And on winter
evenings she used to sit with her Bible on her knee, while I and my little
sister Susan stood beside her and listened to the stories of Gideon and
Barak, and Samson and Jephthah, till her eye kindled up, and her thoughts
passed forth from that old Hebrew time home into those English times which
she fancied, and not untruly, like them. And we used to shudder, and yet
listen with a strange fascination, as she told us how her ancestor called
his seven sons off their small Cambridge farm, and horsed and armed them
himself to follow behind Cromwell, and smite kings and prelates with "the
sword of the Lord and of Gideon." Whether she were right or wrong, what
is it to me? What is it now to her, thank God? But those stories, and the
strict, stern Puritan education, learnt from the Independents and not the
Baptists, which accompanied them, had their effect on me, for good and ill.
My mother moved by rule and method; by God's law, as she considered, and
that only. She seldom smiled. Her word was absolute. She never commanded
twice, without punishing. And yet there were abysses of unspoken tenderness
in her, as well as clear, sound, womanly sense and insight.
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