A little sidelong eddy, it seemed, from the great tide of public events had washed up into our quiet backwater or creek of country life, setting us all agog with the tragic issues of death and dishonor. But the flutter and swirl of it had now drifted back into the main stream, leaving us, not indeed the same as we had been, but by contrast quieter than before. During some three years, for us at Drayton it might be said, with a measure of truth, that nothing happened. Yet of those things which I have recounted there were several consequences, so notable in effect upon our hearts and minds, that it were perhaps more true to say, in that same metaphor, that, after the first commotion, the tide maintained a steady though hourly imperceptible rise.
When I knew that Kirke and all his men were safely on their way for Taunton, I lost no time in riding across country in a bee-line to Royston Chase, which I found shut up in charge of three old servants. From these I learned that Ned's gray had that morning been discovered cropping a breakfast from the grass about his own stable door, and, while assuring them of their young master's safety, beyond, perhaps, what I truly felt myself, I bade them keep quiet tongues both about the horse and his master, who lay for safety, I said, in these perilous times, at the city of Oxford. Nor did I in truth lie to these good people, who from my manner of speaking did well perceive this was but the tale they must tell, I knowing what it were best they should not. Of the chief among them I had the promise that on the expected arrival of the Lady Mary my father should at once be advertised of it. And thence home, a little lighter in spirit to know that his horse was safe, and found my father musing heavily in his great chair in the hall, where the night before he had so feasted our enemies. At first it was a hard matter to bring him to talk, but at last, under stress of coaxing and such tricks of blandishment as I have practised from a child to win him from this heaviness of spirit, he broke silence.
"The times are hard when a Drayton must in his old age take to lying, little daughter Phil," he said.
"And his daughter in the days of her youth," I answered merrily. "But in truth 't is little I trouble myself for the falsehood. Whose, sir, upon the Day of Judgment, will be the blame of those untruths that were told to save from a death both cruel and contrary to law so kind and Christian a gentleman as my Ned?"
Sir Michael smiled and rallied me on that word of possession.
"Ho, ho!" said he; "'my Ned,' indeed! He is by this in Holland, little lass, and already, it is like enough, hath seen much that may put an unbroke filly out of his mind." Then, growing grave, "'There is something rotten,'" he said, quoting from Mr. Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet (for this play, and others of that writer, were his chief reading), "'There is something rotten in the state of Denmark,' when honest youths must needs kill soldiers of their sovereign, and old men and young maids must trump up a pack of lying tales to save a good lad from rope without jury. I would I had died when the late King did come again to his own."
"And what, then, of poor Philippa?" I piteously asked.
"Why, then," said my father, smiling on me with a countenance of great benignity, "poor Philippa had not been, and poor Michael had missed his best gift of God. So let us leave it to Him, dear maid, both for what is to be and for how much thy father shall see of it." And it was long thereafter before he would again talk to me of public matters; but I knew by his face, which to me was ever print of an open character, that he thought much, and that a strife was in his soul, waged between his life-long loyalty to the house of Stuart and the new thoughts born of his pity for the land that he loved as they had never loved but themselves.
If my father had hated in his life any man, it was Oliver, the late Protector. Yet thrice within the year that followed, when some neighbor would speak of the low opinion into which we were come upon the continent of Europe, or when the news-letter would drop some covert hint of the subservience of St. James to Versailles, he said: "It had not been thus, or so, if Old Noll were alive." And once to Mr. Greenlow: "Say what you will, Parson, Cromwell was an Englishman, and a brave one. I would he had been born of a queen."
And if the circumstances of Ned's evasion brought some change to Sir Michael's way of thinking, they caused no less an alteration in the value set upon his daughter by one whose good opinion I had much desired and was now at last to obtain.
Three days after that vain inquest upon the body of the dead ensign word came from Royston that my Lady Mary was arrived, and, thinking there to have found her son, and finding neither him nor his news, was fallen into great distress of mind. Sir Michael, being now somewhat better of his indisposition, made shift to ride back with the servant, and straightway gave her, I think, full account of all that had been done by her son and for him. But, his tale ceasing with Ned's departure upon Skewbald Meg, it can scarce be imagined he brought much of comfort to that proud lady and doting mother.
He returned the same afternoon, telling me in words less of his converse with Lady Mary than his face had already betrayed ere his feet were out of the stirrups.
Now, about the hour of ten the next morning, I was idling on the south terrace, feeding our doves and playing with the dogs, when my eye was caught by a strange fellow most uncouthly dressed that led a horse up the avenue. Nor did it take long gazing to see from the large maculation of its sides that the horse was Skewbald Meg; the man proving, on closer observation and his own rough introduction, to be a petticoated seaman of Bridport. But to our enquiries after him who had lately ridden the mare he would answer nothing. He knew, he said, naught but that one who was no longer this side the water had told him the horse was owned at Drayton, in Somerset, and he would get twenty shillings for the bringing it home; that he had done his best to con the craft from the poop, but found she would ever move starn foremost when he went on deck, and so had taken her in tow; and he hoped the lady would, an the patchwork quilt of a beast were indeed hers, not forget that he had walked all the way but two miles, which two were indeed the sorest of the road; had forgot (on further question) what town he was from, had forgot how far it was, but thought he could find his road again; had forgot the gentleman's name that sent him, and even, he thought, his own. And Sir Michael laughed at the cunning of the fellow's folly, paid him well, and bade him go home and find his memory. So, having drunk his ale, he trudged off with a sea bow and a twinkle in his eye more knowing than his words, but paused to twist his face over his shoulder and his thumb significantly toward the mare, saying he thought her mane in sore need of a good combing; and so off, leaving me sick at heart for news, that, pulling through the knots of Meg's matted neck-hair, I did speedily encounter in form of a letter securely tied beneath the tangled mass. And, the string cut, seal broken, and paper unfolded, this is what we read within:
"To my very dear Friends and Saviors both, SIR MICHAEL DRAYTON and MISTRESS PHILIPPA, his most sweet Daughter.
"I write within thirty hours of leaving you, having already found a ship to set me beyond reach of harm.
"Good Meg did carry me well, and is, I hope, little worse of the twenty mile she ran in her never-changing stride, with never a false step and scarce one sweat drop; and I do truly think she hath eyes of a cat. 'T is not her fault if her back be first cousin to a handsaw, nor mine that saddles grow not in the hedgerows hereabout.
"It was two of the morning when I roused from his sleep old Jeremiah Soames, that I have known since Lady Mary did bring me, a sickly child, to Bridport for the sea-bathing. His boat is now about sailing for the fishing, and in the meantime Meg has been well hid in his curing-shed, and I in his little upper chamber. He would not, for caution, advance his hour to drop out of harbor, but once he has a fair offing will make a course for the French coast, or, if the wind serve, up Channel through the Straits for a Dutch port—Flushing perhaps, or Rotterdam. I have yet no clear purpose for the future, but already some thought to obtain a commission to serve under the great John Sobiesky against the Turk. It were some pleasure, in these days when Christians will be ever cutting each the other's throat for cause of heresy, to rise a little above the policy of dog-eating dogs, and to stand with men of all opinions for Christ against the Infidel.
"To my mother I must not now run the danger of writing, for since I know not surely where she is, whether in London or at Royston, the letter might well fall into other hands. So I will ask you, my two friends (the two best I do suppose that ever man had), by some means to advise her of all that has happened, and to convey to her my great love and duty. To her at Royston I will write so soon as I shall be landed, and in certainty of what is best to be done.
"To you, Philippa, my old comrade, the letter all for your private perusal that is in my mind must remain unwritten. 'T is not fit I should now ask more of you than the life I have received at your hands in the moment when my own were stained with blood. For, though I do piously trust it is rather the stain that a soldier must bear than the murderer's, sinking through till the soul itself is spotted, yet will I now say no word but what your kind father's eyes may read in the same moment with your own. Yet, even with a price, 't is very like, set on my head, let me be in thought your old comrade, that do in exile most bitterly regret I saw not your face of late, guessing from the mellow notes of your voice how fair it has become.
"To you, Sir Michael, I would say, knowing not what report has run of the deed I did, that I truly believe yourself had done no less, placed as I was placed. I meant not indeed to kill the man, but, when I remember, can scarce find it in my heart to be sorry that he died.
"To both of you I am grateful beyond any proof of words. If the chance come you will know I speak truth, and am indeed the true servant of you both till death and after.
"E. ROYSTON."
At another time the approach of a thing so rare among us as a coach had taken my mind off the most ingenious tale or history ever printed. But the tale is not written, nor like to be, that could for me vie in interest with this simple letter. Being then in my second reading of it, while Sir Michael, content with one perusal over my shoulder, had in kindness walked away along the terrace to the steps of the great door, leaving me to squeeze a second cup of sweetness, as it were, for my sole drinking, out of that letter, I neither knew that a coach had come, nor that my father was leading from it in my direction the Lady Mary Royston. And I, looking up in great joy of the letter, encountered with my eyes, in which I doubt not the light of my happiness was plain, her noble and austere countenance frowning upon me in manifest displeasure. But I was not dashed in my spirits, as perhaps she intended, by the gloom of her regard, partly because in serious things my father had long ceased to use me as a child, and partly because I guessed that, with his habit of kindness that was ever mindful of the small matters that do please women, he had left to me the pleasant task to tell of the letter. So I dropped my lady the finest courtesy I was mistress of, very freely thereafter smiling in her face, the letter whipt behind my back.
"Mistress Drayton seems but little cast down with all these terrible doings, Sir Michael," said her ladyship.
My father smiled grimly, but left reply to me, who answered: "Nay, dear madam, for we have but now received this news of Mr. Royston, which I believe as much intended for your ladyship as for my father and me." And, seeing by his face my father was willing, I handed her the letter.
With little courtesy she seized, and with great greediness perused, the letter, and her face was the face of a woman that tears at food after a great fasting; yet midway, at that passage, as I suppose, wherein I was peculiarly addressed, she looked from the letter to me in a manner to call to my mind those words which, in my eagerness to give ease to the mother's anxiety, I had forgotten the son to have used. With that memory, and under her gaze, the blood came hotly to my face, and I was glad when her eyes speedily fell again to the letter, which when she had finished, the heart of the woman within broke down the iron gates of pride and jealousy that had shut in the mother, even as they had so long shut out the friends of her son; for she now opened her arms to me, taking me to her bosom, and weeping over me tears of joy, while she blessed us, father and daughter, for the saving of her boy's life, declaring herself to be a jealous and wicked old woman, but, now she knew him safe, a very happy one, if her friends and Ned's would but forgive her.
When after a while she was soothed to a calmer temper of mind, Lady Mary turned her regard to my person and countenance, saying to Sir Michael that I had grown out of all knowledge, which I thought little wonderful, since it was some eight years since she had set eyes upon me.
"So this young madam," she said, patting me on the shoulder kindly enough, yet still with the grand air of the Court dame to a rustic damsel, "this is the child I have all these years envied and feared! I do trust, my dear, we shall be fast friends." Then after a little pause she added, as if in fear she had said too much: "But I would not have you think too gravely, Mistress Philippa, of what is said in that letter."
"That, madam, I could not do," I replied, leaving her in some doubt, it seemed, of my meaning. For, after a moment's musing:
"I will be plain with you, my child," she said. "I mean, although I am much your debtor, and do desire your love, I would not have you look to marry my son. He is yet but a lad, and I have a different purpose for him."
"Indeed, madam," I said with a little courtesy, "that must be, I think, as he wills."
"But you, my dear, who risked your good name of late to save his life, must be, I believe, of the mettle to deny your own happiness, were such denial plainly for his good," said her ladyship; and I was glad that the last week had taught me in some measure to conceal my thought.
"Nay, dear madam," I answered, holding my anger close within my heart, "I cannot believe that you think any woman will deny your son."
Whereat my dear father laughed softly, and my lady looked upon me searchingly, as wondering what animal this might be that looked so tender, and yet was not wholly innocent of claws. Her good humor, however, was speedily recovered, although it was long before she spoke again on that delicate subject.
But she kept her purpose of friendship, giving me constant and kindly welcome when I would ride over to Royston, and coming herself once or more in a month to us at Drayton. And in the two or three years that followed her son's departure it was to her kind instruction and wholesome advice that I owed what advance I made in manner, bearing, and knowledge of a greater world than I had seen; she was, in short, just such a friend as my father's daughter had need of; for there be many things women learn only from each other; and, knowing by some intuition of nature the need I was in, I was glad indeed, for all her intermittent asperities, that it was Ned's mother that did take up the task of leading me from the way of the hoyden into something of the grace of womanhood.
As a pupil, indeed, she found in me little food of complaint, but would be out with me for weeks at a time if Sir Michael received a letter from Ned out of his turn, as she counted, or one that covered more paper than her last. But I fearing her not at all, and she being a lady of high courage and loving fearlessness in another, by degrees she came to love me, and to forego much of her privilege of unreasoning displeasure.
The manners in which she was bred were more akin to the severer model of the reign of the first Charles than proper to this lighter age; but she had never been wholly cut off from the great world, and, knowing well what was doing and what changes making, she professed inculcating a judicious modification of old and new, that should leave a young woman open neither to the ridiculous charge of aping her grandmother nor to the censure of shaping herself upon the frail and beautiful women of a dissolute Court. My wardrobe, too, at my father's desire, she took in hand. And I confess that this was my favorite branch of study with my new teacher; and when I remember the gowns that were made in Taunton and the two that were fetched all the way from London, and the changing, turning, fitting, shaping, and trying done at Royston by my lady, her woman, and myself, I am free to admit that this matter of gowns was perhaps for more in bringing about our lasting friendship than any other thing that passed between us. For here my lady was not, as in the more serious domain of manners, under a desire of reverting to the days of her own upbringing, displaying rather the perennial youth that, behind the deepening wrinkles of age, lurks ever fresh in the feminine heart. She was in the choice of my attire all for the newest mode, holding, she would say, each fashion as it arose right and seemly, if set out upon the person of one that had the wit and discretion to fit new forms to her own needs and the counsels of modesty. I wish I may have done a little to lighten for Lady Mary the tedium of those days while Ned was from home, since I am deeply her debtor, as a maid must be to her who takes up, in how slight soever a manner, the office of the mother she has lost.
During the months of September and October of that same year we lived in great horror and dread of my Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys, whose terrible circuit, I thank God, it does not fall to me even in part to describe. For this storm passed us in Drayton and Royston safely by, though we both saw and heard, as it were, the flash of its lightning and roll of its thunder. The doings, however, of that wicked and shameless man, so terribly disgracing his high office and that of him from whom he derived it, seemed to hold a ghastly and irresistible attraction for my father. Every report, printed, written, or spoken, that he could come at he devoured. The concern he showed in all this cruel travesty of justice began with the report that reached him in September of the trial and execution in Winchester of the Lady Alice Lisle—a case too well known to need my telling, except in so far as it affected Sir Michael.
John Lisle, a man high in the military service of the Protector Cromwell, had once done great kindness to my father, who had come to know both him and his wife, and to regard them with an affection saddened only by the part the husband had adopted in the affairs of the nation. The news of what he called her murder moved him profoundly, and he pursued the Chief Justice in his mind, as it were, throughout his Bloody Assize, as one who waits to see a bolt fall from Heaven on a malefactor beyond the reach of justice merely human. Of that martyred lady I heard him one day speak in accents of deep sorrow to Madam Royston, who, though going with him heartily in abhorrence of the crime done in the name of justice, took quick exception to the title commonly bestowed on Mistress Lisle.
"For I do marvel, dear Sir Michael," she said, "that you, being of such principles as you are, should make use of a title bestowed by Cromwell in blasphemous parody of that ennobling power which on earth is granted to the Lord's Anointed alone."
"If God ever sent a lady on this sinful earth," said the old man, with a kind of holy exaltation in his countenance, "Alice Lisle was she. And by this, Lady Mary, she bears higher title and brighter crown than the highest of her murderers. And I pray that the fate of Gomorrah may not fall on the land where such things are done." And Lady Mary, perceiving well who was intended by that word murderer, dared not reply, but marvelled much afterwards, as I knew by words she would from time to time let fall, whither my father's musings were leading him. Which was, indeed, but to the same goal to which the tide of events was leading us all.
Now ever since the hanging of those two men in Drayton village, although Peter Emmet had continued to heat and hammer iron in the usual way, nothing had been heard of Simon, his father, nor of Prudence, his daughter. But one fine morning in mid-October, when my Lord Chief Justice was well back in London, receiving much honor and reward for the evil he had wrought and the grief he had left among us, but no thanks from any man for the only good thing he ever did by us in the west (I mean the leaving us), as I was going to the kitchen, my father being not yet out of his chamber, I passed by that little dark room we did use to call the steward's. But whether it were butler's pantry, museum of weapons out of all date and fashion, or the place where a steward should hold his audits, pay his wages, and keep his books, a stranger had been hard put to it to tell. I marked that the door stood partly open, a thing unusual since we had none to use it, and, peering within, perceived old Simon poring over a book of accounts the most naturally in the world. Indeed, had it not been for some trembling of the hand that held the pen, and the great emaciation of his countenance, I might almost have forgotten he had been absent at all, so fit and proper was his presence there. And the thought of this put in my head, I think, the best and kindest manner of welcoming his return; for I just nodded my head to him, and said: "Ah, Simon, 't is a fair morning, is it not? I trust the old Naseby wound and the rheumatism are better." And the old man turned to me a face full of gratitude, that showed a fresh-healed scar upon the forehead and a shaking smile about the lips.
"I am well recovered, pretty mistress," he said; then perceiving, perhaps, that in both dress and manner I was grown deserving of a more formal address, he added, "Madam Philippa, I would say."
And so I left him in haste to persuade my father to accept this aged prodigal's return even as I had done. And thus it came about that Simon Emmet slipped back into his old place among us without question asked; and I at least should never certainly have known he had been with Monmouth, nor that he was the man that did escape that night from the barn, if I had not, no long time after his return, taken his granddaughter Prudence into the house to be my handmaid, and in some sort, as it proved, my companion. For she came to me, having returned to her father's house on the same day as Simon to us, and begged me, in pretty rustic manner, and with tears in her pretty eyes, that I would take her into my service, being determined, she said, to serve, if she might, her who had saved the brave gentleman that had so nearly given his life for her protection. And she proved indeed a good servant, a merry companion, and afterwards, upon a great occasion, as will be seen, a friend not to be despised.
In the month of November there came to Sir Michael a long letter from Mr. Edward Royston. It was dated from The Hague, and contained matter of much interest to us all. I see that I have here written his name in style more formal than I have hitherto generally used. And I let it so stand, to serve as a sign of the reserve to which I had by degrees found myself obliged, at least in speaking of him. For to Lady Mary, as was but natural after those words of hers which I have already given, I never mentioned him if it could in any way be avoided, while of Prue I was too proud to seek sympathy, although I loved best her prattle when it was of Ned.
And I knew that Sir Michael had been hurt more than a little in his pride by that same speech of Lady Mary, and sought to make me forego all thought of her son by speaking of him only in the rare and painful manner that some use of the dead. Yet when he saw my face, eager, I doubt not, against my will, as he looked up from the last words of this letter, he rose and left the room, the letter lying there before me on the table, muttering reluctantly some words to the effect that I should read it if I pleased, an the subject had interest for me. So read it I very speedily and hungrily did, learning that after his safe arrival in Holland (of which we had a month before been advised through a letter to his mother) he had made his way to The Hague; that there he had sought out a good old merchant that had been a correspondent in business of the late Mr. Nathaniel Royston, and remembered him, as did many another, with much kindness, on account as much of his great sobriety of judgment and honesty of dealing as of the many successful ventures they had together undertaken.
Now this Mynheer van Bierstenhagen belonged, in that country where party spirit runs so high, to the faction that was the more patriotically opposed to the influence and aggressions of His Majesty King Lewis of France—to that party, I mean, which followed after the Stadtholder, who was that Prince of Orange that had married, when I was child of nine years, the Princess Mary, the eldest child of our reigning King James. "And when it is remembered," wrote Mr. Royston, "that the Prince is himself the grandson of King Charles I., 't is little wonder that all the talk here among the exiled and malcontent English and Scotch is of the Princess Mary and her husband, she being next in succession to the throne and he so nearly allied." And the letter went on to tell how he had secured, through the influence of Mynheer van Bierstenhagen, a favorable introduction to the Prince, had told him his story, and received from him a commission in one of his regiments of horse. For this fat old Dutch merchant was held at the Court of The Hague in high esteem for his wealth, his zeal for the public good, and chiefly, no doubt, added Mr. Royston, for the reason that a wealthy burgher on the Prince's side in politics was not to be slighted, when most of his class were of French leanings, the Stadtholder's chief support being among the common people.
But in all this not one word, beyond a civil message of regard, for poor Philippa, who spent some tears and much thought to come at an answer to the question, whether her old comrade began to forget what she must ever remember, or was but obstinately adhering to his resolve to say no word of those feelings which he held forbidden by the cause of his flight out of England. No answer could I get to this for all my vexing of my mind with questions, till one day Prue did find me in tears, and contrived, my pride being a little weakened with a consciousness of swollen and blubbered cheeks, to get some part of my woes from me. Whereupon she nodded sagely her little head, and asked if he was one wont to change.
"For sure, Mistress Phil," she said, "you have by all accounts known him long enough to tell."
In some indignation I answered he was not.
"I thought he was not, indeed," says Prue; "and you may take my word for it, madam, he but waits to become a great captain in this army of the Dutch to come riding home and claim you, as great as a lord."
At this I was at first much pleased, perceiving how likely a thing it was that Ned should so act; and next I was angry with Prudence for her wisdom. But when I petulantly would know how she came to read him more justly than I, she said a little sadly that it was not her own case she was judging, and saw the clearer for being but an onlooker. For which I kissed her, and so an end.
There is no need for me to tell ill what others have told well; the history, I mean, of the three years before the coming of His Highness of Orange. I suppose I had taken little note of the affairs of the country had I not heard much talk of them between my dear father and Mr. Telgrove. And as time went on it was curious to note how both would make me a party to their discussion of public matters, the reason being at first, I think, that their differences required an arbiter, and an ignorant girl was better than none, having indeed this advantage when fulfilling the office of judge, that there was no need to abide by her decision; and later, when they had begun to approach, if not an agreement, at least a temporary alliance, they would still be drawing me in because it had become a thing of custom. I learned then in this manner more of the state of the nation than if I had read every word of the London Gazette as it appeared in the capital; and when, in the spring of the year 1687, the country was deeply perturbed by the publication of the Declaration of Indulgence, which my father and Mr. Telgrove abhorred in common, I was able to bring the two old men at last to a position of sympathy—representing to my tutor that my father could never wish him to forego such liberties as the Indulgence offered; to my father that, in his heart, Mr. Telgrove scarce grudged the same to those of my dear mother's faith; and to both, that they were united to refuse a boon thus illegally offered, lest a door should so be opened to greater evils than the Indulgence pretended to cure. They said I was a little stateswoman, kissed the one my face, and the other my hand, and joined their own in the closest grip of friendship. Yet all this time my father neither let drop nor allowed one word of changing the head that wore the crown, while Mr. Telgrove was, I think, too wise to press him in that direction.
And so, from London and all parts of the country, we heard week after week that things went from bad to worse; while at home I was riding new horses, prinking myself out in new dresses, and reading new books when I could get them, and the old when I must; till I began at last to fancy, I suppose, that I was grown a woman, and a person of no little importance and consideration.