Micah Clarke<br />His Statement as made to his three grandchildren Joseph, Gervas and Reuben During, Arthur Conan Doyle [self help books to read txt] 📗

and neither she nor her household could lift it in again. That matter I set straight and proceeded on my way; but I could not pass the sign of the Wheatsheaf without John Lockarby, Reuben’s father, plunging out at me and insisting upon my coming in with him for a morning cup.

‘The best glass of mead in the countryside, and brewed under my own roof,’ said he proudly, as he poured it into the flagon. ‘Why, bless you, master Micah, a man with a frame like yours wants store o’ good malt to keep it up wi’.’

‘And malt like this is worthy of a good frame to contain it,’ quoth Reuben, who was at work among the flasks.

‘What think ye, Micah?’ said the landlord. ‘There was the Squire o’ Milton over here yester morning wi’ Johnny Ferneley o’ the Bank side, and they will have it that there’s a man in Fareham who could wrestle you, the best of three, and find your own grip, for a good round stake.’

‘Tut! tut!’ I answered; ‘you would have me like a prize mastiff, showing my teeth to the whole countryside. What matter if the man can throw me, or I him?’

‘What matter? Why, the honour of Havant,’ quoth he. ‘Is that no matter? But you are right,’ he continued, draining off his horn. ‘What is all this village life with its small successes to such as you? You are as much out of your place as a vintage wine at a harvest supper. The whole of broad England, and not the streets of Havant, is the fit stage for a man of your kidney. What have you to do with the beating of skins and the tanning of leather?’

‘My father would have you go forth as a knight-errant, Micah,’ said Reuben, laughing. ‘You might chance to get your own skin beaten and your own leather tanned.’

‘Who ever knew so long a tongue in so short a body?’ cried the innkeeper. ‘But in good sooth, Master Micah, I am in sober earnest when I say that you are indeed wasting the years of your youth, when life is sparkling and clear, and that you will regret it when you have come to the flat and flavourless dregs of old age.’

‘There spoke the brewer,’ said Reuben; ‘but indeed, Micah, my father is right, for all that he hath such a hops-and-water manner of putting it.’

‘I will think over it,’ I answered, and with a nod to the kindly couple proceeded on my way.

Zachariah Palmer was planing a plank as I passed. Looking up he bade me good-morrow.

‘I have a book for you, lad,’ he said.

‘I have but now finished the “Comus,”’ I answered, for he had lent me John Milton’s poem. ‘But what is this new book, daddy?’

‘It is by the learned Locke, and treateth of states and statecraft. It is but a small thing, but if wisdom could show in the scales it would weigh down many a library. You shall have it when I have finished it, to-morrow mayhap or the day after. A good man is Master Locke. Is he not at this moment a wanderer in the Lowlands, rather than bow his knee to what his conscience approved not of?’

‘There are many good men among the exiles, are there not?’ said I.

‘The pick of the country,’ he answered. ‘Ill fares the land that drives the highest and bravest of its citizens away from it. The day is coming, I fear, when every man will have to choose betwixt his beliefs and his freedom. I am an old man, Micah boy, but I may live long enough to see strange things in this once Protestant kingdom.’

‘But if these exiles had their way,’ I objected, ‘they would place Monmouth upon the throne, and so unjustly alter the succession.’

‘Nay, nay,’ old Zachary answered, laying down his plane. ‘If they use Monmouth’s name, it is but to strengthen their cause, and to show that they have a leader of repute. Were James driven from the throne, the Commons of England in Parliament assembled would be called upon to name his successor. There are men at Monmouth’s back who would not stir unless this were so.’

‘Then, daddy,’ said I, ‘since I can trust you, and since you will tell me what you do really think, would it be well, if Monmouth’s standard be raised, that I should join it?’

The carpenter stroked his white beard and pondered for a while. ‘It is a pregnant question,’ he said at last, ‘and yet methinks that there is but one answer to it, especially for your father’s son. Should an end be put to James’s rule, it is not too late to preserve the nation in its old faith; but if the disease is allowed to spread, it may be that even the tyrant’s removal would not prevent his evil seed from sprouting. I hold, therefore, that should the exiles make such an attempt, it is the duty of every man who values liberty of conscience to rally round them. And you, my son, the pride of the village, what better use could you make of your strength than to devote it to helping to relieve your country of this insupportable yoke? It is treasonable and dangerous counsel—counsel which might lead to a short shrift and a bloody death—but, as the Lord liveth, if you were child of mine I should say the same.’

So spoke the old carpenter with a voice which trembled with earnestness, and went to work upon his plank once more, while I, with a few words of gratitude, went on my way pondering over what he had said to me. I had not gone far, however, before the hoarse voice of Solomon Sprent broke in upon my meditations.

‘Hoy there! Ahoy!’ he bellowed, though his mouth was but a few yards from my ear. ‘Would ye come across my hawse without slacking weigh? Clew up, d’ye see, clew up!’

‘Why, Captain,’ I said, ‘I did not see you. I was lost in thought.’

‘All adrift and without look-outs,’ quoth he, pushing his way through the break in the garden hedge. ‘Odd’s niggars, man! friends are not so plentiful, d’ye see, that ye need pass ‘em by without a dip o’ the ensign. So help me, if I had had a barker I’d have fired a shot across your bows.’

‘No offence, Captain,’ said I, for the veteran appeared to be nettled; ‘I have much to think of this morning.’

‘And so have I, mate,’ he answered, in a softer voice. ‘What think ye of my rig, eh?’ He turned himself slowly round in the sunlight as he spoke, and I perceived that he was dressed with unusual care. He had a blue suit of broadcloth trimmed with eight rows of buttons, and breeches of the same material with great bunches of ribbon at the knee. His vest was of lighter blue picked out with anchors in silver, and edged with a finger’s-breadth of lace. His boot was so wide that he might have had his foot in a bucket, and he wore a cutlass at his side suspended from a buff belt, which passed over his right shoulder.

‘I’ve had a new coat o’ paint all over,’ said he, with a wink. ‘Carramba! the old ship is water-tight yet. What would ye say, now, were I about to sling my hawser over a