Andrew Golding: A Tale of the Great Plague

by Anne E. Keeling

'Now, my lad, hast not gone on a fool's errand this time also?' but he said smiling,—

'That is as you take it, good mother. Yon Squire has some humanity in him, and some wit; for when I began vehemently to urge how sinful were the murdering of yon poor man, he smiled and let me know his proffer of the duck-pond was but to get the man out of the hands of his ill-wishers, for he meant to draw the Quaker within his gates and then have them shut as if by mistake on the rabble, who were already growing aweary with the length of the way, and so were dropping off by twos and threes.'

'So thou hast had thy labour for thy pains?' says Mrs. Golding, smiling as one well pleased.

'Not altogether,' said Andrew, 'for the Squire wills us to turn into the byway here, and keep from the high road awhile, lest we meet the baser rascals coming back, in all their fury and disappointment.'

'Good counsel,' said Mrs. Golding; 'we will take it.' And so we kept to that byway for a mile or so; and it was rough uneasy riding, though a pretty green lane enough.

Althea said to me half aside, 'We had had none of these discomforts, if we had ridden as we were wont with our father, in a good coach like gentlewomen, and not a-horseback in the country fashion;' the first discontented word she had said, and Mrs. Golding hearing it,—

'Child,' said she, 'I cannot away with these coaches, they are proud lazy inventions, and nothing like so wholesome as this our old country fashion of travelling;' at which Althea blushed and said nothing more, and Mrs. Golding began pleasantly to chide Andrew for his hazarding of our safety as he had done, which had put Althea into these discontents; and he hung his head, smiling, and had not a word to say for himself. I should scarce have remembered this accident, or Andrew's behaviour on it, had it not been for things that befell after.

I was heartily weary of journeying by the time we got to West Fazeby; the way was long, the manner of travelling new to me, I had not so much as slept at an inn before, our former home being no great distance from town; and my company was not such as to shorten the way, for Aunt Golding was the only frank and cheerful-spoken person in our party, Althea behaving, as I told her, like an enchanted princess in a fairy tale, so melancholy, proud, and silent, and Andrew being so dashed with her stately ways that the poor youth was not less tongue-tied than she. So I was glad indeed when we rode out of York one fine morning, and Mrs. Golding told us we must reach her house before the day was out; in which she said no more than truth.

She having always talked of it as a poor farmhouse, our surprise was not little when we saw it at last. It stands a little away from the village; it is no great house, but is a right fair one to my thinking, built of red brick, with a great deal of wood, handsomely carved, about the gables and the porch; it is much grown with ivy, at which our aunt would often rail, but I think for all that she loved it, seeing it makes the house green and pleasant even in winter. And at the back, looking into the gardens and orchards, was a pleasant porch, a very large one, grown with roses as well as ivy, wherein Althea and I have spent many a happy hour in summer-time, sitting there with our needlework or our lutes. I can see it in fancy, and would very fain be in it, looking on our lily beds and green walks and arbours, instead of these hot and dreary streets. But it's too likely I shall never see West Fazeby or any other pleasant place on earth again.

A good comely man and woman, plainly habited like serving folks, came forth to greet Mrs. Golding, and she commended us to them much as she had done to Andrew, saying to us, 'These are Matthew Standfast and his wife Grace; good, kind souls, who look well to my house when I cannot do it. And how doth little Patience?' she went on to ask Dame Standfast; 'and have you seen aught of Mr. Truelocke while I have been gone?' and so chatting she led us into the hall, where we found a table ready covered, and the little Patience Standfast ready to attend us at it, a pretty child, fair-haired and blue-eyed, very civil and modest. We were not long in finding that she and her parents, with a serving-man or two, made all my aunt's household; and that she did very much work with her own hands, and would expect the like of us; a thing which displeased Althea not a little, but she said nothing of it, only to me, when we were got to our own chamber.