I ENLIST AN ARMY.
"If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet."
_Sir John Falstaff_.
My father turned to me as they descended the stair. "This is all
very well, lad," said he, "but we have yet to find our army.
After the murder of Julius Caesar, now--"
"I did enact Julius Caesar once," quoted Mr. Fett, in parenthesis.
"I was killed i' the capitol; Brutus killed me."
My father frowned. "After the murder of Julius Caesar, when the mob
for two days had Rome at their mercy, I have read somewhere that two
men appeared out of nowhere, and put themselves at the head of the
rioters. None knew them; but so boldly they comported themselves,
heading the charges, marshalling the ranks, here throwing up
barricades, there plucking down doors and gates, breaking open the
prisons and setting fire to private houses, that presently the
whisper spread they were Castor and Pollux; till, at length, falling
into the hands of the aediles, these _dioscuri_ were found to be two
poor lunatics escaped from a house of detention. If we could
discover another such pair among the mob, now!"
"We are wasting time here for certain," said I. "And where, by the
way, is Billy Priske?"
"If you waste your time upstairs here, gentlemen," said Miss
Whiteaway, "belike you may do better in the parlour, where I had
prepared for some friends of mine with two-three chickens and a ham."
"Ah, to be sure," said I; "the packet-men!"
"Never you worry, young sir," she answered tartly, "so long as they
don't mind eating after their betters. And as for your man Priske, I
saw him twenty minutes ago escape towards Church Street with the
Methodists."
"Hang it!" put in Nat Fiennes, "if I hadn't clean forgotten the
Methodists!"
"We left them scurvily," said I; "every Jack and Jill of them but our
friend here." I nodded toward the little man in black. "And he not
only saved himself, but was half the battle."
The little man seemed to come out of himself with a start, and gazed
from one to another of us perplexedly.
"Excuse me, gentlemen." He drew himself up with dignity.
"Do my ears deceive me, or are you mistaking me for a Methodist?"
"Indeed, and are you not, sir?" asked my father. "Why, good God,
gentlemen!--if you'll excuse me--but I'm the parish clerk of
Axminster!"
My father recovered himself with a bow. "In Devon?" he asked
gravely, after a pause in which our silence paid tribute to the
announcement.
"In Devon, sir; a county remarkable for its attachment to the
principles of the Church of England. And that I should have lived to
be mistaken for a Methodist!"
"But, surely, John Wesley himself is a Clerk in Holy Orders? and, I
have heard, a great stickler for the Church's authority."
"He may say so, sir," answered the little man, darkly. "He may say
so. But, if he means it, why does he go about encouraging such a
low class of people? A man, sir, is known by the company he keeps."
"Is that in the Bible?" my father inquired. "I seem to remember, on
the contrary, that in the matter of consorting with publicans and
sinners--"
"It won't work, sir. It has been tried in Axminster before now, and
you may take my word for it that it won't work. You mustn't suppose,
gentlemen," he went on, including us all in the argument, "you
mustn't take me for one of those parrot-Christians who just echo what
they hear in the pulpits on Sundays. I _think_ about these things;
and I find that your extreme doctrines may do all very well for the
East and for hot countries where you can go about half-naked and
nobody takes any notice; but the Church of England, as its name
implies, is the only Church for England. A truly Christian Church,
gentlemen, because it selects its doctrines from the Gospels; and
English, sir, to the core, because it selects 'em with a special view
to the needs of our beloved country. And what (if I may so put it)
is the basis of that selection? The same, sirs, which we all admit
to be the basis of England's welfare and the foundation of her
society; in other words, the land. The land, gentlemen, is solid;
and our reformed religion (say what you will, I am not denying that
it has, and will ever have, its detractors) is the religion for solid
Englishmen."
My father put out a hand and arrested Mr. Fett, who had been
regarding the speaker with joyful admiration, and at this point made
a movement to embrace him.
"I must have his name!" murmured Mr. Fett. "He shall at least tell
us his name!"
"Badcock, sir; Ebenezer Badcock," answered the little man, producing
a black-edged visiting-card.
"But," urged my father, "you must forgive us, Mr. Badcock, if we find
it hard to reconcile your conduct this morning with these sentiments,
on which, for the moment, I offer no comment except that they are
admirably expressed. What song the Sirens sang, Mr. Badcock, or what
name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, are questions
(as Sir Thomas Browne observes) not beyond conjecture, albeit the
Emperor Tiberius posed his grammarians with 'em. But when a man
openly champions street-preaching, and goes on to lay about him with
a mace--"
"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Badcock, with sudden eagerness. "And what--by
the way, sir--did you think of that performance?"
"Why, to be sure, you behaved valiantly."
The little man blushed with pleasure. "You really think so?
It struck you in that light, did it? Well, now I am glad--yes, sir,
and proud--to hear that opinion; because, to tell you the truth, I
thought it pretty fair myself. The fact is, gentlemen, I wasn't
altogether sure what my behaviour would be at the critical moment.
You may deem it strange that a man should arrive at my time of life
without being sure whether he's a coward or a brave man; but
Axminster--if you knew the place--affords few opportunities for that
sort of thing."
"Allow us to reassure you, then," said my father. "But there remains
the question, why you did it?"
Mr. Badcock rubbed his hands. "Appearances were against me, I'll
allow," he answered, with a bashful chuckle; "but you may set it down
to tchivalry. We all have our weaknesses, I hope, sir; and tchivalry
is mine."
"Chivalry?" echoed my father.
"You spell it with an 's'? Excuse me; whatever schooling I have
picked up has been at odd times; but I am always open to correction,
I thank the Lord."
"But why call it a weakness, Mr. Badcock?"
"Call it a hobby; call it what you like. _I_ look upon it as a debt,
sir, due to the memory of my late wife. An admirable woman, sir, and
by name Artemisia; which, I have sometimes thought, may partially
account for it. Allow me, gentlemen." He drew a small shagreen case
from his breast-pocket, opened it, and displayed a miniature.
"Her portrait?"
"In a sense. As a matter of fact, I will not conceal from you,
gentlemen, that it came to me in the form of a pledge--that being my
late profession--and I have never been able to trace the original.
But, as I said when first I showed it to the late Mrs. B., 'My dear,
you might have sat for it.' A well-developed woman, gentlemen,
though in the end she went out like the snuff of a candle, that being
the way sometimes with people who have never known an hour's
sickness. 'Am I really like that, Ebenezer?' she asked. 'In your
prime, my dear,' said I--she having married me late in life owing to
her romantic nature--'in your prime, my dear, I'll defy any one to
tell you and this party from two peas.' 'I wish I knew who she was,'
said my wife. 'Hadn't you best leave well alone?' said I; 'for I
declare till this moment I hadn't dreamed that another such woman as
yourself existed in the world, and it gives me a kind of bigamous
feeling which I can't say I find altogether unpleasant.' 'Then I'll
keep the thing,' says she, very positively, 'until the owner turns up
and redeems it;' which he never did, being, as I discovered, a
strolling portrait painter very much down on his luck. So there the
mystery remained. But (as I was telling you), though a first-rate
manager, my poor dear wife had a number of romantic notions; and
often she has said to me after I'd shut up shop, 'If wishes grew on
brambles, Ebenezer, it's not a pawnbroker's wife I'd be at this
moment.' 'Well, my dear,' I'd say to soothe her, 'there _is_ a
little bit of that about the profession, now you come to mention it.'
'And them there was a time,' she'd go on, 'when I dreamed of marryin'
a red-cross knight!' 'I have my higher moments, Artemisia,' I'd say,
half in joke; 'Why not try shutting your eyes?' But afterwards, when
that splendid woman was gone for ever, and my daughter Heeb (which is
a classical name given her by her mother) comfortably married to a
wholesale glover, and me left at home a solitary grandfather--which,
proud as you may be of it, is a slight occupation--I began to think
things over and find there was more in my poor wife's notions than
I'd ever allowed. And the upshot was that seeing this advertisement
by chance in a copy of the _Sherborne Messenger_, I determined to
shut up shop and let Axminster think I was gone on a holiday, while I
gave it a trial; for, you see, I was not altogether sure of myself."
"Excuse me, Badcock," interrupted Mr. Fett, advancing towards him
with outstretched arms; "but have you perused the books of chivalry,
or is this the pure light of nature?"
"Books, sir?" answered Mr. Badcock, seriously. "I never knew there
were any books about it. I never heard of tchivalry except from my
late wife; and you'll excuse the force of habit, but she pronounced
it the same as in chibbles."
"You never read of the meeting of Amadis and Sir Galaor?"
Mr. Badcock shook his head.
"Nor of Percival and Galahad, nor of Sir Balin and Sir Balan? No?
Then embrace me!"
"Sir?"
"Embrace me!"
"Sit down, the pair of you," my father commanded. "I have a proposal
to make, which, if I mistake not, will interest you both.
Mr. Badcock, I have heard your aspirations, and can fulfil them in a
degree that will surprise you. I like you, Mr. Badcock."
"The feeling, sir, is mutchual." Mr. Badcock bowed with much
amiability.
"Is time an object with you?"
"None whatever, sir. I am on a holiday."
"Will you be my guest to-night?"
"With the more pleasure, sir, after my experience of the inns in
these parts. Though I may have presented her to you in a somewhat
romantic light, my Artemisia _did_ know how to make a bed; and
twenty-two years of her ministrations, not to mention her
companionship, have coddled me in this particular."
"And you, sir"--my father turned to Mr. Fett--"will you accompany
us?"
"With what ulterior object?" demanded Mr. Fett. "You will excuse my
speaking as a business man, and overlook the damned bad manners of
the question for the sake of its pertinence."
My father smiled. "Why, sir, I was proposing to invite you to a sea
voyage with me."
"There was a time, before commerce claimed me, when the mere hint of
a nautical expedition had evoked an emotion which, if it survive at
all, lingers but as in a sea-shell the whisper of the parent ocean."
"As a supercargo, at four shillings _per diem_," suggested my father.
"Say no more, sir; I am yours."
"As for Mr. Fiennes--nay, lad, I remember you well." My father
turned to him with that sweet courtesy which few ever resisted.
"And blush not, lad, if I guess that to you we all owe this meeting;
'twere a bravery well beseeming your blood. As for Mr. Fiennes, he
will accompany us in heart if he cannot in presence--being, as I
understand, destined for the law?"
"Why, sir, as for that," stammered Nat, "I have had the devil's own
dispute with my father."
"You treated him with all respect, I hope?"
"With all the respect in the world, sir. But it scarcely matters,
since he has cast me off, and without a penny."
"Why, then, you can come too!" cried my father, gripping him by the
hand. "Bravo, Prosper! that makes five; and with Billy Priske, when
we can find him, six; and that leaves but one to find before
dinner-time." He pulled out his watch. "Lord!" he cried, "and 'tis
high time to feel hungry, too. If this lady now will repeat her
hospitable offer--"
I thought at the moment, and I thought once or twice during the meal
downstairs, that my father was taxing this poor woman's hospitality.
I doubted that he, himself so carelessly hospitable, might forget to
offer her payment; and lingered after the others had trooped into the
passage, with purpose to remind him privately.
"Come," said he, and made a notion to leave, still without offering
to pay. On the threshold I had almost turned to whisper to him when
the woman came after and touched his arm.
"Nay, Sir John," said she, eagerly, in a low hoarse voice, "let the
lad hear me thank you. He is old enough to understand and clean
enough to profit. Shut the door, child. You know me, Sir John?"
My father bent his head. "I never forget a face," said he, quietly.
"Take notice of that, boy. Your father remembers me, whom to my
knowledge he never saw but once, and then as a magistrate, when he
sat to judge me. Never mind the offence, lad. I am a sinful woman,
and the punishment was--"
"Nay, nay!" put in my father, gently.
"The punishment was," she continued, hardening her voice, "to strip
me to the waist and whip me in public. The law allowed this, and
this they would have done to me. But your father, being chairman of
the bench--for the offence lay outside the borough--would have none
of it, and argued and forced three other magistrates to give way.
Little good he did, you may say, seeing that my name is such in
Falmouth that, only by entering my door, the Mayor just now did what
all his cleverness could never have done--stopped a riot by a silly
brutal laugh--the chief magistrate taking shelter with Moll
Whiteaway! You can't get below that for fun, as the folk will take
it; and yet I say your father did good, for he saved me from the
worst. And to-day of his goodness he has not remembered my sins, but
treated me as though they were not; and today, as only a good man
can, he goes from my house, no man thinking to laugh except at his
simplicity, even though it were known that I kissed his hand.
God bless you, Sir John, and teach your son to be merciful to women!"
My father was ever so shy of his own kind actions that, when detected
by chance or painfully tracked out in one, he kept always a quotation
ready to justify what pure impulse had prompted. So now, as we
hurried across the deserted Market Strand to catch up with the other
three, he must needs brazen things out with the authority of Bishop
Jeremy Taylor.
"It was a maxim of that excellent divine," said he, "that Christian
censure should never be used to make a sinner desperate; for then he
either sinks under the burden or grows impudent and tramples upon it.
A charitable modest remedy, says he, preserves that which is virtue's
girdle-fear and blushing. Honour, dear lad, is the peculiar
counsellor of well-bred natures, and these are few; but almost in all
men you will find a certain modesty toward sin, and were I a king my
judges should be warned that their duty is to chasten; whereas by
punishing immoderately they can but effect the exact opposite."
We found our trio waiting for us on the far side of the square; and,
having fetched our horses and left an order at the inn for Billy
Priske on his return to mount and follow us, wended our way out of
the town. The streets on this side were deserted and mournful, the
shopkeepers having fastened their shutters for fear of the mob, of
whose present doings no sound reached us but a faint murmuring hubbub
borne on the afternoon air from the northward--that is, from the
direction of the Green Bank and the Penryn Road.
My father led the way at a foot's pace, and seemed to ride pondering,
for his chin was sunk on his chest and he had pulled his hat-brim
well over his eyes (but this may have been against the July sun).
After him tramped Mr. Fett in eager converse with the little
pawnbroker, now questioning him, now halting to regard him, as a man
who has dug up a sudden treasure and for the moment can only gaze at
it and hug himself. Nat and I brought up the rear, he striding at my
stirrup and pouring forth the tale of his adventures since we parted.
A dozen times he rehearsed the scene of the parental quarrel, and
interrupted each rehearsal with a dozen anxious questions. "Ought he
to have given this answer?--to have uttered that defiance? Did I
think he had shown self-control; Had he treated the old gentleman
with becoming respect? Would I put myself in his place? Suppose it
had been my own father, now--"
"But yours, lad, is a father in a thousand," he broke off bitterly.
"I had never a notion that father and son could be friends, as are
you and he. He is splendid--splendid!"
I glanced at him quickly and turned my face aside, suspecting that he
took my father for a madman, and was kindly concealing the discovery.
Nevertheless I hardened my voice to answer--
"You will say so when you know him better. And my Uncle Gervase runs
him a good second."
"Faith, then, I wish you'd persuade your uncle to adopt me. I'm not
envious, Prosper, in a general way, but your luck gives me a duced
orphanly feeling. Have I been over-hasty? That is the question;
whether 'twas nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of
accusing conscience or to up and have it out with the old man."
"Pardon me, gentlemen"--Mr. Fett wheeled about suddenly on the road
ahead of us--"but it was by accident that I overheard you, and by a
singular coincidence at that moment I happened to be discussing the
same subject with Mr. Badcock here."
"What subject?"
"Missiles, sir. It appears that, when his blood is up, Mr. Badcock
finds himself absolutely careless of missiles. He declares that,
with a sense of smell as acute as most men's, he was unaware to-day
of having been struck with a rotten egg until I, at ten paces'
distance, drew his attention to it. Now, that is a degree of
courage--insensibility--call it what you will--to which I make no
pretence. The cut and thrust, gentlemen, the couched lance, even,
within limits, the battering ram, would have, I feel confident,
comparatively few terrors for me. But missiles I abominate.
Drawing, as I am bound to do, my anticipations of the tented field
from experience gathered--I say it literally, gathered--before the
footlights, I confess to some sympathy with the gentleman who assured
Harry Percy that but for these vile guns he would himself have been a
soldier. You will not misunderstand me. I believe on my faith that
as a military man I was born out of my time. The scythed chariots of
Boadicea, for instance, must have been damned inconvenient; yet I can
conceive myself jumping 'em. But a stone, as I learnt in my
boyhood--a stone, sirs, and _a fortiori_ a bullet--"
"Hist!" broke in my father, at the same moment reining up.
"Prosper, what do you make of that noise, up yonder?"
I listened. "It sounds to me like a heavy cart--"
"Or a waggon. To my hearing there are two horses."
"And runaway ones, by the shouting."
We had reached a point of the road, not far from home, where a steep
lane cut across it: a track seldom used but scored with old ruts,
sunk between hedges full sixteen feet high, leading down from a back
gate of Constantine and a deserted lodge to a quay by the waterside.
Not once in three months, within my remembrance, did cart or waggon
pass along this lane, which indeed grew a fine crop of grass and
docks between the ruts.
"Nay," said my father, after a few seconds, "I gave you a false
alarm, gentlemen. The shouting, whatever it means, is over.
Your pardon, Mr. Fett, that I interrupted you."
"Sir," said Mr. Fett, stepping put him to reconnoitre the lane,
"I was but remarking what a number of the wise have observed before
me, that a stone which has left the hand is in the hands of the
dev--"
He ducked his head with a cry as a stone whizzed past him and within
a foot of it. On the instant the loud rattle and thunder of
cartwheels broke forth again, and now but a short distance up the
lane; also a voice almost as loudly vociferating; and, almost before
Mr. Fett could run back to us, a whole volley of stones flew hurtling
across the road.
"Hi, there! Halt!" My father struck spur and rode forward, in time
to catch at and check the leader of two horses slithering downhill
tandem-fashion before the weight of a heavy cart. "Confound you,
sir! What the devil d'you mean by flinging stones in this manner
across the middle of the King's highway."
The man--he was one of the seamen of the _Gauntlet_--stood up in the
cart upon a load of stones and grinned. In one hand he gripped the
reins, in the other a fistful of flints.
"Your honour's pardon," said he, lifting his forearm and drawing the
back of it across his dripping brow, "but the grey mare for'rad won't
pull, and the whip here won't reach her. I couldn't think upon no
better way."
"You mean to tell me you have been pelting that poor brute all down
the lane?"
"I couldn't think upon no better way," the seaman repeated wistfully,
almost plaintively. "She's what you might call sensitive to stones."
"Intelligent beast!" commented Mr. Fett. "And I bought that mare
only six months ago!" (In truth my father had found the poor
creature wandering the roads and starving, cast off by her owner as
past work, and had purchased her out of mere humanity for thirty
shillings.)
"But what business have you to be driving my cart and horses?" he
demanded. "And what's the meaning of these stones you're carting?"
"Ballast, your honour."
"Ballast?"
"I don't know how much of it'll ever arrive at this rate," confessed
the seaman, dropping the handful of flints and scratching his head.
"Tis buying speed at a terrible cost of jettison. But Cap'n Pomery's
last order to me was to make haste about it, if we're to catch
to-morrow's tide."
"Captain Pomery sent you for these stones?"
"Why, Lord love your honour, a vessel can't discharge two dozen
Papist monks and cattle and implements to correspond without wantin'
_something_ in their place. Nice flat stones, too, the larger-sized
be, and not liable to shift in a sea-way."
But here another strange noise drew our eyes up the lane, as an old
man in a smock-frock--a pensioner of the estate, and by name John
Worthyvale--came hobbling round the corner and down the hill towards
us, using his long-handled road hammer for a staff and uttering
shrill tremulous cries of rage.
"Vengeance, Sir John! Vengeance for my l'il heap o' stones!"
"Why, Worthyvale, what's the matter?" asked my father, soothingly.
"My l'il heap o' stones, Sir John; my poor l'il heap o' stones!
What's to become o' me, master? Where will your kindness find a
bellyful for me, if these murderin' seamen take away my l'il heap o'
stones?"
My father laid a hand on the old man's shoulder.
"Captain Pomery wants them for ballast, Worthyvale. You understand?
It appears he can find none so suitable.''
"No, I _don't_ understand!" exclaimed the old fellow, fiercely.
"This has been a black week for me, Sir John. First of all my
darter's youngest darter comes and tells me she've picked up with a
man. Seems 'twas only last year she was runnin' about in short
frocks; but, dang it! the time must ha' slipped away somehow whilst
I've a-sat hammerin' stones, an' now there'll be no person left to
mind me. Next news, I hear from Master Gervase that you be goin'
foreign, Sir John, with Master Prosper here. The world gets that
empty, I wish I were dead, I do. An' now they've a-took my l'il heap
o' stones!"
"And this old man's sires," said my father to me, but so that he did
not hear, "held land in Domesday Book--twelve virgates of land with
close on forty carucates of arable, villeins and borderers and
bondservants, six acres of wood, a hundred and twenty of pasture; and
he makes his last stand on this heap of stones. Ballast?" He turned
to the seaman. "Did I not tell Captain Pomery to ballast with wine?"
"We were carrying it all the forenoon," the seaman answered.
"There was two hogsheads of claret."
"And the hogshead of Madeira, with what remained of the brown sherry?
Likewise in bottles twelve dozen of the Hermitage and as much again
of the Pope's wine, of Avignon?"
"It all went in, sir. Master Gervase checked it on board by the
list."
"For the rest we are reduced to stones? Then, Prosper, there remains
no other course open to us."
"Than what, sir?" I asked.
"We must enlist this old man; and that fulfils our number."
"Old John Worthyvale?"
"Why not? He can sit in the hold and crack stones until I devise his
part in the campaign. Say no more. I have an inkling he will prove
not the least useful man of our company."
"As to that, sir," I answered, with a shrug of the shoulders and a
glance at Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock, "I don't feel able to contradict
you."
"Then here we are assembled," said my father, cheerfully, with the
air of one closing a discussion; "the more by token that here comes
Billy Priske. Why, man," he asked, as Billy rode up--but so
dejectedly that his horse seemed to droop its ears in sympathy--
"what ails you? Not wounded, are you?"
"Worse," answered Billy, and groaned.
"We were told you got quit of the crowd.
"So I did," said Billy. "Damn it!"
"They followed you?" I asked.
"No, they didn't, and I wish they had."
"Then what on earth has happened?"
"What has happened?" Having no hair of his own to speak of, Billy
reached forward and ran his fingers through his horse's mane.
"I've engaged to get married. That's what has happened."
"Good Lord!"
"To a female Methody, in a Quaker bonnet. I had no idea of any such
thing when I followed her. She was sittin' on the first milestone
out of Falmouth and jabbin' her heel into the dust, like a person in
a pet. First of all, when I spoke to her, she wouldn't tell what had
annoyed her; but later on it turned out she had come expectin' to be
made a martyr of, and everything was lookin' keenly that way until
Sir John came and interfered, as she put it."
"And she said," suggested Mr. Fett, "that she didn't mind what man
could do unto her?"
"The very words she used, sir!" said Billy, his brow clearing as a
prisoner's will when counsel supplies him with a defence.
"And, when you took her at her word, like a Christian woman she
turned the other cheek?"
"She did, sir, and no harm meant; but just doing it gay, as a man
will."
"But when you explained this, she wouldn't take no for an answer?"
"She would not, sir. She seemed not to understand. Then I looked at
her bonnet and, a thought striking me, I tried `nay' instead.
But that didn't work no better than the other. If you could hide me
for tonight, Sir John--"
"You had best sleep on the _Gauntlet_ to-night," said my father.
"If the woman calls, I will have a talk with her. What is her name,
by the way?"
"Martha."
"But I mean her full name."
"I didn't get so far as to inquire, Sir John. But the point is, she
knows mine."