The Story of Francis Cludde

by Stanley John Weyman

"That is our experience certainly," said Ferdinand.

"I hate change!" the old man continued, his eyes on the old church, the old timbered house--for only the gateway tower at Coton is of stone--the old yew trees in the churchyard. "I do not believe in it, and, what is more, I will not have it. As my fathers have worshiped, so will I, though it cost me every rood of land! A fig for the Order in Council!"

"If you really will not change with the younger generations----"

"I will not!" replied the old knight sharply. "There is an end of it!"

To-day the Reformed Church in England has seen many an anniversary, and grown stronger with each year; and we can afford to laugh at Sir Anthony's arguments. We know better than he did, for the proof of the pudding is in the eating. But in him and his fellows, who had only the knowledge of their own day, such arguments were natural enough. All time, all experience, all history and custom and habit, as known to them, were on their side. Only it was once again to be the battle of David and the Giant of Gath.

Sir Anthony had said, "There is an end of it!" But his companion, as he presently strolled up to the house with a smile on his saturnine face, well knew that this was only the beginning of it. This was Friday.

On the Sunday, a rumor of the order having gone abroad, a larger congregation than usual streamed across the Chase to church, prepared to hear some new thing. They were disappointed. Sir Anthony stalked in as of old, through the double ranks of people waiting at the door to receive him; and after him Ferdinand and his wife, and Petronilla and Baldwin, and every servant from the house save a cook or two and the porter. The church was full. Seldom had such a congregation been seen in it. But all passed as of old. Father Carey's hand shook, indeed, and his voice quavered; but he went through the ceremony of the mass, and all was done in Latin. A little change would have been pleasant, some thought. But no one in this country place on the borders of the forest held very strong views. No bishop had come heretic-hunting to Coton End. No abbey existed to excite dislike by its extravagance or by its license or by the swarm of ragged idlers it supported. Father Carey was the most harmless and kindest of men. The villagers did not care one way or the other. To them Sir Anthony was king. And if any one felt tempted to interfere, the old knight's face, as he gazed steadfastly at the brass effigy of a Cludde, who had fallen in Spain fighting against the Moors, warned the meddler to be silent.

And so on that Sunday all went well. But some one must have told tales, for early in the week there came a strong letter of remonstrance from the sheriff, who was an old friend of Sir Anthony, and of his own free will, I fancy, would have winked. But he was committed to the Protestants, and bound to stand or fall with them. The choleric knight sent back an answer by the same messenger. The sheriff replied, the knight rejoined--having his brother always at his elbow. The upshot of the correspondence was an announcement on the part of the sheriff that he should send his officers to the next service, to see that the queen's order was obeyed; and a reply on the part of Sir Anthony that he should as certainly put the men in the duck-pond. Some inkling of this state of things got abroad, and spread as a September fire flies through a wood; so that there was like to be such a congregation at the next service to witness the trial of strength, as would throw the last Sunday's gathering altogether into the shade.

It was clear at last that Sir Anthony himself did not think that here was the end of it. For on that Saturday afternoon he took a remarkable walk. He called Petronilla after dinner, and bade her get her hood and come with him. And the girl, who had seen so little of her father in the last month, and who, what with rumors and fears and surmises, was eating her heart out, obeyed him with joy. It was a fine frosty day near the close of December. Sir Anthony led the way over the plank-bridge which crossed the moat in the rear of the house, and tramped steadily through the home farm toward a hill called the Woodman's View, which marked the border of the forest. He did not talk, but neither was he sunk in reverie. As he entered each field he stood and scanned it, at times merely nodding, at times smiling, or again muttering a few words such as, "The three-acre piece! My father inclosed it!" or, "That is where Ferdinand killed the old mare!" or, "The best land for wheat on this side of the house!" The hill climbed, he stood a long time gazing over the landscape, eying first the fields and meadows which stretched away from his feet toward the house; the latter, as seen from this point, losing all its stateliness in the mass of stacks and ricks and barns and granaries which surrounded it. Then his eyes traveled farther in the same line to the broad expanse of woodland--Coton Chase--through which the road passed along a ridge as straight as an arrow. To the right were more fields, and here and there amid them a homestead with its smaller ring of stacks and barns. When he turned to the left, his eyes, passing over the shoulders of Barnt Hill and Mill Head Copse and Beacon Hill, all bulwarks of the forest, followed the streak of river as it wound away toward Stratford through luscious flood meadows, here growing wide, and there narrow, as the woodland advanced or retreated.

"It is all mine," he said, as much to himself as to the girl. "It is all Cludde land as far as you can see."