Take Courage (57 page)

“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.

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 such 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.

“I could be a tutor, perhaps,” Abraham offered thoughtfully.

“Tutors are half-starved miserable beings with no proper home of their own,” said John.

“I don't eat much, Father,” said Abraham seriously.

There was something so childish and trusting about this that John's ill-temper was cured for that time; but soon they were at it again, Abraham wanting to go to Cambridge and John refusing him.

“If you go to the south you will stay there, like Sam and your Uncle David, and Thomas for many years,” said John, “and we shall never see you more.”

“If it was right for Uncle David and Sam and Thomas to go, why should it be wrong for me?” countered Abraham.

“He is right, John,” I ventured to argue, when John and I were alone together. “It is his life—he hath as much right to go as Sam or Thomas.”

“I cannot afford it, Penninah!” shouted John angrily. “I tell you I cannot find the money! You seem to think I am made of gold.”

Although I did not quite believe it, against this plea of poverty there was nothing to be said; so I directed myself to begging John to look for a place where Abraham's skill in numeration would be serviceable.

“It will be highly serviceable in a mercer's,” said John. “Yards and half–yards of stuffs at various prices, and discounts and profits and so on—he will be at figures all day long.”

I told this to Abraham, who made a grimace and remarked that it was no pleasure to him to do sums when they were easy. This seemed such a strange thing to say, so opposite to the general notions of humanity, which ever seeks the easiest way, that I was perplexed and troubled.

“You are a strange one,” I said: “You make me fear for your future, son.”

“Why, never mind, Mother,” said Abraham consolingly, for he was a kindly gentle lad: “I shall find a way. But since 'tis from Father I have my gift of figures, it is hard he will not let me cultivate it. He wants me to bury my talent in a napkin, which is very unScriptural—tell him that, Mother.”

But there was no telling anything to John in his then state of mind, and so, though my conscience troubled me, warning me that I was not doing my duty by Abraham, I was obliged to let him go. John found him a place in York, and took him thither himself when he had cloth business there.

“They are very honest godly folk,” he said when he returned: “And I think they will like of Abraham.”

“Aye; but will he like of them?” I thought, but I did not venture to say so, John being so unhappy then over both private and public affairs.

For it seemed he was right, and our cause defeated, every day that passed bringing some disagreeable turn of oppression by the restored Cavaliers. And then, only two years after Charles had made all those fine promises about liberty of conscience, as John had prophesied, the King threw those of our persuasion out of the ministry. An Act was passed through Parliament for enforcing uniformity in the Church. By this act, the Prayer Book was the only form of service allowed to be used, ordination by Bishops was the only ordination recognised; every person in holy orders was required to read the Prayer Book service aloud to his congregation and swear his assent to it, before a certain Lord's Day in August; moreover, he was required to swear also that it was unlawful under any pretence whatever to take arms against the King. It was indeed a crushing blow to all those of our persuasion.

Unfortunately John had this Act battered upon his ears at all hours of the day and night, for the first few weeks after its passing, and indeed for long enough afterwards. Our Bradford minister, Jonas Waterhouse, a good creature enough but as this proved somewhat weak and uncertain, was greatly distressed by the choice this Act of Uniformity imposed on him, and could not make up his mind whether to conform, as it was called, or not. Now John was steward to the southern lady who owned the tithes and the presentation of the Bradford living; during the Commonwealth and Protectorate her presentation was in abeyance and we chose our own ministers, but now she took it back again, and as that odious former minister of ours, Mr. Corker, was also claiming that he was still Vicar of Bradford Church, the matter was very difficult. All the parties concerned wrote to John; Lady Maynard wrote, and Mr. Corker wrote, and Mr. Waterhouse rode up daily to our house to argue the
matter. And whereas Lady Maynard, a very godly honest woman though of the Royalist and Episcopal persuasion, was ready to leave Mr. Waterhouse in possession if he would conform, Mr. Waterhouse would not say either yea or nay, and Mr. Corker was very vehement against him; so John was much harassed, and the painful affliction he suffered from grew very troublesome.

One day about a fortnight after we heard of the passing of the Act, Mr. Waterhouse being with John in the house-place as usual, the carrier came up to our back door and handed me a package. It was so tied and sealed, and the paper so yellowed, with brown stains here and there, and the writing so faint and blotched, that I could hardly make out what it was and wondered that it had reached me. But when I had paid the man and cut the strings and unfolded it my heart gave a great leap; for it was a letter from Chris. Yes, it was a letter from my dear son Chris, the first word I had had of him since he left us four years ago. It was ill-spelled and not well expressed, but full of life and happiness, and it seemed from what it said as if I should have received earlier letters from him, but perhaps they had gone astray. (Or perhaps he only meant to write them; I know my Chris.) He told of great mountains, wide plains, huge curving rivers; of tobacco plantations, Indians, negroes and other such strange matters, of which I could not even form to myself a picture. He had travelled far, and had many adventures up and down that great country on many fine
horrses
, it seemed; but now he was settled in a place at the mouth of the James River—
but itt is not a rivver as you knwo rivvers, Mother
, he wrote:
things in Bradford are multiplyed here by ten, nay by ten thoussand rather. Abraham will doe the numeration for you, Mother
, wrote my Chris, joking.
The peopell here are very kind to me
, wrote Chris,
and I am resouled to settle here if poscibell for I am content to be here it is poscibell I may make a moredge. Remember me lovingly to my Father and Brothers
, went on Chris, and signed himself:
Tour dear Sonne, Christopher Thorpe.

I laughed and cried over this letter, and made to run to
John to show it him, but was deterred by the sound of Mr. Waterhouse's voice, excited and booming, so I went up to my chamber, and took to my knees and thanked Almighty God for His great mercies; and when I heard Mr. Water-house leave at last, I went downstairs smiling.

But John was sitting by the hearth looking so hunched and bowed and wretched that I had not the courage to be cheerful with him.

“There is a letter from Christopher, John,” I said timidly, laying it beside him.

John took it up and turned it over indifferently. “He was ever a poor speller,” he said when he had read it to the close. “What is a
moredge
, think you?”

“Nay, I do not know,” I said, pleased to hear him make even this comment, though it was not much to say to a letter which had come after four years' silence out of Virginia. I enlarged upon Chris a little, saying that his good home training would stand him in good stead in the new land, and so on, but John made no reply, sitting gazing silently into the fire. So at last I fell silent, too, and sighed, and looked at him sadly.

After a while I said: “What troubles you, John?”

“This Act—this Act,” he muttered.

“Why do you fret over it so, lad?” I asked him.

He was silent, but seemed to want to speak, and at last he got out: “We do not hear from Thomas.”

So then I pressed him no further, for I knew his trouble, and it was my trouble too. From David we had heard, but not from Thomas.

But it was wrong of us not to trust our son, for that very afternoon he came riding up to The Breck. We greeted him joyfully—at least, I greeted him joyfully; John seemed sunk in himself and found few words for his eldest son—and I showed him Chris's letter. He rejoiced greatly over it, smiling and exclaiming.