In that age of gallantry, the reign of Charles the Second, it was
customary when a gentleman drank a lady’s health to throw some part of
his dress into the flames, in order to do her still greater honour.
This was well enough for a lover, but the folly did not stop here, for
his companions were obliged to follow him in this proof of his
veneration by consuming a similar article, whatever it might be.
About the latter part of the seventeenth century, there was living
at Aldersferry, in the Soke of Godsport in Hampshire, a worthy
clergyman of the name of Barnabas Winthrop. The little living of St.
Ascham’s—a perpetual curacy in the Archdeaconry of
Winchester—supplied the moral and material needs of this amiable man;
his granddaughter, Miss Joan Seabird, kept house for him; and never
were cream and ripe fruit happier in contact than were these two
playful and reasonable intellects in their relations of child and
sage.
A hysteromaniac, however, is Fortune, who, charmed for a while with
the simplicity of these her protégés, soon began to construe their
contentment into self-sufficiency, and to devise some means to correct
their supposed presumption on her favour, by putting it into the head
of the artless divine how silence on questions which one felt called
loudly for reform might be comfortable, but was shameful and an
evasion of one’s duty. In short, Dr. Winthrop, entertaining original
views on sanitation and the prevention of epidemics, was wickedly
persuaded by her to expound them, and so to invite into his harmless
Eden the snake which was to demoralize it. In one day he became a
pamphleteer.
Now the Plague, in that year of 1682, was not so remote a memory but
that people lived in a constant terror of its recrudescence. Pandects,
treatises, expositions, containing diagnoses, palladiums and schemes
of quarantine, all based on the most orthodox superstitions, did not
cease to pour from the press, to the eternal confusion of an age which
was yet far from realizing the pious schism of the _aide-toi_. What,
then, as might be supposed, was the effect on it, when a clergyman of
the Establishment was seen to enter the arena as a declared dissenter
from the _fata obstant_ of popular bigotry?
For a time Godsport, startled and scandalized, watched aloof the paper
warfare; and it was not until after the appearance of the Doctor’s
tract, “_De omni re Scibili_”—wherein he sought, boldly and
definitely, and withal with a characteristic humour, to lay the
responsibility for pestilence, not upon the Almighty’s shoulders, but,
literally, at the doors of men, at their face-to-face proximity, and
at “the Castynge of Noisome filth in their neare neighbourhood”—that
it brought down its official hand with a weight and suddenness which
shook St. Ascham’s to its roots. In brief, there was flung at the
delinquent one morning his formal citation to the Sessions Court,
there to answer upon certain charges of having “in divers Tracts,
Opuscules and Levrets, sought insidiously to ingrafte the minds of his
Majesty’s liege subjects with such impudent heresies as that it is in
the power of man to limit the visitations of God—a very pestilent
doctrine, and one arrogating to His servants the Almighty’s high and
beneficent prerogatives; inasmuch as Plague and Fire and other His
scourges, being sacriligeously wrested from His graspe, the world
would waxe blown with overlife, till it crawled upon the face of the
heavens like a gross putrid cheese.”
Under this bolt from the blue the liberal minds of grandsire and child
sank amazed for the moment, only to rally to a consciousness of the
necessity for immediate action.
“Up, wench!” cried the Doctor, “and saddle our Pinwire. I will go lay
my case instanter before the Bishop.”
“Alas, dearest!” answered the weeping girl, “you forget; he is this
long while bedridden.”
Her imagination, which had been wont secretly to fondle the idea of
her grandfather’s enlightened piety rewarded with a bishopric,
pictured it in a moment turned to his confusion, and himself, perhaps,
through the misrepresentations of a blockhead Corporation, disgraced
and beggared in his old age. But, though she knew the Churchman, she
had not calculated the rousing effects of criticism on the author.
“Then,” roared he, “I will seek the fount itself of reason and
justice. It was a good treatise, a well-argued treatise; and the King
shall decide upon the practical merits of his own English.”
“The King!” she cried, clasping her hands.
“The King,” he answered. “Know you not that he moves daily between
Southampton, where he lies, and Winchester, where he builds? We will
go to Winchester. Nay, _we_, child; blubber not; for who knows but
that, the shepherd being withdrawn, the wolves might think to practise
on the lamb.”
He checked himself, and hung his head.
“The Lord pardon and justify me indignation,” he muttered. “I was a
priest before an author.”
It was fine, but a loaded sky, when they set forth upon their journey
of twenty or so miles, Joan riding pillion behind her grandfather on
the sober red nag. After much cross work over villainous tracks, they
were got at last into the Southampton turnpike, when they were joined
by a single horseman, riding a handsome barb, who, with a very
favourable face for Joan, pulled alongside of them, as they jogged on,
and fell into easy talk.
“Dost ride to overtake a bishopric, master clergyman,” says he, “that
you carry with you such a sweet bribe for preferment?”
Joan looked up, softly panting. Could he somehow have got wind already
of their mission, and have taken them by the way to forestall it? But
her eyes fell again before the besieging gaze of the cavalier.
He was a swart man of fifty or so, with a rather sooty expression, and
his underlip stuck out. His eyes, bagging a little in the lower lids,
smouldered half-shut, between lust and weariness, under the blackest
brows; and, for the rest, he was dressed as black as the devil, with a
sparkle of diamonds here and there in his bosom. Joan looked down
breathless.
“I seek no preferment, sir, but a reasonable justice,” said the
curate; and, in a little, between this and that, had ingenuously,
though with a certain twinkling eye for the humour of it all,
confessed his whole case to the stranger. But Joan uttered not a word.
The cavalier laughed, then frowned mightily for a while. “We will
indict these petty rogues of office on a _quo warranto_,” he growled.
“What! does not ‘cleanness of body proceed from a due reverence of
God’? Go on, sir, and I will promise you the King’s consideration.”
Then he forgot his indignation, leering at the girl again.
“And what is _your_ business with Charles, pretty flower?” said he.
But, before she could answer, whish! went Pinwires’s girth out of its
buckle, and parson and girl tumbled into the road.
The cavalier laughed out, and, while the Doctor was ruefully
readjusting his straps, offered his hand to the girl.
“Come, sweetheart,” said he. “Since we go a common road, shalt mount
behind me, and equal the odds between your jade and my greater beast.”
Joan appealed in silence to her grandfather.
“Verily, sir,” he said nodding and smiling, “it would be a gracious
and kindly act.”
In a moment she was mounted, with her white arms belted about the
stranger’s waist; the next, he had put quick spurs to his horse, and
was away with a rush and clatter.
For an instant the Doctor failed to realize the nature of the
abduction; and then of a sudden he was dancing and bawling in a sheer
frenzy.
“Dog! Ravisher! Halt! Stop him! Detain him!”
He saw the flight disappear round a bend in the road. It was minutes
before his shaking hands could negotiate strap and buckle, and enable
him to follow in pursuit. But he carried no spurs, and Pinwire,
already over-ridden, floundered in his steps. Distraught, dumbfounded,
the old man was crying to himself, when he came upon Joan sitting by
the roadside. He tumbled off, she jumped up, and they fell upon one
another’s neck.
“O, a fine King, forsooth!” she cried, sobbing and fondling him. “O, a
fine King!”
“Who? What?” said he.
“Why, it was the King himself!”
“The King!”
“The King.”
“How?” he gasped. “You have never seen him?”
“Trust a woman,” quoth she.
“A woman!” he cried. “You are but half a one yet.”
“It was the King, nevertheless.”
“Joan, let us turn back.”
“He had a wooing voice, grandfather.”
“_Retro Satanas!_ How did you give him the slip?”
“We were stayed by a cow, the dear thing, and like an eel I slid off.”
“Dear Joan!”
“He commanded me to mount again, laughing all the while, and vowing
he’d carry me back to you. But I held away, and he said such things of
my beauty.”
“That proves him false.”
“Does it? But of course it does, since you say so. And while he was
a-wheedling in that voice, I just whipt this from my hair on a
thought, and gave his beast a vicious peck with it.”
She showed a silver pin like a skewer.
“Admirable!” exclaimed her grandfather.
“It was putting fire to powder,” she said. “It just gave a bound and
was gone. If its rider pulls up this side of Christmas, I’ll give
him——”
“What, woman?”
“Lud! I’ve come of age, in a minute. And it’s beginning to pour,
grandfather; and where are we?”
He looked about him in the dolefullest way.
“If I knew!” he sighed. “We must e’en seek the shelter of an inn till
this storm is by, and then return home. Better any bankruptcy than
that of honour, Joan.”
They remounted and jogged on in the rain, which by now was falling
heavily. The tired little horse, feeling the weight of his own soaked
head, began to hang it and cough. Presently they dismounted at a
wayside byre, and, eating the simple luncheon which their providence
had provided, dwelt on a little in hopes of the weather clearing. But
it grew steadily worse.
“I have lost my bearings,” said the clergyman in a sudden amazement.
“We must push on.”
About four o’clock, being seven miles or so short of Winchester, they
came down upon a little stream which bubbled across the road. The
groaning horse splashed into it and stood still. Dr. Winthrop, wakened
by the pause from a brown reverie, whipped his right leg over the
beast’s withers, landed, slipped on a stone, and sat down in two feet
of water. Uttering a startled ejaculation, he scrambled up, a sop to
the very waist of his homespun breeches. Their points—old disused
laces, fragrant from Joan’s bodice—clung weeping to his calves. He
waded out, cherishing above water-mark the sodden skirts of his coat,
his best, of ‘Colchester bayze.’ The horse, sensibly lightened,
followed.
“O, O!” cried Joan. “Wasn’t you sopped enough already, but you must
fill your pockets with water?”
“Joan!” he cried disconcerted. “I am drowned!”
Luckily, in that pass, looking up the slope of the hill, they espied
near the top a toll-booth, and, beyond, the first houses of a village.
Making a little glad haste, they were soon at the bar.
The woman who came to take their money looked hard at the tired girl.
She was of a sober cast, and her close-fitting coif showed her of the
non-conforming order.
“For Winchester, master?” said she.
“Nay,” answered the clergyman; “for the first hostelry. We are beat,
dame.”
“The first and the last is ‘The Five Alls,’” said she. “But I wouldn’t
carry the maiden there, by your leave. There be great and wild company
in the house, that recks nothing of anything in its cups. Canst hear
’em, if thou wilt.” And, indeed, with her words, a muffled roar of
merriment reached them from the inn a little beyond.
“One riding for Winchester, and the rest from,” she said, “they met
here, and here have forgathered roistering this hour. Dare them so you
dare. I have spoken.”
“_Nunc Deus avertat!_” cried the desperate minister. “The Fates fight
against us. At all costs we must go by.”
“Nay,” said the good woman; “but, an you will, seek you your own
shelter there, and leave this poor lamb with me. I have two already by
the fire—decent ladies and proper, and no quarry for licence. I know
the company; ’twill be moving soon; and then canst come and claim
thine own.”
He accepted gladly, and, leaving Joan in her charge, rode on to the
inn, where, dismounting, he betook himself to the stable, which was
full of horses, and, after, to the kitchen.
The landlord, cooking a pan of rashers alone over a great fire, turned
his head, focussed the new-comer with one red eye, and asked his
business.
“A seat by the hearth, a clothes-rack for my breeches, a rug for my
loins while they dry, and a mug of ale with a sop in it,” answered the
traveller, with a smile for his own waggish epitome. And then he
related of his mishap.
The landlord grunted, returned to his task, blew on an ignited rasher,
presently took the skillet off the coals, forked the fizzing mess into
a dish, and disappeared with it. All the while an ineffable racket
thundered on the floor above.
“Peradventure they will respect my cloth,” thought the clergyman. “The
Lord fend me! I am among the Philistines.”
The landlord returned in a moment with a horn of ale in one hand, and
a rug in the other, which he threw down.
“Dod, man!” he cried; “peel, peel! This is the country of continence!
Hast no reason to fear for thy modesty.” And he went out between
chuckling and grumbling.
Very decently the curate doffed his small-clothes, hung them over a
trestle before the fire, wrapped and knotted the rug about his loins,
and sat down vastly content to his sup. In ten minutes—what with
weariness, warmth, and stingo—he was asleep.
He woke with a little shriek, and staggered to his feet. Something had
pricked him—the point of a rapier. The flushed, grinning face of the
man who had wielded it stood away from him. The kitchen was full of
rich company, which broke suddenly into a babble of merriment at the
sight of his astounded visage. In the midst, a swart gentleman, who
had been lolling at a table, advanced, and taking him by the
shoulders, swung him gently to and fro till his eyes goggled.
“Well followed, parson!” said he, chuckling, and lurching a little in
his speech. “What! is the cuif not to be spoiled of his bishopric
because of a saucy baggage?”
He laughed, checked himself suddenly, and, still holding on, assumed a
majestic air, with his wig a little on one side, and said with great
dignity: “But, before I grant termsir, you shall bring the slut to
canvass of herself what termsir. Godsmylife! to hold her King at a
bodkin’s point! It merits no pardon, I say, unless the merit of the
pardon of the termsir—no, the pardon of the merit of the termsir.
Therefore I say, whither hast brought her, I say? Out with it, man!”
The clergyman, recognizing Joan’s abductor, and listening amazed,
sprang back at the end with a face of horror, almost upsetting His
Majesty, who, barely recovering himself, stood shaking his head with a
glassy smile.
“If_hic_akins!” said he: “I woss a’most down!”
“Avaunt, ravisher!” roared the Doctor.
Charles stiffened with a jerk, stared, wheeled cautiously, and tiptoed
elaborately from the room. His suite, staggering at the balance,
followed with enormous solemnity; and the Doctor, still pointing
denunciatory, was left alone.
At the end of a minute, after much whispering outside, a young
cavalier re-entered, and approached him with a threatening visage, as
if up the slope of a deck.
“His Maj’ty, sir,” said he, “demands to know if you know who the devil
you was a-bawling—hic—at?”
“To my sorrow, though late, I do, sir,” answered the Doctor in a
grievous voice.
“O!” said the cavalier, and tacked from the room. He returned again in
a second, to poke the clergyman with his finger, and suggest to him
confidentially, “Betteric la’ than never—hic!” which having uttered,
he took himself off, after a vain attempt to open the door from its
hinge side. In two minutes he was back again.
“His Maj’ty wan’s know where hast hidden Mrs. Seabird. Nowhere in
house, says landlord. Ver’ well—where then?”
“Tell the King, where he shall reach her only over my body.”
The cavalier vanished, and reappeared.
“His Maj’ty doesn’t wan’ tread on your body. On contrary, wan’s raise
you up. Wan’s hear story all over again from lady’s lips.”
“I am His Majesty’s truthful minister. There is nothing to add to what
I have already reported to him.”
The cavalier withdrew, smacking his thigh profoundly. Sooner than
usual he returned.
“His Maj’ty s’prised at you. Says if you won’t tell him where’ve laid
her by, he’ll beat up every house within miles-’n’-miles.”
“No!” said the simple clergyman, in a sudden emotion.
“Yes,” said the gentleman, not too drunk to note his advantage. “For
miles-’n’-miles. His Maj’ty ver’ s’prised her behaviour to him. Wan’s
lil word with her. Tell at once where she is, or worse for you.”
The clergyman looked about him like one at bay. His glance lighted on
the trestle before the fire, fixed itself there, and kindled.
“The Lord justify the ways of His servant!” he muttered; and drew
himself up.
“Tell His Majesty,” he said in a strong voice, “that, so be he will
honour a toast I shall call, the way he seeks shall be made clear to
him.”
The other gave a great chuckle, which was loudly echoed from the
passage.
“Why, thish is the right humour,” he said, and retired.
Within a few moments the whole company re-entered, tittering and
jogging one another, and spilling wine from the beakers they carried.
The King called a silence.
“Sir,” said the clergyman, advancing a little, “I pray your Majesty to
convince me, by proof, of a reputed custom with our gallants, which is
that, being to drink a lady’s health, the one that calleth shall cast
into the flames some article of his attire, there to be consumed to
her honour, and so shall demand of his company, by toasters’ law, that
they do likewise.”
“Dod!” said the King, chuckling; “woss he speiring at? Drink man!
drink and sacrifice, and I give my royal word that all shall follow
suit, though it be with the wigs from our heads.”
The Doctor lifted his horn of ale and drained it.
“I toast Joan!” he cried.
“Joan!” they all shouted, laughing and hiccuping, and, having drunk,
threw down their beakers helter-skelter.
The clergyman took one swift step forward; snatched up his
small-clothes from the trestle; displayed them a moment; thrust them
deep into the blazing coals, and, facing about, disrugged himself, and
stood in his shirttails.
“I claim your Majesty’s word, and breeches,” said he.
A silence of absolute stupefaction befell; and then in an instant the
kitchen broke into one howl of laughter.
In the midst, Charles walked stately to the table, sat down, and
thrust out his legs.
“Parson,” said he, “if you had but claimed my hair. The honours lie
with you, sir; take ’em.”
He would have none but the Doctor handle him; and, when his ineffable
smalls were burning, he rose up in his royal shift, and ruthlessly
commandeering every other pair in the room, stood, the speechless
captain of as shameful and defenceless a crew of buccaneers as ever
lowered its flag to honesty.
Then the Doctor resumed his rug.
“Sir,” said he, trembling, “I now fulfil my bond. My granddaughter is
sheltering, with other modest ladies, in the pike-house hard by.”
But the King swore—by divine right—a pretty oath or two, while the
chill of his understandings helped to sober him.
“By my cold wit you have won! and there may she remain for me. And
now, decent man,” he cried, “I do call my company to witness how you
have made yourself to be more honoured in the breach than the
observance; and since you go wanting a frock, a bishop’s you shall
have.”
And with that he snatched the rug, and, skipping under it, sat on the
table, grinning over the quenching of his amazed fire-eaters.
And this, if you will believe deponent, is the true, if unauthorized,
version of Dr. Winthrop’s election, and of the confounding of Godsport
on a writ of _quo warranto_.