Micah Clarke

  Chapter XXXVI. Of the End of it All

  And so, my dear children, I come to the end of the history of afailure--a brave failure and a noble one, but a failure none the less.In three more years England was to come to herself, to tear the fettersfrom her free limbs, and to send James and his poisonous brood flyingfrom her shores even as I was flying then. We had made the error ofbeing before our time. Yet there came days when folk thought kindly ofthe lads who had fought so stoutly in the West, and when their limbs,gathered from many a hangman's pit and waste place, were borne amid thesilent sorrow of a nation to the pretty country burial-grounds wherethey would have chosen to lie. There, within the sound of the bell whichfrom infancy had called them to prayer, beneath the turf over which theyhad wandered, under the shadow of those Mendip and Quantock Hills whichthey loved so well, these brave hearts lie still and peaceful, liketired children in the bosom of their mother. Requiescant-requiescant inpace!

  Not another word about myself, dear children. This narrative dothalready bristle with I's, as though it were an Argus which is a flashof wit, though I doubt if ye will understand it. I set myself to tell yethe tale of the war in the West, and that tale ye have heard, nor willI be coaxed or cajoled into one word further. Ah! ye know well howgarrulous the old man is, and that if you could but get to Flushing withhim he would take ye to the wars of the Empire, to William's Court, andto the second invasion of the West, which had a better outcome than thefirst. But not an inch further will I budge. On to the green, ye youngrogues! Have ye not other limbs to exercise besides your ears, that yeshould be so fond of squatting round grandad's chair? If I am spared tonext winter, and if the rheumatiz keeps away, it is like that I may takeup once more the broken thread of my story.

  Of the others I can only tell ye what I know. Some slipped out of myken entirely. Of others I have heard vague and incomplete accounts.The leaders of the insurrection got off much more lightly than theirfollowers, for they found that the passion of greed was even strongerthan the passion of cruelty. Grey, Buyse, Wade, and others boughtthemselves free at the price of all their possessions. Ferguson escaped.Monmouth was executed on Tower Hill, and showed in his last momentssome faint traces of that spirit which spurted up now and again from hisfeeble nature, like the momentary flash of an expiring fire.

  My father and my mother lived to see the Protestant religion regain itsplace once more, and to see England become the champion of the reformedfaith upon the Continent. Three years later I found them in Havant muchas I had left them, save that there were more silver hairs amongst thebrown braided tresses of my mother, and that my father's great shoulderswere a trifle bowed and his brow furrowed with the lines of care. Handin hand they passed onwards down life's journey, the Puritan and theChurch woman, and I have never despaired of the healing of religiousfeud in England since I have seen how easy it is for two folks to retainthe strongest belief in their own creeds, and yet to bear the heartiestlove and respect for the professor of another. The days may come whenthe Church and the Chapel may be as a younger and an elder brother,each working to one end, and each joying in the other's success. Letthe contest between them be not with pike and pistol, not with court andprison; but let the strife be which shall lead the higher life, whichshall take the broader view, which shall boast the happiest and bestcared-for poor. Then their rivalry shall be not a curse, but a blessingto this land of England.

  Reuben Lockarby was ill for many months, but when he at last recoveredhe found a pardon awaiting him through the interest of Major Ogilvy.After a time, when the troubles were all blown over, he married thedaughter of Mayor Timewell, and he still lives in Taunton, a well-to-doand prosperous citizen. Thirty years ago there was a little MicahLockarby, and now I am told that there is another, the son of the first,who promises to be as arrant a little Roundhead as ever marched to thetuck of drum.

  Of Saxon I have heard more than once. So skilfully did he use his holdover the Duke of Beaufort, that he was appointed through his interest tothe command of an expedition which had been sent to chastise the savagesof Virginia, who had wrought great cruelties upon the settlers. Therehe did so out-ambush their ambushes, and out-trick their most cunningwarriors, that he hath left a great name among them, and is stillremembered there by an Indian word which signifieth 'The long-leggedwily one with the eye of a rat.' Having at last driven the tribes farinto the wilderness he was presented with a tract of country for hisservices, where he settled down. There he married, and spent the rest ofhis days in rearing tobacco and in teaching the principles of war to along line of gaunt and slab-sided children. They tell me that a greatnation of exceeding strength and of wondrous size promises some day torise up on the other side of the water. If this should indeed come topass, it may perhaps happen that these young Saxons or their childrenmay have a hand in the building of it. God grant that they may neverlet their hearts harden to the little isle of the sea, which is and mustever be the cradle of their race.

  Solomon Sprent married and lived for many years as happily as hisfriends could wish. I had a letter from him when I was abroad, in whichhe said that though his consort and he had started alone on the voyageof wedlock, they were now accompanied by a jolly-boat and a gig. Onewinter's night when the snow was on the ground he sent down for myfather, who hurried up to his house. He found the old man sitting up inbed, with his flask of rumbo within reach, his tobacco-box beside him,and a great brown Bible balanced against his updrawn knees. He wasbreathing heavily, and was in sore distress.

  'I've strained a plank, and have nine feet in the well,' said he. 'Itcomes in quicker than I can put it out. In truth, friend, I have notbeen seaworthy this many a day, and it is time that I was condemned andbroken up.'

  My father shook his head sadly as he marked his dusky face and labouredbreathing. 'How of your soul?' he asked.

  'Aye!' said Solomon, 'that's a cargo that we carry under our hatches,though we can't see it, and had no hand in the stowing of it. I've beenoverhauling the sailing orders here, and the ten articles of war, but Ican't find that I've gone so far out of my course that I may not hope tocome into the channel again.'

  'Trust not in yourself, but in Christ,' said my father.

  'He is the pilot, in course,' replied the old seaman. 'When I had apilot aboard o' my ship, however, it was my way always to keep my ownweather eye open, d'ye see, and so I'll do now. The pilot don't thinknone the worse of ye for it. So I'll throw my own lead line, though Ihear as how there are no soundings in the ocean of God's mercy. Say,friend, d'ye think this very body, this same hull o' mine, will riseagain?'

  'So we are taught,' my father answered.

  'I'd know it anywhere from the tattoo marks,' said Solomon. 'They wasdone when I was with Sir Christopher in the West Indies, and I'd besorry to part with them. For myself, d'ye see, I've never borne ill-willto any one, not even to the Dutch lubbers, though I fought three warswi' them, and they carried off one of my spars, and be hanged to them!If I've let daylight into a few of them, d'ye see, it's all in goodpart and by way of duty. I've drunk my share--enough to sweeten mybilge-water--but there are few that have seen me cranky in theupper rigging or refusing to answer to my helm. I never drew pay orprize-money that my mate in distress was not welcome to the half of it.As to the Polls, the less said the better. I've been a true consortto my Phoebe since she agreed to look to me for signals. Those are mypapers, all clear and aboveboard. If I'm summoned aft this very night bythe great Lord High Admiral of all, I ain't afeared that He'll clap meinto the bilboes, for though I'm only a poor sailor man, I've got Hispromise in this here book, and I'm not afraid of His going back fromit.'

  My father sat with the old man for some hours and did all that he couldto comfort and assist him, for it was clear that he was sinking rapidly.When he at last left him, with his faithful wife beside him, he graspedthe brown but wasted hand which lay above the clothes.

  'I'll see you again soon,' he said.

  'Yes. In the latitude of heaven,' replied the dying seaman. Hisforebodi
ng was right, for in the early hours of the morning his wife,bending over him, saw a bright smile upon his tanned, weather-beatenface. Raising himself upon his pillow he touched his forelock, as isthe habit of sailor-men, and so sank slowly and peacefully back into thelong sleep which wakes when the night has ceased to be.

  You will ask me doubtless what became of Hector Marot and of the strangeshipload which had set sail from Poole Harbour. There was never a wordheard of them again, unless indeed a story which was spread some monthsafterwards by Captain Elias Hopkins, of the Bristol ship _Caroline_, maybe taken as bearing upon their fate. For Captain Hopkins relates that,being on his homeward voyage from our settlements, he chanced to meetwith thick fogs and a head wind in the neighbourhood of the great codbanks. One night as he was beating about, with the weather so thick thathe could scarce see the truck of his own mast, a most strange passagebefell him. For as he and others stood upon the deck, they heard totheir astonishment the sound of many voices joined in a great chorus,which was at first faint and distant, but which presently waxed andincreased until it appeared to pass within a stone-throw of his vessel,when it slowly died away once more and was lost in the distance. Therewere some among the crew who set the matter down as the doing of theevil one, but, as Captain Elias Hopkins was wont to remark, it was astrange thing that the foul fiend should choose West-country hymns forhis nightly exercise, and stranger still that the dwellers in the pitshould sing with a strong Somersetshire burr. For myself, I have littledoubt that it was indeed the _Dorothy Fox_ which had swept past in thefog, and that the prisoners, having won their freedom, were celebratingtheir delivery in true Puritan style. Whether they were driven on to therocky coast of Labrador, or whether they found a home in some desolateland whence no kingly cruelty could harry them, is what must remain forever unknown.

  Zachariah Palmer lived for many years, a venerable and honoured old man,before he, too, was called to his fathers. A sweet and simple villagephilosopher he was, with a child's heart in his aged breast. The verythought of him is to me as the smell of violets; for if in my views oflife and in my hopes of the future I differ somewhat from the hard andgloomy teaching of my father, I know that I owe it to the wise wordsand kindly training of the carpenter. If, as he was himself wont tosay, deeds are everything in this world and dogma is nothing, then hissinless, blameless life might be a pattern to you and to all. May thedust lie light upon him!

  One word of another friend--the last mentioned, but not the leastvalued. When Dutch William had been ten years upon the English thronethere was still to be seen in the field by my father's house a tall,strong-boned horse, whose grey skin was flecked with dashes of white.And it was ever observed that, should the soldiers be passing fromPortsmouth, or should the clank of trumpet or the rattle of drum breakupon his ear, he would arch his old neck, throw out his grey-streakedtail, and raise his stiff knees in a pompous and pedantic canter. Thecountry folk would stop to watch these antics of the old horse, and thenthe chances are that one of them would tell the rest how that chargerhad borne one of their own village lads to the wars, and how, when therider had to fly the country, a kindly sergeant in the King's troopshad brought the steed as a remembrance of him to his father at home. SoCovenant passed the last years of his life, a veteran among steeds, wellfed and cared for, and much given, mayhap, to telling in equine languageto all the poor, silly country steeds the wonderful passages which hadbefallen him in the West.