“Friend,” said Cuthbert, “I do not understand you: it is not my custom to join in prayer with an unknown stranger; there is thy bed, and here is mine:—let us lie down upon them in peace, and commune with our own hearts and be still.”
“Verily,” rejoined the stranger, “thou art afraid:—it is no wonder:—thou art but a mere babe of grace, and thine eyes do see but dimly the glories of my high calling;—but I tell thee thou art a chosen vessel of the Lord,—and even now I feel my bowels moved towards thee, and the spirit of prayer is upon me, and I must wrestle with the powers of darkness to deliver thy poor soul from the snare of the fowler. This is my command,—and even now I am appointed unto thee for an angel of defence, and the fight is begun.”
The stranger now threw himself upon his knees, and poured forth a long, rambling and blasphemous petition,—the words of which made Cuthbert shudder.
However, as he had been already told that there was no other chamber or bed vacant, and as he was greatly fatigued, he lay down to sleep, silently commending himself to the care of God, and endeavouring to substitute a feeling of pity for the deep disgust with which this crazy chamber-fellow inspired him.
The last sounds of which he was conscious before his heavy eyes became sealed in forgetfulness were groanings from the adjoining bed—nor did he awake in the morning till it was broad daylight. He looked around—the chamber was empty;—at this he felt thankful: and, supposing that his last odd companion had travelled forward at an earlier hour, he arose, and proceeded to dress himself; but he instantly discovered that his purse was gone. He went forth on the stairs, and called loudly for the landlord. It was some time before he made his appearance; and when he did so, he listened to the tale with hard indifference, and coarse incredulity.
“Ah! that’s an old story, my devil’s scholar, but it wo’n’t go down with me:—you shan’t budge from the Boar’s Head till you pay your shot, I can tell you; and your nag shall go to the market cross before I let you ride off without paying for provender.”
Cuthbert’s fury was roused to the uttermost; but his hot words were only laughed at by the rosy Boniface, who soon left him. He slipped on his clothes with all haste, and came down into the guest parlour, where the Cavalier and the two military men were already seated at breakfast by a cheerful fire. He stated his case before them all with the warm earnestness of truth. The Cavalier picked his teeth and whistled; but the younger of the other two seemed very much to sympathise in the embarrassment of Cuthbert, which in fact was more serious than he himself apprehended; for mine host came presently into the parlour to say, that his horse and his vallise were taken away by his chamber-fellow before dawn.
“It was all a made up thing,” said the landlord in a storm of passion. “I saw they were a couple of hypocritical rogues, and packed ’em together for safety’s sake—’twould only be thief rob thief, I knew:—but it’s my belief they take the horse turn by turn, and steal in company; for yon old one has left half a bottle of strong waters and the leg of a cold goose at his bed-foot:—come, young knave,” he added, attempting to take Francis by the collar, “come with me afore the justice. He’ll find thee a lodging in our cage.”
With a force to which indignation gave strength, Cuthbert threw back the fat bully against the wall, and turning to the Cavalier, who had rode with him part of his yesterday’s journey,—
“You may remember, sir,” he said, “that when you joined me, I told you that I came from the neighbourhood of Warwick, and was on my journey to London. I told you, moreover, that I was a member of the University of Cambridge:—the silver crest on my holsters was the crest of Sir Oliver Heywood of Milverton, in whose house I have resided for this year past, as tutor to his nephew’s son. The animal, in fact, is Sir Oliver’s property, and was kindly lent me for the journey:—if you will answer for me to this landlord, and give me a crown piece to travel on with, I will faithfully repay you when I reach town. My name, sir, is Cuthbert Noble, son of Mr. Noble, rector of Cheddar, in Somerset.”
“A pack of stuff, good master,” said the angry landlord to the Cavalier,—“don’t you be made a fool of; don’t be bamboozled by a smooth trumped up cock and a bull story like this: if the horse is Sir Oliver Heywood’s, they have stolen it, and change riders on the road to Smithfield, where they will turn it into a purse of nobles before night. Marry, I’ll go for constables, and, as you are honest gentlemen and true, hold the knave fast in your keeping till I come back again.” Before, however, he could leave the room, as much to his astonishment and shame as to the surprise and relief of Cuthbert, the younger of the two travellers, whom his companion the Cavalier had last night claimed acquaintance with, came forward in a very open and cordial manner, and assured Cuthbert of his readiness to assist him.
“I am connected,” said the noble looking youth, “with the family at Milverton, nor is the name of Master Cuthbert Noble unknown to me. My purse is at your service; and I shall be glad of your company on the road. Though I have no horse to offer you, post-horses can be easily procured at every stage.”
Thus was Cuthbert at once released from a perplexity, and introduced to the friendship of Francis Heywood.
CHAP. XVI.
The great vicissitude of things amongst men is the vicissitude of sects and religions; for those orbs rule in men’s minds most.
On the third of November, 1640, the fatal Long Parliament began. On the 12th, the Earl of Strafford was impeached of treason, and committed to the Black Rod. The Lords denied him bail and council; and he was, in a few days more, commanded into close imprisonment in the Tower. One hundred thousand pounds were now voted to the Scots, and borrowed of the city of London. Ship money was soon questioned by the Parliament, and voted an illegal tax; and, in fine, all grievances and abuses were loudly proclaimed, and resolutely brought forward, by intrepid and patriotic men; of whom the best and noblest did certainly never contemplate, at that time, the sad and humiliating close of the labours and the authority of that memorable and august assembly. August, of a truth, that assembly may be called, in which a Hampden and a Falkland stood, at after moments, opposed in debate; and in which, in the following year, the grand remonstrance of the Commons was the subject of grave deliberation for thirty hours, and was only carried, at last, by a majority of nine voices.
But to return to our story. It may be supposed that Cuthbert Noble was no indifferent or unmoved spectator of the great public events which every day brought forth in the winter of 1640. With his serious and peculiar notions, the questions that affected liberty of conscience and church reform were those which most deeply interested him; and when, upon the morning of the 23d of November, Prynne and Burton entered triumphantly into Westminster, followed by many thousands of the people, Cuthbert was foremost in the crowd; and not a zealot among them was more wildly excited than himself.
Laughter and tears succeeded to each other, as those around expressed their rude sympathy;—now in remarks quaint and comical—now in pious commiseration, or in the stern tones of indignant and just anger.
“Which is old Prynne?” said one.—“That’s he,” said his neighbour, “with his black head clipped close, looking, for all the world, like a skull-cap.”—“See how the old boy grins.”—“He’s no beauty.”—“Hurrah! hurrah!”—“Can you hear, old boy?”—“I wonder if a man can hear without his ears.”—“To be sure a’ can, all the better.”—“Well, he can’t have the ear-ache no more.”—“Don’t talk so unfeeling.”—“Look, poor dear good man, he is as white as a sheet.”—“That is prison and hunger.”—“This is your bishops’ work—od rot ’em—their turn shall come.”
With such vulgarities were mixed the solemn tones and pious expressions of many a sincere Christian, giving utterance to praise and thanksgiving for the deliverance of these persecuted men; while, here and there, a strong voice would be heard, above the crowd, denouncing the tyranny of the church and the crown in coarse language, in which the Establishment was likened to the whore of Babylon,—and the Archbishop of Canterbury was pointed out to the vengeance of the rabble.
Such language would, in a moment of calm reflection, have been utterly revolting to the feelings of Cuthbert. He would have shut his ears to the base and bloody cry, and hurried away from the wretches who gave it utterance, as from the company of sinners, whose feet were already planted in the paths of wickedness, and were swift to shed blood. But now, though such fierce cries gave a jar to his better dispositions and nobler nature, they were regarded as the natural ebullitions of an irritated mob; and he stood among them as a partaker of their guilt by the sanction of his presence.
Nothing is so blind—nothing is so deaf—nothing can stoop so low—as party spirit;—and at no period of English history was this more fully exemplified than at that of which we are now speaking. The Cavaliers, on their side, were not without the support of a rabble of their own; and by these, the slang of the tavern, the bear garden, and the brothel, was exhausted to furnish epithets of scorn, contempt, and ridicule, by which they might insult their fanatical opponents.
To the mental eye of Cuthbert the two victims of a severe and intolerant hierarchy stood out in large and disproportionate grandeur,—filling all the foreground of the picture upon which he now gazed to the exclusion of all other objects.
He saw them bearing the evident marks of torture and degradation on their mutilated forms. They had been thus treated, according to his notion, for a mere error in judgment—they were sufferers for conscience-sake:—his heart grew hot within him,—and he would have called down fire from heaven on the heads of their oppressors.
He accompanied the crowd all through Westminster; and, in the eagerness of his excited mood, pressed in once close to the horse of Prynne, that he might utter a “God save you, master!” to the stern Puritan, face to face.
There was a keen twinkle of triumph in the little eyes of the sour precisian, which showed that he felt his day of revenge would soon come, and that it would be his turn to play inquisitor towards his late haughty oppressor.
However, he would have been more than human had he been superior to such an infirmity, after sustaining injuries so great.
It happened on the day of this public entry of Prynne and Burton that Cuthbert was alone in the quarter of Westminster; and having remained a long time gazing on the show, he went into a tavern in a narrow street behind the Abbey to refresh.
After satisfying his hunger over a fine joint of roast beef in company with a grave looking lawyer, who sat opposite him at the same table, with a roll of parchments and papers by his side, the man of law proposed a cup of canary to the health of Masters Prynne and Burton, in which he was readily seconded by Cuthbert.
“Ah,” said the stranger bitterly, “this is a different kind of procession to the fool’s mummery which they made us play seven years ago, before the wanton queen and her dancing French gentlemen.”
“What! you mean the mask of the inns of court, on Candlemas-day, seven years ago?” asked Cuthbert.
“Just so: that was got up to tickle the court party, and trample down Prynne and his book; but tables are turning.”
“Well, though I think they were very tyrannical about Prynne, I did not like his book; and never saw any harm in a mask or an interlude.”
“Why, to judge by your looks, you could only have been a boy when that mask was given, and perhaps you did not see it.”
“That is true; but I read the account of it that was printed, and surely it was a brave and glorious show; and, methinks, there were some witty hints given his Majesty in the anti-masks, which he might be the wiser for.”
“The man Charles Stuart,” said the stranger, “will never be the better for hints.”
It was the first time that Cuthbert had ever heard from any lips so irreverent a mention of the King, and he coloured and was silent.
“I say he will never be the better for hints,—though it is true that some of them were broad enough, and too humorous for offence; but you have forgotten that there was one anti-mask got up by the serviles to insult the poor. If it may not have a sneer of ridicule for poverty and misfortune, the pleasure of the proud wanteth its best relish.”
“I do not understand you,” said Cuthbert; “of what speak you, master?”
“Of that which has been played in joke, and shall come to pass in earnest. Little they thought, with their gibes and their mockery, that they were but foreshowing events, which the turn of the wheel is even now bringing to pass. I do remember all their gilded chariots and rich apparel, and gay liveries; and in the midst of that costly show, there rode an anti-mask of cripples and beggars, clothed in rags, and mounted on sorry lean jades, gotten out of dust carts, with dirty urchins snapping tongs and shovels before them for music,—and thus was the noble music, and thus were the gallant horses, and the velvets and silks and spangled habits, made more pleasing to the painted court Jezebels by the pitiful contrast. Shall not the Lord visit for these things?” he added, raising his voice, and changing the tone of it to a solemn sternness: “Yea, verily, he shall visit:—in his hand there is a cup,—and the dregs thereof shall be drunk out by the oppressors,—and the sword shall go through the land, and it shall be drunk with blood.”
The severe inference thus forced by the speaker from a trifling circumstance, of which the joyous projectors of the interlude thought perhaps very differently, and which might have been so turned by a playful mind, as a caricature against the foreign musicians, then so much about court; or, again, by a thoughtful mind, as a memento of those dark realities of human misery which invite and demand compassion. This inference was at once received by Cuthbert as just. It touched a chord in his heart that immediately responded, and he was played upon as a lute by his companion; till, at last, the latter opening a roll of parchment requested him to put down his name as a subscriber to the necessities of a few godly and persecuted men now suffering imprisonment for the great cause of liberty of conscience, and whose families were quite destitute.
From his slender purse Cuthbert instantly took the few crowns it contained, and only reserving sufficient money to pay for his dinner, shook his new acquaintance heartily by the hand, and set forth on his way to the city, where he lodged, with a heart glowing with the love of God, of his country, and of mankind. His evil angel had only to appear clothed like an angel of light, and Cuthbert would follow, nothing doubting, whithersoever he was led. The false fire, which glimmered over the dangerous quagmire of gloomy fanaticism, was mistaken by Cuthbert for light from Heaven; and by the frequent perusal of controversies on religion, and a constant attendance on the private ministries of those fierce zealots, who were urging forward the overthrow of the Established Church, he became at length totally bewildered. It was in vain that Francis Heywood exposed to him the hypocrisy and inconsistency of some of those wolves in sheep’s clothing by whom he was now continually surrounded, to the neglect of Heywood’s own society and that of the higher and better order of the Parliamentarian supporters. He listened with pity to remonstrances which he considered as proceeding from a man of the world, and a deceived soul wandering in darkness; nevertheless his affectionate disposition survived the strength of his reason. He looked up to and loved Francis Heywood as a model of what the natural man might attain to; and as in their political views they were altogether agreed, they very often met. The ardent Francis might indeed have well doubted of the soundness of a political creed which numbered among its supporters such diversified and crazy characters as those whom he saw daily embrace it: but although he was not able to endure their sanctimonious professions, and morose manners, he viewed them as instruments necessary to the present warfare of principles; and, having returned from America on purpose to stand up for the popular rights, he remained steadfastly at his post, watching with intense interest the proceedings of parliament, and eager for the moment when those services, which he came to offer, might be required in the field.
In one particular the lives of Francis Heywood and of Cuthbert Noble during the two following years corresponded well. Never were those hard duties which self-denial enjoins, practised with a more resolute and cheerful virtue. The means of both were slender; and they supported themselves by the exercise of their respective talents with credit and success.
Cuthbert attended daily in the families of two or three merchants of the Puritan party as classical tutor to their boys; while Francis Heywood, reserving with great care the sum necessary to purchase a good charger, and military equipments, whenever he might need them, maintained his current expenses by the drawing of maps, plans, and views illustrative of the late campaigns of Gustavus Adolphus, and of the actual warfare in Germany which was then carrying on. These drawings found a sufficient sale, among the curious in such matters, to remunerate the light labour of producing them; and though the printseller, who purchased them from Francis, told him that gentlemen, very capable of advancing his interests, had made inquiries after him, yet he was forbidden by Francis to disclose his residence, or to answer any questions about him. His leisure from this easy occupation was employed in useful studies or in manly exercises. He daily frequented a school of arms, not for instruction, indeed, for he was a master of all weapons, but for health and diversion; and for the same end he went often to the grand manège in the quarter of the court; where he was so great a favourite with the chevalier, who taught the graces of horsemanship, that he was asked as a kindness to exercise the most spirited and beautiful animals of his stud in the open country:—an offer which, from the delight he took in the amusement of schooling a young and high bred horse, he very often accepted.
Francis Heywood was not unknown to many families with whom his father had been intimate; and by some of them, notwithstanding his fortunes and his politics, and by others on account of them, he was invited to several houses, where he might have enjoyed all the pleasures and the refinements of social life; but he very rarely accepted their invitations, not merely from mistaken pride, but from a disrelish of scenes which would always so strongly and painfully suggest to him the happy intercourse he had once enjoyed in that domestic circle, of which his adored Katharine was at once the charm and the idol.
Upon this sweet memory, in lonely hours of leisure, his mind would feed, and he would discourse of it, not indeed in words, but in the soft breathings of his lute; till, suddenly, by the strong effort of a manly will, he would tear himself from the dangerous indulgence, and sit closely down to his writing desk, that he might complete the minute journal of public events which he kept for his father, and despatched, as opportunities offered, to New England.
To the review of these grave subjects he brought a generous spirit; and it was not without an occasional pang that he related the progress and triumph of the cause to which he was sincerely attached.
He could not but exult to see the principles of government openly examined, and the just rights and liberties of the people clearly defined.
He looked with veneration upon the labours of the Commons; and he watched with jealousy the advisers of the crown, and the sycophants about the court. He saw many abuses rectified, many grievances redressed. He saw the iniquitous Star Chamber and the High Commission Court abolished,—and a noble security against a return of misgovernment and tyranny in the famous bill for a triennial parliament.
This last measure, the main pillar of the new constitution, was received by the whole nation with rejoicings; and when it passed solemn thanks were presented to his Majesty by both houses of parliament. But the sincerity of the court party and the moderation of the reformers were alike suspicious. The passions, the prejudices, and the interests of conflicting parties had been too rudely aroused by discussion to subside without an explosive collision; and it was evident to Francis that the struggle between the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of parliament would never terminate without an appeal to arms.
He shuddered to see the scaffold stained with the blood of Strafford; and though he was among those who clamoured against the minister, he profoundly commiserated the man, as the abandoned victim of his party,—and in his heart he despised Charles for signing the death-warrant of his favourite.
CHAP. XVII.
The affliction of the good parson of Cheddar at the strange and painful conduct of his son Cuthbert was heavy to bear. However, from a sense of duty to his weaker partner, he made great efforts to preserve his wonted serenity and composure in her presence; but when alone he was bowed down in the dust.
Nothing could possibly present a greater contrast to the tone of religious profession which was, at this period, obtaining a wide reception among men than that in which old Noble lay prostrate in his closet before his God.
He had ever been a meek and cheerful Christian; but there were depths of humiliation which he had not as yet fathomed; and he would have fainted at the waves of trouble, which his prescient eye saw rolling onward, if he had not felt the hand, which led him down into the deep, was that of a heavenly Father, if he had not heard a voice that whispered in his ear, “It is I, be not afraid.”
In vain did he exhaust his heart in sound, pious, and affectionate remonstrances, meditated and penned in the spirit of prayer, that he might recall his dear and wandering child to the bosom of the church, or, at all events, so far recover him from gross delusions as to see him join that upright and devout portion of the community, which, though differing from the discipline of the church, maintained a pure and practical doctrine.
In vain did he press the return of Cuthbert to Cheddar, by every argument which parental love could suggest.
The letters of Noble and his wife were replied to in the words of love; but the fruit of his new persuasion was an obstinate self-will; and while he implored them, at great length, to consider his views, and urged the danger of despising them, he evinced to others, what was not perhaps suspected by himself, a degree of spiritual pride only to be exceeded by the strength of his delusion.
He had adopted the notions of those fanatics who were styled Fifth-monarchy Men, and who ranged themselves where, indeed, any sect, however extravagant, might have found a place, under the banner of the Independents.
It was some consolation to these troubled parents to hear from the Philips’s, their relations, and also from other friends, that the life and the conduct of Cuthbert were, as regarded all moral and social duties, a credit to any theory, and such as became the pure precepts of the Gospel.
His intellect was clear upon every other subject, except on that which, if it be rashly touched, seems to be guarded by invisible angels, who put forth their hands and smite the daring intruder with madness. “Oppression,” saith the preacher, “will make a wise man mad;“—a truth abundantly proved by the events, which, leading first to a secret and salutary reform, ended at last in a bloody revolution and an iron rule.
It may be added, that he who seeketh to meddle with the hidden mysteries of unfulfilled prophecy is often smitten with blindness and confusion for his presumption. Thus it was with Cuthbert:—sensible, amiable, and affectionate in all the relations of life, he was now the subject of a monomania, and turned a deaf ear to the voice of truth and wisdom, though it spoke with all the authority and all the earnestness of a father.
These were not times in which a minister could leave his parish for a distant journey, nor, indeed, was it at all likely that the presence of his parents would have effected that change in the sentiments or the course of Cuthbert, which their admirable and Christian letters had failed to produce.
Time wore on gloomily enough, even in the peaceful parsonage at Cheddar. Many a time as old Noble paced his garden amid sunbeams and flowers, praising that “mercy which endureth for ever,” his thanksgivings ended in tears and lamentations, not for his domestic troubles, but for the great evils which he feared and expected would befall the church and the nation.
Laud was already paying the penalty of his mistaken, but certainly conscientious, severity, in a prison, from whence it might be plainly foretold he would at length be conducted to the block. The bishops’ votes in parliament were taken away, and the deans and chapters were already voted against in the Commons, although their spoliation had not yet taken place, neither were the cathedral services as yet discontinued. As regularly, therefore, as the Thursday came round, Noble, if not prevented by a special call of duty at home, made his weekly visit to the fair city of Wells; where he in the first instance always bent his steps to the cathedral, and joined the congregation assembled for morning service.
It was on a saint’s day, in the summer of 1641, that, as usual, he proceeded to that venerable and glorious temple, and took his seat in the vacant stall which it was his wont to occupy. Directly opposite he observed a tall uncouth man of harsh features and a sour countenance, sitting very upright, and glancing a severe and restless eye at the organ, the first tones of which were pealing through the long aisles, as the dean, the prebends, and other officers of the choir, preceded by the vergers with their maces, slowly entered, and reverently took their seats.
The service began, and was conducted with that solemn decency, and with those clear fine chants, which dispose most hearts to a subdued feeling of intense devotion.
There is a something in sacred music which does wonderfully compose the mind, and cleanse it of all earthly-rooted cares. Upon the stranger above mentioned, however, it produced no such effect. He sat erect, cold, and contemptuous: he put aside the Book of Common Prayer with a rude thrust; and taking a small volume from his pocket opened it with ostentatious gravity, and, not joining in the worship that he witnessed, either by response, gesture, or any conformity of posture with those around him, sat, now casting his eyes on the page of his book, now severely around, and now raising them to Heaven after a manner that left nothing but the jaundiced whites visible.
This strange conduct disturbed, irritated, or amused the observers, according to the impression that was made upon them. Some of the prebends and vicars choral looked red and angry. The dean was greatly distressed, and knew not what to do. At first he called the verger, with a design to remove the intruder; but, upon second thoughts, he feared that a yet greater interruption and indecency might take place if such a course was attempted, he therefore commanded his feelings with as much dignity as he could. But his grave frowns were totally without power upon the youthful choristers, whose laughter would have been loud and audible, but for the thick folds of the surplice with which they stuffed their rebellious and aching jaws.
Noble himself was mournfully agitated, and prayed in the spirit with that deep and melancholy fervour which hath no outward expression but the abased eyes.
By degrees, the congregation recovered their composure, and never was an anthem performed with more earnest solemnity, or a sweetness more touching to the inmost soul, than the “Ne Irascaris,” the “Be not Wroth,” or “Bow thine Ear” of the famous composer Bird. At the words “Sion, thy Sion is wasted and brought low,” which are set to a tender and solemn passage, and are sung very soft and slow, the effect was sublime. Moved by the deep pathos of the expression, the cheeks of Noble, as of a few others present, were bathed in tears.
But the stranger remained in his seat without rising, and perused his book with a kind of resolved and insulting inattention to it all.
The service was not permitted to close without this mysterious personage marking his contempt of it yet farther, by rising suddenly, while all the congregation were on their knees, and stalking slowly down the middle of the aisle with a loud and measured stamp of his great thick boots.
He wore by his side a long heavy-looking sword, and had certainly the air of a man who could use it, if he chose, with little fear and no favour.
Noble joined the clergy in the chapter-room directly after the morning prayers were ended, and there learned that there had been a riot the night before in the streets, excited by some mischievous emissary from London; and that some of the rabble had burned a bishop in effigy, in the close just under the windows of the dean. It seemed, however, that this outrage had been committed by a band of low persons, who had come up from Bristol to attend a fair, and had brought with them sundry printed papers and ribald songs to distribute in the lanes and alleys of the city: the object of which was to bring the church and clergy into public contempt.
However, it so happens that, for the most part, the inhabitants of a cathedral town take a great pride in the edifice itself, whatever may be their indifference to religion. Those magnificent structures are the first wonders upon which the eyes of the human beings, born and suckled beneath their shadow, are taught to gaze. They are noble and solemn features in the scene of early life; and are printed so indelibly on the mind, that, let the native of a cathedral city wander where he will, the recollection of the venerable temple goes with him, associated, in his memory, with his birthplace, his holydays, his truant hours, with the merry music of festival bells, with the pride of having often seen strangers and travellers, both of high and low degree, walk about its walls, and linger in its spacious aisles, with pleasure and admiration.
Therefore a party among the common people was easily roused to take up sticks and stones against the insulting mischief-makers, who were thus at last driven away from the city with great tumult.
It was the very day following this riot that the offensive adventure in the cathedral, which we have just related, occurred. As no doubt existed in the minds of the clergy assembled in the chapter-room that the extraordinary person, who had just committed so gross and indecent an outrage in a place of public worship, was, in some measure, connected with the disturbance of the preceding day, they resolved to make an immediate complaint to the Mayor of Wells, that the obnoxious individual might be taken up, and committed to prison, or otherwise punished for his offence.
Some little time had been lost in their consultations; and they came forth from the cathedral in a body, with the intention of despatching two of the prebends, already deputed for that purpose, to wait upon the mayor, when, to their surprise and mortification, they saw the object of their anger approaching them on horseback. As he drew near, it was evident that the opportunity of arresting him was already lost. He rode a very powerful young horse of generous breed and fine action—and he sat upon him as on a throne.
“Look ye,” said he, as he drew up close to the astonished group,—“Look ye, Scribes and Pharisees! hypocrites!—ye love greetings in the market-place—take mine:—the time is come to set your houses in order—even now the decree is gone forth—the sword is now sharpening that shall pass through the land:—it glitters, look ye.” So saying, with a grim smile he drew the blade of his own half out of the scabbard, and let it fall again with a forcible rattle.
The dean, who was a bold and athletic man, disregarding this fierce action, made an active effort to seize the bridle of the Puritan’s steed; but the wary rider with a jerk of the reins threw up the animal’s head, and at the same moment touching his flank with the spur made him give a plunge forward that scattered the frightened priests a few yards on either side. Nevertheless, the dean remonstrated in very angry terms against his insulting abuse; as did others, who were, like himself, courageous. They did not, however, succeed either in stopping the fanatic or in driving him away:—a small mob was gathering in the cathedral yard, and the fiery zealot continued his address.
“What mean ye, ye priests of Baal, by your silks, and your satins, and your hoods, and your scarfs, and your square caps, and your surplices, and all your fooleries? what mean your boy choristers that bleat like young kids, and your men choristers that bellow like oxen? what means your grunting organ? Is it thus you worship God, as though he were an idol and an abomination, and his temple like that of the heathen? It should be a house of prayer, and ye have made it a den of thieves, and all its services vain and lewd mummeries. I cry, Fie upon you!—Wo, wo, wo!—Ye shall see me again when the blast of the trumpet soundeth, and mine eye shall not pity. I will smite, I will not spare you. Have ye not preached blasphemies? have ye not broken and polluted the holy Sabbath with your sports and your harlotries? have ye not shed the blood of God-fearing men? yea, verily. Now hear my warning:—come out of her, come out of her, my people. There are among you, even among your priests, some whom the Lord hath chosen:—yet again I call to you, Come out of her, come out of Babylon, that ye perish not with her. To me is appointed this cry:—every where I must lift up my voice thus, till the day of vengeance come. Wo shall be the portion of those who hear me not!”
An insane delight gleamed in his dark eyes, a convulsive energy distorted his features, and seemed to affect and agitate his whole form. The crowd drew closer to him: the resolute dean beckoning them forward, again advanced with the intention of seizing him, when he suddenly gave his horse the head; and touching the high spirited beast with both spurs, he was borne out of their sight at a few rapid bounds, and was very soon beyond all danger of pursuit.
Several of the mob ran round the corner after him jeering and cheering; but the clergy went their ways, by twos and threes, and talked over the uncomfortable though diseased words of the fanatic with much gravity and discomposure.
Many painful extravagancies of a fanatic character had been already committed in various parts of the country; and in London many scandalous scenes had been enacted, expressive of a contempt for the Established Church and her ministers.
The prelates and dignitaries were the especial marks of popular hatred; but, hitherto, nothing approaching to the indecency and outrage above recorded had occurred in the neighbourhood and under the eye of Noble.
Again he could have wished Cuthbert to have been present, as he had formerly wished that he could have witnessed the unmannerly and unchristian bearing of Master Daws, the morose and designing curate, whose interview with Noble we have in a former part of this story related.
“Surely,” thought the mild man of peace,—“Surely such things would open his eyes to the spirit that is abroad, and to the aim and end of these violent men, who would purify our venerable church as with fire, and wash away her few stains with the blood and the tears of her faithful children.”
After partaking of a dinner, with little appetite, in the house of his friend, where the party assembled formed but a sad society, and where the time passed in the discussion of more grave and anxious matters than those upon which they were commonly engaged in these innocent weekly meetings, the worthy parson mounted his old mare, and rode back slowly to Cheddar. His thoughts were so profoundly and mournfully absorbed by reflections on the very startling occurrences of the morning, that he saw not the clouds which were gathering overhead, until he was awakened to observe them by a sudden and loud clap of thunder. The sunshine was suddenly obscured by a deep gloom. A few heavy rain drops fell upon him, and were soon followed by a thick and rushing deluge of such rain as falls in summer tempests. The sky was covered with a mass of clouds black as a funeral pall. Every moment flashes of angry lightning passed across it in vivid and arrowy forms; while thunder followed, peal after peal rolling in quick and troubled succession. Noble had just entered the defile or pass by which Cheddar is approached; and as the narrow road lies in the bottom of a chasm, on either side of which the rocks rise many hundred feet with a terrific grandeur, the horrid gloom—the lurid and ghastly lights—and the prolonged echoes with which the roar of the thunder was borne from crag to crag—gave a tenfold awfulness to the storm, and sublimely shadowed forth the power of Jehovah.
Amid this war of elements the meek parson felt almost happy:—his frightened beast had stopped beneath a rock that inclined somewhat over the road, though not sufficiently to afford any shelter from the rain. He was drenched to the skin himself, and as he could not urge his animal forward he dismounted; but the wet and the delay were forgotten, were disregarded. There are moments of communion with the Deity, which, when they are accorded to his feeble children, cause their spirits to be rapt in seraphic love. The adoration that is born of a faith trembling yet holding fast is the sublimest human worship:—“the firmest thing in this inferior world is a believing soul.” And he that can lift up his voice with the Psalmist, and, amid the horrors of a tempest, can say, “Praise the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me praise his holy name,” hath, as it were, a sublime foretaste of that great and terrible day of the Lord, when the Christian shall witness the final and everlasting triumph of his Redeemer over sin and death,—and shall behold his salvation draw nigh.
CHAP. XVIII.
In such a spirit Noble endured the pelting of the storm, and listened to the rolling of the thunder, and gazed upon the dread illumination which flashed at intervals on the desolate and dreary rocks around him. The fury of this summer tempest was soon exhausted:—the exceeding blackness of the clouds gave place to a lighter, though a sunless, sky; the claps of thunder were few and distant, and the lightning became a faint and harmless coruscation. The rain was thin and transparent; and Noble continued his way on foot, followed by his old mare, whose docility was that of an aged dog. They had not proceeded above two hundred yards when the mare gave a sudden start, and ran up a heap of loose stones on the right of the road. On the left of it, at the foot of a tremendous precipice, Noble descried the object which had alarmed her, and which, but for her fright, he should have passed without notice. A man lay upon the ground bleeding. Noble immediately crossed to the spot, and stooping down, he recognised the person of the stern fanatic, whose conduct at Wells has been related in the foregoing chapter. He was insensible, but did not, upon examination, appear to have sustained any injury more serious than a severe and stunning bruise; as well as a cut on the forehead from a sharp flint. From the prints of his horse’s feet, it seemed evident, at first, that he had been thrown where he then lay, and had fainted; but on looking again, Noble observed that his pockets were turned inside out, and that his sword and cartridge belt were gone; for he remembered in the morning to have remarked his arms very particularly, and to have been struck by the circumstance of a man of his rigid ungraceful figure sitting so admirably on horseback, and managing the young animal which he rode with such a light and easy hand. Moreover, he now saw that the impressions of the horse’s hoofs had been made before the rain had fallen. His first care was to endeavour to restore the sufferer from his swoon. This he soon effected by chafing the body to restore circulation, and by applying to the nostrils a pungent preparation, which he always carried about with him, as a preservative from infection, when his duties called him to visit the sick beds of those who were afflicted with any disease considered pestilential. When Noble had satisfied himself that the unfortunate man was a little recovered by the returning consciousness in his eyes, and the regularity of his breathing, he went after his mare. She had not strayed far, and he soon brought her back, and after a while he had the satisfaction to observe that the wounded traveller was able to move and sit up. He now persuaded and assisted him to get upon the patient beast, and supporting him in the saddle with his hand, moved off slowly towards Cheddar. Half a mile on they met plain Peter, who had come out to look for his master, and was wondering and uncomfortable at the unusual lateness of his return.
The sight explained itself; and the honest domestic expressing some sorrow for the sufferer, but more for his master, took his place on the other side of the mare, and aided Noble in the task of supporting the stranger, who was so weak and exhausted that he could hardly be held upon the saddle by their joint exertions for the rest of the road.
Although not a syllable had been uttered by the object of their care, that was intelligible to either, and although Noble had not mentioned a word about having seen him at Wells, still Peter had an instinctive dislike to the man’s features and his dress—from both of which he pronounced him a Puritan. He went so far as to provoke an angry rebuke from his master for opposing the benevolent resolution of the latter to take him to his own house.
“Surely,” said Peter, “a pallet at the Jolly Woodman will serve his turn:—he’ll be well enough taken care of by Dame Crowther: why bring him home to trouble and frighten my good mistress, and to make a fuss, and a dirt, and a sick house of the parsonage?”
“Peter,” said Noble, “how would you like to be dealt by if you had fallen among thieves, and lay bruised and bleeding, and without a friend or a penny?”
“Why, I should think an inn good enough for me; and so it is writ in the Bible.”
“Peter you are hard—and know not what spirit you are of—and speak foolishly.”
“Ah! well I mind what you said once about that parable, and how you told us that had the good Samaritan’s house been over against the inn he would have taken him in at his own gate;—but somehow I don’t like this fancy of yours—it will be a bad job:—when his saintship is warmed by your fire, mayhap he will turn out a serpent.”
“Never use that word lightly, Peter. I have often forbade you to trifle with it—duties are ours, events are God’s. I shall certainly take this man in.” Having thus decided, they went forward to the parsonage in silence. Mistress Noble came out eagerly as soon as they appeared. Her mind was soon quieted on the surprise which the sight of the wounded stranger caused her, and her kind and hospitable heart acquiesced instantly to the proposal of her good husband.
The sufferer was at once carefully put to bed; and Noble, as by his own bright fire he put on the warm dry vestments which he found ready for him in his study, revolved the singular incidents of the eventful day with wonder, gratitude, and a calm confiding faith.
He could not but reflect thankfully on his own escape from the misfortune which had befallen the temporary inmate of his dwelling. For want of a better booty, doubtless he would have been assaulted himself by the robbers who had fallen upon the Puritan; and, had he not been preceded by this traveller on the road, or had he left Wells at an earlier hour, he might have suffered in his room, or shared his fate.
Again, how strange that a daring enthusiast, who had that very morning violated the sanctity of the cathedral, and had insulted the ministers of the church in their decent performance of public and solemn worship, should, before the setting of the sun which had witnessed his impiety, be laid in the dust, and left dependent upon one who had been revolted by his fierce conduct for the mercies of help and protection.
“To-morrow,” said Noble to his wife, as he related to her all the circumstances which had taken place at Wells, “when our guest is in a reasonable and repenting mood, I may, perhaps, speak a word in season that shall serve to deliver him from the chains of that cruel and bigoted spirit of persecution by which he is held. God preserve our Cuthbert from the hateful errors of men like these! It has been well observed, that though the fanatic cannot be seduced by the love of any sinful pleasures, yet that he can be readily persuaded to walk in blood by the lust of a power which he deceives himself in thinking he should assuredly use to the glory of the King of heaven, and the benefit of the faithful people of God. When will Christians learn that the kingdom of the Messiah is not of this world?”
They had not retired for the night, when their worthy neighbour Blount, the franklin, who had but just returned from Glastonbury, came in to learn the particulars of what had occurred at Wells, and to tell the bad news which he had heard at Glastonbury that morning.
“The devil is busy enough, Master Noble,” said the old man as he entered: “there is a little party of vinegar-faced rogues coming to the Bald Raven at Axbridge to-morrow, who call themselves ‘a Corresponding Committee for informing and aiding the Grand Committee of Religion and that for scandalous Ministers;’ and they tell me that that sour hypocrite Daws is as busy as a bee among them already. But what is this I hear about one of these godly rogues having been half murdered under the cliff and lying in your house?”
Noble told him all the circumstances; and Peter, who had lingered a little at the parlour door, said, “Ay, I can see by Master Blount’s eyebrows he don’t think it were a wise job to take this round-headed madman in here. Why he’s talking a pack of wild stuff enough to frighten the maidens out of their wits.”
On hearing this, Noble, accompanied by Blount, went up stairs to the chamber of their inmate, and found him sitting upright in his bed, and parleying with some visionary appearance, after a wild but most earnest manner.
As soon as they entered the room, he turned towards them and sniffed repeatedly, then gravely said, “Two good spirits and one bad—verily I am not forsaken—two to one against thee, Beelzebub—look gentle spirits—look upon the wall—there goes a coach drawn by lions and tigers—there goes Everard the conjurer in boots and spurs—here is the great fiery dragon—who hath taken away my trusty sword?—where is my horse?—a horse is a vain thing to save a man—see how it grows—the dragon—the great red dragon—taller—taller—it fills the room—save Lord, or I perish.”
To these wild, incoherent expressions, produced by the strange images which flitted before his troubled fancy, succeeded a profuse perspiration, and they persuaded him to lie down under the blankets, that he might obtain the full benefit of such a relief.
He did so, and they could now only hear whispered murmurs, and humble tones, as of a person praying with tears. Noble himself was not unaffected by this scene; and even Blount admitted, that, if it were not for the mischief they did, some of these enthusiasts were rather to be pitied than punished. “Now here,” said he, “is a case, where they should shave the head and lock up the poor creature in an hospital; but the worst matter is, they go about like mad dogs, biting all the folk they meet—and so they must e’en be dealt with in like manner.”
“You are not far wrong, neighbour, in judging many of them crazy; but there are cunning men behind to urge them on: and there certainly are many excellent and pious persons, who, as they stand on the same side in this sad quarrel, give a credit to the cause of these levellers in church and state which they otherwise would want; and, notwithstanding the actions and utterances of the unknown individual before us, I cannot look upon him without interest and pity.”
An umph from old Peter, with a request that his master would go to bed himself, and leave him to take care of the stranger, ended the conversation: Blount went away,—and Noble to his own chamber.
At an early hour on the following morning two odd-looking servants, in sad-coloured suits, mounted and armed, presented themselves at the gate of the vicarage, and inquired “if their master was not there, as from what they had heard at the blacksmith’s shed they thought that the gentleman, who had been robbed and wounded beneath the rocks, and was now lying sick in that house, could be no other.”
“I don’t think you are far wrong,” said Peter, as he cocked his eye askew at their long lean faces and their plain liveries of a colour like the cinders in the ash heap. “Like master like man, they say; though it’s little I thought that the poor crazy body up stairs had a serving-man to truss up his points for him.—What do ye call your master?”
“The right worshipful and godly Sir Roger Zouch, an approved voice, a faithful witness, a preacher of the truth, a trier of spirits, a man of war—bold as a lion for his God.”
“Why, then, by my troth,” said Peter, “thy master is here for a certainty, and lieth with a cracked skull in our blue room; and is now telling my good master how he fought last night with beasts from Ephesus, who is listening to him, poor simple kind soul as he is, with as much patience as if it was all sense and gospel.”
“Out upon thee, thou vile churl! talkest thou so of one of Zion’s champions? None of thy gibes and jeers, or it may be thine own crown will feel the weight of my cudgel.” So saying, the elder of the two domestics alighted, and not waiting to be conducted, strode past Peter with a rude thrust, and entered the house.
“A plague o’ thee!” grumbled Peter: “two can play at quarter staff, as I’ll show thee;” and following him into the passage, he slammed the door behind him, and left the other servant alone with the two horses before the wicket. This last, however, tarrying for no invitation, proceeded deliberately to the stable, and finding it open, introduced his tired beasts to the astonished old mare; took off bridles and saddles; and, plentifully supplying the rack and manger with hay and oats, entered the parson’s kitchen, and taking a seat by the dresser demanded of the frightened maids the creature comforts of breakfast.
Old Peter, who had just been witnessing the meeting of master and man above stairs, and whose cross temper had given way to a humour that had been tickled by the quaint scene and the ludicrous speeches, came shaking with laughter into the kitchen; but the tired and hungry groom was in no laughing mood, and soon upset this grinning philosophy by a smart stroke of his whip across his shoulders.
In a moment the old man caught up a broomstick to return the blow; and, though very unequal, either in strength or youth, was standing up manfully against the assault, when the cook, whose spirit was roused by Peter’s danger, dipped her mop in a pail of foul water, and thrusting it into the groom’s face, drove him into the yard with dirty cheeks and blinded eyes. The cry of “murder” having been in the mean time screamed forth at the top of her voice by the other maiden, the kitchen was instantly filled with every person in the house; for even Sir Roger Zouch himself, albeit in no seemly garb for appearing in public, descended close after Noble, and stood up in the midst of them rather like a ghost newly risen from the grave than true flesh and blood,—though the stain of the last was indeed sufficiently visible beneath the folds of the bandage about his head.
“How now!” said Sir Roger, in a voice rather more stentorian than might have been expected from the plight in which he had been put to bed the night before, and in a tone of authority as if he had been in his own mansion and with only his own household—“How now! brawlings and fightings: who is the striker, Gabriel Goldworthy?” but before this slow elder had screwed his mouth up to reply, Peter answered in his own blunt fashion, and the cook, in a shrill voice, chanted an echo to his complaint. Meantime the culprit groom, with a foul face, stood at the yard door as white as a stone with passion, while Sir Roger thus rejoined:—
“Verily, thou art a trouble to me, Abel, and makest me a reproach among the people wheresoever I go: it was only last week, at the hostel of the Pied Bull in Tewksbury, thou didst raise a brawl about thy victuals at the buttery hatch: thou makest a god of thy belly. Remember that man liveth not by bread alone:—a good soldier must endure hardness, and never strike but in battle, and then home. I fear that thou art sensual, and it were not for thy godly grand-mother, and this, thy God-fearing uncle Gabriel, the man of my right hand, I would send thee back to thy ditching and delving.”
Abel muttered out that the children of Belial were making a mock of his master, and that he struck Peter in pure zeal for Sir Roger’s honour; this Gabriel affirmed of his own knowledge to be true, and Sir Roger was pacified: but an opportunity of preaching, so favourable as it seemed to his weak judgment, was not to be neglected; he therefore proceeded to deliver a long rambling discourse on prophecy; and directed his looks and words with all the persuasive expression that he could possibly command towards the distressed parson and his good wife. He flattered himself that he had brought salvation to that house, and that all which had befallen him was in the order of Providence to that end. He had taken for his text, “Come out of her, my people;” and these words were repeated at the close of every passage, with all the varieties of intonation that his voice admitted. All efforts to induce him to stop or return up stairs till he had finished this wearisome preachment were vain. He stood half an hour with naked feet upon the kitchen stones, and was listened to even by Peter with a wonder so great, and with so painful a sense of his craziness, as forbade even a smile. He closed by so earnestly invoking peace on that house, and enjoining the exhibition of a quiet and an orderly spirit so forcibly upon the offending Abel, that during the rest of the day nothing disturbed the household.
The hardy old Puritan nothing the worse for this exercise of his lungs, and very little so for the bruise and cut in his encounter with the robbers the evening before, took his seat at Noble’s dinner table at noon, and seemed very sensible of the truly Christian hospitality of his host.
As arguments or any appeals to reason would so evidently be thrown away upon a man under the prejudices and delusions of Sir Roger Zouch, Noble dexterously avoided inflaming the mind of his guest with a discussion on grave matters, and led him to speak on other topics. He found that he had travelled a great deal, and had in his youth served in the Low Countries. Upon these subjects he conversed rationally and pleasantly enough; and, as they walked after their meal into the garden, he showed an acquaintance with plants and flowers, and a knowledge of the various methods of laying out a garden, which in so stern a fanatic would seem strange; but what is there so variable, so inconstant, as man?—he is “some twenty several men in every hour;” not that either the dinner or the walk in the garden passed over without sundry efforts to spiritualise and improve the subjects which those occasions offered. In the garden especially, after talking a while like any other rational and well informed gentleman, he suddenly broke out in a rhapsody about the approaching millennium, and the personal reign of the Messiah upon this earth. His politics were violent; but in this they differed not from many able and patriotic men of the time. Against the church, however, his wrath evidently burned, and he affected to disbelieve the possibility of so pious a minister, as Noble plainly was, being sincerely resolved to remain in her communion. Upon this point, however, Noble was too bold and too honest to conceal his resolutions.
It so happened that the next morning, before Sir Roger Zouch left the parsonage of Cheddar, there came to Noble a summons to attend the Committee of Inquiry into Church Matters, of which old Blount had warned the worthy parson on the evening of his return from Wells. Of this Noble informed his guest, and asked him if, as he saw the name of Zouch among the commissioners, it was any relation of his? The knight replied in the affirmative, and told Noble not to trouble himself to attend; for that as he was himself going to Axbridge he would make known to the committee his wish that no molestation might be given him. To this Noble would by no means consent, till he had received a solemn promise from Sir Roger that he would not represent him as less opposed to their proceedings against the church than he truly was, or less attached to that sacred institution which they sought to destroy.
Thus was the trial of Noble for another brief season deferred, and the malicious designs and interested hopes of the meddling and hypocritical Daws were for the present disappointed. However, the gold was yet to be put into the fire at the appointed time.
All these circumstances were related by Noble in a letter to his son Cuthbert, exactly as they occurred, with very little comment, and thus, as he rightly judged, they would make a forcible impression on his mind. They did so: a due consideration of them delivered him from some of his own delusions, and opened his eyes to those of a few of his companions; and though he was not at all more separated from the Non-conformists, yet he attached himself to the most sober among them.