“I wish John would go within the church,” I said uneasily, for I could see his dark head at the foot of the steeple, a clear aim for any marksman.
But now there came another volley of musketry from the church. The cannoneer with the match stumbled suddenly to one knee, the match flying as if thrown from his hand, and then he rolled over and lay full length, drawing up his legs as if he had cramp in his stomach, and then two other buff-coats came and lifted him away; and at this a great shout of applause arose from all the people across in Kirkgate. Then a Royalist on horseback with his arm bound up rode quickly out and seemed to instruct the gunners, stooping to them and waving his sound arm, and they moved away the billets of wood from the other gun, and turned its wheels with their hands, and rolled it out so that it pointed directly in a line with Kirkgate. Our men from the steeple gave out another volley, but seemed not to hit anyone, and we could see the Royalists charging this second gun—it was a sight to see how heavy the cannon-balls were to lift. Then the gun was ready and they all stood back, except one man who came forward with the match, and while he stood waiting for the word to fire there was a kind of silence, everyone waiting to see what the gun would do.
And through that silence, clear and loud and merry, came Francis Ferrand’s laugh.
God pity any woman who sees her husband and her lover as I did then! In that moment the truth I had been trying to keep at a distance closed on me and burned into my heart with a searing agony: Francis was there with the Royalists to take Bradford—certainly he was there, certainly, certainly! He was the officer with the bandaged arm—and John was there to defend it with his life; they were both in desperate peril, they would kill each other if they could; whichever side triumphed, I should be in the dust; my soul was for John, my heart for Francis. As the Royalist cannoneer bent over the breach I buried my face in my hands in anguish—but then I knew I could not bear to let either of those I loved out of my sight in such a fearful moment, so I let my hands drop and I raised my head and I watched them both with dry and burning eyes. There came a puff of smoke from the cannon, which looked grey against the frosted ground and then there was a great deep roar, a noise like thunder which made the whole air quiver, so that the house shook and my ear-drums pulsated; and then, across Kirkgate, there were screams, and people running and huddling together, and the corner of one of the houses crumpled at the roof like a piece of cake broken off by a child, and first two or three stones slipped apart and then the whole wall tumbled headlong. Immediately there came a crackle of musketry from the church, and then another deep angry roar from the other cannon, and great chips of stone flew from the base of the steeple, barely a yard, as it looked, from John’s head. A shuddering moan escaped from my lips, and Sarah, looking pale, seized my arm and tried to drag me in, but I shook her off; and as I watched, I saw John and the rest go into the church and close the door. The relief was so great that a faintness almost overcame me, my knees trembled, and I leaned against the door jamb, scarcely able to stand.
After these first exchanges in which each side, as it were, learnt the other’s strength, both Royalists and Parliamenteers settled to their hateful work and made their dispositions. Our men stayed close in the church, giving fire whenever the Royalists exposed themselves; the Royalists soon saw this, and seemingly had no mind to encounter unnecessary peril, for the main body drew off a little up the hill, waiting till the ordnance should finish the business, and of those left with the cannon, some sheltered by the weavers’ houses except when actually at work on the guns, and some went indoors and gave fire with muskets through the row of windows in the loom-chambers. We knew their presence there only by an occasional glimpse of a red sleeve or shoulder, and it seemed to me that they were safer in those small openings than our men in the large church windows, and that our men knew it, for they appeared and fired and withdrew all very suddenly, as if aware that they offered an easy mark. Thus the advantage of the height of the steeple was offset by the good shelter of the weavers’ houses, and neither side made much progress. And so the siege went on all morning: the cannon scouring Kirkgate and battering the steeple, and our men giving a rattling uneven fire whenever they saw a buff or scarlet coat, and the Royalist muskets replying on the instant ours appeared in the windows, firing all together very steadily. Between the firing Sarah and I looked at each other to see if we were still alive, and exchanged a word or two with her neighbours, who were also standing at their doors. I know not how I looked, for I know not how I felt; my whole being seemed gathered in my eyes, and when they no longer had occupation, there was nothing left of me. But Sarah’s face was keen and set; at each discharge from our men she cried out encouragingly: “Take that, you godless rascals!” and when a cannon thundered without doing harm, she exclaimed with great satisfaction: “God knows His own!” The folks in Kirkgate learned to run for shelter when the cannon was charged and ready to sound, so that few were hurt excepting once when a ball lighted on a tenter in a nearby close and the bars flew amongst the people; but the church could not move, its steeple began to look worn and spoiled, and the men at the windows grew fewer.
As the morning drew on towards noon, the conviction grew on me that the Royalists would win—there were so many of them, so well ordered, and their guns so great; and besides, Francis in any encounter had always seemed so much more able to come off best than John. When I thought of our men—decent, honest, God-fearing, liberty-loving men, who only wanted the right to obey their own consciences—shut up in the church, with only a few muskets and old-fashioned fowling-pieces, and not much powder, and no hope of any relief, Sir Thomas being yet miles away, my heart burned so with pity for them and hatred for the Royalists that I could scarcely contain myself, and a longing grew on me to scold Francis for a clock hour for his callous, selfish, high-handed, tyrannical ways. Bitter phrases formed themselves in my mind; I longed to turn him inside out to his own view, to expose his high-flown Royalist sentiments or the oppressive cruelty, the arrogant injustice, they truly were. But even as I thought thus, in imagination my tongue faltered, and I knew I meant to end my scolding like a woman, in forgiveness and a kiss.
About the time of noon, during a lull in the firing, we heard a kind of murmur from Kirkgate, and looking in that direction saw the folk there crowding to the open end of the street, whence they could see the Turls. They were pointing and talking.
“What’s going on there?” wondered Sarah, craning her neck.
“Perhaps the men from Halifax are coming!” I exclaimed.
We waited eagerly, and soon my expectation seemed to be fulfilled, for a band of men appeared at the foot of Church Bank, the sunshine flashing on some weapons they were carrying. But they were few, and walked along together in an unaccustomed haphazard way, very different from the military motions of the Royalists.
“If that is all a big town like Halifax can do,” began Sarah in a tone of great disgust, “God root it out for a nest of black-hearted malignants.”
“There’s Uncle Lister, Mother,” piped up her eldest little girl, pointing.
The child was right; it was our Lister who headed the band, and the rest were all Little Holroyd men. The poor lads, ignorant of how things were going, began to march right up the middle of the Bank towards the church, forming a mark for the Royalists as easy to hit as a haystack, once they should come within musket-shot. We all called to them and beckoned, and the men from the steeple shouted too—I saw John leaning from a steeple window, waving, then cupping his mouth in his hands to shout in an exasperated way: “Lister!” The Holroyd men stood still, bewildered; then all of a sudden the bullets began to sing past their ears, and they understood their danger and ran for shelter. Lister and some others came tumbling down on top of us, unhurt. I saw now that they carried scythes and sickles and such-like homely weapons; Lister held a notable long pike which seemed familiar to me, when I looked more closely I saw that it was the sharp blade of our spit tied to a pole.
Sarah and the neigh
bours began to make much of these men, additions to the defending force.
“How did you know you were wanted, lads?” called out a woman next door.
“The hand of the Lord was laid on them,” replied Sarah austerely.
“Nay—it was your little Sam fetched us, Mrs. Thorpe,” said one of the men, who in better times had woven for us, laughing. “He told us Mester Thorpe said every God-fearing man in t’district were to go at once to Bradford kirk. He’s a grand little lad, is yon—he went all round Little Holroyd and fair shamed us into setting off.”
“Where is Sam now?” I asked quickly. “Lister! Where are my children now?”
“I’ve locked ’em both up in t’kitchen,” said Lister. “They’re safe enough.”
His tone was so rough and unmannerly that all there looked at him in astonishment that he should address me so. He was as white as a sheet beneath his freckles, his teeth chattered and he continually cracked his great knuckles, ill at ease.
“Are you afraid, Uncle Lister?” piped up little Sarah.
“Though an host of men were laid against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid,” chanted Lister loudly. “When the Lord calls, the godly man will not be wanting.”
God forgive me, I did not believe him; perhaps I even let my smile show my contempt. It was the last time I ever smiled at Lister. The other men joked him cheerfully on his military spirit, as they called it, being honestly aware that they were afraid themselves.
Suddenly a great shouting from the steeple belaboured our ears. While we had been busy with the band from Little Holroyd, the attention of our men in the steeple had been on them too, and the Royalists had boldly taken advantage of this diversion to send a company on foot down the field towards our row of houses. They were almost on us when the men in the steeple saw them; they gave fire at once and shouted, and the church door opened and some of our men ran out, but it was doubtful whether they would be in time, and if the Royalists had our houses, the church would be quite cut off. The men from Little Holroyd saw they were called to action; they stood up and took hold of their weapons, but then looked about them uncertainly.
“Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered!” screamed Lister suddenly, and—his eyes glaring, foam at the corners of his mouth—he sprang out into the road and charged fiercely up the Bank, holding his pole before him like a pike. “In the name of the Lord will I destroy them!” he chanted, and the others followed, brave enough now they knew what to do. The Royalist captain, like a good officer, was running well ahead of his men with his sword drawn; “Come on then and be hanged to you!” he cried, and Lister, screaming: “Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of iron!” ran at him full tilt and struck him a sweeping blow with the pole. The captain lost his feet, the sword flew from his hand; as he stretched to retrieve it his hat fell off, so that I saw his golden head as the other men closed round him. There was the sound of blows, wood on leather and steel on steel; I saw him struggle to his feet, but they beat him down again. Then from the ground a clear high voice, half laughing, half in earnest, cried:
“Well, you have me! Quarter!”
And then there came a sudden sharp cry of pain and fear, and the voice, in earnest this time, repeated:
“Quarter, you fools! Quarter!”
“Aye, we’ll quarter you!” screamed Lister madly, and he drove the spit through Francis’s heart.
A long scream of agony tore the air asunder; I shall never forget that scream as long as I live.
I do not altogether know what happened then. There was a sudden rush of Parliament men up the hill—they were the long-expected men from Halifax, I learned later—and somehow I was amongst them; and the Royalists fell back and these Halifax men swept on into the church; and then I was kneeling there beside Francis, who lay stretched upon the ground, his bright face queerly slack and drooping, his fine coat stained; and Isaac Baume knelt at my side. Francis gave a sudden twist in my arms and looked up at me, his grey eyes very wide and staring, and seemed about to say my name, but instead let his head fall back as if he were too tired to hold it up, and sighed, and was silent.
After a moment Baume said soberly: “He’s gone,” and rose from his knees.
There was a hush; then the leader of the Halifax men said sharply to Lister:
“But what were you about, man? He asked for quarter.”
“Quarter?” muttered Lister stupidly. He stood staring down at Francis, with a face so tallowy white his freckles showed on it like coarse brown blotches; his hands hung down, and the pole with them, so that the blood dripped from the end of the spit to the floor. “Quarter?” he repeated.
“Aye, quarter! He surrendered—we all heard him—not to give quarter is against all the usages of war,” explained the Halifax man impatiently.
“The word does not bear that sense in Holy Writ,” said Lister, obstinate. “Every idle word men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. Quarter!”
“They’ll make us pay for this, I’ll wager,” said the Halifax man in a vexed tone.
“They’ll storm the church if we don’t look about us, Hodgson,” said John’s voice from behind, sardonic.
“Will you try a sally, then?” asked Hodgson, who seemed a knowledgeable man in military matters.
“Aye! Now, while they’re daunted. After their next discharge,” said John.
His words were drowned in the roar of the cannon. The hush which followed was sharply broken by shouted commands and a flurry of footsteps, and John opened the church door, and they all poured out after Hodgson.
“Come on, man!” said Baume to Lister, clapping him on the shoulder. “There’s no need to grieve over a malignant quarter or no quarter.”
Lister shook his head and muttered: “Quarter!” but suffered himself to be led out, stumbling and awkward.
Then all sounds died away, save for the groans of some wounded men who lay propped against the wall, amongst whom I dimly remember seeing Mr. Atkinson; and all the world seemed empty, save for myself and Francis.
I knelt beside Francis and raised him in my arms, I took his head on my breast, but it hung down heavily; I called him by name: Francis, my love, my darling, Francis, my sweet heart, my own dear lad. I begged him to speak to me. It seemed cruel that he would not speak to me, would not call me Pen, would not kiss me or caress me. He seemed hardly to know that I was there beside him. I stroked back the thick golden hair from his forehead—I can see it yet, springing back so strong and curling; I kissed his eyes, his mouth, his cheek, his hands. But they were cold, so cold; I warmed his hands in mine, but they were cold and heavy. To have him so close in my arms, after lacking him so long, and yet he would not speak to me! It was cruel, cruel. Francis, speak to me! Francis!
After a long time I felt a hand resting gently on my shoulder, and heard a voice murmuring quietly in my ear. When I became aware of them, I knew they had been there for a long time. “Mrs. Thorpe, Mrs. Thorpe,” said the voice, a kind homely voice; and after a while it broke a little, and whispered: “Mistress Penninah!” Then I looked up and saw a scarlet Royalist coat, and above it an oldish friendly face I used to know; it was Ralph, the Ferrands’ servant, and what seemed strange to me then, his eyes were full of tears.
“It’s Ralph,” I said dully.
“Yes, it’s Ralph, Mistress Penninah,” said the man in a fond soothing tone. “See, Mistress; it will be best for you to go home now, before Mr. Thorpe and the rest return. They’re off pursuing our men now, but I reckon that won’t last long, they’ll be back on their necks, soon enough. You go home now.” I put out a finger and touched his coat. “I’m Master Frank’s body servant,” said the man, answering my unspoken question; and at my dear love’s name his face contracted. “I let myself be captured,” he went on in a high trembling tone, “so as to be with him. But you’d best leave him now if you value your good name, Mistress.”
He took off his scarlet coat and made to put it over Francis’s face.
Then I knew that Francis was truly dead, and gone from me for ever, and I held Ralph back, and, trembling, for I had never done this office for anyone before, I drew down the lids over my love’s blank eyes. My tears fell on him, and I raised my skirt and wiped them from his face. Then Ralph covered him, and put his hand beneath my elbow and urged me to my feet, and gently drew my cloak together to hide my dress where it was stained with Francis’s blood. But still I could not bring myself to go, to leave Francis.
There came sudden footsteps and loud cheerful voices, and the Bradford men with Isaac Baume, and the Halifax men with Hodgson, and the Little Holroyd men with John, were all round me in the church, laughing and talking. They breathed heavily, and their faces were thick with sweat; some of them were wounded, with blood on face or arm, but all seemed very proud of themselves and their exertions.
“I’ve never seen such a skirmish in my life!” exclaimed Hodgson in a tone of high delight. “Fifty men to pursue a thousand! We must have been mad or drunk to hazard it.”
“It’s true we shot as if we were mad,” said John grimly.
“And the enemy as if they were drunk,” cried Baume, with a loud foolish laugh.
“Your husband has done notable execution, Mrs. Thorpe,” said Hodgson, catching sight of me. “When I saw you surrounded by those three, Thorpe, I own I feared for you. But he discharged his musket on one of them, Mrs. Thorpe, struck down the horse of another with the thick end, and broke the third’s sword, beating it back to his throat; and so put all to flight and returned safe to you.”
They all laughed again, so that I felt a strong repulsion from them; it seemed to me that they were drunk with killing. Behind them I caught a glimpse of Lister; to do him justice he looked white and dazed, but his mouth, like the rest, was set in a silly grin, so that I felt sickened.
Take Courage Page 21
