t, 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 Independents, of whom my father was one, they also were under
the ban of the law, but they attended conventicle at Emsworth, whither
we would trudge, rain or shine, on every Sabbath morning. These meetings
were broken up more than once, but the congregation was composed of such
harmless folk, so well beloved and respected by their neighbours, that
the peace officers came after a time to ignore them, and to let them
worship in their own fashion. There were Papists, too, amongst us, who
were compelled to go as far as Portsmouth for their Mass. Thus, you see,
small as was our village, we were a fair miniature of the whole country,
for we had our sects and our factions, which were all the more bitter
for being confined in so narrow a compass.

My father, Joseph Clarke, was better known over the countryside by the
name of Ironside Joe, for he had served in his youth in the Yaxley
troop of Oliver Cromwell's famous regiment of horse, and had preached
so lustily and fought so stoutly that old Noll himself called him out
of the ranks after the fight at Dunbar, and raised him to a cornetcy.
It chanced, however, that having some little time later fallen into an
argument with one of his troopers concerning the mystery of the Trinity,
the man, who was a half-crazy zealot, smote my father across the face, a
favour which he returned by a thrust from his broadsword, which sent his
adversary to test in person the truth of his beliefs. In most armies
it would have been conceded that my father was within his rights
in punishing promptly so rank an act of mutiny, but the soldiers of
Cromwell had so high a notion of their own importance and privi