Evelyn Everett-Green - The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot

Jacob, who had been taken into the confidence of his elders, had expressed his preference for the youngest of his three cousins; and though not a word had been spoken to the girl upon the subject as yet, Martin looked upon the matter as settled.

Scarcely had the bustle of the first arrivals died down before the remaining two guests arrived-a tall, bent man with the face of a student and book lover, followed by his son, also a man of rather distinguished appearance for his station in life. The two Coles, father and son, were amongst those many Roman Catholic sufferers who had been ruined on account of their religion during the last reign; and now they gained a somewhat scanty livelihood by keeping a second-hand book shop on the bridge, selling paper and parchment and such like goods, and acting as scriveners to any who should desire to avail themselves of their skill in penmanship.

They were both reputed to be men of considerable learning, and as they had fallen from a different position, they were looked up to with a certain amount of respect. Some were disposed to sneer at and flout them, but they were on the whole well liked amongst their neighbours. They were very quiet people, and never spoke one word of the matters which came to their knowledge through the letters they were from time to time called upon to write. Almost every surrounding family had in some sort or another intrusted them with some family secret or testamentary deposition, and would on this account alone have been averse to quarrelling with them, for fear they might let out the secret.

Martin found his neighbour Anthony by far the most interesting of his acquaintances, and the fact of this common disappointment in the new King, and the common persecution instituted against both Romanists and Puritans, had drawn them more together of late than ever before. Both were men of considerable enlightenment of mind; both desired to see toleration extended to all (though each might have regarded with more complacency an act of uniformity that strove to bring all men to his own particular way of thinking and worship), and both agreed in a hearty contempt for the mean and paltry King, who had made such lavish promises in the days of his adversity, only to cancel them the moment he had the power, and fling himself blindly into the arms of the dominant faction of the Episcopacy.

All the guests were cordially welcomed by the family of Martin Holt. The three elder men sat round the fire, and plunged into animated discussion almost at once. Jacob Dyson got into a chair somehow beside Keziah, and stared uneasily round the room; whilst Walter Cole took up his position beside Jemima, and strove to entertain her by the account of some tilting and artillery practice (as archery was still called) that he had been witnessing in Spital Fields. He spoke of the courage and prowess of the young Prince of Wales, and how great a contrast he presented to his father. The contempt that was beginning to manifest itself towards the luckless James in his English subjects was no more plainly manifested than in the London citizens. Elizabeth, with all her follies and her faults, had been the idol of London, as her father before her. Now a reaction had set in, and no scorn could be too great for her undignified and presumptuous successor. This contempt was well shown by the dry reply of the Lord Mayor some few years later, when the King, in a rage at being refused a loan he desired of the citizens, threatened to remove his Court and all records and jewels from the Tower and Westminster Hall to another place, as a mark of his displeasure. The Lord Mayor listened calmly to this terrible threat, and then made submissive answer.

"Your Majesty hath power to do what you please," he said, "and your city of London will obey accordingly; but she humbly desires that when your Majesty shall remove your Courts, you would graciously please to leave the Thames behind you."

But to return to the house on the bridge and the occupants of Martin Holt's parlour. Whilst Jemima and Keziah listened eagerly to the stories of the student's son, with the delight natural to Puritan maidens denied any participation in such scenes of merriment, Jacob was looking rather dismally round the room, and presently broke in with the question:

"But where, all this time, is Cherry?"

"Strewing rushes in the eating parlour, I doubt not," answered Keziah. "She went out a while back to cut them. She loveth not dry disputings and learned talk. Belike she will linger below till nigh on the supper hour an Aunt Susan call her not."

"I love not such disputings neither," said Jacob, with unwonted energy. "Good Kezzie, let us twain slip below to help Cherry over her task."

Keziah gave a quick glance at the face of her stern aunt, who loved not this sort of slipping away during times of ceremony; but she had her back to them and to the door, and was engrossed in the talk as well as in the stocking fabric upon her needles. Jemima and Walter were still talking unrebuked in a low key. Perchance this flitting could be accomplished without drawing down either notice or remark. To please Jacob, Keziah would have done much, even to running the risk of a scolding from her aunt. She had none of saucy Cherry's scorn of the big boorish fellow with the red face and hairy hands. She looked below the surface, and knew that a kindly heart beat beneath the ungainly habit; and being but plain herself, Keziah would have taken shame to herself for thinking scorn of another for a like defect.

Putting her finger on her lip in token of caution, she effected a quiet retreat, and the next moment the two cousins stood flushed but elated in the eating parlour below. But though it was now past five o'clock, there was no sign of Cherry or her rushes, and Keziah looked both surprised and uneasy.

"Belike she came in with dirty clogs and skirt, and has gone up to her bed chamber to change them, for fear of Aunt Susan telling her she was cluttering up the parlour," said the sister, anxiously. "I will run and see. Sure she can never have lingered so late beside the river! The sun has been long down, and the fog is rising."

Keziah tripped upstairs lightly enough, but speedily came down with a grave face.

"She is not there," was her answer to Jacob's glance of inquiry. "What must we do? If we make a coil about it, and she comes in, having only gossiped awhile with the neighbours along the bridge, aunt will surely chide her sharply, and send her to bed supperless. But if she should have met some mischance-" and Keziah broke off, looking frightened enough, for it was no light matter to meet mischance alone and unprotected in the dark.

"I will go forth to seek her," cried Jacob, with unwonted animation. "It boots not for a man to be abroad after dark, but for a maid it is an ill tiding indeed. Which way went she? to the osier beds! Sure I must find her ere long. Were it not well for me to go, good Kezzie?"

"I would that some would go, but I trow thou hadst better not adventure thyself alone. Belike Master Walter would be thy companion. If there be peril abroad, it is better there should be twain than one. And you will want lanterns and stout staffs, too."

"Run thou and light the lanterns, good coz, and I will to Walter and ask his company. It grows thicker and darker every moment. If Cherry be not within, it behoves us to make search for her."

Keziah's face was pale with terror as she flew to do Jacob's bidding. She had a terrible fear of London streets, at night, as well she might, and the open country beyond was even worse to her excited imagination. And Cherry was so pretty, so simple, so credulous, and withal so utterly defenceless should there be any sort of attack made upon her. Keziah's hands shook as she lighted the lantern; and as minutes were fast slipping away and still there was no sign of the truant, she was rather relieved than terrified to hear the sharp accents of her aunt's voice mingling with her father's deeper tones as the whole party came tramping down the stairs. It was plain that Jacob had let the secret ooze out, and that all the company had become alarmed. Cherry's name was on all lips, and Martin was asking his sister somewhat sternly why she had overlooked the non-return of the girl at dusk.