least good meat, and whole clothes.”
Fuller’s Profane State.
While a select few among the maidens and the serving men, who were, to their great contentment, to figure beneath strange dresses and uncouth vizards in the antimasque, and while some neighbouring gentles of quality, who were to take part in the masque itself, were rehearsing in the hall, old Philip, the butler, betook himself to the outer gate, and there sitting down on the porter’s stone, replenished his pipe, and fell a-thinking about Sir Oliver and Master Noble. But the more he thought, the more he was puzzled; and so he opened his vest to catch the breeze from the valley, and smoked with half-closed eyes, too much accustomed to the glorious scene before him to be always moved by its beauties. Below him, in the rich bottom of the vale, flowed the shining Avon. The white foam of the water at Guy’s mill might be seen, and the rush of it might be almost heard.
The cliff of the renowned Guy presented a fine scarp of stone, the summit of which was overhung with knotted and rude shrubs of a fantastic growth; and far away to the left, at a distance of two miles, might be seen the lordly towers, and the tall and ivied wall of Warwick Castle. Such were the objects, which might, we say, have been discerned from the spot where old Philip sate, together with broad and pleasant meadows, well stocked with kine and sheep, and many goodly trees of a stately size, and many a distant coppice of rich underwood. Doubtless the old man had often felt the glad influence of that scene,—but now, overcome with heat, tobacco, and the labour of perplexed guesses about the grave mood of his master, he fell fast asleep. Philip was one of those good faithful old creatures whose world was his master’s, and whose greatest sin was the love of victual. This sin was duly punished by black dreams; and now, as he lay snoring against the wall, his indulgence over a rich mutton pie at dinner was visited with the terrors of one of those nightmare visions with which he was deservedly familiar. He dreamed that it was the statute fair, and that they were roasting an ox whole in the market-place of Warwick. The frontlet of the poor beast was gaily gilded, and the horns were painted blue, and gilt at the tips. The mighty spit turned slowly round. On one side stood a fat cook basting the brown loins that the beast might not burn, and on the other a stout and expert carver occasionally stopped the rude spit, and with a long broad knife detached savoury portions for the greedy by-standers, who, on receiving the same, dropped their penny of thanks into the cap of the carver, and, slipping out of the crowd, made way for others. Dreams are to the dreamer realities. Philip’s mouth watered: he thought he had never before seen beef so delicious; fat and lean in their exact proportions; the meat of the finest grain, juicy, and full of gravy; but then his suit, his badge, his pride of place, forbade his wishes: partake of the dainty he could not, but he might go near, just out of curiosity, and for mere amusement. Lo and behold! with an angry bellow forth leaped the furious beast, his eyes all fire, the spit point issuing from his foaming mouth, his carcass smoking and dripping, and half the sirloins cut away. He singled old Philip from the crowd; he lowered his blue and gilded horns; he shook the spit between his grinning teeth; and as he made his rush, old Philip died a thousand deaths in one, and woke into another world,—that other he had so shortly quitted. Nor was the object on which his waking eyes first rested exactly calculated to compose his terrors. A crowd of noisy clowns was standing round him; and in the midst of them, upon a hurdle, they bore an old withered and bony woman, crooked and blear-eyed, who was counted the witch of that neighbourhood, and well known by the name of yellow Margery of the Sand Pit.
They set down the hurdle close at Philip’s feet, and called loudly for justice and Sir Oliver. “Hag!”—“Crone!”—“Beldame!”—“To the faggot!”—“To the river,”—“Justice in the King’s name!”—were the various cries by which the impatient rustics frighted all the household of Milverton from their propriety and their pleasures, and brought most of them forth to the gate, and the rest to the hall steps, or the casements. Sir Oliver himself came forth, among the first, loudly rating them. “Why, how now, ye rude varlets; is Milverton a pot-house, and the seat of justice an ale bench? Speak—what would you?—speak, you, Morton,—you should know better than to head a rabble rout of this fashion.”
“Why then, troth, Sir Oliver, as thou art a worshipful knight, and a king’s justice, not man, woman, nor child in the whole parish can sup their porridge in peace or sleep o’ nights for this old witch Margery: we’ve crown witness enough to hang, drown, and burn her twenty times over.”
“Not so fast, not so fast, neighbour,” said Sir Oliver, seating himself on the stone from which old Philip had retired melting with fear. “Where are the witnesses, and what have they to say? Let them stand forth.”
“First, here’s Master Crumble, the clerk; then, afore him, here’s Master Screw, the great witch-finder from Coventry; and here’s Jock, my carter; and old Blow, the blacksmith, and Pollard, your worship’s woodman.”
“Stop, stop, I can’t hear all at once,—say thy say, Crumble.”