Master Joseph Peasegood's little parsonage was a humble quiet spot, and
accorded well with the moderate income he received as clerk of Roehurst.
There were four rooms, and the roof was thatched over the bedchamber
casements, which looked like two bright eyes peering from beneath a pair
of overhanging brows. There was a pretty garden, in which the parson
often worked, sheltered from the lane by a thick hedge, beneath which
was his favourite seat, where he sat and read, with a rustic table
before him, and a cherry-tree overhead to shade him from the sun. It
was a noble cherry-tree, that bore the blackest and juiciest of fruit,
though the parson never ate it, the birds taking all the trouble off his
hands.
Master Peasegood was standing at his door, looking very red and warm,
for he had been having a verbal encounter with Mistress Hilberry, his
thin acid housekeeper and general servant in one.
It began in this wise, the lady being, according to her own account, the
most humble and unpresuming of women, but all the same taking upon
herself to say things that a less unpresuming person would not have
dared.
"I don't say anything master," she had exclaimed sharply, "because it
would be impertinence in me, but I can't help thinking that Sir Thomas
and Master Cobbe, and all the principal people, will be annoyed to see
you back-sliding in this way."
"Tut--tut--thou silly woman," said the parson. "Father Brisdone is a
good and worthy man, and I may convert him to the right faith."
"Mind he does not convert thee, master," said the housekeeper. "These
priests are as cunning as old sin. Why, I know on good authority that
he's made very welcome at the Pool-house, and if they don't mind he'll
carry 'em all to Rome."
"Not this hot weather, poor things, I hope," said Master Peasegood.
"It's warm enough here; I don't know what it would be there."
"Much hotter, I know," said the woman, meaningly, as she went on
spreading the table with the requisites for a meal--cold pink bacon, a
tempting loaf, rich yellow butter, and a couple of ale-horns, with other
requisites for the evening repast.
Master Peasegood had an angry reply upon his lips, but he wiped it off
with his handkerchief, and walked to the window to see if his expected
guest was on the way, while Mistress Hilberry went on talking.
"They've seen the lights again, Master Peasegood."
"Tut, woman: fie on thee! How can you believe such things."
"Because I've seen them myself, sir," said the woman, tartly. "Strange
ungodly lights dancing up and down, and moving through the forest, and
Mistress Croftly and others have seen them since."
"Marshy exhalations, luminous vapours, terrestrial lamps, Mistress
Hilberry."
"I daresay they be, sir," said the woman with asperity. "It don't
matter to me what you call them, but they're spirits, and just a year
ago, about this time, Martin Lee was struck down by one of them with a
noise like thunder. He was an ailing man for a twelvemonth after,
shivering regularly at times when he should have been sound and well."
"Yes, I dare say," said Master Peasegood. "Hah! here he is."
He waddled down to the garden-gate, to open it for a thin, pale, grey
man in a priest's cassock, who grasped his hand warmly, and then with a
scared, hunted look in his eye, which made him glance uneasily around,
as if in search of danger, he accompanied Master Peasegood into the
parlour, where Mistress Hilberry received them with a portentous sniff.
"Peace be with thee, my daughter," the new-comer said, softly; but
Mistress Hilberry seemed disposed to declare war, for she snorted,
turned on her heel, and left the room with a good deal of rustling and
noise.
The visitor looked pained as his eyes sought those of his host in an
inquiring way.
"Only the weaker vessel," said Master Peasegood, laughing. "Never heed
her, Father Francis. She tells me thou wilt convert me, and I tell her
I am going to convert thee. I'm glad to see you; but, ah!" he cried,
holding up a warning finger, "thou hast been fasting over much.
Quelling the spirit in us is one thing, making the body weak and sick
another. Sit down, man, and fall to. We'll have a long and cosy
evening, and discuss politics and the matters of the world."
He placed a chair for his guest, smiling pleasantly upon him the while,
and then a goodly jug of ale being brought in by Mistress Hilberry, the
two clerical friends made a hearty meal, after Father Brisdone had
blessed the food.
"I ought not to eat this after your blessing," said Master Peasegood,
laughing, "but I shall. And now, good Father Francis, before we shelve
religious matters for the evening, tell me outright, now, have you been
trying to win over my little woman yonder at the Pool?"
For answer, Father Francis held out his hand.
"Nor the Captain?"
"Nay, not a word has passed my lips to him on the subject of religion."
"Then it is agreed that there is to be a good and honest truce between
us. Neither one nor the other is to play wolf round his neighbour's
sheepfold."
"Brother Joseph," said the guest, rising, taking a step forward, and
laying his hands upon the other's broad shoulder, "shame has kept me
silent heretofore. Now, dear friend, I will confess."
"Forbidden subject," said Master Peasegood.
"Nay, nay, it is not. Your suspicions were right. I was starving when
you came to me, and the fastings were enforced. I could not dig, to beg
I was ashamed. The few poor people of my faith I could not trouble; and
it had come to this, that I felt ready to lie down and die in the land
where once our Church was wealthy, when I found that the age of miracles
was, after all, not passed, for the last man of whom I could expect such
a service brought me aid."
"Bah, stuff! Sit down, man, and have some more bread and some of that
good yellow butter. You'd have done as much for me;" and, half forcing
his visitor into a chair, the host watched until he had made a hearty
meal. "No more? Well, then, Mistress Hilberry shall clear away, and
then I have a surprise for thee."
Going to the door, and summoning the housekeeper, that lady quickly
cleared the table, a lamp was lit, another jug of ale was placed upon
the board, and then, as soon as they were alone, Master Joseph Peasegood
went to an old-fashioned cupboard, and tenderly taking out the pipes and
bag of tobacco he had received from Gil, he placed them on the table
with a smile.
"Pipes? tobacco?" exclaimed Father Brisdone, drawing back his heavy
chair.
"Yes; do they frighten thee?" said Master Peasegood.
"You do not mean to smoke?" said Father Brisdone, earnestly.
"I mean for both of us to smoke," said Master Peasegood.
"Would it not be a sin?"
"Nay, I think not; though our Solomon Jamie says it is. But how can we
know whether we ought to forbid or no if we have not proved smoking to
be a sin?"
"A fallacious argument, Brother Joseph," said the father, smiling. "We
ought, then, to rob and slay and covet, to try whether they are sins
before we condemn?"
"Nay," said Master Peasegood, taking up a pipe, and beginning to open
the little linen bag of weed, taking some out, and carefully shredding
it with a knife. "Those have all been proved to be sins. This has
not."
"If you wish, I will try it, then," said the father; and, as the tobacco
was passed to him, he filled the little pipe before him, took the light
provided by his friend, held it to the bowl, and puffed, while Master
Joseph Peasegood did the same.
One little pipeful was smoked in silence, the ashes tapped from the
bowl, and they smoked another pipeful, staring stolidly one at the
other, as they sat on opposite sides of the table, till they had done,
when there was a pause.
"What do you think of it?" said Master Peasegood, who, after several
paroxysms of coughing, had refrained from trying to swallow the smoke,
and contented himself with taking it into his mouth, and puffing it out.
"I feel more sick than sinful," said the father, quietly. "And you?"
"I have a peculiar tightness of the brain, and a tendency to fancy I am
as thin as thee, instead of as fat as I. Father Brisdone, in my present
state, I think the greatest sin I should commit would be to go to my
couch. Wilt try another pipe?"
"Nay," said Father Brisdone, "I think two will suffice. King James must
have felt like I when he wrote his work on this wondrous weed. It
strikes me as strange that man should care to burn this herb when it is
so medical in its effects."
"Ay, it is," said Master Peasegood. "It reminds me of my sensations
when I was once prevailed upon by Dame--nay, she was Mistress Beckley
then, for Sir Thomas had not paid a thousand pounds for his title--by
Mistress Beckley to drink of a wonderful decoction of hers, made of
sundry simples--agrimony, rue, marshmallow, and dandelion. It has
always been my custom to drink heartily, Father Brisdone, so I drank
lustily from the silver mug in which it was placed. Poor mug, it was an
insult to the silver to put such villainous stuff therein. The very
swine would have turned up their noses and screwed their tails; and I
forsooth, for good manners' sake, gulped it down. Here, father, drink
some of this honest ale, and let us take the taste of the Indian weed
from our lips."
He passed the big mug to his friend, and he drank and returned it to
Master Peasegood, who quaffed most heartily; and then, with doleful
visages, the two friends sat and gazed in each other's eyes.
"I don't feel any better, Father Brisdone," said Master Peasegood at
last. "If this be a sin, this smoking, it carries its own punishment.
Let us out into the open air."
"Yes," said his visitor, "the fresh night wind may revive us. But where
got you this tobacco, did you say?"
"From Captain Gil," replied Master Peasegood; and then, as they strolled
out of the gate into the soft night-air, he continued, "My mind misgives
me about that lad, father. What are we to do about him?"
"Warn him if he be in the way of ill, which I hope is not the case, for
he is a brave, true lad, ready to help one of my faith in trouble. Many
is the fugitive he has taken across to peace and safety in his ship."
"For which, were it known, he would be most surely hanged or shot."
Father Brisdone sighed.
"It is strange," he said, "that we should become such Mends, Master
Peasegood."
"Ay, it is strange," said the other; and feeling refreshed by the
night-air they walked softly up and down conversing upon the political
state of the country, the coming of King James's messenger, and his stay
at the Pool-house, till suddenly Master Peasegood drew his companion's
attention to a sound.
They were standing in a narrow path, running at right angles from a
well-marked track; and as Master Peasegood spoke there was the snort of
a horse and the rattle of harness, followed by much trampling; and,
going a little forward, they could dimly see the figures of armed men by
the light of lanterns which two of the horses carried at their
head-stalls.
"Why, they are loaded with something, father," said the stout clerk.
"And, good--"
He was going to say "gracious," but the words were checked upon his lips
as a couple of heavy blankets were thrown over his and Father Brisdone's
heads and they were dragged heavily to the ground.
Volume 1, Chapter XIII.