Under the Storm , livre ebook

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114 pages

English

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. I brought them here as to a sanctuary. SOUTHEY.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819918738
Langue	English

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CHAPTER I - THE TRUST.
"I brought them here as to a sanctuary."SOUTHEY.
Most of us have heard of the sad times in the middleof the seventeenth century, when Englishmen were at war with oneanother and quiet villages became battlefields.
We hear a great deal about King and Parliament,great lords and able generals, Cavaliers and Roundheads, but thisstory is to help us to think how it must have gone in those timeswith quiet folk in cottages and farmhouses.
There had been peace in England for a great manyyears, ever since the end of the wars of the Roses. So the townsdid not want fortifications to keep out the enemy, and their housesspread out beyond the old walls; and the country houses had windowsand doors large and wide open, with no thought of keeping out foes,and farms and cottages were freely spread about everywhere, withtheir fields round them.
The farms were very small, mostly held by men whodid all the work themselves with the help of their families.
Such a farm belonged to John Kenton of Elmwood. Itlay at the head of a long green lane, where the bushes overheadalmost touched one another in the summer, and the mud and mire werevery deep in winter; but that mattered the less as nothing onwheels went up or down it but the hay or harvest carts, creakingunder their load, and drawn by the old mare, with a cow to helpher.
Beyond lay a few small fields, and then a bit ofopen ground scattered with gorse and thorn bushes, and much brokenby ups and downs. There, one afternoon on a big stone was seatedSteadfast Kenton, a boy of fourteen, sturdy, perhaps loutish, withan honest ruddy face under his leathern cap, a coarse smock frockand stout gaiters. He was watching the fifteen sheep and lambs, theold goose and gander and their nine children, the three cows, eightpigs, and the old donkey which got their living there.
From the top of the hill, beyond the cleft of theriver Avon, he could see the smoke and the church towers of thetown of Bristol, and beyond it, the slime of the water of theBristol Channel; and nearer, on one side, the spire of ElmwoodChurch looked up, and, on the other, the woods round Elmwood House,and these ran out as it were, lengthening and narrowing into awooded cleft or gulley, Hermit's Gulley, which broke the side ofthe hill just below where Steadfast stood, and had a little clearstream running along the bottom.
Steadfast's little herd knew the time of day as wellas if they all had watches in their pockets, and they never failedto go down and have a drink at the brook before going back to thefarmyard.
They did not need to be driven, but gathered intothe rude steep path that they and their kind had worn in the sideof the ravine. Steadfast followed, looking about him to judge howsoon the nuts would be ripe, while his little rough stiff-haireddog Toby poked about in search of rabbits or hedgehogs, or the likesport.
Steadfast liked that pathway home beside the stream,as boys do love running water. Good stones could be got there,water rats might be chased, there were strawberries on the bankswhich he gathered and threaded on stalks of grass for his sisters,Patience and Jerusha. They used to come with him and have pleasantgames, but it was a long time since Patience had been able to comeout, for in the winter, a grievous trouble had come on the family.The good mother had died, leaving a little baby of six weeks old,and Patience, who was only thirteen, had to attend to everything athome, and take care of poor little sickly Benoni with no one tohelp her but her little seven years old sister.
The children's lives had been much less bright sincethat sad day; and Steadfast seldom had much time for play. He knewhe must get home as fast as he could to help Patience in milkingthe cows, feeding the pigs and poultry, and getting the supper, orsome of the other things that his elder brother Jephthah calledwench-work and would not do.
He could not, however, help looking up at the holein the side of the steep cliff, where one might climb up to such adelightful cave, in which he and Patience had so often played onhot days. It had been their secret, and a kind of palace to them.They had sat there as king and queen, had paved it with stones fromthe brook, and had had many plans for the sports they would havethere this summer, little thinking that Patience would have beenturned into a grave, busy little housewife, instead of a merry,playful child.
Toby looked up too, and began to bark. There was arustling in the bushes below the cave, and Steadfast, at first indismay to see his secret delight invaded, beheld between themountain ash boughs and ivy, to his great surprise, a square capand black cassock tucked up, and then a bit of brown leathern coat,which he knew full well. It was the Vicar, Master Holworth, and hisfather John Kenton was Churchwarden, so it was no wonder to see himand the Parson together, but what could bring them here - intoSteadfast's cave? and with a dark lantern too! They seemed assurprised, perhaps as vexed as he was, at the sight of him, but hisfather said, "'Tis my lad, Steadfast, I'll answer for him."
"And so will I," returned the clergyman. "Is anyonewith you, my boy?"
"No, your reverence, no one save the beasts."
"Then come up here," said his father. "Someone hasbeen playing here, I see."
"Patience and I, father, last summer."
"No one else?"
"No, no one. We put those stones and those stickswhen we made a fire there last year, and no one has meddled withthem since."
"Thou and Patience," said Mr. Holworth thoughtfully."Not Jephthah nor the little maid?"
"No, sir," replied Steadfast, "we would not let themknow, because we wanted a place to ourselves."
For in truth the quiet ways and little arrangementsof these two had often been much disturbed by the rough elderbrother who teased and laughed at them, and by the troublesomelittle sister, who put her fingers into everything.
The Vicar and the Churchwarden looked at oneanother, and John Kenton muttered, "True as steel."
"Your father answers for you, my boy," said theVicar. "So we will e'en let you know what we are about. I was toldthis morn by a sure hand that the Parliament men, who now holdBristol Castle, are coming to deal with the village churches evenas they have dealt with the minster and with St. Mary's,Redcliffe."
"A murrain on them!" muttered Kenton.
"I wot that in their ignorance they do it," gentlyquoted the Vicar. "But we would fain save from their hands the holyChalice and paten which came down to our Church from the ancienttimes - and which bearing on them, as they do, the figure of theCrucifixion of our blessed Lord, would assuredly provoke the zealof the destroyers. Therefore have we placed them in this casket,and your father devised hiding them within this cave, which hethought was unknown to any save himself - "
"Yea," said John, "my poor brother Will and I werewont to play there when we herded the cattle on the hill. It wasclimbing yon ash tree that stands out above that he got the fallthat was the death of him at last. I've never gone nigh the placewith mine own good will since that day - nor knew the children haddone so - but methought 'twas a lonesome place and on mine ownland, where we might safest store the holy things till better timescome round."
"And so I hope they will," said Mr. Holworth.
"I hear good news of the King's cause in thenorth."
Then they began to consult where to place theprecious casket. They had brought tinder and matches, andSteadfast, who knew the secrets of the cave even better than hisfather, showed them a little hollow, far back, which would justhold the chest, and being closed in front with a big stone, fastwedged in, was never likely to be discovered readily.
***the hiding of the casket***
"This has been a hiding place already."
"Methinks this has once been a chapel," said theclergyman presently, pointing to some rude carvings - one somethinglike a cross, and a large stone that might have served as analtar.
"Belike," said Kenton, "there's an old stone pile, amere hovel, down below, where my grandfather said he remembered anold monk, a hermit, or some such gear - a Papist - as lived inhiding. He did no hurt, and was a man from these parts, so nonemeddled with him, or gave notice to the Queen's officers, and ourfolk at the farm sold his baskets at the town, and brought him abarley loaf twice a week till he died, all alone in his hut. Verylike he said his mass here."
John wondered to find that the minister thought thismade the place more suitable. The whole cavern was so low that thetwo men could hardly stand upright in it, though it ran abouttwelve yards back. There were white limestone drops like icicleshanging above from the roof; and bats, disturbed by the light, cameflying about the heads of their visitors, while streamers of ivyand old man's beard hung over the mouth, and were displaced by theheads of the men.
"None is like to find the spot," said John Kenton,as he tried to replace the tangled branches that had been pushedaside.
"God grant us happier days for bringing it forth,"said the clergyman.
All three bared their heads, and Mr. Holworthuttered a few words of prayer and blessing; then let John help himdown the steep scramble and descent, and looked up to see whetherany sign of the cave could be detected from the edge of the brook.Kenton shook his head reassuringly.
"Ah!" said Mr. Holworth, "it minds me that none everfound again the holy Ark of the Covenant that King Josiah and theProphet Jeremiah hid in a cavern within Mount Pisgah! and our sinsbe many that have provoked this judgment! Mayhap the boy will bethe only one of us who will see these blessed vessels restored totheir Altar once more! He may have been sent hither to that veryend. Now, look you, Steadfast Kenton - Steadfast thou hast everbeen, so far as I have known thee, in nature as well as in name.Give me thy word that thou wilt never give up the secret o