Pray now buy some: I love a ballad in print, a’ life; for
then we are sure they are true.
Winter’s Tale.
Although the good parson of Cheddar was as yet unmolested, and continued his ministrations in peace, he was far too sagacious not to perceive the growing strength of Parliament, and never partook of those extravagant hopes, which, upon the arrival of the Marquis of Hertford, at the city of Wells, animated so many of the gentlemen and the clergy in Somersetshire. But he gave such attendance at the meetings of a public nature as was necessary to show plainly the part which he had taken,—and he set a faithful example of loyalty in his parish. The son and the son-in-law of old Blount the franklin, and most of the yeomen of Cheddar, offered their services to the Marquis, and repaired to his quarters well mounted and armed.—It was a deeply mortifying reflection to Noble and his wife that their son Cuthbert had joined the forces of the Parliament, and was already in arms against his king. Their spirits were far more depressed by this consideration than by any other. Compared to this heavy trial all others, which could possibly arrive, seemed light and undeserving of careful or anxious deprecation; but for this one chastisement, they humbled themselves before God daily with tears and supplications. Nevertheless they sorrowed not as without hope, and they did not murmur. They knew that their prayers were poured out before a Father of mercies, who heareth always, and gives or withholds the blessing implored, with a wisdom that cannot err, and with a mysterious love.
Therefore they were enabled to preserve a calm and resigned aspect before the village, and before their household, though plain Peter and the good maidens were not to be deceived as to their silent sufferings; for master did not notice the flowers and birds in the garden so much now, and walked up and down thinking, instead of talking pleasant; and mistress had not looked after her fruit-preserves and her home-made wines this year with the heart she used to do; and, worst sign of all, the dinner was often carried away hardly touched by either. The apprehensions of Noble as to the progress of disaffection to the royal cause proved but too well founded. The private agents and emissaries of the Parliament party wrought underhand to persuade the people, that, by the commission of array, a great part of the estates of all substantial yeomen and freeholders would be taken from them, alleging, that some lords had said that “twenty pounds by the year was enough for every peasant to live on;” and they further said, that all the meaner and poorer sort of people were appointed by the same commission to pay a tax of one day’s labour in every week to the King. These reports, however little deserving of credit, were received by the more ignorant with implicit belief, and circulated by the interested and designing with most persevering activity. The people were thus taught that, if they did not adhere to the Parliament, and submit to the ordinance for the militia, they would soon be no better than slaves to the lords, and the victims of a most cruel oppression.
The ignorance and credulity of the vulgar were by these arts widely and successfully imposed upon; but the population of Cheddar was preserved from these corrupting falsehoods by the prudence of Noble. He early obtained a copy of the commission of array, which was written in Latin, and having translated it with fidelity, distributed copies from house to house. The word of the good parson was ever held in reverence by his flock, therefore, with few exceptions, and those confined to the worst characters in the village, his account of the matter was received as true; while in many other places the crafty supporters of the levelling party, taking advantage of the commissions being in Latin, translated it into what English they pleased, and abused simple folk in the manner related.
While the Marquis of Hertford maintained himself at Wells all things continued quiet at Cheddar; but as Noble had foreseen, there was soon a very powerful party brought against him, and he was compelled to retire, before the increasing forces and the active officers of the Parliament, to Sherborne, in Dorsetshire.
Master Daws, the artful and the covetous enemy of Noble, who had been already baffled in his endeavour to drag him before a committee, and whose eyes were steadily fixed upon the living of Cheddar, had not been inactive while the Royalists lay at Wells.
He had, it is true, seldom ventured from home for fear his precious carcass might receive some weighty mark of the wrath or merriment of a royal trooper, though he might have gone to and fro in his clerical garb as safe as an innocent child: but conscience made a coward of him; for he had employed the period of his confinement to his house in preparing certain lying and inflammatory papers, which, through the agency of a near relation, who was a scrivener’s clerk at Bristol, he procured to be secretly printed in that city. These papers were of the most indecent and outrageous nature, directed chiefly against prelacy, and all supporters of the church of England and the episcopal form of government. Now, this scrivener’s clerk, though he knew and despised the hypocrisy of Master Daws, and laughed at all religion, whether real or pretended, lent himself as a most ready agent in this charitable work. “There are diversities of gifts, my dear Matty,” said his crafty uncle Daws in the letter which accompanied his manuscript libels,—“diversities of gifts, but the same spirit:—thou hast a lively wit, and a playful hand with thy pencil; prithee put a little device of some facetious kind at the head of each of these papers,—such an one as may be easily struck off in a wood-cut of the kind, which the profane Italians call caricature: but what need I say more? Thou knowest what I would have:—see thou do it. I wish to have them done before Cheddar fair, which is held, thou knowest, at the latter end of September. They are a bigoted, base, priest-ridden herd of swine in that parish, and as blind as the moles and the bats:—we must let in a little light on them:—see thou do it broadly.”