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The year was closing gloomily, with ominous forecasts of the coming hurricane, when the babe who was destined to leave so imperishable a name in English literature, first saw the light in an humble cottage in an obscure Bedfordshire village.
As bishop of the diocese to which Bedfordshire then, and long after, belonged, Barlow had the power, by the then existing law, of releasing a prisoner for nonconformity on a bond given by two persons that he would conform within half a year. A friend of Bunyan's, probably Ichabod Chauncey, obtained a letter from Owen to the bishop requesting him to employ this prerogative in Bunyan's behalf.
So I sat down half an hour, and made a good many wishes for breakfast. But wishes were no meal; so I got up as hungry as I sat down. I forget here the names of the villages I passed through, but recollect at late evening going through Potton, in Bedfordshire, where I called in a house to light my pipe.
He sate for Bedfordshire till the dissolution of that year, when he retired, feeling that Free Trade was indeed bound to come, but that it would be disastrous for the agricultural community which he represented. "Lord Charles Russell," wrote Cobden, "is the man who opposed even his brother John's fixed duty, declaring at the time that it was to throw two millions of acres out of cultivation."
It is the return of the sheriff of Bedfordshire, stating that ALL the sufferings of Bunyan his privation of liberty, sacrifice of wife, children, and temporal comforts, with the fear of an ignominious death were for refusing to attend his parish church and hear the Common Prayer service.
It was not till a late hour that Miss Bartlett had recovered her luggage and could say in her usual tone of gentle reproach: "Well, dear, I at all events am ready for Bedfordshire. Come into my room, and I will give a good brush to your hair." With some solemnity the door was shut, and a cane chair placed for the girl. Then Miss Bartlett said "So what is to be done?"
Granted then to one Richard Snow, of whom the records are silent; by him sold, in Elizabeth's reign, to Sir John Osborne, Knt., thus becoming the ancestral home of our Dorothy. There is a crisp etching of the house in Fisher's Collections of Bedfordshire.
If he had, would he not jump at the idea of going to Squire Merton, a man you all know? Now, you are all plain, straightforward Bedfordshire men, and I wouldn't ask a better lot to appeal to. You're not the kind to be talked over with any French gammon, and he's plenty of that.
"Her old woman," in the same passage, is, of course, a jocular allusion to Dorothy herself; and "the old knight" is, I believe, Sir Robert Cook, a Bedfordshire gentleman, of whom nothing is known except that he was knighted at Ampthill, July 21st, 1621. We hear some little more of him from Dorothy.
When I arose in the morning, I went to wait on Lady Davers, seeing her door open; and she was in bed, but awake, and talking to her woman. I said, I hope I don't disturb your ladyship. Not at all, said she; I am glad to see you. How do you do? Well, added she, when do you set out for Bedfordshire? I said, I can't tell, madam; it was designed as to-day, but I have heard no more of it.
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