Constance Sherwood: An Autobiography of the Sixteenth Century. Fullerton Georgiana

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СКАЧАТЬ conveyances of safety; and my father scarcely durst be sharp with them when they offended by slacking their duties, lest they might bring us into danger if they revealed, upon any displeasure, priests having abided with us. Edmund we saw no more since my mother's death; and after a while the news did reach us that Mr. Genings had died of the small-pox, and left his wife in so distressed a condition, against all expectation, owing to debts he had incurred, that she had been constrained to sell her house and furniture, and was living in a small lodging near unto the school where Edmund continued his studies.

      I noticed, as time went by, how heavily it weighed on my father's heart to see so many Catholics die without the sacraments, or fall away from their faith, for lack of priests to instruct them, like so many sheep without a shepherd; and I guessed by words he let fall on divers occasions, that the intent obscurely shadowed forth in his discourse to my mother on her deathbed was ripening to a settled purpose, and tending to a change in his state of life, which only his love and care for me caused him to defer. What I did apprehend must one day needs occur, was hastened about this time by a warning he did receive that on an approaching day he would be apprehended and carried by the sheriff before the council at Lichfield, to be examined touching recusancy and harboring of priests; which was what he had long expected. This message was, as it were, the signal he had been waiting for, and an indication of God's will in his regard. He made instant provision for the placing of his estate in the hands of a friend of such singular honesty and so faithful a friendship toward himself, though a Protestant, that he could wholly trust him. And next he set himself to dispose of her whom he did term his most dear earthly treasure, and his sole tie to this perishable world, which he resolved to do by straightway sending her to London, unto his sister Mistress Congleton, who had oftentimes offered, since his wife's death, to take charge of this daughter, and to whom he now despatched a messenger with a letter, wherein he wrote that the times were now so troublesome, he must needs leave his home, and take advantage of the sisterly favor she had willed to show him in the care of his sole child, whom he now would forthwith send to London, commending her to her good keeping, touching her safety and religious and virtuous training, and that he should be more beholden to her than ever brother was to sister, and, as long as he lived, as he was bound to do, pray for her and her good husband. When this letter was gone, and order had been taken for my journey, which was to be on horseback, and in the charge of a maiden gentlewoman who had been staying some months in our neighborhood, and was now about in two days to travel to London, it seemed to me as if that which I had long expected and pictured unto myself had now come upon me of a sudden, and in such wise as for the first time to taste its bitterness. For I saw, without a doubt, that this parting was but the forerunner of a change in my father's condition as great and weighty as could well be thought of. But of this howbeit our thoughts were full of it, no talk was ministered between us. He said I should hear from him in London; and that he should now travel into Lancashire and Cheshire, changing his name, and often shifting his quarters whilst the present danger lasted. The day which was to be the last to see us in the house wherein himself and his fathers for many centuries back, and I his unworthy child, had been born, was spent in such fashion as becometh those who suffer for conscience sake, and that is with so much sorrow as must needs be felt by a loving father and a dutiful child in a first and doubtful parting, with so much regret as is natural in the abandonment of a peaceful earthly home, wherein God had been served in a Catholic manner for many generations and up to that time without discontinuance, only of late years as it were by night and stealth, which was linked in their memories with sundry innocent joys and pleasures, and such griefs as do hallow and endear the visible scenes wherewith they be connected, but withal with a stoutness of heart in him, and a youthful steadiness in her whom he had infected with a like courage unto his own, which wrought in them so as to be of good cheer and shed no more tears on so moving an occasion than the debility of her nature and the tenderness of his paternal care extorted from their eyes when he placed her on her horse, and the bridle in the hand of the servant who was to accompany her to London. Their last parting was a brief one, and such as I care not to be minute in describing; for thinking upon it even now 'tis like to make me weep; which I would not do whilst writing this history, in the recital of which there should be more of constancy and thankful rejoicing in God's great mercies, than of womanish softness in looking back to past trials. So I will even break off at this point; and in the next chapter relate the course of the journey which was begun on that day.

      CHAPTER VI

      I was to travel, as had been ordered for our mutual convenience and protection, with Mistress Ward, a gentlewoman who resided some months in our vicinity, and had heard mass in our chapel on such rare occasions as of late had occurred, when a priest was at our house, and we had commodity to give notice thereof to such as were Catholic in the adjacent villages. We had with us on the journey two serving-men and a waiting-woman, who had been my mother's chambermaid; and so accompanied, we set out on our way, singing as we went, for greater safety, the litanies of our Lady; to whom we did commend ourselves, as my father had willed us to do, with many fervent prayers. The gentlewoman to whose charge I was committed was a lady of singular zeal and discretion, as well as great virtue; albeit, where religion was not concerned, of an exceeding timid disposition; which, to my no small diversion then, and great shame since, I took particular notice of on this journey. Much talk had been ministered in the county touching the number of rogues and vagabonds which infested the public roads, of which sundry had been taken up and whipped during the last months, in Lichfield, Stafford, and other places. I did perceive that good Mistress Ward glanced uneasily as we rode along at every foot-passenger or horseman that came in sight. Albeit my heart was heavy, and may be also that when the affections are inclined to tears they be likewise prone to laughter, I scarce could restrain from smiling at these her fears and the manner of her showing them.

      "Mistress Constance," she said at last, as we came to the foot of a steep ascent, "methinks you have a great heart concerning the dangers which may befall us on the road, and that the sight of a robber would move you not one whit more than that of an honest pedler or hawker, such as I take those men to be who are mounting the hill in advance of us. Doth it not seem to you that the box which they do carry betokens them to be such worthy persons as I wish them to prove?"

      "Now surely," I answered, "good Mistress Ward, 'tis my opinion that they be not such honest knaves as you do suppose. I perceive somewhat I mislike in the shape of that box. What an if it be framed to entice travellers to their ruin by such displays and shows of rare ribbons and gewgaws as may prove the means of detaining them on the road, and a-robbing of them in the end?"

      Mistress Ward laughed, and commended my jesting, but was yet ill at ease; and, as a mischievous and thoughtless creature, I did somewhat excite and maintain her fears, in order to set her on asking questions of our attendants touching the perils of the road, which led them to relate such fearful stories of what they had seen of this sort as served to increase her apprehensions, and greatly to divert me, who had not the like fears; but rather entertained myself with hers, in a manner such as I have been since ashamed to think of, who should have kissed the ground on which she had trodden.

      The fairness of the sky, the beauty of the fields and hedges, the motion of the horse, stirred up my spirits; albeit my heart was at moments so brimful of sorrow that I hated my tongue for its wantonness, my eyes for their curious gazing, and my fancy for its eager thoughts anent London and the new scenes I should behold there. What mostly dwelt in them was the hope to see my Lady Surrey, of whom I had had of late but brief and scanty tidings. The last letter I had from her was writ at the time when the Duke of Norfolk was for the second time thrown in the Tower, which she said was the greatest sorrow that had befallen her since the death of my Lady Mounteagle, which had happened at his grace's house a few months back, with all the assistance she desired touching her religion. She had been urged, my Lady Surrey said, by the duke some time before to do something contrary to her faith; but though she much esteemed and respected him, her answer was so round and resolute that he never mentioned the like to her any more. Since then I had no more tidings of her, who was dearer to me than our brief acquaintance and the slender tie of such correspondence as had taken place between us might in most cases warrant; but whether owing to some congeniality of mind, or to a presentiment of future friendship, 'tis most certain my heart СКАЧАТЬ