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Instructor’s Manual: Robbins Organisational Behaviour 5e © 2008 Pearson Education Australia 9-1
CHAPTER 7
UNDERSTANDING GROUP & TEAM BEHAVIOUR
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions:
1. How do formal groups differ from informal groups?
2. What are the different stages in group development?
3. How do role requirements change in different situations?
4. What influence do norms exert on an individual’s behaviour?
5. What determines status?
6. What is social loafing, and how does it affect group performance?
7. What are the benefits and disadvantages of cohesive groups?
8. What are the strengths and weaknesses of group decision making?
9. How would you contrast the effectiveness of interacting, brainstorming, nominal and
electronic meeting groups?
10. How do teams differ from groups?
11. How do you create an effective team?
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Defining and Classifying Groups
1. A group is defined as two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have
come together to achieve particular objectives.
2. Groups can be either formal or informal.
• Formal groups—those defined by the organisation’s structure, with designated
work assignments establishing tasks.
• The behaviours that one should engage in are stipulated by and directed toward
organisational goals.
• An airline flight crew is an example of a formal group.
• Informal groups—alliances that are neither formally structured nor
organisationally determined
• Natural formations in the work environment in response to the need for social
contact.
• Three employees from different departments who regularly eat lunch together is
an informal group.
3. It is possible to sub-classify groups as command, task, interest, or friendship groups.
• Command groups are determined by the organisation chart, and are composed of
the individuals who report to a given manager.
• Task groups are also organisationally determined and represent those working
together to complete a job task. A task group’s boundaries are not limited to its
immediate hierarchical superior. It can cross command relationships. All
command groups are also task groups, but the reverse need not be true.
• An interest group. People who affiliate to attain a specific objective with which
each is concerned. For example employees who band together to have their
holiday schedules altered

• Friendship groups often develop because the individual members have one or
more common characteristics. Social alliances, which frequently extend outside
the work situation, can be based on similar age or ethnic heritage.
4. Informal groups satisfy their members’ social needs.
• These types of interactions among individuals, even though informal, deeply
affect their behaviour and performance.
• There is no single reason why individuals join groups.
• Table 7.1 summarises the most popular reasons people have for joining groups
The Five Stage Model of Group Development
Groups generally pass through a standardised sequence in their evolution (See Figure 7.1)
1. Forming:
• Characterised by a great deal of uncertainty about the group’s purpose, structure, and
leadership.
• Members are trying to determine what types of behaviour are acceptable.
• Stage is complete when members have begun to think of themselves as part of a group.
2. Storming:
• One of intragroup conflict. Members accept the existence of the group, but there is resistance
to constraints on individuality.
• Conflict over who will control the group.
• When complete, there will be a relatively clear hierarchy of leadership within the group.
3. Norming:
• One in which close relationships develop and the group demonstrates cohesiveness.
• There is now a strong sense of group identity and camaraderie.
• Stage is complete when the group structure solidifies and the group has assimilated a common
set of expectations of what defines correct member behaviour.
4. Performing:
• The structure at this point is fully functional and accepted.
• Group energy has moved from getting to know and understand each other to performing.
• For permanent work groups, performing is the last stage in their development.
5. Adjourning:
• For temporary committees, teams, task forces, and similar groups that have a limited task to
perform, there is an adjourning stage.
• In this stage, the group prepares for its disbandment. Attention is directed toward wrapping up
activities.
• Responses of group members vary in this stage. Some are upbeat, basking in the group’s
accomplishments. Others may be depressed over the loss of camaraderie and friendships.
6. Many assume that a group becomes more effective as it progresses through the first four stages.
While generally true, what makes a group effective is more complex. Under some conditions,
high levels of conflict are conducive to high group performance.
7. Groups do not always proceed clearly from one stage to the next. Sometimes several
stages go on simultaneously, as when groups are storming and performing. Groups even
occasionally regress to previous stages.
8. Another problem is that it ignores organisational context. For instance, a study of a
cockpit crew in an airliner found that, within ten minutes, three strangers assigned to fly
together for the first time had become a high-performing group.

9. The strong organisational context provides the rules, task definitions, information, and
resources needed for the group to perform.
Group Properties: Roles, Norms, Status, Size and Cohesiveness
Introduction
Work groups have properties that shape the behaviour of members and make it possible to explain and
predict a large portion of individual behaviour within the group as well as the performance of the
group itself.
A. Roles
• All group members are actors, each playing a role.
• Roles are a set of expected behaviour patterns attributed to someone occupying a given
position in a social unit.
• We are required to play a number of diverse roles, both on and off our jobs.
1. Role identity
• There are certain attitudes and actual behaviours consistent with a role, and they create the
role identity.
• People have the ability to shift roles rapidly when they recognise that the situation and its
demands clearly require major changes.
• For instance, when union stewards were promoted to supervisory positions, it was found that
their attitudes changed from pro-union to pro-management within a few months of their
promotion.
2. Role perception
• One’s view of how one is supposed to act in a given situation is a role perception.
• We get these perceptions from stimuli all around us—friends, books, movies, television.
• The primary reason that apprenticeship programs exist is to allow beginners to watch an
“expert,” so that they can learn to act as they are supposed to.
3. Role expectations
• How others believe you should act in a given situation.
• How you behave is determined to a large extent by the role defined in the context in which
you are acting.
• The psychological contract is an unwritten agreement that exists between employees and their
employer.
• It sets out mutual expectations—what management expects from workers, and vice versa.
• It defines the behavioural expectations that go with every role.
• If role expectations as implied are not met:
o If management is derelict in keeping up its part of the bargain, we can expect negative
repercussions on employee performance and satisfaction.
o When employees fail to live up to expectations, the result is usually some form of
disciplinary action up to and including firing.
4. Role conflict:
• Role conflict results when an individual is confronted by divergent role expectations.
• It exists when compliance with one role requirement may make more difficult the compliance
with another.
• At the extreme, it would include situations in which two or more role expectations are
mutually contradictory.
B. Norms

1. All groups have norms—acceptable standards of behaviour that are shared by the group’s
members.
2. Norms tell members what they ought and ought not to do under certain circumstances.
3. From an individual’s standpoint, they tell what is expected of you in certain situations.
2. Common Types of Norms
• A work group’s norms are unique, yet there are still some common classes of norms.
• Performance norms are probably the most common class of norms.
• Explicit cues on how hard they should work, how to get the job done, their level of output,
appropriate levels of tardiness, and the like.
• These norms are extremely powerful in affecting an individual employee’s performance.
• Appearance norms include things like appropriate dress, loyalty to the work group or
organisation, when to look busy, and when it is acceptable to ‘bludge’.
• Social arrangement norms come from informal work groups and primarily regulate social
interactions within the group.
• Allocation of resources norms can originate in the group or in the organisation.
• These norms cover things such as pay, assignment of difficult jobs, and allocation of new
tools and equipment.
4. Conformity
• As a member of a group, you desire acceptance by the group. Because of your desire for
acceptance, you are susceptible to conforming to the group’s norms.
• There is considerable evidence that groups can place strong pressures on individual members
to change their attitudes and behaviours to conform to the group’s standard.
• Individuals conform to the important groups to which they belong or hope to belong. The
important groups are referred to as reference groups.
• The reference group is characterised as one where the person is aware of the others; the person
defines himself or herself as a member, or would like to be a member; and the person feels
that the group members are significant to him/her.
• All groups do not impose equal conformity pressures on their members.
5. Deviant Workplace Behaviour
• This term is also called also called antisocial behaviour or workplace Incivility.
• It is defined as voluntary behaviour that violates significant organisational norms and, in
doing so, threatens the well-being of the organisation or its members.
• Table 7.2 presents a typology of deviant workplace behaviours and examples.
• Some organisations create or condone conditions that encourage and maintain deviant norms.
o Rudeness and disregard towards others by bosses and co-workers is on the rise and 12
percent of those who experienced it actually quit their jobs.
• Individual employees’ antisocial actions are shaped by the group context within which they
work. Evidence demonstrates that deviant workplace behaviour is likely to flourish where it is
supported by group norms.
• When deviant workplace norms surface, employee cooperation, commitment and motivation
are likely to suffer. This, in turn, can lead to reduced employee productivity and job
satisfaction and increased turnover.
• A recent study suggests that, compared to individuals working alone, those working in a group
were more likely to lie, cheat and steal (Figure 7.2).
• Groups provide a shield of anonymity so that someone who ordinarily might be afraid of
getting caught for stealing can rely on the fact that other group members had the same
opportunity or reason to steal.
C. Status

1. Status is a socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others. We live
in a class-structured society despite all attempts to make it more egalitarian.
• Status is an important factor in understanding human behaviour, because it is a significant
motivator and has major behavioural consequences when individuals perceive a disparity
between what they believe their status to be and what others perceive it to be.
2. What Determines Status?
• Status characteristics theory – differences in status characteristics create status hierarchies
within groups.
• Status derived from one of three sources: the power a person wields over others; a person’s
ability to contribute to group’s goals; individual’s personal characteristics.
o People who control the outcomes of a group through their power tend to be perceived
as high in status (e.g., a group’s formal leader or manager).
o People whose contributions are critical to the group’s success also tend to have high
status (e.g., outstanding performers on sports teams).
o Someone who has personal characteristics that are positively valued by the group
(such as good looks, intelligence, money or a friendly personality) will typically have
higher status than someone who has fewer valued attributes.
5. Status Inequity:
• When inequity is perceived, it creates disequilibrium that results in corrective behaviour.
• The concept of equity applies to status. People expect rewards to be proportionate to costs
incurred.
• The trappings of formal positions are also important elements in maintaining equity. When
we believe there is an inequity between the perceived ranking of an individual and the status
accoutrements that person is given by the organisation, we are experiencing status
incongruence.
• Groups generally agree within themselves on status criteria.
• However, individuals can find themselves in a conflict situation when they move between
groups whose status criteria are different or when they join groups whose members have
heterogeneous backgrounds.
• This can be a particular problem when management creates teams made up of employees from
across varied functions within the organisation.
D. Size
1. The size of a group affects the group’s overall behaviour, but the effect depends on the dependent
variables we look at:
• Smaller groups are faster at completing tasks than are larger ones.
• If the group is engaged in problem solving, large groups consistently do better.
• Large groups—a dozen or more members—are good for gaining diverse input.
• Smaller groups—five to seven members— tend to be more effective for taking action.
2. Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than
when working individually.
• It directly challenges the logic that the productivity of the group as a whole should at least
equal the sum of the productivity of each individual in that group.
3. Causes of social loafing:
• A belief that others in the group are not carrying their fair share.
• The dispersion of responsibility: when the results of the group cannot be attributed to any
single person, the relationship between an individual’s input and the group’s output is
clouded.

o There will be a reduction in efficiency where individuals think that their contribution
cannot be measured.
4. Implications for OB:
• Where managers use collective work situations to enhance morale and teamwork, they must
also provide means by which individual efforts can be identified.
• If this is not done, management must weigh the potential losses in productivity from using
groups against any possible gains in worker satisfaction.
5. Other conclusions from research on group size:
• Groups with an odd number of members tend to be preferable.
o They eliminate the possibility of ties when votes are taken.
• Groups made up of five or seven members do a pretty good job of exercising the best elements
of both small and large groups.
o Large enough to form a majority and allow for diverse input
o Small enough to avoid the negative outcomes often associated with large groups, such as
domination by a few members, development of subgroups, inhibited participation by some
members, and excessive time taken to reach a decision.
E. Cohesiveness
1. Groups differ in their cohesiveness - the degree to which members are attracted to each other and
are motivated to stay in the group.
2. Cohesiveness is important because it has been found to be related to the group’s productivity.
3. The relationship of cohesiveness and productivity depends on the performance-related norms
established by the group (Figure 7.3):
• If performance-related norms are high, a cohesive group will be more productive.
• If cohesiveness is high and performance norms are low, productivity will be low.
4. How to encourage group cohesiveness:
• Make the group smaller.
• Encourage agreement with group goals.
• Increase the time members spend together.
• Increase the status of the group and the perceived difficulty of attaining membership in the
group.
• Stimulate competition with other groups.
• Give rewards to the group rather than to individual members.
• Physically isolate the group.
Group Decision Making
A. Group Versus the Individual
Decision-making groups may be widely used in organisations, whether or not they are preferable to
individual decisions depends on many factors.
1. Strengths of group decision-making:
• Groups generate more complete information and knowledge.
o Groups bring more input into the decision process.
o Groups can bring heterogeneity to the decision process.
• Groups offer increased diversity of views.
o This opens up the opportunity for more approaches and alternatives to be considered.

• Groups lead to increased acceptance of a solution.
o Group members who participated in making a decision are likely to enthusiastically
support the decision and encourage others to accept it.
2. Weaknesses of group decision-making:
• They are time consuming.
• There is a conformity pressure in groups.
• Group discussion can be dominated by one or a few members.
• Group decisions suffer from ambiguous responsibility.
3. Effectiveness and efficiency:
• Whether groups are more effective than individuals depends on the criteria you use.
• In terms of accuracy, group decisions will tend to be more accurate.
• On the average, groups make better-quality decisions than individuals.
• If decision effectiveness is defined in terms of speed, individuals are superior.
• If creativity is important, groups tend to be more effective than individuals.
• If effectiveness means the degree of acceptance the final solution achieves, groups are better.
4. Efficiency
• Groups almost always stack up as a poor second to the individual decision maker.
• The exceptions tend to be those instances where, to achieve comparable quantities of diverse
input, the single decision maker must spend a great deal of time reviewing files and talking to
people.
5. Summary
• Groups offer an excellent vehicle for performing many of the steps in the decision-making
process.
• They are a source of both breadth and depth of input for information gathering.
• When the final solution is agreed upon, there are more people in a group decision to support
and implement it.
• Group decisions consume time, create internal conflicts, and generate pressures toward
conformity.
B. Groupthink and Groupshift
• Groupthink and groupshift are two by-products of group decision-making. Briefly, the
differences between the two are:
• Groupthink is related to norms. It describes situations in which group pressures for conformity
deter the group from critically appraising unusual, minority, or unpopular views.
• Groupthink is a disease that attacks many groups and can dramatically hinder performance.
• Groupshift is a change in decision risk. It indicates that in discussing a given set of alternatives
and arriving at a solution, group members tend to exaggerate the initial positions that they hold.
In some situations, caution dominates, and there is a conservative shift.
• The evidence indicates that groups tend toward a risky shift.
C. Group Decision-Making Techniques
1. Most group decision making takes place in interacting groups
• In these groups, members meet face to face and rely on both verbal and nonverbal interaction
to communicate with each other.
• Interacting groups often censor themselves and pressure individual members toward
conformity of opinion.
• Brainstorming, the nominal group technique, and electronic meetings have been proposed as
ways to reduce many of the problems inherent in the traditional interacting group.

2. Brainstorming
• It is meant to overcome pressures for conformity in the interacting group that retard the
development of creative alternatives. It does this by utilising an idea-generation process that
specifically encourages any and all alternatives while withholding any criticism of those
alternatives.
• In a typical brainstorming session, a half dozen to a dozen people sit around a table.
• The process:
• The group leader states the problem clearly.
• Members then “free-wheel” as many alternatives as they can in a given length of
time. No criticism is allowed, and all the alternatives are recorded for later
discussion and analysis.
• One idea stimulates others, and group members are encouraged to “think the
unusual.”
• Brainstorming may indeed generate ideas, but not very efficiently.
o Research consistently shows that individuals working along will generate more ideas
than a group because of ‘production blocking’.
o When there are many people talking at once it blocks the through process and
eventually impedes the sharing of ideas.
3. The nominal group technique
• Restricts discussion or interpersonal communication during the decision-making process.
• Group members are all physically present, but members operate independently.
• Specifically, a problem is presented, and then the following steps take place:
• Members meet as a group but, before any discussion takes place, each member
independently writes down his or her ideas on the problem.
• After this silent period, each member presents one idea to the group. Each member
takes his or her turn.
• The group now discusses the ideas for clarity and evaluates them.
• Each group member silently and independently rank-orders the ideas.
• The idea with the highest aggregate ranking determines the final decision.
• The advantage of the nominal group technique is that it permits the group to meeting formally
but doesn’t restrict independent thinking.
4. Electronic meeting
• The computer-assisted group or electronic meeting blends the nominal group technique with
sophisticated computer technology.
• Once the technology is in place, the concept is simple. Up to 50 people sit around a
horseshoe-shaped table, empty except for a series of computer terminals.
• Issues are presented to participants, and they type their responses onto their computer screen.
• Individual comments, as well as aggregate votes, are displayed on a projection screen.
• The proposed advantages of electronic meetings are anonymity, honesty and speed.
• The early evidence, however, indicates that electronic meetings don’t achieve most of their
proposed benefits. Evaluations of numerous studies found that electronic meetings:
o actually led to decreased group effectiveness
o required more time to complete tasks
o resulted in reduced member satisfaction when compared to face-to-face groups.
• Table 7.3 offers an evaluation of the different types of group decision making techniques and
the effectiveness of the decision.
Creating Effective Teams
Introduction

Work teams are different from work groups (See Figure 7.4).
1. A work group is a group that interacts primarily to share information and to make decisions to
help each member perform within his or her area of responsibility. Work groups have no need or
opportunity to engage in collective work that requires joint effort. Their performance is the
summation of each group member’s individual contribution. There is no positive synergy to
create an overall performance grater than the sum of the inputs.
2. Work teams, are able to leverage positive synergies through individual complementarities and a
coordinated effort, which creates an overall level of performance that is greater than the sum of
the inputs.
1. Factors for creating effective teams have been summarised in the model found in Figure 7.5.
2 The discussion is based on the above model. There are two caveats:
• First, teams differ in form and structure—be careful not to rigidly apply the model’s
predictions to all teams.
• Second, the model assumes that it is already been determined that teamwork is preferable over
individual work.
3. The four key components for an effective are:
• Context
• Composition
• Work design
• Process.
Team effectiveness in this model means objective measures of the team’s productivity,
managers’ ratings of the team’s performance, and aggregate measures of member satisfaction.
A. Context
There are four contextual factors that appear to be most significantly are related to team performance:
1. Adequate resources:
• All work teams rely on resources outside the group to sustain it.
• A scarcity of resources directly reduces the ability of the team to perform its job
effectively.
• As one set of researchers concluded, “Perhaps one of the most important characteristics
of an effective work group is the support the group receives from the organisation.”
2. Leadership and structure:
• Agreeing on the specifics of work and how they fit together to integrate individual
skills requires team leadership and structure.
• Leadership is not always needed. Self-managed work teams often perform better than
teams with formally appointed leaders, and leaders can obstruct high performance
when they interfere with self-managing teams
• On traditionally managed teams, we find that two factors seem influence team
performance, the leader’s expectations and his or her mood, leaders who expect good
things from their team are more likely to get them.
3. Climate of Trust:
• Members of effective teams trust each other and exhibit trust in their leaders.

• Interpersonal trust among team members facilitates cooperation, reduces the need to
monitor each member’s behaviour, and bonds members around the belief that others
on the team won’t take advantage of them.
• When members trust their leadership they are more willing to commit to their
leader’s goals and decisions.
4. Performance evaluation and reward systems:
• How do you get team members to be both individually and jointly accountable? The
traditional, individually oriented evaluation and reward system must be modified to
reflect team performance.
• Individual performance evaluations, fixed hourly wages, individual incentives are not
consistent with the development of high-performance teams.
• Management should consider group-based appraisals, profit sharing, gainsharing,
small-group incentives, and other system modifications that will reinforce team effort
and commitment.
B. Composition
1. Abilities of members:
• Part of a team’s performance depends on the knowledge, skills and abilities of its individual
members.
• Teams require three different types of skills, technical expertise, problem-solving and
decision-making skills, good listening, feedback, conflict resolution, and other interpersonal
skills
• The right mix is crucial. It is not uncommon for one or more members to take
responsibility to learn the skills in which the group is deficient, thereby allowing the team
to reach its full potential.
• When the task entails considerable thought, high-ability teams (teams composed of mostly
intelligent members) do better, especially when the workload is distributed evenly.
• When tasks are simple, high-ability teams don’t perform as well, perhaps because, in such
tasks, high-ability teams become bored and turn their attention to other activities that are
more stimulating, whereas low-ability teams stay on task.
• Smart team leaders help less intelligent team members when they struggle with a task. But a
less intelligent leader can neutralise the effect of a high-ability team.
2. Personality:
• Many of the dimensions identified in the Big Five personality model have shown to be
relevant to team effectiveness.
• Teams that rate higher in mean levels of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and
emotional stability tend to receive higher managerial ratings for team performance.
• The variance in personality characteristics may be more important than the mean. A single
team member who lacks a minimal level of, say, agreeableness can negatively affect the
whole team’s performance.
• Conscientious people are valuable because they are good at ‘backing up’ fellow team
members, and they are also good at sensing when that support is truly needed.
• It is best to staff teams with people who are extraverted, agreeable, conscientious,
emotionally stable and open.
3. Allocating roles
• Teams have different needs, and people should be selected for a team to ensure that there is
diversity and that all various roles are filled.
• Managers need to understand the individual strengths that each person can bring to a team,
select members with their strengths in mind, and allocate work assignments accordingly.

4. Diversity
• Most team activities require a variety of skills and knowledge, therefore on cognitive,
creativity-demanding tasks, teams on cognitive, creativity-demanding tasks are more
effective.
• Diversity in terms of personality, gender, age, education, functional specialisation, and
experience increase the probability that the team will complete its tasks effectively.
• The team may be more conflict laden and less expedient but more effective than a
homogeneous team.
• One study found that white males performed the worst relative to mixed race and gender
teams, or teams of only females.
• Over time, however, culturally diverse teams function effectively over time.
• The degree to which members of a group share common characteristics such as age, sex, race
educational level, or length of service, is termed group demography.
• Groups, teams and organisations are comprised of cohorts, which are defined as individuals
who hold a common attribute.
• Research on cohort differences suggests that the composition of a team may be an important
predictor of turnover. Large differences in a single team will lead to turnover, whereas if
everyone is moderately dissimilar the feelings of being an outsider are reduced.
5. Size of teams:
• Generally speaking, the most effective teams have fewer than ten people. Four to five people
may be necessary to develop the diversity of views and skills.
• Large teams have difficulty getting much done and have trouble coordinating with one
another, especially when time pressure is present.
6. Member flexibility:
• This is an obvious plus because it greatly improves its adaptability and makes it less reliant on
any single member.
7. Member preferences:
• Not every employee is a team player.
• Given the option, many employees will select themselves out of team participation.
• High performing teams are likely to be composed of people who prefer working as part of a
group.
Instructor Note: See the box “Applying the Knowledge - Shaping Team Players” on p. 207
to review managers’ options for turning individuals into team players.
C. Work Design
1. Effective teams need to work together and take collective responsibility to complete significant
tasks.
2. The work-design category includes variables like freedom and autonomy, the opportunity to
utilise different skills and talents, the ability to complete a whole and identifiable task or product,
and working on a task or project that has a substantial impact on others.
3. The evidence indicates that work-design characteristics enhance member motivation and increase
team effectiveness.

D. Process
Processes are important to team effectiveness because of their effect on social loafing and synergy
(Figure 7.7).
1. A Common Purpose:
• Effective teams have a common and meaningful purpose that provides direction, momentum,
and commitment for members.
• This purpose is a vision. It is broader than specific goals.
2. Specific goals:
• Successful teams translate their common purpose into specific, measurable, and realistic
performance goals. They energise the team.
• Specific goals facilitate clear communication and help teams maintain their focus on results.
Team goals should be challenging.
• Team goals should be challenging, to raise team performance on those criteria for which they
are set.
3. Team efficacy:
• Effective teams have confidence in themselves and believe they can succeed—this is team
efficacy. Success breeds success.
• Management can increase team efficacy by helping the team to achieve small successes and
skill training. Small successes build team confidence.
• Providing training to improve members’ technical and interpersonal skills can also assist: the
greater the abilities of team members, the greater the likelihood that the team will develop
confidence and the capability to deliver that confidence.
4. Conflict levels:
• Conflict on a team is not necessarily bad. Teams that are completely void of conflict are
likely to become apathetic and stagnant.
• Relationship conflicts—those based on interpersonal incompatibilities, tension, and animosity
toward others—are almost always dysfunctional.
• On teams performing non-routine activities, disagreements among members about task
content (called task conflicts) is not detrimental. It is often beneficial because it lessens the
likelihood of groupthink.
5. Social loafing:
• Individuals can hide inside a group. Effective teams undermine this tendency by holding
themselves accountable at both the individual and team level.
Instructor Note: Students should complete the Self-Assessment Exercise II.B.6 “How Good
Am I At Building And Leading A Team” The results from this exercise directly relate to the
chapter material.
Students should consider the following after they have completed the exercises:
• Did you score as high as you though you would? Why or why not?
• Do you think your score can be improved? If so, how? If not, why not?
• Do you think there are team players? If yes, what are their behaviours?

Applying the knowledge: Shaping Team Players (p. 207)
The following summarises the primary options managers have for trying to turn individuals into team
players.
1. Selection:
• Some people already possess the interpersonal skills to be effective team players. Care should
be taken to ensure that candidates could fulfil their team roles as well as technical
requirements.
• Many job candidates do not have team skills:
• This is especially true for those socialised around individual contributions.
• The candidates can undergo training to “make them into team players.”
• In established organisations that decide to redesign jobs around teams, it should be
expected that some employees will resist being team players and may be untrainable.
2. Training:
• A large proportion of people raised on the importance of individual accomplishment can be
trained to become team players.
• Workshops help employees improve their problem-solving, communication, negotiation,
conflict-management, and coaching skills.
• Employees also learn the five-stage group development model.
3. Rewards:
• The reward system needs to encourage cooperative efforts rather than competitive ones.
Promotions, pay raises, and other forms of recognition should be given to individuals for how
effective they are as a collaborative team member.
• This does not mean individual contribution is ignored; rather, it is balanced with selfless
contributions to the team.
• There are other intrinsic rewards to being on a team. One example is that teams provide
camaraderie:
• It is exciting and satisfying to be an integral part of a successful team.
• The opportunity to engage in personal development
Instructor Note: The Student Challenge (p. 205) describes the problem a managers faces
when the team at hand is casual, after-school, or uni students. This relates directly to the
teams’ composition (no formal training in task performance), and to the process concept.
Have the students read this challenge in groups and think of effective ways to address this
team’s performance.
SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS
• A number of group properties show a relationship to performance such as role perception,
norms, status differences, group size and cohesiveness.
• Norms control group-member behaviour by establishing standards of right and wrong. The
norms of a given group can help to explain the behaviours of its members, for norms control
group-member behaviour by establishing standards of right and wrong. The norms of a given
group can help to explain the behaviours of its members for managers. When norms support
high output, managers can expect individual performance to be markedly higher than when

group norms aim to restrict output. Similarly, norms that support antisocial behaviour
increase the likelihood that individuals will engage in deviant workplace activities.
• Status inequities create frustration and can adversely influence productivity and the
willingness to remain with an organisation. Among individuals who are equity-sensitive,
incongruence is likely to lead to reduced motivation and an increased search for ways to
bring about fairness (that is, taking another job). In addition, because lower-status people
tend to participate less in group discussions, groups characterised by high status differences
among members are likely to inhibit input from the lower-status members and to
underperform their potential.
• Large groups are more effective at fact-finding activities, while smaller groups are more
effective at action-taking tasks. Social loafing knowledge suggests that measures of
individual performance are necessary if larger groups are used.
• Cohesiveness plays an important function in influencing a group’s level of productivity.
• High congruence between boss and employee as to the perception of the employee’s job
shows a significant association with high employee satisfaction. Role conflict is associated
with job induced tension and dissatisfaction.
• Decisions made by groups provide both advantages and disadvantages. •
o Advantages: Group inputs are more comprehensive and more accurate, with more
diverse viewpoints, leading to greater creativity; groups more readily agree on
decisions because of a larger involvement.
o Disadvantages: Decisions are slow and time consuming and build pressures for
conformity; this is especially apparent when a minority dominates the group.
Accountability is also ambiguous.
• Groups can suffer two afflictions:
o groupthink—where highly cohesive groups can diverge from acceptable social
norms; and
o groupshift—where stress is created due to the diverse levels of risk individuals will
tolerate within the group as the eventual level of risk is forced to conform to one
level.
• The shift from working alone to working on teams requires employees to cooperate with
others, share information, confront differences and sublimate personal interests for the greater
good of the team.
• Effective teams have been found to have a number of common characteristics: •
o They have adequate resources, effective leadership, a climate of trust, and a
performance evaluation and reward system that reflects team contributions.
o They are made up of individuals with technical expertise, as well as problem-solving,
decision-making and interpersonal skills; and high scores on the personality
characteristics of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional
stability.
o They tend to be small—with fewer than ten people—preferably made up of
individuals with diverse backgrounds.
o They have members who fill role demands, are flexible and who prefer to be part of a
group. And the work that members do provides freedom and autonomy, the
opportunity to use different skills and talents, the ability to complete a whole and
identifiable task or product, and work that has a substantial impact on others.
o They have members who are committed to a common purpose, specific team goals,
belief in the team’s capabilities, a manageable level of conflict and a minimal degree
of social loafing.
o Because individualistic organisations and societies attract and reward individual
accomplishments, it is more difficult to create team players in these environments.
To make the conversion, management should try to select individuals with the
interpersonal skills to be effective team players, provide training to develop
teamwork skills, and reward individuals for cooperative efforts.

OB IN PRACTICE
A Team Culture at Hilton
Felicia Liew is the HR director at the Hilton Hotel in Kuching, the capital of the East Malaysian state
of Sarawak, located on the island of Borneo. As a worldwide chain, senior management have the
challenge of guaranteeing the consistent service that customers expect. The hotel has adopted the
Balance Scorecard approach to performance management. Success is based on a team culture
committed to high quality service, a fun family-oriented atmosphere where positive attitudes and a
strong work ethic are rewarded.
Felicia provides a range of training programs for new recruits and existing staff. She deals with
various functional groups and the challenge is not only to develop the necessary skills but also get the
various functional groups to work as effective teams.
Class Exercise:
Most students will have experienced working in a team before, either in their own work experience or
in project teams for their studies.
1. Have students break into small groups of between 3 and 5.
2. In each group have students explore the benefits and challenges of working in a team.
3. Using the above case, how would the students recommend that Felicia begin developing
cohesiveness in the functional teams.
4. Have each group report out to the entire class.
OB IN PRACTICE
Learning from the Experience of Team Management
Glen Simpson is the chief executive of the development division of Coffee International, an
Australian-based engineering company with a number of specialised divisions. As with many global
companies, the challenge of working with and integrating the activities of a diverse range of groups in
different locations and cultures can be daunting.
Personal success needs to be seen in the context of teams and working with others for results. Glen
points out that it is a journey of self-understanding about what motivates and discourages people, and
that it is the simple things that count. Dr Neil Miller’s experience as managing director of Canberra-
based software and services supplier TASKey, realises the need to provide teams with effective
decision support systems so that all members of the team are constantly in touch with the projects they
are working on. TASKey’s real-time task and team management software grew out of Miller’s work
for a PhD on introducing change in organisations. He maintains that project management
methodologies are top-down, designed for the project manager, not the people involved. It’s not
collaborative. TASKey web-based software takes over the detailed management tasks, ensuring that
all team members immediately receive updates on critical project information.
Teaching Note: This article can be used as a guide to a mini research project or group discussion for
students. The vignettes from both managers indicate that collaborative processes are necessary for
many team situations, whereas traditional methodologies are appropriate for leader managed
interactions. How does the student’s experience of team based projects compare? What could be
done to better facilitate student collaborative projects?
MYTH OR SCIENCE?

‘Two Heads are Better Than One’
This statement is mostly true if “better” means that two people will come up with more original and
workable answerers to a problem than one person working alone.
The evidence generally confirms the superiority of groups over individuals in terms of decision-
making quality. Groups usually produce more and better solutions to problems than do individuals
working alone. The choices groups make will be more accurate and creative. Groups bring more
complete information and knowledge to a decision, so they generate more ideas. In addition, the
give-and-take that typically takes place in group decision processes provides diversity of opinion and
increases the likelihood that weak alternatives will be identified and abandoned.
Research indicates that certain conditions favour groups over individuals. They include: 1) Diversity
among members, 2) The group members must be able to communicate their ideas freely and openly,
and 3) The task being undertaken is complex. Relative to individuals, groups do better on complex,
rather than simple tasks.
Class Exercise:
1. This will require you to supply groups with Lego® blocks.
2. Create a simple model—a building, a plane, whatever—because you need to provide Lego to each
team and individual to recreate it. Three-to-eight sets.
3. Count the number of pieces of Lego, diagram the model, noting both the location, size, and colour
of the Lego. This will be your master.
4. Select two teams of three-to-five, and at least three individuals. The rest of the class will observe
and help you.
5. Give the groups and the individuals the same instructions on the exercise. Ask them to tell you
when they have completed the task.
6. Select one student to create a time chart on the board and record when each unit—group or
individual—begins to build and their completion time.
7. Select two students to be “certifiers”; they will go to the individual or team when they are done
and certify the accuracy of their model.
8. Select one student to monitor the model, which needs to be outside of the class, in another
location.
Instructions:
1. This is a timed exercise. They have 30 minutes. The goal is to recreate the model accurately and
quickly.
2. They must visit the model in another room. They may not touch it, but they may sketch it.
3. Teams may assign responsibilities any way they desire; all members may view the model, but only
one at a time.
4. Once they are ready to replicate the model they must notify you, and they may NOT return to the
model again.
5. They must build their replicates in your classroom and cannot take the Lego with them.
Discussion:
1. When you call time, some will be done, some will not, and some will be lost.
2. Discuss what type of task this was—complex or simple.
3. Note the performance, time, and accuracy.
4. Discuss with the class why things turned out as they did. What happened in the groups?
Note to instructor: Generally, teams will be more accurate but take more time. Sometimes, you will
get an individual with a photographic memory who will beat everyone.

POINT/COUNTERPOINT – All Jobs Should Be Designed Around Groups
POINT
Groups, not individuals, are the ideal building blocks for an organisation. There are at least six reasons
for designing all jobs around groups.
• Small groups are good for people. They can satisfy social needs and they can provide support
for employees in times of stress and crisis.
• Groups are good problem-finding tools. They are better than individuals in promoting
creativity and innovation.
• In a wide variety of decision situations, groups make better decisions than individuals do.
• Groups are very effective tools for implementation. Groups gain commitment from their
members so that group decisions are likely to be willingly and more successfully.
• Groups can control and discipline individual members in ways that are often extremely
difficult through impersonal quasi-legal disciplinary systems. Group norms are powerful
control devices.
• Groups are a means by which large organisations can fend off many of the negative effects of
increased size. Groups help to prevent communication lines from growing too long, the
hierarchy from growing too steep, and the individual from getting lost in the crowd.
Given the above argument for the value of group based job design, what would an organisation look
like that was truly designed around group functions? This might best be considered by merely taking
the things that organisations do with individuals and applying them to groups. Instead of hiring
individuals, they would hire groups. Similarly, they would train groups rather than individuals, pay
groups rather than individuals, promote groups rather than individuals, fire groups rather than
individuals, and so on.
The rapid growth of team-based organisations over the past decade suggests we may well be on our
way toward the day when almost all jobs are designed around groups.
COUNTERPOINT
Designing jobs around groups is consistent with an ideology that says that communal and socialistic
approaches are the best way to organise our society. This might have worked well in the former
Soviet Union or Eastern European countries, but capitalistic countries like Australia, New Zealand, the
United States, Canada and the United Kingdom value the individual. Designing jobs around groups is
inconsistent with the economic values of these countries. Moreover, as capitalism and
entrepreneurship have spread throughout Eastern Europe, we should expect to see less emphasis on
groups and more on the individual in workplaces throughout the world. Cultural and economic values
shape employee attitudes toward groups.
Capitalism was built on the ethic of the individual. Individualistic cultures such as Australia, New
Zealand, Canada and the Unites States strongly value individual achievement. They praise
competition. Even in team sports, they want to identify individuals for recognition. People from these
countries enjoy being part of a group in which they can maintain a strong individual identity. They
don’t enjoy sublimating their identity to that of the group.
The Western industrial worker likes a clear link between his or her individual effort and a visible
outcome. The United States, for example, has a considerably larger proportion of high achievers than
exists in most of the world. America breeds achievers, and achievers seek personal responsibility.
They would be frustrated in job situations in which their contribution is commingled and homogenised
with the contributions of others.
Western workers want to be hired, evaluated, and rewarded on their individual achievements. They
believe in an authority and status hierarchy. They accept a system in which there are bosses and

subordinates. They are not likely to accept a group’s decision on such issues as their job assignments
and wage increases. It is harder yet to imagine that they would be comfortable in a system in which
the sole basis for their promotion or termination would be the performance of their group.
Based on H. J. Leavitt, “Suppose We Took Groups Seriously,” in E. L. Cass and F. G. Zimmer (eds.),
Man and Work in Society (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1975), pp. 67–77.
Class Exercise:
1. Discuss group versus individual grading with students.
2. Begin by polling them as to whether they would prefer a grade for this class (or another specific
class) based on their individual effort or on the effort of a five-student group they belonged to. The
class mix on this issue will vary.
3. Move the group-based grade students into groups; leave the individual-based grade students. Have
them create a list of three-to-five of the reasons for their preference.
4. After 10–15 minutes, have the group-based students pick a spokesperson and have them record
their lists of the board. Once they are recorded, start an “individual” list by asking the individual
students, one at a time, for a reason, going round robin until you have all of their responses.
5. Now, as a class, compare and discuss the reasons. How are the lists different? The same? Is there a
theme or themes emerging (groups—safety in numbers, it is a hard class; individual—I want
control of my grade, etc.).
6. Ask students if they think the reasons that seem to be emerging would:
• Be acceptable to other students in other classes in your school
• Be acceptable to other students when it came time to interview for jobs
• A way to get ahead in their careers (group effort rather than individual effort being rewarded)
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
1. Compare and contrast command, task, interest, and friendship groups.
Answer – A group is defined as two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have
come together to achieve particular objectives. Groups can be either formal or informal. It is
possible to sub-classify groups as command, task, interest, or friendship groups.
• A command group is determined by the organisation chart. It is composed of direct reports to a
given manager.
• Task groups—organisationally determined, represent those working together to complete a job
task. A task group’s boundaries are not limited to its immediate hierarchical superior. It can cross
command relationships. All command groups are also task groups, but the reverse need not be true.
• An interest group is people who affiliate to attain a specific objective with which each is
concerned. Employees who band together to have their holiday schedules altered.
• Friendship groups often develop because the individual members have one or more common
characteristics. Social alliances, which frequently extend outside the work situation, can be based on
similar age or ethnic heritage.
2. What might motivate you to join a group?
Answer – Informal groups satisfy their members’ social needs.
3. Describe the five-stage group-development model.
Answer – Figure 7.1 shows the five-stage group-development model:
• The first stage is forming. Characterised by a great deal of uncertainty about the group’s
purpose, structure, and leadership. Members are trying to determine what types of behaviour are
acceptable. This stage is complete when members have begun to think of themselves as part of a
group.
• The second stage is storming. Characterised by intragroup conflict. Members accept the
existence of the group, but there is resistance to constraints on individuality. There is conflict over

who will control the group and when complete, there will be a relatively clear hierarchy of leadership
within the group.
• The third stage is norming. Characterised by close relationships developing and the group
demonstrates cohesiveness. There is now a strong sense of group identity and camaraderie. The
stage is complete when the group structure solidifies and the group has assimilated a common set of
expectations of what defines correct member behaviour.
• The fourth stage is performing. The structure at this point is fully functional and accepted.
Group energy has moved from getting to know and understand each other to performing.
• The fifth stage is Adjourning. Relevant for temporary committees, teams, task forces, and
similar groups that have a limited task to perform. In this stage, the group prepares for its
disbandment. Attention is directed toward wrapping up activities. Responses of group members
vary in this stage. Some are upbeat, basking in the group’s accomplishments. Others may be
depressed over the loss of camaraderie and friendships.
4. How is an individual’s status in a group determined?
Answer – Status is a socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others.
Status derived from one of three sources: the power a person wields over others; a person’s ability
to contribute to group’s goals; individual’s personal characteristics.
• People who control the outcomes of a group through their power tend to be perceived as high
in status (e.g., a group’s formal leader or manager).
• People whose contributions are critical to the group’s success also tend to have high status
(e.g., outstanding performers on sports teams).
• Someone who has personal characteristics that are positively valued by the group (such as
good looks, intelligence, money or a friendly personality) will typically have higher status
than someone who has fewer valued attributes.
5. When do groups make better decisions than individuals?
• Answer – The answer is, “it depends.” Groups are more effective in terms of accuracy and
often make better quality decisions than the individual. Groups generate more complete
information and knowledge, offer increased diversity of views, and lead to increased
acceptance of a solution.
However, in terms of speed and efficiency, individuals are more effective.
6. Contrast the pros and cons of having diverse teams?
Answer – Heterogeneous teams comprise members more likely to have diverse abilities and
information and are generally more effective on cognitive and creativity-demanding tasks. The team
may be more conflict laden and less expedient but more effective than homogeneous teams.
Homogeneous white male teams performed the worst relative to mixed race and gender teams or only
females.
7. List and describe the process variables associated with effective team performance.
Answer - These include member commitment to a common purpose, establishment of specific team
goals, team efficacy, a managed level of conflict, and minimising social loafing.
• A common purpose - Effective teams have a common and meaningful purpose that provides
direction, momentum, and commitment for members. This purpose is a vision. It is broader than
specific goals.
• Specific goals - Successful teams translate their common purpose into specific, measurable, and
realistic performance goals. Specific goals facilitate clear communication and help teams maintain
their focus on results. Team goals should be challenging.
• Team efficacy - Effective teams have confidence in themselves and believe they can succeed—
this is team efficacy. Success breeds success. Management can increase team efficacy by helping the
team to achieve small successes and skill training. Small successes build team confidence. The

greater the abilities of team members, the greater the likelihood that the team will develop confidence
and the capability to deliver on that confidence.
• Conflict levels - Conflict on a team is not necessarily bad. Teams that are completely void of
conflict are likely to become apathetic and stagnant. Relationship conflicts—those based on
interpersonal incompatibilities, tension, and animosity toward others—are almost always
dysfunctional. On teams performing non-routine activities, disagreements among members about task
content (called task conflicts) is not detrimental. It is often beneficial because it lessens the likelihood
of groupthink. Effective teams will be characterised by an appropriate level of conflict.
• Social loafing - Individuals can hide inside a group. Effective teams undermine this tendency by
holding themselves accountable at both the individual and team level.
8. What is groupthink? What is its effect on decision-making quality?
Answer – Groupthink describes situations in which group pressures for conformity deter the group
from critically appraising unusual, minority, or unpopular views. The phenomenon that occurs when
group members become so enamoured of seeking concurrence that the norm for consensus overrides
the realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action and the full expression of deviant, minority, or
unpopular views. It is deterioration in an individual’s mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral
judgment as a result of group pressures. Group members rationalise any resistance to the
assumptions they have made. Members apply direct pressures on those who momentarily express
doubts. Those members who hold differing points of view seek to avoid deviating from group
consensus by keeping silent. There appears to be an illusion of unanimity.
In studies of historic American foreign policy decisions, these symptoms were found to prevail when
government policy-making groups failed. Groupthink appears to be closely aligned with the
conclusions Asch drew from his experiments. Groupthink does not attack all groups. It occurs most
often where there is a clear group identity, where members hold a positive image of their group
which they want to protect, and where the group perceives a collective threat to this positive image.
9. How effective are electronic meetings?
Answer – The early evidence indicates that electronic meetings don’t achieve most of their proposed
benefits. Numerous studies have found that electronic meetings actually lead to a decreased group
effectiveness, required more time to complete tasks, and resulted in reduced member satisfaction
when compared to face-to-face groups.
QUESTIONS FOR CRITICAL THINKING
1. Identify five roles you play. What behaviours do they require? Are any of these roles in conflict?
If so, in what way? How do you resolve these conflicts?
Answer – Students’ answers will vary. Some suggested roles: student, sibling, child, adult, group
leader, member of a social group, etc. Behaviours and conflicts will vary with role.
2. “High cohesiveness in a group leads to higher group productivity.” Do you agree or disagree?
Explain.
Answer – Groups differ in their cohesiveness—the degree to which members are attracted to each
other and are motivated to stay in the group. Cohesiveness is important because it has been found to
be related to the group’s productivity. The relationship of cohesiveness and productivity depends on
the performance-related norms established by the group. If performance-related norms are high, a
cohesive group will be more productive, but if cohesiveness is high and performance norms are low,
productivity will be low. Students’ responses will vary based on their perception and integration of
the above facts.
4. What effect, if any, do you expect that workforce diversity has on performance and satisfaction?

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content

woman is a perilous shelter, and does oftentimes blight the
happiness of those whom it was most innocently designed to cheer
and to defend.
It had been arranged that Cuthbert should depart before eight
in the morning. By that hour his horse was already saddled in the
stable, and the boy Arthur was in the stable-yard watching minutely
all the preparations for the journey. The strapping on of the vallise,
and of the holsters especially moved him on the present occasion,
although he had seen the very same thing done a hundred times for
others without curiosity or disquiet. What from the liveliness of his
fancy, and the affectionateness of his disposition, the images of
lonely ways and evil robbers made him fetch his breath quicker than
usual. The good tempered groom, perceiving this by the youth’s
questions, began to allay his fears by saying, that “nobody would
ever let or hinder a poor scholar like Master Cuthbert, and, besides
that, God took care of all good persons; so there was no ill chance
for such an one, but that he would go and come as safe as the
King’s own majesty;” which was the simple groom’s notion of the
most perfect security on earth.
Meanwhile Cuthbert himself was taking a last melancholy gaze
at the gallery, the hall, the summer and winter parlour, and the
various objects of interest which they contained. The pictures, the
books, the organ, the virginals, the lute, were all most intimately
associated in his mind with her, whom to have seen and known was
of itself a blessing.
In vain the grey-haired butler, Philip, pressed him to partake of
breakfast, and cautioned him against a weary way and an empty
stomach. He pecked like a sick bird at the substantial venison pasty,
and sipped at the warm tankard with a word the while now to the
old domestic, and now to young Arthur, who had come in, and sat
opposite him, in that vacant and natural sorrow which belongs to the
broken moments of such a parting.
At last Cuthbert descended the hall steps, which were full of the
warm-hearted servants; and, pressing the hand of his affectionate
pupil, mounted his horse and rode away.

The day was cold and wet: nothing could be more gloomy or
comfortless than his long and lonely ride. He met only one train of
pack-horses, and a few single travellers on horseback, throughout
the day. He baited his animal at a wayside alehouse, where he found
nobody but a cross old woman and a deaf hostler; and it was not till
the dusk of evening that he reached the town of Aylesbury, where
he proposed sleeping.
Within five miles of this place he was overtaken by a gentleman
on horseback, who fell into conversation with him; and who, being
like himself on a journey to town, offered to join company with him
that night at the inn.
Although it would have been far more agreeable to Cuthbert to
have proceeded alone, yet the appearance of the stranger was so
prepossessing, and his manners were so frank and courteous, that it
was not possible to shake off his company without rudeness.
Moreover, his speech had already shown him to be a man of gentle
breeding, and that Cambridge had once reckoned him among her
students,—so they rode forward together.
At the entrance of the town, hard by one of the first houses in
the street, sat a cobbler working and singing in his hutch. The
companion of Cuthbert here pulled his bridle; and, turning his
beast’s nose almost into it, called out, in a loud jolly tone, “Ho,
Crispin! canst tell me the way to the church?”
“No,” said the cobbler, throwing up an indifferent glance, and
then stooping again over his last.
“Art deaf, or hast lost thy wits, old surly?” said the traveller:
“you know what a church is, don’t you?”
“I know what it is not,” replied the old cobbler bluntly, without
looking off his work.
“What is it not, sirrah?”
“It is not a great stone building standing alone in the middle of
a town,” said the cobbler raising his head, and looking his
interrogator full in the face.

“Thou hast more wit than good humour, knave,” said our
Cavalier.
“And thou words than good breeding,” retorted the sturdy
artisan.
“I see the stocks of this place are little used, or you should try
how they fitted. You have not much fear, methinks, of the wooden
collar. Didst ever see a pillory?”
“I have, and a godly man in it; and I shall not soon forget the
sight. Are you answered, my court bird?”
“You are a prick-eared knave; and, if I were not tired and
hungry, you should smart for your saucy answers.”
By this time a neighbour or two stood forth from the adjoining
houses; and the horseman, turning to the nearest, said, “Prithee,
friend, canst thou tell me the way to the Boar’s Head, which is next
to the church, as I think?”
“It is so, true enough,” answered the man, “and well placed, to
my thought; for thou wilt be sure to find the parson on the bench of
it, or it may be in the skittle yard wrangling with cheating Bob, and
staggering at his own cast:—ride straight on—you can’t miss it.”
“A pretty nest of godly rogues I have got into,” said the
traveller: “there will be an iron gag for your foul mouths soon.” With
this he struck spurs into his steed: the beast broke into a smart
canter,—that of Cuthbert started in like manner; and they were
instantly carried beyond the jeers and the loud laughter of the
humorous old cobbler and his neighbours. Of this little scene
Cuthbert had been the silent spectator; indeed the dialogue was so
short, and so rapidly spoken, that there was no room for any
question or remark of his;—and his companion having observed a
silver crest upon the holsters of Cuthbert, did not doubt that he was
a church and king man,—especially as there had not dropped from
him a single expression which savoured of the Puritan.
Mine host of the Boar’s Head, a big and portly personage with
bloated cheeks, received our weary guests with a cheerful welcome;
and led the way to a large travellers’ parlour, where, in an ample

fire-place, huge logs were blazing on the hearth. The seats on either
side were already occupied by guests, before whom, on small three-
legged tables, their repasts were smoking.
At one of these sat two persons, whose appearance was that of
military men:—the younger of the two was very handsome, and of a
commanding figure. No sooner did the gentleman in Cuthbert’s
company approach the fire than this martial youth rose, and
addressing him by the name of Fleming, shook him cordially by the
hand. The ear of Cuthbert did not catch the name by which,
promptly responding to the recognition, Fleming replied, nor did he
learn it throughout the evening. However, another small table was
immediately drawn near, and covered. Eggs, sausages, and broiled
bones were served up hastily; and, after Cuthbert and his
companion had satisfied the keen appetites which they had gotten
by a long journey in cold rain and on miry roads, a large jug of burnt
claret was placed before them; and the following conversation
between the two acquaintances was listened to by Cuthbert in silent
astonishment:—
“Well, Frank, you have not forgotten old times, I hope. I trust
that we shall teach the volunteer gentry how to handle a sword after
the fashion of the old Swedish troopers before long:—they made
sorry work of it in the north last year; and for my part I was half
ashamed to ride among such a rabble!”
“What made you go at all then?” said the youthful soldier.
“Why, to say truth, Frank, I found my life in the country very
dull, and my old father’s hunting companions as heavy as lead; and I
heartily wished myself back in Germany, where I might hear a
trumpet once more:—so when I heard that the King was going
against the Scots away I posted to court, and waited upon his
Majesty, and got a commission.”
“I hope, Fleming, you made yourself master of the quarrel
before you offered your services.”
“Look you, Frank, I remember you was always as grave as a
judge about war, and examined sides, and would know the rights of
all that was done. That was never my way. I left Cambridge at

nineteen, and went to the camp of Gustavus, as eager and as blind
as a young colt; and so again now:—wherever the King’s standard
flies all must be right; besides, I hate these pricked-eared Puritans,
and yon Scotch psalm singers that wo’n’t use the Prayer Book.”
“It seems, however, that they can use the broad sword, and
with good effect, if accounts speak true.”
“There you have me,” rejoined the cheerful and light-hearted
campaigner,—“there you have me. I never felt shame as a soldier till
this Scotch campaign. Our tall fellows always turned their backs first,
and retreated true runaway fashion:—you could never make them
fire their pistols, and wheel off orderly; and it was well for them that
they had raw Scots troopers at their tails instead of Pappenheim’s
cuirassiers.”
“It is clear enough that you must have run too,” said the young
soldier, laughing, “or you would not be here to tell the story.”
“To be sure I did,—but not without leaving the mark of my
sword in the cheek of a stout Scotsman that pressed me a little too
close and unmannerly. However, live and learn is a wise saying.
When the King fairly raises a proper army, instead of a set of
footmen and servants, commanded by courtiers and parsons, there
will be warmer sport than we had in the north.”
“It will be sorry and grave sport, methinks, comrade, when
Englishmen stand up against Englishmen, and little pleasure to see
an old fellow-soldier in the ranks opposite.”
“Odd’s life, I shall never see you enact rebel.”
“Rebel is a rough word:—suppose we change the subject.”
The conversation was now continued on various indifferent
matters till the hour for rest. Cuthbert himself made but few
observations, and was strangely exercised in his mind by
contemplating the characters before him. In addition to those
already named, there was one other traveller at a table by himself,
who had partaken of no better fare than a bowl of oatmeal porridge,
and who sat intent over a small closely printed book, without once
opening his lips, and seldom even raising his eyes. The companion

of Cuthbert often looked contemptuously askance at him, and
indulged in many a fling against the Puritans; but the silent stranger
either did not or would not hear these rude jests, and, as they met
with no encouragement from any one present, they fell flat and
powerless. At length the time of going to bed came; and the host
appeared to conduct his guests to their chambers. Our host, having
a quick eye to the quality of the parties, placed the Cavalier captain
in his best chamber; the two military-looking men in the next; and
the pale stranger in a small cold garret with Cuthbert.
As soon as the door was closed behind them, and the foot of
the landlord was heard descending the stairs, the stranger
approached Cuthbert and invited him to join in prayer.
“To me,” said the stranger, with a face of the most earnest
gravity, “to me is committed that rare and precious gift, the
discerning of spirits: I see thou art a God-fearing youth:—as soon as
thou didst enter the parlour I smelled the perfume of the angelic
nature; even as also the sulphur and the brimstone of Tophet in the
three sons of Belial, who are gone to lie down under the power of
Beelzebub, and to sleep with evil spirits for company.”
“Friend,” said Cuthbert, “I do not understand you: it is not my
custom to join in prayer with an unknown stranger; there is thy bed,
and here is mine:—let us lie down upon them in peace, and
commune with our own hearts and be still.”
“Verily,” rejoined the stranger, “thou art afraid:—it is no wonder:
—thou art but a mere babe of grace, and thine eyes do see but
dimly the glories of my high calling;—but I tell thee thou art a
chosen vessel of the Lord,—and even now I feel my bowels moved
towards thee, and the spirit of prayer is upon me, and I must
wrestle with the powers of darkness to deliver thy poor soul from
the snare of the fowler. This is my command,—and even now I am
appointed unto thee for an angel of defence, and the fight is begun.”
The stranger now threw himself upon his knees, and poured
forth a long, rambling and blasphemous petition,—the words of
which made Cuthbert shudder.

However, as he had been already told that there was no other
chamber or bed vacant, and as he was greatly fatigued, he lay down
to sleep, silently commending himself to the care of God, and
endeavouring to substitute a feeling of pity for the deep disgust with
which this crazy chamber-fellow inspired him.
The last sounds of which he was conscious before his heavy
eyes became sealed in forgetfulness were groanings from the
adjoining bed—nor did he awake in the morning till it was broad
daylight. He looked around—the chamber was empty;—at this he felt
thankful: and, supposing that his last odd companion had travelled
forward at an earlier hour, he arose, and proceeded to dress himself;
but he instantly discovered that his purse was gone. He went forth
on the stairs, and called loudly for the landlord. It was some time
before he made his appearance; and when he did so, he listened to
the tale with hard indifference, and coarse incredulity.
“Ah! that’s an old story, my devil’s scholar, but it wo’n’t go down
with me:—you shan’t budge from the Boar’s Head till you pay your
shot, I can tell you; and your nag shall go to the market cross before
I let you ride off without paying for provender.”
Cuthbert’s fury was roused to the uttermost; but his hot words
were only laughed at by the rosy Boniface, who soon left him. He
slipped on his clothes with all haste, and came down into the guest
parlour, where the Cavalier and the two military men were already
seated at breakfast by a cheerful fire. He stated his case before
them all with the warm earnestness of truth. The Cavalier picked his
teeth and whistled; but the younger of the other two seemed very
much to sympathise in the embarrassment of Cuthbert, which in fact
was more serious than he himself apprehended; for mine host came
presently into the parlour to say, that his horse and his vallise were
taken away by his chamber-fellow before dawn.
“It was all a made up thing,” said the landlord in a storm of
passion. “I saw they were a couple of hypocritical rogues, and
packed ’em together for safety’s sake—’twould only be thief rob
thief, I knew:—but it’s my belief they take the horse turn by turn,
and steal in company; for yon old one has left half a bottle of strong

waters and the leg of a cold goose at his bed-foot:—come, young
knave,” he added, attempting to take Francis by the collar, “come
with me afore the justice. He’ll find thee a lodging in our cage.”
With a force to which indignation gave strength, Cuthbert threw
back the fat bully against the wall, and turning to the Cavalier, who
had rode with him part of his yesterday’s journey,—
“You may remember, sir,” he said, “that when you joined me, I
told you that I came from the neighbourhood of Warwick, and was
on my journey to London. I told you, moreover, that I was a member
of the University of Cambridge:—the silver crest on my holsters was
the crest of Sir Oliver Heywood of Milverton, in whose house I have
resided for this year past, as tutor to his nephew’s son. The animal,
in fact, is Sir Oliver’s property, and was kindly lent me for the
journey:—if you will answer for me to this landlord, and give me a
crown piece to travel on with, I will faithfully repay you when I reach
town. My name, sir, is Cuthbert Noble, son of Mr. Noble, rector of
Cheddar, in Somerset.”
“A pack of stuff, good master,” said the angry landlord to the
Cavalier,—“don’t you be made a fool of; don’t be bamboozled by a
smooth trumped up cock and a bull story like this: if the horse is Sir
Oliver Heywood’s, they have stolen it, and change riders on the road
to Smithfield, where they will turn it into a purse of nobles before
night. Marry, I’ll go for constables, and, as you are honest gentlemen
and true, hold the knave fast in your keeping till I come back again.”
Before, however, he could leave the room, as much to his
astonishment and shame as to the surprise and relief of Cuthbert,
the younger of the two travellers, whom his companion the Cavalier
had last night claimed acquaintance with, came forward in a very
open and cordial manner, and assured Cuthbert of his readiness to
assist him.
“I am connected,” said the noble looking youth, “with the family
at Milverton, nor is the name of Master Cuthbert Noble unknown to
me. My purse is at your service; and I shall be glad of your company
on the road. Though I have no horse to offer you, post-horses can
be easily procured at every stage.”

Thus was Cuthbert at once released from a perplexity, and
introduced to the friendship of Francis Heywood.

CHAP. XVI.
The great vicissitude of things amongst men is the
vicissitude of sects and religions; for those orbs rule in men’s
minds most.
Bacon.
On the third of November, 1640, the fatal Long Parliament began.
On the 12th, the Earl of Strafford was impeached of treason, and
committed to the Black Rod. The Lords denied him bail and council;
and he was, in a few days more, commanded into close
imprisonment in the Tower. One hundred thousand pounds were
now voted to the Scots, and borrowed of the city of London. Ship
money was soon questioned by the Parliament, and voted an illegal
tax; and, in fine, all grievances and abuses were loudly proclaimed,
and resolutely brought forward, by intrepid and patriotic men; of
whom the best and noblest did certainly never contemplate, at that
time, the sad and humiliating close of the labours and the authority
of that memorable and august assembly. August, of a truth, that
assembly may be called, in which a Hampden and a Falkland stood,
at after moments, opposed in debate; and in which, in the following
year, the grand remonstrance of the Commons was the subject of
grave deliberation for thirty hours, and was only carried, at last, by a
majority of nine voices.
But to return to our story. It may be supposed that Cuthbert
Noble was no indifferent or unmoved spectator of the great public
events which every day brought forth in the winter of 1640. With his
serious and peculiar notions, the questions that affected liberty of
conscience and church reform were those which most deeply
interested him; and when, upon the morning of the 23d of
November, Prynne and Burton entered triumphantly into
Westminster, followed by many thousands of the people, Cuthbert

was foremost in the crowd; and not a zealot among them was more
wildly excited than himself.
Laughter and tears succeeded to each other, as those around
expressed their rude sympathy;—now in remarks quaint and comical
—now in pious commiseration, or in the stern tones of indignant and
just anger.
“Which is old Prynne?” said one.—“That’s he,” said his
neighbour, “with his black head clipped close, looking, for all the
world, like a skull-cap.”—“See how the old boy grins.”—“He’s no
beauty.”—“Hurrah! hurrah!”—“Can you hear, old boy?”—“I wonder if
a man can hear without his ears.”—“To be sure a’ can, all the
better.”—“Well, he can’t have the ear-ache no more.”—“Don’t talk so
unfeeling.”—“Look, poor dear good man, he is as white as a
sheet.”—“That is prison and hunger.”—“This is your bishops’ work—
od rot ’em—their turn shall come.”
With such vulgarities were mixed the solemn tones and pious
expressions of many a sincere Christian, giving utterance to praise
and thanksgiving for the deliverance of these persecuted men;
while, here and there, a strong voice would be heard, above the
crowd, denouncing the tyranny of the church and the crown in
coarse language, in which the Establishment was likened to the
whore of Babylon,—and the Archbishop of Canterbury was pointed
out to the vengeance of the rabble.
Such language would, in a moment of calm reflection, have
been utterly revolting to the feelings of Cuthbert. He would have
shut his ears to the base and bloody cry, and hurried away from the
wretches who gave it utterance, as from the company of sinners,
whose feet were already planted in the paths of wickedness, and
were swift to shed blood. But now, though such fierce cries gave a
jar to his better dispositions and nobler nature, they were regarded
as the natural ebullitions of an irritated mob; and he stood among
them as a partaker of their guilt by the sanction of his presence.
Nothing is so blind—nothing is so deaf—nothing can stoop so
low—as party spirit;—and at no period of English history was this
more fully exemplified than at that of which we are now speaking.

The Cavaliers, on their side, were not without the support of a
rabble of their own; and by these, the slang of the tavern, the bear
garden, and the brothel, was exhausted to furnish epithets of scorn,
contempt, and ridicule, by which they might insult their fanatical
opponents.
To the mental eye of Cuthbert the two victims of a severe and
intolerant hierarchy stood out in large and disproportionate grandeur,
—filling all the foreground of the picture upon which he now gazed
to the exclusion of all other objects.
He saw them bearing the evident marks of torture and
degradation on their mutilated forms. They had been thus treated,
according to his notion, for a mere error in judgment—they were
sufferers for conscience-sake:—his heart grew hot within him,—and
he would have called down fire from heaven on the heads of their
oppressors.
He accompanied the crowd all through Westminster; and, in the
eagerness of his excited mood, pressed in once close to the horse of
Prynne, that he might utter a “God save you, master!” to the stern
Puritan, face to face.
There was a keen twinkle of triumph in the little eyes of the
sour precisian, which showed that he felt his day of revenge would
soon come, and that it would be his turn to play inquisitor towards
his late haughty oppressor.
However, he would have been more than human had he been
superior to such an infirmity, after sustaining injuries so great.
It happened on the day of this public entry of Prynne and
Burton that Cuthbert was alone in the quarter of Westminster; and
having remained a long time gazing on the show, he went into a
tavern in a narrow street behind the Abbey to refresh.
After satisfying his hunger over a fine joint of roast beef in
company with a grave looking lawyer, who sat opposite him at the
same table, with a roll of parchments and papers by his side, the
man of law proposed a cup of canary to the health of Masters
Prynne and Burton, in which he was readily seconded by Cuthbert.

“Ah,” said the stranger bitterly, “this is a different kind of
procession to the fool’s mummery which they made us play seven
years ago, before the wanton queen and her dancing French
gentlemen.”
“What! you mean the mask of the inns of court, on Candlemas-
day, seven years ago?” asked Cuthbert.
“Just so: that was got up to tickle the court party, and trample
down Prynne and his book; but tables are turning.”
“Well, though I think they were very tyrannical about Prynne, I
did not like his book; and never saw any harm in a mask or an
interlude.”
“Why, to judge by your looks, you could only have been a boy
when that mask was given, and perhaps you did not see it.”
“That is true; but I read the account of it that was printed, and
surely it was a brave and glorious show; and, methinks, there were
some witty hints given his Majesty in the anti-masks, which he might
be the wiser for.”
“The man Charles Stuart,” said the stranger, “will never be the
better for hints.”
It was the first time that Cuthbert had ever heard from any lips
so irreverent a mention of the King, and he coloured and was silent.
“I say he will never be the better for hints,—though it is true
that some of them were broad enough, and too humorous for
offence; but you have forgotten that there was one anti-mask got up
by the serviles to insult the poor. If it may not have a sneer of
ridicule for poverty and misfortune, the pleasure of the proud
wanteth its best relish.”
“I do not understand you,” said Cuthbert; “of what speak you,
master?”
“Of that which has been played in joke, and shall come to pass
in earnest. Little they thought, with their gibes and their mockery,
that they were but foreshowing events, which the turn of the wheel
is even now bringing to pass. I do remember all their gilded chariots
and rich apparel, and gay liveries; and in the midst of that costly

show, there rode an anti-mask of cripples and beggars, clothed in
rags, and mounted on sorry lean jades, gotten out of dust carts,
with dirty urchins snapping tongs and shovels before them for music,
—and thus was the noble music, and thus were the gallant horses,
and the velvets and silks and spangled habits, made more pleasing
to the painted court Jezebels by the pitiful contrast. Shall not the
Lord visit for these things?” he added, raising his voice, and
changing the tone of it to a solemn sternness: “Yea, verily, he shall
visit:—in his hand there is a cup,—and the dregs thereof shall be
drunk out by the oppressors,—and the sword shall go through the
land, and it shall be drunk with blood.”
The severe inference thus forced by the speaker from a trifling
circumstance, of which the joyous projectors of the interlude
thought perhaps very differently, and which might have been so
turned by a playful mind, as a caricature against the foreign
musicians, then so much about court; or, again, by a thoughtful
mind, as a memento of those dark realities of human misery which
invite and demand compassion. This inference was at once received
by Cuthbert as just. It touched a chord in his heart that immediately
responded, and he was played upon as a lute by his companion; till,
at last, the latter opening a roll of parchment requested him to put
down his name as a subscriber to the necessities of a few godly and
persecuted men now suffering imprisonment for the great cause of
liberty of conscience, and whose families were quite destitute.
From his slender purse Cuthbert instantly took the few crowns it
contained, and only reserving sufficient money to pay for his dinner,
shook his new acquaintance heartily by the hand, and set forth on
his way to the city, where he lodged, with a heart glowing with the
love of God, of his country, and of mankind. His evil angel had only
to appear clothed like an angel of light, and Cuthbert would follow,
nothing doubting, whithersoever he was led. The false fire, which
glimmered over the dangerous quagmire of gloomy fanaticism, was
mistaken by Cuthbert for light from Heaven; and by the frequent
perusal of controversies on religion, and a constant attendance on
the private ministries of those fierce zealots, who were urging

forward the overthrow of the Established Church, he became at
length totally bewildered. It was in vain that Francis Heywood
exposed to him the hypocrisy and inconsistency of some of those
wolves in sheep’s clothing by whom he was now continually
surrounded, to the neglect of Heywood’s own society and that of the
higher and better order of the Parliamentarian supporters. He
listened with pity to remonstrances which he considered as
proceeding from a man of the world, and a deceived soul wandering
in darkness; nevertheless his affectionate disposition survived the
strength of his reason. He looked up to and loved Francis Heywood
as a model of what the natural man might attain to; and as in their
political views they were altogether agreed, they very often met.
The ardent Francis might indeed have well doubted of the
soundness of a political creed which numbered among its supporters
such diversified and crazy characters as those whom he saw daily
embrace it: but although he was not able to endure their
sanctimonious professions, and morose manners, he viewed them as
instruments necessary to the present warfare of principles; and,
having returned from America on purpose to stand up for the
popular rights, he remained steadfastly at his post, watching with
intense interest the proceedings of parliament, and eager for the
moment when those services, which he came to offer, might be
required in the field.
In one particular the lives of Francis Heywood and of Cuthbert
Noble during the two following years corresponded well. Never were
those hard duties which self-denial enjoins, practised with a more
resolute and cheerful virtue. The means of both were slender; and
they supported themselves by the exercise of their respective talents
with credit and success.
Cuthbert attended daily in the families of two or three
merchants of the Puritan party as classical tutor to their boys; while
Francis Heywood, reserving with great care the sum necessary to
purchase a good charger, and military equipments, whenever he
might need them, maintained his current expenses by the drawing of
maps, plans, and views illustrative of the late campaigns of Gustavus

Adolphus, and of the actual warfare in Germany which was then
carrying on. These drawings found a sufficient sale, among the
curious in such matters, to remunerate the light labour of producing
them; and though the printseller, who purchased them from Francis,
told him that gentlemen, very capable of advancing his interests,
had made inquiries after him, yet he was forbidden by Francis to
disclose his residence, or to answer any questions about him. His
leisure from this easy occupation was employed in useful studies or
in manly exercises. He daily frequented a school of arms, not for
instruction, indeed, for he was a master of all weapons, but for
health and diversion; and for the same end he went often to the
grand manège in the quarter of the court; where he was so great a
favourite with the chevalier, who taught the graces of horsemanship,
that he was asked as a kindness to exercise the most spirited and
beautiful animals of his stud in the open country:—an offer which,
from the delight he took in the amusement of schooling a young and
high bred horse, he very often accepted.
Francis Heywood was not unknown to many families with whom
his father had been intimate; and by some of them, notwithstanding
his fortunes and his politics, and by others on account of them, he
was invited to several houses, where he might have enjoyed all the
pleasures and the refinements of social life; but he very rarely
accepted their invitations, not merely from mistaken pride, but from
a disrelish of scenes which would always so strongly and painfully
suggest to him the happy intercourse he had once enjoyed in that
domestic circle, of which his adored Katharine was at once the
charm and the idol.
Upon this sweet memory, in lonely hours of leisure, his mind
would feed, and he would discourse of it, not indeed in words, but in
the soft breathings of his lute; till, suddenly, by the strong effort of a
manly will, he would tear himself from the dangerous indulgence,
and sit closely down to his writing desk, that he might complete the
minute journal of public events which he kept for his father, and
despatched, as opportunities offered, to New England.

To the review of these grave subjects he brought a generous
spirit; and it was not without an occasional pang that he related the
progress and triumph of the cause to which he was sincerely
attached.
He could not but exult to see the principles of government
openly examined, and the just rights and liberties of the people
clearly defined.
He looked with veneration upon the labours of the Commons;
and he watched with jealousy the advisers of the crown, and the
sycophants about the court. He saw many abuses rectified, many
grievances redressed. He saw the iniquitous Star Chamber and the
High Commission Court abolished,—and a noble security against a
return of misgovernment and tyranny in the famous bill for a
triennial parliament.
This last measure, the main pillar of the new constitution, was
received by the whole nation with rejoicings; and when it passed
solemn thanks were presented to his Majesty by both houses of
parliament. But the sincerity of the court party and the moderation
of the reformers were alike suspicious. The passions, the prejudices,
and the interests of conflicting parties had been too rudely aroused
by discussion to subside without an explosive collision; and it was
evident to Francis that the struggle between the prerogatives of the
crown and the privileges of parliament would never terminate
without an appeal to arms.
He shuddered to see the scaffold stained with the blood of
Strafford; and though he was among those who clamoured against
the minister, he profoundly commiserated the man, as the
abandoned victim of his party,—and in his heart he despised Charles
for signing the death-warrant of his favourite.

CHAP. XVII.
There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,
In service high and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness through mine ear
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all heaven before mine eyes.
Milton.
The affliction of the good parson of Cheddar at the strange and
painful conduct of his son Cuthbert was heavy to bear. However,
from a sense of duty to his weaker partner, he made great efforts to
preserve his wonted serenity and composure in her presence; but
when alone he was bowed down in the dust.
Nothing could possibly present a greater contrast to the tone of
religious profession which was, at this period, obtaining a wide
reception among men than that in which old Noble lay prostrate in
his closet before his God.
He had ever been a meek and cheerful Christian; but there were
depths of humiliation which he had not as yet fathomed; and he
would have fainted at the waves of trouble, which his prescient eye
saw rolling onward, if he had not felt the hand, which led him down
into the deep, was that of a heavenly Father, if he had not heard a
voice that whispered in his ear, “It is I, be not afraid.”
In vain did he exhaust his heart in sound, pious, and
affectionate remonstrances, meditated and penned in the spirit of
prayer, that he might recall his dear and wandering child to the
bosom of the church, or, at all events, so far recover him from gross
delusions as to see him join that upright and devout portion of the
community, which, though differing from the discipline of the church,
maintained a pure and practical doctrine.

In vain did he press the return of Cuthbert to Cheddar, by every
argument which parental love could suggest.
The letters of Noble and his wife were replied to in the words of
love; but the fruit of his new persuasion was an obstinate self-will;
and while he implored them, at great length, to consider his views,
and urged the danger of despising them, he evinced to others, what
was not perhaps suspected by himself, a degree of spiritual pride
only to be exceeded by the strength of his delusion.
He had adopted the notions of those fanatics who were styled
Fifth-monarchy Men, and who ranged themselves where, indeed,
any sect, however extravagant, might have found a place, under the
banner of the Independents.
It was some consolation to these troubled parents to hear from
the Philips’s, their relations, and also from other friends, that the life
and the conduct of Cuthbert were, as regarded all moral and social
duties, a credit to any theory, and such as became the pure precepts
of the Gospel.
His intellect was clear upon every other subject, except on that
which, if it be rashly touched, seems to be guarded by invisible
angels, who put forth their hands and smite the daring intruder with
madness. “Oppression,” saith the preacher, “will make a wise man
mad;“—a truth abundantly proved by the events, which, leading first
to a secret and salutary reform, ended at last in a bloody revolution
and an iron rule.
It may be added, that he who seeketh to meddle with the
hidden mysteries of unfulfilled prophecy is often smitten with
blindness and confusion for his presumption. Thus it was with
Cuthbert:—sensible, amiable, and affectionate in all the relations of
life, he was now the subject of a monomania, and turned a deaf ear
to the voice of truth and wisdom, though it spoke with all the
authority and all the earnestness of a father.
These were not times in which a minister could leave his parish
for a distant journey, nor, indeed, was it at all likely that the
presence of his parents would have effected that change in the

sentiments or the course of Cuthbert, which their admirable and
Christian letters had failed to produce.
Time wore on gloomily enough, even in the peaceful parsonage
at Cheddar. Many a time as old Noble paced his garden amid
sunbeams and flowers, praising that “mercy which endureth for
ever,” his thanksgivings ended in tears and lamentations, not for his
domestic troubles, but for the great evils which he feared and
expected would befall the church and the nation.
Laud was already paying the penalty of his mistaken, but
certainly conscientious, severity, in a prison, from whence it might
be plainly foretold he would at length be conducted to the block.
The bishops’ votes in parliament were taken away, and the deans
and chapters were already voted against in the Commons, although
their spoliation had not yet taken place, neither were the cathedral
services as yet discontinued. As regularly, therefore, as the Thursday
came round, Noble, if not prevented by a special call of duty at
home, made his weekly visit to the fair city of Wells; where he in the
first instance always bent his steps to the cathedral, and joined the
congregation assembled for morning service.
It was on a saint’s day, in the summer of 1641, that, as usual,
he proceeded to that venerable and glorious temple, and took his
seat in the vacant stall which it was his wont to occupy. Directly
opposite he observed a tall uncouth man of harsh features and a
sour countenance, sitting very upright, and glancing a severe and
restless eye at the organ, the first tones of which were pealing
through the long aisles, as the dean, the prebends, and other
officers of the choir, preceded by the vergers with their maces,
slowly entered, and reverently took their seats.
The service began, and was conducted with that solemn
decency, and with those clear fine chants, which dispose most hearts
to a subdued feeling of intense devotion.
There is a something in sacred music which does wonderfully
compose the mind, and cleanse it of all earthly-rooted cares. Upon
the stranger above mentioned, however, it produced no such effect.
He sat erect, cold, and contemptuous: he put aside the Book of

Common Prayer with a rude thrust; and taking a small volume from
his pocket opened it with ostentatious gravity, and, not joining in the
worship that he witnessed, either by response, gesture, or any
conformity of posture with those around him, sat, now casting his
eyes on the page of his book, now severely around, and now raising
them to Heaven after a manner that left nothing but the jaundiced
whites visible.
This strange conduct disturbed, irritated, or amused the
observers, according to the impression that was made upon them.
Some of the prebends and vicars choral looked red and angry. The
dean was greatly distressed, and knew not what to do. At first he
called the verger, with a design to remove the intruder; but, upon
second thoughts, he feared that a yet greater interruption and
indecency might take place if such a course was attempted, he
therefore commanded his feelings with as much dignity as he could.
But his grave frowns were totally without power upon the youthful
choristers, whose laughter would have been loud and audible, but
for the thick folds of the surplice with which they stuffed their
rebellious and aching jaws.
Noble himself was mournfully agitated, and prayed in the spirit
with that deep and melancholy fervour which hath no outward
expression but the abased eyes.
By degrees, the congregation recovered their composure, and
never was an anthem performed with more earnest solemnity, or a
sweetness more touching to the inmost soul, than the “Ne Irascaris,”
the “Be not Wroth,” or “Bow thine Ear” of the famous composer Bird.
At the words “Sion, thy Sion is wasted and brought low,” which are
set to a tender and solemn passage, and are sung very soft and
slow, the effect was sublime. Moved by the deep pathos of the
expression, the cheeks of Noble, as of a few others present, were
bathed in tears.
But the stranger remained in his seat without rising, and
perused his book with a kind of resolved and insulting inattention to
it all.

The service was not permitted to close without this mysterious
personage marking his contempt of it yet farther, by rising suddenly,
while all the congregation were on their knees, and stalking slowly
down the middle of the aisle with a loud and measured stamp of his
great thick boots.
He wore by his side a long heavy-looking sword, and had
certainly the air of a man who could use it, if he chose, with little
fear and no favour.
Noble joined the clergy in the chapter-room directly after the
morning prayers were ended, and there learned that there had been
a riot the night before in the streets, excited by some mischievous
emissary from London; and that some of the rabble had burned a
bishop in effigy, in the close just under the windows of the dean. It
seemed, however, that this outrage had been committed by a band
of low persons, who had come up from Bristol to attend a fair, and
had brought with them sundry printed papers and ribald songs to
distribute in the lanes and alleys of the city: the object of which was
to bring the church and clergy into public contempt.
However, it so happens that, for the most part, the inhabitants
of a cathedral town take a great pride in the edifice itself, whatever
may be their indifference to religion. Those magnificent structures
are the first wonders upon which the eyes of the human beings,
born and suckled beneath their shadow, are taught to gaze. They
are noble and solemn features in the scene of early life; and are
printed so indelibly on the mind, that, let the native of a cathedral
city wander where he will, the recollection of the venerable temple
goes with him, associated, in his memory, with his birthplace, his
holydays, his truant hours, with the merry music of festival bells,
with the pride of having often seen strangers and travellers, both of
high and low degree, walk about its walls, and linger in its spacious
aisles, with pleasure and admiration.
Therefore a party among the common people was easily roused
to take up sticks and stones against the insulting mischief-makers,
who were thus at last driven away from the city with great tumult.

It was the very day following this riot that the offensive
adventure in the cathedral, which we have just related, occurred. As
no doubt existed in the minds of the clergy assembled in the
chapter-room that the extraordinary person, who had just committed
so gross and indecent an outrage in a place of public worship, was,
in some measure, connected with the disturbance of the preceding
day, they resolved to make an immediate complaint to the Mayor of
Wells, that the obnoxious individual might be taken up, and
committed to prison, or otherwise punished for his offence.
Some little time had been lost in their consultations; and they
came forth from the cathedral in a body, with the intention of
despatching two of the prebends, already deputed for that purpose,
to wait upon the mayor, when, to their surprise and mortification,
they saw the object of their anger approaching them on horseback.
As he drew near, it was evident that the opportunity of arresting him
was already lost. He rode a very powerful young horse of generous
breed and fine action—and he sat upon him as on a throne.
“Look ye,” said he, as he drew up close to the astonished group,
—“Look ye, Scribes and Pharisees! hypocrites!—ye love greetings in
the market-place—take mine:—the time is come to set your houses
in order—even now the decree is gone forth—the sword is now
sharpening that shall pass through the land:—it glitters, look ye.” So
saying, with a grim smile he drew the blade of his own half out of
the scabbard, and let it fall again with a forcible rattle.
The dean, who was a bold and athletic man, disregarding this
fierce action, made an active effort to seize the bridle of the Puritan’s
steed; but the wary rider with a jerk of the reins threw up the
animal’s head, and at the same moment touching his flank with the
spur made him give a plunge forward that scattered the frightened
priests a few yards on either side. Nevertheless, the dean
remonstrated in very angry terms against his insulting abuse; as did
others, who were, like himself, courageous. They did not, however,
succeed either in stopping the fanatic or in driving him away:—a
small mob was gathering in the cathedral yard, and the fiery zealot
continued his address.

“What mean ye, ye priests of Baal, by your silks, and your
satins, and your hoods, and your scarfs, and your square caps, and
your surplices, and all your fooleries? what mean your boy choristers
that bleat like young kids, and your men choristers that bellow like
oxen? what means your grunting organ? Is it thus you worship God,
as though he were an idol and an abomination, and his temple like
that of the heathen? It should be a house of prayer, and ye have
made it a den of thieves, and all its services vain and lewd
mummeries. I cry, Fie upon you!—Wo, wo, wo!—Ye shall see me
again when the blast of the trumpet soundeth, and mine eye shall
not pity. I will smite, I will not spare you. Have ye not preached
blasphemies? have ye not broken and polluted the holy Sabbath with
your sports and your harlotries? have ye not shed the blood of God-
fearing men? yea, verily. Now hear my warning:—come out of her,
come out of her, my people. There are among you, even among your
priests, some whom the Lord hath chosen:—yet again I call to you,
Come out of her, come out of Babylon, that ye perish not with her.
To me is appointed this cry:—every where I must lift up my voice
thus, till the day of vengeance come. Wo shall be the portion of
those who hear me not!”
An insane delight gleamed in his dark eyes, a convulsive energy
distorted his features, and seemed to affect and agitate his whole
form. The crowd drew closer to him: the resolute dean beckoning
them forward, again advanced with the intention of seizing him,
when he suddenly gave his horse the head; and touching the high
spirited beast with both spurs, he was borne out of their sight at a
few rapid bounds, and was very soon beyond all danger of pursuit.
Several of the mob ran round the corner after him jeering and
cheering; but the clergy went their ways, by twos and threes, and
talked over the uncomfortable though diseased words of the fanatic
with much gravity and discomposure.
Many painful extravagancies of a fanatic character had been
already committed in various parts of the country; and in London
many scandalous scenes had been enacted, expressive of a
contempt for the Established Church and her ministers.

The prelates and dignitaries were the especial marks of popular
hatred; but, hitherto, nothing approaching to the indecency and
outrage above recorded had occurred in the neighbourhood and
under the eye of Noble.
Again he could have wished Cuthbert to have been present, as
he had formerly wished that he could have witnessed the
unmannerly and unchristian bearing of Master Daws, the morose
and designing curate, whose interview with Noble we have in a
former part of this story related.
“Surely,” thought the mild man of peace,—“Surely such things
would open his eyes to the spirit that is abroad, and to the aim and
end of these violent men, who would purify our venerable church as
with fire, and wash away her few stains with the blood and the tears
of her faithful children.”
After partaking of a dinner, with little appetite, in the house of
his friend, where the party assembled formed but a sad society, and
where the time passed in the discussion of more grave and anxious
matters than those upon which they were commonly engaged in
these innocent weekly meetings, the worthy parson mounted his old
mare, and rode back slowly to Cheddar. His thoughts were so
profoundly and mournfully absorbed by reflections on the very
startling occurrences of the morning, that he saw not the clouds
which were gathering overhead, until he was awakened to observe
them by a sudden and loud clap of thunder. The sunshine was
suddenly obscured by a deep gloom. A few heavy rain drops fell
upon him, and were soon followed by a thick and rushing deluge of
such rain as falls in summer tempests. The sky was covered with a
mass of clouds black as a funeral pall. Every moment flashes of
angry lightning passed across it in vivid and arrowy forms; while
thunder followed, peal after peal rolling in quick and troubled
succession. Noble had just entered the defile or pass by which
Cheddar is approached; and as the narrow road lies in the bottom of
a chasm, on either side of which the rocks rise many hundred feet
with a terrific grandeur, the horrid gloom—the lurid and ghastly
lights—and the prolonged echoes with which the roar of the thunder

was borne from crag to crag—gave a tenfold awfulness to the storm,
and sublimely shadowed forth the power of Jehovah.
Amid this war of elements the meek parson felt almost happy:—
his frightened beast had stopped beneath a rock that inclined
somewhat over the road, though not sufficiently to afford any shelter
from the rain. He was drenched to the skin himself, and as he could
not urge his animal forward he dismounted; but the wet and the
delay were forgotten, were disregarded. There are moments of
communion with the Deity, which, when they are accorded to his
feeble children, cause their spirits to be rapt in seraphic love. The
adoration that is born of a faith trembling yet holding fast is the
sublimest human worship:—“the firmest thing in this inferior world is
a believing soul.” And he that can lift up his voice with the Psalmist,
and, amid the horrors of a tempest, can say, “Praise the Lord, O my
soul; and all that is within me praise his holy name,” hath, as it
were, a sublime foretaste of that great and terrible day of the Lord,
when the Christian shall witness the final and everlasting triumph of
his Redeemer over sin and death,—and shall behold his salvation
draw nigh.

CHAP. XVIII.
With that the mighty thunder dropt away
From God’s unwary arm, now milder grown,
And melted into tears.
Giles Fletcher.
In such a spirit Noble endured the pelting of the storm, and listened
to the rolling of the thunder, and gazed upon the dread illumination
which flashed at intervals on the desolate and dreary rocks around
him. The fury of this summer tempest was soon exhausted:—the
exceeding blackness of the clouds gave place to a lighter, though a
sunless, sky; the claps of thunder were few and distant, and the
lightning became a faint and harmless coruscation. The rain was thin
and transparent; and Noble continued his way on foot, followed by
his old mare, whose docility was that of an aged dog. They had not
proceeded above two hundred yards when the mare gave a sudden
start, and ran up a heap of loose stones on the right of the road. On
the left of it, at the foot of a tremendous precipice, Noble descried
the object which had alarmed her, and which, but for her fright, he
should have passed without notice. A man lay upon the ground
bleeding. Noble immediately crossed to the spot, and stooping
down, he recognised the person of the stern fanatic, whose conduct
at Wells has been related in the foregoing chapter. He was
insensible, but did not, upon examination, appear to have sustained
any injury more serious than a severe and stunning bruise; as well
as a cut on the forehead from a sharp flint. From the prints of his
horse’s feet, it seemed evident, at first, that he had been thrown
where he then lay, and had fainted; but on looking again, Noble
observed that his pockets were turned inside out, and that his sword
and cartridge belt were gone; for he remembered in the morning to
have remarked his arms very particularly, and to have been struck by
the circumstance of a man of his rigid ungraceful figure sitting so

admirably on horseback, and managing the young animal which he
rode with such a light and easy hand. Moreover, he now saw that
the impressions of the horse’s hoofs had been made before the rain
had fallen. His first care was to endeavour to restore the sufferer
from his swoon. This he soon effected by chafing the body to restore
circulation, and by applying to the nostrils a pungent preparation,
which he always carried about with him, as a preservative from
infection, when his duties called him to visit the sick beds of those
who were afflicted with any disease considered pestilential. When
Noble had satisfied himself that the unfortunate man was a little
recovered by the returning consciousness in his eyes, and the
regularity of his breathing, he went after his mare. She had not
strayed far, and he soon brought her back, and after a while he had
the satisfaction to observe that the wounded traveller was able to
move and sit up. He now persuaded and assisted him to get upon
the patient beast, and supporting him in the saddle with his hand,
moved off slowly towards Cheddar. Half a mile on they met plain
Peter, who had come out to look for his master, and was wondering
and uncomfortable at the unusual lateness of his return.
The sight explained itself; and the honest domestic expressing
some sorrow for the sufferer, but more for his master, took his place
on the other side of the mare, and aided Noble in the task of
supporting the stranger, who was so weak and exhausted that he
could hardly be held upon the saddle by their joint exertions for the
rest of the road.
Although not a syllable had been uttered by the object of their
care, that was intelligible to either, and although Noble had not
mentioned a word about having seen him at Wells, still Peter had an
instinctive dislike to the man’s features and his dress—from both of
which he pronounced him a Puritan. He went so far as to provoke an
angry rebuke from his master for opposing the benevolent resolution
of the latter to take him to his own house.
“Surely,” said Peter, “a pallet at the Jolly Woodman will serve his
turn:—he’ll be well enough taken care of by Dame Crowther: why

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