The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous Volume I Part 5

The Castle was at least two miles from any human habitation; for the few fishermen's cabins, made of rotten boats, hogsheads nailed together, and the like, which had pitifully nestled under the lee of the Castle in old time, had been rigorously demolished to their last crazy timber when the Prisoner was brought there. At a respectful distance only, far in, and yet but a damp little islet in the midst of the fens, was permitted to linger on, in despised obscurity, a poor swamp of some twenty houses that might, half in derision and half in civility, be called a Village.

It had a church without a steeple, but with a poor Stump like the blunted wreck of some tall s.h.i.+p's mainmast. The priest's wages were less than those of a London coal-porter. The poor man could get no t.i.thes, for there were no t.i.thes to give him. Three parts of his glebe were always under water, and he was forced to keep a little school for his maintenance, of which the scholars could pay him but scant fees, seeing that it was always a chance whether their parents were dead of the Ague, or Drowned. Yet there was a tavern in the village, where these poor, shrinking, feverish creatures met and drank and smoked, and sang their songs, contriving now and again to smuggle a few kegs of spirits from Holland, and baffle the riding-officers in a scamper through the fens.

They were a simple folk, fond of telling Ghost-Stories, and with a firm belief in charms to cure them from the Ague. And, with an awe whose intensity was renewed each time the tale was told, they whispered among themselves as to that Prisoner of Fate up at the Castle yonder. What this man's Crime had been, none could tell. His misdeed was not, it was whispered, stated in the King's Warrant. The Governor was simply told to receive a certain Prisoner, who would be delivered to him by a certain Officer, and that, at the peril of his life, he was to answer for his safe custody. The Governor, whose name was Ferdinando Glover, had been a Captain of Horse in the late Protector Oliver's time; but, to the surprise of all men, he was not dismissed at his Majesty's Restoration, but was continued in his command, and indeed, received preferment, having the grade of a Colonel on the Irish establishment.

But they did not fail to tell him, and with fresh instances of severity, that he would answer with his head for the safe keeping of his Prisoner.

Of this strange Person it behoves me now to speak. In the year 1660, he appeared to be about seven-and-thirty years of age, tall, shapely, well-knit in his limbs, which captivity had rather tended to make full of flesh than to waste away; for there were no yards, nor s.p.a.cious outlying walls to this Castle; and but for a narrow ledge that ran along the surrounding border, and where he was but rarely suffered to walk, there was no means for him to take any exercise whatever. He wore his own hair in full dark locks, which Time and Sorrow had alike agreed to grizzle. Strong lines marked his face, but age had not brought them there. His eye was dim, but more with watching and study than with the natural failing of vital forces.

So he had been in this grim place going on for twelve years, without a day's respite, without an hour's enlargement. True, he wore no fetters, and was treated with a grave and stately Consideration; but his bonds were not less galling, and the iron had not the less entered into his soul. The Order was, that he was to be held as a Gentleman, and to be subjected to no grovelling indignities or base usage. But the Order was (for a long time, and until another Prisoner, hereafter to be named, received a meed of Enlargement) likewise as strict that, save his keepers, he should see no living soul. "And it is useless," wrote a Great Lord to the Governor once, when it was humbly submitted to him that the Prisoner might need spiritual consolation, and have solace to his soul by conferring with poor Parson Webfoot yonder,--"it is useless," said that n.o.bleman, "for your charge to see any black gown, under pretext that he would Repent; for, albeit though I know not his crime more than the babe unborn, I have it from his Majesty's own gracious word of mouth, that what he has done cannot be repented of; therefore you are again commanded to keep him close, and to let him have speech neither of parson nor of peasant." Which was duly done. But Colonel Glover, not untouched by that curiosity inherent to mankind, as well as womankind, took pains to cast about whether this was not one who had a hand in compa.s.sing the death of King Charles I.; and this coming, in some strange manner (through inquiries he had made in London), to the ears of Authority, he was distinctly told that his prisoner was not one of those bold bad men who, misled by Oliver Cromwell, had signed that fatal Warrant:--the names and doom of the Regicides being now all well known, as having suffered or fled from Justice, or being in hold, as Mr.

Martyn was. So Colonel Glover, being well a.s.sured that what was done was for the King's honour, and for the well-being of his Estates, and that any other further searching or prying might cost him his place, if they did not draw him within the meshes of the law against Misprision of Treason, forbore to vex himself or Authority further on matters that concerned him not, and was so content to guard his Prisoner with greater care than ever. The Castle was garrisoned by but twelve men, and of these six were invalids and matrosses; but the other six were tall and st.u.r.dy veterans, who had been indeed of Oliver's Life-guard, and were now confirmed in their places, and with the pay, not of common soldiers, but of private gentlemen, by the King's own order. Their life was dreary enough, for they could hold but little comrades.h.i.+p with the invalids, whom they dubbed "greybeards, drivellers, and kill-joys." But they had a guard-room to themselves, where they diced and drank, and told their ruffian stories, and sang their knavish catches, as is the manner, I suppose, for all soldiers to do in all countries, whether in camps or in cities. But their duty was withal of the severest. The invalids went snugly to bed at nine of the clock, or thereabouts, but the veritable men-of-war kept watch and ward all night, turn and turn about, and even when they slept took their repose on a bench, which was placed right across the Prisoner's door.

This much-enduring man--for surely no lot could be harder than his--to be thus, and in the very prime and vigour of manhood, cooped up in a worse than gaol, wherein for a long time he was even denied the company of captives as wretched as he,--this slave to some Mightier Will and Sterner Fate than, it would seem, mortal knowledge could wot of, bore his great Distress with an unvarying meekness and calm dignity. With him, indeed, they did as they listed, using him as one that was as Clay in the hands of the Potter; but, not to the extent of one tetchy word or froward movement, did he ever show that he thought his imprisonment unjust, or the bearing of those who were set over him cruel. And this was not an abject stupor or dull indifference, such as I have marked in rogues confined for life in the Bagnios of the Levant, who knew that they must needs pull so many strokes and get so many stripes every day, and so gave up battling with the World, and grinned contumely at their gaolers or the visitors who came sometimes to point at them and fling them copper money. In the King's Prisoner there was a philosophic reserve and quietness that almost approached content; and his resignation under suffering was of that kind that a Just Man may feel who knows that he is upon the ground, and that, howsoever his enemies push at him, he cannot fall far. He never sought to evade the conditions of his captivity or to plead for its being lightened. The courtesies that were offered to him, in so far as the Governor was warranted in offering such civilities, he took as his due; but he never craved a greater indulgence or went one step in word or in deed to obtain a surcease from his harsh and cruel lot.

He would rise at six of the clock both in winter and summer, and apply himself with great ardour to his private devotions and to good studies until eight, when his breakfast, a tankard of furmety and a small measure of wine, was brought him. And from nine until noon he would again be at his studies, and then have dinner of such meats as were in season. From one to three he was privileged to walk either on the narrow strip of masonry that encompa.s.sed his prison-house, and with a soldier with his firelock on hip following his every step, or else to wander up and down in the various chambers of the Castle, still followed by a guard. Now he would tarry awhile in the guard-room, and stand over against the soldier's table, his head resting very sadly against the chimney, and listen to their wild talk, which was, however, somewhat hushed and shaped to decency so long as he abided there. And anon he would come into the Governor's apartment, and hold Colonel Glover for some moments in grave discourse on matters of history, and the lives of Worthy Captains, and sometimes upon points and pa.s.sages of Scripture, but never upon anything that concerned the present day. For, beyond the bounds of the place in which he was immured, what should he know of things of instant moment, or of the way the world was wagging? By permission, the Colonel had told him that Oliver was no more, and that Richard, his son, was made Protector in his stead. Then, at the close of that weak and vain shadow of a Reign, and after the politic act of my Lord Duke of Albemarle (Gen. Monk), who made his own and the country's fortune, and Nan Clarges'[I] to boot, at one stroke, the Prisoner was given to know that schism was at an end, and that the King had come to his own again. Colonel Glover must needs tell him; for he was bidden to fire a salvo from the five pieces of artillery he had mounted, three on his outer wall, and two at the top of his donjon-keep, to say nothing of hoisting the Royal Standard, which now streamed from the pole where erst had floated the rag that bore the arms of the Commonwealth of England.[J]

"I am glad," the Prisoner said, when they told him. "I hope this young man will make England happier than did his father before him." But this was after he was in hopes of getting some company in his solitude, and when he was cheerfuller.

It was about midway in his imprisonment when another Captive was brought to the King's Castle; but it was not until close upon the Restoration of King Charles II. that the two prisoners were permitted to come together.

The second guest in this most dolorous place was a Woman, and that Woman was my Grandmother, Arabella Greenville.

There is no use in disguising the fact that, for many months after the failure of her attack on the Protector, the poor Lady had been as entirely distraught as was her fate after the death of the Lord Francis, and that to write her Life during this period would be merely penning the chronicle of a continued Frenzy. It were merciful to draw a veil over so sad and mortifying a scene--so well brought up as she had been, and respected by all the Quality,--but in pursuit of the determination with which I set out, to tell the Truth, and all the Truth, I am forced to confess that my Grandmother's Ravings were of the most violent, and that of her thoroughly demented state there could be no doubt. So far, indeed, did the unhappy creature's Abandonment extend, that those who were about her could with difficulty persuade her to keep any Garments upon her body, and were forced with Stripes and Revilings to force to a decorous carriage the gentle Lady who had once been the very soul and mirror of Modesty. But in process of time these dreadful furies and rages left her, and she became calm. She was still beautiful, albeit her comeliness was now of a chastened and saddened order, and, save her eye, there was no light or sparkle in her face.

When her health and mind were healed, so far as earthly skill could heal them,--it being given out, I am told, to her kindred that she had died mad in the Spinning House at Cambridge: but she had never been further than the house of one Dr Empson at Colchester, who had tended her during her distraction,--my Grandmother was brought to the King's Castle in the East, and for a long time lay incarcerate in a lower chamber of the Keep, being not allowed even that scant exercise which was permitted to the Prisoner above, and being waited upon and watched night and day by the Governor's Daughter, Mistress Ruth Glover, who at nights slept in a little closet adjoining my Grandmother's chamber. The girl had a tongue, I suppose, like the rest of her s.e.x,--and of our s.e.x too, brother,--and she would not have been eighteen, of a lively Disposition, and continually in the society of a Lady of Birth and accomplishments, not more than ten years her senior, without gossiping to her concerning all that she knew of the sorry little world round about her. It was not, however, much, or of any great moment, that Ruth had to tell my Grandmother. She could but hold her in discourse of how the Invalid Matrosses had the rheumatism and the ague; how the Life-guard men in their room diced and drank and quarrelled, both over their dice and their drink; how the rumour ran that the poverty-stricken habitants of the adjoining village had, from long dwelling among the fens, become as web-footed as the wild-fowl they hunted; and how her Father, who had been for many years a widower, was harsh and stern with her, and would not suffer her to read the romances and play-books, some half-dozen of which the Sergeant of the Guard had with him. She may have had a little also to say about the Prisoner in the upper story of the Keep--how his chamber was all filled with folios and papers; how he studied and wrote and prayed; and during his two hours' daily liberty wandered sadly and in a silent manner about the Castle. For this was all Mistress Ruth had to tell, and of the Prisoner's name, or of his Crime, she was, perforce, mum.

These two Women nevertheless shaped all kinds of feverish Romances and wild conjectures respecting this unknown man above stairs. Arabella had told her own sad story to the girl who--though little better than a waiting-woman--she had made, for want of a better bower-maiden, her Confidante. I need not say that oceans of Sympathy, or the accepted Tokens thereof, I mean Tears, ran out from the eyes of the Governor's Daughter when she heard the History of the Lord Francis, of the words he spoke just before the musketeers fired their pieces at him, and of another n.o.ble speech he made two hours before he Suffered, when the Officer in command, compa.s.sionating his youth and parts, told him that if he had any suit, short of life, to prefer to the Lord General, he would take upon himself to say that it should be granted without question; whereon quoth my Lord Francis, "I will not die with any suit in my mouth, save to the King of kings." On this, and on the story of the Locket, and of his first becoming acquainted with Arabella, of his sprightly disguise as a Teacher, with the young squire at Madam Desaguilier's school at Hackney, of his Beauty and Virtues and fine manners and extraordinary proficiency in Arts and Letters and the Exercises of Chivalry,--of these and a thousand kindred things the two women were never tired of talking. And, indeed, if one calls to mind what vast Eloquence and wealth of words two loving hearts can distil from a Bit of Ribbon or a Torn Letter, it is not to be wondered at that Arabella and Ruth should find their Theme inexhaustible--so good and brave as had been its Object, now dead and cold in the b.l.o.o.d.y trench at Hampton yonder, and convert it into a perpetually welling spring of Mournful Remembrances.

Arabella had taken to her old trick of Painting again, and in the first and second year of her removal to the Castle executed some very creditable performances. But she never attempted either the effigies of her Lover or of the Protector, and confined herself to portraitures of the late martyred King, and of the Princes now unjustly kept from their inheritance.

It was during the Protectorate of Richard Cromwell (that mere puppet-play of Power) that the watch kept on the prisoners in the King's Castle grew for a time much less severe and even lax. Arabella was suffered to go out of her chamber, even at the very hours that the Prisoner above was wandering to and fro. The guards did not hinder their meeting; and, says Colonel Ferdinando Glover, one day to his daughter, "I should not wonder if, some of these days, Orders were to come down for me to set both my birds free from their cage. That which Mrs.

Greenville has done, you and I know full well, and I am almost sorry that she did not succeed."

"Oh, father!" cries Mistress Ruth, who was of a very soft and tender nature, and abhorred the very idea of bloodshed; so that, loving Arabella as she did with all her heart, she could not help regarding her with a kind of Terror when she remembered the deed for which she was confined.

"Tush, girl," the Colonel makes answer, "'tis no Treason now to name such a thing. Oliver's dead, and will eat no more bread; and I misliked him much at the end, for it is certain that he betrayed the Good Old Cause, and hankered after an earthly crown. As for this young Popinjay, he will have more need to protect himself than these Kingdoms. And I think that if your father is to live on the King's wages, it had better be on the real King's than the false one."

"And do you think, father, that King Charles will come to his own again?" asks Ruth, in a flutter of delight; for Arabella had made her a very Royalist at heart.

"I think what I think," replies the Colonel, with his stern look; "but whatever happens, it is not likely, it seems me, that we shall have our prisoners here much longer. That is to say:--Mrs. Greenville, for what she hath done can scarcely be distasteful to those who loved not Oliver. But for my other bird,--who can tell? He may have raised the very Devil for aught I know."

"Do you think that he also tried to kill the Protector?" Ruth asks timidly, and just hazarding a Surmise that had oft been mooted betwixt Arabella and herself.

"Get thee to thy chamber, and about thy business, wench," the Colonel says, quite storming. "Away, or I will lay my willow wand about thy shoulders. Is there nothing but killing of Protectors, forsooth, for thy silly head to be filled with?" And yet I incline to think that Mr.

Governor was not of a very different mind to his daughter; for away he hies to his chamber, and falls to reading Colonel t.i.tus' famous book, _Killing no Murder_, and, looking anon on his Prisoner coming wandering down a winding staircase, says softly to himself, "He looks like one, for all his studious guise, who could do a Bold Deed at a pinch."

This Person, I should have said, wore, winter and summer, a plain black s.h.a.g gown untrimmed, with camlet netherstocks, and a smooth band. And his Right Hand was always covered with a glove of Black Velvet.

By and by came, as I have related, the news of his Majesty's Restoration and fresh Strict Orders for the keeping of the Prisoner. But though he was not to see a clergyman,--and for all that prohibition he saw more than one before he came out of Captivity,--a certain Indulgence was now granted him. He was permitted to have free access to Mrs. Arabella Greenville, and to converse freely with her at all proper times and seasons.

But that I know the very n.o.ble nature of my Grandmother, and am prepared, old as I am, to defend her fame even to taking the heart's blood of the villain that maligned her, I might blush at having to record a fact which must needs be set down here. Ere six months had pa.s.sed, there grew up between Mrs. Greenville and the Prisoner a very warm and close friends.h.i.+p, which in time ripened into the tenderest of attachments. That her love for her dear Frank ever wavered, or that she ever swerved for one moment in her reverence for his memory, I cannot and I will not believe; but she nevertheless looked with an exceeding favour upon the imprisoned man, and made no scruple of avowing her Flame to Ruth. This young person did in time confide the same to her father, who was much concerned thereat, he not knowing how far the allowance of any love-pa.s.sages between two such strangely a.s.sorted suitors might tally with his duty towards the King and Government. Nor could he shut his eyes to the fact that the Prisoner regarded Mrs. Greenville first with a tender compa.s.sion (such as a father might have towards his child), next with an ardent sympathy, and finally--and that very speedily too--with a Feeling that had all the Signs and Portents of Love. These two unfortunate People were so shut out from the world, and so spiritually wedded by a common Misery and discomfort, that their mere earthly coming together could not be looked upon but as natural and reasonable; for Mrs. Greenville was the only woman upon whom the Prisoner could be expected to look,--he being, beyond doubt, one of Gentle Degree, if not of Great and n.o.ble Station, and therefore beyond aught but the caresses of a Patron with such a simple maid as Ruth Glover, whose father, although of some military rank, was, like most of the Captains who had served under the Commonwealth (witness Ireton, Harrison, Hacker, and many more) of exceeding mean extraction.

That love-vows were interchanged between this Bride and Bridegroom of Sorrow and a Dark Dungeon almost, I know not; but their liking for each other's society--he imparting to her some of his studies, and she playing music, with implements of which she was well provided, to him of an afternoon--had become so apparent both to the soldiers on guard and servants, even to the poor Invalid Matrosses wheezing and s.h.i.+vering in their buff-coats, that Colonel Glover, in a very flurry of uncertainty, sent post haste to Whitehall to know what he was to do--whether to chamber up Mrs. Greenville in her chamber, as of aforetime, or confine the Prisoner in one of the lower vaults in the body of the rock, with so many pounds weight of iron on his legs. For Colonel Glover was a man accustomed to use strong measures, whether with his family or with those he had custody over.

No answer came for many days; and the Governor had almost begun to think his message to be forgotten, when one summer evening (A.D. 1661) a troop of horse were seen galloping from the Village towards the Castle. The Drawbridge, which was on the ordinary kept slung, was now lowered; and the captain of the troop pa.s.sing up to the barbican, gave Colonel Glover a sealed packet, and told him that he and his men would bivack at the bridge-foot (for the fens were pa.s.sable at this season) until one who was expected at nightfall should come. Meat and drink were sent for, and the soldiers, dismounting, began to take tobacco and rail against the Castle in their brutal fas.h.i.+on--shame on them!--as an old mangy rat-trap.

Colonel Glover went up into his chamber in extreme disturbance. He had opened the packet and conned its contents; and having his daughter to him presently, and charging her, by her filial duty, to use discretion in all things that he should confide to her, tells her that his Majesty the King of England, France, and Ireland was coming to the Castle in a strictly Disguised habit that very evening.

There was barely time to make the slightest of preparations for this Glorious Guest; but what there was, and of the best of Meat, and Wine, and Plate, and hangings, and candles in sconces, was set out in the Governor's chamber, and ordered as handsomely as might be for his Majesty's coming. About eight o'clock--the villagers being given to understand that only some n.o.ble commander is coming to pa.s.s the soldiers in the Castle in review--arrived two lackeys, with panniers and saddle-bags, and a French varlet, who said he was, forsooth, a cook, and carried about with him a whole elaboratory of stove-furnaces, pots and pans, and jars of sauces and condiments. Monsieur was quickly at work in the kitchen, turning all things topsy-turvy, and nearly frightening Margery, the old cook, who had been a baggage-wagon sutler at Naseby in the Great Wars, into fits. About half-past ten a trumpet was heard to wind at the bridge-foot, and a couple of horses came tramping over the planks, making the chains rattle even to the barbican, where their riders dismounted.

The King, for it is useless to make any further disguise about him--although the Governor deferred falling on his knees and kissing his hand until he had conducted him to his own chamber--was habited in strict incognito, with an uncurled wig, a flap-hat, and a horseman's coat over all. He had not so much as a hanger by his side, carrying only a stout oak walking-staff. With him came a great lord, of an impudent countenance, and with a rich dress beneath his cloak, who, when his Master was out of the room, sometimes joked with, and sometimes swore at, poor little Ruth, as, I grieve to say, was the uncivil custom among the Quality in those wild days. The King supped very copiously, drinking many beakers of wine, and singing French songs, to which the impudent Lord beat time, and sometimes presumed to join in chorus. But this Prince was ever of an easy manner and affable complexion, which so well explains the Love his people bore him. All this while the Governor and Ruth waited at table, serving the dishes and wine on their knees; for they would suffer no mean hirelings to wait upon their guests.

As the King drank--and he was a great taker of wine--he asked a mult.i.tude of questions concerning the Prisoner and Mrs. Greenville, to all of which Colonel Glover made answer in as plain a manner as was consistent with his deep loyalty and reverence. Soon, however, Colonel Glover found that his Majesty was paying far more attention to the bottle than to his conversation, and, about one in the morning, was conducted, with much reverence, to the Governor's own sleeping-chamber, which had been hastily prepared. His Majesty was quite Affable, but Haggard visibly. The impudent Lord was bestowed in the chamber which had been Ruth's, before she came to sleep so near Mrs. Greenville; and it is well he knew not what a pretty tenant the room had had, else would he have doubtless pa.s.sed some villanous pleasantries thereupon.

The King, who was always an early riser, was up betimes in the morning; and on Colonel Glover representing to him his sorrow for the mean manner in which he had of necessity been lodged, answered airily that he was better off there than in the Oak, or in Holland, without a styver in his pocket; "Although, oddsfis.h.!.+" quoth his Majesty, "this Castle of mine seems fitter to harbour wild-ducks than Christians." And then nothing would suit his Majesty but to be introduced to Mrs. Greenville, with whom he was closeted two whole hours.

He came forth from her chamber with his dark, saturnine face all flushed. "A brave woman!--a bold woman!" he kept saying. "An awful service she was like to have done me; and all to think that it was for love of poor Frank." For this Prince had known the Lord Francis well, and had shown him many favours.

"And now, good Master Governor," the King continued, but with quite another expression on his countenance, "we will see your Man Captive, if it shall so please you." And the two went upstairs.

This is all I am permitted to tell in this place of what pa.s.sed between King Charles the Second and the Prisoner in the upper chamber:--

"You know me!" the King said, sitting over against him at the table, and scanning his face with dark earnestness.

"You are Charles Stuart, second of the name on the throne of England."

"You know I am in the possession of your secret--of the King's Secret; for of those dead it was known but to Oliver, as of those living it is now only known to yourself and to me."

"And the young Man, Richard?"

"He never knew it. His father never trusted him so far. He had doubts and suspicions, that was all."

"Thank G.o.d!" said the prisoner.

"What was Oliver's enmity towards you, that he should immure you here all these years?"

"I had served him too well. He feared lest the Shedder of Blood should become the Avenger of Blood."

"Are you sorry?"

"Sorry!" cried the Prisoner, with a kind of scream. "Had he a thousand lives, had I a thousand hands, I would do the same deed to-morrow." And he struck the right hand that was covered with the velvet glove with cruel violence on to the oaken table.

FOOTNOTES:

[I] A woman of very mean belongings, whose parents lived, I have heard, somewhere about the Maypole in the Strand, and who was promoted to high station, being Monk's d.u.c.h.ess, but to her death of a coa.r.s.e and brutish carriage, and shamefully given to the drinking of strong waters.--J. D.

[J] A very glorious rag nevertheless.--ED.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.