CHAPTER IV._For Faith and Freedom

SIR CHRISTOPHER.

At the mere remembrance of Sir Christopher, I am fain to lay down

my pen and to weep, as for one whose goodness was unsurpassed, and

whose end was undeserved. Good works, I know, are rags, and men

cannot deserve the mercy of God by any merits of their own; but a

good man--a man whose heart is full of justice, mercy, virtue, and

truth--is so rare a creature, that when there is found such a one,

his salvation seems assured. Is it not wonderful that there are

among us so many good Christians, but so few good men? I am, indeed,

in private duty bound to acknowledge Sir Christopher's goodness

to me and to mine. He was, as I have said, the mainstay of our

household. Had we depended wholly on my mother's work, we should

sometimes have fared miserably indeed. Nay, he did more. Though a

Justice of the Peace, he invited my father every Sunday evening to

the Manor House for spiritual conversation, not only for his own

profit, but knowing that to expound was to my father the breath

of his nostrils, so that if he could not expound he must die. In

person, Sir Christopher was tall; after the fashion (which I love)

of the days when he was a young man he wore his own hair, which,

being now white and long, became his venerable face much better

than any wig--white, black, or brown. He was generally dressed, as

became his station of simple country gentleman, in a plush coat with

silver buttons, and for the most part he wore boots, being of an

active habit and always walking about his fields or in his gardens

among his flowers and his fruit-trees. He was so good a sportsman

that with his rod, his gun, and his hawk he provided his table with

everything except beef, mutton, and pork. In religion he inclined

to Independency, being above all things an upholder of private

judgment; in politics, he denied the Divine right, and openly said

that a Challis might be a King as well as a Stuart; he abhorred

the Pope and all his works; and though he was now for a Monarchy,

he would have the King's own power limited by the Parliament. In

his manners he was grave and dignified; not austere, but one who

loved a cheerful companion. He rode once a week, on market day, to

Sherborne, where he dined with his brother Justices, hearing and

discussing the news, though news comes but slowly from London to

these parts--it was fourteen days after the landing of the King

in the year 1660 that the bells of Sherborne Minster rang for that

event. Sometimes a copy of the _London Gazette_ came down by the

Exeter coach, or some of the company had lately passed a night where

the coach stopped, and conversed with travellers from London and

heard the news. For the rest of the week, his Honour was at home.

For the most part he sat in the hall. In the middle stands the great

oak table where all the household sit at meals together. There was

little difference between the dishes served above and those below

the salt, save that those above had each a glass of strong ale or

of wine after dinner and supper. One side of the hall was hung with

arras worked with representations of herbs, beasts and birds. On the

other side was the great chimney, where in the winter a noble fire

was kept up all day long. On either side of it hung fox skins, otter

skins, pole-cat skins, with fishing-rods, stags' heads, horns and

other trophies of the chase. At the end was a screen covered with

old coats of mail, helmets, bucklers, lances, pikes, pistols, guns

with match-locks, and a trophy of swords arranged in form of a star.

Below the cornice hung a row of leathern jerkins, black and dusty,

which had formerly been worn in place of armour by the common sort.

In the oriel window was a sloping desk, having on one side the Bible

and on the other Foxe's 'Book of Martyrs.' Below was a shelf with

other books, such as Vincent Wing's Almanack, King Charles's 'Golden

Rules,' 'Glanville on Apparitions,' the 'Complete Justice,' and the

'Book of Farriery.' There was also in the hall a great side-board,

covered with Turkey work, pewter, brass, and fine linen. In the

cupboard below was his Honour's plate, reported to be worth a great

deal of money.

Sir Christopher sat in a high chair, curiously carved, with arms

and a triangular seat. It had belonged to the family for many

generations. Within reach of the chair was the tobacco-jar, his

pipe, and his favourite book--namely, 'The Gentleman's Academie:

or the Book of St. Albans, being a Work on Hunting, Hawking, and

Armorie,' by Dame Juliana Berners, who wrote it two hundred and

fifty years ago. Sir Christopher loved especially to read aloud

that chapter in which it is proved that the distinction between

gentleman and churl began soon after the Creation, when Cain proved

himself a churl, and Seth was created Gentleman and Esquire or

Armiger by Adam, his father. This distinction was renewed after the

Flood by Noah himself, a gentleman by lineal descent from Seth. In

the case of his sons, Ham was the churl, and the other two were the

gentlemen. I have sometimes thought that, according to this author,

all of us who are descended from Shem or Japhet should be gentlemen,

in which case there would be no churl in Great Britain at all. But

certainly there are many; so that, to my poor thinking, Dame Juliana

Berners must be wrong.

There is, in addition to the great hall, the best parlour. But

as this was never wanted, the door of it was never opened except

at cleaning time. Then, to be sure, one saw a room furnished

very grand, with chairs in Turkey work, and hung round with

family portraits. The men were clad in armour, as if they had all

been soldiers or commanders; the women were mostly dressed as

shepherdesses, with crooks in their hands and flowing robes. In the

garden was a long bowling green, where in summer Sir Christopher

took great pleasure in that ancient game: below the garden was a

broad fishpond, made by damming the stream: above and below the pond

there were trout, and in the pond were carp and jack. A part of the

garden was laid out for flowers, a part for the still-room, and a

part for fruit. I have never seen anywhere a better ordered garden

for the still-room. Everything grew therein that the housewife

wants: sweet cicely, rosemary, burnet, sweet basil, chives, dill,

clary, angelica, lipwort, tarragon, thyme and mint; there were, as

Lord Bacon, in his 'Essay on Gardens,' would have, 'whole alleys of

them to have the pleasure when you walk or tread.' There were thick

hedges to keep off the east wind in spring, so that one would enjoy

the sun when that cold wind was blowing. But in Somerset that wind

hath not the bitterness that it possesses along the eastern shores

of the land.

Every morning Sir Christopher sat in his Justice's chair under the

helmets and the coats of armour. Sometimes gipsies would be brought

before him, charged with stealing poultry or poisoning pigs; or a

rogue and vagabond would stray into the parish; these gentry were

very speedily whipped out of it. As for our own people, there is

nowhere a more quiet and orderly village; quarrels there are with

the clothiers' men, who will still try to beat down the value of the

women's work, and bickerings sometimes between the women themselves.

Sir Christopher was judge for all. Truly he was a patriarch like

unto Abraham, and a father to his people. Never was sick man

suffered to want for medicines and succour; never was aged man

suffered to lack food and fire; did any youth show leanings towards

sloth, profligacy, or drunkenness, he was straightway admonished,

and that right soundly, so that his back and shoulders would remind

him for many days of his sin. By evildoers Sir Christopher was

feared as much as he was beloved by all good men and true. This also

is proper to one in high station and authority.

In the evening he amused himself in playing backgammon with the

boys, or chess with his son-in-law, Mr. Boscorel: but the latter

with less pleasure, because he was generally defeated in the game.

He greatly delighted in the conversation and society of that learned

and ingenious gentleman, though on matters of religion and of

politics his son-in-law belonged to the opposite way of thinking.

I do not know why Mr. Boscorel took upon himself holy orders. God

forbid that I should speak ill of any in authority, and especially

of one who was kind and charitable to all, and refused to become

a persecutor of those who desired freedom of conscience and of

speech. But if the chief duty of a minister of the Gospel is to

preach, then was Mr. Boscorel little better than a dog who cannot

bark. He did not preach; that is to say, he could not, like my

father, mount the pulpit, Bible in hand, and teach, admonish,

argue, and convince without a written word. He read every Sunday

morning a brief discourse, which might, perhaps, have instructed

Oxford scholars, but would not be understood by the common

people. As for arguments on religion, spiritual conversation, or

personal experience of grace, he would never suffer such talk in

his presence, because it argued private judgment and caused, he

said, the growth of spiritual pride. And of those hot Gospellers

whose zeal brings them to prison and the pillory, he spoke with

contempt. His conversation, I must acknowledge, was full of delight

and instruction, if the things which one learned of him were not

vanities. He had travelled in Italy and in France, and he loved

to talk of poetry, architecture, statuary, medals and coins,

antiquities and so forth--things harmless and, perhaps, laudable

in themselves, but for a preacher of the Gospel who ought to think

of nothing but his sacred calling they are surely superfluities.

Or he would talk of the manners and customs of strange countries,

and especially of the Pope. This person, whom I have been taught

to look upon as from the very nature of his pretensions the most

wicked of living men, Mr. Boscorel regarded with as much toleration

as he bestowed upon an Independent. Then he would tell us of London

and the manners of the great; of the King, whom he had seen, and

the Court, seeming to wink at things which one ought to hold in

abhorrence. He even told us of the playhouse, which, according to

my father, is the most subtle engine ever invented by the Devil for

the destruction of souls. Yet Mr. Boscorel sighed to think that he

could no longer visit that place of amusement. He loved also music,

and played movingly upon the violoncello; and he could make pictures

with pen, pencil, or brush. I have some of his paintings still,

especially a picture which he drew of Humphrey playing the fiddle,

his great eyes looking upwards as if the music was drawing his soul

to Heaven. I know not why he painted a halo about his face. Mr.

Boscorel also loved poetry, and quoted Shakspeare and Ben Jonson