brother’s place. Well! those ragged remains of the grand old woods just show what King Charles has been to us. My father cut down his oaks,—to the very last,—and raised all the money he could, and spent none on the estate, that the King might have it all, so that the lawns are mere swamps, and the gardens have gone to ruin, and the house is growing mouldy, and there are not half enough servants, or labourers, or horses, or anything; and my brother has to strain his credit to get the means of keeping up the office of sheriff at all; and, what he and I feel most, I shall carry no fortune to Christopher, who really had a right to expect one”
Here Christopher’s sisters charmed her by a merry laugh; and she laughed, too: but went on.
“Now, pray tell me what reason we have to thank Heaven for the gift of that family! And then,—their manners!”
“We had always heard that the Duke of York was no pattern of courtesy,” Arabella remarked; “but we thought the late King had been so agreeable as to be unquestionably a snare of Satan.”
“We heard,” added Judith,—“and it was from Mr. Baxter, who lived for some time at Court,—that King Charles’s winning ways were the great stumbling block in the course of the Word. Indeed, nobody could resist his wiles.”
“When he chose to be gracious, I suppose,” Elizabeth observed. “But the old servants and devoted supporters of their cause are precisely those whom these Stuarts amuse themselves with insulting. My brother will not allow it to be spoken of publicly, lest it should appear that pique has affected his loyalty: but he has never forgiven the late King a light jest on my father. For my part, I add to this the Duke’s mean way of courting us for our influence when the Exclusion Bill was in question, and his behaving since as if he had never heard our name.”
“How was that?”
“O! it was only (for my brother would not be pleased that I should speak of it) that when Theodore went up with the deputation to congratulate him on his accession, the new King pretended not to know who he was,—never to have heard the name. I suppose Mr. Baxter would be surprised to hear of such manners, considering that he was familiar with the charming Christian courtesy of the Roundheads.”
“Are you in earnest?” adked the sisters.
“Certainly. Where in all England are there finer manners than you see in a person now in this very house?”
“Lady Alice?”
“Yes,—Aunt Alice. While our party, with the princes at their head, have been tormenting the Roundheads till it is astonishing that there is not another rebellion, see how the oppressed party have borne themselves. Mr. Baxter himself has been shut up in a horrible prison . . . . But you did not tell me why he went to Court, nor why he left it.”
“He went, as a very young man, by the advice of his friends, with the notion of getting a living, and perhaps saving the souls of some of the courtiers.”
“What reason had he to suppose they had any souls?—But I should not say such things. I see you are shocked, and I beg your pardon. He got no living, I suppose?”
“No; and he has sought mercy ever since for perilling his own soul for the chance of saving any he was less nearly concerned with.”
“Was it not a generous act?” asked Elizabeth. “To me it seems so. He came away when he found his mistake, did he?”
“The immediate occasion was a prank of some fine gentlemen. They were going down to Newmarket, and stopped at an inn, where a crowd gathered to see their cavalcade. They drank too much”
“Of course.”
“And then they came out on the balcony to make game of the Roundheads. It was not that which made Mr. Baxter order his horse and ride away, though he had no place to go to. They came out in their shirt-sleeves, and turned up their eyes, and pretended to preach,—making the mob shout with laughter at the most solemn and holy things.”
“Ah, that is their way! There have been some of those Cavaliers who ventured upon such jests under Aunt Alice’s very roof.”
“How came such people there?”
“In the only way in which they could have found entrance. If they had made sure of a welcome as noblemen and the King’s friends, they would have had no word of encouragement from her. But it was in the days of their adversity; and they came hungry, and ragged, and penniless, and with pursuers on their track. Then her doors opened to them; and she concealed them for hours, or days, or weeks, as might be. She allowed no jesting on holy things; but she crossed them as little as she could while they were so humbled. At present, their party insults most the weakest of their victims. This is what I mean by the difference in their manners. I have seen so much of the practice of hurting the feelings of religious people that I dread doing it myself,—and to-morrow especially. Do tell me how you fast.”
“Oh, you will see for yourself. There is nothing formal here. Just do what seems to you right at the moment, and you will not offend anybody.”
So far from offending, Elizabeth won upon the goodwill of the family before the morning meal was over.
As soon as she looked abroad from her window, on rising, she saw that there was no work going on in the grounds, and that the servants were in their Sunday clothes. Though the bells were ringing out from the church tower, and some blowing of trumpets was heard down in the town, the children of the house were walking up and down the verandah, with their arms over each other’s shoulders. No green boughs were on the gates, no garlands on the house front, no sprigs of oak in the boys’ hats. Elizabeth was thus prepared for the disclosure made in the morning devotions,—that this was the anniversary of a great calamity to the Reformed Church, and to the cause of the Reformation; and that, as the