Hayslope Grange Part 8

"Nay, that may not be, friend blacksmith, for I bear tidings of weighty import. There has been a great battle in Yorks.h.i.+re." Maud, pausing to speak to a child close by, heard these words.

"A battle, sir traveller: can you tell me aught about it?" she asked.

"Marry, and I should be able, seeing I was in it, and fought with Lieutenant Cromwell's Ironsides," said the man. "Is not this Hayslope?"

he asked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STRANGER AT THE SMITHY.]

The blacksmith nodded. "But we be all King Charles's men here," he said.

"Marry, that may be, so all who are here," said the traveller. "But one Harry Drury cometh from Hayslope, and he fought right bravely with the Parliament men at Marston Moor, and now lieth sorely wounded and grievously sick."

CHAPTER VIII.

BESSIE'S DISTRESS.

Maud did not wait to hear anything more that the messenger had to tell; whether the Royalists had gained the victory or had to mourn defeat she did not know, and hardly cared. This one fact was enough for her; Harry was wounded--wounded and ill--perhaps dying among strangers. It might be he was prisoner even, and then an ignominious traitor's death awaited him. All the darkest possibilities of his fate rushed to her mind as she walked down the lane to the cottage.

Here her grief was shared by Dame Coppins, who hardly knew what to say to comfort her under such a trial, and could only point her to Him who, having "borne our griefs and carried our sorrows," can sympathise and comfort under the sorest trials.

On reaching the Grange, Maud found that the news had travelled thither before her--news of humiliation, that had put Captain Stanhope quite out of temper.

"By my faith, I cannot believe it!" he was saying, as Maud entered the keeping-room. "Prince Rupert defeated by that son of a brewer and his handful of sorry prentice lads? Master Drury, what think you is likely to happen, forsooth?"

"This varlet messenger, may be, is mistelling the news," said Master Drury, hoping it might be so, for he had thought the rebel troops well nigh crushed out.

Maud wondered whether he had heard the news concerning Harry, and looked across at Mistress Mabel, but that stern, impa.s.sive face told nothing, and Mary's, in its proud resolve, no more; and she dared not utter the forbidden name before so many, and so went in search of the children, to ascertain from them what news had come.

She saw in a moment that they had heard both items, for Bessie was sitting in a corner of the garden crying bitterly, while Bertram was marching up and down, telling her what he would do to rescue Harry when he was a man.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BESSIE'S GRIEF FOR HARRY.]

She sat down beside the little girl and tried to comfort her, but Bessie would not be comforted. "It's very kind of you, Maud," she sobbed, "but you are not Harry's sister--not a Drury, like Mary and I. If Mary would only be a little sorry for him, I shouldn't cry so much, but now he's only got me and Bertram to be sorry."

"Oh, Bessie, think you not that I am sorry, too?" said Maud.

"Yes, you are sorry, Maud, I know," said the little girl, hardly knowing how to express herself; "but you know you are not his sister, and so he won't expect you to cry for him."

"Marry, will he not," said Maud, scarce able to keep from laughing. "And will he expect you to cry for him a great deal?" asked Maud, as the tears broke out afresh.

"Mary won't," sobbed Bessie; and she seemed bent upon doing her sister's share for her.

Maud could not help shedding a few tears in company, and Bessie threw her arms round her neck and kissed her for them. At length Maud said, "If Harry does not expect me to cry for him, there is something else he will expect me to do, and that is to comfort his little sister;" and she took the little girl in her arms, and laid the hot tear-stained cheek against hers, and whispered gentle loving words, that soothed the troubled heart. It was just what Harry would have done--just what he would have her do, she knew, and she did it as though he were near and watching her.

For the next few days Captain Stanhope was in a restless state of impatience to ascertain whether the news brought to the village was correct, but they were not the days of newspapers, and an army might be within a few miles of Hayslope itself, and the inhabitants none the wiser; so it was not strange that he could hear nothing of the movements of an army away in Yorks.h.i.+re.

But all suspense was at an end in a day or two. A messenger arrived bearing despatches for Captain Stanhope, and in them mention was made of the disastrous battle of Marston Moor. These despatches were commands for the Captain to collect all the men he had been able to get in his recruiting tour, and join the main body of the army in the west of England.

So Mary's marriage, which was to have taken place in a few weeks, had to be postponed until the autumn, or rather winter, for there could be no certainty of his returning to Hayslope until then. There was always a truce of a few months during winter. Wars could not be carried on regardless of weather, as they are now, and thus it was that they often lasted years.

After the departure of the Captain, life seemed to pa.s.s more slowly and monotonously than ever at Hayslope Grange. Out of the direct main road, strangers rarely came that way, and so little was known of how events were tending in the mortal strife going on so near them.

The trial of Archbishop Laud was still being carried on by the London Parliament; Oxford was supporting the King in the combat with his subjects, the north having yielded to Fairfax, the Parliamentary general. This was all the news that came to Hayslope through all the remaining days of July and the sultry weeks of August. No word came from Harry Drury, not a syllable that Maud was hungering to hear with a hunger that paled her cheek and was wasting her strength.

The harvest--what there was--had to be gathered in by women for the most part; and when Maud looked at these going out to their unwonted toil, a baby in one hand and a reaping-hook in the other, and thought of the burden of sorrow they had to carry as well, she reproached herself for weakly yielding to her grief; and yet it was hard to combat sometimes.

She had been compelled to rebel against Mistress Mabel's command to sit more closely to her spinning and sewing. Not that she disliked preparing Mary's house linen, but because she could not endure the scrutiny of those hard cold eyes, and to get away from them she did as Harry had done many a time before--mounted Cavalier, and cantered away miles over the fields, and then back to the village, to visit her friends there.

The months of September and October pa.s.sed slowly enough, but about the middle of November Roger and a few of the other men came back to the village for the winter. It could not be said that they were not welcome, and yet provisions were now so dear, owing to the scanty harvest and heavy taxes, that every extra mouth to fill was felt as a heavy burden by their distressed families; and then, being winter time, there was scarcely any work they could do in the fields and gardens.

Maud had hoped that she should hear something of Harry when the men came back, and how much her returning health and strength had depended upon this she did not know until the hope was taken away and the faint sickening languor again stole over her frame. It might have grown upon her more than it did, but the wants of the poor people in the village, and the demands of Mistress Mabel, that she should a.s.sist in the preparations for Mary's wedding, left her very little time to spend in sitting alone and thinking of Harry.

Mary was to be married at Christmas, and go with Captain Stanhope to Oxford. The two seemed mutually pleased with each other, and quite satisfied with their bargain, but Maud could not tell whether they loved each other. She hoped they did, but Mary never gave her an opportunity of speaking upon this subject, and indeed the preparations for the coming event seemed to occupy her mind so fully that she had no thought for anything else.

This wedding afforded the villagers the most satisfaction, perhaps, for Master Drury was to give them an ox to be roasted on the green, and the prospect of a good dinner was very pleasant to them under the present circ.u.mstances. Captain Stanhope gave them a barrel of ale in which to drink his bride's health, but Mary seemed to think no one wanted anything but herself.

She packed up all the books and little trifles lying about that had belonged to Harry, and when Maud ventured to remonstrate with her about this, saying that Bertram would want them by-and-by if Harry did not return, she retorted, "Harry Drury never will return to this house, Maud, and Bertram will be expelled too if you continue to encourage him in thinking Harry right in what he has done."

Maud looked surprised. "What can you mean?" she exclaimed.

"Marry, nothing but what is true. You are teaching Bertram to think Harry right in rebelling against the King, and his father, too,"

retorted Mary.

"I do not think Harry is wrong in following the guidance of his conscience," said Maud, slowly; "but I have not sought to teach Bertram that Harry's way is right for him. I have only told him to keep the fear of G.o.d before his eyes, and follow the teaching of His Holy Spirit, as I believe Harry has done."

"And so you think it is this that has made Harry a traitor," said Mary, with rising anger.

"I don't think Harry is a traitor," said Maud, calmly. "It is the King who has----"

"By my troth I will not listen to such dreadful words," interrupted Mary, and she went out of the room; but she evidently did not alter her opinion, for she confiscated to her own use every article that had formerly belonged to her brother.

After the wedding festivities were over, and Mistress Mary Stanhope had departed with her husband to Oxford, the house seemed more dull than ever, and Mistress Mabel more severe and exacting.

About the middle of January came news that thrilled every one with horror, and put Master Drury into a fever of mingled anger and sorrow. A man had stopped at the blacksmith's shed on his way from London, and brought the news that Archbishop Laud had been beheaded on Tower Hill the day before he left.

Mistress Mabel was speechless with indignation for a few minutes, and her first act was to take the bright cherry-coloured bow off Bessie's hair.

The little girl looked up in surprise, and saw her aunt taking the ruffles from her own neck and wrists. "This is not the time for such bravery as this," said the lady, looking angrily at the ribbons and ruffles. Bessie wondered what they had to do with it, while Mistress Mabel stood upright, watching her brother as he walked up and down the room, murmuring, "They have slain the Archbishop--murdered the Lord's anointed."

"For which all good Christians ought to fast and mourn," put in Mistress Mabel; "and I hope, brother, that you will see to it that your household is not lacking in this matter," she added.

"Nay, nay, I leave all such to you," said Master Drury; "order whatever is seemly at this time. I know not what has come to this evil-minded generation," he added.

"An evil generation they are, as you say," quoth Mistress Mabel. "Where will their iniquity end? They will put forth their hand against the King next, I trow."