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 privileges,
that they resented this summary justice upon their companion.
A court-martial sat upon my father, and it is likely that he would have
been offered up as a sacrifice to appease the angry soldiery, had not
the Lord Protector interfered, and limited the punishment to dismissal
from the army. Cornet Clarke was accordingly stripped of his buff coat
and steel cap, and wandered down to Havant, where he settled into
business as a leather merchant and tanner, thereby depriving Parliament
of as trusty a soldier as ever drew blade in its service. Finding that
he prospered in trade, he took as wife Mary Shepstone, a young
Churchwoman, and I, Micah Clarke, was the first pledge of their union.

My father, as I remember him first, was tall and straight, with a great
spread of shoulder and a mighty chest. His face was craggy and stern,
with large harsh features, shaggy over-hanging brows, high-bridged
fleshy nose, and a full-lipped mouth which tightened and set when he was