him in a new light to Lady Lucy.
"I thought him rather stony, I must confess,"
she said; "but now I see it was only a little of your
Puritan ice, if I may say so without ofi"ence-, and
that there is an ocean of feeling below. My dear,
now all has ended well, he really must not take it
so much to heart. He has grown too grave. We
cannot have precisely the same standard for young
men, with all their temptations and strong passions,
as for sweet innocent girls sheltered tenderly in
homes, with our softer natures. I should always
wish to be severe to myself But young men — ah,
my child, the king is a good man; but if you had
seen a little even of our Court, you would think
Roger an angel."
Compared with Sir Launcelot, I most sincerely
The DrwjUns and the Davenaiits. I. 14:
210 THE DRAYTON'S AND THE DAVENANTS:
believed lie was. But this double standard was un-
known in our Puritan bome. One law of righteous-
ness, and purity, and goodness we knew, and only
one, for man and woman. And in this I learned to
think Aunt Dorothy's grimmest sternness more pitiful
than Lady Lucy's pity. I do not wish to set down
what seemed to me Lady Lucy's mistakes to any
sect or any doctrine. In theory all Christian sects
are agreed as to the moral standard. But I believe
in my heart it was the high moral standard set up
in those days, chiefly (never only) in our Puritan
homes, which will be the salvation of England, if
ever that pest-house called the Court is to be cleansed,
and if England ever is to be saved.
Lady Lucy's religion was one of tender, devo-
tional emotions, minute ceremonial, and gorgeous
ritual. When braced up by Christian principle, it
was unspeakably beautiful and attractive. The Puritan
religion was one of principle and doctrine. When
inspired by divine love, it was gloriously deep and
strong.
Meantime, with Sir Walter and his boys, Roger
had manifestly risen many degrees by his "spirited
conduct." Sir Launcelot's jests, they admitted, could
bite, and it was just as well he should have a lesson,
though rather a severe one.
Sir Launcelot himself, moreover, took a far dif-
A STORY OF THB CIVIL WARS. 211
ferent demeanour towards Roger. "Saints with that
amount of fire in tlieir temper," be observed, "migbt
be dangerous, but were certainly not despicable."
■ And as to Lettice, whose moral code was chival-
rous rather than scriptural, and to whom generosity-
was a far more admiraole virtue than justice, and
honour a more glorious thing than duty, she said
candidly she was delighted Roger had lost his tem-
per for once, just to show every one how much heart
and spirit he had.
"You and I knew what he was, Olive," said she;
"but I wanted the rest to feel it too."
And yet there was something lost. Slowly I grew
to see and feel it.
Firstly, in the relative position of Roger and Sir
Launcelot. Deeds of violence inevitably place the
one who does them morally below the one who
suffers. There had been a real honour to Roger in
Sir Launcelot's previous mockery; there was a real
dishonour in the assumption he now made that Roger
stood on his own level. Moreover, Roger's own
generous self-reproach deprived him of the power of
retort.
And secondly (but chiefly), in Lettice's altered
feeling about Sir Launcelot. Roger never spoke of
him; but now that he had recovered, I felt that I
could not forget how, by Lettice's own account, he
14*
212 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS*.
liad provoked the blow; nor could I see tliat the fact
of his having received a blow which he had provoked
in any way made his character diflFerent from what
it had been. Many debates we had on the subject,
for we met often during those weeks — those weeks
of winter and early spring/ when the whole nation
was in suspense about Lord Strafford's trial, watch-
ing during the ploughing and sowing of the year the
solemn reaping of the harvest he had sown. One of
these debates in particular I remember, because of
the way in which it closed.
It was on Thursday, the 13th of May (1641).
We had met in the wood by the Lady Well. There
seemed a marvellous melody that day in the music
of the little spring, as it bubbled up into its stone
trough, echoing back from the stone roof of the little
sacred cell the monks had lovingly made for it seven
hundred years ago. The inscription could still be
read on the front: —
"Ut jucundas cervus undas
.Estiians desiderat,
Sic ad rivum Dei vivum
Mens fidelis properat."
Lettice and I knelt and listened to it.
"It is as if all the bells in fairy-land were ring-
ing," said she at length, softly: "only hear how the
soft peals rise and fall, and go and come, and how
A STOUY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 213
one sound drops into another, and blends with it,
and flows away and comes back, and meets the next,
until there is no following them."
"Then," said I, "there must have been choirs
and church-bells in fairy-land, for there is surely
something sad and sacred in the sound. It sounds
to me like those bells the legends tell us of, buried
beneath the sea, tolling up to us from far beneath
the dark waters of the past."
Then Lettice fastened back her long hair, and
stooped down and drank of the crystal water, bathing
her face as she drank.
"Those Israelitish soldiers understood how to
enjoy water," said she, rising from her draught.
"That is delicious!"
For we were tired and thirsty with gathering
lapfuls of the blue-bells, of which the woods were
full.
As she stood, her moist parted lips, the rich glow
on her cheeks, her eyes dancing with life, her arms
full of flowers, she said, —
"It never seems enough to look at the beautiful
world, Olive. I seem to want another sense for it.
I want to drink of it like this spring; to take it to
my heart, as I do these flowers. And I suppose that
is why I delight to gather them, just as when I was
a little child. Do you understand?"
214 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
I did; but I thought of the inscription on the
Lady Well.
"I suppose we do want to get nearer, Lettice," I
said; "we want to drink of the Fountain. We want
to rest on the Heart."
"Do you think that is what this strange unsatis-
fied longing means," said she, "which all great joys
and all very beautiful things give me?"
For a few moments she was silent. Then she
said, —
"What life there is everywhere! Everything
seems filled too full of joy, and brimming over —
the birds into songs, the fields into flowers, and the
trees into leaves, the oldest and grayest of them.
And I feel just like them all, Olive. On such a
morning one must love every one and every thing,
altogether regardless of their being lovable, just for
the sake of loving. Olive," she added, with one of
her sudden turns of thought, "to-day you must for-
give Sir Launcelot from the very bottom of your
heart, once for all."
"Oh, Lettice," said I, "I do forgive him. I
really think I did long since; at least for everything
but his forgiving Roger in that gracious way, as if
Roger had nothing to forgive him. I have forgiven
him, but I cannot think him good."
"Ungenerous!" said she, half in jest and half in
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 215
earnest; "you ought to tliiuk every one good on
such a morning as this. Besides, Sir Launcelot
always speaks so kindly and generously of you: he
says you are goodness itself."
"I cannot think what is not true, just because
the sun shines and the birds sing," said I; "and I
certainly cannot think any one good because they
call me good, or goodness itself. How can I, Lettice?
How can I believe a thing because I wish to believe
it?"
"Truth, truth!" said she, a little petulantly;
"truth and duty, right and wrong, I wish those cold
words were not so often on your lips. There are
others so much warmer and more beautiful — noble-
ness, and generosity, and loyalty and devotion; those
are things I love. Yours is a world of daylight,
Olive. I like sunshine, glowing morning and even-
ing like rubies and opals, veiling the distance at
noon with its own glorious haze. I hate always to
see everything exactly as it is, even beautiful things ;
and ugly things I never will see, if I can help it."
"I love to see everything exactly as it is," said
I; "I want, and I pray, to see everything as it is.
And in the end I am sure that is the way to see the
real beauty of everything in the world. For God
has made it, and not the devil. And therefore we
need never be afraid to look into things. And I
216 THE DRAYXONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
shall always think truth and duty the most beautiful
words in the world."
"Very pretty!" said she perversely, "and under
all those beautiful words you bury the fact that you
will never forgive poor Sir Launcelot."
"I have long forgiven him," said I; "but I can-
not think him good, if I tried for ever, until he is.
I cannot help thinking of poor little Cicely, Gammer
Grindle's grandchild, wandering lost in London."
"Hush, Olive, hush," said she passionately,
"that is ungenerous and unkind. I will not listen
to village gossip. My mother says we must not be
harsh in judging those whose temptations we cannot
estimate. But she means to do all she can in London
to help poor Cicely."
"Oh, Lettice," said I, "it is not a question of
more or less pity, but of loho needs our pity most."
"You are all alike," she rejoined; "yet I love
you all, and I love you, Olive, dearly. Without
your Puritan training, Olive, you and Roger would
have been the best people and the pleasantest in the
world; but, as my mother says, all these severe
doctrines about law, and justice, and conscience, do
make people harsh in judging others, and bitter in
resenting wi'ong."
I could say no more. She had taken refuge under
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAKS. 217
the shadow of Eoger's hasty act, and the ai'gument
was closed.
When we reached Davenant Hall an unusual
crowd was gathered at the front door — a silent
eager throng — around a horseman whose horse was
covered with foam, from the speed with which he
had come. It was Harry Davenant. And the tidings
he brought were that on yesterday morning Lord
Strafford had been beheaded on Tower Hill, a hundred
thousand people gathered there to see; but through
all the silent multitude neither sighs of sympathy nor
sounds of triumph.
The servants silently dispersed. Harry's horse
was led to the stables, and we went in with Lady
Lucy, Sir Walter, and Sir Launcelot, into the hall.
"That is what they were doing in London while
we were gathering blue-bells!" said Lettice. And
she threw her flowers on the stone floor. "I will
never gather any more."
She buried her face in her hands and burst into
tears. "Cruel, cruel," she said, "of the king, of the
queen, to let him die."
"It was the Parliament which hunted him to
death," said Harry bitterly. "And the king did try
to save him."
"The Parliament is wicked, and hated him, and
I don't care what they did," said Lettice, looking
218 THE DRATXONS AND THE DAVENANXS:
up witli a fluslied face-, "but the king, oli, motlier,
you said tte king would never let Lord Strafford
die. What is the use of being a king, if kings can
only try to do things like other jjeople? I thought
kings could do the things they thought right. He
was faithful to the king, was he not, mother?"
"A devoted servant to the king Lord Strafford
surely was," said Lady Lucy, "whether a good
counsellor or no. I did not think the king would
have given him up. Did no one plead for him?"
she asked.
"He pleaded with a wonderful eloquence for him-
self," said Harry Davenant, "that might wellnigh
have turned the heads of his bitterest enemies, and
did win the hearts of every one who heard him."
"But the king did try to save him?" said Lady
Lucy, clinging to this.
"The king called his privy council together,"
said Harry Davenant, "last Sunday, when the bill
of attainder had passed through the Lords and Com-
mons, and said he had doubts and scruples about
assenting to it, and asked their advice. Dr. Juxon,
Bishop of London, counselled him never to consent
to the shedding of what he believed innocent blood.
But the rest of the council advised him to yield. —
And the king yielded."
"Some people," he continued, "think the king
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 219
was justified by a letter the earl wrote him on the
Tuesday before, wherein he offered his life in this
world to the king with all cheerfulness; nay, even
counselled the sacrifice to reconcile him to his people,
saying, 'To a willing man there is no injury done.'"
"Oh, Harry," said Lettice, "the king could give
him up after that?''''
"It is said the earl scarcely believed it when he
heard it, and that he laid his hand on his heart and
exclaimed, 'Put not your trust in princes.'"
"And well he might!" exclaimed Lettice, her
tears dried by the fire of her indignation.
"Hush, child, hush!" said Lady Lucy.
"The king made another effort to save him,"
Harry continued; "he wrote to the Lords recommend-
ing imprisonment instead of death ; and at the end of
the letter he added a postscript: 'If he must die, it
were charity to relieve him till Saturday.'"
"A miserable, cold request!" exclaimed Lettice
vehemently; "more cruel than the sentence."
"I would have expected this from his father,"
murmured Sir "Walter, "but not from the king."
Then turning from a painful subject, he added,
"The earl died bravely, no doubt."
"As he passed the windows of the chamber where
Archbishop Laud was, he bowed to receive his bless-
ing, and he said, 'Farewell, my lord, God protect
220 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
your innocence.' He marched to the Tower Hill
more with the bearing of a general leading his army,
than a sentenced man moving to the scaffold. At
the Tower Gate the lieutenant desired him to take
coach, fearing the violence of the people, but the
earl refused: 'I dare look death in the face,' said he,
'and I hope the people do. Have you a care I do
not escape, and I care not how I die, whether by
the hand of the executioner or by the madness of
the people. If that give them better content, it is
all one to me.' And so, after protesting his inno-
cence, saying he forgave all the world, and sending
.a few affectionate words to his wife and four children,
he laid his head on the block. There was no base
triumphing in the crowd, I will say that for them;
they behaved like Englishmen. The earl fell in
silence. But in the evening the brutish populace
cried out in exultation, 'His head is off! his head
is off!' and the city was blazing with bonfires. The
people feel they have gained the first step in a vic-
toryi The Court thinks it has made the furthermost
step in concession, and that thenceforward all must
be peace. Would to heaven the king and the Court
might be right; but it is hard to say."
It was dusk before all this converse was ended
and I left the Hall. Harry Davenant persisted in
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 221
guarding me across tlie fields to Netlierby, until we
came to the high road close to the house. There he
took leave.
"My father would like to see you," I said.
"Mr. Drayton would be courteous to his mortal
enemy," said he.
"We are not enemies," I said, a little pained.
"Heaven forbid," he replied; "but I had better
not come; not to-day. The fall of the earl scarcely
means the same thing in your home as in ours."
"There will be no mean triumphing over Lord
Strafford's death at Netherby," I said, with some in-
dignation.
"There will be no low, or ungenerous, or mean
thing said by one of the Draytons ! " he said warmly.
"But I had better not see Mr. Drayton this evening."
And waving his plumed hat, he vaulted over the
stile; and I felt he was right. Looking back at the
turn leading to the house, I saw he was watching
me from the field. But as I turned the corner and
came in sight of the gables of the Manor, a fore-
boding came on me, as of siftings and severings to
come — of a few pebbles, or a few rushes, gently
giving the slightest turn to the course of two little
trickling springs, and their waters flowing, ever after,
by different banks, and falling at last into oceans
which wash the shores of opposite worlds. But not
222 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVILNANrS:
Lettice, never Lettice; tlie whole world, I tliouglit,
should be no barrier to sever us from Lettice! Nor
should all the political or ecclesiastical diflferences in
the world ever check or chill the current of our love
and reverence to all the true, and brave, and just,
and good, and godly. For politics, even ecclesias-
tical politics, are of time; but truth, and courage,
and justice, and goodness and godliness, are of
God, and are eternal.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 223
XIV.
The six months of the year 1641, from early
May till November, shine back on me beyond the
stormy years which part them from us, like a mea-
dow bright with dew and sunshine on the edge of a
dark and heaving sea. Beyond those months, in the
further distance, stretches the dim Eden of childhood,
with its legends and its mysteries, and its gates of
Paradise scarcely closed. Bordering them, on the
further side, glooms the broad shadow of Roger's
temptation and bitter repentance. On the hither
side heaves the great intervening sea of civil war.
But through all, that little sunny space beams out,
peaceful, as if no stormy waves beat against it; dis-
tinct, as if no long space of life parted it from us.
Did I say childhood was the Eden? Then youth
is the "garden planted eastward in Eden," the Para-
dise which "the Lord God plants" in the outset of
the dullest or stormiest life, where the river which
compasseth the land flows over golden sands, "and
the gold of that land is got)d." Not childhood,
surely, but early youth, "the youth of youth," is
the golden age of life. Childhood is the twilight.
224 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Youth is tlie beautiful dawn. Childhood is the dream
and the struggling out of it; youth is the conscious,
joyful waking. If childhood has its fairy robes spun
out of every gossamer, its fairy treasures in every
leaf, it has also its eerie terrors woven of the twi-
light shadows, its overwhelming torrents of sorrow
having their fountains in an April shower, as it steps
uncertainly through the unknown world. And neither
its joys, nor its sorrows, nor its terrors, nor its trea-
sures, can it utter.
Childhood is the dim Colchis where the Golden
Fleece lies hidden-, youth is the Jason that brings
thence the "Argosy." Childhood is the sweet shadowy
Hesperides, lying dreamily in the tropic sunshine,
where the golden fruit ripens silently among the
dark and glossy leaves. Youth is the Hero who
penetrates the garden and makes it alive with human
music, and wins the fruit and bears it forth into the
free wide world. If childhood is the golden age,
youth is the heroic age, when the heart beats high
^with the first consciousness of power, and the first
stir of half-conscious hopes; when the earth lies be-
fore us as a field of glorious adventure, and the
heaven spreads above us as a space for boixndless
flight; before we hafe learned how mixed earth's
armies are, how slow the conquests of truth; how
seldom we can fight any battle here without wovxnd-
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 225
ing some we would fain succour; or win any victory
in which some things, precious as those borne aloft
before us in triumph, are not trailed in the dust be-
hind us, dishonoured. and lost.
Not that the most vivid and golden hopes of
youth are delusions. God forbid that I should blas-
pheme His writing on the heart by thinking so for
an instant! It is but that the Omniscient, who
knows the glorious End that is to be, sets us in
youth on the mountain-tops to breathe the pure air
of heaven, foreshortening the intervening distance
from these heights of hope and by its sunny haze,
as eternity foreshortens it to Him; that, forgetting
the things that are behind, and overspanning the
things that are between, every brave and trusting
heart may go down into the battle-field strong in the
promise of the End , of the Triumph of Truth that
shall yet surely be, and of the Kingdom of Righte-
ousness that shall one day surely come.
Such, at least, was youth to us: to Lettice
Davenant, and Roger, and me. And, looking back,
this sunny time of youth seems all gathered up into
those six months before the beginning of the Civil
War.
For we were continually meeting through that
summer; and the land was quiet. At least so it
seemed to us at Netherby.
The DraytoHs and the Davenants. I. 15
226 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
The king had granted triennial Parliaments; had
granted that this Parliament should never be dis-
solved, like its predecessors, by his arbitrary will,
but only with its own consent; had seemed, indeed,
ready to grant anything. Strafford, the strong prop
of his despotism, had fallen; Archbishop Laud, his
instigator to all the petty in'itations of tyranny,
which had well-nigh driven the nation mad, lay
helpless in the Tower; the unjust judges, who had
decreed the evil decrees about ship-money, had fled,
disgraced, beyond the seas. What, then, might not
be hoped, if not from the king's active good- will,
at least from his passive consent? There had, in-
deed, been an attempt to bring Pym and Hampden
into the royal councils; and if this had not quite
succeeded, at least the patriot St. John was solicitor-
general.
During much of the summer, after assenting to
everything the Parliament proposed, the king so-
journed in Scotland. It was true that the reports
that reached us thence were not altogether satis-
factory. There were rumours of army plots en-
coixraged in the highest quarters; rumours of some
dark plot called "The Incident," intending treachery
against Argyle and others; of His Majesty going
with five hundred armed men to the Scottish Parlia-
ment, to the great offence of all Edinburgh, rumours
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 227
that the English Parliament, hearing of "The In-
cident," had demanded a guard against similar out-
rages, if any "flagitious persons" should attempt them.
But, for the most part, hope predominated over
fear with us at Netherby. One thing was certain:
a Parliament alive to every rumour stood on guard
for the nation at St. Stephen's, vowed together by a
solemn "Protestation" to do or suffer ought rather
than yield our ancient rights and liberties; and until
the note of warning came thence, the nation might
peacefully pursue its daily work — not asleep, in-
deed, and with arms not out of reach, but for the
present called not to contend, but to work and wait.
There was just enough of stir in the air, and of
storm in the sky, to quicken every movement with-
out impeding it; to take all languor out of leisure;
to make moments of intercourse more precious, and
friendships ripen more quickly.
We were still one nation, we owned one law,
one throne, one national council. We were still one
national Church, gathering weekly in one house of
prayer; kneeling, at least at Easter, although with
some scruples, around one Holy Table; together
confessing ourselves to have "gone astray like lost
sheep;" together giving thanks for our "creation
and redemption;" kneeling reverently, and with one
voice saying, "Our Father which art in heaven;"
15*
228 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
together standing as confessors of one Catholic faith,
and with one voice repeating the ancient creeds;
together praying (in the words ordered in King
James' reign) for our sovereign lord King Charles,
and (in the form in his own reign first appointed)
for the high court of Parliament, under him as-
sembled.
There were, indeed, words and postures and
vestments which were not to the liking of all, which
to some were signs of irritating defeat and to others
of petty triumph-, but in general — especially since
the "Book of Sports" had been silenced, and Arch-
bishop Laud had been kept quiet (and Mr. Nicholls
had forsaken his more novel practices) — there was
a strong tide of truth and devotion in the ancient
services, which swept all true and devout hearts
along with it.
And besides, there was, at this period, with some
of the Puritans, a hope of peacefully affecting some
slight further reformation, so that even Aunt Dorothy
was less controversial than usual; contenting herself
with an occasional warning against going down to
Egypt for horses, or against Achans in the camp;
and an occasional hope that, while his words were
smoother than butter, the enemy had not war in his
heart. But she did not distinctly explain whether
by these Achans and Egyptian cavalry she meant
A STOKY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 229
Mr. Nicholls, Placidia, Lady Lucy, Lettice, and the
king; or, on tlie other hand, the little band of
Separatists, or Brownists, whom we met from time
to time coming from their worship in a cottage on
the outskirts of the village, against whom she con-
sidered my father not a little remiss in his magisterial
duty. These apparently inoffensive people were sus-
pected of Anabaptist tendencies. Aunt Gretel even
associated them in her own mind with some very
dangerous characters of the same name at Munster.
It was , indeed , the utmost stretch of her toleration
to connive at our Bob and Tib's occasional attend-
ance at their assemblies; but the consideration of
Tib's discreet years, and Bob's discreet character,
and Aunt Dorothy's somewhat indiscreet zeal, had
hitherto induced her to do so, her conscience being
further fortified by my father's solemn promise to
bring these sectaries to justice if ever they showed
the slightest tendency towards polygamy or homicide.
They consisted chiefly of small freeholders and in-
dependent hand-workers — the tailor, the village
carpenter, and, at the head. Job Forster the black-
smith; Tib and Bob were, I think, the only house-
hold servants among them. They were few, poor,
and quiet, doing nothing at their meetings, it seemed,
but read the Bible, listen to one reading or explaining
it, and praying — some among them having scruples
230 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
as to whether it might not be a carnal indulgence
to sing hymns. Occasionally they were strengthened
by the visit of a preacher of their way of thinking
from Suffolk, where the sect was more numerous.
They were good to each other; not hurtful to any
one else. They would certainly, every one of them,
have died or gone into destitute exile for the minutest
scruple of their belief or disbelief, being satisfied
that every thread of the broidered work of their
tabernacle was as divinely ordered as the tables of
the law written with the finger of God. But as yet
there was nothing to show what their enthusiasm
would do when it was enkindled to action, instead
of smouldering in passive endurance; nothing to show
what germs of vigorous life lay dormant in that little
company, each holding his commission, as he be-
lieved, direct from God. Yet from these, and such
as these, at the touch of Oliver Cromwell, sprang
into life that crop of Ironsides terrible as Samsons,
chaste as Sir Galahad, unyielding as Elijah before
the threats of Jezebel, unsparing as Elijah with the
prophets of Jezebel on Carmel, which overthrew
power after power in the state, made England the
greatest power in the world; and, if the only human
hand that could command it had been immortal,
might have ruled England and the world to this day.
So many hidden germs of life lie around us un-
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 231
developed everywhere. In the primeval forests of
this, our New England, when the pines are felled,
a succession of oaks springs up self-sown in their
stead. If the pines had not been felled, what would
have become of the acorns? Would they have
perished, or waited dormant through the ages, till
their hour should come?
But I am creeping back to Roger's ancient puzzle
of Necessity, wherewith he bewildered me of old as
we sat in the apple-tree at Netherby.
And after all, however these things be, it is only
the king's ministers that are changed in the universal
government of the nations. The King never dies.
Meantime these sectaries were the only outward
schism in the unity of the Church and Nation, as
represented at Netherby. Korahs, Dathans, and
Abirams, Aunt Dorothy called them, or (when she
was most displeased) "Anabaptists," and would
(theoretically) have liked them to be made examples
of in some striking and uncomfortable way, harmless
enthusiasts, my father called them, and let them
alone; well-meaning persons with dangerous tenden-
cies. Aunt Gretel considered them, and made them
possets and broth when they were ill. In Lady
Lucy's eyes they were misguided schismatics; in Sir
Walter's, self-conceited fools; in Harry Davenant's,
vulgar fanatics. Of all our circle, I think, none
232 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
cared to find out what they really meant and wanted,
except Roger, who, especially after his great trouble,
had always the most earnest desire not to misjudge
any one; or, indeed, to judge any one as from a
judgment-seat above them. And Eoger said they
believed they had found God, and were living in
His presence, as truly as Moses, or Elijah, or any to
whom He appeared of old, which made everything
else seem to them infinitely small in comparison;
that they wanted, above all things, to do what God
commanded, whenever they knew what it was, which
made every homeliest duty on the way towards that
end seem to them part of the "service of the sanc-
tuary," any mountain of difficulty but as the small
dust of the balance; every obstacle as the chafi" be-
fore the whirlwind. Convictions which gave an in-
vincible power of endurance, and could give a
tremendous force of achievement, as events proved.
To this better estimate of them, Roger was, no
doubt, partly led by his friendship for Job Forster.
Job , indeed , through the whole of these six months,
so calm and full of hope to us at Netherby, continued
to forbode storms. "The weather was brewed," he
said, "on the hills and by the sea; and folks who
were bred on the flats, out of sight of sea and hills,
and who only kne\^ one half of the world, could not
reasonably be expected to understand the signs of
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 233
the sky. The Lord, in his belief, had plenty of
work to do on his anvil yet, before the swords were
beaten into ploughshares and the spears into pruning-
hooks. It was more likely the ploughshares would
have to be beaten into swords, and pruning-hooks
into spears."
And the village coulters, spades, and mattocks,
received from Job's hammer treatment all the more
vigorous on account of the warlike figures they sup-
plied.
Moreover, Pachel, his wife, looking out from her
chamber-window one stormy night across the Fens,
had seen wonders in the heavens, black -plumed
clouds, marshalled like armies, rolling far away to
the east, till the rising sun smote them to a blood-
red: while high above, from behind these, one white-
winged arm, as of an archangel, swept across the eye
untouched by the red glow of battle, raised majesti-
cally, as if to warn or to smite.
"There is something terrible going on some-
where," she had said, "or else something terrible to
come."
And Job, to whom Rachel's words had always a
tender sacredness in them, woven of the old reverence
of our northern race for the prophet-women; of
sacred memories of the inspired songs of Deborah
and Hannah, interpreted by his belief that the people
234 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
in the Bible were not exceptional but typical; and
of his own strong love for her — believed Rachel's
visions with entire unconsciousness how much they
were reflections of his own convictions. "How," he
would say, "could a feeble creature like her, nurtured
and cherished like a babe, and busy all her life in
nought but enduring sicknesses or doing kindnesses,
know aught of wars and battle-fields, unless it was of
the Lord?" So Job foreboded, and we hoped, and
the summer months passed on.
Scarcely a day passed on which we and the
Davenants did not meet, especially Koger, and Let-
tice, and 1; for Roger had taken his degree, and
having overworked at it, was constrained to be idle
for a while; and the boy Davenants were most of
the time in London. At church, at the Hall, at the
Manor, riding, coursing, hay-making, nutting, boat-
ing on the Mere; on rainy days, hunting out wonder-
ful old illuminated manuscripts in Sir Walter's library,
or by the organ in my father's, singing glees and
madrigals; making essays at Italian poetry, generally
resulting in translations, metrical or otherwise, by
Roger, for Lettice's benefit. Lettice reigning in all
things, by a thousand indisputable royal rights: as
pupil; as sovereign lady; as the youngest; as the
most adventurous; as the most timid; by right of
her need of care, and her clinging to protection; by
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 235
ri^ht of minority, she being one, and we two; by
right of her true constancy and her little seeming
ficklenesses; by right of her brilliant, everchanging
; beauty, and all her nameless, sweet, tyrannical, win-
ning, wilful ways; by right of all her generous self-
|i forgetfulness, and delight to give pleasure; and firstly
; and lastly, by right of the subtle power which, through
I. all these charms, stole into Roger's heart, and took
' possession of it, unchallenged and unresisted, then
and for ever.
We spoke little of politics. Lettice never had
any, except loyalty to the king; and at this time her
loyalty was sorely tried by reason of her perplexity
and distress at what seemed to her the ungenerous
desertion of Strafford in his need.
There were no forbidden topics between us.
There was one, indeed, which by tacit mutual con-
sent we always avoided, and that was all that con-
cerned Sir Launcelot Trevor. Lettice, always scent-
ing from afar the least symptom of what could pain,
never approached what had been the cause of so
much anguish to Roger; and me she never freed
from the suspicion of a certain sisterly injustice in
my sentiments towards my brother's enemy. But a
very insignificant and unnecessary chamber indeed
was this to be locked out of the palace of delights
through which we three roamed at will together.
236 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Nor can I remember one pang of vexation at my
own falling from the first place to the second in
Eoger's thoughts. If I had not loved Lettice on my
own account as I did, there was nothing in Roger's
love for her that could have sown one miserable
seed of jealousy in my heart. If he loved her most,
he was more to me than ever before. The reflection
of his tender reverence for her fell like a glory on
all women for her sake. He was more to all for
being most to her. Mean calculations of more or
less, better or best, could not enter into comparison
in affections stamped with such a sweet diversity.
All true love expands, not narrows; strengthens,
not weakens; anoints the eyes with eye-salve, not
blinds; opens the heart, and opens the world, and
transfigures the universe into an enchanted palace
and treasure-house of joys, simply by giving the key
to unlock its chambers, and the vision to see its
treasures.
This was the innermost heart of the joy of those
our halcyon days, that Roger and Lettice and I were
together. We three made for ourselves our new
Atlantis. We should have made it equally in the
dingiest street of London city. Only, there the joy
within us would have had to transform our world
into a paradise. At Netherby, riding over the fields
with the fresh air in our faces, or roaming the
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 237
I musical woods, or skimming the Mere while Roger
i! rowed, and dipping our hands in the cool waters, or
[■talking endlessly on the fragrant garden-terraces of
the manor and the hall, it had not to transform, only
i to translate.
i Outside this inner world of our own lay a bright
land friendly world all around us. First, our father,
i sweet Lady Lucy, and Aunt Gretel — scarcely in-
I deed outside , except by the fact of their not quite
I understanding what we had within, regarding us, as
; they fondly did , as dear happy children not yet out
of our paradise of childhood; next Aunt Dorothy,
Job Forster, and Rachel, guarding us as fondly,
I though anxiously , as on the unconscious eve of en-
I counter with our dragons and leviathans; and beyond,
I the village , of which we were the children ; the
I country, which was our mother; the world, of which
we were the heirs. For to us in those days there
were no harassing Philistines, no crushing Babylon;
no Egyptians behind, nor Red Sea before. The
world was to be conquered, but not as a prostrate
foe, rather as a willing tributary to Truth and Right.
The kings of Tarshish and of the isles were to bring
presents; Sheba and Seba were to offer gifts. The
wilderness and the solitary place were to be glad for
us, and the desert was to rejoice and blossom as the
rose.
238 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Meantime Lady Lucy came back to her old place
in my heart. Her sweet motherliness seemed to
brood like the wings of a dove over our whole happy
world.
Harry Davenant came more than once to the
Hall, and stayed a few days, to Lady Lucy's perfect
content, and entered into our pursuits as keenly as
any of us. Only with him there was always an
undertone of sadness, a despondency about the
country and the world, a bitterness about the times,
a slight cynicism about men and women, inevitable,
perhaps, to a noble spirit like his, which (as it seems
to me) has lost its way, and strayed into the back-
ward current, contrary to all the generous forward
movements of the age; but strongly contrasted with
the steadfast, hopeful temper, no danger could daunt
and no defeat could damp, which characterized the
nobler spirits on the patriot side. The noble Sir
Bevil Grenvill had bitter thoughts of his contem-
poraries; the generous Lord Falkland craved for
peace and welcomed death. Eliot, Pym, Hampden,
Cromwell, Milton, looked for liberty; believed in the
triumph of truth; thought England worth fighting
for, living for, if needful, dying for; they braved
death indeed like heroes, they met it like Christians,
but they did not long for it like men sick and hope-
less of the world. If God had willed it so, they had
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 239
rather have lived on, because of the great hopes that
inspired them, because they believed that not fate nor
the devil were at the heart of the world, or at the
head of the nations; but God.
Yet about such men as Harry Davenant there
was an inexpressible fascination. There is something
that irresistibly touches the heart in heroism which,
like Hector's of Troy, is nourished, not by hope,
but by duty; which sacrifices self in a cause which
it believes no courage and no sacrifice can make
victorious, and bates no jot of heart when all hope
has fled.
And to me he was always so gentle a friend.
We had so many things in common; our love for
his mother, his reverence for my father's goodness,
justice, and wisdom; his generous appreciation of
Roger; a certain protecting, shielding tenderness
we both had for Lettice, who was, indeed, a
creature so tender, and dependent, and wilful, so
likely to rush into trouble, so sure to feel it, that no
womanly heart could help feeling motherlike toward
her.
Yet there always seemed a kind of half-acknow-
ledged barrier between us, even from the first, more
distinctly acknowledged afterwards, which gave a
strange mixture of frankness and reserve, of nearness
240 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
and separation, to our intercourse; wherein, perhaps,
lay something of its charm.
And across this world of ours flashed from time
to time, during those months, lofty visions of noble-
ness and wisdom from other spheres; especially
during the last six weeks, when the Parliament was
in recess, and many a worthy head found a night's
shelter in the guest-chamber at Netherby.
Mr. Hampden was in Scotland as Parliamentary
Commissioner, keeping watch over the king; Mr.
Pym, at his lodgings in Gray's Inn Lane, keeping
guard for the nation. But Mr. Cromwell went home
in the recess to his family at Ely, and spent some
hours with us on his way back to London. He was
forty-two years old then, my father said, and his
hair was not without some tinge of gray; tall, all
but six feet in stature, and firmly knit. Many
things seemed to lie hidden in the depths of his
grave eyes; a subdued fire of temper flashing forth
at times sufficiently to show that at the heart of this
gravity lay not ice, but fire; a hearty humour, as
of a soul at liberty, grasping its purpose firmly
enough to be able to give it play; keen to descry
likenesses in things unlike, inner diff'erences in things
similar, absurdities in things decorous, and the
meaning of men and things in general through all
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 241
seemings. Yet, withal, capacities aud traces of
heart-deep sorrow, as of one who had looked into
the depths on many sides, and found them unfathom-
able. Moreover, above all, his were eyes which
saw; not merely windows through which you looked
into the soul. Aunt Gretel said there was a look
in him which made her think of a portrait of Dr.
Luther which she had seen in her youth. He loved
music, too, which was another resemblance to Dr.
Luther. He was always kind to us children; and
now he spoke fondly of his two "little wenches" at
home — Bridget (afterwards Mistress Ireton), a little
beyond my age, and Elizabeth (Mistress Claypole),
then about eleven, his dearly-loved daughter-, and
the two blithe little ones, Mary and Frances, about
five and three. Methought his eye rested with a
sorrowful yearning on Roger; and my father told
us, after he left, he had only two years before, in
May, buried his eldest son Robert, about nineteen,
which was Roger's age. This son was buried far
from home, at Felsted Church in Essex — a youth
whose promise had been so great, that the parson of
the parish where he died had inserted a record of
him in the parish-register, which reads like a fond
epitaph amidst the dry unbroken list of names and
dates. Mr. Cromwell spoke also with much rever-
The DratjtoHS and the Davenanis. I. 16
242 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
enee of liis aged mother, who dwelt in his house at
Ely.
Mr. Cromwell was full of a firm confidence in
the future of the Church and the country, but, like
Job Forster, he seemed to think there was much to
be done and gone through before the end was gained.
On his way through the village he had held some
converse with Job Forster, while having his horse
shod; and he said something of such men as Job
being the men for a Parliament army, if ever such
an army should be needed.
Whilst Job, on his part, as he told us after-
wards, was deeply moved by his interview with Mr.
Cromwell. "He was a man," said Job, "who had
been in the depths, and had brought thence the
sacred fire, which made two or three of his words
worth a hundred spoken by common men."
Then, towards the close of that happy time,
there was one evening in October which lingers on
my memory as its golden sunset lingered on the
many-coloui'ed autumn woods.
We were standing on the terrace at Netherby,
overlooking the orchard, Roger, Lettice, and I, in
the fading light — Lettice twining some water-lilies
Roger had just gathered from the pond. Through
the embayed window of the wainscotted parlour.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAES. 243
which stood open, povirecl forth the music of my
father's organ, in chords rich and changing as the
colours of the sunset on wood, and meadow, and
Mere.
Mr. John Milton was the musician, and as the
intertwined harmonies flowed from his hands —
"In linkfed sweetness long drawn out,
His melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisted all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony."
As we listened, enrapt by the power of the music,
which seemed
"Dead things with imbreathed sense, able to pierce,
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne,
To Him that sits thereon" —
the lilies dropped from Lettice's fingers, and she sat
like the statue of a listening nymph; the knitting
fell from Aunt Gretel's lap, and the tears came into
her eyes, and, thinking of my mother, she mur-
mured "Magdalene!" Eoger and I were leaning
on the window-sill, and all of us were so uncon-
scious of anything present, that Lady Lucy had
advanced from the other end of the terrace near
enough to touch me on the arm, without my hearing
a footstep.
16*
244 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
By her side stood a courtly-looking youug
clergymau, with dark hair flowing from under his
velvet cap, and dark, meditative eyes, yet with
much light of smiles hidden in them, like dew in
violets. Him she introduced as "Dr. Taylor, one of
His Majesty's chaplains." He was not yet eight-
and- twenty years of age, but was in mourning for
his first wife, but lately dead.
Mr. Milton joined us soon with my father. He
was a few years older than Dr. Taylor, but in
appearance much more youthful; with his brown
un-Puritan love-locks, his short stature, his face
determined, almost to severity, yet delicate as a
beautiful woman's.
And then between these two, while we listened,
ensued an hour's converse, like the antiphons of
some heavenly choir.
Names of ancient heroes and philosophers —
Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Latin — dropped from
their lips like household words. Until at last they
rose into a chorus in praise of liberty of conscience,
and of thought — Dr. Taylor, I thought, basing
his argument more on the dimness of human vision,
and Mr. Milton on the inherent and victorious miglit
of truth — Dr. Taylor pleading for a charitable
tolerance for error, Mr. jMilton for a glorious free-
dom for truth. The which converse I often recalled
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 245
when, in after years, we read the Liberty of Pro-
phesying by the one, and the Liberty of Printing
by the other.
As they spoke, the glory faded from the sky
and the goklen autumnal woods; and when they
ceased, and we stepped from the terrace into the
gloom of the dark wainscotted parlour, it seemed to
me as if we had stepped out of a fragrant and
melodious elysium into a farm-yard, so homely and
unmeaning, like the cacklings or lowings of animals,
did all common discourse seem afterwards.
The next day, when Mr. Milton had left us, and
we were speaking together of this discourse, Aunt
Gretel said it was like beautiful music; only, being
mostly in a kind of Latin, was, of course, beyond
her comprehension. Aunt Dorothy only consoled
herself for what she regarded as the dangerous
license of their conclusions, by the thought that
their path to them was too fantastic and fine for any
common mortals to tread. And my father said
afterwards, that it seemed to him as if Dr. Taylor's
learning and fancy hung around his reason like the
jewelled state-trappings of a royal palfrey; you
wondered how his wit could move so nimbly under
such a weight of ornament: whilst Mr. Milton's
learning and imagination were like wings to the
strong Pegasus of his wisdom, only helping him
246 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
to soar. When Dr. Taylor alluded to the lore
of the ancients, it seemed like a treasury where-
with to adorn his fancies or to wing his airy shafts.
But to Mr. Milton it seemed an armoury common to
him and to the wise men of whom he spoke, and to
which he had as free access as they — to draw thence
weapons for his warfare and theirs, and to add
thereto for the generations to come.
Yet, hrilliant and glowing as their speech was,
Roger would have it that Mr. Cromwell's brief and
rugged words had in them more of the red heat that
fuses the weapons wherewith the great battles of life
are fought. For we spoke often of that evening,
Roger, and Lettice, and I, in the few short days
that remained of our golden age of peace.
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 247
XV.
Scarcely a fortnight after that evening at
Netherby, tidings of the Irish massacre thrilled
through all the land with one shudder of horror and
helpless indignation for the past; awakening one
bitter cry for rescue and vengeance in the future.
On the 20th of October the Parliament had met
again.
It was a gray and comfortless evening early in
November when a Post spurred into the village of
Netherby, and stopped at Job Forster's forge to have
some slight repair made in the gear of his horse.
Rachel was there immediately, with a jug of ale
for the weary rider and water for the horse. The
horseman took both in silence.
"Thou art scant of greetings to-day, good master,"
said Job, as he busied himself about the broken bit,
without looking in the rider's face.
But Rachel, who had caught in an instant the
weight of heavy tidings on the stranger's face, laid
her hand with a silencing gesture on her husband's
248 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Then Job looked up, and meeting the horse-
man's eye, dropped the bit, and said abruptly, —
"What tidings, master? We are not of those
who look for smooth things."
"Rough enough," was the reply. "A hundred
thousand Protestants, * men , women , and children,
surprised, and robbed, and massacred in Ireland,
scarce more than a se'nnight agone. At morning,
met with good-days and friendly looks by the Papists
around them; before evening, driven from their
burning homes, naked and destitute, into the roads
and wildernesses. Thousands murdered amidst their
ruined homes; happy those who were only murdered,
or mixrdered quickly; no mercy on age or sex, no
memory of kindness; treachery and torture; women
and little children turning into fiends of cruelty.
Dublin itself only saved by one who gave warning
the evening before. But the worst was for the wo-
men, and the little helpless tortured babes."
"Softly, softly, master," said Job; for Rachel had
fallen on his shoulder fainting. "She can bear to
hear any dreadful thing, or to see any dreadful
sight, if she can be of any help ; but this is too much
for her."
* This was the number commonly believed among us at the time.
Since , I have heard it disputed. But that the slaughter and the atro-
cities wore terrible, there can be no doubt.
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 249
Gently he bore her in and laid her on the bed,
and hesitated an instant what to do, not liking to
leave her.
"She always seems to know whether it's me or
any one else, even when she's clean gone like this,"
he said-, "but yet I dare not hinder the Post."
"Leave her to me. Job," I said; "she'll not feel
strange with me."
And after a moment's further pause, lifting her
into an easier position, he went out.
Sprinkling water on her face and chafing her
hands, breathing on her lips and temples, as I had
seen Aunt Gretel do in such a case, I had the com-
fort of soon seeing Rachel languidly open her eyes.
For a moment there was a bewildered, inquiring look
in them, but quickly it gave place to a mournful
collectedness.
"I knew it — I knew it, Mistress Olive!" she
said. "I knew something must come. But I thought
the judgment would fall on the Lord's enemies ; and
Job and I have been pleading with Him for mercy,
even on them. I never thought the sword would fall
on the sheep of His pasture. Least of all on the
lambs," she added; "on the innocent lambs. But
maybe, after all, that was His mercy. They are but
gone home by a cruel path, poor innocents — only
gone home." Then a burst of tears came to her
250 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
relief; a neighbour came in to help; and 1 left to go
home without further delay.
The few minutes which I had spent at Rachel
Forster's bedside had sufficed to gather all the vil-
lage around the forge; women with babies in their
arms and little ones clinging to their skirts; men on
their way home from the day's labour with spades
and mattocks on their shoulders; the tailor needle in
hand; the miller white from the mill; women with
hands full of dough from the kneading-trough; none
waiting to lay aside an implement, none left behind
but the bedridden, yet none asking a question, or
uttering an exclamation, as they pressed around the
messenger, drinking in the horrible details of the
slaughter. Only, in the pauses, a long-drawn breath,
or now and then a suppressed sob from the women.
Job meanwhile continued, as was his wont, work-
ing his feelings into the task he had in hand, so that
long before the villagers were weary of listening
while the Post told the cruel particulars, heightening
the excitement and deepening the silence, the bit was
mended, every weak point of hoof or harness had
undergone Job's skilful inspection, and offering the
messenger another draught at the beer-can, he said
to him in his abrupt way, —
"Whither next, master? We may not delay such
tidings."
A STOUY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 251
"I have letters for Squire Drayton of Netherby
Manor," was the reply.
"Trust them to me," said Eoger.
"The best hands you can trust them to," said
Job.
In consideration of the urgent need of haste, the
iPost gave us a letter in Dr. Antony's writing to
'Roger, and in another minute was out of sight beyond
khe turn of the village street.
I A little murmur arose among the village-gossips.
|"No need for breaking a Post short like that, good-
iman Forster," said the miller's wife; "sure he knows
ihis own business best."
"What did we need to hear more, goodwife?"
jwas Job's reply. "All England has to hear it yet!
jThousands of prayers have to be stirred up through-
lout the land before night. And haven't we heard
(enough to make this night a night of watching?
Hearkening to fearful tales helps little; and talking
less. For this kind goeth not out but with prayer
sand fasting."
And Job turned away into his cottage. But as
Eoger and I hastened up the street, the village had
already broken into little eager groups, and the
words, "the Irish Popish Army," and "the Popish
Queen," came with bitter emphasis from many
voices.
252 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Deep was the excitement at home wheu we
brought the terrible tidings. Dr. Antony's letter too
dreadfully confirmed them, telling how the House of
Commons received the news, brought in by one
O'Conolly, in an awesti-icken silence; how nearly all
Ulster, the head-quai-ters of the Protestants, was still
in the hands of the insurgents; the towns and villages
in flames.
"Tilly and Magdeburg!" were the first words
that broke from my father's lips. "The same strife,
the same weapons, the same fiendish cruelty, in the
name of the All Pitiful. If such another conflict is
indeed to come, God send England weapons as good
wherewith to wage it; soldiers that can pray; and, if
such can be twice in one generation, another Gus-
tavus!"
Fervently he pleaded that night together with
the gathered household for the robbed and bereaved
sufferers in Ireland. Far into the night Eoger saw
the lamp burning in his window. No doubt he had
sought Job Forster's Refuge.
But the next morning, v/hen we came in to
breakfast, he had taken down the old sword he had
worn through the German wars, and was trying its
edge.
"The good God keep us from war, brother!" said
Aunt Gretel, trembling at the thoughts that old
A STOllY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 253
vreapon recalled. "I was thinking we might search
)ut onr stores for woolseys and linseys. They will
36 sure to be sending such to the poor sufferers, and
hey will be building orphan-houses."
"Citadels have to be built and kept first!" said
ny father. "There are times when war is as much
(I work of mercy as clothing the naked and feeding
the hungry."
" But war with whoyn, brother? " said Aunt Dorothy
jointedly. "It is little use lopping the branches and
paring the tree. What has become of the Irish
i^opish army the king was so loath to dismiss? Of
vhat avail is it to smite a few poor blind fanatics,
s^hen the Popish queen and her Jesuits rule in the
Palace? It wearies me to the heart to hear of honest
aien like Mr. Hampden , Mr. Pym , and all of them,
mpeachiug Lord Strafford and imprisoning Arch-
bishop Laud, who, I believe (poor deluded man),
;hought himself doing God's service; and yet kissing
;he hand that appointed Laud and Strafford, and
ivould sign death-warrants for every patriot and Pu-
itan in the kingdom to-night if it were safe."
"Mr. Hampden, Mr. Pym, and Mr. Cromwell are
3oing their best to make it not safe, sister Dorothy,"
was my father's reply. "And meantime there is more
strength in silence than in invective."
"A Parliament of women," said Aunt Dorothy,
254 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"would have gone to the jjoint months since, and let
the king understand what they meant."
"Probably," said my father; "but the great thing
is to gain the point."
Unusually early in the day for her. Lady Lucy
appeared at the Manor, with Harry and Lettice walk-
ing beside her horse.
She looked very pale as my father led her into
the wainscotted parlour.
"Mr. Drayton," she said, "who ever could have
dreamed of such tidings! The only ray of comfort
is that they may help to unite our distracted country.
There can be but one mind throughout the land
about such deeds as these. The king went at once
to the Scottish Parliament with the news, to seek
their counsel and aid. Now at least the king, par-
liament, and nation, will be one in their indigna
tion."
"It would be well if the king had dismissed be-
fore this the Irish Catholic army which Lord Straf-
ford raised for him," said my father. "It is well
known that its officers have been in communication
with the assassins."
"The king did send orders to disband it long
since," she said.
"Yes, public orders," my father replied; "but
I
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 255
there are rumours of secret instructions having ac-
companied, not precisely to the same effect."
"Rumours!" she said eagerly; "Mr. Drayton,
mere rumours! You are too just and generous to
listen to vulgar report, with the king's word against
it."
"Madam," he replied, very gravely, "it would
have been the salvation of the country long since if
the king's word had been a sufficient reply to attacks
on his policy. There is nothing so revolutionary as
falsehood in high places."
"You call the king a revolutionist?" she said.
"I call untruth the great revolutionist," he replied.
"Without truth and trust all communities must ulti-
mately fall to pieces, with more or less noise, ac-
cording as they are assailed by a strong hand from
without, or simply crumble from within. The ruin
is certain."
"But all good men must be agreed in detesting
these barbarous deeds," she said. "Even the Earl
of Castlehaven , a Catholic , has said that all the
water in the sea would not wash off from the Irish
the stain of their treacherous murders in a time of
settled peace."
"No doubt there are Catholics, madam, who speak
the truth and hate injustice," said my father.
"You are unjust, you are cruel to His Majesty,"
256 THE DRAYTOHS AND THE DAVENANTS :
she said, with tears in lier eyes, "if you could be un-
just or cruel to any one."
"Lady Lucy," lie replied, "this is a time for all
men who fear God and love England to be united.
Would Lord Strafford (could he come back among
us) contradict the words wrung fi-om him when the
king signed his death-warrant? "Would he say, 'Put
your trust in princes?' "
Harry Davenant passionately interposed.
"It is too bad to drive the king to actions he
detests, and then to reproach him for them. He
would have saved Lord Strafford , as all men know,
if he could. It is the distrust of the country that has
compelled the king to have recourse to subtleties no
gentleman would choose."
"Harry Davenant," said my father, "I am con-
fident no measure of unjust distrust would drive you
to the policy of making promises you never meant
to keep."
"My life is simple, sir," was the mournful reply,
"and it is my own. If I choose any evil to myself,
rather than go from my word, or imply the thing I
do not mean, I am at liberty to do so. But the
king's life is manifold. He stands before the High-
est with the nation gathered up into his single person.
He stands above the nation as the anointed represen-
tative of the King of kings. God himself is only in-
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 257
directly King of nations by being King of kings.
He stands between the past and the future with a
sacred trust of prerogative and right to guard and
transmit. It is not for us to apply the standards of
our private morality to him."
"Apply the standards of divine morality to all!"
said my father. "Truth is the pillar of heaven as
well as of earth. There is no bond of society like a
trusted word."
"At least, sir," rejoined Harry Davenant, gently
but loftily, "it is not for me who eat the king's
bread to say or hear ought disloyal to him. Nor
will I." And he rose to leave.
My father held out his hand to grasp his.
"One word more," he said; "disloyalty is a ter-
rible word, axid we may hear more of it in these com-
ing years. Let me say to you, once for all, the
question is not one of loyalty and disloyalty, but to
whom our loyalty is due. I believe it is to England
and her laws; to the king if he is faithful to these."
"What tribunal can judge the king?" Harry
Davenant replied.
"More than one," said my father solemnly. "The
English laws he has sworn to maintain; the eternal
Lawgiver from whom you say he holds his - crown,
whose laws of truth and equity are no secret, and are
as binding on the peasant as the prince."
The Draytons and the Davenants. I. 1 <
258 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Lady Lucy's manner had a peculiar tenderness
in it to me as slie wislied me good-bye.
"Very difficult times, Olive!" she said, kissing
me; "but we will remember women have one work
at all times ; to make peace and pour balm into
wounds."
And Lettice whispered to me and Roger, —
"Don't believe those wicked things about the
king, or I shall not be able to come to Netherby."
Roger looked sorely perplexed.
"But how can we help believing them," he said,
"if we find them true?"
"I can always help believing things I don't like,"
she said. "Wishing is half-way to believing." And
she slipped away, leaving a very heavy shadow on
Roger's face as he turned back to the house.
"Not quite so clear, Olive," said Aunt Dorothy,
when I repeated to her Lady Lucy's words as a proof
of her good-will. "There are times when Deborah
is as necessary as Barak, and more so. And then
there was Judith, a valiant and godly woman, al-
though she is in the Apocrypha. And there are
times when the knife is kinder than all the balm in
Gilead."
"Knives are never safe, however," added my
father, "except in hands that use them for the same
purpose as the balms."
A STOllY OF TIXK CIVIL WARS. 259
The intercourse of the two families did not cease
after that little debate. It rather became more fre-
quent. The uneasy consciousness of the many-
public differences that might at any time sever us,
only made us cling the more tenaciously, although
with trembling, to the private ties that united us. For
a fortnight after the Irish tidings reached us. Lady
Lucy, Aunt Gretel, and even Aunt Dorothy, found
a practical bond of union in collecting all the clothes
and provisions they could to send to the sufferers by
the Irish massacre.
Then came the news of divisions in the patriot
party in the Parliament, with reference to the fram-
ing and printing of the Grand Remonstrance, voted
to be printed on the 8th of December. Lady Lucy
dwelt much on the conciliatory intentions of the king,
on the feastings and welcomes prepared for him in
the city of London, and especially on the defection
of the gallant Sir Bevil Grenvill, Lord Falkland,
and Mr. Hyde, from the popular cause. "All mo-
derate men," she said, "felt it was becoming the
cause of disorder, and were abandoning it; and my
father, the most moderate and candid of men, would
not, she was sure, remain with a little knot of fana-
tics and levellers."
That Christmas-tide the Grand Remonstrance,
17*
260 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAYENAKTS :
with its long list of royal and ecclesiastical oppres-
sions, and its statement of the recent victories of
Parliament over evil laws and evil councillors, was
read and eagerly debated at every fire-side in the
kingdom.
"But what do they want?" Lady Lucy would say.
"They seem, from their own statements, to have
gained all they sought."
"They want security for everything!" my father
would reply; "security for what they have won; a
guard of their own appointing to keep them free, to
secure them against the guard of his own appointing,
with which they believe the king is endeavouring to
surround and make them prisoners."
"Will no promises, no assurances of good- will
satisfy them?" she said. "They have sent ten more
prelates to keep the archbishop company in the
Tower. What further guarantees would they de-
mand?"
"It is hard indeed," he said, sorrowfully, "for
all the concessions in the world to restore broken
confidence. All the fortresses in England, or a stand-
ing army of a million, would not be such a safeguard
to the king as his own word might have been. There
is no cement in heaven or earth strong enough to re-
store trust in broken faith."
"It is not always so easy to be sincere," she
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 261
said; "and God forgives and trusts us again and
again."
"God forgives because he sees," lie said. "Nations
are not omniscient, and therefore cannot forgive, nor
trust when they have been betrayed."
" The Parliament is unreasonable," she said, with
tears in her eyes; "they judge like private gentlemen.
Statesmen and princes cannot speak with the simple
candour of private men. Politics are like chess.
You would not confide every move before-hand to
your enemy."
"The king and the Parliament do not profess to
be on opposite sides of the game," he replied. "But
if, in fact, it has come to that, can you wonder at
any amount of mutual suspicion? Yet our Puritan
faith is, that there is but one law of truth and equity
in heaven and earth for prince, soldier, peasant, wo-
man and child. And I believe that , even with
hostile nations, not all the diplomatic subtleties in
the world would give us the strength there is in a
trusted word. Let it once be felt of man or nation,
'They have said it, therefore they mean it;' and
they have a strength nothing else can give. There
must be two threads to weave a web of false policy.
Withdraw one, and the other falls to pieces of itself.
I believe the ruler who could make the word of an
Englishman a proverb for truth, Avould do more for
2n2 THE DRAYTOXS AND THE DAVENANTS :
the strength of England than one wlio won her for-
tresses on every island and coast in the world."
"But see how the king trusts the people, Mr.
Drayton," she said. "His presence in that very
tumultuous disorderly city ought to make them be-
lieve him."
"I do not see that His Majesty has had reason
to distrust the people," my father replied.
"Ah!" she sighed; "if you had only seen His
Majesty amidst his family, his chivalrous tenderness
to the queen, his native stateliness all laid aside in
playful fondness for his children."
"It might have made it more painful to have to
distrust him as a king," my father replied. "It
could scarcely have made it more possible to trust."
"Well," she said, "either the nation will learn,
ere long, to trust his gracious intentions as he de-
serves, or will learn to their cost what a sovereign
they have distrusted!"
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 263
XVI.
But scarcely a week afterwards the wliole coun-
try was set in a flame by the tidings that His Ma-
jesty had gone in person — attended by five hundred
armed men, many of them young desperadoes,
feasted the night before at Whitehall — to arrest
the five members (Pym, Hampden, Hazelrig, Denzil
Hollis, and William Strode) in the inviolate sanc-
tuary of the nation, the Parliament House itself.
And after that my father and Lady Lucy ceased
to hold any more political debates.
He simply said, when, on the evening of those
tidings, we met in the village, —
"The meaning of His Majesty's promises seems
plain at last."
And she replied, —
"But if all good men distrust His Majesty, will
he not be driven to trust to evil men?"
"I am afraid the course of falsehood is ever
downward," he answered, very sadly, "and the
breaches of just distrust ever widening."
"But, for heaven's sake, Mr. Drayton," she said,
with an imploring accent, as we» returned with her
264 THE DRAYIONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
to the Hall, "think before you plunge into these
terrible divisions."
"I have thought long, madam," he said; "for I
have fought in the Thirty Years' War, and seen
how war can devastate."
"But that was easy," she said; "that was church
against church, state against state, prince against
prince. This will be the church divided against it-
self, the nation divided against itself, subject against
king, one good man against another. Think, if you
join Mr. Hampden and Mr. Pym, what noble and
wise men you will have against you ! (for you honour
Sir Bevil Grenvill and Lord Falkland as much as
we do); what violent and fanatical men with you!"
"If all good men were on one side," he said,
sorrowfully, "there need be few battles in church
or state."
"It seems to me," she added, "there is no party
one would willingly join save that of the peace-
makers."
"That indeed is the very party I would seek to
join," said my father. "But that seems to me the
very party which, from ancient times, has been stig-
matized as those who turn the world upside down.
Since the Fall peace can seldom be reached save
through conflict."
A STOKY OF THE CIVIL. WARS. 265
MeanwMle Roger liad joined us, and Lettice, as
we were about to separate, whispered to me, clasping
my hands in hers, —
"They may turn the world upside down, Olive;
but they shall not separate us! How happy it is for
us," she said, turning to Eoger, who was standing a
little apart, "that, as Harry says, women have no-
thing to do with politics."
"I am afraid," he said in his abrupt way, "wo-
men have often more than any to suffer from
politics."
"You take things so gravely, Eoger," she said.
" Everything would be right if you would not all of
you be so hard on people who have done a little
wrong; and would only try and believe what we
must all wish, and so bring it about."
"Everything will be lorong^'' said Eoger, with
melancholy emphasis, "if you will believe things
and people because you wish^ and not because they
are true."
For Eoger, true to every one, was truthful to
scrupulousness with Lettice; what she was, or be-
came, being of more moment to him than even what
she thought of him.
But Lettice only laughed, and said, —
"I am not sixteen, and I have seen the country
2GG THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
at the point of ruin, I cannot tell how many times.
Other clouds have blown over, and so will this."
And she sped away to rejoin her mother, only
once more turning back to wave her hand, and
say, —
"To-morrow morning, Olive, at the Lady Well!
The ice will be strong enough on the Mere for skat-
ing. To-morrow!"
But the next morning, when Roger and I went
to the Lady Well, no Lettice was there.
Snow had fallen in the night.
The frozen surface of the Mere was strewn with
it, except in places where it was sheltered by the
overhanging brushwood, where it lay black as steel
against the white banks. All the music was frozen
in stream and wood. The drops, whose soft
trickling into the well beneath, had floated Lettice
and me into fairy-land last summer, hung in glitter-
ing silent icicles around the stone sides of the well.
And Roger and I went silently home.
"The snow has detained her," I said.
"She is not so easily turned aside from a pro-
mise," he said.
And when we reached home we found a mes-
senger and a letter from Lettice, saying Lady Lucy
had been summoned to attend the queen at Windsor,
that Lettice had accompanied her, and that Harry
A SlOnV OF THE CIVIL WARS, 267
Davenant and Sir Walter being engaged about the
king's person, Sir Launcelot Trevor had come to es-
cort them.
"The Princess Mary is about to be married to
the Prince of Orange," Lettice wrote; "and as the
queen is to accompany her to the Low Countries,
she wishes to see my mother before she leaves the
country."
"It would be a good service to us all if the
queen would stay away for ever," said Aunt Dorothy
— and she expressed the feeling of a large part of
the nation — "the king would lose the worst of his
evil counsellors."
"That depends," said my father, sadly, "on
whether the king is not his own worst counsellor.
If the evil has its origin in others, the queen may
indeed injure him more by remaining here. But, on
the other hand, she may succour him more on the
Continent."
"Well, at all events," said Aunt Dorothy, "her
absence may be a blessing to Lady Lucy and Mistress
Lettice. For that child is not without gracious dis-
positions. Last week she called when every one else
was out, and wishing to turn the time to account, I
set her to read aloud from the sermons of good Mr.
Adams; and she read two and part of the third,
only twice going to the window to see if any one
268 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS !
was coming, and never even looking up, after I once
asked ker if ske was tired."
"Do you tkink ske really enjoyed tkem. Aunt
Dorotky?" I asked; knowing kow difficult it was to
ascertain Lettice's distastes, on account of ker pre-
domiuant taste of doing wkat pleased otker people.
"I tkink better of tke ckild tkan to deem ske
would seem pleased witk augkt ske did not really
like," said Aunt Dorotky, and, altkougk uncon-
vinced, I rejoiced tkat Aunt Dorotky kad fallen
under tke sjiell.
"Wkat did ske say?" I asked.
"Tke first sermon was 'Tke Spiritual Navigator
Bound for tke Holy Land' about tke glassy sea; and
ske said it was near as pretty reading as Spenser's
'Faery Queen' — a remark wkick, tkougk it skowed
some lack of spiritual discernment, was sometking,
in tkat it skowed ske was entertained. Tke second
was 'Heaven's Gate;' and wken we came to tke
place about tke gate being in our own keart, —
'Great manors kave answerable porckes. Heaven
must needs be spacious, wken a little star fixed in a
far lower orb exceeds tke eartk in quantity; yet it
katk a low gate, not a lofty coming-in,' — ske said
ske kad tkougkt tke Gate of Heaven was only
opened wken we die, not kere wkile we live, and it
was a strange tking to tkink on. Tke tkird sermon
A STORY Oi' THE CIVIL WARS. 269
was 'Semper Idem, the Immutable Mercy of Jesus
Christ,' and in that we did not read far; for when
she read 'the sun of divinity is the Scripture,
the sun of Scripture is the gospel, the sun of the
gospel is Jesus Christ. Nor is this the centre of
His word only, but of our rest. Thou hast made
us for Thee, Christ, and the heart is unquiet till
it rest in Thee; seeking, we may find Him — He
is ready; finding, we may still seek Him; He is in-
finite,' — her voice trembled, and, with tears in her
eyes, she looked up and said, 'I suppose that is
what the other sermon means by entering the Gate of
Heaven now.'' And I deem that a wise thing for a
child to say, brought up as she has been under the
very walls of Babylon. And the poor young thing's
ways pleased me so that I gave her the three ser-
mons to keep. And she promised to set store by
them, and treasure them in a cedarii box she hath,
together with some books by Dr. Taylor. And al-
though Dr. Taylor is an Arminian, I had not the
heart to cross the child. Especially as books are not like
us; they are none the worse for being in bad company."
But Roger made no comment. Only the next
Sunday, as we were walking home from church to-
gether, he said sorrowfully, —
"Oh, Olive, so ready to be pleased with every-
thing as she is, so pleased to please every one, so
270 THE DRAYiOXS AND THE DAVENANTS:
sure to please, so true and generous, so ready to Le-
lieve good of every one — that she should be
launched into that false Court! I shall always dread
to hear any one say 'To-morrow.' If we could only
have known, there were so many things one might
have said or have left unsaid. The last thing I said
to her seems to me now so harsh. She will always
think of us as rebuking her. And her last look was
a defiant little smile! If we could only know what
days, or what words are to be the last. To-morrow,"
he added, "she was to have met us at the old well,
and now she is at the king's Court; and between us
lies a great gulf of civil war; and the whole country
in such tumult — it seems a kind of disloyalty to
England to think of our own private sorrows."
And Roger spoke but too truly. For it is im-
possible to say how deeply that act of the king's in
invading the Parliament had incensed the whole na-
tion. It showed, as nothing else could have done,
my father said, that what was holy ground to the
nation was mere common soil to the king. Men had
borne to have soldiers illegally billeted upon their
homes; fathers torn, against law, from their families,
and left to die in prisons. Each such act of tyranny
was exceptional or partial, and might be redressed
by patient appeals to our ancient laws. Much of
personal liberty might be sacrificed rather than
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS, 271
violate the order on which all true liberty is based.
But the Parliament House during the sitting of the
Parliament was the sacred hearth of the nation it-
self. Every man felt his own hearth violated in its
violation. Henceforth nothing was sacred — nothing
was safe — throughout the land. And from that
day my father, dreading civil war as only a soldier
can who knows what the terrors of war are, never
seemed to have a doubt that it must come. Nor,
candid as he was — to the verge of weakness (as
Aunt Dorothy thought), in his anxiety to allow what
was jiTst to all sides — did he ever seem after that
to doubt, if the strife came, on which side he must
stand.
There was a strange mixture of rigid adherence
to ancient forms, with the boldest spirit of liberty,
in that scene in Parliament on the 3rd of January
1642.
Dr. Antony wrote us how all the members rose
uncovered before the king, how the speaker on his
knee beside his own chair — which the king had
usurped — refused to answer His Majesty's questions
as to the absence of the five members, whom his eye
vainly sought in their vacant places, saying: "Please
your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor ears
to hear, nor tongue to speak in this place, save as
the House directs me." "Words," wrote Dr. An-
272 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
tony, " respectful enougli for a courtier of Nebuchad-
nezzar, with a meaning as kingly as those of any
Caesar." Not a disrespectful word or gesture was
directed against the king as he retired baffled from
the House, saying that he saw the birds had flown,
and protesting that he had intended no breach of
privilege. But before he descended the steps of the
Hall to rejoin the armed guard outside, the civil
war, my father said, had begun.
The next day the king had returned baffled from
another attempt to arrest the five members in the
city. The aldermen — true representatives of the
great merchants of England — were as resolute as
the Parliament. They made His Majesty a great
feast, but no concessions.
Within a week a thousand seamen from the good
ships in the broad Thames had offered their services
to guard the Parliament from their refuge in the city
by water to Westminster, whilst as many 'prentices
had entreated to be permitted to render a similar
service by land; four thousand freeholders from
Buckinghamshire (Hampden's county) had entered
London on horseback with petitions against wicked
councillors, and (on the 10th of January) the king
had left Whitehall for Hampton Court.
But no man knew he would not return thither
A STOKY OF THi;: CIVII. WARS. 273
until seven years later, on another January day,
never to leave it more.
So few last days come to us clothed in mourn-
ing, announcing themselves as the last. We step
smiling into the ferry-boat which is to carry us for
a little while, as we think, across the narrow stream,
and wave our hands and say to those who watch us
from the familiar shore, '"'' To-morrow V and before we
are aware the stream is a sea, the ferry-boat is
the boat of Charon, the familiar shore is out of
sight-, — the window of the banqueting-hall has be-
come the threshold of the scaffold, and to-morrow is
eternity.
The Draijlons and the Davenants. I. 18
274 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAYENANIS:
XVII.
When I think of the months which passed be-
tween the king's attempted arrest of the five mem-
bers and the first battle of the Civil War, I some-
times wonder how any one can ever undertake to
write history.
In the little bit of the world known to vis, parties
were so strangely intertwined, so strangely divided,
and so heterogeneously composed. The motives that
drew men to one side or the other were so various
and so mixed, that I think scarce one of those we
knew fought on the same side for the same reason;
while the differences which separated many men in
the same party were certainly wider in many re-
spects than those which separated them from others
against whom they fought.
How world-wide the difference between Harry
Davenant and Sir Launcelot Trevor! How nicely
balanced the scales that made my father and John
Hampden "rebels," and Harry Davenant or Lord
Falkland "malignants!"
Yet the distinctions were real, at least so it seems
to me. Nor do I see how, if all were to be again
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 275
starting from the same point, either could avoid com-
ing to the same issue.
Harry Davenant believed revolution to be ruin,
and chose the most arbitrary rule instead.
My father, equally dreading revolution, believed
the king to be the great revolutionist; by his ar-
bitrary will changing times and laws; by his hope-
less untruth subverting the foundations of society.
Slowly he stepped down into the cold bitter waters
of civil war, having for his watchword, "Loyalty to
England and her laws!" His chief hope lay in Mr.
Hampden.
Roger again, and others like him, hoping more
from liberty than they feared from revolution, and be-
lieving the contest would be fiery, but brief and de-
cisive, plunged gallantly into the flood, with Liberty
blazoned on their banners — liberty to do right and
to speak the truth. His chosen captain was Mr.
Cromwell, in whose troop he served from the first.
God only knew the bitter pang it cost him (I knew
it not till years afterwards) to take his post on the
field which must, he knew, make so great a gulf
between him and the Davenants. It was seldom Roger
spoke of what he felt ; scarce ever of what he suffered.
Dr. Antony wrote, meanwhile, from London: —
" Chirurgeons , like women, have indeed their
place on the battle-field, and not out of reach of the
18*
276 THE DRAYXONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
danger. But their work is witli tlie wounded, and
tlieir weapons are turned against the enemy of all;
the 'last enemy,' scarce to be destroyed in this war!
I hope to succour on the battle-field those I sought
to comfort in the prisons. God grant I find the air
of the field as wholesome to the spirits of my pa-
tients as that of the duugeon."
Job Forster never hesitated for a moment as to
which was the right side. To him England was in
one sense Canaan to be conquered, in another the
Chosen Land to be kept sacred. The king was
Saul; or, in other aspects, Sihon, king of the Amo-
rites, or Og, king of Bashan. The Parliament, at
first, and then the Lord Protector and the army,
were the chosen people, Moses, Joshua, David. His
only hesitation was whether he himself ought to fight
on the field, or to work at the forge and protect
"Rachel and the village at home. "The Almighty,"
he said, "has not given me this big body of mine
for nought. God forbid it should be said of Job
Forster, Why abodest thou amidst the sheep-folds to
hear the bleatiugs of the flocks? — that is, the ring
of the hammer and anvil, which is as the bleating
of my flocks to me. Yet there is Rachel! And the
old law was merciful ; and if it forbid a man to leave
his new-married wife, how should I answer for leav-
ing her who has more need of me, and has none
A STORY OF THR CIVIL WARS. 277
but me? and she so ailing, and I, to whom the Lord
has said as plain as words can speak, 'Be thou better
to her than ten sons.'"
It was perhaps the first perplexity he had never
confided to her, and sorely was Job exercised, until
one morning in August he came to my father with
a lightened countenance, and said, —
"Mr. Drayton, she has given the word, as plain
as ever Deborah spoke to Barak. I've got my com-
mission, and I'm ready to go this night."
Afterwards, in an intimate talk by a camp-fire,
he once told Roger how that morning, between the
lights, he woke up and saw her kneeling down with
her arms crossed upon the Book, and her eyes raised
up to heaven, and running fast with tears. "I lifted
myself," he said, "on my elbow, and I looked at
her. But I didn't like to speak; I saw there was
something going on between her soul and the Lord.
At last she rose and came to me with a face as pale
as the sheet, but without a tear in her eyes or a
tremble in her voice, and she said, 'Job, thou shalt
have thy way, the Lord has made me ready to give
thee up.' And I said, sheepish-like, 'How canst
thee know what I willed? I never said aught to
thee!' Then she smiled and said, 'Thee never thinks
thee says aught except thee speaks plain enough for
the town-crier. Have not I heard thy sighs, and
278 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
seen thy hankering looks whenever any of the lads
listed these weeks past? But I could not speak be-
fore; now I can. For I've gotten the word from
the Lord for thee and for me, and woe is me if I
hold my peace. The word for me was: "Now I
know that thou fearest God, seeing thoii hast not
withheld thy son, thy only son, from me." And
that,' said she, 'means thee. Job; for thou art more
to me than that,' said she, 'more than that, only
and all. I have no promise to hold thee by, like
Abraham had for Isaac, yet if the Lord calls, what
can I do?' And there her voice gave way, but she
hurried on — 'And I've gotten a word for thee,
"J3«re not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a
good courage, for the Lord thy God is with thee
wheresoever thou goest."' So," concluded Job, "I
got my word of command; and there was no more
to be said. We knelt down together and gave our-
selves up; and as soon as it was fairly day I came
to give in my name."
That was Job Forster's motive. He believed he
had the word of command direct from the King of
kings. And this was the motive, I believe, of hundreds
and thousands more or less like him; men who, as
the Lord Protector said when the strife was over,
were "never beaten." Gloriously distinct the two
armies and the two causes seemed to him, perplexed
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 279
by no subtle perceptions of right on the wrong side,
or of vn-ong on the right.
To Aunt Dorothy also matters were equally
clear, although her point of view was not precisely
the same, and in the subsequent subdivisions she
and Job became seriously opposed. Aunt Dorothy
believed tliat she saw in the New Testament a model
of church ritual and government, minutely defined
to the last stave or j)in or loop of the tabernacle;
and rather than abandon the minutest of these sacred
details, she would willingly have suffered any tem-
poral loss. The whole Presbyterian order of church
government she saw clearly unfolded in the Acts
and the Epistles-, and that godly men like Mr.
Cromwell on the one hand, or learned men like
Dr. Jeremy Taylor on the other, should fail to see
it also, was a miracle only to be accounted for by
the blinding power of Satan, especially predicted in
these last days. With regard to the government of
the state, also, her belief was equally definite, derived,
as she considered, from the same divine source. The
king was "the anointed of the Lord." In this, she
said. Lady Lucy had undoubted insight into the
truth. His wicked councillors might be put to death,
as traitors at once against him and the realm; armies
might by his Parliament be raised against him; but
it must be in his name, with the purpose of setting
2>!0 THE DRAYXOXS AND THE DAVENAKTS :
liim free from those evil councillors by whom he
was virtually kept a prisoner; his judgment being
by them enthralled, so that he was irresponsible for
his acts, and might quite lawfully by his faithful
covenanted subjects be placed, respectfully, under
bodily restraint, if thereby his mind might be dis-
enthralled from the hard bondage of the wicked.
But beyond this no subject might go. The king's
person was sacred; no profane hand could be lifted
with impunity against him. Any difficulty, disorder,
or evil, must be endured, rather than touch a hair
of the consecrated head. This also was a conviction
for which Aunt Dorothy was fully prepared to en-
counter any amount of contradiction or disaster. The
narrow ridge on which she walked erect, without
wavering or misgiving, was, she was persuaded,
marked out as manifestly as the path of the Israel-
ites through the Red. Sea by the wall of impassable
waters on either hand, by the pillar of cloud and
fire behind. To this narrow way she would have
allured, led, or, if needful, compelled every human
soul, for their good and the glory of God. No vicis-
situdes of fortune affected her convictions; the sor-
rows of all who deviated from this narrow path be-
ing, in her belief, from the Sword of the Avenger,
while the sorrows of those who kept to it were from
the Eod of the Comforter. My father's adherence
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 281
to very much tlie same course of conduct, from a
belief of its expediency, and Aunt Gretel's from the
tenderness of sympathy which inevitably drew her
to the side on which there was the most suffering,
seemed to Aunt Dorothy happy accidents, or especial
and uncovenanted mercies, singularly vouchsafed to
j)ersons of their vmcertain and indefinite opinions.
Not that Aunt Dorothy's nature was in any way
low or small. Her heart was deep and high, if not
always wide. To her convictions she would have
sacrificed first herself, then the universe. Her con-
venience she would have sacrificed to the comfort of
the meanest human being in the universe. She would
not have swerved from her ridge of orthodoxy for
the dearest love on earth. She would have stooped
from it to save or help the most degraded wanderer,
or her greatest enemy.
But the most dangerous conviction she held was
unfortunately one of the deepest. It was that of her
own practical infallibility. It was strange that, with
the profoundest and most practical convictions of her
own sinfulness, she never could learn the impossibi-
lity that all error should be removed whilst any sin
remains; that there should be no darkness in the
mind while there is so much in the heart. Strange,
but not uncommon. Her sin she acknowledged as
her own. Her creed she identified entirely with the
282 THE DEAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Holy Scriptures. It was not her own, slie said, it
was God's trutli to the minutest point, and, as such,
she would have suffered or fought for every clause.
Nevertheless, with advancing years Roger and I
grew into ever deeper reverence for her character.
If in our childhood she represented, to us Justice
with the sword and scales (often in our belief very
effectually blindfolded), whilst Aunt Gretel enacted
counteracting Mercy; in after-years we grew rather
to look on them as Trutli and Tenderness, acting
not counter to each other, but in combination. And
in this imperfect world, where truth and love are
never blended in perfect proportions in any one
character, it is difficult to say on which we leant the
most. It was strange to see how often their opposite
attributes led them to the same actions. "Speaking
the truth in love," was Aunt Dorothy's maxim; and
if the love were sometimes lost in the emphasis on
truth, neither truth nor love were ever sacrificed to
selfish interest. "First pure, then peaceable," was
her wisdom; and I cannot say she always got as far
as the "gentle, and easy to be entreated." But it is
something to be able to look back on a life like hers,
unprofaned by one stain of untruthfulness, or by one
low or petty aim. It is only in looking back that
we learn what a rock of strength she was to us all,
or how the tenderest memories of home often cling
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 283
like mosses around sucli rocks; the more closely,
sometimes, for their very ruggedness. Thus our
home at Netherby contained various elements, eccle-
siastical and political as well as moral, all of which,
however, at the commencement of the civil wars, were
gathered together under the watchword, "Loyalty
above all to the King of kings. Liberty to obey God."
It was this indeed, that, with all our internal
differences as to church government and secular
government, united us into one party. Whatever
varieties of opinion as to church government our
party contained — Presbyterian, Independent, Mo-
derate Episcopal , or Quaker •, classical , republican,
aristocratic, English constitutional, or, finally, the
adherents of the Deliverer, chosen (they deemed) as
divinely and to be obeyed as implicitly as any
Hebrew judge — all believed in the theocracy.
The liberty our party contended for was no mere
unloosing of bonds. It was liberty to obey the
highest law. It was no mere levelling to clear an
emjDty space for new experiments. It was sweeping
away ruins to clear a platform for the kingdom of
God.
And this was another point in which the re-
collections of my life make me feel how vast and
complicated an undertaking it must be to write his-
tory.
284 THE DRA.YTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
In our early days we used to be given histories
of the church and histories of the world. Profane
histories and sacred histories , as neatly and definitely
separated as if the church and the world had been
two distinct planets.
But in our own times, at least, it seems to me
absolutely impossible thus to separate them. The
Battle of Dunbar was to Oliver Cromwell and his
army as religious an act as their prayer-meeting at
Windsor. The righting the poor folks who lost their
rights on the Soke of Somersham was, I believe, as
religious an act to Mr. Cromwell as the appointment
of the gospel-lecturers. And as with the actions so
with the persons. Who can say which persons of
our time belong to ecclesiastical and which to secular
history?
Does the history of the Convocation, of the Star:
Chamber, or of the Westminster Assembly, belong
to sacred history; and the history of the Long Par-
liament, where decisions were made for time and
eternity, or of the battle-fields whence thousands
went to their last account, to profane? Is the making
of confessions of faith a religious act, and the living
by them or dying for them secular? Are Arch-
bishop Laud, Bishop Williams, Mr. Baxter, Dr. Owen,
Mr. Howe, ecclesiastical persons; and Lord Falk-
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 285
land, Mr. Hampden, Mr. Pym, or Oliver Cromwell,
secular?
In our times, as in my own life, it seems to me
absolutely impossible to say where sacred bistory
begins and wliere tlie profane ends.
My consolation is, that it seems to me much tbe
same in tlie Holy Scriptures. We call Genesis sacred
history, and what is it, chiefly, but a story of family
life? "What is Exodus but a record of national
) deliverances ? What are the Chronicles and Kings
but histories of wars and sieges, interspersed with
pathetic family stories? What, indeed, are the
\ gospels themselves but the record , not of creeds or
ecclesiastical conflicts, but of a life, the Life, coming
in contact with every form of sickness, and sin, and
sorrow iu this our common everyday human life?
What would the gospels be with nothing but the
Sabbaths and the synagogues, and the Sanhedrim,
and the Scribes and Pharisees left in them? With
the Avidow's only son left out of them, and the ruler's
little daughter, and the woman who was a sinner,
and the five thousand fed on the grassy slopes - of
Galilee, and the one young man who departed sor-
rowful "for he had great possessions?" Would it
have been more truly church history for being the
less human history?
The Bible history seems to me to be a history
286 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
of all human life in relation to God. The sins of
the Bible are terribly manifest, secular sins; in-
justice, impurity, covetousness, cruelty. Its virtues
are simple, homely, positive virtues; truth, upright-
ness, kindness, mercy, gratitude, courage, gentleness;
such sins and virtues as make the weal or woe of
nations and of homes. Ordinary ecclesiastical history
seems to me too often a record of secular struggles
for consecrated things, and names, and places, and
of selfish strivings for which shall be greatest. The
sins it blames , too often mere transgressions of rules,
mistakes as to religious terms, neglect of the tithe
of mint, anise, and cummin. The virtues it com-
mends, alas! too often negative renunciations of cer-
tain indulgences, scruples as to certain observances,
fasting twice in the week; things which, done or
undone, leave the heart the same.
But underneath all this a church history like that
of the Bible is being silently lived on earth, is being
silently written in heaven. Little glimpses of it we
see here from time to time. What will it be when
we see it all!
All through that summer the country was astir
with the enlistings for the king and the Parlia-
ment.
These began about April.
A STORY OF THE ClVIIi WARS. 287
On the 23rd of February Queen Henrietta Maria
had embarked at Dover for tbe Low Countries , with
the Princess Mary and tbe crown-jewels.
From tbe time that she was in safety, tbe king's
! tone to tbe Parliament began (it was thought) to
! change. Always chivalrously regardful of her, and
; indiflPerent to danger for himself (for none of his
I father's timidity could ever be charged to him), he
began to give more open answers to the popular
demands. He hoped also, it was said, much from
the queen's eloquence and exertions in bis cause on
tbe Continent. It was his misfortune, my father
said, that any favourable turn in bis affairs made
him unyielding; and thus it happened that he only
came to terms when bis cause was at tbe worst, so
that bis treaties bad the double disadvantage of being
made under tbe most adverse circumstances, and
with men who knew from repeated experience that
not one of his most sacred promises would be kept
if he could help it. Such virtues as be possessed
seemed always to come into action at tbe wrong
moment; his courage when it could only kindle irri-
tation; his graciousness when it could only inspire
contempt.
Tbe queen being safely out of tbe country, and
the king safely out of the capital, from his refuge
at York came tbe renewal of the old irritating demand
288 THK DRAVTONS AND THE UAVJiNANXS:
for tounage aucl pouudagc, rooting the opposition
firmer than ever in tlie irrevocable distrust of the
royal word.
The demand of the king for the old usurpations
was met by the assertion of the Parliament of old
rights, with the demand for new powers to secure
these; by the assertion of the power of the purse,
and the demand for power over the militia.
But to us women at Netherby all these negotia-
tions and fencings between the king and the Parlia-
ment sounded so much like what had gone on for
so long, everything was couched in such orderly and
constitutional language, that it was difficult to think
anything more than Protestations, Remonstrances,
Breach of Privilege, and Protests for Privilege , would
ever come of it.
The first thing that roused me to the sense that
it might end not in words but in battles, was the
news that reached us one April evening that the
king had gone in person with three hundred horse-
men to the gates of Hull, and had summoned Sir
John Hotham to surrender the city, that Sir John
had refused to surrender or to admit the king's troops
(offering all loyal courtesy at the same time to the
king himself); that the king and his three hundred
had thereon gone ofi" baffled to Beverley, and there
proclaimed Sir John Hotham a traitor.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 289
That night I said to Aunt Gretel, —
"This seems to me altogether to introduce a new
set of terms and things. Instead of Protestations
and Kemonstrances, we hear of Summonses and Sur-
renders. The king and his Cavaliers repulsed from
the closed gates of one of his own cities ! Aunt Gretel,
these are new words to us; does not this look like
war?"
And she replied, in a tremulous voice, —
"Alas, sweet heart, these are new words to me.
Your people seem to arrange many things others fight
about, by talking about them. And it is difficult
for me to say what words mean with you. But these
words are indeed terribly familiar to me. And in
my country they would certainly mean war."
And that night I well remember the perplexity
that crossed my prayers, whether in praying as
usual for the king I might not be praying against
the Parliament, and against my father and Roger,
and the nation; until after debating the matter in my
own mind for some time, I came to the conclusion
that on whatever dark mountains scattered, and by
whatever deep waters divided, to Him there is still
"One flock, one Shepherd," and that however ill I
knew how to ask. He knew well what to give.
The Dra>itons awl the Dcwenants. I.
19
290 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
XVIU.
LETTICE DAVENANT's DIARY.
[from another source.]
"York, April 1642. — It has actually begun at
last. The rebellion has begun. Sir John Hotham
(Sir I hesitate to call him, for what knight is worthy
the name who turns his disloyal sword against the
very Fountain of knighthood and of all honour?)
has closed the gates of Hull against the summons —
against the very voice and j^erson of His Sacred
Majesty. At once the king withdrew to Beverley,
and, under the shadow of the grand 0I4 Minster,
proclaimed the false knight a traitor.
"The rebellion has begun, but every one says ,
it cannot last long. Next Christmas at latest must !
see us all at peace again; the nation once more at
the feet of the king. My mother says like a pro-
digal child; Sir Launcelot says like a beaten hound.
Mobs, says he, like dogs, can only learn to obey
by being suffered to rebel a little, and then being
whipped for it. (I like not well this talk of Sir
Launcelot. If the nation is like a hound, at what
A STOltY OF TUB CIVIL WARS. 291
point ill the nation does the dog-nature begin, and
the human end?) Speaking so, I tokl him, we
might include ourselves. But he laughed, and said,
such discerning of spirits required no miraculous
gift. Moreover, he said, tlie king himself had once
compared the Parliament to 'cats, to he tamed when
young but cursed when old;' and had called his
sailors in tlie Thames who offered to guard the
Parliament 'water-rats.' If the king said so, I con-
fess I think His Majesty miglit have chosen more
courtly similes. But I do not believe he did. I will
never believe any evil of His Majesty, whoever says
it , scarcely if I were to see it myself, for my eyes
might be deceived.
"Only I should be sorely vexed if they heard
these things at Netherby; because they never said
rough things of any one. Especially now I am not
there to explain things. For I am not allowed to
write to them, nor to see them again, until things
are right again in the country; which makes me
write this.
"However, it cannot last long. Every one here
agrees in that. Every one except Harry, whom we
call 'II Penseroso.' He sees such a long way, and
on so many sides, or at least he tries to do so; and
he talks of the Wars of the Roses, and the wars in
Germany; as if there were any resemblance! In
19*
292 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS.'
Germany tliere were kings and states opposed. In
the Wars of the Roses royal persons, with some
kind of claim to reign. But this is nothing but flat
rebellion. The family against the father; sworn
liegemen against their sovereign lord; the body
against the head. And how can any one think for
a moment there can be any end to it but one, and
that soon? Yes; at Christmas, I trust, we Dave-
nants shall be at the Hall again, and the Draytons
at Netherby, looking back to the end of this frantic
and unnatural outbreak.
"And I mean to be most generous to them all
about it. I do not mean even to say, 'I always
told you how it would end.' They will see, and
that will be enough. The king will forgive every
one, I am sure, he is so gracious and gentle — (he
spoke to me like a father the other day, and yet
with such a knightly deference!) — except, perhaps,
a very few, who will have to be made examples of,
unless they make examples of themselves by running
out of the country, which I hope they may. For
once having re-asserted his rightful authority, the
king will be able to be forgiving without being
suspected of weakness. There need not be any
more poor mistaken people set in the pillory, which
really seems to do no one any good, as far as I can
see, and to make every one so exceedingly angry.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS, 293
The Puritans (that is, those among them who have
any sense) will see that it really can make no
difference whether the clergyman says the prayers
in a white dress or a black. Perhaps even the bishops
and archbishops might own the same. Because,
although it cannot be good management to give a
naughty child its way for crying, if it stops crying
and is good, it is quite another thing.
"And then everything would go on delightfully.
The very troublesome and obstinate people (on both
sides, I think) might, perhaps, all go to America,
some to the north and some to the south. For the
American plantations are very wide, they say, and
by the time they met — say in one or two hundred
years — their great-great-grandchildren might have
given up caring so much about the colours of the
vestments and the titles of the clergymen who do
the services in the Church. So that by that time
everything would go on delightfully in America as
well as in England. And by next Christmas, from
what the gentlemen and ladies about us here say,
I should think this might all have begun. Only
just now this little unpleasant contest has to be gone
through first. And I am very much afraid as to
what Mr. Drayton and Eoger may do, or even
Olive. They are so terribly conscientious. They
will pick up the smallest questions with their con-
291 THE DRAYTONS y\ND THE DAVEXANTS :
sciences instead of with their common sense; which
seems to me like watering a daisy with a fire-engine,
or weeding a flower-bed with a plough. Mistress
Dorothy is the worst of them (dear, kind, old soul,
I must now and then look at her sermons, in order
to make it quite clear to myself I was not a hypo-
crite in listening to them all that time). But I do
not think any of them are quite safe in this way.
And yet I know, in my inmost heart, they are
better than any one in the world, except my mother,
and perhaps Harry. (Of His Majesty it is not for
me to speak.) And I love them better than any
one in the world, which, I am afraid, they will not
believe, now I am not allowed to write to them. I
love them for their noble perverseness , and their
heroic conscientiousness, and their terrible truthful-
ness, and everything that separates us. And these
last months at home have been the happiest of my
life. I feel growing quite good. And one thing I
have resolved. I will not say one word I should
mind their hearing, so that when we meet again I
may have nothing to explain or to unsay. For it is
only misunderstanding that will ever make any of
them take the wrong side; nothing but misunder-
standing. And facts will set that all right when
they see how things really are. As they will, I
trust, before Christmas.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 295
"It is not so easy to be good here as at Ne-
tlierby. People say so many pretty things to me.
My mother says I must not heed them; they are
only Court ways of speaking, which mean nothing-,
and that, rightly used, I might even make them
means of mortification, saying every time I hear
such pretty phrases, as good Dr. Taylor recom-
mended, 'My beauty is in colour inferior to many
flowers; and even a dog hath parts as well propor-
tioned to the designs of his nature as I have; and
three fits of an ague can change it into yellowness
and leanness, and to hollowness and wrinkles of
deformity.' But this I find not so easy. If I were
a rose, I should be pleased at being a rose, and at
being thought sweet and fair. And even a well-
favoured dog, meseems, hath some harmless delight
in his good looks. And as to the ague, I see no
likelihood of it. And as to becoming yellow and
lean, the more I think of it, the gladder I am to
think I am not. And yet there is some flutter in
my pleasure at these fair speeches which hardly
seems to me quite altogether good. And I do not
think my mother quite knows what nonsense these
young Cavaliers talk. Perhaps no one did ever
talk nonsense to her. Or, if they did, I am sure
she never liked it. And I am afraid I do sometimes
a little. Else, why should it all come back into my
296 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
mind at wrong times? — in tlie Minster or at
prayers. Heigh, lio! I wish I was at Netherby.
No one ever called me fair enchantress there, or my
cheeks Aurora's rose-garden, or my teeth strings of
pearls, or my hands lilies, or my hair imprisoned
sunbeams, or my voice the music of the spheres.
Sir Launcelot talked enough of that kind of poetry
to me, between Netherby and Windsor, to make a
book of ballads. (For my mother was in the sedan-
chair, whilst I rode most of the way with Sir
Launcelot.) And yet, I think, there is more honour
in Roger Drayton's telling me in his straight-forward
way he thought me wrong, as he so often did, than
in all Sir Launcelot's most honeyed compliments.
"Not that I think Olive just to poor Sir Launce-
lot. If she could have seen his deho7imr and courte-
ous ways to every clown and poor wench we met,
and how he flung his crowns and angels to any
beggar, she must have felt there is much kindliness
in him, with all his wild ways.
"And when he saw I liked not so many fair
speeches, he gave them up in a measure. I must
say that for him-, and he has been as deferential to
me ever since at the Court, as if I were one of the
princesses. Only I wish he would not always see
when I drop my glove or my posy; at least, I think
I do. Yet it is rather pleasant, too, at times to
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 297
feel there is some one who cares about one among
so many strange people, and some one who is always
ready to talk about poor old Netherby, and who
honours the Dray tons, moreover, so generously. I
wish Olive knew this.
"And I wish I were like my mother, and had *a
chapel built in my heart.' Or else that I could live
at Netherby.
"Sir Launcelot admires the 'beauty of holiness'
in my mother. He says, in all times, happily, there
have been these sweet exalted saints, especially
among women, bright particular stars, celestial beau-
ties, and princesses, that all men must revere. Quite
another kind of thing, he says, from the Puritan
notion of calling all men to be 'saints,' or else con-
signing them to reprobation as among the wicked.
''^Note. — I am at a loss what to call this writing
of mine. It is scarcely a Diary or Journal, for I
certainly shall not do anything as regular as write in
it every day. It shall not be 'Annals;' for I hope
to have done with it before Christmas, when I shall
have met Olive and all of them again at home.
'Chronicles' are more solemn still. 'Thoughts?'
where shall I find them? 'Facts?' how is one to
know them, when people give such different accounts
of things? 'Meditations?' worse again. 'Eeligious
Journals,' 'Confessions,' &c., always puzzled me. I
298 TriE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
could never make out for whom they were written.
Especially the prayers I have seen written out at
length in them. They cannot be meant for other
people to read. That would be turning the 'closet'
into 'the comers of the street.' They cannot be
meant for the people themselves to read. For what
good could that do? It would not be praying to
see how I prayed some years since. They cannot
surely be meant for God to read. He is always
near, and can hear or read our hearts, which is quite
another thing from reading our diaries,
"J/«y 30, Yorlc. — The birds begin to sing in
the trees around the Minster. Our lodging is op-
posite. And the courtiers begin to gather once more
around the king. Many lords have come these last
days from London, with some faithful members of
the Commons' House, and old Lord Littleton has
come, with somewhat limping loyalty, they say,
after the Great Seal, now in the right hand. So
that this grave old town begins to look gay. Cava-
liers caracoUing about the streets, doffing their hats
to fair faces in the windows. Troops mustering but
slowly;- somewhat slowly. Nor can I make out if
these townspeople altogether like us and our ways.
There are so many Puritans among these traders.
And Sir Launcelot says they have great sport in the
A STOTIY OF THE CIVIL "WARS. 299
Puritan household where he is quartered, in iraking
the Puritan Lads learn the 'Distracted Puritan,' and
other roystering Cavalier songs, and drink confusion
to the Covenant; and in making the host and hostess
bring out their best conserves, linen, and plate, for
the use of the men. Sir Launcelot told them, he
said, that they should only look on it as the payment
of an old debt the children of Israel had owed to
the Egyptians these three thousand years. I do not
think such jokes good manners in any other person's
house, and I told him so. But he said their ridi-
culous gravity makes the temptation too sti'ong to be
resisted. If they would jest good-humouredly in
return, said he, they would soon understand each
other. But would they? I am not quite sure how
Sir Launcelot enjoys not having the best of a joke.
And I could not bear his calling the Puritans all
canting or ridiculous. He knows better. And I
told him so. I felt quite indignant, and the tears
were in my eyes (for I thought of them all at
Netherby). He seemed penitent. Indeed, I hope it
did him good.
''^June. — The Parliament are growing more in-
solent every day; they dared to say in one of their
ridiculous Remonstrances that 'the king is for the
kingdom, not the kingdom for the king, that even
the crown-jewels are not His Majesty's own, but
300 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS : i
given him in trust for the regal power.' However,
they will soon learn their mistake about that, for
the crown-jewels are safe in Holland, and have there
purchased for the Crown good store of arms and
ammunition. These were all embarked in a Dutch
ship called the Providence. A great Providence, my
mother says, attended her. For although she was
wrecked on the coast of Yorkshire, nevertheless all
her stores have this day been safely brought into
York.
"Now we shall see what gentlemen can do against
tapsters, and tailors' and haberdashers' 'prentices,
such as make up the wretched army they have been
mustering in London! The citizens' wives actually
brought their thimbles and bodkins, it is said, to
pay the men; to such mean and ludicrous straits are
they reduced. The Cavaliers call it 'the Thimble
and Bodkin Army.'
'''' July 20. ■ — ■ Sir John Hotham is said to be
wavering back to loyalty. A day or two since, a
gallant little army of four thousand men rode forth
hence through the Mickle Bar, to demand the sur-
render of that presumptuous city, Hull, and if
refused, to storm it. Better they had listened to
His Majesty's gentle summons with his three hundred.
How gallant and brave they looked. Plumed helmets
gleaming, swords flashing, pennons flying, horses
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 301
looking as proud of the cause as tlie riders. Not a
cavalier among them who would not face battle as
gayly as the hunting-field.
''''July 22. — Those treacherous townspeople!
Not a troop of them is to be relied on. Our gallant
Cavaliers came back in disorder. And all because
of the faithless train-bands, and those turbulent
citizens of Hull. Lord Lindsay, with three thousand
men, was at Beverley, and on the lighting of a fire
on Beverley Minster, the gates of Hull were to be
opened by some loyal men inside. But five hundred
rebels within the town, hearing too soon of the
intention of these loyal men, made a sortie under
the command of Sir John Hotham. The true Cava-
liers would have stood firm, every one says, but the
Yorkshire train-bauds would not draw sword against
their neighbours, but ran away to Beverley; and so
the whole ended in disgrace and defeat. If we could
only have an army entirely composed of gentlemen,
and their sons, and retainers, the Parliament could
not stand a day. But the worst news that has
reached us lately, is the treachery of the Earl of
Warwick and the navy. They have all gone over
to the Parliament, in spite of the king's offering
them better pay than they ever received before.
Five ships stood firm at first, but the rest over-
powered them. I hope no one ever told them about
302 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
tlieir being called 'water-rats;' but tbere are always
some malicious people who deligbt to make mischief
by telling tales. I should think royal persons ought
to be very careful about their jests.
''''August. — We are on the point of leaving
York to spend a few days at Nottingham, where the
king's standard is to be set up.
"I am not sorry to leave this old town. I miss
the pleasant walks at home. For here one dare
scarce venture much out of doors. If the Cavaliers
are as dangerous to their enemies as they are some-
times to their friends, the Parliament has good cause
to tremble. The streets echo dismally at night with
the shouts of drunken revelry. But, I suppose, all
armies are alike. Only it is rather unfortunate for
us that gravity and the show of piety being the
badge of the Puritans, levity and a reckless dashing
carriage are taken up as their badge by many of the
young Cavaliers.
"I would they took example by the king. His
Majesty has been riding around the country lately
himself, calling his lieges to follow him. And his
majestic courtesy and grace, with his loving and
winning speeches, such as he made at Newark and
Lincoln, showing his good intentions and desires for
their liberty and welfare, must, I am sui-e, be worth
A STORY OF TllK CIVIL, WAKS. 30o
him a mint of such money as the London citizens
can coin out of their thimbles and bodkins.
"The North country is well disposed, they say;
and Lancashire, where the queen hath much hold on
the Catholic gentlemen of ancient lineage there; and
the West country, where brave Sir Bevil Grenvill
lives, is full of loyalty. Mr. Hampden has done
mischief in Buckinghamshire, and Mr. Cromwell (a
brewer, Sir Launcelot says, rather than a country-
gentleman, though not of low parentage) calls him-
self captain, and is disaffecting the eastern counties,
already disloyal enough with their French Huguenot
weavers, and their 'Anabaptists, Atheists, and Brown-
ists,' as His Majesty calls them.
"The towns are the worst, however. I suppose
there is something in buying and selling, and tinker-
ing and tailoring, which makes people think more
of mean money considerations, than of loyalty and
honour. Then there are so many Puritans in the
town. Perhaps the narrow dark high streets make
them naturally inclined to be gloomy and strait-
laced. I think, however, the less our Cavalier soldiers
are quartered in the towns, the better, till they mend
their manners. It may make the citizens less pleased
than ever with the Book of Sports.
''''Nottingham, Aiujiist 23. — This evening the
king himself set up his standard on the top of the
304 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
field behind the castle. There was much sounding
of drums and trumpets. Several hundreds gathered
around the royal partj, and we watched a little way
off. But, I know not how, the act did not seem as
solemn as the occasion. The night was stormy, and
the trumpets and drums, and then the voice of the
herald reading the royal proclamation, sounded small
and thin against the rush and howling of the winds.
The troops have not yet answered the king's call as
they should, and those present were mostly the train-
bands. Then His Majesty, on the spot, made some
alterations in the proclamation, which perplexed the
herald, so that he blundered and stumbled in read-
ing it. Altogether I wish I had not been there.
"The king's standard ought to be something
more than a pole no higher than a May-pole with a
few streamers, and a common flag at the top. And
the trumpets which are to rouse a nation, ought to
have a certain magnificence in them, altogether dif-
ferent from the trumpets they blow at the carols at
Netherby at Christmas. I am siire I cannot tell
how. But I always pictured it so. The words are
grander than the things.
"Perhaps all our pomps and solemnities look
poor and mean under the open sky. We had better
keep them beneath roofs of our own making. The
pomps we are used to under the open sky are the
A STOHY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 305
purple and crimson and gold of sunset and sunrise,
great banners of storm-clouds flung across the sky.
And tlie solemnities are the thunders, and the mighty
winds, and the rushing of rivers, and the dashing of
seas.
"The things are grander, infinitely, than any
words wherewith we can speak of them.
"JUit when I said so to my mother, she said,
*And yet, my child, one soul, and even one human
voice, is grander, and more godlike than all the
thunders. It is their significance, Lettice, which
gives the grandeur to any solemnities of ours. If
we heard those trumpets summon our countrymen hy
thousands to the battle, or saw that flag borne blood-
stained from the field, we should not think the voice
of the trumpet wanted a terrible magnificence, or call
the flag a common thing ever more.'
"Perhaps, after all, it was only a little inward
depression that made me feel this disappointment.
For only three days before, Coventry had shut her
gates in the king's face, and the Earl of Essex is at
hand, they say, with a great army, and so few flock-
ing loyally to the king.
"But worst of all, I think, is this Prince Rupert.
His mother's name, Elizabeth of Bohemia, has been
like a sacred name in the country for years; a saint
and a heroine in courage and patience. But this
The Draytons and the Daveuants. L ^0
306 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
prince is so noisy and reckless, and takes so mucli
upon himself, that he angers the older gentlemen and
experienced soldiers sorely. My father says he is
little better than a petulant boy. Yet he has great
weight with the king, his uncle, and takes the com-
mand into his own hands; so that the gallant old
Earl of Lindsay deems his own command little better
than nominal. And, meanwhile, the younger Cava-
liers take their colour from him, and use that new
low cant word of his, 'plunder,' quite as a jest, as if
it meant some new sport or sword- exercise, instead
of meaning, as it does, scouring all over the country,
burning lonely farm-houses, robbing the inmates, and
sometimes hanging the servants at the doors for re-
fusing to betray their masters, sacking villages, and
I know not what other wickednesses. In the fort-
night he has been here, he has flown through Worces-
tershire, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, Leicester-
shire, and Cheshire. And not a night but we have
seen the sky aglow with the fires of burning villages
and homesteads. I should fear to hear how the
people along his line of march, coming back to their
ruined homes, speak of the king!
" Moreover, it is said, the rebel troops are strictly
forbidden to take anything without paying for it, a
contrast worth them much.
'"''August 23. — This morning, before I rose, my
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS, 307
mother's waiting gentlewoman brought dismal news.
The royal standard, said she, has been blown down
iu the night, and lies a wreck along the hill.
"My mother says it is heathenish to talk of omens
and auguries. And my father says these foreigners
are the worst omen, and all would be well enough
if they would leave Englishmen to fight out their
own quarrels, like neighbours who exchange blows
and are friends again, instead of like wretched hired
Lanzknechts or Free Companions.
"But SirLauncelot laughs, and says it is a good
thing to give the whining Puritans something to cry
for at last. And Harry sighs, and says he supposes
it is necessary to make the rebels see we are in
earnest.
"Altogether, we do not seem in a very good
humour with each other just now. However, a few
victories will, no doubt, set us all right again. There
can be no reasonable doubt that the king will bring
these rebels to their senses sooner or later; in a few
months at latest.
"Only, I had not vinderstood at all how very
melancholy war is. I thought of it as concerning no
one but the soldiers. And men must incur danger
one way or another. And there is the glory, and
the excitement, and the exercise of noble courage,
20*
308 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
making such men as nothing but such trials can
make.
"But the battles seem but a small part of the
misery, the misery without glory to any one.
"On our way hither from York, my mother was
faint and tired, and we stopped at a little farm-
house with an orchard. It was evening, and the
woman had just finished milking the cows by the
door, and she gave my mother a cup of new milk
while she rested on the settle in the clean little
kitchen. There were two little children playing
about, and the father was at work in the orchard,
and one of the children called him, and he brought
my father a cup of cider. And there was a Bible
on the table with woodcuts; and I found the eldest
child knew the meaning of them. He said his father
had told him. They were very kind and pleasant
to us.
"And a few days since Harry told me they had
passed a little farm with an orchard, and the man
was surly and a Puritan, and refused to tell the
way some fugitives had fled; and Prince Rupert had
him hanged on his own threshold, and drove off the
cows for plunder.
"And from what Harry says I feel sure it is the
same.
"And I have scarcely slept since, thinking of that
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 309
poor man, and the silent voice that will never any
more explain the woodcuts in the old Bible, and the
poor hands that will never show their willing hospi-
tality again.
"But it is only one, Harry says, among hundreds;
and such things must be, and I must not think
of it.
"But every one of the hundreds is just that ter-
rible oyilij one^ which leaves the world all lonely to
some poor mourner!
"Those gentlemen in Parliament have dreadful
things to answer for.
"Why did not Mr. Hampden pay a thousand
.times his miserable ship-money rather than lead the
country on to such horrors?
"For the king cannot have his commands dis-
obeyed. If he did, how could he be a king?
"I do wish he could be more a king with his
own troops; I am sure he hates this ravaging and
marauding. But so many of the gentlemen serve,
and, indeed, keep their regiments at their own cost,
which makes them difficult to control.
" October. — Prince Eupert has been driven from
Worcester. If it were only a lesson in reverence
and modesty for the prince, it would not so much
matter, some think, that he left twenty good and
true men dead there. The Earl of Essex occupies
310 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS.
the city. He has been there a fortnight doing no-
thing. Some remnants of loyalty, we think, hinder
him from coming to open collision. But what the
use of collecting an army can be unless it is to fight,
it is hard to see. The truth is, perhaps, that he
begins to feel the peril of setting his haberdashers'
and grocers' 'prentices, commanded by a forsworn
peer, against gentlemen's sons fighting under their
king! Meantime, our army is gathering at last, and
only too eager, they say, to give the rebels a lesson.
Once for all, God grant it be a lesson once for all.
Although the battles do not seem to me half so
dreadful as these 'plunderings.' But, perhaps, that
is because I never came near a battle; nor, indeed,
can the oldest man in England remember any one
that ever did on English soil."
END OF VOL. I.
THE DRAYTONS
AND
THE DAVENANTS:
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS.
BY THE AUTHOIt OF
"CHRONICLES Of THE SCHuNJJERCi-COTTA FAMILY."
COPYBIGET F.DITION.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. 11.
LEIPZIG
B E R N H A R D T A U C H N I T Z
18G8.
Th: liiijlil of Translatlnn is rcscrvvd.
THE
DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS,
XIX.
OLIVE Drayton's recollections.
All through the summer the armies were gather-
ing. In our seven eastern counties — Essex, Norfolk,
Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Lincoln, Huntingdonshire,
and Hertfordshire — called the associated counties,
because bound by Mr. Hampden and Mr. Cromwell
into an association for mutual defence, the King's
Commission of Array and the Parliament's Ordinance
of Militia clashed less than elsewhere. In August
Mr. Cromwell seized a magazine of arms and ammu-
nition at Cambridge. The stronghold of the Puritans
was in these eastern regions; and except where a few
Royalist gentlemen, like the Davenants, led off their
retainers, the Parliament had, amongst us, mostly its
own way. All the more reason, my father said, for
6 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENAi^TS:
our men to risk their persons, since our homes were
safer than elsewhere.
My father, from his old military experience, had
much to do with training and drilling the men.
Strange sounds of clanging arms and sharp words of
command echoed from the old court of the Manor.
Old arms, the very stories belonging to which were
well-nigh forgotten, were taken down; arms which
had hung on the walls of manor-house and farm-
house since the Wars of the Roses. The newest
weapon we had at Netherby which had seen service
in England, was a short jewel-hilted sword the Dray-
ton of the day had worn at the Battle of Bosworth
Field, fighting, by a rare piece of good luck for us,
under Henry VII., on the winning side. Since then
the Reformation had revolutionized the Church, and
gunpowder had revolutionized the art of war; so that
instead of the sturdy bowmen, each provided with
his weapon and ready trained to the use of it, whom
his ancestors brought to the field, my father could
only muster a few labourers and servants, without
weapons and without training, with no further pre-
paration for war than hands iised to labour, wits
ready to learn, and hearts ready to dare.
My father did not mean to lead his own men.
Having had experience of engineering in the Grerman
wars, he was employed here and there as his direc-
A STORY OF TUB CIVIL WARS. /
tions were needed. Roger and those who went from
Netherby served from the first with Mr. Cromwell's
Ironsides; my father, as his contribution, providing
the armour, which, like that of Haselrigge's Lobsters,
was complete and costly. Other bands passed and
repassed often, and shared the hospitalities of the
Manor, to join Lord Brook's purple-coats. Lord Say
and Lord Mandeville's blue- coats. Hollis' red-coats
were London men, and Mr. Hampden's green-coats
all from his own county, Buckinghamshire; while
the badge of all was the orange scarf round the
arm — the family colours of Lord Essex, the general.
Each regiment had its own motto — Hampden's,
" Vestiijia nulla retrorsum;'''' Essex's (pointing many a
Cavalier jest, if seen in plunder or retreat), ''''Cave
adsum.^'' On the reverse of each banner was the
common motto of all, "God with us" — the watch-
word of so many a battle.
Money was not stinted; the city of London head-
ing the contributions in January with £' 50,000, and
the Merchants' Companies with nigh as large a sum
(then intended to avenge the Irish massacre); whilst
Mr. Hampden gave £ 1000, and his cousin, Mr. Crom-
well, £ 500.
Women brought their rings and jewels; cherished
old family-plate was not held back. We in our
sober Puritan household had few jewels to bring, but
b THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
such* as we had were disinterred from theLr caskets,
and the few silver drinking-cups which distinguished
our table from any farmers round were packed up
by Aunt Dorothy's own hands, and despatched to
the London Guildhall, not without sighs, but with-
out hesitation, with all the money that could be
spared.
Cousin Placidia also offered what she called her
"mite;" when she heard that the poor citizens' wives
in London had even offered their thimbles and bod-
kins.
"I am but a poor parson's wife," said she, "but
I am thankful they will receive even such poor offer-
ings as I can bring."
And she brought those embroidered Cordova
gloves, the search for which had so incensed Aunt
Dorothy.
"It is remarkable," she observed, "that I always
said one never knew what use anything might be in
a poor parson's household; and now I have found
the use."
"What use, my dear," said Aunt Dorothy, "do
you think the Parliament soldiers will fight in em-
broidered gloves?"
"Spanish leather is dear," replied Placidia, "and
things will always sell. It is only a poor mite, I
know, but so is a thimble. The Parliament soldiers
A STORY OF lUK CIVIL WARS. 9
cannot, of course, figlit in thimbles any more than
in gloves; and the widow's mite was accepted."
"^1 mite and the 'widow's mite' are some way
apart, my dear," said Aunt Dorothy; "your 'widow's
mite,' I suppose, might perhaps, for example, include
the glebe and those cows in your uncle's park and
meadow. Take care what you offer to the Lord. He
sometimes takes us at our word. And there are
plunderers abroad who take their own estimate of
people's mites, widows' and others."
Said Placidia, never taken aback —
"Aunt Dorothy, Mr. Nicholls and I regard the
glebe as a sacred trust, of which we feel we must on
no account relinquish the smallest fraction. And as
to the cows Uncle Drayton gave me, I wonder you
can suspect me of such ingratitude as to give them
up to any one."
"I did not, my dear," said Aunt Dorothy,
quietly. "What shall I label your Cordova gloves?
Scarcely a parson's mite; it might be mistaken to
mean 'all his living.' Nor can I exactly say
'widow's.'"
"An orphan's perhaps, Aunt Dorothy."
"Very well, my dear," said Aunt Dorothy; "I
should think that would aff'ect the Parliament very
much. It may even get into history."
With which this little passage at arms closed.
10 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVEXANTS :
Happily for tlie popular cause, the commou inter-
pretation of acceptable "mites" differed from Pla-
cidia's, so tliat in a short time a considerable army
was levied.
The navy ever remained true to the Parliament;
irritated, some foolish persons said, by a report that
the king had called them "water-rats." As well say
the whole Parliament stood firm, because the king
once compared them to cats. The navy had its own
watchwords, better pointed than by the sting of a
sorry jest. English seamen were not likely to trust
too implicitly to the promises of the sovereign who
had tried to sell them to aid in the destruction of
the brave little beleaguered Protestant garrison at
Rochelle.
All through the summer the armies were being
levied and the breach was silently widening.
In July an incident showed, my father said, as
much as anything could, how entirely the king's
mind was unchanged, and how "thorough" would
have been the tyranny established in his hands,
though Laud, and Strafford, and the queen, and
every violent councillor, had been removed. My old
friend, Dr. Bastwick, the physician, was seized by
the royal forces at Worcester while engaged in levy-
ing men for the Parliament, under Earl Stamford,
who retreated. It was with the greatest difficulty that
A STOUY OP THE CIVIL WARS. _ 11
one of the judges restrained the king from having
him hanged on the spot, although there could be no
reason why he should have been sentenced with this
exceptional severity except the fact that he had al-
ready been scourged, pilloried, and maimed by the
cruelty of the Star-Chamber.
The deep distrust which such indications of the
king's true mind produced, cost him more than
many lost battles.
They tended to inspire such resistances as that
made a few weeks afterwards by the brave com-
moners of Coventry, when, withoiit garrison, with-
out engineers, with no defence but their feeble an-
cient walls, they shut their gates in the sovereign's
face, defied the royal forces, and when the breach
was made by artillery in the old tottering walls, bar-
ricaded the streets with barrows and carts, made a
sally, carried the nearest lines, seized the guns, and
turned them against the besiegers, compelling them
at last to retire baffled.
But it was Prince Eupert, "the Prince Robber,"
who, perhaps, more than any, turned the hearts of
the people against the sovereign who could use such
an instrument. Trained in the cruel school of the
Palatinate wars, he had read its terrible lessons the
wrong way, having learned from the sufferings of
his father's subjects not pity, but a savage reckless-
12 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
ness of suffering. He brouglit home to hundreds of
burning villages and plundered lonely farms, which
no Parliamentary remonstrances or declarations would
have reached, the conviction that the king looked on
his people, not as a flock, but as mere live-stock on
an estate, to be kept up if profitable and manage-
able, and if not to be sacrificed ,to any system of
management which gave less trouble and brought in
more profit.
" Whose own the sheep are not^^'' was written in
the ashes of every home ruined by Prince Rupert in
the king's service.
With these deeds the people contrasted the well-
kept orders of the Parliament to Lord Essex. "Yoii
shall carefully restrain all imj)ieties, profaneness, and
disorders, violence. Insolence, and plundering in your
soldiers, as well by strict and severe punishment of
such offences as by all other means which you in
your wisdom shall think fit."
And we grew to think that, whoever the true
shepherd and king of the people might be, it was
scarcely one who employed the wolf for a sheep-dog.
It was but slowly and reluctantly that this con-
viction grew on the nation. Those who look back
on the king's life, hallowed by the shadow of his
death, little know how slowly and reluctantly. We
would fain have trusted him if he would Irave let us.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 13
The nation tried it again and again, and only too
mucli was sacrificed before tliey would believe it was
in vain. Still there had been no battle. The Earl
of Essex , after following the prince from Worcester,
lingered there three weeks, doing nothing. No battle
worth the name for nearly a hundred and seventy
years, until Sunday the 23d of October 1642.
Then came the first great shock. All that Sun-
day afternoon our countrymen, husbands, brothers,
fathers, sons of the women left in the quiet villages
at home, were fighting in the desperate struggle for
life and death, until at night four thousand English-
men lay dead on the slopes of Edgehill, or dying in
the villages around — the day before as tranquil and
peaceful as ours.
I remember there was a peculiar quiet about that
Sunday at Netherby. So many of the men of the
village had gone to the war. lioger had been away
many weeks, and my father had left some days be-
fore to join Lord Essex at Worcester. In all our
household there were no men left except Bob the
herdsman. The church was strangely deserted. The
Hall pew empty. Scarcely one deep manly voice in
response or psalm. On the benches in the village a
few old men had an unwonted monopoly of talk,
and the lads on anything like the verge of manhood
strode heavily about with a new sense of importance.
14 THE DEAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
One asked another for news. But there was none
save rumours of mysterious marcliings and counter-
marcliings of troops, without any aim that we knew,
or the echo of some far-off foray of Prince Rupert's.
There was a dreamy stillness all around. Tib's
voice came up alone from the kitchen as she moved
about some Sabbath work of necessity, and carolled
rather iincertainly snatches of the psalm we had sung
at prayers in the morning. From the slope where
the house stood (which gave us that wide range over
the levels which I miss everywhere else), I saw the
cattle feeding far off in the marshy lands, too far
for any sound of their voices to reach me. The
harvest was over on the nearer slopes, so that there
was no music of the wind rustling through the corn.
The land lay half-slumbering in its autumn rest, like
Roger's faithful Lion in his Sunday afternoon sleep
on the terrace below. But, I knew not why, there
seemed to me a kind of expectancy in this calm. A
waiting and listening seemed to palpitate through
this stillness of the land such as pervaded Lion's
slumber as he couched, quivering at every sound,
vainly waiting for Roger's voice to summon him as
usual at this hour for a walk in the fields.
The feeling grew on me, till all this quiet
seemed not as the rest after a calm, but the calm
before a storm; and the silence excited in me as if
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 15
it Avero the breathless hush of thousands of beating
hearts.
Then I thought of Eachel Forster in her lonely
home. And it was a relief to rise at once and go to
her. Her door was open. She was sitting before
the old Bible. It was open, but she was not read-
ing. Her hands were clasped on her knees. There
was a stillness on her face as great as that over the
country. But in this calm there was something that
calmed me.
It seemed to me conscious and victorious, not
dreamlike, and liable at any moment to a terrible
waking.
1 told her the restlessness I had been feeling.
"Can we wonder, Mistress Olive?" said she.
"Do we not know what we might be giving them
up for?"
"This quietness of the world seems awful to me
to-day, Eachel," said I, "but in yon there is some-
thing that quiets me. You find peace in prayer,
Rachel," said I. "Is it not that?"
"I scarce know whether it is prayer. Mistress
Olive. It is nothing but going to the Kock that is
higher than I, and taking all that is precious to me
there, and staying there. It is just creeping to the
foot of the Cross, and keeping there."
16 THE DRAYTONS AKD THE DAVliXANTS :
"You feel, tlien, as if sometliing terrible were
coming, Kacliel," I said.
"I hnow sometliing terrible must come," she said,
witb a tremulousness in her voice wbich was more
from enthusiasm than from fear. "To-day, or to-
morrow, or some day. For the Day of Vengeance
is come; and the year of His redeemed is at hand."
"Oh, Eachel," I said, "I cannot silently rest as
you do. I want words, entreaties for Roger, for my
father, for Job, and also for the good men who, if
the battle comes, must die on the wrong side, and
for the king; the king who, if he would but be true,
might set all right again."
And she knelt down and prayed in words brief
and burning, like the prayers in the Bible.
"You do not feel it too lonely here, Eachel?" I
said as I left. "Why not come up to us? Your
presence would be like a strong wall and fortress to
me."
"I am less lonesome here, Mistress Olive," said
she. "Job made so many little plans to spare me
trouble before he went. I see his hand everywhere.
There is the pile of wood close to the fire, and the
little pipe carrying the water to the very door. It
would seem like making light of his work not to use
it all. And besides," she added, "there's a few poor
tried folk who used to look to Job for a good
A fciTUllY OF Till': ClVii. WAKS. 17
word aucl a good turn, and now some of tliem
look to me. And I could not fail them for tlie
world."
As I wished her good-bye, and walked home and
thought of her, a glorious new sense came on me of
the strength there is in waiting on God, of the pos-
sibility of the feeblest who lean on Him being not
only sustained, but becoming themselves strong to
sustain others.
When I went to see Eachel, the whole solid
world had seemed to me, in my anxiety for the pre-
cious lives I could do nothing to preserve, but as
some treacherous and quaking ground among our
marshes, ready to sink down and overwhelm us, be-
neath the weight of our passing footsteps.
As I returned, the world, though in itself as
transitory and uncertain as ever, was once more a
solid pathway to me, because underneath it stood the
foundation of an Almighty love, one word from whom
was stronger and more enduring than all the
worlds.
So we sang our evening psalm, and slept quietly
that night at Netherby, knowing nothing of the four
thousand pale and rigid corpses that lay stretched
on the blood-stained battle-slopes at Edgehill, while
Lord Essex encamped on the silent battle-field, and
the king's watchfires were kindled on the hill above.
The Draytons and the Davenants. II. ^
18 THE DKAYIONS AND THE DAVENAKTS:
wliere lie began the clay, and no ground was gained
on either side; only the lives of four thousand men
lost.
If we may say "lost" of any life yielded up to
duty, and called back by God!
In the tongues of men, we speak of lives lost
on battle-fields; perhaps in the tongue of angels
they speak of lives lost in easy and luxurious
homes.
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 19
XX.
olive's recollections.
It was not till mid-day on Monday the 24th of
October 1042, that the first tidings reached us of
Keinton Fight, or, as some call it, the Battle of
Edgehill. Tidings indeed they scarcely were, only
rumours, as of far-oflf thunder faintly moaning through
the heat and stillness of a summer's noon, mysterious,
uncertain, scarcely louder than the hum of insects in
the sunshine, yet almost more awful than the crash
of the thunder-peal overhead. "Wars and rumours
of wars." Until that Monday I had no conception
of the significance of that word "rumours." I had
anticipated the sudden shocks, the ruthless desola-
tions of war; I had not thought Oi its terrible un-
certainties, its heart-sickeuing suspenses.
At noon, when the few liien left in the village
were all away in the fields at work, a travelling
tinker passed by who that moiaing about daybreak
had done some work at a farm where the swineherd
keeping his swine the evening before, on the edge
of a beech-forest some miles to the south, had heard
2*
20 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
sounds far off iu the south-west, in the clkection of
Oxford, like the thunder of great guns and the sharp
cracking of musketry.
The tinker did what tinkering was needed in the
village, in the absence of Job the village smith, and
went on his way. Just after he left, Aunt Gretel
and I went to take broken meat and broth to two or
three sick and aged people, and we found all the
women gathered around the black and silent forge,
or rather around Rachel, while she sat quietly patch-
ing in the porch of the cottage; the latticed, narrow
cottage-windows letting in too little light for any
work that required to be neatly done.
An eager, excited crowd it was, the scanty mea-
sure of the text only furnishing wider margin for
the commentary. Rachel, meanwhile, sat quietly in
the middle, like a mother among a number of eager
chattering children.
As we reached the group, poor Margery, Dickon's
young wife, with her child in her arms, half
sobbed, —
"I wonder, Rachel, thee can bear to go on stitch,
stitch. Since the news came I have been all of a
tremble thinking of my goodman, who went off with
yourn. I couldn't bring my fingers togethef' to hold
a needle, do what I would."
"I don't know that I could well bear it without
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAKS. 21
the stitching, neighbour," said Rachel, softly. "When
trouble has come, we may well sit still and weep.
The Lord calls us to it. But in the waiting-times I
see nought for it but to brace up the heart and
work."
When we came, all turned to tell us of the dread
rumour. Aunt Gretel brought one or two cheering
stories of providence and deliverance out of the
eventful histories of her youth; and then we went
on our errands. Aunt Gretel thinking we should do
more to soothe and quiet these agitated hearts by
the example of steadily pursuing our task, than by
the wisest talking in the world.
"For," said she, "the true tidings have yet to
come; and they are like to be sad enough to
some. And how will they bear it, if all the
strength is wasted beforehand in vain and mournful
The result proved her right, for when our baskets
were emptied, and Aunt Gretel returned home, while
I went to see Rachel again, the village was stirring'
as usual with quiet sounds of labour in house after
house, and the excited group around the porch had
dispersed. Only poor Margery lingered, Rachel hav-
ing found her occupation in lighting the fire and
preparing supper, to save her returning to her lonely
22 THE DRAYTONS AND THK DAVENANXS:
cottage; while the baby crowed and kicked on the
ground at Rachel's feet.
"But, Eachel," I said, "would it not have
quieted the neighbours to pray together, you with
them?"
"Maybe, sweet heart," she said. "But I did not
feel I could. If the news is true, the fight is over.
It's over hours since. The dead are lying cold, out
of the reach of our prayers. And the living are
saved and are giving thanks; and the wounded are
writhing in their anguish; and we know not who is
dead, or wounded, or whole. And when we look to
the earth to think, it comes over us like a rush of
dark waters when the dykes are pierced. So I can
but look to heaven and work. It's light and not
dark where He sitteth. And beyond the thunders
and the lightnings He is caring for us in the great
calm of the upper sky. Caring for us, sweet heart,
as the poor mother cares for this babe; not sitting on
a throne and smiling like the king in the picture,
with both hands full of his sceptre and his bauble;
but with both hands free, to help and to uphold. So
I try to do the bit of work He sets me, and to look
up to Him and feel, ' There i« no fear but that Thou
wilt do the work Thou hast set Thyself; and that is,
to care for us all.' And I told the neighbours they
had best try the same."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 23
The words were scarcely out of lier lips, when
a horseman came clattering clown the village and
stopped at Job's well-known forge.
"What news?" asked a score of voices one after
another, as the women crowded round him.
"Dismal news enough for some, and glorious for
others," he sjvd. "The king's army and Lord Es-
sex's met yesterday. Lord Essex below in the Vale
of the Red Plorse, and the king on Edgchill above.
Prince Rupert charged down on the Parliament
horse under Commissary-General Ramsay, broke
them in a trice, and pursued them to Keinton, killing
and plundering. 1 heard it from one of the routed
horsemen who escaped. Everything is lost, he said,
for Lord Essex; and I liasten to carry the news to
one who loves the king."
Hastily draining Rachel's can of home-brewed
ale, he was off in a minute, and oixt of sight.
All through the afternoon confused and contra-
dictory news continued to drop in from one and an-
other. But it was not till the next day (Tuesday)
that we could collect anything like a true ac-
count of the battle, — how for hours, all through
the noontide of that autumn Sunday, the two
armies had couched, like two terrible beasts of
prey watching each other; the king on the height,
and Essex in the plain — as if loath to break with
24 THE DRAYTONS AHD THE DAVENANTS:
tlie murderous roar of cannon our England's two
centurie^Prpeace.
Prayers, no doubt, there were, many and deep,
breaking tbat silence, to the ear of God; but few,
perhaps, better than that of gallant Sir Jacob Ashley,
one of the king's major-generals: "Lord, Thou
knowest I must be busy this day; if I forget Thee,
do not Thou forget me."
Who began the fight at last, we could not well
make out. The most jiart said Lord Essex, directing
a sally up the hill, which Prince Eupert answered
by dashing down, like a torrent, from the royal van-
tage-ground to the plain, on the left wing of the
Parliament army. The men fell or fled on all sides
before his furious charge; and he pursued them to
the village of Keinton, where Lord Essex had en-
camped the day before. Deeming the day won, his
men gave themselves up to plundering the baggage,
and slaughtering the waggoners and unarmed la-
bourers. But meantime Sir William Balfour, on the
right wing, charged the king's left, broke it, seized
and spiked many of the king's guns, took the royal
standard after a struggle which left sixty brave men
dead in sixty yards aroiTud it, and drove nearly the
whole royal army to their morning's j)Osition up the
hill. There they rallied. Prince Eupert returned,
laden with his blood-stained plunder, to find the king's
A STORY OF THE CIVIL, AVAKS. 25
army in confusion. But darkness was setting in; it
is said the Parliament gunpowder began-t!c?vf^ili so
no further pursuit was made, and on Sunday night
again both armies encamped on the ground where
they had begun the battle. The king's camp-fires
blazed on the hill, and the Parliament's in the Vale
of the Eed Horse. But between them lay four thou-
sand dead Englishmen, — that Sabbath morning full
of life and courage, now lying stiff and helpless on
the quiet slopes where they had fallen in the tumult
of the mortal conflict.
It is said, most of those who fell on the king's
side fell standing firm, and of ours running away;
which means, I suppose, that they lost their bravest,
and we our cowards.
I found my father, and many of the soldiers I
know, always loath to speak much of the battle-field
after a battle. My father and Roger would discuss
by the hour the handling of troops and the strategy
of the commanders, and all which related to war
as an art or a science, and regarded the troops as
pieces on a board. But of the after-misery, when
the terrible excitement and the skilful manoeuvres of
the day were over, and the troops and regiments had
again become only men — wounded, weary, dead —
I never heard them speak save in few and broken
words.
26 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
The difference of language served a little to veil
the common humanity in the German wars , my
father said; but to hear the fallen entreating fur
quarter, or the dying calling on God and on dear
familiar names , or the wounded praying for help
which, in the rush of the battle, could not be given,
in the old mother- tongue, Was enough, he said, to
take all the pomp and glory out of war, and to lea^e
it nothing but its agony and its horror.
Both sides claimed the victory, — Lord Essex
by right of encamping on the field, and the king
(some said) by the weight of Prince Eupert's plun-
der.
However that might be, uefther side pursued the
advantage they both boasted to have gained.
The king, who was between the Parliament army
and London, to the great anxiety of the city, did not
advance, but retired on Oxford, — the Parliament
garrison of Banbury, however, surrendering to him
without a struggle.
Lord Essex made no pursuit, but, withdrawing
to London, left the country open to Prince Rupert's
foragers.
But victory or defeat were scarcely the chief ques-
tions to us women that day at Netherby.
Margery's anxieties were the first relieved. Her
husband Dickon being in the king's army, sent her an
A STOKY OF THE CIVIL WAKS. 27
orauge scarf taken from a Parliament horseman at
Keinton, in token of his safety.
Then, on Wednesday, poor Tim, Gammer Grindle's
half-witted grandson, who would, in spite of all that
could be said, follow lloger to the war, came limping
into the village, emaciated and footsore, with his
arm bound up in a sling. He stopped at Rachel
Forster s door, and began stammering a confused ac-
count of Master Roger and Job lying wounded at
Keinton, and the prince's men murdering some of the
wounded, and carrying off Roger and Job, pinioned,
in a cart to gaol, and Tim's trying to follow on foot,
and having his arm broken by a musket-shot, and his
leg wounded , and so , being left behind , having
limped home to tell Mistress Olive.
But where the gaol was, or how severe Roger's
wound was, or Job's, could in no way be extracted
from poor Tim's confused brain and tongue. "Poor
Tim!" he said, apologising with broken words, as a
faithful dog might with wistful looks , for having
escaped without his master, "Poor Tim tried hard to
follow Master Roger — tried hard! Master Roger
knows Tim did not wish to leave him ; Master Roger
knows. Master Roger said, 'Tim, you've done all
jox\ could. Go home. And tell them Master Roger's
all right.'" When first he saw Rachel, he said.
28 THE DRAYTOKS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"Poor Job said, 'Take care!'" And tlien clench-
ing Ms hand, with a smile "Poor Tim took care!"
But he never repeated or explained it. It was quite
useless to question him. That one purpose of obey-
ing Roger possessed the whole of his poor brain. The
poor creature was faint from pain, and weariness, and
loss of blood. Rachel would have made him a bed
in the cottage, and not one of vis at Netherby but
would have counted it an honour to have nursed him
for his love to Roger; but he shook his head: Master
Roger said, "Tim, you've done all you could. Go
home." And nothing would satisfy him but to go on
to the hovel by the Mere, where his grandmother
lived.
Gammer Grindle was a poor, wizened, old wo-
man, soured by much trouble and by the constant
fretting of a sharp temper against poverty and wrong,
until few in the village liked to venture near her.
Indeed, there were dark suspicions afloat about her.
Many a labouring-man would have gone a mile round
rather than pass her door after dusk, and many a
yeoman farmer and goodwife who had lost an unusual
number of sheep or poultry would propitiate her by
the present of a lamb or a fat pullet. And , in
general, in the neighbourhood she was spoken of with
a reverent terror much akin to that of the man who,
after hastily using the name of the devil, crossed him-
A SIOKY OF THE CIVIL WAKS. 29
solf, and said, "May he pardon me for taking Lis
holy name in vain."
But Eoger and I happened to have come across
]ier on another and a very different side. In our
llshing expeditions on the Mere, her grandson Tim
had often followed us with the fish-hasket or tackle;
and the rare contrast of Roger's kindly tones and
words with the jeerings of the rough boys in the
village, had won him in Tim's heart an affection in-
tense, absorbing, disinterested, and entirely free from
; dcMuand of return or hope of reward; more like that
: of a faithful dog than of a human being with purposes
and interests of his own.
This had given us access to his grandmother's
hovel, and many a time she had saved me from the
consequences of Aunt Dorothy's just wrath by kindling
up her j)oor embers of fire to dry my soaked shoes,
and cleaning the mud from my clothes. Simple easy
(Services, but such as made it altogether impossible
for Roger and me to regard the poor, kind, shrivelled
Lands that had rendered them as having signed a
compact with Satan. Besides, did we not see how
good she was, with all her scoldings, to Tim, and
know from broken words which had dropped now and
then how she had loved her only daughter , the
mother of Cicely and Tim, and how sore her heart
was for the poor, lost girl, and what a power of
30 THE DRAYTONS AND TUE DAVENANTS:
wronged and disappointed love lay seething and fer-
menting beneatli the sour sharp words she spoke?
Roger and I knew that Gammer Grindle was no
outlaw from the pale of humanity by seeing it; and j
Rachel Forster knew it, I believe by seeing Him at j
whose feet so many outcasts from human sym-
pathy found a welcome. And so it happened, that
of all the village no one but Rachel, Roger, and I J
sought access, or would have had it, to Gammer
Grindle's hovel, so that Rachel that day accompanied
Tim home, and was permitted to share his grand-
mother's watch that night.
For Tim's exhaustion soon changed to delirious
fever, as his wound began to be inflamed, and it
was as much as both the women could do to keep
him from rushing out of the hovel to "follow Master
Roger."
All the time, they noticed he kept the hand of
his unwounded arm firmly clenched over something.
But no coaxing or commands, even from his grand-
mother's voice, which be was so used to obey, would
induce him to unclasp his hand or let it go.
All that night and the next day the two women
watched by the poor lad, bathing his head, and try-
ing vainly to keep him still. But towards evening
his strength began to fail, and it was plain that the
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 31
lever, having done its Avork, was relinquishing its
hold to the cold grasp of Another stronger than it.
The poor lad's delirious entreaties ceased, and he
lay so still, that Rachel could hear the cold ripples
of the Mere outside plashing softly among the rushes,
stirred by the night wind; and they sounded to her
like the slow waters of the river of Death.
Only now and then he said, in a low voice, like
a child crooning to itself, "Poor Tim, Master Roger
knows. Master Roger said, you have done all you
could. Go home."
Once also his eye brightened, and he said, "Cicely,
sister Cicely! Tell her to come soon — soon. I
have watched for her so long!"
Rachel tried to speak to him about Jesus, the
loving Master of us all; he did not object, biit whether
he understood or not, she could not tell. He did not
alter the words which had been so engraven on his
poor faithful heart. Only they grew fainter and
fainter, and fewer and more broken, until, with one
sigh, "Master — home," the poor feeble spirit de-
parted, and the poor feeble body was at rest.
But Rachel said it seemed to her as if the blessed
Lord would most surely not fail to understand the
poor lad who could not understand about Him, yet
had served so faithfully the best he knew. And she
almost thought she heard a voice from heaven say-
32 THE DRAYXONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
ing, "Poor Tim! the Master knows. You Lave done
tlie best you could. Come home!"
It was not until the poor lad was dead that they
found what he had been so tightly clasping in his
hand.
It was a fragment of paper containing a few
words written by Job Forster, of which Tim had
indeed " taken care," as the clasp of the lifeless hand
proved too well.
The words were, —
"Eachel, be of good cheer, as I am. I am hurt
on the shoulder, but not so bad. They are taking
me with Master Eoger to Oxford gaol. His wound
is in the side, painful at first, but Dr. Antony got
the ball out , and says he will do well. Thee must |
not fret, nor try to come to us. It would hurt thee
and do us no good. The Lord careth."
Rachel read this letter, with every word made :^
emphatic, by her certainty that Job would make as 1
light as possible of any trouble, by her knowledge J
that his pen was not that of a ready writer, and by
her sense of what she would have done herself in
siinilar circumstances.
"Rachel!" — the word, she knew, had taken
him a minute or two to spell out, and it meant
a whole volume of esteem and love; and by the
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 33
same measure, "hurt" meant "disabled;" and "not
so bad," simply not in immediate peril of life; and
"thee must not come," to her heart meant "come if
thou canst, though I dare not bid thee."
It was not Eachel's way to let trouble make her
helpless, or even prevent her being helpful where
she was needed. God, she was sure, had not meant
it for that. She lived at the door of the House of
the Lord, and therefore, at this sudden alarm, she
did not need a long pilgrimage by an untrodden
path to reach the sanctuary. A moment to lay down
the burden and enter the open door, and lift up the
heart there within; and then to the duty in hand.
She remained, therefore, with Gammer Grindle until
they had laid the poor faithful lad in his shroud;
then she gave all needful orders for the burial, so
that it was not till dusk she was seated in her own
cottage, with leisure to plan how she should carry
out what, from the moment she had first glanced
at her husband's letter, she had determined to do.
Half an hour sufficed her for thinking, or
"taking counsel," as she called it; half an hour more
for making preparations and coming across to us at
Netherby, with her mind made up and all her ar-
rangements settled.
Arrived in the Hall, she handed Job's letter to
Aunt Dorothy.
The DraytoHS and the Davenants. II. «>
34 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"What can be done?" said Aunt Dorotliy. "How
can it be that we liave not beard from my brother
or Dr. Antony? The king's forces must be between
us and Oxford, and the letters must have been
seized. But never fear, Eachel," she added, in a
consoling tone. "At first they talked of treating all
the Parliament prisoners as traitors; but that will
never be. A ransom or an exchange is certain.
Stay here to-night; it will be less lonely for you.
We can take counsel together; and to-morrow we
will think what to do."
"I have been thinking, Mistress Dorothy; and I
have taken counsel. I am going at daybreak to-
morrow to Oxford; and I came to ask if I could
do aught for you, or take any message to Master
Roger."
"How?" said Aunt Dorothy. "And who will
go with you? Who will venture within the grasp
of those plunderers?"
"I have not asked any one. Mistress Dorothy. I
am going alone on our own old farra-horse."
"FoM travel scores of miles alone, and into the
midst of the kiug's army, Rachel!" said Aunt
Dorothy.
"I have taken counsel, Mistress Dorothy," said
Rachel calmly, and , looking up , Aunt Dorothy met
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 35
that in Racliel's quiet eyes wliicli slie understood,
and she made no further remonstrance.
"We will write letters to Roger," she said, after
a pause.
In a short time they were ready, with one from
me to Lettice Davenant.
Neither my aunts nor I slept much that night.
We were revolving various plans for helping Rachel,
each unknown to the other.
I had thought of a letter to a friend of my father's
who lived half-way between us and Oxford, and
rising softly in the night, without telling any one, I
wrote it. For I had removed to Roger's chamber
while he was away, it seemed to bring me nearer
to him.
Then, before daybreak, feeling sure Rachel would
be watching for the first streaks of light, I crept out
of our house to hers.
She was dressed, and was quietly packing up
the great Bible which lay always on the table, and
laying it in the cupboard.
"Happy Rachel!" I said, kissing her; "to be old
enough to dare to go."
"There is always some work, sweet heart," said
she, "for every season, not to be done before or
after. That is why we need never be afraid of
growing old."
3*
36 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
I gave her my letter. She took it gratefully;
but she said —
"Too fine folks for a plain body like me, Mis-
tress Olive. Grod bless you for the thought. But
in one village I must pass there is a humble godly
man who has oft tarried with us for a night, and has
expounded the word to us, and no doubt he will
give me a token to another. And if not, the seven
thousand are always known to the Lord. The
prophet Elijah, indeed, did not know, but after he
was told about it once for all, none of us ought ever
to say again, 'I only am left alone.'"
"But how will you manage when you get to
Oxford?" I said.
"God forbid I should presume to say, sweet
heart," said she. "Oxford is many steps off. And
the Lord has only shown me the next step. Job is
wounded and in prison and wants me, and will my
God, and his, fail to show me how to get to
him?"
As she spoke these last words, the force of re-
pressed passion, and of faith contending in them,
gave her voice an unwonted depth, which made it
sound to me like another voice answering her.
At that moment Aunt Gretel arrived, laden with
a small basket containing spiced cordials and pre-
served meats for Rachel's journey.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL, WARS. 37
And not a quarter of an hour afterwards, Aunt
Dorothy, on horseback, bent on protecting Rachel
through some portion of her way.
And then Margery and the babe, who had come
at Rachel's request.
Before mounting her horse, Rachel said, —
"You will have thought of being at poor Tim's
burying, Mistress Olive?"
We promised all to be there.
And Rachel from the mounting-steps climbed up
on the patient old horse, and was gone, only turning
back once to smile at us as we watched her.
She was not a woman for after-thoughts, or last
lingering words. She had always said what she
wanted before the last.
She had left us the heavy key of the cottage-
door, that we might give away the little stores which
she had divided the night before into various por-
tions for her poor neighbours. She had intended
committing them to Margery, but as we were there
first, we undertook the charge. How simply and
how unheralded events come which hallow our com-
mon tables and chambers with the tender solemnity
as of places of worship or of burial. The sound of
Rachel's horse-hoofs was scarcely out of hearing
when the empty cottage had become to us as a
sacred place. The little packets her neat hands had
38 THE DRAYT02SS AND THE DAVENANTS :
arranged so thouglitfully were no common loaves,
or meat, but sacred relics hallowed by her lovmg
touch. And it was hard to look at the firewood
Job had piled by the fire for her, and the little
stone channel he had made to bring the water near
the door, without tears.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL AVARS. o9
XXI.
LETTICE DAVENANT's DIARY.
"Oxford, November 1, 1642. — Victoria! The
first step is gained; the first lesson given, though at
some cost of noble lives to us and to the king. Lord
Essex is fain to retreat to London to console the
afi'righted citizens, leaving the whole countty open
to the king. Yet my father saith privately to us,
this victory of Edgehill might have been far more
complete had it not been for Prince Rupert's rash-
ness. Indeed, after the fight there had well-nigh
been a duel in the king's presence between the
prince and a gentleman who expressed his mind
pretty freely on the matter. The prince, after
pursuing the rebels to Keinton, lingered there,
plundering the baggage, and returned with his
horses laden with the spoils to find the royal army
not in such order as it might have been had his
troops kept with it. 'We can give a good account
of the enemy's horse, your Majesty,' he said. 'Yes,'
said this gentleman standing by, 'and of their carts
too.' For which jest the haughty hot-blooded prince
40 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
would have had severe revenge, had not the king
with much ado brought them to an accommodation.
^ Note. — The young Princes Charles and James,
of but ten or twelve years old, had a narrow escape.
Their governor, Dr. Harvey, a learned man, was
sitting quietly with them on the grass reading his
book, and never perceived anything was amiss until
the biillets came whizzing round him. I wonder
royal persons should be trusted to the care of people
whose wits are always at the ends of the earth, like
philosophers. Who knows how different things
might have been in the world if Dr. Harvey and
the young princes had sat there a few minutes
longer !
"However, the best fruits of victory are begin-
ning to appear. Gentlemen, whose loyalty had been
somewhat wavering, are riding in from all quarters,
well accoutred, abundantly attended, finely mounted,
to offer their services to His Majesty.
"This grave and stately old city is gorgeous with
warlike array, and echoing with warlike music.
"My father, mother, and I are lodged in Lin-
coln College. A distant cousin of ours , Sir William
Davenant, who hath writ many plays and farces,
and now fights in the army, being of this col-
lege, and also others of our kindred from the
north country. I feel quite at home in the rooms
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 41
with tlieir thick walls, and high narrow arched win-
dows like those in the turret-chamber at the Hall,
more at home than the old quadrangles and walls
themselves can be with all this clamour and trumpet-
ing to arms.
"Not that there is much to be seen in the great
inner court on which my chamber-window looks.
An ancient vine climbs up on one side of the walls,
encircling the entrance arch, and its leaves, brown
and crimson with the autumn, stirred with the
breeze, are making a pleasant quiet country music
as I write. This vine is held in high honour in
the college, having illustrated the text of the ser-
mon, 'Look on this vine,' which inspired good
Bishop de Rotheram, more than two hundred years
since, to become the second founder of the college.
"Through this entrance-arch I look beyond its
shadow to the sunny street, crossed now and then
by the flash of arms, and gay Cavaliers' mantles,
or the prancings of a troop of horse. That is all
the glimpse I have of the outer world. But I think
my mother were content to live in such a place for
ever. Every day she resorts more than once to a
quiet corner of the new chapel to pay her orisons,
taking delight in the stillness, and in the brilliant
colours of the painted windows Bishop Williams
(once the antagonist of Archbishop Laud, and now
42 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
with liim in tlie Tower) had brought but a few years
since from Italy.
"Outside this chapel there is a garden, where
we walk, and discourse of the prospects of the king-
dom, and of those friends at Netherby from whom
we are now so sadly parted.
"For Eoger and Mr. Drayton are in the rebel
army — alas! there is no longer any doubt of it
— and any day their hands and those of my seven
brothers, all in the king's army, may be against each
other.
'■'' Novemher Stk — The king and the army are
away at Reading, with my father and my brothers;
and the city is quiet enough without them.
"Sir Launcelot is now on service about the
castle. I would he were on the field, and one of
my brothers here. However, I am not like to see
much of him at present. He will scarce venture to
come after what I had to say to him this morning.
"He came in laughing, saying he had just seen
an encounter between an old rebel woman at the
gate and four of Prince Rupert's plunderers. 'She
was contending with them for the possession of a
sober Puritanical-looking old horse,' said he. 'They
claimed it for the king's service. She said "that
might be, but in that case she chose to give it up
A STOKY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 43
herself unto the care of one of His Majesty's court,
to whom she had a letter." '
'"Did you not give her a helping word?' said I.
"'I am scarcely such a knight-errant as that,
Mistress Lettice,' said he; 'I should have enough to
do, in good sooth. Moreover, the godly generally
make good fight for their carnal goods, and in this
instance the woman seemed as likely as not to have
the best of the debate, to say nothing of her being
wrinkled and toothless.'
"That made me flash up, as speaking lightly of
aged women always does, 'Poor chivalry,' said I,
'which has not recollection enough of a mother to
lend a helping hand to the old and wrinkled. We
shall be wrinkled and toothless in a few years, sir,
and our imagination is not so weak but that we can
fore-date a little while, and transfer all such heart-
less jests to ourselves. I have been used to higher
chivalry than that among the Puritans.'
"He laughed, and made a pretty pathetic depre-
cation. His mother had died (quoth he) when he
was too young to remember. Some little excuse,
perchance. However, Eoger Drayton's mother also
died when he was in infancy. But be that as it
might, I was in no mood to listen. And as we were
speaking, a serving-man came to tell me a poor
44 THE DRA.YTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
woman from Netherby was in the ante-room craving
to see me or my mother.
"It was Eachel Torster.
"Her neat Puritan dress, and her plain close
hood (so dainty, I think, round her pale worn-looking
face), were rather ruffled, and although her eyes had
the wonted quiet in them (only a little loftier than
usual), she was trembling, and willingly took the
chair I offered her.
"'You did not find it easy coming through the
royal lines,' I said.
"'Nothing but a few rude jests at the gate. Mis-
tress Lettice,' said she; 'but I am not used to them,
or to going about the world alone. But I have been
taken good care of. And I am here^ she added fer-
vently; 'which is all I asked.'
"'Did they try to take your horse from you?' I
said.
"'They took him,' she said. 'But that matters
little. He was a faithful beast, and I am feared
how they may use him. But the beasts have only
now^ neither fore nor after, which saves them much.'
Then without more words she gave me a letter from
Olive.
"From this I found that Roger is a prisoner in
the castle here, with Job Forster.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 45
"I went into the other chamber, and asked Sir
Launcelot had he known of this.
"'I learned it a day or two since,' he replied
hesitating, but I did not tell you or Lady Lucy,
because you are so pitiful, I feared to pain you
uselessly.'
'" We might have judged whether it was uselessly
or not. Sir Launcelot,' said L
"'Can I do anything for you?' he asked, in
confusion.
"'Nothing,' said I. 'You might have helped an
aged woman, a friend of mine, whom you found in
difficulties at the gate this morning. But now, ex-
cuse me, I have no time to spare — I must go to
my mother.' And I withdrew to the inner room, to
bring my mother out at once to see what could be
done; leaving him to retire through the ante-room,
where Rachel Forster sat.
"I trow he will not be in a hurry to visit us again.
"My mother and Rachel had always been friends.
They both live a good deal at the height where the
party-colours blend in the one sunlight; and they
neither of them ever speak half as much as they feel
about religion.
"There was not much to say, therefore, when
my mother understood her errand. My mother's word
had weight, and in a few hours she had procured a
■16 THE DRAYIONS AND THE DAYENANTS :
permit for Eachel to see her husbaud, provided the
interview was in her presence.
"It was a noisome place, she said — many per-
sons crowded together like cattle in dungeons, with
scant light or an*, and none to wait on them but
each other. Job was on some straw in a corner,
looking sorely altered — his strong limbs limp and
emaciated, and his eye languid. But it was wonder-
ful how his face lighted up when he saw Eachel.
'"I thought thee would* come,' said he, 'though
I bid thee not. I knew thee had learned how "all
things are possible.'"
" My mother's intercessions procured for them
the great favour of a cell, which, though narrow,
low, damp, and underground, they were to have to
themselves. And before she left, Rachel's neat
hands had made the straw and matting look like a
proper sick-bed, while her presence had lighted the
cell into a home.
"Then my mother went to see Roger Drayton.
His wound was not so severe as Job's, and his
lodging was better, though wretched enough. Great
complaints Avere made about the prisons. But, I
fear, all war-prisons, suddenly and not very tenderly
arranged, are hard enough.
"'Have you seen Job Forster?' was his first
question after greeting her.
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WAKS. 47
"She told him what had been done.
"'I begged hard to be allowed to share his pri-
son. But they would not let me,' said Roger.
"Eoger, though far less suffering, looked less
tranquil than Job, my mother said. He did not
ask for me until he had read Olive's letter, and then
he said abruptly, —
"'Olive says she has written to Mistress Lettice.'
And his face flushed deeply as he added, 'Olive is
but a child in such things. Lady Lucy, and cannot
know the hard laws of war. You will not be offended
if she pleads, fancying you could do anything for
us. You must not let anything she says trouble
you, you are so kind. For I know nothing can be
done.'
"'Only one thing troubles me,' my mother said,
evasively, 'I would give much if that could be
changed.'
"She did not think it generous to say more, but
he understood, and answered, —
"'7%«^ can not be changed, unless all could be
changed. It makes me restless enough to be shut
up here. Lady Lucy, but it does not make me
doubt.^
"Those Dray tons are like rocks — as firm, and
almost as hard. No, not hard. Nothing they ought
not to be, if only they were on the right side!
48 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"And Roger called Olive a cliild. I wonder,
then, what he thinks me, who am two years younger!
"However, my mother thinks something can be
done for Roger. Exchanges can be made. Little
comfort in that. He is less dangerous to himself
and every one else where he is, than in the field
again. Yet my mother says the air and food of the
prison are none of the most wholesome. And, of
course, Olive wants to have him free. These are
most perplexing times. One cannot even tell what
to wish.
"I would send him a message when my mother
goes again, but that he scarcely even asked for me;
only defended himself against joining in Olive's
pleadings for himself. So proud! I will send hira
no message, not a word. Nothing but a few sweet
autumn violets from the college garden; because the
air of the prison is so bad.
'''' Fehruarrj 10. — Job Forster all but sank. He
must have died if my mother had not pleaded hard
and got permission at last for him to be taken home
to Netherby in one of our Hall waggons. She thought
it would scarce be more than to die. But to-day we
have had a letter from Rachel, saying, the very
sight of the forge and smell of the fields seemed to
work on him like a heavenly cordial, and she doubts
not he will rally. Dr. Antony hath been to see him,
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 49
and Olive, and Mistress Gretel, and Mrs. Dorothy,
and brought him meats and strong waters, and read
him sermons, saith she, and they say he could not
he doing better. But, she adds, she hopes Lady
Lucy will not think it thankless that he should use.
his liberty to fight for the Parliament, as no condi-
tion was made on his return; and he thinks the
Covenant under which he fights must stand good,
and dares not break it. So my sweet mother hath
on her conscience the guilt of tenderly nourishing a
viper to sting what she loveth best!
"But Roger Drayton is to be exchanged for one
of our Cavaliers, and is to leave Oxford to-morrow.
All these weeks he hath been here, and never a
word between us, except some cold thanks for those
violets. So proud is he ! And it was not for me to
begin.
'"'' February 11. — Roger Drayton had the grace
to pay us his devoirs before he left at Lincoln Col-
lege. But he would scarce sit down. I trow he
was afraid of being vanquished if he ventured into
debate concerning his bad cause. He did not say
anything to me. If he had, I felt tempted to say
something angry. But he did not begin-, and why
should I? Until at last, as he was leaving, he
said, —
"'Mistress Lettice, I am going to join Colonel
The Drmftons and the Bavenrmts. II. 4
50 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Cromwell at Cambridge. But I may see Olive by
the way. May I say a word to her from you?
Sometimes a message is better than a letter.'
"I could not think of anything to say. It took
me so by surprise after his silence. For it was just
like his old tone by the Mere, or in the woods, or
on the terraces at Netherby, and at the Hall. And
it so brought poor old Netherby back to me, and all
the old happy days, that I was afraid my voice
would tremble if I spoke. I could only think of
Mistress Dorothy's sermons; things come into one's
head so strangely. So, after a little while, I said
very abruptly, 'I sent Olive dear love — and to
tell Mistress Dorothy I had read her sermons.'
"But his voice trembled a little as he wished us
good-bye-, I certainly think it did. And he was not
out of the door when I thought of ten thousand
messages to send to Olive. But I could not go after
him to say them. I could only go to the window
and watch him through the court. I was almost
sorry I did. For he looked up and saw me, and
seemed half inclined to turn back. But, instead, he
made a strange little reverence, as if he did not
quite know whether to seem to see me or not. I
wonder if he also had thought of a few things he
would have liked to have said! He was always
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 51
rather slow in speech; I mean, his words always
meant about ten times as much as any other man's.
"And so he strode across the court and under
the shadow of the archway into the sunny street
outside. To join Colonel Cromwell. Colonel, in-
deed! By whose commission? Roger might at least
have spared us that. If it had been Mr. Hampden
even, or Lord Essex, it would not have been so
bad. But this fanatic brewer!
"However, I am glad I said nothing angry.
One never knows in these days where or when the
next word may be spoken. And then, alack! this
Mr. Cromwell they say, is sure to be just Avhere the
fighting is.
"He did not look amiss in that plain Puritan
armour. The cap-a-pie armour of the 'Ironsides,' as
some begin to call them. It seems to me more
martial and more manly than the gay trappings of
our Cavaliers. Grallant decorations are well enough
for a dance or a masque; but in real warfare I
Ithink the plainest vesture looks the noblest. At
Edgehill His Majesty must have looked most stately
in his suit of plain black velvet, with no ornament
but the George.
''March 1643. - There is a Dr. Thomas Fuller
lodging here at present, who is a great solace to my
(mother, and also to me, being a kind of cousin of
52 THE DEAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
ours, througli his maternal uncle, Dr. Davenant,
bishop of Salisbury.
"He is tall and athletic, with pleasant blue eyes,
full of mirth, and withal of kindness, of a ruddy
complexion, with fair wavy locks. He hath wit
enough for a j)lay-wright, and piety enough — I had
almost said for a Puritan — I should rather say for
an archbishop.
"He was in London a few weeks since, -and
preached a sermon to incline the rebels to peace,
which is all his desire. But they did not relish it,
and would have him sign one of their unmannerly
Covenants; which not being able to do, he has fled
hither. Yet am 1 not sure that he is more at home
among our rollicking Cavaliers.
"I would I could remember half the wise and
witty things he saith. I like his wit, because it
often cuts both ways — against Puritan and Cavalier;
and more especially at present against the younger
sort of the latter, whose reckless manners suit him ill.
The poor Puritans are so hit on all sides with the
shafts of ridicule, that in fairness I like to see some
of the darts flying the other way, especially against
such as assume to themselves the monopoly of wit. ■
"'Harmless mirth,' said Dr. Fuller the other day,
'is the best cordial against the consumption of the
spirits; but jest not with the two-edged sword of
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 53
God's word. Will nothing please thee to wash thy
hands in but the font? or to drink healths in but
the church-chalice?'
"He is very busy, and is abstemious in eating
and drinking, and is an early riser. Sir Launcelot,
liking not, I ween, to feel the jest so against him-
self, calls him a Puritan in disguise; but Harry and
he are good friends, and to my mother he behaveth
ever with a gentle deference, as all men, indeed, are
wont to do. With her his wit seems to change its
nature from fire to sunshine. So tenderly doth he
seek to brighten her pensive and somewhat self-
reproachful spirit into peace and praise. She on her
part hath her sweet returns of sympathy for him,
drawing him forth to discourse of his young wife
lately dead, and his motherless infant boy.
"Religion with my mother is a life of affections,
not merely a code of rules; and, I suppose, like all
affections, brings its sorrows as well as its joys.
Otherwise I could scarce account for the heaviness
she so often is burdened withal.
"One day, when she was fearing to embrace the
cheering words of Scripture, Dr. Fuller encouraged
her by reminding her how in the Hebrews the pro-
mise, 'I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee,' thoxigh
at first made only to Joshua, is applied to all good
54 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAYENANTS :
men. 'All who trust the Saviour and follow him,'
said he, 'are heirs-apparent to all the promises.'
"But she, who being a saint (by any laws of
canonization), ever bemoaneth herself as though she
were a penitent weeping between the porch and the
altar, put off his consolation with —
"'True, indeed, for all good men.'
"To which he, unlike most ghostly comforters I
have heard, replied with no honeyed commendation,
false or true, but said —
"'In the agony of a wounded conscience, always
look upward to God to keep thy soul steady. For,
looking downward on thyself, thou shalt find nothing
but what will increase thy fear — infinite sins, good
deeds few and imperfect. It is not thy faith, but
God's faithfulness thou must rely on. Casting thine
eyes down to thyself, to behold the great distance
between what thou desirest and what thou deservest,
is enough to make thee giddy, stagger, and reel
unto despair. Ever, therefore, lift up thine eyes to
the hills whence cometh thine help."
"'The reason,' quoth he afterwards, 'why so
many are at a loss in the agony of a wounded con-
science, is, that they look for their life in the wrong
place — namely, in their own piety and purity.
Let them seek and search, dig and dive never so
deep , it is all in vain. For though Adam's life was
A STORY OF THK CIVIL WAKS. 55
hid in himself, yet, since Christ's coming, all the
original evidences of our salvation are kept in a
higher office — namely, hidden in God himself.
Surely many a despairing soul, groaning out his
last breath with fear to sink down to hell, hath pre-
sently been countermanded by God to eternal happi-
ness.'
"His words brought tears to my mother's eyes,
but comfort, said she, to her heart.
"Yet though she saw sunshine through the clouds,
she feared to find the cloud again beyond the sun-
shine; whereon he heartened her further by saying,
'Music is sweetest near or over rivers, where the
echo thereof is best rebounded by the water. Praise
for pensiveness, thanks for tears, and blessing God
over the floods of affliction, makes the most melo-
dious music in the ear of heaven.'
"Good and fit words for her who needs and de-
serves such. To me these other words of his are
more to the purpose: —
"'How easy,' saith he, 'is pen and paper piety.
It is far cheaper to work one's head than one's heart
to goodness. I can make a hundred meditations
sooner than subdue one sin in my soul.'
"He gave my mother also a sermon of his 'on
the doctrine of assurance,' which she much afi'ects.
'All who seek the grace of assurance,' he writes,
,56 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
'in a diligent and faithful life, may attain it without
miraculous illumination. Yet many there are who
have saving faith without it. And those who deny
this will prove racks to tender consciences. As the
careless mother killed her little child, for she over-
laid it, so this heavy doctrine would press many poor
but pious souls, many infant faiths, to the pit of
despair.'
''April 1643. — Dr. Fuller hath left us to be
chaplain in the regiment of Lord Hopton , an honour-
able man , who will honour him , and give him scope
to do all the good that may be to the soldiers.
"He took leave of us in the college-garden, and
gave my mother a book of his imprinted last year,
when he was preacher at the Savoy in London. It
is intituled, the Holy State and the Profane State,
and seemeth wise and witty like himself. As he
parted from us, he begged her to remember that 'all
heavenly gifts, as they are got by prayer, are kept
and increased by praise.'
'''Note. — I like well what he writes of anger:
'Anger is one of the sinews of the soul. He that
wants it hath a maimed mind.' I would I had known
this saying to comfort Roger Drayton withal, when
Sir Launcelot provoked him to that blow.
"Yet another saying is perhaj)s as needful, at
least for me: 'Be not mortally angry for a venial
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 57
fault. He will make a strange combustion in the
state of his soul who at the landing of every cock-
boat sets the beacons on fire.'
"We miss Dr. Fuller sorely; my mother for his
words of ghostly cheer, and I for the just and
generous things he dares to say of good men on the
other side, and saith with a wit and point which
leaves no opening for scornful jest to controvert.
"If Dr. Fuller had been the vicar of Netherby,
and if the Dray tons had known him, maybe many
things had gone otherwise.
"Now, alack! there seems less hope of accommo-
dation by this Christmas than I had felt sure of by
the last.
" The Parliament Commissioners were here through
March, and have but now left.
"Some Lords and some Commons. But nought
could they accomplish. How, indeed, could aught
be hoped from subjects who presume to treat with
their liege lord as with a rival power?
"My Lord Falkland (now the king's secretary)
, comes now and then to converse with my mother.
jThose who knew him before this sad rebellion began,
[say he is sorely changed from what he was. Whereas
■his mind used to be as free and open to entertain
lall wise and ])leasant thoughts of others, as his
mansion at Great Tew, near this, Avas free and open
58 TUB DRAYrONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
to entertain their persons, so that they called it 'a
college of smaller volume in a purer air;' now, they
say, he is often preoccupied, and when in private
will sigh and moan 'Peace! peace!' and say he shall
soon die of a broken heai't, if this dire war be pro-
longed. This especially since the royal army was
driven back from Brentford on its way to London.
"But to us, who contrast him not with his former
self, but with other men, he seems the gentlest and
most affable of Cavaliers, ever ready to give ear and
due weight to thought and wish of any, the least or
the lowest.
"We had not known him much of old, because
he leant to the Puritan party (being a close friend
of Mr. Hampden), and thought ill of Archbishop
Laud, and spoke not too well of bishops or episco-
pacy.
"But in this conflict I think the noblest on each
side are those who are all but on the other; not, I
mean, in affection — for lukewarmness is never a
virtue — but in conviction and character.
"The queen is amongst us again, as graceful
and full of charms as ever. But some think the
king were liker to follow moderate counsels without
her. He holds her as ever in a perfect adoration,
and it is not likely to conciliate him that Parliament
have actixally dared to 'impeach' her. Blasphemy
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 59
almost, if it were not more like the folly of naughty-
children playing at being grandsires and gran-
dames!
''''June 26. — Mr. Hampden is dead! By a sin-
gular mark of the divine judgment (Mr. Hyde says),
he was mortally wounded on Chalgrove Field, the
very place where he began, not many months since,
to proclaim the rebellious Ordinance Militia. It was
in a skirmish with Prince Rupert. The same night
the rumour spread among us that something beyond
ordinary ailed him, for he was seen to ride off the
field in the middle of the fight (a thing never before
known in him), with his head low drooping, and
his hands on his horse's neck. Less than a fortnight
afterwards, he died in sore agonies, they say, but
persevering in his delusion to the end, so that his
heart was not troubled.
"The king would have sent him a chirurgeon
of his own , had it been of any use.
"He was much on my mother's heart, since she
heard of his being wounded, for he was ever held
to be a brave and blameless gentleman. She grieved
sore that he uttered no one repentant word.
"(Yet the last word we heard he spoke was not
so ill a word to die with: '0 God, save my bleeding
country ! ')
" 'But,' said she, 'there are Papists who die with-
60 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
out ever seeing any thing wrong in the mass, or in
regarding the blessed Virgin as Queen of Heaven,
who yet die calling on the blessed Saviour with such
piteous entreaty as he surely faileth not to hear.
And it may be trusted Mr. Hampden's heresy is no
worse.'
"To most around us, it is simply the rebels' loss
in him that is accounted of. And that, they say, is
more than an army. For he was the man best be-
loved in all the land. Some of us, however, speak
of the loss to England, and say that his and my
Lord Falkland's were the only right hands through
which this sundered realm might have met in fellow-
ship again.
"I see nothing glorious in the glories of this
war, nothing triumphant in its triumphs, no gain in
its spoils.
"It makes my heart ache to see Prince Rupert
and his Cavaliers return flushed with success and
laden with plunder from raids all over the country.
I cannot help seeing in my heart the poor farmers
wandering about their despoiled granaries and stalls,
and the goodwife bemoaning her empty dairy, and
the children missing the cattle and poultry, which
are not 'provision' only to them, but friends; and
soon, alack! poor foolish babes, to miss provision
too, and cry for it in vain.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL Vv'ARS. 61
"These are our own English homes that are
ravaged and wasted. What triumph is there in it
for any of us? I would the hearts of these Palatine
princes yearned a little more tenderly towards their
mother's countrymen.
"The only hope is, that all these horrors will
bring the end, the end, the 'Peace, peace,' for which
my Lord Falkland groans.
"But I know not; I think of Netherby and the
Dray tons; and I scarce deem English hearts are to
be won back by terror and plunder.
''''August 28, 1643. — Better hopes! Something
like a glimpse of the end, at last.
"Two memorable months.
"Everything is going prosperously for the king
'and the good cause, north, and south, and west.
"In the North, on June the 3rd, the Earl of
Newcastle defeated Lord Fairfax and the rebels at
Atherton Moor. A few days afterwards York and
Gainsborough and Lincoln surrendered, and now not
a town remains to the Parliament between Berwick
and Hull.
"On the 1 3th of July, not a fortnight afterwards,
Sir William Waller was defeated and his whole
army scattered on Lansdowne Heath, near Devizes;
the only offset to this advantage being the death of
the brave and good Sir Bevil Grenvill, for whose
62 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Tvife, Lady Grace, bound to him in the truest honour
and love, my mother mourned much.
"The West, they say, is loyal; Cornwall fervent
for the king.
"And on July 22nd, not a fortnight after this.
Prince Rupert took Bristol, thus doing much to se-
cure Wales, otherwise, moreover, well-affected.
"Our hopes are high indeed. In all the horizon
there seems but one shadow to mark a cloud, and
that so small I should scarce mention it, but that an
old friend is under it. Mr. Cromwell (or Colonel,
as they call him now, forsooth) gained some slight
advantage at Grantham and Gainsborough, and
stormed Burleigh House. Indeed, wherever he is,
they say, he seems just now to bring good fortune.
But this, I think, bodes no ill. Little weight, indeed,
can these unsuccessful skirmishes have to counter-
balance victories, and captured cities, and reviving
loyalty throughout the North, and West, and South.
And if the rebels are to succeed anywhere, I had
rather it were where Roger Drayton, is, because it is
in the nature of the Draytons to be more yielding in
prosperity than in ill fortune.
"His Majesty has just set forth with the army,
all in high feather, to besiege the obstinate and dis-
loyal city of Gloucester.
"Lord Essex, they say, is collecting an army to
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 63
meet liim. But we could wisli for no better. One
decisive battle, my Lord Falkland and other wise
men think, is the one thing to end the war.
'"'' September 22nd, 1643. — I cannot make it out.
They say there has been a victory at Newbury, yet
j nothing seems to come of it. The king is here
1 again, and the siege of Gloucester is given up, and
, our people begin to quarrel among themselves, tread-
ing on each other in their eagerness for places, and
titles, and honours. I think they might wait a little,
; at all events, till the Court is at Whitehall again.
" One good sign is that three rebel earls — Bed-
ford, Holland, and Clare — have returned to their
allegiance. The Earl of Holland raised the militia
for the Parliament, so that he hath somewhat to re-
pent of. There is much discussion how they should
• be received; the elder Cavaliers recommending a
politic forgetting of their offence; but we, who are
younger, desire they should be received as naughty
children, if not with reproaches, at most with a cool
and lofty indifference, to show we need them not. It
would not look well to be too glad. And, moreover,
they are three more claimants for the royal grace,
and the faithful like not that the faithless should be
better served than they who have borne the burden
and heat of the day.
64 THE DUAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"I thought prosperity would have made us one,
but it seems otherwise.
"And Harry says the noblest is gone. The
noblest, he says, always fall the first victims in such
conflicts as these, so that the strife, grows more cruel
and baser from year to year.
"The Lord Falkland was slain at Newbury.
He was missing on the evening of the fight, but all
through the night they hoped he might have been
taken prisoner. On the morrow, however, they
found him among the slain. 'Only too glad to re-
ceive his discharge,' Harry said. On the morning
of the battle he was of good cheer, as was his wont;
his spirits rising at the approach of danger. His
friends urged him not to go into the battle, he
having no command, but he would not be kept away.
He rode gallantly on in the front ranks of Lord
Byron's regiment, between two hedges, behind which
the Round-heads had planted their musketeers. 'I
am weary of the times,' he said to those who urged
him to withdraw; 'I foresee much misery to my
country, but I believe I shall be out of it before
night.'
"And so he was; and needeth now no more dole-
fully to moan for 'Peace, peace!' as so often in
these last months. He is singing it now, we trust,
i
A STORY OF THE CIVIL, WARS. 65
I
where good men understand all perplexed things,
and each other.
"Falkland and Hampden! Alas! how many
more before the peace songs are chanted here on
earth !
"The two right hands are cold and stiff through
which the king and the nation might have been
clasped together again in fellowship.
"Who, or what, will reunite us now?"
The Dynytons mid the Dacenanis. II.
66 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
xxn.
olive's recollections.
The Winter of 1642 — 43 was one of uneasy un-
certainty to us at Netlierby. The wliole world
seemed to lie dim and hazy, as if wrapped in the
heavy folds of a November fog. The next villages
seemed to become far-off and foreign, in the un-
settled state of the country. There was no knowing
the faces and voices of friends from those of foes, in
the rapid shifting of parties. The comrade of yester-
day was the opponent of to-day. Wlio could say
what the comrade of to-day might be to-moiTOW?
Mr. Capel, the Member for Hertfordshire, who had
been the first in Parliament to complain of griev-
ances, had become Lord Capel, and was threatening
the seven associated counties with his plunderers.
Lord Essex (many thought) seemed as frightened
at success as at failure. Victories lulled him into
fruitless negotiations-, and the only thing that roused
him to action was imminent ruin. Some murmured
that "professional soldiers love long wars as physi-
1
A STOUY OF THK CIVIL WARS. 67
cians love long diseases." Some wliispered of treach-
ery, and others of divine displeasure. The explo-
sion of battle had come ; but the only consequence
seemed to be the loosening of the whole ground
around, the crumbling away of the nation in all
directions.
Partly, no doubt, this sense of vagueness and
dimness was caused by the absence from most homes
and communities of the most capable and manly
men in each — in the garrisons, on the field, taking
counsel with the king at Oxford, or taking counsel
for the nation at Westminster. Thus events were
left to be guessed and debated by old men de-
spondent with the decay of many hopes; or women,
draining in anxious imaginations the dregs of every
peril they could not share in fact; or boys delight-
ing in magnifying the dangers they hoped soon to
encounter, therewith to magnify themselves in the
eyes of mothers and maids.
Rachel Forster, on whose gentle strength the
whole village was wont to lean, was away; and Aunt
Dorothy, the manliest heart left among us, had a
belief in the general wickedness of men, and the
general going wrong of things in this evil world,
which was anything but reassuring to those whose
fears were quickened with the life-blood of more
vivid hopes than hers.
5*
68 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Tlius we were ripe for all kinds of credulities
that winter at Netherby,
I can remember nothing rising prominently out
of the general hum and fog except two convictions,
which enlarged before us steadily, becoming more
solid instead of more shadowy as they came nearer.
The first was the impossibility of trusting the king.
The second was that everything went right where
Colonel Cromwell was — for by this time he was
Colonel Cromwell, at the head of his regiment,
which he was slowly sifting and compressing into
the firm invincible kernel of his invincible army.
A dim, dreary time it was for us from the Edge-
hill Fight, in October 1642, to the beginning of
February 1643. Roger in prison at Oxford with Job;
my father at Reading or in Loudon with Lord Essex
and the army.
But in the beginning of February a new time
dawned on us. My father came home to us for a
few days, to make the old house as tight as he could
against any assaults from Lord Capel, or any strag-
gling party of Prince Rupert's plunderers, who were
always making dashing forays into the counties
favourable to the Parliament, and appearing where
they were least expected. The old moat, which in
front of the house had long been the peaceful retreat
of many generations of ducks, and elsewhere had
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 69
been partially blocked up witli fallen stones and
trees, was carefully cleared out and filled with water.
The terraces which led to it on the steep side of the
house were scarped, all but the uppermost, which
was palisadoed, and had two great guns planted on
it. The drawbridge was repaired, and ordered to be
always drawn up at night. We were provided with
a garrison of four of the farm-servants, drilled as
best might be for the occasion, and placed under
the command of Bob, which virtually placed the
whole fortress under the command of Tib, whose
orders were the only ones Bob was never known not
to disregard. Meantime my aunts and I, with the
serving-maids, were instructed how to make car-
tridges, and prepare matches for the match-locks; and
Aunt Gretel gave us the benefit of her experience in
pulling lint, preparing bandages, and other hospital
work.
If an attack, however, were ever made, the
general belief in the household was that Aunt
Dorothy would take her place as commandant, her
courage being of the active rather than the passive
kind. Indeed I think the sense of danger to our-
selves was a kind of relief to most of us. It seemed
to make us sharers in the great struggle, which we
believed to be for God, and truth, and righteousness.
It took us out of the position of uneasy listeners for
70 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
rumours, into tliat of sentinels on the alert for an
attack. And the whole spirit of the household rose
from dreamy disquiet into cheery watchfulness and
activity.
My father brought us the story of the king's at-
tempt to surprise London. "It was a treacherous,
unkingly deed," my father said, "enough to quench
in the heart of the people every spark of trust left in
His Majesty."
He said it happened on this wise. On Thursday,
the 11th of November 1642 (my father told us), the
king received messengers from the Commons with
proposals of peace, declared his readiness to negotiate,
and his intention to remain peaceably in the same
neighbourhood till all was amicably settled. The
Parliament, trusting him, ceased hostilities. Never-
theless, instautly after despatching this message, he
set off in full march for London. On Satvirday he
sent forces under Prince Rupert to surprise Brentford
under cover of a November fog, and of his own too
loyally trusted word. But Denzil Hollis, with part of
his regiment, made a noble stand, and stopped the
prince's progress.
Hampden came up first, and Lord Brook, to the
succour of Hollis' imperilled regiment; they tried to
fight through the royal troops, which had surrounded
Hollis and his men in the streets of Brentford. This
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 71
tliey could not effect. But Hollls' little band them-
selves fought to their last bullet, and then threw
themselves into the river, those who were not
drowned swimming past Prince Rupert's troops to
Hampden and his Green-coats. Lord Essex, hearing
the sound of guns in the Parliament House, where
he was at the time, took horse and galloped across
the parks and through Knights bridge to the scene of
action. After this, all through the Saturday night,
soldiers came pouring out from the roused city, until,
on Sunday morning, four and twenty thousand men
were gathered on Turnham Green.
Then the tables were turned, and Hampden fell
on the king's rear.
"And then?" asked Aunt Dorothy.
"And then," replied my father drily, "Lord Essex
recalled him, and so nothing further came of it; but
things have gone on simmering ever since — always
getting ready and discussing how things should be
done, and never doing them."
" How do Mr. Hampden and Mr. Pym brook these
delays?" said Aunt Dorothy.
"Mr. Hampden would have had my Lord Essex
invest Oxford," said my father, "but he is a sub-
ordinate, and Lord Essex a veteran; and Mr. Hampden,
I trow, deems military obedience the best example he
72 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
can give an army scarce six roontlis recruited from
tlie shop or the plough."
"And meantime," said Aunt Dorothy, "I warrant
Prince Rupert is active enough. There is no end to
the tales of his devastations — seizing whole teams
from the plough, setting fire to quiet villages at
midnight, with I know not what iniquities besides,
and carrying home the spoil from twenty miles
around to the king's quarters at Oxford. If Lord
Essex does not want to fight the king, why does
not he submit to him? Keeping twenty- four thou-
sand men armed and fed at the public expense,
and doing nothing, is neither peace nor war, to my
mind!"
"True, sister Dorothy," said my father, "I know
of no method by which war can be carried on in a
friendly way. And when Lord Essex has come to
the same conclusion, perhaps things will go a little
faster."
"Will they ever, under Lord Essex?" said
she.
"Time will show," said he. "We have scarcely
found our Great Gustavus yet."
"Colonel Cromwell has been doing something
better than dreaming what to do, at Cambridge, since
he saved the magazine there and £ 2000 of plate
for the Parliament last June," said Aunt Dorothy.
A STOKY OF THE CIVIL WAltS. 73
"Troops are pouring up to him from Essex and
Suffolk, and all around, they say; and Cambridge
is being fortified; and they say it is owing to
Colonel Cromwell we are so quiet in these seven
counties."
"Colonel Cromwell has a rare gift of sifting the
chaff from the wheat; finding out who can do the
work, and setting them to do it," said my father,
thoughtfully.
"So strict with his soldiers, too," said Aunt
Dorothy. "They say the men are fined twelve pence
if they swear a profane oath."
"Then," said my father, "he is doing what
he told his cousin, Mr. Hampden, must be done,
if ever the Parliament army is to match the
king's."
, "What is that?" said she.
"Getting men of religion," my father replied, "to
fight the men of birth. You will never do it," said
Colonel Cromwell, "with tapsters and 'prentice lads.
Match the enthusiasm of loyalty with the enthusiasm
of piety!"
"It is strange," rejoined Aunt Dorothy, "that
Mr. Cromwell never discovered his right profession
before. A farmer till forty- three, and then all at
once to find out he was made for a soldier!"
"What can make or find out soldiers but wars.
74 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
sister Dorothy?" said my father. "Moreover, I war-
rant Colonel Cromwell has known what it is to wage
other kinds of war before this. It is only taking
up new weapons. It is only the same conflict for
the oppressed against the oppressor, in which he
contended for those of the Fen country against
Royal assumption, and for the poor men of Somers-
ham against the courtiers who would have ousted
them from their ancient common-rights 5 or for the
gospel-lecturers whom Archbishop Laud silenced. The
same war, only a new field and new weapons. At
any rate, I am glad the lad Roger is to serve under
him; and so you may tell him when he gets his
liberty and comes home, as I trust he will in a fort-
night."
This was said as my father was taking an early
breakfast alone with us in the Hall, with his horse
saddled at the door, ready to take him back to the
Lord General's quarters.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 75
XXIII.
olive's recollections.
Rachel and Job Forster came home before
Roger, in Sir Walter Davenant's waggon, stored with
provisions and cordials, and soft pillows, by Lady
Lucy.
I believe every one in Netherby slept with a
greater feeling of security on the night after their
return. Poor Margery, Dickon's young wife, said it
was like the Ark coming back from the Philistines,
regardless of the slur she thereby cast on the Royalist
army, in which Dickon fought. And yet there was
nothing very reassuring in Job's appearance. He
looked like a gaunt ghost, and stumbled into the
cottage like a tottering infant, and rather fell on the
bed, which had been made up for him in the kitchen,
than lay down on it, so broken was his strength.
AVhen the neighbours came in after a while, how-
ever, he had a good word to hearten each of them.
As to Rachel, she settled in at once, without more
ado, to her old ways and plans, doing everything
76 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
with the purpose-like ([uietness which so calms the
sick.
Cheered by Job's greetings to the neighboixrs,
she told me it was not until the place was still, and
she was making up the fire for the night, that she
knew how low his strength was. As she took the
wood from the pile he had made for her close to the
fire, she was startled, she told me, by a sound like
a stifled sob from where he lay.
"Art laid uneasy?" said she, at his side in an
instant. "Does aught ail thee? Is the bed ill
made?"
"Nought," said he. "It's better than the bed of
Solomon to me, with the pillars of silver and the
bottom of gold. But I am like to them that dream,
laughing and crying all in one. For I used to think
before thee come to the gaol, how I should never
see thee kindle a fire in the old place again, and
how every stick thee had to take from where I laid
it for thee would go to thy heart like a stab. And
it shamed me not to have made a better shot at the
Lord's meaning for thee and me."
"How could thee tell his meaning," said Rachel,
"before he told thee? He gave thee no promise to
bring thee out of prison, nor me."
"Nay," said Job; "but it's making very bold
with him, and making fools of ourselves, to guess at
A STORY OF THB CIVIL WARS. 77
Ilia words when they're half spoken, instead of wait-
ing to hear them out. And it grieves me I should
have suspected him when he was meaning us so
well. Kead me what the Scripture saith about the
foi-giveness of sins."
"But, Mistress Olive," concluded Rachel, when
she told me this little history, "when Elijah, worn
out with trouble, misunderstood the Lord, the angel
comforted him, not with a text, but with a cake
baken on the coals; so, when Job took to misunder-
standing the Almighty like that, thinking he would
be angered with what would not have fretted one of
the likes of us poor hasty creatures, instead of the
Bible I gave him a good cup of strong broth. I
knew it was the body, poor soul, and not the spirit
that was to blame, and that all those brave words
he spoke to the neighbours had cost more than they
were Avorth; and, of course, I was not going to pro-
fane the Holy Word by using it like the spell in a
witch's charm."
So for several days she kept every creature out
of the cottage, which deprived me of her counsel in
a moment of difficulty, which happened the week of
their return.
Lord Capel's troops continued to hover round,
and to keep the district in a state of suspense and
alarm, ripe for any marvellous stories of horror, or
78 THE DRAYIONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
for any acts of terrified reveuge. For in stormy
times there are sure to be some cowardly spirits
ready to throw any helpless victim as an expiatory
sacrifice to the powers of evil.
One Saturday evening, late in February, I was
returning home through the village from Gammer
Grindle's cottage, which I had very often visited
since poor Tim's death. The old woman had seemed
gentler in her way of speaking of her neighbours,
and once or twice had betrayed her pleasure in see-
ing me by speaking sharply to me if I stayed away
longer than usual, as if I had been one of her own
lost grandchildren.
I had made rather a long circuit in returning,
not liking to try the high-road again, because, in
going, I had encountered a dozen or so of the king's
troopers, and as I was hurrying j)ast them, they
complimented me in a way I did not like, and came
after me. I recognized Sir Launcelot Trevor's voice
among them, and then I turned round and spoke to
him, and begged him to call his men away. "Which,
when he recognized me, he did; but not without
some more idle Cavalier jesting, which set my heart
beating, and made me resolve to come back by a
quiet path through the Davenant woods, which led
round through the village by Job Forster's.
Poor old Gammer was very friendly. I suppose
"a STOIIY OP TUB CIVIL WARS. 79
I was trembling a little, thougli I did not tell her
wLy, for she declared I was chattering with cold,
and would have me drink a hot cup of peppermint
water, and kindled up the fire, and took off my
shoes, which were wet, and dried them, wrapping up
my feet, meanwhile, in her own best woolsey whimple.
Indeed, she was so gracious and approachable, that
I ventured to say something about the benefit of
coming to church, and mingling a little more with
her neighbours.
"Too late, too late for that!" said she, firing up.
"This twenty year, come Lammas, my Joan, Cicely's
mother, was buried, she and her man. Cicely's father,
in one grave. And the parson would do nothing
without his fee. So I sold tlie cover from my bed
to pay him. And I vowed I'd never darken his
church-door again."
"But that parson is dead, Gammer," said I, "and
it was not his church after all."
"That may be," said she. "But a vow is a vow.
Besides, I could never bear the folks' eyes speiring
at me. I'm ugly, and lone, and poor, and they
make mouths at me, and call me an old hag and a
witch. But it's only natural. All the brood will
peck at the lame chick. All the herd will leave the
stricken deer. Didn't all the village hoot and jeer
at my poor, tender, innocent Tim?"
80 TUB DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENAJ^TS:
And then slie poured forth the story of her life
of sorrow as I had never heard it before. A heart
trained to distrust and suspect through a childhood
of bondage under the petty tyrannies of a stepmotlier
and her children. One year of happy married life,
ending in a sudden widowhood, which widowed her
heart also of all its remnant of hope in God, and
left her to struggle prayerless and alone with a hard
world, for bread for herself and her orphan babe.
The growing up of this child to be a stay and com-
fort, and, for three years, a second home with her
when she married. This second home broken up as
suddenly as the first, by the death of the daughter
and her husband in one month, from a catching sick-
ness , leaving the grandmother once more alone to
toil with enfeebled strength for two orphan babes;
the boy, poor, faithful Tim, half-witted and sickly;
the girl. Cicely, wilful and high-spirited, and the
beauty of the village. Then the terrible morning
when Cicely was gone, and no account could be got
of her beyond Tim's confused and exulting statement,
that Cicely had cried, and laughed, and kissed him,
and told him to wish grandmother good-bye for her,
and she would come back a lady and bring Tim a
gun like Master Roger's; to Gammer Grindle tidings
worse than bereavement or all the misery she had
known, for she came of an honourable yeoman's
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 81
liouse that had never known shame. Tim, however,
could never be brought to look on his sister's dis-
appearance in any but the most cheerful light, and
would watch for hours at the corner of the path
leading to the village for Cicely and the "gun like
Master Roger's," until, as time passed on, the ex-
pectation seemed to fade away, only to be awakened
once again by the mysterious touch of death. And
since then not a word of the poor lost girl. Tim in
the grave, and the vain longing that Cicely were
there too. And all the little world around her, as
she believed, leagued against her crushed but un-
conquered heart. She ended with, —
"But it's but natural. When the lightnings have
rent the trunk the winds soon snap the boughs.
They say the devil stands by me. If he did, no
one need wish him for a friend. They say the Al-
mighty is against me. And most times I think be-
like He is."
Then Aunt Gretel's words came back to me,
^^ Ant/tvhere but there. Put the darkness anywhere hut
there;'''' and I said, —
"Never, Gammer, never. The devil said that
thousands of years ago; but the Lord Christ came
to show what a lie it was. He stood by the stricken
and wounded always. The lame and the blind came
to Him in the temple, and He healed them."
The Draytons and the Davenants. 11, t)
82 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Slie listened as if sLe half believed, and then,
after a silence, she said, —
"The devil is no easy enemy to deal with,
mistress, but if I could be sure it was onhj Mm^
maybe I might look up and try again."
At last she was persuaded so far as to let me
say I might call for her the next Sunday on my
way to church. "It was as like as not she would
not go, but at any rate it would do her no harm to
see me."
And as I left I heard something like a blessing
follow me, and I saw the poor, bent old figure lean-
ing out of the door and watching me.
But when I came back to Netherby I found the
whole village at the doors in a ferment of eager
talk.
I thought at once of Sir Launcelot and the
troopers, and asked if there had been another battle.
"Nay, nay," said the woman I spoke to, "it's
naught but folks going to reap their deserts at last".
Then came a chorus of grievances.
" Three of Farmer White's finest milch kine gone
in one night!" "Goodwife Joyce's best black hen
killed, and not a feather touched; no mortal fox's
work it was too plain to see!" "The dogs yelling
as if they were possessed, as belike they were, on
Saturday evening, seeing no doubt more than they
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 83
could tell , poor beasts , of what was going on in the
air!" "Lord Essex and his army lying spell-bound,
able to do nothing, while the Prince Robber was
plundering the land far and wide!" "Job and Master
Roger, the best in the village, the first stricken; too
clear where the blows came from!" "And to-day
the squire's own cattle driven off the meadow, with
Mistress Nicholl's, by a troop of plunderers, who
came no one knew whence, and had gone no one
knew whither!" "And finally, Tony Tomkin had
been pursued by a headless hound through the Dave-
nant woods, where he had only gone to take a rabbit
or two he had snared , and thought no harm , the
family being away and fighting against the country!"
"And" — but this was muttered under the breath —
"there toere those who said they had seen something
that was not smoke come out of Gammer Grindle's
chimney — something that flew away over the fens
faster than any bird. And this was only on last
Saturday night, and every one knew that Saturday
was the day of the witches' Sabbath ever since the
Jews had brought the innocent blood on their
heads!"
Then suddenly it flashed on me what it all meant.
They were going to execute some dreadful vengeance
on Gammer Grindle, believing her to be one of the
witches who were causing all the mischief in the land
6-*
84 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
It was no use to set myself against tlie torrent of
fear and rage, so I said as quietly as I could, —
"What are tliey going to do, and when?"
"First," was the reply, "they're going to duck
her in the Mere before her own door. If she sinks
they will pull her out if they can, as it mayn't be
her doings after all. If she swims she's a witch,
clear and plain."
"And what then?" I said.
"Nothing too bad, Mistress Olive, for the like of
them. But the lads 'ill see when it comes to the
point. It isn't often their master helps the wretches
out at last, they say. And if she don't sink natural,
as a Christian ought, belike the lads '11 make her."
"When did they go to do this?" I asked.
"They're but just off," was the answer. "But
they'll make short work of it, never fear. It's time
a stop could be put to such things, if ever it was."
"If Eachel and Job had been among you this
would never have been," I thought. I longed to have
consulted Rachel, had it been possible. But there was
no time to hesitate.
My first impulse was to rush after the cruel boys ;
but I felt that in the maddened state of terror in
which the village was, they would most probably
keep me back. So, without saying a word or visibly
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 85
quickening my pace, I walked quietly on towards
home.
In the porch I found Aunt Gretel. She was
watching for me.
I took her arm, not violently, I was so afraid of
frightening her from doing what I had determined
must be done. And I said quite quietly, —
"Aunt Gretel, we must go together this instant
to Gammer Grindle's."
"What is the matter?" she said.
"I will tell you as we go," I said. "There is
no time to be lost."
She came with me. I turned into the path by
the meadows.
"Not this way, Olive," she said. "The plunderers
have been there to-day. Your father's best cattle are
taken, and Placidia's."
"If the cattle are gone, then belike so are the
plunderers," I said. "But if the king's whole army
were there we must take the shortest way."
And I told her the whole story.
She said nothing but, —
"Then the good God guard us, sweet heart, and
don't waste your breath in words."
We went quickly on.
Only once I thought I heard shouts, and I said, —
86 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"Aunt Gretel, wliat do they do with witches at
the worst?"
"They have roasted them alive," she said, under
her breath. And we said no more.
As we came to the creek of the Mere, on the
opposite side of which the cottage was, we heard
yells and shouts too plainly borne across the water
in the stillness of the evening, unbroken now by the
lowing of the stolen cattle which had been feeding
there that morning. And in another moment we saw
the reflection of torches gleaming in the water, as we
stumbled along in the dusk among the reeds. I
listened eagerly for poor old Gammer's voice. But
I heard nothing. Indeed, my own heart began to
beat so fast, I could hear little but that. Until, just
as we reached the cottage, there was a dull splash,
and then a silence. It was followed by a low moan,
but by no cry. They were drowning the poor old
woman, and the brave broken heart would vouchsafe
them the triumph of no entreaty for mercy and no
cry of distress! I knew it as if I saw it. And
the next moment I had flown along the shore and
was in the midst of the crowd on the brink of the
water, clinging with one hand round the stem of an
alder, and stretching out the other till it grasped the
poor shrivelled hands which had caught at the
branches which drooped over the water.
A STOKY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 87
"Cling to me, Gammer! — to me, Olive Dray-
tou! — I am holding fast — cling to me!"
I was scarcely prepared for the desperate tenacity
of the grasp which returned mine. I never felt till
that moment what it means to cling to Life. My
other arm held firm, but the bank was oozy and
slippery, and I felt as if I were losing my power,
when at that instant Aunt Gretel came and knelt
beside me, and clutching Gammer Grindle's dress,
between us we dragged her to land.
Then the second part of the work of rescue be-
gan, and the hardest.
The men, or rather lads (for they were few of
them more), who formed the crowd, had been startled
into inaction by our sudden appearance among them •,
but now they began to mutter angrily, and would
have pushed us rudely away, saying, "It was no
matter for women to meddle in. They had not come
there for nothing, and they would have it out. The
whole country-side should not be laid waste to save
one wicked old witch, that no one had a good word
to say for."
By this time Gammer Grindle had recovered so
far as to rise out of that mere instinct of self-pre-
servation with which she had desperately clung to
me. And disengaging herself from me, she said,
standing erect and facing her assailants, —
CO THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"Let me alone, Mistress Olive. They say right.
They are all gone who would have said a good word
for me. Let me go to them."
Two of the men seized her again.
"Confess!" said one of them, shaking her rudely;
"confess, and we'll leave you to the justices. If
not, you shall try the water once more to sink or
swim."
And they dragged her again to the brink. The
touch of the cold oozing water made the horror and
weakness come over her again. Her courage for-
sook her, and she cried like the feeble old woman
she was, —
"Have pity on me, neighbours. I'll confess any-
thing, if you'll leave me alone — anything I can.
I've been a sinful old woman, and the Lord's against
me; the Lord's against me!"
"Hear her, mistress," said the men with a cry
of triumph; "she'll confess anything. She says the
Almighty's against her. It isji't fit such should
live."
They were forcing her on; her poor, patched,
thin garments tore in my hands as I clung to them.
Aunt Gretel, driven to the end of her English, as
usual with her in strong emotioti, was pouring forth
entreaties in German, when I caught sight of a
Netherby lad well known as the pest of the village,
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 89
and the ringleader in all mischief. He was carrying
a torch. I caught his arm and looked in his face.
"Tony Tomkin," I said, "Squire Drayton shall
know of this , and it shall not be unpunished. It is
your wickedness, and such as yours, that brings the
trouble on us all, and not Gammer Grindle's. God
is angry with you^ Tonj ^ for breaking your little
brother's head, and idling away your time, while
your poor mother toils her life away to get you
bread. You will not give up your hearts to be good
like brave men, which is the only sacrifice God will
have; and instead, like a pack of cowards, you are
sacrificing a poor helpless old woman to the devil.
Isn't there one man here with the heart of a man in
him? What harm can the devil do you, much less
a witch, if you please God? And which of you
thinks God will be pleased by a troop of you slink-
ing here in the dark to murder a helpless old woman
at her own door? Can none of you lads of Netherby
remember poor Tim, and how he died for Master
Roger, and how good she was to him? Or can't
you trust Squire Drayton to do justice, and leave
her to him?"
Tony let his torch fall and slunk back. Then
two Netherby men came forward and said, —
"She's right; Mistress Olive is right! Squire
Drayton '11 see justice done."
90 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Two or three others joined them. The cry
arose, "No one shall touch the old woman to-night,
as long as there's any Netherby lads to hinder it."
A scuffle ensued, during which Aunt Gretel and
I got hold of Gammer Grindle once more, and led
her back into the cottage.
Once there, we barricaded the door with the logs
and fagots which formed Gammer's store of firewood,
and felt safe.
But it was not until the angry voices had quite
died away in the distance, and we heard again the
quiet plashing of the water among the rushes, that
we could quiet the poor old woman so that she would
let go her clasp of our hands. Then she let us
kindle a fire, and wrap her in warm dry things.
We wanted to lay her in a clean comfortable bed
which was made in the corner of the hut. But this
she would not suffer. "It is Cicely's," she said.
"It's not for me." So we had to pack her up as
comfortably as we could upon the heap of straw and
rags laid on an old chest, which was her bed.
There she lay quite still for a long time, while
Aunt Gretel and I sat silent by the fire, hoping she
would sleep.
But in about an hour she said, in a quiet
voice, —
"Take away those logs from the door."
A STOUV OF TUB CIVIIi WARS. 91
I went to her bedside.
"In the morning, Gammer," I said, "when it is
quite safe."
"This moment!" said she, starting up, and try-
ing to walk. But the terrors of the night had made
her so faint and feeble, that she fell helplessly
back.
"This moment. Mistress Olive!" she repeated, in
a faint querulous voice , very unlike her usual sharp
firm tones — "this moment! The poor maid might
come and try the door, and go away, and never
come again. I've been sharp with her, I know, and
she might be afraid, not knowing, poor lamb, how I
watch for her."
Aunt Gretel went to the door and began to un-
pile the logs.
"God will care for us, Olive," said she, with a
faltering voice. "He will know and care; He who
never closes the door against us."
And gently we withdrew the logs which formed
our protection.
"Set the light in the window," Gammer said.
By the window she meant a rough crevice in the
wall, with a canvas curtain hung before it.
Aunt Gretel ventured a little remonstrance.
"Hardly that to-night," said she. "It might guide
any evil-disposed people here."
92 THE BRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"It will guide her^ and what does it matter for
anything else?" said G-ammer Grindle, almost
fiercely. "She knew there was always a light burn-
ing, and if she saw none, she might think I was
dead, and turn away."
And the lamp was placed in the window.
Then another long silence, broken again by
Gammer.
"What'll they think's come to you, my mis-
tresses? What a selfish old woman I've been. Why
didn't I let them do for me, and be quiet. I never
knew before what fear was. I've wished to die
scores of times-, but when death came near, I clung
to life like a drowning dog or cat, and never cared
who I pulled in to save myself I never thought I
should live to be such a pitiful old coward. But
the Lord's against me," she cried, going back to
her old wail — "the Lord's against me. Everybody
says so , and it must be true. He not only leaves
me to be drowned; He leaves me also to be as
selfish and wicked as I will. The Lord's against
me. Why did you try to save me? I must fall
into His hands at last!"
This was exactly what Aunt Gretel never could
hear with patience. ,
"You are little better than those bad men, my
dear woman," said she. "You, none of you, can
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 93
see the differeuce between tlie good God and the
devil. You talk of falling into His hands, as if
His arms were hell. And all the while He is
stretching out His arms that you may fall on His
heart. You slander, grandmother, you slander God!"
she added. " He is not against you ; you are against
Him."
"Much the same in the end," moaned poor
Gammer, "if we're going against each other."
"It is not the same," said Aunt Gretel. "You
can turn and go Math Him, and He will not have
to drive you home. You can bow under His yoke,
and you will not feel it heavy. You can bow under
His rod, and you will find it comfort you as much
as His staff."
"Not so easy, mistress," said Gammer, after a
pause. "I have turned from Him so long, how can
I know if I should have a welcome?"
"That is what Cicely is waiting for. Gammer,"
I whispered, kneeling down beside. "But the door
is open and the light is burning for her. If she
could only know! if she could only have a glimpse
inside!''''
"If she could only know!" murmured the poor
old woman, her eyes moistening as she turned from
the thought of her own sorrows to those of her lost
child.
94 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
And slie said no more. But there was something
in the quiet of her face which made me hope that
she herself had got a "glimpse inside."
And soon afterwards she fell asleep.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAKS. 95
XXIV.
olive's recollections.
Aunt Gretel and I were left to our watch.
[Then, for the first time, when we ceased to watch
I for sleep to come over the poor exhausted aged
j frame, I began to watch the noises outside, and feel
a creeping horror as I listened to the slow cold
plashing of the water among the rushes, and the
I soughing , and wailing , and whistling of the wind
[among the leafless boughs of the wood behind us.
There was one gnarled old oak especially, just out-
jside the house, whose dry boughs creaked in the
fwiud as if they had been dead beams instead of
[living branches.
Often I thought I heard long sighs and wailings
as of human voices, and with difficulty persuaded
myself that it was fancy. But at last there came
sounds which could not be mistaken — low whistles,
■and short, peculiar cries, resjDonded to by others,
until we became sure that a number of men must be
moving about in the darkness around us. At first
'.
I
96 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Aunt Gretel aud I thouglit it must be tlie witcli-
finders come again for Gammer Grindle, and very
softly we replaced the logs to barricade the door.
But other sounds began to mingle with those of
human voices, like the lowings of cattle forcibly
driven. Suddenly I remembered my encounter that
very morning with the royal troopers, which, with
all that happened since, seemed weeks distant.
"It is Sir Launcelot and the plunderers!" I ex-
claimed.
"That accounts for their not sending after us,"
said Aunt Gretel. "They have tried to reach us,
no doubt, and cannot."
And we listened again.
Then came something like a soft knock and a
low cry, which seemed close to the door, aud a
heavy thud as of something falling. But, though
we listened breathlessly, no second sound came; and
the old stories of supernatural horrors haunting the
place crept back to us, and kept us motionless.
By this time the dawn was slowly creeping in,
and making the lamp in the window red and dim.
We sat crouching close together by the embers
of the dying fire, and took each others' hands, and
listened.
The voices came nearer, till we could plainly
distinguish them, and with them the sound of
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 97
trampling feet of men and horses, and then of men
springing from the saddle and approaching the hut.
"It's the old witch's den," a gruff voice said;
"she's burning a candle to the devil. No one ever
got good by going near her."
Then a laugh, and Sir Launcelot Trevor's mock-
ing voice, — •
"One would think you were a Roundhead, from
the respect with which you mention the old enemy's
name. At all events, witches don't live, like saints,
on air and prayers. We'll get some warmth and
comfort this bitter night out of the old hag's stores.
Some sack or malmsey, perchance, and a fat capon
or two bewitched from good men's cellars and
larders. Stay here, if you are afraid. And I will
storm this witch's castle for you." And his long
heavy stride approached the door. We sat with
beating hearts, expecting the rickety door to be
shaken or forced in by a strong hand. But, instead,
the steps suddenly ceased, and the intruder seemed
to start back as if struck by an invisible hand on
the threshold.
Then there was an exclamation of amazement and
horror, ending iu a fearful oath in a low deep tone,
very different from Sir Launcelot's usual bravado.
Afterwards a few hasty retreating steps, and as he
The Draytons and the Dawnants. II. *
98 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
rejoined his men, some words in the old light tone,
but hurried and wild as of one overacting his part.
"Belike you are right, lads. Black art or white,
better keep to beer of mortal brewing than seize any-
thing from a witch's caldron , or touch anything of a
witch's brood. Besides, the country will be awake, and
it's as well we were in safe quarters with the booty.
Steady, and look out for pitfalls in this cursed place."
After which there was a splashing of horses' feet
on the reedy margin of the Mere. Then a heavy
trampling as they reached firmer ground, succeeded
by a sharp gallop across the meadow, until every
sound was lost in the distance, and we were left in the
silence to listen once more to the cold plashing of
the water among the rushes, and to the breathing of
poor old Gammer in her heavy sleep, as we watched
the slow breaking of the morning.
We had not sat half an hour after the last tramp
of the horsemen had died away, when we heard a
faint sound as of something stirring on the threshold.
Aunt Gretel laid her hand on mine.
'^^ What made Sir Launcelot turn back, Olive?"
she whispered. "He is scarcely a man likely to dream
dreams or see visions."
By one impulse we softly removed the logs with
which we had barricaded the door, and opened it.
A STOKY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 99
There was a rude porch outside to keep ofif the
beat of the weather, and under it a low seat, where
Gammer used to sit in summer and carry on any-
work that needed more light than could be had in
the hut.
Across this lay stretched, in a death-like swoon,
the form of a woman. She was half kneeling, half
prostrate, her head towards the door, resting on the
seat, one arm beneath it, the other fallen helpless by
her side, half hidden in a heavy mass of long hair. A
puny little child lay cuddled up close to her, clasp-
ing the unconscious form with both arms, asleep.
The features were sharp as with age, and pallid
as with the touch of death, and the long soft hair
was gray; but it was still easy to recognize in the
sharp and altered face what memories it had brought
back to Sir Launcelot, and why that poor faded form
had guarded her threshold from him better than an
army of fiends.
It was the flaming sword of conscience which had
guarded us that night.
Poor pallid wasted face, so terrible in its mute
reproach !
"We took her up between its. It was easy. She
was light enough to carry. We laid her on the old
bed which her grandmother had kept always ready
for her. Aunt Gretel loosened her dress and chafed
7*
100 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
her Lands, while I took the poor puny child to the
fire to keep it quiet while I made some warm drink
to revive the mother.
But the poor sickly little one was not easily to
be quieted, In spite of all my soothing it awoke,
and began wailing for mammy. Perhaps, after all,
the best restorative! The sharp fretful cry aroused
the mother from her swoon, and the grandmother from
her heavy sleep.
In another instant the old woman was kneeling
by the poor girl's bedside, clasping and fondling her,
and calling her by tender, endearing, childish names,
such as no one at Netherby would have dreamed
could have poured forth from Gammer Grindle's lips.
The first words Cicely spoke when she fully recovered
consciousness and sate up (her beautiful large gray
eyes gleaming from her faded hollow cheeks like liv-
ing souls among a pale troop of ghosts), were —
"Gammer, I heard him — I heard his voice.
Where is he? I thought I saw his face. But it was
dusk, and faces change. But voices will be the same,
I think, even in heaven or in hell. And I heard
his voice, the same as when he called me darling and
wife."
"Wife!" said the old woman, starting and stand-
ing erect. "Say that again. Cicely."
"All in vain. Gammer!" she said, with a slow
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 101
hopeless tone. "With the priest and the ring! But
it was all false. He told me so when it was too late.
He said I must have known. But how was I to
know, Gammer? I trusted him; I trusted him. Yet,
perhaps, I ought to have known better, Gammer? I
suppose it must have been wicked of me. Every one
seems to think it was."
"Not me, sweet heart!" the old woman cried;
"never me! Thank God, my lamb comes back to
me as pure as she went. Thank God, Cicely my
darling, thank God, sweet heart, and take courage.
If all the cruel world hunted my lamb to death and
cried shame on her, there's one in the world who
knows she's as pure as the sweetest lady that ever
trod the church floor in her bride's white, with her
path strewn with roses." Then, taking the child
in her arms, and cuddling it to her, she added, "And
thy child's as much a crown of joy to thee and
me. Cicely, as to any lady in the land. Take
courage , sweet heart. What does all the world
matter, if grandmother knows; and Him that's above,
darling," she added, in a voice faltering again into
feebleness. "For He is above. Cicely, and He's not
against us, for He's brought thee home."
All this time the old woman and Cicely had
seemed quite unconscious of our presence, as we sat
in a shadowed corner of the dark old hut, keeping
102 THE DRAYTOXS AND THE DAVENANTS :
as quiet as sobs would let us. But when the poor
girl was calmed by the long- forgotten relief of a burst
of tears on a heart that trusted her, she looked up
and around with a quieter glance , and began to
ask again how it could be that she had heard the
voice.
Then I stepped forward to explain.
She started, and covered her face with her hands,
as if she would have hidden herself.
"It's only me, Cicely, Olive Drayton," I said, as
plainly as I could for weeping. "You've come back
among those that know you and trust you. Cicely."
Then, after giving her such explanation as I could
of the events of the night, and after Aunt Gretel had
made uj) the fire, we bade them farewell, and left
the three together to go over the mournful history
that lay between their meetings; while we hastened
away to assure those at home of our safety.
"What a night, Aunt Gretel!" I said, as we went.
"It seems like a life- time."
"Things come often thus in life," said she, "as
far as I have seen; the fruits ripened through the
long silent year, reaped in a day." I scarcely un-
derstood her then, but since, I have often thought
she was right. Sowing-times and gTowing-times,
long, silent, underground; and then bursts of flower-
ing days, reapings and gatherings; a life-time in a
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 103
day; a thousand long-prepared events bursting into
flower in a moment. A thousand ghosts of forgotten
deeds gathered together and confronting us at one
point. The probation thousands of years ; the judg-
ment a day.
Aunt Dorothy was a little doubtful as to our hav-
ing too much commerce with Gammer Grindle «*2
Cicely. "If Gammer was not a witch," said she,
"which God forbid — though that there are witches
who ill- wish cattle, and ride on broom-sticks, is as
certain as there are wandering stars and sea-serpents ;
at all events it is a solemn warning to every one on
the danger of not going to church like your neigh-
bours. And if Cicely was not as bad as had been
feared — for which God be praised — she was never-
theless an awful example of the danger of dancing
round May-poles, and wearing bits of ribbons and
roses on your head."
But when Job heard of it, his anger was greatly
kindled.
"One would think," said he, "the Book of Job
had been put into the Apocrypha, that men who pro-
fess themselves Christians should go worrying the
afflicted like Zojjhar, Bildad, and Eliphaz, heaping
coals on the devil's furnace. Witches, there were,
no doubt, poor wretches, or tliey could not have been
hanged and burned, although for the most part he
104 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
believed tlie devil was too good a general to let his
soldiers waste their time in cavalcading about on
broom-sticks. But, be that as it might, it was ill
work piling wood on fires that were hot enough al-
ready, especially when you could not be sure who
had kindled the flames. The only comfort was, that
after all the devil was nothing more than the Al-
mighty's furnace-heater. All his toil only went to
heating it to -^he right point to fuse the silver. The
Master wou' ■ see that none of the true metal was
lost."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 105
XXV.
olive's recollections.
At the end of February, Roger came to us. He
was pale with prison-air and meagre from prison-
fare, and the hair had grown on his upper lip. In
my eyes he had gained far more than he had lost.
His eyes had a look of purpose and command in
them, pleasant to yield to; though little enough of
command had he exercised during the last four
months, except, indeed, that command of himself
which is the true obedience, and lies at the root of
all true command.
He was even less given than of old to long nar-
ratives, or orations of any kind.
The history of what he had seen and heard
dropped from him in broken sentences, as he went
about seeing to various little plans for strengthening
the defences of the house, or as he repaired or
cleaned his arms in the evening. Of what he had
suffered he said nothing, except to make light of it
in answer to any questioning of mine. More than
once he mentioned, in a few brief words, Lady Lucy's
106 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
kindness. But lie did not speak at all of Lettice
except once, when we were all sitting together round
the hall fire — Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Gretel, and I
— when he said carelessly, as if he had just remem-
bered it by accident, —
"Mistress Lettice told me she had read the ser-
mons you gave her. Aunt Dorothy. And she sent
you her love, Olive."
"There are gracious dispositions in the child,"
said Aunt Dorothy. "I have been sure of it for a
long time."
And I ventured after a little while to say, —
"She sent me her love, Roger, and was that
all?"
"Her dear love, I think it was," said he dryly,
as if the adjective made little difference in the value
of the substantive.
"And she said no more, Roger? Not one mes-
sage?"
"I only saw her for ten minutes, Olive," said he,
a little impatiently, "and most of the time she was
talking to a little French poodle, a little wretch
with wool like a sheep and eyes like glass-beads."
"You are hard on the poor child, Roger," said
Aunt Dorothy, "consider her bringing up. I war-
rant she never spun a web, or learned a chapter in
Proverbs through in her life. What can you expect
A STORY OF THE CIVIIi "WARS. 107
from a mother who is a friend of the Popish queen,
and, I am only too sure, wears false hair and
paint?"
"Aunt Dorothy," said he, firing up, "the Lady
Lucy is as near a ministering angel as any creature
I ever wish to see. And if it were not so, it's not
for me, who have lived on her bread and on her
kind looks for months, to hear a word against
her."
And Roger arose, and strode out of the hall and
across the court, whistling for Lion; leaving Aunt
Dorothy in perplexity as to whether he were more
aggrieved with her for defending Lettice or for as-
sailing Lady Lucy, and me in equal perplexity as
to how I could ever venture to introduce Lettice's
name again, longing as I did to hear more of
her.
"You never saw Lettice after she gave you that
message?" I ventured at last to say one day when
we were walking alone together.
"How could I, Olive?" said he; "I went away
instantly, except, indeed," he added, "when I hap-
pened to look back, as I was leaving the court, I
saw her standing at the window with that poodle in
her arms. But I did not look again; for at the same
moment Sir Launcelot Trevor came out of another
108 THE DRAYXONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
door, looking as if lie were, as no doubt lie is, quite
at home in the place with them all."
"0 Roger," I said, "some of us ought to write
to Lady Lucy at once to say how wicked he is!"
"What is the use, Olive?" said he, sadly. "It
is not from us, rebels and traitors, she will believe
evil of a good Cavalier. Least of all, from me or
mine, about Sir Launcelot!" he added, in a lower
voice.
"But he may be deceiving them all," I said,
passionately. "It is a sin to let him. Can nothing
be done? Have you never thought of it?"
"You had better ask me could I think of nothing
else, Olive?" said he. "For I had to ask myself
that many times as I paced up and down in prison,
and knew about it all. And the more I thought,
the more helpless I saw we were about it."
"And what did you decide on at last?" I
asked.
"I decided that this was what the Civil War cost^^''
he replied; "not battles and loss of limb or life only,
but misunderstandings and loss of friends. To have
all we say and do reported to those we love best
through those who think the worst of us, and to
have no power of saying a word in justification or
explanation. To be identified with the worst men
and the most violent acts on our side, and, in loyalty
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 109
to tlie principles of our party, not to be able to dis-
own them. To see often the people we love best
estranged more and more from the principles we
hold dearest; and to watch a great gulf widening
between us which no voice of man can reach
across."
"I feel sure nothing and no one could make
Lettice think harshly of us, lloger," I exclaimed;
"I feel as sure as if I had been speaking to her
yesterday."
"How can it be otherwise, Olive?" said he,
"especially when I am under Colonel Cromwell.
You should have seen the little start and scornful
look she gave when I mentioned his name. 'Colonel!'
said she, almost under her breath, as if she were
talking only to that poodle. But I heard her.
There is no one the Cavaliers hate like him."
"It seems almost a pity you must be with him!"
I said, thinking only of Roger and Lettice.
"A pity, Olive!" said he, flashing up. "The
Cavaliers hate Colonel Cromwell, lecmise wherever
he is there is doing instead of debating. And for
what better reason can we hold to him? If we fight
at all, it is because we believe there is something
worth fighting for to be lost or won; and where
Colonel Cromwell is, it is won. The country he de-
fends is defended; the city he holds is held; the men
110 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
he trains figlit; and, thank God, my lot is with him,
to defend the old liberties under him, Olive, or, if he
fails, to find new liberty in the New England across
the seas."
The next day Roger went off to join his regi-
ment at Cambridge, where Colonel Cromwell was.
How silent and languid the old house seemed
when he left us, without his firm, soldier-like tread
clearing the stairs at a few bounds, and his whistle
to the dogs, and his voice singing with a firm pre-
cision, like the tramp of a regiment, snatches of the
grave, grand old psalm tunes which the Ironsides
loved to march to!
A fortnight afterwards. Job Forster followed him.
And then came again months of listening and wait-
ing, and of contradictory rumours, ending too
often in ill-tidings worse than the worst we had
feared.
For that whole year brought little but disaster
to the Parliament troops. Day after day in that
yellow old diary of mine is marked with black tid-
ings of defeat and death.
First comes —
'■'■June 18. — IVIr. Hampden wounded in trying
to keep off Prince Rupert's plunderers, until Lord
Essex came. Lord Essex did not come in time; and
Mr. Hampden went off the field sorely wounded.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. Ill
They say he felt himself death-stricken, and turned
his horse towards the house of his first wife, whom
he loved so dearly, that he might die there. But his
strength failed. It was as much as he could do to
make one last effort, and spurring his horse over a
little brook which bounded the field, to find his way
to the nearest village, and home.
'"''June 24. — Mr. Hampden died, thinking to
the last more of his country than himself In the
midst of terrible pain he wrote (my father tells us)
to entreat Lord Essex to act with more vigour, and
to collect his forces round London. He received the
sacrament, and spoke with affection of the services
of the Church of England, although not altogether
so of her bishops. He received the Lord's Supper,
and for himself looked humbly and peacefully to
God. But for England his heart looked sorrowfully
onward. And his last words were, 'Lord, have
mercy on my bleeding country;' and then another
prayer, the end not heard by mortal ears. My father
writes: 'His love for his country will scarce fail in
the better country whither he is gone. But his
counsel and all his slowly garnered treasures of wis-
dom are lost to us for ever.' "
The next death marked is —
''''September 20. — A battle at Newbury, in
Gloucestershire. Lord Falkland killed. Once
112 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Hampden's friend, and now (must it not be?) his
friend again. A good man, and gentle, and wise,
they say. I wonder how it all looks and sounds
there where they are gone."
And the next —
''''November. — Mr. Pym is dead. They have
buried him among the kings in Westminster Abbey.
I wonder how many of the people who began the
war will be fighting at the end of it, and whether
these will be fighting on the same side, or for the
same things, as when they began."
Then, mixed up with these notices of the dead,
are long accounts of skirmishes and fights, which
every one thought all-important then, but which no
one thinks of now, save those who have their be-
loved dead lying beneath the fields where they were
fought.
And through it all a steady going downward
and downward of the Parliament cause, from that
fatal June 1643, when Hampden died, to near the
close of the following year.
"t/wwe 30, 1643. — The Fairfaxes defeated at
Atherton Moor.
"/«% 13. — Sir William Waller (once vainly
boasted of as William the Conqueror) defeated, and
his army scattered, in Lansdowne.
''July 22. — Prince Rupert took Bristol."
A STOliV OF Tl^ CIVIL WARS. 113
And so tlie war surged away to tlie Royalist
West and Royalist North, until in all the West
Country not a city was left to the Parliament but
Gloucester; and in the JN^orth Country, not a city
but Hull, which the Hothams had been baffled in an
attempt to betray to the king-, whilst in the counties
between, Prince Rupert and the plunderers were
having it much their own way. Very evil times we
thought them. And many different reasons were
assigned for the failure of the good cause. Aunt
Dorothy feared it was a punishment for a licentious
spirit of toleration to zealots and sectaries, and the
sins of the Independents. The zealous preacher who
came from Suffolk occasionally to expound at Job
Forster's meeting, was sure it was carnal compromise
lording it over God's heritage, and the sins of the
Presbyterians. And Rachel believed it was the sins
of us all, and of herself in particular, who had, she
considered, been too much like Ananias and Sapphira,
in that she had professed to give the whole price to
God and then would fain have kept back the half,
having indulged the deceitful hope that Job was
so wounded as never to be able to go to the wars
again.
Placidia and Mr. Nicholls were much " exercised."
Especially since the loss of the three parsonage cows,
i which were (by what Aunt Dorothy considered a
The Draijions and the Darenanis. II. 8
114 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
very solemn warning to Placidia) swept off with my
father s by the plunderers from the meadow by the
Mere. "There were two texts," said Placidia, "which
had always seemed to her exceedingly hard to re-
concile. One was, 'Godliness hath promise of the
life which now is as well as of that which is to
come.' And the other, 'Whom the Lord loveth he
chasteneth.' What could be done with texts so ex-
ceedingly difficult to reconcile as these?"
To which Aunt Dorothy replied, —
"Give up trying to reconcile them at all, my
dear. Let them fight, as frost and heat do, fire and
water, sunshine and storm; and out of the strife
come the flower and the fruit, spring time and
harvest, which shall never cease. Not that I see
any difficulty in it. The promise is not meadows
or cows, but grace and peace. The perplexity is
over when you make up your mind that what you
want is not to feel warm for a day or two, but to
have tJiings grow; not a few sunny hours, but the
harvest."
Perhaps among us all, the person least perplexed
by these continued disasters was Aunt Gretel; be-
cause, leaving the whole field of politics as altogether
too complicated for her to comprehend, she con-
tinued to see only the links which bind every day
to the Eternal Day, and every event to the hand of
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 115
tlie merciful Father ; and thus her chief wonders ever
were the pity which forgave so many sins, and the
love which provided so many mercies. Overlooking
all the battles and skirmishes around us, she saw
but one Battle and one Battle-field, and but two
Captains. Overlooking all the subordinate divisions
of nations and parties, she saw only one Flock and
one Shepherd, and the Shepherd calling each one by
one, from the great Gustavus to little Cicely and
poor Tim; folded, one, in the heavenly fold of which
he knew nothing till he was in it, and the other in
the poor earthly house which she and her child and
her grateful love had made, once more, a home and
a refuge for poor old Gammer. For since Cicely's
return. Gammer's broken links with her fellow-
creatures began to be knit again; and more than one
at Netherby took Job's words to heart. The broad
shield of her love and welcome which she threw
around the wafiderer had shielded herself.
But side by side with the doleful records in my
Diary run two series of letters full of victory and
hope.
One was to my father from Dr. Antony, who
spent most of that period in London. And there,
throughout all these disasters, the courage of the
citizens seemed never to fail.
When Lord Essex returned from Edgehill with
8*
116 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANtS:
very doubtful success, whicli he liad. entirely failed
to convert into lasting gain by his hesitations and
delays, London, of as brave and generous a heart as
old Rome, voted him £ 5000.
When Bristol fell before Prince Rupert, and
every city in the west save Gloucester fell into the
hands of the king, and Lord Essex timidly recom-
mended accommodation with His Majesty, and the
Lords would have petitioned him, the Commons, the
preachers, and the citizens (knowing that no accom-
modation with the -king could be relied on unless
secured by victory) rejected all such wavering thoughts.
The shops were all shut for some days, not to make
holiday, but for solemn fasting. These days were
spent in the churches, and the people came forth
from them ready for any sacrifice for the eternal
truth and the ancient liberty. It was detex'mined to
surround London with entrenchments. Knights and
dames went forth, spade in hand, to the beat of
drum, to share in the digging of the trenches, and
to hearten others to the work. And in a few days
twelve miles of entrenchment were dug. Whereof
we heard His Majesty took notice, and lost heart
thereby.
Throughout all those adverse times London never
lost heart. Plate and jewels kept pouring into the
Parliament's treasury at Giiildhall. Time spent by
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 117
the 'prentices in the Parliament army was ruled to
count as time served in their trades. And jests
against the courage of men bred in streets and
trained behind counters lost their point. Dr. Antony's
letters through all that dreary time had the cheer
and stir of a triumphal march in them, although he
had no triumphs to relate, but only defeats borne
with the courage which repairs them, and although
he himself went to the battle-field not to wound but
to bind up wounds.
The other series of letters was from Roger. And
these cheered us because they always told of victory.
They were brief, and mostly written from the battle-
field, to assure us at once of victory and safety.
They crossed the dark shadows of my Diary like
sunbeams. In June, when we were mourning over
the death of Hampden, and over the slow debates
of the Lord-General, what to do first for the bleed-
ing country, wounded in every part by the stabs of
plunderers and reckless Cavaliers, came Roger's first
letter, delayed on its way, dated, "Grantham, 18th
May 164.3." It spoke of a glorious victory won
that day against marvellous odds of number, the
enemy running away for three miles, four colours
taken, and forty- five prisoners, and many prisoners
rescued. Again in July, when we were bewailing
I the Fairfaxes defeated at Atherton Moor in the north,
118 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Sir William Waller's army routed at Lansdowne
Heath in tLe west, and Bristol lost, Roger was writing
us, on the 31st, news from Gainsborough of a "notable
victory with a chase of six miles."
Mingled with these good tidings were sayings
which Roger had heard of Colonel Cromwell's. Some
of these sayings were like proverbs, so closely
did the word fit the thought. Others had in them
the ring of a war-song, as when he wrote to the
Commissioners at Cambridge. "You see by this
enclosed how sadly your affairs stand. It's no longer
disputing, but out instantly all you can. Raise all
your bands; send them to Huntingdon; get up what
volunteers you can; hasten your horses. Send these
letters to Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, without delay.
I beseech you, spare not. You must act lively; do
it without distraction. Neglect no means." Yet
often it seemed, when you listened to Colonel Crom-
well, as if it were by some marvellous accident his
thoughts did ever tumble into their right clothes, so
strangely did they come lumbering out. But every
now and then, if you had patience, amidst the
rattling of the rough stones and pebbles, flashed a
sentence, sharp cut and brilliant as a diamond, al-
though, apparently, as unconscious of its polish and
sharpness as the rest of their un,eouthness. "Subtilty
may deceive you; integrity never will." Truly, God
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 119
follows US with encouragements, who is the God of
blessings; and I beseech you, let him not lose his
blessing upon us! They come in season, and with
all the advantages of heartening, as if God should
say, 'Up, and be doing, and I will stand by you
and help you!' There is nothing to be feared but
our own sin and sloth." "If I could speak words
to pierce your hearts with the sense of our and your
condition, I would. It may be difficult to raise so
many men in so short time; but let me assure you
it's necessary, and, therefore, to he done." "God
hath given reputation to our handful (the Ironsides),
let us endeavour to keep it. I had rather have a
plain, russet-coated captain that knows what he fights
for, and loves what he knows, than that which you
call 'a gentleman' and nothing else. I honour a
gentleman that is so indeed."
"Yet," said Roger in one of his letters, "it gives
you little knowledge of what the colonel is, to
extract these bits of his sayings, and make them
emphatic, as if he meant them for epigrams, when
the force is that they are said without force; the
thought and purpose in him, which always go to the
point in deeds, from time to time flashing straight to
the point in words, which are then as strong as other
men's deeds. But this I know, when he says of us,
'We never find our men so cheerful as when there
120 THE DRAYTON'S AND THE DAVENANTS:
is work to do,' or, ' God liatli given reputation to our
handful,' we all feel as if we were dubbed kniglits,
and were moving about glorious with Eoyal Orders."
So, slowly as the year passed on, some of us
began dimly to feel that a kingly being had arisen
among us, such a king as David was before he was
crowned, when he ruled in the hearts of the thousands
of Israel by right of the slain giant and the secret
anointing of the seer-, a mighty man, who felt
nothing impossible 'which he believed right, with
whom, if a thing was "necessary," it was "^o he
done."
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 121
XXVI.
'c
LETTICE DAVENANT S DIARY.
"Oxford, January oi)th^ 1G44. — Anotlier Christ-
mas, and another birth-day, shut up within these
monkish old stone walls. To my mother the chapel,
with the painted windows, and the organ, and the
daily services, make up for much that we lose. But
as to me, when I hear the same sounds, and see the
same sights from day to day, I scarcely seem to hear
] or see them at all. They do not wake my soul up.
The sacred music of the woods and fields seems to
do me more good, at least on week-days. For it is
sacred, and it is never the same. And the choristers
there, while they are singing their psalms, are busy
all the time building their nests, and finding food
for their nestlings, which makes their songs all the
more tender and sacred to me.
"Not a word from them at Netherby. And not
a step nearer to the end.
"Yet it is wrong to complain. It is something
to have my father and my seven brothers still un-
touched, after being exposed during all this time to
1
122 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
the risks of tlie war. I dread to think what a gulf
would yawn between me and Olive, and all of them,
if once one very dear to either of us fell in the
strife.
"I have nothing to complain of, but that things
do not change; and with what a passion of regret I
should long for one of these unchanging days, if one
of the terrible changes that might come, came.
"A wretched phantom of a Parliament appeared
here on the 22nd. of January. I would the king
had not summoned it. We should leave it to the
rebels, I think, to deal with shows and phantoms of
real things, with their presumptuous talk of colonels
and generals. I would His Majesty had not en-
countered their pretence of royal authority, with this
pretence of Parliamentary debate. Sixty Lords, and
a hundred Commons, or thereabouts, moving help-
lessly about these old university streets, with no
more power or life in them than the effigies of the
saints and crusaders in the churches. Indeed far
less, for the effigies are memorials of persons who
once were alive, and this Parliament is nothing but
a copy of the clothes and trappings of a power now
living. The king does not consult them, and the
nation does not heed them, and they only show how
real the division is amongst us. The king himself
calls them the 'mongrel Parliament.' His Majesty
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 123
is SO grand and majestic wlien he is grave, I feel
one could give up anything to bring a happy smile
over his sad and kingly countenance. But I would
he did not make these jests. Many grave persons,
I have noticed, when they set about jesting, are apt
to do it rather cruelly. Their jests want feathers.
They fall heavily, weighted with the gravity of their
character; and instead of pleasantly pricking and
stimulating, they wound. Therefore I wish His
Majesty would not jest. Especially about Parlia-
ments and the navy. People are apt not to see the
wit of being called 'cats,' or 'water-rats,' or 'mongrel.'
They only feel the sting.
'"''March. — The Scottish General Leslie has led
an army over the Borders. Traitor! When the
king was so gracious as to create him Earl of Leven
but a few years since. Oh, faithless Scottish men!
Infatuated by a thing they call Presbytery, and
treacherous to their compatriot and anointed king!
''''June 1644. — Another summer within the walls
of this old city. Another summer away from the
woods at home. I am tempted sometimes to wish
the war would end in any way. Politics perplex
me more and more. So many people wishing the
same thing, for contrary reasons. So many people
wishing contrary things for the same reasons. So
many on our side whom one hates; so many against
124 THE DRAYTOXS AND THE BAVEXAKTS :
US wliom we honour. The best meu cloing the worst
mischief by beginning the strife; and then dying,
or doubting, and giving place to the worst men, who
finish it — if ever it is to be finished. Hampden
gone, and Lord Falkland; and the names one hears
most of now, Prince Rupert and this Oliver Crom-
well. They call him General now. What nest?
A country gentleman, none of the most notable or
of the greatest condition, eking out his farming,
some say, with brewing ale, at Huntingdon, until he
was forty-two — and at forty-five, forsooth. General
Cromwell, with men of condition capping to receive
his orders. A fanatic, moreover, who preaches in
the open air to his men, between the battles.
"A cheerful life for Roger Drayton, methinks!
For commander, this fanatic brewer; for comrades,
preaching tailors and fighting cobblers; for recrea-
tion. General Cromwell's sermons; and for martial
music. Sir Launcelot says, Puritan Psalms, entoned
pathetically through the nose. A change for Roger
Drayton from Mr. Milton's organ-playing, or the
madrigals we sang at Netherby. And yet I question
whether our Harry would not find even that doleful
Puritan music more to his taste than many a mocking
Cavalier ditty wherewith our men entertain them-
selves. The times are grave enough, and I doubt
sometimes but the Puritan music suits them best.
A Sl'UUY OF THE CIVIL, WARS. 125
'''■Juhj 20. — Tei-rible tidings, if true. Lord
Newcastle and Prince Rupert defeated at Marston
Moor, on the 2nd of July, by the Earl of Manchester
and Cromwell. A hundred colours taken, and all
the baggage; the royal army scattered in all direc-
tions. And ten days afterwards, York surrendered.
Loyal York, in the heart of the loyal North, His
Majesty's first retreat from his faithless capital!
"Strange that men speak more of Oliver Crom-
Avell than of the Earl of Manchester, in this battle.
Strange, if it is true, as some say, that this firebrand
was already in a ship bound for flight to America a
few years since, when the king forbade him to go.
My father says, however, that the man who really
won the victory for the Parliament was Prince
Rupert, who, saith he, is no general, but a mere
reckless chief of foraging-parties. It was he who
hurried the Marquis of Newcastle into battle, against
his judgment. And now it is reported that my Lord
Newcastle, despairing of himself, with such associates
(or of the cause with such leaders), has taken ship
for France. I would it were the Palatine princes
instead. Their standard was taken at Marston Moor.
"Three of my brothers were there-, one wounded,
but not severely ; the other two have gone northward
we know not where.
"Harry is much with us, being about the king's
126 THE DPvATTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
person. He will liave notliing to do witli the prince's
plundering parties. But lie chafes at having missed
this battle, and is eager for the king to go westward
to inspire and reward loyal Devon and Cornwall by
his presence, and to pursue my Lord Essex, who
has gone thither with the rebel forces.
'"'' August. — The queen embarked on the 14th of
July for France. I marvel she can bear to put the
seas between her and the king at such times as
these. But my mother says she could not help it,
and sacrifices herself most, and most to the purpose,
by taking off the burden of her safety from His
Majesty, and going among her royal kindred, whom
she may stir up to fight. And indeed she did essay
to rejoin the king. After the birth of the little
princess at Exeter, she asked my Lord Essex for a
safe-conduct to the Bath to drink the waters; but he
offered lier instead a safe- conduct to London, 'where,'
quoth he, 'she would find the best physicians.' A
sorry jest I deem this, inviting her to run into the
very den of the disloyal Parliament, which lately
dared to 'impeach' her.
"Rebel galleys followed her from Torbay, but
she escaped safe to Brest, and I trow the king's af-
fection for her is so true he had rather know her
safe than have her with him. Yet, methinks, in her
case I would not have left it to him to decide. The
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 127
more one I so loved cared for my welfare and safety,
the more I would deliglit to risk and dare all.
^''August. — They are o£P to the West, the faith-
ful West — the king, and my father, and Harry,
with an army enthusiastical in their loyalty, and
high in hope and courage. Prince Rupert not with
them, and Oliver Cromwell not with the rebels.
Surely there must be great things done!
'"'' 8e2)temher. — The glorious news has come: —
"Lord Essex's army is ruined, gone, vanished.
Not routed in a hard fight, but steadily pursued to
Fowey, in a corner of loyal Cornwall, there cooped
up ingloriously, closer and closer, until the general
was fain to flee by sea, and the whole of the foot
had to surrender. The cavalry, indeed, fought their
way through, which, being Englishmen, I excuse
them. Bvt.t never was ruin more complete.
"Harry writes from Tavistock, where His Ma-
jesty has retired, a small town nestled among wooded
hills at the foot of the wild moors. Mr. Pym was
member for it; nevertheless the place seems not ill-
disposed.
'"'' November. — Harry is with us. I have never
seen him so in spirits since the war began.
"The royal army received a slight check at New-
bury, a place fatal already with the blood of the
brave Lord Falkland.
128 THB DEAYTONS AND THE DAVEKAJjTS:
"But Harry seems to tliiuk nothing of that in
comparison witli the state of tilings this battle hath
revealed among the rebels. Rebellion, saith he, is
at last obeying its own laws, and crumbling away
by its own inherent disorganization.
"After the second battle of Newbury the quiet
of our life was effectually broken by a threatened
attack on Oxford.
"Artillery booming at our gates, bullets falling
in our streets. At last I had a little taste of real
war. I did not altogether dislike it. There was
something that made my heart beat firmer in the
thought of sharing my brothers' and my father's
danger. But then, I must confess, it did not come
very near. The walls were still between us and the
enemy. After a short cannonading the rebels drew
off, from a cause, Harry says, worth us .many vic-
tories. Lord Essex and Sir William Waller, their
two generals, could not agree, and between them
the attack on Oxford was abandoned; and what was
more, the king, who was encamped outside the city,
with a force in numbers quite unequal to cope with
their combined forces was suffered to retreat withoixt
a blow to Worcester.
"But better than all. Harry says the rebel gen-
erals are assailing each other with all kinds of re-
proaches in the Parliament, accusing each other as
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 129
the cause of all the late failures. Lord Essex, Lord
Mancliester , and Sir William Waller, none of them
cordially uniting with each other against us, but all
most cordially uniting in assailing Oliver Cromwell,
who is the only one among them we have cause to
dread. And to complete the mel^e, the Scottish
preachers are having their say in the matter, and
solemnly accuse Mr. Cromwell of being an 'Incen-
diary!'
"Which it is quite plain to us he is. So that
now, when the Incendiaries themselves have set
about to fight each other, and to put out the flames,
it is probable the arson will be avenged, the flames
will be j)ut out, and we quiet and loyal subjects shall
have nothing left to do but to rebuild the ruins.
"Then we will try to say as little as we can
about who began the mischief, and only see who
can work best in repairing it.
"The king and the Parliament throughout the
land, and the Dray tons and the Davenauts at dear
old Netherby."
The Drayimis and the Da/venants, 11.
130 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS;
xxvn.
olive's recollections.
At the end of July 1644 we had a letter from
Eoger : —
'■'■Marston Moor, July 3rd. — To my dear sister, Mistress
Olive Drayton. — On the battle-field. A messenger going-
south will take tliese.
" Thank God we are here this day. And the enemy is
not here, but flying right and left, over moor and mountain.
No such victory has been vouchsafed us before.
"Yesterday, the 2ncl July, early in the morning, we
were moving off the ground — Lord Manchester, General
Leslie, and General Cromwell.
"Prince Rupert had gallantly thrown provisions into
York, which we wei'e beleaguering; but the generals
thought he would not venture an attack on oui- combined
forces.
"But when we were fairly in order of march the prince
fell on our rear.
"It took us till three in the day to face round, front
them, and secure the position we wanted. There is a rye
field here with a ditch in front, where the dead bear wit-
ness how we had to fight for it.
"At three. Prince Rupert gave their battle-cry: ^For
God and the king ;' and we ours: '■Godioitli us.^ From three
till five we pounded each other with the great guns. But
little impression was made on either side. And at five
A STORY OF THE CXVITj WARS. 131
there was a pause. Two hours' silence, confronting each
other, from five to seven. Such silence as may be where
many are wounded, and many are waiting in agonies for
the summons to die , while the rest were waiting for the
summons to charge. At last, at seven, it came.
"Our foot, under Lord Manchester, ran across the
ditch before that rye field for which they had fought so
hard. Thus far was clear to all. The rest we know only
from comparing what we did, and seeing what we had
done afterwards. For immediately on the attack of the
foot came the charges of the horse. The left wing of the
king's army, on our right, they all but routed, driving the
Lord Manchester, Lord Fairfax, and the old veteran Leslie
from the field. Meantime our right — that is, we, the Iron-
sides with the general — charged their left. We were not
beaten. 1 trust we gave him no reason to be ashamed of
us. But evei\>T\4iere the fighting was hard. Having dis-
charged our pistols , we flung them fi-om us and fell to it
with swords. Then came the shock, like two seas meeting,
each man encountering the foe before him , but few know-
ing how the day was speeding elsewhere, till we found
ourselves with the whole front of the battle changed , each
victorious wing having wheeled round as they fought, and
standing where the enemy had stood when the fight began.
Then came up General Cromwell's reserves with General
Leslie's, and decided the day, sending Prince Eupert and
his plunderers flying headlong through the gathering dusk.
It was the first time they had encountered the Ironsides.
Their broken horse trampled, as they fled, on the broken
and flying foot, we spurring after them, till within a mile
of York. Ai'ms, ammunition, baggage, colours, all cast
away in the mad terror of the flight. To within a mile
from York we followed them, and then turned back, and
slept on the battle-field.
"Another silence, Olive*, not as before, in expectation
9*
132 THE DRA.YTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
of auotlier figlit, but witli ovir work done, and foui- thousand
dead around us to be bm-ied.
" Job Forster is safe, and would have you tell Eachel
that the Lord has sent Israel a judge at last, and all must
go right now.
"He went about with Dr. Antony all night, seeing to
the wounded and the dying.
"When I awoke, the summer morning was shining on
the field , and I wondered how I could have slept with all
those sights and sounds around me. But, thank God, I did,
for there is more to be done yet. York has to be taken.
"Tell Eachel, by using my miUtary authority, I got
Job to lie down in my place, while I went romid with Dr.
Antony. At fii-st he wavered. But I said: 'The general
is sharp on any of us who neglect om* arms or powder. And
the body has to be looked to as well as the powder.'
Whereon he lay down in my cloak , and in a minute was
beyond the reach of any rousing, short of cannonade.
" iV. ii. — Two young Daveuauts fought well a few yards
from me ; scarcely more than lads.
"God grant we gained yesterday a step towards
peace."
A fortnight after, another letter, dated: —
"Fo?-I-, the loth July. — York has sm-rendered. The
North is om-s. This moment returned from a thanksgiving
in the minster. The grandest music of the organ scarce,
I think , could have echoed more solemnly among the old
roofs and arches than that psalm , sung by the thousands
of rough soldiers' voices. King David was a soldier , and
knew how to make such jisalms as soldiers need. Nor do
I think the old minster has often seen a congregation more
serious and devout. If some on the Cavalier side had
heard it, they could scarce have said afterwards, our Puri-
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 133
tan religion lacked its solemnities. Our solemnities begin
indeed ivithin ; but when the tide of devotion is high and
deep enough, no music like that it makes in overflowing."
To Eoger, as to any one borne on the chariot of
the sun, the whole world seemed full of light. To
us, however, meanwhile in the Fens, things seemed
verging more and more from twilight into night.
Not much more than a month after the letter of
Roger's concerning the surrender of York, came
tidings which, it seemed to us, more than counter-
balanced these advantages.
The royal letter post, lately established on the
great North Road between London and Edinburgh,
and southward between London and Plymouth, had
been interrupted during the war. Netherby lay in
the line of one of the more recent branch-posts; and
we missed at first the pleasant sound of the horn
which the postman was commanded to blow four
times every hour, besides at the posting-stations.
At first Aunt Dorothy rather rejoiced. She had
been wont to say it was a grievous interference with
the liberty of the subject, that we should be com-
pelled to send all our letters by the hands of the
king's messengers, instead of by any private carrier
we chose. And, moreover, she deemed it highly
derogatory to His Majesty to demean himself to take
a few pence each letter for such services. But a few
134 THE DRAYTOXS AKD THE DAVEXANTS:
months of return to tlie old private method, with all
its uncertainties and suspenses, made her receive the
public posts again as a boon, when the Common-
wealth government re-established them.
It was from Dr. Antony, therefore, that we first
heard the tidings of the Lord Essex's flight from
Fowey, and the ruiu of his whole army.
This was not until November.
He brought two letters from my father and
Roger. My father's was sad; Roger's was indig-
nant. Both spoke of divisions among the supporters
of the Parliament. They were written at different
times, but reached us together by Dr. Antony's hand
as the first safe opportunity. The first was from
Roger, dated late in September, speaking of the sur-
render of Lord Essex's foot: —
"Marstou Moor, with the four thousand that lie dead
there, was after all, it seems, not a step towards the end.
Everything gained there is thrown away again by the in-
decisions of noblemen who are afraid to Avin too much;
and old soldiers who will not move a finger except in the
fashion some one else moved it a hmidred years ago. As
if when war is once begun , there were any way to peace
but by the ruiu of one party, except, indeed, by the ruiu
of both; as if a lingering war were a kind of half peace,
instead of being, as it is, the worst of wars — the opening
of the nation's veins at a thousand points, whereby she
slowly bleeds to death. Lieuteuaut-General Cromwell
takes sadly to heart the sad conditions of our army iu the
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WxiES. 135
West. He saith, had we wiugs we would fly thither. In-
deed, wings he hath at command, in the hearts of his men,
'never so cheerful,' he says, 'as when there is work to do.'
But there are those whose chief business is to cliiJ these
wings , lest affairs fly too fast. The general saith , ' If we
could all intend our own ends less , and our ease too , our
business in this army would go on wheels for expedition.'
If he were at the head of aft'airs, we should not, in sooth,
lack wheels or wings."
The second letter was from my father, written
early in November, after the second battle of New-
bury (fought on the 27tli of October).
He wrote, —
"It is the old story, I fear, of our Protestant lack of
unity. Peojjle do not seem able to see that the military
unity of the Roman Church being broken , the only eccle-
siastical unity possible for us is the vmity as of an empire,
like that of Great Britain, with dift'erent races and local
constitutions under one sovereign; or the unity as of a
family of grown-up children, in free obedience to one
father. If Lutherans and Calvinists could have merged
their lesser differences in their real agreement, probably
that terrible war, which is still crushing the life out of
Germany, need never have begun. If Prelatists, Presby-
terians , and Independents could agree now to yield each
otlier liberty, this war of ours might end. But while they
had power, Prelatists would rather let the nation be torn
asunder than tolerate Presbyterians. And now the Pres-
byterians think they have power, they had rather lose
everything we have gained than tolerate Independents.
The merit of the Independents and Anabaptists being,
136 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
perhaps , only this , that they never have had the power to
persecute. I cannot see whither it is all tending.
"We have lost an army in Cornwall; bnt that is little.
It seems to me some of us are losing all hold of what we
are fighting for. This success at Newbury shows our
weakness more than the ruin at Fowey. Lord Manchester
will not pursue the king, lest oui* last army should be lost ;
in which case, he says, His Majesty might hang us all.
As if the block or the fallows had not been the alternative
of success from the beginning. In consequence of a dis-
agreement between him and Sir William Waller, the com-
bined attack on Oxford failed; and eleven days after our
success at Newbvuy, His Majesty's troops were suffered
quietly to withdraw their artillery fi-om Donnington Castle,
in face of oui* victorious army lying inactive.
" The indignation in the army is unbounded. But all
minor divisions bid fair to resolve themselves into two great
factions of Presbyterians and Independents; Lieutenant-
General Cromwell having addressed a remonstrance to the
Parliament against Lord Manchester, and Lord Man-
chester, Lord Essex, and Hollis, with the Scotch Commis-
sioners, being set on crushing General Cromwell.
" The quarrel is of no new origin. The affair of Don-
nington Castle did but set the tinder to the train. It dates
back to the first sitting of the Westminster Assembly,
when the Presbyterians, not content with absorbing the
Church revenues, which would have been conceded to
them, would have had the magistrate imprison and con-
fiscate the goods of all whom they excommunicated.
' Toleration ,' said one of them , ' will make the kingdom a
chaos, a Babel, another Amsterdam , a Sodom , an Egypt,
a Babylon. Toleration is the grand work of the devil; his
masterpiece and chief engine to support his tottering king-
dom. It is the most compendious , ready, siu'e way to de-
stroy all religion , lay all waste, and bring in all evil. As
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 137
(irigiual sin is the fimdameutal sin, having the seed and
spawn of all sin in it, so toleration hath all eiTors in it
and all evils.' They call toleration the 'great Diana of the
Independents.' Yet no one contends for toleration to ex-
tend beyond the orthodox Protestant sects. These divi-
sions set many of us thinking what we are fighting for. It
would be scarcely woi-th so much blood-shedding to estab-
lish one hundred and twenty Popes at Westminster, in-
stead of one at Lambeth. They are golden words of
General Cromwell's : 'All that believe have the real unity,
which is most glorious, because inward and spiritual, in the
Body and to the Head. For being united in forms, every
Christian will, for peace' sake, study and do, as far as con-
science will jiermit. And for brethren, in things of the mind,
we look for no compiilsion but that of light and reason.'"
"What does my brother mean, Master Antony?"
quotli Aunt Dorothy when she came to this passage.
"And what doth General Cromwell mean? 'No
compulsion!' and 'light and reason!' Most dangerous
words. An assembly of godly divines at Westminster
to settle everything! That is precisely what we have
been fighting for. Not for disorder; not for each
man to think what is right in his own judgment,
and do what is right in his own eyes. But for
those who believe right to have the power to in-
struct, or else to silence, those who believe wrong.
Light and reason indeed! The cry of all the heretics
from the beginning. Why, reason is the very source
of all error. And light is precisely what Ave lack,
and what the Westminster Assembly is providing for
138 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
us; and wlien tliey have just kindled it, and set it
up like a city on a hill, does Mr. Cromwell, forsooth,
think we are going to let every tinker and tailor
kindle his xjirthing caudle instead, and lead people
into any wilderness he pleases?"
Said Dr. Antony, —
"There was a great light enkindled and set up
on a Sorrowful Hill sixteen hundred years ago. But
it has only enlightened the hearts of those who
would look at it. And if the Sun does not put out
these poor farthing candles. Mistress Dorothy, I am
afraid we shall find it a hard matter to do so with
our fingers."
"Well," said Aunt Dorothy, "I am sure I cannot
see whither things are tending."
And even Aunt Gretel remarked, —
"That Independents and Presbyterians should
agree might indeed be easy enough. But Lutherans
and Calvinists are quite another question. In the
next world — well, it is to be hoped. Death
works miracles. But in this, scarcely. The dear
brother-in-law is one of the wisest of men. But
it cannot be expected that the wisest Englishman
should quite fathom the religious differences of Ger-
many."
Of toleration towards Papists, Infidels, or Quakers,
no one dreamed. Infidelity, all admitted, comes
A STORY OP THE ClVIIi WARS. 139
direct from tlie devil, and, of course, no Christian
should tolerate tlie devil or his works. The Papists
had within the memory of our older men sent fetters
to bind us, and fagots to burn us, in the Armada,
which the winds of God scattered from our coasts.
In France they had massacred our brethren in cold
blood to the number of one hundred thousand in
the slaughter which began on St. Bartholomew's Day.
They had assassinated our kindred by tens of thou-
sands in Ireland in our own times. And they were
binding, and burning, and torturing, and making
galley-slaves of our brethren still on the Continent
of Europe. Not as heretics we kept them under, but
as rebels. And as to the Quakers, they were reported
to be liable to attacks of objections to clothes very
perplexing to sober-minded Christians, and were pro-
bably many of them lunatics. These should not indeed
be burned, but they should at all events be clothed,
and, if possible, silenced, until they came to their
right mind.
The third letter which Dr. Antony had brought us
was from Job Forster. I went with Dr. Antony to
take it to Rachel. In it Job spoke much of Roger's
courage and goodness, in a way it made my heart
beat quick to hear.
"Master Roger fights like a lion-like man of
Judah," wrote Job, "and commands like one of the
140 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
chief princes. And at otlier times he can tend a
wounded man, friend or foe, or speak good words to
the dying, most as tender, Kachel, as thee."
Job's letter was by no means doubtful or
desponding. He had the advantage of those in the
ranks. He saw only the rank and the step imme-
diately before him, and heard not the discussions of
the commanders but only the word of command.
"I think," he concluded, "we have come about to
1 Sam. xxTT. 14. Some time back we were in
1 Sam. XXII. 1, in cave Adullam: 'Every one that
was in debt, and every one that was discontented,
gathered themselves unto them,' and a sorry troop
they were. But that is over. The General saith
himself-, 'I have a lovely company; honest, sober
Christians; you would respect them did you know
them.' And respect us they do; leastways the
enemy. And now David (that is, General Cromwell)
is in Keilah. And they inquired of the Lord, and
the Lord said, 'They will deliver thee up.' But
God delivered him not. The rest has to come in its
season."
Job wrote also of " the young gentleman the
chirurgeon." "Of as good a courage as the best,"
quoth Job. "For I hold it harder to stand about
among the whizzing bullets, succouring or removing
the wounded, than to fight. It is always harder
A STORY OF THE CIVITi "WARS. 141
to stand fire tban to charge. Aud it is harder
to spend days and nights tending 'poor groaning
suflFering men than to suffer yourself. That is,
if you have got a heart. Which that doctor
hath. But every man hath his calling. And Dr.
Antony hath his. Straight from head-quarters, as I
deem."
It was curious that what struck me first in those
words of Job's was his calling Dr. Antony "young."
It set me wondering what his age might be; and
as we walked home together, I glanced at him to
see. I had always thought of him as my father's
friend, and therefore of another generation. Besides
there was the doctor's cap, and a physician is al-
ways, ex officio^ an elder. But when I came to con-
sider his face, it had certainly nothing of old age in
it. His carriage was erect and easy; his hair, raven-
black, had not a streak of gi'ay; his eyes, dark as
they were, had fire enough in them. These researches
scarce took me a moment, but his eyes met mine, and
it seemed as if he half guessed what I was thinking
of, for he said, —
"You wondered at Job's talking of the courage
of a chirurgeon."
"Not at all," said I, somewhat confused. "I was
only thinking how it was you were always our father's
friend instead of ours."
142 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"Was I not yours?" he said, half smiliug.
"Oil, yes, of course," I said, "every one's."
"Everyone's, Mistress Olive," lie said inquiringly,
"only, not yours?"
"Mine, of course," I said, feeling myself be-
coming hopelessly entangled, "and every one's be-
sides."
"Thank you," he said gravely, "I should not
have liked the exchange."
"Is it easier, do you think, Dr. Antony," I said,
breaking hurriedly from the subject, "to fight than
to be a chirurgeon on the battle-field?"
"Easier, probably, to me," he said. "Fighting
is in our blood. My grandfather was a soldier, and
fought in the French wars of religion. 'He was
assassinated at the St. Bartholomew with Coligny.
My father, then a child, was seized, baptized, and
educated in a Catholic seminary. But he escaped,
at the risk of his life, to England. In France we
had enough of wars of religion. I have thought it
better work to devote myself as far as I may to suc-
cour the oppressed, and heal such as can be healed
of the wounds and sorrows of men. There is enough
of danger and of warfare in these days in such a
calling to satisfy a soldier's passion, and not to let
the blood stagnate or grow cold."
There was a subdued fire in his eye and a deep
A STOHY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 143
sonorous ring in liis voice, whicli gave force to his
words.
"But Antony is not a French name," I said.
"It was my father's Christian name, which lie
adopted for safety. His name was properly Antoine
la Mothe Duplessis, from an estate our family had
held for some centuries. But, Mistress Olive," he
said, turning the discourse, as if it led to painful sub-
jects, or as if he shrank from continuing on a theme
so unusual with him as himself, "I understand you
are accused of upholding witches."
Whereby I was led into an earnest defence of
Gammer Grindle.
"But even if she had been a witch," I ventured
to say, in conclusion, "would it not have been
more like the Sermon on the Mount to rescue and
then to instruct her, than to drown her? And is
not the Sermon on the Mount the highest law we
have?"
"It is the last edition of the Divine law yet
issued. Mistress Olive," he said. "And one great
glory of it is, it seems to me, that it is not only
so plain itself as to need no commentary of lawyer
or scribe, but if we try to keep it, it has a wonder-
ful power of making other things plain as we go
on."
At which point we reached the porch at Netherby.
144 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Said Auut Dorothy, as Dr. Antony was taking
leave the next day, —
"You must not trouble yourself to be our letter-
carrier. Less useful men can be spared on such
errands. I wonder my brother should have burdened
you therewith."
"I thank you, Mistress Dorothy," said he; "but it
was my free choice to come. And I promise you I
will only come when it is no burden."
Said she, holding his hand, —
"Pardon me; but I am old enough to be your
mother. Suifer an aged woman to warn you against
new-fangled notions. Beware of 'light' and 'reason,'
prithee, and such presumptuous pleas. The light
that is in us is darkness, and our reason is corrupt.
The spiritual armour your fathers fought in, Master
Antony, is proof still."
"I believe it, Mistress Dorothy," he replied;
" and if in new times and in new dangers I should
need new weapons, believe me, I will only go to
my fathers' armoury for them."
I was provoked with myself when he had left,
that of all the wise discourse that had been held
since he came, the things that kept recurring most
to my mind were what Job had said of Dr. Antony,
and how foolish I had been in the answers I gave
him on our way home from Rachel's. He must
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 145
deem me so unmannerly, I thought. And, besides,
so many fitting things now occurred which I might
have said. Nothing occupies one like a conversation
in which one has failed to say what one ought to
have said. It haunts one like a melody of which
you cannot find the end.
It was evident, moreover, that. Aunt Dorothy took
the same view of Dr. Antony's age as Job. It made
Dr. Antony seem like some one quite new, to think
of this; new, and yet certainly not strange.
The next Christmas, the army being in winter-
quarters , my father spent with us , which made it a
holiday indeed.
In February 1645, he read us a letter which Dr.
Antony wrote to him , narrating what was going on
in London. At the beginning there was a consider-
able piece which he did not read to us. He said it
related to family matters, which he could speak of
hereafter, and contained greetings to us. Thus the
letter proceeded — it was dated January 21st,
1645: —
"Sir Thomas Fairfax is this day appointed by the
Commons' House general-iu-chief , iu lieu of Lord Essex ;
Skipton major-general; while the post of lieutenant-general
is left open. Most men deem that he who fills it will fill
mo7-e than it, as his name and fame now fill all men's mouths.
There have been fierce debates , whisperings, conspirings,
mysterious midnight meetings at Essex House; the aim of
The Draytons and the Bavenants, II. 10
146 THE DRAYTOiiS AND THE DAVENANTS :
the whole of these conspmngs, the bond of all these gather-
ings, being to ' remove out of the way General-Lieuteuaut
Cromwell, whom,' said the Scottish Commissioners, 'ye ken
very weel is no friend of ours.' This 'obstacle,' this 're-
mora,' this ' incendiaky,' as they called him (soaring high
into Latin in their vain endeavoui-s to find words lofty
enough to express the depth of their abhorrence), had hun-
dreds of grave English and Scottish Presbyterian divines,
soldiers, and lawyer?, been laboui-ing for months to remove
out of the way; yet nevertheless, on the 9th of December,
there he stood in the Commons' House, as immovable an
obstacle and ^remora' as ever, and about to prove himself
an 'Incendiary' indeed by kindling a flame which should
consume their eloquent Latin accusations and their author-
ity at once.
''There was a long silence in the House. General
Cromwell broke it, speaking abruptly, and not in Latin.
"'It is now a time to speak,' he said, 'or for ever hold
the tongue. The important occasion now is no less than
to save a nation out of a bleeding , nay, almost dying con-
dition, which the long continuance of this war hath already
brought it into; so that without a more speedy, vigorous,
effectual prosecution of the war — casting off' all lingering
proceedings like those of soldiers of fortune beyond sea to
spin out a war — we shall make the kingdom weary of us,
and hate the name of a Parliament.
"'For what do the enemy say? Nay, what do many
that were friends at the beginning of the Parliament?
Even this, that the members of both Houses have got great
places and commands, and the sword into then- hands, and
what by interest in Parliament, what by power in the
army, will perpetually continue themselves in grandeur,
and not permit the war speedily to end, lest their own
power should determine with it. This that I sjjeak here
to om* own faces, is but what others do utter abroad behind
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 147
our backs. I am far from reflecting on any. I know the
wortli of tliose commanders. Members of both Houses
who are still in power; but if I may speak my conscience
without reflection on any, I do conceive if the army is not
put into another method, and the war more vigorously pro-
secuted, the people can bear the war no longer, and will
enforce you to a dishonom-able peace.
"'But this I would recommend to your prudence. Not
to insist upon any complaint or oversight of any com-
mander-in-chief upon any occasion whatsoever, for as I
must acknowledge myself guilty of oversights , so I know
they can rarely be avoided in military aftairs. Therefore,
waiving a strict inquiry into the issues of these things , let
us apply ourselves to the remedy, which is most necessaiy.
And I hojje we have such true English hearts, and zealous
affections towards the general weal of our mother-country,
as no members of either House will scruple to deny them-
selves and their own private interests for the public good,
nor account it to be a dishonour done to them, whatever
the Parliament shall resolve upon in this weighty matter.'
"Another member followed and said, —
"'Whatever be the cause, two summers are passed
over, but we are not saved. Our victories (the price of
blood invaluable) so gallantly gotten , and (which is more
pity) so graciously bestowed, seem to have been put into a
bag with holes; what we won one time, we lost another;
the treasure is exhausted, the country wasted, a summer's
victory has proved but a winter's story; the game, how-
ever, shut up with autumn, was to be played again the
next spring , as if the blood that had been shed were only
to manure the field of war for a more plentiful crop of con-
tention. Men's hearts have failed them with the observa-
tion of these things.'
"The cause General Cromwell deemed to be the multipli-
cation of commanders. The remedy, that members of both
10*
14.8 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Houses should deny tliemselves the right to appoint tliem-
selves to posts of military command. The ' Self-Denying
Ordinance ' and the ' New Model ' of the army were pro-
posed, and soon passed the House of Commons. The Lords
debated and rejected it; but this day the Commons have
appointed Sir Thomas Fairfax commander-in-chief, super-
seding Lord Essex. And few doubt but they will carry it
through.
"Thus may, we trust, a few vigorous strokes bring
peace; and peace, order.
"But meanwhile, during these dark January days, an-
other conflict has ended ; on Tower Hill.
"The fallen archbishop, whose name was a teiTor for
so many years in every Puritan home in England, there,
on this 10th of January, laid down his life heroically and
calmly as a martyr-, which he sm-ely believed himself to be.
He read a prayer he had composed for the occasion. I
grieve to say, the scaffold was crowded, not with his friends.
He said he would have wished an empty scaffold , but if it
could not be so , God's will be done ; he was more wiUing
to go out of the world than any could be to send him. A
helpless, forsaken old man, heavily laden with bodily in-
firmities, four years a prisoner, uneasily dragged from trial
to trial, I never heard that his courage failed. I would
they had let him die in quiet. But Sir John Clotworthy,
over-zealous, as I think, asked him what text was most
comfortable to a man in his dejjartiu'e. ' Cupio dissolvi et
esse cum Chi-isto,' said the archbishop. 'That is a good
desire,' was the rejoinder; 'but there must be a founda-
tion for that desire, an assm-ance.' 'No man can express
it,' was the calm reply, 'it must be found within.' 'Yet it
is founded on a word, and that word should be known.'
'It is the knowledge of Jesus Christ,' said the archbishop,
' and that alone ; ' and to finish the discussion, he turned to
the headsman, gave him some money, and said, 'Here,
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 149
honest friend, God forgive thee, and do thy office on me in
mercy ; ' and so , after a short prayer, his head was struck
off at one blow. The crowd dispersed , and the fatal hill
was left once more silent and deserted , with the scaffold
and the Tower facing each other, the Aveary prison of so
many, and the blood-stained key, which had for so many
unbarred its heavy gates, and also, we may trust, another
gate, from inside which oiu* whole earth seems but a prison
chamber.
"If we look at the world only as divided into jmr ties,
truly this death of his were worth to those who think with
him, more than many victories in Parliament or in the field.
But if we think of the One Kingdom , sm-ely we may re-
joice that one who, as it seems to us, eiTcd much in head
and heart, and did no little hurt, came right at last, and
took refuge with Him who receives us not as Archbishops,
or Presbyterians, or Independents, but as repentent, weary,
and heavy-laden men and women.
" Some few friends reverently buried him in Barking
Church to the words of the old burial-service , prohibited
by the Parliament a few days before. All houoiu- to
them."
Said Aunt Gretel, when my father had finished
reading this letter, —
"It is a great pity the martyrs should not all be
on the right side. It would make it so very much
easier to know which is the right."
"Martyrs on the wrong side!" exclaimed Aunt
Dorothy indignantly; "you might as well talk of
orthodox heretics."
But my father replied, —
150 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"If obedience is better tbau sacrifice, tbeu obe-
dience is the best part of the sacrifice of martyrdom-,
and may we not trust that the Master may accept
the act of obedience even of some who misread the
word of command?"
The next day he left us for London, and we saw
him no more for many montlis.
On the 29th of January, Commissioners of the
Parliament and of the king met at Uxbridge to ne-
gotiate for peace. But they did not get on at all.
Dr. Stewart syllogistically defended the divine right
of Episcopacy, and Dr. Henderson the divine right
of the Presbyterial government. My Lord Hertford
and my Lord Pembroke would have passed this by,
to proceed to the particular points to be settled; but
the divines declined to be hurried, insisting on dis-
puting syllogistically "as became scholars." So,
after twenty days, Dr. Stewart and Dr. Henderson,
being each confirmed in the conviction of his own
orthodoxy, the Commissioners separated with no
further result.
One evening, indeed, it is said, the king had
consented to honourable terms; but in the night a
letter came from Montrose announcing Eoyalist vic-
tories, and in the morning His Majesty retracted the
concessions of the evening.
Meanwhile the two armies continued fighting;
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 151
not in two large bodies, but in scattered skirmishes,
sieges, surprises, all over the country, making well-
nigh every quiet home in England a sharer in the
misery and tumult of the war.
The moral difference between the forces of the
Parliament and the king became, it was said, more
obvious. It could scarce be otherwise. War must
make men firmer in virtues or more desperate in sin.
Men must get less and less human with years of
plundering, and indulgence in every selfish sinful
pleasure. No good woman durst venture near the
Royalist army, my father said, and vice and profane-
ness were scarcely punished; whereas in the Parlia-
ment camp, as in a well-ordered city, passage was
safe, and traffic free. It was the history of the
armies of the great Gustavus and that of Wallenstein
over again.
I think it would be blasphemy to deem such
differences can have no weight in a world where
God is King.
I wonder if it can be that, after all, it leads to
more good to fight out the great battles of right and
wrong in this way, than syllogistically, in Dr.
Stewart and Dr. Henderson's way. The logical battles
making good men fierce, and not hurting the bad at
all; the battles for life and death making good men
nobler, at all events, even if they make the bad men
152 THE DRAYTONS A^TD THE DAVENANTS:
worse Making good men better seems the end of
so many things that God permits or orders in this
world. And as to making bad men worse, it seems
as if that could not be helped, because ererythin<j
does that until they change the direction they are
going in, which great troubles and dangers some-
times startle them to do. If this be so, the pain, and
misery, and death, would cease to be so perplexing.
Aunt Dorothy used' to say, a church without the rod
in her hand is a church without sinews. But a
church with a rod seems sometimes as blind and
severe in using it as the world. For which reason,
I suppose, the best periods of church history seem
often to be those in which the world holds the rod
instead of the church. And a war may sometimes
be as effectual an instrument of godly discipline as
a synod.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 153
XXVIII.
LETTICE DAVENANT's DIARY.
June 14tb, 1645 — Davenant Sall^ Three o'clock
in the morning. — We came home yesterday, and I
grudge to sleep away any of these first hours in the
old house. It is like travelling into some marvellous
foreign country, to rise at an unwonted hour in the
morning. The sky looks so much higher before the
roof of daylight has quite spread over it. For after
all, daylight is a roof shutting us in to our own
green sunny home of earth. And that is partly
what makes the night so awful. We stand roofless
at night, open to all the other worlds, with no walls
or bounds on any side. And at dawn something of
the boundlessness and awfulness are still left. With
a majestical slow pomp the morning sweeps the vale
of sunlight over star after star, falling in grand so-
lemn folds of purple and crimson as it touches the
edge of our world, until the great spaces of the
upper worlds are all shut out, and we are shut in with
our own kindly sun, and our own many -coloured
fleeting clouds, and our own green earth.
"Then the other aspect of the dawn begins. Her
154 THE DRAYrONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
first steps and movements are all grand and silent.
But when the awful infinity beyond is shut out, and
we are left alone, face to face with her, she changes
altogether.
"The stars pass away in silence. But the day
awakes with all kinds of joyful sounds. The clouds
are transformed from solemn purple banners in some
great martial or sacred procession to royal or bridal
draperies. They garland the earth with roses, they
strew pearls and diamonds; they spread the path of
the new-crowned sun with cloth of gold. The whole
world, earth and sky, seems to blossom into colour,
like a flower from its sheath. Every leaf of the
limes outside my window, every spike of the horse-
chestnuts seems to awake with a flutter of joy.
"It seems as if infinity came back to us in a
new way. For the infinite spaces of night, we have
the infinite numbers of day. Instead of the heavy
masses of foliage waving an hour or two since,
dimly against the sky, there is a countless multitude
of leaves fluttering in and out of the sunlight, a
countless multitude of birds singing, chirping, twit-
tering, among the branches, a countless throng of
insects hovering, wheeling, darting in and out among
the leaves; there are the infinite varieties of colour
on every blade of grass, on every blossom, on every
insect's wing.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 155
"It is a wonderful joy to be here again. Every
creature seems to welcome me. I seem to long to
speak to every one of tliem, and just add a little
drop of happiness to the happiness of them all. I
want to take all of them, in some way, like little
children , to my heart and kiss them.
"Olive said that feeling was really the longing
to be folded to the Heart which is at the heart of
all; but nearer us than any other creature.
'"'''' He fell on Jus neck and hissed Mm.''
"She thought it meant something like that.
"Leaning out of my window, looking down from
the slopes of the Wolds, as we do across the long
space of fens which stretches before us like a sea, I
see the gables of Netherby.
"Olive is there asleep.
"Olive, and Mistress Dorothy, and Mistress
Gretel.
"And here, my mother and I.
"Fathers and brothers all at the war. In sight,
yet how sadly out of reach! This terrible war that
seems as if it would never end. Things have not
been going on quite so prosperously with us lately;
although many strong places in the North are still
loyal ; and all the West is ours , and much of Wales.
A new vigour seems to have come into the rebel
councils. They say the soul of them all is this
156 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVBNANTS:
Oliver Cromwell, that he and his friends have brought
in some new regulation, called by some of their un-
pleasant Parliament names. They call everything a
covenant or an ordinance, as if it were all out of
the Bible. They call this the Self-Denying Or-
dinance. The meaning of it seems to be, that they
are all to deny themselves to give Mr. Cromwell the
real command. At least, Harry thinks so. And he
looks gloomily on our affairs. He was at home be-
fore we came, to make the place ready for us. And
he only left yesterday morning to rejoin the king's
army, which is in Leicestershire. Not so very far
oflF.
"I wonder, if there were a battle, if we should
hear the sound of it!
"A few days since the troops stormed Leicester,
and sacked it. Harry would not tell us much about
it! He said it was too much after the fashion of
those dreadful German wars of religion, which Prince
Rupert has taught our men to imitate too well.
"Poor wretched city! We could not hear any-
thing of that. Groans and even helpless cries for
pity do not reach far. At least, not on earth. I
suppose nothing reaches heaven sooner.
"I wish that thought had not come into my head
about hearing the roar of a battle if there were one.
Since it came, I cannot help listening, through all
A STORV OF THE CIVIL WARS. 157
the sweet cheerful country -souuds , the twitterings of
the swallows under the eaves, the soft cadences of
the thrushes, the stirring of the grasses, for something
in the distance!
"If we did hear anything, it would be very, very
far off, fainter than the fluttering of the leaves; like
the moan of distant thunder.
" In summer days there are often mysterious, far-
off sounds one cannot account for. And now I can
do nothing but listen for it.
"For almost the last thing Harry said when he
went away was, that there would be a battle, pro-
bably, before long, and if a battle, probably a great
battle.
"The forces are gathering and approaching each
other.
"He took leave of us gayly, my mother and me.
But ten minutes afterwards, he galloped back to the
place in the outer field where I was standing look-
ing after him (my mother having gone to be alone,
as she always does when Harry leaves us). His face
had lost all the gaiety, and he said, —
"'Lettice, if things were not to prosper with the
king, and the rebels were to attack this house, I
think it would be better not attempt to stand a siege.
The house extends too far to be defended, except
with a larger garrison than you could muster. And
15S THE DRAYTOXS AMD THE DAVENANTS :
the country is against us. If it came to the very-
worst, 3Ir. Drayton is a generous enemy and a
gentleman, and would give you safe harbour for a
time. If all on their side or ours had been like the
Dray tons, there need have been no war. You may
tell them that I said so, if you like, if it ever comes
to that.'
'"Comes to v)hat^ Harry?' I said shuddering.
"He tried to smile. But then, his countenance
suddenly changing, he said, —
"' Lattice, we must think of all possibilities.
You are young, and my mother is used to lean on
others.'
'"Only on you^ Harry,' I said.
'"Yes,' he said hurriedly; 'too much perhaps.
But trust the Dray tons, Lettice. They will never
do anything unjust or ungenerous. If you ask
their advice, they will advise you for your good,
though it cut their own throats or broke then* own
hearts.'
"Then, after a moment's pause, he said, —
"'It is never any good to try to say out a fare-
well, Lettice. If one had years to say it in there
would always be something left unsaid. Partings
are always sudden, whether we are snatched from
each other as if by pirates in the dead of night, or
watch the lessening sail till it becomes a speck in
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAUS. 159
the horizon. The last step is always a plunge into
a gulf. But, Lettice,' he added, lowering his voice,
'death itself is not really a gulf, only to those on
this edge of it. Do not tell my mother I came
hack. If she asks you anything about it, tell her
I never went away with a lighter heart. For I see
less and less what the end will he, or what to wish
for, and I am content ^more and more to make the
day's march, and leave the conduct of the campaign
to God.'
"And he rode off, looking like a prince, and I
watched him till he disappeared behind the trees.
He looked back once again and waved his plumed
hat to me, and then galloped out of sight in a mo-
ment.
"I crept back by a side-door near the stable,
that my mother might not see me; and Cajsar,
Harry's dog, made a dismal whining, and crouched
and fawned on me, so that it went to my heart not
to be able to grant him what he asked for so plainly
in his poor dumb way, and set him free to follow
Harry.
'"''June 14, Ten 6'cloch at night. — Some men
who came from the North this evening, say there
has been fighting towards the north-west, somewhere
on the borders of Northamptonshire and Leicester-
shire. The roar of the guns began early in the day,
160 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
and then there was sharp interrupted firing, which
went on till the afternoon, when it seemed gradually
to cease.
"All day it has been going on. All this quiet
summer day. My father there, perhaps, and Harry
certainly. And nothing to be heard until to-morrow.
"My mother will not seek rest to-night. 1 see
the lamp in her oratory-window. And far off,
across the fields, another light in the gable of old
Netherby, where Olive Drayton used to sleep. It
is some comfort to think we are watching together.
Olive is so good. And she will be sure to remem-
ber us.
''''June 20. — We heard before the morrow. The
next morning, when the dawn began to break again,
a horseman galloped hastily up to the door. I was
in my mother's room; we Avere both dressed. We
had neither of us slept. I looked out. It was Roger
Drayton. My mother sat up on the bed, where I
had persuaded her to rest.
"'I will go down and ask,' I said.
"'We will go together, Lettice,' said she.
"Then came a cry from one of the maids.
'"Perhaps it is poor Margery,' I said. For Mar-
gery had come to stay with us since we returned.
It comforted us to keep together, all of us who had
kindred at the field.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAKS. 161
"My mother shook her head.
"She knelt down one moment, and drew me
down beside her, by the bedside, heart against heart,
and murmured, —
"'Thy will, not mine! Oh, help us to say it.
For His sake who said it first.'
"Then she rose, and with a firm step went down
into the hall with me.
"She held out her hand to Roger when she saw
him.
"His face spoke evil tidings only too plainly.
"'There has been a battle,' she said.
" 'At Naseby, Lady Lucy,' he replied.
"'Was the victory for the king or not?' she
asked-, unable to utter the question uppermost on her
heart and mine.
"'There was hard fighting on both sides,' he re-
plied. 'The king and Prince Rupert have gone
westward towards Wales.'
"I could hear that his voice trembled.
"'Then the king has lost,' she said. 'But it was
not to tell us this you came. Who is hurt?'
"He hesitated an instant.
"'It is Harry!' she exclaimed. 'You have come
to summon us to him. Is the wound severe? Is there
hope? Can we go to him at once?'
"There was a pause, and a dreadful irresponsive
The Dray tons and the Davcnants. II. 11
162 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
silence between each of her questions. He answered
only the last, —
" ' He will be brought to you, Lady Lucy. They
are bringing him now.'
"At once the whole depth of her sorrow opened
beneath her. Not an instant too soon. For the words
had scarcely left Roger's lips when the heavy regular
tramp of men bearing a bitrden echoed through the
silence of the morning outside, and paused at the
porch.
"My mother took my hand, and led me forward.
" 'He must not come home unwelcomed!' she
said.
"For an instant I feared she had not yet grasped
Roger's meaning. For this awful burden they were
bearing was not Harry, I knew too well. No wel-
comes would ever greet him more. But I had not
fathomed her sorrow nor her strength.
"She met the bearers at the door. They stood
with uncovered heads, having laid down what they
bore on the stone seat of the porch. They were
mostly old servants of the family.
"'My friends, I thank you,' she said. 'You
have done all you could. But not there. On the
place of honour. He was worthy.'
"And she motioned them to the dais at the head
A STOllY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 163
of the hall, where the heads of our house are wont
to receive the homage of their retainers.
"Silently they bore him there, and laid their
sacred burden gently down. She thanked them again
for their good service. And then as silently they
withdrew. I saw many a rough hand lifted to brush
away the tears. But she did not weep. She stood
motionless, with clasped hands, beside the bier, and
murmured to herself again and again, in a low
voice, —
" 'He was worthy.'
"Then, turning with her own sweet, never-for-
gotten courtesy to Roger, she held out her hand to
him again, and said, —
"'You did kindly to come and tell us. He al-
ways honoured you.'
"He held her hand, and said rapidly, as if un-
certain of the firmness of his own voice, —
"'I was near him at the last, and he made me
promise to see you, or I could not have dared to
come.'
"She looked up with trembling, parted lips,
listening for more.
"'He made me promise to tell you he had little
pain and no fear,' Roger said in a low voice. 'And
he gave me this for you, and said, "Tell my mother
these words of hers have often helped me to believe,
11*
164 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
tlirougli all these evil days, that God is living and
commanding still. But, more than all words, tell
her my faith in God has been kept unquenched by
the thought of herself T '
"She took the packet from him. It was a little
book, with Scriptures and Prayers written in it by
her own hand, given to Harry when he was a boy.
On the crimson silk cover she had embroided for it
was one stain of a deeper crimson. As she opened
it, a little well-worn leaf dropped out, with a child's
prayer on it she had written for him when first he
went to school.
"When she saw it, the thought of the hero dy-
ing on the battle-field for the good cause vanished,
and in its place came the memory of the little hands
clasped on her knees in prayer,
" And withdrawing her hand from Roger, a sudden
quiver passed through all her frame, and throwing
her arms around me, she sobbed, —
"'My boy, my boy! Lettice, it is Harry we
have lost! It is our Harry!'
"When I looked up again Roger was at the
door. It seemed to me, from the glance he gave,
he was waiting to say something more. And I re-
solved, cost what it might, to hear it. We led my
mother into the nearest chamber, and then leaving
her with the maidens, I went back to the hall.
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 165
"Koger was still waiting in the porch.
"He came forward when he saw me.
'"Did he say any anything more?' I asked,
"He hesitated an instant.
"'He said, "The Draytons and the Davenants
might have to combat one another in these evil times,
but that we should never distrust each other, and
that he never had distrusted one of us."'
"'He said so to me, the last thing before he left
us,' I said. 'And that was all?'
"'The battle swept on; I had to mount again,'
he said, 'and I could not leave my men.'
'"You saw him no more,' I said. 'You could
not even stay to watch his last breath!'
"The moment I had uttered them I felt there
was something like reproach in my words, and 1
would have recalled them if I could.
"'I saw him no more until the fighting was
over,' he said. 'Then I came back and found him;
and we brought him home. It was all we could do,'
he added; 'and it was little indeed.'
"'I am sure you did all you could, Roger,' I
said; for I feared I had wounded him. 'I should
always be sure you would do all you could for any
of us.'
'"Should you, indeed?' he said. 'God knows
I would.'
166 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"And there was a tremor and a deptli of pleased
surprise in his tones that startled me, and I could
not look up.
"'Would to God I could do anything to comfort
Lady Lucy or you,' he said.
"'No one can comfort her, Roger,' I said; and
the tears I had been trying to keep back choked
my voice. 'Harry was everything to her. He was
everything to us all. No one will ever comfort her
more.'
"' FoM will comfort her, Lettice,' he said, with
that quiet commanding way he has sometimes. 'God
gives it you to do; and He will give you to do it.'
"And as he ceased speaking, and I went back
to my mother, I felt as if there were indeed a
strength through which I could do anything that had
to be done.
'"''July 1. — Sir Launcelot Trevor has come with
tidings of my father and my brothers.
"They are in the West, save the two younger,
who went across the Borders after the battle of
Marston Moor, and have joined Montrose in the
Scottish Highlands, deeming that the king's cause
will best rally there.
"The good cause is low; lower than ever before.
Soon after that fatal day at Naseby the town of
Bridgewater surrendered to General Fairfax.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL "WARS. 1G7
"Prince Rupert (with such courage as one miglit
expect, I think, from a chief of plunderers) thereon
counselled the king to make peace. But His Majesty,
never so majestic as in adversity, said, 'That al-
though, as a soldier and a statesman, he saw no
prospect but of ruin, yet, as a Christian, he knew
God would never forsake his cause, and suffer rebels
to jirosper; that he knew his obligations to be, both
in conscience and honour, neither to abandon God's
cause, to injure his successors, or forsake his friends.
Nevertheless, for himself (he said) he looked for no-
thing but to die with honour and a good conscience;
and to his friends he had little prospect to offer, but
to die in a good cause, or, what was worse, to live
as miserable in maintaining it as the violence of in-
sulting rebels could make them.'
"What promises, or royal orders, could bind
men, with any soul in them, to their sovereign as
words like these? Least of all those who, like us,
are bound to the cause by having given ujj our best
for it. Nothing, my mother says, makes a thing so
precious to us as what we suffer for it. Indeed, no-
thing now seems able to kindle her to anything like
life, save aught associated with that sacred cause for
which Harry died.
"Sir Launcelot saith, moreover, that the rebels
have been base enough to lay bare to the eyes of
168 THE DRAl'TONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
the common people of London the private letters
from His Majesty to the queen, found in his cabinet
on the field at Naseby. And that these letters con-
tain things which have even lost the king some old
loyal friends. Sorry friendship, indeed, or loyalty,
to be moved by discoveries, made only through
treachery and breach of confidence, which no gentle-
man would practise to save his life.
"But there is one thing Sir Launcelot hinted to
me which I dare not breathe to my mother. He
said there was reason enough why Roger was near
Harry when he fell; for it was by the hand of one
of the Ironsides, beyond dovxbt, that he died.
"But never by Roger's hand! Or, if possibly
such a curse could have been suffered to fall on one
like Roger, it must have been unknown to him. Of
this I am as sure as of my life.
"Sir Launcelot said that Roger's hand was wont
to be a little too ready to be raised. Ungenerous to
him to say it, and yet too true. Slowly roused; but
once roused, blind to all results.
"How bitter his vain repentance would be if this
terrible thing were possible, and he once came to
know it!
"How bitter and how vain.
"But even if it were possible, and he never knew
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 169
it, but we knew it, what a gulf from henceforth for
ever between us and him!
"I cannot breathe this to my mother. And yet,
if Sir Launcelot's fears could have any ground, it
would seem a treachery, if ever Roger come to us
again, to let her touch in welcome the hand that
dealt that blow!
"I know not what to do. It is the first perplexity
I ever knew in which I could not fly to her for aid
and counsel.
"What a child I have been!
"What a child I am!
"Can it be possible that our Lord thought of
His disciples being perplexed and bewildered at all,
as I am, when, just before He went away. He called
them 'little children?' Can it be possible that He
meant, 'Come to Me, as little children to their mo-
ther; when you want wisdom, come to Me!'"
170 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
XXIX.
olive's recollections.
The first trustworthy tidings we had of the battle
of Naseby were from Dr. Antony. I saw him com-
ing hastily across the fields from the direction of
Davenant Hall.
It was very early in the morning. The village
had been stirring through the previous afternoon with
uneasy rumours, and I had not slept. I was watching
the light in the window of Lady Lucy's oratory, and
thinking how she and Lettice had watched there to-
gether that terrible night so long ago, saying collects
for Roger, and how Lettice had hastened to us in
the morning, on her white palfrey, with the welcome
tidings that Sir Launcelot would recover. And now
how far we were from each other! What a sea be-
tween us! Two moats (the moonlight was shining
on ours just below me), draw-bridges, and fortifica-
tions. But deeper and stronger than all the moats
and walls in the world lay between us the memories
of those bitter years of war, and ever-widening mis-
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 171
conception and division. Yet I felt sure Lettice
loved us still.
And as I was looking and thinking, I saw Dr.
Antony coming hastily down the road from the stile
which led across the fields to the Hall, where I had
parted from Harry Davenant that night when he
brought the tidings of Lord Strafford's execution, and
would not come in.
My first impulse was to rush down the stairs and
unbar the door. But many things held me back. A
presentiment that the news he brought might be
such as there was no need to fore- date by hurrying
to meet it; an uncomfortable recollection of Job
Forster's letter, and of that conversation in which I
had said nothing right.
I went, therefore, to summon Aunt Dorothy, as
head of the household. She had so many prepara-
tions to make, that Dr. Antony's hand was on the
great house-bell long before she was ready. Nothing
so slow she said as hurry, besides it being a proof
of the impatience of the flesh. She would even fold
up the clothes she took off, faithful to her maxim,
that we should always leave everything as if we
might never return to it.
The bell rang again.
I went to see if Aunt Gretel was more capable
of being hastened. She, dear soul, was sympathizing,
172 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
excited, and agitated beyond my utmost desires, for
slie could lay her hands on nothing she wanted. So
that I had to return to Aunt Dorothy, who, by that
time, was ready ; and feeling how cold and trembling
my hand was as she took it to lead me down-stairs,
she laid her other on it with an unwonted demon-
stration of tenderness, and said, —
"Child, we can neither hasten the Lord's steps
nor make them linger. But He will do right." There
was strength in her words, but almost as much to
me in the tones, which were tremulous, and in the
cold touch of her hand, which showed that the blood
at her heart stood as still as mine.
We went down together in time to meet Dr. An-
tony just as he entered the Hall.
My father was wounded, not dangerously, only
so as to render him incapable of further service in
the field, at least at present. His right arm was
broken. Roger was coming home with him.
I wondered that Dr. Antony seemed so heavy at
heart, to bring tidings which made my heart leap
with thankfulness. What could be better than that
Roger was unhurt, and that my father had received
a slight wound just sufficient to keep him at home
with us.
Then it flashed on me in what direction I had
seen him coming.
1
1
A STORY OP THE CIVIIi WARS. 173
"Dr. Antony!" 1 said, "tliere is sorrow for the
Davenants!" And then he told us how Harry Da-
venant had fallen.
We had little time for bewailing him, for the
household had to be roused, and refreshment and a
bed prepared for my father.
I had scarce ever seen Roger so cast down as he
was about Harry Davenant's death. One of the
noblest gentlemen the king had on his side, he
thought, so pure, and true, and bravo. If all had
been like him there had been no war, and no need
for it. "And," said Roger, "I always looked for the
day to come when Harry Davenant would under-
stand us. For we were fighting for the same thing,
though on opposite sides — for England and her old
laws and liberties; for a righteous kingdom. And I
always thought one day he would see where it could
be found, and where it could oioty
Roger could not stay with us long. But before
he went, Harry Davenant was buried very quietly
in the old vault of the Davenants in Netherby
church.
It was at night, for the liturgy had been abolished
six months before, and was unlawful, and the vicar
risked something in suffering it to be read even by
Lady Lucy's chaplain, as it was. And we honoured
him and Placidia for the venture. Roger had asked
174 THE DRAYTOi^S AND THE DAVENANTS :
to be one of the bearers. Aunt Gretel, Racliel
Forster, and I, waited for them in the church-porch.
Slowly through the silent summer-night came the
heavy tramp of the bearers, until they paused and
laid their burden down under the old Lych Gate.
Then, while they came up the churchyard, we crept
quietly back into the church, dark in all parts ex-
cept where the funeral torches lit up a little space
around the open vault, and threw strange flickering
shadows on the recumbent forms of the dead of
Harry Davenant's race , knight and dame, priest and
crusader, making them look as if they moved to
meet him; for none of the living men of his house
were there to bemoan him , although among them all
none had fallen more bravely.
Behind the bier followed four women closely
veiled. The first, by the height and movement, I
knew was his mother, and at her side, as the sacred
words were read, knelt Lettice. I think in times
of overwhelming joy or sorrow, when no words
could fathom the depths of the heart, when almost
every human voice would fall outside it altogether,
or jar rudely if it reached within, there is a wonder-
ful comfort in the calm of those ancient immutable
liturgies. They are a channel worn deep by the
joys and sorrows of ages. Their changelessness links
them with eternity, and seems thus to make room
A STORY OF THE CIVIL, WARS. 175
for the sorrow which overflows the narrow measures
of thought and time.
"Delivered from the burden of the flesh," "are
in joy and liberty," "not to be sorry as men with-
out hope for them that sleep in Him, that when we
shall depart this life, we may rest in Him, as our
hope is, this our brother doth." How tranquilly the
simple words sank into the very depths of the
heart.
All the more precious and sacred, doubtless, for
the tender sanctity which ever invests a proscribed
religion.
Not that our Puritan faith is without its liturgies.
Older than England, and older tlian Christendom,
fused in the burning heart of the king of old, war-
rior, patriot, exile, conqueror, and penitent. But it
is a perilous thing to make services like those of the
Church of England, dear enough already to every
faithful heart who has used them from infancy,
dearer still by making them dangerous. I never
knew how I loved them till we lost them.
And as that night the sacred, simple, time-
honoured words fell like heavenly music among the
shadows of the dim old church, I felt as if the decree
which made them unlawful, and the grave of the
brother slain at Naseby, were slowly mining a gulf
176 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
wliicli covilcl never be crossed between the Draytons
and the Davenants.
Alas, alas for truth! or at least for us who fain
would ever recognize and be loyal to her, when
she changes raiment with error; when the crown of
thorns is transferred to the brows of her enemies,
and the martyrs are on the wrong side. But such
transformations have not hitherto lasted long, and
meantime the crown of thorns may imprint its les-
sons on those who wear it, even by mistake.
There was no sound of loud weeping. But when,
for the last time, before the coffin was lowered out
of sight, Lady Lucy knelt once more to embrace it,
she did not rise until Lettice went gently to lift her
thence; and then it was found that she had fainted,
and had to be borne away. But for this, Lettice
would probably never have known we were there.
I went at Roger's bidding to see if I coiild render
any assistance. Then for a moment Lettice drew
aside the mantle which shrouded her face, and witli
suppressed sobs clasped my hands in hers, and mur-
mured, —
"Thank God, Olive. I hieio you would all feel
with us. Pray , Olive , for her and for me. We have
no one like him left."
Then she kissed me once, and hastened on after
the rest, as they silently went back through the
A STOKY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 177
fields , bearing , instead of the corpse of the son , the
almost lifeless form of the mother.
The day after the funeral Roger left us to go
back to the army. I told him what Lettice had
said. And he seemed more hopeful than he had
been for a long time about her not misunderstanding
or forgetting us.
"We must never distrust her again, Olive," he
said. ^^She has trusted us all through."
It was strange that he should thus admonish me,
for it was only Roger who ever had distrusted her
caring still for us. But such little oblivions are the
common lot of sisters situated as I was. I was far
too satisfied with his conclusion to dispute as to the
way he reached it.
Yet for many weeks after he left we heard no-
thing from any of the Davenants.
Sir Launcelot Trevor came and stayed there
some days at the beginning of July; and again I
was tormented with fears that he had been poisoning
their hearts with some evil reports of us. And as I
sat watching by my father's bedside, many a time I
rejoiced that Roger was away, so that he could not
share my anxieties.
It so happened that most of the nursing fell on
me, to my great thankfulness. Aunt Dorothy's
sphere was governing every one outside, and Aunt
Tlie Draijtons and the Davenants. II, 12
178 TUB DRAYXOXS AMD THE DAVENANTS:
Gretel's more especially preparing food and cooling
drinks. Dr. Antony was pleased to say there was
something in my step which fitted a sick-room. Quiet
and quick, and not hasty. And in my voice, he
fancied, too; cheerful, he said, as a bird singing,
yet soft and low.
Be that as it might, my father naturally liked
best to have me about him; me and Rachel Forster,
in whose presence he found that repose she seemed
to breathe on every one around her. As if she had
invisible wings, which enfolded a warm, quiet space
around her, like a hen brooding over her chickens.
Rachel Forster, and Lady Lucy, of all the women
I ever knew, had most of this. And my father
felt it.
One day Rachel had a letter from Job, written
a few days after the battle of Naseby. He wrote, —
"We began marching at three o'clock in the morning
of the 14th of June. The day before, we, the Ironsides,
had come with General Cromwell from the eastern counties
to om* army. They had gathered after him like Abi-Ezer
after Gideon. The horse already there gave a mighty
shout for joy of his coming to them. By five we were at
Naseby, and saw the heads of the enemy coming over the
hill. Such a thing as they call a- hill in these parts. A
broad up and down moor. We fought it out in a fallow
field , a mile broad , near the top , from early morning till
afternoon. It began somewhat like the day at Marston
Moor. They came on first iip the hill. Prince Kupert
A STORY OF TUB CIVIL WARS. 179
and the plunderers were on our left, charging swift and
steady, crying out, 'For God and Queen Mary.' 'God
oiu- strength,' cried we. They broke om- left; though
this we did not know till afterwards. Our right , that is
we, General Cromwell's horse, fell on their left, and drove
them back flying down the hill through the fui'ze-bushes
and rabbit-warrens. The main body, horse and foot, fought
hard, breaking and gathering again, like the sea at Lizard
at turn of tide. This raging back and forward lasted till
Prince Rupert's horse and ours came back from the chase.
" The difltereuce between keeping the Ten Command-
ments and breaking them tells in the long run. Plunder-
ing , firing villages , massacring innocents , shi-inks up the
courage of men, after a time. Prince Rupert's men could
charge to the end, like devils, but they could not rally like
oui's. Neither the prince's word nor the king's could bind
the men together again to stand a second shock, as Oliver's
word can rally the Ironsides. Tliis difference turned the
day. The difference between keeping the Ten Command-
ments (or setting the heart to keep them, as far as mortal
men can) and breaking them. The king rode about fear-
less as a lion to the last. ' One charge more and we re-
cover the day,' quoth he. But there was no power in his
word to rally them, and the sun was still high when he
and they fled headlong into Leicester, and we after them.
"But the Ten Commandments fought against them
there too. 'The stars in their courses fought against
Sisera.' There was no night's rest for the king in the
houses he had seen rifled and dishonom-ed but a few days
before , and never lifted up his voice to hinder it. And on
and on he had to fly, to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Wales, and
who knows where? The jjlunder of Leicester lay strewn
about the fallow field at Naseby , where we camped that
night, with six hundred of the plunderers, dead. Yet God
forbid I slander the dead. They fought like true men,
12*
180 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
And brave young Master Harry Davenant -was among
them. Belike tlie true men fell; and the plunderers fled
away safe, as such vermin do. Until the Lord and the
Ten Commandments take them in hand and bring them to
account, whether in the body or out of the body.
"A himdred Irish Papist women were found hanging
about the battle-field , armed with long knives, and speak-
ing no Chi'istian tongue. Poor benighted savages! Very
strange to tliink such have husbands, and children, and
hearts, and souls. Yet belike so had the Canaanites.
These things are dark to me. I have wrestled sore there
about, but can get no light on them.
"Two days after the battle, a young gentleman, a
preacher, aged some thirty years, came amongst the army.
His name was Richard Baxter, a puny feeble body, marked
with small-pox , and bowed and worn at thirty like an old
man. Yet had the puny body good quality of courage in
it. Coui-age of the soul, burning out of his dark eyes.
Courage, surely, he had, of his kind! For he came amongst
oiu- men , flushed and strong from the victorious fight, and
exhorted and rebuked us as if we had been a pack of
school-boys. Called us — the Ironsides, with Whalley's
and Rue's regiments of horse — 'hot-headed, self-conceited
sectaries.' Anabaptists, Antinomians, and what not; us
who had been fighting the Lord's battles for him , and the
like of him, these two years! Took om- camp jokes ill,
about 'Scotch dry -vines,' 'Dissembling men at West-
minster,' and ^rzes/byters.' Called us profane ; us who had
paid twelvepence fine for one careless oath ever since we
came together. Called us disloyal; as if subjects could
obey the king whilst making war on him; or could make
war on him without the risk of killing him; or would make
war on him without the steadfast purpose to conquer him
and hinder him, in one way or another, fi-om ever wronging
and oppressing them again. Argued with us, dividing his
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 181
discourse iuto as many heads as Leviatlian, and Tusiug
words from every heathen tongue under the sun. If we
had the best of it, called us levellers and fire-brauds. If
we were silent under his hood of talk , thought we were
beaten, as if to have the best in talk were to win the day!
As if an Englishman was to change his mind , because he
could not, all in a moment, see his way out of JVli". Baxter's
Presbyterial puzzles! Scarcely grateful, 1 think, seeing
our men had once asked him to be their chaplain. Some
of us reminded him of it , and he said he was soi-iy he had
refused, or we should not have come to what we are. Aiid
he rebuked us sore , and called us out of our names in a
gentlemanly way, in Latin and Greek, as if ,we had been
plunderers and malignants; us of General Cromwell's own
regiment! Of his courage there can after this, I think, be
no doubt. Nor, forsooth, of our patience. And he hath
gone back to Coventry and spoken slanders of the 'sad
state ' of the army !
"Sad state of the army indeed, where every morsel we
put into our mouths is paid for, through which any modest
Avench , if she were as fair as Sarah , can walk , if she had
need, as safe as past her father's door. An arniy which
had just won Naseby by the strength of the Lord and the
Ten Commandments — where not an oath is heard —
where psahns and prayers rise night and morning as from
the old Temple — and where a young gentleman like Mr.
Richard Baxter could come and go , and call the soldiers
what ill names he chose, without hm-t. For a godly young
gentleman we all hold him to be, and a scholar, and honour
him in om- souls as such , and for the chastening hand of
the Lord on the poor, suffering, puny, brave body of him.
In proof whereof, Whalley's regiment have given him a
call to be their chaplain, the which he seems like to accept.
Although in some ways he, and the like of him, are a
sorer puzzle to me, and cost me more wrestlings than even
the Irish Papist women with their knives."
182 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Wherever General Cromwell was throughout that
summer, there continued to be a series of successes.
Job's letters and Roger's were records of castles
stormed or surrendered, sieges raised, and troops
dispersed, from Salisbury to Bovey Tracey in Devon-
shire.
On the 4th of August, Eoger wrote of the dis-
persing of the poor mistaken Clubmen; a new force
of peasants who had gathered to the number of two
thousand on Hambledon Hill, in Surrey. Blind, as
my father says peasant armies mostly are. Aunt
Gretel turned pale when she heard of them, and
talked of dreadful peasant wars in Dr. Luther's time
in Saxony, Dr. Luther dearly loving and fighting
(in his way, though not in theirs) for the peasants,
but not being able to make them understand him,
like Oliver Cromwell now.
These poor fellows had gathered, like brave
men, in the West, to defend their homes from Lord
Goring's bands — "the child-eaters," as some called
them, the most lawless and merciless among the
Cavalier troops, surpassing even Prince Eupert's,
whom one of their own called afterwards, "terrible
in plunder, and resolute in running away."
" If ye offer to plunder or take our cattle ,
Be you assured we'll give you battle ;"
was the Clubmen's motto. A good one enough. But
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 183
in time they became hopelessly involved in political
plots, of which they understood nothing; demanded
to garrison the coast towns; picked out and killed
peaceable Posts; fired on messengers of peace sent
by General Cromwell, who had much pity for them;
and finally, had to be fallen upon and beaten from
the field. "I believe," the General wrote to Sir
Thomas Fairfax, "not twelve of them were killed,
but very many were cut, and three hundred taken
— poor silly creatures, whom if you please to let
me send home, they promise to be very dutiful in
time to come, and will be hanged before they come
out again." So men and leaders were taken, and
the army dispersed, and came not out again; and
the land all around had quiet.
But, as Job Forster said, it was the Ten Com-
mandments that fought best for us.
The king's cabinet at Naseby, with all the false
and traitorous letters found therein in his hand-
writing, did more to undermine his power than a
hundred battles. For in it was shown how, while
solemnly promising to make no treaties with Papists,
and speaking words of peace at Uxbridge, he was
negotiating for six thousand Papist soldiers from Ire-
land, and for more than ten thousand from across
the seas; that he had only agreed to call the Parlia-
ment Parliament in the Treaty with them, "in the
184 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
sense that it was not the same to call them so,* and
to acknowledge them so to be." He spoke, more-
over, of the gentlemen who gathered around him
loyally at Oxford, as the "mongrel Parliament." So
that many of his old friends were sorely aggrieved,
and many neutrals began to see that, call men by
what titles you will, there can be no loyalty where
there is no truth.
In the North affairs went not so prosperously,
though there, too, reckless ravaging wrought its own
terrible cure in time. For six weeks Monti'ose, with
his Irish and Highlanders, and some English adven-
turers, laid Argyleshire waste, killing every man
who could bear arms, plundering and burning every
cottage. It was not like the war in England, save
where Prince Rupert and Lord Goring brought the
savage customs of foreign warfare in on us. It was
a war of clans, bent on extirpating each other like
so many wild beasts, and of mountain-robbers set on
carrying away as much spoil as they could from the
Lowland cities, and on inflicting as much misery as
they could by the way to inspire a profitable terror
for the future. Perth was sacked by them, and
Aberdeen, and Dundee.
At Kilsyth, near Stirling, Montrose and his men
killed ten times as many of the Covenanted army,
against which they fought, as fell of the Cavaliers
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 185
at Naseby. Six hundred lay slaiu at Naseby; at
Kilsyth, six thousand.
And the king, meanwhile, speaking of this robber-
chief as the great restorer of his kingdom and sup-
port of his throne, with never an entreaty to spare
his countrymen and subjects!
Can any wonder that the sheep he commissioned
so many hirelings to fleece, robbers to plunder, and
wolves to slay, would not follow him?
In person, indeed, throughout that summer of
1645, His Majesty was pursuing a kind of warfare
too similar to that of Wallenstein or Montrose. It
was in the August of this year, scarce two months
after the victory at Naseby, that the war surged up
nearer us at Netherby than at any other time.
The king had fled from Naseby to Ragland
Castle, the seat of the Marquis of Worcester (an in-
genious gentleman who spent his living in seeking
out many inventions). There he held his Court for
many weeks, entertained with princely state in the
halls of the grand old castle, and hunting deer gayly
through the forests on the banks of the Wye; gayly as if
his subjects were not themselves in his quarrel hunting
each other to death in every corner of his kingdom.
Whilst there, tidings came to him of the suc-
cesses of Montrose, and he endeavoured to go north-
ward to join him in Scotland. From Doncaster,
186 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVi^NANrS:
however, he fell back on Newark, turned from his
purpose by the Covenanted army of Sir David Leslie,
which threatened him from the north. And then he
turned his steps to us, to the Fens and the As-
sociated Counties, which General Cromwell's care,
and their own fidelity to the Parliament, had kept
hitherto high and dry out of reach of the war, save
for some few stray foraging parties. During that
August of 1645 we learned, however, at His Ma-
jesty's hands, the meaning of civil war. The eastern
counties lay exposed to attack, having sent their
tried men westward with Cromwell and Fairfax; so
that we had nothing but our own more recent foot-
levies to defend us.
The king dashed from Stamford through Hunting-
donshire and Cambridgeshire , ravaging the whole
country as he passed, and detaching flying squadrons
to plunder Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, as far as
St. Albans. Several times he threatened Cambridge.
On the 24th of August he took Huntingdon by
assault, and four days afterwai'ds, by the 28th, was
safe again within the lines of Oxford, with large store
of booty seized from the very cradle and stronghold
of the Parliamentary array.
No doubt the Cavaliers had fine triumphing and
merry-making over the spoils at Oxford. But to us,
around whom lay the empty granaries and roofless
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 187
homesteads, and the wrecked and burned villages
from which these spoils came, the lesson was not one
of submission or of terror, but of resistance more
resolute than ever. Prince Rupert had been teaching
this lesson for three years in every corner of the
realm. His Majesty taught it us in person. Resist-
ance not desperate but hopeful; for we could not
but deem that a king who would indiscriminately
ravage whole counties of his kingdom, must look
on it as an alien territory already lost to his crown.
Many sins, no doubt, may be laid to the charge
of the Parliament and its army. But of two sins,
too common in civil strife, they were never guilty
— indiscriminate plunder and secret assassination.
The ruins and desecrations the Commonwealth soldiers
wrought in churches and cathedrals, will tell their
tale against us to many a generation to come. The
ruins Prince Rupert's troopers wrought were in poor
men's homes, long since repaired. The desecrations
they wrought were also in homes ; ruins and desecra-
tions of temples not made with hands, and never to
be repaired, but recorded on sacred inviolable tables,
more durable than any stone, though not to be read
on earth, at least not yet.
The village of Netherby lay just beyond the
edge of the royal devastations. But the cattle all
around us were seized, with all the corn that was
188 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANXS:
reaped. And at night tlie sky was all aglow with
the flames of burning cottages, and corn and hay-
stacks. Our own barns were untouched; but my
father gave orders at once to begin husbanding our
stores by limiting our daily food, looking on what
was spared to us as the granary of the whole de-
stitute neighbourhood through the coming winter, and
as the seed-store for the following spring. Our sheds
and out-houses meantime were fitted up for those who
had been driven from their homes. Every cottage
in Netherby gave shelter to some homeless neighbour.
Kachel Forster's became an orphan-house. Yet it
was the private lesson which was taught our own
family through this foray of His Majesty's, that is
engraven most deeply in my memory.
Throughout the summer , Cousin Placidia had
been more than ever a subject of irritation and dis-
tress to Aunt Dorothy. The successes of Montrose
in Scotland, followed by the plunderings of the king's
troops in our own counties, had once more caused her
to feel much "exercised" as to which was the right
side. In February, after the execution of Archbishop
Laud, Mr. Nicholls had obediently substituted the
Directory of Worship for the Common Prayer, sorely
trying thereby Aunt Dorothy's predilections for un-
written, or rather unprinted, prayers; Mr. Nicholls'
supplications not having, in her opinion, either
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 189
unction or fire, being in fact, she said, like the
Liturgy cut up into small pieces , with the bone
taken out. Her only comfort was in the trust that
sifting days were at hand. (The Triers had not yet
been appointed. But what vexed Aunt Dorothy's
soul even more than these ecclesiastical "trimmings,"
was what she regarded as the gradual eating up of
Placidia's heart by the rust of hoarded wealth. Pla-
cidia had at that time an additional reason to justify
herself for any amount of straitening and sparing, in
the expectation of the birth of her first child. This
prospect opened a new field for her economies, and
for Aunt Dorothy's anxieties. Even the general de-
vastations of the country, which opened every door
and every heart wide to the sufferers, only effected
the narrowest possible opening in Placidia's stores.
Her health, she said, obviously prevented her receiv-
ing any strangers into the house; and it was little
indeed that a. poor parson, with a family to provide
for, nothing but income to depend on, and the cer-
tainty of receiving scarcely any tithes the next sea-
son, could have to spare. Such as she had, said She,
she gave willingly. There was a stack of hay but
slightly damaged by getting heated. And there was
some preserved meat, a little strong perhaps from
keeping, but quite wholesome and palatable with a
little extra salt. These she most gladly bestowed.
190 THE DnAYTONS AND THE DAVLKANTS:
Aunt Dorotliy was in despair, and made one last
solemn appeal.
"Placidia," slie said, "a child will shut up your
heart and be a cixrse to you, if you let it shut your
doors against the poor; until at last who knows what
door may be shut on you?"
But Placidia was impregnable.
"Aunt Dorothy," she said, with mild impertur-
bability, "everything maybe made either a curse or a
blessing. But to those who are in the covenant every-
thing is a blessing."
"Sister Gretel," said Aunt Dorothy afterwards,
"I see no way of escape for her. The mercies of
God's providence and the doctrines of His grace
freeze on that poor woman's heart, until the ice is so
thick that the sunshine itself can do nothing but just
thaw the surface , and make the next day's ice
smoother and harder."
A.unt Gretel looked up.
"Never give up hope, sister," said she. "Our
good God has more weapons than we wot of, and
more means of grace than are counted in any of our
Catechisms and Confessions. Sometimes He can
warm the coldest heart with a little bit of warmth
from a new human love, until all the ice melts away
from within. And the touch of a little child's hand
has opened many a door, where the Master has after-
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 191
wards come in, and sat down and supped. Wlien
the Saviour wanted to teach tlie Pharisees, He set
in the midst of them a little child."
Aunt Dorothy shook her head.
" Children have dragged many a godly man back
again to Egypt," said she. "Many a rope which
binds good men tight to the car of Mammon is twisted
by very little hands."
And the proposition being unanswerable, the dis-
cussion ended.
A few nights afterwards we were roused by a
suspicious glare in the direction of the Parsonage.
The next morning early we went to see if anything
had happened there.
As we passed through the 'illage we heard the
news quickly enough.
Just after dusk, on the evening before, a party
of Royalist troopers had appeared at the Parsonage
gates. The house stood alone, at some little dis-
tance from the village, at the end of the glebe-fields.
The captain of the little troop said they were on
their way to join His Majesty at Oxford; but seeing
a light, they were tempted to seek the hospitality of
Mistress Nicholls, of which they had heard in the
neighbourhood.
Poor Placidia's protestations of poverty were of
little avail with such guests. They politely assured
192 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
her tliey were used to rougli fare, and would them-
selves render any assistance she required towards
preparing the feast. Whereupon they put up their
horses in the stables, supplied them liberally with
corn from the granaries, seized the fattest of the
poultry, and strung them in a tempting row before
the kitchen fire, which they piled into huge dimen-
sions with any wooden articles that came first to
hand, chairs and chests included; the |contents of
these chests being meanwhile skilfully rifled, and all
that was most valuable in them of plate, linen, or
silk, set apart in a heap "for the king's service."
The supper being prepared, they insisted on their
host drinking His Majesty's health in the choicest
wine in his cellar. The captain had been informed,
he said, that Mr. Nicholls had been induced (re-
luctantly, of course, as he perceived, from his fervent
protestations of loyalty) to disuse the Liturgy, and
even to contribute of his substance to the rebel
cause. He felt glad, therefore, to be able to give
him this opportunity of proving his unjustly suspected
fidelity, and of contributing, at the same time, of his
substance to His Majesty's service, by means of the
portion of his goods which they would the next day
convey to His Majesty's head-quarters in the loyal
city of Oxford, and thus save it from being misap-
plied, in this disafi'ected country, in a way which
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAUS. 193
Mr. Nicliolls' loyal heart must abhor. This we
heard from one of the frightened serving-wenches,
who had escaped towards morning, and spread the
news through the village.
As the night passed on, they grew riotous, and
were with difficulty roused from their orftouse by the
captain, to see about getting their plunder together
before dawn. They poured on the ground what wine
they could not drink, set fire (whether by accident
or on purpose was not known) to the large corn-
stack whilst hunting about the sheds and stables
for cattle and horses; till finally the inmates were
thankful to get them away early in the morning,
although they took with them all the beasts they
could drive and all the booty they could carry.
The sympathy in the village was not deep; and
Aunt Dorothy and I went on in silence to the
Parsonage, to give what help and comfort we could.
Neither Aunt Dorothy nor I spoke a word as we
hastened up the rising ground towards the house.
The homely ruins of the farm-yard moved me
more than many a stately ruin. The remains of the
corn-stack, the flames of which had alarmed us in
the night, stood there black and charred; the stables
were empty, and the cattle-sheds; the house-dog was
hanged to the door of one of them; the yard was
strewn with trampled corn, which the sparrows and
The Drmjtons and the Daveuants. II. 13
194 THK DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
starlings, in the absence of the privileged poultry,
were making bold to pick up; and the silence of the
deserted court was made more dismal by the oc-
casional restless lowing of a calf, which was roaming
from one empty shed to another in search of its
mother. ^
We went into the house. The kitchen was full
of the serving-wenches, and of some of the more
curious and idle in the village, who were condoling
with each other, by making the worst of the disaster.
The hearth was black with the cinders of the
enormous fire of the night before, and the floor was
strewn with" broken pieces of the chairs and chests
which had helped to kindle it, and with fragments
of the feast. In a corner of the settle by the cold
hearth sat Placidia, as if she were stupified, with
her hands clasped and her eyes fixed upon them.
When she saw Aunt Dorothy, she turned away,
and said, —
"Don't reproach me, Aunt Dorothy; I can't
bear it."
"Didst thou think I came for that?" said Aunt
Dorothy. "But belike I deserve it of thee."
And with a voice a little sharpened by the feel-
ing she strove to repress. Aunt Dorothy sent the
curious neighbours to the right-about, and disposed
of the two serving-wenches, by telling them the very
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 195
fowls of the air were setting such lazy sluts as they
were an example, and despatching them to gather
up the scattered corn in the yard. Then she came
again to Placidia, and taking her clasped hands in
hers, said, —
"I've learnt many things, child, this last hour.
I judged thee a Pharisee, and belike I've been a
worse one myself. I've sat on the judgment-seat
this many a day on thee. But I'm off it now. And
may the Lord grant me grace never to climb up
there again. I've wished for some heavy rod to fall
and teach thee. And now it's come, it can't smite
thee heavier than it does me. Forgive me, child,
and let us both begin again."
Placidia looked up, and meeting the honest
eyes fixed on her, not in scorn but in entreaty, she
sobbed, —
"I shall never have heart to begin again. Aunt
Dorothy."
"To begin what again?" said Aunt Dorothy.
"Saving and contriving to make up all the things
I have lost," replied Placidia. "I've been years
heaping it together, and it's all gone in a night!"
Aunt Dorothy looked sorely puzzled, between
her desire to be charitable and her horror of Pla-
cidia's misreading of the meaning of the dispensation.
"Begin tliat again, my dear!" she said at last.
13*
196 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"Nay; thou must never begin that again. It will
never do to fly in the face of Providence like
that."
Placidia uncovered her face, but as her eyes
rested on the desolation around her, she covered
them ^gain, and sobbed, —
"Just when there was to be one to save it all
for, and make it worth while to deny oneself."
"Nay," said Aunt Dorothy; "that's the mercy.
That's precisely the mercy. The Lord will not let
the child be a curse to thee. He will have it a
blessing; so He says to thee as plain as can be, 'I
give thee a treasure, not to make thee save and stint
and grudge, but to teach thee to love and serve and
give; not to make thee poor, but to make thee rich.'
And He will go on teaching thee till thou openest
thy heart and listenest, and thy burden falls off, and
thy heart leaps up, and thou shalt be free. I know
it by the way my heart is lightened now He has
smitten me down for my sitting in judgment on thee.
Not that I am safe never to climb to that seat again.
One is there before one knows, and the black-cap on
in a moment. Some one is always near, I trow, to
help us up."
And turning from Placidia, she proceeded to a
quiet survey of the ruins, which, under her brisk
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAI!S. 197
and discriminating hands, with such help as I could
give, soon began to show some signs of order.
The fire was lighted; the calf despatched to
Netherhy to be fed ; sundry fragments of chairs and
chests to the village carpenter, to be mended; the
broken meat put into two baskets.
"This is for the household," said Aunt Dorothy,
"and that for the fatherless children at Rachel
Forster's. One of the maids can take it at once,
Placidia, when she leads away the calf."
Placidia was at length quite roused from her
stupor. She looked at Aunt Dorothy as if she
thought she were in league with the plunderers.
"Me send meat to Eachel Forster's orphans!"
she said faintly; "a poor plundered woman like
me!"
"Better begin at once, my dear," said Aunt
Dorothy quietly; "the fatherless are God's little
ones. Better give the treasure to them. You see
our bags have holes in them."
At that moment Mr. Nicholls returned. Placidia
appealed to him for his usual confirmation of her
opinions.
"Dear heart," he said ruefully, "belike Mistress
Dorothy is right. It's of no use fighting against
God. Who knoweth if he will return and repent,
and leave a blessing behind him?"
198 THE DUAYTONS AND THE DAVEKAKTS:
"Xaj, Master Nicliolls," said Aunt Dorothy, '"''not
that way. It's of no use trying to escape in that
way. You must let go altogether first, or the Al-
mighty will never take hold of you. It's hoping for
nothing again. If thou and Placidia will send this
to the orphans, you must send it because it has been
given to you, and because they want it more than
you do. Because thou wast an orphan, Placidia,"
she added tenderly, and He has not failed to care
for thee. Take heed how ye slight His staff or His
rod. Both have been used plainly enough for thee.
I will divide the stuff," she concluded, "and you
must settle what to do with it yourselves, after-
wards."
And insisting on Placidia's resting up-stairs
while she subjected the contents of the chests strewn
about her chamber-floor to the same process of divi-
sion, she left the house before dusk restored to some-
thing like order, with two significant heaps of cloth-
ing in the bedchamber, and two significant baskets
of provisions in the kitchen, to speak what parables
they might during the night to the consciences of
Placidia and Mr. Nicholls.
But before the morning other teachers had been
there. Death and Anguish (those merciful curses
sent to keep the world, wliich had ceased to be Eden,
from becoming a sensual Elysium, idle, selfish, and
A STOllI OF THE CIVIL V/ARS. 199
purposeless) visited the liouse tliat night. Another
life was ushered into the world under the shadow of
Death itself. In the morning Placidia lay feebly
rejoicing in the infant life for which her own had
been so nearly sacrificed. Rejoicing in a gift which
had cost her so much, and which was to cost her so
much more of patient sacrifice, and toil, and watch-
ing, sacrifice and toil for which no one would espe-
cially commend her, and for which she would not
commend herself; rejoicing as she had never rejoiced
in any possession before. Not by any supernatural
effort of virtue, but by the simple natural fountain
of motherly love which had been opened in her
heart.
One of the first things she said was to Rachel,
who was watching with her through the next night.
Very softly, as Rachel sat by her bed-side with the
baby on her knee, Placidia said, —
"Strange such a gift shovild have been given to
me and not to thee!"
"And," said Rachel (when she told me of it), "I
could not answer her all in a moment-, for there are
seas stronger and deeper than those outside our
dykes around our hearts. And it's not safe, even in
the quietest weather, opening the least cranny to let
in those tides. So I said nothing. And in a few
moments Mistress Nicholls spoke again, 'For thou
200 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
art good and worthy, Eacliel,' said she, 'and it would
be no great wonder if the Lord gave thee the best
He has to give.'
"Then I understood what she meant, and my
heart was as glad as if the child had been given to
me. For I thought there was a spirit new-born to
God as a little child, meek and lowly. The Lord
had led her along the hardest step on the way to
Himself, the first step down. She said no more. I
smoothed her pillows, laid the babe beside her, and
she and it fell asleep. But I sat still and cried
quietly for joy. And the next morning, when the
dawn broke in on the chamber, Mistress Nicholls
looked up and saw those two heaps Mistress Dorothy
had set apart, and she looked down on the babe,
and murmured as if to herself, —
"'Poor motherless little ones! God has given me
thee and spared me to thee. The poor motherless
babes shall have the things.'
"And then," pursued Rachel, "I turned away
and cried again to myself, half for gladness and half
for trouble. For I thought, sure the Lord's a-going
to take her, poor lamb, if she's so changed as
that."
But Aunt Dorothy, when Rachel nan-ated this,
althoixgh she wiped her eyes sympathetically, at the
A STORY OF THE CIVIL, WARS. 201
same time gave her head a consolatory shake and
said, —
"Never fear, neighbour, never fear; not yet.
Depend on it, the old i]nemy will have a fight for
it yet. Depend on it, there's a good deal of work
to be done for her in this world yet, before she's too
good to be left in it."
202 THE DKAYrONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
XXX.
LEITICE DAVENANt's DIARY.
" Davexant Hall, Twelfth Night, 1 645-6. — Only
four years since that merry sixteentli birthday of
mine, when all the village were gathered in the hall,
and Olive and I gave the garments to the village
maidens of my own age, and in the evening Koger
stayed to help to kindle the twelve bonfires.
"And now we are walled and moated out from
the village and from the Manor as we were in the
old days of the Norman Conquest, when the
Davenants first took possession of these lands, and
built the old ruined keep, where the gateway is
(whence they afterwards removed to this abbey), to
overawe the Saxon village, where the Draytons even
then lived in the old Manor. I wonder if there is
anything left of the old contentions in Saxon and
Norman blood now. The rebel army is so much
composed, they say, both of officers and men, of the
stout old Saxon yeomanry, and the traders in the
towns; whilst ours is officered from the old baronial
castles, by gentlemen with the old Norman historical
A STOUV OF THE CIVIL WARS. 203
names. How many of the higher gentry and no-
bility are loyal has been proved these last six
months, since fatal Naseby, by the sieges (and, alas!
by the stormings and surrenders) of at least a score
of old castles and mansions, from Bristol, surrendered
on the 11th of September by Prince Rupert, toBovey
Tracey in the faithful West. Thank Heaven, they
gave Oliver Cromwell and Sir Thomas Fairfax much
trouble. Basing Hall especially. In future days,
when the king shall enjoy his own again (as he
surely will), I hold such a blackened ruin will be a
choicer possession to a gentleman's family than a
palace furnished regally. The rebels called Basing
House Basting^ for the mischief it did them. And
our men called it Loyalty.
"Roger Drayton hath shared, no doubt, in many
of these sieges. So stern in his delusion of duty, I
suppose, if this brewer of Huntingdon commanded
him, he would not scruple to plant his rebel guns
against us. 'Thine eye shall not spare,' they say, in
their hateful cant. Sir Launcelot says they have
been chasing His Sacred Majesty from plfece to place
like a hunted stag; that Mr. Cromwell, whom Roger
loves above king and friend, never sets on any great
enterprise without having a HexV to lean on! That
before storming Basing Hall, he passed the night in
prayer! and that the text he especially 'rested on'
204 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
for tliat achievement was Psalm cxviii. 8 : ' They that
make them are like unto them, so is every one that
trusteth in them!'' as if we Royalists were Canaanites,
idolaters, Papists, I know not what. Fancy burning
down a corn-stack to a psalm-tiine, or setting out on
a burglary to a text. And what is it better, to burn
down loyal gentlemen's houses about their ears,
from one end of England to another? It is all Con-
science; this dreadful Moloch of Conscience! It was
the one weak point of the Draytons always.
"Sir Launcelot Trevor came here a week since
to see if anything can be done to strengthen the
fortifications. My father was in Bristol when it was
stormed, and has followed the king ever since; two
of my brothers are in Ireland, seeing what can be
done there ; two fled beyond the seas after the defeat
of the gallant Marquis of Montrose last September
at Philipshaugh , near Selkirk; and two lie on that
fatal Eowton Heath, where on September the 23rd
the king's last army, worth the name, was broken
and lost.
"We haVe made sacrifices enough to endear the
royal cause to us. I suppose this old house will be
the next. For Harry said it would never stand a
siege. But oh, if I could only be sure Sir Launce-
lot is mistaken in what he says about Roger giving
Harry his death-blow, much of the rest would seem
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAr.S. 205
light. I have never yet told my mother of this fear.
Sometimes when I think how Koger looked and
spoke that morning, I feel sure it cannot be true.
But he always said it was so wrong to believe
things because 1 wished them true. And now the
more I long to believe this false, the less I seem
able.
"Only four years since that merry sixteenth
birthday, when I was a child! And then that happy
summer afterwards, when the world seemed to grow
so beautiful and great, and it seemed as if we were
to do such glorious things in it.
"First the birthdays seem like triumphal columns,
trophies of a conquered year. Then like milestones,
marking rather sadly the way we have come. But
now I think they look like grave-stones, so much is
buried for ever beneath this terrible year that has
gone. Not lives only, but love, and trust, and
hope.
"I said so to my mother to-night, as I wished
her good-night. It was selfish. For I ought to com-
fort her. But she comforted me. She said, 'The
birthdays will look like milestones again, by-and-by,
sweet heart. They will be marked on the other
side, "so much nearer home," and perhaps at last
like trophies again, marking the conquered years.'
206 THE DRATTOXS AXD THE DAVEXA^TTS:
"On Tvliicli I broke dowu altogetlier, and
said, —
'"Oh, mother, don't speak like that, don't say
yoxi look on them like that. Think of me at the be-
ginning of the journey, so near the beginning.'
'"I do, Lettice,' said she. 'I pray to live, fur
thy sake, every day.'
"For my sake; — only for my sake! For her
own she longs to go. And that is saddest of all
to me.
"For, except on days like these, when I think
and look back, I am not always so very wretched.
It is very strange, after all that has happened. But I
am sometimes, rather often, a little bit happy. There
is so much that is cheerful and beautiful in the
world, I cannot help enjoying it. And pleasant
things might happen yet.
"I did love Harry, dearly; nearly better than
any one. I do. But to my mother, losing him
seems just the one sorrow which puts her on the
other side of all earthly joys and sorrows, with a
great gulf between, so that she looks on them from
afar ofF, like an angel.
"I suppose there is just this one tlnnrj the loss of
which would be the darkening of the whole world to
most of us, making it night instead of day. Other
people leave that sepulchre behind. It is grown
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 207
over, and in years it becomes a little sacred grass-
grown mound, or a stately memorial to the life
ended there. But to owe, it has made the whole
earth a sepulchre, at which she stands without, weep-
ing, and looking vainly in.
" TJiere is only one Voice which can quiet the
heart there!
" The day after. — Sir Launcelot and I had high
words to-day. We were looking from the terrace to-
wards Netherby, and I said something about old
times; and he rejoined that the Draytons would pro-
bably soon resume the lands they had lost in the
old times before the Conquest.
"I fired up, and said not one of the Draytons
would ever touch anything that did not belong to
them. ^They were not of Prince Rupert's plunderers,'
I said.
'"No doubt,' said he, 'they hold by a better
right than the sword.' And with nasal solemnity,
clasping his hands, he added, 'Voted, it is written
the saints shall possess the land ; voted — we are the
saints.'
"'Sir Launcelot,' I said, 'you know I hate to
hear old friends spoken of like that.'
"(When I had written bitter things myself of
them but yesterday! But it always angers me when
people are unfair.)
208 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"Here lie clianged his tone, and spoke seriously
enougli. Too seriously, indeed, by far. He said
something about my opinion being more to him than
anything in the world. And when I went back into
the garden-parlour, not desiring such discourse, he
was on his knees at my feet, before I could raise
him, pouring out, I know not what passionate pro-
testations, and saying that I could save him, and
reclaim him, and make him all he longed to be, and
was not. And that if I rejected him, there was not
another power in earth or heaven that could keep
him from plunging into perdition; which perplexed
and grieved me much. For I do not love him. Of
that I am sure. But it is terrible to think of being
the only barrier between any human soul and
destruction. And I am half afraid to tell my mother,
for fear she should counsel me to take Sir Launce-
lot's conversion on me. Because she thinks every-
thing of no weight compared with religion. But I
cannot think it would be a duty to marry a person
only for the same reason you might become his god-
mother. Besides, if I did not love, Avhat real power
should I have to save?
"^^ night {later). — I have told my mother, and
she says that the last consideration makes it quite
clear. I could have no power for good, unless I loved.
And I do not love Sir Launcelot; and I neverjeouhl.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 209
"At tlie same time, wlien I opened my heart to
her about this, I ventured at last to tell her what
Sir Launcelot had thought about Harry and Roger
Drayton. I wish I had told her weeks ago.
"For she does not believe it. She says Eoger
woiild never have come and told us had it been so.
She has not the slightest fear it can be true. It has
lightened my heart wonderfully. Roger is not quite
just in saying I can believe in anything I wish.
'''"March, — A biting March for the good cause.
On the 14th, brave Sir Ralph Hopton surrendered
in Cornwall. On the 22nd, brave old Sir Jacob
Astley (he who made the prayer before Edgehill
fight, 'Lord, if I forget thee this day, do not thou
forget me') was beaten at Stow in Gloucestershire,
as he was bringing a small force he had gathered
with much pains, to succour the king at Oxford.
' You have now done your work and may go to play,'
he said to the rebels who captured him, 'unless you
fall out among yourselves.' Gallant sententious old
veteran that he is!
'•''May. — His Majesty has taken refuge with the
Scottish army at Newark.
"We marvel he should have trusted his sacred
person with Covenanted Presbyterians. But in good
sooth he may well be weary of wandering, and may
The Drai/tons and the Davenants. II. 14
210 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
look for some pity yet in his own fellow-countrymen.
Not that they showed much to the sweet fair lady
his father's mother.
"We hear it was but unwillingly he went to
them at night, between two and three o'clock in the
morning, on the 27th of April. A few days since
he left the shelter of Oxford, faithful to him so long,
riding, disguised as a servant, behind his faithful
attendant Mr. Ashburnham. Once he was asked by
a stranger on the road if his master were a noble-
man. 'No,' quoth the king, 'my master is one of
the Lower House,' a sad truth, forsooth, though
spoken in parable. It is believed amongst us that
he would fain have reached the eastern coast, thence
to take ship for Scotland, to join Montrose and
the true Scots with him. For his flight was un-
certain, and changed direction more than once — to
Henley-on-Thames, Slough, Uxbridge, then to the
top of Harrow Hill, across the country to St. Albans,
where the clattering hoofs of a farmer behind them
gave false alarm of pursuit; thence by the hoiises of
many faithful gentlemen who knew and loved him,
but respected his disguise, and made as though they
knew him not; to Downham in Norfolk; to South-
well; and thence, beguiled by promises, some say
— others declare — throwing himself of his own
free will, like a prince, on the ancient Scottish
A STORY OF THE CIVIL ^YARS. 211
loyalty, he rode to Newark into the midst of the
Earl of Leven's army.
^^ August 1646. — The civil war, they give out
now, is over. Every garrison and castle in the king-
dom have surrendered. In June loyal Oxford; and
now, last and most loyal of all, on the 19th of
August, Eagland Castle, with the noble old Marquis
of Worcester, who hath ruined himself past all remedy
in the king's service, and in this world will scarce
now find his reward.
"In June Prince Eupert rode through the land,
and embarked at Dover. Well for the good cause
if he had never come. His marauding ways gave
quite another complexion to the war from what it
might have had without him. His rashness, Harry
thought, lost us many a field. His lawlessness in-
fected our army. The king could not forgive him
his surrender of Bristol a few days after he was led
to believe it could be held for months. But in this
some think, perchance, he is less to blame than else-
where. Cromwell and the Ironsides were there, and
stormed the city, for it seems as if Cromwell could
never be baffled.
"With Prince Eupert went three hundred loyal
gentlemen; some despairing of the cause at home;
others, and with them my father, on missions to seek
aid from foreign courts.
212 THE DRAYIONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
''''February 1647. — The Scottisli army has yielded
him up — ('Bought and sold,' His Majesty said;
others say the two hundred thousand pounds the Scotch
received was for the expenses of the war) — into the
hands of the English Presbyterians at Newcastle.
''''March. — We have seen the king once more.
My mother has heard for certain the true cause why
,the king was given up by the Scotch to his enemies.
He would not sign their blood-stained covenant. He
would not sacrifice the church of these kingdoms,
with her bishops and her sacred liturgy, though
nobles, loyal men and true, nay, the queen herself,
by letter entreated him. My mother saith he is now
in most literal truth a martyr, suffering for the spot-
less bride, our dear mother the Church of England,
and for the triTth. We heard he was to arrive at
Holmby House in Northamptonshire; and, weak as
my mother is, nothing would content her but to be
borne thither in a litter to pay him her homage. I
would not have missed it for the world. Numbers
of gentlemen and gentlewomen were there to wel-
come him, with tears and prayers and hearty accla-
mations. It did our hearts good to hear the hearty
cheers and shouts, and, I trust, cheered his also.
The rebel troopers were Englishmen enough to offer
no hindrance. And we had the joy of gazing once
more on that kingly, pathetic countenance. He is
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 213
serene and cheerful, as a true martyr should be, my
mother says, accepting his cross and rejoicing in it;
not morose and of a sad countenance as those who
feign to be persecuted for conscience' sake. He
scorns no blameless pleasure which can solace the
weary hours of captivity, riding miles sometimes to
a good bowling-green to play at bowls, and beguil-
ing the evenings with chess or converse on art with
Mr. Harrington or Mr. Herbert.
"He will not suffer a Presbyterian chaplain to
say grace at his table, and his hard-hearted jailers
will allow no other.
"Thank Heaven, the common people are true to
him still. As they took him from Newcastle to
Holmby House, the simple peasants flocked round to
see him and bless him, and to feel the healing touch
of his sacred hand for ' the king's evil.' Sir Harry
Marten, a rebel and a republican, made a profane
jest thereon, and said, 'The touch of the great seal
would do them as much good.' But no one relished
the scun-il jest. And the blessings and prayers of
the poor followed the king everywhere. Yes; it is
the common people and the nobles that honour true
greatness. The Scribes and Pharisees, I am per-
suaded, sprang from -the middle station; yeomen,
craftsmen, chapmen. 'Tithing mint while devouring
widows' houses.' Precisely like those creeping, base,
214 THE DRAYXONS AND THE DAVENAJ^TS :
unpunisliable middle-station sins. The troubles of
this middle state are wretched, low, carking money-
troubles. The sorrows of the high and low are na-
tural ennobling sorrows; bereavement, pain, and death.
It is the sordid middle order that envies the great.
The common people reverence them when on high
places, and generously pity them when brought low.
My mother says, belike the sorrows of their king
shall yet move the honest heart of the nation to a
reverent pity, and thus back to loyalty; and so, as
so often in great conflicts, more be won through suf-
fering than through success.
'''' April 1647. — We are to pay our last penalty.
Our old Hall is declared to be a perilous nest of
traitors and cradle of insurrection. A rebel garrison
is to be qviartered on us.
"Our expedition to Holmby has led to two re-
sults; it offended some of the people in authority
among the rebels, and thereby caused them to take
possession of the Hall; and it so taxed my mother's
wasted strength that she is unfit for any journey, so
that we must even stay and suffer the presence of
these insolent and rebellious men in our home.
^'' April., Davenant Hall. — Mr. Drayton hath been
here to-day. He looked pale and thin from the long
imprisonment he hath suffered, and he hath lost his
right arm — a sore loss to him who ever took such
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 215
pleasure in his geometrical instruments, and played
the violi-di-gambo so masterly.
"He gave a slight start when he saw my mother,
and there was a kind of anxious compassionate re-
verence in his manner towards her which makes me
uneasy. I fear he deems her sorely changed, and
ofttimes I have feared the same. But then this
mourning garb which she will never more lay aside,
and her dear gray hair, which I love, put back like
an Italian Madonna from her forehead, in itself makes
a difference. Although I think her eyes never looked
so soft and beautiful as now. The golden hair of
youth, and all its brilliant colour, seems to me scarcely
so fair as this silver hair of hers, with the oft pale
hues on her cheeks.
"Mr. Drayton asked us to take asylum at Netherby
Hall till such time as we join my father elsewhere.
My mother knows what Harry thought, and seems
not averse to accept his hospitality. I certainly had
not thought to enter old Netherby again in such
guise as this."
216 THE DliAYXOXS AA'D THE DAVENA^'TS ;
XXXI.
olive's recollecxioxs.
The old house seemed to gain a kind of sacred-
ness when it became the refvige of that dear bereaved
lady and sweet Lettice. Lady Lucy was much
changed. Her voice, always soft, was low as the soft
notes in a hymn; her step, always light, was slower
and feebler; her hair, though still abundant, had
changed from luxuriant auburn to a soft silver; her
cheeks were worn into a difierent curve, though still,
I thought, as beautiful; and the colour in them was
paler. Everything in her seemed to have changed
from sunset to moonlight. Her voice and her very
thoughts seemed to come from afar, from some region
we could not tread, like music borne over still waters.
It was as if she had crossed a river which severed
her far from us, which she would never more recross,
but only wait till the call came to mount the dim
heights on the other side. Xot that she was in any
way sad, or uninterested, or abstracted; only she did
not seem to belong to us any more.
I wondered if Lettice saw this as I did. And
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 217
many a time the tears came to my eyes as I looked
at those two and thought how strong were the cords
of love which bound them, and how feeble the thread
of life.
Aunt Dorothy welcomed Lady Lucy with as true
a tenderness as any one. The silvery hair in place
of those heart -breakers (silvered so suddenly by
sorrow), softened her in more ways than one. One
thing, however, tried her sorely. And I much dreaded
the explosion it might lead to, if Aunt Dorothy's
conscience once got the upper hand of her hospi-
tality.
The Lady Lucy always had in her oratory at
home a little erection resembling an altar, dressed in
w^hite, with sacred books on it; the Holy Scriptures,
A Kempis, Herbert, and others, and above them a
copy of a picture by Master Albert Diirer, figuring
our Lord on the cross, the suffering thorn-crowned
form gleaming pale and awful out of the terrible
noonday darkness. Before this solemn picture stood
two golden candlesticks, which at night the waiting
gentlewomen were wont to light. I shall never forget
Aunt Dorothy's expression of dismay and distress
when she first saw this erection, one evening soon
after Lady Lucy's arrival. She mastered herself so
far as to say nothing to Lady Lucy then, beyond the
good wishes for the night, and directions as to some
218 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
possets which she had come to administer. But the
solemn change that came over her voice and face she
could not conceal. And afterwards she solemnly
summoned us into my father's private room to make
known her discovery.
"An idol, brother!" she concluded; "an abomina-
tion! At this moment, probably, idol-worship going
on tinder this roof, drawing down on us all the
lightnings of heaven!"
"I should not use such a thing as a help to devo-
tion myself, sister Dorothy," said my father; "but
what would you have me do?"
"Help to devotion!" she exclaimed; "'Thou
shalt not make any graven image, nor the likeness
of any thing.' Sweep them away with the besom of
destruction, and cast the idols to the moles and to
the bats."
"Sister Dorothy," he said, "you would not have
me take a hammer, and axe, and cords, and drag
this piece of painted work from the Lady Lucy's
chamber before her eyes."
"Thine eye shall not spare," she replied so-
lemnly.
"But in the first place I must know that it is an
idol to Lady Lucy," he said, "and that she does bow
down to it."
"Subtle distinctions, brother; traffickings with
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 219
the enemy. Heaven grant they prove not our ruin,
as of Jehoshaphat before us."
For Aunt Dorothy, although she had forsaken
the judgment-seat for private offences, would still
have deemed it impiety to abandon it in cases of
heresy.
"Sister Dorothy," interposed Aunt Gretel, "in
my country good men and women do use such things
in their private devotions and in the churches, and
yet do not become idolaters thereby."
"Belike they do, sister Gretel," rejoined Aunt
Dorothy dryly. "The hand that would have pulled
down the Epistle of St. James might well leave some
idols standing. An owl sees better than a blind
man. But it is no guide to those whose eyes are
used to day."
This profane comparison of Dr. Luther to an
owl dismayed Aunt Gretel, so as to throw her en-
tirely out of the conflict, which finished with an
ordinance from my father that liberty of conscience
should be the order of his household ; and a protest
from Aunt Dorothy that, be the consequences what
they might, she would not suffer any immortal soul
within her reach to go the broad road to ruin with-
out warning.
This threat kept us in anxious anticipation. We
took the greatest care not to leave the combatants
220 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
alone; one so determined and the other so uncon-
scious of danger.
At last, however, the fatal moment arrived.
It was early in April, a fortnight after Lady Lucy
and Lettice took shelter under our roof.
Dr. Antony had arrived from London with tidings
which made us all very uneasy.
The Presbyterian majority in the House of Com-
mons, believing the civil war ended, were very eager
to disband the army which had ended it, which,
being mostly composed of Independents, they dreaded
even more than the king.
In February they had voted that no officer under
Sir Thomas Fairfax should hold any rank higher
than a colonel, intending thereby to displace Oliver
Cromwell, Ireton, Ludlow, Blake, Skippon, and
Algernon Sydney, and, in short, every commander
whom the army most trusted, and under whom their
victories had been gained.
They were to be disbanded, moreover, without
receiving their pay, now due for more than half a
year. It was also proposed that such of the soldiers
as were still kept together should be sent to Ireland
to settle matters there, under new Presbyterian
commanders instead of those whom they knew and
trusted.
The indignation in the army was deep. But it
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 221
was as much under the restraint of law, and was
expressed in as orderly a way, as if the army had
been a court of justice. The regiments met, deli-
berated, remonstrated, and drew up a petition; de-
manded arrears of pay, and refused to go to Ireland
save under commanders they knew. "For the desire
of our arrears," they said, "necessity, especially of
our soldiers, enforced us thereunto. We left our
estates, and many of us our trade and callings to
others, and forsook the contentments of a quiet life,
not fearing nor regarding the difficulties of war for
your sakes; after which we hoped that the desires of
our hardly-earned wages would have been no un-
welcome request, nor argued us guilty of the least
discontent or intention of miitiny."
No one, my father said, could deny the truth of
tliis. The Parliament army had not eked out with
indiscriminate plunder their arrears of pay.
On the .3d of April three soldiers — Adjutators
(or Agitators, as some called them) — had been sent
with a respectful but determined message to the House
of Commons. General Cromwell (attending in his
place in the House in spite of the plots there had
been during the past weeks, as he knew, to commit
him to the Tower) rose and spoke at length of the
danger of driving the army to extremities.
And now Dr. Antony came with the tidings that
222 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
General Cromwell was at Saffron Walden, bearing to
the army the promise of indemnity and arrears. He
brought also a brief letter from Roger, saying that
now all was sure to go right.
This news drew us all together, and it was not
until she had been absent some time that it was dis-
'covered that Aunt Dorothy had left us.
Aunt Gretel was the first to perceive her depar-
ture and to suspect its cause. At once she repaired
to Lady Lucy's chamber, whence, in a minute or
two, she returned, and touching me lightly on the
shoulder, she said in a solemn whisper, —
"Olive, it must be stopped; the Lady Lucy is
looking like a ghost, and Mistress Lettice like a
damask rose, and your Aunt Dorothy is talking
Latin."
This was Aunt Gretel's formula for controversial
language. She said English was composed of two
elements — the German she could understand; we
used it, she said, when we were speaking of things
near our hearts, of matters of business, or of affec-
tion , or of religion , in a peaceable and kindly
manner. But the Latin was beyond her. There
were long words ending in ation, atical, or arian^
which always came on the field when there was
about to be a battle. And then she always with-
drew. In this martial array Aunt Dorothy's thoughts
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 223
were now being clothed. And Aunt Gretel thought
I had better summon my father to interrupt the
debate.
I went at once and indicated to him the danger.
He looked half angry half amused.
"Dr. Antony," he said, "your medical attend-
ance is required up-stairs. My sister has recommenced
the civil war."
I flew up to announce the coming of the gentle-
men.
At the moment when I entered the room the
controversy had reached a climax. Lady Lucy was
sitting very pale and upright, on a high-backed
chair, with tears in her eyes, saying in a faint
voice, —
"Mistress Dorothy, I am not a Papist, and hope
never to be."
Lettice, behind the chair, with her arm round
her mother, and her hand on her shoulder, stood
like a champion, with quivering lips and burning
cheeks, and declared that "there were worse heretics
than the Papists, and worse tyrants than the Inqui-
sition." Whilst Aunt Dorothy, as pale as Lady
Lucy, and with lips quivering as much as Lettice's,
faced them with the consciousness of being herself
a witness or a martyr for the truth struggling
Avithin her against the sense that she was regarded
224 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
by others in tlie light of an inquisitor and tormentor
of martyrs.
"An't please you, Lady Lucy," I said, "my
father thought Dr. Antony, who is down-stairs, might
recommend you some healing draught. He has won-
derful reci^ies for coughs."
And before a reply could be given, my father
and Dr. Antony were at the door, and Aunt Dorothy
was arrested in her testimony, without the possibility
of uttering a last word.
Dr. Antony seemed to comprehend the position
at a glance. With a quiet courtesy which intro-
duced him at once, and gave him the command of
the field, he went up to Lady Lucy, and, feeling
her pulse, observed that it was slightly feverish and
uneven, ordered the windows to be opened, and
recommended that as much air as possible should be
obtained, by means of all but Mistress Lettice leav-
ing the room. He had little doubt, then, that some
cooling medicines, which he had at hand, would do
the rest. As I was going, Lettice entreated me to
stay, which I was ready to do.
And ere long we were all three quietly gathered
around Lady Lucy's chair, Lettice on a cushion at
her feet (where she best loved to be), I on the
window-seat near, and Dr. Antony leaning on the
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 225
back of her cliair. Slie was discoursing to liim in
French, which she spoke with a marvellously natural
accent, and which I had never heard him speak
before. I know not why, it seemed as if the lan-
guage threw a new vivacity and fire into his coun-
tenance, and I felt very ignorant and humbled not
to be able to join. But this feeling did not last
long. Lady Lucy had a way of divining what
passed in the mind, and she called me near, and
made me sit on a little chair beside her, and drew
my hand into hers, and encouraged me to say such
words as I knew, and praised my accent, and said
it had just (that pretty English lisp in it that some of
the compatriots of poor Queen Henrietta Maria had
thought charming.
She made Dr. Antony tell us moving histories,
still in French, of his ancestors, their daring deeds
and hairbreadth 'scapes. So an hour passed, and
we were all friends, bound together by the easy charm
of her sweet gracious manner, and had forgotten the
storm and everything else, when we were summoned
to supper.
Giving him her hand as she took leave of him,
she said Avith a smile, "I pray you to re-assure
Mistress Dorothy as to my orthodoxy, and make her
believe my sympathies are on the right side with
the sufferers of St. Bartholomew's Day. And Olive,
The Draytons and the Davenants. 11. lo
226 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
little champion," said she, drawing my forehead
down to her for a kiss, and stroking my cheek,
"never think it necessary again to interpose in a
battle between your aunt and your mother's friend.
I honour her from my heart for her fidelity to con-
science. And if she is more anxious than necessary
about my faith — we should surely bear one
another no grudge for that. I know it cost her
more than it cost me for her to exhort me as she
did. And I am not sure," she added, smiling, "if
after all she does not love me better than any of
you."
"Mistress Olive," said Dr. Antony, as we sat
that evening in the dusk, by the window of my
father's room, while he wrote, "I would that
Christian women understood the beautiful work they
might do if they would take their true part in the
church."
"What would that be?" I said, thinking, after the
experience of to-day, it might probably be the part
of the mute.
"To see that Morals and Theology, Charity and
Truth, are never divorced," he replied. "To win
us back to the Beatitudes when we are straying into
the curses. To lead us back to Persons when we
are groping into abstractions. For books full of
dogma — Orthodox, Arminian, Supra-lapsarian , or
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 227
otherwise — to give us a liome, a living world, full
of the- Father, the Son, and the Comforter, of angels
and brothers. To see that we never petrify the
thought of the Living God into a metaphysical for-
mula, still less into a numerical term. Never to let
us forget that the great purpose of redemption is to
bring us to God; that the great purpose of the
church is to make us good. "When we have clipped,
and stretched, and stiffened the living Truth into
the narrow immutability of our theological or philo-
sophical definitions, to breathe it back again into
the unfathomable simplicity of the wisdom that
brings heavenly awe over the faces of little children,
and heavenly peace into the eyes of dying men. To
keep the windows open through our definitions into
God's infinity. To translate our ingenious, definite,
unchangeable scholastic terms into the simple, infi-
nite, ever-changing — because ever-living — words
of daily and eternal life; so that holiness shall
never come to mean a stern or mystic quality quite
different from goodness; or righteousness, a mere
legal qualification quite different from justice; or
humility, a svipernatural attainment quite different
from being humble; or charity, something very far
from simply being gentle, and generous, and self-
denying, and forbearing; and 'brethren' an eccle-
siastical noun of multitude totally unconnected with
15*
228 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
'brother.' Wlieu women rise to tlieir work in the
church, it seems to me the church will soon rise to
her true work in the world."
"You speak with fervour," said my father, rising
from the table, and smiling as he laid his hand on
Dr. Antony's shoulder; "the womanhood you picture
is something loftier than that of Eve."
"Mary's Ave has gone far to transfigure the
name of Eve, as an ancient hymn hath it," he re-
plied. "Ecce ancilla Domini, shall echo deeper and
further, and be remembered longer, than 'The ser-
pent tempted me, and I did eat.' But," he added,
"we have a better type than Mary for woman as
well as man, in Him who came not to be ministered
unto but to minister. I was chiefly thinking of the
gifts most common, it seems to me, to women, and
least to controversialists; I mean', imagination and
common sense. Imagination, which penetrates from
signs to things signified; which pierces, for instance,
into the depth and meaning of such words as
'eternity' and 'accursed;' — which also penetrates
behind the adjectives Calvinistic or Arminian, to the
substantive men and women whose theology they
define. And common sense, which, when a con-
clusion contradicts our inborn instincts as to right
and wrong, refuses to receive it, although the path
A STOUY OF THE CIVIL WAKS. 229
to it be smootliecl and hedged by logic without a
flaw."
"In other words," said my father, "you would
say that, with women the heart corrects the errors
of the head oftener than we suffer it to do so with
us. We must remember, however, that the heart
also is not infallible, and that the same qualities
which can make women the best saints make them
the worst controversialists. Theology and morals
being in their hearts thus closely intertwined, they
fight against a mistake as if it were a sin. They
quicken abstractions, and even rites and ceremonies,
into personal life, and are apt to defend them with
a blind and passionate vehemence as they would the
character of a husband or a son."
"Best gifts abused must ever be worst curses,"
said Dr. Antony.
And I ventured to say, —
"Is it not just the lowliness of our lot that makes
it high? Can we help our voices becoming shrill, if
we will have them loud?"
" Tune thine then, sweet heart, where first I learnt
how sweet it was," said my father, stroking my cheek.
"By sick-beds, or by children's cradles, or in the
house of mourning, or wherever good words are needed
only to be heard by the one to whom they are spoken,
230 THE DRATTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
— there women's voices are attuned to their truest
tones."
The next morning I had that walk in the orchard
with Dr. Antony, when he told me the secret which
my father would persist in declaring (most unwar-
rantably, I think) lay at the root of his high ex-
pectations as to the futm-e work and destinies of
women.
And when, a few hours afterwards, after I had
been alone a while, and we had knelt together and
received my father's blessing, and I began to under-
stand my happiness a little, and went and said
something about it to Lady Lucy, and especially
how strange it was, that Dr. Antony said he had
thought of it so long, whilst I had not been dream-
ing of it, she kissed my forehead, and said with a
smile, —
"Very strange, my unsuspecting little Puritan.
For it crossed my thoughts the first hour I saw you
together, and that was yesterday evening. Ah, Olive,"
she added, very tenderly, in a faltering voice, "I
had fond thoughts once that it might have been
otherwise. If my Harry had lived, and this poor
distracted realm had returned to her allegiance, I had
thought perchance some day to have the right to
call thee by the tenderest name. But God hath not
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 231
willed it so. And I try hard tliat his will may be
mine. He hatli given thee the great gift of a good
man's heart. And I have no fear but that thou wilt
keep it."
232 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
xxxn.
LETTICE DA YEN ant's DIARY.
"Netherby, May 1647. — They have given us
the best upper chambers in the house, one for a
withdrawing-chamber, the other for my mother's and
my sleeping-chamber. This last has a broad em-
bayed window commanding the orchard, at the bot-
tom of which is the pond where the water-lilies grow
that Roger gathered for me on that night when Dr.
Taylor and JVli*. Milton discoursed together on the
terrace (and their speech was like rich music) about
liberty of thinking and speaking.
England has been echoing with another kind of
music all these years since, on the same theme; but
it seems as if we had drawn but little nearer a con-
clusion. The Presbyterians now at the head of affairs
seem as convinced of the sin of allowing any one
else to think or speak fi-eely as the poor martyred
Archbishop was. They are for the Covenant (mean-
ing Presbytery), King, and Parliament; the Covenant
first. We for the King, without Covenant and with
Bishops. But the Presbyterians are against con-
A STORY OF THK CIVIL WARS. 233
venticles and all sectaries (except themselves); and
herein, so far, we and they agree; in which agree-
ment, some think, may yet lie a hope for the good
cause. If we could make a compromise, order might,
it is thought, be speedily restored. But this seems
very hard. They would have to sacrifice the Cov-
enant, which seems as dear to them as the Bible ; we,
the Church by law established — the sacred chain,
my mother says, which binds us to the Catholic Church
of all the past; and this the king will die, she
thinks, rather than do. The only chance, therefore,
of accord between us seems to be, if the Presbyterians
ever reach the point of hating or fearing the In-
dependents more than they love the Covenant. In
that case, some think the king and the Presbyterians,
Scotch and English, might unite and overpower the
Independents; and — what then?
"I cannot at all imagine. Because, when the
common enemy is gone, Episcopacy and the Covenant
still remain, alone, confronting each other. Sir Lauuce-
lot said the king thinks he has a very plain 'game'
to play. 'He must persuade one of his enemies to
extirpate the other, and then come in easily and put
the weakened victor under his feet.' This he has
in letters declared to be his intention. I trust the
royal letters have been misread. For such a 'game'
seems to me very far from paternal or kingly; and.
234 TUB DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
except on far better testimony, I will not credit it.
But for me there is an especial grief in all these
matters. Olive, who takes her politics from Roger,
seems to hononr most the Independents, who con-
stitute the strength of the army, and General Crom-
well, who is their idol; so that whatever cause
triumphs, nothing is likely to bring peace between
the Davenants and the Draytons.
"At present, however, our peace in this house is
much increased, my mother and Mistress Dorothy
having concluded a treaty on the ground of their
common loyalty to His Majesty, and their common
abhorrence of 'sectaries.'
"Moreover, Mistress Dorothy is marvellous gentle
and kind to us. Having delivered her conscience,
she treats my mother with a tender consideration
and deference that go to my heart. Although some-
times I think it is only from such pity as a bene-
volent jailer would feel for sentenced criminals.
They have been condemned; justice is sure to be
satisfied ; and therefore, meantime, mercy may safely
satisfy herself by keeping them fed and warmed.
"She says little; but she watches my mother's
tastes, and supplies her with unexpected delicacies
in a way which binds my whole heart to her.
"I scarce know why; but I always drew to her.
She is so downright and true, and like a man;
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 235
manly, as a man may be womanly. She is the most
like Roger in some ways of any of them; only he,
being really a man and a soldier, is gentler. And
when she loves you, it seems to be in spite of her-
self, which makes it all the sweeter. For she does
love me. I am sure of it, by the way she watches
and exhorts, and contradicts me. Especially, since
I read her those sermons that afternoon when we
were waiting for Olive and Roger. I asked Olive,
and she told me Mistress Dorothy said, that after-
noon, she thought I had gracious dispositions. That
meant, I know, that she liked me. She wanted to
excuse herself for liking so worldly and Babylonish
a damsel, as she believed me to be. And, therefore,
she hath invested me in her thoughts with 'gracious
dispositions,' and believes herself commissioned to
bring me out of Babylon, and to be a 'means of
grace' to me; which, I am sure, I am willing she
shoixld be. For my heart is too light and careless,
I know well; except on one or two points. And,
meantime, I flatter myself I may be an 'ordinance
and means of grace' in some little measure to her,
little as she might acknowledge it. It does good
people so much good to love (really love, I mean,
not take in hand merely, like patients) people who
are not as good as themselves. It sets them planning
and praying for others; it takes them from looking
236 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
within for signs, and forward for rewards, by filling
the heart with love, which is the most gracious sign,
and the most glorious reward in itself.
"Sweet mother mine, we all have been great
means of grace to her in that way !
"Think what she may, she would not have been
a gi-eater saint at Little Gidding, although she had
chanted the Psalter through three hundred and sixty-
five times in the year.
"I think she and Mistress Dorothy help each
other. They make me think of the two groups of
graces in the Bible. St. Paul's, — '■Love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem-
perance.'' I picture these as sweet maidenly or ma-
tronly forms, white-robed, radiant, with low sweet
voices. They represent my mother and the holy
people of Mr. Herbert's school. Then there are
St. Peter's, — ''Faith, virtue, Tcnowledge, temperance,
patience, godliness, brotherly-hindness , charity.'' These
rise before me like a company of knights in armour,
valiant, true, and pure. In the kind of plain, manly
armour of the Ironsides, as Roger looked in it that
morning at Oxford, when he turned back and waved
farewell to me in the court of the College. And
these represent Mistress Dorothy and the nobler
Puritans. They are the same, no doubt, essentially;
love and charity, the mother of one group, the king
A STORY OF THE CIVIL VfARS. 237
and crown of the otlaer. Yet tbey seem to me to
represent two diverse orders of ]oiety — tlie manly
and the womanly. Together, side by side, in mutual
aid and service, not front to front in battle, what a
church and what a world they might make!
"But the great event in the house now is the
betrothal of Olive and Dr. Antony, which took place
on the very morning after Mistress Dorothy's grand
remonstrance.
"Dr. Antony left a day or two afterwards. And
ever since we have been as busy as possible pre-
paring for the wedding, which is to be in July. Not
a long betrothal-time. But they needed not further
time to try each other.
"It is very pleasant to all of us to be occupied
for her, who is so little wont to be occupied with
herself. She seems in a little tumult of happiness,
as far as any Puritan soul can be in a tumult.
"Many of these Puritan ways seem to me wondrous
innocent and sweet.
"They have their solemnities, I see, and their
ritual, and ceremonial-, and their symbolism and
sacred art, moreover, say what Mistress Dorothy may
to the contrary.
"Tender sacred family rites and solemnities.
They have, indeed, no chapel or chaplain. But the
family seems a little church ; the father is the priest.
238 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Not without sacred beauty tliis order, nor without
sanction either from the fathers of the Church (fathers
older than Archbishop Laud) — the fathers Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob.
"For instance, when Olive and Dr. Antony were
betrothed, Mr. Drayton led them into his room, and
laid his hands on them, and blessed them. And that
was the seal of their betrothal. Every Sunday morn-
ing, Olive tells me, when she and Roger were chil-
dren, after family prayers, they used to kneel thus
for their father's blessing. Sacred touches, holy as
coronation sacring oil, I think, to bear about the
memory of through life. But then there is this to
be remembered. When the consecrating touch is
from hands which work with us in daily life, they
need to be very pure. No pomp of place, and no
mist of distance glorifies the miuistrant. He had
need, indeed, to be all glorious within.
"Family solemnities must be very true to be at
all fair. I can fancy Puritan hypocrisy, or a mere
formal Puritanism, the driest and most hideous thing
in the world.
"Then, as to symbols and sacred art. What
else are these Scripture texts, carved over door-
ways , graven on chimney-stones , emblazoned on
walls? 'They are not graven images,' saith Mistress
Dorothy. But what are words but images within
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 239
the soul; or images, rightly used, but children's
words? Not that even as to actual 'holy pictures'
and 'images' they are quite destitute. What else
are the paintings from Scripture on the Dutch tiles
in Mr. Drayton's room, where Olive and Roger
learned from Mistress Gretel's lips their earliest Bible
lore? It is true, they are chiefly from the Old Testa-
ment. But Adam and Eve delving, the serpent
darting out his forked tongue from the tree, Noah
and the animals walking out of the ark, are as
much pictures as St. Peter fishing, or the blessed
Virgin and the Babe, on church windows. What
difference, then, except that the Puritan pictures are
on tiles at home instead of on glass at church?
'They are for instruction, and not for idolatry,' saith
Mistress Dorothy. But did not the monks in old
times paint their pictures also for instruction, and
not for idolatry? 'Centuries of abuse make the
most innocent things perilous,' saith Mistress Dorothy.
'When the brazen serpent had become an idol,
Jehoshaphat called it a piece of brass, and broke it
in pieces.' I can see something in that. The
sacrilege in such a case is the idolatry, not the de-
struction of the idol. But alas, if we set ourselves
to destroy all things that have been, or can be made
into idols, where are we to stop ? Some people made
idols of the very stones of their houses, without any
240 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
scriptures thereon; or of tlieir firesides, without the
sacred pictures.
"There are two things, however, which fill me
with reverence in these Puritan ways. First, this
sweet and sacred family piety. Second (or rather
first, for it is at the root of all), the profound con-
viction that every man, woman, and child, in every
word and work, has to do directly with God; that
the Creator, by virtue of being divine, is nearer us
than all creatures; that to Him each one is imme-
diately responsible, and that, therefore, on His word
only can it be safe for each one to believe or do
anything. Such conviction gives a power which
ceases to be marvellous only when you think of its
source. But alas, alas! what if this divine word be
misunderstood.
'•'•J'uhj. — Eoger Drayton has come, on a few
days' leave, to be present at his sister's wedding.
"He hath brought the strange news that the king
is in the keeping of the army. We scarcely know
whether to mourn or rejoice. It came about on this
wise , as Roger told my mother and me : —
"It was reported in the army that the Presby-
terian party in the Parliament designed to remove
the king from Holmby, where he was, to Oatlands,
near London, there to make a separate treaty, in
A SXOllV OF THE CIVIL WARS. 241
which the soldiers were not to be consulted or con-
sidered.
"On the 4tli of June, therefore, Cornet Joyce,
without commission, it seems, from any one, but
simply as knowing that it would be agreeable to the
army, and to prevent this design of a separate Pres-
byterian treaty, went, with some seven or eight hun-
dred men, to Holmby House, where His Majesty
had remained since we saw him in April.
"The Commissioners of the Parliament, who were
His Majesty's jailers, were very indignant at this
interference of Cornet Joyce, and commanded the
gates to be closed, and preparations to be made to
resist an assault. Their own soldiers, on the con-
trary, were of the same mind with the army and the
cornet, and threw open the gates at once to their
comrades. Nor was the king himself, it seems, un-
willing. When Cornet Joyce made his way to the
royal presence, the king spoke to him with much
graciousness. He asked the cornet if he would pro-
mise to do him no hurt, and to force him to nothing
against his conscience. Cornet Joyce declared he
had no ill intention in any way, the soldiers only
wanted to prevent His Majesty being placed at the
head of another army, and that he would be most
unwilling to force any man against his conscience,
much less His Majesty. The king, therefore, agreed
The Dvaytons and the Davenants. il, 16
242 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
to accompany Mm the next day, this happening at
night.
"The next morning, at six o'clock, His Majesty
condescended to meet the soldiers.
"He again demanded to know the cornet's author-
ity, and if he had no writing from the general, Sir
Thomas Fairfax.
"'I pray you, Mr. Joyce,' he said, 'deal in-
genuously with me, and tell me what commission
you have.'
" Said Joyce, —
"'Here is my commission.'
"'Where?' asked the king.
"'Behind me,' said the cornet, pointing to his
troopers; 'and I hope that will satisfy your Majesty.'
"The king smiled.
"'It is as fair a commission,' he said, 'and as
well written as I have ever seen in my life; a com-
pany of as handsome and proper gentlemen as I
have seen a great while. But what if I should yet
refuse to go with you? I hope you would not force
me! I am your king. You ought not to lay violent
hands on your king. I acknowledge none to be
above me but God.'
"Cornet Joyce assured His Majesty he meant
him no harm; and at length the king went with the
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 243
soldiers as they desired, they suflering liim to choose
between two or three places the one he liked best.
"So, by easy stages, they conducted him to
Childerley, near Newmarket. And it is said the
king was the merriest of the company. Heaven send
it to be a good augury!
"Eoger said, moreover, that His Majesty con-
tinues to be of good cheer, and the army to be
friendly disposed towards him. They have hope yet
that Sir Thomas Fairfax, General Cromwell, and
Ireton, may make some arrangement to which His
Majesty may honourably accede.
"And, meantime, they allow him not only the
attendance of his faithful servants, but his own chap-
lains to perform the services of the church, which
the Presbyterians refused him at Holmby. English-
men, especially the common people, and most of all,
I think, English soldiers, have honest hearts after
all; safer to trust to than those of men armed cap-a-
pie in covenants and confessions. Surely the king
will yet win the hearts of the army, and all will yet
go right.
"Roger, meanwhile, is as stately in his courtesy
to me as a Spanish hidalgo, listening and assenting
to all I say in a way I detest. For it means that
he feels our differences too deep to venture on.
"t7w7y 2nd. — Roger has begun to contradict
16*
244 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVBNANTS:
and controvert me again deliglitfully. This morning
we bad our first serious battle.
"Yesterday I said sometbiug about abhorring all
middle states of things. It was in reference to the
poor peasants flocking around the king. I said
there was no poetry in mid- way things, or times, or
states; in mid-day, mid-summer, middle-life, or the
middle-station in the state.
"He took this up earnestly, after his manner,
and went into a serious argument to prove me
wrong. It was but a weakling and half- fledged
poesy, quoth he, which must needs go to dewdrops,
and rosy clouds, and primroses, and violets, for its
smiles and decorations, and could see no glory and
beauty in summer or in noon. Summer with its
golden ripening harvests, and all its depths of boun-
tiful life in woods and fields; noon- tide with its pa-
tient toil or its rapturous hush of rest; manhood and
womanhood with their dower of noble work and of
strength to do it. He could not abide (he said), to
hear the springtide spoken pulingly of as if it faded
instead of ripened into summer, or youth as if it set
instead of dawned into manhood. And as to the
middle station in a nation, its yeomanry and traders,
nations must have their heads to think and their
hands to work; but the middle order was the nation's
heart. If that was sound, the nation was sound, if that
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 245
was corrupt and base, the nation's heart was rotten at
the core. Which (ended he) he thought these last
years, with all their miseries, had proved that the heart
of England was not.
"Roger Drayton has a strange way of his own
in discourse, of putting aside all the light skirmish-
ing forces, and closing with the very kernel and
core of the people he has to do with. The way of
the Ironsides, I suppose. I have been used to little
but skirmishing in discourse among the younger
Cavaliers; light jesting talk, whether the heart or
the subject be grave or gay, even serious feelings
being hidden, for the most part, under a mask of
levity. But Roger seldom, perhaps never exactly
jests. His mirth, like a child's laughter, is from the
heart, as much as his gravity. He will know and
have you know what you really honour, or love, or
want, or dread.
"So it happened that to-day on the terrace we
came on the very subject I had intended always to
avoid, General Cromwell.
"I chanced to allude in passing to some of the
reports I had heard against the General, some care-
less words about his praying and preaching with his
men.
"I had no notion until then how Roger reveres
246 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
this man; like a son his father, or a loyal subject
his sovereign.
"He said, quietly, but with that repressed passion
which often makes his words so strong, that no man
who had ever knelt at General Cromwell's prayers
would jest at his praying, any more than any man
who had ever encountered him in battle would jest
at his fighting. That his word could inspire his
men to charge like a word from heaven, and could
rally them like a re-inforcement. That after the
battle his strong utterance of Christian hope and
faith could hearten men to die, as it had heartened
them to fight; that after siich a battle as Marston
Moor, while directing the siege- works outside York,
he could find time to go down into the depths of his
own past sorrows to draw thence living waters of
comfort for a friend (Mr. Walton) whose son had
been slain, writing him a letter of consolation (which
Roger had seen) containing indeed words deep
enough 'to drink up the father's sorrow.'
"Then Roger spoke of the unflinching justice,
which was only the other side of this same sympa-
thy and care; how General Cromwell had two of his
men hanged for plunderiiig prisoners at Winchester,
and sent others accused of the same oflFence to be
judged by the royal garrison at Oxford, whence the
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 247
governor sent tliem back with a generous acknow-
ledgment.
"'It is loyalty you feel towards General Crom-
well,' I said; 'such a disinterested, ennobling, self-
sacrificing passion as our Harry felt for the king.'
"He paused a moment, —
"'If God sends us a judge and a deliverer what
else can we feel for him?' he said at length-, 'I be-
lieve General Cromwell is the defender of the law,
and will be the deliverer of the nation; and, if he will
suffer it,' he added in a lower voice, 'of the king.'
"'Is it then indeed true,' I asked, 'as you once
told us, that General Cromwell and the army are
courteous to His Majesty, and anxious to make good
terms with him? Can it be possible that there may
yet be an honourable peace?' 'I believe,' he replied,
'that all things else are possible, if only it is pos-
sible for the king to be true. But if a plighted
word, king's or peasant's, is worth nothing, what
other bond remains between man and man? Forgive
my rough speech. I know your loyalty is a sacred
thing to you. If the king will deal truly, I believe
General Cromwell will make him such a king as he
never was before. But who can twist ropes of sand?
One who is untrue seems to me not to be a real
substance at all, not even a shadow of a substance,
but simply a dream or phantasm, simply nothing.''
218 THE DRAYIONS AND THE DAVENAKXS:
"I felt myself flusLi. We have sacrificed too
mucli for His Majesty, not to believe in him. Yet I
fear he has other thoughts as to the double-dealing
to be permitted in diplomacy than Harry had, or
many gentlemen who serve him.
"I could only answer Roger by saying, —
"'Adversity makes a king sacred, if nothing else
can. If the king's cause were once more to prosper,
we might debate such things as these. But not now,
Roger. I dare not now.'
"He looked as if words were on his lips he could
scarcely, with all his reserve and courtesy, hold
back. But he turned away, and calling Lion from
the pond where he was chasing some wild-fowl, we
went into the house.
''''July Ath. — Dr. Antony has come for the wed-
ding. He brought us a moving account of the two
days spent by the royal children. James the Duke
of York, the Duke of Gloucester, and the Princess
Elizabeth, with His Majesty, at Caversham, near
Reading. The Independent officers of the army per-
mitted it. And they say General Cromwell himself,
having sons and daughters of his own, shed tears to
see the affection of the king, and the innocent play-
fulness of the children, knowing so little of the
dangers around them.
^^Juli/ 6th. — Olive looked wondrous fair as a
A STOr.y OF THE CIVIL WARS. 249
bride, in her plain spotless dress, without an orna-
ment; partly from Puritanical plainness, and partly
because the family jewels went long since, with the
thimbles and bodkins of the London dames, into the
treasury at the Guildhall. So grave and serene, and
pure and young, with her fair pale face, her smooth
white brow and soft true eyes.
"She was married in the church, with some frag-
ments of the old marriage-service, the whole being
forbidden.
"It was sweet afterwards to see her kneel while
my mother kissed her forehead, and placed a string
of large pearls round her neck, with a jewel.
"They had always a singular love for each other,
Olive and my mother. The bride and bridegroom
rode away together after noon towards their London
home.
''''July Gfh. — This morning I rose early and went
down to the pond in the orchard, and being led back
by the sight of it to the thought of Olive and old
times, strayed on towards the Lady Well, where first
we met.
"By the way I passed old Gammer Grindle's cot-
tage, and finding the door open, early as it was,
went in to tell her about the bride.
"And there I saw Cicely and the child again;
and heard her terrible story of wrong and sorrow.
250 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
"It made me very sad, and as I went on towards
the well, it set me thinking of many things.
"Why did Olive never tell me? But then I
thought how I had more than once wilfully refused
to believe evil of Sir Launcelot, choosing to believe
what I liked. And a cold shudder came over me as
I sat by the Lady Well, to think how near danger
I had been, and how terrible it would have been if
I had cared for him (not indeed that I ever could).
I meditated also whether it was not yet possible to
get right done to Cicely. And I resolved as far as
I could for the future never to believe anything be-
cause I wished, but because it was true; that is, to
try not to wish beforehand that things were true or
not, but to search out honestly if they are. And I
was standing looking into the well, sunk deep in
these thoughts, wondering if any one ever really did
quite do this, when I heard a footstep, and looking
up, I saw Roger Drayton.
"And then he told me of his love.
"I cannot say I had never thought of it before.
I had sometimes even thought it might one day come
to something like this; and had even imagined,
now and then, what I should say in reply, or per-
haps, not so much what, as how I would say it —
how I would say many wise things to him and man-
age it so that in some way all the difficulties about
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 251
the civil wars would vanish, he would see he had
made some mistakes, and I would acknowledge can-
didly that our side had not been blameless, and then
I might admit, that perhaps one day he might speak
to me again of the other subject. At least I know
these dreams of mine always ended in my being left
in perfect certainty that Roger would one day join
in the good cause, and Roger perhaps in a very little
uncertainty as to the rest.
"But everything went quite the other way. Roger
was so much in earnest about what he had to say,
that what I had to say about politics unfortunately
went entirely out of my head. Roger has left me with
anything but a certainty or probability of his ever
becoming a Cavalier as things are at present. And
I have left him in no uncertainty at all about the
rest.
"I am afraid it was a golden opportunity lost.
But how could I help it? When he showed all his
heart to me, how could I help his seeing mine? And
since I am sure there is no one in the world to be
compared with Roger, how could I help his seeing
that I feel and think so? Besides, there is something
base, after all, in such conditions. It might have
been trifling with his conscience. And that would
have been almost a crime.
252 THR DRAYrONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
"Wherefore I am sure I could not have done
otherwise; and I think I have done right.
"Yet we made no promises.
"We know we love each other. That is all.
And I know he has loved me ever since he can re-
member. And I know that with such a heart as his,
once is for ever.
"And I know that now, if it were possible that
the whole world could come between us — a world
of oceans and continents — a world of war and
calumnies — • it would always be outside, it would
never come between our hearts.
"My mother thinks so too. I feel now, for the
first time, in some ways what it is to have a mother s
heart to rest on. Although, through all her tender
silence, I feel she sees more difficulties in the way
than I do.
''''July 10th. — A world of oceans and continents
no separation! How boldly I wrote! Roger is gone
back to the army; gone not half an hour, barely a
mile away, scarcely out of sight. If I listen, I fancy
I can almost hear his horse-hoofs in the distance.
And it seems as if that mile were a world of oceans
and continents, as if these moments since he left were
the beginning of an eternity, altogether beyond the
poor counted minutes, and hours, and days of time.
But a minute since, his hand in mine; and what may
A STOIIV OF THE CIVIL WARS. 253
liappen before I see liim again! How do I know if
I shall ever see liim again. In love such as ours,
ever and never so terribly entertwine!
"Unbelieving that I am! Now I shall have to
learn if I understand really anything of what it is
to trust God and to pray.
"Prayer and trust must be as deep as this love^
or they are nothing.
"They must be deeper , or they are no support."
254 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
XXXIU.
olive's recollections.
We began our Lome in London in troublous
times.
- As we came near our bouse, wbicb was not far
from the river and from Wbiteball, we saw some-
thing which moved me not a little, a coach being
drawn to St. James's Palace guarded by Parliament
soldiers. A few people turned and gazed as it
passed; and two children were looking out of the
window. These were the royal children being taken
back to St. James's Palace after their two days with
the king at Caversham. There was something very
mournful in beholding these young creatures, born
to be children of the nation as well as of the king,
taken to their royal home as to a prison, dwelling
in their own land as exiles, their mother a fugitive
in France, their father a captive among his own
people.
There is a terrible strength in the pathetic ma-
jesty which enshrines a fallen king; a well-nigh ir-
resistible power in the crown which has become a
A STORY OP THE CIVIi. WARS. 255
crown of tliorns. A captive monarch is a more
perilous foe than a victorious army, to the subjects
who hokl him captive. How often during those sad
years, 1647 and 1648, I had to go over all the
causes of the civil war again and again — Eliot
slowly murdered in his unlawful and unwholesome
prison; the silenced Parliaments; the tortured Puri-
tans; the imprisoned patriots. How often I had to
recall all its course; — Prince Rupert's plundering;
the king's repeated duplicity, slowly wearing out the
nation's lingering trust in him, and baffling all at-
tempts at negotiation. I had to repeat these things
to myself, by an effort of will, again and again, in
order to keep true to our principles at all.
And the conflict with this rebound of instinctive
loyalty, which went on in my heart secretly, was
going on in the city openly at the time when we
took up our abode there, indeed throughout the
nation.
So strong and general, indeed, was this rebound
of loyalty, that in that August 1647, which was our
honeymoon, it seemed as if the whole city of Lon-
don — at the beginning of the war the Parliament's
very strength and stay — was panting to return to
its allegiance, led by the Presbyterian majority in
the House of Commons. The conflict seemed alto-
gether to have shifted its ground. The enemy dreaded
256 THE JjRAYXOKS AMD THE DAVEKANTS :
by tlie city was not the king, but the army which
its own liberal contributions and persevering courage
had done so much to create. Like the German
magician, Dr. Faustus, of whom Aunt Gretel used
to tell us , the city crouched trembling before the
untamable spirit it had evoked, as from moment to
moment it grew into more terrible stature and
strength.
Sunday the 1st August 1647 — my first Sunday
in London — was a memorable day to me.
Through all the hush of the Puritan Sabbath
there was a deep hum of unrest throughout the city,
a ceaseless stir of men walking in silent haste hither
and thither, or gathering for eager debate at the
comers of streets, in the squares, or in any public
place. It was a notable contrast to the cheerful
stir of animal life, with the deep under-stilluess of
Netherby.
On the Friday before, the House of Commons
had been invaded; not, as once in the beginning of
the strife, by the king, trampling on "Privilege" in
quest of five "traitors," but by a crowd of 'prentices
with hats on, clamouring for the King against the
Army.
Then the two Speakers of the Lords and Commons
had fled to the army, with the mace, and with all
the Independent members.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 257
The eleven banished Presbyterian members had
returned; among them Denzil Hollis (one of the
king's "five traitors" who had afterwards withstood
the royal forces so gallantly at Brentford) and Sir
John Clotworthy, whose zeal had pursued Arch-
bishop Laud with theological questions even on the
scaffold.
Recruitings, gatherings of men and arms, and
drillings and gun-practice, had been going on in all
quarters of the city on the Saturday.
On Monday these were renewed with the earliest
light of the summer morning. Drums beating, trum-
pets calling, 'prentices hurrahing on all sides, "No
peace with Sectaries." The London militia, "one
and all," against the factious army, then believed
to be couching tranquilly near Bedford.
But on Tuesday the army rose from its lair,
and advanced to Hounslow. Then all Southwark
came pouring in terrified throngs across London
Bridge, demanding peace with the army, and de-
claring they would not fight. The Presbyterian
General Poyntz was indignant, and there was tumult
and bloodshed in the streets.
Closer and closer that defied but dreaded monster
of an army came, every step forward, and every
halt watched with fluctuations of hope and fear in
the city. The army, meanwhile, strong in the pre-
The Draytons and the Davenants. II. 1 •
258 THE DRAYIOKS AND THE DAYENANTS:
sence of the king, tlie speakers, tlie mace, and
Oliver Cromwell, looked on itself as not only re-
presenting, but leing all the three powers of the state
combined — inspired, moreover, by an invisible
power stronger than all states; and so it advanced,
majestically free from hurry or disorder. Not a
provision-cart or pack-horse was stopped on its way
into the city. And on Friday, August the 9th,
the army appeared in the city, marching three deep
through Hyde Park with boughs of laurel in their
hats, through Westminster , along the Strand, through
the City, to the Tower. In a day or two they
were quietly established in the villages around, the
head-quarters being at Putney. The king was lodged
the while at Hampton Court.
Not an act of vengeance nor of disorder, as far
as I know, disgraced their triumph. Not that this
was any matter of wonder to us. Our wonder was,
that sober and godly citizens should wonder at the
soberness and godliness of the army, every regiment
of which was a worshipping congregation, and the
soul of it Oliver Cromwell.
Job Forster was sorely vexed at the evil reports
spread concerning the soldiers. We saw him often
during that autumn.
"Have they forgotten," he said, "that we have
won Marston Moor and Naseby for them? that we
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS, 259
have been marching through the land all these years,
and not left a godly homestead nor a family the
worse for us throughout the length and breadth of
the country. A man might think it was we who
sacked Leicester and plundered and burnt villages
and farms far and wide. They should have heard
the prayers our poor men poured forth by the camp-
fires on the battle-fields where we shed our blood
for the country. Sitch prayers as might wellnigh
lift the roofs from their cold vaults of churches, and
belike the great stone also from their hearts. Men
creeping easily among streets, praying safely as
long as they like behind walls, and sleeping every
night on feather-beds, might be the better for a good
stretch now and then in one of our Cromwell's
marches, and a hard bed on the moors, and a good
sight right up into the sky, beyond the roofs, and
the clouds, and the stars, and the covenants and the
confessions."
Roger also chafed much at the citizens, but most
. of all at their misunderstanding of General Cromwell.
All that autumn, said Roger, the General, with
Ireton, Vane, and Harry Marten, and other faithful
men, were labouring hard to establish peace on a
lasting foundation; as the Proposals of the Army
proved. They would have provided that His Majesty's
person, the queen, and the royal issue should be
17*
260 THE DRAYTOSS AND THE DAVBNANTS:
restored to lionoui' and all personal riglits-, that the
royal authority over the militia should be subject to
the advice of Parliament for ten years; that all
civil penalties for ecclesiastical offences (for instance,
whether for using or disusing the Common Prayer)
should be removed; that some old decayed boroughs
should be disfranchised, some new rising towns be
represented, and the representation, generally, be
made more equal; that Parliament should last two
years, not to be dissolved except by their own con-
sent, unless they had sat one hundi-ed and twenty
days; that grand jurymen should be chosen in some
impartial way, and not at the discretion of the sheriff.
But no man would have it so. The Levellers in the
army clamoured for justice on the "Chief Delin-
quent," and declared that General Cromwell had
betrayed them to the king. In fact, there was a
mutiny so wide-spread and determined, that Crom-
well himself barely succeeded in quelling it. The
Presbyterians would not give up the right to enforce
the Covenant. The king carried on negotiations at
the same time with General Cromwell, with the
Presbyterians, and with the Irish Papists; intending,
as was shown, alas! too surely, from intercepted
letters, to be true to none, except, perchance, the
last.
On November the 12th, early in the morning.
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 2G1
the news flashed through the city, cried from street
to street, that the king had fled from Hampton
Court; and Eoger, who was with us that morning,
said, —
"Once more General Cromwell would have saved
the king and the country. But the king will not
be saved. Now he must turn wholly to the country."
"But what," replied my husband, "if the country
also refuses to be saved by General Cromwell?"
"Then for a New England across the seas," said
Roger. "But we are not come to that yet."
For even after the king's flight, Roger clung to
the hope of reconciliation, his hopes nourished by
secret fountains flowing from the icebergs of his
fears. For with the bond which bound people and
king might be snapped for ever the bond, not indeed
of love, but of hope, between him and Lettice.
Still throughout that dreary winter negotiations
went on between the Parliament and His Majesty at
the Castle of Carisbrook. More and more hopeless,
as more and more men became mournfully convinced
of the king's untruth. Until, in April 1648, when,
from the upper windows of our house, I could see
on one side the trees bursting into leaf in St. James's
Park, and on the other the river gleaming with a
thousand tints of green and gold, as it reflected the
wooded gardens of the palaces and mansions from
262 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Westminster to the Temple; when the fleets of swans
began to pass by on their way to build their nests
in the reedy islets by Richmond or Kew, the news
came from all quarters that, amidst all this sweet
stir of natural life, the country was stirring with
fatal insurrections from Kent to the Scottish Borders.
The first outburst was in London itself.
A few 'prentices were playing at bowls on Sun-
day, April 9th, in Moor fields, during church time.
The trainbands tried to disperse them. They fought,
were checked and broken, but quickly rallied to the
old cry of " Clubs." All through that night we heard
the tumult surging up and down through the city.
The watermen, a powerful body of men, joined
them. The cry was, "For God and King Charles."
And not till the Ironsides charged on them from
Westminster was the riot quelled.
Then came tidings that Chepstow and Pembroke
were taken by the Royalists, and that a Scottish army
of forty thousand was coming across the Borders to
undo all that had been done, and to restore the king.
About that time Roger came into the chamber
where I was busied with confections, and unlacing
and laying aside his helmet, he sat down in silence.
His face was fixed and very pale.
"No ill tidings?" I said.
"I ought not to think so," he replied.
A STOKY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 263
And then be told me of a solemn prayer-meeting,
held throughout the day before at Windsor Castle
by the army leaders. How some of them, being
sore perplexed "that what they had judged to do
for the good of these poor nations had not been
accepted by them, were minded to lay down arms,
disband, and return each to his home, there to suffer
after the example of Him who, having done what
He could to save His people, sealed His life by
suffering." But others were differently minded, and,
"striving to trace back the causes of their present
divisions and weakness," they came at last to what
they believed the root, "those cursed carnal con-
ferences which their own conceited wisdom had
prompted them to the year before with the king's
party."
Then Major Goffe solemnly rehearsed from the
Scripture the words, "Turn you at my reproof, and
I will pour out my Spirit unto you;" and thereupon
"their sin and their duty was set unanimously with
weight on each heart, so that none was able to speak
a word to each other for bitter weeping, at the sense
and shame of their sins and their base fear of men."
"Cromwell, Ireton , and his Ironsides weeping bit-
terly! It was a thing not to forget," said Roger,
pausing,
"Then, Roger," said I, trembling, "if this was
264 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
the sin they wept for, what is the duty they see be-
fore them?"
Roger bowed his forehead on his hands as they
rested on the table before him, and his reply came
muffled and slow.
"'To call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to
an account for that blood he hath shed and mis-
chief he hath done to his utmost against the Lord's
cause and people in these poor nations.' This is
what they deem their duty," he said.
"Call the king to an account, Roger!" I said;
"the king!"
I could scarce speak the word for horror.
"Kings have to be called to account," he said.
"Yes, in heaven," I said. "But on earth, Roger,
on earth never!"
"Herod was called to account on earth, Olive,"
said he.
"True, but it was by God, Roger," I said. "Not
by man! never by man!"
"By the law, Olive," he said; "by God's law,
which is above all men."
"But what men can ever have right to execute
the law on a king?" I said; "on their own king?"
"Woe to the men who have to do it," said
Roger; "but bitterer woe to the man who does not
the work God sets him to do, whatever woe it
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 265
brings in the doing. Olive," he added mournfully,
"who gave sanction to Laud and Strafford's tyran-
nies, and to Prince Rupert's plunderings ? "
I could only weep.
"Oh, Roger," I said, "let the thunderbolt, or the
pestilence, or any of God's terrible angels do this
work in His time. They are strong and swift
enough. It is not for men."
He made no reply.
"What lies between this terrible resolve and its
execution?" I asked at length.
" Chepstow and Pembroke to be besieged and
taken; Wales to be reconquered; the Scottish army
of forty thousand to be driven back over the Bor-
ders," he replied.
"Then there is a hope of escape for the king
yet."
"There is an interval, Olive," he replied. "These
things must take time. But they must be done. In
a few days General Cromwell is to lead us forth to
do them. The order is given for the army to march
for Wales."
I did not venture to mention Lettice's name to
him. We both knew too well what a gulf this
terrible resolve, if ever it came to action, must
create between us. But before he left he said, —
"Olive, I do not think it is cowardice not to say
266 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
anything of this to Lettice yet. Her mother, she
writes to-day, is failing so sadly. And there are so
many chances in battle. If I fall, I need not leave
on her memory of me what would so embitter sor-
row to her."
"And the king might escape," I thought. His
Majesty had all but succeeded in getting through the
bars of his chamber-window not a mouth before. But
I did not utter this to Roger.
On the next day, the 3rd of May, the army
marched forth, and with it Roger and Job Forster.
And my husband went with them on his work of
mercy.
So that this summer of 1648 was a very anxious
and solitary one for me. I longed much to see my
father, but he was occupied in quelling insurrection
in the north. And the city was so unquiet, I
thought it selfish to send for either of my aunts.
Not that I was without friends. Now and then
it fortified me greatly to have a glimpse of IVIr. John
Milton in his small house in Holborn, with the
garden behind opening towards Lincoln's Inn Fields;
to hear his strong words 'of determination and hope
for the English people; and, perchance, to catch
some strains from his organ.
But my chief solaces were: first, the morning
exercises, between six and eight of the clock, at St.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 267
Margaret's Cliurcli near the Abbey, where there was
daily prayer and praise and reading of God's word,
with comments to press it home to the heart, from
divers excellent and godly ministers. And next, a
friendship I had made with good Mr. John Henry,
a Welsh gentleman who kept the royal garden and
orchard at Whitehall, and lived in a pleasant house
close on Whitehall Stairs. His wife had died scarce
three years before, of a consumption, and it was
edifying to hear him and his daughters speak of her
virtue and piety, how she had looked well to the
ways of her household, had prayed daily with them,
catechized her children, and devoted her only son
Philip to the work of the ministry in his infancy,
and how a little before she died she had said, "My
head is in heaven, my heart is in heaven: it is but
one step more and I shall be there too."
This friendship solaced me for many causes;
primarily for three: in that Mr. Henry was a godly
gentleman; in that he lived in a garden by fair
water, which reminded me of Netherby; and in that
he was a Royalist. For it did my heart good to
hear some good words s|)oken for the captive king,
poor gentleman; and I have been wont ever to gain
benefit from good men who differ from us on party
points. With such we leave the party discords,
and fly to the common harmonies which are deeper.
268 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
Many a delightsome hour have I spent in Mr.
Henry's house in the orchard by the river, watching
the boats and gay barges, and the fishers and the
white fleets of swans, and the flow of the broad river,
sweeping by, always like a poem of human life set
to a stately organ music; plying my needle the
while beside the young daughters of the house, with
cheerful converse. But most of all I loved to
hearken to their father's discourse concerning the
king and the court in the days gone by. How the
young princes used to play with his Philip, and gave
him gifts, and had wondrous courtesy for him; and
how Archbishop Laud took a particular kindness
for him when he was a child, because he would be
very officious to attend to the water-gate (which was
part of his father's charge), and to let the archbishop
through when he came late from council, to cross
the water to Lambeth; and how afterwards the lad
Philip had been taken to see the fallen archbishop
in the Tower, and he had given him some "new
money."
It was strange to think how the great River of
Time had borne all that stately company away —
King, Court, Archbishops, Councils — like some
fleeting pomp of gay barges, beneath the windows
or like the masques and pageants they had delighted
in, of which Mr. Henry told me. It was good, too.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WAKS. 269
to have sucli touches of simple kindness, as remem-
bering a child's taste for bright new money, woven
into the dark picture we Puritans had among us of
the persecutor of our brethren. It is good for the
persecuted to feel, by some human touch, that their
persecutors are human; good while the persecuted
suffer; good beyond price if ever they come to rule
and judge.
Sometimes, moreover, Mr. Philip, the son, came
home from Christchurch, Oxford, where he was a
student, and his discourse was wondrous sacred and
pleasant for so young a gentleman. One thing I
remember he said which was a special solace to me.
He would blame those who laid so much stress on
every one knowing the exact time of their conver-
sion. "Who can so soon be aware of the daybreak,"
quoth he, "or of the springing up of the seed sown?
The blind man in the Gospels is our example. This
and that concerning the recovering of his sight he
knew not: 'But this one thing I know, that whereas
I was blind, now I see.' " Which words have often
returned to my comfort; in that, instead of sending
me back into my past life, or down into my heart to
look for tokens of grace, they set me looking up to
my Lord to see His gracious countenance; and in
looking I am lightened, be it for the first time, or
the thousand and first.
270 THE DRAYIOiXS AND THE DAVENANTS :
Meantime the great Tide of Time was sweeping
on, bearing on its breast to the sea royal fleets, and
little skiffs such as mine.
In July the sailors of the fleet suddenly declared
for the 'king, landed the Parliament admiral, and
crossing the Channel, took on board the Prince of
Wales, acknowledging him as their commander.
At this news my heart beat as high with hope
as the fiercest Eoyalist's. The Prince of Wales with
a fleet in the Downs! the king his father in prison
close to the shore at Carisbrook! what could hinder
a rescue? But no rescue was attempted. Weeks
passed on — the opportunity was lost; the fleet was
won back to the Parliament, and the king remained
at Carisbrook. I have never heard any attempt
to explain why the prince neglected this chance
of saving the king. It made my heart ache to
think of the captive sovereign watching all those
weeks for rescue (for he sent to entreat it might be
attempted) — listening for the sound of friendly
guns, and the aj)pearance of a band of loyal seamen,
all in vain.
For all this time his doom was coiling closer and
closer round him.
Pembroke and Chepstow were retaken. General
Cromwell wrote from Nottingham for shoes for his
"poor tired soldiers," wearied with a hundred and
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 271
fifty miles hasty marching across the wild country
of Wales towards the north. In August came the
tidings of the total defeat of the Scottish army at
Preston.
I had just received the news of this in a letter
from my husband, and was sitting alone in my
chamber, tossed hither and thither in mind, as was
my wont during those anxious months, scarce know-
ing at any news whether to rejoice or to mourn, in
that every victory of the army seemed but to bring
a step nearer the fulfilment of that dreadful pur-
pose of calling the king to account. By way of
quieting these uneasy thoughts, I rose to go to good
Mr. Henry's, when a little stir at the door aroused
me, and in another minute I was clasped to Aunt
Gretel's heart, and sobbing out my gladness at see-
ing her.
"Hush, sweet heart, hush," said she; "that is the
worst of surprises. I meant to save thee suspense,
and to make as little disturbance as possible."
"I wanted thee so sorely," said I. "It is not
thy coming that has so moved me; it was the trying
to do without thee.
In half an hour she had unpacked her small
bu.ndle, and established herself in the guest-chamber,
with everything belonging to her as quietly in its
place as if it had never known another. Her pre-
272 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
sence brought an unspeakable quiet witli it. The
solitary bouse became home again. And in another
fortnight we were rejoicing together over my first-
born, our little Magdalene; the fountain of delight
opened for us in the desert of those dreary times.
And in September my husband returned to me.
Preston was the last battle of that campaign
worthy the name. The Scottish Royalist army was
broken up, and General Cromwell was welcomed in
Edinburgh, and by the Covenanters everywhere, as
the deliverer of the land.
Throughout September the king was holding con-
ferences at Newport with the Commissioners of the
Parliament. All bore witness to the ability and
readiness with which he spoke. His hair had turned
gray, his face was furrowed with deep lines of care;
but all the old majesty was in his port, they said,
and even those who had known him before were
surprised at his learning and wit.
But, alas, it was mere speech. The king wrote
to his friends excusing himself for making conces-
sions, by the assurance that he merely did it in order
to facilitate his escape.
And more than that, all the actors in that drama,
sincere or not, were rapidly fading into mere per-
formers in a pageant. The decisive conferences were
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 273
held, tlie true work was done, the doom was fixed
elsewhere.
By the middle of November the army, victorious
from Wales and Scotland, and mindful of the prayer-
meeting at Windsor, was again at St. Albans, calling
for justice on the Chief Delinquent.
On the 29th of November the king was removed
from Carisbrook to Hurst Castle, a dreary fort at the
end of a tongue of land opposite the Isle of Wight,
its walls washed by the sea.
On December 2nd the quiet of Mr. Henry's
house and of the royal orchard was broken by the
arrival of a portion of the Parliament army at White-
hall, trampling down with heavy armed tread the
grass which had grown in the deserted palace- court.
On Sunday there was much preaching in many
quarters, of a kind little likely to calm the storm.
In the churches the Presbyterian preachers declaimed
fervently against the atrocity and iniquity of seizing
the person of the king. In the parks Independent
soldiers preached on the equality of all before the
law of God. "Tophet is ordained of old," one of
them took for his text. "For the king it is pre-
pared." A notable example, my husband said, of
that random reading of the Sacred Scriptures which
turns them into a lottery of texts to conjure with,
like a witch's charms.
The Draytoits and the Davenaitts. II. 18
274 THE DRAYIONS AND THE DAVEKANTS :
In the Parliament my old hero Mr. Prynne, with
his cropped ears and his branded forehead, stood up
and boldly pleaded for the king, never braver, I
thought, than then.
On the 5th of December came another invasion
of the Parliament House, Colonel Pride and his sol-
diers turning all the Presbyterian and Royalist mem-
bers back from the doors. "Pride's Purge."
It was a sorely perplexed time. Had the very
act of despotism which first roused the nation to the
point of civil war, now to be repeated in the name
of liberty for the ruin of the king?
What are we fighting for? I asked myself. The
battle-cries, as well as the position of the armies,
had so strangely changed. For the king and Parlia-
ment? The king was in prison. The Parliament
was reduced to fifty members. — For the nation?
The nation was half in insurrection. — For liberty?
No party seemed to allow it to any other.
Roger and the Ironsides alone seemed clear as to
the answer. "We are fighting — not under six hun-
dred members of Parliament, nor under fifty, but
under One Leader and Judge, raised up for us by
God; under General Cromwell," he said. "And he
is fighting for the country, to save it and make it
free, and righteous, and glorious in spite of itself.
When he has done it, it will be acknowledged. Till
A STORY or THE CIVIL WARS. 275
then he must be content to be misjudged; and we
must be content that he should be, as the heroes
have been too often, and the saints nearly always,
until their work, perhaps until their life, is done."
I lay awake much during those nights of De-
cember. My little Magdalene was often restless,
and I used to listen to the flow of the river through
the silence of the sleeping city, and think how the
sea was washing the walls of the king's desolate
prison; praying for him, and for General Cromwell,
and for all, and thanking God that my lot was that
of submitting, instead of that of deciding, in these
terrible times.
But a yet deeper sorrow was advancing slowly
on us all. On the 10th of December came an im-
ploring letter from Lettice, saying that her mother
had failed sadly during the last week , that she and
her mother longed for Dr. Antony, and her mother
even more for me and the babe.
The next day we were on the road to Netherby,
Aunt Gretel, my husband, the babe, and I.
It was late in the evening of the second day
when we reached the dear old house.
We were met with a hush, which fell on me like
a chill. The Lady Lucy had fallen into one of
those quiet sleeps which of late had become so rare
18*
27 G THE DEAVTONS AND THE DAVENANTS.
with her, and the whole household was quieted so
as not to disturb her.
The subdued tone into which everything falls in
a house in which there has been long sickness, and
where everything has been ordered with reference to
one sufferer, fell heavily on us, coming in from the
fresh autumn air with voices attuned to the bracing
winds, and hearts eager with expectations of wel-
come. It was like being ushered into a church
hushed for some mournful ceremony ; and we stepped
noiselessly, and spoke under our breath, until an
unsubdued wail from the only creature of the com-
pany unable to understand the change — the baby
waking suddenly from sleep — broke the dreary
spell of stillness.
The Lady Lucy heard the little one's cry, and
sent to crave a glimpse of us all that night.
In her chamber only, throughout the house, that
anxious hush was absent. She spoke in her natural
voice, though now lower than even its usual sweet
low tones, from weakness. She had a bright wel-
coming word for each; and while gratefully taking
my husband's counsel, declared that baby would be
her head-physician. The very touch of the soft little
fingers, and the sound of her little cooings and crow-
ings, had healing in them, she said.
She looked less changed than I had expected.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 277
But my husband shook his head and would give
little promise. Lettice seemed to me more altered
than her mother. Her eyes had ii steady, deep,
watchful look in them, very unlike their wonted
changeful brilliancy. She said nothing beyond a
few words of welcome to me that night. But the
next morning, the first moment we were alone to-
gether, she took my hands, and pressing them to her
heart, she said, —
"Tell me, Olive; I have been afraid to ask any
one else, but I must know. What do they mean by
Petitions from the army for justice on the Idmj?''''
I was so startled by her sudden appeal, I could
not meet her eyes nor think what to say. I could
only murmur something about there having been so
many Petitions, Remonstrances, and Declarations,
which had ended in mere talking.
"True," said she, "but the army are like no
other party in the state. They do not end with
talking. They know what they want, and mean
what they say, and do what they mean. What do
they mean by Petitions against the Chief Delin-
quent?"
"Many do think, Lettice," I said, "that the
king himself, and not only his counsellors, began all
the evil."
"I know," she replied. "But they have^had
278 THE DRAYl'ONS AND THE DAVKKANTS I
justice enougli on the king, I should think, to satisfy-
any one. They have deprived him of all power,
separated him from the queen and the royal children,
and all who love him, and shut him vip behind iron
bars. And now, they petition for ''justice'' on him.
What would they do to him worse, Olive? What
can he suffer more? What has the king left but
life?"
I could not answer her.
"To touch that^ Olive," she continued, looking
steadily into my eyes, and compelling me by the very
intensity of her gaze to meet them, "to touch that
would be crime, the worst of crimes. It would regi-
cide, parricide.
"But how could it ever be, Olive?" she went on.
"They have assassinated kings, I know, before now.
But that a king should be brought to justice (as they
call it) like a common criminal! Since the world
was, such a thing was never known. It can never
be, Olive," she added in a trembling voice. "I have
heard the king dreads assassination. Do you? Could
his enemies descend to that depth?"
"Never, Lettice," I replied; "never." And in
saying thus I could meet her eyes frankly and fear-
lessly.
Her face lighted up.
A STORY OF 'JHK CIVIL WAKS. 279
"Never; no, I believe not. Then there cjin
surely be little fear. There is no tribunal which can
judge the king. No bar for him to stand arraigned
before but the judgment-seat of God. A king was
never condemned and put to death deliberately and
solemnly in the face of his own people, ami of all
the nations. Never since the world was. And it never
could be. From assassination you are sure he is
safe? Be honest with me, Olive. There are base
men in all parties. You are sure?''''
"As sure as of my life," I said; "as sure as of
my father's word, or Roger's."
"Then there can be no reason to fear," she said.
"I will cast away this avt'ful dread. Oh, Olive,"
she exclaimed, bursting into tears, "you have brought
me new life. Do you know that sometimes during
these last few days, since I heard of those Petitions,
I have almost prayed that if such a fearful crime and
curse could be hanging over England, my mother
might be taken to God first, and learn about it first
there ^ where we shall understand it all. But you
have comforted me, Olive. I need make no such
prayers. What I have so dreaded can never be."
I felt almost guilty of falsehood in letting her
thus take comfort. Yet, if my husband's fears about
Lady Lucy were well founded , there was little
280 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
need for sucli a prayer. And to Time I might surely
leave it to unveil tlie horrors that after all might be
averted.
A STOilY OF THE CIVIL, WAKS. 281
XXXIV.
olive's recollections.
But no intervention from above or from below
came to avert tlie steady unfolding of tlie great tra-
gedy on which the nation's eyes were fixed.
The king went on to his doom, as the doomed in
some terrible old tragedy of destiny, tremblingly
watchful for the storm to break from the side whence
there was no danger, but all the time advancing with
blind fearlessness to confront the lightnings which
were to smite him.
In the solitary sea-washed walls of Hurst Castle
ho listened for the stealthy tread of the assassin.
And when at midnight, on the 1 7th of December, the
creak of the drawbridge was heard between the dash
of the waves, and then the tramp of armed horsemen
echoing beneath the castle-gate, he rose and spent an
hour alone in prayer. Colonel Harrison, who com-
manded these men, had been named to him as one
likely to be employed to assassinate him. "I trust
in God who is my helper," said the king to his faith-
ful servant, Herbert; "but I would not be surprised
282 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
This is a fit place for such a purpose-," and he was
moved to tears; no unmanly tears, and no ground-
less fears. He was not the first of his unhappy race who
had been the victim of treacherous midnight murders.
But when on the morrow he recognized in Colonel
Harrison's honest countenance and frank converse one
incapable of such baseness, his spirits rose, and he
rode away almost gayly with his escort of gallant
and well-mounted men , courteous enough in their
demeanour to him. In the daylight, and in the royal
halls of Windsor, where they lodged him, he felt
strong again in the sacredness of the king's person,
and alas! he fancied himself strong also in those false
schemes of policy which, and which only, had divested
his royal person of its sacredness in the hearts of his
people. "He had yet three games to play," hew^rote,
"the least of which gave him hope of regaining
all."
At "Windsor also he is said to have met the cap-
tive Duke Hamilton, who threw himself at His Ma-
jesty's feet, and, touched no doubt to deepest rever-
ence at the sight of that gray and discrowned head,
exclaimed, "J^ty dear master!" "A dear master in-
deed to thee," the king replied.
On the 5tli of January he gave orders for sowing
melon- seed at Wimbledon; and dwelt hopefully on
what Lord Ormond was doine: for him in Ireland.
A STOIiY OF THE CiVIL, WARS. 283
He made a jest of the threat of bringing liim to a
public trial. Kings Lad been killed in battle-
treacherously put to agonizing deaths in dungeons
whose walls tell no tales, and let no cries of anguish
through ; secretly stabbed at midnight. But these
rebels, it seemed plain, were not foes of that stamp.
Even the example three of his Cavaliers had lately
given them, in treacherously assassinating Rains-
borough, one of Cromwell's bravest officers, at Don-
caster , had kindled in the most fanatical of the
Soundheads no emulation, but simply a burning in-
dignation and contempt. Save the sword of battle,
or the dagger of the murderer, no weapon was known
M'herewith to kill a king. The Roundheads did not
number assassination among their "instruments of
justice." The war was over. What, then, was there
for His Majesty to fear?
Strafford, indeed, had been almost as confident
up to the last. And neither gray hairs nor conse-
cration had saved the archbishop's head from the
scaffold. But between an anointed king and the
loftiest of his subjects, the distinction was not, ac-
cording to the royal and royalist creed, one of de-
gree but of nature.
Moreover, all the courts of Europe surely would
rise and interfere ere a king should be tried before
284 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS:
a tribunal of his lieges, of creatures who held honour
and life by his breath.
Nor only earthly courts. Would the One Tri-
bunal before which a sovereign alone could be sum-
moned, suffer such an infringement of its rights?
So the king went on jesting at the thought of
his subjects bringing him to trial, playing his "three
games," and peacefully sowing seeds for more harvests
than one.
And meanwhile Cromwell came back, slowly
advancing from Scotland to London; Petitions for
justice on the Chief Delinquent lay on the table of
the House of Commons not unheeded; on the 6th of
January, Colonel Pride, with his soldiers, guarded
the door of the House of Commons, and sent thence
every member who was disposed still to prolong
treaties with the king; in the afternoon of that same
Gth of January, General Cromwell was thanked by
the "purged" house, or Rump, of fifty members, for
his services , and the High Court of Justice was in-
stituted for the trial of "Charles Stuart, for traitor-
ously and tyrannically seeking to overthrow the
rights and liberties of the people." And on the
1 9th of January, not three weeks after he had been
tranquilly planning at Westminster for his summer
garden crops, and sowing seed for other harvests in
Ireland, the king was sitting in Westminster Hall
A STORY OF THK CIVIL WAKS. 285
arraigned before this Court as a "tyrant, traitor, and
murderer."
And still, not only were tlie heavens unmoved,
but not a word of remonstrance or of generous plead-
ing had come from one crowned head in Europe.
But meantime, over our little world at Netherby
that awful Presence was hovering to which all the
outward terrors that may, or may not, svirround it
— the midnight dagger, the headsman's axe, the
crowds of eager gazers around the scaffold — are
but as the trappings of the warrior to his sword, or
the glitter of the axe to its edge. Death was silently
wearing away the little remaining strength of Lady
Lucy Davenant.
There was one amongst us nearer the beginning
of the new life than any of us knew, so near that
the roar of the political tempest around us was
hushed ere it reached her chamber; and she lay on
the threshold of the other world almost as unconscious
of the storms of this, as our little infant Magdalene,
whose cradle she used to delight to have beside her.
The tender saintly halo which had encircled her in
my childish imagination came back on her death-
bed. Not, I am sure, because either was a delusion,
but because love and true imagination ever penetrate
through delusions and disguises to the real inner
beauty which death again unveils.
286 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS I
I can remember, as if it were yesterday, the dim
tender smile with wbicli she used to watch the babe
asleep beside her.
Once she said to me, —
"There seems to me something strangely alike,
Olive, in that darling's place and mine, though to
all outward seeming so different. I lie and look at
her and think of the angels in the Percy Shrine at
the Minster at Beverley, how they bear in their
arms to Jesus a little helpless new-born soul, and
He stretches out His hands to take it to His bosom
— a soul new-born from death, to the deathless life
with Him.
"Sometimes it seems like that, Olive, the change
to come for me; so gi-eat and perfect. Sometimes
so easy and simple; more like laying aside gai'ments
we have worn through the night, bathing in the
water of life, and stepping — refreshed and strong,
and 'clothed in raiment clean and white' — into the
next chamber, to meet Him who awaits us there.
So little the change; for we have in us the treasure
we shall bear with us. The new eternal life is in
our Lord, and not in any state or time; and since
we have Him with us, both here and there, it seems
only like stepping a little further into the Father's
house, from the threshold to the inner chambers, and
hearing Him nearer and seeing Him more clearly.
A STORY OF THE CIVIL WARS. 287
Tell Lettice I bad these comforting thoughts, Olive,"
she would say, "I cannot speak to her, she is too
much moved; and she wants me to say I long to
stay on earth, and I cannot, Olive. I cannot feel at
home any more here since Harry is gone. And I
am so weak and sinful, I may do harm as well as
good by staying longer, even to Lettice, poor tender
child. The world, at least the world here in Eng-
land, is very dark to me. And sometimes I think
it will all soon end, not this war only, but all wars,
and the Kingdom come for which the Church has
prayed so long, and the Glorious Epiphany."
One thing I remarked with Lady Lucy, as with
others whom since I have watched passing from this
world of shadows into the world of real things. The
lesser beliefs which separate Christians seemed for-
gotten, fallen far back into the distance and the
sliade, in the presence of the great truths which are
our life — which are Christianity. The spontane-
ous utterances of such Christian deathbeds as I have
watched have had little of party-beliefs, and of
party-politics nothing. As Lady Lucy herself once
said, —
"Oh, if all could only see Him as He is! We
are divided because we are fragments; the whole race
is fallen and broken into fragments. But in Him,
in Christ, all the broken fragments are one again,
288 THE DKAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
and live. Truth is no fair ideal vision : it is
Christ."
And again she would speak of His death with
infinite comfort. "He died really, as really as I
must," she said; "the flesh failed, the heart failed,
but He overcame. He offered Himself up without
spot to God, and me, sin-stained as I am, in Him
— Son, Redeemer, Lord. The Father was in Him,
reconciling the world to Himself. And we are in
Him, reconciled for ever and ever."
Now and then she would ask if we had heard
news of the king. And we gave her such general
and vague accounts as we dared, deeming it un-
meet to distress her with perplexities which would
so soon be unperplexed to her. And this was easy,
her attention being seldom now fixed long on any
subject.
On the 6th of January Roger came on his way
to London from the North, on the old Christmas
day, which Lady Lucy had continued to keep.
In the morning Lettice had read her the gospel
for the day.
In the afternoon when she saw Roger, connecting
him with the army and the king, she asked at once
for His Majesty.
"The king is at Windsor," Roger said.
A STORY OP THE CIVIL WARS. 289
"At liome!" she said with a smile; "at home
again for the Christmas. That is well."
Roger made no reply, and to the relief of all,
her mind passed contentedly from the subject. She
took Lettice's hand and Roger's in hers, pressed them
to her lips, and murmured, "My God, I thank Thee."
And then, as a faintness came over her, we all
withdrew but Lettice.
Roger and I lingered alone in the ante-room.
He was waiting to bid Lettice farewell. "When she
came out of her mother's chamber, she sat down
on the window seat, her eyes cast down, her trembling
mute lips almost as white as her cheeks.
Roger went towards her, and stood before her;
but she made no movement, and did not even lift
her eyelids, heavy and swollen as they were with
much weeping.
"Lettice," he said, "let me say one word before
I go. Let me say one word to comfort you in this
sorrow; for is not your sorrow mine?"
"Of what avail?" she said. "You are taking
the king to London to die. The greatest crime and
curse is about to fall on the nation, and you will
go and share and sanction it, and make it your
own. No word of mine will move you. How can
word of yours comfort me? You will, if you are
commanded by him you have chosen for your priest
' The Braijtons anci ihe Davenants. 11. ■!■"
290 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS :
and king, keep guard by the scaffold wliile the king
is murdered. Did not you tell me so two hours
since? Did not I entreat and implore, and tell you
you were digging a gulf, not only between me and
you, but between you and heaven?"
He stood motionless, except for the quivering of
his lips. "And did I not tell you, that, as a soldier,
I could do no otherwise unless I deserted my chief;
nor as a patriot unless I deserted my country. It is
the king who has betrayed us, Lettice; who has
refused to let us save him and trust him. The
hand that could have stopped all the oppression and
injustice at the source, from the beginning, and did
not, must be the guiltiest hand of all. It is false-
hood that is leading the king to this end, not the
country, nor the Parliament, nor General Crom-
well."
Then she looked up, —
"Do not try to persuade me, Roger," she said,
"God knows I am too willing to be persuaded. I
cannot reason about it any more than about loving
my mother or obeying my father. But what you
will persist to do is crime. I dare not listen to you.
I am untrue," she added, bursting at length into
passionate tears; "I have been a traitor, to let my
mother be deceived — to let her thank God for what
can never be!"
A STORY OF THH CIVIL WARS. 291
"Lettice,"lie said, in a tone of aiiguisli, "if you
reproach yourself, if you call yourself a traitor, wliat
am I?"
"You are as true as the gospel, Eoger," she said,
her sobs subsiding into quiet weeping; "as true as
heaven itself. You would never have done what I
did. You would break your own heart and every
one's rather than utter or act one falsehood, or ne-
glect one thing you believe to be duty. That is what
makes it so terrible."
His voice trembled as he replied, —
"You tru.st me, and yet you think me capable
of a terrible crime."
"I know that to lay sacrilegious hands on the
king is an unspeakable crime," said she; "but to
trust you is no choice of mine. I cannot tear the
trust of my heart from you if I would, Eoger, and
God knows I would not if I could."
A light of almost triumphant joy passed over his
face, as, standing erect before her, with folded arms,
he looked on her downcast face, —
" Then the time must come when a delusion that
cannot separate us in heart can no longer separate
us in life," he said, in tones scarcely audible. "Your
mother said the truth, Lettice, when she joined our
hands. Such words from her lips, at such a time,
are surely prophecy."
19*
292 THE DRAYTONS AND THE DAVENANTS: ,
Lettice sliook lier head.
"My mother saw beyond this world," she said
mournfully; "where there are no delusions, and no
divisions, and no partings."
He bent before her for an instant, and pressed
her hand to his lips. And so they parted.
That night Lettice and I watched together by
Lady Lucy's bedside. And all things that could
distract and divide seemed for the time to be dis-
solved in the peace of her presence.
She revived once or twice and spoke, although
it seemed more in rapt soliloquy than to any mortal
ear.
"Everything grows clear to me," she said once;
"everything I cared most to see. The divisions and
perplexities which bewilder us here are only the
colours the light puts on when it steps on earth. Ou
earth it is scarlet and purple and bordered work; in
heaven it is fine linen, clean and white, clean and
white."
Often she murmured in clear rapid tones, very
awful in the silence of the sick-chamber at night,
the words, —
"The king, the king!"
Lettice and I feared to go to her to ask what
she meant, dreading some question we dared not
A STOUY OF THE ClVIfi WARS. 293
answer. We tliouglit belike lier mind was wander-
ing, as slie did not seem to be appealing to us or
looking for an answer.
But at length the words came more distinctly,
though broken and low, and then we knew what
they meant, —
"The King! King of kings! Faithful and true.
Mine eyes shall see the King in His beauty. He
shall deliver the needy when he crieth, King of the
poor, King of the nations, King of kings. Faithful
and true. I am passing beyond the shadows. I be-
gin to see the lights which cast them. Beyond the
storms — I see the angels of the winds. Beyond
the thunders — they are music, from above. Be-
yond the clouds — they are the golden streets, from
above. Mine eyes shall see the King, as He is, as
He is; no change in Thee, but a change in me. In
Thy beauty, as Thou art."
All the following day the things of earth were
growing dim to her, but to the last her courtesy
seemed to survive her strength. No little service
was unacknowledged; even when the voice was in-
audible, the parched lips moved in thanks or in
prayer.
And on the early morning of the 21st of January
she passed away from us, her hand in Lettice's, her
294 THE DRAYIONS AND THE DAVENANTS.
eyes deep with the awful joy of some sight we couki
not see.
On the evening of that very day came the tid-
ings that the king had been brouglit, on the 19th of
January, as a criminal before the High Court of
Justice in Westminster Hall, to be tried for his life
as principal author of the calamities of the nation.
When Lettice heard it, the first burst of tears
came, breaking the stupor of her sorrow, as she
sobbed on my shoulder, "Thank God, she is safe,
beyond the storms of this terrible distracted world.
She is gone where she will never more be perplexed
what to believe or what to do."
"She is gone," said my father, tenderly taking
one of her hands in bis, "where loyalty and love of
country, and liberty and law, are never at variance;
where the noblest feelings and the noblest hearts are
never ranged against each other. And we hope to
follow her thither."
"But oh," sobbed Lettice, "this terrible space
between!"
"Look up, and press forward, my child," he re-
plied, "and the way will become clear. Step by
step, day by day; the space between is the way
thither."
THE END.
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