She woke the next morning with an aching head and a sore heart, wondering whether every future awakening would be so full of misery and desolation.
“It shall not be!” she determined, vigorously; “I will not allow my life to be spoilt in that fashion.” And springing out of bed she dressed rapidly, hurried through her prayers—because she found that on her knees tears were somehow apt to come into her eyes—and without waiting for food hastened out of the house.
The fresh morning air was a relief, and she hailed with joy the sight of a visitor riding up the approach. On nearer view she recognised him as Dr. Rogers, one of the Cathedral canons and rector of Stoke Edith.
“Why, Mistress Hilary!” he exclaimed, “I had not thought to find you here; you are a sight to cheer a downhearted man on a sad morn.”
“But we had good news, sir, yesterday, of the victory,” said Hilary. “They brought us the news at Hereford.”
“Ay, my dear, but I come from Worcester with yet later news of defeat. My Lord Essex, who is in command of the rebel army, entered Worcester and has taken possession of the city. With my own eyes I saw his vile troops quartered in the cathedral; the knaves had no sort of reverence, and have stabled their horses in the cloisters. But there! I could not offend your ear by describing the scene. Would that I had the hanging of them! They should have but short shrift!”
The worthy canon was an ardent—even a bitter—Royalist, and his burning words added fuel to the fire already kindled in Hilary’s heart. She listened eagerly to all he had to tell of the occupation of Worcester, and received passively and contentedly the exaggerated doctrine of the unquestioning obedience which was the sole duty of the subject, and the supreme, divinely-given authority which was the prerogative of the King—the King who, according to Dr. Rogers could do no wrong.
Few people are at their best in the early morning before breakfast, after any special fatigue on the previous day, and Hilary, who at another time might have been capable of seeing the weak points in Dr. Rogers’s harangue, drank it in now without any misgivings, reflecting all the time what a bulwark it would make against that secret dread lest she should be conquered by Gabriel’s love.
And so it came to pass, that whereas on the previous night she had been gentle-minded and sorrowing over her own shortcomings, when morning service time came and they all went by the little wicket-gate in the drive to the church close by, she was in a very different mood, and never prayed a single prayer, because the whole time she was picturing the scene in the cathedral described by Dr. Rogers.
“It is to vile men like this that Gabriel has allied himself,” she thought, indignantly; “men without any reverence, men who have turned the Bishops out of the House of Lords, and who would fain abolish the Prayer-book! Nothing is sacred to them—not even a church!”