Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [485]
It was a quiet spot: no one came there nowadays. Inside the circle of yews was an open space, overgrown with weeds and a few small shrubs. She inspected it. There seemed to be a faint pattern on the ground, incised in the chalky soil, as though someone had made little furrows in the turf, but it was hard to be sure. The circle of trees made a green shade. She sat on the ground with her head in her hands.
Nathaniel.
She stayed there some time, turning the events of the last few years over in her mind, and it was not for a long time, until her grief and anger had run a full course, that she understood at last that there was a greater pain even than hers, and saw what she must do.
Edmund was sitting alone outside on a small stone bench near the house when she returned. He was leaning forward, very still, his shoulders hunched; in his hands he was holding one of Nathaniel’s long clay pipes. He was staring at the little stamped sign of the gauntlet under the bowl.
He did not move as she approached, did not look at her.
Yes. As she looked at his silent misery, she knew what she must do.
Quietly, she put her arms around his stooped shoulders.
“You poor man.”
And then at last, after waiting for over a year, Edmund Shockley broke down and wept.
1653: DECEMBER
It was when he was thirteen that Samuel began to understand that Obadiah was his friend – and that he was not only his friend, but that he was also wise. For unlike Margaret, Obadiah was a man of learning.
And sometimes now, though he was no less fond of her, he started to treat some of Margaret’s opinions with a smile.
On the subject of Margaret, however, as on all subjects, Obadiah was firm.
“You must honour your sister Margaret as you would your mother,” he declared. And Samuel never heard the preacher say a word against her in those days; despite the fact that Margaret, when he was alone with her at the farm would often cry:
“Beware of Obadiah, Samuel. He is a viper.”
She could not be right. On his visits to them at the farm, who could have been more kindly than Obadiah towards him? Was it not Obadiah who had honoured him, that very January, by giving him a little leather-bound copy of the great John Milton’s pamphlet on the Reformation?
“Read it carefully,” Obadiah had enjoined in his serious way: “for none has explained better than Milton why the prelates and the papist superstitions need to be done away with.”
He had even heard Obadiah remark to a gentleman in the close that young Samuel had the mind of a scholar – which, considering his very modest attainments with the pen, was unhoped-for praise indeed. As for Obadiah being a devil, no one in Sarum other than Margaret seemed to say so. For Obadiah Shockley was reckoned a great man by then; and what could anyone have to fear from him?
The world was a better place for Obadiah now. For Presbyterians ruled.
The king was dead – executed after intriguing too many times. Two Wiltshire men, including Edmund Ludlow, had signed the death warrant. Now the Protector, Cromwell, ruled over a Presbyterian Parliament instead.
It was firm rule – when young Ludlow opposed Cromwell’s dictatorship he was told to stay at his post in Ireland or face arrest if he came back. As for Parliament, this was the Barebones Parliament – a small number of compliant men nominated by the Presbyterian congregations. The three Wiltshire men – Eyre, Ashley Cooper and Greene – were all sound, conservative fellows, to Obadiah’s liking.
And no place seemed more utterly Presbyterian than Sarum.
For the cathedral priests had gone: the whole panoply of ecclesiastical dignitaries that had ruled the diocese of Sarum for six centuries – bishop, dean, archdeacons, canons with their accompanying vicars choral and choristers – Parliament had removed them all. It had taken most of their lands