The Broken Font: A Story of the Civil War, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Page 11
CHAP. XI.
Even my prayers, When with most zeal sent upward, are pull'd down, With strong imaginary doubts and fears, And in their sudden precipice o'erwhelm me. MASSINGER.
The close of the December following the battle of Keinton foundCuthbert in winter quarters at Warwick. His regiment marched into thatcity on the day before Christmas-day; and, as soon as the men weredistributed in their quarters, he walked towards Milverton, from thatnatural impulse which inclines us all to revisit any spot where wehave passed a part, however small, of our mysterious lives.
It was a bright, clear, invigorating day: the ground was firm underthe foot, and, though the sun shone out in a cloudless sky, there wasso hard a frost that the pathways were clean. The trees glittered inthe sun's rays like frosted silver, and the face of nature lookedhealthy and cheerful, like the winter season of a hale old age.
The step of Cuthbert was not so fast or active as travellers use insuch weather. He walked like one who reluctantly takes exercise, andin company in which he takes no pleasure. He was alone, indeed, butwith care and doubt for his companions. Since the battle, he had beenadvanced to the command of a company of musketeers, and Maxwell haddistinguished him by particular attentions. Randal was still his moreconstant associate; and the petty and disagreeable perplexities towhich he had been at first subjected by the uncongenial persons withwhom he had been thrown, and by the novelty of the duties to which hehad been called, had altogether vanished: for in three months habitsare formed, and we become accustomed to any mode of life. To beaccustomed, however, is not to be reconciled to it. But this was theleast, and the most trifling and despised ingredient in the bitter cupfrom which Cuthbert daily drank,--his conscience was not at peace. Hedrugged it with an opium, extracted, by a very common process, fromthe precepts and the promises of Scripture; but there was not a day ofhis life that it did not awake to some doubts and horrors, and thesame medicine, dangerous where it is unskilfully applied, was taken toexcess. He felt himself embarked in a black ship, with a wild andmotley crew, and he dared not own to himself that he mistrusted thosewho navigated the vessel. Her way was through gloom and danger, andthe voyage might, after all, end in shipwreck.
From the day of the battle, he was never seen to smile by any one; andfrom the severity of his thoughts, his countenance had gathered a sadyet stern complexion, which was not unsuitable to his presentfortunes.
In a sort of hope that the sight of Milverton House might beguile hismelancholy, might soothe him, by reviving sweet images of past andprecious hours, and building, as he walked along, a new fabric ofhappy and peaceful liberty for his distracted country, he reached thewell known gates of the once hospitable mansion. Absorbed in hisreflections, he never raised his eyes to direct them towards thehouse, till he stood at the very portal. The gates lay upon theground; the noble edifice was a blackened and a yawning ruin. A suddenand terrific thunder clap, bursting from a serene sky, could not sopainfully have startled him. All around was silent--desolately,dreadfully silent; and the sun was bright, and the stony skeleton ofthe vast dwelling was black. He poured a passionate cry to God: hefell down upon the earth, and petitioned feverishly that the evil onemight not hunt him to despair.
When he had in some measure recovered his composure, he rose andwalked through the lonely and roofless ruins. The rubbish, which hadfallen in when the floors and ceilings of the upper chambers gave way,or were consumed, had been disturbed, and removed in large quantities,to be sifted for any valuable metals which they might contain, so thathe could make his way without difficulty, and could still tracedistinctly all the lower apartments.
Near the fire-place in the large kitchen, on a part of the wall thathad only been scorched, might still be read one of those rude andhomely posies which were the delight of our honest forefathers, andmight be found alike in the manor-house and the humbler cottage of thehusbandman:--
"At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal, And feast thy poor neighbours, the great with the small; Yea all the year long, to the poor let us give, God's blessing to follow us while we do live."
And upon the other side of the fire-place was written up,--
"Play thou the good fellow; seek none to misdeem; Disdain not the honest, though merry they seem; For oftentimes seen, no more very a knave, Than he that doth counterfeit most to be grave."
These posies brought more to Cuthbert's mind than the memory of thehappy Christmas he had once passed within these very walls. The lines,which he had known from his boyhood, were taken from old ThomasTusser's Book of Husbandry, the favourite manual of the old franklinBlount, and a work of which he remembered his father had always beenvery fond, and which stood upon the book-shelf at Cheddar next theCountry Parson of Master George Herbert. All these recollections cameupon him at once, and overwhelmed his spirit. He was totally ignorantof all that had been lately enacted at Cheddar, and of the presentsituation of his father. He had not heard of or from his parents forseveral months; but his fears for their safety had been quieted by apromise, that especial orders should be sent to all the forces of theParliament to respect both the persons and the dwellings of all suchrelations of the officers and men serving the Parliament as did nottake up arms against them, whatever might be their known sentiments onaffairs of church and state.
How far this line of forbearance had been broken through, and howviolently, the ruins around most plainly declared; for he was wellassured that Francis Heywood would have omitted no precaution whichcould possibly have availed to protect the property of Sir Oliver; norhad he been present with the division by whom this wanton crime waseffected would he have failed to repress it. But when "Havoc!" is oncecried, and the dogs of war are once let slip, who shall, who can,restrain them, but he who sitteth in the circle of the heavens?
His fancy became bewildered with the thought of his mother's grief,and the dangers to which she might possibly be exposed, and of thepossibility that his father might be suffering the penalty of somebitter persecution by his adherence to the royal cause. He, as was hiswont in all extremities of doubt and sorrow, betook himself to theonly source of true comfort, when men are guided by the Spirit oftruth to a right use of it:--he drew from the bosom of his doublet asmall Bible. He implored direction from above; and yet, when he haddone so, yielded to the petty superstition of opening the sacredvolume suddenly, and taking the first text that presented itself tohis eye for his counsellor. The words which he thus read were, "Whereenvying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work." Hesmote upon his breast with agony, perused the chapter of James theApostle, from whence it was taken, and that which followed. All hisresolutions were staggered and shaken. He was in a mood to unbucklehis sword, and to find a lodge in some wilderness where man could notpenetrate. "Yet," said he aloud, as pleading his own cause before theinvisible throne, "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that Iam not moved by the spirit that lusteth to envy in this greatcontention against apostasy and spiritual wickedness in high places."In the fervour and agitation of his appeal his Bible fell from hishand, and when he took it up, it opened at that same epistle at thebeginning of it; and reading there that he was to count it all joyfalling into divers temptations, and that the trying of his faithworked patience, he was again as suddenly recovered to steadfastness,in what he blindly persuaded himself was the battle of the Lord; thusgiving a most sad practical proof that he was a waverer, tossed anddriven to and fro like a wave of the sea. What further doubts andchanges might have coloured his meditations, and his prayers in thatdesolate and afflicting scene, had he been left alone to brood overall his fears, it is not possible to say; but he was roused andinterrupted by the sound of footsteps on the paved path, which led upfrom the terrace towards the principal entrance, the steps of whichyet remained. He stood aside, that the intruder, whoever it might be,should not discover him. To his surprise, it was no other than oldMargery of the sand pit. She turned toward
s the offices as soon as sheentered the Hall, and went winding her way through heaps of rubbish,towards an outhouse in the court-yard, the roof of which was stillentire. Her aspect, and the echo of her staff and of her footsteps, inthat solitary ruin, were very strange and affecting. Afraid of toosuddenly alarming the aged and unhappy being, he followed her withlight and noiseless steps to the low building, which she entered. Ofthe two small windows that gave it light one was half open, and havinggained it, he could see and hear what was passing within. Laying downher bag and staff, she seated herself on a very low stool, close bythe little fire-place, and applied her breath to the embers. The whiteashes flew off, and laid bare the glowing embers. To these she applieda few dry sticks which she had brought with her, and a warm andcheerful flame, accompanied by a light crackling noise, soon blazedcomfortably before her.
"I wonder where the master is this blessed day," were her first words,"and Mistress Kate, that was God's angel to me, and the rest of them.Wherever they are, Christ comfort them, and bless them: they were goodfriends to me, and to many. I never came to the gate, and went awaywithout a measure of meal and a kind word; and it was a good day formy poor soul when the beautiful lady first talked to me:"--shestopped, and put on another stick or two;--"and Parson Juxon, thatmade me leave the pit, and gave me a bit of a cot to myself at OldBeech, where he and I would have been now but for the wars and thevillainies of those devils that burned his house over his head, andmade a bonfire to roast me, if it had not been God's will to make 'emfall out about it. They called me 'a child of hell,' I mind:--well, itis not the first time--many a score times gentle and simple havecalled me the same, till within the last two years, and I thought itwas all over, and I got to heaven already; but there's a weary bit yetfor me. I hope it wo'n't be long. Now, if parson was here, he'd scoldand look pleasant at me, and say, 'God's time's the best time,Margery.' Well, now, I've lost him--God's will be done. I've been apoor sinful body all my days; but I never harmed any more than a cursemight, and little ill could that do to any but my own poor self. It'swell it couldn't; for if it had been able to kill, I should have sentit after many a one, and might again. God help me! I'll be burnt for awitch some day yet; and, truth to say, I've many a time wished I wasone,--but that's all over. I say the Lord's Prayer different now."
Here she clasped and raised her lean and withered hands, and said itin a humble whisper on her knees.
Cuthbert was agitated terribly; but he dared not speak, he dared notenter.
"Who shall say," thought his better mind, "who shall say that theblessed One, who taught his disciples thus to pray, is not present,dimly seen, perhaps, but felt with secret reverence and affection?"
Her prayer said, the old woman put a little earthen pot on the fire,and again seated herself on the stool by the side of it.
"Ah! it's no merry Christmas," said she, "here, or any where else; butI have known a worse; and I think this is safe hiding, for the folkall think the place haunted. Well, I must thank God, and make the bestof it."
As she ended these words, she began humming the air of an oldChristmas carol, and at last sung, in the mournful voice of age, thisancient fragment:--
"He neither shall be clothed In purple nor in pall, But all in fair linen, As were babies all; He neither shall be rocked In silver nor in gold, But in a wooden cradle, That rocks on the mould."
At the close he went to the door, and before he entered called hergently by name. The tone of voice in which he spoke had the effectwhich he intended, and, without any cry of alarm, she rose up quietlyand turned round; but she no sooner beheld his military dress than herterror became excessive. It was quite in vain that he attempted tobring himself to her recollection: the fear of being dragged forth andled to the stake was uppermost, and entirely bewildered her. In hisperson she saw only one of those from whose hands she had so recentlyescaped, and her shrieks and implorations were agonising to hear. Torelieve her he quitted the ruin; and before he was many hundred yardsfrom it had the pain of seeing her on the far side of it hobbling fasttowards the cover of the adjoining wood for concealment. He walked tohis quarters in a miserable and dejected mood; and as he passed anopen church which had apparently been occupied by Parliamentarysoldiers, he went in for a moment. It was empty: the tombs andmonuments had been broken and their inscriptions defaced: not a paneof glass in the tall windows had escaped destruction: a painting overthe altar had been hacked to pieces; and, as if in mockery, the tablesof God's commandments were left on either side plainly legible, andabove, in the midst, might be seen, in letters of gold, the words ofthat message of mercy which the angels of God sang to the shepherdskeeping watch by night, when they announced the advent ofMessiah,--_Peace on earth,--good will towards man_.