Take Courage

by Phyllis Bentley

  It is a true saying that misfortunes rarely come singly, for next morning, while we were still in doubt as to whether Thomas had escaped or not, behold an angry letter from the mercer at York where Abraham was apprenticed, saying that Abraham had broken his indentures and fled. John was quite dumbfounded; I do not know which was the more intolerable to him, the idea that a child of his should break indentures, or the thought of his cherished youngest son homeless and starving, roaming the countryside. I too was surprised, for Abraham had stayed in York nigh on three years, so I thought he had settled down. But somehow I was not troubled about Abraham; people always seemed to confide in him, and he listened with a grave attention which endeared him to them, and then he did not demand much of life, asking only to be left alone to manipulate columns of figures, so that it was easy to satisfy him. Though naturally anxious, I felt sure he would fall on his feet. But for Thomas I was greatly troubled. If Thomas came into contact with soldiers nowadays, he would vex them; he had a stern and lofty air, which soldiers do not like, and was apt to be very uncompromising in his speech. I had thoughts of him being attacked and wounded, imprisoned, tried, transported to some far plantation, dying of fever or beaten and starved. John, on the other hand, though naturally concerned for Thomas, felt a pride in him which overrode concern. To John, Thomas was his representative, carrying on the good old cause; he did not wish Thomas, for he had not wished himself, to shrink from any hardship. So John and I sat on either side of our hearth that day, each worrying over a different son. Eliza between us shook her head and sighed with both of us dolefully, sympathising with John because he was her brother and with me because it was Thomas for whom I grieved.

  It was two days before we heard that Thomas had got safe to Rochdale, and two weeks before we received a neat brief note in Abraham’s beautiful penmanship to tell us he had gone to Liverpool.

  “Liverpool!” cried John, inflamed. “He will take a ship thence, I suppose!”

  He wanted to rush off to Liverpool at once himself and fetch Abraham home, but I persuaded him to send and command Thomas, who was still in Lancashire, to go instead and take money to the boy, and after some grumbling John agreed. It was well he did so, for when Thomas returned he came alone, bringing us a brave account of Abraham’s going on in Liverpool. He had opened a school, said Thomas, for the teaching of writing and accounts.

  “A school!” groaned John, nevertheless not altogether displeased. “A school at his age!”

  “He is seventeen, Father,” said Thomas seriously: “and you know his ability in numeration.”

  Abraham was studying the science of navigation, too, said Thomas, which was why he had gone to Liverpool, and he had made the acquaintance of some merchant who knew an astronomer who lived in London.

  “An astronomer!” said John, much struck.

  “Yes. It seems Abraham desires to be an astronomer,” explained Thomas.

  “What is an astronomer, brother?” asked Eliza mildly.

  “Why, he studies the stars,” said John. “But in truth I have never met one. You have brought me some strange children, Penninah,” he grumbled, smiling at me however. “There is not one stays peacefully at home as a sober clothier.”

  “You did not stay very peacefully at home yourself, husband,” said I.

  “Why, that is very true,” said John. “And so I will not grumble. And now, tell us of your own travels, Thomas.”

  In the years which followed, this sentence was spoken, how many, many times! For the government had yet another blow in store for us. When it was found that no prohibition kept congregations from repairing to their ejected ministers for instruction, it was determined to put this out of their power. And so that hateful, cruel and most tyrannical Act was passed, forbidding ministers to reside within five miles of any place where they had ever exercised their ministry, and also forbidding them, except when travelling, to come within the same distance of any corporate city or town. David had to leave his refuge with Sam; he betook himself into the country, and God knows how he lived—he would not take any support from us or from Sam, though it was willingly offered him. Adel was mercifully more than five miles from Little Holroyd, but because Thomas had preached once or twice in Bradford Church, and Bradford was a town, there was always a doubt whether Thomas might reside at home or no. As for the other ministers of the West Riding, many of them had to turn out and move their families to a strange place, being already without any means of livelihood except that furnished to them by the faithful; so that their hardship was very great. Others left their wives and children in their old homes, and journeyed out themselves, returning home only for visits so brief that they could not be regarded as a residence. To many of these did we give hospitality in their endless journeyings, and hospitality was given by many to Thomas. Thomas kept a journal of his travels at his father’s request, with the places and miles and the duties he performed writ down each day very carefully; this journal, when he looked through it the other day, revealed that in these hard years he preached more than six hundred sermons and travelled more than five thousand miles.

  And while he travelled those miles and preached those sermons, growing thinner and more haggard every day, I thought of him. Often I lay awake at night and thought of those I loved who were bowed beneath this trial; David poor and comfortless—for I knew what his keeping himself by tutoring and studies meant, he would give all to the studies and none to the tutoring—Thomas toiling wearily up and down the hills. When the wind roared and the rain streamed, when the snow lay thick on the ground and the hail rattled on our windows, I lay awake at night, thinking of Thomas on horseback between one meeting place and the next, cold and tired and far from home. And I said to myself: Will this tribulation never end? How long, O Lord, how long?

  It was during these years, shortly after the passing of the hated Five-Mile Act, that Eliza married again—a very decent sober minister, an elderly man, widowed, who passed through our house often on his pilgrimages of service. As his ministry had been in Cumberland, he was able to live in Adel, where most of Eliza’s friends were, and John helped them to arrange Eliza’s affairs and settle in a house there, and he gave up wandering and ministered very little, living on Eliza’s rents, and their marriage was a quiet blessing and happiness to both of them.

  John and I were left therefore somewhat lonely at The Breck; we had plenty of the company of ministers, for our house was a noted place of call for them, but none of our own kin about us. For Thomas was perpetually wandering; and Abraham’s letters, very beautifully writ and describing all the doings of the port of Liverpool in a very precise and detailed manner, though not telling us much of his private feelings revealed that he was very well established and satisfied with his place, and meant to go to London presently; so that it would have been foolish to call him home.

  It was therefore a great pleasure to me when Sam sent his wife and children to us to be safe out of that great visitation of plague which fell on London at that time. Some said this visitation was a punishment from God for the dissolute ways of the King’s Court; but I do not know, for I have never remarked any stroke of God falling directly on evildoers in that manner. Sam being a very shrewd sensible lad, as soon as he saw a few houses marked with that red cross upon the doors which was a sign of the plague decided it was an excellent time for his wife to visit Yorkshire; and accordingly she came with three children about her and carrying a fourth, These three, Robert and Constance and Mary, were very buxom hearty pieces, fair and sandy in complexion, with something of a London accent and perkiness about them but warm-hearted enough; it seemed they knew nothing of cows or sheep or becks or heather, and they tore up and down The Breck like wild things. To me it was a great pleasure to hear children’s voices, laughing and hearty, and running footsteps, about The Breck again; John in a way liked it too, but he rather undervalued Sam’s children, who indeed were not very clever at their books, though shrewd enough in life. John did not greatly care for Constance either, pr
eferring more spirituality in a woman; but I liked her. She was good about the house, and this was a great help to me with the many ministers coming and going; she helped me ably with the poultices for John’s knee; moreover, when her time came and she was delivered of her second son, she bore herself bravely, and this is a great test of the quality of a woman. It was a time of trial for both of us; for Constance had left both her husband, and her father and mother, in London, and presently we had news that her parents were dead of the plague; while for my part, both my Sam was in the danger, and also David, for as soon as he heard that the conforming minister who replaced him at St. Giles’ was dead of the plague, up he came to London and stayed there, ministering to the people.

  “If there is any dangerous duty anywhere, be sure your David will go stick his nose in it,” grumbled John, who in truth admired his conduct greatly.

  Lister at first took John’s view of Constance, which vexed me, but when he found she had many stories to tell of David’s ministry in Cripplegate, he listened to her very willingly, and a kind of friendship sprang up between Sarah Lister and Constance, which I was not best pleased at but could find no reason against, and David Lister played with Sam’s children. For my part I would tell Constance in return stories of Sam’s childhood, and his great prowess at The Breck in the Civil War, to which she listened very attentively, while the children gathered open-mouthed about me. They were very fond of their father, which it gave me pleasure to see.

  The deaths from the plague rose to three and four thousand a week in London, and Constance was in an agony for Sam, though she put a brave face on it for the children’s sake; once or twice she even flew out at me about David, who, she said, was sure to go into all the stricken houses and then bring the infection back to his nephew. This was so true that I could say nothing against it, yet I had a kind of confidence in Sam, having been with him before in times of great trouble and proved his quality. I said this to Constance, and I saw she had this confidence too but feared to trust to it.

  She need not have feared, however, for the plague slowly died down and Sam and David were both safe, and about Christmas time Sam came to Yorkshire to fetch his family home. I was greatly disappointed that David did not come too. Sam told me he had done his utmost to persuade his uncle, but David was very straitened in his expenses nowadays, having no regular livelihood, and though Sam would gladly have paid for him to travel, he would not accept it. Sam looked very well and hearty and prosperous, being then nigh on thirty years in age and already a respected merchant; he was not very tall, for he had not fulfilled his childish promise of height, his growth having been thwarted, I judge, during the war, but he was strong and solid in body, like his father. The children leaped about him and it was plain to see he was an indulgent father; nevertheless he had them under a good discipline.

  Seeing that Sam was come, we sent to Thomas and also to Abraham, urging them to eat their Christmas dinner with us. John sent money to Abraham to travel with, but this Abraham very courteously returned when he arrived, saying he was well able to pay for himself and would not trespass further on his father’s goodness, especially since he had broken from the course his father wished for him. John sniffed and snorted somewhat over this; but was pleased enough in reality. Thomas, overhearing this, told his father that Abraham’s time was not yet come, but he had great trust, from what he heard of him, that he would one day be a famous astronomer, which pleased John further.

  So we had a very great Christmas dinner, with Thomas, and Sam and Constance and their three children, and Abraham, and the Baumes and their daughters—one of whom, still unmarried, I thought had an eye for Thomas—and Mrs. Hodgson and her son, who was studying for a minister. Poor Captain Hodgson could not come, he being in gaol in York with some other local parliament-men, on suspicion of a plot of which they were entirely innocent. The Hodgsons had a fancy for Abraham, they liked to say that he had caught the infection of mathematics at their house, which stood in Halifax parish, there having been, it seemed, some famous mathematicians lately born in Halifax.

  A thing which gave me great pleasure then was that a letter from Virginia arrived just at Christmas-tide, when Sam and all the others were there to see it. The letter came not from Chris, however, but from his wife, whose name, it seemed, was Virginia, like her birthplace. It was a letter most delightful, being both sweet and able; very well-writ in a fine gentlewoman’s hand, with good spelling and fluent expression. As far as I could gather, this Virginia seemed to be the daughter of some high-up official there; my father opposed our marriage at the first, wrote Jinny (for this, it seemed, was Chris’s name for her); but after Chris’s notable feat against the Indians, he gladly withdrew his opposition.

  “Chris’s notable feat against the Indians!” exclaimed Sam when he read this, looking at me accusingly. “You never told me aught of that, Mother.”

  “I never heard aught of it,” said I. “Nor do I suppose I ever shall, unless I can coax it out of this Virginia.”

  (But I never have heard; for when I had asked four or five times of it and got no answer to my question, at last Chris wrote impatiently: that is long ago Mother and I have forgott it, and I gave up asking.)

  Yes, it was a very sweet letter, telling how she and Chris were married nigh on two years ago, and how they now had a daughter, whom they had named Faith after my mother. This pleased me greatly.

  Sam read this letter, and the others from Chris, many times very carefully, musing on them.

  “I doubt not Chris is doing very well in Virginia,” said he. “He is just the lad for a new wild country, though for my part I can ill spare him. He was a grand lad, our Chris. Very bright and swift and joyous, like spring sunshine.”

  “You are turning poet, Sam,” Constance told him with one of her hearty laughs.

  “Ha!” said Sam scornfully at this, snorting.

  Seeing there was so much talk of marriage and children in the air, I put Sam on to urge Thomas towards matrimony, his father and I being troubled that he had yet no family.

  “I cannot marry while I am about the Lord’s business,” said Thomas impatiently, and when he and Sam were alone together he explained that he feared a wife and children would draw him from his travelling ministry and keep him at home. Since this was largely why I desired to see him married, I could not counter it, but my heart grieved over him, because he looked so haggard and comfortless.

  In the next year, indeed, there seemed some hope that the persecution might be lifted from us, for the Duke of Buckingham came into great favour with the King, and the Duke, being Lord Fairfax’s son-in-law, was kindly disposed towards those of our persuasion. He seemed a strange, odd man, this Duke; the most dissolute, save perhaps the King himself, of all that dissolute Court, he yet showed some inclination towards religion, and though he neglected his wife till her heart was torn, he yet always showed much affection and respect for her father. He kept a Non-conforming minister as his chaplain, doubtless for her sake, and when Lady Fairfax died—which I only now, with much regret, heard of—he proposed that this chaplain should publicly preach her funeral sermon. I thought this the most natural thing in the world, seeing who his wife was, but among Cavaliers, to whom Non-conforming folk were both ludicrous and treacherous, it was considered very wonderful. While the Duke was Lord-Lieutenant of Yorkshire, things were a little easier for those of our persuasion, and in this year he even had a scheme brought before Parliament, whereby the Presbyterian ministers might be comprehended in the Church of England. Thomas and David were both tremendously heartened by this scheme; they wrote very much upon it, and Thomas prayed and fasted for its good success until he wore himself almost to a shadow. But it was all of no avail; the scheme failed to pass in Parliament.

  It saddened me to see the bitter disappointment on Thomas’s face when he heard of this defeat. This year was the year of the Great Fire in London, when so much of the City went up in fearful flame, and Sam had to move out his goods, both from his house and fr
om Blackwell Hall, in a hurry, and lost some by fire and some by water and some by theft, so that the damage he sustained was very heavy and he was vexed by it. But though I was sorry for his losses, my heart did not grieve over him as it did over Thomas and David. For Sam lost goods, and by exercising toil and skill and care he could replace them; but David and Thomas were kept by law from exercising toil and skill and care in the profession they had given their whole lives to, it was their spirits which were cramped and thwarted. “How long, O Lord, how long?” I murmured to myself often, sighing, as I saw the lines graving deeper every day on Thomas’s face, the lines which come when a man is kept by oppression from his true fulfilment.

  VII

  Achievement

  1

  THE MEMORY OF THE JUST IS BLESSED

  It was about this time, the year after the Great Fire, that our prosperity began to return to us.

  For one thing, John cleared the Holroyd Hall land at last. Whether he had bought it in himself and sent the purchase price to Chris at the time of his majority, mortgaging the land to do so, or whether he had sent the income from it to him all these years and now at last bought it from him, I do not quite remember; but whichever it was I know it was very honestly done, and Chris wrote a very grateful letter about it to John, which must have given him great content, for I found it amongst his papers after his death. You are verry rich in reputtation here as a pattern of a Father, wrote Chris, which made a good close to the long story between John and Francis. So now John owned the Holroyd Hall land; the Hall stood empty, as before, with poor Giles’s bowling alley all grown over, which saddened me, but he farmed and pastured some of the land and let out some portions, and it was profitable to him.