The Captive Bride (11 page)

Her walks along the river grew longer, and she prayed
fervently; prayer built her up, edified her spirit, and enabled her to carry the heavy burden.

Snow came, and on the second day when the earth was muffled with white, Lydia left the Bunyan cottage and started for the jail. The heavy pot of soup dragged at her arm, and walking was difficult in the six-inch blanket of snow that covered the earth.

She had turned the corner onto the main road that led to the jail, and as she lifted her eyes, what she saw sent a shock running through her so violent that she almost dropped the heavy iron pot.

“Matthew!” she cried out, struggling to run toward him, crying out his name, filled with wonder that he was free.

Finally she set the pot down and ran toward him, her eyes so blinded with tears that she could barely see the tall figure so familiar to her. She fell into his arms and he caught her with a powerful grip.

“Matthew! Oh, my dear!” she cried out, holding to him as if she would never let him go.

Then she heard the familiar voice—but at the same time strangely different, “Well, daughter, I am here...!”

She looked up, drawing back at once from his embrace. She saw a wedge-shaped face with wide lips, cornflower blue eyes such as she loved in Matthew—but it was not her husband!

He said, “I've just come from my son, Lydia. We have much to pray about, you and I.” Then he smiled, and she saw the same courage and strength in the father's eyes that she had fallen in love with in Matthew. “But first, will you allow me to have a father's embrace? For you are my daughter now!”

She gave a cry and fell into Gilbert Winslow's strong arms as a battered ship comes out of a wild tearing storm into the peace and safety of a calm harbor!

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE TRIAL

“She slipped away with the tide,” Gilbert Winslow said slowly. “Just as she had lived trusting in the Lord God, so she endured her going hence.” He sat relaxed in front of the cheerful fire that threw leaping figures on the walls of the small cottage. There was a quietness and peace in his voice that took away the sting of the news that Matthew's mother was dead. He leaned forward to pick up the heavy iron poker, and Lydia's eyes stung as she recognized in her father-in-law the easy grace and strength that she loved in Matthew.

“It must have been terribly hard on you, Mr. Winslow.”

“Hard?” He looked at her with a starboard twist of his head, just as she'd seen in Matthew a thousand times, then smiled and shook his head. “No, child, not hard. What was hard was watching her in pain from day to day. That last night the pain left, and we both knew it was time. She'd always loved to watch the tide go out, so I picked her up and carried her to a clearing on the hill—the same spot where I'd asked her to marry me forty years ago. It was dawn, and just as the morning light came to turn the sea red, and the tide began ebbing from the shore, she turned to me, put her arms around my neck, and whispered, ‘You've been a good husband to me on this earth, Gilbert—but I must go now to my heavenly Bridegroom!' And then she put her head on my shoulder—and she left to be with Him!”

Sitting with her feet tucked beneath her, Lydia could not keep her eyes off her father-in-law.
He looks far more like
Matthew's older brother than his father!
she thought suddenly. As he went on speaking quietly, she drew the brightly colored quilt around her like a cocoon, her eyes never leaving his face.
Matthew is so much like him—but there's something different,
she thought. It was not long until she discovered what that difference was. Gilbert's face was Matthew's, but it had been refined by hardship to a countenance of sharp planes and fine lines that contrasted strongly with the soft, handsome features of the son.

“I—I'm glad you've come, Mr. Winslow,” she said when he paused. “Matthew has been a good husband, but he's changed since he went to prison.”

Gilbert smiled at the first confession, then shook his head at the second. “He's been like a wild hawk all his life, Lydia. He'll dare anything, but you can't cage a wild creature without killing his spirit, I think.”

“It's killing him, that prison.” She threw the quilt back, got up and bent to pick up the heavy kettle. As she poured a cup of steaming water for his tea, she said steadily, “What do you think will happen to him?”

“If he stays in prison?” He took the tea, sipped it carefully, then looked at her over the lip of the heavy cup. “He may not survive it. I hardly
knew
him, Lydia!” he exclaimed. “He's very ill, as you know. That cough is bad—down deep in his lungs, and prison fever is quick and deadly as a serpent!”

She stared at him, hesitated, then asked the question aloud that she'd never dared to frame to anyone. “Do you think he should give in to the Crown? You realize he and Brother Bunyan can leave anytime they agree to obey the new law?”

“I know.” Gilbert turned the cup in his hands, seeming to find something fascinating in the plain surface. He sat comfortably in the chair, a strong figure even in repose. She had heard both from Winslow's son and his brother how he had the daring of a buccaneer in his youth; how he had been forced to choose between a place of prominence as the husband of Cecily North, daughter of Lord North, the
beautiful aristocrat who had followed him across the Atlantic, and the simple Pilgrim maiden, Humility Cooper. He had been a swordsman with few peers, a lover of some repute, and would have risen in the world—but threw it all away to embrace the hard life of a poor minister on the rocky shores of Plymouth.

She saw that strength in his hands, in his face, and in every line of his tall figure, and suddenly she thought,
This is what I want for a husband! This is what I thought Matthew was like!

He looked at her sharply, and said in answer to her question, “If he gives in to the Crown, he'll live—but what will he have left? A man who lets a king—or anyone else!—direct his soul may be alive physically, but he's dead to the best that's in him!”

“I'm afraid for him. I'm afraid for myself, for Mr. Bunyan, and for his poor wife and children!”

He rose and came to stand by her. Taking her hands in his he looked down on her for a long moment, then said gently, “Never take counsel of your fears, Lydia. I would be afraid, too, for Matthew is the last of his family—the last of the House of Winslow.”

She smiled tremulously and said shyly, but with a note of triumph in her voice, “No, this child will have the Winslow name.”

“Ah!” A tender smile crossed Gilbert's broad lips, and he embraced her, and the tender kiss he placed on her forehead broke down all restraint. It was as if she had known him all her life, and she leaned against him, clinging to him in her need as she had clung to her own father years ago.

“I'm glad you're here,” she said again. “It gives me faith, and I know you can help Matthew.”

He shook his head, saying only, “I trust that is so—but in one sense and in some things, a man must make his own way. We will try and we will pray, but my son must choose for himself.”

“I know—but he has such faith in you—and so do I!” She
laughed awkwardly and added, “Here you are fresh off the ship, and I dump all my care onto you the first time we meet!”

He said at once, “You're not a weak woman, Lydia. No, indeed! You know that thought that came to me, not five minutes after we met?
Here is a woman as strong as my Humility!
I never thought to hear myself say it,” he smiled.

She was embarrassed by the compliment, but warmed all the same by his approval. “I must go to Mrs. Bunyan's. Would you go with me, to pray for her?”

“Of course!”

The two of them made their way through the falling snow, and Mr. Winslow became an instant success with the small Bunyans. He knew all sorts of games it seemed, and he thought nothing of roughing with the little ones. Elizabeth felt well enough to sit in a chair by the fireplace, and she watched in amazement while the tall minister got down on his hands and knees with the children. “He's an unusual man, isn't he? He loves children, that's plain,” she whispered to Lydia.

When the children were in bed, he spent a long time reading the Bible to Lydia and Elizabeth; the Book of Hebrews, the eleventh chapter, and the ancient promises seemed to fill the small room with warmth. Finally he closed the book and prayed for Elizabeth and for her husband warmly and fervently.

After he had left, the strength of his presence lingered somehow, and Elizabeth smiled at Lydia, saying, “He's got a strength in him, that man has! John will love him!”

“Who wouldn't?” Lydia responded softly. “He's the kind of man—”

She broke off and Elizabeth finished, “The kind of man you saw in Matthew? Yes, and it's there, my dear. Blood will tell, and there's enough of his father's blood in Matthew Winslow to win his battle!”

During the weeks that followed, Lydia thought often of Elizabeth's words. But there seemed to be little to merit hope that Matthew would justify the thought. She saw no
improvement in him; indeed, the news of his mother's death came as such a blow to him that even the strong encouragement Gilbert offered was offset.

Gilbert's presence was more of a blessing to John Bunyan, it seemed, than to his own son. The two men became fast friends at once, and Winslow spent most of his time at the prison studying the Scripture with Bunyan. Gilbert was captivated by the man's vivid imagination, and often when Mary came to visit, he sat there listening to Bunyan's stories as intently as she. “You ought to write a book, John!” he often said.

“I'm no book writer!”

“You're the best teller of tales I've ever heard,” Winslow insisted. “That one about the chap named Pilgrim—it's almost like reading the Bible, in a way! Think what it would mean if Christian parents had a story about a man who leaves his home and fights his way through difficulties to get to heaven!”

“They have the Bible,” Bunyan shrugged.

“But, Father, your stories make the Bible easier to understand,” Mary protested.

“There you have it, John,” Winslow laughed. “Wisdom from the lips of babes, eh, Matthew?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Matthew sat on a pile of straw, picking at it listlessly. There was no life in his voice.

Bunyan and Winslow exchanged glances, but said nothing. They had spoken quietly about the young man when Matthew was out of hearing, and agreed that if he gave in to the Crown's new law, he would live, but would be forever scarred in his spirit.

Bunyan picked up the story of Pilgrim and had gotten the hero into a terrible predicament when Paul Cobb opened the door of the cell and Pastor Gifford rushed in, his eyes filled with excitement.

“Twisten—he's set a date for the trial!”

“
When?
” Matthew wheeled from where he stood and
leaped to the pastor's side, showing more animation than they had seen in weeks.

“A month from now, less a day!”

“Thank God!” Matthew cried out, tears gathering in his eyes.

“Yes, thank God,” Bunyan said; then he added carefully, “Now we must pray for a verdict in our favor.”

Matthew stared at him, then declared defiantly, “God will not leave us here to rot!” He shook his head and laughed for the first time since Gilbert had come to Bedford. “It's going to be all right! You'll see!”

When Lydia came later that day, she was taken off guard by the difference in Matthew. He embraced her, swinging her around in a circle in the old way, crying, “It's over, Lydia! It's over!”

“Matthew, be careful,” she cried out breathlessly. “You'll get your cough started again!”

“Devil take the cough!” he grinned. “Let me get a breath of free air and that cough will leave one way or another!” He carried on wildly all the time she was there. The activity did start his cough again, and she had to force him to lie down before he strangled. The two red spots which had shown in his cheeks a week earlier reappeared, and she knew his fever was up.

That night when Gilbert came by to pray for Elizabeth, she said, “He's better, isn't he?”

“Yes, I suppose.” There was a caution in Gilbert's voice, and he added soberly, “But it will go hard with him if the verdict isn't favorable.”

“Do—do you think that it will be bad—the verdict?”

“It's a bad time, Lydia. The tide is against us. I have to go to London to see my brother in two days. I'll find out something from him. He's in prison, but he still has powerful friends, and some of them may help.”

After Gilbert left, Lydia made the mistake of mentioning
his words to Matthew, and he grabbed at the chance eagerly. “Why, of course! Uncle Edward will help us!”

“He's unable to help himself, lad,” Bunyan said quickly.

“You never have a cheerful word, do you John?” Bunyan's efforts to prepare the young man for the possibility of bad news from the trial had not worked; on the contrary, they had driven a wedge between the two that had given grief to the Bunyans as well as to Lydia.

“John is just—”

“I know what John is doing!” Matthew snapped at her. “You're a fine help, all of you! Where's your faith? We're supposed to believe God, aren't we? Well, that's what I'm doing—and the rest of you are digging my grave with your unbelief—!” He broke off into a paroxysm of coughing and fought Lydia as she attempted to help him. “Leave me alone, you doubters!” he gasped and withdrew into the farthest corner of the cell.

He apologized the following day, but there was a constraint in him, and he had little to say to either of them. The only subject that he cared about was the trial—that and the return of Gilbert with good news.

Lydia was at the jail the afternoon Gilbert came back. Bunyan was standing on a bench, speaking out the window to a small group who had formed the habit of coming from time to time to hear him preach.