CHAPTER IV.

_MY NEW LIFE._

If I were to begin to set down in order all the many things that happened to me without and within the town of Taunton during the early days of my residence there, I should go far to fill a volume ere ever I had reached the matters of which it is my intention more particularly to speak.

So I must strive after all the brevity of a skilled master of the craft of penmanship and story-telling, and seek to skim the cream from the surface of events, without wearying the reader with overmuch detail.

Let me say, in the first place, that I was very happy in my new life. I was kindly treated by my relatives. I made myself useful to my uncle in many ways, and I was a favourite with his guests, who delighted to hear the news of the day read to them whilst they smoked their pipes at ease, and who were all ready to talk with me when the reading was over, one telling me one bit of public gossip, and another another, till my mind was quite a storehouse of information, and I was able to talk upon almost any subject with the air of one who knew something about it.

The reputation for cleverness and knowledge which I soon gained (though in good sooth it was less knowledge than a good memory that I possessed) gave me a small standing of mine own in the place, and I had quite a brisk little business erelong, in writing letters for those who could not do it for themselves, and getting them passed on by trusty hands, by means of some of the many visitors who passed to and fro between our town and other places. My uncle let me keep for myself all such moneys as I gained in this fashion, and so I was able to take home to my mother and sisters presents which made them open their eyes wide in amaze, on the occasions when I mounted Blackbird and rode over to my former home. I was looked upon now as a person of some importance; and although only a lad of thirteen summers, I felt as if I should soon arrive at man's estate.

I had something to suffer at the Free School from the gibes and the envy of the other boys, who liked not to be surpassed at their books by the "hunchback clown"--such was their name for me for a time--and who paid me many an ill turn and played off many a malicious trick, until at last they wearied of it, or I gradually grew into favour, I scarce knew which, and I was let alone to go mine own way. But in spite of all this I was happy in my school hours, for I was learning every day something new; and if the boys misliked me, the masters took good heed of me and favoured my thirst after knowledge, so that I was able to study with zeal and success, and to win the praise of Mr. Axe, who would come from time to time to hear the boys recite, or to ask them questions from Scripture or secular history, and who never left without a word of kindness for me.

I came to revere and love Mr. Axe right well. He was not truly the Vicar of beauteous St. Mary's Church. The Vicar, in very sooth, was one Mr. Hart, who was (so it was told me) also Canon of Bristol and Prebendary of Wells, so that he had but scant time to think of his duties here. Mr. Axe, however, supplied all that was lacking, and was greatly beloved by us--as much beloved as Mr. Blewer was mistrusted and feared: for we would cross the street to avoid coming within the radius of _his_ basilisk glance; and I for one never saw him without the feeling that he would prove a cruel foe ere we had seen the last of him.

Now I had scarce been a month at my uncle's house before a great excitement befell us, and a great fear fell upon many of our towns-folk; for it was rumoured that this thing would lose the Duke of Monmouth his head, and that even if his life were spared he would have to fly the country, and be no more seen in this land.

And the reason for this rumour, which filled all Somersetshire with sorrow, was the discovery of a vile plot against the life of the King and that of the Duke of York, which wicked and slanderous tongues were eager to charge upon the virtuous and high-minded Duke of Monmouth.

Well do I remember the day when first the news of this infamous plot, which came to be called the Rye House Plot, reached the good citizens of Taunton.

It was upon a Sunday morning, and I, together with my uncle and aunt and his daughter Meg, had started forth for Paul's Meeting, which we always attended for morning service, when we noted that the people in the streets had an air of gravity and anxiety which was not usual, and that all seemed to be asking questions one of another, although none seemed to be ready with an answer.

Now generally we were the first to hear any news that might reach the town, because that travellers were wont to put up at the Three Cups rather than at the other hostelries, which were less beliked than our house. But to-day there had been none arrival, and my uncle stopped to ask the first acquaintance he encountered what was the meaning of the general discomposure.

Now it chanced that this acquaintance was none other than Heywood Dare--"Old Dare," as he was often called, less perhaps from his actual years than because he had a son who was also a notable man in his way, and who had a part to play in the days that were coming.

Now old Dare had a story of his own, and was a great man in Taunton. He was by trade a goldsmith, and a man of substance to boot; but it was not his wealth that had gained for him the repute in which he was held, but his courage and devotion to the cause of liberty and justice.

It was one of the grievances of the times that the King would not permit Parliament to sit sometimes for long years together. Men whispered that he received great sums of money from France, which enabled him to dispense with the summoning of his own loyal subjects to grant supplies. However that may be, the people were grieved and wroth that their assembly was not called and permitted to sit, as they claimed that it had the right to do; and petitions from townships were constantly sent up to his Majesty imploring him to call together his Parliament, until the King grew greatly incensed, issued proclamations forbidding the presentation of these petitions, and threatening with severe penalties those who went about "getting hands," as it was termed, to put to these documents. Indeed many barbarous severities had been put in practice against those who still strove to collect names for such papers; and curious enough were such documents when they were drawn up, for three-fourths of those who "set hand" to them could not write their names, but could only make a mark which was to stand instead of it.

Now some four years back Old Dare had got up a notable petition, and it had been signed or marked by half Taunton, and by Bridgewater and Ilminster and many another fair town. The sturdy old goldsmith pursued his way to London with it. It was his intention to deliver it to the King with his own hand; and this intention he carried out, meeting the King hard by the Houses of Parliament, and presenting his paper on bended knee. The King took it unsuspecting--for it was a bold man who would venture to place one of the abhorred petitions in the royal hands; but on unfolding it he became instantly aware of its nature, and turning sharply upon the offender, he asked him how he dared to do such a thing. "Sire," replied the intrepid goldsmith, "my name is Dare!" And forasmuch as there is always something noble in fearless courage, and that his Majesty is not without nobility of soul, no hurt was done to the bold petitioner, albeit no good that I ever heard of came from his petition.

Well then, to return to my present tale, it was Old Dare whom we encountered in the street to-day; and when my uncle asked what the coil was all about, he shook his head and answered,--

"I cannot say with knowledge; but a messenger rode post-haste to the house of the Mayor but now, and it was plain, by the stains of travel on him and his horse, that they had been hard pushed to reach the place. It is something of note, I take it, and something of evil, I fear." He lowered his voice and said in my uncle's ear (yet I heard every word, being very keen of hearing), "I fear me it will prove to be some plot to ruin the Duke and his Council of Six. It may be that they have been something rash and forward. I fear me we shall hear bad news ere the day is out."

I knew well what was meant by the Council of Six. The Duke of Monmouth had some faithful friends, lovers of liberty and constitutional rule--my Lord of Russell and Mr. Algernon Sydney being of the number--who met together often to discuss what might be done for a country beginning once again to groan beneath the yoke of an arbitrary exercise of the power of the Crown. Representations had been made to the King, it was said, to summon Parliament, and give to the people their lawful voice in the government; but this having proved of none avail, it had been whispered that these men had spoken of another Great Revolution, such as had cost the King's father his head; and of course such talk was accounted rank treason in those days, and was like to cost many a man his life.

Now we of the West Country in general, and of Taunton Town in particular, knew very well that if any rising or tumult took place, it would be like enough to be in our neighbourhood; and that, even if we kept ourselves tranquil, we might get the credit of being turbulent, and have our rights infringed, even if our charter were not taken from us, as it had been early in the King's reign, although restored seventeen years later. Also, we all of us pinned our chiefest hopes of constitutional government and the Protestant religion on the hoped-for succession of the Duke of Monmouth; and if he were to be implicated in a plot which should cost him liberty or life, our hopes would receive a crushing blow, and nothing lie before us but the succession of a bigoted Papist and a man of known cruelty and tyranny.

Small wonder was it, therefore, that our faces were grave, and that we all looked anxiously at our minister, Mr. Vincent, as he mounted the pulpit a little after the usual time, and looked seriously upon our upturned faces. He made no attempt at a regular sermon that day, but after giving thanks for the merciful preservation of his gracious Majesty the King from a recent and great danger, he proceeded to tell us that a plot had been laid against the King's life and that of the Duke of York, and how it was currently rumoured that the Duke of Monmouth and his friends were concerned in the matter. Arrests had been made of certain persons, and the Duke had fled and hidden himself.

Mr. Vincent also told us, with great seriousness, that rumour had already been forward to declare that an insurrection had commenced, with Taunton as its centre; and counselled us, as we valued the peace of the realm and our own safety, to avoid any cause of offence, and to remain perfectly quiet and tranquil. The time might come in the future when it would be a righteous thing to rise up and strike a blow for the liberty and the faith of the country, but certainly that day had not yet come. The King upon the throne was the rightful one; his rule was on the whole fair and just. There was no quarrel with him. Nothing would so injure the righteous cause as a revolt against law and order; nothing would so greatly hurt the cause of the young Duke of Monmouth. We must show discretion and wisdom at this time, that none might have cause to look with suspicion upon us.

This wise counsel from one who was a pillar of strength amongst us was not without due effect. We looked at one another and resolved to abide by Mr. Vincent's counsel. We knew that our Mayor was a bitter enemy to all dissenters, and would fasten upon us an indictment of disaffection if we gave the smallest ground. Indeed he took instant action upon hearing of the plot, and called some bands of the militia into the town; and I verily believe that it was with his consent, if not at his instigation, that a deed was done in the town which made us who called ourselves dissenters tingle with rage and feel almost ready to raise the very tumult of which we were altogether innocent in fact.

Now the thing of which I speak was nothing less than the demolishing of the great chapel called Paul's Meeting, of which I have spoken, and in which hundreds of citizens met to worship Sunday by Sunday. And this thing was done, to the great shame of those concerned in it, just when the excitement which I have mentioned prevailed, notwithstanding that Mr. Vincent and Mr. Burgess, both of whom preached to us there, were godly men, and taught us submission to lawful rulers, and spoke no evil of dignitaries.

The first I knew of this was one evening just before our house generally closed for the night--it was summer then, and not dark till ten of the clock--when Will Wiseman came rushing into the yard, all bursting with excitement, and crying out to me in panting gasps,--

"Dicon, Dicon, come and see! come and see! They are pulling our meeting-house to pieces, and say they will make such a bonfire of our pews and pulpit as shall light to bed every dissenter in the county! Come and see! come and see! I would not go myself till I had told thee!"

Will Wiseman was certain to be in the forefront of everything; but I had no mind to be left behind. Forthwith we both rushed out from the yard, and soon the noise of a great tumult fell upon our ears. In the streets men were gathered together with dark faces and threatening mien, some talking angrily against the dissenters, who, it was declared, had been guilty of plotting against the King's life, but many more holding a stern silence and regarding their enemies with silent hostility; whilst hoarse cries and shouts rent the air, and grew louder and more distinct as we drew near to Paul's Meeting.

Once within sight of the building, we saw that it was lighted up from within; and unable to come near to the door for the surging mob around it, we climbed up to one of the windows and looked in.

What a sight it was! There were a hundred men inside, I should think, armed with hammers and saws and other tools and weapons; and these were all engaged in hammering, sawing, breaking down, and demolishing the whole of the woodwork in the chapel; and as fast as some pew, or great piece of panelling, or any large fragment of pulpit or gallery was broken off, other men would rush forward and drag it forth from the door, to carry it away into Paul's Fields, where it was plain that the great bonfire was to be made. And all the while they worked, they shouted out threats against their fellow-townsmen, calling out, "Down with all traitors! Down with the King's enemies! We will have nothing but the Church and the King!"

Yet many of the fellows now working like furies and shouting out these words had attended many a service in Paul's Meeting, and were friendly enough towards us, albeit perhaps not men of much personal godliness. But they were carried away by the excitement of the moment, and by the coward fear of getting into trouble with the Mayor should they show any lack of zeal. Men all over the kingdom were trembling just now in apprehension of arrest; for informers were going about the country, and many a lowly as well as many a noble and high personage was flung into prison on the most trivial charge. To join hands in reviling the dissenters and calling down blessings upon the King and the Church seemed the safest way of propitiating the authorities at such a moment; and this was what our towns-folk were now doing, by demolishing our chapel, and showing their zeal towards the Court party.

It was all very exciting; and though my heart and Will's swelled with indignation, we could not help watching till the whole of the building was stripped. Then we followed in the wake of the shouting crowd, and soon saw a great pillar of fire rising up from the midst of the assembled throng. As the great mountain of flame rose higher and higher, and waved its crown of smoke and sparks up to the roof of heaven as it seemed, the crowd yelled and shouted and danced around the pyre, bawling out every kind of folly that came into their heads; whilst outside the yelling ring, and a little distance away, stood the stern-faced men who had been wont to worship there, together with the ministers who had occupied the pulpit, and they looked on in silence, and gathered sometimes in groups together. Will Wiseman, who had the faculty of hearing what everybody said without seeming to listen, whispered to me, "They are saying that they will still meet for preaching and prayer whatever is done to their meeting-house."

And so indeed it proved, although the Mayor looked stern and dark, and sometimes uttered hints that sounded almost like a threat against "conventicles," as he termed them. Indeed he made himself so heartily misliked amongst the towns-folk, that but for the authority and protection bestowed by his office, I think some mischief would have been done him. But though a time of exceeding excitement prevailed for many weeks, there was no rising in the country; and by-and-by we were made glad by the tidings that there had been a reconciliation betwixt the Duke of Monmouth and the King, although Lord William Russell and Mr. Algernon Sydney ended their lives upon the scaffold.

Not that these men had any complicity in the murder plot against the King's life. They had souls far above the treachery and meanness of assassination. But the lesser and more villanous plot of minor conspirators was grafted upon the larger and wider-reaching intentions of these champions of liberty and of rule by constitutional rather than autocratic methods, and they were judged guilty of treason, and were doomed to death. Some said that the Duke of Monmouth had been led by promises of restoration to favour to bear witness against his friends. How that may be I will not say. At this time all Taunton was indignant at the aspersion cast upon the fair fame of the gallant young Duke, and the story was indignantly discredited, and by no one more hotly than by me. Now when my blood is cool, and I have grown wiser and have heard more of those days, I cannot be so sure of the innocence of the Duke as I felt then. Men are sorely tempted sometimes, and fall into sin almost ere they are aware of it. Human nature is weak, and a man may have many faults and many weaknesses and yet be the idol of the people for many a long day.

It was at this time that I grew better acquainted with several of the families in Taunton. I was in great request when the weekly news-letter came to my uncle's house--he had one of his own as well as that which was brought to the Mayor; for, as I have said, the Mayor was a bitter enemy to the dissenting portion of the towns-folk, and that was a very large section, as the well-filled building, Paul's Meeting, bore witness Sunday by Sunday.

Foremost amongst my friends I still reckoned Master Simpson and his family. Will Wiseman was my chosen comrade on all occasions, and Lizzie was the object of my boyish gallantry, and I continued to think her the prettiest and most charming maid in all Taunton Town.

But I must not omit to mention others who had a part to play in the drama that was slowly approaching. Of these I must mention the Herring family, father and mother, with three daughters, Anne, Susan, and Grace, all of whom attended Miss Blake's school; and Master John Hucker, a notable serge-maker, with his daughter Eliza; and the Hewling family, than which none other was more greatly beloved and esteemed in the whole of the town.

Mistress Hannah Hewling was mistress of this happy household. She was a spinster of some thirty years of age, and she played a mother's part to two virtuous and handsome young men, who were at the time of which I am now writing aged twenty and seventeen years respectively. This family had another home in London, where their parents lived, but owned this house property in Taunton, too, where these two brothers and their sister lived in the greatest amity and peace. The Hewlings were gentry, and people of substance, yet so friendly and kindly disposed towards their towns-folk that we all regarded them as friends. They would stop to speak a friendly word to any one of us in the street, and many were the evenings when they would invite some amongst us to their hospitable house. Sometimes there would be music to enliven us after supper--for Mistress Hannah played both harp and spinnet right sweetly, whilst Master Benjamin discoursed eloquent music on the flute, and Master William could draw strains from his violin that brought tears to the eyes of the listeners before they well knew it--or failing music, some one would read aloud from a godly book, or from some history of past days, and the elder members of the party would be invited to discuss the subject, whilst the rest of us listened in respectful silence, and framed our own opinions on what we heard.

It was in this way that I came to understand much of the questions of the day from the standpoint of those who believed the Duke of Monmouth to be the champion not of freedom and constitutional rule alone, but also of the Protestant religion. The things we read about the awful cruelty and treachery of those who were tainted by the curse of Popery often made our blood run cold within us; and when it became increasingly certain that the Duke of York was Papist up to the neck, and would throw off all disguise when once he ascended the throne, it was scarce to be marvelled at that we should fix our eyes upon one who might rise up to be a champion and deliverer, and save us from the oppression of a tyrant and bigot.

I was heart and soul with all men who held this view, but I noted often that my uncle would sit mute whilst such talk was going on, and that he was always slow to commit himself to any open opinion. And once when I had grown too excited to hold my peace any longer, and had openly spoken out some of the thoughts that were burning within me, he had taken me to task afterwards, not sternly indeed, but somewhat seriously, and had warned me that I had better learn the art of holding my tongue, and watching the turn of the tide before I launched my bark upon untried waters.

"But, uncle," I exclaimed eagerly, "surely you are for the Duke?"

"I am for the rightful King of the realm, whoever he be," was the cautious answer. "It is not given to us to choose our monarch. God sets Kings upon the throne, and bids us submit ourselves to the powers that be. That is my principle, and will be my practice; albeit I should greatly prefer to serve a King of the true faith."

I was puzzled by this way of stating the matter, for it was not after such cautious fashion that the greater part of our friends talked; but I began to note as time went by that my uncle was more cautious in many of his ways than were others, and that he made some small changes in his methods and habits.

After the Rye House Plot there was great excitement in the country, and greater efforts than ever were made to force men to attend public worship in the churches of the Establishment instead of in meeting-houses of their own. Many such meeting-houses and chapels were wrecked (like our own) in various places, and the flocks scattered, so that they could no longer hear their favourite doctrines preached by their favourite ministers, but must either absent themselves from public worship or go to church with the orthodox.

Now in St. Mary's Church there was held a grand service of thanksgiving for the safety of the King and the Duke of York, and the Mayor and Burgesses all attended in civic pomp. My uncle went, of course, in his capacity of one of the Capital Burgesses; but rather to our surprise, he desired that all of us should be present; and from that day forward he regularly attended the parish church, taking his wife and daughter and other members of his household. He gave as his reason for this, that it was right to obey the wishes of the ruling sovereign in so far as it was possible to do so without violation of the conscience, and that so long as good Mr. Axe filled the pulpit of St. Mary's, he could go and hear him with edification and pleasure.

I was quite of that opinion myself, used to the order and liturgy of the church, and finding the long extempore prayers at Paul's Meeting less to my liking than the collects set down in the prayer-book. I was glad to go to church; but I was a little puzzled by my uncle's sudden zeal for submission and orthodoxy. He said nothing that our friends could cavil at, and was hearty and warm towards them as ever; but he seemed to desire to be "all things to all men"--a line of conduct which I was far too young and hot-headed to understand the use of.

But I must not omit to mention, in dealing with my early experiences of Taunton, the school next door, and the two kindly gentlewomen who conducted it.

Meg had once been a scholar there, and kept very friendly relations with her mistresses. My aunt, too, was very kindly disposed towards them, and would often send me in with some small delicacy for their supper; and by-and-by I used to be admitted to the parlour where the ladies sat, and was sometimes bidden to take a seat and to tell them some of the gossip of the town. For these gentlewomen seldom stirred abroad themselves, and all their exercise was taken in the old garden behind the house, where the pupils walked or played for an hour in the middle of the day when the weather permitted. As I grew to be better acquainted with them, I was asked sometimes to read awhile whilst they plied their needles; and this reading became such a pleasure to them that by the time the first winter of my stay in Taunton arrived, I went in about once a week to read the news-letter after it had been exhausted at the inn, and to tell them all I had gleaned from travellers or from the talk of the towns-folk upon it.

It was these readings which introduced me first to the notice of fair Mistress Mary Mead, of whom I had heard upon the very first day of my sojourn in the town, but of whom I had had no thought till I was months afterwards brought into her presence.

And I think it behoves me here to explain somewhat of the history of fair Mistress Mary; for these pages will have a good deal to say of her, and it may be well that it should be fully understood what manner of person she was.

Her grandfather had been one of Cromwell's generals--a man stanch to the side of the Parliament; and he had fallen at the siege of Taunton, of which mention has been made. His son, Mistress Mary's father, had been enriched by the spoils of the Cavaliers in their misfortunes, and had amassed a considerable fortune. This daughter was his only child, and his wife, who was said to be of a noble royalist family, died in giving her birth. Sir Thomas Mead--for he had won his spurs of knighthood--died when his child was ten years old, leaving her to the guardianship of his friend the Earl of Lonsdale. Sir Thomas had trimmed his sails with the times, and had welcomed the King back from exile at the Restoration; but it was always supposed that he had not changed his views to any notable extent, and that his daughter had been brought up to glory in the doughty deeds of her grandsire, and to hate and abhor all undue exercise of royal prerogative, and all indications of Popery.

The girl had been brought up for convenience at the school where the better towns-folk sent their daughters, Sir Thomas not having yet learned to hold his head higher than the compeers of his father. When the child was left an orphan, Lord Lonsdale had summoned her to his house, and it was supposed that she would remain beneath her guardian's roof until she married; but some four years later she was suddenly sent back to the care of Miss Blake and Mrs. Musgrave, not exactly on the footing of the rest of the scholars, but to remain in their charge as a member of their household, and to observe the same secluded life as they did themselves.

Various surmises were afloat with regard to this sudden and unusual arrangement. Some declared that Mistress Mary's faithful attachment to her instructors (which was an admitted fact in all quarters) had led to this step, and that it was her own earnest pleadings which had caused her to be sent back. Others affirmed that her guardian was alarmed and displeased by her independence of mind and by her revolutionary tenets, and had sent her away in disgrace; but that theory was rather quashed by the improbability of Lord Lonsdale's choosing Miss Blake's school as the asylum for a refractory maiden, since both the heads of the establishment were known to be much of the same way of thinking. The third whisper was that Lord Lonsdale's son, the gallant and dashing Viscount Vere, had shown such unmistakable signs of falling in love with his father's ward, that Lord Lonsdale in a great fright (for he had other views of a more ambitious nature for his son) had sent Mary away in haste, choosing a place where she was known to have friends and to be happy, and hoping she would shortly relieve him of all embarrassment by selecting a husband for herself. But if this was the case, his choice of a place had hardly been a happy one; for Mistress Mary led a life of almost nun-like retirement, and had already been four years with her former mistresses without showing any signs of entering into bonds of wedlock.

I had heard all these tales and surmises respecting her before ever I was favoured by the sight of her fair sweet face and graceful form. But she came to be present often at the readings, and I learned to think her more exquisitely beautiful every time I saw her. There was a charm in the steady dark grey eyes, the delicate mobile features, and the easy grace of her every movement, which my poor pen has no power to describe. Her voice was low and sweet, the sweetest I have ever heard, and the rare laugh was like music. Surely had I been a man, and a comely and gallant one to boot, I should straightway have fallen in love with sweet Mistress Mary Mead. And I ceased to marvel at the stories of Viscount Vere; for even as a child she must have been passing fair, and how could he help loving what was so gracious and so good?

But I had no suspicion in those early days what I should be called upon to do for Mistress Mary Mead, nor how great a part I should play in her life's story.