Wearyholme; or, Seedtime and Harvest: a tale of the Restoration of Charles the Second

Preface

. 0 l&fljMlHIS story deals with the showiest, giddiest, _6aj£3| saddest period of English history. There are many periods more tumultuous, but none more lamentable : many wherein the nation bore more suffering, but perhaps none wherein she drifted so far from God, or so near to her own destruction. Yet how much of this was the result of her previous policy ? What principle and what Protestantism could she expect from a youth whom she drove from her shores to dwell where and as he could, whose natural asylum was with Roman Catholic relatives, and whose unsettled life was exactly the thing to ruin one of his easy but vacillating disposition ? Instead of casting all the blame upon him who was as much sinned against as sinning, let us thank God Preface. VI that things were no worse, and take care that we never repeat the blunder.

The suggestive place-name which forms the title is not of my invention. It occurs on the Patent Roll for 1470-1. The question may not unreasonably be asked, why not one Evangelical clergyman is introduced into this story. The sad truth is that in 1662 an Evangelical clergyman had no existence. The best style of man at that time in the Church is sketched in Dr. Middleton. But Mr. Annesley was a far commoner type than he, and sadly too common a class is portrayed in Mr. Batelier. There were few Sidney Vernons, but many Mr. Hunters, though often more stern and severe in manner; and there were many of Mr. Morland's type. The very men who in happier and more elastic times would have formed an Evangelical party in the Church were precisely the men whom the Church drove out of her pale under the Act of Uniformity.

Of that suicidal deed she will carry the scar to her grave. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. HOW THEY WENT A-SWEETENING . . I II. THE KING HAS HIS AIN AGAIN. ... 34 III. "THEY FOLLOW ME" . . . . .60 IV. IN WHICH SUNDRY THINGS ARE SETTLED . . Sj V. FROM SOMERSET TO WILTSHIRE . . . UI VI. WHEREIN SEVERAL PEOPLE COME OUT . . 1 39 VII. HOW PINK MOHAIR PERTURBED THE CHURCH . 169 VIII. HOSEA TURNS THE TABLES .... 202 IX. OLIVIA MEETS HER FATE .... 228 X. WHEREIN TOM ASTONISHES HIS WORLD . . 250 XI. WHAT THE CONVENTICLE ACT DID . . . 274 XII. HOW SHE CAME HOME ..... 308 XIII. THE END OF A LOST LIFE .... 333 XIV. HIS DESIRE UPON HIS ENEMIES . . . WEARYHOLME.

Chapter I. Now They Went A-sweetening

"'Tis the indirect, The unpurposed issues of each change or motion, That are the most enduring." — Rev. Horatius Bonar, D.D. |aByS|HE Reverend William Middleton, Doctor of laUs-Jl Divinity, and Vicar of St. Michael's Church, Bath, sat in his study, at a table well filled with books and papers. He was a tail, portly man, of somewhat imposing presence, and about sixty years of age; he wore a black silk cassock, and a black velvet skull-cap; he was great in the extraction of Greek roots, and was dimly surmised to have a smattering of Hebrew; he read prayers with pompous stiffness, and preached sermons which were intelligible Wearyholme. 10 to about six people in his congregation. Underneath this exterior, he had a kind heart, a simple, child like nature, a want of discrimination in reading human characters, — Greek characters were much more in his line, — and a general dislike to inter ruption and interference.

The bringing out a new edition of Apuleius was work : the visit of a church warden on parish business was a hindrance, and a very unpleasant one too. The Vicar was a wealthy man— all the wealthier because he was an old bachelor : but he was no miser, and was very ready to relieve the material wants of those around him. His religious and political views might be summed up in a few words. Religion was a highly respect able thing : to be without it was exceedingly low and disreputable, yet to carry it to an extreme was almost as much so. In politics he was a Cavalier, for it was on the third of March, 1660, that the Vicar was thus seated in his study. But he was not vehemently nor obtrusively on what had for fifteen years been the losing side. In point of fact, while theoretically he loved monarchy, and hated demo cracy, yet practically he cared little who reigned or did not reign, so long as he was free to sit in hi? study and pore over his Apuleius.

This being the case, when the Book of Common Prayer was proscribed, and numbers of the clergy quitted their benefices rather than resign it, the Vicar of St. Michael's remained Vicar of St. Michael's still. He thoroughly approved of the proscribed book, and he much disliked extempore prayer in public, for which exercise nature had not by any means fitted him : but what he disliked more was any disturbance of his ease. It was not, after all, any matter of principle. Why people could not be content to leave things as they were was a profound enigma to the Vicar : but if they could not, why should he put himself out? In short, he had hither to ruled his life by the comfortable Irish motto — " Take it aisy : and when you can't take it aisy, take it as aisy as you can." Once upon a time, this gentleman had three sisters living with him, each of whom in succession had married and departed from the vicarage.

Martha and Rebecca had both married "well" — in other words, they had each wedded a handsome house, a quantity of land, and a competent fortune, accompanied unavoidably by a gentleman. In both cases, the bridegroom was a country gentleman living in the neighbouring county of Wiltshire, and their Wearyholme. 12 estates lay about eleven miles apart — a distance regarded in 1660 as much more than in 1883. Catherine had not done so well. She was the youngest and prettiest of the sisters, and she had chosen to throw herself away on the Rev. Matthew Hunter, Lecturer at St. James's Church, — a man of rather insignificant appearance, very small means, and tendencies which had been more likely to win promotion in past times than in present ones. Catherine asserted that she was perfectly happy, and had not the least sensation of envy of her more fortunate sisters.

And the ladies at Bath " grounded " their fans, and whispered behind them that of course the poor thing must be expected to say so : she would not like to allow it, you know ! Dr. Middleton had just reached a deeply interest ing passage in the writings of St. Cyril, and, with his finger on a word, was searching a different edition to discover if any critical variorum reading existed, when the study door was gently opened, and a bright curly head put in. "Uncle!" "Tom!" gasped the Vicar, making a nervous clutch at his inkstand. " Overturn the Government and demolish the Commonwealth, if you like: but don't upset my inkstand ! " The curly head came forward, showing itself to be set on the shoulders of a lively, healthy-looking boy of twelve years old. "All right, Uncle," said Tom, popping into a chair, and setting both elbows on the table, the left about a quarter of a yard from the " fountain of ideas" which the Vicar was still grasping.

"You can let go of him. I'll treat him as if he were my grand father." " Is that all ? " murmured the Vicar. But he let go his hold. " Well, Tom, what is the matter now ? " " The matter now, Uncle Will, is, — Will you lend us Pattypans ? " Be it understood that the request was not for the loan of the Vicar's kitchen utensils, but of his horse, upon which Tom had bestowed the euphoni ous name of Pattypans for reasons best known to himself. The Vicar's shake of the head scarcely said No, when his smile so decidedly meant Yes. "You will bring him back with one shoe on, and two broken knees," said he. " I'll bring him back with all his legs on, and all Wearyholme. 14 his shoes too, you'll see," was Tom's response. " Besides, I'm not going to ride him, Uncle Will : 'tis Grace and Deb." "Oh, if Grace be the rider, and not you, that alters the matter.

And pray when and where is the journey to be ? " "We are going to pass the day at Farmer Donne's, while the house is a-sweetening." " Who are we ? " " Father, and Grace, and Deb, and me." "Can your Mother do without Grace ?" "That's just what Grace says — that she can't. But Mother fancies Grace looks pale, and she says it will do her good to go, and Livy must stay to help sweeten instead of her. Livy's as cross as two sticks about it." "Livy ought to be ashamed. Has your Father got a horse ? — and how are you going ? " "Oh, I shall trudge it — set out before they do. Yes, the apothecary has promised to lend Father his white mare." " He had better have had my horse," said the Vicar. " However, that is for his settling. Yes Tom, Grace and Deb shall have Pattypans ; you may tell Warner so. But now, don't you play any IIoiu they zoetit a-Sweetening. 15 of your tricks on him I If I hear Tom, Tom !

O f>uer ncqitissitite ! — that inkstand ! " Tom was disappearing through the door, and the poor Vicar sat in a condition of voiceless horror, witching the slow sure progress of the Stygian stream as it silently overwhelmed written sheets and printed volumes alike with relentless fate. He recovered the momentary paralysis of his faculties just in time to snatch St. Cyril from the impending flood — that priceless book, marked with three Rs as one of the rarest editions of the Fathers any where to be found ! And it was just placed in safety when that incarnation of mischief, Tom, once more popped his curly head in at the door, and struck worse dismay to the Vicar's heart than ever. "I say. Uncle Will! What will Mrs. MTarlin sav I " All, what would Mrs. M'Parlin say? — that dread ful woman who meekly styled herself the Vicar's serving-woman, and was in reality the most abso lute tyrant that ever ruled a poor bachelor with a rod of iron !

The unhappy Vicar pulled off his skull-cap, and in his perplexity and vexation rubbed his wig till it came fairly round over his nose. His Wearyholme. 16 very blood ran cold as he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, accompanied by a peculiar creaking sound which he knew from sad experience to belong to the shoes of Mrs. M'Parlin. In his terror at the imminent discovery he lost his head (some people said that outside of the Fathers and the Greek roots he had not much to lose), and nervously flung his handkerchief over the black pool upon the table. " Master Tom, he said as you wanted me, sir," came in the oily tones of Mrs. M'Parlin from the door. " I'm in 'opes as it's to dust this chamber, which it never gets none, and how any clergyman can bear to sit in such a mess / don't know ! Them spiders up in that corner's just as thick as black berries, and thicker.

Why, whatever! — I declare! you've been and let the ink over ! Well, if that's not enough to break a poor woman's heart, I should just like to know what was! And all a-sopping down on the carpet, and the table-cover fair done for, for I'm sure it won't wash, and I told that Hopkins so when he sold it me, the old hypocrite ! — and if you preached at him while Michaelmas, he'd get never a bit better, I'm certain sure. — Now, Dr. Middleton, if you please, just stand out of the way, unless you'll make yourself useful bundling of them musty old books together, and all them flying papers — 0 deary, deary me ! Couldn't you have upset that there thing when it warn't washing day ? " The Vicar was past that stage of usefulness which his housekeeper thus considerately suggested. He managed to restore his wig to its accustomed place, but otherwise he sat and watched his Atropos, while she ruthlessly shut up book after book, con taining passages which had taken hours to hunt out, bundled together into one incongruous heap sheets of half-a-dozen different MSS., and generally con ducted herself in that female manner which is enough to make a scholar's blood boil within him.

There sat the Vicar, clasping his St. Cyril, as though it were the one ark of safety in the waste of waters around him, the sole atom of salvage which he could rescue from the wreck of all things. " Now, whatever did you upset it for, Doctor ? " demanded his tyrant, as she whipped off the wet table-cover. " It was Tom ! " said the Vicar faintly. " Bless that boy ! " ejaculated Atropos — not mean ing it in the least. " Such an imp of mischief I never did see ! There ! and I left him in the B Wearyholme. 18 kitchen, looking as sleek as a pussy cat, and what he'll have done while my back's turned — O deary, deary ! If a poor woman could be in two places at once! Now, I say, Doctor, do put them books away like a decent man — I'm sure 'tis the least you can do after upsetting that ink on washing-day — while I go and see what that young blade is after.

I'll be after him if I find" After him she went, while with a heart-rending sigh the unhappy Vicar slowly gathered together and restored to the bookshelves his precious books, wiping the ink from them with the only article ready to his hand, — his white, or rather black and white, cambric handkerchief. In the kitchen no Tom was found. Warner, the Doctor's factotum, reported that he hadn't seed young Master. But the pig, varying its diet by a mouthful of daffodils, was cir cumstantial evidence of the strongest character; and so was Pattypans, who stood whisking his tail in the paddock, and wearing Mrs. M'Parlin's very best Sunday cap trimmed with pillow lace of her own making. The third scrap of evidence, in the form of scouring sand in the sugar basin, was not discovered until later. " He's a smart un, is young Master !

" said Warner. "He'll smart when I can catch him!" growled Mrs. M'Parlin with considerable emphasis. Meanwhile Tom, the hopeful son and heir of the Lecturer at St. James's, was blithely singing as he ran down Stawles Street on his way to Abbey Lane. The Rev. Matthew Hunter dwelt in a very little house at the farther end of that cul-de-sac, which abutted on the city wall close to South Gate. Tom passed in through the open door, and dashed into the parlour, on the right hand, where his mother stood cutting out some shirts from a large piece of linen, and his father, with a quantity of papers in one hand, was just leaving the room. " Gently, Tom ! " suggested Mr. Hunter, adding, evidently in pursuance of some previous remark to his wife, — "My dear, ' necessitas non habet legem'" " What's that, I wonder ?

" murmured Mrs. Hunter, when her husband had closed the door. " It means, Mother," responded Tom, perched on the end of a cupboard, " ' necessity is not hay, but legends.' " "You think yourself very smart, Master Tom, don't you ? " was his mother's answer, as she went on cutting. "And you fancy you have taken your mother in finely, eh ? Not this time, my young gentleman. Wearyholme. 20 If you were to get down from that cupboard, and tell me if Uncle Will is going to lend us his horse, it might be more to the purpose." Tom dropped down at once : for though she might give her orders in a playful way, Mrs. Hunter always took care that they were obeyed. "Yes, Mother, we may have Pattypans, on con dition that you'll make us some cheesecakes." "Did Uncle Will make the condition?" Tom pulled a face.

" Is your uncle's cold better ? " asked his mother. "Never asked him." " O Tom ! didn't you hear Mother tell you to ask him ? " remonstrated his eldest sister, who sat sewing in the window-seat. "Tom is subject to deafness," said Mrs. Hunter gravely. " I am sorry for it, but I fear boxing his ears will be the only cure." Having finished her cutting-out, she now gathered up the linen remaining, and departed. " Couldn't you run and ask now, Tom ? " hinted his sister. " Could, but would rather not," said Tom with an expressive facial contortion. How they went a- Sweet en ing. 21 " You have been doing mischief, Tom ! " said his second sister, who was winding into a ball a skein of coarse thread held by the youngest. "Nothing to speak of!" answered Tom in an injured tone. "I only let the pig into the garden, and put some sand into the sugar bowl, and dressed up Pattypans in old Mother M'Parlin's Sabbath cap — that isn't much, is it?"

" O Tom, Tom, you naughty boy ! " cried his correct eldest sister, Grace; while the lighter-minded Olivia broke into a laugh. " Tom, you are a pickle ! " said the latter. " I wonder what sort of a man you will make." " I am sure I don't know what is going to become of the boy," added Grace, shaking her head. " Now, come ! " responded Tom. " Grace, you are as bad as Micaiah." " Then who is Ahab ? " interpolated Olivia slily. " Micaiah could not say much good of Ahab," was Grace's serious answer. " You do not find that Jehoshaphat complained of him." " Sermon finished ! " exclaimed Tom, with that irrepressible twinkle in his eyes which rarely left them. " My word, it is a short one ! — Livy, do go and see after those cheesecakes, there's a duck." Wearyholme. 22 "More like a goose," replied Olivia, laughing, "if I spent the evening in making dainties for you, Master Tom, when I am to have such a hard day's work of it to-morrow.

Oh dear ! " " Put it to bed, poor little love, and tuck it up ! " said Tom. "Well, some folks are lazy tykes." " I hope you do not mean to appiy that to me, Mr. Thomas Hunter?" Whereupon Tom chased Olivia into the kitchen, and having pinned her in a corner, gave her no peace, until she promised him the coveted cheesecakes: seeing her begin which, he disappeared, and his occupation was not known until some hours later, when all his sisters found themselves stepping into that arrangement of the bedclothes known to school-boys as an apple-pie. "That horrid, ungrateful Tom!" cried Olivia. "I hope he will grow up some time," said Grace with a patient sigh. " I say, Gracie — if all our brothers had lived, and they had all been so many Toms, what should we have done with them ? " "Oh, don't say that, Livy !

" expostulated tender hearted Grace. For between Olivia and Tom there had been two boys, who had died within a week of each other, to the grief of their mother's heart. "Well," said Olivia, laughing, "they could not have made us more than one apple-pie a-piece, but they might have done it a little oftener!" Grace's tender-heartedness had its reward the next morning, when she just escaped a drenching from a tin pan full of water, very delicately poised upon the ledge above her bedroom door. The lively young person who had put it there, being already halfway to Farmer Donne's, was a little beyond the reach of any remonstrance. Mr. Hunter, however, came upon the scene while Grace was mopping up the water, and to her distress insisted on an explanation. Grace, who spent much of her life in screening Tom's escapades, was sorrowfully compelled to admit that she had no doubt of the agency which had placed her in that predica ment.

"That boy will be ruined," said his father gravely, "if this sort of thing is allowed to go on. Has it happened before, Grace?" Grace could not deny that it had. By means of minute cross-examination, Mr. Hunter succeeded in laying bare a state of things which sorely shocked Wearyholme. 24 his Puritan soul, and none the less because of Grace's extreme reluctance to avow them. "This will not do," said he sternly. " If any such thing be again, remember I charge you to tell me." And without minding the " Please, don't ! " written in Grace's eyes, he went on, " I shall speak very soberly to Thomas thereabout: but if he will not amend, I fear there is nothing for it but to send him to sea." "O Father!" cried Grace's face even more than her voice. "What is the matter?" said Olivia, appearing last of the family, as she usually did.

Grace explained, and Olivia laughed. "What a face you pull over it!" said the latter. " I can tell you, if Father wants to punish Tom, he'll do it finely by sending him to sea. It is just what Tom would like of all things." " I don't know what the boy will come to ! " said poor Grace dolefully. And certainly in a quiet, well-conducted Puritan household, the presence of that incongruous element, Tom, was a sore amazement and trouble. All the girls, even down to little Deb, were so well-behaved, that it was the greater wonder. But Mr. Hunter had not yet discovered — he was soon to do so — that of his three exemplary daughters two were so from nature or principle, and one only waited her opportunity to be something very different from him self. Mr. Hunter had little sense of the ludicrous, and a very strong sense of human depravity and parental responsibility.

He was a man who dearly loved his children, and earnestly desired their highest welfare, but scarcely the man suited by nature to deal with such a character as Tom, who in point of disposition resembled his maternal grandfather. Family prayers followed, during which Mrs. Hunter, an observant woman, did not fail to notice Grace's sad, perplexed face, and Olivia's secretly amused one. Prayers were shorter than usual this morning, on account of the heavy day's work to follow, but even so they occupied half an hour. Next came breakfast, which as to solids consisted of red herrings and bread and butter, and as to fluids, of "buttered ale" and a glass of milk for Deb. Then Mr. Hunter went out to saddle the horses — a poor clergyman kept no servant at that date — Grace hurried about, doing what she could to save her mother, till Mrs. Hunter took the duster peremptorily out of her hands, and told her to go and dress herself and Deb ; Olivia much more Wearyholme. 26 deliberately put up the cheesecakes, which she delivered into the charge of her youngest sister, with the satirical recommendation that she had better leave one for Tom when their destination was reached.

At this point the bay head of Pattypans appeared before the window, with the apothecary's white mare behind him, a creature either very tired or very lazy, which heaved long sighs as if it thought the world a vale of tears. Pattypans was of a much more cheerful disposition than the mare, but then their positions in life were different. The Vicar's horse had not a quarter of the work of that of the apothecary. Mr. Hunter helped Grace to mount Pattypans, lifted little Deb up before her, and himself seated on the white mare, the party rode away, waving a short farewell to Mrs. Hunter and Olivia, who watched them till they disappeared round the corner. " Now, Livy, to work ! " said her mother. " I should not need to hurry Grace, but I know I must you." Olivia, with a momentary pout, followed her into the parlour.

It was a square room of moderate size, with a stone floor, wainscoted half the way up, and hung above with dark green serge. Wall papers had been introduced into England some forty years before, but they had not yet become common. The furniture, which consisted of a table and chairs of the plainest deal, was carefully dusted, and then carried out into the narrow passage while the stone floor and wainscot were mopped. The hangings were taken down by Mrs. Hunter, who would have scorned the notion of requiring mascu line assistance for so simple a matter, and thrown down to Olivia, who carried them out into the yard behind the house, and the two afterwards shook them vigorously. They were then put up again, and the furniture restored to its place, and the remaining rooms were treated in the same way.

They consisted only of a kitchen and two bedrooms, with a very small porch-chamber in which Tom slept. But the day's work was heavy, for Mrs. Hunter was extremely particular. Not a pot-lid must be left unscrubbed, nor the smallest bit of carpet unshaken, nor a projection of the carved high mantelpiece undusted. At length, when the last item was finished, Olivia dropped her duster with an exclamation of relief. " Oh, I am so glad we have done ! " Wearyholme. "You are easy tired, child," said her mother with a smile. " If you had been Goody Treswell's daughter Peg, that I knew when I was a child, you might have said so when you had finished your day's work. I have known her up at two of a morning, scouring out her pails in the yard : and then she washed an hour or two, and then she brewed, and then she churned the butter for break fast, and then she baked, and then maybe she ironed, and then she cooked the dinner, and then she would have a spell of sewing, and then " "Oh, dreadful, Mother!" cried Olivia, while Mrs. Hunter laughed.

"Well," said she, "I think Peg Treswell had a right to be tired of an evening. How far Livy Hunter has one I won't say. However, since we are so wearied out, Livy, for once we will treat our selves to a dish of chocolate. Run and fetch the pot, and I will make some." "Uncle Will thinks all the world of tea," said Olivia, as she brought the chocolate-pot, having by no means run for it. "Tea!" echoed Mrs Hunter. "Do you know what tea costs a pound, child ? Uncle Will has drank it in Oxford, where there may be folks who can afford such luxury. Besides, the idea of drink ing tea at this time of day ! They drink tea at eleven in the morning." "Oh, I did not know," answered Olivia. "Is it pleasant, Mother?" " I never tasted it, my dear," said Mrs. Hunter. "My sister Martha told me she once had some, and she thought it no great things.

She would rather have herb drinks any day, she said. Take your chocolate while it is hot, Livy, and tell me what means the disorder I saw in Grace this morning.' "Oh!" said Olivia, sipping the chocolate, " she is only put out because Father is going to scold Tom." "I'm glad if he be," said Tom's mother. "'Tis time. What has Tom been after now ? " Olivia laughed and recounted the history of Tom for the twenty-four hours before that date. "The young jackanapes!" said Mrs. Hunter. " Mr. Tom shall have a piece of my mind as well as his father's. But was Grace fretting over that ? " "Well, I think it was rather because Father said that if Tom did not mend he must be sent to sea." Mrs. Hunter looked thoughtful, but made no reply. Wearyholme. 30 "O Mother, see!" cried Olivia suddenly, "here is some one coming up to the door.

What can I do ? I am not fit to go." "You are as fit as I am," said Mrs. Hunter, glancing at her dress, which certainly was not by any means in a condition for seeing company. "It won't do, Livy : we must not be too good to be seen in dirty gowns when we cannot help it. You are Olivia Hunter — neither better nor worse — what ever you are dressed in. Go and see what he wants." If Olivia had been ashamed of her dress before she went to the door, she was tenfold the more so when she found herself in the presence of a young gentleman looking as spic-span as if he had come out of a bandbox. He seemed by no means of a piece with Abbey Lane, less with the little house, and least of all with the girl in that wet, soiled linen dress, with a plain cap tied under her chin, and neither neck-ribbon nor sleeveruffles.