The great thunder-cloud of Star-chamber and High Commission Court had dispersed. The Puritans and Patriots breathed once more, and the great voice of the nation, speaking at Westminster the words which were deeds, while it quieted the cries and groans of the oppressed country, set men's tongues free for earnest and determined speech by every hall hearth, and every blacksmith's forge, and ale-house, and village-green, and place of public or social talk throughout the country. The blacksmith's forge in Netherby village was indeed a place well known to Roger and me. Job Forster, the smith, a brave, simple-hearted giant from Cornwall (given to despising our inland peasants, who had never seen the sea, and suspected of being the mainstay of a little band of sectaries in the neighborhood), having always been Roger's chief friend; while Rachel, his gentle, sickly, saintly little wife (whom he cherished with a kind of timorous tenderness, like something almost too small and delicate for him to meddle with), had always given me the child's place in her motherly heart, which no child had been given to their house to fill. Whenever we were missed in childhood, it was commonly at Job Forster's forge we were sought and found. And by this means we learned a great deal of politics from Job's point of view, as well as many marvellous stories of God's providence by sea and land, which seemed to us to show that God was as near to those who trust Him now, as to the Israelites of old, which, also, Job and Rachel most surely believed. But, meantime, while the clouds over England seemed scattering, a heavy cloud gathered over us at Netherby. The Davenant family had come to the Hall for the Christmas festivities. We met often during the time they were there, more than ever before. The ties of friendship and of neighbourhood seemed to prevail over the party strife which had so long kept us apart. Hope there was also that those party conflicts at last might cease with the disgrace of the hated Lord-Lieutenant. His sudden abandonment of the patriot side, his rapid rise, and his lofty, imperious temper, had not failed to make enemies even among those of his own party. Sir Walter Davenant said he had no liking for turn-coats. They always over-acted their new part, and commonly did more to injure the party they joined than the party they betrayed. The haughty earl once out of the way, the king would listen to truer men and better servants.