Take Courage (8 page)

So it came about that I had much greater pleasure in Francis's visits to my home, than in mine to his.

One evening when Francis was sitting with us as usual, and as usual strumming on his lute, there came a sudden
thunderous knocking on the door. David ran to open it, when in rushed the Thorpes' apprentice, Lister, his red hair flying, his freckles mottling his face very disagreeably, his skin being white with excitement. He cried wildly:

“Buckingham is murdered!”

“What!” cried my father, laying down his pipe.

We all dropped silent at once and sat staring. Rapidly Lister told us the news which had just reached Bradford, that Buckingham had been stabbed at Southampton, as he made ready to take some soldiers overseas. The murderer was a fanatic, who thought he was doing his country a service.

“And so he was indeed,” concluded Lister in a rapture.

“Praise be to God,” cried Sarah, suddenly appearing from the kitchen with her hands uplifted: “A David has slain the Goliath of the Philistines!”

“Amen, Amen!” sang Lister. “The Lord abhorreth the blood-thirsty and deceitful man.”

“Woman!” cried my father, half rising from his chair in anger: “Murder is against the law of God.”

“And a direct contravention of the sixth commandment,” added David.

“It might be the murderer was an instrument of God for the punishment of wickedness, Mr. Clarkson,” protested Lister.

“Good cannot come of evil,” said my father sternly.

“What do you know of the matter, you prating Puritans!” shouted Francis, springing to his feet. “The Duke was a great and noble lord, brave and handsome.”

His voice quite broke on the last words; I glanced at him quickly, there were tears in his eyes. With a shock of alarm I saw that, as boys will with some great personage, he had made the Duke his hero.

“The murderer gave himself up and confessed, and the King will demand death by the rack, they say,” went on Lister with relish.

“It is no more than he deserves,” muttered Francis, turning his face from us.

I said quickly: “No man deserves the rack.” I did not mean to speak thus, the words were out before I knew I had uttered them.

My father looked at me with approval.

“Your heart is too gentle, Mistress Penninah,” simpered Lister.

“The Lord is known to execute judgement,” said Sarah sternly. “Master Francis, do you mean to stay for supper?”

“I must go and tell the news to my father,” muttered Francis sullenly, his eyelids down. (His long golden lashes, sweeping his cheek, were very dear to me.) “By your leave, Mr. Clarkson.” He made for the door; Thunder, who had been lying against Tabby on the hearth, jumped up promptly.

“I can take the news to Holroyd Hall, Master Francis, if you wish not to leave Mistress Penninah,” offered Lister, grinning.

He meant no harm, the simple lad, but Francis did not wish to be prevented from leaving, and he took the reference to me as an impertinence, from an apprentice; moreover, Lister's manners were ever rough and homely.

“Stand out of my way,” he ordered Lister imperiously, and, as the lad moved but slowly, being awkward in his gait and not very quick in the uptake, as we say in Bradford, Francis gave him a box on the ear which sent him sprawling. Thunder barked and stood over him, and Lister scrambled up looking white and frightened.

“Francis, Francis!” my father reproved him.

And my heart too cried: “Francis, Francis!” At my father's rebuke he turned back, and made careless apologies to Lister, and a loving one to me, but when he had gone I sat down by my father in silence, sadly. I was sad because Francis had struck Lister, for any violence, or cruelty between persons, ever wounded me intolerably. I was sad that my dear love should think a man like the Duke of Buckingham
admirable; I was sad because he was wrong to do so, and also because I knew he was wrong. It was the first time I ever saw a blemish in Francis. The moment that I saw it, and knew that I still loved him, I grew, I think, though I was yet young, from a girl into a woman.

I Comforted Myself with hoping that the death of the Duke might heal the division between the King and his Parliament and thus between Mr. Ferrand and my father, since now the prime mover of their dissensions was gone. But in the event it proved far otherwise, evil, as my father said, never bringing forth good, but the good in an action ever bringing forth good, and the evil evil, mingled in the result as in the cause. Buckingham was gone, it was true, but the King chose Bishop Laud as his near counsellor in Buckingham's place, and thereafter the affairs of the nation steadily worsened. For while the Duke was a careless, licentious man, who cared something for honour and glory but more for luxury and ease, and was not ill disposed to any man who was not ill disposed to him, Laud was a fanatic, a man, as folk said, too fierce and cruel for his coat, too savagely contentious to wear the garb of the servants of the Prince of Peace. Under his direction, the King's Council pressed the Duke's murderer hard to say if he was instigated by the Puritans; this he denied and was not to be shaken in his denial, but many people disbelieved him.

Amongst these was Mr. Ferrand. The very next Market Day after the news of the Duke's death reached Bradford, my father suddenly stumbled into our house in the middle of the morning, looking white and shaken, and sat himself down heavily in a chair by the door. I ran to him and asked him what was wrong; he told he, gasping, that Mr. Ferrand, on a disagreement over the price of some wool, had snatched the fleece from my father's hand, saying he did not care to sell wool to a murdering Puritan.

“A murdering Puritan!” repeated my father in amazement. “He called me a murdering Puritan!”

He seemed so dazed and shaken that I coaxed him to stay at home for an hour and rest, and he fell asleep in his chair. When he awoke it was dinner time, but he could eat nothing; he pushed his trencher away irritably, and sat sideways at the table, musing.

“England is tearing herself into halves, Penninah,” he said at length, shaking his head. “I pray God mend the rent.”

Mr. Thorpe came in then, seeking him, and he roused himself and went back to the market.

I believe it was this shock, of Mr. Ferrand's words, which began my father's illness; certainly it was the growth of political faction which fed it.

The King, out of grief for the Duke perhaps, put off the reassembling of the Parliament till the next year, and meanwhile levied illegally such taxes and impositions as the country groaned under. Merchants were haled before the Council for not paying customs dues and the like, and one having the courage to complain that in England nowadays buyers and sellers were more screwed up than under the Turks, he was committed to prison without trial, and condemned to pay a fine quite out of proportion. This touched all merchants very nearly, and my father and Mr. Thorpe and other clothiers of Bradford spoke of it long, looking grave and shaking their heads. Then the Parliament met, and very swiftly ordered enquiries into all these violations of rights and liberties; and then, instead of granting the King the taxes as he urged them, fell to discussing that right of higher nature, the religion of the soul, which as they nobly said they preferred above all earthly things whatever. This made the King very angry, and when they began to attack his favourite Laud for his Arminianism, he instructed the Speaker of the House not to put any motion pointing at Laud, to the vote. Then the Parliament-men were bitterly angry in their turn at this invasion of their privileges, and two held the Speaker down in his place, and another locked the door of the House of Commons so that the King's
messenger could not enter, and they rapidly passed a remonstrance saying that all who brought in innovations in religion, or levied taxes without the consent of Parliament, or paid such taxes, should be reputed enemies of the King and the nation. The next Monday the King dissolved the Parliament, and it was very clear from his harsh expression and bitter scoldings that he never meant to call another; and there were the people of England lying helpless and without defence in his hand as regards money, and for religion, in Laud's.

All this, read constantly in pamphlets and diurnals and public proclamations, and talked over almost every time two men met, roused in my father so much distress and just indignation that it wore sadly upon his health. He was often called upon to explain the rights and wrongs of these matters, the privileges of Parliament, the King's prerogative, and the like, to fellow-clothiers and merchants in Bradford, seeing he had read much and was of a just understanding. He began his explanations quietly, but soon grew shrill and tense, making his points with his forefinger with excessive emphasis, and speaking so high and fast that it quite exhausted him. Then when he read some bad news of the King's haughty behaviour, or some new arrogant rule of Bishop Laud's about altars or surplices, he would fling down the paper and stamp headlong up and down the room, shaking his head and muttering. Sometimes he paused in his stumbling stride to look at me and cry out mournfully:

“Penninah, Penninah, the hand of the Lord is heavy on us!”

He grew so thin that the bones of his body were almost visible through his flesh, and his clothes hung loose on him; his face changed greatly, his eyes seeming unduly large and his cheeks somehow fallen; his hair, now very white and scanty, straggled round his face in an untidy and negligent manner, no matter how often I smoothed and combed it. I saw that his acquaintance, even Mr. Thorpe who was such a strong Parliament man, thought his grief excessive, and he saw it too and it distressed him further.

“They do not understand what will spring from all this, Penninah,” he groaned. “Arminianism is the root of popery, and unjust taxes the seed of tyranny. It's time to look about us now if our religion and our liberties are not utterly to be lost.”

Often at night I heard him pacing his chamber; often, too, I heard his voice raised in prayer to God. I tried to comfort him as well as I could, but it was not easy, for if I urged him too far he was apt to glower wildly and shout at me that I cared nothing for the word of God; and then after grieve at himself because he had spoken harshly to the child of his Faith, his dearest daughter. In the foolishness of my heart I was glad when the Parliament was dissolved, for I thought that now at least there would be no more debates and speeches to provoke him.

But as soon as he lacked that excitement he fell into a melancholy. He had another trouble to vex him, my poor father, of which I had then no knowledge. The first hint of it I received was over David.

David by this time was set to be a scholar, and he had the gentle lofty look and dreamy gait I have often noted in those that love learning. He was now reading Latin poetry, Vergil and Horace, and could himself make excellent Latin verses. In this he quite outstripped my poor capacities, for which, dear lad, he was truly sorry, spending many earnest hours explaining dactyls and spondees and the like to me, until at last I kissed his forehead and told him my greatest pride and pleasure was to see him excel me, when he regretfully desisted. A short while after the dissolution of the Parliament, though he was still but a child in years he began to speak with a great eagerness of Cambridge, where it seemed Mr. Wilcocke had been at the University; and then one day Mr. Wilcocke came to beg my father that David should be allowed to prepare himself to go thither, since he was the most promising pupil Bradford School had ever had. My father was delighted by this praise, but hesitated somewhat on the ground of expenses; Mr. Thorpe too, whom he consulted, seemed to doubt of
it. But I pleaded with my father for David's wish, and John to whom I spoke of it took the pains to visit Mr. Wilcocke and came back with particulars of how it might most cheaply be done, and he urged these upon Mr. Thorpe, and finally they both consented. I was obliged to John, but a little grieved that Mr. Thorpe should have so large a say in our affairs, and I spoke in this sense that night to my father.

He sighed and said nothing, but after a little roused himself and went up into the loom-chamber, where I heard him rustling papers and pacing with heavy steps. It came to be bedtime, and David and I went in to him to bid him good night; he kissed us very tenderly, seeming heavy in spirit, and said in a mournful tone:

“I fear I have proved but a poor father to you, my children.”

This was so contrary to all truth that David and I made sport of it, laughing and caressing him, and under our joking his face cleared.

But when I was alone in my room, I lay awake a long time, distressed for my father, for the change in him and the trouble he seemed to be in. After a long while I heard his voice raised in prayer, and then a broken sound at which I started up abruptly, for it was weeping. I threw on a gown and went to him, and found him still dressed and sitting at his papers. There were tears on his cheeks, and my heart bled for him; I put my arms about his neck and kissed and soothed him, and begged him to tell me what was his trouble. After some coaxing he told me, hesitating, that it was his accounts, which were not in order as they should be, the morrow being Market Day. Child that I was, I did not penetrate his true meaning, but supposed he spoke merely of letters and characters, the late failing of his eyes giving colour to that supposition.

“John would cast up your accounts if you asked him, Father,” I said eagerly. “He keeps all Mr. Thorpe's accounts, and pays his bills. I have seen his accounts, they are very neat and orderly. John would help you.”

I continued to plead and to urge, longing to cure his trouble and make him happy as he used to be, and at last my father gave me a very sweet look, smiling, and laid his hand on my arm and said:

“We will ask John, then, since you wish it, Penninah.”

I was pleased at his yielding, and I coaxed him to bed and gave him a hot spiced drink, and went back to my chamber feeling easier.