CHAPTER I
THE SITUATION
To the casual Londoner who lounged, intolerant and impatient, at theblacksmith's door while a horse was shod, or a cracked spoke mended,Great Keynes seemed but a poor backwater of a place, compared with therush of the Brighton road eight miles to the east from which he hadturned off, or the whirling cauldron of London City, twenty miles to thenorth, towards which he was travelling.
The triangular green, with its stocks and horse-pond, overlooked by thegrey benignant church-tower, seemed a tame exchange for seethingCheapside and the crowded ways about the Temple or Whitehall; and it wasstrange to think that the solemn-faced rustics who stared respectfully atthe gorgeous stranger were of the same human race as the quick-eyed,voluble townsmen who chattered and laughed and grimaced over the newsthat came up daily from the Continent or the North, and was tossed to andfro, embroidered and discredited alternately, all day long.
And yet the great waves and movements that, rising in the hearts of kingsand politicians, or in the sudden strokes of Divine Providence, sweptover Europe and England, eventually always rippled up into this placidcountry village; and the lives of Master Musgrave, who had retired uponhis earnings, and of old Martin, who cobbled the ploughmen's shoes, weredefinitely affected and changed by the plans of far-away Scottishgentlemen, and the hopes and fears of the inhabitants of South Europe.Through all the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign, the menace of theSpanish Empire brooded low on the southern horizon, and a responsivemutter of storm sounded now and again from the north, where Mary Stuartreigned over men's hearts, if not their homes; and lovers of secularEngland shook their heads and were silent as they thought of their tinycountry, so rent with internal strife, and ringed with danger.
For Great Keynes, however, as for most English villages and towns at thistime, secular affairs were so deeply and intricately interwoven withecclesiastical matters that none dared decide on the one question withoutconsidering its relation to the other; and ecclesiastical affairs, too,touched them more personally than any other, since every religious changescored a record of itself presently within the church that was asfamiliar to them as their own cottages.
On none had the religious changes fallen with more severity than on theMaxwell family that lived in the Hall, at the upper and southern end ofthe green. Old Sir Nicholas, though his convictions had survived thetempest of unrest and trouble that had swept over England, and he hadremained a convinced and a stubborn Catholic, yet his spiritual systemwas sore and inflamed within him. To his simple and obstinate soul it wasan irritating puzzle as to how any man could pass from the old to a newfaith, and he had been known to lay his whip across the back of a servantwho had professed a desire to try the new religion.
His wife, a stately lady, a few years younger than himself, did what shecould to keep her lord quiet, and to save him from incurring by hisindiscretion any further penalties beyond the enforced journeys beforethe Commission, and the fines inflicted on all who refused to attendtheir parish church. So the old man devoted himself to his estates andthe further improvement of the house and gardens, and to the inculcationof sound religious principles into the minds of his two sons who wereliving at home with their parents; and strove to hold his tongue, and hishand, in public.
The elder of these two, Mr. James as he was commonly called, was rather amysterious personage to the village, and to such neighbours as they had.He was often in town, and when at home, although extremely pleasant andcourteous, never talked about himself and seemed to be only verymoderately interested in the estate and the country-life generally. This,coupled with the fact that he would presumably succeed his father, gaverise to a good deal of gossip, and even some suspicion.
His younger brother Hubert was very different; passionately attached tosport and to outdoor occupations, a fearless rider, and in every way akindly, frank lad of about eighteen years old. The fifth member of thefamily, Lady Maxwell's sister, Mistress Margaret Torridon, was aquiet-faced old lady, seldom seen abroad, and round whom, as round hereldest nephew, hung a certain air of mystery.
The difficulties of this Catholic family were considerable. Sir Nicholas'religious sympathies were, of course, wholly with the spiritual side ofSpain, and all that that involved, while his intense love of England gavehim a horror of the Southern Empire that the sturdiest patriot might haveenvied. And so with his attitude towards Mary Stuart and her Frenchbackground. While his whole soul rose in loathing against the crime ofDarnley's murder, to which many of her enemies proclaimed her accessory,it was kindled at the thought that in her or her child lately crowned asJames VI. of Scotland, lay the hope of a future Catholic succession; andthis religious sympathy was impassioned by the memory of an interview afew years ago, when he had kissed that gracious white hand, and lookedinto those alluring eyes, and, kneeling, stammered out in broken Frenchhis loyalty and his hopes. Whether it was by her devilish craft as herenemies said, or her serene and limpid innocence as her friends said, orby a maddening compound of the two, as later students have said--at leastshe had made the heart and confidence of old Sir Nicholas her own.
But there were troubles more practical than these mental struggles; itwas a misery, beyond describing, to this old man and his wife to see thechurch, where once they had worshipped and received the sacraments, givenover to what was, in their opinion, a novel heresy, and the charge of aschismatic minister. There, in the Maxwell chapel within, lay the bonesof their Catholic ancestors; and there they had knelt to adore andreceive their Saviour; and now for them all was gone, and the light wasgone out in the temple of the Lord. In the days of the previous Rectormatters were not so desperate; it had been their custom to receive fromhis hands at the altar-rail of the Church hosts previously consecrated atthe Rectory; for the incumbent had been an old Marian priest who had notscrupled so to relieve his Catholic sheep of the burden of recusancy,while he fed his Protestant charges with bread and wine from theCommunion table. But now all that was past, and the entire family wascompelled year by year to slip off into Hampshire shortly before Easterfor their annual duties, and the parish church that their forefathers hadbuilt, endowed and decorated, knew them no more.
But the present Rector, the Reverend George Dent, was far from a bigot;and the Papists were more fortunate than perhaps, in their bitterness,they recognised; for the minister was one of the rising Anglican school,then strange and unfamiliar, but which has now established itself as themain representative section of the Church of England. He welcomed theeffect but not the rise of the Reformation, and rejoiced that theincrustations of error had been removed from the lantern of the faith.But he no less sincerely deplored the fanaticism of the Puritan andGenevan faction. He exulted to see England with a church truly her own atlast, adapted to her character, and freed from the avarice and tyranny ofa foreign despot who had assumed prerogatives to which he had no right.But he reverenced the Episcopate, he wore the prescribed dress, he usedthe thick singing-cakes for the Communion, and he longed for the timewhen nation and Church should again be one; when the nation shouldworship through a Church of her own shaping, and the Church share theglory and influence of her lusty partner and patron.
But Mrs. Dent had little sympathy with her husband's views; she hadassimilated the fiery doctrines of the Genevan refugees, and to her mindher husband was balancing himself to the loss of all dignity andconsistency in an untenable position between the Popish priesthood on theone side and the Gospel ministry on the other. It was an unbearablethought to her that through her husband's weak disposition and principleshis chief parishioners should continue to live within a stone's throw ofthe Rectory in an assured position of honour, and in personalfriendliness to a minister whose ecclesiastical status and claims theydisregarded. The Rector's position then was difficult and trying, no lessin his own house than elsewhere.
The third main family in the village was that of the Norrises, who livedin the Dower House, that stood in its own grounds and gard
ens a fewhundred yards to the north-west of the village green. The house hadoriginally been part of the Hall estate; but it had been sold some fiftyyears before. The present owner, Mr. Henry Norris, a widower, lived therewith his two children, Isabel and Anthony, and did his best to bring themup in his own religious principles. He was a devout and cultivatedPuritan, who had been affected by the New Learning in his youth, and hadconformed joyfully to the religious changes that took place in Edward'sreign. He had suffered both anxiety and hardships in Mary's reign, whenhe had travelled abroad in the Protestant countries, and made theacquaintance of many of the foreign reformers--Beza, Calvin, and even thegreat Melancthon himself. It was at this time, too, that he had lost hiswife. It had been a great joy to him to hear of the accession ofElizabeth, and the re-establishment of a religion that was sincerely hisown; and he had returned immediately to England with his two littlechildren, and settled down once more at the Dower House. Here his wholetime that he could spare from his children was divided between prayer andthe writing of a book on the Eucharist; and as his children grew up hemore and more retired into himself and silence and communing with God,and devoted himself to his book. It was beginning to be a great happinessto him to find that his daughter Isabel, now about seventeen years old,was growing up into active sympathy with his principles, and that thepassion of her soul, as of his, was a tender deep-lying faith towardsGod, which could exist independently of outward symbols and ceremonies.But unlike others of his school he was happy too to notice and encouragefriendly relations between Lady Maxwell and his daughter, since herecognised the sincere and loving spirit of the old lady beneath hersuperstitions, and knew very well that her friendship would do for thegirl what his own love could not.
The other passion of Isabel's life at present lay in her brother Anthony,who was about three years younger than herself, and who was just now moreinterested in his falcons and pony than in all the religious systems andhuman relationships in the world, except perhaps in his friendship forHubert, who besides being three or four years older than himself, caredfor the same things.
And so relations between the Hall and the Dower House were all that theyshould be, and the path that ran through the gardens of the one and theyew hedge and orchard of the other was almost as well trodden as if allstill formed one estate.
As for the village itself, it was exceedingly difficult to gaugeaccurately the theological atmosphere. The Rector despaired of doing so.It was true that at Easter the entire population, except the Maxwells andtheir dependents, received communion in the parish church, or at leastprofessed their willingness and intention to do so unless prevented bysome accident of the preceding week; but it was impossible to be blind tothe fact that many of the old beliefs lingered on, and that there waslittle enthusiasm for the new system. Rumours broke out now and againthat the Catholics were rising in the north; that Elizabeth contemplateda Spanish or French marriage with a return to the old religion; that MaryStuart would yet come to the throne; and with each such report there cameoccasionally a burst of joy in unsuspected quarters. Old Martin, forexample, had been overheard, so a zealous neighbour reported, blessingOur Lady aloud for her mercies when a passing traveller had insisted thata religious league was in progress of formation between France and Spain,and that it was only a question of months as to when mass should be saidagain in every village church; but then on the following Sunday thecobbler's voice had been louder than all in the metrical psalm, and onthe Monday he had paid a morning visit to the Rectory to satisfy himselfon the doctrine of Justification, and had gone again, praising God andnot Our Lady, for the godly advice received.
But again, three years back, just before Mr. Dent had come to the place,there had been a solemn burning on the village-green of all suchmuniments of superstition as had not been previously hidden by the priestand Sir Nicholas; and in the rejoicings that accompanied this return topure religion practically the whole agricultural population had joined.Some Justices had ridden over from East Grinsted to direct this rusticreformation, and had reported favourably to the new Rector on his arrivalof the zeal of his flock. The great Rood, they told him, with SS. Maryand John, four great massy angels, the statue of St. Christopher, theVernacle, a brocade set of mass vestments and a purple cope, had perishedin the flames, and there had been no lack of hands to carry faggots; andnow the Rector found it difficult to reconcile the zeal of hisparishioners (which indeed he privately regretted) with the sudden andunexpected lapses into superstition, such as was Mr. Martin's gratitudeto Our Lady, and others of which he had had experience.
As regards the secular politics of the outside world, Great Keynes tookbut little interest. It was far more a matter of concern whether mass ormorning prayer was performed on Sunday, than whether a German bridegroomcould be found for Elizabeth, or whether she would marry the Duke ofAnjou; and more important than either were the infinitesimal details ofdomestic life. Whether Mary was guilty or not, whether her supporterswere rising, whether the shadow of Spain chilled the hearts of men inLondon whose affair it was to look after such things; yet the cows mustbe milked, and the children washed, and the falcons fed; and it was thesethings that formed the foreground of life, whether the sky were stormy orsunlit.
And so, as the autumn of '69 crept over the woods in flame and russet,and the sound of the sickle was in folks' ears, the life at Great Keyneswas far more tranquil than we should fancy who look back on thosestirring days. The village, lying as it did out of the direct routebetween any larger towns, was not so much affected by the gallop of thecouriers, or the slow creeping rumours from the Continent, as villagesthat lay on lines of frequent communication. So the simple life went on,and Isabel went about her business in Mrs. Carroll's still-room, andAnthony rode out with the harriers, and Sir Nicholas told his beads inhis room--all with nearly as much serenity as if Scotland were fairylandand Spain a dream.