1 f rlf itili[?tlliVn Wfl fcftHW »itifrff i4v»w CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Date Due MAR^UJgQO Cornell University Library PR4622.M61912 Micah Clarke, his statement as made to h 013 342 591 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013342591 MICAH CLAEKB HIS STATEMENT WORKS BY A. CON AN DOYLE The White Company, MicAH Clarke. The Refugees. Rodney Stone. Uncle Bernac: a Memory of the Empire. The Great Shadow. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. The Sign of Four. A Study in Scarlet. The Firm of Girdlestone. The Parasite. Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. Captain of the Polestar. Round the Red Lamp The Stark Munro Letters. The Doings of Raffles Haw. The Tragedy of the Korosko. Songs of Action. A Duet. The Green Flag, and other Stories of War and Sport. The Great Boer War. Adventures of Gerard. The Hound of the Baskervilles. Return of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Nigel. Through the Magic Door. Round the Fire Stories. The Last Galley. Songs of the Road. 'MONMOUTH RAISED THE BOOK ABOVE HIS HEAD' (P- 193) MICAH OLABKB HIS STATEMENT 'S^: MALT TO HIS THREE GRANDCHfLDREN JOSEPH, GERFAS, feC REUBEX In BING THE HARD WINTER OF 1734 BY A CONAN DOYLE ,■«••* Jir •"!«■ WHITS COMPANY," " THK RSFCaEBB," ETO. NEW IMPRESSION W/TH ILLU!>ritAntK\S LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1912 [AH rigbU reaerred] ' ^^'"'^■^tl>L^Tl( K.AiiLi MIOAH CLAEKE HIS STATEMENT AS MADE TO HIS THREE GRANDCHILDREN JOSEPH, GERVAS, is* REUBEN DURING THE HARD WINTER OF 1734 BY A. CONAN DOYLE AUTHOR OF "THE WHITE OOMPANT, " THB BBFUQBBS, ETC. NEW IMPRESSION iriTH ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1912 [All rights reserved] J- J/ This work is included in the y. bd. Edition of Sir A. Conan DoyZ^s Jtovels by permission of Messrs. Longmans, Green Sr' Co. s To My Mother CONTENTS CHAT, PAOB I. OF COBNET JOSEPH CIiABKB OP THE IKONSIDES I II. OP MY OOINQ TO SCHOOL AND OP MY COMINQ THENCE 9 III. OP TWO PBIENDB OP MY YOUTH .... 21 IV. OF THE STBAKGE FISH THAT WE CAUGHT AT SPIT- HEAD 25 V. OF THE MAN WITH THE DBOOPING LIDS ... 32 VI. OP THE LETTER THAT CAME PBOM THE LOWLANDS 38 VII. OF THE HOBSEMAN WHO BODE PBOM THE WEST . 50 VIU. OP OUE STABT FOE THE WABS 56 IX OP A PASSAGE OP ABMS AT THE BLUE BOAB . . 67 X. OP OUB PEBILOUS ADVENTUBE ON THE PLAIN . 74 XL OF THE LONELY MAN AND THE GOLD CHEST . . 87 XII. OF CEBTAIN PASSAGES UPON THE MOOB ... 97 Xin. OF SIB GEBVAS JEBOME, KNIGHT BANNEBET OF THE COUNTY OF SUBBBY I06 XIV. OP THE STIFF-LEGGED FABSON AND HIS FLOCK . I18 XV. OP OUB BBUSH WITH THE KING'S DRAGOONS . .126 XVT. OF OUB COMING TO TAUNTON 1 37 XVIL OP THE GATHEBINO IN THE MABKET-SQUABEl/ . . I44 XVni. OP MASTEB STEPHEN TIMEWELL, MAYOB OF TAUNTON 154 XIX. OF A BBAWL IN THE NIGHT I74 XX. OP THE MUSTEB OF THE MEN OP THE WEST . . 185 XXL OF MY HAND-GBIFS WITH THE BBANDENBUBGEB . I94 XXn. OF THE NEWS PBOM HAVANT 209 XXIII. OP THE BNABE ON THE WESTON BOAD . . . 217 X Contents CHAP. PAOB XXIV. OP THE WELCOME THAT MET MB AT BADMINTON 233 XXV. OP STEANGB DOINGS IN THE BOTELEE DUNGEON . 249 XXVI. OP THE STEIPB IN THE COUNCIL .... 263 XXVIL OP THE AFPAIE NEAR KETNSHAM BRIDGE . . 268 XXVIII. OP THE PI6HT IN VTELLS CATHEDEAL . . . 279 XXIX. OP THE GEEAT CEY FEOM THE LONELY HOUSE . 288 XXX. OP THE SWOEDSMAN WITH THE BROWN JACKET . 296 XXXI. OP THE MAID OP THE MARSH AND THE BUBBLE WHICH ROSE PEOM THE BOG .... 307 XXXII. OF THE ONPALL AT SEDGEMOOR .... 322 XXXIIL OP MY PERILOUS ADVENTURE AT THE MILL . . 347 XXXIV. OP THE COMING OP SOLOMON SPEENT . . . 359 XXXV. OP THE DEVIL IN WIG AND GOWN .... 370 XXXVI. OF THE END OP IT ALL 393 APPENDIX 399 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ' Monmouth raised the book above his head' . . Frontispiece ' I'll push you in as sure as my name is Micah Clarke ' . The Letter from the Lowlands Our Brush with the King's Dragoons .... 'He sprang from his horse and helped himself to the dead man's pistols ' . . ' Warm work I ' ' " Look there ! " quoth he, holding down his lanthom ' . Sketch of the Battle of Sedgemoor (From Hale's 'Fall of Stuarts') ' I dragged the man from bis hiding-place ' . . . FAOE 29 41 126 133 236 256 322 348 - MICAH CLARKE HIS STATEMENT I Of Cornet Joseph Clarke of the Ironsides It may be, my dear grandchildren, that at one time or another I have told you nearly all the incidents which have occurred during my adventurous life. To your father and to your mother, at least, I know that none of them are unfamiliar. Yet when I consider tliat time wears on, and that a grey head is apt to contain a failing memory, I am prompted to use these long winter evenings in puttiug it aU before you from the beginning, that you may have it as one clear story in your minds, and pass it on as such to those who come after you. For now that the house of Brunswick is firmly established upon the throne and that peace prevails in the land, it will become less easy for you every year to understand how men felt when Englishmen were in arms against Englishmen, and when he who should have been the shield and the protector of his subjects had no thought but to force upon them what they most abhorred and detested. My story is one which you may well treasure up in your memories, and tell again to others, for it is not likely that in this whole county of Hampshire, or even perhaps in all England, there is another left alive who is so well able to speak from his own knowledge of these events, or who has played a more forward part in them. All that I know I shall endeavour soberly and in due order to put before you. I shall try to make these dead men quicken into life for your behoof, and to call back out of the mists of the past those scenes which were 2 MicAH Clarke: His Statement brisk enough in the acting, though they read so dully and so heavily in the pages of the worthy men who have set them- selves to record them. Perchance my words, too, might, in the ears of strangers, seem to be but an old man's gossip. To you, however, who know that these eyes which are looking at you looked also at the things which I describe, and that this hand has struck in for a good cause, it wiU, I know, be dif- ferent. Bear in mind as you listen that it was your quarrel as well as our own in which we fought, and that if now you grow up to be free men in a free land, privileged to think or to pray as your consciences shall direct, you may thank God that you are reaping the harvest which your fathers sowed in blood and suffering when the Stuarts were on the throne. I was born then in the year 1664, at Havant, which is a flourishing village a few miles from Portsmouth off the main London road, and there it was that I spent the greater part of my youth. It is now as it was then, a pleasant, healthy spot, with a hundred or more brick cottages scattered along in a single irregular street, each with its little garden in front, and maybe a fruit tree or two at the back. In the middle of the village stood the old church with the square tower, and the great sun-dial like a wrinkle upon its grey weather-blotched face. On the outskirts the Presbyterians had their chapel ; but when the Act of Uniformity was passed, their good minister. Master Breckinridge, whose discourses had often crowded his rude benches while the comfortable pews of the church were empty, was cast into gaol, and his flock dispersed. As to the Independents, of whom my father was one, they also were under the ban of the law, but they attended conventicle at Emsworth, whither we would trudge, rain or shine, on every Sabbath morning. These meetings were broken up more than once, but the congregation was composed of such harmless folk, so well beloved and respected by their neighbours, that the peace officers came after a time to ignore them, and to let them worship in their own fashion. There were Papists, too, amongst us, who were compelled to go as far as Portsmouth for their Mass. Thus, you see, small as was our village, we were a fair miniature of the whole country, for we had our sects and our factions, which were all the more bitter for being confined in so narrow a compass. My father, Joseph Clarke, was better known over the countryside by the name of Ironside Joe, for he had served in his youth in the Yaxley troop of Oliver Cromwell's famous regi- Of Cornet Joseph Clarke of the Ironsides 3 ment of horse, and had preached so lustily and fought so stoutly that old Noll himself called him out of the ranks after the fight at Dunhar, and raised him to a cometcy. It chanced, however, that having some little time later fallen into an argu- ment with one of his troopers concerning the mystery of the Trinity, the man, who was a half-crazy zealot, smote my father across the face, a favour which he returned by a thrust from his broadsword, which sent his adversary to test in person the truth of his beliefs. In most armies it would have been con- ceded that my father was within his rights in punishing promptly so rank an act of mutiny, but the soldiers of Cromwell had so high a notion of their own importance and privileges, that they resented this summary justice upon their companion. A court- martial sat upon my father, and it is likely that he would have been offered up as a sacrifice to appease the angry soldiery, had not the Lord Protector interfered, and limited the punishment to dismissal from the army. Cornet Clarke was accordingly stripped of his buff coat and steel cap, and wandered down to Havant, where he settled into business as a leather merchant and tanner, thereby depriving Parliament of as trusty a soldier as ever drew blade in its service. Finding that he prospered in trade, he took as wife Mary Shepstone, a young Churchwoman, and I, Micah Clarke, was the first pledge of their iinion. My father, as I remember him first, was tall and straight, with a great spread of shoulder and a mighty chest. His face was craggy and stern, with large harsh features, shaggy over- hanging brows, high-bridged fleshy nose, and a full-lipped mouth which tightened and set when he was angry. His grey eyes were piercing and soldier-like, yet I have seen them lighten up into a kindly and merry twinkle. His voice was the most tremendous and awe-inspiring that I have ever listened to. I can well believe what I have heard, that when he chanted the Hundredth Psalm as he rode down among the blue bonnets at Dunbar, the sound of him rose above the blare of trumpets and the crash of guns, like the deep roll of a break- ing wave. Yet though he possessed every quality which was needed to raise him to distinction as an officer, he had thrown off his military habits when he returned to civil life. As he prospered and grew rich he might well have worn a sword, but instead he would ever bear a small copy of the Scriptures bound to his girdle, where other men hung their weapons. He was sober and measured in his speech, and it was seldom, even in the bosom of his own family, that he would speak 4 MicAH Clarke: His Statement of the scenes which he had taken part in, or of the great men, Fleetwood and Harrison, Blake and Ireton, Desborough and Lambert, some of whom had been simple troopers like him- self when the troubles broke out. He was frugal in his eating, backward in drinking, and allowed himself no pleasures save three pipes a day of Oronooko tobacco, which he kept ever in a brown jar by the great wooden chair on the left-hand side of the mantelshelf. Yet for all his self-restraint the old leaven would at times begin to work in him, and bring on fits of what his enemies would call fanaticism and his friends piety, though it must be confessed that this piety was prone to take a fierce and fiery shape. As I look back, one or two instances of that stand out so hard and clear in my recollection that they might be scenes which I had seen of late in the playhouse, instead of memories of my childhood more than threescore years ago, when the second Charles was on the throne. The first of these occurred when I was so young that I can remember neither what went before nor what immediately after it. It stuck in my infant mind when other things slipped through it. We were all in the house one sultry summer evening, when there came a rattle of kettledrums and a clatter of hoofs, which brought my mother and my father to the door, she with me in her arms that I might have the better view. It was a regiment of horse on their way from Chichester to Portsmouth, with colours flying and band playing, making the bravest show that ever my youthful eyes had rested upon. With what wonder and admiration did I gaze at the sleek prancing steeds, the steel morions, the plumed hats of the officers, the scarfs and bandoliers. Never, I thought, had such a gallant company assembled, and I clapped my hands and cried out in my delight. My father smiled gravely, and took me from my mother's arms. 'Nay, lad,' he said, 'thou art a soldier's son, and should have more judgment than to commend such a rabble as this. Canst thou not, child as thou art, see that their arms are ill-found, their stirrup-irons rusted, and their ranks without order or cohesion? Neither have they thrown out a troop in advance, as should even in times of peace be done, and their rear is straggling from here to Bed- hampton. Tea,' he continued, suddenly shaking his long arm at the troopers, and calling out to them, ' ye are corn ripe for the sickle and waiting only for the reapers ! ' Several of them reined up at this sudden out-flame. ' Hit the crop-eared rascal Of Cornet Joseph Clarke of the Ironsides s over the pate, Jack ! ' cried one to another, wheeling his horse round ; but there was that in my father's face which caused him to fall back into the ranks again with his purpose unfulfilled. The regiment jingled on down the road, and my mother laid her thin hands upon my father's arm, and lulled with her pretty coaxing ways the sleeping devil which had stirred within him. On another occasion which I can remember, about my seventh or eighth year, his wrath burst out with more dangerous effect. I was playing about him as he worked in the tanning-yard one spring afternoon, when in through the open doorway strutted two stately gentlemen, with gold facings to their coats and smart cockades at the side of their three-cornered hats. They were, as I afterwards understood, officers of the fleet who were pass- ing through Havant, and seeing us at work in the yard, de- signed to ask us some question as to tlieir route. The younger of the pair accosted my father and began his speech by a great clatter of words which were all High Dutch to me, though I now see that they^-were a string of such oaths as are common in the mouth of a sailor ; though why the very men who are in most danger of appearing before the Almighty should go out of their way to insult Him, hath ever been a mystery to me. My father in a rough stern voice bade him speak with more reverence of sacred things, on which the pair of them gave tongue together, swearing tenfold worse than before, and call- ing my father a canting rogue and a smug-faced Presbytery Jack. What more they might have said I know not, for my father picked up the great roller wherewith he smoothed the leather, and dashing at them he brought it down on the side of one of their heads with such a swashing blow, that had it not been for his stiff hat the man would never have uttered oath again. As it was, he dropped like a log upon the stones of the yard, while his companion whipped out his rapier and made a vicious thrust ; but my father, who was as active as he was strong, sprang aside, and bringing his cudgel down upon the outstretched arm of the officer, cracked it like the stem of a tobacco-pipe. This affair made no little stir, for it occurred at the time when those arch-liars, Gates, Bedloe, and Carstairs, were disturbing the public mind by their rumours of plots, and a rising of some sort was expected throughout the country. "Within a few days all Hampshire was ringing with an account of the malcontent tanner of Havant, who had broken the head and the arm of two of his Majesty's servants. An inquiry showed, however, that there was no treasonable meaning in 6 MicAH Clarke: His Statement the matter, and the officers having confessed that the first words came from them, the Justices contented themselves with imposing a fine upon my father, and binding him over to keep the peace for a period of six months. «i I tell you these incidents that you may have an idea of tie fierce and earnest religion which filled not only your own ancestor, but most of those men who were trained in the parliamentary armies. In many ways they were more like those fanatic Saracens, who believe in conversion by the sword, than the followers of a Christian creed. Yet they have this great merit, that their own lives were for the most part clean and commendable, for they rigidly adhered themselves to those laws which they would gladly have forced at the sword's point upon others. It is true that among so many there were some whose piety was a shell for their ambition, and others who practised in secret what they denounced in public, but no cause however good is free from such hypocritical parasites. That the greater part of the saints, as they termed themselves, were men of sober and God-fearing lives, may be shown by the fact that, after the disbanding of the army of the Commonwealth, the old soldiers flocked into trade throughout the country, and made their mark wherever they went by their industry and worth. There is many a wealthy business house now in Eng- land which can trace its rise to the thrift and honesty of some simple pikeman of Ire ton or Cromwell. But that I may help you to understand the character of your great-grandfather, I shall give an incident which shows how fervent and real were the emotions which prompted tlie violent moods which I have described. I was about twelve at the time, my brothers Hosea and Ephraim were respectively nine and seven, while little Euth could scarce have been more than four. It chanced that a few days before a wandering preacher of the Independents had put up at our house, and his religious ministrations had left my father moody and excitable. One night I had gone to bed as usual, and was sound asleep with my two brothers beside me, when we were roused and ordered to come downstairs. Huddling on our clothes we followed him into the kitchen, where my mother was sitting pale and scared with Euth upon her knee. ' Gather round me, my children,' he said, in a deep reverent voice, ' that we may all appear before the throne together. The kingdom of the Lord is at hand — oh, be ye ready to receive Him ! This very night, my loved ones, ye shall see Of Cornet Joseph Clarke of the Ironsides 7 Him in His splendour, with the angels and the archangels in their might and their glory. At the third hour shall He come — that very third hour which is now drawing upon us.' 'Dear Joe,' said my mother, in soothing tones, 'thou art scaring thyself and the children to no avaU. If the Son of Man be indeed coming, what matters it whether we be abed or afoot % ' ' Peace, woman,' he answered sternly ; ' has He not said that He will come like a thief in the night, and that it is for us to await Him 1 Join with me, then, in prayerful outpourings that we may be found as those in bridal array. Let us offer up thanks that He has graciously vouchsafed to warn us through the words of His servant. Oh, great Lord, look down upon this smaU flock and lead it to the sheep fold ! Mix not the little wheat with the great world of chaff. Oh, merciful Father ! look graciously upon my wife, and forgive her the sin of Erastianism, she being but a woman and little fitted to cast off the bonds of antichrist wherein she was born. And these too, my little ones, Mieah and Hosea, Ephraim and Euth, all named after Thy faithful servants of old, oh let them stand upon Thy right hand this night ! ' Thus he prayed on in a wild rush of burning, pleading words, writhing prostrate upon the floor in the vehemence of his supplication, while we, poor trembHng mites, huddled round our mother's skirts and gazed with terror at the contorted figure seen by the dim light of the simple oil lamp. On a sudden the clang of the new church clock told that the hour had come. My father sprang from the floor, and rushing to the casement, stared up with wild expectant eyes at the starry heavens. Whether he con- jured up some vision in his excited brain, or whether the rush of feeling on finding that his expectations were in vain, was too much for him, it is certain that he threw his long arms upwards, uttered a hoarse scream, and tumbled backwards vidth foaming Kps and twitching limbs upon the ground. For an hour or more my poor mother and I did what we could to soothe him, while the children whimpered in a corner, until at last he staggered slowly to his feet, and in brief broken words ordered us to our rooms. From that time I have never heard him allude to the matter, nor did he ever give us any reason why he should so confidently have expected the second coming upon that particular night. I have -learned since, how- ever, that the preacher who visited us was what was called in those days a fifth-monarchy man, and that this particular sect 8 MicAH Clarke: His Statement was very liable to these premonitions. I have no doubt that something which he had said had put the thought into my father's head, and that the fiery nature of the man had done the rest. So much for your great-grandfather, Ironside Joe. I have preferred to put these passages before you, for on the principle that actions speak louder than words, I find that in describing a man's character it is better to give examples of his ways than • to speak in broad and general terms. Had I said that he was fierce in his religion and subject to strange fits of piety, the words might have made little impression upon you ; but when I tell you of his attack upon the officers in the tanning-yard, and his summoning us down in the dead of the night to await the second coming, you can judge for yourselves the lengths to which his belief would carry him. For the rest, he was an excellent man of business, fair and even generous in his dealings, respected by all and loved by few, for his nature was too self-contained to admit of much aflfection. To us he was a stern and rigid father, punishing us heavily for whatever he regarded as amiss in our conduct. He had a store of such proverbs as 'Give a child its will and a whelp its fill, and neither will strive,' or ' Children are certain cares and uncertain comforts,' wherewith he would temper my mother's more kindly impulses. He could not bear that we should play trick-track upon the green, or dance with the other children upon the Saturday night. As to my mother, dear soul, it was her calm, peaceful influence which kept my father within bounds, and softened his austere rule. Seldom indeed, even in his darkest moods, did the touch of her gentle hand and the sound of her voice fail to soothe his fiery spirit. She came of a Church stock, and held to her religion with a quiet grip which was proof against every attempt to turn her from it. I imagine that at one time her husband had argued much with her upon Arminianism and the sin of simony, but finding his exhorta- tions useless, he had abandoned the subject save on very rare occasions. In spite of her Episcopacy, however, she remained a staunch Whig, and never allowed her loyalty to the throne to cloud her judgment as to the doings of the monarch who sat upon it. Women were good housekeepers fifty years ago, but she was conspicuous among the best. To see her spotless cuffs and snowy kirtle one would scarce credit how hard she laboured. Of my going to School g It was only the well-ordered house and the dustless rooms which proclaimed her constant industry. She made salves and eyewaters, powders and confects, cordials and persico, orangeflower water and cherry brandy, each in its due season, and aU of the best. She was wise, too, in herbs and simples. The villagers and the farm labourers would rather any day have her advice upon their ailments than that of Dr. Jackson of Purbrook, who never mixed a draught under a silver crown. Over the whole countryside there was no woman more de- servedly respected and more esteemed both by those above her and by those beneath. Such were my parents as I remember them in my childhood. As to myself, I shall let my story explain the growth of my ovni nature. My brothers and my sister were all brownfaced, sturdy little country children, with no very marked traits save a love of mischief controlled by the fear of their father. These, with Martha the serving-maid, formed our whole household during those boyish years when the pliant soul of the child is liardening into the settled character of the man. How these influences affected me I shall leave for a future sitting, and if I weary you by recording them, you must remember that I am telling these things rather for your profit than for your amuse- ment; tliat it may assist you in your journey through life to know how another has picked out the path before you. II 0/ my going to School and of my coming thence With the home influences which I have described, it may be readily imagined that my young mind turned very much upon the subject of religion, the more so as my father and mother took different views upon it. The old Puritan soldier held that the Bible alone contained all things essential to salvation, and that though it might be advisable that those who were gifted with wisdom or eloquence should expound the Scriptures to their brethren, it was by no means necessary, but rather hurt- ful and degrading, that any organised body of ministers or of bishops should claim special prerogatives, or take the place of mediators between the creature and the Creator. For the lo MicAH Clarke: His Statement wealthy dignitaries of the Church, rolling in their carriages to their cathedrals, in order to preach the doctrines of their Master, who woie His sandals out in tramping over the country- side, he professed the most bitter contem^; nor was he more lenient to those poorer members of the clergy who winked at the vices of their patrons that they might secure a seat at their table, and who would sit througli a long evening of profanity rather than bid good-bye to the cheesecakes and the wine flask. That such men represented religious truth was abhorrent to his mind, nor would he even give his adhesion to that form of church government dear to the Presbyterians, where a general council of the ministers directed the affairs of their church. Every man was, in his opinion, equal in the eyes of the Almighty, and none had a right to claim any precedence over his neigh- bour in matters of religion. The book was written for all, and all were equally able to read it, provided that their minds were enlightened by the Holy Spirit. My mother, on the other hand, held that the very essence of a church was that it should have a hierarchy and a graduated government within itself, with the king at the apex, the arch- bishops beneath him, the bishops under their control, and so down through the ministry to the common folk. Such was, in her opinion, the Church as established in the beginning, and no religion without these characteristics could lay any claim to being the true one. Ritual was to her of as great importance as morality, and if every tradesman and farmer were allowed to invent prayers, and change the service as the fancy seized him, it would be impossible to preserve the purity of the Christian creed. She agreed that religion was based upon the Bible, but the Bible was a book which contained much that was obscure, and unless that obscurity were cleared away by a duly elected and consecrated servant of God, a lineal descendant of the Disciples, all human wisdom might not serve to interpret it aright. That was my mother's position, and neither argument nor entreaty could move her from it. The only question of belief on which my two parents were equally ardent was their mutual dislike and distrust of the Eoman Catholic forms of worship, and in this the Churchwoman was every whit as decided as the fanatical Independent. It may seem strange to you in these days of tolerance, that the adherents of this venerable creed should have met with such universal iQ-will from successive generations of English- men. We recognise now that there are no more useful or loyal Of my going to School ii citizens in the state than our Catholic hrethren, and Mr. Alexander Pope or any other leading Papist is no more looked down upon for his religion than was Mr. "William Penn for his Quakerism in the reign of King James. We can scarce credit how noblemen like Lord Stafford, ecclesiastics like Archbishop Plunkett, and commoners like Langhorne and Pickering, were dragged to death on the testimony of the vilest of the vile, without a voice being raised in their behalf ; or how it could be considered a patriotic act on the part of an English Protestant to carry a flail loaded with lead beneath his cloak as a menace against his harmless neighbours who differed from him on points of doctrine. It was a long madness which has now happily passed off, or at least shows itself in a milder and rarer form. Foolish as it appears to us, there were some solid reasons to account for it. Tou have read doubtless how, a century before I was born, the great kingdom of Spain waxed and prospered. Her ships covered every sea. Her troops were victorious wherever they appeared. In letters, in learning, in all the arts of war and peace they were the foremost nation in Europe. You have heard also of the ill-blood which existed between this great nation and ourselves ; how our adventurers harried their possessions across the Atlantic, whUe they retorted by burn- ing such of our seamen as they could catch by their devilish Inquisition, and by threatening our coasts both from Cadiz and from their provinces in the Netherlands. At last so hot became the quarrel that the other nations stood off, as I have seen the folk clear a space for the sword-players at Hockley-in-the-Hole, so that the Spanish giant and tough little England were left face ■ to face to fight the matter out. Throughout all that business it was as the emissary of the Pope, and as the avenger of the dishonoured Koman Church, that King Philip professed to come. It is true that Lord Howard and many another gentle- man of the old religion fought stoutly against the Dons, but the people could never forget that the reformed faith had been the flag under which they had conquered, and that the blessing of the Pontifi' had rested with their opponents. Then came the cruel and foolish attempt of Mary to force upon them a creed for which they had no sympathy, and at the heels of it another great Eoman Catholic power menaced our liberty from the Continent. The growing strength of Prance promoted a corresponding distrust of Papistry in England, which reached a head when, at about the time of which I write, Louis XIV. threatened us with invasion at the very moment when, by the 12 MicAH Clarke: His Statement revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he showed his intolerant spirit towards the faith which we held dear. The narrow Protestantism of England was less a religious sentiment than a patriotic reply to the aggressive bigotry of her enemies. Our Catholic countrymen were unpopular, not so much because they believed in Transubstantiation, as because they were unjustly suspected of sympathising with the Emperor or with the King of France. Now that our military successes have secured us against all fear of attack, we have happily lost that bitter religious hatred but for which Gates and Dangerfield would have lied in vain. In the days when I was young, special causes had inflamed this dislike and made it all the more bitter because there was a spice of fear mingled with it. As long as the Catholics were only an obscure faction they might be ignored, but when, towards the close of the reign of the second Charles, it appeared to be absolutely certain that a Catholic dynasty was about to iill the throne, and that Catholicism was to be the court religion and the stepping-stone to preferment, it was felt that a day of vengeance mi^ht be at hand for those who had trampled upon it when it was defenceless. There was alarm and uneasiness amongst all classes. The Church of England, which depends upon the monarch as an arch depends upon the keystone ; the nobility, whose estates and coffers had been enriched by the plunder of the abbeys ; the mob, whose ideas of Papistry were mixed up with thumbscrews and Fox's Martyrology, were all equally disturbed. Nor was the prospect a hopeful one for their cause. Charles was a very lukewarm Protestant, and indeed showed upon his deathbed that be was no Protestant at all. There was no longer any chance of his having legitimate offspring. The Duke of York, his younger brother, was there- fore heir to the throne, and he was known to be an austere and narrow Papist, while his spouse, Mary of Modona, was as bigoted as himself. Should they have children, there could be no question but that they would be brought up in the faith of their parents, and that a line of Catholic monarchs would occupy the throne of England. To the Church, as represented by my mother, and to Nonconformity, in the person of my father, this was an equally intolerable prospect. I have been telling you all this old history because you will find, as I go on, that this state of things caused in the end such a seething and fermenting throiighout the nation that even I, a simple village lad, was dragged into the whirl and had my Of my going to School 13 whole life influenced by it. If I did not make the course of events clear to you, you would hardly understand the influ- ences which had such an efl'ect upon my whole history. In the meantime, I wish you to remember that when King James II. ascended the throne he did so amid a sullen silence on the part of a large class of his subjects, and that both my father and my mother were among those who were zealous for a Protes- tant succession. My childhood was, as I have already said, a gloomy one. Now and again when there chanced to be a fair at Portsdown Hill, or when a passing raree showman set up his booth in the village, my dear mother would slip a penny or two from her housekeeping money iuto my hand, and with a warning finger upon her lip would send me off to see the sights. These treats were, however, rare events, and made such a mark upon my mind, that when I was sixteen years of age I could have checked off upon my fingers all that I had ever seen. There was William Harker the strong man, who lifted Farmer Alcott's roan mare ; and there was Tubby Lawson the dwarf, who could fit himself into a pickle jar — these two I weU remember from the wonder wherewith they struck my youthful soul. Then there was the show of the playing dolls, and that of the en- chanted island and Mynheer Munster from the Lowlands, who could turn himself round upon a tight-rope while playing most sweetly upon a virginal. Last, but far the best in my estima- tion, was the grand play at the Portsdown Fair, entitled ' The true and ancient story of Maudlin, tlie merchant's daughter of Bristol, and of her lover Antonio. How they were cast away upon the shores of Barbary, where the mermaids are seen float- ing upon the sea and singing in the rocks, foretelling their danger.' This little piece gave me keener pleasure than ever in after years I received from the grandest comedies of Mr. Congreve and of Mr. Dryden, though acted by Kynaston, Betterton, and the whole strength of the King's own company. At Chichester once I remember that I paid a penny to see the left shoe of the youngest sister of Potiphar's wife, but as it looked much like any other old shoe, and was just about the size to have fitted the show-woman, I have often feared that my penny fell into the hands of rogues. There were other shows, however, which I might see for nothing, and yet were more real and every whit as interesting as any for which I paid. Now and again upon a holiday I was permitted to walk down to Portsmouth — once I was even taken 14 MicAH Clarke: His Statement in front of my father upon his pad nag, and there I wandered with him through the streets with wondering eyes, marvelling over the strange sights around me. The walls and the moats, the gates and the sentinels, the long High Street with the great government buildings, and the constant rattle of drums and blare of trumpets ; they made my little heart beat quicker beneath my sagathy stuff jacket. Here was the house in which some thirty years before the proud Duke of Buckingham had been struck down by the assassin's dagger. There, too, was the Governor's dwelling, and I I'emember that even as I looked he came riding up to it, red-faced and choleric, with a nose such as a Governor should have, and his breast all slashed with gold. ' Is he not a fine man ? ' I said, looking up at my father. He laughed and drew his hat down over his brows. ' It is the first time that I have seen Sir Ralph Lingard's face,' said he, ' but I saw his back at Preston fight. Ah, lad, proud as he looks, if he did but see old Noll coming in through the door he would not think it beneath him to climb out through the window ! ' The clank of steel or the sight of a buff-coat would always serve to stir up the old Roundhead bitterness in my father's breast. But there were other sights in Portsmouth besides the red- coats and their Governor. The yard was the second in the kingdom, after Chatham, and there was ever some new war- ship ready upon the slips. Then there was a squadron of King's ships, and sometimes the whole fleet at Spithead, when the streets would be full of sailors, with their faces as brown as mahogany and pigtails as stiff and hard as their cutlasses. To watch their rolling gait, and to hear thiar strange, quaint talk, and their tales of the Dutch wars, was a rare treat to me ; and I have sometimes when I was alone fastened myself on to a group of them, and passed the day in wandering from tavern to tavern. It chanced one day, however, that one of them insisted upon my sharing his glass of Canary wine, and after- wards out of roguishness persuaded me to take a second, with the result that I was sent home speechless in the carrier's cart, and was never again allowed to go into Portsmouth alone. My father was less shocked at the in&ident than I should have expected, and reminded my mother that Noah had been over- taken in a similar manner. He also narrated how a certain field-chaplain Grant, of Desborough's regiment, having after a hot and dusty day drunk sundry flagons of mum, had there- after sung certain ungodly songs, and danced in a manner unbe- coming to his sacred profession. Also, how he had afterwards Of my going to School 15 explained that such backsliJings were not to be regarded as faults of the individual, but rather as actual obsessions of the evil one, who contrived in this manner to give scandal to the faithful, and selected the most godly for his evU purpose. This ingenious defence of the field-chaplain was the saving of my back, for my father, who was a believer in Solomon's axiom, had a stout ash stick and a strong arm for whatever seemed to him to be a falling away from the true path. From the day that I first learned my letters from the horn- book at my mother's knee I was always hungry to increase my knowledge, and never a piece of print came in my way that I did not eagerly master. My father pushed the sectarian hatred of learning to such a length that he was averse to having any worldly books within his doors.i I was dependent therefore for my supply upon one or two of my friends in the village, who lent me a volume at a time from their small libraries. These I would carry inside my shirt, and would only dare to produce when I could slip away into the fields, and lie hid among the long grass, or at night when the rushlight was still burning, and my father's snoring assured me that there was no danger of his detecting me. In this way I worked up from Don Bellianis of Greece and the ' Seven Champions,' through Tarleton's 'Jests' and other such books, until I could take pleasure in the poetry of Waller and of Herrick, or in the plays of Massinger and Shakespeare. How sweet were the hours when I could lay aside all thought of freewill and of predestination, to lie with my heels in the air among the scented clover, and listen to old Chaucer telling the sweet story of Grisel the patient, or to weep for the chaste Desde- mona, and mourn over the untimely end of her gallant spouse. There were times as I rose up with my mind full of the noble poetry, and glanced over the fair slope of the countryside, with the gleaming sea beyond it, and the purple outline of the Isle of Wight upon the horizon ; when it would be borne in upon me that the Being who created all this, aud who gave man the power of pouring out these beautiful thoughts, was not the possession of one sect or another, or of this nation or that, but was the kindly Father of every one of the little children whom He had let loose on this fair playground. It grieved me then, and it grieves me now, that a man of such sincerity and lofty purpose as your great-grandfather should have been so tied 1 Note A, Appendix. 1 6 MicAH Clarke: His Statement down by iron doctrines, and should imagine his Creator to be so niggard of His mercy as to withhold it from nine-and-ninety in the hundred. Well, a man is as he is trained, and if my father bore a narrow mind upon his broad shoulders, he has at least the credit that he was ready to do and to suffer all things for what he conceived to be the truth. If you, my dears, have more enlightened views, take heed that they bring you to lead a more enlightened life. When I was fourteen years of age, a yellow-haired, brown- faced lad, I was packed off to a small private school at Peters- Held, and there I remained for a year, returning home for the last Saturday in each month. I took with me only a scanty outfit of schoolbooks, with Lilly's ' Latin Grammar,' and Kosse's 'View of all the Eeligions in the World from the Creation down to our own Times,' which was shoved into my hands by my good mother as a parting present. With this small stock of letters I might have fared badly, had it not happened that my master, Mr. Thomas Chillingfoot, had himself a good library, and took a pleasure in lending his books to any of his scholars who showed a desire to improve themselves. Under this good old man's care I not only picked up some smattering of Latin and Greek, but I found means to read good English translations of many of the classics, and to acquire a knowleiige of the history of my own and other countries. I was rapidly growing in mind as well as in body, when my school career was cut short by no less an event than my summary and ignominious expulsion. How this unlooked-for ending to my studies came about I must now set before you. Petersfield had always been a great stronghold of the Church, having hardly a Nonconformist within its bounds. The reason of this was that most of the house property was owned by zealous Churchmen, who refused to allow any one who differed from the Established Church to settle there. The Vicar, whose name was Pinfold, possessed in this manner great power in the town, and as he was a man with a high inflamed countenance and a pompous manner, he inspired no little awe among the quiet inhabitants. I can see him now with his heaked nose, his rounded waistcoat, and his bandy legs, which looked as if they had given way beneath the load of learning which they were compelled to carry. Walking slowly with right hand stiifly extended, tapping the pavement at every step with his metal- headed stick, he would pause as each person passed him, and Of my going to School 17 wait to see that he was given the salute which he thought due to his dignity. Tliis courtesy he never dreamed of returning, save in the case of some of his richer parishioners ; but if by chance it were omitted, he would hurry after the culprit, and, shaking his stick in his face, insist upon his doffing his cap to him. We youngsters, if we met him on our walks, would scuttle by him like a brood of chickens passing an old turkey cock, and even our worthy master showed a disposition to turn down a side-street when the portly figure of the Vicar was seen rolling in our direction. This proud priest made a point of knowing the history of every one within his parish, and having learnt that I was the son of an Independent, he spoke severely to Mr. Chillingfoot upon the indiscretion which he had shown in admitting me to his school. Indeed, nothing but my mother's good name for orthodoxy prevented him from insisting upon my dismissal. At the other end of the village there was a large day-school. A constant feud prevailed between the scholars who attended it and the lads who studied under our master. No one could tell how the war broke out, but for many years there had been a standing quarrel between the two, which resulted in skir- mishes, sallies, and ambuscades, with now and then a pitched battle. No great harm was done in these encounters, for the weapons were usually snowballs in winter and pine-cones or clods of earth in the summer. Even when the contest got closer and we came to fisticuffs, a few bruises and a little blood was the worst that could come of it. Our opponents were more numerous than we, but we had the advantage of being always together and of having a secure asylum upon which to retreat, while they, living in scattered houses all over the parish, had no common rallying-point. A stream, crossed by two bridges, ran through the centre of the town, and this was the boundary which separated our territories from those of our enemies. The boy who crossed the bridge found himself in hostile country. It chanced that in the first conflict which occurred after my arrival at the school I distinguished myself by singling out the most redoubtable of our foemen, and smiting him such a blow that he was knocked helpless and was carried off by our party as a prisoner. This feat of arms established my good name as a warrior, so I came at last to be regarded as the leader of our forces, and to be looked up to by bigger boys than myself. This promotion tickled my fancy so much, that I set to work to B 1 8 MicAH Clarke: His Statement prove that I deserved it by devising fresh and ingenious schemes for the defeat of our enemies. One winter's evening news reached us that our rivals were about to make a raid upon us under cover of night, and that they proposed coming by the little used plank bridge, so as to escape our notice. This bridge lay almost out of the town, and consisted of a single broad piece of wood without a rail, erected for the good of the town clerk, who lived just opposite to it. We proposed to hide ourselves amongst the bushes on our side of the stream, and make an unexpected attack upon the invaders as they crossed. As we started, however, I bethought me of an ingenious stratagem which I had read of as being practised in the German wars, and having expounded it to the great delight of my companions, we took Mr. ChilUngfoot's saw, and set off for the seat of action. On reaching the bridge all was quiet and still. It was quite dark and very cold, for Christmas was approaching. There were no signs of our opponents. We exchanged a few whispers as to who should do the daring deed, but as the others shrank from it, and as I was too proud to propose what I dare not execute, I gripped the saw, and sitting astraddle upon the plank set to work upon the very centre of it. My purpose was to weaken it in such a way that, though it would bear the weight of one, it would collapse when the main body of our foemen were upon it, and so precipitate them into the ice-cold stream. The water was but a couple of feet deep at the place, so that there was nothing for them but a fright and a ducking. So cool a reception ought to deter them from ever invading us again, and confirm my reputation as a daring leader. Keuben Lockarby, my lieutenant, son of old John Lockarby of the Wheatsheaf, marshalled our forces behind the hedgerow, whilst I sawed vigorously at the plank until I had nearly severed it across. I had no compunction about the de- struction of the bridge, for I knew enough of carpentry to see that a skUful joiner could in an hour's work make it stronger than ever by putting a prop beneath the point where I had divided it. When at last I felt by the yielding of the plank that I had done enough, and that the least strain would snap it, I crawled quietly off, and taking up my position with my schoolfellows, awaited the coming of the enemy. I had scarce concealed myself when we heard the steps of some one approaching down the footpath which led to the Of my going to School 19 bridge. We crouched behind the cover, convinced that the sound must come from some scout whom our foemen had sent on in front — a big boy evidently, for his step was heavy an