on me, but I must needs leave thee alone in thy foolishness of bondage! Come, Patience, wench, and aid me, I know this rock is honeycombed with caves, like a rabbit warren, no place so likely.'
'I help thee--no indeed'' cried Patience. 'Would I aid thee to do what would most grieve poor father, that thou once mad'st such a work about! I should be afraid of his curse.'
Possibly if Jeph had not pledged himself to his comrades to overcome his brother's resistance, and bring back the treasures, he might have desisted; but what he did was to call to Rusha to bring him a lantern, and show him the holes, promising her a tester if she would. She brought the lantern, but she was a timid, little, unenterprising thing, and was mortally afraid of the caverns, a fear that Patience had thought it well not to combat. Emlyn who had already scrambled all over the face of the slope, and peeped into all, could have told him a great deal more about them; but she hated the sight of a rebel, and sat on the ground making ugly faces and throwing little stones after him whenever his back was turned.
Stead, afraid to betray by his looks of anxiety, when Jeph came near the spot, sat all the time with his elbows on his knees, and his hands over his face, fully trusting to what all had agreed at the time of the burial of the chest, that there was no sign to indicate its whereabouts.
He felt rather than saw that Jeph, after tumbling out the straw and fern that served for fodder in the lower caves, where the sheep and pigs were sheltered in winter, had scrambled up to the hermit's chapel, when suddenly there was a shout, but not at all of exultation, and down among the bushes, lantern and all came the soldier, tumbling and crashing into the midst of an enormous bramble, whence Stead pulled him out with the lantern flattened under him, and his first breathless words were--
'Beelzebub himself!' Then adding, as he stood upright, 'he made full at me, and I saw his eyes glaring. I heard him groaning. It is an unholy popish place. No wonder!'
Patience and Rusha were considerably impressed, for it was astonishing to see how horribly terrified and shaken was the warrior, who had been in two pitched battles, and Ben screamed, and needed to be held in Stead's arms to console him.
Jeph had no mind to pursue his researches any further. He only tarried long enough to let Patience pick out half-a-dozen thorns from his cheeks and hands, and to declare that if he had not to march to-morrow, he should bring that singular Christian man, Captain Venn, to exorcise the haunt of Apollyon. Wherewith he bade them all farewell, with hopes that by the time he saw them again, they would have come to the knowledge of the truth.
No sooner was he out of sight among the bushes than Emlyn seized on Rusha, and whirled her round in a dance as well as her more substantial proportions would permit, while Steadfast let his countenance expand into the broad grin that he had all this time been stifling.
'What
'Why--the old owl--and his own bad conscience. He might talk big, but he didn't half like going against poor father. Thank God! He has saved His own, and that's over!'
CHAPTER XV. A TABLE OF LOVE IN THE WILDERNESS.
'Yet along the Church's sky
Stars are scattered, pure and high;
Yet her wasted gardens bear
Autumn violets, sweet and rare,
Relics of a Spring-time clear,
Earnests of a bright New Year.'
KEBLE
No more was heard or seen of Jephthah, or of Captain Venn's troop. The garrison within Bristol was small and unenterprising, and in point of fact the war was over. News travelled slowly, but Stead picked up scraps at Bristol, by which he understood that things looked very bad for the King. Moreover, Sir George Elmwood died of his wounds; poor old Lady Elmwood did not long survive him, and the estate, which had been left to her for her life, was sequestrated by the Parliament, and redeemed by the next heir after Sir George, so that there was an exchange of the Lord of the Manor. The new squire was an elderly man, hearty and good-natured, who did not seem at all disposed to interfere with any one on the estate. He was a Presbyterian, and was shocked to find that the church had been unused for three years. He had it cleaned from the accumulation of dirt and rubbish, the broken windows mended with plain glass, and the altar table put down in the nave, as it had been before Mr. Holworth's time; and he presented to the living Mr. Woodley, a scholarly-looking person, who wore a black gown and collar and bands.
The Elmwood folk were pleased to have prayers and sermon again, and Patience was glad that the children should not grow up like heathens; but her first church going did not satisfy her entirely.
'It is all strange,' she said to Stead, who had stayed with the cattle. 'He had no book, and it was all out of his own head, not a bit like old times.'
'Of course not,' said Emlyn. 'He had got no surplice, and I knew him for a prick-eared Roundhead! I should have run off home if you had not held me, Patience. I'll never go there again.'
'I am sure you made it a misery to me, trying to make Rusha and Ben as idle and restless as yourself,' said Patience.
'They ought not to listen to a mere Roundhead sectary,' said Emlyn, tossing her head. 'I couldn't have borne it if I had not had the young ladies to look at. They had got silk hoods and curls and lace collars, so as it was a shame a mere Puritan should wear.'
'O Emlyn, Emlyn, it is all for the outside,' said Patience. 'Now, I did somehow like to hear good words, though they were not like the old ones.'
'Good, indeed! from a trumpery Puritan.'
Stead went to church in the afternoon. He was eighteen now, and that great struggle and effort had made him more of a man. He thought much when he was working alone in the fields, and he had spent his time on Sundays in reading his Bible and Prayer-book, and comparing them with Jeph's tracts. Since Emlyn had come, he had made a corner of the cowshed fit to sleep in, by stuffing the walls with dry heather, and the sweet breath of the cows kept it sufficiently warm, and on the winter evenings, he took a lantern there with one of Patience's rush lights, learnt a text or two anew, and then repeated passages to himself and thought over them. What would seem intolerably dull to a lad now, was rest to one who had been rendered older than his age by sorrow and responsibility, and the events that were passing led people to consider religious questions a great deal.
But Stead was puzzled. The minister was not like the soldiers whom he had heard raving about the reign of the saints, and abusing the church. He prayed for the King's having a good deliverance from his troubles, and for the peace of the kingdom, and he gave out that there was to be a week of fasting, preaching, and preparation for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
The better sort of people in the village were very much pleased, nobody except Goody Grace was dissatisfied, and people told her that was only because she was old and given to grumbling at everything new. Blane the Smith tapped Stead on the shoulder, and said, 'Hark ye, my lad. If it be true that thou wast in old Parson's secrets, now's the time for thou know'st what.'
Stead's mouth was open, and his face blank, chiefly because he did not know what to do, and was taken by surprise, and Blane took it for an answer.
'Oh! if you don't know, that's another thing, but then 'twas for nothing that the troopers flogged you? Well,' he muttered, as Stead walked off, 'that's a queer conditioned lad, to let himself be flogged, as I wouldn't whip a dog, all out of temper, because he wouldn't answer a question. But he's a good lad, and I'll not bring him into trouble by a word to squire or minister.'
The children went off to gather cowslips, and Stead was able to talk it over with Patience, who at first was eager to be rid of the dangerous trust, and added, with a sigh, 'That she had never taken the Sacrament since the Easter before poor father was killed, and it must be nigh upon Whitsuntide now.'
'That's true,' said Stead, 'but nobody makes any count of holy days now. It don't seem right, Patience.'
'Not like what it used to be,' said Patience. 'And yet this minister is surely a godly man.'
'Father and parson didn't say ought about a godly man. They made me take my solemn promise that I'd only
