Micah Clarke | Page 4

afterwards understood,
officers of the fleet who were passing through Havant, and seeing us at
work in the yard, designed to ask us some question as to their route.
The younger of the pair accosted my father and began his speech by a

great clatter of words which were all High Dutch to me, though I now
see that they were a string of such oaths as are common in the mouth of
a sailor; though why the very men who are in most danger of appearing
before the Almighty should go out of their way to insult Him, hath ever
been a mystery to me. My father in a rough stern voice bade him speak
with more reverence of sacred things, on which the pair of them gave
tongue together, swearing tenfold worse than before, and calling my
father a canting rogue and a smug-faced Presbytery Jack. What more
they might have said I know not, for my father picked up the great
roller wherewith he smoothed the leather, and dashing at them he
brought it down on the side of one of their heads with such a swashing
blow, that had it not been for his stiff hat the man would never have
uttered oath again. As it was, he dropped like a log upon the stones of
the yard, while his companion whipped out his rapier and made a
vicious thrust; but my father, who was as active as he was strong,
sprung aside, and bringing his cudgel down upon the outstretched arm
of the officer, cracked it like the stem of a tobacco-pipe. This affair
made no little stir, for it occurred at the time when those arch-liars,
Oates, Bedloe, and Carstairs, were disturbing the public mind by their
rumours of plots, and a rising of some sort was expected throughout the
country. Within a few days all Hampshire was ringing with an account
of the malcontent tanner of Havant, who had broken the head and the
arm of two of his Majesty's servants. An inquiry showed, however, that
there was no treasonable meaning in the matter, and the officers having
confessed that the first words came from them, the Justices contented
themselves with imposing a fine upon my father, and binding him over
to keep the peace for a period of six months.
I tell you these incidents that you may have an idea of the fierce and
earnest religion which filled not only your own ancestor, but most of
those men who were trained in the parliamentary armies. In many ways
they were more like those fanatic Saracens, who believe in conversion
by the sword, than the followers of a Christian creed. Yet they have this
great merit, that their own lives were for the most part clean and
commendable, for they rigidly adhered themselves to those laws which
they would gladly have forced at the sword's point upon others. It is
true that among so many there were some whose piety was a shell for

their ambition, and others who practised in secret what they denounced
in public, but no cause however good is free from such hypocritical
parasites. That the greater part of the saints, as they termed themselves,
were men of sober and God-fearing lives, may be shown by the fact
that, after the disbanding of the army of the Commonwealth, the old
soldiers flocked into trade throughout the country, and made their mark
wherever they went by their industry and worth. There is many a
wealthy business house now in England which can trace its rise to the
thrift and honesty of some simple pikeman of Ireton or Cromwell.
But that I may help you to understand the character of your
great-grandfather, I shall give an incident which shows how fervent and
real were the emotions which prompted the violent moods which I have
described. I was about twelve at the time, my brothers Hosea and
Ephraim were respectively nine and seven, while little Ruth could
scarce have been more than four. It chanced that a few days before a
wandering preacher of the Independents had put up at our house, and
his religious ministrations had left my father moody and excitable. One
night I had gone to bed as usual, and was sound asleep with my two
brothers beside me, when we were roused and ordered to come
downstairs. Huddling on our clothes we followed him into the kitchen,
where my mother was sitting pale and scared with Ruth upon her knee.
'Gather round me, my children,' he said, in a deep reverent voice, 'that
we may all appear before the throne together. The kingdom of the Lord
is at hand-oh, be ye ready to receive Him! This very night, my loved
ones, ye shall see Him in His splendour, with