“But true religion, sprung from God above,

Is like her fountain, full of charity,

Embracing all things with a tender love!

Full of goodwill and meek expectancy;

Full of true justice and sure verity,

In heart and voice free, large, even infinite;

Not wedged in strict particularity,

But grasping all in her vast active spright;

Bright lamp of God! that men would joy in thy

pure light.”

—Henry More, 1642.


There was something indescribably desolate in the blank silence of the tiled house when Waghorn unlocked the door, and fumbled in the dusk for the tinder-box. No human being shared his dreary home, no animal kept him company or enlivened his solitary hours. It was undoubtedly owing to his loneliness that his tendency to gloomy fanaticism had, since his father’s death, so greatly increased. The one joy left him appeared to be this morbid and exaggerated desire to root out all that he deemed wrong, and to punish all those who withstood his fiery zeal.

Without pausing to eat or drink, he kindled his lantern and stole quickly out into the street. Early hours were kept in those days, and all seemed still in the village; stepping cautiously, he soon descried in the dust the prints of horse-hoofs, and was eagerly following them up to see whether they turned in at the Vicarage, when Zachary suddenly emerged from the gate.

“Good e’en to you, Waghorn,” said the clerk, in a more friendly tone than he usually employed towards the wood-carver. “Ha’ ye lost summat, that ye go groping like the woman that dropped her tenth bit o’ silver?”

“Ay,” said Waghorn, “that’s just what I have done, but I shall find what I seek yet, never fear.”

Zachary with apparent good nature swept his broad foot energetically to and fro among the dust, effectually wiping out all trace of the hoof-prints.

“Better search by daylight,” he suggested. “And come now to the ‘Bell’ and have a pint o’ home brewed.”

Waghorn deemed it prudent to accept the invitation, for he desired to get into Zachary’s confidence, and hoped that some day he might gather from the garrulous old man the information he eagerly sought. But on this particular night the clerk was on his guard, and the fanatic gained nothing by his plot.

Meanwhile, in the tower room, Dr. Harford, to his great joy, found his son in far better case than he had dared to expect. Hilary’s good nursing and the patient’s healthy life and sound constitution had triumphed over all the other drawbacks, and although some weeks must pass before he really recovered, all danger to his life was practically over.

The Vicar and Hilary listened with intense relief to the doctor’s verdict.

“The question now is, whether we shall try to remove him,” said his father. “It seems unfair to let you any longer run the risk of sheltering a rebel. Yet I scarce know where we could take him; we should never get him to Hereford without his being made prisoner.”

“Sir, don’t think of moving him. ’Tis hard, indeed, if the church tower may not afford him sanctuary,” said the Vicar. “If, indeed, there be any risk in the matter, I gladly take it.”

“And how about his nurse? What hath she to say?” asked the physician, looking into the girl’s beautiful face.

“Sir,” said Hilary, blushing vividly, “I am his betrothed wife, and only this very day we were saying that we wished the Vicar would wed us.”

Gabriel took her hand in his, and looked with eager hope at the kindly antiquary who had done so much for him.

“In the orchard as I lay in even worse plight, sir, you made no objection to my suit, and if, indeed, you will make us man and wife before I go, I should be for ever your debtor.”

The Vicar and the physician glanced at each other.

“This comes, sir, an’ I mistake not,” said Dr. Harford, “from your words in the churchyard when Waghorn would have had the cross pulled down. I have heard that those who hearkened to you could never forget your plea for love, which is the bond of peace.”

“In truth, sir,” said the Vicar with a twinkle in his eye, “I trow it comes from the quiet days in this tower of refuge, when my niece had in your absence to nurse the wounded. Very gladly will I wed you, my children, and some fine morning we will steal across to the church before the villagers are astir. In the meanwhile I can read your banns in here each Sunday, with Durdle and Zachary for congregation.”

Then Dr. Harford told of his interview with Cromwell, and of the suggestion for Gabriel’s future.

“An you could spare your niece, sir, it would perchance be no bad plan for our bride and bridegroom to journey to London, for possibly the Governor of Canon Frome may yet give some trouble. Hath anyone heard whether he recovers?”

“Farmer Chadd heard that, though still kept to his bed, he mends apace,” said the Vicar. “Your plan seems an excellent one, sir, and though I shall sorely miss Hilary, it would take a load off my mind to know that she was in safety.”

“Then by the earliest opportunity I will write to my mother at Notting Hill Manor,” said the physician. “I well know that her house will be at your disposal, and that you, sir, would be an honoured guest there.”

The Vicar gave a courteous little bow, then turned with a mischievous glance to the invalid.

“Nothing will please me more than to meet Madam Harford, yet don’t make yourself uneasy, Gabriel, I shall not ride with you on the wedding journey, but shall visit you later on, when you are settled down into the prose of everyday life.”

There was a general laugh, and before long, the Vicar suggested that they had better return for the night to the Vicarage, leaving Dr. Harford to talk matters over with his son.

Far into the small hours the two discussed future plans, and it was arranged that the Doctor should not again risk drawing attention to the hiding-place by a visit, unless actually sent for. Early in June, when the arm was likely to be quite sound again, he proposed to ride over at night, bringing Gabriel’s mother with him, that she might be present at the private marriage, and see her son before he left the west. In the meantime he impressed on the wounded man the need of the greatest caution and secrecy, and then, stifling the anxiety he could not but feel, bade him farewell just as dawn was breaking, and saddling his horse, rode quietly back to Hereford before anyone else in Bosbury was stirring.

Waghorn, with a grim smile on his sleeping face, dreamt of the bonfire he would make of the great Prayer-book in the church. The Vicar wandered in a happy valley where wonderful remains of pre-historic times delighted his astonished eyes. Hilary had visions of standing beside Gabriel in the porch, where in those days weddings were celebrated, and softly breathing the “I will,” which should make her indeed his wife. And Gabriel, in wakeful happiness, lay watching the light as it stole softly through the narrow window of his hiding-place, musing over the words the Vicar had daily used when he visited him:


O Lord, save Thy servant; which putteth his trust in Thee.

Send him help from Thy holy place: and evermore mightily defend

him.

Let the enemy have no advantage of him; nor the wicked approach to

hurt him.

Be unto him, O Lord, a strong tower; from the face of his enemy.


Such a strong tower, such a helper and defender, must be, in his degree, prove to his promised wife; and he looked the future in the face far more soberly than in the first days of their betrothal long ago, but with a calm manliness which augured well for their new life.

The Vicar’s anxieties, though lessened by Dr. Harford’s reassuring report as to Gabriel’s health, were by no means over. He went about continually with the uneasy consciousness that Waghorn was not only a dangerous fanatic, but actually a spy, and, as Hilary had discovered in the orchard, a spy who had not scrupled to aid such a man as Colonel Norton.

One evening, when as usual he had repaired to the tower at dusk, taking with him the food Gabriel would need during the night, he found himself a prey to the most unwonted nervousness. He unlocked the door and summoned Hilary from her day’s watching in the tower room, waiting with restless impatience while she bade her lover good-night and crept down the ladder.

But the sight of the girl’s happy face cheered him, and he greeted her with a smile.

“I believe you revel in these ghostly crossings of the churchyard,” he said, wrapping her long cloak more closely about her. “I will be with you anon when I have had a word with Gabriel.”

He watched her till she had disappeared in the Vicarage garden, then paid a visit to the invalid, who was far from sharing Hilary’s enjoyment of her risky journeys to and fro, and always liked to hear that she had gained the Vicarage in safety.

“When I think of all that you are doing for me, and of the danger of discovery, it makes me eager to be gone,” he said, watching his kindly host as he placed within reach all that he could need.

“Nay, I’m in no haste to get rid of you,” said the Vicar, with a smile. “You forget that I shall be left a lonely old bachelor when you and Hilary fare forth on your wedding journey.”
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