Out in the Forty-Five Part 61

Grandmamma sent me a large chest from London, full of handsome presents,--a fine set of Dresden tea china (which travelled very well-- only one saucer broke); a new hoop, so wide round that methinks I shall never dare to wear it in the country; a charming piece of dove-coloured damask, and a petticoat, to wear with it, of blue quilted satin; two calico gowns from India, a beautiful worked scarf from the same country, six pair pearl-coloured silk stockings, a new fan, painted with flowers, most charmingly done, a splendid piece of white and gold brocade, and a superb set of turquoise and pearl jewellery. I cannot think when or how I am to wear them; they seem so unfit for the wife of a country curate.

"Oh, wait till I am a bishop," says Ephraim, laughingly; "then you can make the Dean's lady faint away for envy of all your smart things. And as to the white and gold brocade, keep it till the King comes to stay with us, and it will be just the thing for a state bed for him."

"I wonder what colour it will be!" said I. "Which king?"

Ephraim makes me a low bow--over the water bottle. [Note 1.]

I must lay down my pen, for I hear a shocking smash in the kitchen.

That girl Dolly is so careless! I don't believe I shall ever have much time for writing now.

Langbeck Rectory, under the Cheviots, August the 28th, 1747.

Nearly a whole year since I writ one line!

Our lot is settled now, and we moved in here in May last. I am very thankful that the lines have fallen to me still in my dear North--I have not pleasant recollections of the South. And I fancy--but perhaps unjustly--that we Northerners have a deeper, more yearning love for our hills and dales than they have down there. We are about midway between Brocklebank and Abbotscliff, which is just where I would have chosen to be, if I could have had the choice. It is not often that G.o.d gives a man all the desires of his heart; perhaps to a woman He gives it even less often. How thankful I ought to be!

My Aunt Kezia was so good as to come with us, to help me to settle down.

I should not have got things straight in twice the time if she had not been here. Sophy spent the days with Father while my Aunt Kezia was here, and just went back to the Vicarage for the night. Father is very much delighted with Sophy's child, and calls him a bouncing boy, and a credit to the family; and Sophy thinks him the finest child that ever lived, as my Aunt Kezia saith every mother hath done since Eve.

The night before my Aunt Kezia went home, as she and I sat together,--it was not yet time for Ephraim to come in from his work in the parish, for he is one of the few parsons who do work, and do not pore over learned books or go a-hunting, and leave their parishes to take care of themselves--well, as my Aunt and I sat by the window, she said something which rather astonished me.

"Cary, I don't know what you and Ephraim would say, but I am beginning to think we made a mistake."

"Do you mean about the Chinese screens, Aunt?" said I. "The gold lacquer would have gone very well with the damask, but--"

"Chinese screens!" saith my Aunt, with a hearty laugh. "Why, whatever is the girl thinking about? No, child! I mean about the Prince."

"Aunt Kezia!" I cried. "You never mean to say we did wrong in fighting for our King?"

"Wrong? No, child, for we meant to do right. I gather from Scripture that the Lord takes a deal more account of what a man means than of what he does. Thank G.o.d it is so! For if a man means to come to Christ, he does come, no matter how: ay, and if a man means to reject Christ, he does that too, however fair and orthodox he may look in the eyes of the world. Therefore, as to those matters that are in doubt, and cannot be plainly judged by Scripture, but Christian men may and do lawfully differ about them, if a man honestly meant to do G.o.d's will, so far as he knew it, I don't believe he will be judged as if he had not cared to do it. But what I intend to say is this--that it is plain to me now that the Lord hath repealed the decree whereby He gave England to the House of Stuart. There is no right against Him, Cary. He doeth as He will with all the kingdoms of the world. Maybe it's not so plain to you--if so, don't you try to see through my eyes. Follow your own conscience until the Lord teaches yourself. If our fathers had been truer men, and had pa.s.sed the Bill of Exclusion in 1680, the troubles of 1688 would never have come, nor those of 1745 neither. They ate sour grapes, and set our teeth on edge--ay, and their own too, poor souls!

It was the Bishops and Lord Halifax that did it, and the Bishops paid the wyte, as Sam says. It must have been a bitter pill to those seven in the Tower, to think that all might have been prevented by lawful, const.i.tutional means, and that they--their Order, I mean--had just pulled their troubles on their own heads."

"Aunt Kezia," I cried in distress, "you never mean to say that Colonel Keith died for a wrongful cause?"

"G.o.d forbid!" she said, gravely. "Colonel Keith did not die for that Cause. He died for right and righteousness, for truth and honour, for faithfulness, for loyalty and love--no bad things to die for. Not for the Prince--only for G.o.d and Flora, and a little, perhaps, for Angus.

G.o.d forbid that I should judge any true and honourable man--most of all that man who gave his life for those we love. Only, Cary, the Cause is dead and gone. The struggle is over for ever: and we may thank G.o.d it is so. On the wreck of the old England a new England may arise--an England standing fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made her free, free from priestly yoke and priest-ridden rulers, free not to revolt but to follow, not to disobey, but to obey. If only--ah! if only she resolve, and stand to it, never to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage, never to forget the lessons which G.o.d has taught her, never again to eat the sour grapes, and set the children's teeth on edge. Let her once begin to think of the tiger's beauty, and forget its deathly claws--once lay aside her watchword of 'No peace with Rome'--and she will find it means no peace with G.o.d, for His scourge has always pursued her when she has truckled to His great enemy. Eh, but men have short memories, never name short sight. Like enough, by a hundred years are over, they'll be looking at Roman sugar-sticks as the Scarlet Woman holds them out, and thinking that she is very fair and fine-spoken, and why shouldn't they have a few sweets? Well! it is well the government of the world isn't in old Kezia's hands, for if it were, some people would find themselves uncommonly uncomfortable before long."

"You don't mean me, I hope?" I said, laughing.

"Nay, child, I don't mean you, nor yet your husband. Very like you'll not see it as I do. But you'll live to see it--if only you live long enough."

Well, my Aunt Kezia may be right, though I do not see it. Only that I do think it was a sad blunder to throw out the Bill of Exclusion. It had pa.s.sed the Commons, so they were not to blame. But one thing I should like to set down, for any who may read this book a hundred years hence, if it hath not been tore up for waste-paper long ere that--that we Protestants who fought for the Prince never fought nor meant to fight for Popery. We hated it every bit as much as any who stood against him.

We fought because the contrary seemed to us to be doing evil that good might come. But I won't say we may not live to be thankful that we lost our cause.

It has been a warm afternoon, and I sat with the window open in the parlour, singing and sewing; Ephraim was out in the parish. I was turning down a hem when a voice in the garden spoke to me,--

"An't like you, Madam, to give a drink of whey to a poor soldier?"

There was a slight Scots accent with the words.

"Whence come you?" I said.

"I fought at Prestonpans," he answered. He looked a youngish man, but very ragged and bemired.

"On which side?" I said, as I rose up. Of course I was not going to refuse him food and drink, however that might be, but I dare say I should have made it a little more dainty for one of Prince Charlie's troops than for a Hanoverian, and I felt pretty sure he was the former from his accent.

I fancied I saw a twinkle in his eyes.

"The side you are on, Madam," said he.

"How can you know which side I am on?" said I. "Come round to the back-door, friend, and I will find you a drink of whey."

"I suppose," said my beggar, looking down at himself, "I don't look quite good enough for the front door. But I am an officer for all that, Madam."

"Sir, I beg your pardon," I made answer. "I will let you in at the front,"--for when he spoke more, I heard the accent of a gentleman.

"Pray don't give yourself that trouble, Cousin Cary."

And to my utter amazement, the beggar jumped in at the window, which was low and easily scaled.

"Angus!" I almost screamed.

"At your service, Madam."

"When did you leave France? Where are you come from? Have you been to Abbotscliff? Are--"

"Halt! Can't fight more than three men at once. And I won't answer a question till I have had something to eat. Forgive me, Cary, but I am very nearly starving."

I rushed into the kitchen, and astonished Caitlin by laying violent hands on a pan of broth which she was going to serve for supper. I don't know what I said to her. I hastily poured the broth into a basin, and seizing a loaf of bread and a knife, dashed back to Angus.

"Eat that now, Angus. You shall have something better by-and-by."

He ate like a man who was nearly starving, as he had said. When he had finished, he said,--

"Now! I left France a fortnight since. I have not been to Abbotscliff.

I know nothing but the facts that you are married, and where you live, which I learned by accident, and I instantly thought that your house, if you would take me in, would be a safer refuge than either Brocklebank or Abbotscliff. Now tell me some thing in turn. Are my father and Flora well?"

"Yes, for anything I know."

"And all at Brocklebank?"

"Quite."

"And the Keiths? Has Annas bagged her pheasant?"

"What do you mean, Angus?"