CHAPTER XXVIII.

_PEACE AFTER STORM._

The Judge was gone; the prisons were emptying fast; men began to breathe again after their long terror; those who had fled their homes, and had been living in hiding in terror of their lives, came out once more, and appeared to gladden the hearts of their friends. It was said that a general pardon would now be issued to all those who had not suffered, and that the terrible time was over at last. The King, we heard, had been excellently well pleased by what his Lord Chief-Justice had done in the West, and soon rewarded him with the Chancellorship, as had always been believed. I think perhaps it was the knowledge of these things which went far to stir the hearts of the people against their sovereign, and to pave the way three years later for the bloodless revolution which set a Protestant and a Constitutional ruler upon the throne in place of the Papist tyrant. I sometimes think that had we of the West Country had more patience, and had we waited till the time was ripe, we might have been called patriots and saviours of our country instead of rebels and traitors, to be massacred and hanged by the hundred. But then, again, I have learned to doubt whether the Duke of Monmouth would ever have been received by the nation, or have made a wise ruler had he been so received. Men who best understand him and the matter say that he could never have made good his title to the throne, that he was not born in wedlock, and that the people would never have suffered a sovereign with a stain upon his birth. Queen Mary with her good husband proved a kind and a wise ruler, and beneath her gentle sway peace, order, liberty, and prosperity were quickly restored; and yet there be men who even now talk as though the Duke or his son might yet come back to put forward a claim, and many declare that he never died upon the scaffold, but that he was personated to the very last by a devoted follower.

All this is looking ahead. In the days of which I speak we had no knowledge of the good times to come. We breathed indeed, feeling that the iron hand of military and judicial vengeance was relaxed from our throat; but it seemed to us then as if the bloody James were seated all the more firmly upon his throne.

And now what shall I tell next of all the events that followed in such quick succession? Perhaps whilst my mind is upon the subject I will speak of Mr. Blewer and the vengeance which fell upon him for his cruelty to a Taunton boy.

I have mentioned before good Bishop Ken, who did so much to ease the condition of prisoners, and who was beloved throughout all his diocese. He came to visit Taunton not long after these things had happened; and going into the prison, he found poor Will in a sad state still, although greatly better than he had been.

It chanced, as luck would have it, that I was with him when the Bishop came; for Will's case had excited much comment in the town, and he was permitted to see his friends and enjoy many small privileges, which indeed his state demanded. And after the kindly Bishop had spoken to the boy, and had prayed beside him a beautiful prayer, he asked me how he came into so sad a state. Then I told him everything I knew, striving to hold my wrath in check, as was due to my superior, but scarce able to keep it from breaking out when I spoke of Mr. Blewer.

I thought that the Lord Bishop's face grew stern as he listened, and I hoped that some punishment might fall upon the man who was a disgrace to the sacred calling he had embraced; and in truth I was not mistaken in this, as I will proceed to tell.

I think it was the next day that the Bishop and Mr. Axe were walking together through the town, and talking of many things--Mr. Axe, as I have many times said, being a reverend and godly man, well thought of by all, a loyal servant to the King, and a lover of order, but always on the side of mercy and justice.

Well, as these walked and talked there came towards them Mr. Blewer, mincing and bowing, and plainly resolved to gain the notice of the Lord Bishop; for he had an eye to promotion to some office in the Church, and trusted that he might gain the good-will of this good man, and so be appointed to some living. As he approached, the Bishop looked at him, asking his companion who the person was who evidently desired to attract his notice. Mr. Axe replied with some brevity and coldness that his name was Mr. Blewer, and that he had been living for some time in Taunton, appointed by Mr. Harte to assist in the services of St. Mary's Church.

At the sound of that name the Bishop's fine face became very stern; and as Mr. Blewer came up with mincing steps and hat in hand, believing that the Bishop had paused to permit his approach, he fixed his eyes upon him, and spoke in a tone that all the bystanders could hear.

"Mr. Blewer," he said, "I have heard of you before. Indeed I have had it in my thoughts to summon you to my presence."

"My lord, you do me too much honour!" was the delighted answer, as the creature stood bowing and mincing before the Bishop, his evil face wearing its expression of submissive adulation, such as had been seen upon it in presence of the Lord Chief-Justice. "It is very true that I have done all in my poor power in the cause of law and righteousness during these troubled days, but I had scarce hoped that my poor services would have reached the ears of my gracious lord."

"Sir," answered the good Bishop, with gathering sternness, "the less you speak of righteousness the better, for there has been little of it in your conduct during these troubled days. Sir, think you that at a time when every man calling himself the servant of God should have been straining every nerve in the cause of mercy and tenderness, it is for the clergy to disgrace themselves by acts of selfishness, rapacity, and barbarity which make all honest men shudder and breathe forth curses? Nay, sir, answer me not. It is for me to speak and for you to listen. I have heard of you, Mr. Blewer. I have heard how you persecuted an innocent maiden, and how you cajoled and bribed a certain high personage to grant you her hand in marriage, not for any love you bore her--for you had openly boasted that you would rid yourself of her in a year's time--but because she had money, which you desired to possess; and how she was only saved from your malice by the merciful hand of death. Sir, you are as guilty of that sweet and tender maiden's death as though you had slain her with your own hands. Small wonder that the very thought of being placed for life in such cruel hands caused that deadly fever of which she quickly died. I blush with shame to think that one who has dared to take upon himself the sacred calling and the holy office of the priesthood could ever thus disgrace both himself and his calling!"

"My lord, my lord, you have been misinformed. Some enemy has been wickedly slandering me. Alas! in this evil town a godly man has but too many foes. I swear that I loved the maid--that I would have made her the best of husbands. My lord, I have been cruelly maligned. There is no man in Taunton with a tenderer heart than mine. God be my witness that I speak the truth!"

The Bishop raised his hand in stern displeasure. "Sir," he said, "take not that Holy Name to profane it by falsehood. Can a man who will drink himself drunk with the Lord Jeffreys and his boon companions, and join with him in profane swearing and ribald jesting--can he be a fit spouse for a godly and a pure maid, to whom evil is but a name? Mr. Blewer, think not to deceive me by false swearing; I know too much of you and of your practices. And as though it was not enough to seek to wreck the life of this maiden, you must seek also to do to death in a most cruel and barbarous manner a lad whose only fault has been a boyish lack of discretion. Sir, my blood tingles in my veins at the thought of this thing. Were our prisons not crowded enough with men taken in the very act of rebellion, that you must needs lay an accusation against a young lad of excellent character for a mere indiscretion, and get him also incarcerated in those filthy dens, to languish there for weeks? And having done this, and having borne witness which gained for the poor child a whipping far in excess of his fault, what fiend possessed you to carry a tale to the Judge in his cups, and gain for the boy such handling that his life has barely been saved by the exertions of his friends and the leniency of the prison authorities, themselves ashamed of such a deed? Man, man, I almost forget myself in anger as I think of this thing. You calling yourself a priest and servant of the Most High God, a minister of His children, a messenger of peace and righteousness--you to show yourself such a monster of cruelty that the blood curdles at the tale of your deeds! Go, sir; let me never see you again. And do not dare ever to pollute a pulpit, or perform any holy office in the diocese over which I reign, lest I take upon myself to excommunicate you, as in the good old days of ecclesiastical discipline would have been done for a far less offence than yours!"

And the good Bishop walked on with a stern face, leaving the miscreant he had so worthily lashed with his tongue cowering and shivering with rage and fear, his face livid with passion and disappointment, and his hands nervously clutching at the cane he carried, as though in an instinctive longing to lay it about the shoulders of some innocent victim.

Not daring to follow, or to say another word to the good Bishop, who was known to be a most tender-hearted man, and whose scathing rebuke was therefore far more telling than it would have been in the lips of the military Bishop Mew, who had actually taken the field in person, the wretched creature lingered staring after the retreating figures until they had turned the next corner, and then, gnashing his teeth in impotent shame and rage, he turned towards his own lodgings, and made as though he would have retired thither.

But he was not destined to attain this shelter so speedily as he had thought. A crowd had gathered in the street to hear the Bishop's reprimand, and murmurs of applause and approval had greeted every scathing rebuke. The very fact that the Bishop had not scrupled to speak thus in public to a clergyman showed how greatly his indignation had been aroused; and as the evil creature turned to leave the scene of his humiliation, he found himself suddenly confronted by the brawny blacksmith who had given him a taste of his tongue on another occasion.

"Ho, ho, Sir Priest! so the good Lord Bishop is not a friend to drunkenness and debauchery and savage cruelty! And so the discipline of the Church is relaxed, is it, and its evil servants cannot be touched? Sure that must be a sore matter of regret to so righteous a man as good Mr. Blewer.--Friends," and here he turned his face with a not too pleasant grin upon it towards the crowd now pressing closely round, "since the good gentleman here is debarred from the discipline of the Church, suppose we good citizens give him a taste of such discipline as our town cudgels can bestow."

A yell of delight answered this suggestion, and a hundred staffs were immediately waved in the air. Mr. Blewer's face turned a livid green tint, and he looked at his tormentor with a sickly smile, fumbling in his pocket the while.

"Very good, very good, my merry friend. Thou art quite a wag in thy way," he gasped in his coward terror at the ring of fierce faces around him. "An excellent jest in truth, and one which I will myself tell to the good Bishop when I go to clear myself in his sight of the slanders he has heard against me. All friends of the people have enemies who malign them, and so it has been with me. Here, my good fellow, take that, and bid your friends disperse. I am a man of peace; let us have no unseemly disturbance here in the streets."

He would have pressed a golden guinea into the blacksmith's hand, but that honest rogue turned away with an expression of scorn and disgust.

"Thy money perish with thee!" he cried, in a great access of wrath; and bringing down his heavy staff upon the shoulders of the luckless Mr. Blewer, he shouted out, "Take that, thou coward and craven monster of cruelty! take that and that, and think of Will Wiseman! Would I could break every bone in that wretched body of thine!"

With a yell of pain and terror, and an agonized cry for the watch--which, however, never came--the wretched man sprang away and hurled himself through the crowd, every man of which, who was armed with a stick, hit him a blow as he passed, and every woman snatched at his coat or scratched his face, till his clothing was half torn off his back, and his face was running down with blood; and every one who struck him called out in savage accents, "Remember Will Wiseman!" or, "Take that for Will's sake!" or some phrase like that, till the wretched man must have wished from the very ground of his heart that he had let Will Wiseman alone. And when I heard the story, and how Mr. Blewer had been beaten almost into a jelly ere he reached the shelter of his house, I felt indeed that Will had been avenged, and that God had wrought vengeance even by the hands of the lawless and violent men.

Nor was any notice taken of this outrage by the authorities. I think both the Mayor and the magistrates felt that Mr. Blewer had only met his due. The rebuke of the Bishop was known to them, and there was no desire to take up the cudgels for a creature of such evil notoriety. All the town was sick of bloodshed and confusion, and was breathing once more in the hope of quieter days to come. To raise an inquiry and to punish the ringleaders of the mob would only stir the city into anger and even rebellion once again. So Mr. Blewer made his plaint in vain, and got no redress; and it was said of him that he went to Bristol as soon as he was able to travel, and drunk himself to death there before the year was ended; but of this I know nothing certain. I never saw the miserable creature again, and I can only think it very like him to come to such an end after the disappointments and the violent usage he had received.

The news of this discomfiture of his enemy, and of the vengeance taken upon him by the citizens, did much to hearten up poor Will after his long illness. I told him the story myself as he lay on his pallet bed upon his face--for his poor back was still all raw, and it would be long before his wounds would be healed. But the old spirit was coming back into my comrade, and I saw his eyes glow and flash just in the old way.

"O good Jem Truslove, good Jem Truslove! methinks I can see and hear him! O Dicon, it were a thousand pities I was not there to see it with mine own eyes! Had it been somebody else, how I would have thrashed him mine own self! So they made him remember Will Wiseman, did they? Ah, it was good of them! it was indeed a kindly act! Dicon, methinks after all he may have done me a good turn yet, for all that he meant to have killed me: for the Governor was here yesterday after thou hadst gone, and he told me that so soon as I could be moved I was free to go back to my friends; that my sentence had terminated, and that he was sorry I had been so roughly handled. Now that that monster of a Judge is gone, men are ashamed to think what he made them do. They are sick to death of bloodshed and cruelty, and would fain save all his victims from the fate he desired for them."

This indeed was very true. The Bloody Assizes, as men began to call them, had produced an indelible impression all over this West Country. The gentry, who had been all along against the rising for the Duke, and had joined hands with the party of order, on seeing the horrible and bloody vengeance taken upon the wretched inhabitants of their towns and villages, experienced a revulsion of feeling, and a great hatred of the King who could rejoice in and applaud such wholesale slaughter. They had believed that the ringleaders would of necessity suffer death--that was a necessary consequence of such an act of rebellion; but after the Duke had been beheaded, and after the rising had been so completely quelled, it was said by all moderate and merciful men that but a slight punishment should be inflicted upon the mass of lesser prisoners, who had been led away by ignorance and enthusiasm misplaced, and were like sheep following one another they knew not whither.

The sending down of the bloodiest and most iniquitous Judge upon the bench with authority to massacre wholesale, and the unbridled ferocity with which he had carried out his bloody task, had thoroughly displeased and disgusted all moderate and merciful men; and the honours heaped upon the bloody wretch by his admiring sovereign on his return had added to the universal execration in which he was held. All mercy that was possible was therefore fearlessly shown now to those who had escaped the peril of the law, or lay under some sentence like that of Will Wiseman. Other men--ay, and women too--had been condemned to be whipped through various places at intervals; but the magistrates took it upon themselves to release them after a very small part of the punishment had been inflicted. A sense of peace and security settled down upon a region so long rent by faction and fear. The citizens felt that the gentry were at heart with them in their indignation against the King, and in their desire after purer government; and although at the moment there was no thought of any fresh rising, the people began to whisper that a deliverer would come some day, and that the oppressed nation would turn as one man, and hurl the bloody tyrant from his throne.

So although there was mourning and woe in too many homes in Taunton, yet there was rejoicing in others; and amongst these latter was the house of Master Simpson, which was gladdened by the return of the master, on the very day when poor Will Wiseman had been got back, after having been so long away and suffered so much.

I had brought him back myself in a coach which my uncle had sent from our inn; and I had made him comfortable upon a couch, and Lizzie and her aunt were hanging over him and asking him all manner of questions, and making as much of him as though he had indeed been their brother and nephew, when we were startled by a heavy footfall up the flagged garden walk (for the impulse of fear was still strong within us, and we were easily alarmed at any unexpected sound), and Lizzie suddenly uttered a little scream of ecstasy, and the next moment had sprung right into her father's arms.

Oh, what a clatter of tongues and clamour of voices there was, everybody speaking at once, and nobody able to listen till the first joyful excitement had passed!

Master Simpson--he would never let himself be called Captain again--had a long story to tell us of his narrow escapes from the bands of soldiers after the fatal field of Sedgemoor. He had been amongst those who had made such a gallant stand upon the edge of the rhine, and had fired volley after volley into the surprised and disordered ranks of the enemy long after the Duke had fled at the instance of Lord Grey, and in fact until every round of ammunition had been used. He confirmed the story told me by the poor soldier in the ditch, that if the ammunition-waggons had but come up, and the cavalry had but re-formed even at a distance and shown something of a front, the day might easily have been ours. He spoke bitterly of Lord Grey, and declared that if Lord Vere had been there things would have gone very differently. But I have often thought since that Lord Grey was scarce as much to blame as our people always said. I doubt whether the untrained horses would have stood the sound of firing had their riders been never so stout of heart. It is a long time before the mettlesome creatures can be made to understand that they must face the flash of fire-arms and the terrible noise and smell. Sometimes it takes two years before a horse is seasoned; and these animals had been but a few weeks at most with the army, and had only smelt powder once or twice before.

Yet if the horses would not stand, their riders should have sent on the ammunition as fast as possible, instead of spreading dismay through the rear of the army and keeping back both the waggons and the rest of the foot. There was nothing to excuse the confusion which their rout created in the rear of the army. But what boots it to talk of these matters now? The day was lost, and Master Simpson, slightly wounded and greatly exhausted, had crawled into a ditch to hide himself, and was passed over by the soldiers in their first search. Afterwards he got up and slunk away in an opposite direction from Bridgewater, and received much kindness at a woodman's hut, where the people took care of him for several days, and where he healed him of his wound. Then fearing to remain so near to the scene of Colonel Kirke's activity, he fled towards Philip's Norton, knowing the country from having traversed it before but recently; and many narrow escapes did he have of falling into the hands of the soldiers. But fortune favoured him, and he escaped each time, though once he was up hiding in the rafters of an old barn, whilst the soldiers were eating and sleeping on the ground beneath him; and he almost gave himself up for lost once, when the beam creaked beneath his weight, and somebody called out, "Is anybody up there? Speak, man, or I fire!"

He did not, however, speak, nor did the soldier fire. The men laughed, and the officer swore at them for waking him up; and so they settled to their slumbers again.

That was the nearest shave he had, but many were his perils; and Lizzie sat holding his hand, and looking into his face with eyes full of terror and ecstasy; whilst the aunt bustled about to get the best supper the town could produce upon a sudden, and Master Simpson turned to Will and made him tell all his history.

He shook his head, and his face looked stern as he heard of the cruel Judge; but it brightened as he heard how Mr. Blewer had been served, and said, rubbing his hands together,--

"Good lads of Taunton, good brother citizens, would I had been there to add a sounding blow to theirs! Would that we could serve the Judge the same! Would that he might be at the mercy of the West Country lads some day!"

"Somehow," said Will slowly, as he lay white and thin upon his couch, a strange light coming slowly into his eyes as he spoke--"somehow I seem to think that I shall have my turn some day even with Judge Jeffreys! I think that I shall avenge upon him the wrongs of our people before he lays down his wicked life!"