Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/223

Feb. 14, 1863.] that he is dead. They think he will come down some day. Is it sure that he is dead?”

“It is too sure; but the doubt is not wonderful, seeing that his oppressors have been afraid to let his dead body out of their keeping. You have not been allowed to lay him in his family grave with honour. You did ask it—”

“Aye, we did!”

“Family, neighbours, friends, all asked it; and what was the answer? An order to the Lieutenant of the Tower to bury the body within the walls. So prison damps rest on his grave, in some corner of that dismal place, instead of this spring sunshine on the breezy hillside. Mr. Hampden was very dear to him, as you know by his being now guardian to John and Edmund Eliot. Mr. Hampden has lost some of the brightness of his own life in prison; he has felt in his heart every torment that afflicted his friend: yet he has now offered himself for the trial of this case of ship-money, which is really and truly the same cause under another name. He believes that many citizens will follow the course of refusing to enable the King to do without parliaments; but if no one but himself were to make the venture, he would still do it, for love of the liberties of England.”

A hundred voices vowed that, with such a man to lead, there would be half England to follow. But how did he do it?

“When the writs came down into Buckinghamshire,” Richard said, “those who disputed the King’s right refused to pay. Then new sheriffs were appointed by the King’s authority, and there was a general expectation of some rebuke to the late High Sheriff. Sir Peter Temple accordingly received a writ commanding him to account to his successor for the amount of the ship-money, and to deliver over the former warrant to him. Then the country gentlemen understood that the business would be followed up, and that every man who refused to pay must prepare for consequences. It was in cold weather that the parish meeting was held in which this affair was to be adventured. You may remember what the 11th of last January was on this sunny coast of yours, with mild sea airs to temper the frosts. With us on the Chiltern Hills it was bitterly cold; and the church at Kimble was not a warm place of meeting. Yet it was well filled; and there was a glow in many faces when men’s eyes met, and sufficient heat from their tongues before all was done.”

“And how was it done?”

“The assessors declared the rate, whereof Mr. Hampden’s part was thirty-one shillings and sixpence. Mr. Hampden and the rest, including the parish constables, declined to pay the whole, or any part.”

“Did the constables refuse?”

“They did,—to their honour; and they wrote down their own names in the return, without any shrinking. Before they parted off to their homes, some on and some under the hills, Mr. Hampden told them that having put his name first on the record, he was prepared to take the first place in answering for that record.”

“And has any consequence ensued?” asked several voices. “Has he been called to account? Is the King offended?”

“No doubt the King is offended. He overlooks Mr. Hampden’s open profession that the King and the Government should be abundantly supplied with all that they can need, or honestly desire; but that it must be on the condition that the supplies should be obtained in the safe and sacred way of a parliament, and not by putting the whole nation at the mercy of the King’s or the Queen’s fancy—”

“Aye! the Queen’s!” observed several hearers.

“Or,” continued Richard, “at the mercy of men and women of low repute who obtain monopolies from the royal favour,—the right of selling for their own profit the most necessary articles of use.”

Every one present fully understood this last reference; and the tumult of voices was so great, that Richard supposed his speaking was over for the day. Gentle and simple complained of the cost of living in England now, when all articles of use that could be corrupted were bad, and all dear; and of the pretences made to screw money out of them, or money’s worth. Several told of relations who had had soldiers billeted on them,—the King’s hounds, as these soldiers were called, who hunted the people for their master’s pleasure and interest. Some had been fined because they refused to bow to the altar, in popish fashion; and fined twice over, to escape transportation for refusing this idolatry. A tavern dinner was too costly, now that the meat dressed in taverns was taxed; and the innkeepers were ruined by this, and by the charges on every article, from tobacco pipes up to the choicest wines. The laundresses were ruined, and all families perplexed by the monopoly of soap given to a Romish corporation, who sold for soap a mixture of lime and tallow, which gave sore hands to all the washerwomen, and left the linen fouler than before; the linen also falling into tinder wherever it was touched. The assignment of the old forests of the kingdom to the Queen’s creatures was one of the sorest grievances. Dean Forest had been thus made over to papists, who would take very good care that the Spaniards and French had the range of the seas; and the people of England were not only called upon to pay to the King the cost of ships instead of giving him the ships themselves, but they got no ships at all. The timber which should make them was given away to foreigners, and English children were carried off by pirates, more and more boldly because there were no ships to give chase. This topic brought upon Richard further questions as to what Mr. Hampden would advise.

“He has since been charged,” Richard declared, “with twenty shillings more ship-money, on account of another property; and, from some searchings into the business which we have heard of, we expect that the trial—”

“The trial!” exclaimed some startled people.

“Surely! Of what else have we been speaking? Mr. Hampden will be brought to trial for refusing to pay those last twenty shillings. I shall give him what message you send. What shall it be?”

The messages were very various; but the general sense was the same. It was a message