Under the Storm | Page 6

he
nevertheless sauntered on so as to watch them down the lane.
"Be they on the right side or the wrong, father?" asked Steadfast, as he
picked up the pitcher and the horn.
"They be dead against our parson, lad," returned Kenton, "and he says
they be against the Church and the King, though they do take the King's
name, it don't look like the right side to be knocking out church
windows, eh?"
"Nay!" said Steadfast, "but there's them as says the windows be popish
idols."
"Never you mind 'em, lad, ye don't bow down to the glass, nor worship
it. Thy blessed mother would have put it to you better than I can, and
she knew the Bible from end to end, but says she 'God would have His
worship for glory and for beauty in the old times, why not now?'"
John Kenton had an immense reverence for his late wife. She had been
far more educated than he, having been born and bred up in the
household of one of those gentlemen who held it as their duty to
provide for the religious instruction of their servants.
She had been serving-woman to the lady, who in widowhood went to
reside at Bristol, and there during her marketings, honest John Kenton
had won her by his sterling qualities.
Puritanism did not mean nonconformity in her days, and in fact
everyone who was earnest and scrupulous was apt to be termed a
Puritan. Goodwife Kenton was one of those pious and simple souls
who drink in whatever is good in their surroundings; and though the
chaplain who had taught her in her youth would have differed in
controversy with Mr. Holworth, she never discovered their diversity,
nor saw more than that Elmwood Church had more decoration than the

Castle Chapel. Whatever was done by authority she thought was right,
and she found good reason for it in the Bible and Prayer-book her good
lady had given her. She had named her children after the prevailing
custom of Puritans because she had heard the chaplain object to what
he considered unhallowed heathenish names, but she had been heartily
glad that they should be taught and catechised by the good vicar.
Happily for her, in her country home, she did not live to see the strife
brought into her own life.
She had taught her children as much as she could. Her husband was
willing, but his old mother disapproved of learning in that station of life,
and aided and abetted her eldest grandson in his resistance, so that
though she had died when he was only eleven or twelve years old,
Jephthah could do no more than just make out the meaning of a printed
sentence, whereas Steadfast and Patience could both read easily, and
did read whatever came in their way, though that was only a broadside
ballad now and then besides their mother's Bible and Prayer-book, and
one or two little black books.
The three eldest had been confirmed, when the Bishop of Bath and
Wells had been in the neighbourhood. That was only a fortnight after
their mother died, and even Jeph was sad and subdued.
Since that sad day when the good mother had blessed them for the last
time, there had been little time for anything. Patience had to be the
busy little housewife, and what she would have done without Steadfast
she could not tell. Jeph would never put a hand to what he called maids'
work, but Stead would sweep, or beat the butter, or draw the water, or
chop wood, or hold the baby, and was always ready to help her, even
though it hindered him from ever going out to fish, or play at base ball,
or any of the other sports the village boys loved.
His quiet, thoughtful ways had earned his father's trust, though he was
much slower of speech and less ready than his elder brother, and looked
heavy both in countenance and figure beside Jeph, who was tall, slim,
and full of activity and animation. He had often made his mother
uneasy by wild talk about going to sea, and by consorting with the
sailors at Bristol, which was their nearest town, though on the other
side of the Avon, and in a different county.
It was there that the Elmwood people did their marketing, often leaving
their donkeys hobbled on their own side of the river, being ferried over

and carrying the goods themselves the latter part of the way.

CHAPTER III
.
KIRK RAPINE.

"When impious men held sway and wasted Church and shrine." LORD
SELBORNE.
Patience, in her tight little white cap, sat spinning by the door, rocking
the cradle with her foot, while Rusha sometimes built what she called
houses with stones,