The Lions Whelp 1
The Lions Whelp_A Story of Cromwell’s Time_
_By
Amelia E. Barr_
*Contents*
CHAP.
I. SWAFFHAM AND DE WICK
II. DOCTOR JOHN VERITY
III. WOVEN OF LOVE AND GLORY
IV. SO SWEET A DREAM
V. SHEATHED SWORDS
VI. ON THE TIDE TOP
VII. TWO LOVE AFFAIRS
VIII. UPON THE THRESHOLD
IX. CROMWELL INTERFERES
X. RUPERT AND CLUNY
XI. OLIVER PROTECTOR
XII. HOLD THOU MY HANDS
XIII. CHANGES AT DE WICK
XIV. A LITTLE FURTHER ON
XV. THE FATE OF LORD CLUNY NEVILLE
XVI. OLIVER THE CONQUEROR
*List of Illustrations*
"’Now let god arise!’" Frontispiece
"When he came again it was harvest time."
"Then he dropped his blade into the sheathe with a clang."
"Beheld Cromwell standing upon the threshold."
"The hawthorns were in flower."
"Rupert stood still, and bowed gravely."
"Three ominous-looking papers."
"’Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and the King of Glory shall come in.’"
_*BOOK I*_
_*The Hour and The Man*_
"Unknown to Cromwell as to me,
Was Cromwell’s measure or degree.
* * * * *
He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs,
With ’squires, lords, kings, his craft compares,
Till late he learned, through doubt and fear,
Broad England harbored not his peer."
—_Emerson_.
*The Lion’s Whelp*
*CHAPTER I*
*SWAFFHAM AND DE WICK*
"Sway the tide of battle which way it will, human existence is held
together by its old, and only tenure of earnest thoughts, and quiet
affections."
During the seventeenth century Swaffham Manor House was one of the most
picturesque dwellings in Cambridgeshire. It was so old that it had a
sort of personality. It was Swaffham. For as the Yorkshireman, in
speaking of his beloved rivers, disdains the article "the" and calls
them with proud familiarity, Aire, Ure, Ribble, so to the men of the
country between Huntingdon and Cambridge, this ancient dwelling was
never the Manor House; it was the synonym of its builders, and was
called by their name—Swaffham. For it was the history of the Swaffham
family in stone and timber, and no one could enter its large, low rooms
without feeling saturated and informed with the spiritual and physical
aura of the men and women who had for centuries lived and died under its
roof.
The central tower—built of the white stone of the neighbourhood—-was the
fortress which Tonbert Swaffham erected A.D. 870, to defend his lands
from an invasion of the Danes; and five generations of Tonbert’s
descendants dwelt in that tower, before William of Normandy took
possession of the crown of England. The Swaffham of that date became a
friend of the Conqueror; the Manor was enriched by his gifts; and the
Manor House—enlarged and beautified by various holders—had the singular
fortune to be identified with the stirring events of every dynasty.
In the middle of the seventeenth century it still retained this
character. Puritan councils of offense and defense had been held in its
great hall, and parliamentary soldiers drilled in its meadows. For
Captain Israel Swaffham was the friend of General Cromwell, and at the
time this story opens was with Cromwell in Scotland. Nothing of good in
the old race was lacking in Captain Israel. He was a soldier going
forth on a holy errand, hurrying to serve God on the battle-field;
faithful, as a man must be who could say after a hard day’s fighting,
"Tired! No. It is not for me to let my right hand grow tired, if God’s
work be half-done."
A great fighter, he had no parliamentary talent, and no respect for
parliaments. He believed England’s religious and civil liberties were
to be saved by the sword, and the sword in the hand of his great leader,
Oliver Cromwell; and when the King’s fast-and-loose proposals had been
discussed by the men of Cambridgeshire, in Swaffham, he had closed the
argument with this passionate declaration:
"There is no longer disputing with such a double mind as the mind of
Charles Stuart. The very oath of God would not bind him. Out,
instantly, all of you who can!"
His three sons rose at his words and the rest of the council followed,
for all felt that the work was but half done—there was to be a Second
Civil War. Then home was again deserted for the battle-field, and
Captain Swaffham’s wife and daughter were once more left alone in the
old Manor House.
Mrs. Swaffham was the child of a Puritan minister, and she had strong
Puritan principles; but these were subject to passing invasions of
feeling not in accord with them. There were hours when she had pitied
the late King, excused his inexcusable treacheries, and regretted the
pomps and ceremonies of royal state. She had even a feeling that
England, unkinged, had lost prestige and was like a dethroned nation.
In such hours she fretted over her absent husband and sons, and said
words hard for her daughter Jane to listen to with any sympathy or
patience.
For Jane Swaffham was of a different spirit. She had a soul of the
highest mettle; and she had listened to those English mystics, who came
out of the steel ranks of triumphant Puritanism, until she had caught
their spirit and been filled through and through with their faith. The
Swaffhams were a tall race; but Jane was a woman of small stature and
slender frame, and her hair, though abundant, wanted the rich brown hue
that was the heritage of the Swaffham beauties. No one spoke of Jane as
a beauty; the memory of her sister Amity—who had married Lord
Armingford—and of her aunt, Cicely Compton, both women of rare
loveliness, qualified Jane’s claim to this family distinction. And yet
she had a fresh, bright face, a face like a sweet single rose of the
wood; one could see straight to her heart through it—a loving, cheerful
daughter of righteousness; not perfect by any means; subject to little
bursts of temper, and to opinions so positive they had the air of
bigotry; but with all her faults holding that excellent oneness of mind,
which has no doubts and no second thoughts.
This was the maiden who was sitting, one sunny afternoon, at the open
window of the household parlour in Swaffham. The lazy wind brought her
delicious puffs of sweetbrier scent, and in the rich fields beyond the
garden she could hear the voices of the reapers calling to each other as
they bound the wheat. On the hearthstone, her mother’s wheel hummed in
a fitful way, now rapidly, now slowly, anon stopping altogether. Jane
was quite idle. A tray full of ripe lavender spikes was at her side and
a partly finished little bag of sheer muslin was in her hand, but the
work was not progressing. When thoughts are happy, the needle flies,
when they are troubled or perplexed, the hands drop down and it becomes
an effort to draw the thread. Jane was thinking of her father and
brothers, of the unhappy condition of England, and of the unrest in
their own household. For she knew that her mother was worried about
many things, and the fret that was bred in the kitchen and the farm
offices—in spite of all her efforts—insinuated itself into the still
order of the handsome room in which she was sitting. She felt her
mother’s silence to be unpleasantly eloquent. The fitful wheel
complained. It was a relief when Mrs. Swaffham brought to audible
conclusions, the voiceless tension in which they were sitting.
"My work is never out of hand, Jane," she said fretfully. "I am fairly
downhearted to-day—so put to the push as I have been, with women in the
kitchen and men in the fields."
"Dear mother, it may not be for long."
"It will be long enough to bring everything to wrack and ruin. The
dairy is twenty-four shillings short this week."
"There are perhaps fewer cows in milk."
"The wool is short weight also; one of the gray horses is sick; the best
thresher has gone soldiering, like the rest of the fools."
"Mother!"
"And Will Will-be-so has the rheumatism, and in spite of his Bible and
his psalm-singing, has been to Dame Yodene for a charm."
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