HOW WE JOURNEYED UP TO YORKSHIRE; AND HOW WE WERE WELCOMED THERE.

Though I remember so plainly what passed on our last day in Milthorpe Manor-house, I am not very clear about our journey up to Yorkshire, which was tedious enough. We kept to the king’s highway, and yet were sometimes put in much fear of thieves, but happily we fell in with none; the only notable thing that befell us was in leaving a little market town, I cannot call to mind its name, where we had stopped to dine. We had ridden but a little way forth of the town when we heard a great din of shouting and hooting behind us, which made us women afraid; and presently a noisy rabblement of people came running up. They were chiefly of the baser sort, both men and women, some very ragged, and some red-faced and half tipsy; one or two gentlemen in laced coats rode among them. I thought at first they had some spite at us, but it proved not so. We drew to the wayside to let them pass, and they went by, very disorderly, yelling and swearing, the women not less than the men, pushing and hauling some poor creature dragged along in their midst. I looked earnestly to see who it might be, and presently discerned the person a tall thin man, in a kind of loose garment girded about him, and I think it was made of some hempen stuff, a kind of sacking. This man was very pale, with longish dark hair hanging about his face, which, as I say, was pale indeed, but not dismayed; I think he even smiled when one struck him on the head, and another, pushing him, bade him, with a curse, go faster. I saw the blood trickling a little from the blow that had alighted on his head, as they hurried him past.

Andrew, who saw all this as well as I did, looked full of horror. He caught one of the hindmost of the rabble by the sleeve and asked him harshly, What has this man done, and whither are you taking him? At which the man, turning towards us his red, jovial face, replies,

’It’s a mad Quaker, that took upon him this noon to stand up in our market-place, it being market day and every one mighty busy, and he tells us all to our face we were a set of cheating rogues, that he had marked our doings and seen how bad they were, and that he had a commission from God to bid us repent and amend, or a sudden dreadful judgment should fall on us. Didst ever hear of such a fool?’

And what more did he, says Andrew, to make you handle him so roughly? at which the man stared and said,

’Nay, what more needed there? Matters are come to a pretty pass if free Englishmen, who are pleased to cheat and be cheated according to the fashion of this world, mayn’t do so neighbourly and kindly without some canting rogue starting up to control them. We bade him hold his peace for a mad ass, but he would not. So we judged his frenzy to be something too hot, and that a cold bath were good to cure it; and Squire, riding up and seeing the bustle we were in, offered us his own duck-pond for the ducking of our preacher. Stay me no longer! I shall lose the best sport;’ and Andrew snatching at him again to make him stay, he broke from him and ran as hard as he could after the crowd, that was now got some way from us.

You hear and see this, Mrs. Golding? says Andrew, turning to her, his mild countenance grown dark with anger. There may be murder done yet, let me ride after and see what I can do to hinder it; and setting spurs to his horse he galloped off after the rabble. We saw him pressing in among them, riding close up to the chief horseman, talking earnestly to him; then we saw no more of them, they going round the turn of the road; and Mrs. Golding, half frowning, half smiling, says,

’It’s ever so with Andrew! he cannot see mischief a-foot but he is all afire to stop it. I like it in the lad, but I wish yon poor fanatic had been content to stay at home and mind his own business, instead of crossing us so unluckily here.’ She looked anxiously.

Presently Andrew comes back to us, riding pretty quickly, and Mrs. Golding called to him,

Now, my lad, hast not gone on a fools errand this time also? but he said smiling,

’That is as you take it, good mother. Yon Squire has some humanity in him, and some wit; for when I began vehemently to urge how sinful were the murdering of yon poor man, he smiled and let me know his proffer of the duck-pond was but to get the man out of the hands of his ill-wishers, for he meant to draw the Quaker within his gates and then have them shut as if by mistake on the rabble, who were already growing aweary with the length of the way, and so were dropping off by twos and threes.’

‘So thou hast had thy labour for thy pains?’ says Mrs. Golding, smiling as one well pleased.

‘Not altogether,’ said Andrew, ’for the Squire wills us to turn into the byway here, and keep from the high road awhile, lest we meet the baser rascals coming back, in all their fury and disappointment.’

‘Good counsel,’ said Mrs. Golding; ‘we will take it.’ And so we kept to that byway for a mile or so; and it was rough uneasy riding, though a pretty green lane enough.

Althea said to me half aside, We had had none of these discomforts, if we had ridden as we were wont with our father, in a good coach like gentlewomen, and not a-horseback in the country fashion; the first discontented word she had said, and Mrs. Golding hearing it,

‘Child,’ said she, ’I cannot away with these coaches, they are proud lazy inventions, and nothing like so wholesome as this our old country fashion of travelling;’ at which Althea blushed and said nothing more, and Mrs. Golding began pleasantly to chide Andrew for his hazarding of our safety as he had done, which had put Althea into these discontents; and he hung his head, smiling, and had not a word to say for himself. I should scarce have remembered this accident, or Andrew’s behaviour on it, had it not been for things that befell after.

I was heartily weary of journeying by the time we got to West Fazeby; the way was long, the manner of travelling new to me, I had not so much as slept at an inn before, our former home being no great distance from town; and my company was not such as to shorten the way, for Aunt Golding was the only frank and cheerful-spoken person in our party, Althea behaving, as I told her, like an enchanted princess in a fairy tale, so melancholy, proud, and silent, and Andrew being so dashed with her stately ways that the poor youth was not less tongue-tied than she. So I was glad indeed when we rode out of York one fine morning, and Mrs. Golding told us we must reach her house before the day was out; in which she said no more than truth.

She having always talked of it as a poor farmhouse, our surprise was not little when we saw it at last. It stands a little away from the village; it is no great house, but is a right fair one to my thinking, built of red brick, with a great deal of wood, handsomely carved, about the gables and the porch; it is much grown with ivy, at which our aunt would often rail, but I think for all that she loved it, seeing it makes the house green and pleasant even in winter. And at the back, looking into the gardens and orchards, was a pleasant porch, a very large one, grown with roses as well as ivy, wherein Althea and I have spent many a happy hour in summer-time, sitting there with our needlework or our lutes. I can see it in fancy, and would very fain be in it, looking on our lily beds and green walks and arbours, instead of these hot and dreary streets. But it’s too likely I shall never see West Fazeby or any other pleasant place on earth again.

A good comely man and woman, plainly habited like serving folks, came forth to greet Mrs. Golding, and she commended us to them much as she had done to Andrew, saying to us, ’These are Matthew Standfast and his wife Grace; good, kind souls, who look well to my house when I cannot do it. And how doth little Patience?’ she went on to ask Dame Standfast; ‘and have you seen aught of Mr. Truelocke while I have been gone?’ and so chatting she led us into the hall, where we found a table ready covered, and the little Patience Standfast ready to attend us at it, a pretty child, fair-haired and blue-eyed, very civil and modest. We were not long in finding that she and her parents, with a serving-man or two, made all my aunt’s household; and that she did very much work with her own hands, and would expect the like of us; a thing which displeased Althea not a little, but she said nothing of it, only to me, when we were got to our own chamber.

‘And it is an odd thing,’ she continued, when I did not reply, ’that Mrs. Golding should sit and should take her meals in the open hall, when there are one or two fair parlours more fitting for her occupation.’

But the hall is a pleasant place, I said; and indeed it was so to me, I hardly know why, being a very plain apartment, with a checkered pavement of blue and white stones, and furnished only with bright oaken tables and settles, and a great chair or two; also the great fireplace was well garnished with green boughs and flowers, it being summer. I looked all about it that evening as we sat in it chatting with our aunt, and was thinking I should always like it, plain as it was, when I was aware of two persons coming into the porch, one walking feebly like an old man, and one stepping firmly and strongly; and Mrs. Golding, springing up, ran forward to greet them, saying,

Welcome! welcome, good Mr. Truelocke! this is a greater kindness than I had hoped for; so she drew into the light of our candles a reverend old gentleman, clad in a black gown; he had white hair hanging about his face, and in his hand a stout staff on which he leaned as he walked. There came at his side a young, strongly-framed man, in a seamans habit, who, I thought, looked something like him, having the same strong features, but a clear, merry blue eye and brown curling hair; he was very watchful over the old gentleman, who seemed to move feebly. Our aunt greeted him kindly by the name of Master Harry, and said, Its good of you to bring your father up so soon to welcome me, whereon the young man smiled and said,

Nay, it is he that hath brought me; there was no holding him when he had heard of your return. I would gladly have kept him within doors, fearing the night damps for him; and our aunt laughed also, and said to us,

’Come, Althea, come, Lucy, and speak to my best friend, who was a good friend to your mother also; it is the parson of this parish, Mr. Truelocke, and this his son Harry, newly come home from the seas;’ so we came up and greeted the old gentleman reverently, and his son as kindly as we might; and Mrs. Golding put Mr. Truelocke into a great armed chair, and sat looking at him with vast contentment. He looked at her and smiled a wonderfully sweet smile.

Had you brought these young maids home a month or two later, Mrs. Golding, says he, you could not truly tell them I was the parson of this parish or of any other. But well let that pass; and turning to us he began to speak to us kindly and fatherly, pitying our afflictions, and bidding us praise and thank God, who had raised up so good a friend to help us. I was glad to hear his words, though they brought the tears into mine eyes; but our aunt sat impatiently, and presently broke in on his discourse, saying,

’What mean you, sir, by telling me in a month or two you will be no parson of this parish? is there anything new?’

’Nothing, but the falling of a full-ripe fruit, that began to blossom two years agone,’ says the old gentleman cheerfully; ’it hath been long a-ripening, ‘twas time it should fall.’

Give me none of your parables, good friend; I want plain speech, cries our aunt; and Master Harry said bluntly,

’Madam, it’s all along of the new Act for Uniformity which was printed and set forth this last May. You were too full at that time of your apprehensions for these young ladies to be curious to read that mischievous Act; but, since it touches my father nearly, he mastered its meaning with great pains, and has thought of little else for many days; and the upshot of all this is, that next Bartholomew-tide he will go forth, like Abraham of old, to wander he knows not whither;’ at which words Mrs. Golding sighed deeply, and sat as one amazed.

‘It is even so, my kind friend,’ said Mr. Truelocke, smiling.

‘Well, I can’t tell what you may think here of the matter,’ went on Master Harry; ’but in my conscience, I think my father’s conscience something too tender.’

‘You speak like a man of this world, Harry,’ says Andrew, who had come in, and was looking at the young man with frowning brows and angry eyes.

‘How else would you have me speak?’ says Harry. ’I am but a plain sailor, and I pretend not to know any world but this work-a-day world that I have to get my bread in. I leave the new worlds in the moon, or beyond it, to poets and madmen; and I’ll tell you my mind of the matter, if you will hear me.

He stopped, and Mrs. Golding said, ’Speak your mind, Master Harry, it’s ever an honest mind, and full of goodwill.’

‘I will venture then,’ said he, ’and do you bear with me, Andrew, and father too. I take it the Church of this country is a good ship that has to sail whither her owners will. A while since they were all for steering her straight to the Presbyterian port; now that voyage likes them not, and they would have her make for Prelacy. It’s pity that the good ship has owners of such inconstant minds; but why should not the crew obey orders, and sail the ship as they are bid?’

‘Wrong, all wrong, all wrong, Harry, my boy,’ said the old man, with a groan; ’thou hast no spiritual sense of these things. How dare Christ’s liegemen take their orders from the carnal rulers of this or any other country? Have I not seen the government of England change like the moon, ay, and more strangely? and shall I follow the changing moon as doth the faithless sea, ebbing and flowing in my zeal for truth like the tide? Nay verily! what was God’s truth in Oliver’s days is the truth of God still; and I will cleave to it.’

As I gazed at the old man’s face, pale and wrinkled and awful, I thought that so might have looked the prophet Moses when he brake the tables of the Law. Mr. Truelocke’s deepset dark eyes flashed fire under his long white eyebrows, which themselves seemed to stir and to rise and fall, as he spoke with great passion, and he struck his staff against the floor.

Althea was looking from one to another, something puzzled; presently her silver voice broke the silence that had fallen upon us; she said, ’All that you say is so dark to me, it makes me feel like a fool for my lack of comprehension; will you, madam, tell me in a few words what it is that troubles you and Mr. Truelocke?’

Its our new masters, dear heart, who have been making of new laws, said Mrs. Golding; and Andrew added instantly,

’Our pastors, madam, must consent to renounce the Covenant, and must use the Common Prayer-Book as newly set forth by authority of King Charles the Second and his Parliament; or they must leave to preach and to pray in the churches called of England, and must renounce their livings too; and this by the twenty-fourth of August next, which the Papists and such-like cattle call St. Bartholomew’s Day. That is the story in little of the doings which afflict our good mother and our reverend friend.’

‘It’s a dry short setting forth of the matter, friend Andrew,’ said the old man.

‘But is it a true one?’ asked Althea.

‘Yea,’ said he, ’too true, this is the new law; but I shall, as I think, follow after the footsteps of godly Mr. Baxter; he hath already ceased preaching, that his weaker brethren, such as I, may be in no manner of doubt as to what he thinketh. I shall not change my mind twice, once having seen the great error of my early prelatical opinions, as your good aunt knoweth I have seen it.’

‘Well,’ said Mrs. Golding, sighing heavily, ’we will pray you may have illumination from above. I cannot tell how we shall do, bereft of our father in Christ. But I dare not urge any man against his conscience. And now am I ashamed that you have been so long within my doors and I have yet set nothing before you. Lucy, Althea, come help me;’ and she bustled about, and presently with our help had set a dish of strawberries and cream, with nuts and cakes and wine, before our guests. Mr. Truelocke ate but little, which grieved my aunt; and he would drink nothing but spring water. But Harry was gay enough for two. We could get him to touch nothing until he had both of us girls served, he saying we were greater strangers than he. And since I chose to eat nuts, he would do the same, and would crack all mine for me. He had a clever way of doing this with his hands only, which were small, but like iron for strength; I made a cup of my hands that he might pour the sweet kernels into it, and so doing we scattered some on the floor, and both dropt on our knees to pick them up, when I, being nimbler than he, had them all snatched up before he could touch one; then we both laughed heartily. I was startled to hear myself laughing, and looked at Althea; and she seemed to be regarding me with scorn as if she despised me perfectly, so I checked my laughing and sat down quite crestfallen.

Then Harry, sitting by me, half whispered, ’Now, sweet madam, if you did but know what music a heart-free laugh is to mine ears, you would not stop yours in the middle. I have no quarrel with my father’s nor your aunt’s piety, but there’s too little laughing in it.’

‘It’s not piety that checks me now,’ I said; ’do not credit me with more than I have; but a new-made orphan like me might well feel it something heartless to be very mirthful.’

‘That’s it, is it?’ said he, looking comically from me to Althea, and then at me again. ’Now tell me, sweet lady, if you know any good reason why mirth should be a thing forbid to those who have had a cruel loss? If in the middle of a winter voyage, when the stormy winds do blow, we mariners should have one fair sunshine day, we don’t spend it in bemoaning the black days that went before and the black days that will come after.’

‘And what has that to do with me and my griefs?’ asked I.

‘Only this,’ said he, ’that you should not be less wise than a sailor lad; think no shame to be glad when your heart bids you, whatever sorrows lie before or behind you. And I’ll keep you in countenance, whenever I see your fair mournful sister reproving your gaiety with her eyes; but you must do the same by me with my father and your aunt. Is it a bargain? strike hands on it!’

He held out his hand, and I put mine into it I could not help it; though I stole a look at Althea, but her attention was drawn away by Andrew, who was half timidly urging her to eat some more of Mrs. Golding’s dainties; she would not, however; and presently Mr. Truelocke, who had been talking apart with Mrs. Golding, got up and would be going; so when he and Harry were withdrawn, we all went shortly to our beds, being very weary; and for my part I felt that I was in a new world I could not half understand; but there seemed some pleasant things in it.

I liked it better still as the days ran on. Country life at West Fazeby was more to my mind than ever it had been at Milthorpe. There we were waited on dutifully by kind old servants, and might not soil our fingers by any coarse work. Here I was taken into the dairy and the still-room, and instructed in their mysteries, and in many another useful household art; I might feed the pigeons and the other pretty feathered folk in the barnyard, and I got no reproof for my coarse tastes when I was found learning from Grace Standfast how to milk a cow, and making acquaintance with young foals and calves. There were prettier works too; gathering and making conserve of roses, and sharing in the pleasant harvest of the strawberry beds and the cherry orchard, or tossing of hay in the meadows. I will not deny that all these things were more pleasant to me that year than they have ever been since; partly because I was so new to them, and partly because Harry Truelocke often took part in them also. My merry and kind playfellow, I wonder if you have yet any heart for such simple pleasures? or if, in the midst of miseries and perils, you can still jest and laugh?

Althea went with me and shared in these occupations, except in the haymaking and the milking; but she did so with a grave and serious air, seeming to give her whole mind to the work, as if it were a task she had to learn, whereas I thought it but a delightful pastime that I loved in spite of its being profitable.

Mrs. Golding took no note, as it seemed, of Althea’s sad and steadfast ways; but Andrew marked them, I could see, though, being daily busy with out-door matters and cares of our aunt’s estate, he was but little in our company. When he was with us, he surrounded Althea with a careful, watchful kindness, treating her so reverently as if she were some sacred thing, and indeed never venturing to say much to her unless she spoke first; all which she never appeared to notice.

Now it is a strange thing that in this pretty peaceful time the stormiest day and the fruitfullest of future mischiefs should have been a certain Lords Day, only a week or two after our coming. It was from Mr. Truelocke that I learnt to say the Lords Day, Sunday, said he, being a heathenish, idolatrous word, nor would he allow of the fashion of calling the day of rest the Sabbath. We keep not holy, said he, the seventh-day Sabbath of the people of Israel, but the first day made holy for us by the resurrection of our Lord; and I saying idly to him, out of the poet Shakespeare, whom my father loved,

’What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet,

he looked sternly, almost angrily on me, and said, ’Madam, what have ends of stage-plays, and the idle talk of a lovesick girl about her lover’s name and the names of flowers, I say, what have these vanities to do with a glorious divine thing like the Christian’s Day of Rest? And believe me, there is much in names, too much in names. What a spell to conjure with is the name of King! and the name of Priest may make wild work in our poor England yet.’

I was dumb when he reproved me thus; and thinking of it after, I began to have some glimmering why this good man should resolve to give up his all, rather than use a Prayer-Book he deemed not according to right doctrine, since he was so earnest about the right name for one holy day. I found it to be a strong point with him, some of his flock murmuring at him about it, and saying how could we appeal to the Fourth Commandment if our holy day might not be called the Sabbath? But he cared not for their words; no, nor for king, nor for Parliament, compared with what he deemed right.

I used to wonder if his heart would have been so stout had he had wife and children to care for; but he had been many years widowed, and Harry, his only child, had carved his own way in the world, being now part owner of the ship he sailed himself.

But by whatever name folks called it, the Lord’s Day in West Fazeby was then a sweet, religious, holy day, and I loved it. Alas, to think of the changes wicked men have made!