I cannot mount to Heaven beneath this ban,
Can Christian hope survive so far below
The level of the happiness of man?
Can angels’ wings in these dark waters grow?
A spirit voice replied, “From bearing right
Our sorest burthens comes fresh strength to bear!
And so we rise again towards the light,
And quit the sunless depths for upper air!
Meek patience is as diver’s breath to all
Who sink in sorrow’s sea, and many a ray
Comes gleaming downward from the Source of day,
To guide us reascending from our fall:
The rocks have bruised thee sore, but angels’ wings
Grow fast from bruises, hope from anguish springs.”
—A. Tennyson Turner.
With incredible slowness the summer months passed by in the stifling atmosphere of the Saxon tower of Oxford Castle. Many times Gabriel cheered himself by a resolute dwelling on the old motto written in Elizabethan handwriting in the great family Bible at Hereford which had belonged to his grandfather, “Hope helpeth heavie hartes, sayeth Henry Harford.”
He remembered that the same motto appeared in neat printing characters when the Bible had been handed down to his father, and had become “Bridstock Harford, his Book.” Apparently the Harfords had always had troubled times, but had known how to win their way through them, and he tried desperately not to disgrace the family traditions of fortitude and constancy.
It must, however, be owned that his surroundings were enough to discourage the bravest heart. The youngest of about fifty men of various ranks and different callings, but all of them prisoners of war, he found his natural reserve and fastidiousness tried in a hundred galling ways. While the miserably inadequate food and the total deprivation of the exercise to which all his life e had been accustomed, not only affected his health, but made it daily a greater effort to fight against the evil tendencies of his own nature. Solomon, in the days of his wisdom, set it on record that the man who could rule himself was greater than the victorious general who captured a city, but the world still gives the praise and glory to the military conqueror, and reserves sneers and hard words for the man who hates and boldly fights evil—a reflection only too apt to occur to people in moments of temptation.
Gabriel struggled on, however, through July and August and the greater part of September, saved by hope, and always persuading himself that his father would assuredly effect his exchange before another week of this dreary life was ended. He dwelt often, too, on the thought that perhaps his letter to Hilary after her mother’s death might reach her heart and awaken his Princess Briar-Rose to love once more. Happily he never dreamt that Norton had waylaid the messenger, and that the fragments of the letter had been trodden down into the mud of Marshfield-street. Like poor little Helena, he was for the time helped by an illusion.
On September the 23rd, while he was poring over the tiny volume of Plato which Falkland had given him, his attention was drawn to a general tolling of bells throughout the city, and when Aaron, the brutal gaoler employed to look after the war prisoners by Provost-Marshal Smith entered with the day’s rations, he was beset by eager questions.
“What hath chanced? Hath a battle been fought?” asked the prisoners, for once failing to snatch without delay at the penny loaves dealt out to them from a basket by Sandy, Aaron’s half-witted helper.
“A battle,” growled Aaron, setting down the buckets from which the cans were refilled with beer and water. “Ay, to be sure, and a victory for the king; but it has cost him my Lord Carnarvon, and my Lord Falkland, and a host of other noblemen beside, all for the trouble of slaying Puritan dogs like yourselves.”
Gabriel was well used to the taunt, but at the news of Falkland’s death he turned pale.
“Did you say my Lord Falkland was slain?” he asked, hoping against hope that his rescuer might only be wounded.
“Ay, to be sure, don’t you hear the bells tolling? He’s being borne through Oxford to Great Tew this very moment, though for the matter of that they ought to bury him at night with a stake through his heart at the crossing of the roads, for they say ’twas sheer suicide—he rode out alone betwixt the two armies! just the fool’s act one would look for from a bookish coward, always trying to make peace! A pox on all peace-loving cravens say I. Don’t stand staring at me like that, you mongrel cur! What was my Lord Falkland to you?” and he emphasized the question with a brutal kick.
All these weeks Gabriel had borne with patience and dignity the galling words and petty cruelties practised by the gaoler, but in the overwhelming shock of these grievous tidings his strength suddenly deserted him. Stung to the quick by the man’s coarse attack on the dead hero he turned upon him in fury.
“Don’t dare again to take on your foul lips a name you’re not worthy to breathe,” he cried, with such passionate wrath and a look so threatening that for a moment Aaron quailed.
But anger merely begot anger, and with a fierce laugh the gaoler eyed his victim derisively.
“You will come before the Provost-Marshal for that, you numskull,” he exclaimed, and amid a general silence he seized Gabriel by the arm, and grimly escorted him from the room.
To be out of the close, crowded prison was for a minute the most intense relief, and as he went down the steps Gabriel’s wrath cooled. Longingly he looked about him with the keen eyes of one whose spare time was chiefly employed in futile plans of escape.
Aaron took him across the courtyard to the Governor’s apartments, where they found the redoubtable Smith busy with pen and ink and a huge ledger. He glanced at them as they entered with an expression of annoyance.
“What do you mean by bringing a prisoner into my presence without leave?” he said; “I’ll not have them brought straight to my room from that fever-den.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Aaron, saluting, “but it was a bad case of insubordination.”
“Sir,” said Gabriel, “the only insubordination lay in this, that, forgetting he was my gaoler, I forbade him to speak evil of my Lord Falkland.”
“Forbade!” repeated the Provost-Marshal, raising his eyebrows. “You are quite right, Aaron, these rebels must learn their place. You are condemned, Mr. Harford, to thirty days in irons and to be flogged—the number of the strokes not to exceed thirty.”
Gabriel bowed in silence; his lips closed in a hard line; a curious look came into his eyes—the same look which had dawned there years ago in the Archdeacon’s Court at Hereford, when he had heard his father condemned. As Aaron in brutal triumph escorted him to the whipping-post, he could hear the church-bells tolling drearily, and a sense of blank despair filled his heart as he realised fully what a friend and helper he had lost in Lord Falkland; but beneath that lay the deep, burning sense of wrong—the fierce and bitter resentment of a personal wrong which seemed to change his whole nature.
Many speculations were made by the prisoners as to the punishment that would be meted out to him. He was absent for some time, and when Aaron at length readmitted him the first thing that attracted everyone’s attention was the ominous clanking of the irons. He seemed to cross the room with some difficulty, but that was well understood by all who had experienced the weight of the fetters. What no one did understand was the extraordinary change which had come over his face and bearing.
“How long are you condemned to wear irons?” said the lawyer, making room for him on the bench at his side.
“Thirty days,” said Gabriel, and his voice had deepened in a strange way. The lawyer looked searchingly into the white, set face, and fierce eyes of the speaker.
“Come, eat,” he said, kindly. “You have not yet dined. That brute Aaron haled you away just as he had brought the food.”
But Gabriel waved aside the bread, for in truth the thought of eating sickened him.
“You put yourself in the wrong, sir, by seeking to extenuate Lord Falkland’s rash act,” said one of the officer who was a strait-laced Presbyterian. “Ill fare those who are neither cold nor hot; had his lordship not deserted his old friends and sought Court favour he might now have been a useful and an honoured man. Aaron, though brutal, hath the wit to see how worthless is the man who is true to neither party.”
Throughout this pompous speech the lawyer had furtively watched his neighbour, and he was the only man in the room who was not startled when Gabriel suddenly stood up, the colour all at once flushing his pale face, his eyes blazing.
“Sir,” he said, angrily, “Lord Falkland never sought Court favour, he loathed the Court, but from a sense of duty tried to save the country by urging moderation on the King. All men know what sort of treatment he received from the vile courtiers. Are we sunk so low that we cannot see the virtues of a great man because in matters of State he opposes us?”
“I repeat,” said the Presbyterian, “that you were wrong to espouse the cause of one who had thrown away his life. You should not have sought to gloss over the sinfulness of his suicidal end. Aaron was right—he ought not to have had funeral honours. Lord Falkland was a weak man and sorely misguided, as was natural enough, for his religion was merely an intellectual pursuit, and wholly unorthodox. Hell is now his portion.”
“Then I will have no more to do with what you call religion,” said Gabriel, passionately. “It is these; accursed systems that are at the root of all our misery—there’s not a pin to choose betwixt your bigotry and the bigotry of the Archbishop. England is going to the dogs because Churchmen wrangle over ceremonies and trappings, and Puritans squabble over Holy Writ. You say my Lord Falkland is doomed to hell? Then if so there was never One who called peacemakers blessed, or ordered us to love our enemies and serve them. But he is not doomed. It is a lie! It is this country that is in hell, with its blind bigots and its beasts calling themselves men, and its blood and its boastful tyranny. ’Tis I myself that am in hell, mad with the thirst for vengeance, longing to kill with my own hands the brutes down yonder.”
Quite suddenly his voice faltered, he reeled backwards, and would have fallen to the ground had not the room been crowded. As it was, he fell against Passey, who, aghast at the wild words he had uttered, was nevertheless mindful of Gabriel’s kindly help in the past, and allowed the head of the unconscious prisoner to rest on his knee.
“A most blasphemous young man,” remarked the Presbyterian. “Strange that one who hath hitherto been well reported among us and of modest bearing should suddenly change in this unseemly fashion. He erred in saying he was in hell while the day of grace is yet unspent, and he is permitted to remain in our godly company; but there can be no doubt that he will ultimately go there unless he speedily repents.”
There was a silence in the room. A good many of the prisoners felt that there was some truth beneath the fierce words of the lieutenant which was beyond their reach. Others had liked him, and were sorry to see such an extraordinary change in him. It was a relief when the key was turned in the lock and the door cautiously unbarred by Sandy. The half-witted lad, a great, awkward-looking fellow of fifteen, came shambling in guiltily, and locked the door after him.
“Aaron never saw me!” he whispered, grinning from ear to ear. Then, catching sight of Gabriel on the floor, “What, he hath swooned at last? Then belike he’ll be crying out a bit when he comes to himself. There was no sport at all for us at the whipping-post, for he never once shrieked for mercy, as some of ’em do. What’s the good of sport if you don’t hear the prey squeak?”
“Did they dare to flog him for what he said to Aaron?” asked the lawyer, his face darkening.
“Why, yes, gentlemen, to be sure; and as I’m telling you, ‘twas poor sport, cursed poor sport. I’d as lief not have seen it. When they unbound him he never spake a word, but just looked as though he could have murdered Aaron, and he never seemed to heed at all when I did what I could to staunch the blood.”
“’Tis this that hath changed him,” said Rawlyns, the Marlborough burgess; and while the others drew off a little, discussing the matter eagerly, he and Passey did the best they could for Gabriel, Sandy supplying them with certain rough remedies which he had contrived to smuggle up the tower steps during Aaron’s absence.
Strangely enough, the half-witted lad had more heart than his brutal chief, and though, as he honestly admitted, he liked “to hear the vermin squeak,” he was quick to respond to kindness, and retained a memory of a few pleasant words Gabriel had once spoken to him. So little but curses and blows had come to him throughout his wretched life that he was always hoping to win again some sort of recognition from the young lieutenant, and for the next few days it was pathetic to see the efforts he made to extort something more from Gabriel than the curt thanks which rewarded all his attempts at help. Gabriel did not, indeed, disguise the fact that the mere sight of the idiot’s face, the mere touch of his dirty and clumsy hands, repulsed him. Nor did he respond any more graciously to the sympathy of his fellow-prisoners; the brutal punishment had called out all the worst side of his nature, and for days he lay in his corner, ill in body and mind, bereft of all hope for himself and for the country, without faith in God or man, and, as he had very truly said, “in hell.”
Every time Aaron entered the room his hatred of the man seemed to increase, and the maddening sense of being wholly at the mercy of this brutal tyrant grew upon him until it seemed to dominate everything else. Even the nightly psalms and prayers of the prisoners became unendurable to him; he turned his face to the wall and tried not to listen, convinced in his mind that they were praying at him, and so wrapped round in himself and his wrongs that it seemed impossible his character should ever recover what it had lost.
At last one October evening, when the Presbyterian was saying a psalm, a few of the familiar words entered his mind with a force and freshness which compelled him, against his will, to turn his thoughts away from his misery.
Through the old tower room there rang the verse: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein.”
From his earliest childhood his father had taught him to see God in nature, and the first light that came now to him in the outer darkness was the truth which had really become part of his very being when, as a little fellow, he rode with the doctor through the Herefordshire lanes, learning to observe, and learning to love birds and insects and flowers. God was in His creation and the world was not at the mercy of fate and chance.
Yet it was not until this autumn evening that the breadth of the assertion struck him, or that he in the least grasped the thought that the grand climax, welcoming the entrance of the King of Glory, was the prophecy of the entire ultimate triumph of the Lord strong and mighty—the Conqueror in the battle of love against hate, of righteousness against sin.
Sickened and utterly wearied with the stormy theological disputes of the age, he reached now beyond the clamouring voices, and sought refuge in the living realities wherein alone peace can be found.
Moreover, as he lay that evening in the dark prison room, for spite of the cold and the short days the prisoners were allowed neither fire nor light, there returned to him in helpful fashion the remembrance of the last talk he had had with his friend Joscelyn Heyworth.
They had sat late together in their quarters at the “Nagg’s Head” in Bath, and Joscelyn had told him of his visit to his old tutor Whichcote, at North Cadbury, during which the recent death of Hampden had been the chief topic, and in his bitterness of soul the young Captain had found relief in telling an older and wiser man the despair he felt for the country under its grievous loss. A memory returned to Gabriel of some words of Whichcote’s as to heaven, which his friend had quoted, and he fell to musing over them. “Heaven is first a temper and then a place; and both heaven and hell have their foundations within us.” He knew only too well that the last statement was true, knew it by the brutal thirst for vengeance which was consuming him; by the hatred of his enemies which had changed his whole character, by the harsh judgments he silently passed on the failings and petty weaknesses of his fellow-prisoners. But the tutor had said that heaven also had its foundation within us, and the thought linked itself now to that startling assertion that the world and they that dwell therein are God’s, which had first lightened his gloom. Musing over it all, he presently fell into a sounder and more refreshing sleep than any he had of late known.
He was roused at last, not as had been usually the case, by the discomfort of the heavy irons he wore, but by the soft, light brushing of something across his forehead. In the light of the early morning he saw a robin fluttering over him, and only one long shut up in a single room, away from all the interests of outer life, could understand the intense pleasure of the sight. In the sheer happiness of watching the bird he forgot his aching limbs, and the blank despair which for so long had clouded his mind was gone.
What was that quaint legend which he had once heard little Bridstock’s Welsh nurse tell in the old nursery at Hereford? The robin had won his red breast because, being the kindest of the birds, it flew every night to hell with a drop of water wherewith to slake the thirst of those tormented in the flame. The bird had been true to its nature when it flew through the narrow unglazed window and came to the desolate prisoner of war in Oxford Castle. And as, perched on one of the old beams, it flooded the place with its blithe song, Gabriel escaped altogether from the dreary prison. Once more he was in the wood in Herefordshire, with the sunshine turning the brake fern into silver and the carpet of russet leaves into gold, once more the sweetest eyes in the world were lifted to his, once more the musical voice told him that all things seemed more beautiful because of love, while the bird of hope sang in the tree overhead.
Spite of all that had intervened, there was gladness in the remembrance, for his love for Hilary was the most divine part of his nature, no fleeting passion to be changed to bitterness by change in her. It was that rare love which war, death or sickness may lay siege to, but which is by its quality eternal.
And thus, through love, he gradually came back to life, and once more the old family motto, “Hope helpeth heavie hartes,” strengthened him to endure the sorrows of division and the countless horrors which the war had brought in its train.
The robin did much to cheer all the prisoners. It became the pet and plaything of everyone in the place; to listen to its blithe song, to tame it, and to conceal it safely before the brutal Aaron entered, was a daily occupation, and not a man in the place failed to provide it with crumbs, so that the bird was ere long the one plump and prosperous creature in the tower-room.
With November came a return of the gaol fever, the new fever as it was called, one of the visitations which resulted from the privation and unhealthy overcrowding among the unhappy prisoners. It spread throughout England, sparing neither rich nor poor, and presented such unusual symptoms that no doctor understood how to deal with it.
This, however, made little difference to the Oxford prisoners, for no one troubled to think about doctoring them. It went to Gabriel’s heart to see how they suffered, and his whole time was now given to a desperate attempt to relieve the sick. Cure was out of the question, for no medicine was to be had, and all through the month and on into December men were stricken. Those with good constitutions pulled through, the others raved in delirium for a few days, then died. It became quite a usual occurrence to see Aaron and Sandy removing the dead, and at length their numbers were reduced to thirty-nine.
“There’s a lot of waste space here,” remarked Aaron brutally, as he dragged out the corpse of the Presbyterian who in September had reprimanded Gabriel, but of late had been his best friend. “I shall have to bring you some more prisoners to fill the gaps.”
“When once this hateful war is over,” thought Gabriel, “I will follow in my father’s steps and be a physician. I will fight disease and pain, and bring hope to heavy hearts. For of all terrible things the worst is to watch men dying for want of proper aid.”
And then he fell to musing, as he had often done of late, on the strange problem of war. It was easy to account for the extraordinary influence which Falkland had had over him by the largeness of mind and the passionate generosity of the dead hero. And now more and more as he thought of his death, it seemed to him that Falkland was the forerunner of a vast multitude who, in future generations, would band themselves together and resolutely stand for peace, permitting only such force as was needful for the protection of hearth and home, and the maintenance of the just laws of their own country. As he recalled Prince Rupert’s favourite saying, “We will have no law in England, save that of the sword,” he could not but remember the words of One whom both Royalists and Parliamentarians professed to obey, “They that take the sword shall perish by the sword.”
“To say kings are accountable to none but God, is the overturning of all law and government. For if they may refuse to give account, then all covenants made with them at coronation, all oaths are in vain, and mere mockeries; all laws which they swear to keep, made to no purpose. Aristotle, whom we commonly allow for one of the best interpreters of nature and morality writes that ‘monarchy unaccountable is the worst sort of tyranny, and least of all to be endured by free-born men.’”—Milton.
Towards Christmas the fever abated, but the sufferings of the prisoners from the intense cold were very great. Gabriel, whose vigorous youth had hitherto withstood better than the rest the rigours of the life in the Castle, began now to show signs of all the long vigils he had kept with the sick and the dying, and Sandy, who was really fond of him, watched him with wistful eyes, feeling sure that he would before long succumb.
It was not until Christmas Eve that Aaron’s threat of filling up the gaps was fulfilled. Then, about two o’clock in the afternoon the door was flung open and the gaoler pushed in a young, active-looking man, dressed in mourning attire which had evidently seen hard service.
“Good-day to you, gentlemen,” he said, pleasantly. “I am sorry to add to your number, and fear you will scarcely welcome a new-comer.”
“On the contrary, sir,” said Rawlyns of Marlborough, “though sorry for the evil plight you find yourself in, we are right glad to welcome any visitor who can give us news.” Gabriel made room on his bench for the new-comer, looking with a sense of relief at the well-clad figure, and at the refreshing cleanliness of his ruddy face and well-kept light-brown hair.
“You are a prisoner of war, sir?” he inquired, doubtfully.
“‘Pon my life! I know not what I am,” said the visitor. “Save that I am one Humphrey Neal, burnt out of house and home at Chinnor last summer by the Royalists, and since then a wanderer. To-day, having business to see to in Oxford I rode into the city, and was promptly arrested as a spy.”
“Are you for the Parliament?” asked Rawlyns.
“Well, sir, I have never meddled with matters of State, and have thought more of hawking and hunting than of politics; but it is true that since the wanton destruction of my house, the robbery of all my live stock, and the devastation of my crops I bear no good-will to the Royalists.”
“I heard of the burning of the village of Chinnor from my friend, Captain Heyworth,” said Gabriel. “It was, if I remember right, on the night before Colonel Hampden got his death-wound at Chalgrove Field.”
“Oh, you are a friend of Captain Heyworth,” said Humphrey Neal. “’Tis a small world, where we are for ever coming across unlooked-for connections. Your friend hath lately wedded a pretty kinswoman of mine, heiress to Sir Robert Neal, of Katterliam Court House.”
Gabriel’s face lighted up.
“I have heard naught of him since the battle of Lansdown, when we knew that he was grievously wounded. He recovered then?”
“Ay, he not only recovered, but served all through the siege of Gloucester, and as I say, wedded my cousin. I saw her at Katterham but a se’nnight since.”
“And met her husband also?”
“No, he had rejoined Sir William Waller, and was at Farnham, and by this time will most like be laying siege to Arundel Castle, which had been seized by my Lord Hopton.”
“Sir Ralph Hopton has been raised to the peerage, then?” said Gabriel, remembering vividly his last sight of the Royalist general when he had saved him from bleeding to death after the explosion.
“Ay, the King was anxious, they say, to show him some mark of favour to make up for the scurvy fashion in which Prince Rupert treated him at Bristol.”
“We have heard little of the outer world,” said Gabriel, “save some account of the fight at Newbury.”
“Belike you have not heard, then, of the death of Mr. Pym?”
There was a suppressed exclamation of grief and dismay through the room, for in the death of the great Parliamentary Leader they all knew that the country had sustained an irreparable loss. Great soldiers were left to them, but the greatest statesman of the age had passed away.
“He had been failing throughout the autumn, and died of an internal abscess the eighth night of this month,” said Humphrey Neal. “In company with my kinsman, Sir Robert, I was present at his funeral in King Henry VII.‘s chapel at Westminster—a great gathering it was, too, the Lords and Commons, the Assembly of Divines, and a host of people besides being there.”
“Perchance your presence there was noted by some of the King’s spies, and may account for your arrest to-day,” said Gabriel. “Your kinsman, Sir Robert Neal, hath all his life opposed the Court party.”
“That is true. Years ago he was imprisoned for refusing to pay one of the loans which the King illegally enforced, and hath ever since been a marked man. Doubtless, that explains the matter. What are the chances of escape here?”
“The only hope would be through Sandy, the half-witted lad who helps the gaoler,” said Gabriel. “He hath a curious liking for me, which might prove of use. Otherwise, I see no possible way, though I have made many plans to wile away the time.”
The advent of this fresh, vigorous, well-fed man seemed to raise the spirits of all the half-starved prisoners, and Christmas Day found them almost cheerful. The friendly robin had never afforded them more amusement, and they were so intent on showing off his many tricks and accomplishments to Humphrey Neal that they never noticed the entrance of Aaron the gaoler. It was too late to conceal the bird, and certain that the brutal fellow would, if possible, kill it, Gabriel deliberately let it fly, and with satisfaction watched it perch on one of the rafters.
“What mischief are you hatching?” said Aaron, angrily.
“We did but watch a bird that hath harboured here,” said Gabriel, watching the robin rather apprehensively as it flew about overhead. Aaron made ineffectual efforts to reach it with his rod, growing more surly with each failure.
“Drat the bird,” he said. “I can’t waste my time over it; but you can spend your Christmas in the sport of taking its life, and I shall expect you to hand it over to me when I next come in.”
Gabriel made no reply, but secretly resolved to let the bird out of the window rather than place it in the hands of the gaoler. Aaron turned to vent his ill-humour on Humphrey Neal.
“And as for you, sir, you’d better make the most of this day, for ’tis like to be your last. We give spies short shrift in Oxford.”
“I am no spy,” said Humphrey, indignantly.
“Men say that the gentleman that journeyed from London t’other day had only come on a matter of business about moneys due to him; but the Governor of Oxford, Sir Arthur Aston, had him racked nathless and hung him the day after,” said Aaron, with a chuckle.
Humphrey muttered an imprecation and turned away.
Whereupon Aaron burst into a fit of laughter.
“You’d better have a care, sir, your fellow-prisoners don’t allow profane words, and come from the ranks where twelve-pence is the fine for every oath. Oh, yes, I know you well, you dogs. And pray where is now your God, you Roundhead rogues? You prayed to the Lord to deliver you, and you see how He hath delivered you, ye rebels!”
The prisoners maintained a resolute silence, but Gabriel’s heart was cheered when, as if in reply to the taunt, the robin overhead burst into a song full of hope and glad confidence.
The daily dole of food having been left, Aaron and Sandy withdrew, and the prisoners spent the greater part of the morning in discussing the possibility of escape for the newcomer, whose life was evidently in danger. About noon Gabriel reluctantly fed the tame robin for the last time, then climbing with Humphrey’s aid up to the narrow, deeply splayed window, he let the bird out into the open, and with a sad heart watched it fly away over the snowy country.
“I see the mill stream is frozen,” he said, scrambling down again.
“Would the ice bear, think you?”
“Yes, the frost hath held these four days past,” said Humphrey. “But we can scarce look for skating,” and he laughed forlornly.
“Yet if we could only get hold of Sandy without Aaron, I think we might prevail on him to let you pass—and then to find the Castle ditch frozen might make all the difference to you. There is sure to be feasting among the guard on Christmas Day, and the watch will not be strictly kept.”
“Why should you not all make a bold push for freedom?” said Humphrey.
“What, forty of us at one time?” said Gabriel, his breath coming fast. “Oh! if we could but do it! Yet I doubt most of the prisoners are overweak with illness and starvation. And then again all would hinge on Sandy’s coming again ere night, and coming alone, which doth not often happen.”
Nevertheless the matter was generally discussed, and though some were absolutely hopeless, others thought it might possibly be carried through. The lawyer was not among the sanguine ones, however.
“You are young, you are young,” he said to Gabriel. “Mr. Neal merely plans what is the first thought of every prisoner. I made such schemes myself once, but they availed naught Do me the favour, sir, to lend to me one of your books that I may solace myself with reading till the light fails.”
Gabriel, somewhat damped by his friend’s words, produced the little 12mo copy of the earliest edition of Owen Felltham’s “Resolves,” which Falkland had given him, then again withdrew to his bench to talk with Humphrey Neal.
In the afternoon, a little before sunset, the door was suddenly yet stealthily opened. Gabriel looked up hopefully, for sure enough Sandy appeared, but the next moment the unwelcome sight of Aaron close at his heels robbed him of all hope. The fellow had evidently been drinking, and was in his most dangerous humour.
“Now then, you rogues, hand over the bird,” he said, glancing round the ward and eyeing the lawyer with special suspicion, for he had not failed to note that his hand had hastily sought his pocket. Gabriel stood up.
“The bird is not here it has flown away these two hours or more.”
“You lie, you dog. I saw that traitor from Marlborough conceal it as I entered.”
“The bird has gone, we all saw it go,” maintained the other prisoners unanimously.
Aaron was not, however, to be convinced. He pounced on the lawyer, dragged the coat from his back, and plunging his dirty hands into the pockets drew forth—not, indeed, the bird—but Falkland’s little book.
“You dare to conceal books against the Provost-Marshal’s rule!” he exclaimed. “You shall be soundly beaten for this, you numskull.”
But Gabriel, unable to bear the thought of such a punishment for the haggard and wan invalid who had but lately recovered from the fever, strode forward.
“The book is mine,” he said, deliberately taking it from the gaoler and boldly thrusting it into his pocket. This, as he had foreseen, wholly diverted the furious Aaron from the lawyer.
“’Tis yours, is it?” he cried, tearing off Gabriel’s doublet, and with one vigorous pull splitting in half his ragged shirt. “You’ve tried the hangman’s whip, you Roundhead rogue, and we will see now if a sound drubbing from my rod will tame you. Ho! Sandy! give me your broad back for a whipping post, and if you don’t hold this vile traitor’s wrists fast, I’ll flog you to a jelly yourself.”
Sandy slouched forward whimpering and reluctant, yet not daring to disobey his tyrant. A sob rose in his throat as he felt the prisoner leaning on his shoulders, and gripped the thin wrists fast about his neck as Aaron had bidden him.
Meanwhile Humphrey Neal had stood by intently watching all that passed. The sight of Gabriel’s back, however, scarred for life by the flogging he had received that autumn, sent such a storm of rage through him that for a moment he was not calm enough for action. Aaron’s rod was raised once, and a violent blow fell on the scarred shoulders. The rod was raised a second time, but Humphrey, knowing now how to intervene, sprang forward, seized it in his strong grasp, and flinging his left arm about the gaoler’s throat suddenly tripped him up by an unexpected lunge at the back of his knee. Springing aside he let the half-tipsy fellow fall heavily on to the ground, and a thrill of relief passed through every man in the place when they heard the resounding crash with which this brutal tyrant’s head met the floor.
Humphrey Neal bent over him for a moment.
“The fellow is not dead, but I’ll warrant him not to stir for the next three hours—he’s not the first villain I have tripped up in that fashion.”
“Oh! Lord! Oh! Lord! whatever will become of me?” whimpered Sandy. “He’ll beat me to a jelly when he comes to himself.”
“Look you here, Sandy,” said Gabriel, hastily putting on his doublet and cloak. “No one shall harm you if you will but help us to escape. We will take you with us, and you shall never clap eyes on Aaron again. Come, let us down the steps, there’s a good fellow.”
He put his hand on the lad’s shoulder kindly, and Sandy, like a dog that has been caressed by his master, was ready to dare anything in his service.
“They will be feasting and gaming by now, will they not? and the guard will be but slight,” suggested Gabriel.
“Ay, sir, but there be a sentry at both the gates,” said Sandy, scratching his head.
“Help us, then, on to the Castle wall, the key of the entrance will surely be on this bunch. I know well there is a way from this tower on to the outer wall. Do you seize the keys, and lock Aaron safely into this room while we steal quietly down.”
Sandy began to look more hopeful. “You’ll be needing ropes,” he suggested. “And where be I to find them?”
“I saw a big coil of rope at the top of the tower the day my Lord Falkland came here,” said Gabriel. “I will come with you to search for it, and we will leave the rest to follow, bringing the keys with them.”
Sandy obeyed blindly, and before long the two had returned with the coil of rope. Never had the old walls of St. George’s Tower seen a more extraordinary sight than the escape of the forty prisoners of war in the dusk of that wintry afternoon. The white, haggard faces of the half-starved men bore an indescribable air of grim resolution. Silently as ghosts, they made their way down the tower, and with marvellous self-control crept one by one on to the outer wall.
This was the most dangerous moment, for it seemed only too possible that the guard at the main entrance might see them. From the Osney Gate they were partially screened by St. George’s Tower itself, and, crouching as low as was possible, they devoutly hoped that the Christmas feasting would have made the guard more or less drowsy.
Humphrey Neal and Rawlyns of Marlborough were the first to emerge, and they busied themselves with making the rope fast to the battlements; then one ghost-like figure after another glided forth, until, last of all, Sandy and Gabriel appeared, locking the entrance after them and pocketing the bunch of keys.
It was agreed that Humphrey Neal should be the first to test the rope. If it would bear his weight it would certainly bear the lean and fever-worn prisoners.
Breathlessly they watched him slide down and alight safely on the snowy slope beside the millstream.
“Let us not wait for each other,” said Gabriel, “but each cross the ice and seek safety beyond in whatever quarter seems to him best.”
To this they all agreed, and without risking another word to each other they one by one let themselves over the wall, and crossing the frozen millstream escaped in various directions, mostly going in groups of three or four.
Now and then Gabriel, as he awaited his turn, heard sounds of merriment from within the Castle walls, and as Sandy slid down the rope a distant echo of “The Boar’s Head” chorus floated up to him. His hearing seemed to have become preternaturally acute, and he shivered a little when through the frosty air he heard the guard at the main entrance whistling the refrain.
And now at length Sandy stood on the bank below and Gabriel’s turn had come. With a heart beating high with hope and excitement he let himself over the wall, and grasping the rope swung in mid air, descending hand over hand, while the distant sound of the singers within floated back to him:
The Boar’s head, as I understand,
Is the bravest dish in all the land.
He alighted safely in the snow, and found his arm gripped by Humphrey Neal, then as the chorus of the carol was shouted out they cautiously made their way over the frozen millstream, and were just scrambling up the opposite bank when the sharp barking of a dog startled them into anxious listening once more.
Crouching among the bushes, they heard a discussion being held by the guard, and trembled lest a sentry should pass along to the spot on the walls where their rope was made fast. It was now that Sandy came to their aid, for he knew the dog and coaxed it to his side, fondling it into quiet and good humour.
By this time the other prisoners had safely disappeared in the gathering twilight of the short December day. They resolved to linger no more, but, bidding Sandy follow, began to walk rapidly to the other side of the city, choosing, as far as might be, the back streets and alleys.
Some wandering minstrels on a round of carol-singing before long attracted their notice, and they observed that one of the company lingered far behind the others, rolling about unsteadily as he walked, and tipsily twanging his lute. When by-and-by his companions trooped into an alehouse, he wandered aimlessly along by himself, swearing profusely, yet occasionally chanting a boisterous refrain of “Noel—Noel,” in a fashion that made Humphrey laugh heartily.
“In ten minutes the fellow must fall into the kennel,” he said, gaily, “and, if so, he may prove of use to us. Ay, to be sure! I knew he couldn’t stagger on much longer.”
“Don’t belabour me like that,” groaned the minstrel, apostrophising the stones, “I was keeping the best of time. ‘Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!’ my throat’s on fire. We’ll have a stoup at the ‘Pig and Whistle.’”
“As many as you please,” said Humphrey, cheerfully. “But, in the meantime, we will do your carolling for you. I’ll trouble you for the lute, and—yes, you may as well spare your hat, too!”
Laughing at the placid way in which the minstrel fell asleep on his stony bed, Humphrey tucked the lute under his arm, clapped the felt hat on to Gabriel’s bare head and hurried down the street.
“We will pass the guard on Magdalen Bridge as minstrels on our way to perform at Cowley. Do you by chance know any carols?”
“I know one,” said Gabriel, beginning to hum the air of the Bosbury Carol.
“That will do. I know the tune, and will catch up the words of the chorus, and, with the lute to twang an accompaniment, we shall make a brave show. Sandy, you will pick up any money that the good Christians throw to us.”
“But sir, I see the watchman coming,” said Sandy, apprehensively; “for Heaven’s sake, let us hide in yon archway.”
“Nay; no skulking,” said Humphrey, “let us put a bold face on it, and say we have come to sing.”
So saying, he turned in at the gateway of Merton, cheerfully twanging his lute.
The porter encountered them with a face of astonishment.
“Now then, you fellows, what are you about? Don’t you know that His Majesty the King visits the Queen’s apartments?”
“Why, to be sure, master,” said Humphrey, assuming the dialect of a countryman. “And we have orders to sing in the quad. You’ll not be denying us poor folk our chance of earning a groat in these cruel hard times.”
“Well, well,” said the porter, good-humouredly, “Christmas is Christmas, and as you say, the times are hard. But see there’s no brawling or drinking or unseemly noise.”
“Master we be the most mannerley minstrels in the shire,” said Humphrey, touching his hat obsequiously as he passed on. “And that be true as the Gospel.”
“This will stand us in good stead when we get to the Bridge by-and-by,” he added, in a low voice. “Let us cross to yonder window above the archway, the lights are brightest there, and doubtless the Queen holds her Christmas festivities within.”
Gabriel, feeling after his long imprisonment in the Castle like one in a dream, fearing every minute lest he should wake and find this strange adventure unreal, crossed the snowy quad, and at a nod from his companion began to sing the Bosbury Carol, Humphrey cleverly putting in an effective accompaniment on the lute. Out into the still frosty air rang the quaint old words, and feverish excitement gave strength to the voice of the half-starved prisoner.
When we were all, through Adam’s fall,
Once judged for to die;
And from all mirth brought to the earth,
To dwell in misery;
God pitied then His creature man,
In Scripture as you may see,
And promised that a woman’s seed
Should come for to make us free.
Oh! praise the Lord with one accord,
All you that present be;
For Christ, God’s Son, has brought pardon,
All for to make us free.
As he sang he noticed the shadows of those within the room moving fantastically on the ceiling, and when Sandy in a startlingly sweet treble caught up the air of the refrain, the figure of a lady approached the window and looked forth. The light gleamed on her bare white shoulders, and on the pearl necklace about her slender throat. Gabriel instantly recognised the Queen, and for a minute scarcely wondered at the thraldom in which she contrived to hold her husband, so radiantly beautiful was her face, so full of charm and vivacity her whole bearing. She turned her head now and imperiously beckoned to some one within.
Gabriel, still with the strangest sense of unreality, sang another verse, half-fancying himself once more in the snowy garden at Hereford, half expecting to catch sight of brave Sir John Eliot’s snow effigy.
He thought no scorn for to be born
Of a birth both low and small;
Betwixt ox and ass in a crib He was
Laid poorly in a stall;
To the shepherds in fold the thing was told,
In Luke as you may see,
Who sang glory to the Lord on high
That did come for to make us free.
As once again the chorus rang out, he saw the King join his consort at the window, and, watching the two, could not but reflect how amiable a gentleman His Majesty might have been had he not been fated to fill a position wholly unfitted for him. But then his face grew stern, for back into his mind there came a memory of the long, long list of grievous acts of tyranny and injustice for which the King was responsible; and he thought of Eliot done to death in prison, of Hampden laying down his life in the struggle to free the country, and of Falkland, contemned and misjudged by all, striving in vain to make peace, and dying broken-hearted in the saddest isolation.
Haunted most of all by this memory of Falkland, he stumbled somehow into the final verse of the carol.
And thus in death yielded up His breath,
Saying, consecrated, just,
All this was done by Christ, God’s Son,
To bring men’s souls to rest.
Therefore you all, both great and small,
That here now present be,
Serve him always, with diligent praise,
The Lord God that made us free.
In the chorus one of the courtiers at a sign from the Queen opened the window and threw down a few coins to the minstrels, after which their Majesties withdrew. Sandy groped in the snow for the money, Humphrey Neal courteously raised his hat, but Gabriel stood motionless, gazing intently up at the brightly-lighted windows.
The weird shadows moving to and fro on the ceiling looked to his fancy like the nodding plumes on a funeral-car, and he shivered as he heard the laughter and merriment of those within, for it sounded to him as hollow and mirthless as the wintry wind which sighed and moaned through the archway below.
Just in that fashion had the wind raged and moaned when His Majesty had entered Westminster Hall nearly two years before on his rash attempt to arrest the five members.
“What are you staring at?” said Humphrey Neal, astonished at the expression on his companion’s face. “We had better hasten on.”
Gabriel made no reply, but with one lingering look at those strange funereal shadows on the ceiling, he turned away, following his companions across the quiet quad and out into the street.
He had looked his last on the King.