Micah Clarke by Arthur Conan Doyle (adventure books to read TXT) 📖

were about to follow the others. ‘William, do you bring a flask of the old green sealed sack. These creature comforts I do not produce before my lads, for beef and honest malt is the fittest food for such. On occasion, however, I am of Paul’s opinion, that a flagon of wine among friends is no bad thing for mind or for body. You can away now, sweetheart, if you have aught to engage you.’

‘Do you go out again?’ asked Mistress Ruth.

‘Presently, to the town-hall. The survey of arms is not yet complete.’

‘I shall have your robes ready, and also the rooms of our guests,’ she answered, and so, with a bright smile to us, tripped away upon her duty.

‘I would that I could order our town as that maiden orders this house,’ said the Mayor. ‘There is not a want that is not supplied before it is felt. She reads my thoughts and acts upon them ere my lips have time to form them. If I have still strength to spend in the public service, it is because my private life is full of restful peace. Do not fear the sack, sirs. It cometh from Brooke and Hellier’s of Abchurch Lane, and may be relied upon.’

‘Which showeth that one good thing cometh out of London,’ remarked Sir Gervas.

‘Aye, truly,’ said the old man, smiling. ‘But what think ye of my young men, sir? They must needs be of a very different class to any with whom you are acquainted, if, as I understand, you have frequented court circles.’

‘Why, marry, they are good enough young men, no doubt,’ Sir Gervas answered lightly. ‘Methinks, however, that there is a want of sap about them. It is not blood, but sour buttermilk that flows in their veins.’

‘Nay, nay,’ the Mayor responded warmly. ‘There you do them an injustice. Their passions and feelings are under control, as the skilful rider keeps his horse in hand; but they are as surely there as is the speed and endurance of the animal. Did you observe the godly youth who sat upon your right, whom I had occasion to reprove more than once for over-zeal? He is a fit example of how a man may take the upper hand of his feelings, and keep them in control.’

‘And how has he done so?’ I asked.

‘Why, between friends,’ quoth the Mayor, ‘it was but last Lady-day that he asked the hand of my granddaughter Ruth in marriage. His time is nearly served, and his father, Sam Derrick, is an honourable craftsman, so that the match would have been no unfitting one. The maiden turned against him, however—young girls will have their fancies—and the matter came to an end. Yet here he dwells under the same roof-tree, at her elbow from morn to night, with never a sign of that passion which can scarce have died out so soon. Twice my wool warehouse hath been nigh burned to the ground since then, and twice he hath headed those who fought the flames. There are not many whose suit hath been rejected who would bear themselves in so resigned and patient a fashion.’

‘I am prepared to find that your judgment is the correct one,’ said Sir Gervas Jerome. ‘I have learned to distrust too hasty dislikes, and bear in mind that couplet of John Dryden—

“Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow. He who would search for pearls must dive below.”’

‘Or worthy Dr. Samuel Butler,’ said Saxon, ‘who, in his immortal poem of “Hudibras,” says—

“The fool can only see the skin: The wise man tries to peep within.”’

‘I wonder, Colonel Saxon,’ said our host severely, ‘that you should speak favourably of that licentious poem, which is composed, as I have heard, for the sole purpose of casting ridicule upon the godly. I should as soon have expected to hear you praise the wicked and foolish work of Hobbes, with his mischievous thesis, “A Deo rex, a rege lex.”’

‘It is true that I contemn and despise the use which Butler hath made of his satire,’ said Saxon adroitly; ‘yet I may admire the satire itself, just as one may admire a damascened blade without approving of the quarrel in which it is drawn.’

‘These distinctions are, I fear, too subtle for my old brain,’ said the stout old Puritan. ‘This England of ours is divided into two camps, that of God and that of Antichrist. He who is not with us is against us, nor shall any who serve under the devil’s banner have anything from me save my scorn and the sharp edge of my sword.’

‘Well, well,’ said Saxon, filling up his glass, ‘I am no Laodicean or time-server. The cause shall not find me wanting with tongue or with sword.’

‘Of that I am well convinced, my worthy friend,’ the Mayor answered, ‘and if I have spoken over sharply you will hold me excused. But I regret to have evil tidings to announce to you. I have not told the commonalty lest it cast them down, but I know that adversity will be but the whetstone to give your ardour a finer edge. Argyle’s rising has failed, and he and his companions are prisoners in the hands of the man who never knew what pity was.’

We all started in our chairs at this, and looked at one another aghast, save only Sir Gervas Jerome, whose natural serenity was, I am well convinced, proof against any disturbance. For you may remember, my children, that I stated when I first took it in hand to narrate to you these passages of my life, that the hopes of Monmouth’s party rested very much upon the raid which Argyle and the Scottish exiles had made upon Ayrshire, where it was hoped that they would create such a disturbance as would divert a good share of King James’s forces, and so make our march to London less difficult. This was the more confidently expected since Argyle’s own estates lay upon that side of Scotland, where he could raise five thousand swordsmen among his own clansmen. The western counties abounded, too, in fierce zealots who were ready to assert the cause of the Covenant, and who had proved themselves in many a skirmish to be valiant warriors. With the help of the Highlanders and of the Covenanters it seemed certain that Argyle would be able to hold his own, the more so since he took with him to Scotland the English Puritan Rumbold, and many others skilled in warfare. This sudden news of his total defeat and downfall was therefore a heavy blow, since it turned the whole forces of the Government upon ourselves.

‘Have you the news from a trusty source?’ asked Decimus Saxon, after a long silence.

‘It is beyond all doubt or question,’ Master Stephen Timewell answered. ‘Yet I can well understand your surprise, for the Duke had trusty councillors with him. There was Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth—’

‘All talk and no fight,’ said Saxon.

‘And Richard Rumbold.’

‘All fight and no talk,’ quoth our companion. ‘He should, methinks, have rendered a better account of himself.’

‘Then there was Major Elphinstone.’

‘A bragging fool!’ cried Saxon.’

‘And Sir John Cochrane.’

‘A captious, long-tongued, short-witted sluggard,’ said the soldier of fortune. ‘The expedition was doomed from the first with such men at its head. Yet I had thought that could they have done nought else, they might at least have flung themselves into the mountain country, where these bare-legged caterans could have held their own amid their native clouds and mists. All taken, you say! It is a lesson and a warning to us. I tell you that unless Monmouth infuses more energy into his councils, and thrusts straight for the heart instead of fencing and foining at the extremities, we shall find ourselves as Argyle and Rumbold. What mean these two days wasted at Axminster at a time when every hour is of import? Is he, every time that he brushes a party of militia aside, to stop forty-eight hours and chant “Te Deums” when Churchill and Feversham are, as I know, pushing for the West with every available man, and the Dutch grenadiers are swarming over like rats into a granary?’

‘You are very right, Colonel Saxon,’ the Mayor answered. ‘And I trust that when the King comes here we may stir him up to more prompt action. He has much need of more soldierly advisers, for since Fletcher hath gone there is hardly a man about him who hath been trained to arms.’

‘Well,’ said Saxon moodily, ‘now that Argyle hath gone under we are face to face with James, with nothing but our own good swords to trust to.’

‘To them and to the justice of our cause. How like ye the news, young sirs? Has the wine lost its smack on account of it? Are ye disposed to flinch from the standard of the Lord?’

‘For my own part I shall see the matter through,’ said I.

‘And I shall bide where Micah Clarke bides,’ quoth Reuben Lockarby.

‘And to me,’ said Sir Gervas, ‘it is a matter of indifference, so long as I am in good company and there is something stirring.’

‘In that case,’ said the Mayor, ‘we had best each turn to his own work, and have all ready for the King’s arrival. Until then I trust that ye will honour my humble roof.’

‘I fear that I cannot accept your kindness,’ Saxon answered. ‘When I am in harness I come and go early and late. I shall therefore take up my quarters in the inn, which is not very well furnished with victual, and yet can supply me with the simple fare, which with a black Jack of October and a pipe of Trinidado is all I require.’

As Saxon was firm in this resolution the Mayor forbore to press it upon him, but my two friends gladly joined with me in accepting the worthy wool-worker’s offer, and took up our quarters for the time under his hospitable roof.

 

Chapter XIX.

 

Of a Brawl in the Night

Decimus Saxon refused to avail himself of Master Timewell’s house and table for the reason, as I afterwards learned, that, the Mayor being a firm Presbyterian, he thought it might stand him in ill stead with the Independents and other zealots were he to allow too great an intimacy to spring up between them. Indeed, my dears, from this time onward this cunning man framed his whole life and actions in such a way as to make friends of the sectaries, and to cause them to look upon him as their leader. For he had a firm belief that in all such outbreaks as that in which we were engaged, the most extreme party is sure in the end to gain the upper hand. ‘Fanatics,’ he said to me one day, ‘mean fervour, and fervour means hard work, and hard work means power.’ That was the centre point of all his plotting and scheming.

And first of all he set himself to show how excellent a soldier he was, and he spared neither time nor work to make this apparent. From morn till midday, and from afternoon till night, we drilled and drilled until in very truth the shouting of the orders and the clatter of the arms became wearisome to our ears. The good burghers may well have thought that Colonel Saxon’s Wiltshire foot were as much part of the market-place as the town cross or the parish stocks. There was much to be done in very little time, so much that many would have thought it hopeless to attempt it. Not only was there the general muster of the regiment, but we had each to practise our own companies in their several drills, and to learn as best we could the names and the wants