The Broken Font. Moyle Sherer
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.