“Well, Nephew Rupert, how long have you been back in England?” he asked him, as soon as the horse had been taken in and given its feed.
“It is scarce a month since I landed,” my cousin answered; “but being in Yarmouth, and you so near, I could not forbear riding over to spend a night with you.”
By this time we were come into the house, and my mother was in the hall to welcome him, which she did with great kindness; for though he was not of her kin, I believe she loved him better than my father did. But that is saying little, for who was there about her that she did not love? Even those who held aloof from my father as a stubborn Independent had a kindness for my mother, who seemed to understand nought of differences in religion, except between Christian and heathen.
My father was of a different stamp. It was his boast that he was related to the family of the famous John Bradshaw, the judge who pronounced sentence on King Charles I, and whose house stands on Yarmouth quay to this day. My father has many a time pointed it out to me, and told me of the secret conclave held there of the Independent leaders, when it was resolved to bring the unfortunate king to the block. I have often thought that it was well for us that my father was a freeholder, owning the fee simple of Brandon Farm; for the gentry around were now all become staunch Churchmen, though loyal to King George II, and showing no favour to the young Pretender in his late desperate rebellion. Of that, however, I remember little, being scarce twelve years old when it occurred.
With the Rector of Brandon parish we held scant intercourse, except at tithing time, when my father always received him with grim civility and bade him take what the law gave him, since title from the Gospel he had none. Our only friend in the neighbourhood was one Abner Thurstan, a farmer who lived over the border in Blundell parish; but as he was an Anabaptist—or Baptist as they were then beginning to call themselves—and my father had a great contempt and dislike for the visionary ideas of that sect, even he came but seldom to our house. His daughter Patience was a great favourite with my mother; and for that matter I did not dislike the child, and would oftentimes pluck her an apple from our trees or cut a whistle for her out of a twig of elder wood.
The man whom my father most held in esteem was Mr. Peter Walpole, a wool factor of Norwich, and a very religious man. He had a great gift in the expounding of Scripture and in prayer, and it was his custom once in every month to ride over to our house from Norwich of a Saturday and hold a service on the next day for such as chose to come. This was before the Methodists had arisen in our parts, and there was no other means of hearing the Gospel in country places, the Church clergy being for the most part men of the world.
Lest I seem to be wandering from my story, let me say here that my father had been in treaty with this Mr. Peter Walpole concerning my apprenticeship to him in Norwich. After moping a long time at the dullness of my life in Brandon I had plucked up courage to tell my father that I would fain be abroad. He heard me less unkindly than I had feared, and contrived this plan for settling me away from home for a few years, after which, he was pleased to say, I might have sense enough to wish to come back. Good Mr. Walpole came into the scheme very readily, and I believe it was only a matter of fifty pounds between them before the thing could be carried out; but each held firmly to his own view of the bargain, and though there was the same friendship between them as ever, and Mr. Walpole prayed over the business in our house, they could by no means come to terms.
Things stood at this pass, and I was sorely impatient with it all, when, as I have said, my cousin Rupert arrived, and, for good or evil, gave my life a far different turn.
As soon as my father had seen to it that the cloth was laid for four, and sent down the maid with orders to fill a jug from the barrel on the right-hand side of the cellar door, he turned to Rupert.