Читать книгу The Honourable Jim - Baroness Orczy - Страница 14

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And a few weeks later the storm broke over the land. King and Parliament had come to open conflict and the first page was writ in that bloody chronicle which has forever sullied the annals of English history. Brother against brother, father against son, kindred against kindred, man’s hand against his fellow-citizen; for years and decades after this awful day a spirit of hatred, of suspicion, of cruelty, reigned in the hearts of a peace-loving, entirely civilian people. Men took up arms who had never thought of fighting before, sometimes because of the ideal that animated their leaders, but more often for the gain to be acquired by fighting on one side or the other. “For the King,” “For the people” were the war cries that caused brothers to hate one another, or a son to raise his hand against his own father.

At first it was only over a few that bitter passions reigned, it was only a few that embraced one cause or the other from ardent selflessness or passionate loyalty; for the majority that conflict meant an abstract idea, an obstinate will, sometimes merely a question of caste or even of topography. Later on it all became more bitter, more desperate, when every one began to suffer privations, confiscations, exile from home, severance from children and family ties. After Naseby, sullen obstinacy burst into flaming hate; after the tragedy of ’49 passions were let loose more savage and vengeful than this peaceful island had ever known even in the darkest hours of its nascent history. But not at first.

Squire Brent was of those whose passionate attachment to the King blinded him to every possible issue save the ultimate triumph of the royal cause.

“God is on the side of His anointed,” he declared with fanatical fervour on that memorable 22nd day of August when King Charles I raised his standard at Nottingham and thereby declared war against his parliament. “All those miscreants shall be wiped off the face of the earth; they who have dared to raise impious hands against their sovereign lord and King shall suffer eternal damnation.”

He was in a highly excited state, marching up and down the long, narrow dining hall of Stoke Lark where the news had just reached him by mounted messenger. He himself had come to Stoke Lark but a month ago, with a view to recruiting enthusiasts for the King’s cause among the village lads. Barbara was with him—no longer Babs, mark you! save to her old nurse and to her fond adopted father, to every one else Mistress Barbara Fiennes, wife of my lord Saye and Sele’s eldest son. She had left school and gladly followed the Squire into the solitudes of Warwickshire ready to take her share in helping the King to fight his enemies. There was no lack of enthusiasm about Barbara Fiennes. For the King’s cause was a sacred cause, as vital to her as her religion, and the King’s person was in its sanctity second only to that of God himself.

She sat in a high-backed chair, with hands folded idly in her lap, watching the Squire in his restless pacing up and down the room. The old man’s firm tread rang upon the flagstones, from time to time he would clasp and unclasp his hands which he held behind his back, or utter an excited ejaculation, apostrophising either his adopted child or no one in particular,—just the heavens, or the earth, or the walls of his ancestral home.

“God will teach them,” or “My God, what a lesson it will be to them all!”

Once Barbara ventured to add:

“They must pray in all the churches for success to the King’s cause.”

Whereupon Squire Brent turned swiftly on his heel and confronted his daughter with a wrathful exclamation.

“Pray?” he cried with lofty scorn. “Of course the parsons shall pray. What else are they for? But you do not doubt, I hope, Babs, that anything but success can attend the King’s cause?”

Barbara hastened to reassure him.

“And,” he added, “that anything but damnation can await those abominable rebels?”

The girl nodded eagerly. Her enthusiasm and loyalty were at least equal to the Squire’s. In Mistress Makyn’s school there were many daughters of aristocratic parents, sent there for their education, because Mistress Makyn herself had been at one time governess to the royal children, and parents knew that their girls would be brought up in the soundest of political principles as well as in unimpeachable learning.

She listened with eager attention now to all the Squire’s plans for aiding His Majesty in this great struggle against his rebel subjects. First there would be the question of money. Squire Brent was passing rich and he had the disposal of his late wife’s fortune in mind. It had been left to him absolutely and he himself had created a trust for the monies for the benefit of his adopted child; but what were trusts and other legal nonsense worth now that the King himself was in need. Barbara herself most willingly consented that the money be put to any use the Squire thought best. And he had other plans, land that he could sell, mortgages that he could raise, and so on—it would only be for a temporary emergency; in a few weeks, days perhaps, the rebels would be brought to their senses, their leaders would be dangling on gibbets all over the country, and old traitors like Saye and Sele over at Broughton would find it more comfortable to go to France for their health.

Oh! it would all be over in a month!