That evening after supper we had music—Mr. Milton and his brother Christopher, who had ridden with us from Reading, and the two nephews, singing plaintive madrigals together; my husband took the tenor part, his brother the bass, the boys the treble and the old gentleman accompanied them very truly on his viol. After they had done, my mother called upon me to play my guitar, which I did, happy-go-lucky; and though all the Powells gave me their plaudits, for I had sung my best and the tune was a lively one, the Miltons were behind-hand with their approbation. I could see that music with them was a more serious and religious study than it was with us. Their last choice had been a sad, grave piece composed by the old gentleman himself, of which one verse ran:
O had I wings like to a dove,
Then should I from these troubles fly;
To wilderness I would remove,
To spend my life and there to die.
But I had chosen a boisterous ballad by Humphry Crouch, to the tune of Cuckolds All in a Row, of which I remember these two verses:
A countryman did sell his nag,
Three heifers and a bull,
And brought to town a canvas bag
With writings filled full,
But a Scrivener took the gold he had,
The canvas bag also—
“Alas! poor man, thy cause is bad,
We are beggars all in a row.”
I have a Mistress of mine own
That bears a lofty spirit;
Though gold and silver she has none
Nor any goodly merit,
Yet will she brave it with the best
Wherever she may go,
And shine at every gossips’ feast
With beggars all in a row.
I was encouraged by my father to sing another merry piece; but my husband interposed hastily with, “No, no, sir, your daughter’s voice already flags; if she sing again she may strain it and do her throat an injury.” Afterwards he took me aside and, said he: “Never sing that ballad again in my house, not at all: it is offensive to my father, and a mean, silly piece besides.”
I asked his pardon, saying: “Truly, Husband, I sang but for the music’s sake, not thinking any hurt at all.”
To this he answered: “The music is nothing, and your voice, though not an ill voice, grated upon me with its bagpipe artlessness. When it began to drone, truly I thought the bears were coming!”
The Miltons then went to it again, very exactly and tunefully, this time to music of the organ which my husband played; but my little brothers began to yawn and fidget, so we pushed back the table and chairs and played a game or two for their amusement—“Rise, pig, and go!” and “Fire,” and “I pray you, my Lord, give me a course in your park,” which contented them. Presently it was the hour for them to depart to Mr. Blackborough’s—where the old gentleman also lodged for the nonce—and for my husband and myself to go to bed.
Throughout the day I had rehearsed to myself what I should say to my husband, and by the time we went into our chamber, which was very handsomely furnished, as indeed the whole house was, I had it pat. I watched him while he combed and braided his hair, in silence, and took off his clothes, and pulled on his nightcap. Then he signified that I should roll out the truckle-bed and sleep on it again; yet addressed me affably enough. I plucked up courage, and said I: “John, dear Husband, I am exceeding sorry that last night, when I touched upon my headache—”
I paused, for he had glanced away and was busying himself with his finger-nails. Then he cast at me over his shoulder: “Enough, Wife, speak no more of it. It was indeed a grave fault in your mother never to have warned you—”
I interrupted, and said very quickly: “Nay, nay, let me speak, it was no fault but my own. It was a laughable error what I said about my headache: I meant not what you understood me to say. And in the early morning I could not abear to hear your sobs and I was for climbing up into your bed—”
He thundered at me: “Did you not hear me when I said that I desired no single word more upon this matter? What is past is past; and that a reverend rite was thus grossly profaned, whether because of the stupidity of your mother, or wilfully by yourself, is a sorrow now beyond mending.”
“But hear me, husband—” I pleaded.
He paled with rage. “Open your rude slot again to-night,” said he, “so much as to pip at me like a chicken, or dare to lay your hand upon my coverlet, and I warrant it will go very ill with you. Catamenia makes unclean for seven days and nights; and it is a loving indulgence that I permit you to sleep here in the same chamber with me.”
Well, I had done my utmost, and could do no more. I laid my head down on my pillow and was soon asleep; and how my husband passed his night—whether sleeping, reading or weeping—I neither knew nor, I confess, very much cared, so utterly weary was I.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I Say Farewell to My Family
Trunco came to Aldersgate on the second night, and mighty glad I was to see her. She complimented me upon the decent furnishings of the house, and if she had misgivings upon how my husband and I would fadge together, she was good enough to conceal them from me. She shared a mattress in the garret with Jane Yates, whom she helped with the house-work. I asked my husband, should I not now take over the charge of the household? But he answered that there was no necessity, for it was yet but honey moon. This he said a little sourly, for the honey moon is a Londoner’s term for such as are newly married and who will not fall out because of the exceeding strength of their love; it is honey now, but it will change as the moon when their mutual desire begins to assuage and the taste of honey to cloy. “When your parents and your swarming brothers and sisters depart,” said he, “that will be time enough to look into the matter.”
Jane Yates had declared it to be beyond her power, even with the aid of Trunco and a young cook-wench (who came every day to us, in her father’s market-cart from Highgate), to prepare dinner and supper for so crowding a multitude of people. Then though Trunco offered, if my husband gave her leave, to undertake this impossible task under my direction, he would have her know her place, and discouraged her. He reckoned to put himself to less expense by sending daily over the street into Little Britain where there was a cook-shop for the sale of indifferent pies and dressed meats; and also a confectioner who made tarts, jellies and the like, though Trunco could have made far better at half the cost. He did not allow the presence of my parents to interrupt what he termed the curriculum of his little University; except that he devoted that part of the time after supper, which came between the religious instruction of his nephews and his own Hebrew studies, to music, dancing and general conversation.
The Powells were content to spend the whole day out of doors, for such soberness and regularity irked them; and the weather continuing fine, they found great pleasure in visiting friends and kinsfolk, some of whom they brought back with them to supper; as also in watching the sport at the bear-garden and the cockpits; in hiring boats to row up the river with the tide as far as Richmond and Twickenham, and then down again with the ebb; and seeing the principal sights of London and Westminster; and going to the play-houses, whereof there were five or six at this time on one side the river or the other. Trunco cheerfully minded the little children the while, and strove to subdue their wild spirits, for my husband would come roaring at her if Bess or Georgie raised their voices at each other or if they tormented Betty. He forbade me to attend any place of public amusement even in the company of my parents, declaring that he would not suffer my mind to be vitiated; and my mother was constrained to humour him. “But, Son,” said she, “I would have you remember that for fifteen years I have had the sole charge of my daughter and if her mind be not as yet vitiated, as you call it, one hour or two in the bear-garden or at the Phœnix play-house in Drury Lane will make little odds. Besides, I think it mighty hard that my daughters Zara and Ann should watch the sport, and Marie be prevented.”
To keep the peace I protested that indeed I had no great appe
tite for seeing poor Bruin’s ears torn, or how he took revenge upon the dogs by cracking their ribs against his breast or gutting them with his paw; and that, as for the play-house, I was content to wait until I could attend a play of Will Shakespeare’s or Ben Jonson’s in my husband’s company; for in a poem of his that he had shown me he had praised these two play-makers. This speech of mine my husband approved, nodding his head and saying: “In good time, all in good time!”
I shall not easily forget my first walk, in my mother’s company, down Cheapside, the first street in the world, that runs splendidly along its whole course from Paternoster Row to the Poultry. The first thing that I saw was Goldsmith’s Row, the most beautiful frame of houses imaginable, of ten dwelling-houses and fourteen shops, all stuffed with treasure of gold and silver. These houses are four storeys high, and above each principal door is a statue, richly painted and gilt, of a woodman riding upon a monstrous beast. Then I saw the Standard in Cheap, a shaft of stone, carved with pictures and a trumpeter at top, a monument which the rebels Jack Cade and Wat Tyler made infamous; and a plenitude of noble inns; and the Conduit, a building like to a castle, with a huge leaden cistern into which flows sweet water, fetched from the little town of Paddington; and the ancient gilt Cross in Cheap (which same, being regarded as a Popish idol, was pulled down twelve months later by command of Parliament, with frantic shouts of joy); and a grand array of mercers’ shops with velvets of deep pile and rich silks (as striped soosies; figured culgees; fair, smooth atlasses; transparent, shining taffetas that made my mouth to water), displayed in diverse hues of scarlet, crimson, violet-colour, orange-colour, French green, purple, gingerline, snow-white, cream-colour, frost, sky-blue, tawny and crocus-yellow—with marvellous embroidery, and cloth of gold, and gold cuttanee, and silver tissue.
There are all manner of other shops in Cheapside and the streets leading off it, with men in aprons standing before the open doors, crying “What do you lack, what do you lack?” who sometimes hustle prosperous-seeming passers-by into their shops and press goods upon them in a blustering tone. My head grew giddy from watching the passers-by, of whom I remarked a great many foreigners; and I was glad to be back in my husband’s house, where all was quiet, the distance at which it lay from Aldersgate Street being a great protection against the crying and shouting and noise.
One early morning I went out with my husband, Trunco following behind, to the Artillery Garden where he performed his military exercises in a company of volunteers from his Ward banded together by their common religious interest. He told me, as we went, that he was a pikeman, not a musketeer, and that pikes are more honourable arms than muskets, in respect not only of their antiquity, but also of the colours flying upon their heads; and because with them is the Captain’s proper station, the musketeers being posted at the flanks. He himself, he said, stood in the most honourable post of any Gentlemen of the Pike, namely in the hindmost rank, of bringers-up or Tergiductores, upon the right hand; which also had the advantage of security. Then with his sixteen-foot pike, which he carried with him, he showed me, as he went, the several postures of the pike—the trail, the port, the shoulder, the advance, the cheek—and discoursed upon the use of each posture, heedless of the jests of the citizens and the winks of their wives whom we passed in the street.
In the Artillery Garden, Trunco and I watched the exercises, which were very exactly performed; Serjeant-Major Robert Skippon, Captain of the Artillery Society, himself being present. The companies, which were drawn up abreast, with the files six deep, were all distinguished by the colour of their scarves—black, or grey, or russet; my husband’s being the grey. Serjeant-Major Skippon wore a blue coat and white breeches. He was of middle age, swarthy, sedate, with a little beard and a stout nose and a scar, upon his right cheek, earned in the Dutch Wars in which he had begun as a simple waggoner; no scholar, but a devout Christian; a simpleton in affairs, but reputedly a Hon upon the field of battle; and beloved of his soldiers.
The command from the Captain of my husband’s company, after a few simple movements had been performed, was: “Files, double your depth to the right, every man placing himself behind his bringer-up.” The Captain, made uneasy by Serjeant-Major Skippon’s presence, gave this order to “double the depth to the right,” yet pointed with his sword in the contrary direction; which brought a great confusion upon the ranks and one or two men were pricked by the pikes of the men behind them.
Trunco laughed aloud at the sight, and Major Skippon cried out: “As you were, As you were!” and then addressed the company thus: “Shame on you, Gentlemen of the Grey Company! Are you children that you cannot distinguish your right hand from your left? What think you will come to pass on the Day of Judgement when the word goes out: ‘Sheep to the right, double! Goats to the left, double!’ and when the Angels are your bright sergeants? Will not some of you by a repeatal of this morning’s error, find yourselves trailing your pikes like slovens down the slippery slope of Hell?”
He spoke in no dry, mocking manner, but heartily and earnestly; and the gentlemen with the grey scarves appeared abashed, but murmured among themselves at their Captain. This was the last time that they fell into any disorder, and we watched the musketeers fire off their pieces; but these were false-fires only, each man putting a pinch of powder in the pan of his musket and popping it off, thus inuring his eyes to the flash, and learning not to shut them when he fired. After all the companies together had been made to exercise in a single body, with “Battle, wheel to the left,” “Battle, wheel to the right about,” and the like, the muster was dismissed.
We saw my husband coming towards us, expostulating very sternly to his Captain that he was unfit for his rank and should yield up his office to some better man. The Captain excused himself, holding that his words were clear enough, and that his pointing with his sword in the contrary direction had merely been a sign to the men posted upon the left flank (who were those worst trained in their exercises) to mark his command well. Yet my husband would have none of this and said sternly: “Have a good care, Worshipful Sir, or one day we shall choose ourselves another Captain.”
Having thus set the saddle squarely upon the right horse, as he said, he came towards us again and asked us which of the companies had performed its exercises in the most martial manner; and we pleased him by extolling the Greys. He said: “We keep a sort of Presbyterial discipline among ourselves, with a synod called every Wednesday morning, and therefore we excel at our exercises, being united in a common religious spirit and agreed to tolerate no disobedience and no awkwardness.” Then he turned to Trunco and said: “Woman, you laughed very ill-mannerly when our Captain made an error.”
“Nay, sir, I did not laugh,” said Trunco. “Or at least not at the company or their drill. I chanced to remember an old jest about a fish-porter and a goat.”
“Out with your jest,” says my husband in the stern manner of the practised pedagogue.
“If your Honour will give me leave, it would not have made fit hearing for my innocent Mistress,” answers Trunco, “wherefore, I have forgotten it in haste.”
“If you are saucy,” he mutters with compressed lips, “you may expect a beating from me when we are home; and I warn you that I lay on hard.”
“The Lord have mercy on us all!” cried Trunco.
That day before we sat down to dinner my brother William came creeping up to me and asked in a whisper: “Sister Milton, won’t you give me the broken string from your guitar and lend me your little scissors?”
“Why, yes,” I answered absently, “if you give me the scissors again.”
He took the string and snipped it into a score or two of little pieces, which he caught carefully in a paper. Then he said to me: “Sister, I think Brother Milton is very unkind. I overheard him when he forbade you that song of Beggars All in a Row. You are better at singing songs than all the Miltons and Phillipses in London.”
“That is no business of yours, William, I thank you,” said I. Yet I could
not find it in my heart to be angry with him, neither then nor when at dinner-time he played a scurvy and revengeful prank, privily casting the snippers from his paper upon my husband’s mess of hot veal pie. But, Oh Lord, into what an affright he put me; for presently the warmth of the meat made the little pieces of gut to curl and wriggle, as though the mess were alive with maggots. Yet I could do nothing without making the matter worse.
Besides myself, only my mother saw him do what he did. She laughed silently until her shoulders shook up and down like coach wheels on a bad road. My husband, who was holding forth upon some learned topic, thrust his spoon into the meat on his plate and began eating and discoursing with his mouth full, but remarked not that anything was amiss. My mother near burst her midriff in restraining her laughter and at last feigned to be choking and ran from the table; whereupon my father espied the maggots and began to laugh too, but aloud and without restraint, as if at a jest that my husband had chanced to make in the very nick; so that the whole table was soon in a roar. My husband continued to eat and at last wiped his trencher clean with a lump of bread. He smiled with satisfaction, saying: “Sportive fooleries I hate, but a smart salty jest, now and then, gives relish to the most learned conversation.” Alas, for William’s poor prank, that bounced off from my husband like a tennis-ball struck against a church wall!
On the morning of the Sunday following, my husband told my parents that they might worship where they pleased, but that, for his part, he would not attend the service at St. Botolph’s Church, where the minister was a calumniator and rank Prelatist, namely the Reverend George Hall (a son of the Bishop of Exeter who had written against him). Instead, he would go to hear the Reverend John Goodwin, M.A., preach at St. Stephen’s, in Coleman Street, and I should go with him.
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