The Draytons and the Davenants

CHAPTER IX.

The winter of 1642-43 was one of uneasy uncertainty to us at Netherby. The whole world seemed to lie dim and hazy, as if wrapped in the heavy folds of a November fog. The next villages seemed to become far-off and foreign, in the unsettled state of the country. There was no knowing the faces and voices of friends from those of foes, in the rapid shifting of parties. The comrade of yesterday was the opponent of to-day. Who could say what the comrade of to-day might be to-morrow? Mr. Capel, the Member for Hertfordshire, who had been the first in Parliament to complain of grievances, had become Lord Capel, and was threatening the seven associated counties with his plunderers.

Lord Essex (many thought) seemed as frightened at success as at failure. Victories lulled him into fruitless negotiations; and the only thing that roused him to action was imminent ruin. Some murmured that "professional soldiers love long wars as physicians love long diseases." Some whispered of treachery, and others of Divine displeasure. The explosion of battle had come; but the only consequence seemed to be the loosening of the whole ground around, the crumbling away of the nation in all directions.

Partly, no doubt, this sense of vagueness and dimness was caused by the absence from most homes and communities of the most capable and manly men in each,—in the garrisons, on the field, taking counsel with the King at Oxford, or taking counsel for the nation at Westminster. Thus events were left to be guessed and debated by old men despondent with the decay of many hopes; or women, draining in anxious imaginations the dregs of every peril they could not share in fact; or boys delighting in magnifying the dangers they hoped soon to encounter, therewith to magnify themselves in the eyes of mothers and maids.

Rachel Forster, on whose gentle strength the whole village was wont to lean, was away; and Aunt Dorothy, the manliest heart left among us, had a belief in the general wickedness of men, and the general going wrong of things in this evil world, which was anything but reassuring to those whose fears were quickened with the life-blood of more vivid hopes than hers.

Thus we were ripe for all kinds of credulities that winter at Netherby.

I can remember nothing rising prominently out of the general hum and fog except two convictions, which enlarged before us steadily, becoming more solid instead of more shadowy as they came nearer. The first was the impossibility of trusting the King. The second was that everything went right where Colonel Cromwell was; for by this time he was Colonel Cromwell, at the head of his regiment, which he was slowly sifting and compressing into the firm invincible kernel of his invincible army.

A dim, dreary time it was for us from the Edgehill Fight, in October, 1642, to the beginning of February, 1643. Roger in prison at Oxford with Job; my Father at Reading or in London with Lord Essex and the army.

But in the beginning of February a new time dawned on us. My Father came home to us for a few days, to make the old house as tight as he could against any assaults from Lord Capel, or any straggling party of Prince Rupert's plunderers, who were always making dashing forays into the counties favourable to the Parliament, and appearing where they were least expected. The old moat, which in front of the house had long been the peaceful retreat of many generations of ducks, and elsewhere had been partially blocked up with fallen stones and trees, was carefully cleared out and filled with water. The terraces which led to it on the steep side of the house were scarped, all but the uppermost, which was palisadoed, and had two great guns planted on it. The drawbridge was repaired, and ordered to be always drawn up at night. We were provided with a garrison of four of the farm-servants, drilled as best might be for the occasion, and placed under the command of Bob, which virtually placed the whole fortress under the command of Tib, whose orders were the only ones Bob was never known not to disregard. Meantime my aunts and I, with the serving-maids, were instructed how to make cartridges, and prepare matches for the match-locks; and Aunt Gretel gave us the benefit of her experience in pulling lint, preparing bandages, and other hospital work.

If an attack, however, were ever made, the general belief in the household was that Aunt Dorothy would take her place as commandant, her courage being of the active rather than the passive kind. Indeed, I think the sense of danger to ourselves was a kind of relief to most of us. It seemed to make us sharers in the great struggle, which we believed to be for God, and truth, and righteousness. It took us out of the position of uneasy listeners for rumours into that of sentinels on the alert for an attack. And the whole spirit of the household rose from dreamy disquiet into cheery watchfulness and activity.

My Father brought us the story of the king's attempt to surprise London. "It was a treacherous, unkingly deed," my Father said, "enough to quench in the heart of the people every spark of trust left in His Majesty."

He said it happened on this wise. On Thursday, the 11th of November, 1642 (my father told us), the king received messengers from the Commons with proposals of peace, declared his readiness to negotiate, and his intention to remain peaceably in the same neighborhood till all was amicably settled. The Parliament, trusting him, ceased hostilities. Nevertheless, instantly after despatching this message, he set off in full march for London. On Saturday he sent forces under Prince Rupert to surprise Brentford under cover of a November fog, and of his own too loyally trusted word. But Denzil Hollis, with part of his regiment, made a noble stand, and stopped the Prince's progress.

Hampden came up first, and Lord Brook, to the succour of Hollis' imperilled regiment; they tried to fight through the royal troops, which had surrounded Hollis and his men in the streets of Brentford. This they could not effect. But Hollis' little band themselves fought to their last bullet, and then threw themselves into the river, those who were not drowned swimming past Prince Rupert's troops to Hampden and his Greencoats. Lord Essex, hearing the sound of guns in the Parliament House, where he was at the time, took horse and galloped across the parks and through Knightsbridge to the scene of action. After this, all through the Saturday night, soldiers came pouring out from the roused city, until, on Sunday morning, four and twenty thousand men were gathered on Turnham Green.

Then the tables were turned, and Hampden fell on the king's rear.

"And then?" asked Aunt Dorothy.

"And then," replied my Father, drily, "Lord Essex recalled him, and so nothing further came of it; but things have gone on simmering ever since; always getting ready, and discussing how things should be done, and never doing them."

"How do Mr. Hampden and Mr. Pym brook these delays?" said Aunt Dorothy.

"Mr. Hampden would have had my Lord Essex invest Oxford," said my Father, "but he is a subordinate, and Lord Essex a veteran; and Mr. Hampden, I trow, deems military obedience the best example he can give an army scarce six months recruited from the shop or the plough."

"And meantime," said Aunt Dorothy, "I warrant Prince Rupert is active enough. There is no end to the tales of his devastations, seizing whole teams from the plough, setting fire to quiet villages at midnight, with I know not what iniquities besides, and carrying home the spoil from twenty miles around to the king's quarters at Oxford. If Lord Essex does not want to fight the king, why does not he submit to him? Keeping twenty-four thousand men armed and fed at the public expense, and doing nothing, is neither peace nor war to my mind!"

"True, sister Dorothy," said my Father, "I know of no method by which war can be carried on in a friendly way. And when Lord Essex has come to the same conclusion, perhaps things will go a little faster."

"Will they ever, under Lord Essex?" said she.

"Time will show," said he. "We have scarcely found our Great Gustavus yet."

"Colonel Cromwell has been doing something better than dreaming what to do, at Cambridge, since he saved the magazine there and £2,000 of plate for the Parliament last June," said Aunt Dorothy. "Troops are pouring up to him from Essex and Suffolk, and all around, they say; and Cambridge is being fortified; and they say it is owing to Colonel Cromwell we are so quiet in these seven counties."

"Colonel Cromwell has a rare gift of sifting the chaff from the wheat; finding out who can do the work and setting them to do it," said my Father, thoughtfully.

"So strict with his soldiers too," said Aunt Dorothy. "They say the men are fined twelve pence if they swear a profane oath."

"Then," said my Father, "he is doing what he told his cousin Mr. Hampden must be done, if ever the Parliament army is to match the king's."

"What is that?" said she.

"Getting men of religion," my Father replied, "to fight the men of birth. You will never do it," said Colonel Cromwell, "with tapsters and 'prentice lads. Match the enthusiasm of loyalty with the enthusiasm of piety!"

"It is strange," rejoined Aunt Dorothy, "that Mr. Cromwell never discovered his right profession before. A farmer till forty-three, and then all at once to find out he was made for a soldier!"

"What can make or find out soldiers but wars, sister Dorothy?" said my Father. "Moreover, I warrant Colonel Cromwell has known what it is to wage other kinds of war before this. It is only taking up new weapons. It is only the same conflict for the oppressed against the oppressor, in which he contended for those of the Fen country against Royal assumption, and for the poor men of Somersham against the courtiers who would have ousted them from their ancient common-rights; or for the gospel lecturers whom Archbishop Laud silenced. The same war, only a new field and new weapons. At any rate, I am glad the lad Roger is to serve under him; and so you may tell him when he gets his liberty and comes home, as I trust he will in a fortnight."

This was said as my Father was taking an early breakfast alone with us in the Hall, with his horse saddled at the door, ready to take him back to the Lord General's quarters.

Rachel and Job Forster came home before Roger, in Sir Walter Davenant's wagon, stored with provisions and cordials, and soft pillows, by Lady Lucy.

I believe every one in Netherby slept with a greater feeling of security on the night after their return. Poor Margery, Dickon's young wife, said it was like the Ark coming back from the Philistines, regardless of the slur she thereby cast on the Royalist army, in which Dickon fought. And yet there was nothing very reassuring in Job's appearance. He looked like a gaunt ghost, and stumbled into the cottage like a tottering infant, and rather fell on the bed, which had been made up for him in the kitchen, than lay down on it, so broken was his strength. When the neighbours came in after a while, however, he had a good word to hearten each of them. As to Rachel, she settled in at once, without more ado, to her old ways and plans, doing everything with the purpose-like quietness which so calms the sick.

Cheered by Job's greetings to the neighbours, she told me it was not until the place was still, and she was making up the fire for the night, that she knew how low his strength was. As she took the wood from the pile he had made for her close to the fire, she was startled, she told me, by a sound like a stifled sob from where he lay.

"Art laid uneasy?" said she, at his side in an instant. "Does aught ail thee? Is the bed ill-made?"

"Naught," said he. "It's better than the bed of Solomon to me, with the pillars of silver and the bottom of gold. But I am like to them that dream, laughing and crying all in one. For I used to think before thee come to the gaol, how I should never see thee kindle a fire in the old place again, and how every stick thee had to take from where I laid it for thee would go to thy heart like a stab. And it shamed me not to have made a better shot at the Lord's meaning for thee and me."

"How could thee tell His meaning," said Rachel, "before He told thee? He gave thee no promise to bring thee out of prison, nor me."

"Nay," said Job, "but it's making very bold with Him, and making fools of ourselves, to guess at His words when they're half spoken, instead of waiting to hear them out. And it grieves me I should have suspected Him when He was moaning us so well. Read me what the Scripture saith about the forgiveness of sins."

"But, Mistress? Olive," concluded Rachel, when she told me this little history, "when Elijah, worn out with trouble, misunderstood the Lord, the angel comforted him, not with a text, but with a cake baken on the coals; so, when Job took to misunderstanding the Almighty like that, thinking He would be angered with what would not have fretted one of the likes of us poor hasty creatures, instead of the Bible I gave him a good cup of strong broth. I knew it was the body, poor soul, and not the spirit that was to blame, and that all those brave words he spoke to the neighbours had cost more than they were worth; and, of course, I was not going to profane the Holy Word by using it like the spell in a witch's charm."

So for several days she kept every creature out of the cottage, which deprived me of her counsel in a moment of difficulty, which happened the week of their return.

Lord Capel's troops continued to hover round, and to keep the district in a state of suspense and alarm, ripe for any marvellous stories of horror, or for any acts of terrified revenge. For in stormy times there are sure to be some cowardly spirits ready to throw any helpless victim as an expiatory sacrifice to the powers of evil.

One Saturday evening, late in February, I was returning home through the village from Gammer Grindle's cottage, which I had very often visited since poor Tim's death. The old woman had seemed gentler in her way of speaking of her neighbours, and once or twice had betrayed her pleasure in seeing me by speaking sharply to me if I stayed away longer than usual, as if I had been one of her own lost grandchildren.

I had made rather a long circuit in returning, not liking to try the high road again, because, in going, I had encountered a dozen or so of the king's troopers, and as I was hurrying past them, they complimented me in a way I did not like, and came after me. I recognized Sir Launcelot Trevor's voice among them, and then I turned round and spoke to him, and begged him to call his men away. Which, when he recognized me, he did; but not without some more idle Cavalier jesting, which set my heart beating, and made me resolve to come back by a quiet path through the Davenant woods, which led round through the village by Job Forster's.

Poor old Gammer was very friendly. I suppose I was trembling a little, though I did not tell her why, for she declared I was chattering with cold, and would have me drink a hot cup of peppermint water, and kindled up the fire, and took off my shoes, which were wet, and dried them, wrapping up my feet, meanwhile, in her own best woolsey whimple. Indeed, she was so gracious and approachable, that I ventured to say something about the benefit of coming to church, and mingling a little more with her neighbours.

"Too late, too late for that!" said she, firing up. "This twenty year, come Lammas, my Joan, Cicely's mother, was buried, she and her man, Cicely's father, in one grave. And the parson would do nothing without his fee. So I sold the cover from my bed to pay him. And I vowed I'd never darken his church-door again."

"But that parson is dead, Gammer," said I, "and it was not his church after all."

"That may be," said she. "But a vow is a vow. Besides, I could never bear the folks' eyes speiring at me. I'm ugly, and lone, and poor, and they make mouths at me, and call me an old hag and a witch. But it's only natural. All the brood will peck at the lame chick. All the herd will leave the stricken deer. Didn't all the village hoot and jeer at my poor, tender, innocent Tim?"

And then she poured forth the story of her life of sorrow as I had never heard it before. A heart trained to distrust and suspect through a childhood of bondage under the petty tyrannies of a stepmother and her children. One year of happy married life, ending in a sudden widowhood, which widowed her heart also of all its remnant of hope in God, and left her to struggle prayerless and alone with a hard world, for bread for herself and her orphan babe. The growing up of this child to be a stay and comfort, and, for three years, a second home with her when she married. This second home broken up as suddenly as the first, by the death of the daughter and her husband in one month, from a catching sickness, leaving the grandmother once more alone to toil with enfeebled strength for two orphan babes; the boy, poor, faithful Tim, half-witted and sickly; the girl, Cicely, wilful and high-spirited, and the beauty of the village. Then the terrible morning when Cicely was gone, and no account could be got of her beyond Tim's confused and exulting statement, that Cicely had cried, and laughed, and kissed him, and told him to wish grandmother good-bye for her, and she would come back a lady and bring Tim a gun like Master Roger's; to Gammer Grindle tidings worse than bereavement or all the misery she had known, for she came of a truly honourable yeoman's house that had never known shame. Tim, however, could never be brought to look on his sister's disappearance in any but the most cheerful light, and would watch for hours at the corner of the path leading to the village for Cicely and the "gun like Master Roger's," until, as time passed on, the expectation seemed to fade away, only to be awakened once again by the mysterious touch of death. And since then not a word of the poor lost girl. Tim in the grave, and the vain longing that Cicely were there too. And all the little world around her, as she believed, leagued against her crushed but unconquered heart. She ended with,—

"But it's but natural. When the lightnings have rent the trunk the winds soon snap the boughs. They say the devil stands by me. If he did no one need wish him for a friend. They say the Almighty is against me. And most times I think belike He is."

Then Aunt Gretel's words came back to me, "Anywhere but there. Put the darkness anywhere but there;" and I said,—

"Never, Gammer, never. The devil said that thousands of years ago; but the Lord Christ came to show what a lie it was. He stood by the stricken and wounded always. The lame and the blind came to Him in the temple, and he healed them."

She listened as if she half believed, and then, after a silence, she said,—

"The devil is no easy enemy to deal with, mistress, but if I could be sure it was only him, maybe I might look up and try again."

At last she was persuaded so far as to let me say I might call for her the next Sunday on my way to church. "It was as like as not she would not go, but at any rate it would do her no harm to see me."

And as I left I heard something like a blessing follow me, and I saw the poor, bent old figure leaning out of the door and watching me.

But when I came back to Netherby I found the whole village at the doors in a ferment of eager talk.

I thought at once of Sir Launcelot and the troopers, and asked if there had been another battle.

"Nay, nay," said the woman I spoke to, "it's naught but folks going to reap their deserts at last."

Then came a chorus of grievances.

"Three of Farmer White's finest milch kine gone in one night!" "Goodwife Joyce's best black hen killed, and not a feather touched; no mortal fox's work it was too plain to see!" "The dogs yelling as if they were possessed, as belike they were, on Saturday evening, seeing no doubt more than they could tell, poor beasts, of what was going on in the air!" "Lord Essex and his army lying spellbound, able to do nothing, while the Prince Robber was plundering the land far and wide!" "Job and Master Roger, the best in the village, the first stricken; too clear where the blows came from!" "And to-day the squire's own cattle driven off the meadow, with Mistress Nicholl's, by a troop of plunderers, who came no one knew whence, and had gone no one knew whither!" "And finally, Tony Tomkin had been pursued by a headless hound through the Davenant woods, where he had only gone to take a rabbit or two he had snared, and thought no harm, the family being away and fighting against the country!" "And," but this was muttered under the breath, "there were those who said they had seen something that was not smoke come out of Gammer Grindle's chimney—something that flew away over the fens faster than any bird. And this was only on last Saturday night, and every one knew that Saturday was the day of the witches' Sabbath ever since the Jews had brought the innocent blood on their heads!"

Then suddenly it flashed on me what it all meant. They were going to execute some dreadful vengeance on Gammer Grindle, believing her to be one of the witches who were causing all the mischief in the land.

It was no use to set myself against the torrent of fear and rage, so I said as quietly as I could,—

"What are they going to do, and when?"

"First," was the reply, "they're going to duck her in the Mere before her own door. If she sinks they will pull her out if they can, as it mayn't be her doings after all. If she swims she's a witch, clear and plain."

"And what then?" I said.

"Nothing too bad, Mistress Olive, for the like of them. But the lads'll see when it comes to the point. It isn't often their master helps the wretches out at last, they say. And if she don't sink natural, as a Christian ought, belike the lads'll make her."

"When did they go to do this?" I asked.

"They're but just off," was the answer. "But they'll make short work of it, never fear. It's time a stop could be put to such things, if ever it was."

"If Rachel and Job had been among you this would never have been," I thought. I longed to have consulted Rachel, had it been possible. But there was no time to hesitate.

My first impulse was to rush after the cruel boys; but I felt that in the maddened state of terror in which the village was, they would most probably keep me back. So, without saying a word or visibly quickening my pace, I walked quietly on towards home.

In the porch I found Aunt Gretel. She was watching for me.

I took her arm, not violently, I was so afraid of frightening her from doing what I had determined must be done. And I said quite quietly,—

"Aunt Gretel, we must go together this instant to Gammer Grindle's."

"What is the matter?" she said.

"I will tell you as we go," I said. "There is no time to be lost."

She came with me. I turned into the path by the meadows.

"Not this way, Olive," she said. "The plunderers have been there to-day. Your Father's best cattle are taken, and Placidia's."

"If the cattle are gone, then belike so are the plunderers," I said. "But if the king's whole army were there we must take the shortest way."

And I told her the whole story.

She said nothing but,—

"Then the good God guard us, sweetheart, and don't waste your breath in words."

We went quickly on.

Only once I thought I heard shouts, and I said,—

"Aunt Gretel, what do they do with witches at the worst?"

"They have roasted them alive," she said, under her breath. And we said no more.

As we came to the creek of the Mere, on the opposite side of which the cottage was, we heard yells and shouts too plainly borne across the water in the stillness of the evening, unbroken by the lowing of the stolen cattle which had been feeding there that morning. And in another moment we saw the reflection of torches gleaming in the water, as wo stumbled along in the dusk among the reeds. I listened eagerly for poor old Gammer's voice. But I heard nothing. Indeed, my own heart began to beat so fast, I could hear little but that. Until, just as we reached the cottage, there was a dull splash, and then a silence. It was followed by a low moan, but by no cry. They were drowning the poor old woman, and the brave broken heart would vouchsafe them the triumph of no entreaty for mercy and no cry of distress! I knew it as if I saw it. And the next moment I had flown along the shore and was in the midst of the crowd on the brink of the water, clinging with one hand round the stem of an alder, and stretching out the other till it grasped the poor shrivelled hands which had caught at the branches which drooped over the water.

"Cling to me, Gammer!—to me, Olive Drayton! I am holding fast—cling to me!"

I was scarcely prepared for the desperate tenacity of the grasp which returned mine. I never felt till that moment what it means to cling to Life. My other arm held firm, but the bank was oozy and slippery, and I felt as if I were losing my power, when at that instant Aunt Gretel came and knelt beside me, and clutching Gammer Grindle's dress, between us we dragged her to land.

Then the second part of the work of rescue began, and the hardest.

The men, or rather lads (for they were few of them more), who formed the crowd, had been startled into inaction by our sudden appearance among them; but now they began to mutter angrily, and would have pushed us rudely away, saying "it was no matter for women to meddle in. They had not come there for nothing, and they would have it out. The whole country-side should not be laid waste to save one wicked old witch, that no one had a good word to say for."

By this time Gammer Grindle had recovered so far as to rise out of that mere instinct of self-preservation with which she had desperately clung to me. And disengaging herself from me, she said, standing erect and facing her assailants,—

"Let me alone, Mistress Olive. They say right. They are all gone who would have said a good word for me. Let me go to them."

Two of the men seized her again.

"Confess!" said one of them, shaking her rudely; "confess, and we'll leave you to the justices. If not you shall try the water once more to sink or swim."

And they dragged her again to the brink. The touch of the cold oozing water made the horror and weakness come over her again. Her courage forsook her, and she cried like the feeble old woman she was,—

"Have pity on me, neighbours. I'll confess anything, if you'll leave me alone—anything I can. I've been a sinful old woman, and the Lord's against me; the Lord's against me!"

"Hear her, mistress," said the men with a cry of triumph; "she'll confess anything. She says the Almighty's against her. It isn't fit such should live."

They were forcing her on; her poor, patched, thin garments tore in my hands as I clung to them. Aunt Gretel, driven to the end of her English, as usual with her in strong emotion, was pouring forth entreaties and prayers in German, when I caught sight of a Netherby lad well known as the pest of the village, and the ringleader in all mischief. He was carrying a torch. I caught his arm and looked in his face.

"Tony Tomkin," I said, "Squire Drayton shall know of this, and it shall not be unpunished. It is your wickedness, and such as yours, that brings the trouble on us all, and not Gammer Grindle's. God is angry with you, Tony, for breaking your little brother's head, and idling away your time, while your poor mother toils her life away to get you bread. You will not give up your hearts to be good like brave men, which is the only sacrifice God will have; and instead, like a pack of cowards, you are sacrificing a poor helpless old woman to the devil. Isn't there one man here with the heart of a man in him? What harm can the devil do you, much less a witch, if you please God? And which of you thinks God will be pleased by a troop of you slinking here in the dark to murder a helpless old woman at her own door? Can none of you lads of Netherby remember poor Tim, and how he died for Master Roger, and how good she was to him? Or can't you trust Squire Drayton to do justice, and leave her to him?"

Tony let his torch fall and slunk back. Then two Netherby men came forward and said,—

"She's right; Mistress Olive is right! Squire Drayton'll see justice done."

Two or three others joined them. The cry arose, "No one shall touch the old woman to-night, as long as there's any Netherby lads to hinder it."

A scuffle ensued, during which Aunt Gretel and I got hold of Gammer Grindle once more, and led her back into the cottage.

Once there, we barricaded the door with the logs and fagots which formed Gammer's store of firewood, and felt safe.

But it was not until the angry voices had quite died away in the distance, and we heard again the quiet plashing of the water among the rushes, that we could quiet the poor old woman so that she would let go her clasp of our hands. Then she let us kindle a fire, and wrap her in warm dry things.

We wanted to lay her in a clean comfortable bed which was made in the corner of the hut. But this she would not suffer. "It is Cicely's," she said. "It's not for me." So we had to pack her up as comfortably as we could upon the heap of straw and rags laid on an old chest, which was her bed.

There she lay quite still for a long time, while Aunt Gretel and I sat silent by the fire, hoping she would sleep.

But in about an hour she said, in a quiet voice—

"Take away those logs from the door."

I went to her bedside.

"In the morning, Gammer," I said, "when it is quite safe."

"This moment!" said she, starting up any trying to walk. But the terrors of the night had made her so faint and feeble, that she fell helplessly back.

"This moment, Mistress Olive!" she repeated, in a faint querulous voice, very unlike her usual sharp firm tones—"this moment! The poor maid might come and try the door, and go away, and never come again. I've been sharp with her, I know, and she might be afraid, not knowing, poor lamb, how I watch for her."

Aunt Gretel went to the door and began to unpile the logs.

"God will care for us, Olive," said she with a faltering voice. "He will know and care; He who never closes the door against us."

And gently we withdrew the logs which formed our protection.

"Set the light in the window," Gammer said.

By the window she meant a rough crevice in the wall, with a canvas curtain hung before it.

Aunt Gretel ventured a little remonstrance.

"Hardly that to-night," said she. "It might guide any evil-disposed people here."

"It will guide her, and what does it matter for anything else?" said Gammer Grindle, almost fiercely. "She knew there was always a light burning, and if she saw none, she might think I was dead, and turn away."

And the lamp was placed in the window.

Then another long silence, broken again by Gammer.

"What'll they think's come to you, my mistresses? What a selfish old woman I've been. Why didn't I let them do for me, and be quiet. I never knew before what fear was. I've wished to die scores of times; but when death came near, I clung to life like a drowning dog or cat, and never cared who I pulled in to save myself. I never thought I should live to be such a pitiful old coward. But the Lord's against me," she cried, going back to her old wail—"the Lord's against me. Everybody says so, and it must be true. He not only leaves me to be drowned; He leaves me also to be as selfish and wicked as I will. The Lord's against me. Why did you try to save me? I must fall into His hands at last!"

This was exactly what Aunt Gretel never could hear with patience.

"You are a little better than those bad men, my dear woman," said she. "You, none of you, can see the difference between the good God and the devil. You talk of falling into His hands, as if His arms were hell. And all the while He is stretching out His arms that you may fall on His heart. You slander, grandmother, you slander God!" she added.

"He is not against you; you are against Him."

"Much the same in the end," moaned poor Gammer, "if we're going against each other."

"It is not the same," said Aunt Gretel. "You can turn and go with Him, and He will not have to drive you home. You can bow under his yoke, and you will not feel it heavy. You can bow under His rod, and you will find it comfort you as much as His staff."

"Not so easy, mistress," said Gammer, after a pause. "I have turned from Him so long, how can I know if I should have a welcome?"

"That is what Cicely is waiting for, Gammer," I whispered, kneeling down beside. "But the door is open and the light is burning for her. If she could only know! if she could only have a glimpse inside!"

"If she could only know!" murmured the poor old woman, her eyes moistening as she turned from the thought of her own sorrows to those of her lost child.

And she said no more. But there was something in the quiet of her face which made me hope that she herself had got a "glimpse inside."

And soon afterwards she fell asleep.

Aunt Gretel and I were left to our watch. Then, for the first time, when we ceased to watch for sleep to come over the poor exhausted aged frame, I began to watch the noises outside, and feel a creeping horror as I listened to the slow cold plashing of the water among the rushes, and the soughing, and wailing, and whistling of the wind among the leafless boughs of the wood behind us. There was one gnarled old oak especially, just outside the house, whose dry boughs creaked in the wind as if they had been dead beams instead of living branches.

Often I thought I heard long sighs and wailings as of human voices, and with difficulty persuaded myself that it was fancy. But at last there came sounds which could not be mistaken—low whistles, and short, peculiar cries, responded to by others, until we became sure that a number of men must be moving about in the darkness around us. At first Aunt Gretel and I thought it must be the witch-finders come again for Gammer Grindle, and very softly we replaced the logs to barricade the door.

But other sounds began to mingle with those of human voices, like the lowings of cattle forcibly driven. Suddenly I remembered my encounter that very morning with the royal troopers, which, with all that happened since, seemed weeks distant.

"It is Sir Launcelot and the plunderers!" I exclaimed.

"That accounts for their not sending after us," said Aunt Gretel. "They have tried to reach us, no doubt, and cannot."

And we listened again.

Then came something like a soft knock and a low cry, which seemed close to the door, and a heavy thud as of something falling. But, though we listened breathlessly, no second sound came; and the old stories of supernatural horrors haunting the place crept back to us, and kept us motionless.

By this time the dawn was slowly creeping in, and making the lamp in the window red and dim.

We sat crouching close together by the embers of the dying fire, and took each others' hands, and listened.

The voices came nearer, till we could plainly distinguish them, and with them the sound of trampling: feet of men and horses, and then of men springing from the saddle and approaching the hut.

"It's the old witch's den," a gruff voice said; "she's burning a candle to the devil. No one ever got good by going near her."

Then a laugh, and Sir Launcelot Trevor's mocking voice,—

"One would think you were a Roundhead, from the respect with which you mention the old enemy's name. At all events, witches don't live, like saints, on air and prayers. We'll get some warmth and comfort this bitter night out of the old hag's stores. Some sack or malmsey, perchance, and a fat capon or two bewitched from good men's cellars and larders. Stay here, if you are afraid. And I will storm this witch's castle for you," And his long heavy stride approached the door. We sat with beating hearts, expecting the rickety door to be shaken or forced in by a strong hand. But instead, the steps suddenly ceased, and the intruder seemed to start back as if struck by an invisible hand on the threshold.

Then there was an exclamation of amazement and horror, ending in a fearful oath in a low deep tone, very different from Sir Launcelot's usual bravado. Afterwards a few hasty retreating steps, and as he rejoined his men, some words in the old light tone, but hurried and wild as of one overacting his part.

"Belike you are right, lads. Black art or white, better keep to beer of mortal brewing than seize anything from a witch's caldron, or touch anything of a witch's brood. Besides, the country will be awake, and it's as well we were in safe quarters with the booty. Steady, and look out tor pitfalls in this cursed place."

After which there was a splashing of horses' feet on the reedy margin of the Mere. Then a heavy trampling as they reached firmer ground, succeeded by a sharp gallop across the meadow, until every sound was lost in the distance, and we were left in the silence to listen once more to the cold plashing of the water among the rushes, and to the breathing of poor old Gammer in her heavy sleep, as we watched the slow breaking of the morning.

We had not sat half an hour after the last tramp of the horsemen had died away, when we heard a faint sound as of something stirring on the threshold.

Aunt Gretel laid her hand on mine.

"What made Sir Launcelot turn back, Olive?" she whispered. "He is scarcely a man likely to dream dreams or see visions."

By one impulse we softly removed the logs with which we had barricaded the door, and opened it.

There was a rude porch outside to keep off the beat of the weather, and under it a low seat where Gammer used to sit in summer and carry on any work that needed more light than could be had in the hut.

Across this lay stretched, in a death-like swoon, the form of a woman. She was half kneeling, half prostrate, her head towards the door, resting on the seat, one arm beneath it, the other fallen helpless by her side, half hidden in a heavy mass of long hair. A puny little child lay cuddled up close to her, clasping the unconscious form with both arms, asleep.

The features were sharp as with age, and pallid as with the touch of death, and the long soft hair was gray, but it was still easy to recognise in the sharp and altered face what memories it had brought back to Sir Launcelot, and why that poor faded form had guarded her threshold from him better than an army of fiends.

It was the flaming sword of conscience which had guarded us that night.

Poor pallid wasted face, so terrible in its mute reproach!

We took her up between us. It was easy. She was light enough to carry. We laid her on the old bed which her grandmother had kept always ready for her. Aunt Gretel loosened her dress and chafed her hands, while I took the poor puny child to the fire to keep it quiet while I made some warm drink to revive the mother.

But the poor sickly little one was not easily to be quieted. In spite of all my soothing it awoke, and began wailing for mammy. Perhaps, after all, the best restorative! The sharp fretful cry aroused the mother from her swoon, and the grandmother from her heavy sleep.

In another instant the old woman was kneeling by the poor girl's bedside, clasping and fondling her, and calling her by tender, endearing, childish names, such as no one at Netherby would have dreamed could have poured forth from Gammer Grindle's lips. The first words Cicely spoke when she fully recovered consciousness and sate up (her beautiful large gray eyes gleaming from her faded hollow cheeks like living souls among a pale troop of ghosts), were,—

"Gammer, I heard him—I heard his voice. Where is he? I thought I saw his face. But it was dusk, and faces change. But voices will be the same, I think, even in heaven or in hell. And I heard his voice, the same as when he called me darling and wife."

"Wife!" said the old woman, starting and standing erect. "Say that again, Cicely."

"All in vain, Gammer!" she said, with a slow hopeless tone. "With the priest and the ring! But it was all false. He told me so when it was too late. He said I must have known. But how was I to know, Gammer? I trusted him; I trusted him. Yet, perhaps, I ought to have known better, Gammer? I suppose it must have been wicked of me. Every one seems to think it was."

"Not me, sweetheart!" the old woman cried; "never me! Thank God, my lamb comes back to me as pure as she went. Thank God, Cicely my darling, thank God, sweetheart, and take courage. If all the cruel world hunted my lamb to death and cried shame on her, there's one in the world who knows she's as pure as the sweetest lady that ever trod the church floor in her bride's white, with her path strewn with roses." Then, taking the child in her arms, and cuddling it to her, she added, "And thy child's as much a crown of joy to thee and me, Cicely, as to any lady in the land. Take courage, sweetheart. What does all the world matter, if grandmother knows; and Him that's above, darling," she added, in a voice faltering again into feebleness. "For He is above, Cicely, and He's not against us, for He's brought thee home."

All this time the old woman and Cicely had seemed quite unconscious of our presence, as we sat in a shadowed corner of the dark old hut, keeping as quiet as sobs would let us. But when the poor girl was calmed by the long-forgotten relief of a burst of tears on a heart that trusted her, she looked up and around with a quieter glance, and began to ask again how it could be that she had heard the voice.

Then I stepped forward to explain.

She started, and covered her face with her hands, as if she would have hidden herself.

"It's only me, Cicely, Olive Drayton," I said, as plainly as I could for weeping. "You've come back among those that know you and trust you, Cicely."

Then, after giving her such explanation as I could of the events of the night, and after Aunt Gretel had made up the fire, we bade them farewell, and left the three together to go over the mournful history that lay between their meetings; while we hastened away to assure those at home of our safety.

"What a night, Aunt Gretel!" I said, as we went. "It seems like a life-time."

"Things come often thus in life," said she, "as far as I have seen; the fruits ripened through the long silent year, reaped in a day." I scarcely understood her then, but since, I have often thought she was right. Sowing-times and growing-times, long, silent, underground; and then bursts of flowering days, reapings and gatherings; a life-time in a day; a thousand long-prepared events bursting into flower in a moment. A thousand ghosts of forgotten deeds gathered together and confronting us at one point. The probation thousands of years; the Judgment a day.

Aunt Dorothy was a little doubtful as to our having too much commerce with Gammer Grindle or Cicely. "If Gammer was not a witch," said she, "which God forbid—though that there are witches who ill-wish cattle, and ride on broom-sticks, is as certain as there are wandering stars and sea-serpents; at all events it is a solemn warning to every one on the danger of not going to church like your neighbours. And if Cicely was not as bad as had been feared—for which God be praised—she was nevertheless an awful example of the danger of dancing round May-poles, and wearing bits of ribbons and roses on your head."

But when Job heard of it, his anger was greatly kindled.

"One would think," said he, "the Book of Job had been put into the Apocrypha, that men who profess themselves Christians should go worrying the afflicted like Zophar, Bildad, and Eliphaz, heaping coals on the devil's furnace. Witches there were, no doubt, poor wretches, or they could not have been hanged and burned, although for the most part he believed the devil was too good a general to let his soldiers waste their time in cavalcading about on broom-sticks. But, be that as it might, it was ill work piling wood on fires that were hot enough already, especially when you could not be sure who had kindled the flames. The only comfort was, that after all the devil was nothing more than the Almighty's furnace-heater. All his toil only went to heating it to the right point to fuse the silver. The Master would see that none of the true metal was lost."

At the end of February, Roger came to us. He was pale with prison-air and meagre from prison-fare, and the hair had grown on his upper lip. In my eyes he had gained far more than he had lost. His eyes had a look of purpose and command in them, pleasant to yield to; though little enough of command had he exercised during the last four months, except, indeed, that command of himself which is true obedience, and lies at the root of all true command.

He was even less given than of old to long narratives or orations of any kind.

The history of what he had seen and heard dropped from him in broken sentences, as he went about seeing to various little plans for strengthening the defences of the house, or as he repaired or cleaned his arms in the evening. Of what he had suffered he said nothing, except to make light of it in answer to any questioning of mine. More than once he mentioned, in a few brief words, Lady Lucy's kindness. But he did not speak at all of Lettice except once, when we were all sitting together round the Hall fire—Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Gretel, and I—when he said carelessly, as if he had just remembered it by accident,—

"Mistress Lettice told me she had read the sermons you gave her, Aunt Dorothy. And she sent you her love, Olive."

"There are gracious dispositions in the child," said Aunt Dorothy. "I have been sure of it for a long time."

And I ventured after a little while to say,—

"She sent me her love, Roger, and was that all?"