from all vain pomps and shows,
from the pride that overflows.
and the false conceits of men,
from all the narrow rules
and subtleties of schools,
and the craft of tongue and pen;
bewildered in its search,
bewildered with the cry
“lo, here! lo, there, the church!”
poor, sad humanity
through all the dust and heat
turns back with bleeding feet,
by the weary road it came,
unto the simple thought,
by the great master taught,
and that remaineth still:
not he that repeateth the name,
but he that doeth the will!
—longfellow.
frank unett had spoken truly—it was impossible that he should live to see his child grow up; yet he made a hard fight with death, and, thanks to the tender nursing of his wife and the rare skill of his friend, dr. bridstock harford, lived for some time after that december day when hilary’s future had been spoken of.
it always seemed to gabriel that their childhood ended at his funeral, for then it was that they learnt of the separation in store for them. hilary was to go with her mother for a long visit to some of her father’s kinsfolk, and by the time she returned his own schooldays would have begun, dr. harford having decided to send him to gloucester with sir robert harley’s son ned, a boy some eighteen months his junior.
very sorrowfully did the playmates take leave of each other, and gabriel moped about sadly, understanding for the first time what it meant to be an only child.
it was on one of the days when he was missing his playfellow most that hereford was thrown into a state of unwonted excitement by a visitation from archbishop laud. gabriel found great relief and satisfaction in the crowded streets and the gala aspect of the city with its flags and decorations. but he was disappointed to find that the archbishop himself was a little hard-featured, cold-eyed man in whom he could feel no interest at all.
“there was nothing to see but clothes,” he said afterwards to his father. “except for them his grace was just a common little man, much like dickon, the tailor, in eign street.”
dr. harford laughed. “i do not think his grace is a large man either in body or mind,” he said. “but there is no doubt he is a good man, gabriel.”
“you do not, then, hold with sir robert harley,” said his wife, “that the archbishop would fain hand england over to the pope.”
“no, no, elizabeth; sir robert is ever haunted by that terror. ’tis a view held, indeed, by many, and doubtless the archbishop’s innovations and unwise ceremonies give colour to the charge. also he deals out harder measure to the sectaries than to the papists. but though i loathe his ear-croppings and nose slittings, i don’t believe him to be a traitor to protestantism,” said the doctor. “on the contrary, i know of a gentleman of this county whom he dissuaded from becoming a papist.”
it chanced the next morning that dr. harford had to visit a patient in the direction of brampton bryan, and the day being very fine he told gabriel that he would take him as his companion, and that afterwards he should see his future schoolfellow. there were few treats the boy enjoyed more than a ride with his father, for dr. harford was a great naturalist, and there were countless things to interest him in the herefordshire lanes—details that gabriel would never have observed at all if left to himself. they had not gone far along bridge street that morning, however, when a messenger came running across the road with a paper, which he thrust into the doctor’s hand.
“i am loth to be the bearer of this, sir, but a man must do the work of his office,” he said, apologetically.
the doctor reined in his horse to read the paper, and gabriel, glancing up at him from his sturdy little pony “joyce,” saw a look of intense annoyance upon his face.
“when am i to come?” he asked.
“at once, sir, if you please,” said the messenger, respectfully. “’tis very much against the will of every hereford man, you may be sure, sir, but we have no choice in the matter.”
“well, i will go without delay; ’tis at the archdeacon’s court, i suppose?”
the messenger replied in the affirmative, and the doctor touched up his horse and went off at such a brisk pace that joyce’s short legs had some difficulty in keeping abreast of his roan mare. arrived at his destination, he dismounted and threw the reins to his groom.
“i shall not be long, gabriel,” he said, looking round at his son as he entered the building.
a vague uneasiness filled the lad’s mind. what was the matter, and why was simon the groom speedily surrounded by a small crowd of eager questioners? among them he could see old nat the sailor, his wrinkled face bearing a look of indignation which he had never before seen there.
“nat,” he called, “pray come and speak with me. what does it all mean?”
“why, master,” said the old man, “it means that archbishop laud has summoned the best man in all hereford because, forsooth, he does not bow his head to order in the church.”
“oh! nat, you don’t think they’ll cut off his ears, do you?” said the boy in an agony, remembering in a flash all the gruesome and, alas! true tales he had heard of such practices.
“i don’t know, master, but simon here thinks it’s a matter of paying a fine. i’m going into the court to see for myself.”
in a trice gabriel had dismounted. “take me with you, nat—please do,” he said. he was small for his years, and doubted whether the officials would let him pass alone, but his confidence in the old sailor was unbounded, and nat made no objection, but led the boy into the archdeacon’s court, where on the very last bench they found a spare place.
however small, however ill-furnished, there is generally something impressive about a court. to-day, moreover, all the diocesan officials were removed from their customary places, while raised above the ordinary mortals archbishop laud sat in a great chair of state. in the next tier were seated his vicar-general and various subordinate officials; while to the left side, at a lower level, stood dr. bridstock harford. the doctor, who had married extremely early in his medical student days, was now not very much over thirty, a vigorous, intellectual-looking man, with one of those strong, quiet faces which inspire confidence. as nat and gabriel entered he had been asked what he had to say in defence, and gabriel’s heart pounded in his breast as he listened to the calm, courteous reply.
“your grace,” said the doctor, “it is true that i have never practised any bowings or genuflexions, and for these reasons: first, nothing in holy writ seems to warrant it, the oft-quoted verse, ‘at the name shall every knee bow,’ being, as all greek students are well aware, truly the assertion that in the name of christ all shall pray or worship. in another scripture i read that god doth in no wise care that a man should bow his head like a bulrush; and in yet another that ‘god hath made men upright, but they have sought out many inventions.’ but, your grace, what chiefly moves me to shun these formal bowings is the belief that in all matters of religion there should be a deep reserve betwixt the soul and god. surely a reverence that is both sincere and profound seeks rather to express itself by inward and spiritual adoration than by any muscular movements, or ceremonies that are visible to others and which may become as like as not either pharisaical or merely automaton-like. christ spoke of a worship that should be in spirit and in truth, but gave us only two ceremonies, and those the simplest conceivable. for these reasons i object to complying with the order.”
the harsh voice of the archbishop broke the silence which followed. it was utterly impossible for him to understand any side of a question but his own, and his fatal lack of sympathetic insight blinded him to the noble nature of the man he was dealing with.
“your arguings, sir,” he remarked, “are what i should have expected from one of the teachers of science, falsely so called. well was it written, ‘knowledge puffeth up.’ how intractable, how lacking in humility is your nature i call on all here to witness.”
the doctor’s colour rose a little. he seemed about to reply, but thought better of it and held his peace. from the back of the court, however, came angry murmurs, for few men were more popular in hereford. the people did not trouble at all about his views, but almost all of them knew what he was in times of sickness or distress. nat, the sailor, swore beneath his breath in a soft monotone which seemed to relieve him, and gabriel, with eyes like two live coals, slipped quietly through the crowd and made his way to his father’s side, craving to be as near him as possible.
“will you solemnly undertake never again to offend in this matter?” was the next question.
“your grace,” replied the doctor, “i can undertake nothing of the sort, but do claim my right to stand fast in the liberty wherewith christ hath set us free, and not to be entangled again in the yoke of bondage.”
“then every time you do not bow at the sacred name be well assured that you will be fined,” was the sharp retort, and sentence of the court with the amount of fine was duly pronounced.
gabriel breathed more freely. it was not a question of earcropping; but his heart burned with wrath at the way in which the archbishop rebuked his father, and drawing nearer to him, he caught his hand in his and kissed it with a devotion and reverence that touched more than one spectator.
“your own son teaches you that outward ceremonies are not valueless,” said the archbishop.
“your grace,” said dr. harford, looking up with an unusual light in his quiet eyes, “should i value my little son’s demonstration if there were compulsion in it—if it were a ceremony performed at fixed moments? and would it be worth aught to me if he were fined so many shillings for omitting it? pardon my outspokenness, but your grace, though a learned man, knows naught of fatherhood.”
“remove this prating puritan and let the next case be called,” said the archbishop, harshly.
and as dr. harford and gabriel moved away, the court rang with the clerk’s stentorian voice shouting, “mary boswood, on a charge of refusing to wear a white veil when returning thanks after childbirth.”
as they passed down the gangway they met the unlucky matron with flushed face and tearful eyes making her way to the place they had quitted, and deeming it a very hard thing that she, who had been a virtuous wedded wife for years, should be dragged into court for refusing to wear, as she expressed it, “a thing as like as two peas to the white sheet in which bad women did penance.”
gabriel gave a gasp of relief when once more they breathed the fresh outer air. he ran to joyce and patted her neck and fondled her soft ears before mounting. then in silence the father and son rode away together, not speaking at all until they had left the city and had had a good gallop over the broad strip of grass that bordered the road to brampton bryan.
“that has refreshed you, lad,” said the doctor, glancing at the grave face beside him, “and yet you look as though you had something on your mind.”
“father,” said gabriel, vehemently, “i hate archbishop laud with my whole heart! yet you said he was a good man!”
“indeed i believe him to be a very good man, but he hath more zeal than discretion, and forgets that ‘the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart.’ dr. laud will one day find that he is making a great mistake. he is trying with all his might to make folks better by outward observances, by making clean the cup and the platter; that is to put the cart before the horse. you must first make them pure within, or you will but breed up a generation of ceremonious hypocrites and pharisees.”
“it is because of the discourteous way he spoke to you, sir, that i hate him,” said gabriel, fiercely.
“nay, hate him not; i fared much better than i should have done had i been a parson. they tell me that twenty clergy have been deprived of their livings, only for this refusal to bow. as for the archbishop’s discourtesy, which makes him so much disliked by the gentry of the land, that is not altogether his fault, perhaps, for he had neither good birth nor good breeding. he said that ‘knowledge puffeth up,’ and i was much minded to quote him the rest of the verse—‘but love buildeth up.’ depend on it, my son, ’tis that love alone which can save our unhappy country in these difficult times.”
“will they still be difficult when i am a man?” asked gabriel.
“i fear they will,” said the doctor, gravely. “therefore remember that you hate no man, howsoever his sayings and doings may offend you. have your own faith, but see that you force it not on others, as is too much the custom; for dr. laud is wrong—compulsion never yet helped the good cause. what would you think of a physician who thought all men’s ailments were to be treated alike? men’s souls are as different as their bodies, and their minds are cast in many moulds. the wise servant of christ knows this, and seeks not to browbeat all men till they conform to one method. never forget, lad, that your meat may be another man’s poison. there is only one infallible remedy, and as the proverb hath it, ‘amor vincit omnia!”
by this time they had reached the house of the first patient, and gabriel was sent on with the groom to the neighbouring inn to order their noontide meal. when this had been discussed, and he had listened to the cheerful talk between his father and the landlord on the prospects of the crops, he had altogether forgotten dr. laud and his harsh words, and thought the world once more a pleasant place.
there was much, too, to divert his mind when they reached brampton bryan castle. he quickly fraternised with ned, the eldest son, and quite lost his heart to sweet-faced lady brilliana, sir robert’s wife. she had travelled much, and had lived for many years in holland, so that her talk was infinitely more easy as well as more interesting than that of any other lady he had met. moreover, while sir robert was of the somewhat hard and narrow puritan school, she was surely the gentlest puritan dame that ever breathed, and seemed full of kindness to all, whatever their views. he began on that day, as they wandered about the castle, a friendship with ned which was to last all through his life, and his pity for his father was great when, on returning from the most delightful scramble about the battlements, they found sir robert harley still discoursing on the vestments—and what he indignantly called the ‘altar-ducking’—which archbishop laud had ordered in hereford cathedral.
he was destined to hear much more of the archbishop when, his schooldays ended, he was sent, at the age of fifteen, to oxford with ned harley. they were entered at magdalene hall, at that time an especially puritan college, and here his distrust of dr. laud and his ways increased not a little. for he rebelled with all his might against the archbishop’s notion of driving and coercing men into the ways he deemed best for them. dr. laud might, as his father always maintained, be a good man, but he was good after a fashion which stirred up all the combative elements in gabriel’s nature.
meanwhile hilary unett was being educated after a very different fashion. on her return from visiting her unett kinsfolk she scarcely stirred from home, and her interests were entirely bound up in the quiet cathedral town. it chanced that after two or three rapid changes at the palace her grandfather, bishop coke, had been translated from bristol to the see of hereford. he was a good and kind-hearted man, with a great reputation for learning; but now that mr. unett was dead, and gabriel only in hereford at rare intervals, it naturally followed that every influence round the girl was ecclesiastical. she therefore almost inevitably fell into the way of looking at all questions from the palace point of view.
now and then, as he watched her, dr. harford would recall her father’s words on the day they had heard of eliot’s death; but as he thought how the paths of the boy and girl were already beginning to diverge, that dream of a future union looked less and less probable.
he sighed as in imagination he looked down the vista of the coming years, plainly foreseeing that stormy times were in store for the nation, and that grave troubles and divisions awaited every household in the land. but he was not a man of many words, and he kept his musings to himself.
