It so chanced that service was going on, and nothing would serve me but that I must go in and hear what it was like. Meg was willing enough to gratify me: for from being bred a dissenter, like the majority of the towns-folk, she attended the services of the dissenting flock in Paul's Meeting Sunday by Sunday; and the offices of the Establishment, which she was wont to hear stigmatized as "Popish," were quite unfamiliar to her, and had therefore a certain fascination.
There were two clergymen taking part in the service; and when we were in the street again, Meg said to me (interrupting my raptures about the architectural beauties of the place),—
"He with the grey hair peeping from beneath his wig is Mr. Axe. He is much beloved in Taunton, although men say that he is an enemy to the Duke of Monmouth, and tells men freely that he can never be lawful King, but that if the King dies childless, as seems like, we must submit to see the Duke of York upon the throne—a thing which is abhorrent to the minds of many. Yet in spite of this he is loved and trusted. But the other, Mr. Blewer, is hated and feared. I scarce know why we all think so ill of him, but he hath a cruel face and an evil eye; and some say that he is the bitter foe of all who follow not the teachings of the Established Church, whilst there be others who call him a Papist at heart, and say that when the Duke of York is King (if ever such a day comes, which Heaven forbid!) he will show what manner of man he is, and evil will fall upon many in Taunton through him."
"He has a bad face and a cruel mouth," I answered, having studied his face with a sense of reluctant fascination for which I could not account as I knelt in the church. Could it have been that some presentiment of his cruelty stole over me even then? I know not how that may be, but I do know that though my hair is now grey, and though I have lived beyond the allotted span of man's days, I cannot even now think of that miscreant without a tingling of the blood in my veins such as I seldom experience for aught besides.
That day was a notable one in my life, although it seems like a dream now. I looked upon the outside of many a noble building—St. James's Church; Paul's Meeting, which I was to worship in for a time; the Castle; the Free School, which I was to know right well erelong; and the Almshouses, which had been erected by the charitable in bygone years for the benefit of the aged poor.
The town was all bedecked with flags and garlands, and the bands of singers went about chanting their ditties, receiving rewards from many of the richer and more prosperous of the towns-folk, as well as the humbler, who were all so devoted to the cause of what they termed "liberty and right."
In the evening there was a grand bonfire in Paul's Field, and another in Priory Fields at the other extremity of the town.
Will Wiseman and I joined forces, and rushed from one to the other, getting an excellent view of both; and we danced around the fire with the best of them, and hooted for the Duke of York and the Pope, and shouted for the King and the Duke of Monmouth, until at last we had no voice left wherewith to shout more. When the embers burned low, and the sheriff's officer came to bid the people disperse, we went reluctantly home with the crowd, talking in friendly whispers of the glorious days that perhaps were coming, when we should be able to show the metal of which we were made, and almost ready to wish for the excitements and horrors of another civil war, if only we might bear a share in its glory and its danger.
We had heard so many stories from the bystanders who did remember those days, that our blood was fired, and we ardently longed for a repetition of such exciting events.
Well, we were destined to see something of bloodshed before many years had passed over our heads, and one of us was to shed his blood—as he sincerely longed at that moment to do, but whether in the fashion that came about it is not for me to say here.