Part 16

“Well, this is comfort; for I love him passing well:--keep my secret, Katharine; you know not how faithfully I have kept yours.” As Jane Lambert thus spoke, she took the hand of her fair cousin and pressed it against her beating heart. Katharine drew it away with a sudden agitation, and placing it on her pale forehead seemed to muse awhile: her eyes wore the expression of one that was wildly busy over the mysterious tablets of her memory; at last, fixing them on Jane with a troubled gaze, “I have it,” she said: “a light flashes on me; the interview with Francis: it was observed by some one; it was known to Juxon, and you have borne----”

“Nothing that I would not bear again for the love of Katharine, and for her peace of mind.”

“Noblest of beings, alas! how am I punished for having thus employed you! why did you not tell me all? May God forgive me! I never can forgive myself.”

“Talk not thus,” said Jane, rushing into her arms. “This moment richly repays whatever I have suffered: that which I may now safely relate to you you could not have borne at the time, nor should I tell it even now, if it were not that I know you will be seeking some explanations from Juxon.”

The generous girl now gave a minute narration of all that had passed between herself and Francis at their interview. She told how very deeply she had been affected by the devotion with which he spoke of Katharine, and by those looks and gestures which revealed the constancy and the ardour of his love: the action so passionate towards her, upon whom his mind’s eye was inwardly resting, with which Francis had parted from herself, was not forgotten. The circumstance of her immediately after meeting with Juxon, and the scene which passed between them, were described with the like fidelity.

A paleness as of marble overspread the face of Katharine; her eyes assumed a vacant regard; her hand became cold, and from her moving lips no sound was audible. She stood a while like one suddenly turned to stone; and Jane, expecting her every instant to swoon away, supported her in trembling terror. It seemed an age of agony to Jane, though the trance did not last more than three awful minutes. The eyelids of Katharine closed; tears glittered on the long dark lashes; warmth and consciousness returned. She slowly opened her eyes; and, fixing them on Jane with an affection no words could convey, suffered herself to be led back in unbroken silence to the mansion.

CHAP. XX.

’Tis _jest_ to tell a people that they’re free: _Who_ or _how many_ shall their _masters_ be Is the sole doubt. COWLEY.

Before the walls of Hull, in Yorkshire, King Charles was first made sensible that the powers and the prerogatives of the crown were already usurped by the Parliament. Sir John Hotham shut the gates of the city, and refused to admit the small force by which the King was attended.

The governor stood upon the wall, and the King, who had appointed him to that office of trust, sat upon his horse beneath, and heard a sickening protestation of loyalty to his person, while the guards, to whom he intrusted its defence, were treated as the enemies of his throne and kingdom. Here began that artful distinction, whereby the Parliamentarians professed to keep garrisons and raise soldiers in the name of the King, while they opposed his wishes and resisted his authority.

They had already taken from the King the power of the militia; and having compelled him to throw himself on the support of the private gentry, the flame of civil war was soon kindled.

At the time when his Majesty was thus repulsed by Sir John Hotham, he was surrounded by a small company of gallant gentlemen, who had formed themselves into a body guard; and he found himself, in a province remote from his capital, without a regiment, without money to raise one, and without a single garrison or company of soldiers in all England receiving his pay or acknowledging the royal orders: the navy, the ordnance, stores, magazines, and the revenue, were in the keeping of the Parliament. His sole dependence was on the loyalty, the courage, and the resources of the country gentlemen of England.

The midland counties were for the most part subjected to the influence of the Parliament, and lay too near the city of London to resist or even dispute the commands of that powerful assembly.

This body was no sooner apprised of the conduct of Hotham, and informed that he had been proclaimed a traitor by the King, than they openly justified the conduct of that governor, and soon after publicly voted “that the King intended to levy war against the Parliament.” This declaration was followed by active preparations for war on both sides; but the advantages for commencing it were greatly on the side of the Parliament; and the gentry in the west, and more especially in the northern counties, were, at first, disheartened by the evident distraction of the King’s counsel, and the gloomy aspect of his affairs.

Therefore, in Yorkshire, though many promises were given, few troops were raised; and if Shropshire and Wales had not been animated by a more lively hope, and a warmer zeal, no royal army could ever have appeared in the field.

Meanwhile the levies for the Parliament were very successful, and men came in as fast as they could be received and armed. In addition to these volunteers, the rustics drawn for the militia were compelled to join their corps, and were put under the training of such officers as could be found.

In July, the Parliament voted the Earl of Essex their general of foot, and appointed the Earl of Bedford the commander of their horse; and early in August declared themselves necessitated to take arms and to commence hostilities.

These vigorous measures inspired their partisans throughout the kingdom with a resolute spirit, and in London not a voice was openly lifted up for the King.

As early as the month of May, Francis Heywood had procured his services to be accepted as captain of a troop of horse under Sir John Balfour, and was by him immediately appointed an instructor or sergeant-major[A] of cavalry.

[A] The titles of Sergeant-Major, and Sergeant-Major-General, at that period, correspond with Adjutant-Major and Adjutant-General of our times.

At such a moment, the zeal of Cuthbert Noble would not suffer him to remain behind, while so many were taking arms for the great, and, as he thought, holy cause, of liberty. He did not find it difficult, through the favour of a friend, to obtain the grade of lieutenant in a company of foot; and he set forth on a fine morning in June to join a regiment then assembled in quarters at the town of St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, for training.

His finances did not admit of more than a very humble equipment,--accordingly he was mounted on a low shambling pony, across which he had also placed the saddle bags containing his better gear, his Bible, and two or three violent pamphlets of the day against prelacy and the divine right of kings.

Notwithstanding the heat of his opinions, and his hearty concurrence in the measures of the Parliament, Cuthbert, in his lonely hours, was of that serious and solemn temper of mind, that he could not but reflect on the step he was now taking with more than his wonted gravity.

That his present course would be distressing to his father he well knew; but he silenced this whisper of his better angel with the consideration that his father was old, timid, and averse to change, rather from early prejudices and associations than from the light of conscience and the use of right reason.

Again, with that obliquity of mind with which men who are in fact taking their own way wish to think it that appointed by Providence, he ran over all the texts of Scripture then in the mouths of the Roundheads, as justifying their appeal to arms, and silenced all the lingering remonstrances that yet struggled in his bosom with those inapplicable words of Holy Writ, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”

Having thus, by forcibly wresting a quotation from Scripture, served his immediate purpose, and given freedom and tranquillity to his spirit, he suffered his imagination to dress out the duties of military life in all their most sacred glory. The language of the Old Testament, and that of the profane authors with which he was familiar, were called up in a strange confusion to gild the prospect before him,--and now a song of triumph from his Bible, now a quotation from Homer, was sounding on his lips, and ere he was aware was kindling a vain and unholy ambition:--a secret and impious persuasion of the favour and approval of Heaven filled him with a swelling anticipation of coming victories and high rewards. He resolved that the virtues of the Spartan or the Roman soldier should in his person be combined with the ardour and the holiness of the most chosen warriors of Israel.

He saw not the lean and sorry nag beneath him; he thought not of those weary marches which he should have to make afoot, when the miserable jade on which he was now sitting astride his saddle bags should be stumbling along stony or miry ways in a train of baggage horses; but he pictured out a future in which he should ride among the princes of the people, and in marches of triumph.

From this dream of his fancy he was suddenly and very effectually awakened by feeling the animal, which he was riding, sink under him with an uneasy motion; and, before he could possibly prevent it, he found the water of a considerable stream, which he was then fording, above his knees, and his saddle bags thoroughly soaked through. The beast had his own notions of enjoyment as well as his dreamy rider; and, as the day was hot, the road was dusty, and his burden sufficiently oppressive, had taken this very seasonable refreshment.

Nature suddenly asserted her power over the precise young Puritan; and, to the scandal of all his late professions, he gave vent to his wrath in certain violent and unseemly phrases which would not have disgraced the most accomplished swearer among the wild Cavaliers of that time. These oaths were but the accompaniments of sundry hard blows with a cudgel, kickings with the heel, and jerks of the rein, by dint of which the nag, unable to rebuke him for his injustice, was compelled to rise and go forward. The accident was in itself sufficiently provoking; and the irritation of Cuthbert was increased by encountering on the bank an old beggar with a wooden leg, who, tossing his staff pike fashion, loudly asked his alms for an old crippled soldier done up in the wars; and, thrusting his tongue in his cheek, eyed his foolish plight with a merry satisfaction, which he could not conceal.

“Out upon thee!” said Cuthbert, “for an old drunken impostor:--such fellows as you tippling bawlers of ballads are the curse of the land;--go scrape your cracked fiddle for sots on the ale bench, and don’t trouble honest men on their road.”

“The lie in thy throat, thou prick-eared canting Roundhead!” replied the old soldier:--“thou foul-mouthed hypocrite! is it for thou to rate sinners after rattling out oaths like a shameless brawler in a bear garden? I am a cleaner spoken man than thou, blessings on him who taught me, and more honest than to play traitor to my king:--God bless his gracious Majesty! I wish him no better luck than that all the Roundheads, militia, and train-bands, horse and foot, were just such a set of raw awkward spoonies as yourself.”

While he was yet speaking, Cuthbert’s jade, as if moved by the very spirit of mischief, shook her ears and was down in the middle of the loose dusty road, without better warning than before; for the attention of Cuthbert being quite taken up by his anger with the old soldier, he was again too late to prevent it. The dust plentifully adhered to his legs, thighs, and saddle bags. He instantly dismounted in a rage, kicked the beast up again, drove it forward, and, turning short round upon the old man, in a fury, said,--

“If it were not for your age and grey hairs, you insolent old vagabond, I would rap your pate smartly with my cudgel.”

“That were easier spoken than done,” rejoined the old man, holding his quarter staff lightly in a defensive posture.

A little dog, which accompanied the old man, perceiving by these actions, and by the loudness of their speech, that the stranger was quarrelling with his master, flew at Cuthbert with a sharp and angry bark, than which perhaps nothing does more inflame the rising choler; he, therefore, struck at the little animal furiously, and the end of his cudgel inflicted on it a sharp stroke, which sent it howling and yelping behind its master.

The old soldier, without a moment’s loss of time, resented this injury by so heavy and well placed a blow on the head of Cuthbert, that his steeple-crowned hat was knocked off; and had it not been defended within by the strong bars of iron with which it had been recently fitted for the wars, he would have gotten a severe bruise.

“He that touches my dog touches me,” said the old man: “I am sorry that I did not make thee feel it.” The quarter staff of the beggar had, by his stumbling and over-reaching himself, flown out of his hand, and his old rabbit-skin cap had fallen upon the ground:--a fine polished head thinly strewn with grey hairs lay bare and exposed.--“There, you may crack it if you will now,” he added, raising the ineffectual defence of his arm.

“I am a man,” said Cuthbert, “and not a brute: I would not strike thee for all my hot words; but I have been beside myself with passion. May God forgive me for my great offence against him--and do you forgive me for the hard things I said to you, and the stroke I gave your dog.”

So speaking, he picked up the old man’s quarter staff and his cap, and gave them into his hands; at the same time taking a piece of silver out of his pocket, he tendered it with a look of good will--but the soldier would not take it.

“It would do me no good,” said he: “I should have no luck with it, and could never relish the bread or beer it bought me.”

“Then lay it out in dog’s meat, friend: thy poor cur will have forgotten my rude blow before thou hast forgiven my uncomfortable words:--you wo’n’t go to sleep in ill will with me, I hope.”

“No, I shan’t do that,” rejoined the aged beggar,--“the good old parson of Cheddar taught me better than that,--and I minds what he said as if it were yesterday--God bless him!--church and king for ever, say I.--I wo’n’t have your money.”

Surprized and startled by this strange and unexpected mention of his father, Cuthbert drew from the old man the whole story of his adventure at Cheddar, and his interview with Noble.

He listened with deep emotion to the narrative, and recognised in all the circumstances the internal evidence of its truth, from its exact correspondence with the character of his father’s mind and heart, and those large and tolerant notions which he had always taught and carried out into practice.

“I know that good parson well,” said Cuthbert, “and love him like a father.”

“Do you indeed?--then I’ll take your money, and give you hearty thanks for it.--But I say, young master, if you knows the parson of Cheddar so well, it’s my belief your taking the wrong road:--a man can’t serve two masters--without you do call God and the king two; and he that serves God first, and king the next after, must always be right, as I have heard say from the time I was the height of this quarter staff.”

Cuthbert gave him two pieces, and walked on in a humbled and in no satisfied frame of mind.

His poor beast, like a patient packhorse, was quietly browsing by the road-side at no great distance, and Cuthbert drove it before him, not caring to mount again till the sun and air had dried his wet breeches and hose.

The pettiness of the mortification which had moved him to such ungovernable anger was now lost in the most gloomy reflections on the sin of having so greatly dishonoured the commandments of God by cursing and swearing. Though naturally of a warm temper, he had never been at all addicted to the odious use of vulgar oaths, and for awhile he began to doubt the sincerity of his faith, and to imagine that the whole work of religion must be entered upon as a new thing.

Again, the very strange circumstance of his father’s image being brought before him in a manner so unexpected, by a way-side beggar, and the lesson of charity, and the solemn monition to turn back from the party which he had chosen, conveyed by so lowly an instrument, perplexed his reason and staggered his resolution.

But the die was cast, the step was taken, and it was impossible for him, even if willing, to recede without disgrace. He ran over in his mind all the wrongs and the oppressions which had been committed in the name and with the sanction of the King. He recalled the sufferings of Prynne and his companions. He remembered the tyrannical imposition of ship money; the noble resistance to that measure by Hampden, now himself in arms; the violence towards the Scots; the articles exhibited against the five members; and, more than all, he considered that, if the King should conquer in the impending struggle, the despotic rule of the crown would be established more firmly than ever; the hateful tribunal of the Star Chamber would be again erected; prelacy, armed with new powers, would rear its mitre on the ruins of religious liberty; and all those abuses in church and state, which had called forth the famous Remonstrance of the Commons, and the Petition of Rights founded on it, would most certainly be restored.

As these considerations passed through the mind of Cuthbert, he felt shame that he could for a moment have doubted the righteousness of the cause in which he had embarked. What was the little incident, which had so discomposed and ruffled him, when it was stripped naked? His nag had lain down in the water, and he had got a wetting. He should have laughed it off, and so he would have done but for wounded pride. He was conscious of the poverty of his equipment, and yet more so of his unmilitary appearance;--that the witness of his accident should mock him, and be an old soldier to boot, was more than he could bear. He finally resolved all that had passed into a hellish temptation of the evil one to divert him from the path of Christian duty; and thus comforting himself, and speaking peace to his heart, with a very slight repentance for his plain transgression of God’s law, he recovered his serenity. He now mounted his nag, and cheerfully pursued his way till the fine massive tower of St. Alban’s Abbey reminded him that he was near the place of his destination. He stopped under a shady tree a little off the road; brushed off the marks of his foolish misadventure; adjusted his dress; buckled the belt of his rapier more tightly, and rode into the town with a wish that he might escape present observation, and get soon housed. But it so chanced that in the narrow entrance of the very first street in St. Alban’s Cuthbert met the whole garrison marching forth to exercise. The leading rank of musketeers, forming the advanced guard, filled the width of the street from house to house on either side of the way; therefore he was forced to stop, and placing his pony close to the wall that he might prove as small an obstacle as possible, saw the whole force pass him, and attracted the attention of them all. At any other time, and under other circumstances, he would have gazed upon the military show with a natural pleasure, and as it was, he looked upon them with much curiosity; but his position was very uncomfortable; and he felt small as they filed by with a strong and measured tread, keeping time to a few loud drums and piercing fifes.

Several divisions of foot, composed of musketeers and pikemen in equal proportions, and each led by a mounted officer, and with their appointed number of captains, lieutenants, and sergeants, followed each other in succession; but there was a great difference in their equipment and bearing.

The three leading divisions, amounting to nearly nine hundred effective men, were a fine sample of the very best infantry which had as yet been formed under the orders of the Parliament. Their clothing was of a coarse red cloth: the belts and bandaliers of those who were armed with muskets were of buff leather; and a girdle of double buff, eight inches broad, was worn under the skirts of the doublet. The musketeers also wore black steeple-crowned hats, with small but strong bars of iron fastened under the felt. In addition to their muskets and rests, they were all provided with a good stiff tuck, not very long, so fixed in the belt as not to swing or incommode them.

The pikemen were furnished with good pikes, eighteen feet in length, with small steel heads, and good stiff tucks like those of the musketeers. They had also for defensive armour iron head pieces, with back and breast pieces of the same quality, pistol-proof, and each man was provided with a good long buff glove for the left hand; they also wore the broad buff girdle; the musketeers had bands about their hats of a considerable width, finished in front with a rose of orange cloth, but they had no feathers or plumes; and there was a steadiness and severity in their whole aspect which commanded admiration. It was one of the first regiments embodied, composed principally of a better order of volunteers, and commanded by a very strict and experienced officer. From these men Cuthbert had nothing to suffer: they were silent in their ranks; and merely glanced at him as they passed with looks of gloomy or proud indifference; but the regiment that followed was a raw levy of militiamen just raised: they had arms, indeed, and were divided already into musketeers and pikemen, like those who preceded them; but their clothing and equipment was very incomplete, and few of the pikemen had either back or breast pieces. Of these, numbers had been drawn, reluctantly, from the neighbouring villages, to supply the quota of men required by the militia act, and were enrolled with the mockery of an oath, by which they were sworn in, to fight “_for the King against the King_,”--a distinction which of course the greater part of them could not understand. They only wanted to be left alone, and suffered to follow their ploughs in peace. Most of them had some excuse to offer in the Shire Hall, and some story to tell why they should not go for soldiers. This man had aged parents to support; another had a family of children; and that man had just married a wife. Others, who were not provided with such good excuses, feigned deafness, bad eyes, lame shoulders, weak ankle bones, fits, rheumatic pains, or some other disqualification, to escape the irksome duties of praying and fighting under Puritan commanders. Many kissed their own thumbs instead of the Bible when they took their oaths of service, meaning to desert the first opportunity that offered; still there were numbers of idle rustics who came when they were called out, and did as they were bid, without further question; and these, in spite of their officers and sergeants, and Puritan comrades, contrived their own amusements, and laughed at the grave preachments which forbade them.