The Broken Font: A Story of the Civil War, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Moyle Sherer

  CHAP. XII.

  Thus see we how these ugly furious spirits Of warre are cloth'd, colour'd, and disguis'd, With stiles of vertue, honour, zeale, and merits, Whose owne complexion, well anatomis'd, A mixture is of pride, rage, avarice, Ambition, lust, and every tragicke vice. LORD BROOKE.

  It is now necessary to relate that treatment of George Juxon to whichold Margery alluded in the last chapter. For six weeks after the firstvisit of the Parliamentary soldiers to Old Beech he successfullymaintained his post, and continued to officiate every Sabbath amonghis people. His house, indeed, had been often beset by small partiesof soldiers or by other godly reformers deputed to arrest him, but hewas so beloved by the villagers that he was always warned, and wasthus enabled to escape their hands or evade their search; nor were anyof these parties of a strength sufficient for attempting acts ofviolence upon the church or the parsonage. Indeed one of them wasfairly braved and driven away by Juxon himself, disguised like afarmer, and aided by his faithful friend the blacksmith and half adozen more. One Sabbath morning, as he was out upon the watch, in thedisguise of a belted woodman, he met a party coming to seize him abouta mile from Old Beech, and, having put them on a wrong scent, wentjoyfully home, and preached to a glad and attentive congregation.However, his popularity and his very name were offences too great inthe sight of the Roundheads of Coventry to suffer him much longer toelude his enemies. A squadron of horse made a sudden march from thatcity on a Sunday afternoon, and surprised both pastor and flock whileengaged at divine service. They rode into the churchyard; and havingthere dismounted, their commander, followed by a dozen or moreofficers and troopers, entered the church with their steel caps ontheir heads, and, by the noise of their steps, would have drowned thevoice of Juxon if he had not instantly made a pause to consider hisbest course. One look at the leader of this band satisfied him thatany appeal to the spirit of love and of a sound mind would be vain;and a glance through the window had shown him that any resistance byforce on the present occasion would only expose his people to a verygreat calamity.

  The commander of the troops was no other than Sir Roger Zouch.Accordingly Juxon said, with a loud voice, "My Christian brethren, theworship of God in this place being thus interrupted, I dismiss you toyour homes." His manly tone caused an attention on the part of thesoldiery, which produced a short and silent pause, and, takingadvantage of this, he solemnly pronounced the blessing with which theservice of the church always concludes. Sir Roger, after stammeringwith anger, now broke out most violently, "Peace, peace! thou criestpeace where there is no peace, thou son of perdition. Come out of thycalves' coop, and make an end of thy pottage. I know thee, who thouart; thy very name savoureth of all evil: take him out, thou good andfaithful soldier of the cross, Zachariah Trim, and that book ofabomination with him, and make my passage to yon pulpit pure;--verilyI will speak a word to these poor, perishing, and neglected people."If it had not been for Juxon's discretion at this moment the churchwould soon have become a scene of blood; for the stout blacksmith,seeing Zachariah move towards the desk with an action as if he wouldlay hands on Juxon, interposed with so hasty and resolute a manner, ascaused Zachariah to step back two or three paces and draw his sword.His example was instantly followed by many comrades; and the shrieksof alarm among the women and children were dreadful. But Juxon cameforth in a collected mood, and so spoke, that the swords were returnedto their scabbards, and his people submitted, though in fear yet insilence, while the few among them, who, like the blacksmith, wereready for any hazards, forebore any further attempt at resistance.

  Sir Roger ascended the pulpit, put down his steel cap by his side,poured forth a long, rambling, confused prayer, took out his pocketBible, and preached for two hours; till the sweat streamed down hisbony cheeks, and his voice became hoarser than any raven that evercroaked his sad predictions at a sick man's window. Juxon listenedwith profound and with indignant astonishment to his wild andblasphemous perversions of divine truth; but he was comforted, as faras his own flock was concerned, in the consciousness that they werebetter instructed than to be moved by his fanaticism. His mannercorresponded with his matter; and if he had not been accompanied bytoo many and too formidable and ready ministers of his violent will hewould only have excited sentiments of disgust and ridicule. But as hethundered forth his curses upon the church in which the poor villagershad been brought up, and described her by a flood of reproachful namesand epithets, of which last, Babylonish was the most gentle, no onecould listen to his ravings without serious fears that they were aplain preface to deeds of crime. It was, therefore, with a heart fullof devout and sincere thanksgiving for his people that Juxon heardthis strange and fierce iconoclast promise with solemnity that theirhouses and their little property should be respected, and that no oneof them should suffer any harm from his soldiers; but that he wouldtake away with him their blind and wicked guide, and would only purgeand purify the polluted temple and the priest's dwelling.

  The surplice and hood of Juxon had been torn from his back before thisprecious discourse began, and he had been placed in custody betweentwo armed troopers, with pistols in their hands, and was frequentlyaddressed by the heated Sir Roger in those words which are appliedboth in the Old Testament and the New to false and unfaithfulteachers. All this he had borne with a calm and admirablecourage,--feeling within the answer of a good conscience, andsupported by an unshaken faith in a God of wisdom and love.

  "It is the Lord," he said within himself, "let him do what seemeth himgood,"--and all the unuttered petitions which his heart sent up tothe throne of grace were for the spiritual and temporal preservationof his little flock.

  When Sir Roger concluded his sermon, he gave forth one of thosepsalms, which, being directed against idolatry, he considered asappropriate to the work he now meditated. It was sung in loud andharsh notes by his gloomy looking troopers, after which, descendinginto the body of the church, he directed fire to be brought, andburned the Book of Common Prayer before the communion table; heapingon the same fire all those rags and fragments of the whore of Babylon,as he was pleased to designate pulpit and altar cloth, and all thedecent vestments of the minister.

  At this gross outrage, Juxon burst forth with a holy zeal, in a mostearnest tone of faithful remonstrance; but he was instantly gagged ina painful mode, and was forced in this state to witness their afterproceedings.

  The people were now forcibly driven out of the church, and as manytroopers as could find room were directed to come in and stable therefor the night. The order was obeyed with tumultuous joy; and they hadno sooner taken possession of their once sacred quarters, than theybegan and completed the work of demolition,--breaking the colouredwindows, destroying the tombs, and crowning their work of hell bybringing in a baggage ass, and baptizing it with mock ceremonies atthe font. This last work was not witnessed by Sir Roger, who wasbusily superintending the burning of poor George Juxon's library, andof many _curiosa_ in the way of antiquities, which his father hadcollected in foreign countries, and bequeathed to him at his death.

  It so chanced, that the first thing on which the eyes of Sir Rogerrested, when he entered the parsonage, was a glass case, or cabinet,in which, among other ancient relics, was a small crucifix,exquisitely wrought in ivory. The sight of this inflamed his zeal tothe boiling pitch; and declaring that so great an abomination couldonly be punished by the utter destruction of the dwelling in which itwas found, he called in two or three assistants, whom he judgedqualified to overlook the books on the shelves, to the end that anygodly ones might be saved from the general ruin;--declaring, at thesame time, that all the silver, and the gold, and the raiment, and thefurniture, and the pictures, and the vessels, of what sort soever,whether in hall or kitchen, were polluted, and must be consumed, anddenouncing the wrath of God on any of his followers who shouldpresume, like Achan, to appropriate a single article of the unhallowedheap. Accordingly, on the lawn before the windows, a huge fire wasmade of all these go
ods, which were cast forth from the windows; theshell only of the house being spared for the use of such godlyminister as the Parliament might appoint.

  The attention of Sir Roger and the few zealots with him was confinedto the contents of the library: not a few valuables, however, fromother parts of the mansion, were stolen and secreted by the sly roguesof the squadron. But it so chanced that, as the house was spared, in aconcealed recess, behind a false wainscot, his family plate and a fewheirlooms were preserved. Of five hundred volumes, however, onlythree copies of the Bible, also one work in folio, two small thinquartos, and a heap of loose pamphlets of a controversial nature,written by Puritans, escaped the sentence of fire. Upon the same pile,and doomed to blaze in the same flame, were thrown fine copies of theancient fathers; the works of sound Protestant divines, and ponderouslives and legends of Romish saints; the tomes of Bacon, and oldworthless folios on astrology and divination; the plays and poemsproduced by the genius of a Shakspeare and a Spenser, and theinterminable and prosaic romances which, in the preceding age, ourancestors had found leisure and patience to peruse.

  During the night, Juxon was confined as a prisoner in one of theout-houses in his own yard, and, in the morning, he was mounted on alean, bony cart-horse, without saddle or bridle, and led by a smallescort to Warwick, where, before he was committed to the gaol of theCastle, he was subjected to the odious and vile insults of anexamination before a Committee of Religion. Three witnesses appearedagainst him: two of these were base knaves from his own parish, andthe third was from Coventry.

  Thomas Slugg, the first of these, a lazy hypocrite, who found iteasier to affect the office of an itinerant singer of psalms than todig, deposed that Parson Juxon was an enemy to all godly persons, anda teacher of falsehoods, caring nothing for the souls of his people;and, as a proof, stated that, when, on one occasion, he, the witness,had asked him, "whether there were many or few that should be saved?"he had turned his back upon him, and entered the church saying,--

  "What is that to thee? follow thou me."

  Another, who was a turned-off journeyman of the blacksmith's, deposedthat he saw Parson Juxon one day in a field behind his own gardencasting the bar and hammer; and that he, the parson, threw a bar, anda heavy stone, and a sledge hammer, and that the smith, and twofarmers, and one Strong, a warrener, threw against him.

  The third was no other than the witch-finder from Coventry, who sworethat the parson consorted with dealers in magic and the black art;that books on those arts were found in his house, and burned (this wasconfirmed eagerly by some of the escort), and that he even kept in hispay and service a notorious witch named Yellow Margery.

  Juxon listened to these charges with a grave smile, and made no reply.Hereupon one of the commissioners observed, in great wrath,--

  "That he was a most godless and obstinate Malignant, as was plain tosee by his laughing, and the redness of his face; and that if notdrunk, he was merry; but that a gaol and bread and water would soontake away the colour from his cheeks, and bring down the naughtinessof his spirit."

  They forthwith committed him to Warwick Castle, as a soul-destroyinghypocrite, who held communion with idle and lewd fellows, andconsorted with witches; and they appointed one Mr. Blackaby, a truebrother, and bold as a lion for the faith, to succeed him at OldBeech, directing that he should be protected in his settlement by adetachment from the garrison, until the stubborn people of thatvillage were reduced to submit heartily to God and the Parliament.

  The room of the Castle to which Juxon was now removed was a largecomfortless apartment with damp stone walls and no fire, containingabout fourteen other prisoners, ten of whom were, like himself,incumbents. The two windows of this room looked down upon the river,which washed the very walls of the Castle; and the windows were notonly securely barred, but even were it possible to force thatobstacle, the fall being very great, any notion of the escape of aprisoner would have been judged an idle fear. However, the faithfulblacksmith and George Juxon's groom had followed the escort intoWarwick, and watched the courageous parson as he walked with anupright carriage and manly step between the guards who took him toprison.

  Having gained information concerning the part of the Castle in whichhe was confined, they laid a plan for his deliverance, which, fromtheir knowledge of his strength and activity, they thought possible,though extremely difficult.

  They conveyed to him in a loaf of brown bread, which was sent by oneof the charity children of the place, and was given him withoutsuspicion, a small cord, of sufficient strength to bear his weight, asmall steel saw, and a phial of aqua-fortis.

  It was not possible to conceal this from his fellow-prisoners, norcould he desire to do so. They promised secrecy, but dissuaded himfrom the attempt. That it was very perilous, he well knew; but heresolved upon it at once. In the afternoon of the day on which hereceived the cord, he saw the blacksmith standing on the river bank inthe opposite meadow. The man did not pretend to take any notice of theCastle, but stripped off his clothes and plunged into the water; andit being a cold frosty day, he was loudly laughed at by a group ofsoldiers standing on the bridge. He swam out into the middle of thestream and back again; then putting on his clothes, he disappeared.

  By two o'clock on the following morning Juxon had cut away a bar, andmade fast his cord. Amid the breathless good wishes of hisfellow-prisoners he began to descend, clad only in a pair of stoutdrawers and his shirt. The cord, though strong enough, was so small,that it cut his hands like a knife; but he got safely down to withintwelve feet of the water, and from hence dropped into the river; andgaining the opposite side, was helped up the bank by the stout arm ofhis faithful blacksmith, and hurried to a hedge, behind which he founddry clothes and his groom with two horses. To dress himself, to snap ahunter's mouthful, and to take one draught of cordial spirit from theleathern bottle of his servant, was the glad work of a few minutes;and by eight o'clock on the same morning he was forty miles on theroad to Shrewsbury. Among other friends at the royal head-quarters hefound Sir Charles Lambert and Arthur Heywood, and at once resolved tofollow the fortunes of the camp as a volunteer chaplain to theregiment of horse with which they were serving. He was present withthem in the battle of Keinton; and though decided himself not to usearms, he rode upon the flank of the regiment when it charged.

  The horse of Sir Charles being killed under him, Juxon alighted, in anexposed and perilous position, and instantly gave his own to remounthis friend. Here it was that, soon after, the gallant boy Arthur,returning wounded from the front, fell fainting from his saddle; andhis frightened horse flying fast away, he would have been lefthelpless on the field before the advancing enemy, had not Juxon been awitness of his distress and danger. Hastening to the bleeding boy, helifted him on his back, and so carried him a mile and a half to thetop of Edge Hill, where a surgeon dressed his hurt, and pronounced itto be severe, but not dangerous, or likely to be attended with loss oflimb or any very serious consequences. Having seen Arthur placedsafely in a cart with other wounded officers going to a village in therear, Juxon remained upon the hill, to which the royal army retiredat sunset; and, as he saw Sir Charles and his own favourite roan horsecoming safely back at the head of a squadron which had suffered severelosses, his heart swelled thankfully within him. He shook the hand ofSir Charles with a tearful cordiality; and they ate their cold andscanty supper by a little fire in the open fields, with sentiments ofgratitude and of piety at once elevated and pure. The crown of Englandwas hanging as it were on a bush, and they were among its guardians.Moreover, there was in both their bosoms a fine consciousness of whatwas passing in their respective hearts:--to see the noble andmiraculous change in a man whom he had once, and with reason,despised, was a rich reward to Juxon,--while Sir Charles sat in thepresence of his friend with the sweet and gracious feeling that he hadbeen to him as a guardian angel and as a voice from Heaven.