"She did well. Speak on, my good boy, if we walk up and down here we shall be private. It does my heart good to commune with a faithful young son of the Church."
Steadfast told his story, at which the good old Canon was much affected. His brother Holworth, as he called him, was not in prison but in the Virginian plantations. He was still the only true minister of Elmwood, and Mr. Woodley, though owned by the present so-called law of the land, was not there rightly by the law of the Church, and, therefore, Stead was certainly not bound to surrender the trust to him, but rather the contrary.
The Doctor could have gone into a long disquisition about Presbyterian Orders, contradicting the arguments many good and devout people adduced in favour of them, but there was little time, so he only confirmed with authority Stead's belief that a Bishop's Ordination was indispensable to a true pastor, "the only door by which to enter to the charge of the fold."
Then came the other question of attendance on his ministry, and whether to attend the feast given out for the Sunday week, after the long-forced abstinence: Patience's, ever since the break-up of the parish; Steadfast's, since the siege of Bristol. Dr. Eales considered, "I cannot bid you go to that in the efficacy of which neither you nor I believe, my son," he said. "It would not be with faith. Here, indeed, I have ministered privately to a few of the faithful in their own houses, but the risk is over great for you and your sister to join us, espied as we are. How is it with your home?"
"O, sir, would you even come thither?" exclaimed Steadfast, joyfully, and he described his ravine, which was of course known to the Elmwood neighbours, but very seldom visited by them, never except in the middle of the day, and where the thicket and the caverns afforded every facility for concealment.
Whitsun Day was coming, and Dr. Eales proposed to come over to the glen and celebrate the Holy Feast in the very early morning before anyone was astir. There were a few of his Bristol flock who would be thankful for the opportunity of meeting more safely than they could do in the city, since at Easter they had as nearly as possible been all arrested in a pavilion in Mr. Rivett's garden which they had thought unsuspected.
There would be one market day first, and on that Stead would come and explain his preparations, and hear what the Doctor had arranged. And so it was. The time was to be three o'clock, the very dawn of the long summer day, the time when sleep is deepest. Dr. Eales and Mrs. Lightfoot would come out the night before, he not returning after his lesson to the Rivetts, and she making some excuse about going to see friends for the Sunday.
The Rivetts, living outside the gates where sentries still kept guard, could start in the morning, and so could the four others who were to form part of the congregation. Goody Grace was the only person near home whom Patience wished to invite, for she too had grieved over the great deprivation, and had too much heart for the Church to be satisfied with Mr. Woodley's ministrations. Perhaps even she did not understand the difference, but she could be trusted, and the young people knew how happy it would make her.
Little can we guess what such an opportunity was to the faithful children of the Church in those sad days. Goody Grace folded her hands and murmured, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace," when Patience told her of the invitation, and Patience, though she had all her ordinary work to do, went quietly about it, as if she had some great thought of peace and awe upon her.
"Why, Patience, you seem as if you were making ready for some guest, the Prince of Wales at least!" said Emlyn, on Saturday night.
Patience smiled a sweet little happy smile and in her heart she said "And so I am, and for a greater far!" but she did say "Yes, Emlyn, Dr. Eales is coming to sleep here to-night, and he will pray with us in the early morning."
It had been agreed that the Celebration should take place first, and then after a short pause, the Morning Service. Jerusha was eleven years old, and a very good girl, and since Confirmation was impossible, her brother and sister would have asked for her admission to the Holy Feast without it, but she could not be called up without the danger of awaking Emlyn; and Patience was so sure that it was not safe to trust that damsel with the full knowledge of the treasure that, though Steadfast always thought his sister hard on her, he was forced to give way. The children were to be admitted to Matins, for if any idea oozed out that this latter service had been held, no great danger was likely to come of it. Dr. Eales arrived in the evening, Steadfast meeting him to act as guide, and Patience set before him of her best. A fowl, which she had been forced to broil for want of other means of dressing it; bread baked in a tin with a fire of leaves and small sticks heaped over it; roasted eggs, excellent butter and milk. She apologised for not having dared to fetch any ale for fear of exciting suspicion, but the doctor set her quite at ease by his manifest enjoyment of her little feast, declaring that he had not made so good a meal since Bristol was taken.
Then he catechised the children. Little Ben could say the Lord's Prayer, the Belief, and some of the shorter Commandments, and the doctor patted his little round white cap, and gave him two Turkey figs as a reward.
Jerusha, when she got over her desperate fright enough to speak above a whisper, was quite perfect from her name down to "charity with all men," but Emlyn stumbled horribly over even the first answers, and utterly broke down in the Fourth Commandment; but she smiled up in the doctor's face in her pretty way, and blushed as she said "The chaplain at Blythedale had taught us so far, your reverence."
"And have you learnt no further?"
"If you were here to teach me, sir, I would soon learn it," said the little witch, but she did not come over him as she did with most people.
"You have as good an instructor as I for your needs, in this discreet maiden," said Dr. Eales, and as something of a pout descended on the sparkling little face, "when you know all the answers, perchance Steadfast here may bring you to my lodgings and I will hear you."
"I could learn them myself if I had the book," said Emlyn.
The fact being that the Catechism was taught by Patience from memory in those winter evenings when all went to bed to save candle light, but that when Steadfast retired to the cow-house, Emlyn either insisted on playing with the others or pretended to go to sleep; and twitted Patience with being a Puritan. However, the hopes of going into Bristol might be an incentive, though she indulged in a grumble to Rusha, and declared that she liked a jolly chaplain, and this old doctor was not a bit better than a mere Puritan.
Rusha opened her big eyes. She never did understand Emlyn, and perhaps that young maiden took delight in shocking her. They were ordered off to bed much sooner than they approved on that fair summer night, when the half-moon was high and the nightingales were singing all round-not that they cared for that, but there was a sense about them that something mysterious was going on, and Emlyn was wild with curiosity and vexation at being kept out of it.
She would have kept watch and crept out; but that Patience came in, and lay down, so close to the door that it was impossible to get out without waking her, and besides if Emlyn did but stir, she asked what was the matter.
"They mean something!" said Emlyn to herself, "and I'll know what it is. They have no right to keep me out of the plot; I am not like stupid little Rusha! I have been in a siege, and four battles, besides skirmishes! I'll watch till they think I'm asleep, if I pull all the hulls out of my bed! Then they will begin."
But nothing moved that Emlyn could hear or see. She woke and slept, but was quite aware when Patience rose up after a brief doze, and found the first streaks of dawn in the sky, a cuckoo calling as if for very life in the nearest tree, and Steadfast quietly sweeping the dew from the grass in a little open space shut in by rocks, trees, and bushes, close to the bank of the brook.