The Broken Font (Historical Novel). Moyle Sherer
so? what dost thou mean, Peter?”
“Why, last market day, when I was in the kitchen at the old Pack Horse at Axbridge, that vinegar-faced old hypocrite, Master Pynche, the staymaker, comes in, and asks me to bring out Betsy Blount’s new stays.
“Says I, ‘That I’ll do for Betsy’s sake—a lass that hasn’t her better for a good heart, or a pretty face, in all Somersetshire.’
“ ‘Verily, Master Peter, I think,’ said he, ‘thy speech might have more respect to me, and more decency to the damsel, but thou savourest not of the things that be from above:—thou art of the earth, earthy.’
“ ‘Why, for the matter of things above,’ said I, ‘Master Pynche, I don’t pretend to any skill in moonshine; and as to being of the earth, that I don’t deny, and thirsty earth too; with that I put to my lips the cup of ale that I had in hand, and drank it down.’
“ ‘Is it not written,’ he replied in a snuffling tone, ‘that favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain?—but thou art a servant of Beelzebub, and thou speakest the words of thy master, and his works wilt thou do.’
“ ‘In the name of plain Peter,’ I added, ‘herewith I proclaim you Prince of Fools, and I will send you a coloured coat, and a hood and bells, and thou shalt have a bauble, and a bladder of pease, and a licence to preach next April.’
“With that he lifted up his eyes and hands, and muttering something about pearls and swine, glided off like a ghost at cock crow.”
“Peter,” interrupted Noble, “thou shouldst not have said such things.”
“Marry, did he not call me a servant of Beelzebub? the peevish old puritan!—Well, but to go on with my story. The folk in Dame Wattle’s kitchen fell a discoursing after Pynche was gone; and some spake up after a fashion that made my hair stand up. Says a sturdy pedlar in the corner—‘Ay, they’ll soon be uppermost, and the sooner the better; rot ’em, I don’t like ’em, the godly rogues; but they are better than parsons, any way.’
“So with that I felt my blood come up, and I was going to speak, when old Hardy, the cobbler, took up his words, and says he, ‘That’s true of some, and it’s true of our old Tosspot; but there’s Peter’s master, of Cheddar—you may search the country far and near before you will find his like. I remember when my niece Sally lay dying, night and day, fair weather and foul, he would trudge through mire or snow to give her medicine for body as well as soul, and that’s what I call a good parson.’ ”
“ ‘A good puritan,’ said Dame Wattle. ‘I have heard of his sayings and doings, and trust me, he’ll go with your parliament men, your down-church men: you’ll never have any more May-games and Christmas gambols at Cheddar.’
“ ‘There you’re out, Dame,’ said I, ‘and don’t know any more about Master Noble than a child unborn.’
“ ‘A silver crown to a silver groat he’ll give a long preachment against the May-pole next May-morning.’
“ ‘Done with you, Dame,’ said I.
“ ‘You may lay a golden angel to a penny there will be no May-poles at all, if you make it May twelvemonth,’ said the pedlar, ‘without, indeed, there be such as have pikes at the end of them;’ and with that he pulled out a printed paper, that he brought from London, and read out a long matter about the king and the bishops, and about church organs, and tithes, and play actors, and ship money, and Master Hampden; and made out, as plain as a pike staff, that there would be many a good buff coat and iron head piece taken down from the wall before long. ‘We shall have a civil war soon, and God defend the right,’ said he, as he folded up the paper and took up his pack.
“Civil,” thought I, “that’s a queer word. I have heard talk of civil people and civil speeches, but a civil blow from a battle-axe is a new thing. I’ll tell master all about it when I get home, and axe what it means;—but as I was on the path in Nine Acres, whom should I meet but Master Blount, the young one, and he made me promise not to say a word to you before May-day was come, for fear the old sports might be hindered; and he told me that civil war meant war at home; for which I didn’t think him much of a conjuror, as my guess had reached that far: and now, Master, prithee tell me what civil means.”
“Peter, thou art an honest fellow, and as good a citizen as if thou knewest what it was called in Latin, and that a civil war was a war of citizens, but of a truth this is no matter for smiles; however, ‘sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ This is no morning for a cloudy face.”
“Well, then, here comes one, and the worst that darkens our doors. For my part, I can’t bide the sight of it, ’t would turn all the milk in the dairy.”
The vicar looked over his hedge, and saw the curate of a parish with whom he was but slightly acquainted, walking across the last close, which led by a footway into his orchard. The apple-trees concealed Noble from his approaching visiter, who, just as he reached the gate of the orchard, overtook a little boy, about nine years of age, carrying in his hand a cluster of cowslips half as big as himself, and having a thick crown of field flowers round his straw hat.
With a severe scowl, he snatched the cowslips from the frightened child, and threw them away, and then made a gripe at his little hat; but, the boy drawing back with a blubbering cry, the zealous and tall curate, who had a little over-reached himself, slipped and fell prone upon the grass. This, however, was the lightest part of his misfortune; for it so chanced that his face came in full contact with a new-made rain-puddle, and he arose with his eyes half blinded, and his face covered and besmeared with mud. With the tears yet rolling down his red cheeks, the little fellow, as he saw himself avenged in a measure so contenting, and a manner so ridiculous, ran out of his reach, literally shrieking with laughter; and a hearty roar from old Peter at once completed his mortification, and determined his retreat. This soon became a maddened flight: for a sleeping dog roused by the noise of the laughter pursued him with angry barkings, from which, as he had no staff, and the grassy close could furnish no stone, there was no escape till the wearied animal paused and turned.
The whole of this scene was so very swiftly enacted, that Noble had no opportunity to say or do any thing in the matter; and charity itself could not suppress a smile at a punishment so well suited to the morosity which had led to it. Neither was he at all sorry to be relieved upon this festal day from the intrusive visit of a sour, ill-instructed fanatic, whose opinions he could not value, and for whose character he felt no respect. He looked, therefore, with unmixed satisfaction at the laughing urchin, as he gathered up his scattered wealth, and departed.
Now merrily rang out the lively bells of Cheddar Tower; and already was every street a green alley, freshened by thick boughs, and made fragrant by small branches of white thorn neatly interwoven.
The house of the chief franklin, Mr. Blount, was more especially honoured. Before his door was planted the largest and fairest branch of May that could be found in a circuit of five good miles, and his hospitable porch was made a rich bower of shrubs and flowers. Beneath the tall trees in front of it was a little crowd of youths and maidens, in holyday trim, wearing garlands, with green rushes and strewing herbs in their arms, or aprons: full they were of smiles and glee; and, out on the road, all the village was assembled, save the infirm old and the cradled young; though, of these last, not a few were borne in their mothers’ arms, or lifted up with honest pride in those of their brown fathers, whose burning toils a field were, for this joyous day, forgotten.
From the words passing in these expectant groups, a stranger might soon have gathered that something more than the common sport of May-day was engaging the honest and buzzing mob of men, women, and children, that blocked the street opposite this goodly mansion, and what that something was. “Better day better luck.”—“A bonny bride is soon dressed.”—“Honest men marry soon,” said a black-eyed, nut-brown wife, with a lively babe in her arms, and two curly-headed little ones holding her apron—and “Wise men not at all,” added a gruff old blacksmith, with a seamed visage.—“Ah, it’s no good kicking in fetters, Roger,” rejoined the laughing