Micah Clarke | Page 9

too, was the Governor's dwelling, and I remember that
even as I looked he came riding up to it, red-faced and choleric, with a
nose such as a Governor should have, and his breast all slashed with
gold. 'Is he not a fine man?' I said, looking up at my father. He laughed
and drew his hat down over his brows. 'It is the first time that I have
seen Sir Ralph Lingard's face,' said he, 'but I saw his back at Preston
fight. Ah, lad, proud as he looks, if he did but see old Noll coming in
through the door he would not think it beneath him to climb out
through the window!' The clank of steel or the sight of a buff-coat
would always serve to stir up the old Roundhead bitterness in my
father's breast.
But there were other sights in Portsmouth besides the red-coats and
their Governor. The yard was the second in the kingdom, after Chatham,
and there was ever some new war-ship ready upon the slips. Then there
was a squadron of King's ships, and sometimes the whole fleet at
Spithead, when the streets would be full of sailors, with their faces as
brown as mahogany and pigtails as stiff and hard as their cutlasses. To
watch their rolling gait, and to hear their strange, quaint talk, and their
tales of the Dutch wars, was a rare treat to me; and I have sometimes
when I was alone fastened myself on to a group of them, and passed the
day in wandering from tavern to tavern. It chanced one day, however,
that one of them insisted upon my sharing his glass of Canary wine,

and afterwards out of roguishness persuaded me to take a second, with
the result that I was sent home speechless in the carrier's cart, and was
never again allowed to go into Portsmouth alone. My father was less
shocked at the incident than I should have expected, and reminded my
mother that Noah had been overtaken in a similar manner. He also
narrated how a certain field-chaplain Grant, of Desborough's regiment,
having after a hot and dusty day drunk sundry flagons of mum, had
thereafter sung certain ungodly songs, and danced in a manner
unbecoming to his sacred profession. Also, how he had afterwards
explained that such backslidings were not to be regarded us faults of
the individual, but rather as actual obsessions of the evil one, who
contrived in this manner to give scandal to the faithful, and selected the
most godly for his evil purpose. This ingenious defence of the
field-chaplain was the saving of my back, for my father, who was a
believer in Solomon's axiom, had a stout ash stick and a strong arm for
whatever seemed to him to be a falling away from the true path.
From the day that I first learned my letters from the horn-book at my
mother's knee I was always hungry to increase my knowledge, and
never a piece of print came in my way that I did not eagerly master. My
father pushed the sectarian hatred of learning to such a length that he
was averse to having any worldly books within his doors.[Note A,
Appendix] I was dependent therefore for my supply upon one or two of
my friends in the village, who lent me a volume at a time from their
small libraries. These I would carry inside my shirt, and would only
dare to produce when I could slip away into the fields, and lie hid
among the long grass, or at night when the rushlight was still burning,
and my father's snoring assured me that there was no danger of his
detecting me. In this way I worked up from Don Bellianis of Greece
and the 'Seven Champions,' through Tarleton's 'Jests' and other such
books, until I could take pleasure in the poetry of Waller and of Herrick,
or in the plays of Massinger and Shakespeare. How sweet were the
hours when I could lay aside all thought of freewill and of
predestination, to lie with my heels in the air among the scented clover,
and listen to old Chaucer telling the sweet story of Grisel the patient, or
to weep for the chaste Desdemona, and mourn over the untimely end of
her gallant spouse. There were times as I rose up with my mind full of

the noble poetry, and glanced over the fair slope of the countryside,
with the gleaming sea beyond it, and the purple outline of the Isle of
Wight upon the horizon; when it would be borne in upon me that the
Being who created all this, and who gave man the power of pouring out
these beautiful thoughts, was not the possession of one sect or another,
or of