Part 5 (1/2)
Maud was quite incapable of understanding this self-pity, and seating herself at the little table by the window, she indulged her own self-reproachful thoughts on her conduct of the morning. She had no idea then that his father had treated him so harshly, or she would have been more tender, and her heart was sad as she thought of his words, that he must be true to his conscience.
But her musing was broken in upon by Mary saying, ”It is so wicked, so wilful, to rebel against the King.”
”But suppose he had to do this, or rebel against his conscience,” said Maud, giving some expression to her own thoughts.
Mary started. ”What can you mean? prithee, it cannot be right for us to rebel against the King?”
”Certainly not for us,” said Maud. ”But we are not to make ourselves a conscience to other people; and if Harry sees that serving the King would be wrong----”
”But it cannot be wrong,” interrupted Mary. ”G.o.d's Word says, 'Fear G.o.d, honour the king.'”
”Yes, fearing G.o.d comes first,” said Maud, but speaking more to herself than to Mary; ”and it seems to me that it is out of this fear Harry has been led to adopt these new views. I can't see how they are right; but then I suppose living here in this quiet village, and having everything we want, we do not understand things as men do who go out into the world and learn what Acts of Parliament mean.”
”Maud, you are half a traitor yourself,” interrupted Mary, indignantly.
”Nay, nay, Mary! I am not that,” said Maud. ”I love the King, from what I have heard of his gentle courteous bearing and his loving care of his children; but even Master Drury denies not that he has oft-times broken his solemn promise, and 'tis said that his subsidies and exactions have well nigh ruined the nation.”
”Maud, Maud! said I not that you were a traitor; and by my troth you must be, to speak thus of the King.”
”Nay, I am no traitor. I would that I could speak to King Charles myself, and tell him how sorely grieved many of his subjects are at his want of truth and honest dealing,” replied Maud, warmly.
”But the King cannot do evil,” said Mary, in a tone of expostulation.
Maud put her hand to her forehead in some perplexity. ”I know not what to think, sometimes,” she said. ”I like not to think it possible that the King can do wrong; but what am I to think when he breaks the Divine laws of truth and uprightness. He is not above these, if he is above those of the land, that he can make and unmake at his will.”
”We have no business to think about such things at all,” said Mary, impatiently.
”Marry, you may be right,” answered Maud; ”for women-folk have but little wit to the understanding of such weighty matters; but for men it is different, and that is why so many are carried away to the defending this rebellious Parliament, I trow.”
”But they should not be carried away, now that they know how evil are its doings, and how it has laid violent hands on the Archbishop; and herein is Harry's sin the greater.”
”Oh, say not so, Mary. Harry is right, I trow, although you and I see not how that may be,” said Maud.
At this moment there was a knock at the door, and Bessie's tearful face appeared. Mistress Mabel had found it impossible to settle down to her usual spinning to-day, and telling the children she must look after the maids, to see they did not get gossiping about the family affairs, she had dismissed them.
”Oh, Maud, I have no brother Harry now,” sobbed the little girl, throwing herself into her arms.
”But Harry is not dead,” said Maud, smoothing back the tumbled hair from her hot forehead. ”He has only gone away from home, and you can love him still.”
”That's what Bertram says,” sobbed the child; ”but it isn't just the same; he was my brother before--my very own, and now”--and she burst into another pa.s.sionate flood of tears.
”Prithee, now hush,” said Maud. ”Harry loves you all the same, I am sure, and you can love him; so that it need make no difference to you, Bessie.”
”But it does make a difference,” pa.s.sionately exclaimed Bessie. ”You said it did a little while ago.”
Maud had forgotten the circ.u.mstance to which the girl referred, until she went on--”You said Harry was not your real brother, and now I am not his real sister. Has Harry got another name?” she suddenly asked.
Maud smiled, but Mary shook her head sorrowfully. ”No, his name is Drury still,” she said, ”and he has disgraced it, Bessie--disgraced the good old name that you and I bear.”