COMPELLED TO VOLUNTEER
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There had been some trouble in our own home during
the previous autumn, while yet I was in London.
For certain noted fugitives from the army of King
Monmouth (which he himself had deserted, in a low and
currish manner), having failed to obtain free shipment
from the coast near Watersmouth, had returned into
the wilds of Exmoor, trusting to lurk, and be comforted
among the common people. Neither were they disappointed,
for a certain length of time; nor in the end was their
disappointment caused by fault on our part. Major
Wade was one of them; an active and well-meaning man;
but prone to fail in courage, upon lasting trial;
although in a moment ready. Squire John Whichehalse
(not the baron) and Parson Powell* caught him (two
or three months before my return) in Farley farmhouse,
near Brendon. He had been up at our house several
times; and Lizzie thought a great deal of him.
And well I know that if at that time I had been in
the neighbourhood, he should not have been taken so
easily.
* Not our parson Bowden,
nor any more a friend of his. Our
Parson Bowden never
had naught whatever to do with it; and
never smoked a pipe
with Parson Powell after it.—J.R.
John Birch, the farmer who had sheltered him, was
so fearful of punishment, that he hanged himself,
in a few days’ time, and even before he was
apprehended. But nothing was done to Grace Howe,
of Bridgeball, who had been Wade’s greatest
comforter; neither was anything done to us; although
Eliza had added greatly to mother’s alarm and
danger by falling upon Rector Powell, and most soundly
rating him for his meanness, and his cruelty, and
cowardice, as she called it, in setting men with firearms
upon a poor helpless fugitive, and robbing all our
neighbourhood of its fame for hospitality. However,
by means of Sergeant Bloxham, and his good report
of us, as well as by virtue of Wade’s confession
(which proved of use to the Government) my mother escaped
all penalties.
It is likely enough that good folk will think it hard
upon our neighbourhood to be threatened, and sometimes
heavily punished, for kindness and humanity; and yet
to be left to help ourselves against tyranny, and
base rapine. And now at last our gorge was risen,
and our hearts in tumult. We had borne our troubles
long, as a wise and wholesome chastisement; quite
content to have some few things of our own unmeddled
with. But what could a man dare to call his own,
or what right could he have to wish for it, while
he left his wife and children at the pleasure of any
stranger?
The people came flocking all around me, at the blacksmith’s
forge, and the Brendon alehouse; and I could scarce
come out of church, but they got me among the tombstones.
They all agreed that I was bound to take command and
management. I bade them go to the magistrates,
but they said they had been too often. Then I
told them that I had no wits for ordering of an armament,
although I could find fault enough with the one which
had not succeeded. But they would hearken to none
of this.
