Fuel of Fire - Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

Chapter zero: A Fuel of Fire.

This is a LibriVox recording.

All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon.

Fuel of Fire by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler.

Prologue.

First by the king, and then by the state, and thirdly by that which is thrice as great.

As these and a thousandfold stronger and higher, shall Baxendale Hall be made fuel of fire.

It fell upon a day, so the ancient chronicles tell us, before men had discovered that Mercia was a land whose stones were of iron and her foundations of coal, that Guy, the eldest son of Sir Stephen de Baxendale, went out hunting in the merry greenwood which lay between Baxendale Hall and Silverhampton Town.

And because Guy was too young to take such heed of his own steps and the steps of his steed as an older and wiser huntsman would have done, the horse put his foot into a rabbit hole, thereby bringing himself and his rider to the ground.

In much fear and trembling, the retainers picked up the unconscious form of their young master and bore him to Gorsey Hayes, a forester's lodge in the heart of the wood, which is still standing to this day.

There he was nursed back to consciousness by Vivian of the Glade, the forester's fair daughter, much famed in those parts for her skill in discovering healing herbs and distilling soothing potions from the same.

It was many a long day before Guy of Baxendale was sufficiently recovered to be taken home to the hall, for his leg was broken and his whole body badly bruised.

And when at last he did go back, he left his heart behind him in the safekeeping of Vivian of the Glade.

For even in those far-off times, love flew where he listed, and no man ordered his goings, just as he does unto this day, and will do so long as this round world of ours shall run its course in the light of the sun.

Then there was war in the house of Baxendale.

Guy had made up his mind to wed the fair daughter of the forester, while Sir Stephen and Dame Alice, his wife, had made up their minds with equal firmness that no son of their noble name should mate with the daughter of the people.

Long before William the Norman planted his indomitable foot upon English soil, the Baxendales had taken up their abode in the heart of the Mercia forests, and there had builded themselves a stronghold against their enemies.

It was rumored that one of them had fought on the side of Ethelfleda, Queen of Mercia, in the great battle between the Danes and the Saxons, and that the Queen had delighted to honor him for his bravery on that day of blood.

Be that as it may, the family had long ruled over their own fair lands in the center of the Mercia forests, and had accounted themselves as being made of different flesh and blood from the common people, which men are sadly prone to do when they have handed down their lands from father to son for many generations, until God sees fit to teach them himself that he is no respecter of persons.

Therefore, it was a bitter thing to Sir Stephen and Dame Alice, his wife, when their firstborn son set his heart upon Vivian, the forester's daughter.

But Guy clave to the woman and refused to let her go, for the which should all succeeding Baxendales honor him, as a man who is not ready to leave his father and mother in order to cleave to his wife is not the clay out of which the best husbands and fathers are fashioned by the hands of the great potter.

While the battle was raging fierce and strong, Guy swearing that he should wed the girl whether or no, and his parents swearing that he should not, a rumor got wind in the neighborhood, started men said, in the first place by Dame Alice herself, that the healing skill of Vivian of the Glade had its origin in the sin of witchcraft.

Then alas, and alas for Guy of Baxendale and his ill-fated love, the rumor grew apace, until women refused so much as to look at Vivian's fair face, and even brave men crossed themselves if they had to ride by Gorsey Hayes after nightfall.

And at last it came to pass that the girl was seized by soldiers and carried to Baxendale Hall, where she was condemned by several worthy justices of the peace to be burnt alive at Silverhampton Marketplace as a punishment for her evil deeds, and a warning to any like-minded persons who might be tempted to follow in her unholy footsteps.

So in Silverhampton Marketplace she was burnt alive, close to the strange old Druidical pillar, whereof no man knows the history, even unto this day.

And just as the faggots were beginning to crackle, she broke through the rope that bound her right arm and pointed with her forefinger to the thickly wooded hill on the other side of the valley, where Baxendale Hall nestled among the trees, the home of the great family who had done her to death for the sole crime of being lowly born.

And as she pointed to their house, she raised her voice and cursed them as they had cursed her.

First by the king, and then by the state, and thirdly by that which is thrice as great as these and a thousandfold stronger and higher shall Baxendale Hall be made fuel of fire.

Then the tongues of flame leaped up and fawned upon her like dogs of war let loose by fiendish hands.

Higher and higher they leaped until the voice of cursing faded into a shriek of agony, and then died away into the silence of the eternities.

And the people stood round and gazed upon the awful sight, thanking God in their blindness and ignorance that they were not as this woman was, while the old church of St. Peter uplifted its ancient tower above their heads, an unheeded witness to him who would fain have gathered them all under his wings as a hen gathereth her chickens.

But they would not.

And who would fain have taught them in this his temple made with hands the things that belong to their peace, but which as yet were hid from their eyes? Thus perished Vivien of the Glade because she had succeeded in winning the love of Guy of Baxendale.

But her curse lived on and was fulfilled to the letter.

As for Guy, he forgot his sorrow in the fierce joy of fighting in the Wars of the Roses, the love of war being stronger in some men than even the love of woman.

Then late in life, when he was alike too old to fight or to love any more, he took to wife a well-born damsel some thirty years younger than himself, who bore him a large family of sons and daughters.

In a ripe but cheerless old age he was gathered to his fathers, and Hugh his son reigned in his stead.

But until the day of his death, Guy of Baxendale never again entered Silverhampton town.

He turned on his heel and shook the dust of the place off his feet on the day when the woman he loved was martyred underneath the old stone pillar, in the very shadow of the church which brought to those who had ears to hear it the message of peace upon earth and goodwill towards men.

And he never set foot therein again.

But his children and his grandchildren married in their own class and lived happily ever after, at least until they were removed to that strange world where rank and wealth count for less than nothing, and love and duty for so much.

If they found it impossible to live happily in a world where it was accounted better to be a saint than a Baxendale, no one knows.

But it is somewhat difficult for even a chronicler to imagine.

Nevertheless, because human nature is stronger than pride of birth or social ambition is stronger, in fact than anything else on earth, except the grace of God, and sometimes for a while apparently even stronger than that.

It came to pass when Henry VIII was king that again a Baxendale lost his heart to a daughter of the people.

Once more, as of old, his parents interfered between him and the soul that God had given him for the sake of the glory of their ancient house.

And because Richard Baxendale, like his ancestor Guy, swore that he would marry the girl he loved, though she was only Agnes Tyler, daughter of a wool merchant in Silverhampton, Agnes was sent to the convent of Grey Ladies, and there compelled by her father to take the veil.

For how could a plain Mercian wool merchant defy the wishes of the great Sir Wilfred Baxendale? So Agnes possessed her sweet soul in patience within the thick stone walls of Grey Ladies, and passed her time in praying for Richard Baxendale, that he might do honor to his knighthood on earth, and finally obtain the heavenly crown which is promised to him that overcometh.

There, year after year, she watched the daffodils cover the earth, and she thought upon those golden streets through which Richard and she should one day walk together.

And she saw the wild hyacinths carpet the woodlands, and thought upon the pavement of sapphire, before which Richard and she should one day kneel.

She prayed also for his wife and his children, for her love was not of the earth earthy, and there was no thought of self to be found therein.

As for the wool merchant, her father, he commended himself in that he had killed two birds with one stone, so to speak, in pleasing God and Sir Wilfred equally, by taking his daughter from the one in order to give her to the other.

And he felt that he had thereby conferred an obligation upon both of these powers, which neither of them could lightly discharge.

It is always so satisfactory to a man when he can serve God and Mammon at the same time.

There was no doubt that the wool merchant of Silverhampton was an excellent man of business, and there was also no doubt that the two of the parties involved, namely himself and Sir Wilfred, were completely satisfied with the arrangement.

Whether the third power concerned in the transaction concurred in the approval manifested by the other two is a more doubtful matter.

and one whereof the chronicler knows nothing.

But Will Tyler himself knows all about it by this time, and probably realizes at last the disadvantages of a divided service.

When Agnes was safely out of his reach, Richard took to wife the Lady Anne, daughter of the Earl of Mercia, and by her had three fine sons and four fair daughters.

But his heart was always in the Convent of Grey Ladies, some five miles from Baxendale Hall.

It was when Sir Richard's hair was thinning and his beard was turning grey that the Reformation altered the whole political aspect of England, and Henry VIII appropriated to himself the religious house of Grey Ladies and all the properties appertaining thereto.

The convent was sacked, and the nuns fled to Baxendale, taking with them as much treasure as they could carry, for Sir Richard, being but a simple English gentleman, could not understand how even kings should rise superior to the Eighth Commandment and yet go unpunished.

The king's soldiers, in the king's name, commanded Sir Richard to give up the treasures of the convent, or else they would burn Baxendale Hall to the ground.

But he laughed in their faces and swore that the nuns who had fled to him for safety should find it there until his death.

Then the king's soldiers, in the king's name, set fire to the hall.

The Lady Anne and her children escaped, but Sir Richard stayed with the nuns whom he was defending, like the brave knight he was, and perished with them in the final crash.

Tradition says that just at the end, when all hope or chance of life was over and death was awaiting for them both, Sir Richard threw back the veil which for so long had divided him from Agnes, and kissed her once more full upon the lips, as he had been wont to kiss her long ago in the merry greenwood between Baxendale Hall and Silverhampton.

If this were so, no one saw it save the God who made them man and woman before they were knight and nun, and therefore would not go back upon his own handiwork, and their souls are in his keeping until this day.

Thus perished Sir Richard and the woman he had loved, and thus was fulfilled the first part of the curse of Vivien of the Glade.

A third time it came to pass, since history has a habit of repeating itself, that a Baxendale sought a lowborn bride.

The hall had been rebuilt for close upon a century when Walter Baxendale, one of the most loyal subjects of King Charles the Martyr, set his heart upon Charity Freemantle, a pretty Puritan maid.

But now it was the lady's father who objected, and not the swains, for Walter had lost both his parents while he was yet a boy.

Joshua Freemantle swore a great oath that none of his household should touch the accursed thing, whereby he meant that none of his pretty daughters should be joined in wedlock with a supporter of the royalist cause.

Again as of yore, there were sweet stolen meetings in the woodlands lying west of Silverhampton town, meetings which turned the mossy paths into veritable highways of paradise, and the sun-dappled glades into fairyland itself.

When the shouting of the captains was drowned for a while in the hush and the hum of the summer, and the sound of war could no longer be heard because of the murmur of lovers' vows and lovers' kisses.

Then came the Battle of Worcester and the triumph of the parliamentary army, when Charles fled for safety to Boscobel, and there was hid in an oak tree from his would-be murderers.

Cromwell's men suspected that the fugitive monarch was in hiding at Baxendale Hall, and they commanded the master thereof to deliver into their hands the king to whom he had sworn allegiance, a thing which Walter Baxendale would not have done if he could, since he was a loyal knight and true, and could not if he would, as the king was not at Baxendale at all, but had ridden on to Boscobel.

But in the midst of the search for King Charles, Joshua Freemantle, one of Cromwell's most fanatical followers, came upon his daughter Charity in Baxendale Wood, folded in the arms of her devoted cavalier, who had just come back to her alive and unhurt from the field of Worcester.

In a moment of frenzy, Freemantle fired at the man he hated, as men never hate save in the throes of civil warfare.

But Charity, seeing what was coming, flung herself between her father and her lover, and so was slain in her lover's stead.

Then Sir Walter and Freemantle engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle, the one being inspired by the love of woman and the other by the love of religion, two of the strongest forces that ever impelled men to shed blood like water.

For many minutes the deadly combat lasted, first the one seeming to get the upper hand and then the other.

But Baxendale's heart was broken, and it is hard work fighting with a broken heart.

So it came to pass that the fanatic proved too strong for the knight and finally overthrew him, running him straight through the body with his sword.

So Walter and his love lay dead together in the woodland, where they had so often plighted their vows.

And who shall dare to say that those vows were not fulfilled in that paradise whereof the forest of Baxendale had been but a foretaste and a type? Joshua Freemantle then rode on to the hall, followed by a small company of Roundheads, and filled with the passion of war and the frenzy of religious zeal.

With the soldiers' help, he burned the house to the ground, thinking, poor misguided soul, that he was thereby doing God service, just as he thought he had saved his daughter's soul alive by slaying her in Baxendale Woods rather than let her mate with the son of Belial, as he considered all who were not supporters of Cromwell.

He also had much to learn when at last he went to his own place and found how terribly he had misrepresented the God whom he had sincerely, though ignorantly, worshiped.

It was not until after Richard Cromwell's death and the restoration to the throne of King Charles II that the property was given back to Hubert Baxendale, Sir Walter's younger brother.

In the meanwhile, it lay a desolate and neglected ruin, silent save for the cawing of the rooks by day and the screeching of the owls by night.

But then Hubert claimed it as his brother's heir at law, and the king at once recognized his claims and restored the large estate of Baxendale to its rightful owner.

For some years, Hubert Baxendale saved up his revenues in order to rebuild the hall, and by the time that James II was sitting upon his brother's throne, a fine red brick house had grown up on the old site of Baxendale Hall, a house which was destined to be enlivened by the laughter of several generations of Baxendales before the third part of the ancient prophecy came true.

Thus perished Sir Walter Baxendale and the woman of his choice, and thus was fulfilled the second part of the curse of Vivien of the Glade.

End of prologue.

Recording by John Brandon.