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CHAPTER XIV. THE QUESTION

 
     "Dogged as does it."—
 

TROLLOPE.

"Stead, Stead," cried Rusha, running up to him, as he was slowly digging over his stubble field to prepare it for the next crop, "the soldiers are in Elmwood."

"Yes," said Emlyn, coming up at the same time, "they are knocking about everything in the church and pulling up the floor."

"Patience sent us to get some salt," explained Rusha, "and we saw them from Dame Redman's door. She told us we had better be off and get home as fast as we could."

"But I thought we would come and tell you," added Emlyn, "and then you could get out the long gun and shoot them as they come into the valley—that is if you can take aim—but I would load and show you how, and then they would think it was a whole ambush of honest men."

"Aye, and kill us all—and serve us right," said Stead. "They don't want to hurt us if we don't meddle with them. But there's a good wench, Rusha, drive up the cows and sheep this way so that I can have an eye on them, and shew Captain Venn's paper, if any of those fellows should take a fancy to them."

"They are digging all over old parson's garden," said Rusha, as she obeyed.

"Was Jeph there?" asked Stead.

"I didn't see him," said the child.

Steadfast was very uneasy. That turning up the parson's garden looked as if they might be in search of the silver belonging to the Church, but after all they were unlikely to connect him with it, and it was wiser to go on with his regular work, and manifest no interest in the matter; besides that, every spadeful he heaved up, every chop he gave the stubble, seemed to be a comfort, while there was a prayer on his soul all the time that he might be true to his trust.

By-and-by he saw Tom Oates running and beckoning to him, "Stead, Stead Kenton, you are to come."

"What should I come for?" said Stead, gruffly.

"The soldiers want you."

"What call have they to me?"

"They be come to cleanse the steeple house, they says, and take the spoil thereof, and they've been routling over the floor and parson's garden like so many hogs, and are mad because they can't find nothing, and Thatcher Jerry says, says he, 'Poor John Kenton as was shot was churchwarden and was very great with Parson. If anybody knows where the things is 'tis Steadfast Kenton.' So the corporal says, 'Is this so, Jephthah Kenton?' and Jeph, standing up in his big boots, says, 'Aye, corporal, my father was yet in the darkness of prelacy, and was what in their blindness they call a Churchwarden, but as to my brother, that's neither here nor there, he were but a boy and not like to know more than I did.' But the corporal said, 'That we will see. Is the lad here?' So I ups and said nay, but I'd seen you digging your croft, and then they bade me fetch you. So you must come, willy-nilly, or they may send worse after you."

Stead was a little consoled by hearing that his brother was there. He suspected that Jeph would have consideration enough for his sisters and for the property that he considered his own to be unwilling to show the way to their valley; and he also reflected that it would be well that whatever might happen to himself should be out of sight of his sisters. Therefore he decided on following Oates, going through on the way the whole question whether to deny all knowledge, and yet feeling that the things belonging to God should not be shielded by untruth. His resolution finally was to be silent, and let them make what they would out of that, and Stead, though it was long since he had put it on, had a certain sullen air of stupidity such as often belongs to such natures as his, and which Jeph knew full well in him.

They came in sight of the village green where the soldiers were refreshing themselves at what once had been the Elmwood Arms, for though not given to excess, total abstinence formed no part of the discipline of the Puritans; and one of the men started forward, and seizing hold of Steadfast by the shoulder exclaimed—

"As I live, 'tis the young prelatist who bowed himself down in the house of Rimmon! Come on, thou seed of darkness, and answer for thyself."

If he had only known it, he was making the part of dogged silence and resistance infinitely easier to Steadfast by the rudeness and abuse, which, even in a better cause, would have made it natural to him to act as he was doing now, giving the soldier all the trouble of dragging him onward and then standing with his hands in his pockets like an image of obstinacy.

"Speak," said the corporal, "and it shall be the better for thee. Hast thou any knowledge where the priests of Baal have bestowed the vessels of their mockery of worship."

Stead moved not a muscle of his face. He had no acquaintance with priests of Baal or their vessels, so that he was not in the least bound to comprehend, and one of them exclaimed "The oaf knows not your meaning, corporal. Speak plainer to his Somerset ears. He knows not the tongue of the saints."

"Ho, then, thou child of darkness. Know'st thou where the mass-mongering silver and gold of this church be hidden from them of whom it is written 'haste to the spoil.' Come, speak out. A crown if thou dost speak—the lash if thou wilt not answer, thou dumb dog."

Stead was really not far removed from a dumb dog. All his faculties were so entirely wrought up to resistance that he had hardly distinguished the words.

"Come, come, Stead," said Jeph, "thou art too old for thine old sulky moods. Speak up, and tell if thou know'st aught of the Communion Cup and dish, or it will be the worse for thee. Yes or no?"

Stead made a move with his shoulder to push away his brother, and still stood silent.

"There," said Jeph, "it is all Faithful's fault for his rough handling. His back is set up. It was always so from a boy, and you'll get nought out of him."

"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him," quoted the Corporal, taking up a waggoner's whip which stood by the inn door, and the like of which had no doubt once been a more familiar weapon to him than the sword.

"Speak lad—or—" and as no speech came, the lash descended on Stead's shoulders, not, however, hurting him much save where it grazed the skin of his face.

"Now? Not a word? Take off his leathern coat, Faithful, then shall he feel the reward of sullenness."

That Jeph did not interfere, while Faithful and another soldier tugged off his leathern coat, buffeting and kicking him roughly as they did so, brought additional hardness to Stead. He had been flogged in his time before, and not without reason, and had taken a pride in not giving in, or crying out for pain; and the ancient habit acquired in a worse cause, came to his help. He scarcely recollected the cause of his resistance; all his powers were concentrated in holding out, and when after another "Now, vile prelatic spawn, is thy heart still hardened? Yes or no?" the terrible whip came stinging and biting down on his shoulders and back, only protected by his shirt, he was entirely bound up in the determination to endure the pain without a groan or cry.

But after blows enough had fallen to mark the shirt with streaks of blood, Jeph could bear it no longer.

"Hold!" he said. "You will never make him speak that way. Father and mother never could. Strokes do but harden him."

"The sure token of a fool," said the corporal, and prepared for another lash.

"'Tis plain he knows," said one of the others. "He would never stand this if a word would save him."

"Mere malice and obstinacy," said Faithful, "and wilfulness. He will not utter a word. I would beat it out of him, as I was wont with our old ass."

Another stroke descended, worse than all the others after the brief interval, but Jeph again spoke, "Look you, I know the lad of old and you'll get no more that way than if you were flogging the sign-post there. Whether he knows where the things are or not, the temper that is in him will never answer while you beat him, were it to save his life. Leave him to me, and I'll be bound to get an answer from him."

"And I am constable, and I must say," said Blacksmith Blane, moving forwards, with a bar of iron in his hand, and four or five stout men behind him, "that to come and abuse and flog a hard-working, fatherless lad, that never did you no harm, nor anyone else, is not what honest men look for from soldiers that talk so big about Parliament and rights and what not!"

"'Twas for contumacy," began the corporal.

"Contumacy forsooth, as though 'twas the will of the honest gentlemen in Parliament that boys should be misused for nothing at all!"

"If the young dog would have spoken," began the corporal, but somehow he did not like the look of Blane's iron bar, and thought it best to look up at the sun, and discover that it was time to depart if the party were to be in time for roll-call. As it was a private marauding speculation, it might not be well to have complaints made to Captain Venn, who never sanctioned plunder nor unnecessary violence. Even Jeph had to march off, and Steadfast, who had no mind to be pitied, nor asked by the neighbours what was the real fact, had picked up his spade and jerkin, and was out of sight while the villagers were watching the soldiers away.

The first thing he did was to give thanks in heart that he had been aided thus far not to betray his trust, and then to feel that Corporal Dodd's flogging was a far severer matter than the worst chastisement he had ever received from his father, even when he kept Jeph's secret about the stolen apples. Putting on his coat was impossible, and he was so stiff and sore that he could not hope to conceal his condition from Patience.

At home all were watching for him. They ran up in anxiety, for one of the ever ready messengers of evil had rushed down the glen to tell Patience that the soldiers were beating Stead shamefully, and Jeph standing by not saying one word. Little Ben broke out with "Poor, poor!" and Rusha burst into tears at sight of the blood, while Emlyn said "Just what comes of going among the rascal Roundheads," and Patience looked up at him and said "Was it—?" he nodded, and she quietly said "I'm glad." He added, "Jeph's coming soon," and she knew that the trial was not over. The brother and sister needed very few words to understand one another, and they were afraid to say anything that the younger ones could understand. Patience washed the weals with warm water and milk, and wrapped a cloak round him, but even the next morning, he could not use his arms without fresh bleeding, and the hindrance to the work was serious. He could do nothing but herd the cattle, and he was much inclined to drive them to the further end of the moorland where Jephthah would hardly find him, but then he recollected that Patience would be left to bear the brunt of the attack, so that he would not go far off, never guessing, poor fellow, that in his dull, almost blundering fashion, he was doing like the heroes and the martyrs, but only feeling that he must keep his trust at all costs. Jeph, however, did not come that day or the next, so that inwardly, the wound-up feeling had passed into a weariness of expectation, and outwardly the stripes had healed enough for Stead to go about his work as usual only a little stiffly. He went into Bristol on market day as usual, and then it was, on his way out that Jeph joined him, saying it was to bid Patience and the little ones farewell, since the marching orders were for the morrow. He was unusually kind and good-natured; he had a load of comfits for Rusha and Ben, and a stout piece of woollen stuff for Patience which he said was such as he was told godly maidens wore, and which possibly the terror of his steel cap and corslet had cheapened at the mercer's; also he had a large packet of tractates for Stead's own reading, and he enquired whether they possessed a Bible.

Stead wondered whether all this was out of regret at the treatment he had undergone, or whether it was to put him off his guard, and this occupied him when Jeph began to preach, as he did uninterruptedly for the last mile, without any of the sense, if there were any, reaching the mind of the auditor.

They reached the hut, the gifts were displayed; and when the young ones, who were all a little afraid of the elder brother, had gone off to feast upon the sweets, Jeph began with enquiries after Steadfast's back, and he replied that it was mending fast, while Patience exclaimed at the cruelty and wickedness of so using him.

"Why wouldn't he speak then?" said Jeph. "Yea or nay would have ended it in a moment, but that's Stead's way. He looks like it now!" and he did, elbows on knees, and chin on hands.

"Come now, Stead, thou canst speak to me! Was it all because Faithful hauled thee about?"

"He did, and he had no call to," said Stead, surlily.

"Well, that's true, but I'm not hauling thee. Tell me, Stead, I mind now that thou wast out with father that last day ere the Parson was taken to receive his deserts. I don't believe that even thy churlishness would have stood such blows if thou hadst known naught of the idolatrous vessels, and couldst have saved thy skin by saying so! No answer. Why, what have these malignants done for thee that thou shouldst hold by them? Slain thy father! Burnt thine house! No fault of theirs that thou art alive this day! Canst not speak?"

Jeph's temper giving way at the provocation, he forgot his conciliatory intentions and seizing Stead by the collar shook him violently. Growler almost broke his chain with rage, Patience screamed and flew to the rescue, just as she had often done when they were all children together, and Jeph threw his brother from him so that he fell on the root of a tree, and lay for a moment or two still, then picked himself up again evidently with pain, though he answered Patience cheerfully that it was nought.

"Thou art enough to drive a man mad with thy surly silence," exclaimed Jeph, whom this tussle had rendered much more like his old self, "and after all, knowing that even though thou art not one of the holy ones, thou wilt not tell a lie, it comes to the same thing. I know thou wottest where these things are, and it is only thy sullen scruples that hinder thee from speaking. Nevertheless, I shall leave no stone unturned till I find them! For what is written 'Thou shalt break down their altars.'"

"Jeph," said Stead, firmly. "You left home because of your grief and rage at father's death. Would you have me break the solemn charge he laid on me?"

"Father was a good man after his light," said Jeph, a little staggered, "but that light was but darkness, and we to whom the day itself is vouchsafed are not bound by a charge laid on us in ignorance. Any way, he laid no bonds on me, but I must needs leave thee alone in thy foolishness of bondage! Come, Patience, wench, and aid me, I know this rock is honeycombed with caves, like a rabbit warren, no place so likely."

"I help thee—no indeed'" cried Patience. "Would I aid thee to do what would most grieve poor father, that thou once mad'st such a work about! I should be afraid of his curse."

Possibly if Jeph had not pledged himself to his comrades to overcome his brother's resistance, and bring back the treasures, he might have desisted; but what he did was to call to Rusha to bring him a lantern, and show him the holes, promising her a tester if she would. She brought the lantern, but she was a timid, little, unenterprising thing, and was mortally afraid of the caverns, a fear that Patience had thought it well not to combat. Emlyn who had already scrambled all over the face of the slope, and peeped into all, could have told him a great deal more about them; but she hated the sight of a rebel, and sat on the ground making ugly faces and throwing little stones after him whenever his back was turned.

Stead, afraid to betray by his looks of anxiety, when Jeph came near the spot, sat all the time with his elbows on his knees, and his hands over his face, fully trusting to what all had agreed at the time of the burial of the chest, that there was no sign to indicate its whereabouts.

He felt rather than saw that Jeph, after tumbling out the straw and fern that served for fodder in the lower caves, where the sheep and pigs were sheltered in winter, had scrambled up to the hermit's chapel, when suddenly there was a shout, but not at all of exultation, and down among the bushes, lantern and all came the soldier, tumbling and crashing into the midst of an enormous bramble, whence Stead pulled him out with the lantern flattened under him, and his first breathless words were—

"Beelzebub himself!" Then adding, as he stood upright, "he made full at me, and I saw his eyes glaring. I heard him groaning. It is an unholy popish place. No wonder!"

Patience and Rusha were considerably impressed, for it was astonishing to see how horribly terrified and shaken was the warrior, who had been in two pitched battles, and Ben screamed, and needed to be held in Stead's arms to console him.

Jeph had no mind to pursue his researches any further. He only tarried long enough to let Patience pick out half-a-dozen thorns from his cheeks and hands, and to declare that if he had not to march to-morrow, he should bring that singular Christian man, Captain Venn, to exorcise the haunt of Apollyon. Wherewith he bade them all farewell, with hopes that by the time he saw them again, they would have come to the knowledge of the truth.

No sooner was he out of sight among the bushes than Emlyn seized on Rusha, and whirled her round in a dance as well as her more substantial proportions would permit, while Steadfast let his countenance expand into the broad grin that he had all this time been stifling.

"What do you think it was?" asked Patience, still awestruck.

"Why—the old owl—and his own bad conscience. He might talk big, but he didn't half like going against poor father. Thank God! He has saved His own, and that's over!"

CHAPTER XV. A TABLE OF LOVE IN THE WILDERNESS

 
     "Yet along the Church's sky
      Stars are scattered, pure and high;
      Yet her wasted gardens bear
      Autumn violets, sweet and rare,
      Relics of a Spring-time clear,
      Earnests of a bright New Year."
 

KEBLE

No more was heard or seen of Jephthah, or of Captain Venn's troop. The garrison within Bristol was small and unenterprising, and in point of fact the war was over. News travelled slowly, but Stead picked up scraps at Bristol, by which he understood that things looked very bad for the King. Moreover, Sir George Elmwood died of his wounds; poor old Lady Elmwood did not long survive him, and the estate, which had been left to her for her life, was sequestrated by the Parliament, and redeemed by the next heir after Sir George, so that there was an exchange of the Lord of the Manor. The new squire was an elderly man, hearty and good-natured, who did not seem at all disposed to interfere with any one on the estate. He was a Presbyterian, and was shocked to find that the church had been unused for three years. He had it cleaned from the accumulation of dirt and rubbish, the broken windows mended with plain glass, and the altar table put down in the nave, as it had been before Mr. Holworth's time; and he presented to the living Mr. Woodley, a scholarly-looking person, who wore a black gown and collar and bands.

The Elmwood folk were pleased to have prayers and sermon again, and Patience was glad that the children should not grow up like heathens; but her first church going did not satisfy her entirely.

"It is all strange," she said to Stead, who had stayed with the cattle. "He had no book, and it was all out of his own head, not a bit like old times."

"Of course not," said Emlyn. "He had got no surplice, and I knew him for a prick-eared Roundhead! I should have run off home if you had not held me, Patience. I'll never go there again."

"I am sure you made it a misery to me, trying to make Rusha and Ben as idle and restless as yourself," said Patience.

"They ought not to listen to a mere Roundhead sectary," said Emlyn, tossing her head. "I couldn't have borne it if I had not had the young ladies to look at. They had got silk hoods and curls and lace collars, so as it was a shame a mere Puritan should wear."

"O Emlyn, Emlyn, it is all for the outside," said Patience. "Now, I did somehow like to hear good words, though they were not like the old ones."

"Good, indeed! from a trumpery Puritan."

Stead went to church in the afternoon. He was eighteen now, and that great struggle and effort had made him more of a man. He thought much when he was working alone in the fields, and he had spent his time on Sundays in reading his Bible and Prayer-book, and comparing them with Jeph's tracts. Since Emlyn had come, he had made a corner of the cowshed fit to sleep in, by stuffing the walls with dry heather, and the sweet breath of the cows kept it sufficiently warm, and on the winter evenings, he took a lantern there with one of Patience's rush lights, learnt a text or two anew, and then repeated passages to himself and thought over them. What would seem intolerably dull to a lad now, was rest to one who had been rendered older than his age by sorrow and responsibility, and the events that were passing led people to consider religious questions a great deal.

But Stead was puzzled. The minister was not like the soldiers whom he had heard raving about the reign of the saints, and abusing the church. He prayed for the King's having a good deliverance from his troubles, and for the peace of the kingdom, and he gave out that there was to be a week of fasting, preaching, and preparation for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

The better sort of people in the village were very much pleased, nobody except Goody Grace was dissatisfied, and people told her that was only because she was old and given to grumbling at everything new. Blane the Smith tapped Stead on the shoulder, and said, "Hark ye, my lad. If it be true that thou wast in old Parson's secrets, now's the time for thou know'st what."

Stead's mouth was open, and his face blank, chiefly because he did not know what to do, and was taken by surprise, and Blane took it for an answer.

"Oh! if you don't know, that's another thing, but then 'twas for nothing that the troopers flogged you? Well," he muttered, as Stead walked off, "that's a queer conditioned lad, to let himself be flogged, as I wouldn't whip a dog, all out of temper, because he wouldn't answer a question. But he's a good lad, and I'll not bring him into trouble by a word to squire or minister."

The children went off to gather cowslips, and Stead was able to talk it over with Patience, who at first was eager to be rid of the dangerous trust, and added, with a sigh, "That she had never taken the Sacrament since the Easter before poor father was killed, and it must be nigh upon Whitsuntide now."

"That's true," said Stead, "but nobody makes any count of holy days now. It don't seem right, Patience."

"Not like what it used to be," said Patience. "And yet this minister is surely a godly man."

"Father and parson didn't say ought about a godly man. They made me take my solemn promise that I'd only give the things to a lawfully ordained minister."

"He is a minister, and he comes by law," argued Patience. "Do be satisfied, Stead. I'm always in fear now that folks guess we have somewhat in charge; and Emlyn is such a child for prying and chattering. And if they should come and beat thee again, or do worse. Oh, Stead! surely you might give them up to a good man like that; Smith Blane says you ought!"

"I doubt me! I know that sort don't hold with Bishops, and, so far as I can see, by father's old Prayer-book, a lawful minister must have a Bishop to lay hands on him," said Stead, who had studied the subject as far as his means would allow, and had good though slow brains of his own, matured by responsibility. "I'll tell you what, Patience, I'll go and see Dr. Eales about it. I wot he is a minister of the old sort, that father would say I might trust to."

Dr. Eales was still living in Mrs. Lightfoot's lodgings, at the sign of the Wheatsheaf, or more properly starving, for he had only ten pounds a year paid to him out of the benefice that had been taken away from him; and though that went farther then than it would do now, it would not have maintained him, but that his good hostess charged him as little as she could afford, and he also had a few pupils among the gentry's sons, but there were too many clergymen in the same straits for this to be a very profitable undertaking. There were no soldiers in Mrs. Lightfoot's house now, and the doctor lived more at large, but still cautiously, for in the opposite house, named the "Ark," whose gable end nearly met the Wheatsheaf's, dwelt a rival baker, a Brownist, whose great object seemed to be to spy upon the clergyman, and have something to report against him, nor was Mrs. Lightfoot's own man to be trusted. Stead lingered about the open stall where the bread was sold till no customer was at hand, and then mentioned under his breath to the good dame his desire to speak with her lodger.

"Certainly," she said, but the Doctor was now with his pupils at Mistress Rivett's. He always left them at eleven of the clock, more shame of Mrs. Rivett not to give the good man his dinner, which she would never feel. Steadfast had better watch for him at the gate which opened on the down, for there he could speak more privately and securely than at home.

He took the advice, and passed away the time as best he could, learning on the way that a news letter had been received stating that the King was with the Scottish army at Newcastle, and that it was expected that on receiving their arrears of pay, the Scots would surrender him to the Parliament, a proceeding which the folk in the market-place approved or disapproved according to their politics.

Mrs. Rivett's house stood a little apart from the town, with a court and gates opening on the road over the down; and just as eleven strokes were chiming from the town clock below, a somewhat bent, silver-haired man, in a square cap and black gown, leaning on a stick, came out of it. Stead, after the respectful fashion of his earlier days, put his knee to the ground, doffed his steeple-crowned hat and craved a blessing, both he and the Doctor casting a quick glance round so as to be sure there was no one in sight.

Dr. Eales gave it earnestly, as one to whom it was a rare joy to find a country youth thus demanding it, and as he looked at the honest face he said:

"You are mine hostess' good purveyor, methinks, to whom I have often owed a wholesome meal."

"Steadfast Kenton, so please your reverence. There is a secret matter on which I would fain have your counsel, and Mistress Lightfoot thought I might speak to you here with greater safety."

"She did well. Speak on, my good boy, if we walk up and down here we shall be private. It does my heart good to commune with a faithful young son of the Church."

Steadfast told his story, at which the good old Canon was much affected. His brother Holworth, as he called him, was not in prison but in the Virginian plantations. He was still the only true minister of Elmwood, and Mr. Woodley, though owned by the present so-called law of the land, was not there rightly by the law of the Church, and, therefore, Stead was certainly not bound to surrender the trust to him, but rather the contrary.

The Doctor could have gone into a long disquisition about Presbyterian Orders, contradicting the arguments many good and devout people adduced in favour of them, but there was little time, so he only confirmed with authority Stead's belief that a Bishop's Ordination was indispensable to a true pastor, "the only door by which to enter to the charge of the fold."

Then came the other question of attendance on his ministry, and whether to attend the feast given out for the Sunday week, after the long-forced abstinence: Patience's, ever since the break-up of the parish; Steadfast's, since the siege of Bristol. Dr. Eales considered, "I cannot bid you go to that in the efficacy of which neither you nor I believe, my son," he said. "It would not be with faith. Here, indeed, I have ministered privately to a few of the faithful in their own houses, but the risk is over great for you and your sister to join us, espied as we are. How is it with your home?"

"O, sir, would you even come thither?" exclaimed Steadfast, joyfully, and he described his ravine, which was of course known to the Elmwood neighbours, but very seldom visited by them, never except in the middle of the day, and where the thicket and the caverns afforded every facility for concealment.

Whitsun Day was coming, and Dr. Eales proposed to come over to the glen and celebrate the Holy Feast in the very early morning before anyone was astir. There were a few of his Bristol flock who would be thankful for the opportunity of meeting more safely than they could do in the city, since at Easter they had as nearly as possible been all arrested in a pavilion in Mr. Rivett's garden which they had thought unsuspected.

There would be one market day first, and on that Stead would come and explain his preparations, and hear what the Doctor had arranged. And so it was. The time was to be three o'clock, the very dawn of the long summer day, the time when sleep is deepest. Dr. Eales and Mrs. Lightfoot would come out the night before, he not returning after his lesson to the Rivetts, and she making some excuse about going to see friends for the Sunday.

The Rivetts, living outside the gates where sentries still kept guard, could start in the morning, and so could the four others who were to form part of the congregation. Goody Grace was the only person near home whom Patience wished to invite, for she too had grieved over the great deprivation, and had too much heart for the Church to be satisfied with Mr. Woodley's ministrations. Perhaps even she did not understand the difference, but she could be trusted, and the young people knew how happy it would make her.