The Pigeon Pie Read online

  Transcribed from the 1905 A. R. Mowbray & Co. edition by David Price,email [email protected]

  [Picture: Book cover]

  THE PIGEON PIE

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  BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE _Author of_ “_The Heir of Redclyffe_”

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  NEW EDITION

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  A. R. MOWBRAY & CO. LIMITED OXFORD: 106, S. Aldate’s Street LONDON: 34, Great Castle Street, Oxford Circus, W 1905

  CONTENTS.

  PAGECHAPTER I. 1CHAPTER II. 19CHAPTER III. 34CHAPTER IV. 47CHAPTER V. 62CHAPTER VI. 77CHAPTER VII. 97CHAPTER VIII. 107CHAPTER IX. 117

  CHAPTER I.

  EARLY in the September of the year 1651 the afternoon sun was shiningpleasantly into the dining-hall of Forest Lea House. The sunshine camethrough a large bay-window, glazed in diamonds, and with long branches ofa vine trailing across it, but in parts the glass had been broken and hadnever been mended. The walls were wainscoted with dark oak, as well asthe floor, which shone bright with rubbing, and stag’s antlers projectedfrom them, on which hung a sword in its sheath, one or two odd gauntlets,an old-fashioned helmet, a gun, some bows and arrows, and two of thebroad shady hats then in use, one with a drooping black feather, theother plainer and a good deal the worse for wear, both of a small size,as if belonging to a young boy.

  An oaken screen crossed the hall, close to the front door, and there wasa large open fireplace, a settle on each side under the great yawningchimney, where however at present no fire was burning. Before it was along dining-table covered towards the upper end with a delicately whitecloth, on which stood, however, a few trenchers, plain drinking-horns,and a large old-fashioned black-jack, that is to say, a pitcher formed ofleather. An armchair was at the head of the table, and heavy oakenbenches along the side.

  A little boy of six years old sat astride on the end of one of thebenches, round which he had thrown a bridle of plaited rushes, and, witha switch in his other hand, was springing himself up and down, callingout, “Come, Eleanor, come, Lucy; come and ride on a pillion behind me toWorcester, to see King Charles and brother Edmund.”

  “I’ll come, I am coming!” cried Eleanor, a little girl about a yearolder, her hair put tightly away under a plain round cap, and she wassoon perched sideways behind her brother.

  “Oh, fie, Mistress Eleanor; why, you would not ride to the wars?” Thiswas said by a woman of about four or five-and-twenty, tall, thin andspare, with a high colour, sharp black eyes, and a waist which the longstiff stays, laced in front, had pinched in till it was not much biggerthan a wasp’s, while her quilted green petticoat, standing out full belowit, showed a very trim pair of ankles encased in scarlet stockings, and apair of bony red arms came forth from the full short sleeves of a sort ofwhite jacket, gathered in at the waist. She was clattering backwards andforwards, removing the dinner things, and talking to the children as shedid so in a sharp shrill tone: “Such a racket as you make, to be sure,and how you can have the heart to do so I can’t guess, not I, consideringwhat may be doing this very moment.”

  “Oh, but Walter says they will all come back again, brother Edmund, andDiggory, and all,” said little Eleanor, “and then we shall be merry.”

  “Yes,” said Lucy, who, though two years older, wore the same prim roundcap and long frock as her little sister, “then we shall have Edmund hereagain. You can’t remember him at all, Eleanor and Charlie, for we havenot seen him these six years!”

  “No,” said Deborah, the maid. “Ah! these be weary wars, what won’t let agentleman live at home in peace, nor his poor servants, who have no callto them.”

  “For shame, Deb!” cried Lucy; “are not you the King’s own subject?”

  But Deborah maundered on, “It is all very well for gentlefolks, but nowit had all got quiet again, ’tis mortal hard it should be stirred upafresh, and a poor soul marched off, he don’t know where, to fight withhe don’t know who, for he don’t know what.”

  “He ought to know what!” exclaimed Lucy, growing very angry. “I tellyou, Deb, I only wish I was a man! I would take the great two-handledsword, and fight in the very front rank for our Church and our King! Youwould soon see what a brave cavalier’s daughter—son I mean,” said Lucy,getting into a puzzle, “could do.”

  The more eager Lucy grew, the more unhappy Deborah was, and putting herapron to her eyes, she said in a dismal voice, “Ah! ’tis little poorDiggory wots of kings and cavaliers!”

  What Lucy’s indignation would have led her to say next can never beknown, for at this moment in bounced a tall slim boy of thirteen, hislong curling locks streaming tangled behind him. “Hollo!” he shouted,“what is the matter now? Dainty Deborah in the dumps? Cheer up, mylass! I’ll warrant that doughty Diggory is discreet enough to encounterno more bullets than he can reasonably avoid!”

  This made Deborah throw down her apron and reply, with a toss of thehead, “None of your nonsense, Master Walter, unless you would have mespeak to my lady. Cry for Diggory, indeed!”

  “She was really crying for him, Walter,” interposed Lucy.

  “Mistress Lucy!” exclaimed Deborah, angrily, “the life I lead among youis enough—”

  “Not enough to teach you good temper,” said Walter. “Do you want alittle more?”

  “I wish someone was here to teach you good manners,” answered thetormented Deborah. “As if it was not enough for one poor girl to havethe work of ten servants on her hands, here must you be mock, mock, jeer,jeer, worrit, worrit, all day long! I had rather be a mark for all themusketeers in the Parliamentary army.”

  This Deborah always said when she was out of temper, and it thereforemade Walter and Lucy laugh the more; but in the midst of their merrimentin came a girl of sixteen or seventeen, tall and graceful. Her head wasbare, her hair fastened in a knot behind, and in little curls round herface; she had an open bodice of green silk, and a white dress under it,very plain and neat; her step was quick and active, but her large darkeyes had a grave thoughtful look, as if she was one who would naturallyhave loved to sit still and think, better than to bustle about and bebusy. Eleanor ran up to her at once, complaining that Walter was teasingDeborah shamefully. She was going to speak, but Deborah cut her short.

  “No Mistress Rose, I will not have even you excuse him, I’ll go and tellmy lady how a poor faithful wench is served;” and away she flounced,followed by Rose.

  “Will she tell mamma?” asked little Charlie.

  “Oh no, Rose will pacify her,” said Lucy.

  “I am sure I wish she would tell,” said Eleanor, a much graver littleperson than Lucy; “Walter is too bad.”

  “It is only to save Diggory the trouble of taking a crabstick to her whenhe returns from the wars,” said Walter. “Heigh ho!” and he threw himselfon the bench, and drummed on the table. “I wish I was there! I wonderwhat is doing at Worcester this minute!”

  “When will brother Edmund come?” asked Charlie for about the hundredthtime.

  “When the battle is fought, and the battle is won, and King Charlesenjoys his own again! Hurrah!” shouted Walter, jumping up, and beginningto sing—

  “For forty years our royal throne Has been his father’s and his own.”

  Lucy joined in with—

  “Nor is there anyone but he With right can there a share
r be.”

  “How can you make such a noise?” said Eleanor, stopping her ears, bywhich she provoked Walter to go on roaring into them, while he pulleddown her hand—

  “For who better may The right sceptre sway Than he whose right it is to reign; Then look for no peace, For the war will never cease Till the King enjoys his own again.”

  As he came to the last line, Rose returning exclaimed, “Oh, hush, Lucy.Pray don’t, Walter!”

  “Ha! Rose turned Roundhead?” cried Walter. “You don’t deserve to hearthe good news from Worcester.”

  “O, what?” cried the girls, eagerly.

  “When it comes,” said Walter, delighted to have taken in Rose herself;but Rose, going up to him gently, implored him to be quiet, and listen toher.

  “All this noisy rejoicing grieves our mother,” said she. “If you couldbut have seen her yesterday evening, when she heard your loyal songs.She sighed, and said, ‘Poor fellow, how high his hopes are!’ and then shetalked of our father and that evening before the fight at Naseby.”

  Walter looked grave and said, “I remember! My father lifted me on thetable to drink King Charles’s health, and Prince Rupert—I remember hisscarlet mantle and white plume—patted my head, and called me his littlecavalier.”

  “We sat apart with mother,” said Rose, “and heard the loud cheers andsongs till we were half frightened at the noise.”

  “I can’t recollect all that,” said Lucy.

  “At least you ought not to forget how our dear father came in withEdmund, and kissed us, and bade mother keep up a good heart. Don’t youremember that, Lucy?”

  “I do,” said Walter; “it was the last time we ever saw him.”

  And Walter sat on the table, resting one foot on the bench, while theother dangled down, and leaning his elbow on his knee and his head on hishand; Rose sat on the bench close by him, with Charlie on her lap, andthe two little girls pressing close against her, all earnest to hear fromher the story of the great fight of Naseby, where they had all been in afarmhouse about a mile from the field of battle.

  “I don’t forget how the cannon roared all day,” said Lucy.

  “Ah! that dismal day!” said Rose. “Then by came our troopers,blood-stained and disorderly, riding so fast that scarcely one waited totell my mother that the day was lost and she had better fly. But not astep did she stir from the gate, where she stood with you, Charlie, inher arms; she only asked of each as he passed if he had seen my father orEdmund, and ever her cheek grew whiter and whiter. At last came aParliament officer on horseback—it was Mr. Enderby, who had been acollege mate of my father’s, and he told us that my dear father waswounded, and had sent him to fetch her.”

  “But I never knew where Edmund was then,” said Eleanor. “No one evertold me.”

  “Edmund lifted up my father when he fell,” said Walter, “and was tryingto bind his wound; but when Colonel Enderby’s troop was close upon them,my father charged him upon his duty to fly, saying that he should fallinto the hands of an old friend, and it was Edmund’s duty to save himselfto fight for the King another time.”

  “So Edmund followed Prince Rupert?” said Eleanor.

  “Yes,” said Lucy; “you know my father once saved Prince Rupert’s life inthe skirmish where his horse was killed, so for his sake the Prince madeEdmund his page, and has had him with him in all his voyages andwanderings. But go on about our father, Rose. Did we go to see him?”

  “No; Mr. Enderby said he was too far off, so he left a trooper to guardus, and my mother only took her little babe with her. Don’t youremember, Walter, how Eleanor screamed after her, as she rode away on thecolonel’s horse; and how we could not comfort the little ones, till theyhad cried themselves to sleep, poor little things? And in the morningshe came back, and told us our dear father was dead! O Walter, how canwe look back to that day, and rejoice in a new war? How can you wonderher heart should sink at sounds of joy which have so often ended intears?”

  Walter twisted about and muttered, but he could not resist his sister’searnest face and tearful eyes, and said something about not making somuch noise in the house.

  “There’s my own dear brother,” said Rose. “And you won’t tease Deborah?”

  “That is too much, Rose. It is all the sport I have, to see the facesshe makes when I plague her about Diggory. Besides, it serves her rightfor having such a temper.”

  “She has not a good temper, poor thing!” said Rose; “but if you wouldonly think how true and honest she is, how hard she toils, and how illshe fares, and yet how steadily she holds to us, you would surely notplague and torment her.”

  Rose was interrupted by a great outcry, and in rushed Deborah, screamingout, “Lack-a-day! Mistress Rose! O Master Walter! what will become ofus? The fight is lost, the King fled, and a whole regiment of red-coatsburning and plundering the whole country. Our throats will be cut, everyone of them!”

  “You’ll have a chance of being a mark for all the musketeers in theParliament army,” said Walter, who even then could not miss a piece ofmischief.

  “Joking now, Master Walter!” cried Deborah, very much shocked. “That iswhat I call downright sinful. I hope you’ll be made a mark of yourself,that I do.”

  The children were running off to tell their mother, when Rose stoppedthem, and desired to know how Deborah had heard the tidings. It was fromtwo little children from the village who had come to bring a present ofsome pigeons to my lady. Rose went herself to examine the children, butshe could only learn that a packman had come into the village and broughtthe report that the King had been defeated, and had fled from the field.They knew no more, and Walter pronouncing it to be all a cock-and-bullstory of some rascally prick-eared pedlar, declared he would go down tothe village and enquire into the rights of it.

  These were the saddest times of English history, when the wrong cause hadbeen permitted for a time to triumph, and the true and rightful side waspersecuted; and among those who endured affliction for the sake of theirChurch and their King, none suffered more, or more patiently, than LadyWoodley, or, as she was called in the old English fashion, Dame MaryWoodley, of Forest Lea.

  When first the war broke out she was living happily in her pleasant homewith her husband and children; but when King Charles raised his standardat Nottingham, all this comfort and happiness had to be given up. SirWalter Woodley joined the royal army, and it soon became unsafe for hiswife and children to remain at home, so that they were forced to go aboutwith him, and suffer all the hardships of the sieges and battles. LadyWoodley was never strong, and her health was very much hurt by all shewent through; she was almost always unwell, and if Rose, though thenquite a child, had not shown care and sense beyond her years for thelittle ones, it would be hard to say what would have become of them.

  Yet all she endured while dragging about her little babies through thecountry, with bad or insufficient food, uncomfortable lodgings, pain,weariness and anxiety, would have been as nothing but for the heavysorrows that came upon her also. First she lost her only brother, EdmundMowbray, and in the battle of Naseby her husband was killed; besideswhich there were the sorrows of the whole nation in seeing the King sold,insulted, misused, and finally slain, by his own subjects. After SirWalter’s death, Lady Woodley went home with her five younger children toher father’s house at Forest Lea; for her husband’s estate, Edmund’s owninheritance, had been seized and sequestrated by the rebels. She was theheiress of Forest Lea since the loss of her brother, but the old Mr.Mowbray, her father, had given almost all his wealth for the royal cause,and had been oppressed by the exactions of the rebels, so that he hadnothing to leave his daughter but the desolate old house and a few bareacres of land. For the shelter, however, Lady Woodley was very thankful;and there she lived with her children and a faithful servant, Deborah,whose family had always served the Mowbrays, and who would not deserttheir daughter now.

  The neighbours in the village loved, and were sorry for, their lad
y, andused to send her little presents; there was a large garden in whichDiggory Stokes, who had also served her father, raised vegetables for heruse; the cow wandered in the deserted park, and so they contrived to findfood; while all the work of the house was done by Rose and Deborah. Rosewas her mother’s great comfort, nursing her, cheering her, taking care ofthe little ones, teaching them, working for them, and making light of allher exertions. Everyone in the village loved Rose Woodley, for everyonehad in some way been helped or cheered by her. Her mother was onlysometimes afraid she worked too hard, and would try her strength toomuch; but she was always bright and cheerful, and when the day’s work wasdone no one was more gay and lively and ready for play with the littleones.

  Rose had more trial than anyone knew with Deborah. Deborah was asfaithful as possible, and bore a great deal for the sake of her mistress,worked hard day and night, had little to eat and no wages, yet lived onwith them rather than forsake her dear lady and the children. One thing,however, Deborah would not do, and that was to learn to rule her tongueand her temper. She did not know, nor do many excellent servants, howmuch trial and discomfort she gave to those she loved so earnestly, byher constant bursting out into hasty words whenever she was vexed—hergrumbling about whatever she disliked, and her ill-judged scolding of thechildren. Servants in those days were allowed to speak more freely totheir masters and mistresses than at present, so that Deborah had moreopportunity of making such speeches, and it was Rose’s continual work totry to keep her temper from being fretted, or Lady Woodley from beingteased with her complaints. Rose was very forbearing, and but for thisthere would have been little peace in the house.

  Walter was thirteen, an age when it is not easy to keep boys in order,unless they will do so for themselves. Though a brave generous boy, hewas often unruly and inconsiderate, apt not to obey, and to do what heknew to be unkind or wrong, just for the sake of present amusement. Hewas thus his mother’s great anxiety, for she knew that she was not fiteither to teach or to restrain him, and she feared that his present wilddisobedient ways might hurt his character for ever, and lead todispositions which would in time swallow up all the good about him, andmake him what he would now tremble to think of.

  She used to talk of her anxieties to Doctor Bathurst, the good oldclergyman who had been driven away from his parish, but used to come insecret to help, teach, and use his ministry for the faithful ones of hisflock. He would tell her that while she did her best for her son, shemust trust the rest to his FATHER above, and she might do so hopefully,since it had been in His own cause that the boy had been made fatherless.Then he would speak to Walter, showing him how wrong and how cruel werehis overbearing, disobedient ways. Walter was grieved, and resolved toimprove and become steadier, that he might be a comfort and blessing tohis mother; but in his love of fun and mischief he was apt to forgethimself, and then drove away what might have been in time repentance andimprovement, by fancying he did no harm. Teasing Deborah served herright, he would tell himself, she was so ill-tempered and foolish;Diggory was a clod, and would do nothing without scolding; it was a goodjoke to tease Charlie; Eleanor was a vexatious little thing, and he wouldnot be ordered by her; so he went his own way, and taught the merrychattering Lucy to be very nearly as bad as himself, neglected hisduties, set a bad example, tormented a faithful servant, and seriouslydistressed his mother. Give him some great cause, he thought, and hewould be the first and the best, bring back the King, protect his motherand sisters, and perform glorious deeds, such as would make his name beremembered for ever. Then it would be seen what he was worth; in themeantime he lived a dull life, with nothing to do, and he must have somefun. It did not signify if he was not particular about little things,they were women’s affairs, and all very well for Rose, but when somereally important matter came, that would be his time for distinguishinghimself.

  In the meantime Charles II. had been invited to Scotland, and had broughtwith him, as an attendant, Edmund Woodley, the eldest son. As soon as hewas known to have entered England, some of the loyal gentlemen of theneighbourhood of Forest Lea went to join the King, and among theirfollowers went Farmer Ewins, who had fought bravely in the former warunder Edmund Mowbray, several other of the men of the village, andlastly, Diggory Stokes, Lady Woodley’s serving man, who had lately shownsymptoms of discontent with his place, and fancied that as a soldier hemight fare better, make his fortune, and come home prosperously to marryhis sweetheart, Deborah.