“Hast thou become a soldier, a man of blood?”
That seemed fairly obvious to the others in the room, but the old lady had ever had a taste for the dramatic.
“I have, Mother. I was brought up to blood – mine flowed often under the lash of the brutal beast who sired me!”
“Speak not ill of the dead. It is impious!”
“Why? He is undoubtedly burning in the Fiery Pit. Why should I speak well of one who is in the care of the Devil?”
She had no answer, stepped back, ostentatiously wringing her hands.
Micah greeted his sisters and Jacob’s wife decorously, as was only proper. He produced the silver crowns he had brought and handed them out one apiece, ignoring his mother’s cry that the girls were too young to handle money, that she would look after it for them.
“Wilt thou go to the chapel, to Pastor Doddington, now, my son? You should make an equal gift to him.”
“Not a penny, Mother. The pastor knew of my father’s habits and would do nothing to stop him in his brutality. He preferred to keep quiet, to hide the shame from the rest of the world, no doubt. He shall see nothing from me.”
“Shame upon you, Micah. It is not yours to judge your betters.”
“It is not, Mother. He is no better than me!”
She was silenced by this appalling heresy.
Jacob broke the silence, asking Micah to tell them of his adventures since he had left the village.
“Girls, leave the room!”
“No, Mother. There is no reason at all for them to leave. They shall hear the tale – it contains nothing to shame them.”
“It is about foreign parts! They need know nothing of them. Collyweston has all they need to know.”
“The world is changing. We shall all need to know more than one small village can tell us. There may be war within a few years”
“Not here, my son. Not in Collyweston.”
“Everywhere. My brother tells me the Trained Band is up and that every man in the village is learning the ways of arms. Those who learn how to wield pike and musket, pistol and sword, will certainly be called to use them. The sole question is who they will fight for – which means who will they choose as their enemy?”
They sat and listened, amazed to hear how far their brother had travelled, not imagining that the country was so great. After a while Rosamund, the youngest, fetched a jug of water and drinking jacks so they could quench their thirst. Around midday she cut slices from a loaf to meet their hunger.
The story telling ended soon after and the womenfolk set the stew pot on its hooks in the chimneybreast to cook for the evening. Theirs was a well-off household and they had a few ounces of fresh mutton to dice up in the stew, together with beans and barley and sliced turnip. They had salt as well, purchased from the packman who walked through every month. They put extra vegetables in the pot, to stretch the meal to another mouth.
“What of the men in the quarry, brother? Rebecca’s kin, are they not?”
“They have cheese and a fresh loaf of their own. They will eat a mess of oatmeal and beans tonight, with another loaf. The remains will heat to break their fast. We give them bacon each week, besides. They come to no harm, Micah. They are paid well and can purchase more if they wish.”
Micah wondered where they would buy from, knowing there was no store in the village.
“You will want to get back to work, Jacob. I shall take a stroll round the village. Perhaps my sisters might walk with me?”
Mrs Slater was sure they should not – they must not be seen in idleness. It was not good for young girls to leave their house. There was no need for them to do so.
Jacob overruled her. Their brother would only be present for a short while, two days at most. They should enjoy his company while they could.
The girls ran to fetch their scarves to cover their heads and their shawls to wind around their chest and shoulders, as was proper. They were excited at the treat, never leaving the confines of house and garden except for chapel twice on Sundays.
“Has anything changed over the year, Eleanor?”
The eldest answered gravely that she thought not.
“The men train with their pikes and pistols on the Sabbath. So we are told, for we may not stay to see them.”
That was strange to Micah. The town girls often came to the barracks in Stamford to watch the soldiers at their drill, and they had done the same at York. Thinking on it, he imagined that things would be different in the village. Pastor Doddington would not approve of the girls displaying immodest curiosity.
In fact, he supposed, Pastor Doddington disapproved of any attempt to dispel ignorance in his village. His people knew only what he told them and thus were protected from sin, so he said.
If war came, then Micah would be fighting on the same side as Pastor Doddington. He was not entirely convinced of his own wisdom.
They walked the quarter of a mile down the road that eventually led to Kettering, a town none in the village had ever visited, reaching the church which they did not attend before turning around and then venturing into the side road that ran down to the River Welland. They passed the chapel before turning again to make their way home, chattering all the while about the places he had seen.
“Is that thee, Micah Slater, dressed as a soldier in the army of the King?”
“It is, Pastor Doddington. I am a lieutenant in Colonel Knighton’s Regiment of Foot. My company is at Stamford and I am taking the pleasure of visiting my family.”
“Have you fought for the King against the godly men of Scotland?”
“The Scots broke the border. They burned out and killed many harmless farmers. They set fire to the cornfields, Pastor. They stole from the towns and did much harm to the people in them. Their army contained many of those men called Highlanders, ragged and cruel savages, all of them papists. I have heard of the Covenant, Pastor, and believe it to be godly, but the army was not made of men who had God in their hearts.”
Pastor Doddington knew that Micah would not lie to him. He was an honest boy and open in his devotions. That being the case, the Covenanters had been betrayed by those who had made an army for them. He was saddened but not entirely surprised to hear of the perfidy of the self-styled nobility who had led the forces gathered to support the right.
“What do you do now, Micah Slater?”
“I train my men, Pastor. I learn the ways of war and practice them as I can. There may well be war in this land, Pastor. When that war comes, the Righteous will need soldiers to support their cause. Many young men – and older, I doubt not - will flock to the cause. If they are led by soldiers, they will prevail. Without knowing men at their head, they may be butchered by the King’s army. I and as many of my company as will follow me will fight for the cause that you have taught me to be right.”
Pastor Doddington was much moved by the spirit, fell to his knees in the dust to thank his God for the existence of such men as Micah Slater.
“When the great day comes, Micah Slater, be sure that the men of Collyweston shall seek thee out to stand at thy back.”
“Then I shall lead them, Pastor. That being so, I must learn all I can so that I lead them to victory. I cannot have the deaths of brave men set at my door. I must not be ignorant of war.”
Pastor Doddington was, as so often, left in a quandary. He could not approve of war, detested all bloodshed, yet could see no alternative to an uprising against the King of Blood who so misruled the country. The King had taken a Papist wife and had made no attempt to convert her, had indeed permitted her to have the blasphemous farce called the Mass performed in her royal presence. There was little doubt, in fact, that she was close to converting him to her wickedness. In addition, the King had ruled long without his Parliament and had imposed unlawful taxes. The need was to remove this King, and not necessarily to replace him with another. The congregation of the Saints assembled must do better for the country than a spendthrift royal profligate; the country needed no more than a godly P
arliament.
“This King must be toppled, Micah Slater. He must go. Thy hands, sir, shall play no small part in the destruction of this wicked Man of Blood. I shall pray for thee, Micah Slater.”
“I must do what is right, Pastor. For the present, the men of Collyweston must learn their drill and discover how to load and fire and then clean their firelocks.”
“Drill for hours at a time is tedious, Brother Slater.”
The pastor had not addressed Micah as ‘Brother’ before. It was to admit him to the rank of adulthood in the village.
“Drill will save lives and win battles, Pastor. When the enemy horse comes charging down upon the men, they must be quick to form their line or square and present their pikes and firelocks in the proper fashion. If they are slow, or if their ranks are ragged, then the horse will inevitably destroy them. If they are not proficient in their drill, they will die. Dying in a victory is no great thing, you may say – the Gates of Heaven will gape wide for them. But, Pastor, if they die in defeat, then the whole cause may fail with them. Is Heaven to welcome those who would not learn their drill and so betrayed the godly into the hands of the Antichrist?”
“You speak words of great wisdom, Micah Slater. You have learned much in your time away from the village. I do not doubt that you will have learned some lessons best forgotten, but you have also discovered some of wisdom. I shall say your very words to the congregation on Sunday. They shall be taught your wisdom, Micah Slater.”
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, Pastor?”
“Psalms 8.2 and Matthew 21.16, Brother Slater. Thus to be found in both Old and New Testaments and strengthening its significance… There is indeed wisdom to be found in the young. Be sure I shall speak that truth!”
Micah bowed his head in response, in part to hide the smirk on his face. The quotation was one of the few he could actually remember from his years of bowing before the Pastor.
The little group walked back through the village, seeing and speaking to none of their neighbours.
“They will call us out in chapel, Micah. They will say that young girls should not be walking through the village except with their parents to go to chapel.”
“Foolish! In Stamford, just two miles away, you would be free to walk out together when you wished. Many of the respectable young girls of Stamford come to the castle to watch the soldiers parade, and none think the worse of them for so doing.”
“We could not do such, Micah. Unless Jacob takes us, we cannot leave the house and garden. We must not even go to the quarry now that the brothers are there as workers.”
Micah had forgotten just how restrictive the village was.
“If ever I am made captain, which pays far more than a mere lieutenancy, then I shall buy my own house in Stamford and make a place for some of you there. I cannot now, for lacking the money, but I shall one day. You may be better off in town than out in a small village when war comes. I shall speak to Jacob.”
Jacob walked out with Micah in the evening, taking him to inspect the quarry and the extension of the workings that he had put in hand.
“The brothers cut slates for me, Micah, on two faces now, and I carry them to the drying yard myself. I trim the slates in the morning and move them in the afternoon. I believe our father may have been an idle man, Micah. I find it possible to do far more than ever he managed.”
Micah felt a little guilty as he recalled that he had never chosen to exert himself to any great extent. He had not wished to make an effort for his father.
He looked over the workings, nodding to the pair cutting.
“That is Joseph and Samuel Caton, is it not, Jacob? Do they not feel upset to be working for their sister and her husband?”
“They obey their father’s commands as is only right, Micah. They are fed and receive a good wage. I had at first allowed them to live at home and walk across in the morning – ‘tis a bare quarter of a mile, after all. Better though that they live in their own little hut at the quarry and are fed there for six days of the week. They spend Saturday and Sunday nights at home and they earn three shillings a week each.”
“My soldiers see eight pence a day, Jacob. I doubt my men work so hard or such long hours.”
“The slate does not sell at a high price, Micah. As well, I am adding to my father’s savings as I can. One day soon, Micah, I shall buy the workings to our east.”
Jacob pointed to a collapsed, grassed over and ancient quarry, unworked for many years.
“There is good stone there, Micah. It remains unworked for being unlucky, so they say. It was leased from the farm down in the valley and I have spoken to Farmer Beeston and he would sell willingly, for not having a use for the thin soil over the slate, he says. I think, as well, he would wish to get rid of the bad luck from his acres. Two men and a boy, and perhaps a donkey cart, even a mule, if such could be found, and there would be more money coming in to the house.”
Micah was impressed. He had seen the old workings every day of his life in the village, but it had never occurred to him that the quarry could be reopened at a profit. He knew that the workings were unlucky, the face having collapsed onto the three men working it and then fallen again on the rescuers trying to dig them out. Five men had died on that day, forty years before.
“Not to be spoken of, Brother Jacob, but I earn as much as ten of my soldiers. An old noble a day – six shillings and eightpence. As a captain, I shall be paid twice that. If there is a war, then I might be made captain early. The ten pounds a month I earn now is a vast sum, Jacob, and I do not know what to do with it. Was I to place some of that money in thy hands, then perhaps the purchase could be made earlier than thou had planned.”
“I need but five more pounds to purchase the three acres, together with my father’s savings.”
“I can give thee that much now, brother.”
The brothers walked down the hill to Farmer Beeston next morning and placed the agreed sum of fourteen pounds in his hands. In return, he passed over an ancient deed relating specifically to the quarry and watched as they wrote out a bill of sale and signed it. He was not literate and took them along to the squire’s estate office and showed the writings to the agent there.
“You are to sell the old, ill-fated quarry, Farmer Beeston, for the sum of fourteen pounds. Have you received that money?”
Beeston had brought the coins with him, counted them out on the desk.
“Quite right. Now, let us see the Bill of Sale.”
The agent read the short document and countersigned it at the bottom.
“That is my word that the sale is good. Might I just examine the old deed?”
The agent compared the drawing to his own map of the whole parish.
“Three acres as measured between the posts that mark the Slaters’ land and the road and the boundary to the Easton estate. There is no marking on the hillside looking down to the river to the north and you must agree the line of a fence there. I shall be willing to walk across with you and set out the posts, if you wish.”
It was all very informal and done with by the end of the day, the people of the village all working together.
Chapter Ten
Years of Blood Series
Bold and Blooded
“Well, brother, thou knowest that thou art welcome here whenever thou might wish to come. Return soon, I beg of thee.”
“I am close to hand, Jacob. I must perform my duty but shall visit when I can.”
“Not ‘visit’, Micah. Thou art to come home.”
Micah smiled at that, touched by the good-hearted simplicity of his brother.
“I shall, when I can. I much suspect that we shall be marching out soon. Spring is almost upon us and that is the season to be marching. There is a fear that we might be sent to Ireland. We may well be called to the garrison at Nottingham. It seems that the King is bringing many of his regiments there. It is not impossible that we might be marched into Norfolk, brother. There is some word of the so-ca
lled Puritans there being restive. If they are, then they may be as the match that touches the tinder. My company will not act to put good men down, brother.”
“Be careful, Micah. Do not place thy neck on the executioner’s block!”
Micah laughed and walked out to his horse, at his brother’s side.
“What hast thou planned for thy new quarry, Jacob?”
“I shall hire two more men, perhaps three, Micah. I shall plant the acre of land that is not taken by the quarry itself, growing peas and beans there to help feed the workers. The drying and trimming will be done in the one yard. There will be a profit, and quickly, I believe, Micah. The family will prosper. I will not be surprised to put five shillings a week away in the little box, Micah.”
A whole crown, a vast sum in Jacob’s eyes, less than a day’s pay to Micah. They lived now in different worlds. Micah truly was a visitor to his home village and he suddenly doubted whether he could ever return to its way of life.
He had eaten his bowl of stew with the family on the two evenings, knowing that the Slaters ate as well as any in the village and possibly saw more meat than most. The meal had been bland, boring and only just sufficient. The officers in his mess ate roasted meats at least twice a week, a thick stew or a pie every other evening, together with side dishes of vegetables. They had white bread on the table and ate as much as they wished of it. Commonly, there was a sweet dish as well – stewed apples the norm but occasionally a pastry. They breakfasted on oatmeal, with milk. Towards the middle of the day there was generally a plate of bread and cheese, sometimes with butter; the weekend saw slices of cold beef instead.
Not only was there food in plenty, but there were cooks to provide it.
There had been a single blanket on his bed in the old house. His room in the castle had a fleece as well, and a rug on the stone floor.
He had come to expect the simple luxuries he enjoyed, took them for granted. He knew that in the field, there would be nothing that he could not carry in a saddlebag – but that was campaigning, not everyday life.
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