Under the Storm | Page 7

sometimes trotted to look down the lane to see
whether father and the lads were coming home from market.
Presently she brought word, "Stead is coming. He is leading Whitefoot,
but I don't see father and Jeph."
Patience jumped up to put her wheel out of the way, and soon she saw
that it was only Steadfast leading the old mare with the large crooks or
panniers on either side. She ran to meet him, and saw he looked rather
pale and dazed.
"What is it, Stead? Where's daddy?"
"Gone up to Elmwood! They told us in town that some of the soldiers
and the folk of that sort were gone out to rabble cur church and our
parson, and father is Churchwarden, you know. So he said he must go
to see what was doing. And he bade me take Whitefoot home and give
you the money," said Steadfast, producing a bag which Patience took to
keep for her father.
She watched very anxiously, and so did Stead, while relieving
Whitefoot of her panniers and giving her a rub down before turning her
out to get her supper.
It was not long however before Kenton and Jeph both appeared, the one
looking sad, the other sulky. "Too late," Jeph muttered, "and father
won't let me go to see the sport."
"Sport, d'ye call it?" said Kenton. "Aye, Stead, you may well gape at
what we have seen--our good parson with his feet tied to his stirrups on
a sorry nag, being hauled off to town like a common thief!"
"Oh!" broke from the children, and Patience ventured to ask, "But what

for, father?"
"They best know who did it," said the Churchwarden. "Something they
said of a scandalous minister, as though his had not ever been a godly
life and preaching. These be strange times, children, and for the life of
me, I know not what it all means. How now, Jeph, what art idling there
for? There's the waggon to be loaded for to-morrow with the faggots I
promised Mistress Lightfoot."
Jeph moved away, murmuring something about fetching up the cows,
to which his father replied, "That was Steadfast's work, and it was not
time yet."
In fact Jeph was very curious to know what was going on in the village.
If there was any kind of uproar, why should not he have his part in it? It
was just like father to hinder him, and he had a great mind to neglect
the faggots and go off to the village. He was rather surprised, and a
good deal vexed to see his father walking along on the way to the
pasture with Steadfast.
It was for the sake of saying "Aye, boy, best not go near the sorry sight!
They would not let good Master Holworth speak with me; but I saw he
meant to warn me to keep aloof lest Tim Green or the like should
remember as how I'm Churchwarden."
"Did they ask after those things?" inquired Steadfast in a lowered
voice.
"I can't say. But on your life, lad, not a word of them!"
After work was done for the evening, Jeph and Stead were too eager to
know what had happened to stay at home. They ran across the bit of
moorland to the village street and the grey church, whose odd-shaped
steeple stood up among the trees. Already they could see that the great
west window was broken, all the glass which bore the picture of the
Last Judgment, and the Archangel Michael weighing souls in the
balance was gone!
"Yes," said Tom Oates, leaping over two or three tombstones to get to
them. "'Twas rare sport, Jeph Kenton. Why were you not there too?"
"At Bristol with father," replied Jeph.
"Worse luck for you. The red coat shot the big angel right in the eye,
and shivered him through, and we did the rest with stones. I sent one
that knocked the wing of him right off. You should have seen me,
Stead! And old Clerk North was running about crying all the time like a

baby. He'll never whack us over the head again!"
"What was the good?" said Steadfast.
"You never saw better sport," said the boys.
And indeed, since, when once begun, destruction and mischief are apt
to be only too delightful to boys, they had thoroughly and thoughtlessly
delighted in knocking down the things they had been taught to respect.
A figure of a knight in a ruff kneeling on a tomb had had its head
knocked off, and one of the lads heaved the bits up to throw at the last
fragment of glass in the window.
"What do you do that for?" asked Stead.
"'Tis worshipping of idols," said a somewhat graver lad. "'Break down
their idols,'