XLI
Of My Journey to London
I drew near to my house with many anxious feelings, not knowing what news might be in store for me. We had been so jealously watched during our confinement in the Castle that it had been almost an impossibility to gain any knowledge of what was going on in the outside world. Once during the first few months after my arrest I had received tidings from Dale’s Field to the effect that all was well there, and that Ben was seeing to my affairs. But after that I had no more news, for Colonel Cotterel imposed many strict rules upon his captives, and would permit no letters to pass either in or out, fearing lest somewhat of a treasonable and dangerous nature should be communicated. Whether they were all well and alive at Dale’s Field, or some ailing and, perchance, dead, I did not know, which uncertainty often caused me many sad and weary thoughts.
It was towards the close of a summer evening when I drew near my house. Nothing seemed changed, so far as I could see from a hurried glance round the familiar objects. I thought as I stood at the orchard gate that I had never seen aught so beautiful as this homestead of mine, which my eyes then beheld for the first time for two long years. For the soft light of evening fell upon the house and the red-roofed buildings beyond, and the apple-trees in the orchard were in full bloom, and the great bushy lilacs were loaded with delicate clusters of blossom, and the honeysuckle that grew over the porch was covered with yellow flower. Everything was very still about the house, and I passed through the orchard unobserved, and speedily gained the window of my mother’s parlour. There I stole cautiously across the flowerbeds and peeped into the room, hoping to see some face that would light up with welcome at the sight of me. But the room was empty, and I stood at the window examining it, and marvelling to find that it had changed in nothing since I had last seen it. For there was my mother’s chair and table by the broad window-seat, and upon the table lay one of her religious books, and by its side some knitting work that she had evidently laid down on being called away to some household matter. Everything in that room, indeed, was just as it always had been, and it only needed her presence to make the picture spring into real life.
I left the window and went round the corner of the house, intending to enter by the kitchen door. But I had no sooner got round the great bushes of holly, with which our walls are surrounded on that side, than I saw a little group immediately before me, at sight of whom I stood still. There were Ben and Lucy and Rose, and they were listening to Jacob Trusty, who was leaning over the low wall of the fold and talking to them very earnestly. My footsteps had made no sound on the soft grass path, and they were unconscious of my presence. I stood for a moment watching them. Jacob was the only one whose face was towards me, and I noticed that he looked old, and aged, and careworn. Suddenly he lifted his head and saw me. The girls turned and gave a little cry of wonder and surprise, looking at first as if they did not know me—which would have been no wonder, for I had grown a great beard during my captivity. But Rose suddenly sprang forward with a great cry of “ ’Tis Will!” and in another moment they were all round me, laughing and crying over me, and shaking my hand and clapping my back all at once.
“Dear heart!” said Jacob, “I thought I saw a ghost when I lifted up my head and caught sight of thee standing there. No finer sight have I seen this many a day.”
“Alas!” said Rose. “You have changed, dear Will, since we last saw you, for you look pale and worn, and oh, so much older!”
“Why,” said I, “that is just what I was thinking about all of you, for you all have a sad look that I like not. Yea, even thou, old Ben, lookest more sad than merry. But come, let us inside to my mother, and we will forget all our sadness for a time at least.”
And I made a move towards the house, leading Rose with me. But Rose laid her hand on my arm as if to stay me, and the others hung back, while Jacob Trusty shook his head.
“Rose,” I cried, “what is it? What ails you all? Ben, speak. My mother?”
“Oh!” groaned Ben, “tell him, Rose.”
But I knew it already. Something had told me there was sadness and sorrow for me at Dale’s Field as I came along the highway in the summer twilight. Something in the sight of the empty parlour went to my heart and confirmed my sense of coming trouble. And now, when Ben spoke, a great wave of grief rose up in my heart and shut out past and future, so that I only knew that I was suffering as I had suffered that night, many years before, when my father was shot down before my very eyes.
I sat down on the low wall and covered my face with my hands and said naught. Only I heard the others go away, and felt Rose sit by me and place her arm within mine as if she would comfort me, for which comfort I was exceeding grateful, my heart being like to burst with trouble. And after that she told me very gently that my dear mother had died a month before, after a short illness that occasioned her very little pain, and was now buried by my father’s side in Darrington churchyard. So then I knew the worst, and rose up to face my great sorrow manfully, but the heart within me was cold and heavy, and would have been empty of aught but grief if it had not been for my dear love, who did all to comfort me that a woman can do.
“ ’Tis a sad homecoming for you, my poor Will,” said Rose, as she stood by me, “and I am afraid that Ben and Jacob have more sad news in store for you.”
“They can tell me naught like what I have heard already,” I said. “But let us go in, Rose, so that I may hear it and have it over. My heart is full of sorrow tonight, and I should be in a poor way if it were not for you, sweetheart.”
But with that she put her hands in mine and lifted up her face to kiss me, so that the love in her eyes gave me some new life, and I went inside with her to hear what bad news Ben had in store for me.
“We have had sore times, Will,” said Ben, when the girls had found me something to eat and drink, and I was back in my old place at the head of the long table. “You need not marvel that we all look careworn and troubled.”
“No, marry,” said Jacob, who was seated inside the kitchen, comforting himself with a mug of ale. “No, for ’tis indeed a troublous time for honest folk. Such times, such times!”
“What hath happened?” I asked, somehow caring little how great or terrible the news was. It could not be worse than the blow that had already fallen upon me.
“Shall I tell him what hath happened since he was taken away from us, Jacob, or will you?” said Ben.
“Nay,” answered Jacob, shaking his white head. “Nay, ’tis too much for me. Say on, Master Benjamin, say on.”
So Ben proceeded to tell me of all that had occurred at Dale’s Field since the evening, two years before, when the body of troopers fetched me away to the Castle. “Soon after that event,” said Ben, “more troopers appeared at Dale’s Field and carried away all the live stock and what grain and wool there was stored about the place, saying that they were levying distress upon thy goods in satisfaction of the fine imposed upon thee. So thoroughly did they carry out their business that they left naught but three of the horses and certain of the milch cows, all else in the shape of oxen and sheep being driven away before them, leaving fold and fields as bare as if the land had been tenantless.”
“Well,” said I, “I cannot help it. We are in strange times and must wait till better come.”
“Ay,” said Ben, “but that is not all, Will.”
“No,” said Jacob, “not by a long chalk.”
“We might have brought matters round,” continued Ben, “if they had left us in peace after that, but the mischief was that they put in another appearance soon after harvest, and forced us to thresh the corn, the grain of which they immediately carted away, saying that thy fine was not yet satisfied. Presently they came again and took away many loads of straw, and this they repeated so often that we never knew when to expect them. As to resisting their demands, we could not, for they were always a strong force and made much show of arms.”
“Nevertheless,” said Jacob, “they heard my mind upon the matter more than once.”
“Well,” continued Ben, “they kept up this continual raid upon thy goods, Will, until very recently, so that they have made the place as barren as a clay-field. We could not get a little live stock together but that they came and seized it, nor have we had a harvest the fruits of which they have not claimed. Horses, cattle, sheep, all these have they got; nay, indeed, they have had all thy substance since the time they took thee to the Castle. Nevertheless, we did what we could, for whenever Jacob and I got the chance, we sold what stock and produce we conveniently could, and hid the money in safety for thee. But it has been a hard time, and we are well-nigh worn out with anxiety and sorrow.”
And that I believed, for poor Ben’s face was pinched and pale, and the merry look that was always in his eyes even when he was in his doleful moods was now gone, so that I saw the honest fellow had suffered more for me than I was aware of.
“Have patience, Ben,” I said, trying to cheer them all; “they will rob me no more, for the Castle is once more in the hands of the King’s friends, and these Roundhead knaves will not come cattle-lifting hereabouts yet awhile. Levying distress in satisfaction of my fine, did they say? Marry, the fine was but two hundred pounds, and they must have taken the value of that a dozen times over. However, we will see if there be not some justice left in England yet, for I will have redress, if I have to fight for it.”
“Ay,” said Jacob approvingly, “justice is a good word; but I fear me there is little of that same justice abroad at present, for ’tis these soldiers that administer everything nowadays. However, we will fight a whole body of Roundhead troopers an they come here again reaving and racking. Oh, an thou couldst have seen the young bullocks I had fed for market last winter twelvemonth! A plague on fines and levies, say I!”
But what was done was done, and we had to content ourselves for that time, being powerless to do anything. Yet it made my heart sad to go round my granaries, and barns, and stables, in which I had always taken such pride, and to find them empty and lifeless. Still, it was no use to sit down and lament, and we accordingly set to work to restock the farm and get things into order again. Only I was a much poorer man when all was done than I had ever looked to be.
So now matters were very different from what they had been, and there was such gloom and sadness in our house as I had never known before. For wherever I went and whatever I did I missed my dear mother’s presence, and often started to think I heard her voice calling me as in the old days. Nay, indeed, I could not at first believe that I should never see her again nor hear her speak, and only realized my great loss when I went in at nights from the fields and saw her chair empty. As for her parlour, we left it just as it had been when she was last in it, her book lying on the table, with a sprig of faded lilac marking the place where she had last read in it, and by its side the knitting which she had put down never to take up again. And into that room none of us went save when we wished to be alone with our own memories of her. Sometimes Parson Drumbleforth would come along the highway and go into the little room and sit there by himself, thinking, as he told us, of the days when he had sat there with my father and mother, and he would afterwards come out with a great look of calm and peace upon his face and bless us solemnly, and go his way homewards. And sometimes Jacob Trusty would go to the little window and peer over his horn spectacles at the book and the knitting still lying on the little table, and then go back to his work as if he had seen some holy sight. And, indeed, I believe he saw more than we did, for he once told me that it seemed to him that when he thus visited the little parlour he could see his old mistress still sitting in her elbow chair reading her book, while the bright needles clicked against each other as they went in and out through the wool.
“Yes,” he would often say to Rose and Lucy, “ye see, lasses, what a holy and a blessed thing it is to have been a good woman. As for us men, we are rude, and fierce, and stern, and need a good woman to set us an example. Yea, and see what store is set by her, so that her good deeds work after her death.”
Now, I was very busily engaged during the rest of that summer of 1648 in repairing so far as I could the damage done by the depredations of the Roundheads, who had so basely robbed me. Then came the corn harvest, and we made haste to gather and garner our crops, being firmly resolved that when they were once housed nothing but force should despoil us of them. All this time the last siege of Pontefract Castle had been in progress, for the Royalists under Colonel Morrice, having seized the Castle and released us who were confined there, were holding out against the Parliamentarian troops once more. This third siege continued during the remainder of the summer and into the autumn, by the middle of which season it was rumoured that General Cromwell himself was coming to aid in forcing a capitulation. When I heard this news I resolved that I would now endeavour to gain some redress for the wrongs put upon me. I had already been to my old friend Lawyer Hook, and had told him all that had happened. But to my story he had given little heed, saying that at present England was under military law, and that Cromweil and his troops were above all ordinary statutes. Now, I believed that General Cromwell was a just and honest man, and I resolved that I would go to him, if he came into our parts, and tell him how I had been treated by Cotterel and his troops, for I was not minded to sit down calmly and suffer my serious loss without protest on my part.
It was in November that Cromwell came at the head of his troopers to take part in the siege of Pontefract Castle. Soon after his arrival he took up his quarters at Knottingley, which lies on the riverside over against Ferrybridge. It was now my time to act, and I accordingly attired myself in my best and rode along the road to his quarters, where I presently found him, and was admitted to his presence. He remembered me at once, and listened patiently to my complaint, bidding me speak freely to him. So I took heart and told him all my story, confessing that I was willing to pay the fine imposed upon me though I acknowledged not its justice—but complaining strongly that ten times its value had been taken from me when I could not help myself. Moreover, I said that if he and his friends were anxious to do justice they would give me back my own. To which he answered that it was for justice he and his men were fighting, and that they would rob no man unjustly. Nevertheless, he continued, all must be done in a proper manner. He then counselled me to go to London, where he himself would shortly be, and to there prosecute my claim in due form, promising me that he would do what he could to aid me in securing compensation for what I had been despoiled of over and above my fine; and that I might travel in safety, he gave me a safe-conduct.
Thus it came about that I made my journey to London at a time when great events were stirring. It was not to my liking to leave home again so soon, but there was Ben to look after my affairs for me, and it was winter, when things are quiet on the land; so I decided to go, and ultimately set out for the capital on the 1st of December, 1648.