Rusha, who was well content with her service at the hall, had no mind for such a terrible enterprise as a journey "beyond seas" to Ireland, and mayhap Jeph's prospective husband was a less tempting idea, because a certain young groom had shown symptoms of making her his sweetheart.

Steadfast thought often of telling the great secret of his heart to his faithful sister Patience, but his extreme shyness and modesty, and the reserve in which he always lived, seemed to make it impossible to him to broach the subject, and there might be a certain consciousness that Emlyn, while his own pet, had been very troublesome to Patience.

Stead was two-and-twenty, a sturdy well-grown fellow, but the hard work he had been obliged to do as a growing lad, had rounded his shoulders, and he certainly did not walk like the men who had been drilled for soldiers. His face was healthy and sunburnt, with fair short hair and straightforward grey eyes. At the first glance people would say, "What a heavy-looking, clownish young man," but at the second there was something that made a crying child in the street turn to him for help in distress, and made the marketing dames secure that he told the truth about his wares.

Patience was rather startled by seeing him laboriously tying up a posy of wild rose, honeysuckle, and forget-me-not, and told him the Bristol folks would not buy those common wild flowers.

"They are for none of them," replied Stead, a little gruffly, and colouring hotly at being caught.

"Oh!" said Patience, in her simplicity. "Are they for Emlyn? I do not think her mistress will let you see her."

"I shall," said Stead. "She ought to know of our good fortune."

"He has forgotten that Emlyn is not our sister after all," said Patience, as she went back to her washing.

"She might as well," said Ben, who could not remember the hut without Emlyn.

Stead had better luck than Patience foreboded from a household where the servants were kept very strictly, for there was a good deal of curiosity in Bristol about the report that a lad from the neighbourhood had won an Irish heiress and castle, and when Stead presented himself at the door of the house under the overhanging gable, and begged to see Emlyn Gaythorn to give her some tidings, the maid who opened it exclaimed, "Is it anent the castle in Ireland?"

Stead awkwardly said "Aye, mistress." And as it became evident that the readiest way of learning the facts would be his admission, he was let into the house into a sort of wainscotted hall, where he found the mistress herself superintending three or four young sempstresses who were making shirts for the gentlemen of the garrison. Emlyn was among them, and sprang up looking as if white seams were not half so congenial as nutting in the gulley, but she looked prettier than ever, as the little dark curls burst out of the prim white cap, she sniffed the flowers with ecstasy, and her eyes danced with delight that did Stead's heart good to see. He needed it, for to stand there hat in hand before so many women all staring at him filled him with utter confusion, so that he could scarcely see, and stumbled along when Mrs. Sloggett called, "Come here, young man. Is it true that it is your brother who has won a castle and a countess in Ireland?"

"Not a countess, ma'am," said Stead, gruff with shyness, "but a castle."

Mrs. Sloggett put him through a perfect catechism on Jeph and his fortunes, which he answered at first almost monosyllabically, though afterwards he could speak a little more freely, when the questions did not go quite beyond his knowledge. Finally he succeeded in asking permission to take Emlyn and show her his brother's letter. Mrs. Sloggett was gracious to the brother of the lord of a castle, even in Ireland, and moreover Emlyn was viewed in the light of one of the Kenton family.

So leave was granted to take Master Kenton (he had never been so called before) out into the garden of pot-herbs behind the house, and Emlyn with her dancing step led the way, by a back door down a few steps into a space where a paved walk led between two beds of vegetables, bordered with a narrow edge of pinks, daisies, and gilliflowers, to a seat under the shade of an old apple tree, looking out, as this was high ground, over the broad river full of shipping.

"Stead! Stead, good old Stead," she cried, "to come just as I was half dead with white seam and scolding! Emlyn here! Emlyn there! And she's ready with her fingers too. She boxed mine ears till they sang again yesterday."

"The jade," muttered Stead. "What for?"

"Only for looking out at window," said Emlyn. "How could I help it, when there were six outlandish sailors coming up the street leading a big black bear. Well, Stead, and are you all going to live with Jeph in his castle, and will you take me?"

"He asks me not," said Stead, and began to read the letter, to which Emlyn listened with many little remarks. "So Patience and Rusha wont go. I marvel at them, yet 'tis like sober-sided old Patty! And mayhap among the bogs and hills 'tis lonelier than in the gulley. I mind a trooper who had served in Ireland telling my father it was so desolate he would not banish a dog there. But what did he say about home, Stead, I thought it was all yours?"

Stead explained, and also the possibility of endeavouring to rebuild the farmhouse. If he could go to Mr. Elmwood with thirty pounds he thought it might be done. "And then, Emlyn, when that is saved (and I have five pounds already), will you come and make it your home for good and all?"

"Stead! oh Stead! You don't mean it—you—Why, that's sweethearting!"

"Well, so it is, Emlyn," said Stead, a certain dignity taking the place of his shyness now it had come to the point. "I ask you to be my little sweetheart now, and my wife when I have enough to make our old house such as it was when my good mother was alive."

"Stead, Stead, you always were good to me! Will it take long, think you? I would save too, but I have but three crowns the year, and that sour-faced Rachel takes all the fees."

"The thing is in the hands of God. It must depend on the crops, but with this hope before me, I will work as never man worked before," said Stead.

"And I will be mistress there!" cried Emlyn.

"My wife will be mistress wherever I am sweet."

"Ah, ha!" she laughed, "now I have something to look to, I shall heed little when the dame flouts me and scolds me, and Joan twits me with her cousin the 'prentice."

They had only just time to go through the ceremony of breaking a tester between them before a shrill call of "Emlyn" resounded down the garden. Mrs. Sloggett thought quite time enough had been wasted over the young man, and summoned the girl back to her sewing.

Emlyn made a face of disgust, very comical and very joyous, but as the good dame was actually coming in search of her no more could pass.

Stead went away overflowing with happiness, and full of plans of raising the means of bringing back this sunshine of his hearth. Perhaps it was well that, though slow of thought, Patience still had wit enough in the long hours of the day to guess that the nosegay boded something. She could not daunt or damp Steadfast's joy—nay, she had affection enough for the pretty little being she had cherished for seven years to think she shared it—but she knew all the time that there would be no place in that new farmhouse for her, and there was a chill over her faithful heart at times. But what would that signify, she thought, provided that Stead was happy?



CHAPTER XIX. PATIENCE.

"I'm the wealthy miller yet." TENNYSON.

Most devoted was the diligence with which Steadfast toiled and saved with the hope before him. Since the two young girls were no longer at home, and Ben had grown into a strong lad, Stead held that many little indulgences might be dispensed with, one by one, either because they cost money or prevented it from being acquired. No cheese was bought now, and he wanted to sell all the butter and all the apples that were not defective.

Patience contrived that Ben should never be stinted of his usual fare; and she would, not allow that he needed no warm coat for the winter, but she said nothing about the threadbare state of her own petticoat, and she stirred nothing but the thinnest buttermilk into her own porridge, and not even that when the little pigs required it. It was all for Stead.

Patience at twenty was not an uncomely maiden so far as kindly blue eyes, fresh healthy cheeks, and perfect neatness could make her agreeable to look at, but there was an air of carefulness, and of having done a great deal of hard work, which had made her seem out of the reach of the young men who loitered and talked with the maidens on the village green, and looked wistfully at the spot where the maypole had once stood.

Patience was the more amazed by a visit from the Miller Luck and his son. The son was a fine looking young man of three or four and twenty, who had about three years before married a farmer's daughter, and had lost her at the birth of her second child. There he stood, almost as bashful as Stead himself could have been under the circumstances, while his father paid the astonished Patience the compliment of declaring that they had put their heads together, and made up their minds that there was no wench in those parts so like to be a good mother to the babes, nor so thrifty a housewife as she; and, that, though there were plenty of maids to be had who could bring something in their hands, her ways were better than any portion she could bring.

It really was a splendid offer. The position of miller's wife was very prosperous, and the Lucks were highly respected. The old miller was good and kindly, Andrew Luck the steadiest of young men, and though not seen to much advantage as he stood sheepishly moving from leg to leg, he was a very fine, tall, handsome youth, with a certain sweetness and wistfulness in his countenance. Patience had no scruples about previous love and courtship. That was not the point as she answered—

"Thank you, Master Luck, you are very good; but I cannot leave my brothers."

"Let the big one get a wife of his own then," and, as Patience shook her head, and glanced at where Ben, shy of strangers, was cutting rushes, "and if you be tender on the young one, there would be work for him about the place. I know you have been a good mother to him, you'd be the same to our little ones. Come, Andrew, can't ye say a word for yourself?"

"Come, Patience, do 'ee come!" pleaded poor Andrew, and the tears even sprang to his eyes. "I'd be very good to thee, and I know thou would'st be to my poor babes."

Patience's heart really warmed to him, and still more to the babes, but she could only hold out.

"You must find another," she said.

"Come, you need not be coy, my lass," said the old miller. "You'll not get a better offer, and Andrew has no time nor heart either for running about courting. What he wants is a good wife to cheer him up, and see to the poor little children."

It was powerful pleading, and Patience felt it.

"Aye, Master Miller," she said, "but you see I'm bound not to leave Steadfast till he is married. He could not get on no ways without me."

"Then why—a plague on it—don't he wed and have done with it?"

"He cannot," said Patience, "till he has made up enough to build up our old house, but that won't be yet awhile—for years maybe; and he could not do it without me to help him."

"And what's to become of you when you've let your best years go by a-toiling for him, and your chance is gone by, and his wife turns you to the door?" said Master Luck, not very delicately.

"That God will provide," said Patience, reverently. "Anyway, I must cleave to Steadfast though 'tis very good of you, Master Luck and Master Andrew, and I never could have thought of such a thing, and I am right sorry for the little ones."

"If you would only come and see them!" burst out the poor young father. "You never see such a winsome little poppet as Bess. And they be so young now, they'd never know you were not their own mother."

"Don't, don't, Master Andrew!" cried Patience, "I tell you I'd come if I could, but you can't wait, and they can't wait; and you must find a good mother at once for them, for I have passed my word to hold by Stead till he is married, and I must keep to it."

"Very well, my lass," said the miller, grimly. "There's wenches better portioned and better favoured than you, and I hope you won't have to repent of missing a good offer."

Of course he said it as if he hoped she would. Patience cried heartily when they were gone. Ben came up to her and glowered after them, declaring he wouldn't have his Patty go to be only a step-mother to troublesome brats; but Stead, when he came to know of it, looked grave, and said it was very good of Pat; but he wished she could have kept the young fellow in play till she was ready for him.

Goody Grace, who was looking after the children till the stepmother could be found, came and expostulated with Patience, telling her she was foolish to miss such a chance, and that she would find out her mistake when Stead married and that little flighty, light-headed wench made the place too hot to hold her. What would she do then?

"Come and help you nurse the folk, Goody," said Patience, cheerfully.

Her heart would fail her sometimes at the outlook, but she was too busy to think much about it. Only the long evenings had been pleasanter when Stead used to teach Ben to read Dr. Eales's books and tell her bits such as she could understand than now when he grudged a candle big enough to be of any use, and was only plaiting rushes and reckoning up what everything would bring.

Ben was a bright little fellow, and could read as well as his brother. He longed for school, for when boys were not obliged to learn, some of them wished to do so. There was a free grammar school about three miles off to which he wanted to go, and Patience, who was proud of his ability, wished to send him, neither of them thinking anything of the walk.

Stead, however, could see no use in more learning than he had himself. Neither he nor Jeph had been to school. Why should the child go? He could not be spared just as he was getting old enough to be of some use and save time, which was money.

And when the little fellow showed his disappointment, Stead was even surly in telling him "they wanted no upstarts."

It was a hard winter, and the frost was followed by a great deal of wet. One of the sheep was swept away by the flood; three or four lambs died; and Stead, for about the first time in his life, caught a severe feverish cold in looking after the flock, and was laid by for a day or two, very cross and fretful at everything going wrong without him.

Poor little Ben was more railed at for those few days than ever he had been before, and next he broke down and had to be nursed; and then came Patience's turn. She was ill enough to frighten her brothers; and Goody Grace, who came to see to her, finding how thin her blanket was, and how long it was since she had had any food but porridge, gave Steadfast a thorough good scolding, told him he would be the death of a better sister than he deserved, and set before him how only for his sake Patience might be living on the fat of the land at the mill.

To all appearance, Stead listened sulkily enough, but by-and-by Goody found a fowl killed and laid ready for use. It was an old hen, whose death set Patience crying in her weakness. Nevertheless, it was stewed down into broth which heartened her up considerably, and a blanket that came home rolled up on the donkey's back warmed her heart as much as her limbs.

Mrs. Elmwood spared Rusha for a week, and it was funny to see how the girl wondered at its having been possible to live in such a den. She absolutely cried when Ben told her how hard they had been living, and said she did not think Stead would ever have used Patience so.

"Then why did she make as if she liked it?" said Stead, gruffly.

But for all that Stead was too sound-hearted not to be grieved at himself, and to see that his love and impatience had led him into unkindness to those who depended on him; and when Master Woodley preached against love of money he felt pricked at the heart, though it had not been the gain in itself that he aimed at. And when he had to go to the mill, the sight of the comfortable great kitchen, with the open hearth, glowing fire, seats on either side, tall settle, and the flitches of bacon on the rafters, seemed to reproach him additionally. The difficulties there had been staved off by the old miller himself marrying a stout, motherly widow, who had a real delight in the charge of a baby.

"For," said Master Luck, "Andrew and I could agree on no one for him."

Moreover, Stead ceased to grunt contemptuously when Patience, with Goody Grace to back her, declared that Ben was too young and slight for farm work.

The boy was allowed to trudge his daily three miles to school, and there his progress was the wonder and delight of his slower-witted brother and sister.



CHAPTER XX. EMLYN'S SERVICE.

"Oh, blind mine eye that would not trace, And deaf mine ear that would not heed The mocking smile upon her face, The mocking voice of greed." LEWIS CARROLL.

When Lady-day came round, Steadfast found to his delight and surprise a little figure dancing out to meet him from Mrs. Lightfoot's.

"There, Master Stead. Are not you glad to see me, or be you too dumbfounded to get out a word, like good old Jenny?" stroking the donkey's cars. "Posies of primroses! How sweet they be! You must spare me one."

"As many as you will, sweetheart. They be all for you, whether given or sold. And you've got a holiday for Lady-day."

"Have a care! I got my ears boxed for such a Popish word. 'Tis but quarter day, you know, being that, hang, draw, and quarter is more to the present folks' mind than ladies or saints. I have changed my service, you must know, as poor Dick used to sing:—

"Have a new master, be a new man."

"You have not heard from your own folk," cried Stead, this being what he most dreaded.

"Nay. But I can away no more with Dame Sloggett, and Cross-patch Rachel, white seam and salmon, and plain collars. So I bade her farewell at the end of the year, and I've got a new mistress."

Stead stood with open mouth. To change service at the end of a year was barely creditable in those days, and to do so without consultation with home was unkind and alarming.

"There now, don't be crooked about it. I had not time to come out and tell you and Patience, the old crones kept me so close, stitching at shirts for a captain that is to sail next week, and I knew you would be coming in."

"Where is it?" was all Stead uttered.

"What think you of Master Henshaw's, the great merchant, and an honest well-wisher to King and Church to boot?"

"Master Henshaw, the West Indian merchant? His is a good, well-ordered household, and he holds with the old ways."

"Yes. He was out that Whitsun morning we wot of," said Emlyn. "I wist well you would be pleased."

"But I thought his good lady was dead," said Steadfast.

"So she is. She that came out to the gully, but there's a new Mistress Henshaw, a sweet young lady, of a loyal house, the Ayliffes of Calfield. And I am to be her own woman."

"Own woman," said Mrs. Lightfoot, for they were by this time among the loaves in her stall. "Merchants' wives did not use to have women of their own in my time."

For this was the title of a lady's maid, and rules as to household appointments were strictly observed before the rebellion.

"Mistress Henshaw is gentlewoman born," returned Emlyn, with a toss of her head. "She ought to have all that is becoming her station in return for being wedded to an old hunks like that! And 'tis very well she should have one like me who has seen what becomes good blood! So commend me to Patience and Rusha, and tell Ben maybe I shall have an orange to send him one of these days. And cheer up, Stead. I shall get five crowns and two gowns a year, and many a fee besides when there is company, so we may build the house the sooner, and I shall not be mewed up, and shall see the more of thee. 'Tis all for you. So never look so gloomy on it, old Sobersides."

And she turned her sweet face to him, and coaxed and charmed him into being satisfied that all was well, dwelling on the loyalty and excellence of the master of the house.

He found it true that it was much easier to see Emlyn than before. Mrs. Henshaw, a pretty young creature, not much older than Emlyn, was pleased to do her own marketing, and came out attended by Emlyn, and a little black slave boy carrying a basket. She generally bought all that Steadfast had to sell, and then gave smiling thanks when he offered to help carry home her purchases. She would join company with some of her acquaintance, and leave the lovers to walk together, only accompanied by little Diego, or Diggo as they called him, whose English was of the most rudimentary description.

Emlyn certainly was very happy in her new quarters. Neither her lady nor herself was arrayed with the rigid plainness exacted by Puritanism, and many disapproving glances were cast upon the fair young pair, mistress and maid, by the sterner matrons. Waiting women could not indulge in much finery, but whatever breast knots and tiny curls beyond her little tight cap could do, Emlyn did without fear of rebuke. Stead tried to believe that the disapproving looks and words, by which Mrs. Lightfoot intimated that she heard reports unfavourable to the household were only due to the general distrust and dislike to the bright and lively Emlyn. Mrs. Lightfoot was no Puritan herself, but her gossips were, and he received her observations with a dull, stony look that vexed her, by intimating that it was no business of hers.

Still it was borne in upon him that, good man as Mr. Henshaw certainly was, the household was altered. It had been poverty and distress which had led the Ayliffe family to give their young sister to a man so much her elder, and inferior in position; and perhaps still more a desire to confirm the Royalist footing in the city of Bristol. The lady's brothers were penniless Cavaliers, and one of them made her house his home, and a centre of Royalist plots and intelligences, which excited Emlyn very much by the certainty that something was going on, though what it was, of course, she did not know; and at any rate there was coming and going, and all sorts of people were to be seen at the merchant's hospitable table, all manner of news to be had here, there, and everywhere, with which she delighted to entertain Steadfast, and show her own importance.

It was not often good news as regarded the Cavalier cause, for Cromwell was fixing himself in his seat; and every endeavour to hatch a scheme against him was frustrated, and led to the flight or death of those concerned in it. However, so long as Emlyn had something to tell, it made little difference whether the tidings were good or bad, whether they concerned Admiral Blake's fleet, or her mistress's little Italian greyhound. By-and-by however instead of Mrs. Henshaw, there came to market Madam Ayliffe, her mother, a staid, elderly lady, all in black, who might as well, Emlyn said, have been a Puritan.

She looked gravely at Stead, and said, "Young man, I am told that you are well approved and trustworthy, and that my daughter suffers you to walk home with this maiden, you being troth plight to her."

Stead assented.

"I will therefore not forbid it, trusting that if you be, as I hear, a prudent youth, you may bring her to a more discreet and obedient behaviour than hath been hers of late."



So saying, Mrs. Ayliffe joined company with the old Cavalier Colonel and went on her way as Emlyn made that ugly face that Stead knew of old, clenched her hand and muttered, "Old witch! She is a Puritan at heart, after all! She is turning the house upside down, and my poor mistress has not spirit to say 'tis her own, with the old woman and the old hunks both against her! Why, she threatened to beat me because, forsooth, the major's man was but giving me the time of day on the stairs!"

"Was that what she meant?" asked Stead.

"Assuredly it was. Trying to set you against me, the spiteful old make-bate, and no one knows how long she will be here, falling on the poor lads if they do but sing a song in the hall after supper, as if she were a very Muggletonian herself. I trow she is no better."

"Did you not tell me how she held out her house against the Roundheads, and went to prison for sheltering Cavaliers?"

"I only wish they had kept her there. All old women be Puritans at heart. I say Stead, I'll have done with service. Let us be wed at once."

Stead could hardly breathe at this proposition. "But I have only nine pounds and two crowns and—" he began.

"No matter, there be other ways," she went on. "Get the house built, and I'll come, and we will have curds and whey all the summer, and mistress and all her friends will come out and drink it, and eat strawberries!"

"But the Squire will never build the place up unless I bring more in hand."

"You 'but' enough to butt down a wall, you dull-pated old Stead," said Emlyn, "you know where to get at more, and so do I."

Stead's grey eyes fixed on her in astonishment and bewilderment.

"Numskull!" she exclaimed, but still in that good humoured voice of banter that he never had withstood, "you know what I mean, though maybe you would not have me say it in the street, you that have secrets."

"How do you know of it?"

"Have not I eyes, though some folk have not? Could not I look out at a chink on a fine summer morning, when you thought the children asleep? Could not I climb up to your precious cave as well as yourself; and hear the iron clink under the stone. Ha, ha! and you and Patience thought no one knew but yourselves."

"I trust no one else does."

"No, no, I'm no gad-about, whatever you may be pleased to think me. They say everything comes of use in seven years, and it must be over that now."

"Ten since 'twas hidden, nigh seven since that Whitsuntide. There's never a parson who could come out, is there? Besides, with Peter Woodward nigh, 'tis not safe to meet."

"That's what your head is running on. No, no. They will never have it out again that fashion. The old Prayer-book is banished for ever and a day! I heard master and the Captain say that now old Noll has got his will, he will soon call himself king, and there's no hope of churches or parsons coming back; and old madam sat and cried. The Jack Presbyters and the rest of the sectaries have got it all their own way."

"Dr. Eales said I had no right to give it to Master Woodley, or any that was not the right sort."

"So why should you go on keeping it there rotting for nothing, when it might just hinder us from wearing our very lives out while you are plodding and saving?"

Stead stood stock still, as her meaning dawned on him, "Child, you know not what you say," at last he uttered.

"Ah well, you are slow to take things in; but you'll do it at last."

"I am slow to take in this," said Stead. "Would you have me rob God?"

"No, only the owls and the bats," said Emlyn. "If they are the better for the silver and gold under them! What good can it do to let it lie there and rot?"

"Gold rots not!" growled Stead.

"Tarnishes, spoils then!" said Emlyn pettishly. "Come, what good is't to any mortal soul there?"

"It is none of mine."

"Not after seven years? Come, look you now, Stead, 'tis not only being tired of service and sharp words, and nips and blows, but I don't like being mocked for having a clown and a lubber for my sweetheart. Oh yes! they do, and there's a skipper and two mates, and a clerk, and a well-to-do locksmith, besides gentlemen's valets and others, I don't account of, who would all cut off their little fingers if I'd only once look at them as I am doing at you, you old block, who don't heed it, and I don't know that I can hold out against them all," she added, looking down with a sudden shyness; "specially the mates. There's Jonah Richards, who has a ship building that he is to have of his own, and he wants to call it the 'Sprightly Emlyn,' and the other sailed with Prince Rupert, and made ever so many prizes, and how am I to stand out when you don't value me the worth of an old silver cup?"

"Come, come, Em, that's only to frighten a man." But she knew in his tone that he was frightened.

"Not a bit! I should be ever so much better off in a tidy little house where I could see all that came and went than up in your lane with nought to go by but the market folk. 'Tis not everyone that would have kept true to a big country lout like you, like that lady among the salvage men that the King spoke of; and I get nothing by it but wait, wait, wait, when there's stores of silver ready to your hand."

"Heaven knows, and you know, Emlyn, 'tis not for want of love."

"Heaven may know, but I don't."

"I gave my solemn word."

"And you have kept it these ten years, and all is changed." Then altering her tone, "There now, I know it takes an hour to beat a notion into that slow brain of yours, and here we be at home, and I shall have madam after me. I'll leave you to see the sense of it, and if I do not hear of something before long, why then I shall know how much you care for poor little Emlyn."

With which last words she flitted within the gates, leaving Steadfast still too much stunned to realise all she meant, as he turned homewards; but all grew on him in time, the idea that Emlyn, his Emlyn, his orphan of the battlefield, bereaved for the sake of King and Church, should be striving to make him betray his trust! "The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine," rang in his ears, and yet was it not cruel that when she really loved him best, and sought to return to him as a refuge from the many temptations to her lively spirit, he should be forced to leave her in the midst of them—against her own warning and even entreaty, and not only himself lose her, but lose her to one of those godless riotous sailors who were the dread and bane of the neighbourhood? Was not a human soul worth as much as a consecrated Chalice?

These were the debates in Steadfast's much tormented soul. He could think, though he could not clothe his thoughts in words, and day after day, night after night he did think, while Patience wondered at the heavy moodiness that seemed to have come over him. He would not open his lips to ask her counsel, being quite certain of what it would be, and not choosing to hear her censure of Emlyn for what he managed to excuse by the poor child's ignorance and want of training, and by her ardent desire to be under his wing and escape from temptation.

He recollected a thousand pleas that he might have used with her, to show it was not want of love but a sacred pledge that withheld him, and market day after market day he went in, priming himself all the way with arguments that were to confirm her constancy, arm her against temptation, and assure her of his unalterable love, though he might not break his vow, nor lay his hand upon sacred things.

But whether Emlyn would not, or could not, meet him, he did not know, for a week or two went by before he saw her, and then she was carrying a great fan for her young mistress, who was walking with a Cavalier, as gay as Cavaliers ever ventured to be, and another young lady, whose waiting woman had paired with Emlyn. They were mincing along, gazing about them, and uttering little contemptuous titters, and Stead could only too well guess what kind of remarks Emlyn's companion might make upon him.

Near his stand, however, the other lady beckoned her maid to adjust something in her dress; and Stead could approach Emlyn. She looked up with her bright, laughing eyes with a certain wistfulness in them.

"Have you made up your mind to cheat the owls?" she asked.

"Emlyn, if you would not speak so lightly, I could show cause—"

"Oh, that's enough," she answered hastily, turning as the other maid joined her; and Stead caught the shrill, pert voice demanding if that was her swain with clouted shoes. Emlyn's reply he could not hear, but he saw the twist of the shoulders.

There are bitter moments in everyone's life, and that was one of the very bitterest of Steadfast Kenton's.



CHAPTER XXI. THE ASSAULT OF THE CAVERN.

"By all description this should be the place. Who's here?" SHAKESPEARE.

Harvest was over, and the autumn evenings were darkening. It was later than the usual bed time, but Patience had a piece of spinning which she was anxious to finish for the weaver who took all her yarn, and Stead was reading Dr. Eales's gift of the Morte d'Arthur, which had great fascination for him, though he never knew whether to regard it as truth or fable. He wanted to drive out the memory of what Mrs. Lightfoot had told him about the Henshaw household, where the youngest of the lady's brothers had lately arrived from beyond seas, bringing with him habits of noise and riot, which greatly scandalised the neighbours.

Suddenly Growler started up with pricked ears, and emitted a sound like thunder. Patience checked her wheel. There was an unmistakable sound of steps. Stead sprang up. Growler rushed at the door with a furious volley of barking. Stead threw it open, catching up a stout stick as he did so, and the dog dashed out, but was instantly driven back with an oath and a blow. It was a bright moonlight night, and Stead beheld three tall men evidently well armed.

"Ho, you fellow there," one called out, "keep back your cur, we don't want to hurt him nor you."

"Then what are you doing here?" demanded Stead.

"We are come for what you wot of. For the King's service."

"Who sent you?" asked Stead, for the moment somewhat dazed.

One of them laughed and said, "As if you did not know."

There was a sickening perception, but Stead's powers were alert enough for him to exclaim, "Then you have no warrant."

"My good fellow, don't stickle about such trifles. For the King's service it is, and that should be enough for all loyal hearts. Hollo, what's that? Silence your dog, I say," as Growler's voice resounded through the gulley, "or it will be the worse for you and him."

Stead took hold of the dog's collar, and amidst his choked grumbles, said, "I do nought but on true warrant."

"Hark ye, blockhead," said the foremost. "I'm an officer of His Majesty's, with power to make requisitions for his service."

"Shew it," said Stead, quite convinced that this was sheer robbery.

"You addle-pated, insolent clown, to dispute terms with gentlemen in His Majesty's service. Stand aside. I've done you only too much honour by parleying with you. Out of the way. We don't want to take a stick of your own trumpery, I say."

"Sir, it is Church plate."

"Ha, ha! Church plate is His Most Sacred Majesty's plate. Don't ye know that, you ass? Here! we'll throw you back something for yourself if you will show us the cave and save us trouble, for we know which it is by the token of the red stone and twisted ash. Ho! take—What's become of the clown? He has run off. Discreet fellow!"

For Stead had disappeared in the black darkness behind the hut. He remembered Jephthah's discomfiture by the owl, and it struck him that from within the cavern it would be quite possible to keep the robbers at bay, if they tried without knowing the way to climb up among the bushes. He was not afraid for his brother and sister, as the marauders evidently did not want anything but the plate. Indeed, his whole soul was so concentrated on the defence of his charge that he had no room for anything else.

Knowing the place perfectly, Stead had time to swing himself, armed with a stout bludgeon, up into the hermit's cave, and even to drag after him Growler, a very efficient ally. The contrasts of moonlight were all in his favour, the lights almost as bright as in sunshine, the shadows so very dark. He could see through the overhanging ivy and travellers' joy the men peering about with their dark lantern, looking into the caves where the pigs were, among the trees, and he held Growler's mouth together lest the grim murmurs that were rolling in the beast's throat should serve as a guide.

Then he heard them shout to Patience to come and guide them since her coward of a brother had made off, and he heard her answer, "Not I, 'tis no business of mine."

"We'll see about that. D'ye know how folks are made to speak, my lass?"

Then Stead recollected with horror that he had left her to her fate. Would he be obliged to come down to her help? At that moment, however, there was a call from the fellow who bore the lantern. "Here's the red stone. That must be the ash. Now then!"

"You first, Nick." Then came a crackling and rustling of boughs, a head appeared, and at that moment Stead loosed Growler and would have dealt a blow with his stick, but that the assault of the dog had sufficed to send the assailant, roaring and cursing, headlong down the crag.

Furious threats came up to him and his dog, but he heard them in silence, though Growler's replies were vociferous. Stead gathered that the fall had in some degree hurt the man for he made an exclamation of pain, and the others bade him stay there and keep back the wench.

"We'll have you down though we smoke you out like a wasps' nest, you disloyal adder, you," was one of the threats.

"Or serve him like the Spaniard at Porto Santo," said another.

Presently after numerous threats and warnings that they had firearms and were determined to use them, two of the men began climbing much more cautiously, holding by the trees, so as not to be suddenly overthrown. However the furious attack of such a dog as Growler, springing from utter darkness was a formidable matter, and the man against whom he had launched himself could not but fall in his turn, but the dog went after him, and the companion, being on his guard, was not overthrown. Stead aimed a blow at the fellow with all his might, but the slouching hat warded off the full force of the bludgeon. Then Stead sprang at him and grappled with him. There was the report of a pistol, and both rolled headlong among the bushes, but at that moment a fresh shout was heard—a cry of "Villains, traitors, robbers—what be at?" and a rush of feet, while in the moonlight appeared Peter Pierce with his fowling piece, another man, Ben, and four or five dogs.

The robbers never waited to see how small the reinforcement was, and it made noise enough for the whole hue-and-cry of the parish. Off they dashed, through the wood, the new comers after them.

But all Patience knew was that Steadfast was lying senseless at the bottom of the cliff, with poor Growler moaning by him, and licking his face, and that her hands were wet with what must be blood.

It was too dark to see anything, but she could hardly bear to leave him, as she hurried back to the hut for the lantern. All this had taken but few minutes, so that she had only to catch it up from the table where Stead's book still lay.

By the time she came back, he had opened his eyes, and his hand was on Growler's head.

"Are they gone?" he asked faintly.

"Yes, and Peter after them. Oh! Stead, you are badly hurt."

"They have not got it?"

"Oh no, no, you saved it."

"Thank God. Is Ben safe?"

"Yes, after them with Peter. I sent him out while you were talking to call Peter."

"Good—" and his eyes closed again. "Good Growler, poor Growl—" he added, fondling the big head, as the dog moaned. "See to him, Pat."

"I must see to you first. Oh! Stead, is it very bad?"

"I'll try to get in, if you'll help me."

He raised himself, but this effort brought a rush of blood to the lips, which greatly terrified Patience. To her great relief, however, Nanny Pierce having satisfied herself that all was quiet round the hut, here called out to ask where Patience was. She was profuse in "Lack-a-daisy!" "Dear heart!" and "Poor soul!" and was quite sure Stead was as good as a dead man; but she had strong arms, and so had Patience, and when they had done what they could to stanch the wound in his side, which however, was not bleeding much externally, they carried him in between them to Patience's bed which had been Emlyn's, and therefore was the least uncomfortable. Poor Growler crept after, bleeding a good deal, and Steadfast would not rest till his faithful comrade was looked to. There was a dagger cut in his chest, which Nanny, used to dog doctoring, bound up, after which the creature came close to his master, and fell asleep under his hand.

It was a very faint hand. Movement or speech alike brought blood to the mouth, and Stead's ruddy checks were becoming deadly white. He struggled to say, "You and Ben guard it! Say a prayer, Pat," and then the two women really thought that in the gush that followed all was over, and Nanny marvelled at the stunned calm in which Patience went over the Lord's Prayer, and such Psalms as she could remember.

Steps came, and Nanny shrieked. Then she saw it was her husband and the other two men.

"Made off to the town," said Peter, gruffly.

"How now—hurt?"

"O, Peter, they have made an end of the poor lad. Died like a lamb, even now."

"No, no," said Peter, as he came close to the bed with his more experienced eye; "he ain't dead. 'Tis but a swoon. Hast any strong waters, Pat? No, I'll be bound. Ho, you now, Bill, run and knock them up at the Elmwood Arms, and bring down a gill."

"And call Goody Grace," entreated Patience, "she will know best what to do."

On the whole, Peter's military experience was more hopeful, if not more helpful than Goody Grace's. He was the only person who persisted in declaring that such wounds were not always mortal, though he agreed in owning that the inward bleeding was the worst sign. Stead did not attempt to speak again, but lay there deadly white and with a stricken look on his face, which Patience could not bear to see, and she ascribed to the conviction that the wretched little Emlyn must have betrayed his secret.

The hut was over-full of volunteers of assistance and enquiry the next day, including the squire and Master Woodley; but nobody seemed to guess at the real object of the robbers' attack, everybody thinking they had come for the savings which Stead was known to be making towards rebuilding the farmhouse.

Mr. Elmwood was very indignant and took Pierce, and Blane the constable, into Bristol to see whether the felons could be captured and brought to justice, but they proved to have gone down to the wharf, and to have got on board a vessel which had dropped down the river in the early morning. They were also more than suspected of being no other than buccaneers who plied their trade of piracy in the West Indies. The younger Ayliffe had gone with them, and was by no means above suspicion.

Mr. Elmwood also brought out a barber surgeon to see young Kenton, a thing which his sister would not have dared to propose. But there was not much to be done, the doctor decided that the bullet was where the attempt at extraction would be fatal, and that the only hope of even partial recovery was in perfect stillness and silence—and this Patience could promise to ensure as far as in her lay. Instructions on dressing the wound were given to her, and she was to send in to the barber's shop if ointment or other appliances were needed. This was all that she was to expect, and more indeed than she had thought feasible; for folks of their condition were sick and got well, lived or died without the aid of practitioners above the skill of Goody Grace. However, he gave her very little hope, though he would not pronounce that her brother was dying. A few days would decide, and quiet was the only chance.

Scarcely however were the visitors gone, and Stead left to what rest pain would allow him after being handled by the surgeon, when a sound of sobbing was heard outside. "Oh! oh! I'm afraid to go in! Ben! Oh! tell me, is he not dead? I'm the most miserable maid in the world if he is."

"He's alive, small thanks to you," responded Ben, who had somehow arrived at a knowledge of the facts, while Rusha, who was milking, buried her head in Daisy's side, and would not even look at her. Patience felt in utter despair, and longed to misunderstand Stead's signs to her to open the door. She tried to impress the need of quiet, but Emlyn darted in, her hood pushed back, her hair flying, her dress disordered, looking half wild, and dropping on the floor, she crouched there with clasped hands, crying "Oh! oh! he looks like death. He'll die and I'm the most—"

"If you make all that noise and tumult he will," said Patience, who could bear no more. "Are you come here to finish what you have done? Do go away."

"Oh! but I must tell you! They said it was for the King, and that he had the right. Yes they did, and they swore that they would hurt no one."

Stead looked to a certain extent pleased, but Patience broke out, "As if you did not know he would rather die than give up his trust."

"I thought he would never know—"

"Robber!" said Patience. "Go! You have done harm enough already."

"But I must tell you," persisted Emlyn. "I used to see Dick Glass among Lord Goring's troopers, and he is from our parts, and he has been with Prince Rupert. There was a plot, I know there is, and both the Master Ayliffes are in it, and we were to go and raise Worcestershire, only they wanted money, and Dick was to—to wed me—and set us across the river this morning, when they had got the treasure. 'Twas for the King. And now they are all gone, Master Philip and all, and master says they are flibustiers, and pirates, and robbers; and Mrs. Lightfoot's boy came and said Stead Kenton was shot dead at his house door, and then I was neither to have nor to hold, but I ran off here like one distraught, for I never loved anyone like you Stead."

"Pretty love!" said Patience. "Oh! if you think you love him, go and let him be at peace."

"I do! I do!" cried the girl, quite unmanageable. "Only it made me mad that he should heed an old chest and a musty parson more than me, and so I took up with Dick, and he over persuaded me with his smooth tongue that we would raise folk for the King."

Stead held out his hand.

"Oh! Stead, Stead, you are always kinder than Patience! You forgive me, dear old Stead, do not you? And I'll tend you day and night, and you shall not die, and I'll wed you, if you have nought but the shirt to your back."

Patience felt nearly distracted at the notion of Emlyn there day and night, but at that instant Goody Grace, who had been to her home in preparation for spending the night in nursing, walked in.

"How now, mistress, what are you about here?"

"She wants to stay and tend him, and I don't know whether she has come with her mistress's knowledge," sighed Patience.

"Fine tendance!" said the old woman. "My lady wants to kill him outright. Nay, nay, my young madam, we want none of your airs and flights here. You can do no good, except by making yourself scarce—you that can't hold your tongue a moment."

Stead here whispered, "Her mistress, will she forgive her?"

"Oh, yes, no fear but that she will," said Emlyn, who perhaps had revolved in her mind, since her first impulse, what it would be to nurse Stead in that hovel, with two such displeased companions as Goody and Patience. More to pacify Steadfast's uneasy eyes than for her own sake, Patience gave her a drink of milk and a piece of bread, and Peter coming just then to ask if he could help Ben with the cattle, undertook to see her safely on her way, since twilight was coming on. Sobered and awestruck by the silence and evident condemnation of all around, she ended by flinging herself on her knees by the bed, and saying "Stead, Stead, you forgive me, though no one else does?"

"Poor child—I do—as I hope—"

"The blood again. You've done it now," exclaimed Goody Grace. "Away with you!"

Peter fairly dragged her out, while the women attended to Stead.

But he let her wait outside till they heard, "Not dead, but not far from it."



CHAPTER XXII. EMLYN'S TROTH.

"Woman's love is writ in water, Woman's faith is traced in sand." AYTOUN.

Day after day Steadfast Kenton lingered between life and death, and though the external wound healed, there was little relief to the deeper injury which could not be reached, and which the damps and chills of autumn and winter could only aggravate.

He could move little, and speak even less; and suffered much, both from pain and difficulty of breathing, as he lay against sacks and pillows on his bed, or sat up in an elbow chair which Mrs. Elmwood lent him. Everybody was very kind in those days of danger. Mrs. Elmwood let Rusha come on many an afternoon to help her sister, and always bringing some posset, or cordial, or dainty of some sort to tempt the invalid. Goody Grace, Mrs. Blane, Dame Oates, Nanny Pierce vied with each other in offers of sitting up with him; Andrew, the young miller, came out of his way to bring a loaf of white bread, and to fetch the corn to be ground. Peter Pierce, Rusha's lover, and more old comrades than Patience quite desired, offered their services in aiding Ben with the cattle and other necessary labours, but as the first excitement wore off, these volunteers became scantier, and when nothing was to be heard but "just the same," nothing to be seen but a weak, wan figure sitting wrapped by the fire, the interest waned, and the gulley was almost as little frequented as before. Poor Ben's schooling had, of course, to be given up, and it was well that he was nearly as old as Stead had been when they were first left to themselves. Happily his fifteen months of study had not made him outgrow his filial obedience and devotion to the less instructed elder brother and sister, who had taken the place of the parents he had never known. Benoni, child of sorrow, he had been named, and perhaps his sickly babyhood and the mournful times around had tended to make him a quiet boy, without the tearing spirits that would have made him eager to join the village lads in their games. Indeed they laughed at him for his poverty and scholarship, and called him Jack Presbyter, Puritan, bookworm, and all the opprobrious names they could think of, though no one ever less merited sectarian nicknames than he, as far as doctrine went. For, bred up on Dr. Eales' books, and obliged to look out on the unsettled state of religious matters, he was as staunch a churchman as his brother, and fairly understood the foundations of his faith. Poor boy, the check to his studies disappointed him, and he spent every leisure moment over his Latin accidence or in reading. Next to the stories in the Bible, he loved the Maccabees, because of the likeness to the persecuted state of the Church; and he knew the Morte d'Arthur almost by heart, and thought it part of the history of England. Especially he loved the part that tells of the Holy Grail, the Sacred Cup that was guarded by the maimed King Pelles, and only revealed to the pure in heart and life. Stead had fully confided to him the secret of the cave, in case he should be the one left to deliver up the charge; and, in some strange way, the boy connected the treasure with the Saint Grail, and his brother with the maimed king. So he worked very hard, and Patience was capable of a good deal more than in her earlier days. Stead, helpless as he was, did not require constant attendance, and knew too well how much was on his sister's hands to trouble her when he could possibly help doing so. Thus they rubbed on; though it was a terrible winter, and they often had to break in on the hoard which was to have built the house, sometimes for needments for the patient, sometimes to hire help when there was work beyond the strength of Patience and Ben, who indeed was too slender to do all that Stead had done.

Ben did not shine in going to market. He was not big enough to hold his own against rude lads, and once came home crying with his donkey beaten and his eggs broken; moreover, he was apt to linger at stalls of books and broadsheets. As soon as Patience could venture to leave her brother, she was forced to go to market herself; and there was a staidness and sobriety about her demeanour that kept all impertinence at a distance. Poor Patience, she was not at all the laughing rustic beauty that Emlyn would have been at market. She would never have been handsome, and though she was only a few years over twenty, she was beginning to look weather-beaten and careworn, like the market women about her, mothers of half-a-dozen children.

Now and then she saw Emlyn in all her young, plump beauty, but looking much quieter, and always coming to her for news of Steadfast. There were even tears in those bright eyes when she heard how much he suffered. The girl had evidently been greatly sobered by the results of her indiscretion, and the treachery into which it had led her. She probably cared more for Steadfast than for anyone else except herself, and was shocked and grieved at his condition; and she had moreover discovered how her credulity had been played upon, and that she had had a narrow escape of being carried off by a buccaneer.

Her master too had been called to order by the authorities, fined and threatened for permitting Royalist plots to be hatched in his house. He had been angered by the younger Ayliffe's riotous doings, and his wife had been terrified. There had been a general reformation in which Emlyn had only escaped dismissal through her mistress's favour, pleading her orphanhood, her repentance, and her troth plight to the good young man who had been attacked by those dissolute fellows, though Mrs. Henshaw little knew how accountable was her favourite maid for the attack.

So good and discreet was Emlyn, so affectionate her messages to Stead, and so much brightness shone in his face on hearing them; there was so much pleasure when she sent him an orange and he returned the snowdrops he had made Rusha gather, that Patience began to believe that Stead was right—that the shock was all the maiden needed to steady her—and that all would end as he hoped, when he should be able to resume his labours, and add to the sadly reduced hoard.

It was not, however, till the March winds were over that Stead made any decided step towards recovery, and began to prefer the sun to the fire, and to move feebly and slowly about the farmyard, visiting the animals, too few in number, for his skilled attention had been missed. As summer came on he was able to do a little more, herd them with Growler's help, and gradually to undertake what required no exertion of strength or speed, and there he stopped short—all the sunny months of summer could do no more for him than make him fit to do such work as an old man of seventy might manage.

He was persuaded, much against his will, to ride the white horse into Bristol at a foot-pace to consult once more the barber surgeon. That worthy, who was unusually sagacious for his time and had had experience in the wars, told him that his recovery was a marvel, but that with the bullet where it was lodged, he could scarcely hope to enjoy much more health or comfort than at present. It could not be reached, but it might shift, when either it would prove fatal or become less troublesome; and as a friend and honest man, he counselled the poor youth not to waste his money nor torture himself by having recourse to remedies or doctors who could do no real good.

Stead thanked the barber, paid his crown, and slowly made his way to Mrs. Lightfoot's, where he was to rest, dine, and see Emlyn.

Kind Mrs. Lightfoot shed tears when she saw the sturdy, ruddy youth grown so thin and pale; and as to Emlyn, she actually stood silent for three minutes.

The two were left together in Mrs. Lightfoot's kitchen, for Patience was at market, and their hostess had to mind her trade.

Stead presently told Emlyn somewhat of the doctor's opinion, and then, producing his portion of the tester, and with lips that trembled in spite of himself, said that he had come to give Emlyn back her troth plight.

"Oh! Stead, Stead," she cried, bursting into tears. "I thought you had forgiven me."

"Forgiven you! Yea, truly, poor child, but—"

"But only when you were sick! You cast me off now you are whole."

"I shall never be whole again, Emlyn."

"I don't believe Master Willis. He is nought but a barber," she exclaimed passionately. "I know there are physicians at the Bath who would cure you; or there's the little Jew by the wharf; or the wise man on Durdham Down. But you always are so headstrong; when you have made up your mind no one can move you, and you don't care whose heart you break," she sobbed.

"Hearken, little sweet," said Stead. "'Tis nought but that I wot that it would be ill for you to be bound to a poor frail man that will never be able to keep you as you should be kept. All I had put by is well nigh gone, and I'm not like to make it up again for many a year, even if I were as strong as ever."

"And you won't go to the Jew, or the wise man, or the Bath?"

"I have not the money."

"But I will—I will save it for you!" cried Emlyn, who never had saved in her life. "Or look here. Master Henshaw might give you a place in his office, and then there would be no need to dwell in that nasty, damp gulley, but we could be in the town. I'll ask my mistress to crave it from him."

Stead could not but smile at her eagerness, but he shook his head.

"It would be bootless, sweetheart, I cannot carry weights."

"No, but you can write."

"Very scurvily, and I cannot cypher."

For Stead, like everyone else at Elmwood, kept his accounts by tally and in his head, and the mysteries of the nine Arabic figures were perfectly unknown to him. However, Emlyn stuck to the hope, and he was so far inspired by it that he ceased to insist on giving up the pledges of the betrothal, and he lay on the settle in quiet enjoyment of Emlyn's castle building, as she sat on a stool by his side, his hand on her shoulder, somewhat as it was wont to lie on Growler's head. And in spite of Master Willis's opinion, he rode home to the gulley a new man, assuring Patience, on the donkey by his side, that there was more staunchness and kindness in little Emlyn than ever they had thought for. Even the ferryman who put them over the river declared that the doctor must have done Master Kenton a power of good, and Stead smiled and did not contradict him.

Stead actually consulted Mr. Woodley how to learn cyphering beyond what Ben had acquired at school; and the minister lent him a treatise, over which he pored with a board and a burnt stick for many an hour when he was out on the common with the cattle, or on the darkening evenings in the hut. Ben saw his way into those puzzles with no more difficulty than whetted his appetite, worked out sum after sum, and explained them to his brother, to the admiration of both his elders, till frowns of despair and long sighs from Stead brought Patience to declare he was mazing himself, and insist on putting out the light.

Stead had more time for his studies than he could wish, for the cold of winter soon affected the injured lungs; and, moreover, the being no longer able to move about rapidly caused the damp and cold of the ravine to produce rheumatism and attendant ills, of which, in his former healthy, out-of-door life, he had been utterly ignorant, and he had to spend many an hour breathless, or racked with pain in the poor little hovel, sometimes trying to give his mind to the abstruse mysteries of multiplication of money, but generally in vain, and at others whiling away the time with his books, for though there were only seven of them, including Bible and Prayer-book, a very little reading could be the text of so much musing, that these few perfectly sufficed him. And then he was the nurse of any orphaned lamb or sick chicken that Patience was anxious about, and his care certainly saved many of those small lives.

The spring, when he came forth again, found him on a lower level, less strong and needing a stick to aid his rheumatic knee.

Not much was heard of Emlyn that spring. She did not come to market with her mistress, and Patience was not inclined to go in quest of her, having a secret feeling that no news might be better for Stead than anything she was likely to hear; while as to any chance of their coming together, the Kentons had barely kept themselves through this winter, and Steadfast's arithmetic was not making such progress as would give him a place at a merchant's desk.

Patience, however, was considerably startled when, one fine June day, she saw Mrs. Henshaw's servant point her out to two tall soldierly-looking men, apparently father and son.

"Good morrow to you, honest woman," said the elder. "I am told it is you who have been at charges for many years for my brother's daughter, Emlyn Gaythorn."

Patience assented.

"You have been right good to her, I hear; and I thank you for that same, and will bear what we may of the expense," he added, taking out a heavy bag from his pouch.

He went on to explain that he and his son having gone abroad with his master had been serving with the Dutch, and had made some prize money. Learning on the peace that a small inheritance in Worcestershire had fallen to the family, they had returned, and found from Lady Blythedale that the brother's daughter was supposed to be alive somewhere near Bristol. She had a right to half, and being honourable men, they had set out in search of her, bringing letters from the lady to Mr. Henshaw, whose house was still a centre of inquiry for persons in the Cavalier interest. There, of course, they had discovered Emlyn; and Master Gaythorn proceeded to say that it had been decided that the estate should not be broken up, but that his son should at once wed her and unite their claims.

"But, sir," exclaimed Patience, "she is troth plight to my brother."

"So she told me, but likewise that he is a broken man and sickly, and had offered to restore her pledge."

Patience could not deny it, though she felt hotly indignant.

"She charged me to give it back to you," added the uncle; "and to bid you tell the young man that we are beholden to you both; but that since the young folk are to be wedded to-morrow morn, and then to set forth for Worcestershire, there is no time for leave-takings."

"I do not wonder!" exclaimed Patience, "that she has no face to see us. She that has been like a child or a sister to us, to leave us thus! O my brother!"

"Come, come, my good woman, best not make a pother." Poor Patience's homely garb and hard-worked looks shewed little of the yeoman class to which she belonged. "You've done your duty by the maid and here's the best I have to make it up."

Patience could not bring herself to take the bag, and he dropped it into her basket "I am sorry for the young man, your brother, but he knew better than to think to wed her as he is. And 'tis better for all there should be no women's tears and foolishness over it."

"Is she willing?" Patience could not but ask.

"Willing?" Both men laughed. "Aye, what lass is not willing to take a fine, strapping husband, and be a landed dame? She gave the token back of her own free will, eh, Humfrey; and what did she bid us say?"

"Her loving greetings to—What were their Puritanical names?" said the son contemptuously. "Aye, and that she pitied the poor clown down there, but knew he would be glad of what was best for her."

"So farewell, good mistress," said Master Gaythorn, and off they clanked together; and Patience, looking after them, could entirely believe that the handsome buff coat, fringed belt, high boots, and jauntily cocked hat would have driven out the thought of Stead in his best days. And now that he was bent, crippled, weak, helpless,—"and all through her, what hope was then," thought Patience, "yet if she had loved him, or there had been any truth in her, she could have wedded him now, and he would have been at ease through life! A little adder at our hearth! We are well quit of her, if he will but think so, but how shall I ever tell him?"

She did not rush in with the tidings but came home slowly, drearily, so that Stead, who was sitting outside by the door, peeling rushes, gathered that something was amiss, and soon wormed it out of her, while her tears dropped fast for him. Still, as ever, he spoke little. He said her uncle was right in sparing tears and farewells, no doubt reserving to himself the belief that it was against her will. And when Patience could not help declaring that the girl might have made him share her prosperity, he said, "I'm past looking after her lands. Her uncle would say so. 'Tis his doing; I am glad of what is best for my darling as was. There's an end of it, Patience—joy and grief. And I thank God that the child is safely cared for at last."

He tried to be as usual, but he was very ill that night.

Patience found the money in her basket. She hated it and put it aside, and it was only some time after that she was constrained to use it, only then telling Stead whence it came, when he could endure to hear that the uncle had done his best to be just.



CHAPTER XXIII. FULFILMENT.

"My spirit heats her mortal bars, As down dark tides the glory glides, And mingles with the stars." TENNYSON.

The year 1660 had come, and in the autumn, just as harvest was over, and the trees on the slopes were taking tints of red, yellow, and brown, an elderly clergyman, staff in hand, came slowly up the long lane leading to Elmwood, whence he had been carried, bound to his horse, seventeen years before.

He had not suffered as much as some of his fellow priests. After a term of imprisonment in London, he had been transported to the plantations, namely, the American settlements, and had fallen in with friends, who took him to Virginia. This was chiefly colonized by people attached to the Church, who made him welcome, and he had ministered among them till the news arrived of the Restoration of Charles II, and likewise that the lawful incumbents of benefices, who had been driven out, were reinstated by Act of Parliament. Mr. Holworth's Virginian friends would gladly have kept him with them, but he felt that his duty was to his original flock, and set out at once for England, landing at Bristol. There, however, he waited, like the courteous man he was, to hold communication with his people, till he had written to Mr. Elmwood, and made arrangements with him and Master Woodley.

They were grieved, but they were both men who had a great respect for law and parliament, so they made no difficulties. Mr. and Mrs. Woodley retired to the hall and left the parsonage vacant, after the minister had preached a farewell sermon in the church which made everyone cry, for he was a good man and had made himself loved, and there were very few in the parish who could understand that difference between the true Church and a body without bishops. Mr. Holworth had in the meantime gone to Wells to see his own Bishop Piers, an old man of eighty-six, and it was from thence that he was now returning. He had not chosen to enter his parish till the intruded minister had resigned the charge, but he had been somewhat disappointed that none of his old flock, not even any Kentons, who had so much in charge, had come in to see him. He now arrived in this quiet way, thinking that it would not be delicate to the feelings of the squire and ex-minister to let the people get up any signs of joy or ring the bells, if they were so inclined. Indeed, he was much afraid from what he had been able to learn that it would be only the rougher sort, who hated Puritan strictness and wanted sport and revelry, who would give him an eager welcome.

So he first went quietly up to the church, which he found full of benches and pews, with the Altar table in the middle of the nave, and the squire's comfortable cushioned seat at the east end. He knelt on the step for a long time, then made a brief visit to his own house, where the garden was in beautiful order, but only a room or two were furnished with goods he had bought from the Woodleys, and these were in charge of a servant he had hired at Bristol.

Thence the old man went out into the village, and his first halt was at the forge, where Blane, who had grown a great deal stouter and more grizzled, started at sight of his square cap.

"Eh! but 'tis the old minister! You have come in quietly, sir! I am afraid your reverence has but a sorry welcome."

"I do not wonder you are grieved to part with Master Woodley."

"Well, sir, he be a good man and a powerful preacher, though no doubt your reverence has the best right, and for one, I'm right glad to see an old face again. We would have rung the bells if we had known you were coming."

"That would have been hard on Master Woodley. I am only glad they are not melted. But how is it with all my old friends, Harry? Poor Sir George writ me that old clerk North died of grief of the rifling of the church; and that John Kenton had been killed by some stragglers. What became of his children?"

"That eldest lad went off to the Parliament army, and came swaggering here in his buff coat and boots like my Lord Protector himself, they say he has got a castle and lands in Ireland. Men must be scarce, say I, if they have had to make a gentleman of Jeph Kenton."

"And the rest?"

"Well, sir, I'm afraid that poor lad, Stead, is in poor plight. You mind, he was always a still, steady, hard-working lad, and when his father was killed, and his house burnt, and his brother ran away, the way he and his sister turned to was just wonderful. They went to live in an old hut in the gulley down there, and they have made the place so tidy as it does your heart good to look at it. They bred up the young ones, and the younger girl is well married to one of the Squire's folks, and everyone respected them. But, as ill-luck would have it, some robbers from Bristol seem to have got scent of their savings. Some said that the Communion Cup was hid somewhere there."

Mr. Holworth made an anxious sound of interrogation.

"Well, I did see the corporal, when the Parliament soldiers were at Bristol, flog Stead shamefully to know where it was, and never get a word out of him, whether or no; and as he was a boy who would never tell a lie, it stands to reason he knew where they were."

"But how did anyone guess at his knowing?" asked Mr. Holworth.

"His brother might have thought it likely, poor John being thick with your reverence," said Blane. "After that I thought, myself, that he ought to give them up to Master Woodley, if so be he had them; but I could never get a hint from him. The talk went that old Dr. Eales, you mind him, sir, before he died, came out and held a prelatist service, begging your pardon, sir, and that the things were used. Stead got into trouble with Squire about it."

"But the robbers, how was that? You said he was hurt!"

"Sore hurt, sir; and he has never got the better of it, though 'tis nigh upon four years ago. There was a slip of a wench he picked up as a child after the fight by Luck's mill, and bred up; a fair lass she grew up to look on, but a light-headed one. She went to service at Bristol, and poor Stead was troth plight to her, hoped to save and build up the house again, never knowing, not he, poor rogue, of her goings on with the sailors and all the roistering lads about her master's house. 'Tis my belief she put those rascals on the track, whether she meant it or not. Stead made what defence he could, stood up like a man against the odds, three to one, and got a shot in the side, so that he was like to die then. Better for him, mayhap, if he had at once, for it has been nought but a lingering ever since, never able to do a day's work, though that wench, Patience, and the young lad, Ben, have fought it out wonderfully. That I will say."

Mr. Holworth had tears in his eyes, and trembled with emotion.

"The dear lad," he said. "Where is he? I must go and see him."

"He bides in the gulley, sir; he has been there ever since the farm-house was burnt."

Ere long Mr. Holworth was on his way to the gulley. What had been only a glade reaching from rock to stream, hidden in copsewood, was now an open space trodden by cattle, with the actual straw-yard more in the rear, but with a goat tethered on it and poultry running about. It was a sunny afternoon, and in a wooden chair placed so as to catch the warmth, with feet on a stool, sat, knitting, a figure that Mr. Holworth at first thought was that of an aged man; but as he emerged from the wood, and the big dog sprang up and barked, there was a looking up, an instant silencing of the dog, a rising with manifest effort, a doffing of the broad-brimmed hat, and the clergyman beheld what seemed to him his old Churchwarden's face, only in the deadly pallor of long-continued illness, and with the most intense, unspeakable look of happiness and welcome afterwards irradiating it, a look that in after years always came before Mr. Holworth with the "Nunc dimittis."

Dropping the knitting, and holding by the chair, he stood trembling and quivering with gladness, while, summoned by the dog's bark, Patience, pail in hand, appeared on one side, and Ben, tall and slight, with his flail, on the other.

"My dear lad," was all Mr. Holworth could say, as he took the thin, blanched hand, put his arm round the shoulders, and reseated Stead, still speechless with joy. Patience, curtseying low, came up anxiously, showing the same honest face as of old, though work and anxiety had traced their lines on the sun-burnt complexion, and Ben stood blushing, and showing his keener, more cultivated face, as the stranger turned to greet them so as to give Steadfast time to recover himself.

"Oh! sir, but we are glad to see your reverence," cried Patience. "Will you go in, or sit by Stead? Ben, fetch a chair."

"And is this fine strapping fellow, the sickly babe that you were never to rear, Patience?"

"God has been very good to us, sir," said Patience.

"And this is best of all," said Stead, recovering breath and speech. "I thank Him that I have lived to see this day! It is all safe, sir."

"And you, you faithful guardian, you have suffered for it."

If it had not been for Blane's partial revelations, Mr. Holworth never would have extracted the full story of how for that sacred trust, Steadfast Kenton had endured threats and pain, and had foregone ease, prosperity, latterly happiness, and how finally it had cost him health, nay life itself, for he was as surely dying of the buccaneer's pistol shot, as though he had been slain on the spot.

Long illness, with all the thought and reflection it had brought, had so far changed and refined Stead that his awkward bashfulness and lack of words had passed from him, and when he saw the clergyman overcome with emotion at the thought of all he had undergone he said,

"Never heed it, your reverence, it has come to be all joy to me to have had a little to bear for the Master! 'Tis hard on Patience and Ben, but they are very good to me; and being sick gives time for such comforts as God sends me. It is more than all I could have had here."

"I am sure of that, my dear boy. I was not grieving that I gave you the trust, but thinking what a blessed thing it is to have kept it thus faithfully."

Two Sundays later, the Feast was again meetly spread in Elmwood Church, the Altar restored to its place, and all as reverently arranged as it could yet be among the broken carved work.

In some respects it was a mournful service, few there were who after the lapse of seventeen years even remembered the outlines of the old forms; and the younger people knew not when to kneel or stand. There were few who could read, and even for those who could there were only four Prayer-books in the church, the clergyman's, the clerk's, the Kentons', and one discovered by an old Elmwood servant. The Squire's family came not; Goody Grace was dead, and though Rusha tried to instruct her husband and her little girl, she herself was much at a loss.

To Mr. Holworth it was almost like that rededication of the Temple when the old men wept at the thought of the glory of the former house, but there were some on whom his eye rested with joy and peace. There were Blane and his wife, good and faithful though ignorant; there were the old miller and his son, who had come all that distance since there had as yet been no restoration in their church, and the goings on of Original-Sin Hopkins and his friends had thoroughly disgusted them, and made the old man yearn towards the church of his youth, and there was the little group of three, the toil-worn but sweet-faced sister, calm and restful, though watchful; the tall youth with thoughtful, earnest, awe-struck face, come for his first Communion, for which through those many years he had been taught to pray and long, and between them the wasted form and wan features lighted up with that wonderful radiance that had come on them with the sense that the trust was fulfilled, only it was brighter, calmer, higher, than even at the greeting of the vicar. Did Steadfast see only the burnished gold of the Chalice and paten he had guarded for seventeen years at the cost of toil, danger, suffering, love, and life itself? Did he not see and feel far beyond those outward visible signs in which others, who had not yet endured to the end, could only as yet put their trust by faith?

Mr. Holworth, as he stood over him and saw the upturned eye, was sure it was so. No doubt indeed Ben thought so too, but poor imaginative Ben had somehow fancied it would be with his brother as with the King who guarded that other sacred Cup, and when all was over, was quite disappointed that Stead needed his strong arm as much as ever, nay more, for on coming out into the air and sunshine a faintness and exhaustion came on, and they had to rest him in the porch before he could move.

"O Stead, I thought it would have healed you," the lad said.

Stead slightly smiled. "Healed? I shall soon be healed altogether, Ben," he said. He had with great difficulty and very slowly walked to church, and Mr. Holworth wished him to come and rest at the Vicarage, but he was very anxious to get home, and after he had taken a little food, Andrew Luck offered to share with Ben and Rusha's husband the carrying him back between them on an elbow chair.

This pleased him, and he looked up to Andrew and said, "You are in the same mind as long ago?"

"I never found anyone else I could lay my mind to, since my poor Kitty," said Andrew.

"She will come to you—soon," said Stead. "She'll have a sore heart, but you will be good to her."

"That I will. And little Bess and Kate shall come and tell her how they want her."

Stead smiled and his lips moved in thankfulness.

"And if Ben would come with her," added Andrew, "I'd be a brother to him."

"Parson wants Ben," said Stead. "He says he can make a scholar of him, and maybe a parson, and it will not be so lonesome in the vicarage."

"And your farm?"

"Rusha and her man take that. They have saved enough to build the house. Yes, all is well. It is great peace and thankfulness."

Patience returned with the cushions she had borrowed and they brought Steadfast home, very much exhausted, and not speaking all the way. Perhaps the unusual motion and exertion had made the bullet change its place, for he hardly uttered another word, and that night, as he had said to Ben, he was healed for ever of all his ills.

The funeral sermon that Mr. Holworth preached the next Sunday, was on the text so dear to all the loyal hearts who remembered the White King's coronation text—

"Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."



THE END