Chapter XXXIV. Of the Coming of Solomon Sprent
The church of Gommatch was a small ivy-clad building with a squareNorman tower, standing in the centre of the hamlet of that name. Itsgreat oaken doors, studded with iron, and high narrow windows, fittedit well for the use to which it was now turned. Two companies ofDumbarton's Foot had been quartered in the village, with a portly Majorat their head, to whom I was handed over by Sergeant Gredder, with someaccount of my capture, and of the reasons which had prevented my summaryexecution.
Night was now drawing in, but a few dim lamps, hung here and there uponthe walls, cast an uncertain, flickering light over the scene. A hundredor more prisoners were scattered about upon the stone floor, many ofthem wounded, and some evidently dying. The hale had gathered in silent,subdued groups round their stricken friends, and were doing what theycould to lessen their sufferings. Some had even removed the greater partof their clothing in order to furnish head-rests and pallets for thewounded. Here and there in the shadows dark kneeling figures might beseen, and the measured sound of their prayers rang through the aisles,with a groan now and again, or a choking gasp as some poor suffererbattled for breath. The dim, yellow light streaming over the earnestpain-drawn faces, and the tattered mud-coloured figures, would have madeit a fitting study for any of those Low Country painters whose picturesI saw long afterwards at The Hague.
On Thursday morning, the third day after the battle, we were allconveyed into Bridgewater, where we were confined for the remainderof the week in St. Mary's Church, the very one from the tower of whichMonmouth and his commanders had inspected Feversham's position. The morewe heard of the fight from the soldiers and others, the more clear itbecame that, but for the most unfortunate accidents, there was everychance that our night attack might have succeeded. There was scarcely afault which a General could commit which Feversham had not been guiltyof. He had thought too lightly of his enemy, and left his camp entirelyopen to a surprise. When the firing broke out he sprang from his couch,but failing to find his wig, he had groped about his tent while thebattle was being decided, and only came out when it was well-nigh over.All were agreed that had it not been for the chance of the Bussex Rhinehaving been overlooked by our guides and scouts, we should have beenamong the tents before the men could have been called to arms. Onlythis and the fiery energy of John Churchill, the second in command,afterwards better known under a higher name, both to French and toEnglish history, prevented the Royal army from meeting with a reversewhich might have altered the result of the campaign.(Note K, Appendix.)Should ye hear or read, then, my dear children, that Monmouth's risingwas easily put down, or that it was hopeless from the first, rememberthat I, who was concerned in it, say confidently that it really trembledin the balance, and that this handful of resolute peasants with theirpikes and their scythes were within an ace of altering the wholecourse of English history. The ferocity of the Privy Council, after therebellion was quelled, arose from their knowledge of how very close ithad been to success.
I do not wish to say too much of the cruelty and barbarity of thevictors, for it is not good for your childish ears to hear of suchdoings. The sluggard Feversham and the brutal Kirke have earnedthemselves a name in the West, which is second only to that of the archvillain who came after them. As for their victims, when they had hangedand quartered and done their wicked worst upon them, at least they lefttheir names in their own little villages, to be treasured up and handedfrom generation to generation, as brave men and true who had died for anoble cause. Go now to Milverton, or to Wiveliscombe, or to Minehead, orto Colyford, or to any village through the whole breadth and length ofSomersetshire, and you will find that they have not forgotten whatthey proudly call their martyrs. But where now is Kirke and where isFeversham? Their names are preserved, it is true, but preserved in acounty's hatred. Who can fail to see now that these men in punishingothers brought a far heavier punishment upon themselves? Their sin hathindeed found them out.
They did all that wicked and callous-hearted men could do, knowing wellthat such deeds were acceptable to the cold-blooded, bigoted hypocritewho sat upon the throne. They worked to win his favour, and they won it.Men were hanged and cut down and hanged again. Every cross-road in thecountry was ghastly with gibbets. There was not an insult or a contumelywhich might make the pangs of death more unendurable, which was notheaped upon these long-suffering men; yet it is proudly recounted intheir native shire that of all the host of victims there was not one whodid not meet his end with a firm lip, protesting that if the thing wereto do again he was ready to do it.
At the end of a week or two news came of the fugitives. Monmouth, itseems, had been captured by Portman's yellow coats when trying to makehis way to the New Forest, whence he hoped to escape to the Continent.He was dragged, gaunt, unshaven, and trembling, out of a bean-field inwhich he had taken refuge, and was carried to Ringwood, in Hampshire.Strange rumours reached us concerning his behaviour--rumours which cameto our ears through the coarse jests of our guards. Some said that hehad gone on his knees to the yokels who had seized him. Others that hehad written to the King offering to do anything, even to throw over theProtestant cause, to save his head from the scaffold.(Note L, Appendix.)We laughed at these stories at the time, and set them down as inventionsof our enemies. It seemed too impossible that at a time when hissupporters were so sternly and so loyally standing true to him, he,their leader, with the eyes of all men upon him, should be showing lesscourage than every little drummer-boy displays, who trips along at thehead of his regiment upon the field of battle. Alas! time showed thatthe stories were indeed true, and that there was no depth of infamy towhich this unhappy man would not descend, in the hope of prolongingfor a few years that existence which had proved a curse to so many whotrusted him.
Of Saxon no news had come, good or bad, which encouraged me to hope thathe had found a hiding-place for himself. Reuben was still confined tohis couch by his wound, and was under the care and protection ofMajor Ogilvy. The good gentleman came to see me more than once, andendeavoured to add to my comfort, until I made him understand that itpained me to find myself upon a different footing to the brave fellowswith whom I had shared the perils of the campaign. One great favour hedid me in writing to my father, and informing him that I was well andin no pressing danger. In reply to this letter I had a stout Christiananswer from the old man, bidding me to be of good courage, and quotinglargely from a sermon on patience by the Reverend Josiah Seaton ofPetersfield. My mother, he said, was in deep distress at my position,but was held up by her confidence in the decrees of Providence. Heenclosed a draft for Major Ogilvy, commissioning him to use it inwhatever way I should suggest. This money, together with the small hoardwhich my mother had sewed into my collar, proved to be invaluable, forwhen the gaol fever broke out amongst us I was able to get fitting foodfor the sick, and also to pay for the services of physicians, so thatthe disease was stamped out ere it had time to spread.
Early in August we were brought from Bridgewater to Taunton, where wewere thrown with hundreds of others into the same wool storehouse whereour regiment had been quartered in the early days of the campaign. Wegained little by the change, save that we found that our new guardswere somewhat more satiated with cruelty than our old ones, and weretherefore less exacting upon their prisoners. Not only were friendsallowed in occasionally to see us, but books and papers could beobtained by the aid of a small present to the sergeant on duty. We wereable, therefore, to spend our time with some degree of comfort duringthe month or more which passed before our trial.
One evening I was standing listlessly with my back against the wall,looking up at a thin slit of blue sky which showed itself through thenarrow window, and fancying myself back in the meadows of Havant oncemore, when a voice fell upon my ear which did, indeed, recall me to myHampshire home. Those deep, husky tones, rising at times into an angryroar, could belong to none other than my old friend the seaman. Iapproached the door from which the uproar came, and all doubt vanishedas I listened t
o the conversation.
'Won't let me pass, won't ye?' he was shouting. 'Let me tell youI've held on my course when better men than you have asked me to veiltopsails. I tell you I have the admiral's permit, and I won't clew upfor a bit of a red-painted cock-boat; so move from athwart my hawse, orI may chance to run you down.'
'We don't know nothing about admirals here,' said the sergeant of theguard. 'The time for seeing prisoners is over for the day, and if you donot take your ill-favoured body out of this I may try the weight o' myhalberd on your back.'
'I have taken blows and given them ere you were ever thought of, youland-swab,' roared old Solomon. 'I was yardarm and yardarm with DeRuyter when you were learning to suck milk; but, old as I am, I wouldhave you know that I am not condemned yet, and that I am fit to exchangebroadsides with any lobster-tailed piccaroon that ever was triced up toa triangle and had the King's diamonds cut in his back. If I tack backto Major Ogilvy and signal him the way that I have been welcomed, he'llmake your hide redder than ever your coat was.'
'Major Ogilvy!' exclaimed the sergeant, in a more respectful voice. 'Ifyou had said that your permit was from Major Ogilvy it would have beenanother thing, but you did rave of admirals and commodores, and Godknows what other outlandish talk!'
'Shame on your parents that they should have reared you with so slighta knowledge o' the King's English!' grumbled Solomon. 'In truth, friend,it is a marvel to me why sailor men should be able to show a lead tothose on shore in the matter of lingo. For out of seven hundred men inthe ship _Worcester_--the same that sank in the Bay of Funchal--therewas not so much as a powder-boy but could understand every word that Isaid, whereas on shore there is many a great jolterhead, like thyself,who might be a Portugee for all the English that he knows, and whostares at me like a pig in a hurricane if I do lint ask him what hemakes the reckoning, or how many bells have gone.'
'Whom is it that you would see?' asked the sergeant gruffly. 'You have amost infernally long tongue.'
'Aye, and a rough one, too, when I have fools to deal with,' returnedthe seaman. 'If I had you in my watch, lad, for a three years' cruise, Iwould make a man of you yet.'
'Pass the old man through!' cried the sergeant furiously, and the sailorcame stumping in, with his bronzed face all screwed up and twisted,partly with amusement at his victory over the sergeant, and partly froma great chunk of tobacco which he was wont to stow within his cheek.Having glanced round without perceiving me, he put his hands to hismouth and bellowed out my name, with a string of 'Ahoys!' which rangthrough the building.
'Here I am, Solomon,' said I, touching him on the shoulder.
'God bless you, lad! God bless you!' he cried, wringing my hand. 'Icould not see you, for my port eye is as foggy as the Newfoundlandbanks, and has been ever since Long Sue Williams of the Point hove aquart pot at it in the Tiger inn nigh thirty year agone. How are you?All sound, alow and aloft?'
'As well as might be,' I answered. 'I have little to complain of.'
'None of your standing rigging shot away!' said he. 'No spars crippled?No shots between wind and water, eh? You have not been hulled, norraked, nor laid aboard of?'
'None of these things,' said I, laughing.
'Faith! you are leaner than of old, and have aged ten years in twomonths. You did go forth as smart and trim a fighting ship as overanswered helm, and now you are like the same ship when the battle andthe storm have taken the gloss from her sides and torn the love-pennantsfrom her peak. Yet am I right glad to see you sound in wind and limb.'
'I have looked upon sights,' said I, 'which might well add ten years toa man's age.'
'Aye, aye!' he answered, with a hollow groan, shaking his head from sideto side. 'It is a most accursed affair. Yet, bad as the tempest is, thecalm will ever come afterwards if you will but ride it out with youranchor placed deep in Providence. Ah, lad, that is good holding ground!But if I know you aright, your grief is more for these poor wretchesaround you than for yourself.'
'It is, indeed, a sore sight to see them suffer so patiently anduncomplainingly,' I answered, 'and for such a man, too!'
'Aye, the chicken-livered swab!' growled the seaman, grinding his teeth.
'How are my mother and my father,' I asked, 'and how came you so farfrom home?'
'Nay, I should have grounded on my beef bones had I waited longer at mymoorings. I cut my cable, therefore, and, making a northerly tack as faras Salisbury, I run down with a fair wind. Thy father hath set his facehard, and goes about his work as usual, though much troubled by theJustices, who have twice had him up to Winchester for examination, buthave found his papers all right and no charge to be brought against him.Your mother, poor soul, hath little time to mope or to pipe her eye, forshe hath such a sense of duty that, were the ship to founder under her,it is a plate galleon to a china orange that she would stand fast in thecaboose curing marigolds or rolling pastry. They have taken to prayeras some would to rum, and warm their hearts with it when the wind ofmisfortune blows chill. They were right glad that I should come down toyou, and I gave them the word of a sailor that I would get you out ofthe bilboes if it might anyhow be done.'
'Get me out, Solomon!' said I; 'nay, that may be put outside thequestion. How could you get me out?'
'There are many ways,' he answered, sinking his voice to a whisper, andnodding his grizzled head as one who talks upon what has cost him muchtime and thought. 'There is scuttling.'
'Scuttling?'
'Aye, lad! When I was quartermaster of the galley _Providence_ in thesecond Dutch war, we were caught betwixt a lee shore and Van Tromp'ssquadron, so that after fighting until our sticks were shot away and ourscuppers were arun with blood, we were carried by boarding and sent asprisoners to the Texel. We were stowed away in irons in the afterhold,amongst the bilge water and the rats, with hatches battened down andguards atop, but even then they could not keep us, for the irons gotadrift, and Will Adams, the carpenter's mate, picked a hole in the seamsso that the vessel nearly foundered, and in the confusion we fell uponthe prize crew, and, using our fetters as cudgels, regained possessionof the vessel. But you smile, as though there were little hopes from anysuch plan!'
'If this wool-house were the galley _Providence_ and Taunton Deane werethe Bay of Biscay, it might be attempted,' I said.
'I have indeed got out o' the channel,' he answered, with a wrinkledbrow. 'There is, however, another most excellent plan which I haveconceived, which is to blow up the building.'
'To blow it up!' I cried.
'Aye! A brace of kegs and a slow match would do it any dark night. Thenwhere would be these walls which now shut ye in?'
'Where would be the folk that are now inside them!' I asked. 'Would younot blow them up as well?'
'Plague take it, I had forgot that,' cried Solomon. 'Nay, then, I leaveit with you. What have you to propose? Do but give your sailing orders,and, with or without a consort, you will find that I will steer by themas long as this old hulk can answer to her helm.'
'Then my advice is, my dear old friend,' said I, 'that you leave mattersto take their course, and hie back to Havant with a message from me tothose who know me, telling them to be of good cheer, and to hope for thebest. Neither you nor any other man can help me now, for I have thrownin my lot with these poor folk, and I would not leave them if I could.Do what you can to cheer my mother's heart, and commend me to ZacharyPalmer. Your visit hath been a joy to me, and your return will be thesame to them. You can serve me better so than by biding here.'
'Sink me if I like going back without a blow struck,' he growled. 'Yetif it is your will there is an end of the matter. Tell me, lad. Hasthat lank-sparred, slab-sided, herring-gutted friend of yours playedyou false? for if he has, by the eternal, old as I am, my hanger shallscrape acquaintance with the longshore tuck which hangs at his girdle. Iknow where he hath laid himself up, moored stem and stern, all snug andshipshape, waiting for the turn of the tide.'
'What, Saxon!' I cried. 'Do you indeed know where he is? For God's sakespeak lo
w, for it would mean a commission and five hundred good poundsto any one of these soldiers could he lay hands upon him.'
'They are scarce like to do that,' said Solomon. 'On my journey hither Ichanced to put into port at a place called Bruton, where there is aninn that will compare with most, and the skipper is a wench with a glibtongue and a merry eye. I was drinking a glass of spiced ale, as is mycustom about six bells of the middle watch, when I chanced to notice agreat lanky carter, who was loading up a waggon in the yard with a cargoo' beer casks. Looking closer it seemed to me that the man's nose,like the beak of a goshawk, and his glinting eyes with the lids onlyhalf-reefed, were known to me, but when I overheard him swearing tohimself in good High Dutch, then his figurehead came back to me ina moment. I put out into the yard, and touched him on the shoulder.Zounds, lad! you should have seen him spring back and spit at me likea wildcat with every hair of his head in a bristle. He whipped a knifefrom under his smock, for he thought, doubtless, that I was about toearn the reward by handing him over to the red-coats. I told him thathis secret was safe with me, and I asked him if he had heard that youwere laid by the heels. He answered that he knew it, and that he wouldbe answerable that no harm befell you, though in truth it seemed to methat he had his hands full in trimming his own sails, without acting aspilot to another. However, there I left him, and there I shall find himagain if so be as he has done you an injury.'
'Nay,' I answered, 'I am right glad that he has found this refuge.We did separate upon a difference of opinion, but I have no causeto complain of him. In many ways he hath shown me both kindness andgoodwill.'
'He is as crafty as a purser's clerk,' quoth Solomon. 'I have seenReuben Lockarby, who sends his love to you. He is still kept in his bunkfrom his wound, but he meets with good treatment. Major Ogilvy tells methat he has made such interest for him that there is every chance thathe will gain his discharge, the more particularly since he was notpresent at the battle. Your own chance of pardon would, he thinks, begreater if you had fought less stoutly, but you have marked yourselfas a dangerous man, more especially as you have the love of many of thecommon folk among the rebels.'
The good old seaman stayed with me until late in the night, listening tomy adventures, and narrating in return the simple gossip of the village,which is of more interest to the absent wanderer than the rise and fallof empires. Before he left he drew a great handful of silver piecesfrom his pouch, and went round amongst the prisoners, listening to theirwants, and doing what he could with rough sailor talk and dropping coinsto lighten their troubles. There is a language in the kindly eye andthe honest brow which all men may understand; and though the seaman'sspeeches might have been in Greek, for all that they conveyed to theSomersetshire peasants, yet they crowded round him as he departed andcalled blessings upon his head. I felt as though he had brought a whiffof his own pure ocean breezes into our close and noisome prison, andleft us the sweeter and the healthier.
Late in August the judges started from London upon that wicked journeywhich blighted the lives and the homes of so many, and hath left amemory in the counties through which they passed which shall never fadewhile a father can speak to a son. We heard reports of them from day today, for the guards took pleasure in detailing them with many coarse andfoul jests, that we might know what was in store for us, and lose noneof what they called the pleasures of anticipation. At Winchester thesainted and honoured Lady Alice Lisle was sentenced by Chief JusticeJeffreys to be burned alive, and the exertions and prayers of herfriends could scarce prevail upon him to allow her the small boon ofthe axe instead of the faggot. Her graceful head was hewn from herbody amidst the groans and the cries of a weeping multitude in themarket-place of the town. At Dorchester the slaughter was wholesale.Three hundred were condemned to death, and seventy-four were actuallyexecuted, until the most loyal and Tory of the country squires had tocomplain of the universal presence of the dangling bodies. Thence thejudges proceeded to Exeter and thence to Taunton, which they reached inthe first week of September, more like furious and ravenous beasts whichhave tasted blood and cannot quench their cravings for slaughter, thanjust-minded men, trained to distinguish the various degrees of guilt, orto pick out the innocent and screen him from injustice. A rare fieldwas open for their cruelty, for in Taunton alone there lay a thousandhapless prisoners, many of whom were so little trained to express theirthoughts, and so hampered by the strange dialect in which they spoke,that they might have been born dumb for all the chance they had ofmaking either judge or counsel understand the pleadings which theywished to lay before them.
It was on a Monday evening that the Lord Chief Justice made his entry.From one of the windows of the room in which we were confined I saw himpass. First rode the dragoons with their standards and kettledrums, thenthe javelin-men with their halberds, and behind them the line of coachesfull of the high dignitaries of the law. Last of all, drawn by sixlong-tailed Flemish mares, came a great open coach, thickly crustedwith gold, in which, reclining amidst velvet cushions, sat the infamousJudge, wrapped in a cloak of crimson plush with a heavy white periwigupon his head, which was so long that it dropped down over hisshoulders. They say that he wore scarlet in order to strike terror intothe hearts of the people, and that his courts were for the same reasondraped in the colour of blood. As for himself, it hath ever been thecustom, since his wickedness hath come to be known to all men, topicture him as a man whose expression and features were as monstrous andas hideous as was the mind behind them. This is by no means the case.On the contrary, he was a man who, in his younger days, must have beenremarkable for his extreme beauty.(1) He was not, it is true, very old,as years go, when I saw him, but debauchery and low living had lefttheir traces upon his countenance, without, however entirely destroyingthe regularity and the beauty of his features. He was dark, more like aSpaniard than an Englishman, with black eyes and olive complexion. Hisexpression was lofty and noble, but his temper was so easily aflame thatthe slightest cross or annoyance would set him raving like a madman,with blazing eyes and foaming mouth. I have seen him myself with thefroth upon his lips and his whole face twitching with passion, likeone who hath the falling sickness. Yet his other emotions were under aslittle control, for I have heard say that a very little would cause himto sob and to weep, more especially when he had himself been slighted bythose who were above him. He was, I believe, a man who had great powerseither for good or for evil, but by pandering to the darker side ofhis nature and neglecting the other, he brought himself to be as neara fiend as it is possible for a man to be. It must indeed have been anevil government where so vile and foul-mouthed a wretch was chosen outto hold the scales of justice. As he drove past, a Tory gentlemanriding by the side of his coach drew his attention to the faces ofthe prisoners looking out at him. He glanced up at them with a quick,malicious gleam of his white teeth, then settled down again amongst thecushions. I observed that as he passed not a hat was raised among thecrowd, and that even the rude soldiers appeared to look upon him halfin terror, half in disgust, as a lion might look upon some foul,blood-sucking bat which battened upon the prey which he had himselfstruck down.
(1) The painting of Jeffreys in the National Portrait Gallery morethan bears out Micah Clarke's remarks. He is the handsomest man in thecollection.
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