We now entered upon the year 1633, a year I never shall forget, a year so fraught with events of consequence to me and mine that even now, forty years after, a mention of its name sets the strings of my heart quivering. Its happenings crowded upon each other’s heels; I see them all in swift flashing pictures, bright gold or sombre purple, and still throbbing with emotion.
The spring season that year was very pleasant and full of sunshine; in its brightness I took heart, and began to indulge in sweet dreams of marriage with my love. Sometimes I wove speeches to myself which I pretended I should make to Mr. Ferrand, explaining how Francis was spoiling himself with the Tempests, and how if I were his wife I would take care of him and keep him always happy and good; and sometimes I invented speeches for Mr. Ferrand too, in which he called me his pretty penny, as he used, and agreed smiling to our marriage. I was a little encouraged in these fond dreams at first by the turn of public affairs that spring. King Charles set out to go to Scotland to be crowned there, passing through Yorkshire on his way, and all the nobility and gentry exerted themselves to do him honour. Such furbishings of armour, training of horses, tailoring of new clothes, re-furnishings of houses and the like went on round Pomfret and York and Ripon as had not been heard of in our county for many a long year; the report of them coming into our clothing towns excited the people, and gave all but the strictest Puritans a pleasant friendly feeling towards our King. Perhaps after all, folk thought, he was not so black as he was painted, and we all had a wish that Yorkshire should proffer him a generous hospitality and show well in his eyes.
The great landowners of the North summoned—or perhaps I should say invited, I do not know the law of the matter—their tenants to attend them in the escort they were giving to the King; and as Mr. Ferrand was for part of his land a tenant of Sir William Savile, who was a great man at court, Francis went off to York with a new horse and a mounted serving man and a great quantity of new clothes, very joyously. He came to Fairgap on his way, though it was not in his way at all, to bid me good-bye and show himself to me; he was flushed and laughing and excited, and indeed made a fine handsome picture, with his bright hair and laughing eyes and smooth warm cheek, wheeling his horse about and making it curvet, for he was ever a dashing and accomplished rider. I was proud to see him go on such a high errand, looking so debonair and gallant, and glad that he should have some occupation, to wipe the idle discontented look he had been wearing lately, from his face. My father too came out to say farewell to him, and stood in the doorway smiling and nodding, and many of our neighbours clustered round. Francis drank in their interest, taking it for pure admiration though in truth it had a little sourness, with an eagerness which did not quite please me, though I told myself it was natural and boyish; he showed them the new harness his horse wore, and the feather in his hat, while I was longing till my heart almost burst with it that they should all go away and leave Francis and me to make our farewells alone. But suddenly Francis seemed to tire of the crowd, or think it did not become his dignity, for crying abruptly: “Farewell, Pen!” he wheeled his horse and rode off at once down the street, and there was nothing left to do but go indoors.
The house seemed dark and quiet and melancholy, and my father, who had tired himself with standing, was fretful and peevish, and my heart ached that I should have parted from my love without one tender word, without one kiss. In my mind I followed him, galloping along the sunny frisking lambs, the trees in their fresh spring green, and roads to York, and hawthorn in bud, and daisies in the fields, beside him all the way, to delight him; and I saw York as very fine and throng, full of richly dressed ladies and gentlemen walking up and down the cathedral and admiring Francis. He will forget me, I thought, and I wept secretly. That evening John came in to sit with my father, for the first time since I had declined the Thorpes’ marriage treaty; he gave me a sober searching look, and I fear he saw the redness of my eyes, though he said nothing of it.
While Francis was away, their first child was born to Will and Eliza. Will’s delight over his little daughter was a pleasure to see, and the infant, being grandchild to both the Thorpes and my father, drew our families nearer again after their recent coolness and distance. I kept myself as much as I could in the background, so as not to intrude a remembrance which might mar this renewal of friendship; but I need not have troubled myself, for a newborn babe supersedes all other interests in its parents’ and grandparents’ hearts, and the affairs of John and myself were for the time forgotten, except by ourselves. Little Martha, as she was called after Mrs. Thorpe, was a sweet little dear, though somewhat sickly, and in helping Eliza to tend her I passed away the time of the absence of Francis.
Francis was not gone very long, since the English nobles escorted the King only to the Border, where the duty was taken over by the nobles of Scotland; but though he came back to Bradford in a few weeks, his brief absence had changed him—or rather, perhaps not changed, but increased all those inclinations in him which most distressed me. He was more the fine gentleman than ever. To do him justice, his fine manners seemed to sit on him more naturally, as if he were more used to using them, but there was less sincerity in him than before. He paid compliments with a careless graceful ease, as if they were the merest talk and he did not expect them to be believed; I found this a poor exchange for his former sweet teasing. He had been home three days before he came to see me, but when he came said he had returned to Bradford only for my sake, there was nothing else worth coming for. In general he seemed impatient and restless and critical, with an air of finding himself too good for his company, which, though I supposed it the customary way of courtiers, hurt me sorely. He talked much of the King, and Sir William Savile, and the Earl of Newcastle, in a boyish boasting way, but was never able to answer the questions my father put to him, about the Court’s politics and religion; also he seemed never even to have seen, or at least noticed, Bishop Laud. My father could not believe this last, and returned over and over again to the question of Laud’s look and air, till Francis was flushed and vexed with denials. Indeed my father’s company was not very cheerful nowadays, and I was scarcely surprised, though sick at heart, when Francis began that summer again to drink and gamble with the Tempests instead of coming often to Fairgap.
So how the King went on in his journey I never very clearly knew, save that his behaviour in Scotland then was the foundation of all our later troubles with that country. We made out from the diurnals that Laud tried to force on Scotland the same church rules he was trying to cram down the English throat; it seemed he carried himself so high at the King’s Coronation in Edinburgh as actually to thrust aside from the throne some Scottish Bishop because he was not wearing his whites, as they called surplices in those days. But the Scots were a stubborn folk and very pious, and I think they did not yield much of what was wanted, for the King came very quickly back home from them to London. Then there happened an event most disastrous for our family, as for England, for the Archbishop of Canterbury died, and Laud had his place at the head of the Church.
We soon felt the weight of his hand, in Bradford. Mr. Okell came into our house one autumn evening, leaning on Will’s arm, wearing a very grave face; Will looked warm and excited, and was carrying some sort of an official paper. It seemed the King, on Laud’s instigation, had ordered every clergyman in England to read from the pulpit a declaration called the Book of Sports, and it was a copy of this Will held in his hand. My father bade me read it to him, and though Will pouted a little, wishing to read it himself, I knew my father could hear my voice, and understand it, more easily than that of other folk, so I took the paper and read it aloud. It commanded that after church on Sundays everyone should be allowed to indulge in lawful recreations, such as dancing and archery and vaulting; and it scolded the Puritans roundly for having tried to prohibit them. In some dioceses, explained Mr. Okell when I had finished, the Bishops were demanding from each parish a certificate that this proclamation had been duly read, signed by the churchwardens.
“I will never sign such a certificate!” cried my father feverishly, his poor old head nodding.
“I shall not read the proclamation. I believe it to be against the law of God,” said Mr. Okell.
“It is a desecration of the Sabbath!” cried Will warmly.
I could not help remembering how Christ had said the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath; moreover, in the Book of Sports itself there were some phrases, explaining how the labouring sort of men had only Sundays on which to refresh their spirits, which seemed to me very just and of a kindly intention. Yet, man’s whole duty on earth, and surely his highest pleasure, should be the service of God, and it seemed little enough to give Him one day out of seven. So I remained perplexed and doubtful on this matter.
Although the Book of Sports was not read in our church, other pulpits nearby published it, and its tenor became generally known in Bradford, and fanned all the bitter dissensions there, which had been a little fading, into life again. Mr. Ferrand and those of his party were highly pleased; they laughed heartily at the stricter people’s discomfiture, and encouraged the townsfolk to dance and enjoy themselves on Sundays, so that the Turls were once again full of men cockfighting and gaming and shouting. By way of answer to this, those of the Puritan persuasion kept Sunday more strictly than before; they would not eat cooked meats that day, or read, or indulge in any recreation or visiting, but devoted the Lord’s Day wholly to His service, in fasting and preaching and prayer.
This made our Fairgap very quiet on Sundays, most of our neighbours being Puritans, and caused Sarah and David to look askance at Francis if he came in on that day; for with his spirited horse and his bright clothes and his lively laughter he seemed a noisy disturbance, almost a breach of the peace. On such occasions Sarah would try to hush him down, and David sat in a corner with a frown above his gentle eyes and his rosy mouth puckered. But I could not bring myself to drive Francis away by scolding him. I judged that it was far more pleasing to God that he should be with us than with the Tempests, and if my father did not see fit to rebuke him, I did not feel called upon to do so. But this last, I knew, was an evasion, for my poor father’s mind wandered so, he was often uncertain which day of the week we were at.
One Lord’s Day afternoon when Francis came thus to us, he brought his lute, and sat lightly strumming on it, while my father drowsed in his chair by the hearth. It was the day of the first autumn frost, so that the brightly leaping fire was very agreeable. After a time Francis began to play an old ballad, There is a Garden in her Face, and sang it softly, fixing his eyes in a fiery glance on me the while. It seemed to me that, in the pause between the verses, I heard a kind of murmur of voices outside the house; I felt vaguely troubled and uneasy, but put that aside for the pleasure of listening to Francis. Then suddenly the voices swelled to a shout as the house door was thrown open. Will and John stood on the threshold, both looking extremely vexed; Eliza, carrying the baby, came next, looking down her nose with a virtuous disapproving air; behind them loomed a crowd of prim and angry-looking faces.
“Francis Ferrand,” cried Will warmly, “will you cease this unruly behaviour, this ungodly desecration of the Sabbath?”
Francis, without stirring from his chair, lazily rolled his head round and raised his thick fair eyebrows in a look of mock astonishment. “What desecration, pray?” he drawled. Will, pursing his lips, shot out his finger and pointed accusingly at the lute. “What harm is there in sweet music?” drawled Francis, plucking a descending chord from the strings.
“You are making Penninah’s house a scandal,” said John.
Francis’s face changed, and he sprang to his feet.
“Why, you prick-eared prating Puritan!” he shouted: “What is Pen’s house to you?”
At this John’s face quivered with rage, and he suddenly raised his fist and brought it down full on the lute in his cousin’s hand. The frame broke, and the strings twanged piercingly and rent. Francis gave a cry of fury and sprang at him, striking him on the mouth. Then they fought savagely, knocking down the chairs, and falling to the ground, rolled over and over. They were not now boys, but men, and they used their full strength, striking hard and viciously at each other’s faces. Francis had the greater skill, I saw as if in a dream, John was the stronger. The neighbours recoiled and shouted for the Constable, Eliza wept, Will with some courage strove vehemently to separate them, following them as they moved and receiving not a few blows in the process. David threw himself in front of my father’s chair, for the poor old man, so suddenly and alarmingly awakened, was unable to stir, but sat still and trembled. For my part I stood numb with anguish, my hands to my heart.
At length the two were dragged apart and held back from each other, breathing heavily and glaring, and Will seized John’s arm and urged him out of the house and down towards Kirkgate. My father staggered to his feet, and waved the crowd away with a shaking hand; from respect to him they withdrew, though somewhat discontented and muttering. Francis, his doublet torn, a deep jagged scratch on his arm, a heavy bruise on his forehead, leaned against the table, panting, and hurled insults after them, till David slipped across and closed the door. Then at last I found my voice and my power of movement.
“You are hurt, Francis,” I whispered, going to him.
He brushed back his hair and looked down at his arm from which blood was welling.
“I can’t deny it,” he said in a vexed tone, and began to curse softly.
I took him into the kitchen, and sat him by the hearth and took off his doublet, and fetched towels and water, and began to bathe his injuries. Although I was so much distressed I could hardly stand, I could not but rejoice to take my lover’s face between my hands and minister to him, to turn his strong white arm over and bathe it gently.
“Thy hands are the softest in England, Pen,” murmured Francis. He turned to me and put his arms round my waist as if he were a child, like David, and I bent over him and cradled his head on my breast and spoke words of love to him.
“I fear Mr. Ferrand will be grieved over this,” I murmured presently.
Francis laughed. “Aye, that he will,” he said. “Especially since he forbade me this house long ago, after the murder of Buckingham.”
“He forbade you to come here?” I cried. “Oh, Francis!”
My father’s voice cried out suddenly behind me: “I your father has forbidden you to come here, Francis Ferrand, leave my house and do not enter it again without his permission. Do me the favour to tell him I did not know of his prohibition.”
He was standing in the doorway, leaning heavily on his stick but otherwise looking strong and well, as he used, with a spark in his eye and a flush on his face. David stood beside him.
“Why, Mr. Clarkson!” protested Francis.
“Go now, go now!” cried my father, and he struck his stick angrily on the ground. “Leave my house. Go now.”
Francis shook back his hair, snatched up his doublet and sauntered away coolly.
“I have been dull in this matter, Penninah,” went on my father. “I see it is Francis you love. I thought that was over long ago and John was your choice for a husband.”
I wept without speaking.
“Why do you weep for Francis, Pen?” said David, in a quick hard tone. “He is not worthy of you.”
“I fear indeed there are some personal vices and licences in Frank’s life,” agreed my father. His voice began to droop and quaver, till it no longer held its former strength but sank to its customary frailness. “Yet there is a kind of brightness and glory in him. But Giles Ferrand …And John…” He broke off, and shook his head sadly. “I could wish to see you safely married, Pen,” he quavered, “before I leave you.”
“Don’t speak of leaving us, Father,” I murmured.
He shook his old head again sorrowfully, and stumbled back to his chair, David helping him.
In a moment or two David came back to the kitchen, where I in a daze was tidying away the water and towels.
“There is someone to see you, Pen,” he said.
Hoping he meant Francis, I turned to the door eagerly. John stood there. He was a sorry spectacle; his mouth looked torn and inflamed, his nose bruised and swollen.
“I have come to say I am sorry, Penninah,” he said.
“Well, you have said it,” I answered him, my voice trembling with anger.
“You are angry with me, Penninah,” he went on in his stiff steady tone, “and rightly. I was in the wrong.”
“Yes, you were in the wrong,” I told him.
“Aye! It is wrong to mingle a private grudge with a public duty,” said John.
“A private grudge? What grudge have you against your own cousin?” I wondered.
John gave me a steady look. “I am of a very jealous disposition, Penninah,” he said drily.
Such a mingling of feelings raged in my heart just then that I was almost distracted. However little a woman may care for a man, she cannot be unaffected when she learns he loves her strongly enough to be shaken from his ordinary courses for her sake. I was deeply angry with John, sorry for him because I could not love him and yet exasperated with him for ever thinking I could do so, grateful to him for his kindness to my father; I respected him for his honesty and goodness and at the same time detested him for having these qualities which Francis lacked. I was angry with Francis, to whose light delays and deceptions all this trouble was attributable, yet full of a searing love for him. In a kind of despairing impotence between the two of them I stood before John in silence, my breath coming unevenly; and in a moment he gave me a short clumsy bow, and left me.
All that week I waited for Francis. I had to suffer some scoldings from Will and some coolness from the neighbours, on the subject of the unseemly disturbance at our house on Lord’s Day, but I took it all very quietly, for indeed I scarcely heard it; I was waiting for Francis. Every minute, every hour, I waited for him. Every footfall I heard in Fairgap I thought might be his; every horse’s hoof might herald his coming. At every sound which came near our door I broke off from my work about the house, sweeping or sewing, and raised my head, and listened, waiting. The footfall approached, I smiled with hope—then it passed, dying away in the distance, and I returned to my broom or my needle. On Thursday, I made sure Francis would come, and fondly tricked myself into believing he would bring Mr. Ferrand with him. In the afternoon my father roused himself and went down to the Cross. David was at school, Sarah was baking in the kitchen, so I was alone. I sat myself down at my tapestry frame and tried to occupy myself with it. After a while I could bear it no longer; I rose and paced the room, gazing at the door every time I turned. Francis did not come. Then sick with longing I went to the door jamb and leaned against it, listening and waiting, and stayed thus, silent and motionless, while the fire sank and the autumn day waned. Now it was dusk, and the men began to come home from Market; their footsteps approached, my heart leaped; then a door opened up the street, a woman’s voice was raised in welcome—she had her man safe home, but I had not mine. I seemed to live a hundred years as I leaned thus against the door, listening and waiting. Then David ran in, rosy from the cold, and then Will came with my father, and the Market was over and hope for that day was done. Then I hoped for Francis on Friday, and then on Saturday; and then I rose happily on Lord’s Day, making sure to see him at church, but he was not there. I felt a slight bitterness rise in my heart at this; if Sarah’s faithful Denton were to absent himself from morning service, he would be haled before the magistrates and fined, but Francis Ferrand of Holroyd Hall could stay away as he chose, with impunity. It was not fair.
Will was to preach that day at the afternoon exercise, and my father, who took great pleasure in Will’s ministry, was determined to go hear his son. I tried to dissuade him for it was a very cold grim day, a hard frost on the ground and the air grey and sullen, but he became petulant, complaining that I always wished him not to do what he wished to do and to do what he wished not to do. At this David laughed, saying it sounded like the General Confession in the Prayer Book, and my father smiled, and I, seeing he seemed himself to-day, yielded gladly, for I ever hated to cross those I loved, and ran to warm his cloak by the fire. We set off in good time and went fairly briskly down Westgate, and turned into Kirkgate and went at a slower pace, as my father’s steps flagged, down the hill and across the bridge. The steep Church Bank was nowadays a great trial to my father; we took it very slowly, halting often, and David ran ahead to greet Eliza, who was just entering, and many folk who had left their homes long after us overtook us and passed before us into the church. They all had a word for my father, who was much loved; and what with his replies to these greetings, and the steepness of the hill, he was somewhat breathless when we reached the church, and I was anxious for him. But such a sweet look of contentment came to his face when Will’s voice sounded, that I felt the risk of a little fatigue was worth taking to give him so much pleasure. Mr. Okell was not present, for of late his infirmities gained on him, so Will had it all in his charge. At length he mounted the pulpit, and my father looked up towards him, smiling happily.
Will did not wear a surplice in which to preach, for he abominated such popish frivolities; he was decently clad in a black gown, with a white linen band at his neck. His long harassed face was very sincere in the pulpit, and his speech, if not as well turned as my father’s, very earnest; he preached that day on a text I had never much noticed before, from the 1st Peter, chapter two, verse twelve:
Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.
But if I had taken little notice of it before, I have never forgotten it since; its appositeness to the occasion was such, that Will was surely led by the hand of God when he chose it.
He began to expound the text in a simple honest way, saying that all persons have a day of gracious visitation by God, when they are as it were tried and tested; it is but a day, he said, and may be lost, and once lost, all the angels in heaven and saints upon earth could not help the soul of that person. But, said Will—and was continuing the thread of his discourse upon good works and their meaning when my attention was drawn from him by a slight disturbance at the back of the church. I tried to recall my thoughts, telling myself it was nothing out of the ordinary, for these exercises were not formal services like the one in the morning, and the congregation could move about as they chose. But the murmur grew steadily louder, and then there was a sudden complete hush and a sound of footsteps, and I saw a frown of perplexity gather on Will’s face. He was staring down the church, and stumbled in his discourse; he looked away and then back again, and his words came unevenly. Suddenly the steps sounded beside me, loud and rhythmical and ringing; I looked, and there were six men in buff leather coats and polished helmets, armed with swords and pikes, marching up the church behind a man with a feather in his hat, who I suppose was their captain. They marched right up to the foot of the pulpit steps, and the captain, who had a paper in his hand, looked up at Will and read out from it.
“Are you William Clarkson, under-minister of the church in Bradford?” he shouted in a loud sing-song tone.
“I am,” replied Will firmly, turning to look down at him. “And as the holder of that office, I demand to know why you are making this disturbance.”
Then the captain shouted at Will again, and waved the paper to him, and Will took it and read it. At this my father suddenly exclaimed, and snatched up his churchwarden’s wand and made up the church to them in a stumbling hurrying pace. Mr. Thorpe moved out and followed him, and they began to talk to the captain earnestly. While this was going on, the congregation gradually fell into confusion; some hurried to leave, others surged forward; a murmur of talk arose, and grew into a loud angry buzz. Will had now finished reading the paper; he turned his eyes in our direction, seeking Eliza, and gave her a look of such anguish that she, poor thing, cried out and scrambled past me and pushed her way up the church through the throng. I followed, and found John at my side. But before we had reached the group at the foot of the pulpit, Will turned to the congregation and held up his hand for silence so that he might speak.
“Friends,” he began. The people angrily hushed one another, for they were all anxious to hear. “Friends,” repeated Will: “These men here have come with authority from the Archbishop to take me before the court of Star-chamber.” There was a sharp hiss of indrawn breath from the crowd at this, and Eliza sobbed aloud in horror, for the cruelties of that court, in fines and imprisonments and punishments in the pillory, were greatly dreaded. “The summons is legal and must be obeyed,” went on Will. His voice shook a little as he added: “I am to go to Wakefield immediately.”
At this there was an uproar. Will held up his hand again for silence, but could not obtain it, and the officer seized his arm and pulled him down from the pulpit. The people pushed and jostled and shouted, so that I was tossed about and could neither see nor hear what was going on; indeed I think I should have been trodden underfoot if John had not thrown his arm about my waist and held me firmly upright. After a while I caught a glimpse of my father, his eyes flashing, haranguing the captain, but not a word could be heard in the tumult. Then suddenly there was a great pressing backward in the people around us, so that John and I were left in the foreground, and down came the soldiers—for they were soldiers; I did not know it then but have seen too many since to doubt it—marching two by two, their pikes held at the push, with Will walking between them. Will’s face was flushed and he was weeping, but he held his head up and stepped out firmly. It was indeed a day of visitation for him, in which he glorified God by his steadiness and courage. My heart turned over within me as I saw him thus already almost a prisoner, for it seemed to me that poor Will, with his warm temper and simple honesty and his lack of worldly influence, was just the kind of man who would receive the full rigour of the court’s sentence. He would mar his case by a too vehement stating of the truth of it, and there would be nobody to protect him, nobody to be vexed if he were condemned., My father and Mr. Thorpe followed the soldiers, Mr. Thorpe looking disconcerted and perplexed; Eliza, hanging heavily on her father’s arm, was weeping and throwing herself about, hysterically. I joined the procession behind my father, and John fell in at my side.
It seemed a dream as we moved down the church, the people falling back in silence from the pikemen but murmuring angrily when they had passed. I saw Lister’s freckled face amongst the crowd, and David’s, white as linen, beside; Lister, I was glad to see, had David firmly by the arm and was holding him back from the soldiers. We came out of the church door and began to move down the bank, and Mr. Okell, his white head uncovered, came hurrying to meet us, and stopped and parleyed with the officer and read his paper. My spirit eased a little; perhaps, after all, this dreadful occurrence would prove a mistake, perhaps Mr. Okell and the officer would laugh together in a moment, and Will be dismissed and we all have supper together safely at home. But no; Mr. Okell threw up his hands in a gesture of despair and stood aside, and we all moved on again slowly.
While this parley was in progress some of the people dancing in the Turls began to notice the unusual happening at the church, and came running up to us, and now more and more gathered round and swelled the procession. These people were all vexed with the Puritans, who had so long kept them as they thought from their Sunday afternoon recreations, and when they heard what the matter was they began to laugh and triumph, and called out to their companions with coarse gibes to come and see the Puritan being taken to the Starchamber. The soldiers grinned and did not discourage them. So we passed through the Turls amidst a hostile crowd, laughing and shouting and jeering; and then someone threw a piece of turf at Will, and many began to pelt us. And suddenly, through a parting in the crowd, I saw Francis flushed and laughing drunkenly, his arm bent back in the act of throwing.
In that moment I hated him.
It seemed as if scales fell from my eyes and I saw him for what he was: light and loose and lecherous and on the side of the oppressor. I could forgive him for being light and loose and lecherous, my heart cried in anguish, I could forgive his wounding of my pride, his little valuing of my love, his neglect and his disrespect and his carelessness; all that, I could accept, and still love him dearly. I acquitted him, too, of ill-treating my brother, for I guessed he had not seen Will’s face or known him, but simply joined in light-heartedly at any sport that was going. But that he should thus light-heartedly and without thinking choose the side of authority just because it was authority, that he should not see that these Puritans, though in some things perhaps mistaken, were decent honest religious folk, doing what they did because they feared God more than man and did not shrink to defy the oppressor, that was intolerable to me. My soul revolted from it. Our natures are other, Francis, I told him silently; you are with the strong and the rich, I am with the humble and needy. There is a gulf between our spirits holding all the wrongs done by all the tyrants to all the poor and those who have no helper; and we can never cross that gulf, it is too wide.
As I thought thus, and the crowd closed about us and hid Francis, my father suddenly threw up his arms and staggered backwards. I almost fell beneath his weight, but John just in time caught him by the shoulders and lowered him to the ground. His eyes were closed and he was breathing very strangely. I fell on my knees beside him and took his hand. The crowd fell back, and their shouting faded to a kindly murmur, for my father was loved for his gentleness of spirit, even by those who opposed his beliefs, and besides, they were frightened, feeling in some sense responsible for his illness. I do not know what happened then around me, for my whole being was engaged in listening to my father’s gasping breath, which I dreaded to hear cease; but after a long long while, as it seemed, John touched me on the shoulder and I looked up, and there was Lister and the landlord of the Pack Horse Inn with a horse and a rough farm cart. The men opened the back of the cart and lifted in my father; it was difficult to move him, since he was so tall, and after some hanging back the bystanders helped them. The soldiers and Will and Mr. Okell and Mr. Thorpe had gone away. I climbed into the cart and pillowed my father’s head in my lap, and John and Lister walked beside the cart and the innkeeper led the horse, and so we came to our house in Fairgap.
Sarah and her Denton were waiting for us there with sober faces, and David, they said, had gone to fetch the physician. The men carried my father upstairs and laid him on his bed, and Sarah and I undressed him and put warming-pans to his feet. The physician came, and seemed to understand little of my father’s illness but to take a grave view of it; he shook his head very soberly, and said he must warn me that so much distress and excitement as that afternoon had brought, to one in my father’s condition might well prove fatal. He had brought some physic, and we tried to give it to my father, but he could not drink, and the physic ran out of the corners of his mouth, which to me was somehow extremely affecting. When all was done that could be done and the house was quiet, I prepared to watch by my father’s bed, but bethinking myself of David, I went down to see how the poor lad fared. He was sitting with our Bible open before him, not reading it but staring ahead, his face pale, his blue eyes very wide in his wretchedness, for he loved my father very dearly. To my surprise Lister sat beside him, coaxing him in a low voice to read with him. The apprentice told me that John had gone to see if aught could be done for Will, and had bidden him stay with us, to be at hand to run messages.
I went upstairs and sat beside my father. From time to time he moaned a little and moved his head restlessly, and once or twice threw out a few muddled words, when I laid my hand on his forehead to soothe him; but on the whole he lay quiet except for his breath, which came harsh and noisy and uneven. The light died, and Sarah came in with a candle and offered to relieve my watch, but I would not leave my father.
After long long hours, there was a stir below, footsteps very quiet on the stairs, and then John’s voice whispering: “Penninah.” I went to the doorway to him. In the flickering candlelight he looked hot and dirty and very tired, there were beads of sweat on his forehead and his dress was disordered.
“I came to tell you, Penninah,” he said in a low voice: “I am going to Guiseley with a message from Mr. Okell to ask the vicar there to write a letter about Will to Lord Fairfax—his benefice is in Lord Fairfax’s gift and he is a friend of his son Ferdinando. Lord Fairfax may be able by influence to moderate the court’s judgment.”
“What is Will accused of?” I whispered.
“Preaching at the afternoon exercises instead of catechising, discussing doctrine not contained in the teaching of the Church of England, not reading the Book of Sports—oh, and not wearing his whites,” said John. “But he has done no more than other preachers in the West Riding; plenty round Leeds and Halifax have done the same. If Lord Fairfax intervenes, Mr. Okell thinks Will may be reprimanded without a trial. But I fear he must lose his place. I am to ride to Guiseley now, and then on with the letter to Lord Fairfax.”
“John,” I said very quietly: “If you still wish me to be your wife, I will wed you as soon as it is right for me to leave my father.”
John gave me a strange burning look. “But you love Frank,” he said.
“I can never marry Francis,” I told him, looking beyond him into the darkness. “Our spirits are utterly apart.”
John took my hands and held them very strongly. “We shall be man and wife, then?” he said.
“God willing, it shall be so,” I answered.
He had barely gone when there came the loud rhythmical knocking on the house-door which always betokened Francis. I hurried down the stairs to him, for I did not want him to rush to me with his usual heedlessness and make a disturbance in my father’s chamber. Thunder came in first, crossed to the hearth and lay down heavily. Francis looked shamefaced and less sure of himself than usual, but handsome and vivid, as always.
“Pen,” he began hurriedly: “I have only this moment heard the news; I am truly sorry about Will and your father.”
“But you were in the Turls this afternoon, were you not,” I said with a steady look at him.
He coloured, and swung his hat uneasily. “Pen, I did not know it was Will,” he said. “I have only just heard the news, believe me.”
“I have some other news for you, Francis,” I said, striving to keep my voice steady. “I am betrothed to John Thorpe, and shall shortly wed him.”
Francis stared at me, incredulous. Slowly his face fell; his cheek paled, his mouth gaped, till his good looks were all quite vanished.
“Why, Pen!” he stammered. “Why, Pen! Betrothed to John! But you and I—why, Pen!” He seemed so astounded, so taken aback, so boyish and loving in his hurt, that my heart throbbed, and if he had left speaking there I might have melted to him. But he went on, and all the differences between us and his lack of understanding of them were in his words.
“On my word of honour, Pen,” he said, “I did not know it was Will. Don’t you believe me?”
“I believe you, Francis,” I said. “But that is not the argument.”
“Don’t talk as if you were David,” said Francis impatiently.
“I can only speak as my heart teaches me,” said I. “And you and I do not speak alike, Francis.”
He stared at me as if he could not believe his ears. I gazed back at him, very sadly but very steadily.
“But, Pen!” he pleaded. “Pen?”
Slowly and softly and irrevocably, I shook my head.
Without a wordFrancis swung on his heel and left the house.
I stood there for a moment, gazing after Francis, while Thunder with a protesting murmur rose and padded heavily after him, then I thought I heard a muttering sound above-stairs, and ran back to my father. He was half raised in bed, with his eyes wide open, and as I came in he pointed at the door and muttered thickly some words that I took for a question as to who was below. I told him: “It was Francis, Father.” It seemed to me that he received this with a troubled look, so I bent over him and took his hand and said: “Father, I have promised to wed John.” He nodded to show he understood, pressed my fingers and smiled at me, but his look did not clear; still clinging to my hand he lay back, and gazed very earnestly at the candle as though considering. Then all of a sudden he murmured quietly:
“For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory. Amen.”
His voice was low but very clear; closing his eyes, he sighed once, and was gone.
John and I were married by licence the day after we buried my father.