HIS EXCELLENCY'S JUDGMENT.
If Duke Hamilton had suddenly appeared in the room and surrendered
himself without terms--a thing beyond doubt unlikely to happen as long
as that gallant gentleman had thirty thousand men at his back--those
present could scarcely have looked more astonished. Not that they, or
the majority of them at all events, doubted the existence of
witchcraft. On the contrary; but anything less like the common idea of
a witch than this helpless child it would have been difficult to
conceive. Respect for their chief did indeed silence the laughter
which the man's answer would otherwise have caused, but it could not
still the murmur of amazement and ridicule, or the hum of indignation
which rose to their lips.
"The man is mad!" cried one by the door, a person privileged.
"Silence!" Cromwell answered sharply. "And do you, sirrah," he
continued to Simon, "explain yourself at once, or I will find means to
lash sense into you. What has the boy done?"
Before Simon could answer Luke interposed. The enthusiast could
restrain himself no longer.
"What has he done?" he cried. "He has sold himself to do evil and
stint not. Why do our horses fail and the wheels of our chariots drive
heavily, so that the work is not done, nor the task accomplished?
Because of the learning of the Egyptians which he has learned, and
because of the witchcraft of Jezebel which he has practised, that the
people may remain in bondage and our leader fall and rise not. Be
warned, O Joshua, and hear reason, O deliverer! It rains, and will
rain in the land until----"
"Tie up the knave's mouth, some one!" thundered Cromwell. "And do
you," he continued, addressing Simon, "who seem to have some wit in
your madness, answer me briefly, what has the child done?"
But Simon's answer was destined to be again interrupted; this time by
the arrival of the officer in charge of the prisoners, who came in to
learn whether the General would examine them in the house. Cromwell
gave the order, and the men, two in number, were accordingly brought
in and made to stand by the door. This caused a momentary delay and
commotion; but, so great was the interest taken in the child, who had
been by this time raised from the floor and relieved of his bonds,
that scarcely any one turned to notice them. The moment the stir
ceased, the General nodded to Simon.
"The boy has a spell," Gridley answered, getting speech at last. "He
has a charm, and when he rubs it, it rains. He brought the rain
yesterday, and brought it again to-day."
"Tush, man!" Cromwell said contemptuously. "You play with me."
"You do not believe me?"
"No, in faith I do not," the General answered darkly.
"Then here is the proof!" the fanatic cried, in a voice of triumph.
And he pointed to the wooden cross which lay on the table. "There is
the charm! There, look at it, touch it, handle it; tell me what it is,
if you can!"
"A child's toy," Cromwell answered scornfully, as he stepped forward
and without hesitation took up the implement. "Well, man, I see it,"
he continued, turning it over in his hand. "What of it? Be brief with
your madness, for I have larger fish to fry to-day. Be brief, I say."
"I will," the Puritan answered, undaunted. And therewith, beginning
with the story of the strange evasion from the closet, he told the
tale, so far as he knew it, of Jack's mysterious proceedings and
powers. For a while, Cromwell listened or appeared to listen with half
an ear only, his attention divided between the speaker and a map which
the obsequious Pownall had placed on the table. But when Simon came to
the boy's singular proceedings on the hillock above the road, and
described, with some advantages which his imagination lent the
narrative, the manner of the boy's behavior while the army passed
below him, Cromwell's attitude underwent a sudden change. He closed
the map with a quick gesture, and for a moment gazed full at the man
from under his bushy eyebrows.
"Umph! And so you think that caused the storm, Master Numskull?" he
rapped out, when Simon had come to an end. "Where is this cross?"
It had been passed from hand to hand, but was at once brought back to
him. "Here, Hodgson," he said sharply; "what do you make of it?"
The officer to whom he appealed turned the thing over and over in his
hands, but could make nothing of it. Cromwell watched him with a
sparkle in his eye, and at length snatched it from him. "Chut!"
he said--but although he scolded, it was evident he was well
pleased--"you are as big a fool as Master Numskull there! Didst never
see a tally, man?"
"A tally, your excellency?"
"Ay, a tally, a tally, a tally!" replied his excellency, impatiently.
"A thing, I tell thee, that was known in this England of ours, and in
the exchequer, when rogues were fewer and thy ancestors were hung
without benefit of clergy! This is a tally if ever I saw one. To take
an honest tally for a witch's broomstick? But softly! Said I an
_honest_ tally?" he continued, looking suddenly about him, while his
voice grew hard and stern. "Pownall! count those notches."
The officer obeyed. "There are twenty-three, your excellency," he
said, when he had accomplished the task.
"And how many troops of horse have gone by to-day?"
"Twenty-three, your excellency," was the answer, given with military
brevity.
A murmur of intelligence passed round the circle of officers. The clue
once found by Cromwell's sharp eye and strong common sense, the secret
became an open one, patent to the dullest intellect. When further
examination showed that the number of notches on the other arm of the
cross corresponded with the number of foot regiments which had passed
that morning, even Simon Gridley began to understand that here was no
question of the supernatural, but of some human agency equally hostile
to the good cause. Only Luke Gridley remained unconvinced. "Bolts and
bars could not hold him," he murmured, "nor----"
"We will come to that by-and-by," Cromwell answered. "Let the boy
stand forward. Where is he?"
Some one thrust Jack forward into the middle of the room, where he
stood exposed to the full brunt of Cromwell's formidable gaze. The
shock through which the child had passed had left him dazed and weak;
his color came and went, his legs faltered under him, and he trembled
perceptibly. But his heart was stout, and his breeding stood him in
good stead at this crisis. Barely understanding what had passed, or
the steps by which his plan had been discovered, on one point he was
still clear, steadfast, and resolute: and that was, that come what
might, he would not betray his brother!
But for the moment Cromwell said nothing about that. The question he
put to him took all present by surprise. "Who let you out of the
closet, my lad?" he said, in a tone of rough good-nature.
"A man," the boy muttered, with dry lips.
"Was it one of the men in the house? No? Then how did the man get into
the house? Tell us that."
Jack looked about him like a trapped animal. He did not know which
questions he ought to answer and which he ought to refuse to answer.
Confused and terrified by the gaze of so many men and the possession
of a secret, aware only that he must keep back his brother's name and
hiding-place, the instinct of a drowning man led him to give up all
else. After a moment's hesitation he muttered: "His wife," pointing to
Simon, "went out in the middle of the night. She left the door open,
and the man came in."
"Very good," Cromwell answered. "That is clear and explicit. And now,
my man," he continued, turning suddenly upon Simon, who stood silent
and confounded, "what do you say? More seems to go on in your house
than you wot of. Let the woman stand out."
Gridley the butler, sitting doubled up on the meal chest, where his
brothers figure sheltered him, almost fell forward with terror. He saw
his crime on the point of being discovered, and all his craven soul
was in alarm. Were attention once drawn to him, were he once
challenged and bade to stand forth, he knew that no power could save
him. In the absence of evidence he would infallibly betray himself.
The dreadful tremors, the sickening apprehension, which he had felt
during the first part of his flight from Pattenhall, when he had the
damning evidences of his crime upon him, returned upon him now, and
bitterly, most bitterly, did he regret that he had ever given way to
temptation.
He came near to swooning when he heard the woman called out, for he
thought it a hundred chances to one that she would falter, and in a
moment weave a rope for his neck. The sweat ran down his face as he
strained his ears to catch--he dared not look--the first syllable of
accusation.
But Mistress Gridley, though she had had scant notice of the occasion,
was of a harder kind. Relieved of ghostly fears, her mind quickly
regained its balance, and instinctively took refuge in the falseness
which had become second nature. Her shrewdish face wore a flush as she
came forward, and there was a flicker of secret fear in her eye. But
the tone in which she denied that she had ever left her house on the
night in question was even and composed, and "As for a man," she added
scornfully, "what man is there within three miles of us?"
"The man who taught this lad to spy!" Cromwell retorted, swiftly and
severely. "That man, woman! Do you know him?"
She could say No to that with a good conscience, and she did so.
Cromwell signed to her stand back. "Very well," he said, "then the boy
shall tell us." He turned to Jack, and after glaring at him for a
moment, cried in a loud voice: "Hark ye, sirrah! who gave you this
cross? What is his name, and where is he?"
That voice, at which so many men had trembled and were to tremble,
made the very marrow in Jack's bones quiver. That fierce red face with
its fiery eyes seemed to grow before Jack's gaze until the child saw
nothing else save that and a dancing haze which framed it. "Hark ye,
sirrah!" He heard the words repeated again and again, and his soul
melted within him for fear. But he remained dumb.
"Come!" Cromwell said grimly when he had thrice bidden him to speak in
vain. "This is what I expected. But I will find a means to open your
lips. Pownall, bid one of the guard bring a rope!"
A movement in the room seemed to indicate that the order caused
emotion of some kind, and Captain Hodgson, a bluff North-countryman,
high in the General's favor, stepped forward as if to interpose. But
apparently he thought better of it, and in a moment a rope was
brought. "Now," Cromwell thundered, "will you speak?"
But Jack, whose white face and straining eyes, as he stood alone in
the middle of the kitchen, a child among men, were pitiful to behold,
remained silent. Only one idea, and that was rather an instinct than a
conscious determination, remained with him--to shelter Frank.
"Tie him up!" said Cromwell, in a hard voice. "Sergeant," he
continued, "take two files and the boy outside, and if he does not
speak in five minutes, string him up." No one spoke or interposed, and
the child, half led and half carried by the burly sergeant, had almost
reached the threshold, when a voice close by exclaimed suddenly:
"Enough, you cowards! Shame on you! Let the child go!"
"Who spoke?" Cromwell cried, wheeling round from the map he was
scanning.
"The man you want!" was the reckless answer. "Take him, and let the
child go!"
There was a brief commotion at the door, which ended in one of the
prisoners being thrust forward until he stood face to face with the
General. "So, so!" said Cromwell, eyeing him with a frown. "Who are
you?"
"I have told you!" the man answered flippantly, though the
perspiration stood in beads on his brow, and behind that brave face
which he showed the crowd was a human soul sick with fear of that
which all men fear. "I am the man you want. The boy is my brother, and
I told him what to do. He is a mere baby."
For the speaker was Frank Patten. There was a stir among the officers
round the door, but Cromwell remained unmoved. "Where was this fellow
taken?" he asked, looking him over critically.
"Between here and Settle, your excellency," Hodgson answered. "The
scoutmaster found him loitering on the road and seized him on
suspicion."
"He is a zealous man," Cromwell answered. "Let a note of it be made,
Pownall. For you, fellow," he continued, addressing the prisoner, "say
what you have to say. Your time is short."
"I have only one thing to say," the young man answered coldly--and few
among the many who admired his self-control marked the tiny pulse
beating madly in his cheek. "There is some gold plate hidden hard by.
My brother knows where it is. It was stolen by that craven hound
yonder, and buried by night by that lying shrew there. Perhaps the man
who recovers it will have a care of the child until something fall out
for him. That is all."
"Wait!" said Cromwell. "Let that man stand out. Is this the man?"
But Gridley the butler saved Frank the trouble of answering. With a
moan of terror he flung himself on his knees on the floor, and with
tears flowing down his pale, fat face, uttered such abject entreaties
for mercy as shamed the very men who heard them. Punishment had indeed
fallen on the wretched creature, for while he lay there, now excusing
himself and now accusing the woman--who stood by, dark and
unrepentant, her face full of impotent spite--he tasted the bitterness
of death a dozen times over.
"Faugh!" Cromwell exclaimed at last, spurning him from him with his
booted foot; "take him away. Let him run the gauntlet of whatever
regiment is first in quarters to-night! And see they lay on roundly,
Hodgson. For this lying woman, your wife, man----"
"She is no longer wife of mine!" the Puritan answered, so grimly that
more than one shuddered. "She shall cross my threshold once, and never
again. She has sinned; let her starve."
General Cromwell shrugged his shoulders and stood a moment in thought.
Then he turned to Patten. "For you," he said harshly, "you are a
soldier, and know your sentence. You can have an hour's grace.
Sergeant Joyce, retain four files, and see the sentence carried out.
Or stay, I will reduce it to writing. The boy may be with him."
The voices of the General's staff, as they mounted and rode briskly
away at his heels, had long died away, and only the sobbing of the
child as he lay in Frank's arms broke the silence of the ill-fated
house. The guards left in charge, grave stalwart men, not without
bowels of compassion, had retired outside the door and left the two to
pass these last moments together; with an intimation that when the
hour was up they would call their prisoner. All things, even the ray
of golden light which presently pierced the window, as if to warn
Frank to look his last on the sun, combined to heighten the stillness
and peace, if not the solemn resignation, of this last hour. But alas,
the approach of death withers life itself. The young man's blood
curdled and stood at the thought of it, so that at last the moments
slowly passing in that silence grew intolerable. An hour? It seemed to
him that he had sat with the child in his arms for thrice that time.
When would they come?
He grew so desperate at last that he set the boy down, and with a
parting passionate embrace hurried to the door; the sooner it was over
now, the better. Desperately he opened the door and stepped out into
the daylight.
For a moment after he had done so he stood confounded, staring about
him with wild eyes. Before him lay the moorland, half in sunshine,
half in shadow. Above him the clouds had parted, and the infinite
expanse of heaven lay open to his view. But nowhere was a living
creature in sight. The troop-horses, whose bits he had heard jingling
a few minutes before, were gone; the troopers had melted into thin
air!
[Illustration: He bent his head and peered at it.--Page 190.]
He clapped his hand to his forehead, and stood awhile battling to
control himself. Was this a trick? If not--and then his eye,
travelling dizzily round, lit on a piece of paper which some one had
nailed to the outside of the door with a knife. He bent his head, and
peered at it, and read:
"_To Sergeant Joyce.--Half an hour after my departure you will let the
prisoner, Francis Patten, go free. And this shall be your authority_.
"_Oliver Cromwell, Lieutenant-General_."
THE END.