And were they married here in this very porch where we’re sitting, grandfather?” said little Bobbie Coke, looking up into the Vicar’s kindly10 face, which the forty-five years had made only somewhat thinner and paler.
“Here in this very porch, Bobbie,” he replied, his arm about the lad, while on his knee sat little Mollie Harford, the orphan11 daughter of Gabriel’s brother, Bridstock, who had died seven years before.
“Never was there such a happy wedding before or since, for it is not often that the bridegroom is rescued at the last moment from the jaws12 of death. The villagers were ready to cry for joy, and the soldiers—brave fellows!—why, they were only too glad to be let off the horrid13 piece of work their Colonel had set them to do.”
“And when did my grandfather come?” asked Mollie.
“He came that evening, and Mrs. Harford with him, and they all stayed at the Vicarage a couple of days, rejoicing. Then the bride and bridegroom went to say farewell to the Bishop14 at Whitbourne, and thence to London, where Madam Harford gave them a right loving welcome, and took good care of Hilary, while her husband joined Cromwell, and began his career as mate to the surgeon of his regiment15. It was in that fashion that he again saw Colonel Norton. For after the great battle at Naseby, when he was going about the field succouring the wounded, he came upon the Colonel lying there half dead, and was able to bind16 up his wounds, and bring him the water he cried out for. When the Colonel had drunk it, he looked up with startled eyes at his helper.
“‘Why, God bless my soul! Is it you?’ he cried. ‘What are you doing?’
“‘Helping17 the sick and wounded,’ said Gabriel.
“‘Confounded queer work for a gentleman,’ said Norton.
“‘It was good enough for Christ,’ said the other.
“Then up came the surgeon, said ’twas no use spending time over one that couldn’t live an hour, and bade his mate come and rest. But Gabriel, saying that he knew the wounded officer, asked to remain with him.
“‘Why should I lie shivering here for an hour?’ said Norton, in his devil-may-care tone. ‘It will be quicker work if I die on my feet, and I’ll be bound you think I shall be hot enough in the next world.’
“‘Lie still,’ said Gabriel. ‘Here’s the cloak Lord Falkland gave me at Marlborough. We’ll wrap it about you.’
“Now at the word Marlborough, the face of the dying man changed, and he fell a-thinking.
“‘Say the words you said that night,’ he gasped18.
“Gabriel, unable to think what he meant, said the first words that came to his mind:
“‘Forgive us our trespasses20 as we forgive them that trespass19 against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, for ever.’
“And after that the dying man lay in his arms fighting hard for breath, but never speaking, only once he gripped Gabriel’s hand and looked in his eyes, as though he would have thanked him. Then, as darkness fell on the blood-stained field, he passed away.”
“And what happened to my uncle Gabriel?” asked Mollie.
“The war ended not long after that, and he went to London, and studied for two years under Sir Theodore Mayerne, and then for two years more at Paris. In 1650 he settled finally in London, and there became a celebrated21 physician, and all went well with him. He had twenty years of happy wedded22 life, marred23 only by some trouble at the time of the Restoration for the part he had played in the Civil War. However, that was no very serious matter, and there were few happier homes in the country till the year of the Great Plague.
“Knowing that his duty lay with the poor sick folk in London, he parted from his wife and four children, sending them, as he hoped, out of all risk to Katterham, a country place some eighteen miles off. But it fell about that, as they halted at Croydon to bait the horses, some that were also flying from the plague, sat with them at the common table in the inn, and even as they dined one of these fellow-travellers was seized with illness. Spite of all precautions, my dear niece herself sickened the next day, and ere twenty-four hours had passed she and her children were dead.
“An old comrade, Sir Joscelyn Hey worth, travelled to London to break the news to his friend, who seemed for the time wholly crushed. But as they sat together talking very sadly, there came in Sir William Denham, who for many years had known them both.
“‘Doctor,’ he said. ‘I scarce like to break in upon your sorrow, but my friend Judge Wharncliffe and his wife have just died of the plague, and their two sons are at death’s door, with no one but an old man-servant to care for them, and the doctor who had attended them hath now died in the very house.”
“At that Gabriel put aside his own trouble, and went forth24 to see what he could do. He found the elder lad, a fine fellow of one and twenty, beginning to rally, but the younger, a tiny, delicate child of but two or three years, lay at the point of death. He fought for its life, and never left it till it had passed the crisis, and by that time, as he afterwards told me, life had again become bearable to him, and he found what the joy of battle meant; it was not the brutal25 love of bloodshed, it was the God-like desire to overcome evil with good, disease with health, and death with life.”
“And did the little boy get quite strong?” asked Mollie, eagerly.
“Ay, to be sure, he’s alive to this day, and has lived a right noble life. Few men have suffered with a better courage than Hugo Wharncliffe, and one day I’ll tell you his story.”
“And now tell me the rest about Uncle Gabriel,” said Mollie. “Did he live much longer?”
“Only five years more, but they were five years full of good Work. It was in 1670, I remember, that he wrote to say he was advised to take a few weeks’ rest and hoped to pay us a visit at Bosbury on his way home to his father. Now Dr. Harford was attending some sick folk at the Grange, and chanced to be here the very day he arrived. As we all dined together Gabriel told us with much interest of certain people called Quakers that he had lately come to know. Their way of thought had great attraction for him, especially the effort they made to obey literally26 the teaching of Christ as to using no oath, and avoiding all war and violence.”
“‘Seeing the quiet way in which they laid down their lives for their peace principles,’ he said, ‘set me wondering whether Christ must not be grieved to find the war spirit so strong still among His followers27, and that 1670 years after his birth the bulk of us still demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’
“We found that in addition to all his usual work he had been visiting many of these Quakers, who, under the persecuting28 laws of those times, were imprisoned29 in Newgate, Bishopsgate Gaol30 and the New Prison. It was in this fashion that he had taken a fever, for gaol fever raged among these prisoners for conscience’ sake; but he said he grudged31 not having taken the infection from them, for he hoped that he had caught from them, also, some of their noble and true thoughts. He spoke32, too, of Lord Falkland’s craving33 for peace, and thought that, like him, the Quakers were in advance of the times, and were to lead the nation to truer and nobler ways of thought, particularly on this point about peace, which one day all men would see to be the only true Christ-following.
“We were still talking of the Society of Friends when Dr Harford said he must go out again to visit two more patients. I remember we all three stood for a minute at the garden-gate, and can almost hear your uncle’s voice still as he said, ‘When they spoke of the duty of Christians34 to take no part in war, I used to feel as on the day when Waghorn would have pulled down the cross, and you spoke of love which is the bond of peace, and then coming hither we found Hilary standing5 beneath the yew35 tree holding open the gate for us.’
“His eyes grew wistful, and I noticed that his hand rested for a minute on the gate, as though anything she had touched was sacred to him. Then, his cheerfulness returning, he said he must pay a visit to the Tower of Refuge, and so we parted, for I knew that the place was full of memories to him and that he would fain be alone.
“In about an hour your grandfather returned, and we went across the churchyard to find your uncle, talking as we went of the way in which the fever and the overwork had changed him.
“‘He will need a long rest,’ said Dr. Harford. ‘He hath worn himself out with the woes36 of others and with the noisome37 air of those pestilent gaols38.’
“I said it was after all natural enough, for he had ever had a special feeling for prisoners since his time in Oxford39 Castle, and Herefordshire was the very best place he could have come to for a rest and change.
“Well, by that we had drawn40 near to the porch, and saw that he was sitting on this western bench and must have fallen asleep, for he had taken off the long curled wig41 that all gentlemen wore then much as they do now, and with his short hair he looked curiously42 like the Captain Harford who had saved Bosbury Cross.
“But something in his perfect stillness struck Dr. Harford with sudden anxiety. We bent43 close down to him—he had ceased to breathe, and from his face death had smoothed away all the lines of sorrow, so that he looked once more young. I wish I could describe to you the wonderful serene44 dignity of his expression—but that is not to be put into words. Here in this porch where five-and-twenty years before I had wedded him to my dear niece, God had once more united the husband and wife.”
“It is such a pity people have to die,” said Bobbie, kicking the flagstones with energy, because he saw tears in Mollie’s eyes and wished to keep them from his own.
“You think so?” said his grandfather, with a smile. “And quite right too at your age. But when like me you are an old man of four-score years and ten, there’ll be so many waiting for you on the other side of the river that you’ll be glad when you are told to cross over. I hear your grandfather’s step on the path, Mollie, and when we two old friends chat over old times together, ’tis hard for you young ones to get in a word, so you had best go in and see the Harford monuments, and Bishop Swinfield’s head which was rescued from Hereford Cathedral.”
“There’s no monument to Uncle Gabriel,” said Mollie, wiping away her tears.
“My child, his body lies in the chancel, but Bosbury Cross is his monument, and he could not have a better,” said the Vicar.
As the two children entered the church he took from the pocket of his doublet a small note-book, and added a line to an epitaph he had been trying to write, smiling to himself over Bobbie’s notion that it was a pity anybody died.
I lay me down at expectation’s door;
Weary and worn with age I crave45 no more. But
Christus Jesus meus est omnia.
—Will. Coke, 1690.
As he finished the verse, Dr. Harford, marvellously erect46 and active for his eighty-five years, crossed the churchyard and sat down beside him in the porch.
“I have come across a curious link with the past,” he said. “Chancing to be at Farmer Chadd’s just now where Meg is laid up, as you know, she gave me this ring which her husband had found yesterday when digging in the orchard47. I fancy it must have dropped from Colonel Norton’s finger on the day of the duel48, and have lain there unnoticed these five-and-forty years. The initials as you see are L. and N.”
“Ay,” said the antiquary, putting up his glass and scrutinising the letters carefully; “two L’s for Lionel and Lucy. It must have been his wife’s wedding-ring. And here is the posy
‘Till death us departe—
Nay49 not so deare harte—
Death shall us more truly unite.’”
“Poor Norton!” said the Vicar. “He was a man who might have lived such a different life! Well, who knows but that on Naseby Field God’s grace may, indeed, have delivered him from evil?”
“I am always glad to think that he was one of Gabriel’s first patients,” said Dr. Harford, “and that those poor imprisoned Quakers, suffering so bravely in the cause of peace, were his last. We may say truly that in helping them he gave up his own life.”
“And God be thanked that since our peaceful Revolution there are no more persecutions for opinion,” observed the Vicar. “We have passed through rough waters, doctor, yet have each of us been blessed with a loving wife, and have lived to see our children and our children’s children blessed in their career. But to my mind the noblest race was run by your son, Gabriel, who, indeed, died a hero of peace.”
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1
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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inflame
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| v.使燃烧；使极度激动；使发炎 | |
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4
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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5
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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6
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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7
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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8
scripture
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| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
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9
lessened
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| 减少的，减弱的 | |
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10
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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orphan
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| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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14
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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16
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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17
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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18
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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19
trespass
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| n./v.侵犯，闯入私人领地 | |
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trespasses
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| 罪过( trespass的名词复数 )； 非法进入 | |
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21
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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22
wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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23
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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25
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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28
persecuting
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的现在分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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29
imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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30
gaol
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| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
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31
grudged
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| 怀恨（grudge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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32
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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33
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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35
yew
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| n.紫杉属树木 | |
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36
woes
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| 困境( woe的名词复数 )； 悲伤； 我好苦哇； 某人就要倒霉 | |
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37
noisome
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| adj.有害的，可厌的 | |
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gaols
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| 监狱，拘留所( gaol的名词复数 ) | |
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39
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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40
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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41
wig
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| n.假发 | |
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42
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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43
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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44
serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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45
crave
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| vt.渴望得到，迫切需要，恳求，请求 | |
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46
erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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47
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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48
duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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49
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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