The good vicar, though anxious about Martin’s residence at Rome, was not wanting in true sympathy for his pursuits; having himself a taste for the arts, which he had improved by a leisure tour through Italy (before his marriage) as tutor and guardian to a young gentleman of large possessions in Oxfordshire.
Nothing could be more retired than the life led by these childless parents at Cheddar.
It is a large village, or townlet, situate at the foot of the Mendip Hills, in Somersetshire, and lying pleasantly sheltered on the south-west side of that bleak and naked chain. The noble tower of its fine old church is richly adorned with double buttresses, pinnacles, and pierced parapets, and in the open space, which forms the centre of its few irregular streets, is an ancient hexagonal market cross, where the wayfarer may find a shelter from the hot suns of July, or from the heavy rains of winter. The neighbourhood of Cheddar is romantic: it commands a fine view, in one direction, over a rich and extensive level; and it is immediately surrounded by rich, well-watered pastures, always verdant. Within a mile of the market cross before mentioned, on the road to Wells, there is a narrow, but a stupendous pass, or chasm, by which the chain of the lofty hills of Mendip is cleft, as it were, in sunder. The road winds through the bottom of this strange defile; the cliffs rise on either side—ragged, scarped, and terrific in their aspect—presenting, in many places, a sheer fall of four hundred feet. Nothing can more sublimely impress the spirit of a lonely traveller than the passage of this wild ravine, on a day of cloud, and gloom, and rushing winds. In the sunny calm of summer, when the wild pink, springing from the crevices of the rocks, adorns the scene with something of gentleness, it is still of uncommon grandeur. Black yews project from the larger fissures: here is a narrow ledge covered with verdure; there a thick mantle of ivy clothes the summit: here the mountain ash slants forward in its fantastic growth; while yet, in many places, the craggy front is naked and dazzling as a wall of stone.
By this road, once a week, the quiet parson ambled on an old grey horse to the fair city of Wells to refresh and recreate his spirit at a private music meeting in the Close; nor did he ever omit on these occasions to pass one hour of joy and praise in its magnificent cathedral. Upon the breezy summits of the Mendip hills, which bordered this road, he spent many serene and healthful hours. His life was most even in its tenour; and the scenes around him, though daily before his eyes, were as dear to him, or more so, than when, first entering on residence, he had surveyed them with grateful rapture.
Villages, however, like kingdoms, have their revolutions; and the chronicles of them are preserved in chimney-corners with more or less of fidelity, according to the interest of the events and the worth of the characters who figured in them.
These rustic historians have a mode of reckoning very different from citizens. With prime ministers they have nought to do. Their government is nearer to them, and they have never wanted wit enough to know when that was good or evil. Over these rural communities the ruler has, from time immemorial, been the lord of the manor, or the chief franklin, or the parson of the parish. According as these personages were disposed to promote religion and happiness, or to look with indifference on vice and misery, the rustic population was contented and cheerful, (because industrious in their callings, and peaceable in their lives,) or they were sullen and profligate. Under the joint reign of Franklin Blount and Parson Noble the inhabitants of Cheddar had long dwelt together in comfort and harmony; but this is a world of change,—and many things in the aspect of public affairs, of which the villagers heard and heeded little, gave serious warning to the prescient mind of Noble, that trouble was near.
He was so beloved and respected by his people, and so regarded and confided in by the worthy franklin, that he had hitherto been able to evade, counteract, or over-rule, for the good of his flock, those strange enactments which had been from time to time so inconsiderately imposed. That which enjoined him to publish the Book of Sports on the Sabbath-day he totally disregarded. On this point he would have consented to deprivation rather than obey. Hence he became suspected, by some parsons of a very different stamp, for a puritan; and there were not wanting uncharitable surmises among these concerning the course which Master Noble would take in the hour of trial; not that those who really knew him well ever doubted of that course at all.
But while these surmises were, as regarded himself, utterly devoid of foundation, it was asserted by some of his friends at Wells, the correctness of whose judgments and the charity of whose sentiments well accorded with his own, that his son Cuthbert had imbibed, from his late associates at Cambridge, a spirit of a very dangerous nature. Cuthbert had a large philanthropy, and a resolute courage to sustain and act out those promptings of benevolence which his love of freedom was continually urging upon his mind. Virtuous in his character, sanguine in his hopes, present evils he saw, and for present remedies he panted—but he looked not far on to consequences. A notion of his state of mind may be found in the letter which follows:—
“Most dear Father,
“You tell me in your last letter, which I have read over many times with serious thought, that my mother wishes me to send her a more particular account of this place and family, that she may the better see my present courses with the eye of her mind.—I will make a trial of my pen to set these matters in some order before her—and, first, of this mansion: it is a goodly fabric of stone, built by the father of the present knight in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He, as you know, exchanged some of his full money-bags for a fair estate in land, and closed all his great and prosperous ventures in commerce by a wise retirement to the noble pleasures of a country life. A situation more pleasant than this of Milverton you may not see in all the journey through these parts. The house standeth on a fine swelling slope of verdant ground, and is well sheltered by stately trees on three sides, but to the front the prospect is open, and maketh the heart dance with gladness, it is so full of delight. Looking to the south, you see the towers of that famous castle of Guy of Warwick. This castle is seated on a rock, very high, upon the river Avon, and hath a look of strength and of great majesty; as seen against the light of the distant sky—nothing can be more grand and commanding;—also, from the middle of the good city of Warwick, the fair pinnacles of the lofty tower of St. Mary’s Church do pierce the heaven, and she standeth like a crowned queen. I do fear for her diadem, for they say that the embattled keep of ancient Guy frowneth on our lady: but, turning the eyes from these stately objects, which the intervening woods may not conceal, directly below Milverton the river flows through a fair valley of green pastures; and there cannot be, in all England, a mill more pleasant to look upon and listen to than Guy’s mill: it standeth upon the farther bank of the Avon, over which there is a foot-bridge of wood, very narrow, and long enough to reach across a small meadow, which, when the waters are out, is always flooded. Not far from this mill, to the left, and upon the same bank, is an old decayed chapel, where I have seen a rude statue of the renowned Guy, more than eight feet in length; and near to this spot, close by the side of the water, there is a cave in the rock, where, as a hermit, he ended his days. But I will say no more of these places, of which report may have reached you through the discourse of others.
“Milverton House lacks nothing of furniture that money and good taste may command. There is a profusion of very fine carved oak in the hall and in the winter-parlour. In the latter, over the fire-place, is a curious representation of the meeting of Jacob and Esau; and inscribed above are the words, ‘With my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two bands.’ And in the private chamber of Sir Oliver is another piece, in three compartments, Jacob lying down alone in the Wilderness—the Vision of the Ladder of Angels—and Jacob setting up his Pillar of Remembrance.
“I name these things rather than the rich hangings and the handsome carpets which cover some of the tables, and the ebony cabinets, and the massy plate, because I know that they would give more contentment to my pious mother than all the costliness and bravery in the king’s palace.
“In the small room appointed for me, there is a posy worked upon a sampler, hung against the wall, that runneth thus:—
“What better bed than conscience good, to pass the night with sleep;
What better work than daily care, from sin thyself to keep.”
And there is an engraved portrait of Luther, with the words ‘In silentio et in spe erit fortitudo vestra.’ I cannot look upon these things without being deeply reminded of those feeling lectures of piety which the lips of my dear mother have read to me from my very childhood; but, truth to say, my dear parents, I feel an angel plucking me by the sleeve, and whispering in my ear that my stay in this sweet abode will not be long. Sir Oliver and Mistress Alice and Mistress Katharine entreat me with that kind civility and favourable respect, which make my days happy, and I find Master Arthur so docile and of such lively parts that my office is never irksome.
“Nothing can be more orderly than the manner of life here; and although the good knight is most hospitable, yet, as he doth not use the exercise of hunting, and has no park, the visiters are not many. He rides daily in the forenoon, and will sometimes go to see the stag-hounds of Stoneleigh Abbey throw off, with which pack he hunted for twenty years; but his chief delight now is in the culture of his garden and orchards, and of a vineyard, which he has laid out, at a great cost, on a favourable site, one mile from the mansion. All the farms in the village of Milverton are his, and his tenants are the sons of those who held the land under his father; so that the hamlet is but one large family, of which Sir Oliver is the head.
“Mistress Katharine, his daughter, rides constantly with her father, except when she takes the diversion of hawking, or goes out after the beagles with her young cousin, Arthur, who is as high-spirited and active a youth in the field, as he is earnest and persevering in the study. To see Mistress Katharine fly a hawk is gladsome; and although I have, from boyhood, accounted that sport cruel and unfeminine, yet, when I look on that inspiring sight, I deem it so no longer; certain I am that her mind did never once connect the thought of cruelty with a usage so common. She, too, seems as eager to learn what my poor scholarship can teach her as my own pupil; and if a tutor can be happy, I am, in the privilege of reading with this noble maiden, and seeing her fine countenance lighted up with the love of wisdom and of truth.
“But this state of things is far too bright to last. When a man dareth to think differently from those around him, he will soon become an object of suspicion and prejudice. I feel that my trial in this kind will assuredly come; for Sir Oliver, with all his kindness, has so rooted a dislike to all change in the established order of things, that a word against the undue stretch of the king’s authority, against the tyranny of the starchamber, or those abuses in the state, which are manifest to her best friends, would be enough to make his countenance change towards me past recovery.
“Upon these subjects, you, my dear father, have written to me with more earnestness and fear than I should have looked for. You tell me that I see not the inevitable consequences which must follow from the acting out of those opinions and sentiments with which I am so captivated. I confess that I am an ardent friend to civil and religious liberty. I desire to see the laws administered without fear or favour; to see taxation imposed by the Commons alone, and to see purity and charity preaching from our pulpits and ministering at our altars. You must not blame me: these were the desires that you implanted, when you taught me the immutable and eternal principles of justice, and when, both by lip and in your life, you showed me how sacred was the character, and how hallowed were the duties, of an ambassador for Christ. I look for reformation in the state, and purification of the church. You, perhaps, despair of either; and therefore you dread an ill result to the patriotic and pure efforts which so many great and good men are now making. Some of the best and wisest of my college friends think with them. Of that number are my late tutor and my late chamber-fellow, with both of whom you expressed yourself so much delighted, when, during my last year of residence, you visited Cambridge. I confess, frankly, that I hold their sentiments, and entertain hopes of ultimate good to my country as sanguine as theirs. The cause of liberty must triumph.
“Your last letter gave but little hope of poor Fanny at the mill: what a fair, cheerful, good girl she was. Martin will be very sorry when he hears about her: if you remember, he was always for dancing with Fanny on May-day.
“I am glad to hear that Bessy Blount is going to be married. She will make Tom Hargood’s farm as happy a home as any in England. However, I will not talk about weddings,—the very word makes me melancholy. I am just now preparing a short masque, which we are to perform next week, in honour of Sir Oliver’s birth-day. I suppose Martin, as well as myself, has very different notions of female beauty now to any we gathered at Cheddar; though, I doubt, if we shall either of us become the happier for our knowledge. Rosy cheeks and laughing eyes are joyous and pleasant to look upon, but they seldom beget cureless heart-aches, or plant the long-lived sorrow:—all this is very idle. The love of country is the next best love to that of God, and, after that, the most rewarding.
“I suppose that you will soon have a letter from Rome: no doubt Martin is very happy among the galleries and studios of that ancient city. I often wish that I could be transported there for an hour, and see him, as he stands alone, before a master-piece of Raphael, and sighs for the very fulness of his admiration. Forget not to let me hear the earliest news of Martin. I shall think of you all on May-day at old Blount’s; but, as the good old country customs are kept up here with great spirit, shall have no leisure to grieve over my absence from Cheddar, till night restores me to the solitude of my chamber, and to that sacred companionship with you in prayer, which I ever maintain.
“Your dutiful and loving son, “Cuthbert Noble. “Milverton, April 20, 1640.”