The Lions Whelp 1

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."