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.
“What is a moredge, think you?” said I to him.
“Why, it is a marriage, for sure,” cried Thomas laughing. “Fancy our Chris married!”
“He will want the money for his land, then,” said John crossly. “He is over-young for marriage.”
“Why, Father,” said Thomas, “he will be nineteen in September. Some woman will have great joy of him,” mused Thomas kindly.
At this my poor John’s face quivered, and he raised himself in his chair, and said in a hoarse voice:
“What of this new Act?”
Thomas lost his smile at once. “The Act of Uniformity?” he said gravely.
“Aye—aye,” said John. He bent forward and stared eagerly at Thomas, craving speech from him, but he was not able to wait for it, and went on: “What shalt do?”
“I shall not conform,” said Thomas quietly.
At this John’s face was illuminated with joy; and he seemed to draw himself together and become a strong steady man again—and indeed, what was very strange, his painful affliction began to recover from that moment and never returned though his rheumatism stayed by him; and he grew kindly again, and even-tempered, so that the house was pleasant.
“Why, lad, I am proud of thee,” cried John. “I am proud of thee!”
He stood up and went to Thomas and put his hand on his shoulder, caressing it.
“Why, Father,” said Thomas, looking up at him: “Surely you and my mother did not doubt me?”
“Nay, nay,” said John hastily; and I added:
“But we are glad to hear it from your own lips, Thomas.”
“If you had chosen to conform, I should not have blamed you, Thomas,” explained John carefully. “This is our cause, not yours; we had no right to expect that you should take it up.”
“Not so, Father,” said Thomas steadily. “The cause of justice and freedom is not the possession of a single generation; it is an endless patrimony.”
“You should have told us this sooner, Thomas,” I mildly reproached him.
“Why,” said Thomas: “As to conforming or not conforming, I never had any hesitation; but as to my duty after I am ejected from my parish, I have had much heart-searching.”
“The Breck is not so poor it cannot sustain my son, Thomas,” his father told him. “You can continue your studies, or perhaps become a tutor.”
“No,” said Thomas. “After much prayer, I have made my decision. I shall continue my ministry, so long as it is wished for.”
“That is against the law, son,” said John doubtfully.
“I know, I know,” said Thomas. “But it is a matter of conscience with me, Father.”
This is John and the ulnage over again, I thought; and I understood now how old Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe had felt on that matter. For Thomas’s words began for me ten long years of continual anxiety—ten years during which my son was never safe.
“If you approve,” went on Thomas, “I will minister from The Breck; if you do not, I will house myself elsewhere.”
“The Breck is your home, Thomas,” said John and I together.
“There will be heavy penalties, perhaps,” said Thomas.
“I know, I know,” said John impatiently. After a moment he went on: “What think you of that clause of the Act declaring it unlawful to take arms against the King?”
“Armed rebellion against a lawfully constituted authority,” said Thomas in his clear tones very precisely, for he had plainly thought much on all these questions, “is a terrible thing, almost never to be undertaken; but to exact an oath that it shall never be undertaken is to make the mildest rule a tyranny.”
“Thou art right, lad,” said John with great satisfaction: “Thou hast hit the nail fair and square. It is our political freedom they are cutting at, as well as the religious, just as of old. The welfare of the people is the supreme law of nations, to which all other man-made laws must bow. Well! When wilt come to The Breck, eh? The day after Black Bartholomew?”
This he said because, the day by which the conforming oath had to be sworn chancing to coincide with that Bartholomew’s Day in France when so many Protestants had been massacred in the last century, those of our persuasion called this the new Bartholomew.
John and I went over to Adel to hear Thomas’s last sermon as rector of his parish. He preached on a text from the Psalms: He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him; a very apt text which he expounded in a clear ringing voice, very beautifully and nobly. The congregation was much moved, and crowded about him at the close of the service, lamenting his departure, so that John and I felt a great if mournful pride in him.
Next Lord’s Day was Bartholomew, and nigh on two thousand ministers were ejected from their parishes. Of these two thousand, David Clarkson and Thomas Thorpe were two.
It was a terrible stroke to me, to think of David and Thomas, our noblest and our best, being thus driven out of usefulness and silenced; while on the other side too our brightest and most joyous, Chris, was lost to England. There is ever a great waste in strife and war, I thought, on both sides; my father and Will distraught, Francis dead, John crippled, David and Thomas persecuted, Chris as it were banished—our family hath suffered very bitterly because men could not compose their differences peaceably. But it is not possible to compose a difference between right and wrong, I thought; one can only fight evil, by one method or another: and a civil persecution can wound the spirit as much as war does the body.
David wrote that he should sustain himself chiefly by tutoring, and should study and write works of theological scholarship, ministering when it was required of him; Sam and Constance had offered him a home, which he accepted gladly. Thomas came to The Breck and prepared to begin his ministry.
I own, though I am ashamed to own it, that I was troubled at the notion of Eliza’s coming to live with. us. The Breck had been her home before it had been mine—I knew this and admitted it, but found it difficult to believe it in my heart, and still more difficult to relish it. But there was naught else to be done; Thomas and Eliza both came to us, and I did my best to be a true sister to her. And, as sometimes happens, what I had dreaded proved no discomfort at all, but rather a blessing; for as it turned out, Thomas’s ministry kept the house so full and busy, I was truly glad of Eliza’s help in managing it. For we held worship in our house every Lord’s Day, though at different hours from the Church so that believers could attend both services if they had a stomach for Mr. Corker, and on the appointed Fasting Days, and sometimes on other days as well, for godly folk flocked as doves to the window to hear the instruction of the ejected ministers. Then, too, other ministers constantly passed through our house on the way to holding services, while Thomas constantly rode about the country on religious duty. It grew very familiar to me to hear a quiet knock at our door, Thomas’s clear steady voice asking what was wanted, a low-toned answer; then Thomas coming in to say he had been asked to go to Penistone, or Guiseley, or Leeds (this was a very Royalist dangerous place), or to Halifax, or Wakefield, and preparing to ride off these considerable distances no matter what the weather; sometimes he rode even into Lancashire and Cheshire and was some days absent from his home. Joseph Lister was very forward in all this business; he attended our meetings very regularly, and also when he was in other towns on his merchant trade, he told the godly folk there of our Thomas as a very helpful serviceable preacher.
“He was born the day my indentures terminated,” Lister was wont to say of Thomas, proudly.
With these frequent ridings back and forth, and with instructing Lister’s boy David, and writing letters, and constant studying and preaching and composing sermons, our Thomas grew very thin and worn in looks, being so continuously overtoiled; but he would not spare himself, and it was my part and Eliza’s to keep him well clothed and fed despite his preoccupations.
When the government saw that this Act did not serve to keep us down, on the pretext of a plot against the King supposed to be wrought up by some foolish persons in Yorkshire—though we heard nothing of it—it passed another Act, forbidding more than five persons from outside a household to assemble therein for prayer. The penalties for anyone caught attending a conventicle, as any religious meeting was now called if attended by more than five strangers, were truly terrible, not only heavy fines and long imprisonment, but even transportation; Thomas, however, made no difference in his ministry. When I ventured, not without tears, to point out to him the danger he was running, he merely set his jaw as John did, and said:
“I shall minister wherever I am called, Mother.”
I remember one night especially when he was to preach at Captain Hodgson’s, and we rode over with him and dined there. After we had dined, many neighbours came in to hear him, so that the house was full, and Thomas was very fervent in prayer and exhortation. But while we were on our knees, suddenly a child came in, so that we all started; a kind and godly woman, wife to one of Captain Hodgson’s Royalist neighbours, had sent him to warn us that one of the magistrates was coming upon us with a troop of horse. The congregation all rose up in confusion, but Thomas set his jaw in his father’s way and stood there motionless, and I believe he would have continued to conduct the service, only Captain Hodgson desired him somewhat peremptorily to put an end to it. The Captain hustled us all out of doors by the back way, and he drew out Thomas’s horse and saddled it very expeditiously and bade him ride hard if he valued his own liberty and his congregation’s.
“Those who preach and run away, will live to preach another day,” said Captain Hodgson, laughing.
At this Thomas smiled faintly and galloped off in the direction of Halifax. The Hodgsons’ neighbours had already dispersed, walking away very rapidly, and John and I were left looking at each other.
“I am sorry to turn you out thus, old friends,” said Captain Hodgson, bringing out our horse and wheeling him to the mounting-block: “But indeed it will be best.”
So we mounted and rode off through the moonlight; and sure enough, we had hardly reached the main road before we heard the horses’ hoofs, and jingling of bits and spurs, as the troop rode up from the other direction and surrounded Coley Hall. I trembled so I could hardly sit the horse, and clung to John in a very timid manner, for which I despised myself. However, we got off safe and reached The Breck without being molested.
It is a true saying that misfortunes rarely come singly, for next morning, while we were still in doubt as to whether Thomas had escaped or not, behold an angry letter from the mercer at York where Abraham was apprenticed, saying that Abraham had broken his indentures and fled. John was quite dumbfounded; I do not know which was the more intolerable to him, the idea that a child of his should break indentures, or the thought of his cherished youngest son homeless and starving, roaming the countryside. I too was surprised, for Abraham had stayed in York nigh on three years, so I thought he had settled down. But somehow I was not troubled about Abraham; people always seemed to confide in him, and he listened with a grave attention which endeared him to them, and then he did not demand much of life, asking only to be left alone to manipulate columns of figures, so that it was easy to satisfy him. Though naturally anxious, I felt sure he would fall on his feet. But for Thomas I was greatly troubled. If Thomas came into contact with soldiers nowadays, he would vex them; he had a stern and lofty air, which soldiers do not like, and was apt to be very uncompromising in his speech. I had thoughts of him being attacked and wounded, imprisoned, tried, transported to some far plantation, dying of fever or beaten and starved. John, on the other hand, though naturally concerned for Thomas, felt a pride in him which overrode concern. To John, Thomas was his representative, carrying on the good old cause; he did not wish Thomas, for he had not wished himself, to shrink from any hardship. So John and I sat on either side of our hearth that day, each worrying over a different son. Eliza between us shook her head and sighed with both of us dolefully, sympathising with John because he was her brother and with me because it was Thomas for whom I grieved.
It was two days before we heard that Thomas had got safe to Rochdale, and two weeks before we received a neat brief note in Abraham’s beautiful penmanship to tell us he had gone to Liverpool.
“Liverpool!” cried John, inflamed. “He will take a ship thence, I suppose!”
He wanted to rush off to Liverpool at once himself and fetch Abraham home, but I persuaded him to send and command Thomas, who was still in Lancashire, to go instead and take money to the boy, and after some grumbling John agreed. It was well he did so, for when Thomas returned he came alone, bringing us a brave account of Abraham’s going on in Liverpool. He had opened a school, said Thomas, for the teaching of writing and accounts.
“A school!” groaned John, nevertheless not altogether displeased. “A school at his age!”
“He is seventeen, Father,” said Thomas seriously: “and you know his ability in numeration.”
Abraham was studying the science of navigation, too, said Thomas, which was why he had gone to Liverpool, and he had made the acquaintance of some merchant who knew an astronomer who lived in London.
“An astronomer!” said John, much struck.
“Yes. It seems Abraham desires to be an astronomer,” explained Thomas.
“What is an astronomer, brother?” asked Eliza mildly.
“Why, he studies the stars,” said John. “But in truth I have never met one. You have brought me some strange children, Penninah,” he grumbled, smiling at me however. “There is not one stays peacefully at home as a sober clothier.”
“You did not stay very peacefully at home yourself, husband,” said I.
“Why, that is very true,” said John. “And so I will not grumble. And now, tell us of your own travels, Thomas.”
In the years which followed, this sentence was spoken, how many, many times! For the government had yet another blow in store for us. When it was found that no prohibition kept congregations from repairing to their ejected ministers for instruction, it was determined to put this out of their power. And so that hateful, cruel and most tyrannical Act was passed, forbidding ministers to reside within five miles of any place where they had ever exercised their ministry, and also forbidding them, except when travelling, to come within the same distance of any corporate city or town. David had to leave his refuge with Sam; he betook himself into the country, and God knows how he lived—he would not take any support from us or from Sam, though it was willingly offered him. Adel was mercifully more than five miles from Little Holroyd, but because Thomas had preached once or twice in Bradford Church, and Bradford was a town, there was always a doubt whether Thomas might reside at home or no. As for the other ministers of the West Riding, many of them had to turn out and move their families to a strange place, being already without any means of livelihood except that furnished to them by the faithful; so that their hardship was very great. Others left their wives and children in their old homes, and journeyed out themselves, returning home only for visits so brief that they could not be regarded as a residence. To many of these did we give hospitality in their endless journeyings, and hospitality was given by many to Thomas. Thomas kept a journal of his travels at his father’s request, with the places and miles and the duties he performed writ down each day very carefully; this journal, when he looked through it the other day, revealed that in these hard years he preached more than six hundred sermons and travelled more than five thousand miles.
And while he travelled those miles and preached those sermons, growing thinner and more haggard every day, I thought of him. Often I lay awake at night and thought of those I loved who were bowed beneath this trial; David poor and comfortless—for I knew what his keeping himself by tutoring and studies meant, he would give all to the studies and none to the tutoring—Thomas toiling wearily up and down the hills. When the wind roared and the rain streamed, when the snow lay thick on the ground and the hail rattled on our windows, I lay awake at night, thinking of Thomas on horseback between one meeting place and the next, cold and tired and far from home. And I said to myself: Will this tribulation never end? How long, O Lord, how long?
It was during these years, shortly after the passing of the hated Five-Mile Act, that Eliza married again—a very decent sober minister, an elderly man, widowed, who passed through our house often on his pilgrimages of service. As his ministry had been in Cumberland, he was able to live in Adel, where most of Eliza’s friends were, and John helped them to arrange Eliza’s affairs and settle in a house there, and he gave up wandering and ministered very little, living on Eliza’s rents, and their marriage was a quiet blessing and happiness to both of them.
John and I were left therefore somewhat lonely at The Breck; we had plenty of the company of ministers, for our house was a noted place of call for them, but none of our own kin about us. For Thomas was perpetually wandering; and Abraham’s letters, very beautifully writ and describing all the doings of the port of Liverpool in a very precise and detailed manner, though not telling us much of his private feelings revealed that he was very well established and satisfied with his place, and meant to go to London presently; so that it would have been foolish to call him home.
It was therefore a great pleasure to me when Sam sent his wife and children to us to be safe out of that great visitation of plague which fell on London at that time. Some said this visitation was a punishment from God for the dissolute ways of the King’s Court; but I do not know, for I have never remarked any stroke of God falling directly on evildoers in that manner. Sam being a very shrewd sensible lad, as soon as he saw a few houses marked with that red cross upon the doors which was a sign of the plague decided it was an excellent time for his wife to visit Yorkshire; and accordingly she came with three children about her and carrying a fourth, These three, Robert and Constance and Mary, were very buxom hearty pieces, fair and sandy in complexion, with something of a London accent and perkiness about them but warm-hearted enough; it seemed they knew nothing of cows or sheep or becks or heather, and they tore up and down The Breck like wild things. To me it was a great pleasure to hear children’s voices, laughing and hearty, and running footsteps, about The Breck again; John in a way liked it too, but he rather undervalued Sam’s children, who indeed were not very clever at their books, though shrewd enough in life. John did not greatly care for Constance either, preferring more spirituality in a woman; but I liked her. She was good about the house, and this was a great help to me with the many ministers coming and going; she helped me ably with the poultices for John’s knee; moreover, when her time came and she was delivered of her second son, she bore herself bravely, and this is a great test of the quality of a woman. It was a time of trial for both of us; for Constance had left both her husband, and her father and mother, in London, and presently we had news that her parents were dead of the plague; while for my part, both my Sam was in the danger, and also David, for as soon as he heard that the conforming minister who replaced him at St. Giles’ was dead of the plague, up he came to London and stayed there, ministering to the people.
“If there is any dangerous duty anywhere, be sure your David will go stick his nose in it,” grumbled John, who in truth admired his conduct greatly.
Lister at first took John’s view of Constance, which vexed me, but when he found she had many stories to tell of David’s ministry in Cripplegate, he listened to her very willingly, and a kind of friendship sprang up between Sarah Lister and Constance, which I was not best pleased at but could find no reason against, and David Lister played with Sam’s children. For my part I would tell Constance in return stories of Sam’s childhood, and his great prowess at The Breck in the Civil War, to which she listened very attentively, while the children gathered open-mouthed about me. They were very fond of their father, which it gave me pleasure to see.
The deaths from the plague rose to three and four thousand a week in London, and Constance was in an agony for Sam, though she put a brave face on it for the children’s sake; once or twice she even flew out at me about David, who, she said, was sure to go into all the stricken houses and then bring the infection back to his nephew. This was so true that I could say nothing against it, yet I had a kind of confidence in Sam, having been with him before in times of great trouble and proved his quality. I said this to Constance, and I saw she had this confidence too but feared to trust to it.
She need not have feared, however, for the plague slowly died down and Sam and David were both safe, and about Christmas time Sam came to Yorkshire to fetch his family home. I was greatly disappointed that David did not come too. Sam told me he had done his utmost to persuade his uncle, but David was very straitened in his expenses nowadays, having no regular livelihood, and though Sam would gladly have paid for him to travel, he would not accept it. Sam looked very well and hearty and prosperous, being then nigh on thirty years in age and already a respected merchant; he was not very tall, for he had not fulfilled his childish promise of height, his growth having been thwarted, I judge, during the war, but he was strong and solid in body, like his father. The children leaped about him and it was plain to see he was an indulgent father; nevertheless he had them under a good discipline.
Seeing that Sam was come, we sent to Thomas and also to Abraham, urging them to eat their Christmas dinner with us. John sent money to Abraham to travel with, but this Abraham very courteously returned when he arrived, saying he was well able to pay for himself and would not trespass further on his father’s goodness, especially since he had broken from the course his father wished for him. John sniffed and snorted somewhat over this; but was pleased enough in reality. Thomas, overhearing this, told his father that Abraham’s time was not yet come, but he had great trust, from what he heard of him, that he would one day be a famous astronomer, which pleased John further.
So we had a very great Christmas dinner, with Thomas, and Sam and Constance and their three children, and Abraham, and the Baumes and their daughters—one of whom, still unmarried, I thought had an eye for Thomas—and Mrs. Hodgson and her son, who was studying for a minister. Poor Captain Hodgson could not come, he being in gaol in York with some other local parliament-men, on suspicion of a plot of which they were entirely innocent. The Hodgsons had a fancy for Abraham, they liked to say that he had caught the infection of mathematics at their house, which stood in Halifax parish, there having been, it seemed, some famous mathematicians lately born in Halifax.
A thing which gave me great pleasure then was that a letter from Virginia arrived just at Christmas-tide, when Sam and all the others were there to see it. The letter came not from Chris, however, but from his wife, whose name, it seemed, was Virginia, like her birthplace. It was a letter most delightful, being both sweet and able; very well-writ in a fine gentlewoman’s hand, with good spelling and fluent expression. As far as I could gather, this Virginia seemed to be the daughter of some high-up official there; my father opposed our marriage at the first, wrote Jinny (for this, it seemed, was Chris’s name for her); but after Chris’s notable feat against the Indians, he gladly withdrew his opposition.
“Chris’s notable feat against the Indians!” exclaimed Sam when he read this, looking at me accusingly. “You never told me aught of that, Mother.”
“I never heard aught of it,” said I. “Nor do I suppose I ever shall, unless I can coax it out of this Virginia.”
(But I never have heard; for when I had asked four or five times of it and got no answer to my question, at last Chris wrote impatiently: that is long ago Mother and I have forgott it, and I gave up asking.)
Yes, it was a very sweet letter, telling how she and Chris were married nigh on two years ago, and how they now had a daughter, whom they had named Faith after my mother. This pleased me greatly.
Sam read this letter, and the others from Chris, many times very carefully, musing on them.
“I doubt not Chris is doing very well in Virginia,” said he. “He is just the lad for a new wild country, though for my part I can ill spare him. He was a grand lad, our Chris. Very bright and swift and joyous, like spring sunshine.”
“You are turning poet, Sam,” Constance told him with one of her hearty laughs.
“Ha!” said Sam scornfully at this, snorting.
Seeing there was so much talk of marriage and children in the air, I put Sam on to urge Thomas towards matrimony, his father and I being troubled that he had yet no family.
“I cannot marry while I am about the Lord’s business,” said Thomas impatiently, and when he and Sam were alone together he explained that he feared a wife and children would draw him from his travelling ministry and keep him at home. Since this was largely why I desired to see him married, I could not counter it, but my heart grieved over him, because he looked so haggard and comfortless.
In the next year, indeed, there seemed some hope that the persecution might be lifted from us, for the Duke of Buckingham came into great favour with the King, and the Duke, being Lord Fairfax’s son-in-law, was kindly disposed towards those of our persuasion. He seemed a strange, odd man, this Duke; the most dissolute, save perhaps the King himself, of all that dissolute Court, he yet showed some inclination towards religion, and though he neglected his wife till her heart was torn, he yet always showed much affection and respect for her father. He kept a Non-conforming minister as his chaplain, doubtless for her sake, and when Lady Fairfax died—which I only now, with much regret, heard of—he proposed that this chaplain should publicly preach her funeral sermon. I thought this the most natural thing in the world, seeing who his wife was, but among Cavaliers, to whom Non-conforming folk were both ludicrous and treacherous, it was considered very wonderful. While the Duke was Lord-Lieutenant of Yorkshire, things were a little easier for those of our persuasion, and in this year he even had a scheme brought before Parliament, whereby the Presbyterian ministers might be comprehended in the Church of England. Thomas and David were both tremendously heartened by this scheme; they wrote very much upon it, and Thomas prayed and fasted for its good success until he wore himself almost to a shadow. But it was all of no avail; the scheme failed to pass in Parliament.
It saddened me to see the bitter disappointment on Thomas’s face when he heard of this defeat. This year was the year of the Great Fire in London, when so much of the City went up in fearful flame, and Sam had to move out his goods, both from his house and from Blackwell Hall, in a hurry, and lost some by fire and some by water and some by theft, so that the damage he sustained was very heavy and he was vexed by it. But though I was sorry for his losses, my heart did not grieve over him as it did over Thomas and David. For Sam lost goods, and by exercising toil and skill and care he could replace them; but David and Thomas were kept by law from exercising toil and skill and care in the profession they had given their whole lives to, it was their spirits which were cramped and thwarted. “How long, O Lord, how long?” I murmured to myself often, sighing, as I saw the lines graving deeper every day on Thomas’s face, the lines which come when a man is kept by oppression from his true fulfilment.