Chapter 9. I Enlist An Army

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_ CHAPTER IX. I ENLIST AN ARMY

"If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet."

---Sir John Falstaff.

My father turned to me as they descended the stair. "This is all very well, lad," said he, "but we have yet to find our army. After the murder of Julius Caesar, now--"

"I did enact Julius Caesar once," quoted Mr. Fett, in parenthesis. "I was killed i' the capitol; Brutus killed me."

My father frowned. "After the murder of Julius Caesar, when the mob for two days had Rome at their mercy, I have read somewhere that two men appeared out of nowhere, and put themselves at the head of the rioters. None knew them; but so boldly they comported themselves, heading the charges, marshalling the ranks, here throwing up barricades, there plucking down doors and gates, breaking open the prisons and setting fire to private houses, that presently the whisper spread they were Castor and Pollux; till, at length, falling into the hands of the aediles, these _dioscuri_ were found to be two poor lunatics escaped from a house of detention. If we could discover another such pair among the mob, now!"

"We are wasting time here for certain," said I. "And where, by the way, is Billy Priske?"

"If you waste your time upstairs here, gentlemen," said Miss Whiteaway, "belike you may do better in the parlour, where I had prepared for some friends of mine with two-three chickens and a ham."

"Ah, to be sure," said I; "the packet-men!"

"Never you worry, young sir," she answered tartly, "so long as they don't mind eating after their betters. And as for your man Priske, I saw him twenty minutes ago escape towards Church Street with the Methodists."

"Hang it!" put in Nat Fiennes, "if I hadn't clean forgotten the Methodists!"

"We left them scurvily," said I; "every Jack and Jill of them but our friend here." I nodded toward the little man in black. "And he not only saved himself, but was half the battle."

The little man seemed to come out of himself with a start, and gazed from one to another of us perplexedly.

"Excuse me, gentlemen." He drew himself up with dignity. "Do my ears deceive me, or are you mistaking me for a Methodist?"

"Indeed, and are you not, sir?" asked my father. "Why, good God, gentlemen!--if you'll excuse me--but I'm the parish clerk of Axminster!"

My father recovered himself with a bow. "In Devon?" he asked gravely, after a pause in which our silence paid tribute to the announcement.

"In Devon, sir; a county remarkable for its attachment to the principles of the Church of England. And that I should have lived to be mistaken for a Methodist!"

"But, surely, John Wesley himself is a Clerk in Holy Orders? and, I have heard, a great stickler for the Church's authority."

"He may say so, sir," answered the little man, darkly. "He may say so. But, if he means it, why does he go about encouraging such a low class of people? A man, sir, is known by the company he keeps."

"Is that in the Bible?" my father inquired. "I seem to remember, on the contrary, that in the matter of consorting with publicans and sinners--"

"It won't work, sir. It has been tried in Axminster before now, and you may take my word for it that it won't work. You mustn't suppose, gentlemen," he went on, including us all in the argument, "you mustn't take me for one of those parrot-Christians who just echo what they hear in the pulpits on Sundays. I _think_ about these things; and I find that your extreme doctrines may do all very well for the East and for hot countries where you can go about half-naked and nobody takes any notice; but the Church of England, as its name implies, is the only Church for England. A truly Christian Church, gentlemen, because it selects its doctrines from the Gospels; and English, sir, to the core, because it selects 'em with a special view to the needs of our beloved country. And what (if I may so put it) is the basis of that selection? The same, sirs, which we all admit to be the basis of England's welfare and the foundation of her society; in other words, the land. The land, gentlemen, is solid; and our reformed religion (say what you will, I am not denying that it has, and will ever have, its detractors) is the religion for solid Englishmen."

My father put out a hand and arrested Mr. Fett, who had been regarding the speaker with joyful admiration, and at this point made a movement to embrace him.

"I must have his name!" murmured Mr. Fett. "He shall at least tell us his name!"

"Badcock, sir; Ebenezer Badcock," answered the little man, producing a black-edged visiting-card.

"But," urged my father, "you must forgive us, Mr. Badcock, if we find it hard to reconcile your conduct this morning with these sentiments, on which, for the moment, I offer no comment except that they are admirably expressed. What song the Sirens sang, Mr. Badcock, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, are questions (as Sir Thomas Browne observes) not beyond conjecture, albeit the Emperor Tiberius posed his grammarians with 'em. But when a man openly champions street-preaching, and goes on to lay about him with a mace--"

"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Badcock, with sudden eagerness. "And what--by the way, sir--did you think of that performance?"

"Why, to be sure, you behaved valiantly."

The little man blushed with pleasure. "You really think so? It struck you in that light, did it? Well, now I am glad--yes, sir, and proud--to hear that opinion; because, to tell you the truth, I thought it pretty fair myself. The fact is, gentlemen, I wasn't altogether sure what my behaviour would be at the critical moment. You may deem it strange that a man should arrive at my time of life without being sure whether he's a coward or a brave man; but Axminster--if you knew the place--affords few opportunities for that sort of thing."

"Allow us to reassure you, then," said my father. "But there remains the question, why you did it?"

Mr. Badcock rubbed his hands. "Appearances were against me, I'll allow," he answered, with a bashful chuckle; "but you may set it down to tchivalry. We all have our weaknesses, I hope, sir; and tchivalry is mine."

"Chivalry?" echoed my father.

"You spell it with an 's'? Excuse me; whatever schooling I have picked up has been at odd times; but I am always open to correction, I thank the Lord."

"But why call it a weakness, Mr. Badcock?"

"Call it a hobby; call it what you like. _I_ look upon it as a debt, sir, due to the memory of my late wife. An admirable woman, sir, and by name Artemisia; which, I have sometimes thought, may partially account for it. Allow me, gentlemen." He drew a small shagreen case from his breast-pocket, opened it, and displayed a miniature.

"Her portrait?"

"In a sense. As a matter of fact, I will not conceal from you, gentlemen, that it came to me in the form of a pledge--that being my late profession--and I have never been able to trace the original. But, as I said when first I showed it to the late Mrs. B., 'My dear, you might have sat for it.' A well-developed woman, gentlemen, though in the end she went out like the snuff of a candle, that being the way sometimes with people who have never known an hour's sickness. 'Am I really like that, Ebenezer?' she asked. 'In your prime, my dear,' said I--she having married me late in life owing to her romantic nature--'in your prime, my dear, I'll defy any one to tell you and this party from two peas.' 'I wish I knew who she was,' said my wife. 'Hadn't you best leave well alone?' said I; 'for I declare till this moment I hadn't dreamed that another such woman as yourself existed in the world, and it gives me a kind of bigamous feeling which I can't say I find altogether unpleasant.' 'Then I'll keep the thing,' says she, very positively, 'until the owner turns up and redeems it;' which he never did, being, as I discovered, a strolling portrait painter very much down on his luck. So there the mystery remained. But (as I was telling you), though a first-rate manager, my poor dear wife had a number of romantic notions; and often she has said to me after I'd shut up shop, 'If wishes grew on brambles, Ebenezer, it's not a pawnbroker's wife I'd be at this moment.' 'Well, my dear,' I'd say to soothe her, 'there _is_ a little bit of that about the profession, now you come to mention it.' 'And them there was a time,' she'd go on, 'when I dreamed of marryin' a red-cross knight!' 'I have my higher moments, Artemisia,' I'd say, half in joke; 'Why not try shutting your eyes?' But afterwards, when that splendid woman was gone for ever, and my daughter Heeb (which is a classical name given her by her mother) comfortably married to a wholesale glover, and me left at home a solitary grandfather--which, proud as you may be of it, is a slight occupation--I began to think things over and find there was more in my poor wife's notions than I'd ever allowed. And the upshot was that seeing this advertisement by chance in a copy of the _Sherborne Messenger_, I determined to shut up shop and let Axminster think I was gone on a holiday, while I gave it a trial; for, you see, I was not altogether sure of myself."

"Excuse me, Badcock," interrupted Mr. Fett, advancing towards him with outstretched arms; "but have you perused the books of chivalry, or is this the pure light of nature?"

"Books, sir?" answered Mr. Badcock, seriously. "I never knew there were any books about it. I never heard of tchivalry except from my late wife; and you'll excuse the force of habit, but she pronounced it the same as in chibbles."

"You never read of the meeting of Amadis and Sir Galaor?"

Mr. Badcock shook his head.

"Nor of Percival and Galahad, nor of Sir Balin and Sir Balan? No? Then embrace me!"

"Sir?"

"Embrace me!"

"Sit down, the pair of you," my father commanded. "I have a proposal to make, which, if I mistake not, will interest you both. Mr. Badcock, I have heard your aspirations, and can fulfil them in a degree that will surprise you. I like you, Mr. Badcock."

"The feeling, sir, is mutchual." Mr. Badcock bowed with much amiability.

"Is time an object with you?"

"None whatever, sir. I am on a holiday."

"Will you be my guest to-night?"

"With the more pleasure, sir, after my experience of the inns in these parts. Though I may have presented her to you in a somewhat romantic light, my Artemisia _did_ know how to make a bed; and twenty-two years of her ministrations, not to mention her companionship, have coddled me in this particular."

"And you, sir"--my father turned to Mr. Fett--"will you accompany us?"

"With what ulterior object?" demanded Mr. Fett. "You will excuse my speaking as a business man, and overlook the damned bad manners of the question for the sake of its pertinence."

My father smiled. "Why, sir, I was proposing to invite you to a sea voyage with me."

"There was a time, before commerce claimed me, when the mere hint of a nautical expedition had evoked an emotion which, if it survive at all, lingers but as in a sea-shell the whisper of the parent ocean."

"As a supercargo, at four shillings _per diem_," suggested my father.

"Say no more, sir; I am yours."

"As for Mr. Fiennes--nay, lad, I remember you well." My father turned to him with that sweet courtesy which few ever resisted. "And blush not, lad, if I guess that to you we all owe this meeting; 'twere a bravery well beseeming your blood. As for Mr. Fiennes, he will accompany us in heart if he cannot in presence--being, as I understand, destined for the law?"

"Why, sir, as for that," stammered Nat, "I have had the devil's own dispute with my father."

"You treated him with all respect, I hope?"

"With all the respect in the world, sir. But it scarcely matters, since he has cast me off, and without a penny."

"Why, then, you can come too!" cried my father, gripping him by the hand. "Bravo, Prosper! that makes five; and with Billy Priske, when we can find him, six; and that leaves but one to find before dinner-time." He pulled out his watch. "Lord!" he cried, "and 'tis high time to feel hungry, too. If this lady now will repeat her hospitable offer--"

I thought at the moment, and I thought once or twice during the meal downstairs, that my father was taxing this poor woman's hospitality. I doubted that he, himself so carelessly hospitable, might forget to offer her payment; and lingered after the others had trooped into the passage, with purpose to remind him privately.

"Come," said he, and made a notion to leave, still without offering to pay. On the threshold I had almost turned to whisper to him when the woman came after and touched his arm.

"Nay, Sir John," said she, eagerly, in a low hoarse voice, "let the lad hear me thank you. He is old enough to understand and clean enough to profit. Shut the door, child. You know me, Sir John?"

My father bent his head. "I never forget a face," said he, quietly.

"Take notice of that, boy. Your father remembers me, whom to my knowledge he never saw but once, and then as a magistrate, when he sat to judge me. Never mind the offence, lad. I am a sinful woman, and the punishment was--"

"Nay, nay!" put in my father, gently.

"The punishment was," she continued, hardening her voice, "to strip me to the waist and whip me in public. The law allowed this, and this they would have done to me. But your father, being chairman of the bench--for the offence lay outside the borough--would have none of it, and argued and forced three other magistrates to give way. Little good he did, you may say, seeing that my name is such in Falmouth that, only by entering my door, the Mayor just now did what all his cleverness could never have done--stopped a riot by a silly brutal laugh--the chief magistrate taking shelter with Moll Whiteaway! You can't get below that for fun, as the folk will take it; and yet I say your father did good, for he saved me from the worst. And to-day of his goodness he has not remembered my sins, but treated me as though they were not; and today, as only a good man can, he goes from my house, no man thinking to laugh except at his simplicity, even though it were known that I kissed his hand. God bless you, Sir John, and teach your son to be merciful to women!"

My father was ever so shy of his own kind actions that, when detected by chance or painfully tracked out in one, he kept always a quotation ready to justify what pure impulse had prompted. So now, as we hurried across the deserted Market Strand to catch up with the other three, he must needs brazen things out with the authority of Bishop Jeremy Taylor.

"It was a maxim of that excellent divine," said he, "that Christian censure should never be used to make a sinner desperate; for then he either sinks under the burden or grows impudent and tramples upon it. A charitable modest remedy, says he, preserves that which is virtue's girdle-fear and blushing. Honour, dear lad, is the peculiar counsellor of well-bred natures, and these are few; but almost in all men you will find a certain modesty toward sin, and were I a king my judges should be warned that their duty is to chasten; whereas by punishing immoderately they can but effect the exact opposite."

We found our trio waiting for us on the far side of the square; and, having fetched our horses and left an order at the inn for Billy Priske on his return to mount and follow us, wended our way out of the town. The streets on this side were deserted and mournful, the shopkeepers having fastened their shutters for fear of the mob, of whose present doings no sound reached us but a faint murmuring hubbub borne on the afternoon air from the northward--that is, from the direction of the Green Bank and the Penryn Road.

My father led the way at a foot's pace, and seemed to ride pondering, for his chin was sunk on his chest and he had pulled his hat-brim well over his eyes (but this may have been against the July sun). After him tramped Mr. Fett in eager converse with the little pawnbroker, now questioning him, now halting to regard him, as a man who has dug up a sudden treasure and for the moment can only gaze at it and hug himself. Nat and I brought up the rear, he striding at my stirrup and pouring forth the tale of his adventures since we parted. A dozen times he rehearsed the scene of the parental quarrel, and interrupted each rehearsal with a dozen anxious questions. "Ought he to have given this answer?--to have uttered that defiance? Did I think he had shown self-control; Had he treated the old gentleman with becoming respect? Would I put myself in his place? Suppose it had been my own father, now--"

"But yours, lad, is a father in a thousand," he broke off bitterly. "I had never a notion that father and son could be friends, as are you and he. He is splendid--splendid!"

I glanced at him quickly and turned my face aside, suspecting that he took my father for a madman, and was kindly concealing the discovery. Nevertheless I hardened my voice to answer--

"You will say so when you know him better. And my Uncle Gervase runs him a good second."

"Faith, then, I wish you'd persuade your uncle to adopt me. I'm not envious, Prosper, in a general way, but your luck gives me a duced orphanly feeling. Have I been over-hasty? That is the question; whether 'twas nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of accusing conscience or to up and have it out with the old man."

"Pardon me, gentlemen"--Mr. Fett wheeled about suddenly on the road ahead of us--"but it was by accident that I overheard you, and by a singular coincidence at that moment I happened to be discussing the same subject with Mr. Badcock here."

"What subject?"

"Missiles, sir. It appears that, when his blood is up, Mr. Badcock finds himself absolutely careless of missiles. He declares that, with a sense of smell as acute as most men's, he was unaware to-day of having been struck with a rotten egg until I, at ten paces' distance, drew his attention to it. Now, that is a degree of courage--insensibility--call it what you will--to which I make no pretence. The cut and thrust, gentlemen, the couched lance, even, within limits, the battering ram, would have, I feel confident, comparatively few terrors for me. But missiles I abominate. Drawing, as I am bound to do, my anticipations of the tented field from experience gathered--I say it literally, gathered--before the footlights, I confess to some sympathy with the gentleman who assured Harry Percy that but for these vile guns he would himself have been a soldier. You will not misunderstand me. I believe on my faith that as a military man I was born out of my time. The scythed chariots of Boadicea, for instance, must have been damned inconvenient; yet I can conceive myself jumping 'em. But a stone, as I learnt in my boyhood--a stone, sirs, and _a fortiori_ a bullet--"

"Hist!" broke in my father, at the same moment reining up. "Prosper, what do you make of that noise, up yonder?"

I listened. "It sounds to me like a heavy cart--"

"Or a waggon. To my hearing there are two horses."

"And runaway ones, by the shouting."

We had reached a point of the road, not far from home, where a steep lane cut across it: a track seldom used but scored with old ruts, sunk between hedges full sixteen feet high, leading down from a back gate of Constantine and a deserted lodge to a quay by the waterside. Not once in three months, within my remembrance, did cart or waggon pass along this lane, which indeed grew a fine crop of grass and docks between the ruts.

"Nay," said my father, after a few seconds, "I gave you a false alarm, gentlemen. The shouting, whatever it means, is over. Your pardon, Mr. Fett, that I interrupted you."

"Sir," said Mr. Fett, stepping put him to reconnoitre the lane, "I was but remarking what a number of the wise have observed before me, that a stone which has left the hand is in the hands of the dev--"

He ducked his head with a cry as a stone whizzed past him and within a foot of it. On the instant the loud rattle and thunder of cartwheels broke forth again, and now but a short distance up the lane; also a voice almost as loudly vociferating; and, almost before Mr. Fett could run back to us, a whole volley of stones flew hurtling across the road.

"Hi, there! Halt!" My father struck spur and rode forward, in time to catch at and check the leader of two horses slithering downhill tandem-fashion before the weight of a heavy cart. "Confound you, sir! What the devil d'you mean by flinging stones in this manner across the middle of the King's highway."

The man--he was one of the seamen of the _Gauntlet_--stood up in the cart upon a load of stones and grinned. In one hand he gripped the reins, in the other a fistful of flints.

"Your honour's pardon," said he, lifting his forearm and drawing the back of it across his dripping brow, "but the grey mare for'rad won't pull, and the whip here won't reach her. I couldn't think upon no better way."

"You mean to tell me you have been pelting that poor brute all down the lane?"

"I couldn't think upon no better way," the seaman repeated wistfully, almost plaintively. "She's what you might call sensitive to stones."

"Intelligent beast!" commented Mr. Fett. "And I bought that mare only six months ago!" (In truth my father had found the poor creature wandering the roads and starving, cast off by her owner as past work, and had purchased her out of mere humanity for thirty shillings.)

"But what business have you to be driving my cart and horses?" he demanded. "And what's the meaning of these stones you're carting?"

"Ballast, your honour."

"Ballast?"

"I don't know how much of it'll ever arrive at this rate," confessed the seaman, dropping the handful of flints and scratching his head. "Tis buying speed at a terrible cost of jettison. But Cap'n Pomery's last order to me was to make haste about it, if we're to catch to-morrow's tide."

"Captain Pomery sent you for these stones?"

"Why, Lord love your honour, a vessel can't discharge two dozen Papist monks and cattle and implements to correspond without wantin' _something_ in their place. Nice flat stones, too, the larger-sized be, and not liable to shift in a sea-way."

But here another strange noise drew our eyes up the lane, as an old man in a smock-frock--a pensioner of the estate, and by name John Worthyvale--came hobbling round the corner and down the hill towards us, using his long-handled road hammer for a staff and uttering shrill tremulous cries of rage.

"Vengeance, Sir John! Vengeance for my l'il heap o' stones!"

"Why, Worthyvale, what's the matter?" asked my father, soothingly.

"My l'il heap o' stones, Sir John; my poor l'il heap o' stones! What's to become o' me, master? Where will your kindness find a bellyful for me, if these murderin' seamen take away my l'il heap o' stones?"

My father laid a hand on the old man's shoulder.

"Captain Pomery wants them for ballast, Worthyvale. You understand? It appears he can find none so suitable.''

"No, I _don't_ understand!" exclaimed the old fellow, fiercely. "This has been a black week for me, Sir John. First of all my darter's youngest darter comes and tells me she've picked up with a man. Seems 'twas only last year she was runnin' about in short frocks; but, dang it! the time must ha' slipped away somehow whilst I've a-sat hammerin' stones, an' now there'll be no person left to mind me. Next news, I hear from Master Gervase that you be goin' foreign, Sir John, with Master Prosper here. The world gets that empty, I wish I were dead, I do. An' now they've a-took my l'il heap o' stones!"

"And this old man's sires," said my father to me, but so that he did not hear, "held land in Domesday Book--twelve virgates of land with close on forty carucates of arable, villeins and borderers and bondservants, six acres of wood, a hundred and twenty of pasture; and he makes his last stand on this heap of stones. Ballast?" He turned to the seaman. "Did I not tell Captain Pomery to ballast with wine?"

"We were carrying it all the forenoon," the seaman answered. "There was two hogsheads of claret."

"And the hogshead of Madeira, with what remained of the brown sherry? Likewise in bottles twelve dozen of the Hermitage and as much again of the Pope's wine, of Avignon?"

"It all went in, sir. Master Gervase checked it on board by the list."

"For the rest we are reduced to stones? Then, Prosper, there remains no other course open to us."

"Than what, sir?" I asked.

"We must enlist this old man; and that fulfils our number."

"Old John Worthyvale?"

"Why not? He can sit in the hold and crack stones until I devise his part in the campaign. Say no more. I have an inkling he will prove not the least useful man of our company."

"As to that, sir," I answered, with a shrug of the shoulders and a glance at Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock, "I don't feel able to contradict you."

"Then here we are assembled," said my father, cheerfully, with the air of one closing a discussion; "the more by token that here comes Billy Priske. Why, man," he asked, as Billy rode up--but so dejectedly that his horse seemed to droop its ears in sympathy-- "what ails you? Not wounded, are you?"

"Worse," answered Billy, and groaned.

"We were told you got quit of the crowd.

"So I did," said Billy. "Damn it!"

"They followed you?" I asked.

"No, they didn't, and I wish they had."

"Then what on earth has happened?"

"What has happened?" Having no hair of his own to speak of, Billy reached forward and ran his fingers through his horse's mane. "I've engaged to get married. That's what has happened."

"Good Lord!"

"To a female Methody, in a Quaker bonnet. I had no idea of any such thing when I followed her. She was sittin' on the first milestone out of Falmouth and jabbin' her heel into the dust, like a person in a pet. First of all, when I spoke to her, she wouldn't tell what had annoyed her; but later on it turned out she had come expectin' to be made a martyr of, and everything was lookin' keenly that way until Sir John came and interfered, as she put it."

"And she said," suggested Mr. Fett, "that she didn't mind what man could do unto her?"

"The very words she used, sir!" said Billy, his brow clearing as a prisoner's will when counsel supplies him with a defence.

"And, when you took her at her word, like a Christian woman she turned the other cheek?"

"She did, sir, and no harm meant; but just doing it gay, as a man will."

"But when you explained this, she wouldn't take no for an answer?"

"She would not, sir. She seemed not to understand. Then I looked at her bonnet and, a thought striking me, I tried 'nay' instead. But that didn't work no better than the other. If you could hide me for tonight, Sir John--"

"You had best sleep on the _Gauntlet_ to-night," said my father. "If the woman calls, I will have a talk with her. What is her name, by the way?"

"Martha."

"But I mean her full name."

"I didn't get so far as to inquire, Sir John. But the point is, she knows mine." _

Read next: Chapter 10. Of The Discourse Held On Board The "Gauntlet"

Read previous: Chapter 8. Tribulations Of A Mayor

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