The Broken Font: A Story of the Civil War, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Moyle Sherer

  CHAP. XVIII.

  He nothing common did nor mean After that memorable scene; But with his keener eye The axe's edge did try: Nor call'd the gods, with vulgar spite, To vindicate his helpless right; But bow'd his comely head Down as upon a bed. MARVELL.

  From the hour of his brother's untimely death Cuthbert led a life ofcrazed care and religious melancholy. He retired to London, but heavoided all his former acquaintances. He lodged in an obscure alley,and wandered about during the day without any apparent aim or object,when not compelled to some slight exertion to provide bread for thepassing day. His resource on these occasions was a Puritan printer, towhom his Cambridge tutor, now dead, had very favourably introduced himbefore the breaking out of the war, and who, from compassion to histroubled state of mind, gave him such small and easy employments asmight not only contribute to his support but might avail to divert hismelancholy, and to restore the strength of his shattered intellect. Hewas not, however, to be engaged in any undertaking which long confinedhim at home or to a house. He had become one of those rueful objects,of which a few may be found in all large cities, and in the fields andparks in their vicinity. They stray about at will; stand near thecrowded pageant; and though they seem to look upon it earnestly, areperfectly unconscious whether it is a funereal procession or the lordmayor's show. They gaze fixedly at buildings and at persons; but theformer are to them as clouds, and the latter as trees walking. Fromfrequent and careless exposure to chilling rains, and from his longfasts and the scantiness and irregularity of his meals, his health hadsuffered seriously: he had a settled cough; and he was so emaciatedand altered in the face that hardly any body would have recognisedhim. Moreover, the change in his appearance had extended to hisdress, which was old, threadbare, and torn. Such was the melancholyfigure that came into churches, and sat down upon the benches of themiddle aisle, not conscious why he was avoided by the more decentpoor, why none but some Lazarus full of sores would take a seat besidehim. He hung as a blighted leaf upon the social tree,--a sad mementothat man is born to trouble, and that sooner in sorrow, or later indeath, all the leaves must fade.

  Upon that black day in the calendar of England's history, the 30th ofJanuary, 1648, when the last act in the tragic drama of the civil warwas presented in public before an afflicted and indignant people,Cuthbert stood among the gloomy and anxious crowd which was gatheredround the scaffold at Whitehall. Several regiments of horse and footwere posted near the place of execution, as much to keep the peoplefrom hearing their king's last words as to observe and control theirtemper. The mind of Cuthbert had been roused from its long lethargy bythe various news and rumours connected with the trial of the King,which had been circulated within the last fortnight around him; and hecame along with the multitude on this day, not believing that theywould dare execute Charles, and that if it were attempted, a rescuewould be effected. The day was piercing cold, and the keen windsearched through his threadbare cloak; and he leaned back against awall, a pale shadow of misery, feeble and trembling. He knew not whyhe was there, or what he was to do, but when he had seen the strongpopulace hastening to Whitehall, he had followed a helpless expectantof some strange judgment or deliverance. His view of the place ofexecution was intercepted by the tall men who stood in front of himand by a trooper on horseback; and he remained still and silent, lostin thought and in confused prayers, till a movement and murmurs in thecrowd awakened him to a consciousness of the dread scene which wasgoing forward at a little distance.

  "That's his Majesty," said one: "how noble he looks."--"He's speakingnow," said another.--"See how grand and straight he stands up, andhow he looks them all in the face."--And from other voices came suchremarks,--"See! the clergy is speaking to him."--"Who is thatparson?"--"'Tis a bishop, man."--"Which?"--"Why honest oldJuxon."--"Look! the King has got his doublet off. God help his blessedMajesty! O for a few thousand good men and true!"--"Nay, nay, he'ssaved. Look! they're putting on his cloak again! Thank God! thankGod!"--But the voice that had uttered this hope was soon hushed, andthere was a dread silence,--the people held their breath. Suddenlythere arose a loud and universal wail. At the sight of the royal headheld up dripping with blood in the hands of the executioner,lamentations, and groans, and tears, and wringing of hands, did make awild mourning such as became a nation's remorseful woe. Cuthbert smoteon his breast, and fell upon his knees, and lifted up his voice, andwept scalding tears, calling himself a murderer and an abetter of theKing's death,--one that had, like Judas, sold his master, and that hisend would be the same, and everlasting fire his portion. A knot ofpersons gathered about him; some of whom, as they heard his ravings,did half believe that he had been more particularly concerned inbetraying the King, and looked upon him with horror, as on onesuffering the just judgment of Heaven, while others pitied him, andthought him mad. But the troopers being now called upon to dismiss thecrowd, two large bodies of horse moved up and down from King Street toCharing Cross, dispersing the folk that had gathered in the middle ofthe way, while a few single dragoons moved towards the various knotsand groups, that still lingered near the walls and in corners, todrive them also away. One approached the small crowd which hadcollected around Cuthbert in his bewildered agonies; and, eitherreally taking him for an impostor or for a designing person wanting tocreate a disturbance, came close and gave him a brutal blow with theflat of his sword, bidding him away to his own dunghill, and play histricks with his fellow-beggars in Rosemary Lane. Upon this, a stoutman near, who, from his knit bonnet and coarse grey coat, looked likea woodman or a warrener from the country, struck the sword out of thetrooper's hand, and knocked him off his horse; and the mob would havehad his life but for the prompt assistance of his comrades, a few ofwhom came up led by a sergeant, who, being a reasonable man that feltashamed for the unsoldierly services of that sad morning, contentedhimself with releasing the soldier and advising the people to goquietly to their homes. The trooper had been so startled and stunnedby the assault that he could not point out the person who struck himfirst, nor did the sergeant seize upon any one.

  The stout man who had resented the blow inflicted on poor Cuthbertraised him up, and led him aside to a more private place, where, theytwo being alone together, he tried to make himself known, for he hadalready recognised the voice of Cuthbert; and his soul could, even onthat day of public calamity, be filled with pity for this unhappysufferer. It was George Juxon. Cuthbert, already in a kind of stupor,produced by great mental excitement on a weak and exhausted frame, andthe action of the severe cold of the day upon his naked head, lookedvacantly at him, with incredulity and alarm; and Juxon saw that he wasnot only very ill but that his senses were wandering. He immediatelytook him home to his own lodgings in a quiet street near St. Paul'sCathedral, and procured the help of a skilful and humane physician.

  It was a week before Cuthbert was sufficiently restored to strengtheither of body or mind to recognise his protector; but when he did so,the face and voice of Juxon appeared to give him the power ofrecovering his scattered memories and unravelling his tangledthoughts. Nor were the features of Juxon the only ones he was enabledto recall among those kind preservers with whom he had been thusmercifully thrown at so critical a moment of his life.

  Jane Lambert, now the wife of Juxon, was one of those who ministeredto him in his sickness; and the countenance of Katharine Heywood, nolonger radiant with youth, and health, and hope, but still majesticand merciful as those of guardian angels, shone upon him with a mildand Christian pity. They all viewed Cuthbert as an erring child of aheavenly Father brought back to him by affliction; and they felt thatto minister to his sorrows and his need, and to lead him gently to thegreen pastures and the still waters of Christ's flock, was a sacredduty, and a sweet privilege.

  The circumstances of those around him were sufficiently easy,considering the times, to enable them to place him again in hisrelative station as regarded temporal matters; and he learned withthanksgiving that his father and mo
ther were safe and well, and hadbeen so far assisted as to be comparatively comfortable in the smallcottage in which they dwelt.

  But it was long before Juxon prevailed with him to return to hisfather. At every mention of this duty he became silent and gloomy:from this trial he seemed to shrink with dejection and almost despair.His faith in the gracious promises of Scripture failed him,--and hethought his crimes of too black a dye for forgiveness. One evening,especially, a man coming before the parlour windows and crying certainrelics for sale, offered with a loud hoarse voice,--"Most preciousremains of his late sacred Majesty of pious memory, warranted genuine,and dipped in his own blood."

  "Here be two locks of hair, master, and three strips of ahandkerchief, all bloody, as you see," said the knave, thrusting themacross the rails towards the window where Mrs. Juxon and Cuthbert weresitting. At this sight the poor convalescent fainted, and suffered arelapse, which again disturbed his reason. But as the spring opened,his mind was restored to the vigour of his best days. He saw andembraced his privileges as a pardoned penitent, and he willinglyprepared to return to his parents. It was plain, indeed, to himself aswell as to Juxon, that his earthly pilgrimage could not be long, forconsumption had set her deadly mark upon his cheek; and he wasoppressed with a cough which he knew he must carry to the grave withhim: but, grateful for the blessings of restored peace and hope, hetook his last farewell of Juxon, and set forward on his journey home.

  He travelled down with a train of return pack horses to Bristol, andwas five days upon the road. It was the middle of April, but theweather was cold, snowy, and ungenial;--as in some springs there is abrief season of summer heat, so in this there was that sharp andbitter check known among shepherds and countrymen by the name of theblack thorn winter.

  There was a heavy fall of snow on the very day that he rode fromBristol to Glastonbury; and when he alighted at the small hostel wherehe was to leave his hired horse, all was dull, still and silent. Hehad passed through empty streets, and he came to an empty yard, whereit was long before a lame hostler, with a sack over his shoulder, anda pair of wooden shoes on his feet, came out to take his hack. It waslong, again, before he could procure any one to guide him to PriestHill Cottage;--at last an urchin with a blue face, and his hands inhis breeches pockets, was driven out, by a scolding landlady, to showCuthbert on his way. The north-east wind blew keenly, and drove thesnow into his face and neck as he followed the awkward and flounderingsteps of the stupid and unwilling boy: the distance seemed long; andwhen they stopped before the wicket of the small cottage, it had amost poor and desolate appearance.

  Cuthbert paid and dismissed his guide; and now he was alone on thethreshold of that father, whose bosom he had pierced through with manysorrows; he was soon to meet the mother on whose breasts himself andMartin had both hanged in the innocent days of infancy. He had onesecret in his bosom, which it would be his duty to keep from thoseparents--that they might not be grieved above measure in theirdeclining years. He was only come for their pardon and their blessingbefore he died; but he could not open the wicket and go in. In silentagony he raised his eyes to the God of heaven, to implore strength forthat solemn meeting. Then came the tempter, and showed him Martin inboyhood, with sunny curls, and an arm about his neck, running withhim down the green slope of the garden to the arbour where theirfather and mother sat--and then a change came--and he saw the palecorpse, and the bright hair dabbled with blood--and frowning faceslooked out on him from the black and laden sky. He felt chill as deathand very giddy, and then came a merciful swoon.

  What hands were these chafing him as he awoke to consciousness, lyingon warm blankets before a fire?--his mother's. What man was this uponhis knees, with earnest and moist eyes, that was giving him a cordialwith a gentle care?--it was his father: the wanderer was at homeagain. Words may not tell his happiness; earth has no language toexpress it: there, near the throne of mercy, to which his gratefulheart throbbed up its thanksgiving, there it was intelligible; theregood angels heard it, and struck their golden harps to hymns of joy.

  There was not in broad England a fireside more sweetly blessed withthe spirit of peace and love than that by which old Noble and his wifeand their child Cuthbert sat now for many weeks in quiet company. Nota single look of upbraiding even from old Peter shaded one hour ofCuthbert's life, from the moment when he was brought in from thewicket in the arms of his father and of that faithful old servant.Though quaint, and rough in manner, the man was true and tender atheart. It was enough for him that Master Cuthbert was come home again;and when he saw his hollow cheeks, and listened to his churchyardcough, all the same feelings which he had once had for him during adangerous sickness of his childhood returned, and he was as gentle andkind in all he had to do for him as a nurse; but this was little,--fora mother was ever at his side: by her hands his pillow was smoothed,by her his back was propped, and his chair placed nearer to the fire;while his father sought to share in all these services, and read tohim, and prayed with him, and communed with him through long andprecious hours about their common faith, their common hope, and thatfuture and abiding world, where they should dwell as pardoned andperfected spirits, in sinless felicity, and in the pure service ofpraise and love for ever.

  They all sat together one afternoon, about the close of May, when itwas so warm that even the invalid had his chair moved out of doors forhalf an hour, and sat well wrapped up, to look at the flowers and thebee-hive. Cuthbert was silent, but a tear stole down his cheek; andturning suddenly to his father, he asked, "Did you see any thing?"

  "Nothing," replied Noble, calmly.

  "It was a vision then; the mere creature of my own brain: but it wasvery beautiful. I thought I saw our dear departed Martin."

  "That is not surprising, Cuthbert, we have talked together so muchabout him lately, and you think of him, I know, a great deal; I myselfoften in my fancy see the dear boy, and probably shall continue to doso as long as I live."

  "Yes, that is the natural way to account for it; but yet I have neverbefore pictured him to my mind as I saw him just now. He stood inshining raiment, by the bank of a river that seemed to flow betweenus, and beckoned me to come over; and behind him I saw a field oflight, and far off, a city that was bright as alabaster.

  "Father, I have one last request to make--I do not think that I shallbe much longer with you--read me the fourteenth chapter of St. Johnnow: there my hope as a Christian was first clearly revealed to me;there I first cast anchor. O that I had never put out into the stormysea of controversy! But it is all well--it is all over now. By theDivine alchemy good hath been drawn out of evil.

  "'O Father of eternal life, and all Created glories under thee! Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall Into true liberty.'"

  "You are not, dear Cuthbert, impatient, I hope? We must all wait God'stime."

  "I hope not; but it is better to depart."

  He now listened with the most devout and prayerful attention as hisfather read to him; but before the chapter was finished, his headsuddenly sunk upon his bosom, and his spirit departed.