Take Courage

by Phyllis Bentley

  John and I went to Adel to hear Thomas preach his first sermon there one summer Lord’s Day. I own I was excited and somewhat tremulous, to think of my own son, my firstborn child, preaching to the large congregation assembled there that day, and I could see that John was also very much moved, though he was not one to show his feelings in a public assembly. Thomas was the first Thorpe to occupy a pulpit, and John was justly proud that his family had offered a son to the service of the Lord. Most mothers, I think, are anxious when their children have to perform some public act, and my heart beat fast when Thomas gave out his text, which was Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. But I need not have troubled myself; he laid out the various heads with such grace and clarity, such strong faith where true comfort was to be found, that I was quite amazed at him. He did not show such poetry in his discourse as David did, for he had ever a strong infusion of the Thorpe practicality; but he spoke with dignity and strength. He looked handsome too, in a stern dark noble way; altogether I was greatly pleased with him.

  So we were eager to be hopeful about the King’s return, and we continued to indulge these hopes right up to the day of the King’s Coronation. Trade was a little brisker then than it had been, many people feeling hopeful like ourselves, and Lister, I remember, came up to The Breck that forenoon about a couple of pieces which he wanted to send to market on the morrow. He and John fell into their usual argument upon Charles II, and Lister ranting, as usual, against the Stuart kings, John lost patience with him.

  “I never saw you fighting for the Commonwealth very eagerly, Lister,” said he drily. “You were steward and agent and merchant, I think, while I was soldier.”

  Lister sniffed indignantly and went off muttering.

  “Think you truly we shall be let live free and quiet, John?” I asked when he had gone.

  “How do I know? It is all to try for. As long as Black Tom thinks there is a hope of it, I will hope for it too,” said John.

  This he said because Lord Fairfax had given the King a horse to ride at the Coronation, a horse from his own stud, a foal of the mare he rode at Naseby. The King accepted it and rode on it to be crowned, and this was thought to be very hopeful for a true peace, a reconciliation of all former enemies; in Bradford we rejoiced.

  But alas! Lister’s gloomy croakings were nearer the mark than John’s honest impartiality. The Coronation was barely over, it seemed, before proceedings were begun against those men who had signed the late King’s death warrant, the Regicides as they were now called; and some were put to death, and the bodies of those already deceased were dragged out from their graves—Sam wrote very bitterly to us that he had seen Cromwell’s body dragged at the cart-tail to Tyburn, where felons were wont to be executed, and what seemed worse to him, the body of Oliver’s mother, old Mrs. Cromwell, torn out of its coffin and thrown naked into an ill-dug pit in Westminster. (It seemed no worse to me to dig up Mrs. Cromwell than Oliver, but I have often noticed that men resent indignities to women far more than any insult to themselves. I cannot see why it should be worse to kill a woman than a man, all killing being equally abhorrent to me; but men do not think thus yet, though perhaps they will come to do so some day.) Lord Fairfax was bitterly angry, we heard, at this breaking of the new King’s promises; he asked indignantly why, if these other Regicides were to be put to death, he himself should escape, seeing that he was in command of the Parliament’s army at the time of the late King’s trial. But Lord Fairfax had not been present at the trial, as all men knew, which this King Charles II made an excuse for not prosecuting him; the true reason being that no man, even a restored Stuart, dared persecute Lord Fairfax, for fear of an uproar among the people. Lord Fairfax left the Court, however, and came home to Nun Appleton, not choosing to be the witness of behaviour he thought so evil.

  Seeing the example set to them by their betters in London, our local Royalists began to carry things with a high hand. They persecuted Captain Hodgson continually, citing him to the court for his lightest word, accusing him of treason and conspiracy and this and that, till he was forever in and out of gaol and appearing before the magistrates. John was a staunch friend to him, standing bond for him many a time, riding on his behalf to Bradford and Halifax and York, though with his lame knee and his painful affection much riding was become a troublous business for him. All this John did with a kind of stolid persistent obstinacy, not happy in it, nor hopeful, but just going on steadily because it was the right thing to do. It was not a happy time in any sense for my poor John; trade was a little better but not much, the Dutch still being very difficult, and he seemed to have lost some of his pride in it now that he made but half a dozen pieces a week; moreover, he was endlessly troubled over Holroyd Hall. He often lamented to me that his Uncle Giles was not alive now, for then all these Hall troubles would have been smoothed away; and I too wished that Giles might have lived to see his King restored. The papers, the letters, the declarations before magistrates, the evasions and demands of tenants, the arguments over long-paid fines, which poor John had to wrestle with in connection with Holroyd Hall, now that he belonged to the losing side, were enough to daunt any but the most stout-hearted man. He won through it all gradually, and proved his title and Chris’s, and made a profitable lease of the land. (For the Hall itself, that stood empty for many a long year, nobody in the neighbourhood being prosperous enough to take it on.) But at this time of which I am thinking, what with Captain Hodgson in troubles before one set of magistrates, and declarations about Holroyd Hall to be made before another, and some malicious persons trying to oust John from his steward’s employment, and Lister continually lamenting to him about the poor prospects of cloth, and the public news continually worsening for all of our persuasion, it was a dreary, dispiriting, sickening time for John.

  And then one night when we were all abed there came a sudden thunderous knocking at our door. It was painful for John to move quickly, so I sprang up and threw a cloak round me and opened the casement and called out to know who was there.

  “Open in the King’s name!” was the shouted answer.

  My heart sank. Are we to have a sack again, I wondered despairingly; and I feared greatly what might happen to John if it were so, for he would not be able to endure it quietly, his temper being somewhat short of late, with pain and disappointment. So I said hastily:

  “It is some soldiers, I think. I will go down.”

  “No—no, Penninah,” commanded John. “Tell them I will come down to see them as soon as I have made a light.”

  I called down this message, and looked out more carefully at the men below; in the moonlight I could see they were a party of horse. They now dismounted and gathered round our porch, with a jingling of bits and ringing of spurs.

  “Speak them fair, John,” I whispered as he passed me; for indeed I felt I could not bear any further misfortune.

  John did not answer, but limped down the stairs and unbarred the door. I followed him and lit a candle.

  “Now, sirs,” said John in a level but stern and commanding tone, standing in the doorway: “Be so good as to tell me by what right you disturb honest folk at this time of the night?”

  “‘Tis not our fault we are late,” said the man at their head, who seemed not to be a soldier: “If your sleep is disturbed blame the other Roundheads who delayed us.”

  There seemed something familiar in his impudent tones, and I was not much surprised when John said:

  “Were you not once clerk to the ulnager, Mr. Metcalfe?”

  “Aye, I am Jeremy Scaife,” said the other, swaggering. “You and I have had our little disagreements before, Mr. Thorpe. But as I was saying to Captain Hodgson only the other day, the sun now shines on our side of the hedge, Mr. Thorpe.”

  “Why,” said John pleasantly: “It is true the Lord sends rain on both the just and the unjust, so doubtless He sends sunshine also.”

  At this there was a slight sniggering among the men, and Scaife was angered.

  “I could inform again
st you for treason for saying that!” he cried out angrily.

  “Come, Mr. Scaife,” said John impatiently: “You are keeping women and children from their beds. To business.”

  I looked about surprised, as he said this, and saw that both our two maids and Abraham were clustered behind me.

  “I am clerk to the magistrates now, and I have come for your arms; you are to deliver them to me,” said Scaife.

  “Come in,” said John, standing back: “And show me your order.”

  “I have a better order than Oliver used to give,” cried Scaife. He clapped his hand on the sword he wore, and cried: “This is my order.”

  “If you have none but that, it is not sufficient,” said John steadily.

  At this Scaife pulled out a warrant from his doublet and handed it to John, who read it all through from beginning to end, while I held the candle for him.

  “It is a general order, to search all suspected persons,” said John, looking up when he had finished. “Of what and by whom am I suspected?”

  “Now, Mr. Thorpe,” said Scaife, swaggering up to the table and throwing down his gloves there: “It is useless to resist a warrant, don’t you know that? There has been a plot against His Majesty’s life, and we have orders to search for arms at the houses of all suspected persons.”

  “Search away,” said John grimly. “You will find only a couple of muskets and a fowling piece.”

  “And what of your buff-coat, Mr. Thorpe?” said Scaife in the impudent pretentious tone he now affected.

  At this John, who hitherto had seemed calm and indifferent, started and coloured.

  “You have no order to take away my apparel,” he said quickly.

  “A buff-coat is arms, not apparel,” said Scaife, delighted to have moved him.

  “You shall not have it!” shouted John suddenly.

  “If you resist my warrant I shall carry you away a prisoner!” shouted Scaife in reply. He was a long thin personage, and he towered over John threateningly.

  “You shall not have my buff-coat,” said John, his breathing very heavy.

  “Outside with you then, and to prison!” cried Scaife in a fury, and he shouted at two of the soldiers and made them come and stand with John between them. They obeyed him sheepishly. “Outside! Outside!” he screamed. “You are my prisoner!”

  “Take me to prison, then!” shouted John, totally losing his temper, so that his voice coarsened and his face grew darkly crimson. “I care not! You shall not have my buff-coat, in which I fought under my General.”

  “Rebel and traitor!” screamed Scaife. “Outside!” He snatched up one of our muskets, which the troopers had laid on the table, and made to strike John with it across the shoulders to urge him forward.

  “Mr. Scaife, Mr. Scaife!” I cried in terror, throwing myself between them. “For God’s sake! I beg of you! You shall have the coat—Abraham,” I cried, turning to the child: “Fetch your father’s buff-coat from the closet.”

  Abraham, not understanding anything but that his father was in danger, ran off hastily, then hesitated, turned, and said in his young piping tones:

  “Which is the buff-coat, Mother?”

  “It is wrapped in linen, with spices, hanging at the back of the closet,” I whispered. “Bring it quickly.”

  “Aye, go; go, child,” said John suddenly, sinking down on the bench by the table and burying his face in his hands: “Go and do thy mother’s bidding.”

  Abraham ran off up the stairs. It seemed hours before he came down again with the buff-coat clasped close to him. I took the coat and, not looking at John, I gave it to his enemy.

  Scaife mumbled a word or two, then bade his soldiers pick up the arms and come with him. We heard them outside, mounting.

  I knew not where to go or how to look, but, not holding up my head, for indeed I could not, drove the maids and Abraham back to bed with a few words of scolding. Abraham was restless and disturbed by the night’s work, and would not settle; he abounded in speculations about the soldiers and the buff-coat, and when I turned him from that began to ask me a familiar question of his since Chris’s departure. It was one on which John could not bear to hear him, namely: what like was the sea? I was afraid to feed the longing to travel which I supposed lay behind his anxiety, either by denying him or telling him, but he gave me his first hint of his true preoccupation with the sea that night, being excited and so revealing his nature’s secrets, by saying:

  “On the sea they guide themselves by the stars, Mother.”

  At the time I took little notice of this, being full of care about John and anxious to return to him; I said merely:

  “Well, let it be so; it doth not concern you, Abraham.”

  “Aye, but it doth,” said Abraham softly.

  When at last I reached our chamber, John was there before me. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his hands spread on his knees, his shoulders bowed, gazing ahead of him. I saw by his posture that he was suffering.

  “Art in pain, lad?” I said, sitting beside him.

  He hunched his shoulders and let them fall again, as if to imply that he did not care for pain.

  “John, I gave the coat only to save thee,” I faltered.

  “I know,” said John. “I know.” He drew a deep breath and sighed very heavily, then he turned to me and said: “Well, wife; it seems we are defeated.”

  There were tears in his eyes, and he looked so old and sad and worn that I could not bear it; I put my arms about him and said:

  “Never mind, love.”

  “But I do mind, Penninah,” fretted John. “It is my whole life. It is all my life. My life is wasted.”

  “Nay, John,” said I: “There are the children.”

  But all night long he lay with his head on my breast, talking of his lost cause, and would not be comforted.

  3

  BUT THE CAUSE IS NOT DEAD

  It was during this sad and depressing time, when John was both dejected in spirit and pained in body, that he made his mistake about our Abraham. It was a very natural error, founded on affection and the happenings of the times, and Abraham himself presently repaired it, but it caused us some heartburnings before it was set right.

  The error was in apprenticing Abraham to a mercer in York. John in his present dejection despaired of the cloth trade. He had never done this before, saying always, however bad it was, that it must recover, for men must be clothed; but now he lost hope of this as of our cause. Abraham therefore was not to be a clothier, he declared emphatically; nor should he be a minister, for both to put him through Cambridge would cost too much and Abraham himself, though a well behaved and Christian lad enough, cared not for sermons or theological matters.

  “Besides,” said John gloomily: “This Charles who throws out bodies will put us out of the Church one way or another before we are much older.”

  So John determined to apprentice Abraham to some merchant, and it should be in some town near at hand. For John loved Abraham very dearly—Sam indeed was apt to say that Abraham’s name should have been Benjamin, and sometimes called him so in jest. John could not endure to be parted from the child by his going to London, as he was from Sam; besides, in his secret heart I think he was afraid that once in London, Abraham might take to the sea in Chris’s footsteps, for he did not understand the true meaning of Abraham’s talk of the sea any more than I did at that time.

  I must own that I never understood Abraham as I did my other children. In saying so once to John over this business of the apprenticeship, he replied shortly:

  “And yet of all four he resembles thee the most.”

  I was astonished at this, and next time Abraham was nigh, I looked at him very closely. He was a handsome lad in a way, so that John’s observation was flattering; he had my clear pale skin, I could see that, and perhaps my abundance of dark waving hair; moreover his body was slender and well formed, with agreeable hands and feet, like my father’s. But he had a high forehead and a pair of brilliant eyes s
uch as I laid no claim to, and a half smile always on his lips, somewhat like Lord Fairfax’s only more ironical. In spirit he was remote and reserved and solitary—I thought, like John; it was disconcerting to find John thought it like me! When Abraham entered a room, you always noticed his coming; there was a secret fire in the lad of which you caught glimpses, as it were, through crevices. It is absurd to speak of feeling awe for one’s own children, perhaps, and yet I always felt somewhat clumsy and abashed before Abraham; his mind seemed off somewhere on the fringes of the world, busy with things beyond my understanding. Then his skill with figures was so great as to be almost magical.

  Abraham did not wish to be apprenticed to a merchant, either in Leeds or York or anywhere else, though he might put up with it, he hinted, if it were in London. He wished to go to Cambridge University and study mathematics there.

  “And what in Heaven’s name would you do for a livelihood afterwards?” said John.