Micah Clarke | Page 8

when it was defenceless. There was alarm and uneasiness amongst all
classes. The Church of England, which depends upon the monarch as
an arch depends upon the keystone; the nobility, whose estates and
coffers had been enriched by the plunder of the abbeys; the mob, whose
ideas of Papistry were mixed up with thumbscrews and Fox's
Martyrology, were all equally disturbed. Nor was the prospect a
hopeful one for their cause. Charles was a very lukewarm Protestant,
and indeed showed upon his deathbed that he was no Protestant at all.
There was no longer any chance of his having legitimate offspring. The
Duke of York, his younger brother, was therefore heir to the throne,
and he was known to be an austere and narrow Papist, while his spouse,
Mary of Modena, was as bigoted as himself. Should they have children,
there could be no question but that they would be brought up in the
faith of their parents, and that a line of Catholic monarchs would
occupy the throne of England. To the Church, as represented by my
mother, and to Nonconformity, in the person of my father, this was an
equally intolerable prospect.

I have been telling you all this old history because you will find, as I go
on, that this state of things caused in the end such a seething and
fermenting throughout the nation that even I, a simple village lad, was
dragged into the whirl and had my whole life influenced by it. If I did
not make the course of events clear to you, you would hardly
understand the influences which had such an effect upon my whole
history. In the meantime, I wish you to remember that when King
James II. ascended the throne he did so amid a sullen silence on the part
of a large class of his subjects, and that both my father and my mother
were among those who were zealous for a Protestant succession.
My childhood was, as I have already said, a gloomy one. Now and
again when there chanced to be a fair at Portsdown Hill, or when a
passing raree showman set up his booth in the village, my dear mother
would slip a penny or two from her housekeeping money into my hand,
and with a warning finger upon her lip would send me off to see the
sights. These treats were, however, rare events, and made such a mark
upon my mind, that when I was sixteen years of age I could have
checked off upon my fingers all that I had ever seen. There was
William Harker the strong man, who lifted Farmer Alcott's roan mare;
and there was Tubby Lawson the dwarf, who could fit himself into a
pickle jar--these two I well remember from the wonder wherewith they
struck my youthful soul. Then there was the show of the playing dolls,
and that of the enchanted island and Mynheer Munster from the
Lowlands, who could turn himself round upon a tight-rope while
playing most sweetly upon a virginal. Last, but far the best in my
estimation, was the grand play at the Portsdown Fair, entitled 'The true
and ancient story of Maudlin, the merchant's daughter of Bristol, and of
her lover Antonio. How they were cast away on the shores of Barbary,
where the mermaids are seen floating upon the sea and singing in the
rocks, foretelling their danger.' This little piece gave me keener
pleasure than ever in after years I received from the grandest comedies
of Mr. Congreve and of Mr. Dryden, though acted by Kynaston,
Betterton, and the whole strength of the King's own company. At
Chichester once I remember that I paid a penny to see the left shoe of
the youngest sister of Potiphar's wife, but as it looked much like any
other old shoe, and was just about the size to have fitted the

show-woman, I have often feared that my penny fell into the hands of
rogues.
There were other shows, however, which I might see for nothing, and
yet were more real and every whit as interesting as any for which I paid.
Now and again upon a holiday I was permitted to walk down to
Portsmouth--once I was even taken in front of my father upon his pad
nag, and there I wandered with him through the streets with wondering
eyes, marvelling over the strange sights around me. The walls and the
moats, the gates and the sentinels, the long High Street with the great
government buildings, and the constant rattle of drums and blare of
trumpets; they made my little heart beat quicker beneath my sagathy
stuff jacket. Here was the house in which some thirty years before the
proud Duke of Buckingham had been struck down by the assassin's
dagger. There,