Clare Avery

Front matter

A Story of the Spanish

A rmada

BY

Contents

CHAP.

I. LITTLE CLARE'S FIRST HOME .

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Preface

^ I A HIS story can hardly be termed a continua- ■** tion of " Robin Tremayne," but some characters with whom the reader of that book is familiar

will meet him in these pages.

England stands now in as much peril of having Popery insidiously infused into her, as she did in 1588 of having it rudely forced upon her. But who shall evoke the spirit of the Armada time? — the

noble, unanimous, self-forgetting patriotism, which caused men to fling all lesser interests aside, if only they might save England.

Before a man can act, he must be awake. What

voice shall wake England from her sleep of lethargy, before it become the deeper sleep of death ?

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We read of a mark set on the foreheads of those who sigh and who cry for all the abominations committed in the land. The mark set upon those who vi Preface.

do not, is death. And the sword is commanded, " Begin at My Sanctuary."

There is only one Voice which they that hear

shall live.

O Lord, come unto her whom Thou lovest, and awake her out of sleep 1 t*^ft^gfe^=^P

I cannot say nay, Father, and tell truth."

Page 156,

CLARE AVERY.

Chapter I. Little Claris First Home

" The mossy marbles rest

On the lips he hath pressed

In their bloom, And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year

On the tomb."

—Oliver Wendell Holmes.

"/~^OLD!" said the carrier, blowing on his fingers

V_> to keep them warm.

"Cold, bully Penmore ! " ejaculated Hal Dockett,

■farrier, horse-leech, and cow-doctor in ordinary to

the town of Bodmin and its neighbourhood.,, " Lack-

a-daisy ! thou that hast been carrier these thirty years, and thy father afore thee, and his father afore him, ever sith old Dick Boar' days, shouldst be as hard as a milestone by this time. 'Tis the end of March, fellow I "

F

Be it known that " old Dick Boar " was Mr.

Clare Avery.

Dockett's extremely irreverent style of allusion to His Majesty King Richard III.

" Tis the end of as bitter a March as hath been in Cornwall these hundred years," said the carrier. " Whither away now, lad ? "

" Truly, unto Bradmond, whither I am bidden to see unto the black cow."

" Is it sooth, lad, that the master fs failing yonder ? "

*' Folk saith so," replied Hal, his jocund face clouding over. " It shall be an evil day for Bodmin, that! "

" Aye so I " echoed the carrier. " Well ! we

must all be laid in earth one day. God be wi' thee, lad!"

And with a crack of his whip, the waggon

lumbered slowly forward upon the Truro road,

while Dockett went on his way towards a house

standing a little distance on the left, in a few acres of garden, with a paddock behind.

About the cold there was no question. The ground, which had been white with snow for many days, was now a mixture of black and white, under the influence of a thaw ; while a bitterly cold wind,' which made everybody shiver, rose now and then to a wild whirl, slammed the doors, and groaned through the wood-work. A fragment of cloud, rather less dim and gloomy than the rest of the heavy grey sky, was as much as could be seen of the sun.

Nor was the political atmosphere much more cheerful than the physical. All over England,*— and it might be said, all over Europe,— men's hearts were failing them for fear, — by no means for the first time in that century. In Holland the Spaniards, vanquished not by men, but by winds and waves from God, had abandoned the siege of Leyden ; and the sovereignty of the Netherlands had been offered to Elizabeth of England, but after some consideration was refused. In France, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, nearly three years before, had been followed by the siege of La Rochelle, the death of the miserable Charles IX., and the alliance in favour of Popery, which styled itself the Holy League. At home, gardeners were busy introducing the wallflower, the hollyhock, basil, and sweet marjoram ; the first licence for public plays was granted to Burbage and his company, among whom was a young man from Warwickshire, a butcher's son, with a turn for making verses, whose name was William Shakspere ; the Queen had issued a decree forbidding costly apparel (not including her own) ; and the last trace of feudal serfdom had. just disappeared, by the abolition of "villenage" upon the Crown manors. As concerned other countries, except when active hostilities were going on, Englishmen were not generally much interested, unless it were in that far-off New World which Columbus had discovered not a hundred years before,— or in that unknown land, far away also, beyond the white North Cape, whither adventurers every now and then set out with the hope of discovering a north-west passage to China, — the north-west passage which, though sought now with a

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different object, no one has discovered yet.

It may be as well to recall the state of knowledge in English society at this period. The time had gone by when the burning of coal was prohibited, as prejudicial to health ; but the limits of London, beyond which building might not extend, were soon after this fixed at three miles from the city gates ; the introduction of private carriages was long opposed, lest it should lead to luxury ; x and sumptuary laws, regulating, according to rank, the materials for dress and the details of trimmings, were issued every few years. Needles were treasures beyond reach of the poor; yeast, starch, glass bottles, woven stockings, fans, muffs, tulips, marigolds, — had all been invented or introduced within thirty years : the peach and the potato were alike luxuries known to few : forks, sedan or Bath chairs, coffee, tea, gas, telescopes, newspapers, shawls, muslin, — not to include railways and telegraphs, — were ideas that had not yet occurred to any one. Nobody had ever heard of the cir-

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culation of the blood. A doctor was a rara avis: medical advice was mainly given in the towns by apothecaries, and in the country by herbalists and ' "wise women." There were no Dissenters — except the few who remained Romanists; and perhaps' there were not likely to be many, when the fine for non-attendance at the parish church was twenty

1 So lately as 1601, an Act of Parliament forbade men to ride in coaches, as an effeminate practice.

r pounds per month. Parochial relief was unknown, and any old woman obnoxious to her neighbours was likely to be drowned as a witch. Lastly, by the Bull of excommunication of Pope Pius V., issued in April, 1569, Queen Elizabeth had been solemnly " cut off from the unity of Christ's Body," and " deprived of her pretended right to the Crown of England/' while all who obeyed or upheld her were placed under a terrible curse. x

Nineteen years had passed since that triumphant 17th of November which had seen all England in a frenzy of joy on the accession of Elizabeth Tudor, They were at most very young men and women who could not remember the terrible days of Mary, and the glad welcome given to her sister. Still warm at the heart of England lay the memory of the Marian martyrs ; still deep and strong in her was hatred of every shadow of Popery. The petition had not yet been erased from the Litany — why should it ever have been ? — " From trie Bishop of Rome and all his enormities, good Lord* deliver us

I"

On the particular afternoon whereon the story opens, one of the dreariest points of the landscape was the house towards which Hal Docketr/s steps were bent. It was of moderate size, and might have been very comfortable if somebody had taken pains to make it so. But it looked as if the pains had not been taken. Half the windows were covered by

1 This was "His Holiness' sentence," of which the Armada was "in execution." See note, p.

shutters ; the wainscot was sadly in want of a fresh coat of paint ; the woodbine, which should have been trained up beside the porch, hung wearily down, as if it were tired of trying to climb when nobody helped it ; the very ivy was ragged and dusty. The doors shut with that hollow sound peculiar to empty uncurtained rooms, and groaned, as they opened, over the scarcity of oil And if the spectator had passed inside, he would have seen that out of the whole house, only four rooms were inhabited beside the kitchen and its dependencies. In all the rest, the dusty furniture was falling to pieces from long neglect, and the spiders carried on their factories at their own pleasure.

One of these four rooms, a long, narrow chamber, on the upper floor, gave signs of having been inhabited very recently. On the square table lay a

quantity of coarse needlework, which somebody seemed to have bundled together and left hastily; and on one of the hard, straight-backed chairs was a sorely-disabled wooden doll, of the earliest Dutch order, with mere rudiments, of arms and legs, and deprived by accidents of a great portion of these. The needlework said" plainly that there must be a woman in the dreary house, and the doll, staring at the ceiling with black expressionless eyes, spoke as distinctly for the existence of a child.

Suddenly the door of this room opened with a plaintive creak, and a little woman, on the elderly side of middle life, put in her head.

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A bright, energetic, active little woman she seemed,

L it tie Clare's First Home. 7 not the sort of person who might be expected to put up meekly with dim windows and dusty floors.

"Marry La'kint"! she said aloud. "Of a truth, what a charge be these childre I "

The cause of this remark was hardly apparent, since no child was to be seen ; but the little woman came further into the room, her gestures soon showing that she was looking for a child who ought to have been visible.

"Well ! I've searched every chamber in this house save the Master's closet. Where can yon little popinjay 2 have hid her? Marry La'kin ! "

This expletive was certainly not appreciated by her who used it. Nothing could much more have

astonished or shocked Barbara Polwhele 8 — than whom no more uncompromising Protestant breathed between John o' Groat's and the Land's End — than to discover that since she came into the room, she had twice invoked the assistance of St. Mary the Virgin.

Barbara's search soon brought her to the conclusion that the child she sought was not in that quarter. She shut the door, and came out into a narrow gallery, from one side of which a wooden staircase ran down into the hall. It was a wide hall of vaulted stone, hung with faded tapestry, old and wanting repair, like everything else in its vicinity. Across the hall Barbara trotted with short, quick steps, and opening a door at the further end, went

1 A corruption of " Mary, little Lady ! "

* Parrot. s A fictitious person.

B y Clare Avery.

into the one pleasant room in all the house. This was a very small turret-chamber, hexagonal in shape, three of its six sides being filled with a large baywindow, in the middle compartment of which were several coats of arms in stained glass. A table, which groaned under a mass of books and papers, nearly filled the room ; and writing at it sat a venerable-looking, white-haired man, who, seeing Barbara, laid down his pen, wiped his spectacles, and placidly inquired what she wanted. He will be an old friend to some readers : for he was John Avery of Bradmond.

" Master, an't like you, have you seen Mrs. Clare of late ? »

" How late, Barbara ? "

" Marry, not the fourth part of an hour gone, I left the child in the nursery a-playing with her puppet, when I went down to let in Hal Dockett, and carry him to see what ailed the black cow ; and now I be back, no sign of the child is any whither. I have been in every chamber, and looked in the nursery thrice."

"Where should she be?" quietly demanded Mr. Avery.

" Marry, where but in the nursery, without you had fetched her away."

" And where should she not be ? "

"Why, any other whither but here and there, more specially in the garden,"

" Nay, then, reach me my staff, Barbara, and we will go look in the garden. If that be whither our

Little Claris First Home. g

little maid should specially not be, 'tis there we be bound to find her."

" Marry, but that is sooth ! " said Barbara heartily, bringing the walking-stick. "Never in all my life saw I child that gat into more mischievousness, nor gave more trouble to them that had her in charge,"

"Thy memory is something short, Barbara," returned her master with a dry smile, " 'Tis but little

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over a score of years sithence thou wert used to say the very same of her father."

" Eh, Master ! — nay, not Master Walter ! " said Barbara, deprecatingly.

a Well, trouble and sorrow be ever biggest in the present tense," answered he. " And I wot well thou hast a great charge on thine hands."

" I reckon you should think so, an' you had the doing of it," said Barbara complacently. " Up ere the lark, and abed after the nightingale ! What with scouring, and washing, and dressing meat, and making the beds, and baking, and brewing, and sewing, and mending, and Mrs. Clare and you atop of it all "

" Nay, prithee, let me drop off the top, so thou lame me not, for the rest is enough for one woman's shoulders." >

" In good sooth, Master, but you- lack as much looking after, in your way, as Mrs. Clare doth ; for verily your head is so lapped in your books and your learning, that I do think, an' I tended you not, you should break your fast toward eventide, and bethink io * Clare Avery.

you but to-morrow at noon that you had not supped overnight."

" Very like, Barbara, — very like ! " answered the old man with a meek smile. "Thou hast been a right true maid unto me and mine, — as saith Solomon of the wise woman, thou hast done us good and not evil, all the days of thy life. The Lord apay thee for it ! — Now go thou forward, and search for our little maid, and I will abide hither until thou bring hen If I mistake not much, thou shalt find her within a stone's throw of the fishpond."

" The fishpond ?— eh, Master ! "

And Barbara quickened her steps to a run, while John Avery sat down slowly upon a stone seat on the terrace, leaning both hands on his staff, as if he could go no farther. Was he very tired? No. He was only very, very near Home.

Close to the fishpond, peering intently into it between the gaps of the stone balustrade, Barbara at length found what she sought, in the shape of a little girl of six years old. The child was spoiling her frock to the best of her ability, by lying on the snow-sprinkled grass ; but she was so intent upon something which she saw, or wanted to see, that her captor's approach was unheard, and Barbara pounced on her in triumph without any attempt at flight.

" Now, Mrs, Clare, 1 come you hither with me ! " said Barbara, seizing the culprit. " Is this to be a good child, think you, when you were bidden abide in the nursery ? "

1 A fictitious character.

"O Bab!" said the child, half sobbingly. "I wanted to see the fishes."

" You have seen enough of the fishes for one morrow," returned Barbara relentlessly ; " and if the fishes could see you, they should cry shame upon you for ruinating of your raiment by the damp grass."

" But the fishes be damp, Bab ! " remonstrated Clare. Barbara professed not to heat* the last remark, and lifting the small student of natural history, bore her, pouting and reluctant, to her grandfather on the terrace.

" So here comes my little maid," said he, pleasantly. 41 Why didst not abide in the nursery, as thou wert bid, little Clare ? "

" I wanted to see the fishes," returned Clare, still pouting.

(i We cannot alway have what we want," answered he.

"You can! " objected Clare.

" Nay, my child, I cannot," gravely replied her grandfather. "An" I could, I would have alway a good, obedient little grand-daughter."

Clare played with Mr. Avery's stick, and was silent.

" Leave her with me, good Barbara, and go look after thy mighty charges," said her master, smiling. " I will bring her within ere long."

Barbara trotted off, and Clare, relieved from the fear of her duenna, went back to her previous subject.

" Gaffer, what do the fishes ? "

"What do they? Why, swim about in the water, and shake their tails, and catch flies for their dinner."

" What think they on, Gaffer ? "

" Nay, thou art beyond me there. I never was a fish. How can I tell thee ? "

" Would they bite me ? " demanded Clare solemnly.

" Nay, I reckon not.

" What, not a wild fish ? " said Clare, opening her dark blue eyes.

Mr. Avery laughed, and shook his head.

"But I would fain know — And, O Gaffer!" exclaimed the child, suddenly interrupting herself, "do tell me, why did Tom kill the pig ?

" Kill the pig ? Why, for that my Clare should have somewhat to eat at her dinner and her supper."

" Killed him to eat him ? " wonderingly asked Clare, who had never associated live pigs with roast

pork.

" For sure," replied her grandfather.

" Then he had not done somewhat naughty ? "

" Nay, not he."

" I would, Gaffer," said Clare, very gravely, " that Tom had not smothered the pig ere he began to lay eggs. 1 I would so have liked a little pig ! "

The suggestion of pigs' eggs was too much for Mr. Avery's gravity. " And what hadst done with a little pig, my maid ?

" I would have washed it, and donned it, and put it abed," said Clare.

" Methinks he should soon have marred his raiment

1 The genuine speech of a child of Clare's age.

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And maybe he should have loved cold water not more dearly than a certain little maid that I could put a name to."

Clare adroitly turned from this perilous topic, with an unreasoning dread of being washed there and then ; though in truth it was not cleanliness to which she objected, but wet chills and rough friction.

" Gaffer, may I go with Bab to four-hours unto Mistress Pendexter ? "

"An* thou wilt, my little floweret."

Mr. Avery rose slowly, and taking Clare by the hand, went back to the house. He returned to his turret-study, but Clare scampered upstairs, possessed herself of- her doll, and ran in and out of the inhabited rooms until she discovered Barbara in the kitchen, beating up eggs for a pudding.

" Bab, I may go with thee I "

"Go with me ? " repeated Barbara, looking up with some surprise. "Marry, Mrs. Clare, I hope

you may."

"To Mistress Pendexter!" shouted Clare ecstatically.

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" Oh aye ! " assented Barbara. " Saith the master

so?"

Clare nodded. "And, Bab, shall I take Doll?" This contraction for Dorothy must have been the favourite name with the little ladies of the time for the plaything on which it is now inalienably fixed.

"I will Sew up yon hole in her gown, then, first," said Barbara, taking the doll by its head in what Clare thought a very disrespectful manner. "Mrs.

X4 . Clare Avery.

Clare, this little gown is cruel ragged ; if I could but see time, I had need make you another."

" Oh, do, Bab ! " cried Clare in high delight

" Well, some day," replied Barbara discreetly.

A few nours later, Barbara and Clare were standing at the door of a small, neat cottage in a country lane, where dwelt Barbara s sister, Marian Pendexter, 1 widow of the village schoolmaster. The door was opened by Marian herself, a woman some five years the senior of her sister, to whom she bore a good deal of likeness, but Marian was the quieter mannered and the more silent of the two.

" Marry, little Mistress Clare ! " was her smiling welcome. " Come in, prithee, little Mistress, and thou shalt have a buttered cake to thy four-hours. Give thee good even, Bab."

A snowy white cloth covered the little round table

in the cottage, and on it were laid a loaf of bread

a piece of butter, and a jug of milk. In honour of her guests, Marian went to her cupboard, and brought out a mould of damson cheese, a bowl of syllabub, and a round tea-cake, which she set before the fire to toast.

" And how fareth good Master Avery ? " asked Marian, as she closed the cupboard door, and came back.

Barbara shook her head ominously.

" But ill, forsooth ? " pursued her sister.

" Marry, an' you ask at him, he is alway well ; but

I carry mine eyes, Marian."

Barbara's theory of educating children was to keep them entirely ignorant of the affairs of their elders.

To secure this end, she adopted a vague, misty style of language, of which she fondly imagined that Clare did not understand a word. The result was unfortunate, as it usually is. Clare understood detached

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bits of her nurse's conversation, over which she brooded silently in her own little mind, until she evolved a whole story — a long way off the truth. It would have done much less harm to tell her the whole truth at once ; for the fact of a mystery being made provoked her curiosity, and her imaginations were far more extreme than the facts.

"Ah, he feeleth the lack of my mistress his wife, I reckon/' said Marian pityingly. "She must be

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soothly a sad miss every whither."

"Thou mayest well say so," assented Barbara. " Dear heart ! 'tis nigh upon five good years now, and I have not grown used to the lack of her even yet. Thou seest, moreover, he' hath had sorrow upon sorrow. 'Twas but the year afore that Master Walter and Mistress Frances * did depart ; 2 and then, two years gone, Mistress Kate. 1 Ah, well-aday! we be all mortal."

" Thank we God therefore, good Bab/' said Marian

quietly. " For we shall see them again the sooner. But if so be, Bab, that aught befel the Master, what should come of yonder rosebud ? "

And Marian cast a significant look at Clare, who sat apparently engrossed with a mug full of syllabub,

1 Fictitious persons. * Die r^

" Humph ! an' I had the reins, I had driven my nag down another road," returned Barbara. " Who but Master Robin 1 and Mistress Thekla 2 were meetest, trow? But lo' you I what doth Mistress Walter but indite a letter unto the Master, to note that whereas she hath never set eyes on the jewel — and whose fault was that, prithee? — so, an* it liked Him above to do the thing thou wottest, she must needs have the floweret sent thither. And a cruel deal of fair words, how she loved and pined to see her, and more foolery belike. Marry La'kin ! ere I had given her her will, I had seen her alongside of King Pharaoh at bottom o' the Red Sea. But the Master, what did he, but write back and say that it should be even as she would. Happy woman be her dole.

say I ! " ■ .

And Barbara set down the milk-jug with a rough

determinate air that must have hurt its feelings, had it possessed any.

" Mistress Walter ! that is, the Lady " 3

Aye — she," said Barbara hastily, before the name could follow.

"Well, Bab, after all, methinks 'tis but like she should ask it. And if Master Robin be parson of that very same parish wherein she dwelleth, of a surety ye could never send the little one to him, away from her own mother ?

(t it

1 A fictitious person. a Ibid.

3 The names, and date of marriage, of Walter Avery and Orige Williams, are taken from the Bodmin Register. In every other respect they are fictitious characters.

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" Poor little soul ! she is well mothered ! " said

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Barbara ironically. " Never to set eyes on the child for six long years ; and then, when Mistress Avery, dear heart ! writ unto her how sweet and debonnaire 1 the lily-bud grew, to mewl forth that it was so great a way, and her health so pitiful, that she must needs endure to bereave her of the happiness to come and see the same. Marry La'kin ! call yon a mother ! "

" But it is a, great way, Bab."

" Wherefore went she so far off, then ?" returned Barbara quickly enough. " And lo* you ! she can journey thence all the way to York or Chester when she would get her the new fashions, — over land, too !

yet cannot she take boat to Bideford, which were less travail by half. An* yonder jewel had been mine, Marian, I would not have left it lie in the case for six years, trow."'

" Maybe not, Bab/' answered Marian in her quiet

way. ' "Yet 'tis ill judging of our neighbour. And

if the lady's health be in very deed so pitiful "

" Neighbour ! she is no neighbour of mine, dwelling up by Marton Moss ! " interrupted Barbara, as satirically as before. " And in regard to her pitiful health — why, Marian, I have dwelt in the same house

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with her for a year and a half, and I never knew yet her evil health let 2 her from a junketing. Good lack ! it stood alway in the road when somewhat was in hand the which misliked her. Go to church in the rain, — nay, by 'r Lady ! — and 'twas too cold in the

1 Pretty, pleasing, * Hinder.

.*

Jt.

winter to help string the apples, and too hot in the summer to help conserve the fruits : to be sure ! But let there be an even's revelling at Sir Christopher Marres his house, and she bidden, — why, it might rain enough to drench you, but her cloak was thick then, and her boots were strong enough, and her cough was not to any hurt — bless her 1 "

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The tone of Barbara's exclamation somewhat belied the words.

" Have a care, Bab, lest" and Marian's glance

at Clare explained her meaning.

" Not she ! " returned Barbara, looking in her turn at the child, whose attention was apparently concentrated on one of Marian's kittens, which she was stroking on her lap, while the mother cat walked uneasily round and round her chair. *' I have alway a care to speak above yon head."

" Is there not a little sister ? " asked Marian in a

low tone.

"Aye," said Barbara, dropping her voice. "Blanche, the babe's name is. 1 Like Mrs. Walter — never con-

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tent with plain Nell and Nan. Her childre must have names like so many queens. And I dare say the maid shall be bred up like one."

The conversation gradually passed to other topics, and the subject was not again touched upon by either sister.

How-much of it had Clare heard, and how much of that did she understand ? '

A good deal more of either than Barbara imagined.

/ 1 A fictitious character.

She knew that Walter had been her father's name, and she was well aware that " Mistress Walter" from Barbara's lips, indicated her mother. She knew that her mother had married again, and that she lived a long way off. She knew also that this mother of hers was no favourite with Barbara. And from this conversation she gathered, that in the event of something happening — but what that was she did not realise — she was to go and live with her mother. Clare was an imaginative child, and the topic of all her dreams was this mysterious mother whom she had never seen. Many a time, when Barbara only saw that she was quietly dressing or hushing her doll, Clare's mind was at work, puzzling over the incomprehensible reason of Barbara's evident dislike to her absent mother. What shocking thing could she have done, thought Clare, to make Bab angry with her? Had she poisoned her sister, or drowned the cat, or stolen the big crown off the Queen's head ? * For the romance of a little child is, always incongruous and sensational.