THE RUNAWAY.
Everybody hath heard, and old people still remember, how one
Act after the other was passed for the suppression of the
Nonconformists, whom the Church of England tried to extirpate, but
could not. Had these laws been truly carried into effect, there
would have been great suffering among the Dissenters; but, in order
to enforce them, every man's hand would have been turned against his
neighbour, and this--thank God!--is not possible in Somerset. For
example, the Act of Uniformity provided not only for the ejectment
of the Nonconforming ministers (which was duly carried out), but
also enacted that none of them should take scholars without the
license of the Bishop. Yet many of the ejected ministers maintained
themselves in this way openly, without the Bishop's license. They
were not molested, though they might be threatened by some hot
Episcopalian; nor were the Bishops anxious to set the country afire
by attempting to enforce this law. One must not take from an honest
neighbour, whatever an unjust law may command, his only way of
living.
Again, the Act passed two years later punished all persons with fine
and imprisonment who attended conventicles. Yet the conventicles
continued to be held over the whole country, because it was
impossible for the Justices to fine and imprison men with whom they
sat at dinner every market-day, with whom they took their punch and
tobacco, and whom they knew to be honest and God-fearing folk.
Again, how could they fine and imprison their own flesh and blood?
Why, in every family there were some who loved the meeting-house
better than the steeple-house. Laws have little power when they are
against the conscience of the people.
Thirdly, there was an Act prohibiting ministers from residing within
five miles of the village or town where they had preached. This was
a most cruel and barbarous Act, because it sent the poor ministers
away from the help of their friends. Yet how was it regarded? My
father, for his part, continued to live at Bradford Orcas without
let or hindrance, and so, no doubt, did many more.
Again, another Act was passed giving authority to Justices of the
Peace to break open doors and to take in custody persons found
assembling for worship. I have heard of disturbances at Taunton,
where the Magistrates carried things with a high hand; but I think
the people who met to worship after their own fashion were little
disturbed. Among the Churchmen were some, no doubt, who remembered
the snubs and rubs they had themselves experienced, and the memory
may have made them revengeful. All the persecution, it is certain,
was not on the side of the Church. There was, for instance, the
case of Dr. Walter Raleigh, Dean of Wells, who was clapped into
a noisome prison where the plague had broken out. He did not die
of that disease, but was done to death in the jail, barbarously,
by one David Barrett, shoemaker, who was never punished for the
murder, but was afterwards made Constable of the City. There was
also the case of the Rev. Dr. Piers, whom I have myself seen, for
he lived to a good old age. He was a Prebendary of Wells, and being
driven forth, was compelled to turn farmer, and to work with his own
hands--digging, hoeing, ploughing, reaping, and threshing--when he
should have been in his study. Every week this reverend and learned
Doctor of Divinity was to be seen at Ilminster Market, standing
beside the pillars with his cart, among the farmers and their wives,
selling his apples, cheese, and cabbages.
I say that no doubt many remembered these things. Yet the affection
of the people went forth to the Nonconformists and the ejected
ministers, as was afterwards but too well proved. I have been
speaking of things which happened before my recollection. It was in
the year 1665, four years after the Ejection, that I was born. My
father would have named me Grace Abounding, but my mother called
me Alice, after her own name. I was thus six years younger than my
brother Barnaby, and two years younger than Robin and Humphrey.
The first thing that I can recollect is a kind of picture,
preserved, so to speak, in my head. At the open door is a woman
spinning at the wheel. She is a woman with a pale, grave face; she
works diligently, and for the most part in silence; if she speaks,
it is to encourage or to admonish a little girl who plays in the
garden outside. Her lips move as she works, because she communes
with her thoughts all day long. From time to time she turns her
head and looks with anxiety into the other room, where sits her
husband at his table.
Before him stand three boys. They are Barnaby, Robin, and Humphrey.
They are learning Latin. The room is piled with books on shelves and
books on the floor. In the corner is a pallet, which is the master's
bed by night. I hear the voices of the boys who repeat their
lessons, and the admonishing of their master. I can see through
the open door the boys themselves. One, a stout and broad lad, is
my brother Barnaby: he hangs his head and forgets his lesson, and
causes his father to punish him every day. He receives admonition
with patience; yet profiteth nothing. The next is Humphrey; he is
already a lad of grave and modest carriage, who loves his book and
learns diligently. The third is Robin, whose parts are good, were
his application equal to his intelligence. He is impatient, and
longs for the time when he may close his book and go to play again.
Poor Barnaby! at the sight of a Latin Grammar he would feel sick. He
would willingly have taken a flogging every day--to be sure, that
generally happened to him--in order to escape his lessons and be off
to the fields and woods.
It was the sight of his rueful face--yet never sad except at
lessons--which made my mother sigh when she saw him dull but patient
over his book. Had he stayed at home I know not what could have been
done with him, seeing that to become a preacher of the Gospel was
beyond even the power of prayer (the Lord having clearly expressed
His will in this matter). He would have had to clap on a leathern
apron, and become a wheelwright or blacksmith; nothing better than
an honest trade was possible for him.
But (whether happily or not) a strange whim seized the boy when
he was fourteen years of age. He would go to sea. How he came to
think of the sea I know not; he had never seen the sea; there were
no sailors in the village; there was no talk of the sea. Perhaps
Humphrey, who read many books, told him of the great doings of
our sailors on the Spanish Main and elsewhere. Perhaps some of
the clothiers' men, who are a roving and unsettled crew, had been
sailors--some, I know, had been soldiers under Oliver. However, this
matters not, Barnaby must needs become a sailor.
When first he broke this resolution, which he did secretly, to my
mother, she began to weep and lament, because everybody knows how
dreadful is the life of a sailor, and how full of dangers. She
begged him to put the thought out of his head, and to apply himself
again to his books.
'Mother,' he said, 'it is no use. What comes in at one ear goes out
at the other. Nothing sticks: I shall never be a scholar.'
'Then, my son, learn an honest trade.'
'What? Become the village cobbler--or the blacksmith? Go hat in hand
to his Honour, when my father should have been a Bishop, and my
mother is a gentlewoman? That will I not. I will go and be a sailor.
All sailors are gentlemen. I shall rise and become first mate, and
then second captain, and lastly, captain in command. Who knows? I
may go and fight the Spaniard, if I am lucky.'
'Oh, my son, canst thou not stay at home and go to church, and
consider the condition of thine immortal soul? Of sailors it is well
known that their language is made up of profane oaths, and that they
are all profligates and drunkards. Consider, my son'--my mother
laid her hand upon his arm--'what were Heaven to me, if I have not
my dear children with me as well as my husband? How could I praise
the Lord if I were thinking of my son who was not with me, but--ah!
Heaven forbid the thought!'
Barnaby made no reply. What could he say in answer to my mother's
tears? Yet I think she must have understood very well that her son,
having got this resolution into his head, would never give it up.
'Oh!' she said, 'when thou wast a little baby in my arms,
Barnaby--who art now so big and strong'--she looked at him with the
wonder and admiration that women feel when their sons grow big and
stout--'I prayed that God would accept thee as an offering for His
service. Thou art vowed unto the Lord, my son, as much as Samuel. Do
you think he complained of his lessons? What would have happened,
think you, to Samuel if he had taken off his ephod and declared
that he would serve no longer at the altar, but must take spear and
shield, and go to fight the Amalekite?'
Said Barnaby, in reply, speaking from an unregenerate heart,
'Mother, had I been Samuel, to wear an ephod and to learn the Latin
syntax every day, I should have done that. Ay! I would have done it,
even if I knew that at the first skirmish an arrow would pierce my
heart.'
It was after a great flogging, on account of the passive voice or
some wrestling with the syntax, that Barnaby plucked up courage to
tell his father what he wished to do.
'With my consent,' said my father, sternly, 'thou shalt never
become a sailor. As soon would I send thee to become a buffoon in a
playhouse. Never dare to speak of it again.'
Barnaby hung his head and said nothing.
Then my mother, who knew his obstinate disposition, took him to Sir
Christopher, who chid him roundly, telling him that there was work
for him on land, else he would have been born beside the coast,
where the lads take naturally to the sea: that being, as he was,
only an ignorant boy, and landborn, he could not know the dangers
which he would encounter: that some ships are cast away on desert
islands, where the survivors remain in misery until they die, and
some on lands where savages devour them, and some are dragged down
by calamaries and other dreadful monsters, and some are burned at
sea, their crews having to choose miserably between burning and
drowning, and some are taken by the enemy, and the sailors clapped
into dungeons and tortured by the Accursed Inquisition.
[Illustration: '_He was seized with a mighty wrath, and, catching
his son sharply by the ear, led him out of the throng._']
Many more things did Sir Christopher set forth, showing the
miserable life and the wretched end of the sailor. But Barnaby never
changed countenance, and though my mother bade him note this and
mark that, and take heed unto his Honour's words, his face showed
no melting. 'Twas always an obstinate lad; nay it was his obstinacy
alone which kept him from his learning. Otherwise he might perhaps
have become as great a scholar as Humphrey.
'Sir,' he said, when Sir Christopher had no other word to say, 'with
submission, I would still choose to be a sailor, if I could.'
In the end he obtained his wish. That is to say, since no one would
help him towards it, he helped himself. And this, I think, is the
only way in which men do ever get what they want.
It happened one evening that there passed through the village a
man with a pipe and tabor, on which he played so movingly that all
the people turned out to listen. For my own part I was with my
mother, yet I ran to the garden-gate and leaned my head over, drawn
by the sound of the music. Presently the boys and girls began to
take hands together and to dance. I dare not say that to dance is
sinful, because David danced. But it was so regarded by my father,
so that when he passed by them, on his way home from taking the air,
and actually saw his own son Barnaby in the middle of the dancers,
footing it merrily with them all, joyfully leading one girl up and
the other down at _John come and kiss me now_, he was seized with a
mighty wrath, and, catching his son sharply by the ear, led him out
of the throng and so home. For that evening Barnaby went supperless
to bed, with the promise of such a flogging in the morning as would
cause him to remember for the rest of his life the sinfulness of
dancing. Never had I seen my father so angry. I trembled before
his wrathful eyes. But Barnaby faced him with steady looks, making
answer none, yet not showing the least repentance or fear. I thought
it was because a flogging had no terrors for him. The event proved
that I was wrong; that was not the reason: he had resolved to run
away, and when we awoke in the morning he was gone. He had crept
down-stairs in the night; he had taken half a loaf of bread and a
great cantle of soft cheese, and had gone away. He had not gone for
fear of the rod: he had run away with design to go to sea. Perhaps
he had gone to Bristol; perhaps to Plymouth; perhaps to Lyme. My
mother wept, and my father sighed; and for ten years more we neither
saw nor heard anything of Barnaby, not even whether he was dead or
living.