most rudimentary description.
Emlyn certainly was very happy in her new quarters. Neither her lady nor herself was arrayed with the rigid plainness exacted by Puritanism, and many disapproving glances were cast upon the fair young pair, mistress and maid, by the sterner matrons. Waiting women could not indulge in much finery, but whatever breast knots and tiny curls beyond her little tight cap could do, Emlyn did without fear of rebuke. Stead tried to believe that the disapproving looks and words, by which Mrs. Lightfoot intimated that she heard reports unfavourable to the household were only due to the general distrust and dislike to the bright and lively Emlyn. Mrs. Lightfoot was no Puritan herself, but her gossips were, and he received her observations with a dull, stony look that vexed her, by intimating that it was no business of hers.
Still it was borne in upon him that, good man as Mr. Henshaw certainly was, the household was altered. It had been poverty and distress which had led the Ayliffe family to give their young sister to a man so much her elder, and inferior in position; and perhaps still more a desire to confirm the Royalist footing in the city of Bristol. The lady's brothers were penniless Cavaliers, and one of them made her house his home, and a centre of Royalist plots and intelligences, which excited Emlyn very much by the certainty that something was going on, though what it was, of course, she did not know; and at any rate there was coming and going, and all sorts of people were to be seen at the merchant's hospitable table, all manner of news to be had here, there, and everywhere, with which she delighted to entertain Steadfast, and show her own importance.
It was not often good news as regarded the Cavalier cause, for Cromwell was fixing himself in his seat; and every endeavour to hatch a scheme against him was frustrated, and led to the flight or death of those concerned in it. However, so long as Emlyn had something to tell, it made little difference whether the tidings were good or bad, whether they concerned Admiral Blake's fleet, or her mistress's little Italian greyhound. By-and-by however instead of Mrs. Henshaw, there came to market Madam Ayliffe, her mother, a staid, elderly lady, all in black, who might as well, Emlyn said, have been a Puritan.
She looked gravely at Stead, and said, 'Young man, I am told that you are well approved and trustworthy, and that my daughter suffers you to walk home with this maiden, you being troth plight to her.'
Stead assented.
'I will therefore not forbid it, trusting that if you be, as I hear, a prudent youth, you may bring her to a more discreet and obedient behaviour than hath been hers of late.'
So saying, Mrs. Ayliffe joined company with the old Cavalier Colonel and went on her way as Emlyn made that ugly face that Stead knew of old, clenched her hand and muttered, 'Old witch! She is a Puritan at heart, after all! She is turning the house upside down, and my poor mistress has not spirit to say 'tis her own, with the old woman and the old hunks both against her! Why, she threatened to beat me because, forsooth, the major's man was but giving me the time of day on the stairs!'
'Was that what she meant?' asked Stead.
'Assuredly it was. Trying to set you against me, the spiteful old make-bate, and no one knows how long she will be here, falling on the poor lads if they do but sing a song in the hall after supper, as if she were a very Muggletonian herself. I trow she is no better.'
'Did you not tell me how she held out her house against the Roundheads, and went to prison for sheltering Cavaliers?'
'I only wish they had kept her there. All old women be Puritans at heart. I say Stead, I'll have done with service. Let us be wed at once.'
Stead could hardly breathe at this proposition. 'But I have only nine pounds and two crowns and--' he began.
'No matter, there be other ways,' she went on. 'Get the house built, and I'll come, and we will have curds and whey all the summer, and mistress and all her friends will come out and drink it, and eat strawberries!'
'But the Squire will never build the place up unless I bring more in hand.'
'You 'but' enough to butt down a wall, you dull-pated old Stead,' said Emlyn, 'you know where to get at more, and so do I.'
Stead's grey eyes fixed on her in astonishment and bewilderment.
'Numskull!' she exclaimed, but still in that good humoured voice of banter that he never had withstood, 'you know what I mean, though maybe you would not have me say it in the street, you that have secrets.'
'How do you know of it?'
'Have not I eyes, though some folk have not? Could not I look out at a chink on a fine summer morning, when you thought the children asleep? Could not I climb up to your precious cave as well as yourself; and hear the iron clink under the stone. Ha, ha! and you and Patience thought no one knew but yourselves.'
'I trust no one else does.'
'No, no, I'm no gad-about, whatever you may be pleased to think me. They say everything comes of use in seven years, and it must be over that now.'
'Ten since 'twas hidden, nigh seven since that Whitsuntide. There's never a parson who could come out, is there? Besides, with Peter Woodward nigh, 'tis not safe to meet.'
'That's what your head is running on. No, no. They will never have it out again that fashion. The old Prayer- book is banished for ever and a day! I heard master and the Captain say that now old Noll has got his will, he will soon call himself king, and there's no hope of churches or parsons coming back; and old madam sat and cried. The Jack Presbyters and the rest of the sectaries have got it all their own way.'
'Dr. Eales said I had no right to give it to Master Woodley, or any that was not the right sort.'
'So why should you go on keeping it there rotting for nothing, when it might just hinder us from wearing our very lives out while you are plodding and saving?'
Stead stood stock still, as her meaning dawned on him, 'Child, you know not what you say,' at last he uttered.
'Ah well, you are slow to take things in; but you'll do it at last.'
'I am slow to take in this,' said Stead. 'Would you have me rob God?'
'No, only the owls and the bats,' said Emlyn. 'If they are the better for the silver and gold under them! What good can it do to let it lie there and rot?'
'Gold rots not!' growled Stead.
'Tarnishes, spoils then!' said Emlyn pettishly. 'Come, what good is't to any mortal soul there?'
'It is none of mine.'
'Not after seven years? Come, look you now, Stead, 'tis not only being tired of service and sharp words, and nips and blows, but I don't like being mocked for having a clown and a lubber for my sweetheart. Oh yes! they do, and there's a skipper and two mates, and a clerk, and a well-to-do locksmith, besides gentlemen's valets and others, I don't account of, who would all cut off their little fingers if I'd only once look at them as I am doing at you, you old block, who don't heed it, and I don't know that I can hold out against them all,' she added, looking down with a sudden shyness; 'specially the mates. There's Jonah Richards, who has a ship building that he is to have of his own, and he wants to call it the 'Sprightly Emlyn,' and the other sailed with Prince Rupert, and made ever so many prizes, and how am I to stand out when you don't value me the worth of an old silver cup?'
'Come, come, Em, that's only to frighten a man.' But she knew in his tone that he was frightened.
'Not a bit! I should be ever so much better off in a tidy little house where I could see all that came and went than up in your lane with nought to go by but the market folk. 'Tis not everyone that would have kept true to a big country lout like you, like that lady among the salvage men that the King spoke of; and I get nothing by it but wait, wait, wait, when there's stores of silver ready to your hand.'
'Heaven knows, and you know, Emlyn, 'tis not for want of love.'
'Heaven may know, but I don't.'
'I gave my solemn word.'
'And you have kept it these ten years, and all is changed.' Then altering her tone, 'There now, I know it takes an hour to beat a notion into that slow brain of yours, and here we be at home, and I shall have madam after me. I'll leave you to see the sense of it, and if I do not hear of something before long, why then I shall know how much you care for poor little Emlyn.'
With which last words she flitted within the gates, leaving Steadfast still too much stunned to realise all she meant, as he turned homewards; but all grew on him in time, the idea that Emlyn, his Emlyn, his orphan of the
