The Settlers at Home | Page 7

in some parts of the world?"
"Father came away from France because he was ill-used for being a Protestant," said Oliver.
"The pastor knows all about that, my boy," observed Mr Linacre.
"Yes, I do," said the pastor. "I know that you suffered worse things there than here; and I know that things worse than either are at present endured by our brethren in Piedmont. You have a warm house over your heads; and you live in sunshine and plenty. They are driven from their villages, with fire and sword--forced to shelter among the snow-drifts, and pent up in caves till they rush out starving, to implore mercy of their scoffing persecutors. Could you bear this, children?"
"They suffer these things for their religion," observed Oliver. "They feel that they are martyrs."
"Do you think there is comfort in that thought,--in the pride of martyrdom,--to the son who sees his aged parents perish by the wayside,--to the mother whose infant is dashed against the rock before her eyes?"
"How do they bear it all, then?"
"They keep one another in mind that it is God's will, my dears; and that obedient children can, if they try, bear all that God sees fit to lay upon them. So they praise His name with a strong heart, though their voices be weak. Morning and night, those mountains echo with hymns; though death, in one form or another, is about the sufferers on every side.
"My dear," said Mr Linacre, "let us make no more complaints about the Redfurns. I am ashamed, when I think of our brethren abroad, that we ever let Stephen and Roger put us up to anger. You will see no more tears here, sir, I hope."
"Mildred will not quite promise that," said the pastor, smiling kindly on the little girl. "Make no promises, my dear, that a little girl like you may be tempted to break. Only try to forgive all people who tease and injure you; and remember that nothing more ever happens than God permits,--though He does not yet see fit to let us know why."
"I would only just ask this, sir," said Mr Linacre. "Is there anything going forward just now which particularly encourages our enemies to attack us?"
"The parliament have a committee sitting at Lincoln, at present; and the king's cause seems to be low in these parts. We are thus at the mercy of such as choose to consider us king's men: but there is a higher and truer mercy always about us."
The miller took off his hat in token of respect.
The pastor's eye had been upon Oliver for some time. He now asked whether he meant to make his new cups plain, like all the rest, or to try to ornament them. Mildred assured him that Oliver had carved a beading round the two last bowls that he had cut.
"I think you might attempt something far prettier than beading," said the pastor; "particularly with so many patterns before your eyes to work by."
He was looking up at the little recess above the door of the house, near which they were standing. This recess, in which there had formerly been an image, was surrounded with carved stone-work.
"I see some foliage there which would answer your purpose, Oliver, if you could make a model from it. Let us look closer."
And Pastor Dendel fixed a short ladder against the house wall, and went up, with Oliver before him. They were so busy selecting the figures that Oliver thought he could copy, and drawing them upon paper, and then setting about modelling them in clay, that the Redfurns did not prevent their being happy for this day, at least. Mr Linacre, too, was hard at work all day, grinding, that the pastor's manure might be served to-morrow; and he found hard work as good for an anxious mind as those who have tried generally find it to be.
CHAPTER TWO.
NEIGHBOURLY OFFICES.
When Mrs Linacre was told in the evening of the arrival of the disagreeable neighbours who were in the marsh, she was sorry; but when she had gone round the premises with her husband at night, and found all safe, and no tokens of any intrusion, she was disposed to hope that the Redfurns would, this time, keep to their fishing and fowling, and make no disturbance. Oliver and Mildred crept down to the garden hedge at sunrise, and peeped through it, so as to see all that was doing in the carr, as the marsh was called. [In that part of the country, a carr means a morass.] After watching some time, they saw Stephen and Roger creep out from under the low brown tent. As the almost level sun shone full in their faces, they rubbed their eyes; then they stretched and yawned, and seemed to be trying hard to wake themselves thoroughly.
"They