Part 3

The procession was led by a few youths and maidens, with whom were all the musicians of the village; while others, walking immediately before the bride and her two bride maidens, strewed the ground, as they went, with rushes and herbs. The bridegroom, in a suit of violet-coloured cloth, guarded with velvet of the deepest crimson, and with a falling collar of worked linen, followed, supported by his bridesmen, in fit bravery of apparel; next came a group of relations, male and female, led by the old franklin himself, with his grave and comely wife, and the men and maids of his household brought up the rear of the procession. It was met at the churchyard gate by Parson Noble and his wife,--she joining old Mrs. Blount, and the good vicar, in his snowy surplice, taking place at the head of it, immediately between the herb-strewers and the bridal party; and now a gravity and silence succeeded, and in decency and order all entered the church, and proceeded with quiet steps to the altar. There, the sweet and solemn service, which binds together for “better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do part,” was reverently and impressively performed by Noble, his own deep and mellow tones being only interrupted by the manly voice of the bridegroom, and the faltering accents of the shy and trembling bride, as they gave utterance to their heart’s true and hallowed responses. No sooner was the ceremony ended than the bells, which had, for a while, been silent, struck out with the wedding peal; and as the new married couple came forth into the churchyard the air was rent with the joyous acclamations of the crowd without; and the procession returned in nearly the same order as it had left the house of the worthy franklin, only, according to the good custom of the time, the parson made one of the wedding party, and partook of the marriage feast.

Such of the old as could not walk abroad, stood leaning on staves, or sat dim-eyed on the stones before their doors, to see or hear the bridal train pass down; for each of these Parson Noble and the franklin had a kind word as they went by, returned by the benison and good wishes for the bride, who had herself no voice for any one, and, supported on her husband’s arm, scarce saw her path through eyes that were filling from a happy bosom’s overflow.

We shall not detain our reader by describing the dinner at Master Blount’s; right plentiful was the cheer. Parson Noble said a grace in rhyme, out of old Tom Tusser’s book of Husbandry, to the great contentment of his hospitable host, that being the one book by which, after his Bible, Blount squared his honest life.

“God sendeth and giveth both mouth and the meat, And blesseth us all with his benefits great; Then serve we the God, who so richly doth give, Show love to our neighbours, and lay for to live.”

This being the franklin’s rule,--while his guests were feasted in the old oak parlour, at the back of the house; in the pleasant orchard, all his labourers were regaled with a hearty meal of meat and plum-porridge; and huge jacks of ale were emptied and replenished, to the health of bride and bridegroom and good master.

After due carvings of veal and bacon, unlacing of fat capons, and untrussing of great pies of fruit and other dainties, in the parlour, and after some mantling cups of wine drank to the happy pair, the old people yielded to the impatience of the young, and all adjourned to Robin’s Meadow, not, however, before they had sung, as the grace after meat, a short psalm of praise.

The meadow, in which from generations before the May-pole was raised, had a fine level sward, which Blount kept smooth as a bowling-ground for the dancers, while a part of it rose in swelling banks, shaded by trees. These, though, as yet, but in early leaf, were gaily green, and contrasted well with the many-coloured and blushing wreaths of field-flowers that wound about the May-pole, at the top of which glittered a small crown, newly gilded in honour of the wedding, and further adorned with a few of the rarest plants which the gardens of Cheddar could produce.

A pleasure it was, as they passed into the meadow, to see the happy children rolling and tumbling and racing down the steep bank, from which they now scrambled away, to make room for the franklin’s party, and for the elders of the village, who, from this grassy knoll, were wont to preside over the pastimes of this holyday. We give not this scene in detail:--the dances of the young, as, with light and elastic steps, they bounded to lively measures round the May-pole, and the nodding heads of the musicians keeping time with the dancers, and the races and gambols of the ruddy children, each reader may figure forth to his own fancy. Neither tell we of the pretty ceremonies with which the milk maids brought their cows, with horns all garlanded, into the adjoining close, and prepared and offered the delicious syllabub: our aim is only to give an outline of a village May-day of the times of which we write, and to show the good parson of the best school of that period mingling in mirth among his people. Leaving, therefore, the happy villagers to continue their sports till set of sun, we shall confine ourselves to the steps of the pastor, and complete the journal of his day.

As the chimes struck six o’clock, he quietly withdrew, and passed from the scenes of pleasure and feasting to those of sickness and of mourning. If he had regarded the former with complacent joy, he was not the less willing, nor the less prepared, to cheer the latter with those high contemplations and those tender sympathies to which, by faith, as a Christian, he could point, and which, in charity, as a man, he truly felt. Of the old, who were confined to their own thresholds, he found two or three cross and short, but most of them garrulous, and in good humour. They had got pleasant portions from the franklin, and they could tell of old May-days, and heard, with thankful nods and ready “ayes,” and strong fetchings of the breath, that were not sighs of grief, the grave good words with which he taught them how only they could die in peace.

Of his flock only one lay at the point of death, and her he visited last.

She was the miller’s daughter, and had been the May-queen of the bygone year. Sacred be such visit, in its most solemn communings! but we may paint the scene of it, and the trifles which belong to those sympathies of our humanity, that often survive the resigned hope of life.

In a tall chair, against the back of which she leaned her head, sate a pale maiden, warmly wrapped in a robe of white woollen, close to the small window of an upper chamber, on which the evening sun shone warm: curling honey-suckles did make a frame to it; and one rose, with an opening bud, peeped from the trained bush beneath. Upon a little table near her stood a fragrant branch of May in a cup of water. There were faint flushes in her transparent cheeks, and there was an unearthly brightness in her eyes--not fitful--but a calm, steady, serene ray, that, as the declining sun poured over the damsel its yellow glories, presented her to the thoughtful gazer such as she might be when treading the celestial courts above.

“And have you any other wish, my child?” said Noble, as he rose to go.

“Yes, if it be not too foolish.”

“Tell it, my dear.”

“I would like some flowers from the May-pole strewn on my winding-sheet, and a bit of rosemary from your own garden put in my hands.”

“And you shall have them,” said Noble, pressing her wan hand in his, and turning quick away.

CHAP. IV.

And if physitians in their art did see In each disease there was some sparke divine, Much more let us the hand of God confesse In all these sufferings of our guiltinesse. _A Treatie of Warres._

Night closed on Cheddar, without any other disturbance than a quarrel--loud and short as a thunder-storm--between the blacksmith and his old termagant wife, which, Roger being potent in liquor, terminated in a complete victory on his part; and thus silence, if not peace, was restored to the quarter in which he dwelt.

Moreover, at the door of the Jolly Woodcutter, the most decent ale-house in the townlet, an old soldier with one leg, who tramped the country as a ballad-singer, with a fiddle and a dancing dog, became so very uproarious that it was found absolutely necessary by the parish constable to secure his one sturdy limb in the village stocks, where, after venting a few loud and angry curses at this dignitary, and abusing the village fiddlers for not playing the grand march of the king’s beef-eaters to the right tune, he addressed himself to making as easy a sleeping posture as his wooden fetter would allow; and, being apparently very familiar with such a resting-place, soon grumbled off into snoring forgetfulness: his little four-footed companion and guard did meanwhile drag up the cloak, which he had dropped some yards from the place of his confinement, and, arranging it in a soft heap, curled itself thereon with an evident sense of comfort.

But May-day festivals--though certainly in towns, and in those parishes in the rural districts where not conducted by discreet persons, they were often fruitful in scenes of riot and licentiousness--were not, in the present instance, chargeable with either of the noisy incidents which had for a half hour frighted the village from its propriety; seeing that the disputes of Roger and his rib were of every-day occurrence, and his potations also; and as for the old soldier, his drinking bouts were regulated by the state of that narrow poke in which he deposited his uncertain gains; and his sobriety was never secure while one coin remained in it.

Our parson came forth at the first glimpse of day on the morrow, to inquire at the mill how the poor sufferer had passed the night. She was in a profound and calm sleep, and he returned thankfully home, taking the street which led by the market cross. Nobody was yet abroad; but, under the great tree in the market place, he saw the old soldier sitting up in the stocks, and looking about him very forlorn and penitential. No sooner did he perceive the good vicar approaching, than he began to plead for his freedom.

“May it please your good reverence, make them loose me. I am not a pig, that I should be thus pounded:--never said or did harm to man or Christian, save only in the way of duty, your reverence. I am but a poor old toss-pike, done up in the wars; and gain an honest livelihood with this old kit and scraper, and this dumb creature, that shall dance you jig or coranto with any city madam of them all.”

“Why, I’ll see what I can do; but you would not have been put here for nothing, friend.”

“Nothing in life, your reverence, but drinking the health of King Charles in a brimmer, last evening, that was May-day, and a court holyday all the world over; and then the wound in my old head always aches, Parson, and I say more nor I mean, and, may be, louder than your gentles talk.”

“Well, but this is a sorry way of life for an old soldier,--to go about like a vagabond. Have you no home?”

“Home, bless you! none but this old bit of a cloak.”

“What parish were you born in?”

“Ah! there it is! I was born i’ the camp, in the Low Countries. That same day that the most noble Sir Philip Sidney was killed, my mother had a fright from a shot striking the sutler’s waggon, and I came into the world a month before time.”

“And have you no friends living?”

“None in the wide world that care a split straw whether I am above ground or under, this blessed day, save, may be, this little dumb thing that’s used to me.”

“Where did you lose your leg?”

“In the lines before St. Martin, your reverence: it will be thirteen years agone, come next September; and the right-worshipful knight, Sir Joseph Burroughs, was killed by the same shot. We used to say in hospital (you know, your reverence, we were vexed, and it was some of the officers, in their cups, spoke it out of a play-book,)--

“‘Off with his head!--So much for Buckingham.’

“Well, they had their wish, in a manner, a year after; and I always minded after, that Master Felton was one of them.--Poor fellow! He gave me four-pence in silver, when I hadn’t a halfpenny to buy bread in London; and that same morning I saw his Grace of Buckingham in a sedan chair in Whitehall, and I would have tossed my staff before him, in hope of a largess; but his running footmen, with their fine silver badges, shouldered me into the gutter, crying, ‘Room for his Grace! room for my Lord’s Grace!’ Well, it was little room he took or wanted that day was a month! I was very sorry for Master Felton,--and I went to see him hanged.”

“You know he was _a murderer_.”

“O yes, I know that; but he gave me four-pence when I was starving; and, though he was only a lieutenant, he was a better officer than Buckingham, who was all lace and velvet, satin and feathers:--a likely man to look upon, and did not want courage; but he knew no more about commanding an army than the court fool.”

“Don’t you know, friend, that you must one day die yourself; and that it is a terrible thing to die and go before God without preparation?”

The veteran gave his buff jerkin a twitch, and said, “Why, for the matter of that, Parson, you see, I am no scholar, and cannot tell a B from a bull’s foot.”

“You believe in God?”

“Why, Master, haven’t I lain half my life abroad in the open fields, with the stars shining over my head? Ah, you don’t know what grand things come into a poor fellow’s mind when he wakes in the night and sees them bright things above him.”

“Yes, but I do,” said Noble with emotion; “and it is because I do, that I ask you these things. Do you ever pray to God?”

“Why, bless you, Master, I wouldn’t trouble him about a poor chopstick like myself.”

“You know the name of Christ, friend?”

“Yes,” said the homeless wanderer, and bowed his grey head.

“And what are your thoughts of him?”

“Why that he’ll be so good as to speak a word to God Almighty for me,” was the man’s strange yet pregnant answer. It is this mixture of recklessness, ignorance, and the mysterious worship of that inner spirit, which struggles upwards after something to which the heart may reach, and where it may finally rest, that makes every human being a subject of sad yet of sublime contemplation;--a fellow, a brother, an immortal spirit, passing here below his brief time of sojourning, but born for eternity.

Our good vicar was a true messenger of peace:--we need not say more than that this and all such opportunities were gladly improved by him. He sowed beside all waters. In the present instance the old soldier was speedily released, and taken up to the parsonage, and there, in the shady porch, he had a hearty breakfast; and when the little household assembled for prayer the wondering wayfarer was brought into the hall, and heard the more excellent way very plainly set before him,--and was then suffered to depart with bread in his wallet, and a parting word of solemn warning and brotherly kindness, as he set forward on his path, carrying with him the new thought and feeling, that, though he was a ballad singer and a sot, accustomed only to revilings, he had found a man of God, who had not passed him by, but had served him, and soothed him, and cared for his soul.

Such a man and such a minister was our parson of Cheddar: he had been now resident in the parish for fifteen years. Hither he had then brought a sensible wife,--of many rare accomplishments, and of a solid piety. Three fine children then played in their garden: of these, their girl had been taken from them in her twelfth year; and their two boys, who had both attained the age of manhood, had quitted the paternal roof, and taken their respective paths in life. Cuthbert, the eldest, had been educated at Winchester College, had afterwards passed through his university course at Cambridge, and was now domiciled, as has been already seen, in the house of Sir Oliver Heywood, as a tutor.

Martin, the youngest, had been five years at Westminster School as a day scholar, under the care, during that period, of one Mr. Philips, a worshipful and wealthy gentleman, of the most honourable company of Goldsmiths, and brother to the late Sir John Philips, knight, a very eminent merchant in the Levant trade, who, having made an unsuccessful speculation, and losing his whole venture, had taken the failure of his fortunes so much to heart, that he sickened and died soon after, leaving behind him one portionless daughter. This girl, while under the roof of her uncle, who was very considerably the junior of her father in age, was seen and admired by Noble, and had soon become his welcome prize.

With this maternal uncle, Martin, at his own request, was placed, as soon as he quitted school, that he might be brought up in the same thriving business. He quickly became remarkable for his taste and skill in the art of design, and as a fine judge of precious stones, so that his uncle predicted for him great eminence and wealth in the line which he had chosen; but Martin chancing one day to wait upon Vandyck with an ornamental piece of plate which a nobleman presented to that great genius, and being questioned about the design, confessed, with some hesitation, that it was his own. Hereupon the painter broke out into praise so warm, and took such notice of the youth, that, to Martin, a painter did soon seem the highest style of man;--to be of this bright company was now the highest object of his ambition. He had a strong will; for this he rose early, and late took rest: and the bent of his inclination became so decided, and his promise of excellence so great, that his uncle, at the recommendation of Vandyck, determined to afford him the opportunity and advantage of visiting Italy, and pursuing his studies in the city of Rome. There, surrounded by the great models of the divine art to which he was devoted, daily extending his knowledge, and increasing his delight, Martin lived at once to labour and to enjoy.

But the absence of these dear boys, though necessary, was severely felt by Noble and his wife; nor, in those days, were communications by letter of regular or frequent occurrence, even at home,--and of course, from abroad, very rare and most uncertain.

The good vicar, though anxious about Martin’s residence at Rome, was not wanting in true sympathy for his pursuits; having himself a taste for the arts, which he had improved by a leisure tour through Italy (before his marriage) as tutor and guardian to a young gentleman of large possessions in Oxfordshire.

Nothing could be more retired than the life led by these childless parents at Cheddar.

It is a large village, or townlet, situate at the foot of the Mendip Hills, in Somersetshire, and lying pleasantly sheltered on the south-west side of that bleak and naked chain. The noble tower of its fine old church is richly adorned with double buttresses, pinnacles, and pierced parapets, and in the open space, which forms the centre of its few irregular streets, is an ancient hexagonal market cross, where the wayfarer may find a shelter from the hot suns of July, or from the heavy rains of winter. The neighbourhood of Cheddar is romantic: it commands a fine view, in one direction, over a rich and extensive level; and it is immediately surrounded by rich, well-watered pastures, always verdant. Within a mile of the market cross before mentioned, on the road to Wells, there is a narrow, but a stupendous pass, or chasm, by which the chain of the lofty hills of Mendip is cleft, as it were, in sunder. The road winds through the bottom of this strange defile; the cliffs rise on either side--ragged, scarped, and terrific in their aspect--presenting, in many places, a sheer fall of four hundred feet. Nothing can more sublimely impress the spirit of a lonely traveller than the passage of this wild ravine, on a day of cloud, and gloom, and rushing winds. In the sunny calm of summer, when the wild pink, springing from the crevices of the rocks, adorns the scene with something of gentleness, it is still of uncommon grandeur. Black yews project from the larger fissures: here is a narrow ledge covered with verdure; there a thick mantle of ivy clothes the summit: here the mountain ash slants forward in its fantastic growth; while yet, in many places, the craggy front is naked and dazzling as a wall of stone.

By this road, once a week, the quiet parson ambled on an old grey horse to the fair city of Wells to refresh and recreate his spirit at a private music meeting in the Close; nor did he ever omit on these occasions to pass one hour of joy and praise in its magnificent cathedral. Upon the breezy summits of the Mendip hills, which bordered this road, he spent many serene and healthful hours. His life was most even in its tenour; and the scenes around him, though daily before his eyes, were as dear to him, or more so, than when, first entering on residence, he had surveyed them with grateful rapture.

Villages, however, like kingdoms, have their revolutions; and the chronicles of them are preserved in chimney-corners with more or less of fidelity, according to the interest of the events and the worth of the characters who figured in them.

These rustic historians have a mode of reckoning very different from citizens. With prime ministers they have nought to do. Their government is nearer to them, and they have never wanted wit enough to know when that was good or evil. Over these rural communities the ruler has, from time immemorial, been the lord of the manor, or the chief franklin, or the parson of the parish. According as these personages were disposed to promote religion and happiness, or to look with indifference on vice and misery, the rustic population was contented and cheerful, (because industrious in their callings, and peaceable in their lives,) or they were sullen and profligate. Under the joint reign of Franklin Blount and Parson Noble the inhabitants of Cheddar had long dwelt together in comfort and harmony; but this is a world of change,--and many things in the aspect of public affairs, of which the villagers heard and heeded little, gave serious warning to the prescient mind of Noble, that trouble was near.

He was so beloved and respected by his people, and so regarded and confided in by the worthy franklin, that he had hitherto been able to evade, counteract, or over-rule, for the good of his flock, those strange enactments which had been from time to time so inconsiderately imposed. That which enjoined him to _publish_ the Book of Sports on the Sabbath-day he totally disregarded. On this point he would have consented to deprivation rather than obey. Hence he became suspected, by some parsons of a very different stamp, for a puritan; and there were not wanting uncharitable surmises among these concerning the course which Master Noble would take in the hour of trial; not that those who really knew him well ever doubted of that course at all.

But while these surmises were, as regarded himself, utterly devoid of foundation, it was asserted by some of his friends at Wells, the correctness of whose judgments and the charity of whose sentiments well accorded with his own, that his son Cuthbert had imbibed, from his late associates at Cambridge, a spirit of a very dangerous nature. Cuthbert had a large philanthropy, and a resolute courage to sustain and act out those promptings of benevolence which his love of freedom was continually urging upon his mind. Virtuous in his character, sanguine in his hopes, present evils he saw, and for present remedies he panted--but he looked not far on to consequences. A notion of his state of mind may be found in the letter which follows:--

“Most dear Father,