The Broken Font. Moyle Sherer
to whatever pleased him. Though, in his first manhood, he was not without a knowledge of life and of the human heart, for his reading had been extensive; and he had that felicity of apprehension, by which the lessons of books are most happily caught, and most easily applied to the heart’s daily wants. Moreover, he had all those graces of persuasion by which a pupil is best won upon and encouraged to climb the steep hill of fame. More happily placed he could not have been than in the family of Sir Oliver Heywood, but for one circumstance—he was too happy. A fear lay beating in his bosom. He dared not confess to himself the strange, yet deep, sentiments of admiration with which he regarded the daughter of the worthy knight. He would fain persuade himself that it was nothing but an emotion of gratitude to Mistress Katharine for that generous courtesy which would not suffer a scholar of gentle birth to want such attention and respect as she might delicately pay to him. Here, however, his wisdom was at fault. In vain had books taught him the misery of misplaced affections. He was launching out upon an unknown sea that has no shore.
CHAP. VI.
Some snakes must hiss, because they’re born with stings.
The table in Milverton Hall was already surrounded by the hungry guests; and a substantial old English breakfast, well suited to the appetites and the digestion of active and manly hunters, was spread before them. They were so busied over the cold joints and the venison pasties, or with the amber ale that foamed in silver tankards, as scarcely to notice the entrance of a latecomer, and therefore Cuthbert slipped into a vacant place at the bottom of the table, without other greeting than the good-humoured nod of a ruddy-looking young parson seated opposite, as he raised a tankard to his lips. There was little talk, save a few words about the sport, until having fairly finished their meal, the chairs were backed a little from the huge oaken table; the serving men lifted off the large dishes, still weighty with good fare, removed the trenchers, and having carried round the basin and ewer, large silver cups, filled with canary wine, prepared, after the fashion of the time, with sugar and with certain herbs, so as to make a delicious beverage in warm weather, were placed upon the table. The short grace “Benedicto benedicatur” having been uttered by George Juxon, the youthful rector alluded to, Sir Oliver took the massive cup which stood before himself, and intimating to Juxon to follow his example with the other, he rose, and giving for a toast, “His most gracious Majesty King Charles,” took a small draught of it, and passed the cup to the noble looking gentleman who had been sitting on his right hand, and was then standing by his side. The toast passed round with an audible “God bless him!” from every guest, after the example of the loyal host.
“Ah, Sir Philip,” observed the worthy knight to the noble stranger near him, “we have fallen upon evil times; and it is grievous to think that there should be one house in all England where the health of his most sacred Majesty may no longer be duly drunk, as is becoming in all good and true subjects.”
“Yet, I fear,” replied Sir Philip Arundel, “there are many in which the King’s health is no longer a standing toast: unquestionably republican feelings and principles have made great progress among the burgher classes generally, and have infected not a few above them.”
“It is those sour-faced, canting rogues, the prick-eared, psalm-singing Puritans, that are doing all the mischief,” said Sir Charles Lambert: “we want their ears, after the Turkish fashion, cropped by sacksful.”
“But it is not calling them names, or cutting off their ears,” said George Juxon, “that will put them down; neither will all the water in your horse-ponds quench the fire in any of their bosoms.”
“Very likely; but there is nothing like trying what will stop them; and as sure as ever I catch any of the hypocritical rogues praying and singing near our parish they shall have a bellyful of muddy water, and a back-load of smart blows with whip or cudgel.”
There was an expression of most irrepressible disgust on the countenance of Cuthbert Noble as Sir Charles uttered this brutal speech; which Sir Charles observing, he turned quickly to Sir Oliver, and added, “These are times in which we should look well to all our housemates, for fear we should be fostering some of these godly knaves, who cover their false hearts with closed lips and demure faces, and may corrupt our children and our servants.”
“You mean me,” said Cuthbert, starting on his feet with an energy which startled every one at table, and took Sir Charles so totally by surprise that he turned pale and livid, and seemed at a loss for words.
“Sir Oliver,” pursued the youthful tutor in a glow of indignation that overspread his cheeks, and made his eyes glance fire, “I have long and often endured the contemptuous and studied insults of your haughty kinsman on his visits here; and while they were only directed against me as a poor scholar and a dependant, it was well:—happy in your favour, and in the attachment and respect of the gentle young master, who is my pupil, I could afford to look down upon the dwarfish stature of so mean a mind; but when he would thus——”
Before it was possible to arrest him, Sir Charles, who sat upon the same side of the table, had run behind him, and, ere he could turn, inflicted a deep wound in his back with a large hunting-knife. The young student fell, bathed in his blood, upon the floor; and all the household, already brought near to the door by the loudness of the voices, rushed into the hall. Nothing was more affecting than to see the terrified agony and loud sobs of the noble boy Arthur, who stood over his fainting tutor with tears, and would neither be comforted nor removed.
George Juxon had instantly seized Sir Charles with an iron grasp. Sir Oliver was troubled, and scarce knew how to act; while Sir Philip Arundel, the most self-possessed of the party, desired the attendants to send swiftly to Warwick for a surgeon, and suggested to Sir Oliver that the aggressor should be committed to his charge, and that he would take him to his own home, and be responsible for his appearance to answer for the crime which he had just committed, when the charge should be preferred against him in due order. But George Juxon required that he should remain in custody at Milverton until it was ascertained whether the stab inflicted on Cuthbert might not prove fatal.
The ladies of Milverton, who were absent, walking in the grounds, were happily spared this painful scene. To the exclamations of wonder, regret, and even condolence, with which Sir Charles was addressed by some others of the party, he answered nothing, but stood with lips closely compressed in sullen scorn and in a dogged silence.
Juxon unhanded him, after Sir Philip promised that he should for the present be kept close guarded, and gave all his attention to Cuthbert, who was borne slowly and carefully up into his chamber, and his wound there bound up with a temporary dressing by Juxon himself, till proper assistance should arrive. This done, he left him for a while in the care of the servants, while he went down to aid in composing Sir Oliver and the ladies of the family.
This young clergyman, who was a distant connection of the good bishop of the same name, the treasurer at that time of the King, was a good specimen of a particular class of richly beneficed clergy, not uncommon in his day. He was a ripe scholar, a kind, orthodox churchman, and a manly country gentleman. His habits were those of his time: they grew out of the circumstances of that period and the state of society in all country places; and he had seen his own pious and dignified relative hunt his own pack of beagles, without a thought that he was doing any thing more than taking a vigorous exercise, beneficial alike to the health of his body and his mind.
Juxon was among, but above, sportsmen. He had a wealthy rectory, and lived hospitably with his equals, and charitably towards the poor. In the discharge of his parochial duties, he was sensible and serious: he valued books, and he had a due appreciation of genius.
He had been of the hunting party this morning, and was thus a guest at Milverton, where he had long occasionally visited, and where, upon a former day, he had chanced to have rather a long and free conversation with Cuthbert, and, albeit widely different in their habits, had found common ground of interest in the subjects on which they talked, and they had parted well pleased with each other. Had they touched on politics, indeed, they would have differed;