Under the Storm

by Charlotte M. Yonge

"Thrice welcome may such seasons be,
But welcome too the common way,
The lowly duties of the day."

There was of course much to do. Steadfast visited his hoard and took from thence enough to purchase churn, spinning wheel, and the few tools that he most needed; but it was not soon that Patience could sit down to spin. That must be for the winter, and their only chance of light was in making candles.

Rusha could gather the green rushes, though she could not peel them without breaking them; and Patience had to take them out of her hands and herself strip the white pith so that only one ribbon of green was left to support it.

The sheep, excepting a few old ewes, were always sold or killed before the winter, and by Blane's advice, Stead kept only three. The butcher Oates took some of the others, and helped Stead to dispose of four more in the market. Two were killed at different intervals for home use, but only a very small part was eaten fresh, as a wonderful Sunday treat, the rest was either disposed of among the neighbours, who took it in exchange for food of other kinds; or else was salted and dried for the winter's fare, laid up in bran in two great crocks which Stead had been forced to purchase, and which with planks from the half-burnt house laid over them served by turns as tables or seats. The fat was melted up in Patience's great kettle, and the rushes dipped in it over and over again till they had such a coating of grease as would enable them to be burnt in the old horn lantern which had fortunately been in the stable and escaped the fire.

Kind neighbours helped Stead to cut and stack his hay, and his little field of barley. All the grass he could cut on the banks he also saved for the animals' winter food, and a few turnips, but these were rare and uncommon articles only used by the most advanced farmers, and his father had only lately begun to grow them, nor had potatoes become known except in the gardens of the curious.

The vexation was that all the manor was called to give their three days' labour to Lady Elmwood's crops just as all their own were cut, and as, of course, Master Brown had chosen the finest weather, every one went in fear and trembling for their own, and Oates and others grumbled so bitterly at having to work without wage, that Blane asked if they called their own houses and land nothing.

There was fresh grumbling too that the food sent out to the labourers in the field was not as it used to be, good beef and mutton, but only bread and very hard cheese, and bowls of hasty pudding, with thin, sour small beer to wash it down. Oates growled and vowed he would never come again to be so scurvily used; and perhaps no one guessed that my lady was far more impoverished than her tenants, and had a hard matter to supply even such fare as this.

Happily the weather lasted good long enough to save the Kentons' little crop, though there was a sad remembrance of the old times, when the church bell gave the signal at sunrise for all the harvesters to come to church for the brief service, and then to start fair in their gleaning. The bell did still ring, but there were no prayers. The vicar had never come back, and it was reported that he had been sent to the plantations in America. There was no service on Sunday nearer than Bristol. It was the churchwardens' business to find a minister, and of these, poor Kenton was dead, and the other, Master Cliffe, was not likely to do anything that might put the parish to expense.

Goodman Blane, and some of the other more seriously minded folk used to walk into Bristol to church when the weather was tolerably fine. If it were wet, the little stream used to flood the lower valley so that it was not possible to get across. Steadfast was generally one of the party. Patience could not go, as it was too far for Rusha to walk, or for the baby to be carried.

Once, seeing how much she wished to go again to church, Stead undertook to mind the children, the cattle, and the dinner in her place; but what work he found it! When he tried to slice the onions for the broth, little Ben toddled off, and had to be caught lest he should tumble into the river. Then Rusha got hold of the knife, cut her hand, and rolled it up in her Sunday frock, and Steadfast, thinking he had got a small bit of rag, tied it up in Patience's round cap, but that he did not know till afterwards, only that baby had got out again, and after some search was found asleep cuddled up close to the old sow. And so it went on, till poor Steadfast felt as if he had never spent so long a day. As to reading his Bible and Prayer-book, it was quite impossible, and he never had so much respect for Patience before as when he found what she did every day without seeming to think anything of it.