[XVIII.]
The Writing on the Window Pane.
IT was an evening in the glad month of June, of the year 1644, and the children of Longdendale were playing games on the smooth green plots before the cottage doors. At one spot not far distant from the site of the old Roman station, Melandra Castle, a group of merry little ones, lads and lassies, were swinging round hand in hand, their sweet young voices chanting an old-time rhyme.
Suddenly there was a shrill cry from one of the girls, and following the direction of her gaze, the children beheld a sight that at first set their young hearts beating sharp with fear. A company of horsemen, wearing wide-brimmed and much befeathered hats, with long hair hanging about their shoulders, rode jauntily past the greensward in the direction of the Carr House Farm. The horsemen were well armed, carrying swords and pistols, and bright steel armour shone dazzling upon their breasts. As the cavalcade moved on, the jingling of stirrups, bits, and harness, made a merry music that was well adapted to the martial scene. The children, though startled at first, soon recovered from their fright, and ran gaily to see the squadron pass by. Curiosity, in their case, got the mastery of fear. For those were what the historians term “stirring times,”—days of war and tumult, of peril and death, of bloodshed and ruin, of suffering and horror; and well the children of Longdendale knew that the quarrel between King Charles and his Parliament had already made sad hearts and weeping eyes, widowed women and orphaned children, even in their own neighbourhood. But the great battles of which they had heard had all been fought at a distance, and, as is well known in the case of war, “distance lends enchantment to the view.” There was something wildly romantic and fascinating to the minds of the children in those great events which were daily transpiring, and about the men who fought in the battles; and so, on the June evening of this story, the children flocked curiously about the horsemen, who were a band of gentlemen cavaliers on their way from Lancashire to join the army of King Charles at York.
Accompanied by the children, the cavaliers rode up to the Carr House Farm, and, at a sign from their leader, dismounted, and, without troubling to ask consent, proceeded to stable their horses, and take possession of the best rooms for their own accommodation. It was not altogether a good mannered proceeding, but then, the people who lived in those days when war was rife, grew accustomed to such violations of the rights of property, and submitted to the indignities with as good a grace as they could assume. They knew full well that if they had not placed upon the table of their very best, the soldiers would have raided the larder and confiscated all the contents. So, in the language of modern days, “they made the best of a bad job.”
One stalwart trooper, throwing the reins of his steed to a comrade, was the first to stride through the farm door, and, as he came, the farmer went bareheaded to greet him,—not altogether without some qualms of doubt and fear.
“Come, good man,” cried the trooper merrily, “show me the way to thy best room, for our leader, Captain Oldfield, rests there this night. And if thou art of the King’s party, set thy wife to work at once, and prepare him a feast right merrily, or if thou be’st of the roundhead faction, why, do the same unwillingly, and be damned to thee.”
History does not tell us which side of the quarrel the farmer favoured, and it does not really matter which, for in any case a visit from the Royalists would be alike unwelcome. If he was a Roundhead, then, as a matter of course, the billeting of a force of Cavaliers was bound to be distasteful; if he were loyal to the King, then against the satisfaction of providing for the King’s troops, must be set the knowledge that the next force of Roundheads that came into the neighbourhood would pay him a visit and demand satisfaction for the favour he had shown their enemies. The farmer made a discreet remark.
“If ye are true men, ye are welcome to such hospitality as I can afford.”
And then he and his servants set about doing with as good a grace as possible that which they knew themselves compelled to do.