XXXIX
Of the Death of Philip Lisle
It was now drawing near harvest time, and I determined to see my crops gathered and garnered before I did aught else. To tell truth, I had lost a good deal during the recent hostilities, for the Roundheads had levied contributions on my cattle many a time while the siege was in progress, so that when I came back to Dale’s Field I found myself poorer by some fourteen or fifteen head of cattle, to say naught of a score or so of sheep. However, I was thankful to find that they had not burnt my house or my buildings, which was what I had feared more than once.
I took Philip and Ben home with me to Dale’s Field when we left the Castle, while Jack Drumbleforth went to his father’s house, where the Vicar was much delighted with the sight of his son. Now that we were all at home again the women made much of us, for they were all agreed that we looked like half-starved rats. Naught would suffice them upon the day of our coming home but that we must have a feast, and to this joyful event a messenger was despatched to bring Parson Drumbleforth and Jack. We were very merry that night, and Ben Tuckett, having found his spirits again, amused us with stories of his own prowess during the siege, which, to hear him talk, was exceeding great and wonderful. Cause for rejoicing, however, we had little beyond the fact that we were all safe and sound. Our party was defeated on all sides, and we knew not what would happen next.
“I shall to the wars again,” said Jack, when we began to discuss the future. “Beaten we are, no doubt; but I will go fight for the King until the last blow has been struck.”
“Well said, Jack,” said Philip Lisle; “I will go with you. We seem to be vanquished at this present time, but all is not lost yet.”
“Gentlemen,” said Ben Tuckett, who sat in the chimney-corner near Lucy, “if you only knew how warmly I approve your sentiments you would be delighted. I love to see brave men. However, my duty forbids me to further engage in warfare. I have looked after the King’s business so long that my own hath suffered. As for my house, it is in ruins—and ’twas a Royalist cannon did it, too—and I suppose my stock which lay hidden there is lost.”
“Thou art not the only man that has lost something,” said Jack. “It will be worse for many than for thee, Ben. God send they do not fine all of us that have taken part with the King.”
“That is what I expect them to do,” said Philip Lisle.
“What!” cried Ben. “And will they fine me, too, after all I have lost? Then I had best do naught in the way of reopening my shop. They cannot fine me if I have naught, can they?”
“They can clap thee into gaol, lad,” said Jack. “Yea, and hold thee there until thou hast paid the piper.”
“Alas!” cried poor Ben, “was ever man so unfortunate! However, if only it be a small fine—”
And with that he began to look hard at the hearthstone under which he and Lucy had buried his money, and after that he said no more, but seemed to think deeply. But when my mother and the girls had gone to bed and Jack and Philip were talking their plans over, he drew me into a corner and began to talk confidentially.
“Will,” said he, “I have been thinking tonight that it is high time you and I were settled. We are neither of us as young as we were.”
“Speak for thyself, Ben. As for me, I am four-and-twenty.”
“Is it so little? Well, to be sure I am thy junior. Somehow I had thought myself twoscore at least. It is, I suppose, because I have passed through so much tribulation. However, to the point. It is, I say, time we were settled.”
“Are we not settled already?”
“A man never is settled,” said Ben wisely, “until he be married.”
“Oh! now I see what thou art driving at, Master Benjamin. I suppose you and Mistress Lucy are so smitten with each other’s good looks that you wish to hasten the wedding?”
“Put it as you please,” said he. “For my part, I do not see why Parson Drumbleforth should not marry us as soon as harvest is over. I tell thee what I think, Will. Lucy and I have gotten two hundred guineas in gold hidden under yonder hearthstone, which is a sum that no man may despise. I want not to lose it in fines and penalties. Now, if I open my shop again, these Roundhead rogues, seeing me a man of substance, will levy a heavy fine upon me, and I shall lose all. So let me lie quietly here, working in thy harvest-field until matters have blown over somewhat. Then we will all be married and my money will be safe. What do you think?”
“I think, Ben, that thou art a second Solomon. However, these are not over-pleasant times for marrying. You would not like Lucy to be a widow within a month of her wedding.”
“Heaven forbid!” said he, turning pale at the thought. “Why should she?”
“Because thou hast been such a bold assailer of the Roundheads that they may desire to cut off thy head. Wait a while, Ben, till the country be settled.”
But when I came to consider what Ben had said, I began to think there might be some reason in his notions. Come what might, it was my intention to go no more to the wars: let the King and the Commons do what they would, I meant to stay at home and mind my own business. And since I had made up my mind to that, why should I not hasten my wedding, and so have a better right than ever to protect my dear love? The more I thought of the matter, the more I liked the idea, so that before I slept that night I resolved to see what Rose thought of it. The next morning I rose early and went out to look round my farm, and, finding Rose already risen, I asked her to go with me, as had been her custom in the days before I went a-fighting. So we went hand in hand through the fields, which were already ripening unto harvest.
“How strange it seems,” said Rose, as we walked slowly along, “not to hear the sound of the cannon! All day we used to listen to it, and at every shot we prayed God that none of ours should suffer. Not a day passed that we did not think of you, and wonder what you were doing, and whether you were ill or well; and many a time did old Jacob take his staff and walk across the fields to the hilltop, so that he might come back and tell us that the King’s standard still floated over the Castle. And now here you are safe and sound once more.”
“Yes,” I answered; “and I shall never go away again, Rose, of my own free will. Let those fight that will: if I had stayed at home and minded my own business, that villain had not vexed you.”
“Hush, hush!” she said. “Let that be; I am none the worse for such vexation as that.”
“Nevertheless,” I said, “here I am and here I stay. These times of trouble are not over yet, and I shall do better to protect my own than to go a-fighting for the King. You had rather I stayed at home than that I went to the wars, Rose?”
“Why,” said she, laughing, “is not that a strange question to ask of me, considering that I do not care to trust you out of my sight, Master Will?”
And she smiled so archly in my face and looked at me with such eyes of love that I took her into my arms and told her of all that was in my mind, namely, that I wanted her to marry me as soon as harvest was in, so that in future I could watch over her even more closely than before. To which she answered honestly and fondly that she was mine and mine only, and would do whatever I pleased. So that matter was settled, and we went homewards across the fields to acquaint Philip Lisle of our desires; and if there were any people in all God’s world who were happier than we were at that moment it is a marvel to me, for our happiness was much too great for words.
We found Philip and Jack busied in cleaning their harness, while Ben sat by and lectured them on the folly of war in general and of this war in particular. Whether they attended to his remarks I know not, but at the moment of our arrival they were conversing together in undertones, so that I think Master Ben’s discourse flew above their heads.
“War,” quoth Ben, as we came up, “was first of all invented by the evil one, and therefore no wise man ought to engage in it. As for me, I only went into the Castle to defend myself, because, gentlemen, every honest citizen hath a right to take up arms when his own good estate is threatened. But as to fighting for a—”
“Good Ben,” said I, “you ought to have been a parson, for your tongue is ever ready;” and I came close to him and asked him if he had sounded Lucy as to his plans of the previous night. To which he answered that he had not, but he knew Lucy’s mind on that matter as well as he knew his own. So with that I bade him find Lucy and take her to my mother, and to them I brought Philip and Rose, and we there and then arranged matters for a double wedding, which was to take place as soon as we had got harvest over, if nothing contrary happened in the meantime.
“Only, my children,” said Philip, “do not wait for my coming, for if I am not here at the appointed day it will be because urgent business keepeth Jack and me elsewhere. I shall be with you in spirit if not in the flesh. For you know, Will, that his Majesty hath been very generous to me in the past, and I will not desert him now that he hath fallen low.”
And with that he gave us his blessing and kissed Rose many times and shook my hand, and later in the afternoon he and Jack rode away, promising to return in six weeks’ time so that they might see us married.
“We are for Newark first,” said Jack, “but after that God knows where we shall go. However, lads, it shall go hard with us but we strive to ride northward when you are made Benedicts.”
And so they rode away and we settled down to our quiet farm life. With the fall of the Castle, military operations in our parts were almost over, and people were permitted to attend to their own matters in peace. Sir Thomas Fairfax had been appointed Governor of the Castle by the House of Commons, and for a while he busied himself in making strict inquiry as to those of our neighbourhood who had resisted the Parliament, and in dispersing such Royalists as gathered together in any numbers. Us, however, he was pleased to let alone, probably because he found that we were engaged in our own pursuits and had no mind for further fighting. This suited Ben and myself, for with August the harvest began and we were at work early and late. Nevertheless, we were watched pretty closely by the Parliamentary authorities, as were all men who had retired to their own homes after leaving the Royalist army.
As the harvest drew to an end the two girls were busily occupied in preparing much finery for the wedding. My mother, who had many old-fashioned ideas on this subject, had set apart a chamber for them, wherein they shaped and sewed and had the help of a woman who was skilled in fine sewing. Into this chamber Ben and I did often try to peep, but were jealously excluded, all the comfort we got being an assurance that we should see our brides very fine on the wedding-day. Presently it became time for us to put the banns up at church, and Ben was mightily tickled at hearing his own name read out in conjunction with Lucy’s. Indeed, as the time drew near there was no prouder man than Ben Tuckett in all the country.
Upon the third day before the wedding, Ben and I were coming from Wentbridge, when we heard a horse climbing the hill behind us. It was drawing towards night, and there was a thick mist in the valley, so that we could not make out the face or figure of the horseman until he was close upon us. But when the horse and its rider came out of the mist a great sinking of heart stole over me, for I saw that it was Jack Drumbleforth, and he was alone. He recognised us at the same moment, and spurred his tired horse forward. Then we saw that he himself was careworn and in evil plight, for one arm hung loosely at his side, and there was a wound across his cheek that had lately bled.
“Jack!” I cried, as we ran up to him. “Jack, you have evil news?”
“The worst, Will,” he answered, speaking with difficulty. “The worst. Philip Lisle is dead. He was killed last night near Newark, and so was Captain Trevor and many another.”
And with that a great darkness seemed to fall across us, and I could only think of what my dear Rose must suffer when she heard the sad news.
“I am hurt,” said Jack. “My arm is broke, I think. Let us go on, Will, for I am like to fall off my horse.”
We went homeward sadly enough, Ben leading Jack’s horse, while I walked at the side and let Jack lean on my shoulder. We were debating how we should break the news to Rose, when she and Lucy suddenly came out of one of the fields by the roadside and ran to meet us. Suddenly Rose caught sight of Jack’s face, and all the colour went out of her own. But she came forward and laid her hand on his, and looked at him with such pleading eyes that I saw the tears start into his own as he looked down at her.
“My father?” she said. “My father?”
“Dear Mistress Rose,” he answered, “I would rather have died myself than have brought you sad news. Your dear father was a brave man, and he died a brave man’s death.”