Take Courage

by Phyllis Bentley

  “You fool, John!” shouted Francis, white with passion. “You nearly had us thrown.”

  “You meant to jump the beck,” John panted.

  “What’s that to you? Do you think I can’t ride a horse?” cried Francis.

  “You can break your own neck if you like,” said John, glaring up at him. “Indeed I’d be glad of it. But you shan’t break Penninah’s.”

  Francis laughed, and turning Snowball away from us down the bank, suddenly lashed at the horse’s haunch with his whip. Snowball gathered himself for the jump and sprang. One moment horse and rider were in the air, a gallant spectacle, the next they were rolling amongst the stones on the other side.

  Snowball, thrashing wildly, jerked himself upright, tossed his mane and scrambled up the bank. But Francis lay still, with blood pouring from his nose and his arms outflung. The mastiff paused at a little distance, then came up and sniffed round him uneasily.

  “O God, he’s hurt!” cried John, splashing through the stream. “Frank! Frank!”

  He knelt beside his cousin and wiped the blood away with a gentle care; it was borne on me then that as well as hating Francis he loved him dearly.

  “Lister, run for my father,” John ordered, looking up. “Penninah, go to the Hall and fetch Uncle Giles. Be sure to keep it from Aunt Sybil. There are stepping-stones across the beck further upstream.” He pointed; I gathered my skirts and ran, little David wailing: “Pen! Pen!” after me as I went.

  Sounds of music and talk met me as I neared the Hall, so that I feared to go in by the big door and ran instead to the back. The serving-men and maids I found in the kitchen were all dressed in bright colours, very lively and loud-mouthed, not at all like our Sarah or Mrs. Thorpe’s sober elderly woman. However, when I said I came with a pressing message from Mr. Thorpe to Mr. Ferrand they treated me kindly enough; one of the men took down his livery coat from a hook behind the kitchen door, and led me along passages, till the music sounded close. I was much perplexed how to obey John’s command and tell Francis’s plight to his father while concealing it from his mother, and I suppose my face showed my trouble, for the serving-man, pausing to fasten his last button, stooped down to me, saying:

  “What’s to do, lovey?” in a very kind tone.

  I ventured to tell him my message was not for Mrs. Ferrand; at this he nodded his head with a great air of understanding. “Master Francis is in a scrape again, I suppose,” he said. He straightened himself up, pulled down his doublet and threw open the parlour door.

  “A pressing private message from Mr. Thorpe, sir,” he said.

  Such a chamber as now met my eyes I had never seen before; so high and large, with so many windows through which the afternoon sun richly poured, the walls so nobly panelled, the coat of arms painted in such glowing colours above the mantelshelf, the furniture so abundant and handsomely decorated. Then, such a profusion of pewter plates and tankards, jugs of wine and rich meats stood on the table as I had hardly believed to exist in the whole world; while the bright silks, the pearls and curls and ribbons, worn by the assembled company quite dazzled my childish eyes. A very fine-looking gentleman in red was playing on the viol. I hung back, blinking and, I doubt not, looking stupid enough. A lady on a settle by the hearth, whom I judged to be Francis’s mother by reason of her hair, very golden like his, and a look both of him and Mr. Thorpe in her pretty silly face, called out pettishly to me to come in and close the door.

  “Aye, come in, love,” urged Mr. Ferrand cheerfully, taking a long pipe out of his mouth and blowing forth a cloud of smoke. “And who are you, my pretty little maid? ’Tis a pretty little maid, is it not, Sybil?”

  “Very pretty, Giles,” agreed Mrs. Ferrand distastefully. She could not speak her r’s properly, but seemed somehow to swallow them, which made her speech seem pretty and silly and sweet all at once, just like herself. Children are not easily deceived about their elders, and I knew at once that Mrs. Ferrand could not bear to hear any female praised for beauty in her presence, even if it were but a child of eleven.

  “But of a black complexion,” added her husband to please her, for he knew it too. (This vexed me, for though my hair was dark, my skin had ever been pale and clear.) “Come, tell your errand, child,” he urged impatiently.

  Perplexed what to do, I looked up at the serving-man, who with nods and mouthed words and rolling glances managed to draw his master from the room.

  “Well, what is this great secret, eh?” said Mr. Ferrand, laughing, when we stood in the passage together; he stooped down close to me and stroked my hair.

  He was a large fleshy man, with a profusion of light brown hair and a twirled light moustache, very neatly trimmed. His complexion was very sanguine and his eyes prominent; his breath smelt of wine; I judged him to be of a warm uncertain temper, indulgent to the point of foolishness except when he was crossed, when he would be very choleric and masterful. He was in truth a fine handsome figure of a man, and kindly; but I had not seen any person like him before, and I felt some fear of him.

  “Francis has been thrown from his horse, he’s hurt,” I whispered. “Down by the beck.”

  “What will that lad do next?” muttered Mr. Ferrand, making his way along the passages and out of the back door. He did not sound vexed, however, but rather pleased, as if at bottom he was proud of his son’s escapades. “A horse? What horse?” he said in a loud tone when we were free of the house. “Ralph, come down with me, I may need you. A horse? What horse? By God, it’s Snowball!” he roared suddenly, as Snowball came into view, galloping in nervous fright about the field below, scattering the sheep in all directions. At this Mr. Ferrand bounded forward, and shouted angrily: “Who took him out of the stable? I’ll wring the varmint’s neck! Well, don’t stand there, you fool!” he bellowed, turning on the serving-man who was hurrying beside him: “Go and catch that horse!”

  At this moment he reached the edge of the bank, and saw Francis lying on the stones, his head pillowed on his cousin’s arm. Mr. Thorpe, bending over him, was throwing water on his face out of his high-crowned hat. The mastiff, Thunder, who was couched beside, at sight of his master thumped his tail once and raised his voice in a prolonged whine of misery and fear.

  “Oh, Francis!” cried his father piteously, quite changing his tone. “Frank! My boy!” He charged down the bank and threw himself on his knees at his son’s side. “Son! Will you hold your tongue, Thunder!” he shouted at the dog. “You’ll bring your mistress down on us. Is he dead? Ralph, take that dog to the house.”

  “He’s not dead,” said Mr. Thorpe. And indeed Francis’s eyes were opening, and it was plain he knew us, though there was a sick misery on his face. “Have you any pain, nephew?” said his uncle in a somewhat dry tone.

  “Where is your hurt, Frank?” asked John.

  “I’m not hurt,” muttered Francis. He stirred in John’s arms, and pulled himself up to sit erect. “I’m not hurt,” he repeated staunchly, leaning his head on his hand and looking deathly white. “There’s no call for all this pother. You might think nobody had ever been thrown from a horse before.”

  “What made you take Snowball from the stable?” demanded Mr. Ferrand, remembering this other grievance now that his son seemed safe.

  “I wanted to ride him,” returned Francis coolly. “John, help me to stand.”

  John put his arm round his cousin’s waist and heaved him up. Francis swayed a little but managed to keep his feet, and began to stumble up the bank.

  A shrill sound of voices now swept down on us, with the whining bark of the mastiff, who had drawn Mrs. Ferrand and her guests to the scene of Francis’s misfortune.

  “Here comes my sister,” said Mr. Thorpe, pulling down his mouth in a rueful grimace.

  And indeed I now understood the good sense of John’s command to keep the matter from his aunt. Such cries, such throwing up of hands, such flutterings, such threatenings to faint, as Mrs. Ferrand now treated us to, I never could have believed possible. The poor woman was
almost distraught, for Francis was the thing she loved best in all the world, but she had no means of expressing any emotion save silly words and trivial actions.

  “Look at the blood on his new doublet!” she screamed, feverishly fingering her son’s collar and smoothing out his hair.

  “Oh, be quiet, Mother,” said Francis wearily.

  “Aye, let the lad be, Sybil,” urged Mr. Thorpe. “He needs to rest.”

  But this admonition did not please her husband, who told his wife’s brother hotly that he was well able to care for his own son without anyone else’s counsel. One of his guests—the man in red, whose name was Tempest, it seemed he came from Boiling Hall—offered to go for his physician, and this offer was accepted. Meanwhile Mr. Ferrand pushed John aside and himself supported Francis up the bank. Poor Mrs. Ferrand took the boy’s other arm, looking into his face fondly, though indeed she was more of a drag than a support to him.

  I stood and watched them go.

  “Farewell, Pen. I’m sorry I frightened you,” said Francis, stretching out his hand to me across his mother.

  I took his fingers—warm, strong and slender—within my own. “I am sorry you are hurt, Francis,” I told him quietly.

  Francis laughed suddenly, and his grey eyes sparkled.

  “Well, I rode Snowball,” he said.

  4

  THREE MEN AGREE TO DIFFER

  As we went back to The Breck we met my father and Mrs. Thorpe, coming to see whether Francis’s hurt were serious. At sight of them I halted suddenly.

  “Where is David?” I cried.

  Mrs. Thorpe reassured me. It seemed David had followed Lister to the house on his errand; he was frightened by Francis’s fall and inclined for weeping, so she had left him there with the apprentice. I hurried to The Breck, reproaching myself for having so long forgotten him. But I need not have troubled, for he was sitting on the step with Lister, weaving a daisy chain. As soon as David saw me he ran to me, and as I stooped to him he tried to throw the chain round my neck. Mr. Thorpe made some remark I did not hear, and my father replied:

  “He has been her charge since I lost Faith.”

  His voice trembled, as it always did when he spoke of my mother, and Mr. Thorpe seemed sorry. The shadows were lengthening and it was time for us to be gone, but out of kindness he would have us stay to supper, and Mrs. Thorpe pressed our acceptance of the invitation, though I think she had not meant it to be so when we first came, for there was a great bustle in the house to make things ready. By that time, however, I was no longer timid with the Thorpes. They seemed old friends, for we had been through much together, and the Ferrands being so grand had somehow brought the Thorpes down nearer our level. So I asked plainly whether David might be put to sleep on one of the beds upstairs, and Mrs. Thorpe was very kind with him, wrapping him in an old house-coat of her own and putting an embroidered coverlet over him. Then I asked if I might help with the supper, and she gave me trenchers and tankards to carry. John and Lister were out watering the horses, but my father and Mr. Thorpe were sitting very friendly together in the dusk when I brought them a candle.

  “Never fear, Robert,” Mr. Thorpe was saying, “we will bring the business to a fair end. Thank you, child,” he said, taking the stick from my hand: “You are a very sober and virtuous little maid, Penninah.”

  At this my father drew me to him, and I leaned against his knee, content.

  Presently supper was ready. Will and Eliza came in from church and a dallying walk home, half-dazed with happiness; when they heard of Francis’s fall from Snowball they plied John eagerly with questions. He was very loth, I could see, to answer, he looked tired and sad; so I answered instead, telling the story as truthfully as I could. I could see my father and the Thorpes all thought John a hero, for preventing Francis jumping with David and me on his horse’s back. I thought so too, and was truly grateful to him for David’s sake; but I could not help a slight grudge against him also, for I thought if Snowball had been allowed to take his own course unhindered, he might easily have cleared the beck, and that would have been a joy to see.

  Then suddenly Mr. Ferrand came in, very large and bright and jovial, and told us that the physician had been and pronounced Francis not hurt but only severely shaken; the lad begged his uncle’s pardon, he said, for behaving unmannerly on his land, and he himself was sorry that he had spoken sharply down by the beck.

  “I meant no harm, Tom,” he shouted in his loud cheerful voice. “I was distressed about the lad—that lad’ll be the death of me one of these days. Sybil dotes on him. I offer my apologies.”

  Mr. Thorpe in a gruff but ungrudging tone bade him think no more of it. Then he made my father and Mr. Ferrand known to each other, and they were all very friendly together. But soon somehow they fell into an argument I did not quite understand, about sheep and wool. Mr. Ferrand, it seemed, was not a clothier, but a gentleman; he owned land and kept sheep, and he thought it right to sell their wool abroad. But Mr. Thorpe grew very warm and angry, and said that to sell English wool to foreign countries was to ruin the English cloth trade.

  “If they take to making cloth abroad, what are we clothiers here to live on?” he said.

  “Aye, and many poor men here who only subsist by spinning and carding of wools,” added Mrs. Thorpe.

  “It is a deep question,” said my father thoughtfully.

  “There’s nowt deep about it. Exporting wools from England,” said Mr. Thorpe, “ought to be forbidden by law.”

  “You want to ruin me, do you?” snorted Mr. Ferrand. “Who’ll grow your wool for you then, eh? Forbidden by law! As far as I know, it’s lawful for an Englishman to do what he likes with his own.”

  “It’s to be hoped the new King will think so,” grumbled Mr. Thorpe, “and not start levying taxes before Parliament grants them, like his father.”

  “He’ll think so right enough, God bless him,” cried Mr. Ferrand heartily, “if the Parliament give him proper supplies without too much talk and dallying. He’s a gradely lad is Charles. Give him a chance now, Thomas; don’t curb him before he starts.”

  “There are certain grievances which he ought to remedy,” put in my father mildly.

  “I don’t deny it, Mr. Clarkson, I don’t deny it for a moment,” conceded Mr. Ferrand. “But the Government has to be carried on, you know. England’s good name is at stake, abroad. We’re fighting for the King’s sister against the Spaniard, after all. Supplies must come first, for England’s sake.”

  “Grievances must come first,” objected Mr. Thorpe. “If they don’t come first, they don’t come at all.”

  “Religion comes first,” said my father quietly.

  They all looked at him with respect, and were silent.

  “That is very true, Robert Clarkson,” said Mrs. Thorpe at length, and her husband muttered agreement, while Mr. Ferrand gave an embarrassed cough of an approving kind. “After all this worldly talk,” she went on: “we shall do well to refresh our souls with holy words. Robert Clarkson, will you read to us? Son, get the Bible.”

  “It is Will who means to be a minister,” said my father, smiling.

  “Let it be Will, then,” agreed Mrs. Thorpe. “Will you stay and hear a chapter, Giles?”

  “Nay, nay!” said Mr. Ferrand hurriedly, rising. “Chapters are nowt in my line. I heard enough to last me my life when I was courting your Sybil here. Church once a week is enough for me. I’d best be off. No offence meant, Tom.”

  “None taken, Giles,” murmured Mr. Thorpe.

  “Glad to have made your acquaintance, Mr. Clarkson,” went on Mr. Ferrand affably. “And that of the little maid here. So your lad’s to be a minister, eh? Very right and proper. Well, good-night all.”

  He gave us a bow, and went off, humming and twirling his moustache.

  I loved to hear my father read, as his voice was always very clear and beautiful, but I did not grudge his refusal, since the honour of reading gave Will such pleasure. He flushed with pride when John took the
great Bible from its carved box and laid it on the table before him and set the candlesticks beside. Will turned the pages reverently, but seeming a little uncertain where to choose; at last he read, stumbling now and then but with great earnestness, that beautiful psalm seventy-two, where King David prays for righteousness with which to judge his people. He was thinking of our new King Charles, no doubt, put in mind of him by the three men’s talk. Just as he began, our little David appeared and stood shyly at the door, trailing Mrs. Thorpe’s gown behind him, his cheek warm with sleep, his fair hair rumpled. I took him on my lap and he listened gravely.

  “He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. ... He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in His sight,”

  read Will.

  I shall never forget our people as we sat that night; my father with his silver head bowed, gleaming in the candle-light, his eyes closed in prayerful meditation; Mr. Thorpe with his arms folded and his head thrown up a little sideways, a good staunch look on his cheerful red face; Mrs. Thorpe very stern and upright in her chair; David quiet in my arms, Elizabeth smiling and plucking nervously at her gown in love of Will. John sat in the deep shadow behind me; I should hardly have known he was there save that once, when David twitched and the cushion behind my shoulder slipped, a hand came out of the darkness and put it in place.

  When Will had finished the psalm, we made our farewells quietly and went away home. Will carried David, my father took my hand. John attended us silently down the lane with a lantern.

  So ended the day I first met John Thorpe and Francis Ferrand. I remembered them both in prayer before God, that night.

  5

  THREE CHILDREN ARE FRIENDS

  The next day, about the middle of the afternoon, there came a loud rhythmical knocking on our house door, as though someone were playing a tune on it, and when Sarah ran in affright to open, there stood Francis, somewhat pale but gay and lively, with Thunder at his heels.