Chapter 5. The Relief Of Derry

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_ It was late in the afternoon before John woke. He started up, as his eyes fell upon Captain Davenant.

"You have had a good sleep, and I hope you are all the better for it," Captain Davenant said, kindly. "My son has been telling me all about your expedition, and I honour you very much, for the courage you have shown in thus risking your life to get food for those starving children. I quite approve of the promise Walter has given to assist you, and if you should, by any chance, be taken prisoner, I will stand your friend."

John expressed his gratitude warmly.

"It is a sad thing, in these civil wars, when friends are arrayed against friends," Captain Davenant said. "Who would have thought, three months ago, that you and Walter would be arrayed on opposite sides? It is true you are neither of you combatants, but I have no doubt you would gladly have joined in some of the sallies, just as Walter is eager to be riding in my troop. If we must fight, I wish, at any rate, that it could be so managed that all the suffering should fall upon the men who are willing to take up the sword, and not upon the women and children. My heart bleeds as I ride across the country. At one time, one comes upon a ruined village, burned by the midnight ruffians who call themselves rapparees, and who are a disgrace to our cause. At another, upon a place sacked and ruined by one of the bands of horsemen from Enniskillen, who are as cruel and merciless as the rapparees. Let the armies fight out their quarrels, I say, but let peaceful people dwell in quiet and safety. But wholesale atrocities have ever been the rule on both sides, in warfare in Ireland, and will, I suppose, remain so to the end.

"And now, we are just going to have dinner, and another hearty meal will do you good. Each night, when my son brings down the supplies for you, he will bring a substantial meal of cold meat and bread, and you must give me your promise, now, that you will eat this at once. You will need it, after being so long in the water, and having another swim before you, besides. Although I approve of sending in milk for the children, I can be no party to the supply of food for the garrison. Do you promise?"

"Yes, sir, I promise," John said, "though I would rather save all but a mouthful or two for the people who are starving at home. Still, of course, if you insist upon it, I will promise."

"I do insist upon it, John. The lives of these children of yours depend on your life, and even one good meal, every four days, will help you to keep enough strength together to carry out the kind work you have undertaken."

Larry now brought in the dinner. He had been told by Walter of John's arrival, but he otherwise would have failed to recognize, in him, the boy who had sometimes come down to the village with Walter.

"Are you quite well, Larry?" John asked him.

"I am," Larry replied; "but I need not ask the same question of yourself, for you are nothing but skin and bone, entirely. Dear, dear, I wouldn't have known you at all, at all, and such a foine colour as ye used to have."

"I don't think starving would suit you, Larry," Captain Davenant said with a smile.

"Sure an' it wouldn't, yer honour. It's always ready to eat I am, though, as mother says, the victuals don't seem to do me much good, anyway."

"You won't be able to come out and go back again the same night next week, John," Captain Davenant said, presently. "The tide won't suit, so you must come up here, as you have done today. You will always find a hearty welcome, and Walter shall go down and meet you early in the morning, near the mouth of the river, so you can come up with him; and then, if you fall in with any of the other parties, no questions will be asked. I think everyone in camp knows him now.

"I wonder what your grandfather would say, if he saw you sitting here at dinner with Walter and me?"

John laughed.

"I am afraid he would disown me, then and there, without listening to explanations."

"I have no doubt it's a sore grievance to him that he is not in Derry, at present," Captain Davenant said.

"I am sure it is," John replied; "but the fasting would be a great trial to him. My grandfather is a capital trencherman. Still, I am sure he would have borne his part."

"That he would," Captain Davenant agreed. "He and the men of his class are thorough, fanatics as I consider them. Hard and pitiless as they proved themselves, to those against whom they fought, one cannot but admire them, for they were heart and soul in their cause. There was no flinching, no half measures, no concessions for the sake of expediency. On the ground on which they took their stand, they conquered or died. Would that a like spirit animated all my countrymen!"

After nightfall, Larry brought round Walter's horse, saddled, and his own rough pony. Walter mounted the former, and John the latter. The two kegs were slung across Walter's horse.

"Will you meet me at the clump of trees, half a mile out of camp, Larry?" Walter said. "In the dark, no one will notice the difference between you and John."

Captain Davenant had furnished Walter with a password, and now walked beside the two boys till they were well beyond the camp, and then returned to his tent. The lads made their way, without meeting with anyone, down to the mouth of the river. The kegs were then taken off the horse and placed in the water--they floated just above the surface.

"That is exactly right," John said. "They will not show any more than will my face. When I come down next time, I shall fill them with water, so as to keep them just at this level."

"I am afraid the moon will be up next time, John."

"Yes, it will. I shall lay some boughs of bush across my face and the kegs, so that there will be no fear of my face showing; and if a sentry should happen to catch sight of it, he will suppose that it is merely a bush drifting in the stream."

"Well, goodbye, John, and may you get through without trouble."

"I have no fear, Walter. I am in God's hands, and He will take me safely through, if He thinks fit."

The journey was achieved without detection, the only difficulty being the sinking of the kegs under the boom; this, however, was successfully accomplished, and by midnight, the kegs were safely hidden in some bushes at the foot of the wall, and there John lay down and waited for morning.

As he entered the yard, the children ran out to meet him. There were no loud rejoicings; they had no longer strength or spirit to shout and laugh; but the joy in the thin worn faces was more eloquent than any words could have been.

"We have missed you so, John. We have wanted you so much. Lucy and Kate and Deby were so bad yesterday, and they did cry so for you. We were all so hungry. We don't mind so much, when you are here to talk to us and tell us stories. Why did you stop away, John, when we wanted you so?"

"I went away to see if I could manage to get you something to eat."

"And did you?" was the anxious cry.

"I have got a little; but you must wait till evening, and then you will each have--" and he stopped.

"What, John? Oh, do tell us!"

"You will each have some milk and bread.

"Not much, dears," he went on, as there was a cry of gladness, which was pitiful from the intensity of joy it expressed, "but there will be some for tonight, and a little curds and whey and bread for you tomorrow and next day, and I hope always, as long as this lasts. Now go, dears, into your castle. I will come to you presently. I have brought you some water, as usual."

"I am heartily glad to see you back, John," his cousin said, as he entered the house. "The children were in a sad state without you, yesterday. I suppose you can tell me, now, what you have been doing. You told me you would be away two nights, and begged me not to ask any questions; but, although I know you to be discreet and prudent, I have been worrying."

"I will tell you now," John said, and he recounted the details of the expedition which he had accomplished.

"And you have swum the river twice, and been in the camp of the Papists. Truly it is surprising, John, and I know not what to do. Should your visit there be discovered, you will assuredly be accused of treachery."

"They may accuse me of what they like," John said quietly. "I have done it, and I am going to do it again, every fourth night, and there is the milk and bread at the foot of the wall, ready for you to haul up as soon as it gets dark."

"It ought to be fairly divided," the tanner said.

"It will be fairly divided, between our children," John said; "but nobody else will get a drop or a crumb. I have risked my life to get it for them. If other people want to get it, let them do the same. Besides, as I told you, Captain Davenant and his son both procured it for me for the sake of the children, and them only, and I should be breaking faith with them if any others touched it, save those for whom it was given me. It is little enough among eighteen children for four days--a pound of bread and a little over a pint of milk, each. They must each have a quarter of a pint, when you bring it in tonight, and the rest had better be curdled. That way it will keep, and they can have a portion each day of curds and whey, and a fourth share of their bread. It is little enough; but I trust that it may keep life in them."

"Well, John, I will do as you say," the tanner said, after a pause. "It goes somewhat against my conscience; but, as you say, it will make but a meagre portion for each of them, and would be nothing were it fairly divided; besides, you have brought it with the risk of your life, and I know not that any save you have a right to a voice in its partition."

Before the gates were closed, John went out, and presently had the satisfaction of hearing a small stone drop from the wall above him, followed presently by the end of a rope. He sent up the kegs, and then lay down among the bushes, and enjoyed the satisfaction of thinking of the joy of the little ones, when the milk and bread were served out to them. As soon as the gates were open in the morning, he went in.

"Thank you, oh, so much, for the milk and bread last night. We heard how you had swum so far, and gone into danger to get it for us, and we're going to have some more for breakfast."

"It was not much, dears," John said.

"Oh, no, it was not much; but it was so nice, and we did all sleep so well last night--even little Lucy didn't waken and cry once--and Ruth Hardy said we ought to call you the Raven; but we don't like that name for you."

"The Raven, Ruth!" John said, mystified. "Why did you want to call me the Raven?"

"I wouldn't do it if you didn't like it, dear John; but you know that chapter that Master Williams read us, the other day, about the ravens that fed somebody in a cave, and we have been wishing the ravens would feed us; and so you see, when you sent us the milk last night, I thought you ought to be called the Raven. I did not mean any harm."

"No, my dear, of course not, and you can all call me the Raven, if you like."

"No, no, John. You are John, and that's much better than the Raven. They brought the man food, but they didn't nurse him and tell him stories, as you do."

"Now, run inside the castle," John said, "and I will go in and get your breakfasts."

John soon returned, with a great bowl of curds and whey, a platter piled up with slices of bread and a score of little mugs, and the feast began. Scarce a word was said while the children were eating. Their hunger was too keen, and their enjoyment too intense, to admit of speech. When each had finished their portion, there was a general exclamation.

"Oh, John, you haven't had any. Why didn't you have some, too?"

"Because there is only enough for you," he said. "If I were to have some, and Cousin Josiah, and all the others, there would be a very little share for you; besides, when I went out the day before yesterday, I had as much as I could eat."

"Oh, dear, that must have been nice," one of the boys said. "Only think, having as much as one can eat. Oh, how much I could eat, if I had it!"

"And yet I daresay, Tom," John said, "that sometimes, before you came here, when you had as much as you could eat, you used to grumble if it wasn't quite what you fancied."

"I shall never grumble again," the boy said positively. "I shall be quite, quite content with potatoes, if I can but get enough of them."

"The good times will come again," John said cheerily. "Now we will have a story. Which shall it be?"

As the children sat round him, John was delighted to see that even the two scanty meals they had had, had done wonders for them. The listless, hopeless look of the last few days had disappeared, and occasionally something like a hearty laugh broke out among them, and an hour later the tanner came to the entrance.

"Come to the walls with me, John."

"What is it? What is the matter?" John said, as he saw the look of anger and indignation on the wasted features of his cousin.

"Come and see for yourself," the latter said.

When they reached the walls, they found them crowded with the inhabitants. Outside were a multitude of women, children, and old men. These General Rosen, with a refinement of cruelty, had swept in from the country round and driven under the walls, where they were left to starve, unless the garrison would take them in, and divide their scanty supply of food with them.

"It is monstrous," John cried, when he understood the meaning of the sight. "What are we to do?"

"We can do nothing," the tanner replied. "The council have met, and have determined to keep the gates closed. We are dying for the cause. They must do so too; and they will not die in vain, for all Europe will cry out when they hear of this dastardly act of cruelty."

The people outside were animated by a spirit as stern as that of the besieged, and the women cried out, to those on the walls, to keep the gates shut and to resist to the last, and not to heed them.

The ministers went out through the gates, and held services among the crowd, and the people on the walls joined in the hymns that were sung below. So, for three days and nights, the people within and without fasted and prayed. On the third day, a messenger arrived from King James at Dublin, ordering General Rosen at once to let the people depart.

The indignation, among the Irish gentlemen in the camp, at Rosen's brutal order had been unbounded, and messenger after messenger had been sent to Dublin, where the news excited a burst of indignation, and James at once countermanded the order of the general. The gates were opened now, and the people flocked out and exchanged greetings with their friends. A few able-bodied men in the crowd entered the town, to share in its defence, while a considerable number of the women and children from within mingled with them, and moved away through the lines of the besiegers.

John had, the day before, gone out when the gates were opened for the preachers, and at night had again safely made the passage to the mouth of the river and back. He found the lantern burning among the bushes, and two kegs placed beside it, with a bountiful meal of bread and meat for himself.

So the days went on, each day lessening the number of the inhabitants of the town. Fever and famine were making terrible ravages, and the survivors moved about the streets like living skeletons, so feeble and weak, now, that they could scarce bear the weight of their arms.

On the 30th of July, three ships were seen approaching the mouth of the river. They were part of Kirk's squadron, which had all this time been lying idle, almost within sight of the town. The news of his conduct had excited such anger and indignation in England that, at last, in obedience to peremptory orders from London, he prepared to make the attempt; although, by sending only two store ships and one frigate, it would almost seem as if he had determined that it should be a failure.

The besiegers as well as the besieged saw the three ships advancing, and the former moved down to the shore, to repel the attempt. The batteries on either side of the boom were manned, and from them, and from the infantry gathered on the banks, a heavy fire was opened as the ships approached.

So innocuous was the fire of the artillery, that it has been supposed that Kirk had previously bribed the officers commanding the forts. At any rate, the ships suffered no material damage, and, returning the fire, advanced against the boom. The leading store ship dashed against it and broke it, but the ship swerved from her course with the shock, and struck the ground. A shout of dismay burst from those on the walls, and one of exultation from the besiegers, who rushed down to board the vessel.

Her captain, however, pointed all his guns forward, and discharged them all at the same moment, and the recoil shook the vessel from her hold on the ground, and she floated off, and pursued her way up the river, followed by her consorts.

The delay of Kirk had cost the defenders of Londonderry more than half their number. The fighting men had, either by disease, famine, or in the field, lost some five thousand, while of the non-combatants seven thousand had died. The joy and exultation in the city, as the two store ships ranged up under its walls, were unbounded. Provisions were speedily conveyed on shore, and abundance took the place of famine.

Five days later, General Rosen raised the siege and marched away with his army, which had, in the various operations of the siege, and from the effect of disease, lost upwards of three thousand men.

"This has been a bad beginning, Walter," Captain Davenant said, as they rode away from the grounds on which they had been so long encamped. "If the whole force of Ireland does not suffice to take a single town, the prospect of our waging war successfully against England is not hopeful."

"It seems to me that it would have been much better to have left Derry alone, father," Walter said.

"It would have been better, as it has turned out, Walter; but had the king taken the place, as he expected, without difficulty, he would have crossed with a portion of the army to Scotland, where a considerable part of the population would at once have joined him. The defence of Derry has entirely thwarted that plan, and I fear now that it will never be carried out.

"However, it has had the advantage of making soldiers out of an army of peasants. When we came here, officers and men were alike ignorant of everything relating to war. Now we have, at any rate, learned a certain amount of drill and discipline, and I think we shall give a much better account of ourselves, in the open field, than we have done in front of a strong town which we had no means whatever of storming. Still, it has been a frightful waste of life on both sides, and with no result, beyond horribly embittering the feeling of hatred, which unfortunately prevailed before, between the Catholic and Protestant populations."

The mortification and disgust, caused by the failure of Londonderry, was increased by a severe defeat of a force under General Justin McCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, at Newtown Butler, on the very day that Derry was relieved. General McCarthy had been detached, with a corps of six thousand men, against the Enniskilleners. He came up with them near Newtown Butler. Although but two thousand strong, the Enniskilleners, who were commanded by Colonel Wolseley, an English officer, at once attacked the Irish, only a portion of whom had come upon the ground.

McCarthy, who was a brave and experienced officer, sent orders to the cavalry to face to the right, and march to the support of the wing that was attacked. The officer gave the order "right--about face," and the cavalry turned and trotted towards the rear. The infantry, believing that they were deserted by the horse, at once lost heart and fell into confusion.

McCarthy, while endeavouring to remedy the disorder, was wounded and taken prisoner, and the flight became general. The Enniskilleners pursued with savage fury, and during the evening, the whole of the night, and the greater part of the next day, hunted the fugitives down in the bogs and woods, and slew them in cold blood. Five hundred of the Irish threw themselves into Lough Erne, rather than face death at the hands of their savage enemies, and only one of the number saved himself by swimming.

After leaving Derry, the army returned to Dublin, where the parliament which James had summoned was then sitting. Most of the soldiers were quartered on the citizens; but, as the pressure was very great, Captain Davenant easily obtained leave for his troop to go out to Bray, where they were within a very short distance of his own house.

The day after his return home, Walter went over to give Jabez Whitefoot and his wife news of John, from whom they had heard nothing, since a fortnight before the siege had begun.

"Your son is alive and well," were his first words. "He has been all through the siege of Derry, and has behaved like a hero."

"The Lord be praised!" Jabez said, while his wife burst into tears of relief, for she had gone through terrible anxiety during the long weeks that Derry had been suffering from starvation.

"But how do you know, Master Walter?" Jabez asked. "Seeing that you were on the side of the besiegers, how could you tell what was passing on the inside of the walls? How do you know John is alive?"

"Because I saw him first, a month before the end of the siege, and because he came regularly afterwards, to fetch away some provisions which I had placed for him."

And Walter then gave a full account of John's visit to the camp, in search of food for the children who were sheltered in the tanner's house.

"That is just like John," his mother said. "He was ever thoughtful for others. I am more pleased, a hundred times, that he should have so risked his life to obtain food for the little ones, than if he had taken part in the fighting and proved himself a very champion of Derry."

Parliament had met on the 7th of May. The session had been opened by a speech from the throne, in which the king commended the loyalty of his Irish subjects, declared his intention to make no difference between Catholics and Protestants, and that loyalty and good conduct should be the only passport to his favour. He stated his earnest wish that good and wholesome laws should be enacted, for the encouragement of trade and of the manufactures of the country, and for the relief of such as had suffered injustice by the Act of Settlement; that is, the act by which the lands of the Catholics had been handed over, wholesale, to Cromwell's soldiers and other Protestants.

Bills were speedily passed, abolishing the jurisdiction of English courts of law and of the English parliament in Ireland, and other bills were passed for the regulation of commerce and the promotion of shipbuilding. The bill for the repeal of the Act of Settlement was brought up on the 22d of May. It was opposed only by the Protestant bishops and peers, and became law on the 11th of June. Acts of attainder were speedily passed against some two thousand Protestant landed proprietors, all of whom had obtained their lands by the settlement of Cromwell.

A land tax was voted to the king, of twenty thousand pounds a month, and he proceeded to raise other levies by his private authority. The result was that the resources of Ireland were speedily exhausted, money almost disappeared, and James, being at his wits' end for funds, issued copper money stamped with the value of gold and silver; and a law was passed making this base money legal tender, promising that, at the end of the war, it should be exchanged for sterling money.

This was a measure which inflicted enormous loss and damage. At first, the people raised the prices of goods in proportion to the decrease in the value of the money, but James stopped this, by issuing a proclamation fixing the prices at which all articles were to be sold; and having done this, proceeded to buy up great quantities of hides, butter, corn, wood, and other goods, paying for them all with a few pounds of copper and tin, and then shipping them to France, where they were sold on his own account. It need hardly be said that conduct of this kind speedily excited great dissatisfaction, even among those who were most loyal in his cause.

Captain Davenant was shocked at the state of things he found prevailing in Dublin.

"I regret bitterly," he said, when alone with his wife and mother, "that I have taken up the sword. Success appears to me to be hopeless. The folly of the Stuarts is incredible. They would ruin the best cause in the world. With a spark of wisdom and firmness, James might have united all Ireland in his cause, instead of which he has absolutely forced the Protestants into hostility. His folly is only equalled by his rapacity, and both are stupendous."

This was said, one evening, when he had just returned from a visit to Dublin, depressed and disheartened by all he heard there.

"I am astonished, Fergus," his mother said sharply, "to hear you speak in that way. Who would have thought that it was a Davenant who was speaking! Doubtless there have been mistakes, as was only natural, but everything will come right, in time. I have been longing for you to come home, looking forward with such joy to welcome you as the possessor of the broad lands of the Davenants. Thank God I have lived to see the restoration of my dear husband's lands, and the discomfiture of those Cromwellian knaves, who have so long possessed them. It was a grand day when the act was passed, repealing all Cromwell's grants handing over the best part of Ireland to his soldiers; and I saw in the Gazette, among the two thousand grants specially mentioned as cancelled, was that of the Davenant estate to Zephaniah Whitefoot. I am told that the old man and his son have taken no notice of the act, but go about their work as if they were still the owners of the land; but of course, now that you are back, there will soon be an end of this."

Captain Davenant was silent.

"I shall be in no hurry, mother," he said, after a pause. "It is true that an act of the Irish parliament has cancelled the iniquitous work of Cromwell, and restored the land to its rightful possessors. I do not say that this is not just, but I am quite sure that it is not politic. These men have been planted on the soil for two generations. They have built houses and tilled the fields, and made homes for themselves. It was essentially a case for arrangement, and not for setting right the first act of confiscation by another as sweeping. It has rendered the Protestants desperate. It has enlisted the sympathy of the Protestants of England in their behalf, and has done much to popularize the war there. It would have been vastly wiser, had a commission been ordered to examine into the circumstances of each case.

"In the great proportion of cases, the estates which the Cromwellites took possession of were vastly larger than they were able to till themselves; and, as in the case of Zephaniah Whitefoot, they let out the greater portion to tenants. All these lands I would have restored to their former owners, leaving to the Cromwellites the land they till themselves, and the houses they have built upon it.

"As to turning the Whitefoots out, I shall certainly take no step that way, at present. It will be time enough to do so, when King James is firmly established on the throne. As things go at present, I have but very faint hopes that will ever be. He has utterly failed to conquer the Protestants of the north of Ireland, and we have all the strength of England to cope with, yet. It will be well, mother, if, at the end of this strife, we can keep Davenant Castle over our heads, with the few acres that still remain to us."

Two days afterwards, Captain Davenant mounted his horse and rode over to the Whitefoots. Zephaniah and Jabez came to the door.

"I suppose you have come over to turn us out, Fergus Davenant," the old man said; "but I warn you, that it will not be for long. The triumph of the ungodly is short, and the Lord will care for his own people."

"You are mistaken," Captain Davenant said quietly. "I have come over for no such purpose. I am, of course, aware that parliament has passed a law, reinstating me in my father's lands; but I came over to tell you that, at present, I do not propose to take advantage of that law. I shall do nothing, until this war is at an end. If King William's cause triumphs, the act will remain a dead letter. If King James's wins, and the act is upheld, I wish to tell you that I shall never disturb you in the land which you, yourselves, occupy. Your tenants, on the other hand, will be my tenants; but in the house which you have built, and in the fields which you have tilled, you will remain masters.

"I have thought the matter over, and this appears to me to be a just settlement, and one which I give you my word that I will hold to, should King James triumph in the end. I think that the law turning out the Protestant settlers, from the land which they have held for forty years, is well nigh as unjust as that which gave it to them."

"I will take no gifts at the hands of the wicked," Zephaniah began, but Jabez interrupted him.

"Hush, father!" he said. "It is not thus that kindness should be met."

Then he stepped forward, leaving his father too surprised, at this sudden assumption of command on the part of his son, to interrupt him.

"Captain Davenant," he said, "I thank you most sincerely, on the part of myself, my wife and son, and, I may say, of my father, too, although at present he may not realize the kindness of your offer. I do not think it likely that, if James Stuart prevails, and Ireland is rent from England, we shall avail ourselves of your offer, for we have more than sufficient of this world's goods to remove to England, and there settle ourselves and our son, for assuredly Ireland would be no place where a Protestant could dwell in peace and quietness. Nevertheless, I thank you heartily, and shall ever gratefully bear in mind the promise you have made, and the fact that, although you have the power to turn us from our home, you have stayed from doing so. There has been much wrong done on both sides; and, from a boy, when I have seen you ride into or from your home, I have felt that I and mine wronged you, by being the possessors of your father's lands."

"They were the spoil of battle," Zephaniah broke in fiercely.

"Yes, they were the spoil of battle," his son repeated; "but there are limits, even to the rights of conquerors. I have read history, and I know that nowhere but in Ireland did conquerors ever dispossess whole peoples, and take possession of their lands."

"The Israelites took the land of Canaan," Zephaniah interrupted.

"I am speaking of modern wars, father. For centuries, no such act of wholesale spoliation was ever perpetrated; and considering, as I do, that the act was an iniquitous one, although we have benefited by it, I consider the offer which Captain Davenant has made to us to be a noble one.

"I have to thank you, sir, also, for your kindness to my son--a kindness which doubtless saved his life, as well as that of many others in Londonderry; and believe me that, whatever comes of this horrible war, I and mine will never forget the kindnesses we have received at your hands."

"The affair was my son's, rather than mine," Captain Davenant said; "but I was glad to be able to assist him in aiding your brave boy. He is a noble fellow, and you have every reason to be proud of him."

"I must add my thanks to those of my husband," Hannah said, coming out from the house, having listened to the conversation through an open window. "We had suffered so, until your son brought us news of John, two days since. It is strange, indeed, that your son should have been the means of saving one of a household whom he cannot but have learnt to regard as the usurpers of his father's rights. It was but last night I was reading of Jonathan and David, and it seemed to me that, assuredly, the same spirit that they felt for each other was in our sons."

"The boys are very fond of each other, Mrs. Whitefoot, and I am glad of it. They are both manly fellows, and there is no reason why the feuds of the fathers should descend to the children."

With a cordial goodbye, Captain Davenant rode off.

"Jabez," Zephaniah said, as they turned into the house, "I had not thought to hear a son of mine rise in rebellion against his father."

"Father," Jabez said, "for forty-five years I have been a good son to you; but it is time that I took my stand. It seems to me that the principles upon which the soldiers of Cromwell fought, were the principles which animated the Israelites of old. Exodus, Judges, and Kings were the groundwork of their religion, not the Gospels. It has gradually been borne upon me that such is not the religion of the New Testament, and, while I seek in no way to dispute your right to think as you choose, I say the time has come when I and my wife will act upon our principles."

"It is written, Honour thy father and thy mother," Zephaniah said sternly.

"Ay, father, I have honoured you, and I shall honour you to the end; but a man has no right to give up his conscience to his father; for it is written, also, that a man shall leave father and mother, and wife and home to follow the Lord. I have heard you, father, and the elders of our church, quote abundant texts from Scripture, but never one, that I can recall, from the New Testament. Hitherto, I have been as an Israelite of Joshua's time. Henceforward, I hope to be a Christian. I grieve to anger you, father, and for years I have held my peace rather than do so; but the time has come when the spirit within me will no longer permit me to hold my peace. In all worldly matters, I am still your obedient son, ready to labour to my utmost to gather up wealth which I do not enjoy, to live a life as hard as that of the poorest tenant on our lands; but, as touching higher matters, I and my wife go our own way."

Without a word, Zephaniah took his hat and strode away from the house, and, after much angry communing with himself, went to the minister and deacons of his chapel, and laid the facts of the rebellion before them, and asked their advice.

They were in favour of peace, for two of them were his tenants, and they knew that the time could not be very far off when Jabez would take the old man's place, and it would be a serious matter, indeed, to the chapel, were he to be driven from its fold.

"We cannot expect that all shall see with our eyes, Zephaniah," the minister said, "and, indeed, the offer, which thou sayest the man Davenant made, was a generous one. It would be well, indeed, for our brethren throughout Ireland, did all the original owners of their lands so treat them. Thousands who, but a few months since, were prosperous men, are now without a shelter wherein to lay their heads. The storm is sweeping over us, the elect are everywhere smitten, and, should James Stuart conquer, not a Protestant in Ireland but must leave its shores. Therefore, although I would counsel no giving up of principle, no abandonment of faith, yet I would say that this is no time for the enforcement of our views upon weak vessels. I mourn that your son should, for the time, have fallen away from your high standard, but I say it were best to be patient with him."

At home, there were few words spoken after Zephaniah had gone out. Hannah had thrown her arms round her husband's neck, and had said:

"I thank God for your words, Jabez. Now I am proud of you, as I have never been proud before, that you have boldly spoken out for liberty of conscience. I feel like one who has for many years been a slave, but who is, at last, free."

Jabez kissed her, but was silent. To him, it had been a great trial to rebel. He knew that he was right, and would have done it again, if necessary; but it was a terrible thing to him to have openly withstood the father to whom he had, from childhood, rendered almost implicit obedience.

On his return, Zephaniah did not renew the subject; but from that time, there was a great change in the moral atmosphere of the house. Zephaniah was still master in all matters of daily work; but in other respects, Jabez had completely emancipated himself. _

Read next: Chapter 6. Dundalk

Read previous: Chapter 4. The Siege Of Derry

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