HOLACOMBE

“Where the brown barrow curves its sullen breastAbove the bones of some dead gentile’s soul,”[126]

and that on every hillside and plain. The shape of the great hillock at Warbstow is neither ovalnor round, but survives the exact image of the dragon-ship of northern piracy and war.[127]Moreover, not the shape only, but the size of the ancient vessel of the dead, is perpetuated here. Measured and graduated by scale, this oblong, curved, and narrow grave would yield the dimensions of a boat of fifty tons, which would be about the weight of a Scandinavian serpent of the sea.

We saw that an effort had been made to open this barrow at one of the ends; but an old woman, whom we found at a cottage not far off, assured us “that they that tried it were soon forced to give up their digging and flee, for the thunders came for ’em, and the lightnings also.”

We endeavoured to sound the local mind of our informant as to the history of the place and origin of the grave; but all we could drag out of her, after questions again and again, was “great warriors, supposing, in old times.” Such was the dirge of the mighty dead, and their requiem, at Warbstow Barrow. But the sun had begun to lean, and we were bound for Boscastle, the breviate of Bottreau[128]Castle, and the abode of the earls[129]of that name.

Boscastle Harbour.

Strange, striking, and utterly unique is the first aspect of this village by the sea. The gorge or valley lies between two vast and precipitous hills, that yawn asunder as though they had been cleft by the spells of some giant warlock[130]of the West, like the Eildon Hill by Michael Scott.[131]As you descend the hill from the north you discover on the opposite side clusters of quaint old-fashioned houses, grotesque and gabled, that appear as though they clung together for mutual support on the slope of that perilous cliff. Between the houses, and sheer down the mountain side, descended, or rather fell, a steep and ugly road; which led, however, to the “safety of the vale,” and landed the traveller at last in a deep cut or gash between the hills, where the creek ebbed and flowed, which was called by strangers in their courtesy, and by the inhabitants, with aboriginal pride, “the Harbour”—Cornice“Hawn.” There “went the ships,” so that they did not exceed sixty tons in freight; and thither arrived, at certain intervals, coals and timber in bulk and quantity, which can be ascertained, no doubt, by the return of imports laid before Parliament by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

We reached in safety our bourn for the night at the bottom of the hill, and discovered the hostelry by the sign which swung above the door. This appeared to us to represent a man’s shoe;but when we had read the legend, we found that it signified the Ship Inn, and was the “actual effigy” of a vessel which belonged to the port. Here we received a smiling welcome from the hostess, a ruddy-visaged widow,—Joan Treworgy was her Keltic name—fubby and interjectional in figure, and manifestly better adapted for her abode at the foot of the hill than at any mansion further up. She was born, as she afterwards related, two doors off: and, except that she had travelled up the hill to Forraburry church to be married there, it appeared that a diameter of five yards would have defined the total circumference of her wandering life.

As soon as we arrived, she called up from some vasty deep underneath her house a grim and shaggy shape, who answered to the name of Tim, but whom we identified as Caliban on the spot, and charged him to take proper care of the Captains’ horses (for by that title all strangers in sound garments and whole hats are saluted in the land of the quarry and the mine), and to be sure that they had plenty of whuts. She then invited us to enter her “parrolar,” a room rather cosy than magnificent; for when our landlady had followed in her two guests, and stood at the door, no one beside could have forced an entrance any more than a cannon-ball could cleave through a feather-bed. We then proceeded to confer about beds for the night, and, not without misgiving,inquired if she could supply a couple of those indispensable places of repose. A demur ensued. All the gentry in the town, she declared, were accustomed to sleep “two in a bed,” and the officers that travelled the country, and stopped at her house, would mostly do the same; but, however, if we commanded two beds for only two people, two we must have; only, although they were both in the same room, we must certainly pay for two, and sixpence a piece was her regular price. We assented, and then went on to entreat that we might dine. She graciously agreed; but to all questions as to our fare her sole response was, “Meat—meat and taties.” “Some call ’em,” she added, in a scornful tone, “‘purtaties,’ but we always say ‘taties’ here.” The specific differences between beef, mutton, veal, etc., seemed to be utterly or artfully ignored, and to every frenzied inquiry her calm inexorable reply was, “Meat—nice wholesome meat and taties.”

In due time we sat down in that happy ignorance as to the nature of our viands which a French cook is said to desire; and although we both made a not unsatisfactory meal, it is a wretched truth that by no effort could we ascertain what it was that was roasted for us that day by widow Treworgy, hostess of the Ship, and which we consumed. Was it a piece of Boscastle baby? as I suggested to my companion in the midst of his enjoyment; and the question caused him toarise and rush out to inquire once again, and insist on knowing the whole truth; but he soon came back baffled, and shouting, “Meat and taties!” There was not a vestige of bone nor any outline that could identify the joint, and the not unsavoury taste was something like tender veal. It was not until years afterwards that light was thrown on our mysterious dinner that day by a passage which I accidentally turned up in an ancient history of Cornwall. Therein I read “that the sillie people of Bouscastle and Boussiney do catch in the summer seas divers young soyles [seals], which, doubtful if they be fish or flesh, conynge housewives will nevertheless roast, and do make thereof very savoury meat.” “Ay, ay,” said my friend and fellow-traveller, when I had transcribed and sent him this extract—“Ay! clear as day—meat and taties; how I wish I had old mother Treworgy now by the throat! I would make her walk up that hill every day for a month, and stop her meat and taties till she was the size of other people.” When the hour arrived that should have been the time of rest, we mounted a cabin-ladder, which our hostess assured us was “the stairs.” We found the two beds which had been allotted to us, but, as it was foretold, in one small, hot, stuffy room. As we entered the narrow door, a solitary casement twinkled on one side of the opposite wall, flanked by a glazed cupboard door, paned to match, on the other. This latter, the false light,my friend opened by mistake—he was near-sighted, and our single dip was dim—to sniff, as he said, the evening air; but he shut it up again in quick disgust, declaring that the whole atmosphere of the village was impregnated with onions and cheese. To bed, but not to rest. Every cubic inch of ozone was exhausted long before midnight, and, as the small hours struck on the kitchen clock below, we found that “Boscastle had murdered sleep, and therefore Oxford could sleep no more.” With the first faint glimmer of day we arose and stole gently out into the dawn. Before us stood the one-arched bridge spanning the river bed. Lower down the creek the mast and rigging of a sloop at anchor was visible, like network traced upon the morning sky. But the lowly level had no attraction for our path: there lay the sluggish mist of night, and it seemed to our distempered fancy like the dull heavy breath of the snorers in that village glen; but above and upwards stretched the tall ascending road, like Jacob’s ladder resting on the earth and reaching to the sky. Surely on the brow of that mountain top there must be breath and room. We turned, therefore, to climb, and for once “vaulting ambition did not o’erleap itself.” Slow and difficult was the way, but cooler and more bracing the air every yard that we achieved.

We stood at last on the brow of the vast gorge, and full five hundred feet above the sea, wherechurch and tower crowned the cliff like a crest. The scene we looked upon was indeed exhilarating, stately, and grand. On the right hand, and to the west, arose and stood the craggy heights of Dundagel, island and main, ennobled by the legends of old historic time. To the left, a boundless reach of granite-sprinkled moor, where barrow, logan rock, and cromlech stood, the mute memorials of Keltic antiquity.[132]Beneath, and afar off, the sea, at that silent hour, like some boundless lake, “its glad waves murmuring all around the soul;” near, and at our feet, the jumbled village, crouching on either side of the steepy road, and clinging to its banks as if the inhabitants sought to secure access for escape when the earthquake should rend or the volcano pour. We prepared to return and descend; but this was by no means an easy feat, from the extreme angle at which the roadway fell. At the first look on the inclined plane it seemed easier to sit down and slide; but on the whole we thought it better to walk, and pause, and creep.

Another and a new feature in the scene now met our gaze. Annexed to every human abode a small hut had been stuck on to the walls for the home of the “gentleman” that, in Cornwall asin Ireland, pays the rent—Keltice, the pig. The hovels of these bristly vassals, like the castles of their lords, were cabined and circumscribed in the extreme. There was just room enough to breathe, but not to snore without impediment of tone. A sudden inspiration awoke in our minds. Surely it would be an act of humanity and kindness to enable these poor suffocating creatures once in their lives to taste the balmy breath of a summer morning. It will be to us, we said and thought, a personal delight to see them emerge from their close and festering abodes and rush out in the free, soft radiance of the dawn! Action followed close on thought. Hastily, busily, every rude rough bar was drawn back, door and substitute for door unclosed; and a general jail-delivery of imprisoned swine was ruled and accomplished on the spot. Undetected by a single human witness, without interruption from slumbering master or lazy hind, the total deed was done. Gradually descending the hill, and scattering, like ancient heroes and modern patriots, freedom and deliverance as we went, never did the children of liberty so exult in their unshackled deliverance as these Boscastle hordes. There was one result, however, which we had not foreseen, and its perilous consequences had quite escaped anticipation. The inmates of every sty, as soon as their opportunities of egress had been ascertained by marching out of their prison-doors and arriving unchecked atthe roadside—when they looked upward and surveyed the steep and difficult ascent, and counted mentally the cost of attempting to surmount the steep, they all, as with one hoof and mind, turned down the hill. Sire and dam, lean and corpulent, farrow and suckling, alluno impetu, selected and rushed down thefacilis descensus Averni; and although, in all likelihood, they had never pondered the contrast of the Roman poet, yet they spontaneously moved and seconded, and carried the unanimous resolution thatrevocare gradum, his labor, hoc opus est. The consequence of this choice of way was too soon apparent. Just as we had drawn the last bar, and were approaching the bottom of the steep, we looked back and saw that we were pursued, and should speedily be surrounded, by a mixed multitude of porcine advocates for free discussion in the open air, such as might have gladdened the heart of any critic on the original and cultivated breeds of the west of England. Prominent among them the old Cornish razor-back asserted its pre-eminence of height and bone, nor were punchy representatives of the Berkshire[133]and Suffolk genealogies absenton this festive occasion. Growing now apprehensive of the consequences of discovery, if an early rising owner should ascertain the authors of this daring effort to “deliver their dungeons from the captive,” we hastened to secure ourselves in the shelter of our hostelry of the Ship, and fortunately found, on reaching our “little chamber on the wall,” that the widow and her household were still fast asleep. We fastened the door and listened for results. The outcries and yells were fearful. By-and-by human voices began to mingle with the tumult; there were shouts of inquiry and surprise, then sounds of apparent expostulation and entreaty, and again a “storm of hate and wrath and wakening fear.” Many a battle of soldiers must have fought and ended with less uproar. At last the tumult pierced even the ears of our hostess Joan Treworgy. We heard her puff and blow, and call for Tim. At last, after waiting a prudent time, we thought it best to call aloud for shaving-water, and to inquire with astonishment into the cause of that horrible disturbance which had roused us from our morning sleep. This brought the widow in hot haste to our door.

“Why, they do say, Captain,” was her doleful response, “that all the pegs up-town have a-rebelled, and they’ve a-be, and let one the wother out, and they be all a-gwain to sea huz-a-muz, bang!”

Although this statement was somewhat obscure in its phraseology, and the Keltic byword at the close, wherein the “sense is kindred to the sound,” yet we understood too well that the main facts of the history were as true as if Macaulay had recorded them; so we pretended to dress in great haste, and hurried down to see the war. It was indeed an original scene;

“For chief intent on deeds of strife,Or bard of martial lay,’Twere worth ten years of peaceful life,One glance at their array!”

Here a decently dressed woman made many fruitless endeavours to coax out of the brawl five or six squealing farrows, the offspring of a gaunt old dam that, like the felon sow of Rokeby,[134]was “so distraught with noise” that “her own children she mought clean devour.” There a stalwart quarryman, finding all other efforts fruitless, had seized his full-grown porker by the legs and hoisted him on his shoulders to ride home pickaback uttering all the while yells of fierce expostulation and defiance. One hot little man, with a red face and gesticulating hands, had grasped a long pole, and laid about him in mad fury, promiscuously, until a tall and bristly hog rushed at him from behind, and carried him off down the hill seated at full charge like a knight of King Arthur’s Court, with “semblance of a spear,” and tiltedhim at last head over heels in the bed of the stream. But some way up the hill we came suddenly upon a scene which demanded all our sympathy; help there was none. A panting old woman had singled out her hog and separated him from the crowd; and a fine fat animal he was—four hundred-weight at least—and so unfitted for the slightest exertion, that unless he had resorted to sliding and rolling, it was difficult to conceive how he had accomplished even his downhill journey from the sty. But up hill—as his obdurate mistress appeared to propose,—no, no. There was a look in his eye, as he glanced back at his despairing owner, that seemed to suggest a grunt in strong German emphasis,das geht nicht. He had thrust his snout and half his nose through the bars of a gate; and there he stuck, and manifestly meant to stick fast, while she belaboured him with strokes like a flail. She paused as we approached the spot, and with an appealing look for our assent, she piteously exclaimed, “My peg’s surely mazed, maister, or he’s ill-wished; some ennemie hath a-dond it!” My thought responded to her charge; it was certainly no enemy of the pig that “dond it,” whatsoever he might be to his owner.

We left “her alone in her glory,” and returned to the inn, communing as we went on the store of legend, tale, and history we had laid up for future generations in thus opening a field ofachievement for the Boscastle swine. What themes of marvel would travel down by the cottage hearth, there to be rehearsed by wrinkled eld!—the wondrous things always the more believed as they became more incredible. Doubtless the local event would very soon be resolved into demoniac agency, because, ever since the miracle of Gadara, the people have always linked the association of demons and swine; and they refer to the five small dark punctures always visible on the hoof of the hog as the points of entrance and departure for the fiend.[135]

Once in after-life did this fitful freak[136]recur to our minds. We separated, my companion of this ride and myself—I to a country cure, and my friend back to Oxford, “to climb the steep where fame’s proud temple shines afar.” He ascended step by step until he became Dean of the College[137]to which we both belonged. In course of time, after the usual interval, I went up to take my M.A. degree. Now the custom was, and is, that the Dean takes the candidate by the hand, leads him up to the chair of the Vice-Chancellor, and presents him for his degree in a Latin speech. We were all assembled in the appointed place, the Dean, my friend, taking us up in turn one byone. Among the group was a stout burly man, a gentleman commoner, sleek and fat, and manifestly well-to-do in life. With him the Dean had trouble; unwieldy and confused and slow, it was difficult to get him through the crowd and up to his place in time. They passed me in a kind of struggle,—the Dean leading and endeavouring to guide, the candidate hanging back and getting pitched in the throng. Just then I managed towhisper—

“Why, your peg’s surely mazed, maister!”

I was hardly prepared for the result when I “struck the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.” The association came back; the words called up the scene among the swine; and when the crowd gave way, there stood the Dean before the Vice-Chancellor’s chair, greeting him, not with a Latin form, but in spasms of uncontrollable laughter!

To return to the original scene. We ordered Caliban with our ponies to be ready at the door, and we in the meanwhile called on our hostess to produce her bill. She hum’d and ha’d and hesitated, and seemed at a loss to produce the “little dockyment,” which is usually supposed to be a matter of very fluent composition at an inn. It was not until we had again and again explained that we desired her to state in writing what we had to pay, that she seemed at last to comprehend. A deal of scuffling about the kitchen ensued.There was a quick passing to and fro, in and out; there were several muttered discussions of the lower house; a neighbour, who appeared to be a glazier, was sent for; and at last the door opened, and our red pursy little hostess bustled in, bobbed a curtsey, and presented for our perusal her small account, chalked upon the upper lid of the kitchen bellows, which she gracefully held towards us by the snout. Poor old Joan Treworgy! how utterly did thy rough simplicity put to shame the vaunting tariff and the “establishment charges” of this nineteenth century of Messrs. Brag and Sham! The bill, which we duly transcribed, and which was then paid and rubbed out, thus ran:—

Captens.s.d.T for 206Sleep for 210Meat and Taties and Bier16Bresks16

Four shillings and sixpence for bed and board for two wolfish appetites for a night and a day, to say nothing of the pantomime performed gratuitously for our behoof, at a very early hour, by Boscastle amateurs! Good day, Mrs. Treworgy! good day! “To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.”

There is a small outlying hamlet[138]in my parochial charge, about two miles from my vicarage, with a population of about two hundred souls, inhabiting a kind of plateau shut in by lofty hills and skirted by the sea. These rural and simple-hearted people, secluded by their remote place of abode from the access of the surrounding world, present a striking picture of old and Celtic England such as it existed two or three hundred years ago. A notion of their solitude and simplicity may be gathered from the fact that, whereas they have no village postman or office, their only mode of intercourse with the outer life of their kind is accomplished through the weekly or other visit of their clergyman. He carries their letters, which contain “the short and simple annals of the poor,” and he receives and returns their weekly and laborious literary compositions to edify and instruct their distant and more civilised correspondents. The address on each letter is often such as tobaffle all ordinary curiosity, and unless deciphered by the skill of the experts of the post-office, must often furnish hieroglyphics for the study of the Postmaster-General as obscure, if not so antique, as the legends on a pyramid or Rosetta stone. A visit to a distant market-town is an achievement to render a man an authority or an oracle among his brethren; and one who has accomplished that journey twice or thrice is ever regarded as a daring traveller, and consulted about foreign countries with a feeling of habitual respect.

They have amongst them no farrier for their cattle, no medical man for themselves, no beerhouse, no shop; a man who travels for a distant town supplies them with tea by the ounce, or sugar in smaller quantities still. Not a newspaper is taken in throughout the hamlet, although they are occasionally astonished and delighted by the arrival from some almost forgotten friend in Canada of an ancient copy of theToronto Gazette. This publication they pore over to weariness, and on Sunday they will worry the clergyman with questions about Transatlantic places and names of which he is obliged to confess himself utterly ignorant, a confession which consciously lowers him in their veneration and respect. An ancient dame once exhibited her Prayer-book, very nearly worn out, printed in the reign of George II., and very much thumbed at the page from which she assiduously prayed forthe welfare of Prince Frederick, without one misgiving that she violated the article of our Church which forbids prayer for the dead.

Among the singular traits of character which are developed amid these, whom I may designate in the German phrase as my mossy[139]parishioners, there is one which I should define, in their extreme simplicity, as exuberant belief, or rather faith in excess. I do not, however, intend by this term any kind of religious peculiarity of tenet or creed, but only a prostration of the intellect before certain old traditionary and inherited impulses of the human mind. They share and they embrace those instinctive tendencies of their Celtic nature which in all ages have led their race to cherish a credence in the existence and power of witches, fairies, and the force of charms and spells. It is well known that all such supernatural influences on ordinary life are singularly congenial to the ancient and the modern Cornish mind. I do not exaggerate when I affirm at all events my own persuasion, that two-thirds of the total inhabitants of Tamar-side implicitly believe in the power of theMal Occhio, as the Italians name it, or the Evil Eye. Is this incredible in a day when the spasms and raps and bad spelling of a familiar spirit are received withacquiescent belief in polished communities, and even in intellectual London? The old notion that a wizard or a witch so became by a nefarious bargain with the enemy of man, and by a surrender of his soul to his ultimate grasp, although still held in many a nook of our western valleys, and by the crooning dame at her solitary hearth, appears to have been exchanged in my hamlet of Holacombe (for such is its name) for a persuasion that these choosers of the slain inherit their faculty from their birth. Whispers of forbidden ties between their parents, and of monstrous and unhallowed alliances of which these children are the issue, largely prevail in this village. There it is held that the witch, like the poet, is so born. I have been gravely assured that there are well-known marks which distinguish the ill-wishers from all beside. These are black spots under the tongue; in number five, diagonally placed: “Like those, sir, which are always found in the feet of swine,”[140]and which, according to the belief of my poor people, and which, as a Scriptural authority, I was supposed unable to deny, were first made in the unclean animals by the entrance of the demons into the ancestral herd at Gadara. A peculiar kind of eyeball, sometimes bright and clear, and at others covered with a filmy gauze, like a gipsy’s eye, as it is said, by night; or a double pupil, ringed twice; or a larger eye onthe left than on the right side; these are held to be tokens of evil omen, and accounted to indicate demoniac power, and certain it is that a peculiar glare or a glance of the eye does exist in those persons who are pointed out as in possession of the craft of the wizard or witch. But an ancient man, who lived in a lone house in a gorge near the church, once actually disclosed to me in mysterious whispers, and with many a gesture of alarm and dread, a plan which he had heard from his grandfather, and by which a person evilly inclined, and anxious for more power than men ought to possess, might at any time become a master of the Evil Eye.

“Let him go to chancel,” said he, “to sacrament, and let him hide and bring away the bread[141]from the hands of the priest; then, next midnight let him take it and carry it round the church, widdershins—that is, from south to north,[142]crossing by east three times: the third time there will meet him a big, ugly, venomous toad,[143]gaping and gasping with his mouth opened wide, let him put the bread between the lips of the ghastly creature, and as soon as ever it is swallowed downhis throat he will breathe three times upon the man, and he will be made a strong witch for evermore.”

I did not fail to express the horror and disgust with which I had listened to this grandsire’s tale, and to assure him that any man capable of performing such an atrocious ceremony for such a purpose, must be by his very nature fit for every evil desire, and prepared, of his own mere impulse, to form the most unhallowed wishes for the harm of his fellow-creatures, such as a demon only could delight to fulfil. But the feats which are supposed to be achieved by the witch—for the question proposed by the sapient King Jamie has been solved by the Cornish people, whether the Devil doth not oftener dally with ancient women than men—are invariably deeds of loss and harm: Some felon sow, like her of Rokeby,[144]becomes the grunting mother of a large family of farrows; all at once, like Medea,[145]she hates her own offspring with a fiendish hatred, and spurns them all away from her milk. They pine and squeal, and at last sit upright on their hinder parts like pleading children, put their little paws together in piteous fashion, and die one by one. All this would never have come to pass had not the dame, the day before, refused a bottle of milk to one who“should have been a woman,” “but that her beard forbade them to interpret that such she were.” What graphic tales of “things ill-wished” have I not heard around and within this wild and lonely hamlet! All at once a flock or herd would begin to pine away with some strange and nameless disease, the shepherd’s ewes yeaned dead lambs, and were found standing over their lost offspring aghast. Or his cows, “the milky mothers of the herd,” would rush from field to field, “quite mad,” with their tails erect towards the sky, like the bare poles of a ship in distress scudding before the gale; or the brown mare would refuse to be harnessed, and signify her intention to remain in the stall on a busy day, to her master’s infinite disgust. In the more civilised part of my parish the well-to-do farmer would have a remedy. He would mount his horse one break of day on some secret expedition, and be absent for another day or two. Then he returns armed with a packet of white powders, which he scatters carefully, one at every gate on his farm, and his men hear him as he goes muttering in solemn fashion some strange set words, which turn out, when the scroll is submitted to the schoolmaster afterwards, to contain the blessings of the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, copied in writing for his use. He has paid a visit, it appears, to a distant town, and been closeted with a well-known public character of the west, popularly called the White Witch,and it is he who has not only exposed the name and arts of the parish practitioner of evil, but has supplied an antidote in the shape of baffling powders and “charms of might.”

Some years agone a violent thunderstorm passed over the hamlet of Holacombe, and wrought great damage in its course. Trees were rooted up, cattle killed, and a rick or two set on fire. It so befell that I visited, the day after, one of the chief agricultural inhabitants of the village, and I found the farmer and his men standing by a ditch wherein lay, heels upward, a fine young horse quite dead. “Here sir,” he shouted, as I came on, “only please to look! is not this a sight to see?” I looked at the poor animal, and uttered my sympathy and regret at the loss.

“One of the fearful results,” I happened to say, “of the storm and lightning yesterday.” “There, Jem,” said he to one of his men, triumphantly, “didn’t I say the parson would find it out? Yes, sir,” he said, “it is as you say: it is all that wretched old Cherry[146]Parnell’s doing, with her vengeance and her noise!” I stared with astonishment at this unlooked-for interpretation which he had put into my mouth, and waited for him to explain. “You see, sir,” he went on to say, “the case was this: old Cherry came up to my place, tottering along and mumbling that she wanted a fagot of wood. I said to her, ‘Cherry,’says I, ‘I gave you one only two days agone, and another two days before that, and I must say that I didn’t make up my woodrick altogether for you.’ So she turned away, looking very grany, and muttering something about ‘Hotter for me hereafter.’ Well, sir, last night I was in bed, I and my wife, and all to once there bursted a thunderbolt, and shaked the very room and house. Up we started, and my wife says, ‘O father, old Cherry’s up! I wish I had gone after her with that there fagot.’ I confess I thought in my mind I wish she had; but it was too late then, and I would try to hope for the best. But now, sir, you see with your own eyes what that revengeful old woman hath been and done. And I do think, sir,” he went on to say, changing his tone to a kind of indignant growl—“Idothink that when I call to mind how I’ve paid tithe and rates faithfully all these years, and kept my place in church before your reverence every Sabbath-day, and always voted in the vestries that what hath a be ought to be, and so on, I do think that such ones as old Cherry Parnell never ought to be allowed to meddle with such things as thunder and lightning.” What could I—what could any man in his senses—say to this?

The great charmer of charms[147]in this strange corner of the world is a seventh son born in directsuccession from one father and one mother. Find such a person, and you have “the sayer of good words” always at your command. He is called in our folk-lore the doctor of the district. There is such an old man in my hamlet, popularly called Uncle Tony Cleverdon. He was baptised Anthony; but this has been changed by kindly village parlance and the usage of the West. For with us the pet name is generally the short name, and any one venerable from age and amiable in nature is termed, without relationship, but merely for endearment, “uncle” and “aunt.”[148]Uncle Tony has inherited this endowment in a family of thirteen children, he being the seventh born. He often says that his lucky birth has been as good as “a fortin” to him all his life; for although he is forbidden by usage and tradition to take money for the exercise of his functions, nothing has hindered that he should always be invited to sit as an honoured guest at the table furnished with good things in the houses of his votaries. Uncle Tony allowed me, as a vast favour, to take down from his lips some of his formularies: they had never been committed to writing before, he said; not, as I believe, for more than three centuries, for they smack of the Middle Ages. He very much questioned whether their virtue would notbe utterly destroyed when he was gone, by their being “put into ink.”

Uncle Tony was like an ancient augur in the science of birds. “Whenever you see one magpie alone by himself,” said he, with a look of inimitable sagacity, “that bird is upon no good: spit over your right shoulder three times, andsay—

“Clean birds by sevens,Unclean by twos,The dove in the heavensIs the one I choose!”

Among the myriads of sea and land birds that throng this coast, the raven is king of the rock.[149]The headland and bulwark of the slope of Holacombe is a precipice of perpendicular rock. There, undisturbed (for no bribe would induce a villager to slay them, old or young), the ravens dwell, revel, and reign. One day, as we watched them in their flapping flight, said Uncle Tony to me, “Sometimes, sir, these wild creatures will be so merciful that they will even save a man’s life.” “Indeed! how?” “Why, sir, it came to pass on this wise. There was once a noted old wrecker called Kinsman: he lived in my father’s time; and when no wreck was onward, he would get his wages by raising stone in a quarry by the sea-shore. Well, he was to work one day over yonder, half way down Tower Cliff, and all at once he hearda buzz above him in the air, and he looked up, and there were two old ravens flying round and round very near his head. They kept whirling and whirling and coming so nigh, and they seemed so knowing, that the old man thought verily they were trying to speak, as they made a strange croak; but after some time they went away, and old Kinsman went on with his work. Well, sir, by-and-by they both came back again, flying above and round as before; and then at last, lo and behold! the birds dropped right down into the quarry two pieces of wreck-candle just at the old man’s feet.” (Very often the wreckers pick up Neapolitan wax-candles from vessels in the Mediterranean trade that have been lost in the Channel.) “So when Kinsman saw the candles, he thought in his mind, ‘There is surely wreck coming in upon the beach:’ so he packed his tools together and left them just where he stood, and went his way wrecking. He could find no jetsam, however, though he searched far and wide, and he used to say he verily believed that the ravens must have had the candles at hand in their holt, to be so ready with them as they were. Next day he went back to quarry to his work, and he always used to say it was as true as a proverb: there the tools were all buried deep out of sight, for the craig above had given way and fallen down, and if he had tarried only one hour longer he must have been crushed to death! Soyou see, sir, what knowledge those ravens must have had; how well they knew the old man, and how fond he was of wreck; how crafty they were to hit upon the only plan that would ever have slocked him away: and the birds, moreover, must have been kind creatures, and willing to save a poor fellow’s life. There is nothing on airth so knowing as a bird is, unless it may be a snake. Did you ever hear, sir, how I heal an adder’s bite? You cut a piece of hazelwood, sir, and you fasten a long bit and a short one together into the form of a cross; then you lay it softly upon the wound, and you say, thrice, blowing out the words aloud like one of thecommandiments—

“‘Underneath this hazelin moteThere’s a Braggoty worm with a speckled throat,Nine double is he:Now from nine double to eight double,And from eight double to seven double,And from seven double to six double,And from six double to five double,And from five double to four double,And from four double to three double,And from three double to two double,And from two double to one double,And from one double to no double,No double hath he!’

“There, sir,” said uncle Tony, “if David had known that charm he never would have wrote the verse in the Psalms about the adder that was so deaf that she would not hear the voice of thecharmer, charm he never so wisely. I never knew that charm fail in all my life!” Tony added, after a pause—“Fail! of course, sometimes a body may fail, but then ’tis always from people’s obstinacy and ignorance. I dare say, sir, you’ve heard the story of Farmer Colly’s mare, how she bled herself to death; and they say he puts the blame on me. But what’s the true case? His man came rapping at my door after I was in bed. I got up and opened the casement and looked out, and I asked what was amiss. ‘O Tony,’ says he, ‘master’s mare is blooding streams, and I be sent over to you to beg you to stop it.’ ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘I can do it just as well here as if I came down and opened the door: only just tell me the name of the beast, and I’ll proceed.’ ‘Name,’ says he, ‘why, there’s no name that I know by; we allus call her the black mare.’ ‘No name?’ says I; ‘then how ever can I charm her? Why, the name’s the principal thing! Fools! never to give her a name to rule the charm by. Be off! be off! I can’t save her.’ So the poor old thing died in course.” “And what may your charm be, Tony?” said I. “Just one verse in Ezekiel, sir, beginning, ‘I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.’ And so on. I say it only twice, with an outblow between each time. But the finest by-word that I know, sir, is for the prick of a thorn.” And here it follows from mydiary in the antique phraseology which Uncle Tony had received from his forefathers through descending generations:—

“Happy man that Christ was born!He was crownèd with a thorn:He was piercèd through the skin,For to let the poison in;But His five wounds, so they say,Closed before He passed away.In with healing, out with thorn:Happy man that Christ was born!”

Another time Uncle Tony said to me, “Sir, there is one thing I want to ask you, if I may be so free, and it is this, Why should a merry-maid” (the local name for mermaid), “that will ride about upon the waters in such terrible storms, and toss from sea to sea in such ruxles as there be upon the coast—why should she never lose her looking-glass and comb?” “Well, I suppose,” said I, “that if there are such creatures, Tony, they must wear their looking-glasses and combs fastened on somehow—like fins to a fish.”[150]“See!” said Tony, chuckling with delight; “what a thing it is to know the Scriptures like your reverence! I never should have found it out. But there’s another point, sir, I should like to know, if you please; I’ve been bothered about it in my mindhundreds of times. Here be I, that have gone up and down Holacombe cliffs and streams fifty years come next Candlemas, and I’ve gone and watched the water by moonlight and sunlight, days and nights, on purpose, in rough weather and smooth (even Sundays, too, saving your presence), and my sight as good as most men’s, and yet I never could come to see a merry-maid in all my life! How’s that, sir?” “Are you sure, Tony,” I rejoined, “that there are such things in existence at all?” “Oh, sir, my old father seen her twice! He was out once by night for wreck (my father watched the coast like most of the old people formerly), and it came to pass that he was down by the duck-pool on the sand at low-water tide, and all at once he heard music in the sea. Well, he croped on behind a rock, like a coastguard-man watching a boat, and got very near the noise. He couldn’t make out the words, but the sound was exactly like Bill Martin’s voice, that singed second counter in church. At last he got very near, and there was the merry-maid very plain to be seen, swimming about upon the waves like a woman bathing—and singing away. But my father said it was very sad and solemn to hear—more like the tune of a funeral hymn than a Christmas carol by far—but it was so sweet that it was as much as he could do to hold back from plunging into the tide after her. And he an old man of sixty-seven, with a wife and a housefulof children at home! The second time was down here by Holacombe Pits. He had been looking out for spars: there was a ship breaking up in the Channel, and he saw some one on the move just at half-tide mark. So he went on very softly, step and step, till he got nigh the place, and there was the merry-maid sitting on a rock, the bootifullest merry-maid that eye could behold, and she was twisting about her long hair, and dressing it just like one of our girls getting ready for her sweetheart on the Sabbath-day. The old man made sure he should greep hold of her before ever she found him out, and he had got so near that a couple of paces more and he would have caught her by the hair as sure as tithe or tax, when, lo and behold! she looked back and glimpsed at him. So in one moment she dived head-foremost off the rock, and then tumbled herself topsy-turvy about in the waters, and cast a look at my poor father, and grinned like a seal!”

Among the changes that have passed over the face of our land with such torrent-like rapidity in this wondrous nineteenth century of marvel and miracle, none are more striking and complete than that which has transformed the torpid clergy of past periods into the active and energetic ministers of our own Church and time. The country incumbent of Macaulay’s “History,” the guests at the second table of the patron and the squire—the Trullibers and the Parson Adams of Fielding and Smollett—would find no deuterotype in the present day. But in the transition period of our ecclesiastical history there are here and there fossil memorials of the former men that would enable a thoughtful mind to construct singular specimens of character which, while embodying the past, would also indicate the future lineaments of gradual change and improvement. Among these is one, a personal friend of the writer when he first entered the ministry, whose kindliness of heart and originality of character may supply sundry graphic and interesting reminiscences. As old Johnson would have said, hadhe written his life, so let me say of Humphrey Vivian, that he was at once the stately priest, the genial companion, and the faithful, facetious friend. Let me indulge some of these recollections, and gather up some materials of personal history, which are by no means wanting. For it was his great delight, when a guest at my table, after he had done more than justice to the viands set before him, when his gold snuff-box had been produced and ceremoniously offered to all around, and his glass filled with his favourite wine—“sound old Tory port”—to recall in whole volumes the events of his youth and manhood, and to dilate with emphatic gusto on the contrasts of the age and times.

The personal aspect of my friend presented an imposing solemnity to the eye. Tall, even to the measure of six feet two inches, but slender withal as the bole of a poplar-tree, with small features and twinkling eye, and a round undersized head, and yet with a demeanour so pompous, such a frequency of condescending bows, and such a roll of words, that he took immediate rank as a gentleman of the old school. And as to his mental endowments, be it enough to record that there were few men as wise as he looked. His garb was that of a pluralized clergyman of the days of the Georges,—fine black broadcloth, that hung around him in festive moments like mourning on a Maypole. His vest was of rich silk with widepockets, roomy enough to hold the inevitable snuff-box, the goldétui, and the small cock-fighter’s saw, which was used to cut away the natural spur of the bird when it was replaced with steel. This last was a common equipment of a country gentleman, lay or clerical, in those days. His apparel terminated in black silk stockings and nether garments, buckled with gold or silver at the knee. Buckles also clasped his shoes. Thus attired, he was no unfit representative of the clergy who ruled and reigned in their parochial domain in the west of England in the early part of the eighteenth century. His conversational powers were ample and amusing; but it was when he could be brought to dilate on his own adventures and history in earlier life that he most surely riveted and requited the attention of his auditors.

At my table one day the topic of discourse was the marriage of the clergy. “The young curates,” said he, “should always marry, and that as soon as ever they are ordained. Nothing brightens up a parsonage like the ribbons of a merry wife. I, you know, have buried three Mrs. Vivians; and when I come to look back, I really can hardly decide which it was that made the happiest home. If I had to live my life over again, I should certainly marry all three. And yet I did not win my first love, after all. Her grumpy old father came between us and blighted our days, as the Psalmist puts it. Ah! the verysound of her name is like a charm to me still. Bridget Morrice! But ‘Biddy’ she was always called at home; and very soon she was ‘Biddy dear’ to me.

“I was at Oxford then, and when I came down for the ‘Long’ I used to be very duly at church, because there I could see Biddy. Her pew was opposite to mine; and there was I in full rig as we used to dress in those days,—long scarlet coat, silk waistcoat with a figured pattern, and tights. One Sunday after prayers up comes old Morrice, roaring like a bull. ‘Mr. Vivian,’ he growled, ‘I’ll trouble you to take your eyes off my daughter’s face in church. I saw you, sir, when you pretended to be bowing in the Creed. You were bowing to Biddy, my daughter, sir, across the aisle; and that you call attending divine service, do you, sir?’ However, in spite of the old dragon, we used to meet in the garden, and there, in the arbour, what fruit Biddy used to give me! Such peaches, plums, and sometimes cheesecakes and tarts? Talk of a sweet tooth! I think that in those days I had a whole set; and now I have but one left of any kind, and that is a stump. But Biddy treated me very unkindly after all. There was a regiment of soldiers stationed in the town, and of course lots of gay young officers fluttering about in feathers and lace. Well, one day it was rumoured about that old Morrice and his wife were going to givea spread, and these captain fellows were to be there, head and chief. There were to be dinner and a dance, and I of course thought that, somehow or other, Biddy would manage with her mother to get me a card and a corner. I waited and watched; but no—none came. So at last away I went to the house, angry and fierce, and determined to have matters cleared up. Old Morrice, luckily, was out, and his wife with him; but there was Biddy, up to her elbows in jellies and jams, fussing and fuming like a maid to get things nice and toothsome for cockering up those red rascals, that I hated like grim death. ‘Well, Biddy,’ I said, ‘do you call this pretty, to serve me so? Here you ask everybody to your feasts and your junkets—yes, every one in the town but me!’ And what with the vexation and the smell of the cookery, I actually burst out sobbing like a boy. This made Biddy cry too, and there was a scene, sure enough. ‘It is father’s fault, Henry, utterly and entirely: he is so mad against you because he thinks you want me for the sake of my money.’ ‘Money, Biddy dear!’ I said—‘money! Now I do think that if I bring blood your father ought to bring groats!’

“Just then some one lifted the latch, and poor Biddy began to scream: ‘O Henry, dear! what shall I do? That’s father come back. He’ll surely kill you or me, or do some rash deed. What can I do? Here, here,’ she said, openinga kind of closet-door, ‘step in, that’s a dear, and wait till I can get you out. Don’t cough or sneeze, but keep quiet and still as a mouse till I come to call you.’ In I went, and Biddy shut the door. Well, do you know, I found she had put me in a sort of storeroom, where they kept the sweets; and on a long table there was such a spread: raspberry-creams, ices, jellies, all kinds of flummery, and in the middle a thing I never could resist—a fine sugary cake. Didn’t I help myself! and when I began to think that all these niceties were got up to fill up the waistcoats of those rollicking fellows that had cut me out of my Biddy’s heart, it did make me half mad. However, when I thought of that cake, I said to myself, ‘Not one crumb of that lovely thing shall go down their horrid throats after all—see if it does!’ We wore long wide pockets in those days, big enough to hold a Christmas-pie. So in went the cake; and there was room besides for a whole plate of macaroons. Presently Biddy was at the door, and in such a way. ‘Make, haste, Henry, dear—quick; and do go straight home! I would not have you meet father for the world!’ You may guess how I scudded away through the streets with my skirts bulging out, and the boys shouting after me, ‘There goes the Oxford scholar with his humps slipped down!’

“Next time I met Biddy, it was coming out of church. She could hardly tell whether tolaugh or cry. ‘How could you, Henry, dear?’ she said,—‘how could you carry off our beautiful cake?’ ‘How? Biddy, dear,’ said I; ‘why, in my pocket, to be sure.’

“But the worst of all was that Biddy was cold to me from that very time; and when I came home from college the next year I heard that she was engaged to a Captain Upjohns, and she was married to him not long after. So he had Biddy and I had the cake. But she was my first love; and I do think, after all, notwithstanding the three Mrs. Vivians, she was verily my last love also. People say that Queen Mary declared that if she was opened after her death, Calais would be found graven on her heart.[151]And I, too, say often, that if my dead bosom were examined, it would be found that Biddy Morrice was carved on mine.[152]

“Well, well; time passed away—years uponyears. I was ordained, and served half-a-dozen curacies—three at once for some time; and then I got, one after another, my two first livings. I was a widower. I had lost the first—no, no, I am sorry to say the second Mrs. Vivian, when one day I heard that Biddy Morrice was a rich widow. Old Upjohns, it seems, had died and left her no end of money. And then the thought occurred to me that we two might come together after all. ‘’Twould be like a romance,’ I said. I found out that she was settled in great style at Bath. So up I went and found, sure enough, she had a splendid house. A fine formal old butler received me, and I sent up my name. I was shown into a splendid drawing-room, with rich furniture, like a bishop’s palace, all velvet and gold. I sat down, thinking over old times, when Biddy used to come to meet me with her rosy cheeks and her strawberry mouth, and a waist you might span with your hand. At last the door opened, and in she came. But alack, alas! such a cat! oh dear, oh dear! and with such a bow-window: it was surprising,—more like old Mrs. Morrice than my Biddy. I was aghast. I never kissed her, as I intended, but I stood staring like a gawky. I remember I offered her a pinch of snuff, which she took. We had a talk, but it was all prisms and prunes with Biddy. However, she invited me to dinner the next day, and I went. Everything first-rate,—turbot and haunch, and soon, all upon silver; fine old Madeira, and glorious port; and that sleek fellow, the butler, ruling over all! There was a moderate dessert, and on the middle dish there was such a cake! ‘I remember,’ said Biddy, but without the shadow of a smile—‘I remember that you are fond of cake.’ Well, after the cloth was removed, I felt all the better for my dinner, and it is at that time I always have most courage, particularly after the third glass. As I looked on the sleek butler and his pompous ways, I thought to myself, ‘I should like to dethrone that rule, and reign myself over her cellar.’

“So I broached the subject of my wishes. ‘Don’t you think, Biddy dear,’ said I, ‘now that my second Mrs. V. has gone, and old Upjohns also out of the way, that we two——?’ ‘O Henry, Henry,’ she broke in; ‘the old Adam is still, I see, strong as ever in you. As sweet Mr. Cheekey says at our Bethesda, “We are all criminally minded to our dying day.”’ Never believe me if Bridget had not turned Methodist, and all that. And so, in short, she cut me dead. However, she sent me this snuff-box, and I had her picture put under the lid. Sweet face, isn’t it? But then it was taken thirty years before that dinner at Bath.”

But it was when the conversation turned upon curacies, and stipends, and the usual topers among clerical guests, that our friend Humphrey’sremembrances became of chief interest and value. “Oh, the changes that I have lived to see!” was his favourite phrase. “I remember so well when I was ordained deacon, and came down in my brand-new bombasine bachelor’s gown, and a hood that made me look behind like a two-year-old goat, and bands half a yard long, what a swell I used to think myself to be! Talk of your one good curacy! why, when I began to work I served four. Ay, and I had £10 apiece for them, and thought myself in paradise. I remember there were three of us. John Braddon—he had two curacies and the evening lecture; and Millerford we thought very low down—he had two and no more. We all lived, sir, in the town, and boarded and lodged together. £20 a year each we paid the unfortunate fellow that took us in. Our first landlord was old Geake, the grocer. He stood it twelve months, and then broke all to pieces, and was made bankrupt by his creditors. He actually said in court that we had eaten and drunk all his substance. Well, then, a man called Stag undertook us. He was a market-gardener; and, do you know, after a time he went too! He said it was not so much the meat we consumed, but he had no more vegetables to sell. So we cut him. At last an old fellow named Brewer came forward, and said he would try his luck with us. He stood it pretty well, but then his wife had private property of her own; but she used tosay it all went under the waistcoats of the young clergy. She had no family; but she said she would rather have had six children of her own than keep us three. But, no doubt, she exaggerated. Women will do so sometimes.”

“Did you live well, Mr. Vivian?” we interposed.

“Like fighting-cocks, sir. We insisted on good breakfasts, plain joints and plenty for dinner, and nice hot suppers. We didn’t care much about tea—nobody did in those days. But then, behind the parlour door there was always a keg of brandy on tap, and we had a right to go with our little tin cups and draw the spigot twice a day.”

“No doubt, Mr. Vivian, you worked hard in those days?”

“Didn’t we? To be sure it was only on Sundays, but it was enough for all the week. We used to start in the morning and travel on foot to all the points of the compass, every man of us with his umbrella. My first service was at nine o’clock in the morning, prayers and sermon. Then on to Tregare at half-past eleven, West Lariston at two o’clock, and Kimovick at four, and home in the evening, pretty well done up. Braddon and Millerford just the same tramp. But then, how we did enjoy our roast goose, sirloin, or leg of mutton afterwards! We bargained expressly for a hot dinner on Sundays, and we had it too. Then what fun afterwards! Everyman had something to tell about his parish. I remember Millerford had to call and see an old woman, a reputed witch. He was to examine her mouth, and see if the roof had the five black marks[153]that stamped an old woman as a witch. He wished to save her, and he declared that she had but four, and one of them doubtful. One day Braddon had christened a man-child, as he thought, Thomas; but the next week the father came in great perplexity. ‘’Twas the mistake of the nurse. ’Tis a girl. How shall us do? Us can never call a maid Tom. You must christen her over again, sir.’ As this could not be, we had to put our heads together, and at last we advised Braddon to alter the name to Thomasine (pronounced Tamzine), and so he just saved her sex.

“One day I had a good story of my own to relate about a pinch of snuff. It was always the custom in those days for the clergyman after the marriage to salute the bride first, before any other person. Well, it was so that I had just married a very buxom, rosy young lady, and when it was over I proceeded to observe the usual ceremony. But I had just before taken an enormous finger-and-thumb-ful of snuff; so no sooner had the bride received my kiss—and I gave her a smart kiss for her good looks—than she began to sneeze. The bridegroom kissed her, of course,and he began also. Then the best man advanced to the privilege. Better he hadn’t, for he began to sneeze awfully; and by-and-by the bridesmaids also, for they were all kissed in turn, till the whole party went sneezing down the aisle, and the last thing I heard outside the church door was’tchu, ’tchu, ’tchu, till the noise was drowned by the bells from the tower.”

“But I suppose, Mr. Vivian, you did not remain long a curate; you must have received some of your several livings at an early period of life?”

“So I did, sir, sure enough. My text on such subjects was, ‘Ask not, and you shall never receive.’ First of all, I had the vicarage of Percombe, up towards the moors. This came from a private friend. Next, the Duchy gave me the rectory of South Wingley. I had trouble enough to get it. I went up to London, and besieged the Council two or three times a day. People said they gave me the living to get rid of me from town. But it wasn’t so. Next I had Trelegh from the second Mrs. Vivian’s uncle. Yes, yes, preferment enough for one man. By-the-by, did you ever hear how near I was once to the lawn-sleeves and the bench? That was a close shave! I was staying in Bath, at the York House, and there I always dined in the coffee-room. Well, one day a gentleman came in and ordered dinner in the next box to mine—a soleand a chop. I observed a bottle of Madeira wine; and from his nicety and parlour ways, I judged him to be some big-wig, and very rich. I saw he looked about for a newsGazette, so I offered him mine, and exchanged a few words by way of getting known to him. He offered me a glass of wine, and of course I took it, and sat down to converse. We grew very friendly, and by-and-by it turned out that his name was Vivian, and spelt exactly like mine. It was growing late, and he took leave, but, to my surprise, invited me to dine with him the next day at Lansdowne Crescent. I was only too glad to go. It was a noble house, with a troop of servants and superb furniture, and, what was most to the purpose, a glorious feed. After dinner, at dessert-time, while we were talking over our wine, I saw, over the mantelpiece, a fine picture of Perceval, the Prime Minister at that time.[154]So I ventured to ask, ‘Is Mr. Perceval, sir, a relative of your family?’ ‘No, sir, no,’ he said. ‘I have his picture because I like his politics, and respect him as a Minister and as a man. I have been introduced to him, however, and I can claim some personal acquaintance with him. ‘Have you, my friend?’ thought I. ‘Then, take my word for it, I will make use of you as a stepping-stone in life.’ So, when it was nearly time to wish him goodnight, I said, ‘I have a favour to ask you, sir. I am going to town in a day or two, and I shall be deeply obliged if you will write a letter to Mr. Perceval, merely telling him that the bearer is a friend of yours, a clergyman in quest of some preferment, and that as he is the patron of so many good things in the Church, you will be much obliged to him if he will bestow something valuable on your friend.’ He looked rather glum at this, and twirled his fingers a bit, and at length said, ‘Why, no, Mr. Vivian, I can’t go so far as that. Consider, I have known you only a few hours, and have never heard you officiate—although, no doubt, you are well qualified to hold preferment in the Church. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I have a friend, the rector of the parish where Mr. Perceval lives, and I know he always attends his church. I will give you a letter to him, and he may suggest some opportunity of promoting your plan.’ Of course I jumped at this, took my letter, and was off by the mail the very next day. The first man I called on was, of course, the clergyman. It was on a Saturday, and by good luck he had been taken ill. I was shown in where he lay on a sofa, looking quite ghastly. ‘Have you got a sermon with you, Mr. Vivian?’ said he; ‘anything will do.’ I always took with me, wherever I went, some half-dozen, and I said so. ‘Because, as you see, I cannot go to church to-morrow, and a friend who was tohave taken my duty has disappointed me. I shall be indeed thankful if you will undertake the work.’ This was the very thing; and accordingly I was in the vestry-hall the next morning, an hour before time, rigged out in full canonicals, hired for the day—silk and sarcenet—and my hair well frizzed, as you may suppose. Just before service I said to the clerk, ‘I am told that Mr. Perceval attends your church; can you point out to me his pew?’ ‘That I can, sir,’ said he, ‘in a moment. There it is in full front of the desk and pulpit, the third pew down, with the brass rods and silk curtains.’ Well, the service began; but the said pew was empty till the end of the Belief, when, lo and behold! in came the beadle, marching with great pomp, and after him Mr. Perceval and some friends. You may guess after that what eyes and ears I had for the rest of the congregation. There was the Prime Minister; I see him now, in his purple coat and cuffs, silk waistcoat—fine as Sisera’s—and with a wig that looked like wisdom itself. He was very attentive. I watched him, and saw how careful he was to keep time with all the service. At length came the last psalm, and up I went. The pulpit fitted me as if it had been made for me; and the cushion, I remember, was all velvet and gold. My text was, ‘Where is the wise man? where is the scribe? where is the disputer?’ etc. I saw that Mr. Perceval never took his eyes off my face all through the discourse.It was one of my very best sermons. I saw that he was delighted with it; and when I came to the end, I observed that he turned round and looked up at me, and whispered something to a gentleman who was with him, and then they both looked up at me and smiled. Said I to myself, ‘Humphrey, the golden ball is cast; thy fortune is made, as sure as rates and taxes. Look out for a bishopric, and that soon!’ I never was so happy in all my life. I dined that night at the Mitre in Fleet Street, on a rump-steak; and I often caught myself smiling and slapping my thigh and muttering. I saw the waiter stare when I said to myself, but in an audible voice, ‘Done for a guinea! Make way for my lord!’ Next day I went into the City to meet ——, who was in town on business. After he had settled what he came to do, he walked some way home with me. Well, sir, when we came to the Strand there was a dreadful uproar, people talking very low and seriously. At length a gentleman said to my companion, ‘Have you heard the dreadful news? A rascal called Bellingham[155]has shotMr. Perceval dead in the lobby of the House of Commons!’ It was like a deathblow to me. Poor fellow! It cut me through like a knife. I was indeed a crushed man, clean dissolved, as the psalm says. And from that very hour I have been convinced and persuaded—ay, I do believe it like the Creed—that the very same ball that shot poor Perceval cut away a mitre from my head as clean as a whistle. Yes, I have never swerved from that belief all these years; and up to this day, when I say my prayers, as I do after I am in bed, I always begin with the Confirmation from ‘Defend, etc., this Thy servant.’”

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