CHAPTER I.

“Behold Beneath our feet a little lowly vale. A lowly vale, and yet uplifted high Among the mountains; even as if the spot Had been from eldest time, by wish of theirs, So placed to be shut out from all the world! Urnlike it was in shape, deep as an urn With rocks encompassed, save that, to the south, Was one small opening, where a heath-clad ridge Supplied a boundary less abrupt and close-- A quiet, treeless nook, with two green fields, A liquid pool that glittered in the sun, And one bare dwelling, one abode, no more! It seemed the home of poverty and toil, Though not of want: the little fields made green By husbandry of many thrifty years, Paid cheerful tribute to the moorland house. The small birds find in spring no thicket there To shroud them--only from the neighboring vales, The cuckoo, straggling up to the hill-tops, Shouteth faint tidings of a gladder place.” WORDSWORTH.

The May sun shone hopefully over the fair heights of Cumberland. Wide slopes of far-stretching hills, with that indescribable soft blue mist hovering about them, which one can fancy the subdued and silent breathing of those great inhabitants who dwell upon the northern border, lay many-tinted below the wayward sky of spring--breaking out into soft verdure here and there, while tracts of dry heather, with the wintry spell not yet departed from them, made the swelling hill-sides piebald. Far up in a lone valley of those hills stood a herdsman’s cottage--a rude and homely hut, with mossy thatch and walls of rough red stone, scarcely distinguishable from the background of dark heather, on which it appeared an uncouth _bas-relief_. Surrounding it, on the sunniest slope of the little glen, was a garden of tolerable dimensions, in which the homely vegetables which supplied the shepherd’s family were diversified with here and there a hardy flower or stunted bush. A narrow, winding thread of pathway ran from the entrance of the glen, down the hill-side, to the low country; it seemed the only trace of communication with the mighty world without.

A troublous world in those days! Over the Border the demon of persecution was abroad in Scotland. Within this merry England--sadly misnamed, alas! at that time--was oppression also, cruel and fierce, if shedding less blood than in the sister country. Enmity and contention were in the land--worse than that, and more fatal, foul pollution and sin; for the second Charles reigned over a distracted and unhappy empire, in which the rival forces of good and evil, light and darkness, had measured their strength already on various fields of battle, and had yet intervening, before there could be any peace, a time of bitterest and hottest strife.

Very still, below the changeful sky, the cot-house of the Cumberland shepherd stood secure in the fastness of its solitude. Some half-dozen miles away, far down in the low country, the farmer whose flocks he managed had his substantial dwelling. In the extreme distance were visible the towers and spires of Carlisle; and saving the occasional descent of Ralph Dutton to his employer’s house, or the half-yearly pilgrimage of his good dame for the few household stores which she needed to purchase, there were few footsteps trod the lonely pathway over the hills.

At this time, however, while Dame Dutton hobbled busily about her earthen-floored apartment preparing her good-man’s dinner, a slight young figure hovered on the watch about the entrance of the glen. Woman-grown and grave, as girls become in times of trial, this watcher wore the soberest of Puritan dresses, dark, plain, and simple as of some youthful nun. Her face had an earnest, devout simplicity about it, the product of such times; for the Puritan maidens of those days, with fathers and brothers in constant peril, holding by their faith at the risk of all things else, had need to be prompt and clear of eye, as they were single-minded, and strong of faith. She was looking anxiously down the winding foot-road, the lines of her soft, girlish forehead curved with graver care than is wont to sit upon such brows. It was no gay wooer’s visit she looked for--it was the coming of an imperiled, banished man, the expelled minister of antique Hampstead, a wanderer now, having no certain home. He had found a refuge for his daughter here, in the house of the leal old Presbyterian shepherd, while he himself followed his high vocation, in peril and fears, as he could. On the previous morning his daughter had received a message from him, that this day at noon he would visit her.

The unusual warning had alarmed her; it seemed to portend some especial crisis in their eventful history. She had been on the watch a full hour, though it was not yet noon; her dark dress pressing the bed of faded heather she leaned upon; her small head, with its hood of black silk, bending out under shadow of an overhanging bush of furze; her clear hazel eyes fixed upon the way--very anxious, very grave, entirely absorbed in anticipation of this interview, yet with only a clear atmosphere of truth, and honor, and purity round about her, and spite of plain dress, and grave face, nothing perceptible of the unnatural austerity and gloom with which men upbraid these, our strong and brave predecessors in the faith.

At last she saw him quickly ascending the hill, and ran to meet him. There was a greeting of subdued and yet overflowing tenderness--it did not express itself in any exaggeration of word or action, as intense feeling seldom does; but drawing his daughter’s arm within his own, the stranger turned into a lonely ravine of those hills where human footstep seldom passed.

He was a tall, athletic man, spare and strong, such an one as you would choose from a crowd to endure and do to the uttermost, for whatever was dear to him. Happily the thing dear above all others to the stout soul of Caleb Field, was the Evangel of Jesus Christ in the simplicity of its unassisted might. “Thy kingdom come,” was the continual prayer of his life--spoken in words, morning and night, as the strong current of his days flowed on; but graven in deeds hour by hour upon his history, and upon every span of earth he trod on. “For the Lord’s sake,” Caleb Field, praying, preaching, scheming, struggling, like a good soldier taking no rest, had labored all his days.

The father and the daughter were alone in the narrow pass of the hills.

“Edith,” said the minister, gravely, “I have somewhat to say to you.”

He paused. He had been in great haste to make the communication, whatever it was, and yet he hesitated now.

“Yes, father.”

“We are alone in the world, Edith,” said her father, dwelling on the words with a sad cadence in his voice. “We two, alone--and earthly comfort I have sought none else, thou knowest, since thy mother left thee in my arms; yet, Edith, there is One demanding closer service from me than thou canst, and better love from thee than I can. For His sake, and for his royal and holy cause I must go forth again--Edith, at peril of my life--at peril of leaving thee, a helpless orphan maiden in this inclement world, alone. What sayest thou?”

She clasped his arm with a tremulous, clinging motion--she looked up wistfully into his face.

“Father, what is this? tell me.”

“It is the last trial,” said the Puritan; “heretofore I have been ever in danger, living so much a life of peril that I heeded it not--perchance, Edith, that I gave not due thanks for manifold and oft deliverance; but now this last peril into which I go, is sure, as men say, and parts not with its victim. As men say--it is not for me, a servant of Him who ruleth all things, to think that any created desolation carries in it certain fate; but where he sends this scourge of His anger, there straightway departs all hope. Edith, I am lingering on these words, thou seest--I would have thee make up thy mind to this, and yet I would not. It is hard to part with thee, my little one! and yet--for the Lord’s sake, Edith, bid thy father God-speed. If I leave thee alone, He is yet with thee.”

“Father,” exclaimed Edith Field, “you speak to me in parables, what is this? You can trust me, father; I am ready to bear any thing--to do any thing; father, you can trust me.”

“I can trust thee, Edith,” said the minister, sadly, “if it concerned my life only--if it concerned His cause for whom we labor. In every thing needing honor and truth, a brave young heart, and a pure spirit, I can trust thee, Edith; but can I trust thee alone, poor child, in this troublous and evil country? can I leave thee without one living heart whose blood is kindred to thine own in all this earth? Edith, Edith! the tempter assaileth us through our nearest and dearest. He would have me choose--choose between my Lord and thee--thee, my sole child! my little one!”

“And if it is so,” said Edith, firmly, “if it is so, father, choose! I--I owe all things to thee, but thou owest all things to Him, and there is naught to make thee waver. I also, who can do little, would do all for His cause; but thou, father, choose!”

There was a pause--they went on together in silence, the solemn hills rising over them on either side--the still air stirred by no mortal breath but theirs, alone before God. The strong man, moved with some deep struggle, was contending with himself--the girl, with her clear eyes fixed upon him, looked on anxiously, yet with the thrilling, youthful enthusiasm of resolve, shining in her face. She did not speak--she left the elder spirit, scarce stouter, bold and manlike though it was, than her own, to fight its battle out in silence.

It ended at last. The lips of the Puritan moved; he looked at his daughter, and then, lifting his hat reverently from his head, gazed with a yearning, solemn look upward into the sky--the soft, balmy, spring sky, serene and calm and beautiful, undimmed by all those angry vapors, which darkened the human air below--and as he looked he became calm. He had committed his one treasure into the keeping of his King.

“Now, Edith,” he said, “let me tell you whither I go, and why. I have come from Hampstead. Edith, from our old home. It would grieve you sorely to see it now.”

“Have they made so great a change, father?” said Edith, following this sudden turn of the conversation with an anxious smile, though she wondered why he avoided telling her the nature of the solemn errand to which he had devoted himself.

“They have changed it, Edith; it is sorrowfully changed, and you may trace, alas! the steps of the rejected Gospel, which they have cast out from among them, but I meant not that. The Lord is among them, Edith, a man of war. The king and his flatterers, it is said, are about to flee from the terror of His presence. The hireling to whom they gave my flock has fled, and I go back, Edith, to meet the great messenger of the Lord’s anger--the Plague!”

“The Plague!” The light, and hope, and enthusiastic youthful firmness faded from her face, like the latest sunbeams from the sky of even. Peril, want, labor, hardship, she was prepared to meet, but not this deadly certainty; the young soul was stricken down in a moment before that terrible name.

“The plague! Edith,” said her father, calmly; “the heavy scourge of God’s well-earned indignation. As yet it hath not entered our old home, but in London it has begun its reign, a terrific life in death; it slays its thousands day by day; it is not to be intimidated, or bribed, or bought. Steadily it is cutting down, godly and ungodly, green and ripe. It is our just meed; we have sinned, and He afflicts us. Ah! that it may be but chastisement, and not destruction.”

“And, father, why do you go? What is your call to this certain death?”

“Edith,” said the Puritan, “I am vowed, as thou knowest, by stronger oaths than bind any temporal soldier, to the service of my King; and where men are perishing--blaspheming, godless, unrepentant men--there is my place. For what cause have I the sword of the Spirit put into my hand, Edith, if it is not to defy the enemy where he is most potent? For what is God’s message of sovereign grace and mercy committed to me, if it is not for the succor of my own people stricken by God’s terrible retributive hand? Edith, I must pursue them to the grave’s brink with my Gospel. I must go plead with them, strive with them, suffer with them. If I save but one it is hire enough.”

The flush of hopeful enthusiasm had altogether departed from her face; instead of it there was a steadfast, resolute whiteness. This was no slight matter to be undertaken hastily, and the young spirit bowed in solemn awe, even while its determination was formed.

“Father,” she asked, “do you go alone?”

“Nay, Edith, not so; we are all ready; the brethren, I thank God, do not falter. Master Chester and Titus Vincent are in the field already. There are others who only wait for me to set out upon the way. Young Janeway is at Greenwich; he will have entered on the labor before us; we have not a day to lose. Alas! Edith, those terrible streets of the city! the paleness in all faces--the hurrying away of the dead--men hastening to bury their best beloved, their dearest, the desire of their eyes--out of their sight. Ah! Edith, it is not in our bright days that we think of the import of that word--mercy; but now, when He is visibly among us, a Great Avenger, fulfilling that fearful word of His, ‘I will repay,’ lo! men are opening their terror-stricken souls _now_, to think what it means, and to cry for it, with the voices of despair. God save us! it is a terrible time.”

“And father, do all die?” said Edith, with a shudder of natural terror; “is there no hope where it comes?”

“Alas! I can not tell,” said the Puritan, “for thou may’st think, Edith, how it would fare with one stricken with any sickness, if those about him rushed forth from his bedside in affright, and fled from his presence in terror of their lives. It is thus now--for where this fearful malady goeth, he carrieth another spectre behind him--fear, Edith, terror, panic--fear, which brings our humanity down, and strips it of its boasting--so great cowards are we all, and with so much thought of self. Whither this plague comes, Edith, it snaps all tender bands of kindred; and when a man is stricken, he is straightway, as we say in our worldly speech, without hope, for all forsake him.”

They proceeded on in silence--the pale girlish face was changing--her lips quivered, her nostril dilated, her eyes were looking far into the clear blue air of the hills, in the vacant earnestness of thought--but her father observed not the change. He himself was mightily absorbed. Some such swelling of the heart as the brave soldier may have on the eve of a great battle--a noble, grave, chivalrous bravery, that yearned to be in the thickest combat, the deadliest jeopardy, if need were, for his Lord’s sake, and his people’s, was rising within the stout breast of the Puritan--nor was it unmingled with the “climbing sorrow,” the “hysterica passio,” of the old king. His strong affections were but intensified by their concentration, and to leave his one child, his sole treasure, in the world, alone!

“And now, Edith,” he said gently, as they paused at the end of the ravine, and turned toward the cottage, “I must speak to these humble guardians of thine. It is a sad lot for thee, my poor child, in thy first youth--but we must yield us, Edith, to His will who knoweth our weal best. They are very kind, and very true, and thou hast the hills and the heavens to commune withal, and the word and presence of our Lord--blame not thy father, Edith, that he can add nothing more. I would have thee keep thyself from the maidens of the village yonder--save in so far as thou canst serve them, they are not fellows for thee. I can leave thee with but One sure companion, Edith; and thou wilt seek Him, my child, continually?”

Her head was bent--she did not answer.

“Nay, nay,” said the minister, his lip quivering as he tried to smile, “I can not have thee make thy sacrifice grudgingly, Edith, or with weeping. The Lord’s soldier must depart hopefully, with joy and trust in the magnificent name of his king. Thou knowest that men march to temporal battles with the gay sounds of music, and if mirth would ill become us, Edith, hope is fittest of all moods for a servant of the Lord. Let us go down to speak to this good dame of thine, and then, Edith--then we must part.”

She lifted her head--she had not been weeping--there were traces in her face of an emotion too great for tears.

“Father,” she said, “we are but two of us in the world alone--no kindred--no brethren--if we have friends they are strangers; we have none of our own blood. We are two--only two--in this great world alone.”

Her father raised his hand in appeal--he feared her entreaties. This trial was the greatest of all--his Lord’s cause and his sole child--how painful was the choice that lay between them.

“Only two,” said Edith, with nervous haste. “If thou were taken away, father, ah! then I should rebel against the Lord; my heart would not submit, if my words did. Father, what wouldst thou say in heaven, if thy sole child were shut out for this blasphemy? for I would be alone, alone! Thou hast not thought what a terrible word that is.”

“Edith! Edith!”

“Listen to me, father. If the Lord called us both home, who would weep for us? who would be tempted to this rebellion because we had fallen asleep? Father, if thou wentest up alone, would not my mother ask thee for her child? Ah! the Lord knoweth, surely the Lord knoweth best; but alone, father, alone, a stranger and an exile, when ye are all in heaven--is this meet?”

“Spare me, Edith,” said the minister; “I am vowed to render up all for His cause--all. My people, whom the Lord gave me to watch for their souls night and day, can I let them die, with no man caring for them, no man pointing them to heaven? Remember, Edith! thou hast prayed for them; they are those who shall be my joy and crown if they be brought to righteousness. It is thy grief blindeth thee; think of this.”

“I think of it, father. Yea, I see them, stricken down, and no man caring for their souls; stricken down, and no hand to tend them in their sickness. Ah! father, so desolate it must be, that forsaken sick-bed; so forlorn, so miserable, with only pain living there, and the dark death drawing near in the silence, stealing among the shadows. Father, I have a petition to you; let me go to this labor also? I am here only to pine and brood, and forget our Lord, who will not be served in slothfulness, and yonder they are dying who have need of me--even of _me_. Father, I will go also; you will not deny me?”

“I feared this,” said the Puritan; “it must not be, Edith; speak not of it again.”

“Father, it is not your wont to be more merciful to yourself than to me. I, too--have not I somewhat to answer for in the sight of Him who judgeth righteously. You would have me dwell here in sloth, receiving all mercies and returning no thankful service. But look at me, father, I am strong; I do not fear. We will go together. If He wills it so, we shall return in peace; if He wills it not so, then shall we travel together to his own country in joy. Be it as He wills; I am ready, father. Let us go.”

The Puritan was overcome; his voice trembled.

“Edith, I can not bear this; the Lord demands no martyrdom of thee, my poor child. Rememberest thou not how even He, the Lord, our Holy One, refused in His wondrous patience to tempt God? And why thrust thyself into this deadly peril, Edith? I am called to the labor, not thou; speak not any more of this, it must not be.”

“Yea, father,” said Edith, hurriedly, “but it was to a vain temptation that he answered: ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord.’ It was not to a call to render service to the dying, to comfort the stricken, to minister to the sick. Hitherto I have never rebelled against thy kind will; now, father, I rebel! I also am one responsible to God. I also must go to help in thy ministry. Do not say me nay, but sanctify this my dedication with thine approval--with thy blessing.”

And so he did at last. The girl Edith was a woman now, taking her first step in the checkered life on whose threshold she stood: a strange beginning, yet made in modest boldness, and with a resolute youthful gravity, against which entreaties and expostulations could not stand.

Her humble guardian was less easily satisfied; it was mere madness, as she thought; and Dame Dutton clung to the youthful gentlewoman, who had brought into the shepherd’s homely cottage a grace of high culture and tender nurturing, which threw its magic over even them, and wept and apostrophized the blessed mother of her sweet Mistress Edith to stay the rash steps of her child.

And Edith fought her battle over again, less effectively than before--for Dame Dutton would listen to no representations; while the minister stood by in grave silence, repenting of his hasty consent. But it was arranged at last. Master Field agreed to remain behind his companions; and on the next morning Edith and he were to set out alone on their momentous journey.

He had to leave the cottage immediately to meet with his brethren, and make the necessary arrangements. Early on the morrow the good dame herself was to conduct Edith to a hostel in Carlisle, from whence they would set out; a duty which the kindly shepherd’s wife undertook with much reluctance, and had even laid some simple schemes to prevent, such as darkening the chamber of her gentle guest, and forbearing the usual cheery call with which she was wont to awaken her to a new day. But Edith, in the promptitude of excitement, was beforehand with her affectionate hostess, and left her apartment, dressed in her plain traveling hood and mantle, while Dame Dutton was still donning her homely gown in stealthy silence, fearful of disturbing her.

They had a walk of ten miles to Carlisle, and not a smooth one. Ralph had been out on the hill-side with his flocks since earliest dawn; and at six o’clock, when Dame Dutton had broken her fast after the substantial fashion of the time--for _she_ was not overbrimming with high youthful resolve and subdued excitement--they set out.

It was a very clear, bright, hopeful day; and the breath of the great mountains rose up to heaven, and the undulating breadths of the green country lay fair below the sunshine--peace, and health, and gentle security. Edith Field lifted up her eyes to the pure sky, and sighed--to relieve her full heart not for sorrow; for what very different scenes was she about to exchange these!

“Ay, thou wilt go, wilt thou?” said good Dame Dutton, as they reached the level highway. “Well-a-day! young folk are willful; but I would fain ask thee, Mistress Edith, what Master Field will be the better o’ the like o’ thee? a gentle lady-thing, that’s liker a down bed, and a silk mantle, and folk serving thee hand and foot, than aught else. If thou’dst been a handy lass, wi’ an arm like our Raaf’s, and cheeks like the miller’s maiden o’er the fell, thou might’st have thought on’t; but thou, that ever wast liker a lily in a garden than a stout heatherbloom on the hills, that thou should’st stir thee on such an errand! Well-a-day! but I have telled thee; thou know’st my mind.”

“But I am strong, dame,” said Edith, tremulously. “Cicely Whitbread at the mill, can work better than I, but she could not bear so well. When we left Hampstead--you do not know what a hard journey it was, Dame Dutton--I was not a burden on my father; he will tell you, if you ask him. I rode behind him for whole days, traveling down to Cumberland, but I never wearied. I never felt myself weak until I was safe in the cottage, and my father away again laboring dangerously, when I could not go forth with him. So you must not speak so to me, Dame Dutton, because I am sure I go justly, and will be no hindrance to my father; and here we are at Thornleigh now, half-way to Carlisle, and you have never told me yet, dame, why this house is so desolate.”

“It is none so desolate this fine morning,” said the dame; “thou would’st have me believe, I reckon, that thou did’st not mark the brave gentleman and his train that rode out of the old gate as we came round the shoulder of the fell? Ah! Mistress Edith, thou’s none so still, for all thy sad apparel, as to take no note of young Sir Philip, and his serving-men behind him.”

“I thought no one lived here,” said Edith; “and I never saw Sir Philip, dame, that I should know yonder horseman was he.”

“Nay, I say not thou knowest,” said the shepherd’s wife; “but prithee make thy pace slower, Mistress Edith, for my breath fails me. I had a light foot enow in my day; alack, but that bides not forever! But, as I say, it is e’en as well that we be behind yonder gallant, for an thou knowest him not, it is as well for thee; and thou might’st, if thou did’st see him near at hand; and there is a wrong done between his house and thine, Mistress Edith, that it would but grieve thee to hear of. Alas, thy blessed mother! Well, surely it is a dark world, for yonder proud lady hath all she lacks, and does naught in this earth, but waste and spend, and harden the heart of her;--and the other gentle face is in its grave many a year ago. Well-a-day!”

“What is that, Dame Dutton?” asked Edith, eagerly.

“An thy father told thee not, Mistress Edith,” said the Dame, “it is none of my business to tell thee; and forsooth it is just and right that there should be little mentioning of old wrongs among folk that strive to fear God; for thou knowest the carnal mind is fain to have something against its neighbor, and it is not aye we do well to be angry. He was but an ill body, that prophet Jonah, that could set up his face to say the like.”

“But I am not angry, dame,” said Edith. “Tell me this--tell me about my mother.”

“Ay, and what could I tell thee of her, sweet soul, but what was good and pleasant? She was like thee, Mistress Edith--nay, for that matter, the other lady was well favored enow. Thou could’st see at a glance they were gentlefolks, and come of good blood, but they were none like each other, for all their kindred. Alack! folk thought it a poor lot for her, when she wedded the minister, but it might have been a good lot if there had been no bad laws. Well, we know not who may be hearing us, but this is a distressed land and a dark; and I would there might come better times in my day, for it’s hard upon old folk to have to go dozens of miles ere they can hear a preaching, and Raaf gets to limp now when the road’s long, and I’m sadly hampered with the breath. But any way we may be thankful that there’s no word of such a scourge as that plague coming hereaway, or of us canny Cumberland folk being cut down upon the hills, as they do the Scots. But we mind our troubles more than our mercies!”