they must have thought him sevenfold so. Instead of doctrines and such
pagan things, he talked solemnly of "centring down"; "being renewedly
made sensible"; "having his mind drawn to this and that thing"; "feeling
himself dipped into deep baptism"; "feeling a sense of duty"; and of
"seeing, or not seeing his way clear" into this or that matter. But his
master phrase was "living near to the truth"; and often, when other
people thought him particularly provoking and insulting, it was only
"because he hated a lie and the father of lies." Johnny thought that he
lived so near to the truth, that you would have thought Truth was his
next-door neighbor, or his lodger, and not living down at the bottom of
her well as she long has been.
Truly was that religious world in which Johnny Darbyshire lived a most
singular one. In that part of the country, George Fox had been
particularly zealous and well received. A simple country people was just
the people to be affected by his warm eloquence and strong manly sense.
He settled many meetings there, which, however, William Penn may be said
to have unsettled by his planting of Pennsylvania. These Friends flocked
over thither with, or after him, and left a mere remnant behind them.
This remnant--and it was like the remnant in a draper's shop, a very
old-fashioned one--continued still to keep up their meetings, and carry
on their affairs as steadily and gravely as Fox and his contemporaries
did, if not so extensively and successfully. They had a meeting at
Codnor Breach, at Monny-Ash in the Peak, at Pentridge, at Toad-hole
Furnace, at Chesterfield, etc. Most of these places were thoroughly
country places, some of them standing nearly alone in the distant
fields; and the few members belonging to them might be seen on Sundays,
mounted on strong horses, a man and his wife often on one, on saddle and
pillion, or in strong tax-carts; and others, generally the young,
proceeding on foot over fields and through woods, to these meetings.
They were truly an old-world race, clad in very old-world garments.
Arrived at their meeting, they sate generally an hour and three quarters
in profound silence, for none of them had a minister in them, and then
returned again. In winter they generally had a good fire in a chamber,
and sate comfortably round it.
Once a month, they jogged off in similar style to one of these meetings
in particular, to what they called their monthly meeting, where they
paid in their subscriptions for the poor, and other needs of the
society, and read over and made answers to a set of queries on the moral
and religious state of their meetings. One would have thought that this
business must be so very small that it would be readily despatched; but
not so. Small enough, Heaven knows! it was; but then they made a
religious duty of its transaction, and went through it as solemnly and
deliberately as if the very salvation of the kingdom depended on it. O,
what a mighty balancing of straws was there! In answering the query,
whether their meetings were pretty regularly kept up and attended,
though perhaps there was but half a dozen members to one meeting, yet
would it be weighed and weighed again whether the phrase should be, that
it was "pretty well attended," or "indifferently attended," or
"attended, with some exceptions." This stupendous business having,
however, at length been got through, then all the men adjourned to the
room where the women had, for the time, been just as laboriously and
gravely engaged; and a table was soon spread by a person agreed with,
with a good substantial dinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding; and the
good people grew right sociable, chatty, and even merry in their way;
while, all the time in the adjoining stable, or, as in one case, in the
stable under them, their steeds, often rough, wild creatures, thrust
perhaps twenty into a stable without dividing stalls, were kicking,
squealing, and rioting in a manner that obliged some of the good people
occasionally to rise from their dinners, and endeavor to diffuse a
little of their own quietness among them. Or in summer their horses
would be all loose in the graveyard before the meeting, rearing,
kicking, and screaming in a most furious manner; which, however, only
rarely seemed to disturb the meditations of their masters and
mistresses.
And to these monthly meetings over what long and dreary roads, on what
dreadfully wet and wintry days, through what mud and water, did these
simple and pious creatures, wrapped in great-coats and thick cloaks, and
defended with oil-skin hoods, travel all their lives long? Not a soul
was more punctual in attendance than Johnny Darbyshire. He was a little
man, wearing a Quaker suit of drab, his coat long, his hat not cocked
but slouched, and his boots well worn and well greased.
Peaceful as he sate in these meetings, yet out of them, as I have
remarked, he was a very Tartar, and he often set himself to execute what
he deemed justice in a very dogged and original style. We may, as a
specimen, take this instance. On his way to his regular meeting he had
to pass through a toll-bar; and being on Sundays exempt by law from
paying at it, it may be supposed that the bar-keeper did not fling open
the gate often with the best grace. One Sunday evening, however, Johnny
Darbyshire had, from some cause or other, stayed late with his friends
after afternoon meeting. When he passed through the toll-gate he gave
his usual nod to the keeper, and was passing on; but the man called out
to demand the toll, declaring that it was no longer Sunday night, but
Monday morning, being past twelve o'clock.
"Nay, friend, thou art wrong," said Johnny, pulling out his watch: "see,
it yet wants a quarter."
"No, I tell you," replied the keeper, gruffly, "it is past twelve. Look,
there is my clock."
"Ay, friend, but thy clock, like thyself, doesn't speak the truth. Like
its master, it is a little too hasty. I assure thee my watch is right,
for I just now compared it by the steeple-house clock in the town."
"I tell you," replied the keeper, angrily, "I've nothing to do with your
watch; I go by my clock, and there it is."
"Well, I think thou art too exact with me, my friend."
"Will you pay me or not?" roared the keeper; "you go through often
enough in the devil's name without paying."
"Gently, gently, my friend," replied Johnny; "there is the money: and
it's really after twelve o'clock, thou says?"
"To be sure."
"Well, very well; then, for the next twenty-four hours I can go through
again without paying?"
"To be sure; everybody knows that."
"Very well, then I now bid thee farewell." And with that, Johnny
Darbyshire jogged on. The gatekeeper, chuckling at having at last
extorted a double toll from the shrewd Quaker, went to bed, not on that
quiet road expecting further disturbance till towards daylight; but,
just as he was about to pop into bed, he heard some one ride up and cry,
"Gate!"
Internally cursing the late traveller, he threw on his things and
descended to open the gate, when he was astonished to see the Quaker
returned.
"Thou says it really _is_ past twelve, friend?"
"To be sure."
"Then open the gate: I have occasion to ride back again."
The gate flew open, Johnny Darbyshire trotted back towards the town, and
the man, with double curses in his mind, returned up stairs. This time
he was not so sure of exemption from interruption, for he expected the
Quaker would in a while be coming back homewards again. And he was quite
right. Just as he was about to put out his candle, there was a cry of
"Gate." He descended, and behold the Quaker once more presented himself.
"It really _is_ past twelve, thou says?"
"Umph!" grunted the fellow.
"Then, of course, I have nothing more to pay. I would not, however,
advise thee to go to bed to-night, for it is so particularly fine that
I propose to enjoy it by riding to and fro here a few hours."
The fellow, who now saw Johnny Darbyshire's full drift, exclaimed,
"Here, for God's sake, sir, take your money back, and let me get a wink
of sleep."
But Johnny refused to receive the money, observing, "If it _was_ after
twelve, then the money is justly thine; but I advise thee another time
not to be _too_ exact." And with that he rode off.
Such was his shrewd, restless, domineering character, that his old
friend, the neighboring miller, a shrewd fellow too, thought there must
be something in Quakerism which contributed to this, and was therefore
anxious to attend their meetings, and see what it was. How great,
however, was his astonishment, on accompanying Johnny, to find about
half a dozen people all sitting with their hats on for a couple of hours
in profound silence; except a few shufflings of feet, and blowing of
noses; and then all start up, shake hands, and hurry off.
"Why, Master Darbyshire," said the dry old miller, "how is this? Do you
sit without parson or clerk, and expect to learn religion by looking at
your shoe-toes? By Leddy! this warn't th' way George Fox went on. He was
a very talking man, or he would na ha' got such a heap of folks
together, as he did. You've clearly gotten o' th' wrong side o' th'
post, Johnny, depend on't; an' I dunna wonder now that you've dwindled
awee so."
But if Johnny was as still as a fish at the Quaker meetings, he had
enough to say at home, and at the parish meetings. He had such a spice
of the tyrant in him, that he could not even entertain the idea of
marrying, without it must be a sort of shift for the mastery. He,
therefore, not only cast his eye on one of the most high-spirited women
that he knew in his own society, but actually one on the largest scale
of physical dimensions. If he had one hero of his admiration more than
another, it was a little dwarf at Mansfield, who used to wear a
soldier's jacket, and who had taken it into his head to marry a very
tall woman, whom he had reduced to such perfect subjection, that he used
from time to time to evince his mastery by mounting a round table and
making the wife walk round it while he belabored her lustily with a
strap.
Johnny, having taken his resolve, made no circumbendibus in his
addresses; but one day, as he was alone in the company of the lady, by
name Lizzy Lorimer,--"Lizzy," said he, "I'll tell thee what I have been
thinking about. I think thou'd make me a very good wife."
"Well," replied Lizzy; "sure, isn't that extraordinary? I was just
thinking the very same thing."
"That's right! Well done, my wench,--now that's what I call hitting the
nail on the head, like a right sensible woman!" cried Johnny, fetching
her a slap on the shoulder, and laughing heartily. "That's doing the
thing now to some tune. I'm for none of your dilly-dally ways. I once
knew a young fellow that was desperately smitten by a young woman, and
though he could pluck up courage enough to go and see her, he couldn't
summon courage enough to speak out his mind when he got there; and so he
and the damsel sate opposite one another before the fire. She knew well
enough all the while--you're sharp enough, you women--what he was
after; and there they sate and sate, and at last he picked up a cinder
off the hearth, and looking very foolish, said, 'I've a good mind to
fling a cowk at thee!' At which the brave wench, in great contempt,
cried, 'I'll soon fling one at thee, if thou artn't off!' That's just as
thou'd ha' done, Lizzy, and as I shouldn't," said Johnny, gayly, and
laughing more heartily than before.
That was the sum and substance of Johnny Darbyshire's courtship. All the
world said the trouble would come afterwards; but if it did come, it was
not to Johnny. Never was chanticleer so crouse on his own dung-hill, as
Johnny Darbyshire was in his own house. He was lord and master there to
a certainty. In doors and out, he shouted, hurried, ran to and fro, and
made men, maids, and Lizzy herself, fly at his approach, as if he had
got a whole cargo of Mercury's wings, and put them on their feet. It was
the same in parish affairs; and the fame of Johnny's eloquence at
vestries is loud to this day. On one occasion there was a most hot
debate on the voting of a church-rate, which should embrace a new
pulpit. Johnny had hurt his foot with a stub of wood as he was hurrying
on his men at work in thinning a plantation. It had festered and
inflamed his leg to a terrible size; but, spite of that, he ordered out
his cart with a bed laid in it, and came up to the door of the
vestry-room, where he caused himself to be carried in on the bed, and
set on the vestry-room floor, not very distant from the clergyman. Here
he waited, listening first to one speaker and then another, till the
debate had grown very loud, when he gave a great hem; and all were
silent, for every one knew that Johnny was going to speak.
"Now, I'll tell you what, lads," said Johnny; "you've made noise enough
to frighten all the jackdaws out of the steeple, and there they are
flying all about with a pretty cawarring. You've spun a yarn as long as
all the posts and rails round my seven acres, and I dunna see as you've
yet hedged in so much as th' owd wise men o' Gotham did, and that's a
cuckoo. I've heard just one sensible word, and that was to recommend a
cast-iron pulpit, in preference to a wooden 'un. As to a church-rate to
repair th' owd steeple-house, why, my advice is to pull th' owd thing
down, stick and stone, and mend your roads with it. It's a capital heap
o' stone in it, that one must allow,--and your roads are pestilent bad.
Down with the old daw-house, I say, and mend th' roads wi' 't, and set
th' parson here up for a guide-post. Oh! it's a rare 'un he'd make; for
he's always pointing th' way to the folks, but I never see that he moves
one inch himself."
"Mr. Darbyshire," exclaimed the clergyman, in high resentment, "that is
very uncivil in my presence, to say the least of it."
"Civil or uncivil," returned Johnny; "it's the truth, lad, and thou can
take it just as thou likes. I did not come here to bandy compliments; so
I may as well be hanged for an old sheep as for a lamb,--we'll not make
two mouthfuls of a cherry; my advice is then to have a cast-iron pulpit,
by all means, and while you are about it, a cast-iron parson, too. It
will do just as well as our neighbor Diggory Dyson here, and a plaguy
deal cheaper, for it will require neither tithes, glebe, Easter-dues,
nor church-rates!"
Having delivered himself of this remarkable oration, to the great
amusement of his fellow-parishioners, and the equal exasperation of the
clergyman, Johnny ordered himself to be again hoisted into his cart, and
rode home in great glory, boasting that he had knocked all the wind out
of the parson, and if he got enough again to preach his sermon on
Sunday, it would be all.
It was only on such occasions as these that Johnny Darbyshire ever
appeared under the church roof. Once, on the occasion of the funeral of
an old neighbor, which, for a wonder, he attended, he presented himself
there, but with as little satisfaction to the clergyman, and less to
himself.
He just marched into the church with his hat on, which, being removed by
the clergyman's orders, Johnny declared that he had a good mind to walk
out of that well of a place, and would do so only out of respect to his
old neighbor. With looks of great wrath he seated himself at a good
distance from the clergyman; and as this gentleman was proceeding, in
none of the clearest tones, certainly, to read the appropriate service,
Johnny suddenly shouted out, "Speak up, man, speak up! What art mumbling
at there, man? We canna hear what thou says here!"
"Who is that?" demanded the clergyman, solemnly, and looking much as if
he did not clearly perceive who it was. "Who is that who interrupts the
service? I will not proceed till he be removed."
The beadle approached Johnny, and begged that he would withdraw.
"Oh!" said Johnny, aloud, so as to be heard through all the church,
"I'll sit i' th' porch. I'd much rather. What's the use sitting here
where one can hear nothing but a buzzing like a bee in a blossom?"
Johnny accordingly withdrew to the porch, where some of his neighbors,
hurrying to him when the funeral was about to proceed from the church to
the grave, said, "Mr. Darbyshire, what have you done? You'll as surely
be put into th' spiritual court, as you're a living man. You'd better ax
the parson's pardon, and as soon as you can."
Accordingly, as soon as the funeral was over, and the clergyman was
about to withdraw, up marched Johnny to him, and said, "What, I reckon
I've affronted thee with bidding thee speak up. But thou _should_ speak
up, man; thou should speak up, or what art perched up aloft there for.
But, however, as you scollards are rayther testy, I know, in being taken
up before folks, I mun beg thy pardon for 't'arno."[C]
[C] For what I know.
"O, Mr. Darbyshire," said the clergyman, with much dignity, "that will
not do, I assure you. I cannot pass over such conduct in such a manner.
I shall take another course with you."
"O, just as tha' woot. I've axed thy pardon, haven't I? and if that
wunna do, why, thou mun please thysen!"
Johnny actually appeared very likely to get a proper castigation this
time; but, however it was, he certainly escaped. The parishioners
advised the clergyman to take no notice of the offence,--everybody,
they said, knew Johnny, and if he called him into the spiritual court,
he would be just as bold and saucy, and might raise a good deal of
public scandal. The clergyman, who, unfortunately, was but like too many
country clergymen of the time, addicted to a merry glass in the village
public-house, thought perhaps that this was only too likely, and so the
matter dropped.
For twenty years did Johnny Darbyshire thus give free scope to tongue
and hand in his parish. He ruled paramount over wife, children, house,
servants, parish, and everybody. He made work go on like the flying
clouds of March; and at fair and market, at meeting and vestry, he had
his fling and his banter at the expense of his neighbors, as if the
world was all his own, and would never come to an end. But now came an
event, arising, as so often is the case, out of the merest trifle, that
more than all exhibited the indomitable stiffness and obstinacy of his
character.
Johnny Darbyshire had some fine, rich meadow-land, on the banks of the
river Derwent, where he took in cattle and horses to graze during the
summer. Hither a gentleman had sent a favorite and valuable blood mare
to run a few months with her foal. He had stipulated that the greatest
care should be taken of both mare and foal, and that no one, on any
pretence whatever, should mount the former. All this Johnny Darbyshire
had most fully promised. "Nay, he was as fond of a good bit of
horse-flesh as any man alive, and he would use mare and foal just as if
they were his own."
This assurance, which sounded very well indeed, was kept by Johnny, as
it proved, much more to the letter than the gentleman intended. To his
great astonishment, it was not long before he one day saw Johnny
Darbyshire come riding on a little shaggy horse down the village where
he lived, leading the foal in a halter.
He hurried out to inquire the cause of this, too well auguring some sad
mischief, when Johnny, shaking his head, said, "Ill luck, my friend,
never comes alone; it's an old saying, that it never rains but it pours;
and so it's been with me. T' other day I'd a son drowned, as fine a lad
as ever walked in shoe-leather; and in hurrying to th' doctor, how
should luck have it, but down comes th' mare with her foot in a hole,
breaks her leg, and was obligated to be killed; and here's th' poor
innocent foal. It's a bad job, a very bad job; but I've the worst on't,
and it canna be helped; so, prithee, say as little as thou can about
it,--here's the foal, poor, dumb thing, at all events."
"But what business," cried the gentleman, enraged, and caring, in his
wrath, not a button for Johnny Darbyshire's drowned son, in the
exasperation of his own loss,--"but what business had you riding to the
doctor, or the devil, on my mare? Did not I enjoin you, did you not
solemnly promise me, that nobody should cross the mare's back?"
Johnny shook his head. He had indeed promised "to use her as his own,"
and he had done it to some purpose; but that was little likely to throw
cold water on the gentleman's fire. It was in vain that Johnny tried the
pathetic of the drowning boy; it was lost on the man who had lost his
favorite mare, and who declared that he would rather have lost a
thousand pounds,--a hundred was exactly her value,--and he vowed all
sorts of vengeance and of law.
And he kept his word too. Johnny was deaf to paying for the mare. He had
lost his boy, and his summer's run of the mare and foal, and that he
thought enough for a poor man like him, as he pleased to call himself.
An action was commenced against him, of which he took not the slightest
notice till it came into court. These lawyers, he said, were dear chaps,
he'd have nothing to do with them. But the lawyers were determined to
have to do with him, for they imagined that the Quaker had a deep purse,
and they longed to be poking their long, jewelled fingers to the bottom
of it.
The cause actually came into court at the assizes, and the counsel for
the plaintiff got up and stated the case, offering to call his evidence,
but first submitted that he could not find that any one was retained on
behalf of the defendant, and that, therefore, he probably meant to
suffer the cause to go by default. The court inquired whether any
counsel at the bar was instructed to appear for Darbyshire, in the case
Shiffnal _v._ Darbyshire, but there was no reply; and learned gentlemen
looked at one another, and all shook their learned wigs; and the judge
was about to declare that the cause was forfeited by the defendant, John
Darbyshire, by non-appearance at the place of trial, when there was seen
a bustle near the box of the clerk of the court; there was a hasty
plucking off of a large hat, which somebody had apparently walked into
court with on; and the moment afterwards a short man, in a Quaker dress,
with his grizzled hair hanging in long locks on his shoulders, and
smoothed close down on the forehead, stepped, with a peculiar air of
confidence and cunning, up to the bar. His tawny, sunburnt features, and
small dark eyes, twinkling with an expression of much country subtlety,
proclaimed him at once a character. At once a score of voices
murmured,--"There's Johnny Darbyshire himself!"
He glanced, with a quick and peculiar look, at the counsel, sitting at
their table with their papers before them, who, on their part, did not
fail to return his survey with a stare of mixed wonder and amazement.
You could see it as plainly as possible written on their faces,--"Who
have we got here? There is some fun brewing here, to a certainty."
But Johnny raised his eyes from them to the bench, where sat the judge,
and sent them rapidly thence to the jury-box, where they seemed to rest
with a considerable satisfaction.
"Is this a witness?" inquired the judge. "If so, what is he doing there,
or why does he appear at all, till we know whether the cause is to be
defended?"
"Ay, Lord Judge, as they call thee, I reckon I am a witness, and the
best witness too, that can be had in the case, for I'm the man himself;
I'm John Darbyshire. I didn't mean to have anything to do with these
chaps i' their wigs and gowns, with their long, dangling sleeves; and I
dunna yet mean to have anything to do wi' 'em. But I just heard one of
'em tell thee, that this cause was not going to be defended; and that
put my monkey up, and so, thinks I, I'll e'en up and tell 'em that it
will be defended though; ay, and I reckon it will too; Johnny
Darbyshire was never yet afraid of the face of any man, or any set of
men."
"If you are what you say, good man," said the judge, "defendant in this
case, you had better appoint counsel to state it for you."
"Nay, nay, Lord Judge, as they call thee,--hold a bit; I know better
than that. Catch Johnny Darbyshire at flinging his money into a lawyer's
bag! No, no. I know them chaps wi' wigs well enough. They've tongues as
long as a besom's teal, and fingers as long to poke after 'em. Nay, nay,
I don't get my money so easily as to let them scrape it up by armfuls.
I've worked early and late, in heat and cold, for my bit o' money, and
long enough too, before these smart chaps had left their mother's
apron-strings; and let them catch a coin of it, if they can. No! I know
this case better than any other man can, and for why? Because I was in
it. It was me that had the mare to summer; it was me that rode her to
the doctor; I was in at th' breaking of th' leg, and, for that reason, I
can tell you exactly how it all happened. And what's any of those
counsellors,--sharp, and fine, and knowing as they look, with their
tails and their powder,--what are they to know about the matter, except
what somebody'd have to tell 'em first? I tell you, I saw it, I did it,
and so there needs no twice telling of the story."
"But are you going to produce evidence?" inquired the counsel for the
other side.
"Evidence? to be sure I am. What does the chap mean? Evidence? why, I'm
defender and evidence and all!"