Part 5

“Thou art the fool, deaf dunderhead, and wouldst not hear a troop of horse till they were down on thee:--what dost thou know of the wars, bumpkin? I tell thee I heard a horse at the far end of yon lane as clear as I hear thy clapper; and there may be royal troopers closer than we think for. Dost mind? when I fire, take to thy scrapers, and join the post at the barn.”

“Well, call me bumpkin as you will, you may be right: I warn’t thinking about horses, nor listening, you see. Your ears are sharp enough for both;--a plague o’ the Parliament folk;--I was thinking about them pretty bodies that wear white caps and yellow kerchiefs. I was to ha’ been wed, man, at Michaelmas, but for all this to do about the litia: what’s the King done to me?”

“Why you talk like a fool: hold your tongue.--Who goes there?” again roared the old musketeer,--but Juxon kept a breathless silence.--“You talk like a fool. Pay is pay, and victuals victuals, and one side as good as t’ other; and ours will be the best for booty, man.”

“Booty! what’s that?”

“Why you must be a queer simpleton not to know: why money, and plate, and rich gear, and wines, and grub of all sorts; all’s fish that comes to net, man: that’s the best part of a soldier’s life.”

“Why what’s he got to do with them things, if they beynt his’n?”

“Beynt his’n!” said the old soldier with a tone of contempt: “why make ’em his’n.”

“Why that’s what I call plain picking and stealing; and it’s taught in the Catechiz that you musn’t do that.”

“Ay, that’s all very well for brats at a parson’s village school; but that wo’n’t do for them that know better. Besides, the Catechiz, as you call it, is no good now; it’s all wrong foundation.”

“Well, while I ha’ got hands to get my living I don’t want gold nor silver: I never heard one of your rich folk whistle in all my born days; and as for your madams, why my Madge has a laughing face that shames them. Dang it, I wish I were back with her, and you might soldier and the Roundheads might preach long enough afore I’d come among ye.”

“Why I don’t say any thing for those fellows that pray and preach; and sometimes I am afraid they’ll stand between a good soldier and his right, and wo’n’t let him have his fair share of plunder. There’s that grave, demure leeftenant they call Cuthbert drove me and two more out of the parson’s orchard this very afternoon before I mounted duty. He looks too sharp after other people’s business, that godly rogue; and if ever I catch him tripping in a thick smoke, I’ll give him a rap on the sconce shall make him sleep sound enough ever after.”

“Thou shalt never hurt a hair of his head while I am by,” said the rustic soldier: “he’s a kind, fair-spoken gentleman as ever stepped in shoe-leather.”

“Tut! you’re both of a kidney--both fools alike--I’ve been throwing away my breath on. Keep your own path, and keep moving,” said the musketeer, and resumed his own cross beat in a surly silence.

Warned by this adventure that Parliament soldiers were quartered for the night in Old Beech, and by the mention of Cuthbert’s name, and the anecdote connected with it, that he had a friend among the hostile party, who would, as far as possible, protect his interests, Juxon instantly resolved to pass round by another road, and put up at a detached farm-house a quarter of a mile to the north of the village, where he could gain more accurate information of their doings, and judge how to act in the morning. He was turning about quietly, to steal off and get back to his horse, when his attention was again arrested by the musketeer saying suddenly and bluntly to the pikeman, “You want to be off home, I’m sure.”

“You’re right enough there, and no conjurer:--I told you so.”

“I mean, you want to desert.”

“No, I doant.”

“Yes you do, and you’ll run off when the fighting comes.”

“No I wunt: there’s no man shall ever say that Bob Hazel gave back in a fair stand-up fight.”

“Well, then, you’ll change your side as soon as we come near the King’s troops, and fight on the other.”

“Why for the matter o’ that, I didn’t choose my side, to be sure, any more than if I had been called by him that won the toss at football; but now I’m in for it, I’ll fight it out with the best of them on my own side.”

“That’s more than I’ll say,” muttered the musketeer: “I’m always for the uppermost cause and the best paymaster: after the first battle we shall see which has the good luck.”

They were again silent, and Juxon moved away, and regaining his horse led it round by paths and gaps well known to himself to the farm-house above mentioned. He found the farmer out and on the watch, and his family had not gone to bed. The information which he here obtained of the conduct of the Parliament troops in Old Beech was very satisfactory. They had been peaceable and orderly, and had done violence to no man. The commanding officer, it seems, had taken up his quarters at the rectory, and a safeguard was appointed to protect the church from injury. It was reported that they would march forwards the next morning, or in the course of the day. But although the Colonel had maintained a strict control over the soldiers during the day, the farmer was naturally afraid that in the course of the night some evil-disposed marauders might visit the farm, and therefore all his people kept watch. Juxon’s horse was instantly put up,--and before the large fire in the farmer’s kitchen a homely but welcome supper was cheerfully provided. Although fatigued, he was far too restless to sleep; and when he had refreshed himself with a little food and a cup of strong ale he went out again, and walked towards the village. In the clear gloom of night it presented the fine outline of a picturesque cluster of habitations, of which the principal feature was the small church, with its ancient tower, looking black and solemn. To the surprize, however, of Juxon, a light, the only one to be seen in all the dark mass of buildings, gleamed steadily from the window of his chancel. The sight attracted him; and under the impulse of curiosity, to see what the guard might be doing, he crossed the intervening fields, leaped over the wall of the churchyard, and gained the window without seeing or being noticed by any one. A lamp in the chancel had been lighted, and threw around an illumination, faint indeed, but sufficient to show very distinctly to the eyes of Juxon the reverend figure within. Directly opposite the window, with his face so slightly averted towards a monument on the same side, that not a feature nor an expression was lost, stood a tall grave person in a clerical habit. His features were noble and sad: his eyes were very bright, but severe withal; and his complexion was pale as marble. He wore a small skullcap of black velvet; and beneath it his hair fell, on either side, in a large wavy mass, and lay upon the broad white collar that turned over his narrow and close-buttoned cassock. His upper lip was shaded with a small quantity of the blackest hair; a tuft of the same filled the indenture beneath his under lip, and thus the pallor of his long thin cheeks, and of his high forehead, appeared more deadly. His pale hand, which held a closed volume, was pressed against his bosom; and he stood so very motionless, and so deeply absorbed in meditation, that a less healthy fancy than that of Juxon would have deemed him some ghostly visitant, permitted, during the witching hour of night, to haunt that holy place. The slow heavy tread of a man in arms, turning the distant corner of the church, warned Juxon to conceal himself; and passing quickly round under the altar window to the other side, he came to the small door of the chancel. It stood ajar; and pushing it gently, he entered, and again closing it, found himself in the presence of the venerable stranger, and alone with him. He turned at the sound of Juxon’s entrance without abruptness or discomposure; but as the light showed him an unknown face, and an athletic form in garments dusty with travel, he demanded of him in a tone of authority how he had come thither, and what was his business.

“But yesterday,” said Juxon, “I might have asked that question of thee: but a day has brought forth a sudden change; and the shepherd must enter his own fold by stealth, or with the permission of others.”

“I understand thee. Thou art the minister of this place: thou hast nothing to fear: I have watched in thy sanctuary, and no one has violated or defiled it. You may go home to your own chamber in peace: it was allotted as my quarter by the commander of this band, but I resolved to keep a vigil here, and would continue it alone. Go, and God speed thee. We shall march in the morning; and I pray that you may be kept safe in all future visitations.”

“March!--have I heard aright? Does such an one as you march in the ranks of rebels? Does a minister of the Gospel preach war, and that against the Lord’s anointed?”

“Against the person of the King we do not war: we fight against his false and dangerous friends. The sword of the Lord is with us, and it must go through the land; but we march as mourners to the field of blood. Witness these walls that have heard my groanings, yon tomb that has been watered by my tears. In that tomb lie the ashes of my grandfather, who was the first Protestant of his race. The Reformation, begun by the godly men of that day, has never yet been completed: that work remains for us.”

“Miserable delusion!” cried Juxon aloud; “miserable delusion! Is it by kindling and diffusing the false fire of fanaticism? is it in arms? is it by a path of blood that you move? Then is your work a work of evil, and your light darkness.”

“So called they the work and the light of our forefathers, when they led them forth, and burned them at the stake. You have a zeal for the church, but not according to knowledge. I have heard of you from your friend Cuthbert Noble.”

“Call him not friend of mine: give to all things their right names. He that stands in arms against his king is a traitor; and if he had lain in my heart’s core, I would pluck him out, and cast him from me.”

At this moment, a man in arms entered the small door of the chancel, and taking off his steel cap, advanced towards Juxon, and put forth his hand:--it was Cuthbert Noble. He was much altered in his appearance: his countenance was severe and sad, but resolute withal; and his corslet, with the broad buff girdle beneath, had produced a change in his aspect and bearing incredible to the mind of Juxon, if he had not witnessed it with his eyes.

“Do you refuse my hand? do you turn away from me, Juxon? I have not deserved this at your hands,” said Cuthbert, still stretching forth his hand. Juxon turned his face and looked steadfastly upon him.

“Cuthbert,” said he with a slow, grave utterance, “I and your revered father are upon the same side, and we fill the same sacred office. Even now, perhaps, his fold is broken into by some furious zealots, who will not show the same lingering compunction which is now, for a moment, sparing mine. No, Cuthbert, the hand that grasps a sword, and wields it against my king, shall never more be clasped with friendliness by me.”

Cuthbert’s hand fell down, and his knees shook, and his whole frame trembled with the strength of his emotion.

“Dare to repent,” added Juxon, observing the internal struggle,--“dare to repent. Here in the house of God, and before the altar of God, lay down the arms of rebellion, and go home to comfort, and, if possible, to protect, your father and mother.”

What effect this appeal might have had upon Cuthbert had he been alone with Juxon, and subjected to all the strength with which it would have been urged home upon him, we cannot say; for it was no sooner spoken, than the Puritan chaplain fell upon his knees, and poured forth a prayer for the cause of the Parliament, which, by its solemn tone and intense fervency, commanded the silent and breathless attention of both. It was evident that this petitioner, with an enthusiasm that has been felt perhaps in common by some of every creed and party under the cope of heaven, identified the particular cause which he himself had espoused with that of truth and of God. Before he had uttered the first brief sentence of adoration, Cuthbert had fallen down in a lowly posture of worship,--and his spirit was soon carried by his leader in prayer whithersoever he would.

Juxon leaned his head against the wall where he stood, and kept his eyes fixed on them. He had before him one of those rarely endowed beings on whom gifts without measure had been poured:--for a quarter of an hour he listened, with a painful and solemn interest, to a flow of real eloquence. The petitions touched in succession every point at issue. They justified, as by divine command, the appeal to arms, and proclaimed the end thereof to be reformation and peace. They recognised the sacredness of the King’s anointed head; and they ended in a prophetic anticipation of the days of millennial glory, and the universal reign of a manifested God.

In the course of the prayer he had not forgotten to pray for all mankind, and especially for all those enemies who now stood opposed to them in the present contest, and again in a yet more especial manner for the near and dear relations, whose wishes and entreaties they were now called on to resist, and whose hearts they might now afflict. Painting this resistance most truly, as the highest order of self-denial, he urged it as a sacred duty, and a sacrifice well pleasing to the Lord.

Juxon saw by the expression of Cuthbert’s mouth the new and stronger resolutions he was making;--nor did it surprise him to see that, when they rose together at the conclusion of this fervent prayer, the chaplain took Cuthbert by the hand, that was passively yielded, and led him forth from the church without either of them addressing one word to himself. They looked at him, indeed, with seriousness, if not with compassion, and they moved their lips, but the whispered ejaculations of their hearts had no voice; and their departing footsteps were the only sounds that broke the silence of the place and of the hour.

CHAP. VII.

Thy friend put in thy bosom: wear his eyes, Still in thy heart, that he may see what’s there. HERBERT.

By the care of Juxon, who had written to an old college servant of Christ-church, a lodging was provided for Sir Oliver Heywood and his party in a retired street at Oxford; and, having accomplished their journey without any accident, they took possession of their new abode early in September. The house though small was clean, and by no means incommodious; but a part of it was already in the occupation of another lodger. However, he was a quiet man, and was employed all day in his labours, as a painter of coloured glass, having been engaged to execute the windows of a chapel then building at University College. Moreover, he was a Fleming, and spoke English so imperfectly that he could not understand what was said to him, except on the most common and necessary matters. But Sir Oliver, who suffered great pain with his gout, and was really mortified at not being able to join the army, began to show a fretfulness and discontent at his position, very trying to Katharine and all about him. He was perpetually finding fault with every thing, and every person; and his anger at the language of alarm and doubt, which he found prevalent at Oxford, knew no bounds. The secret of all this peevishness lay deeper than his gouty sufferings; for, upon the very day of his arrival, he read in “The Perfect Diurnall” that two squadrons of horse under Sergeant Major Francis Heywood had joined the head quarters of the Lord Say, who was the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, and stoutly opposed to the King. Nor was this the simple announcement; but the news went on to say, that these horsemen were well accoutred, and disciplined very exactly under the training of Sergeant Major Heywood, a soldier of excellent promise, who had served under the great Gustavus, and was nearly allied to Sir Oliver Heywood of Milverton House, Warwickshire. The old gentleman cursed and swore heartily when he first read this aloud to Katharine and the Lamberts, but he never afterwards named the subject or Francis; however, the thought lay rankling under every expression of anger which daily events drew forth.

The cloisters and the groves on the banks of the Isis were no longer the solemn and silent haunts of peaceful, meditative scholars,--they now echoed to the harsh beating of drums; and the young students, instead of pacing slowly in their black academic habits, were dressed in the garb of soldiers, with blue scarfs suspended across their bodies from the shoulder, and with pikes in their hands. At a convocation held in July the University had, with one consent, voted his Majesty all the public money which they had in hand; and, besides this, several of the colleges, as well as private persons, sent in their plate and their ready money also. This act of the convocation, however, was immediately pronounced null and void by Parliament; and any such actions were forbidden for the future. This proclamation pronounced those criminal who had been concerned in advising this diversion of the treasures of their colleges, and commanded each society to secure its own. It also ordered that the Dean of Christ-church, the President of Magdalen, and the Provost of Queen’s, who had been most active in this matter, should be seized and brought to the bar of the House to answer for their conduct. But this could not be accomplished, because the High Sheriff and the Mayor of Oxford, acting upon the commission of array, had called out the train bands of the city, and the scholars had taken arms. To support this show of resistance, Sir John Biron marched to Oxford, and took possession of it for the King. Sir John had with him about five hundred horse; and thus he secured the contributions for the King’s service, and was enabled, though compelled soon afterwards to retire from the city, to carry a considerable portion of it safe to the royal quarters. It was during the period that Oxford was thus held for the King that Sir Oliver and his family came there to reside. They were visited by several of the stanch Royalists and their ladies: these visitors consisted for the most part of the troubled and alarmed clergy, who were connected by office with the University. To some of their wives it was a delight to have a new family into whose ears they might pour all the bitter scandals against the Nonconformists, and others of the Parliament party, which they eagerly collected and minutely detailed. Nor was there any deficiency in spirit; for some of them went so far as to declare that, happen what might, nothing should make them stir from their own houses; that their husbands might run away if they pleased; but no canting Roundheads should ever eject them from their own arm chairs; and generally concluded by observing, that if their husbands were not such a poor set of creatures, they would drive the odious Lord Say out of the county; and that, as it was, there was no chance whatever of his getting into the city. Then they reckoned upon their fingers,--the five hundred men of Sir John Biron, and the four hundred pikes of the train bands, and the two hundred scholars with pikes, and the fifty doctors and masters of arts that had horses and pistols, and spirit to use them. Mrs. Veal, the lady of a doctor of Christ-church, was the most eloquent in these invectives, and the most exact in these calculations; and, to her honour be it spoken, she kept her word; and when the day of trial came, and Oxford was abandoned to the Parliamentarians, she would not accompany her husband, but remained obstinately fixed in her own arm-chair, and most successfully defended her house with a scolding tongue.

Amid all these bitter and uncongenial elements Katharine Heywood was perplexed and troubled, and found little rest for her spirit, save that which passeth man’s understanding, and that which she found in the affectionate friendship of Jane Lambert. Nothing more cruelly jarred her feelings than the language in which, by common consent, almost all around her seemed to talk of the Parliamentarians. Her own loyalty was firm and pure, but it was of an exalted character; and under no circumstances could it have stooped to so low a hatred of the persons, or to so mean an opinion of the motives, of the King’s enemies, as that generally entertained and daily expressed before her. She did every thing which it was in the power of a daughter to do for the comfort and tranquillity of her father, but her efforts were not very successful.

As soon as it became known that the Lord Say was advancing upon Oxford with superior forces, and that Sir John Biron was about to retire upon Worcester, nothing would pacify Sir Oliver but an endeavour to accompany that movement. However, the means of conveyance were not to be obtained for money, and he was compelled to remain where he was.

On the morning of the 14th of September the greatest possible consternation prevailed in the city; and early in the forenoon a strong body of horse, headed by the Lord Say, marched into the University. His first act was to cause all the colleges to be strictly searched for plate and arms, and to secure whatever plate had not been hidden, or despatched under escort of Sir John Biron. He also broke into their treasuries, but found little in them, save in that of Christ-church, where, after a day’s labour, and breaking through a plastered wall to an iron chest, he discovered in the bottom thereof a groat and a halter;--a pleasant surprize for a man of his morose temper, and provided for him by the wit of the doctor’s lady who has been mentioned above.

It was not till late in the evening of the 14th that Sir Oliver and his daughter got any distinct information of what was passing. Their street was retired; not a soldier entered it; nor a sound, save that of trumpets from the market-place, reached their anxious ears. The worthy knight forbade Katharine and Jane to leave the house, and old Philip the butler was not at all inclined to volunteer any inquiries. But the Flemish painter had been absent from a very early hour; on which account Sir Oliver charitably pronounced him a Dutch Presbyterian rascal, who had been acting as a spy for the Roundheads. It was in vain that Katharine observed that he was an artist employed by a college upon its chapel windows: the knight pronounced him a foreign scoundrel, gone to join in the plunder. Towards evening the painter returned, and came to their apartment, to tell them in his broken stammering language, with tears in his eyes, that a fine young officer, who spoke Dutch, had saved all his painted glass from being broken, and had put a safeguard at all the chapels.

The officer of whom the painter related this was no other than Francis Heywood. The throb of Katharine’s heart told her so at the instant, but it was confirmed to her afterwards.

It was the habit of Katharine and Jane to walk daily in the afternoon in the fair meadows on the banks of the river to which they had quick and easy access, from the retired quarter in which they dwelt, without passing through any of the more public streets of the town.

Their friendship had strengthened under all the adverse and anxious circumstances of the times; and the piety of Jane had become so deepened by her constant intercourse with Katharine that their spirits held communion together in these walks, whether they conversed or were silent.