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In the reign of King Charles—courteously styled
the Martyr—there resided in an obscure corner of the
renowned kingdom of England, a certain obscure
country gentleman, claiming descent from a family
that flourished in great splendor under a Saxon monarch
whose name is forgotten. This ancient family,
like most others of great pretensions to antiquity, had
gone by as many names as certain persons who live in
the fear of the law, but finally settled down on that of
Habingdon, or Habingden, by which they were now
known. They were somewhat poor, but very proud,
and looked down with contempt on the posterity of the
upstart Normans who usurped the domains of their
ancestors. They had resided on the same spot for
more than eight hundred years, during which time,
not one of them had ever performed an act worthy of

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being transmitted to posterity, with the single exception
of one Thurkill Habingdonne who flourished in
the reign of King John—of unblessed memory—and
who is recorded to have given one-third of a caracut of
land, and a wind-mill, to the priory of Monks Kirby,
“to the end,” as he expresses it, “that his obit should
be perpetually there observed, and his name written
in the Martyrologe.”

But, as hath been discreetly observed, the most
miserable of mankind, as well as the most insignificant,
would feel still more miserable and insignificant,
had he not in a secret corner of his heart,
something to feed his vanity or pride. The very beggar
will prate of better days, deriving a strange satisfaction
from contrasting his former prosperity with
his present debasement, and those who have nothing
to boast of in the present, or little to anticipate in the
future, revert to the past for consolation. Most especially
is this the case with those who derive their sole
claim to respect from antiquity of descent, and modestly
appropriate to themselves all the exploits, good,
bad, and indifferent, of their forefathers, although, if
the truth were fairly told, there is scarcely one of
these residuary legatees of renown, that looks back
into the family history, who would not find it stained
with actions which, did he really feel himself identified
with his ancestors, would light up his face with
the blush of shame. But the Habingdons have never
figured in the tempest of war, or the dead calm of

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peace, and if they could not boast of illustrious actions,
were free from the infamy of illustrious crimes.

From the manuscript family chronicle, which commenced
with the first of their ancestors who learned
to write, and in which were carefully recorded the marriages,
births, deaths, and other remarkable events, it
appeared that during this long period of eight hundred
years, the estate had passed in direct descent from
father to son; and that the respective proprietors had,
without exception, been once, at least, in their lives,
foremen of the Grand Jury. It is also especially noted
that in the reign of Henry the First one of the Habingdons
repaired a window of the parish church at his
own expense; and that another at his death bequeathed
a mark to aid in the support of a charity school.
The most illustrious of them all, however, was one
who was a justice of the peace, and a churchwarden,
and who on divers occasions acted as deputy to the
high sheriff of the county, as will distinctly appear,
from the history of the ancient borough of Slimbridge,
now extinct, in five quarto volumes. No wonder the
Habingdons were proud of their descent, and eschewed
upstart wealth and mushroom titles.

Though the original patrimony of the family had,
according to the manuscript record, comprised land
enough for William the Conqueror to enrich two or
three of his beggarly barons, and maintain a stupendous
herd of swine, it now consisted of little more
than three hundred acres, which the generous Norman
had suffered the ancient proprietor to retain as a

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reward for not grumbling at being despoiled of the rest.
It was the peculiar hereditary boast of the family, that
they had thus, for so long a period of time, invariably
held up their heads and maintained their position
among the gentry of the county. Whether from
some providential dispensation, or that the breed was
nearly worn out, is difficult to decide; but it is a remarkable
fact sustained by the manuscript record, that
not one of the proprietors of the estate, after so great a
portion was appropriated by right of conquest, ever
had more than two sons. The eldest, in order to keep
up the family dignity, was always the sole heir,
though by some peculiarity of tenure, the property
was not entailed, and of course a gentleman, while
the younger, if there chanced to be one, was invariably
an idler, and being too poor to marry, lounged
about the house and neighborhood; hunted, drank,
and Philandered with bar-maids and country lasses,
finally died a bachelor, and was buried by the side of
his forefathers. The daughters, if not married in good
time, usually entered a nunnery, so long as these
refuges for desperate maidens flourished in England.
If there ever was a family that had preserved a blameless
existence throughout so long a period, during
which the world had been so often tempest-tossed by
political and religious revolutions, it was that of the
Habingdons, not one of whom, up to the time in
which our story commences, had ever been sus-per-col,
or obliged to flee his country for felony, treason, or
patriotism.

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The present head of this ancient, though not very
illustrious race, was Everard Habingdon, who might
lawfully aspire to the dignity of an Esquire, which he
justly observed was much more ancient than those
mushroom titles which had sprung up amid the corruptions
of the feudal system. He was a harmless
person; rather reserved, if not actually shy; somewhat
of a scholar; a little of an astrologer; still more
of an antiquary, and as loyal as a colonial official, as
might be expected from the aristocratic pretensions of
his family. But there was a still better reason. He
had written a book in defense of the Jure Divino, and
against toleration, in which he maintained that the
desire of liberty was the sole cause of the fall of
Adam; that the divine right of kings extended equally
to doing wrong; and that princes might with less
hazard give full liberty to men's vices and crimes than
to their consciences. In short, he was one of those
blind, wise men, who imagine that religion and governments
will remain the same, while everything
around them is changing.

After thus publicly committing himself, there was
no room for backsliding; and though, next to the laws
of Edward the Confessor, he cherished a profound respect
for Magna Charta, which venerable old parchment
had been not a little signed by James the First,
as well as his successor, yet did the old gentleman continue
to the end of his days a pattern of loyalty, a
perfect exemplification of the doctrines of passive obedience
and non-resistance. It cannot, however, be

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denied that his principles were once grievously assailed
on a certain occasion, during one of those “Royal
Progresses,” not uncommon in the reign of Elizabeth
and James, when the sovereign was accustomed to
honor certain special favorites with visits that nearly
ruined them, his cattle, teams, and laborers were all
put in requisition in behalf of the royal vagrant, who
was exempted from the ignominy of making compensation
by virtue of the prerogative. But with all these
foibles of the age, he was in the main an honest,
good-tempered man, full of the milk of human kindness
towards all mankind, except Crop-ears, Papists,
Republicans, and Frenchmen.

The posterity of Squire Everard Habingdon was an
only son, now just arrived at manhood, who was called
Harold, after his grandfather, of whom honorable
mention would be here made, had not his life passed
like a ship over the sea, or a bird through the air,
without leaving a trace behind. They were the last
of their race, the father and son. Every other branch
of the old family tree had withered, dropt off, rotted,
and mingled with its parent dust.

The Squire had in the downhill of life committed
suicide on the family dignity, after the manner of many
discreet old bachelors, and took to wife a buxom, blooming
country damsel, who had approved herself eminently
useful in keeping his house in order, as well as attentive
in time of sickness. And here we must beg permission
to remark on the egregious vanity of some
would-be wise men, who imagine there is such a thing

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as the enjoyment of perfect freedom in this world, and
who therefore studiously avoid entering into the bonds
of matrimony, in the hope of escaping that species of
government which, though not noticed by Aristotle, or
his commentators, is supposed to be of primitive
origin. The great law of attraction pervades all nature,
and the constituent parts of the universe might
as well rebel against it, as man attempt to resist its
power. He may for a time, perhaps, escape that species
of witchcraft which is the common attribute of
women, who have, for that reason, in all ages been
singled out as the peculiar victims of superstition and
ignorance; but his time must come at last, and some
blooming handmaid, or plump, middle-aged house-keeper,
will sooner or later avenge her sex by exercising
despotic sway over the refractory sinner, who pretended
to hold them in defiance.

Squire Everard Habingdon is a case in point. Just
as he arrived at that age, beyond which it is said a
man never improves, the great law of attraction began
to operate with irresistible force, and in despite of
eight hundred years of uninterrupted, unimpeachable
purity of blood, did he marry a damsel without a pedigree,
and who, it is greatly suspected, had not a drop
of Saxon blood in her veins. By this fortunate slip
new life and spirit was infused into the old, lazy current,
which had for so many ages slumbered in the
bodies of the Habingdons, and thrown great doubt on
the theory of Dr. Harvey. There is nothing like
crossing the breed; and if the present race of kings,

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throughout all Christendom, would only follow the
example of Squire Habingdon, there is every reason to
believe their posterity would be both physically and
morally greatly improved.

Be this as it may, Harold, the sole issue of this
union of opposites, was a striking exception to all his
ancestors on record, and foreboded a revolution in the
house of Habingdon. He was of a hardy, courageous,
energetic, and determined spirit; but these qualities,
as is not very unusual, veiled themselves under the
appearance, and indeed reality, of a cool, quiet, demeanor,
approaching humility. Yet the current of his
feelings, though it scarcely murmured or rippled, was
deep and strong. He had passed some time at Oxford,
the most loyal and orthodox of universities; but
having tweaked the nose of a scholar who insulted
him, and who was son to a nobleman, the patron of
sixteen livings and four fellowships, and refusing to
apologize, he was expelled as contumacious, and returned
home. The Squire, in accordance with his
doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance,
would have had him attempt to reinstate himself by
complying with the requisitions of his college; but
Harold, though hitherto the most docile and obedient
of sons, demurred on this one occasion, and his obstinacy
proved invincible. From this time he occupied
himself either in desultory reading, in rambling in
lonely solitude, banqueting, or rather starving on
his own thoughts, that rose and died away without
leading to action, and bearing on his shoulders the

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most grievous of all burdens except remorse—the
leaden weight of unoccupied time. Thus he lived,
unacquainted with himself and unknown to others;
nourishing that quiet, latent enthusiasm which formed
the basis of his character, until called upon to mingle
in the strife of men, and take part in that terrible conflict
now approaching a crisis, between the prerogative
of the king and the rights of the people of England.

The little estate of Habingdon lay in a remote part
of England, where Puritanism had made no inconsiderable
progress. Though persecuted by the dominant
church according to invariable custom, until the new
world set an example of toleration to the old, that indomitable
spirit, so essential to the existence and progress
of a new sect, which, like a strange bird in a
poultry-yard, is sure to unite all the established denizens
against it on a first appearance, enabled them not
only to resist the tide of persecution, but make, at
length, inroads on their persecutors. The milder spirit
of the age had abolished the rack, the stake, and the
fagot in England, yet the ruling church still flourished
the cat-o'-nine tails of star-chamber fines, spiritual
censures, imprisonment, stripes, and pillory. It did
not actually inflict martyrdom, but contented itself
with slitting noses and cutting off ears. Still, like
certain hardy plants, that only grow more sturdily
for being crushed under foot, the severe doctrines of
the Puritans continued to advance as irresistibly as
the tide of the ocean, and only rose the higher for the
barrier that opposed them.

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The elder Habingdon scorned these Crop-ears, as he
called them, with his heels, and so did the younger,
who had imbibed a deep-rooted prejudice, amounting
to antipathy, against these obstinate schimatics, at
Oxford, the very hotbed of loyalty and orthodoxy,
where it is said pedantry is often mistaken for learning,
and bigotry for religion. The retired situation of
this part of the country proved, however, favorable to
the growth of the new sect, and meetings, known by
the opprobrious epithet of conventicles, were occasionally
held in the neighborhood. It so happened that as
Harold was one morning strolling away from home at
random, and without any settled purpose, except, perhaps
that of killing time in a retirement that afforded
little amusement and less excitement, he unexpectedly
came upon one of those unlawful assemblages. He
was roused from his reverie, at first, by the distant
moanings of a monotonous hymn, that broke on the
silence of a calm summer day with a simple melody
that harmonized with the scenery around, which exhibited
only the unstudied graces of nature in her
birth-day attire; and, attracted by the sound, quietly
approached the wood whence it proceeded, where he
found a number of plain country people of both sexes
and divers ages reverently listening to a preacher, so
different in appearance from all he had ever seen or
heard, that his attention was at once attracted, and he
unconsciously became an auditor, notwithstanding his
contempt and dislike of his associates.

He appeared without any of the insignia of a

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Protestant clergyman. Instead of a gown and band, he
was dressed in coarse materials fashioned after the
garments worn by the country people at this period,
and both his language and manners announced that
he had not been drilled into the etiquette of the established
church. His face was pale and stern, bearing a
striking expression of intellectual as well as moral vigor.
He wore a black velvet cap, which covered his ears
but left his brow exposed, and addressed his little audience
in a voice equally melodious and powerful.
He spoke of the corruptions of the times; the profligacy
of the higher ranks, and the laxity of morals
among the people who had been led away by their example.
He declaimed bitterly against the innovations
of the established church, and the persecution of those
who were seeking to restore the purity and simplicity
of the apostolic times. To illustrate this last, he reverted
to his own labors and sufferings. He bared his
arms and showed the marks of manacles on his wrists;
he pointed to the stripes he had endured, the scars of
which remained indelible on his shoulders; and finally
pulling off his cap, the audience, which listened and
gazed in reverent silence, perceived that he was destitute
of ears.

“These,” he exclaimed, with almost supernatural
vehemency, “these are the testimonials of the sincerity
of my faith, and the truth of my doctrines;
these are the rewards I have received for following the
dictates of my heart and my understanding. These
badges of infamy, which in better times marked for

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contempt and abhorrence the lowest, most atrocious
offenders against the peace of society and the rights
of their fellow-creatures, are borne by one who, though
standing as a criminal before the throne of grace, and
humbly hoping for pardon, is innocent of any crime
against his brother man, for the welfare of whose immortal
soul he is ready and willing to lay down his
life, and triumph in the sacrifice. For myself I care
not, for I knew and was prepared for all, and more
than I have suffered. But”—and here he pointed
towards a sober-looking matron, by whose side sat a
young woman plainly attired—“But look you there—
those whom I love and cherish above all earthly
treasures have shared my sufferings and disgrace.
They have been dragged from the peaceful fireside of
our humble home, and carried away like the daughters
of Israel, to herd with criminals, and be insulted
by turnkeys and jailors; they have been reviled, outraged,
yea, smitten by brutes in the shape of men, and
I—I was compelled to look on, unable to afford them
help or consolation, except by appealing to Heaven,
and offering up my prayers.

“But think not, my brethren and sisters,” continued
he with increasing fervor, think not that I complain
of my sufferings in the cause of truth and piety. It
is one of the inflexible laws of the Most High that all
good here as well as hereafter must be purchased by
sacrifices; and as a pure and holy faith is the greatest
of all sublunary blessings, so must it be attained by
the greatest of all human inflictions. Let none that

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hear me be afraid; let none despair of better times,
because they are not already come. Remember that
the black cloud charged with the bolts of heaven is
the harbinger of a brighter sunshine, and that after
wandering through the deep shadows of the cold and
chilly wood, we suddenly enter the region of light
and warmth. Believe me—I say, be sure that the
period is close at hand, when the oppressor shall be
laid low, and the beneficent Messiah reign in place of
the tyrant.”

At this moment, when the listening group was
wrapt in the silence of breathless sympathy, the
preacher was interrupted by a loud voice, exclaiming:

“Who talks of the tyrant? He must mean our
most gracious sovereign King Charles. Down with
the Crop-ear, seize him and his gaping crew. I'll
teach him to rail at the king and the church. He
shall be hanged for heresy and quartered for treason.”

A posse of peace officers, as by courtesy they were
called, at the head of which was Master Justice Shorthose,
the author of the foregoing speech, now rushed
forward into the midst of the affrighted group, which
was taken by surprise. A few of the most alert made
their escape into the wood, but by far the greater
number were captured, and among the rest our friend
Harold, who had been so wrought upon by the crop-eared
preacher that he was completely taken by surprise.
But if this had not been the case, he was of
a mettle that never stomached running away. The
Justice, who knew him well, was one of those pliant

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tools of power, who have been so often described that
it is scarcely worth our while to sketch his character.
It is sufficient to say that he was ignorant, servile and
tyrannical; and that he had a most stupendous idea
of the dignity of his office, considering himself the immediate
representative of his most sacred majesty
King Charles the First. He recognized Harold among
the stricken pigeons, and exclaimed—

“'Slife, Master Harold Habingdon, are you among
the Crop-ears? Are you, too, a convert to the whipping-post,
the pillory, and the jail? Pray how long is it
since you aspired to the martyrdom of losing your ears?
Does your worthy father know of your conversion?”

To this insulting address, Harold at first scorned
any reply; but recollecting the delicacy of his position,
and the severe laws against conventicles, he at
length condescended to explain his appearance on this
occasion in the confident expectation of being released.
But he reckoned without his host. Master Shorthose
was a magistrate who knew but one law, to wit, the
will of his superiors, and held himself bound to carry it
into effect without discrimination, though in so doing
he outraged every principle of justice. He listened
with dignified gravity, and responded as follows:

“And so, Master Harold, you came here accidentally,
and listened from sheer curiosity. Don't you
know that curiosity is a great crime in these perilous
times, and that a man listens at the risk of losing his
ears? 'Slife, sir, you have incurred a præmunire.”

“A præmunire, Master Justice? How can that

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be? There is no occasion for warning me to appear,
when I am here in my own proper person.”

“Well, then, you have incurred something quite as
bad, and that is all the same. You are caught at a
conventicle, listening to treason and blasphemy, and
that is, as it were, becoming an accomplice in the eye
of the law, being as how it was your duty as a loyal
subject to have stopped your ears and run away. I
shall carry you to jail with the rest of the elect, but
hope, for old acquaintance sake, you will escape without
being stuck in the pillory, or losing your ears, like
yonder preaching rascal.”

“Let me tell you, Master Justice,” quoth Harold,
“let me tell you, sir magistrate”—

“'Slife, whom do you call sir magistrate? I am no
knight, that you should thus dub me; and what do
you mean by addressing me with, `let me tell you,' as
it were in defiance? Let me tell you, sir, that I represent
his most sacred majesty King Charles of blessed
memory—no, not of blessed memory, but he will be
in good time—and that you insult him in my person,
which being, as it were, the shadow of the substance
of royalty, is equally sacred.”

“My good sir,” began Harold—

“Good sir! 'Slife, do you confound me with the
vulgar commonalty, by addressing me as you would a
clodhopper? It is as much as telling me I'm no better
than I should be.”

“Well, if you won't hear—”

“Well! is that the way you speak to the king's

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representative? Could you not add, your honor, or
your worship, or something smacking of mine office
and authority?”

“In two words, then,” answered Harold, half vexed
and half diverted at the tenacity with which the Justice
asserted his dignity; “in two words, since you
demur to my style of addressing you, I shall merely
say, that if it so please your worship, I will accompany
and make common cause with these good people.”

“Common cause—good people! Very well, sir,
this will bring you within the statute, which says—
Hem—hem. But come, Master Roundhead, march.”

“I am no Roundhead, and you have no right to call
me so,” quoth Harold, somewhat nettled.

“'Slife, sir, I have a right to call you what I please
in the king's name. Come, Master Habingdon, if that
pleases you better. You shall accompany me to town
with these good people, as you call them. You shall
be lodged in jail with these good people, and it shall
not be my fault if you don't pay handsomely for
being caught in such good company. Come, this is
the best way; marry, why? because it is the only one.
Come along—I wouldn't be in the skin of your ears for
all the fees I have received since the accession of his sacred
majesty King Charles the First of blessed—hem!”

Saying thus, master Justice Shorthose placed himself
at the head of the posse, and marched his convoy,
consisting of some eighteen or twenty persons of both
sexes, to the neighboring town, where he triumphantly
lodged them in prison, there to await the justice of
their country.