Micah Clarke<br />His Statement as made to his three grandchildren Joseph, Gervas and Reuben During by Arthur Conan Doyle (read e books online free txt) 📕

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MICAH CLARKE *** Produced by Lionel G. Sear, and David Widger

MICAH CLARKE

HIS STATEMENT AS MADE TO HIS THREE GRANDCHILDREN JOSEPH, GERVAS, AND REUBEN DURING THE HARD WINTER OF 1734

By Arthur Conan Doyle

CONTENTS

Chapter I.   Of Cornet Joseph Clarke of the Ironsides

Chapter II.   Of my going to school and of my coming thence

Chapter III.   Of Two Friends of my Youth

Chapter IV.   Of the Strange Fish that we Caught at Spithead

Chapter V.   Of the Man with the Drooping Lids

Chapter VI.   Of the Letter that came from the Lowlands

Chapter VII.   Of the Horseman who rode from the West

Chapter VIII.   Of our Start for the Wars

Chapter IX.   Of a Passage of Arms at the Blue Boar

Chapter X.   Of our Perilous Adventure on the Plain

Chapter XI.   Of the Lonely Man and the Gold Chest

Chapter XII.   Of certain Passages upon the Moor

Chapter XIII.   Of Sir Gervas Jerome, Knight Banneret of the County of Surrey

Chapter XIV.   Of the Stiff-legged Parson and his Flock

Chapter XV.   Of our Brush with the King’s Dragoons

Chapter XVI.   Of our Coming to Taunton

Chapter XVII.   Of the Gathering in the Market-square

Chapter XVIII.   Of Master Stephen Timewell, Mayor of Taunton

Chapter XIX.   Of a Brawl in the Night

Chapter XX.   Of the Muster of the Men of the West

Chapter XXI.   Of my Hand-grips with the Brandenburger

Chapter XXII.   Of the News from Havant

Chapter XXIII.   Of the Snare on the Weston Road

Chapter XXIV.   Of the Welcome that met me at Badminton

Chapter XXV.   Of Strange Doings in the Boteler Dungeon

Chapter XXVI.   Of the Strife in the Council

Chapter XXVII.   Of the Affair near Keynsham Bridge

Chapter XXVIII.   Of the Fight in Wells Cathedral

Chapter XXIX.   Of the Great Cry from the Lonely House

Chapter XXX.   Of the Swordsman with the Brown Jacket

Chapter XXXI.   Of the Maid of the Marsh and the Bubble which rose from the Bog

Chapter XXXII.   Of the Onfall at Sedgemoor

Chapter XXXIII.      Of my Perilous Adventure at the Mill

Chapter XXXIV.   Of the Coming of Solomon Sprent

Chapter XXXV.   Of the Devil in Wig and Gown

Chapter XXXVI.   Of the End of it All

APPENDIX.     

Chapter I. Of Cornet Joseph Clarke of the Ironsides

It may be, my dear grandchildren, that at one time or another I have told you nearly all the incidents which have occurred during my adventurous life. To your father and to your mother, at least, I know that none of them are unfamiliar. Yet when I consider that time wears on, and that a grey head is apt to contain a failing memory, I am prompted to use these long winter evenings in putting it all before you from the beginning, that you may have it as one clear story in your minds, and pass it on as such to those who come after you. For now that the house of Brunswick is firmly established upon the throne and that peace prevails in the land, it will become less easy for you every year to understand how men felt when Englishmen were in arms against Englishmen, and when he who should have been the shield and the protector of his subjects had no thought but to force upon them what they most abhorred and detested.

My story is one which you may well treasure up in your memories, and tell again to others, for it is not likely that in this whole county of Hampshire, or even perhaps in all England, there is another left alive who is so well able to speak from his own knowledge of these events, or who has played a more forward part in them. All that I know I shall endeavour soberly and in due order to put before you. I shall try to make these dead men quicken into life for your behoof, and to call back out of the mists of the past those scenes which were brisk enough in the acting, though they read so dully and so heavily in the pages of the worthy men who have set themselves to record them. Perchance my words, too, might, in the ears of strangers, seem to be but an old man’s gossip. To you, however, who know that these eyes which are looking at you looked also at the things which I describe, and that this hand has struck in for a good cause, it will, I know, be different. Bear in mind as you listen that it was your quarrel as well as our own in which we fought, and that if now you grow up to be free men in a free land, privileged to think or to pray as your consciences shall direct, you may thank God that you are reaping the harvest which your fathers sowed in blood and suffering when the Stuarts were on the throne.

I was born then in the year 1664, at Havant, which is a flourishing village a few miles from Portsmouth off the main London road, and there it was that I spent the greater part of my youth. It is now as it was then, a pleasant, healthy spot, with a hundred or more brick cottages scattered along in a single irregular street, each with its little garden in front, and maybe a fruit tree or two at the back. In the middle of the village stood the old church with the square tower, and the great sun-dial like a wrinkle upon its grey weather-blotched face. On the outskirts the Presbyterians had their chapel; but when the Act of Uniformity was passed, their good minister, Master Breckinridge, whose discourses had often crowded his rude benches while the comfortable pews of the church were empty, was cast into gaol, and his flock dispersed. As to the