Take Courage (56 page)

Without pleasure, but with sober resignation, because we thought it our duty, we at The Breck tried to take a hopeful view of Charles II's return. As John said, the Restoration had been decreed by Parliament in proper legal form, and though there were some doubts as to the composition of the Parliament, still it was the lawfully constituted authority of the nation at the time, and we should therefore obey its will. The act of indemnity passed by the new government, too, seemed to hold out some prospects of mutual forgiveness and true peace, and it was right that we should strive to advance these prospects. Lister, however, from the first took a different view.

“Put not your trust in princes,” he growled, whenever he heard John voicing his belief in the propriety of obedience to the new government.

“The Lord allowed His chosen people to have a king,” argued John.

“Aye, but not a Stuart king,” said Lister. “They are all sons of Belial, liars and whoremongers and breakers of their pledged word.”

“This one hath not been tried yet,” said John.

“Like father, like son,” persisted Lister.

“That is not in Holy Writ,” John told him quietly.

We were all the more inclined to keep to this hopeful outlook on the future because, the Bradford Grammar School receiving a new Charter from the King at that time, in spite of his Parliament service John was one of the former Committee included in the new governors, while both David and Thomas received preferment this year. David was called to
give the Morning Exercises at that church of St. Giles in Cripplegate where he had preached so notably at our Sam's wedding, while Thomas, to our great joy, was offered the pulpit left vacant by Will at Adel. Thomas was both nominated by the former patron of the living, a relation of Lord Fairfax's, and heartily approved by the congregation; he took up his ministry there very earnestly, and seemed highly regarded, and thought very serviceable to the Lord, by the Adel people. He lived at Adel, but came over to see us very regularly, which was a great joy to his parents. Poor Eliza, too, renewed her life by dwelling with him and keeping house for him; as she had never had a child, save the little babe who died, she lavished all her motherly love upon Thomas. Our son would sometimes smile a little at his aunt's excessive care of him, but there was a great strength of grace in Thomas, he always said and did exactly what he meant, and was not apt to be driven off a pre-determined course by slight vexations of temper. He therefore behaved always to Eliza with a steady gentle courtesy and affection which were very pleasant to see.

John and I went to Adel to hear Thomas preach his first sermon there one summer Lord's Day. I own I was excited and somewhat tremulous, to think of my own son, my firstborn child, preaching to the large congregation assembled there that day, and I could see that John was also very much moved, though he was not one to show his feelings in a public assembly. Thomas was the first Thorpe to occupy a pulpit, and John was justly proud that his family had offered a son to the service of the Lord. Most mothers, I think, are anxious when their children have to perform some public act, and my heart beat fast when Thomas gave out his text, which was
Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people
. But I need not have troubled myself; he laid out the various heads with such grace and clarity, such strong faith where true comfort was to be found, that I was quite amazed at him. He did not show such poetry in his discourse as David did, for he had ever a strong infusion of the Thorpe practicality; but he spoke with dignity and strength. He looked handsome too, in a stern dark noble way; altogether I was greatly pleased with him.

So we were eager to be hopeful about the King's return, and we continued to indulge these hopes right up to the day of the King's Coronation. Trade was a little brisker then than it had been, many people feeling hopeful like ourselves, and Lister, I remember, came up to The Breck that forenoon about a couple of pieces which he wanted to send to market on the morrow. He and John fell into their usual argument upon Charles II, and Lister ranting, as usual, against the Stuart kings, John lost patience with him.

“I never saw you fighting for the Commonwealth very eagerly, Lister,” said he drily. “You were steward and agent and merchant, I think, while I was soldier.”

Lister sniffed indignantly and went off muttering.

“Think you truly we shall be let live free and quiet, John?” I asked when he had gone.

“How do I know? It is all to try for. As long as Black Tom thinks there is a hope of it, I will hope for it too,” said John.

This he said because Lord Fairfax had given the King a horse to ride at the Coronation, a horse from his own stud, a foal of the mare he rode at Naseby. The King accepted it and rode on it to be crowned, and this was thought to be very hopeful for a true peace, a reconciliation of all former enemies; in Bradford we rejoiced.

But alas! Lister's gloomy croakings were nearer the mark than John's honest impartiality. The Coronation was barely over, it seemed, before proceedings were begun against those men who had signed the late King's death warrant, the Regicides as they were now called; and some were put to death, and the bodies of those already deceased were dragged out from their graves—Sam wrote very bitterly to us that he had seen Cromwell's body dragged at the cart-tail to Tyburn, where felons were wont to be executed, and what seemed worse to him, the body of Oliver's mother, old Mrs. Cromwell, torn out of its coffin and thrown naked into an ill-dug pit in Westminster. (It seemed no worse to me to dig up Mrs. Cromwell than Oliver, but I have often noticed that men resent indignities to women far more than any insult to themselves. I cannot see why it should be worse to kill a
woman than a man, all killing being equally abhorrent to me; but men do not think thus yet, though perhaps they will come to do so some day.) Lord Fairfax was bitterly angry, we heard, at this breaking of the new King's promises; he asked indignantly why, if these other Regicides were to be put to death, he himself should escape, seeing that he was in command of the Parliament's army at the time of the late King's trial. But Lord Fairfax had not been present at the trial, as all men knew, which this King Charles II made an excuse for not prosecuting him; the true reason being that no man, even a restored Stuart, dared persecute Lord Fairfax, for fear of an uproar among the people. Lord Fairfax left the Court, however, and came home to Nun Appleton, not choosing to be the witness of behaviour he thought so evil.

Seeing the example set to them by their betters in London, our local Royalists began to carry things with a high hand. They persecuted Captain Hodgson continually, citing him to the court for his lightest word, accusing him of treason and conspiracy and this and that, till he was forever in and out of gaol and appearing before the magistrates. John was a staunch friend to him, standing bond for him many a time, riding on his behalf to Bradford and Halifax and York, though with his lame knee and his painful affection much riding was become a troublous business for him. All this John did with a kind of stolid persistent obstinacy, not happy in it, nor hopeful, but just going on steadily because it was the right thing to do. It was not a happy time in any sense for my poor John; trade was a little better but not much, the Dutch still being very difficult, and he seemed to have lost some of his pride in it now that he made but half a dozen pieces a week; moreover, he was endlessly troubled over Holroyd Hall. He often lamented to me that his Uncle Giles was not alive now, for then all these Hall troubles would have been smoothed away; and I too wished that Giles might have lived to see his King restored. The papers, the letters, the declarations before magistrates, the evasions and demands of tenants, the arguments over long-paid fines, which
poor John had to wrestle with in connection with Holroyd Hall, now that he belonged to the losing side, were enough to daunt any but the most stout-hearted man. He won through it all gradually, and proved his title and Chris's, and made a profitable lease of the land. (For the Hall itself, that stood empty for many a long year, nobody in the neighbourhood being prosperous enough to take it on.) But at this time of which I am thinking, what with Captain Hodgson in troubles before one set of magistrates, and declarations about Holroyd Hall to be made before another, and some malicious persons trying to oust John from his steward's employment, and Lister continually lamenting to him about the poor prospects of cloth, and the public news continually worsening for all of our persuasion, it was a dreary, dispiriting, sickening time for John.

And then one night when we were all abed there came a sudden thunderous knocking at our door. It was painful for John to move quickly, so I sprang up and threw a cloak round me and opened the casement and called out to know who was there.

“Open in the King's name!” was the shouted answer.

My heart sank. Are we to have a sack again, I wondered despairingly; and I feared greatly what might happen to John if it were so, for he would not be able to endure it quietly, his temper being somewhat short of late, with pain and disappointment. So I said hastily:

“It is some soldiers, I think. I will go down.”

“No—no, Penninah,” commanded John. “Tell them I will come down to see them as soon as I have made a light.”

I called down this message, and looked out more carefully at the men below; in the moonlight I could see they were a party of horse. They now dismounted and gathered round our porch, with a jingling of bits and ringing of spurs.

“Speak them fair, John,” I whispered as he passed me; for indeed I felt I could not bear any further misfortune.

John did not answer, but limped down the stairs and unbarred the door. I followed him and lit a candle.

“Now, sirs,” said John in a level but stern and commanding tone, standing in the doorway: “Be so good as to tell me by what right you disturb honest folk at this time of the night?”

“‘Tis not our fault we are late,” said the man at their head, who seemed not to be a soldier: “If your sleep is disturbed blame the other Roundheads who delayed us.”

There seemed something familiar in his impudent tones, and I was not much surprised when John said:

“Were you not once clerk to the ulnager, Mr. Metcalfe?”

“Aye, I am Jeremy Scaife,” said the other, swaggering. “You and I have had our little disagreements before, Mr. Thorpe. But as I was saying to Captain Hodgson only the other day, the sun now shines on our side of the hedge, Mr. Thorpe.”

“Why,” said John pleasantly: “It is true the Lord sends rain on both the just and the unjust, so doubtless He sends sunshine also.”

At this there was a slight sniggering among the men, and Scaife was angered.

“I could inform against you for treason for saying that!” he cried out angrily.

“Come, Mr. Scaife,” said John impatiently: “You are keeping women and children from their beds. To business.”

I looked about surprised, as he said this, and saw that both our two maids and Abraham were clustered behind me.

“I am clerk to the magistrates now, and I have come for your arms; you are to deliver them to me,” said Scaife.

“Come in,” said John, standing back: “And show me your order.”

“I have a better order than Oliver used to give,” cried Scaife. He clapped his hand on the sword he wore, and cried: “This is my order.”

“If you have none but that, it is not sufficient,” said John steadily.

At this Scaife pulled out a warrant from his doublet and handed it to John, who read it all through from beginning to end, while I held the candle for him.

“It is a general order, to search all suspected persons,”
said John, looking up when he had finished. “Of what and by whom am I suspected?”

“Now, Mr. Thorpe,” said Scaife, swaggering up to the table and throwing down his gloves there: “It is useless to resist a warrant, don't you know that? There has been a plot against His Majesty's life, and we have orders to search for arms at the houses of all suspected persons.”

“Search away,” said John grimly. “You will find only a couple of muskets and a fowling piece.”

“And what of your buff-coat, Mr. Thorpe?” said Scaife in the impudent pretentious tone he now affected.

At this John, who hitherto had seemed calm and indifferent, started and coloured.

“You have no order to take away my apparel,” he said quickly.

“A buff-coat is arms, not apparel,” said Scaife, delighted to have moved him.

“You shall not have it!” shouted John suddenly.

“If you resist my warrant I shall carry you away a prisoner!” shouted Scaife in reply. He was a long thin personage, and he towered over John threateningly.

“You shall not have my buff-coat,” said John, his breathing very heavy.

“Outside with you then, and to prison!” cried Scaife in a fury, and he shouted at two of the soldiers and made them come and stand with John between them. They obeyed him sheepishly. “Outside! Outside!” he screamed. “You are my prisoner!”

“Take me to prison, then!” shouted John, totally losing his temper, so that his voice coarsened and his face grew darkly crimson. “I care not! You shall not have my buff-coat, in which I fought under my General.”

“Rebel and traitor!” screamed Scaife. “Outside!” He snatched up one of our muskets, which the troopers had laid on the table, and made to strike John with it across the shoulders to urge him forward.

“Mr. Scaife, Mr. Scaife!” I cried in terror, throwing myself between them. “For God's sake! I beg of you! You shall
have the coat—Abraham,” I cried, turning to the child: “Fetch your father's buff-coat from the closet.”

Abraham, not understanding anything but that his father was in danger, ran off hastily, then hesitated, turned, and said in his young piping tones: