Chapter II. Of my going to school and of my coming thence.
With the home influences which I have described, it may be readilyimagined that my young mind turned very much upon the subject ofreligion, the more so as my father and mother took different views uponit. The old Puritan soldier held that the bible alone contained allthings essential to salvation, and that though it might be advisablethat those who were gifted with wisdom or eloquence should expound theScriptures to their brethren, it was by no means necessary, but ratherhurtful and degrading, that any organised body of ministers or ofbishops should claim special prerogatives, or take the place ofmediators between the creature and the Creator. For the wealthydignitaries of the Church, rolling in their carriages to theircathedrals, in order to preach the doctrines of their Master, who woreHis sandals out in tramping over the countryside, he professed the mostbitter contempt; nor was he more lenient to those poorer members of theclergy who winked at the vices of their patrons that they might securea seat at their table, and who would sit through a long evening ofprofanity rather than bid good-bye to the cheesecakes and the wineflask. That such men represented religious truth was abhorrent tohis mind, nor would he even give his adhesion to that form of churchgovernment dear to the Presbyterians, where a general council of theministers directed the affairs of their church. Every man was, in hisopinion, equal in the eyes of the Almighty, and none had a right toclaim any precedence over his neighbour in matters of religion. The bookwas written for all, and all were equally able to read it, provided thattheir minds were enlightened by the Holy Spirit.
My mother, on the other hand, held that the very essence of a churchwas that it should have a hierarchy and a graduated government withinitself, with the king at the apex, the archbishops beneath him, thebishops under their control, and so down through the ministry to thecommon folk. Such was, in her opinion, the Church as established in thebeginning, and no religion without these characteristics could lay anyclaim to being the true one. Ritual was to her of as great importanceas morality, and if every tradesman and farmer were allowed to inventprayers, and change the service as the fancy seized him, it would beimpossible to preserve the purity of the Christian creed. She agreedthat religion was based upon the Bible, but the Bible was a book whichcontained much that was obscure, and unless that obscurity werecleared away by a duly elected and consecrated servant of God, alineal descendant of the Disciples, all human wisdom might not serve tointerpret it aright. That was my mother's position, and neither argumentnor entreaty could move her from it. The only question of belief onwhich my two parents were equally ardent was their mutual dislikeand distrust of the Roman Catholic forms of worship, and in this theChurchwoman was every whit as decided as the fanatical Independent.
It may seem strange to you in these days of tolerance, that theadherents of this venerable creed should have met with such universalill-will from successive generations of Englishmen. We recognise nowthat there are no more useful or loyal citizens in the state than ourCatholic brethren, and Mr. Alexander Pope or any other leading Papist isno more looked down upon for his religion than was Mr. William Pennfor his Quakerism in the reign of King James. We can scarce credit hownoblemen like Lord Stafford, ecclesiastics like Archbishop Plunkett,and commoners like Langhorne and Pickering, were dragged to death onthe testimony of the vilest of the vile, without a voice being raised intheir behalf; or how it could be considered a patriotic act on the partof an English Protestant to carry a flail loaded with lead beneath hiscloak as a menace against his harmless neighbours who differed fromhim on points of doctrine. It was a long madness which has now happilypassed off, or at least shows itself in a milder and rarer form.
Foolish as it appears to us, there were some solid reasons to accountfor it. You have read doubtless how, a century before I was born, thegreat kingdom of Spain waxed and prospered. Her ships covered everysea. Her troops were victorious wherever they appeared. In letters, inlearning, in all the arts of war and peace they were the foremost nationin Europe. You have heard also of the ill-blood which existed betweenthis great nation and ourselves; how our adventurers harried theirpossessions across the Atlantic, while they retorted by burning suchof our seamen as they could catch by their devilish Inquisition, and bythreatening our coasts both from Cadiz and from their provinces in theNetherlands. At last so hot became the quarrel that the other nationsstood off, as I have seen the folk clear a space for the sword-playersat Hockley-in-the-Hole, so that the Spanish giant and tough littleEngland were left face to face to fight the matter out. Throughout allthat business it was as the emissary of the Pope, and as the avenger ofthe dishonoured Roman Church, that King Philip professed to come. Itis true that Lord Howard and many another gentleman of the old religionfought stoutly against the Dons, but the people could never forget thatthe reformed faith had been the flag under which they had conquered, andthat the blessing of the Pontiff had rested with their opponents. Thencame the cruel and foolish attempt of Mary to force upon them a creedfor which they had no sympathy, and at the heels of it another greatRoman Catholic power menaced our liberty from the Continent. The growingstrength of France promoted a corresponding distrust of Papistry inEngland, which reached a head when, at about the time of which I write,Louis XIV. threatened us with invasion at the very moment when, bythe revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he showed his intolerant spirittowards the faith which we held dear. The narrow Protestantism ofEngland was less a religious sentiment than a patriotic reply tothe aggressive bigotry of her enemies. Our Catholic countrymen wereunpopular, not so much because they believed in Transubstantiation, asbecause they were unjustly suspected of sympathising with the Emperor orwith the King of France. Now that our military successes have secured usagainst all fear of attack, we have happily lost that bitter religioushatred but for which Oates and Dangerfield would have lied in vain.
In the days when I was young, special causes had inflamed this dislikeand made it all the more bitter because there was a spice of fearmingled with it. As long as the Catholics were only an obscure factionthey might be ignored, but when, towards the close of the reign of thesecond Charles, it appeared to be absolutely certain that a Catholicdynasty was about to fill the throne, and that Catholicism was to be thecourt religion and the stepping-stone to preferment, it was felt thata day of vengeance might be at hand for those who had trampled uponit when it was defenceless. There was alarm and uneasiness amongst allclasses. The Church of England, which depends upon the monarch as anarch depends upon the keystone; the nobility, whose estates and coffershad been enriched by the plunder of the abbeys; the mob, whose ideas ofPapistry were mixed up with thumbscrews and Fox's Martyrology, were allequally disturbed. Nor was the prospect a hopeful one for their cause.Charles was a very lukewarm Protestant, and indeed showed upon hisdeathbed that he was no Protestant at all. There was no longer anychance of his having legitimate offspring. The Duke of York, his youngerbrother, was therefore heir to the throne, and he was known to be anaustere and narrow Papist, while his spouse, Mary of Modena, wasas bigoted as himself. Should they have children, there could beno question but that they would be brought up in the faith of theirparents, and that a line of Catholic monarchs would occupy the throneof England. To the Church, as represented by my mother, and toNonconformity, in the person of my father, this was an equallyintolerable prospect.
I have been telling you all this old history because you will find, asI go on, that this state of things caused in the end such a seething andfermenting throughout the nation that even I, a simple village lad, wasdragged into the whirl and had my whole life influenced by it. If I didnot make the course of events clear to you, you would hardly understandthe influences which had such an effect upon my whole history. In themeantime, I wish you to remember that when King James II. ascended thethrone he did so amid a sullen silence on the part of a large class ofhis subjects, and that both my father and my mother were among those whowere zealous for a Protestant succession.
My childhood was, as I have already sai
d, a gloomy one. Now and againwhen there chanced to be a fair at Portsdown Hill, or when a passingraree showman set up his booth in the village, my dear mother wouldslip a penny or two from her housekeeping money into my hand, and witha warning finger upon her lip would send me off to see the sights. Thesetreats 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 myfingers all that I had ever seen. There was William Harker the strongman, who lifted Farmer Alcott's roan mare; and there was Tubby Lawsonthe dwarf, who could fit himself into a pickle jar--these two I wellremember from the wonder wherewith they struck my youthful soul. Thenthere was the show of the playing dolls, and that of the enchantedisland and Mynheer Munster from the Lowlands, who could turn himselfround upon a tight-rope while playing most sweetly upon a virginal.Last, but far the best in my estimation, was the grand play at thePortsdown Fair, entitled 'The true and ancient story of Maudlin, themerchant's daughter of Bristol, and of her lover Antonio. How they werecast away on the shores of Barbary, where the mermaids are seen floatingupon the sea and singing in the rocks, foretelling their danger.' Thislittle piece gave me keener pleasure than ever in after years I receivedfrom the grandest comedies of Mr. Congreve and of Mr. Dryden, thoughacted by Kynaston, Betterton, and the whole strength of the King's owncompany. At Chichester once I remember that I paid a penny to see theleft shoe of the youngest sister of Potiphar's wife, but as it lookedmuch like any other old shoe, and was just about the size to have fittedthe show-woman, I have often feared that my penny fell into the hands ofrogues.
There were other shows, however, which I might see for nothing, and yetwere more real and every whit as interesting as any for which Ipaid. Now and again upon a holiday I was permitted to walk down toPortsmouth--once I was even taken in front of my father upon his padnag, and there I wandered with him through the streets with wonderingeyes, marvelling over the strange sights around me. The walls and themoats, the gates and the sentinels, the long High Street with the greatgovernment buildings, and the constant rattle of drums and blare oftrumpets; they made my little heart beat quicker beneath my sagathystuff jacket. Here was the house in which some thirty years before theproud Duke of Buckingham had been struck down by the assassin's dagger.There, too, was the Governor's dwelling, and I remember that even as Ilooked he came riding up to it, red-faced and choleric, with a nose suchas a Governor should have, and his breast all slashed with gold. 'Is henot a fine man?' I said, looking up at my father. He laughed and drewhis hat down over his brows. 'It is the first time that I have seen SirRalph 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 throughthe door he would not think it beneath him to climb out through thewindow!' The clank of steel or the sight of a buff-coat would alwaysserve to stir up the old Roundhead bitterness in my father's breast.
But there were other sights in Portsmouth besides the red-coats andtheir Governor. The yard was the second in the kingdom, after Chatham,and there was ever some new war-ship ready upon the slips. Then therewas a squadron of King's ships, and sometimes the whole fleet atSpithead, when the streets would be full of sailors, with their faces asbrown as mahogany and pigtails as stiff and hard as their cutlasses. Towatch their rolling gait, and to hear their strange, quaint talk,and their tales of the Dutch wars, was a rare treat to me; and I havesometimes when I was alone fastened myself on to a group of them, andpassed the day in wandering from tavern to tavern. It chanced one day,however, that one of them insisted upon my sharing his glass of Canarywine, and afterwards 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 wasless shocked at the incident than I should have expected, and remindedmy mother that Noah had been overtaken in a similar manner. He alsonarrated how a certain field-chaplain Grant, of Desborough's regiment,having after a hot and dusty day drunk sundry flagons of mum, hadthereafter sung certain ungodly songs, and danced in a manner unbecomingto his sacred profession. Also, how he had afterwards explained thatsuch backslidings were not to be regarded us faults of the individual,but rather as actual obsessions of the evil one, who contrived in thismanner to give scandal to the faithful, and selected the most godly forhis evil purpose. This ingenious defence of the field-chaplain was thesaving 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 bea falling away from the true path.
From the day that I first learned my letters from the horn-book at mymother's knee I was always hungry to increase my knowledge, and never apiece of print came in my way that I did not eagerly master. My fatherpushed the sectarian hatred of learning to such a length that he wasaverse to having any worldly books within his doors. (Note A, Appendix)I was dependent therefore for my supply upon one or two of my friends inthe 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 whenI could slip away into the fields, and lie hid among the long grass, orat night when the rushlight was still burning, and my father's snoringassured me that there was no danger of his detecting me. In this wayI worked up from Don Bellianis of Greece and the 'Seven Champions,'through Tarleton's 'Jests' and other such books, until I could takepleasure in the poetry of Waller and of Herrick, or in the plays ofMassinger and Shakespeare. How sweet were the hours when I could layaside all thought of freewill and of predestination, to lie with myheels in the air among the scented clover, and listen to old Chaucertelling the sweet story of Grisel the patient, or to weep for the chasteDesdemona, and mourn over the untimely end of her gallant spouse. Therewere times as I rose up with my mind full of the noble poetry, andglanced over the fair slope of the countryside, with the gleaming seabeyond 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,and who gave man the power of pouring out these beautiful thoughts, wasnot 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 whomHe had let loose on this fair playground. It grieved me then, and itgrieves me now, that a man of such sincerity and lofty purpose as yourgreat grandfather should have been so tied down by iron doctrines, andshould imagine his Creator to be so niggard of His mercy as to withholdit 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 atleast the credit that he was ready to do and to suffer all thingsfor what he conceived to be the truth. If you, my dears, have moreenlightened views, take heed that they bring you to lead a moreenlightened life.
When I was fourteen years of age, a yellow-haired, brown-faced lad, Iwas packed off to a small private school at Petersfield, and there Iremained 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 'LatinGrammar,' and Rosse's 'View of all the Religions in the World from theCreation down to our own Times,' which was shoved into my hands by mygood mother as a parting present. With this small stock of letters Imight have fared badly, had it not happened that my master, Mr. ThomasChillingfoot, had himself a good library, and took a pleasure inlending his books to any of his scholars who showed a desire to improvethemselves. Under this good old man's care I not only picked up somesmattering of Latin and Greek, but I found means to read good Englishtranslations of many of the classics, and to acquire a knowledge of thehistory of my own and other countries. I was rapidly growing in mind aswell as in body, when my school career was cut short by no less an eventthan my summary and ignominious expulsion. How this unlooked-for endingto my studies came about I must now set before you.
Petersfield had always been a great stronghold of the Church, havinghardly a Nonconformist within its bounds. The reason of this was thatmost of the house property was owned by zealous Churchmen, who refusedto allow any one who differed from the E
stablished Church to settlethere. The Vicar, whose name was Pinfold, possessed in this manner greatpower in the town, and as he was a man with a high inflamed countenanceand a pompous manner, he inspired no little awe among the quietinhabitants. I can see him now with his beaked nose, his roundedwaistcoat, and his bandy legs, which looked as if they had given waybeneath the load of learning which they were compelled to carry. Walkingslowly with right hand stiffly extended, tapping the pavement at everystep with his metal-headed stick, he would pause as each person passedhim, and wait to see that he was given the salute which he thought dueto his dignity. This courtesy he never dreamed of returning, save inthe case of some of his richer parishioners; but if by chance it wereomitted, he would hurry after the culprit, and, shaking his stick in hisface, insist upon his doffing his cap to him. We youngsters, if we methim on our walks, would scuttle by him like a brood of chickens passingan old turkey cock, and even our worthy master showed a disposition toturn down a side-street when the portly figure of the Vicar was seenrolling in our direction. This proud priest made a point of knowing thehistory of every one within his parish, and having learnt that I was theson of an Independent, he spoke severely to Mr. Chillingfoot upon theindiscretion which he had shown in admitting me to his school. Indeed,nothing but my mother's good name for orthodoxy prevented him frominsisting upon my dismissal.
At the other end of the village there was a large day-school. A constantfeud prevailed between the scholars who attended it and the lads whostudied under our master. No one could tell how the war broke out, butfor many years there had been a standing quarrel between the two, whichresulted in skirmishes, sallies, and ambuscades, with now and then apitched battle. No great harm was done in these encounters, for theweapons were usually snowballs in winter and pine-cones or clods ofearth in the summer. Even when the contest got closer and we came tofisticuffs, a few bruises and a little blood was the worst that couldcome of it. Our opponents were more numerous than we, but we had theadvantage of being always together and of having a secure asylum uponwhich to retreat, while they, living in scattered houses all over theparish, had no common rallying-point. A stream, crossed by two bridges,ran through the centre of the town, and this was the boundary whichseparated our territories from those of our enemies. The boy who crossedthe bridge found himself in hostile country.
It chanced that in the first conflict which occurred after my arrival atthe school I distinguished myself by singling out the most redoubtableof our foemen, and smiting him such a blow that he was knocked helplessand was carried off by our party as a prisoner. This feat of armsestablished my good name as a warrior, so I came at last to be regardedas the leader of our forces, and to be looked up to by bigger boys thanmyself. This promotion tickled my fancy so much, that I set to work toprove that I deserved it by devising fresh and ingenious schemes for thedefeat of our enemies.
One winter's evening news reached us that our rivals were about to makea raid upon us under cover of night, and that they proposed coming bythe little used plank bridge, so as to escape our notice. This bridgelay almost out of the town, and consisted of a single broad piece ofwood 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 onour side of the stream, and make an unexpected attack upon the invadersas they crossed. As we started, however, I bethought me of an ingeniousstratagem which I had read of as being practised in the German wars, andhaving expounded it to the great delight of my companions, we took Mr.Chillingfoot's saw, and set off for the seat of action.
On reaching the bridge all was quiet and still. It was quite dark andvery cold, for Christmas was approaching. There were no signs of ouropponents. We exchanged a few whispers as to who should do the daringdeed, but as the others shrank from it, and as I was too proud topropose what I dare not execute, I gripped the saw, and sittingastraddle 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 theweight of one, it would collapse when the main body of our foemen wereupon it, and so precipitate them into the ice-cold stream. The water wasbut a couple of feet deep at the place, so that there was nothing forthem but a fright and a ducking. So cool a reception ought to deterthem from ever invading us again, and confirm my reputation as a daringleader. Reuben Lockarby, my lieutenant, son of old John Lockarby of theWheatsheaf, marshalled our forces behind the hedgerow, whilst I sawedvigorously at the plank until I had nearly severed it across. I had nocompunction about the destruction of the bridge, for I knew enough ofcarpentry to see that a skilful joiner could in an hour's work makeit stronger than ever by putting a prop beneath the point where I haddivided it. When at last I felt by the yielding of the plank that I haddone enough, and that the least strain would snap it, I crawled quietlyoff, and taking up my position with my schoolfellows, awaited the comingof the enemy.
I had scarce concealed myself when we heard the steps of some oneapproaching down the footpath which led to the bridge. We crouchedbehind the cover, convinced that the sound must come from some scoutwhom our foemen had sent on in front--a big boy evidently, for his stepwas heavy and slow, with a clinking noise mingling with it, of which wecould make nothing. Nearer came the sound and nearer, until a shadowyfigure loomed out of the darkness upon the other side, and after pausingand peering for a moment, came straight for the bridge. It was only ashe was setting foot upon the plank and beginning gingerly to pick hisway across it, that we discerned the outlines of the familiar form, andrealised the dreadful truth that the stranger whom we had taken for theadvance guard of our enemy was in truth none other than Vicar Pinfold,and that it was the rhythmic pat of his stick which we heard minglingwith his footfalls. Fascinated by the sight, we lay bereft of all powerto warn him--a line of staring eyeballs. One step, two steps, threesteps did the haughty Churchman take, when there was a rending crack,and he vanished with a mighty splash into the swift-flowing stream. Hemust have fallen upon his back, for we could see the curved outlineof his portly figure standing out above the surface as he struggleddesperately to regain his feet. At last he managed to get erect, andcame spluttering for the bank with such a mixture of godly ejaculationsand of profane oaths that, even in our terror, we could not keep fromlaughter. Rising from under his feet like a covey of wild-fowl, wescurried off across the fields and so back to the school, where, as youmay imagine, we said nothing to our good master of what had occurred.
The matter was too serious, however, to be hushed up. The sudden chillset up some manner of disturbance in the bottle of sack which the Vicarhad just been drinking with the town clerk, and an attack of gout set inwhich laid him on his back for a fortnight. Meanwhile an examination ofthe bridge had shown that it had been sawn across, and an inquiry tracedthe matter to Mr. Chillingfoot's boarders. To save a wholesale expulsionof the school from the town, I was forced to acknowledge myself as boththe inventor and perpetrator of the deed. Chillingfoot was entirely inthe power of the Vicar, so he was forced to read me a long homilyin public--which he balanced by an affectionate leave-taking inprivate--and to expel me solemnly from the school. I never saw my oldmaster again, for he died not many years afterwards; but I hear that hissecond son William is still carrying on the business, which is largerand more prosperous than of old. His eldest son turned Quaker and wentout to Penn's settlement, where he is reported to have been slain by thesavages.
This adventure shocked my dear mother, but it found great favour in theeyes of my father, who laughed until the whole village resoundedwith his stentorian merriment. It reminded him, he said, of a similarstratagem executed at Market Drayton by that God-fearing soldier ColonelPride, whereby a captain and three troopers of Lunsford's own regimentof horse had been drowned, and many others precipitated into a river, tothe great glory of the true Church and to the satisfaction of thechosen people. Even of the Church folk many were secretly glad at themisfortune which had overtaken the Vicar, for his pretensions and hispride had made him hated throughout the
district.
By this time I had grown into a sturdy, broad-shouldered lad, and everymonth added to my strength and my stature. When I was sixteen I couldcarry a bag of wheat or a cask of beer against any man in the village,and I could throw the fifteen-pound putting-stone to a distance ofthirty-six feet, which was four feet further than could Ted Dawson, theblacksmith. Once when my father was unable to carry a bale of skins outof the yard, I whipped it up and bare it away upon my shoulders. Theold man would often look gravely at me from under his heavy thatchedeyebrows, and shake his grizzled head as he sat in his arm-chair puffinghis pipe. 'You grow too big for the nest, lad,' he would say. 'I doubtsome of these days you'll find your wings and away!' In my heart Ilonged that the time would come, for I was weary of the quiet life ofthe village, and was anxious to see the great world of which I had heardand read so much. I could not look southward without my spirit stirringwithin me as my eyes fell upon those dark waves, the white crests ofwhich are like a fluttering signal ever waving to an English youth andbeckoning him to some unknown but glorious goal.