Where England sets her feet: a romance — Inside the Classic

When, in the second year of Elizabeth, the Act of Supremacy was passed, there were found only some two hundred in all of the clergy bold enough to dissent from it. Many, it is true, who conformed, did so without sincerity, fearing to lose their livings, and of these was Mr Robert Angell, Vicar of Clapham, or Clappenham village in Surrey, which was in the advowson of the lords of Larkhall and a very good cure. This Mr Angell, a worthy but weak divine, gained nothing, however, by his accommodation, for being suspected, whether rightly or wrongly, of Romanist sympathies, he was shortly deprived of his benefice, and forced to look elsewhere than to the Establishment for a means to subsistence. In this pass he bethought himself to set up a little private school, or palestra, for the sons of such of his neighbours as were well disposed towards him; and this he did, and with fair success, many coming to receive of him their early grounding in the A.B.C.-darius, Lily’s grammar, the _Sententiæ Pueriles_, and so on by way of Erasmus’s Colloquies to Cæsar and the Georgics, so that they were well ripe for College and University when their time came. For the Vicar was a sound scholar no less than an amiable man, and ruled by love without much authority, being little addicted to the harsh methods which obtained, and indeed were expected, in his day. He had a dame, a stupid woman but as benevolent as himself, and two or three little children, who tumbled up anyhow and were for ever in hot water, save when they most needed it.

Now to these was presently added another, a stranger, who came to board and lodge with the household when he was no more than a babe in years. His name was Brion Middleton, and he was brought in person, by one Mr Justice Bagott of the Queen’s Bench, thenceforth to be and remain a member of the Angel curriculum until otherwise notified, and eke to form an item of the Angell family--a minute ‘paying guest’, as we should now describe him. He had no parents to speak of; nor did the overbearing Justice deem it necessary to speak of them, imposing the lovely brat, without any leave asked or given, on the clergyman, over whom, it seemed, he possessed a certain hold. For so he asserted that, having professional cognizance of those Papish proclivities which had already broken the poor man, he could very well use it, if he chose, to bring about his utter destruction; which claim might or might not be true, yet in any event was supererogatory, seeing that the divine was far too meek a soul ever to question into, much less reject, the service so truculently demanded of him. Indeed, of his charity, no less than for his potential profit, he welcomed it; observing which the manner of the visitor changed, and, abating much of his imperiousness, which he found uncalled for, he proceeded forthwith in gentler speech to discuss the terms and provisions of the accommodation he desired for this derelict infant ‘ward’ of his. Planned on no grudging scale, these were to imply a virtual, if indefinite adoption by the couple, who were to do their best by their charge, make no curious inquiries regarding him, and expect no communications whatever save such as turned upon the periodic remittances for his keep, which would arrive duly dated from the Judge’s own office in Gray’s Inn. For the rest the boy was to be brought up as one of the Vicar’s own family, and in all respects given the dues of gentle birth. Having pronounced which ultimatum the visitor, casting not one look on the little wide-eyed whimpering infant, departed, as he had come, by night.

‘Poor curst imp of destiny!’ cried the clergyman, in a burst of emotion, when the other was gone.

‘Thou pretty, pretty pledge of a misguided love!’ cried his admiring lady, gazing on the babe. And then they looked at one another guiltily.

‘This,’ says he, ‘is already to break the spirit of the compact. Henceforth, silence--if for no other reason, Dame, because he hath us in his toils.’

She sighed, and caught the child to her bosom. ‘These be my toils,’ said she. ‘I will hold my tongue, lest by loosing it I loose them.’

This happened in the year 1560, and thereafter for the space of thirteen summers, his numbering but two when he arrived, Brion abode and throve sweetly under that friendly roof.

CHAPTER II. THE PLEDGE REDEEMED