SIEGE.
Things began to look threatening. Raglan's brooding disappointment and
apprehension was like the electric overcharge of the earth, awaiting and
drawing to it the hovering cloud: the lightning and thunder of the war
began at length to stoop upon the Yellow Tower of Gwent. When the month
of May arrived once more with its moonlight and apple-blossoms, the
cloud came with it. The doings of the earl of Glamorgan in Ireland had
probably hastened the vengeance of the parliament.
There was no longer any royal army. Most of the king's friends had
accepted the terms offered them; and only a few of his garrisons,
amongst the rest that of Raglan, held out--no longer, however, in such
trim for defence as at first. The walls, it is true, were rather
stronger than before, the quantity of provisions was large, and the
garrison was sufficient; but their horses were now comparatively few,
and, which was worse, the fodder in store was, in prospect of a long
siege, scanty. But the worst of all, indeed the only weak and therefore
miserable fact, was, that the spirit, I do not mean the courage, of the
castle was gone; its enthusiasm had grown sere; its inhabitants no
longer loved the king as they had loved him, and even stern-faced
general Duty cannot bring up his men to a hand-to-hand conflict with the
same elans as queen love.
The rumour of approaching troops kept gathering, and at every fresh
report Scudamore's eyes shone.
'Sir Rowland,' said the governor one day, 'hast not had enough of
fighting yet for all thy lame shoulder?'
''Tis but my left shoulder, my lord,' answered Scudamore.
'Thou lookest for the siege as an' it were but a tussle and over--a
flash and a roar. An' thou had to answer for the place like me--well!'
'Nay, my lord, I would fain show the roundheads what an honest house can
do to hold out rogues.'
'Ay, but there's the rub!' returned lord Charles: 'will the house hold
out the rogues? Bethink thee, Rowland, there is never a spot in it fit
for defence except the keep and the kitchen.'
'We can make sallies, my lord.'
'To be driven in again by ten times our number, and kept in while they
knock our walls about our ears! However, we will hold out while we can.
Who knows what turn affairs may take?'
It was towards the end of April when the news reached Raglan that the
king, desperate at length, had made his escape from beleaguered Oxford,
and in the disguise of a serving man, betaken himself to the
headquarters of the Scots army, to find himself no king, no guest even,
but a prisoner. He sought shelter and found captivity. The marquis
dropped his chin on his chest and murmured, 'All is over.'
But the pang that shot to his heart awoke wounded loyalty: he had been
angry with his monarch, and justly, but he would fight for him still.
'See to the gates, Charles,' he cried, almost springing, spite of his
unwieldiness, from his chair. 'Tell Caspar to keep the powder-mill going
night and day. Would to God my boy Ned were here! His majesty hath
wronged me, but throned or prisoned he is my king still--the church must
come down, Charles. The dead are for the living, and will not cry out.'
For in St. Cadocus' church lay the tombs of his ancestors.
On deliberation it was resolved, however, that only the tower, which
commanded some portions of the castle, should fall. To Dorothy it was
like taking down the standard of the Lord. She went with some of the
ladies to look a last look at the ancient structure, and saw mass after
mass fall silent from the top to clash hideous at the foot amidst the
broken tomb-stones. It was sad enough! but the destruction of the
cottages around it, that the enemy might not have shelter there, was
sadder still. The women wept and wailed; the men growled, and said what
was Raglan to them that their houses should be pulled from over their
heads. The marquis offered compensation and shelter. All took the money,
but few accepted the shelter, for the prospect of a siege was not
attractive to any but such as were fond of fighting, of whom some would
rather attack than defend.
The next day they heard that sir Trevor Williams was at Usk with a
strong body of men. They knew colonel Birch was besieging Gutbridge
castle. Two days passed, and then colonel Kirk appeared to the north,
and approached within two miles. The ladies began to look pale as often
as they saw two persons talking together: there might be fresh news. His
father and his wife were not the only persons in the castle who kept
sighing for Glamorgan. Every soul in it felt as if, not to say fancied
that, his presence would have made it impregnable.
But a strange excitement seized upon Dorothy, which arose from a sense
of trust and delegation, outwardly unauthorised. She had not the
presumption to give it form in words, even to Caspar, but she felt as if
they two were the special servants of the absent power. Ceaselessly
therefore she kept open eyes, and saw and spoke and reminded and
remedied where she could, so noiselessly, so unobtrusively, that none
were offended, and all took heed of the things she brought before them.
Indeed what she said came at length to be listened to almost as if it
had been a message from Glamorgan. But her chief business was still the
fire-engine, whose machinery she anxiously watched--for if anything
should happen to Caspar and then to the engine, what would become of
them when driven into the tower?
Discipline, which of late had got very drowsy, was stirred up to fresh
life. Watch grew strict. The garrison was drilled more regularly and
carefully, and the guard and sentinels relieved to the minute. The
armoury was entirely overhauled, and every smith set to work to get the
poor remainder of its contents into good condition.
One evening lord Charles came to his father with the news that some
score of fresh horses had arrived.
'Have they brought provender with them, my lord?' asked the marquis.
'Alas, no, my lord, only teeth,' answered the governor.
'How stands the hay?'
'At low ebb, my lord. There is plenty of oats, however.'
'We hear to-day nothing of the roundheads: what say you to turning them
out and letting them have a last bellyful of sweet grass under the
walls?'
'I say 'tis so good a plan, my lord, that I think we had better extend
it, and let a few of the rest have a parting nibble.'
The marquis approved.
There was a postern in the outermost wall of the castle on the western
side, seldom used, commanded by the guns of the tower, and opening upon
a large field of grass, with nothing between but a ditch. It was just
wide enough to let one horse through at a time, and by this the governor
resolved to turn them out, and as soon as it was nearly dark, ordered a
few thick oak planks to be laid across the ditch, one above another, for
a bridge. The field was sufficiently fenced to keep them from straying,
and with the first signs of dawn they would take them in again.
Dorothy, leaving the tower for the night, had reached the archway, when
to her surprise she saw the figure of a huge horse move across the mouth
of it, followed by another and another. Except Richard's mare on that
eventful night she had never seen horse-kind there before. One after
another, till she had counted some five-and-twenty, she saw pass, then
heard them cross the fountain court with heavy foot upon the tiles. At
length, dark as it was, she recognised her own little Dick moving
athwart the opening. She sprang forward, seized him by the halter, and
drew him in beside her. On and on they came, till she had counted
eighty, and then the procession ceased.
Presently she heard the voice of lord Charles, as he crossed the hall
and came out into the court, saying,
'How many didst thou count, Shafto?'
'Seventy-nine, my lord,' answered the groom, coming from the direction
of the gate.
'I counted eighty at the hall-door as they went in.'
'I am certain no more than seventy-nine went through the gate, my lord.'
'What can have become of the eightieth? He must have gone into the
chapel, or up the archway, or he may be still in the hall. Art sure he
is not grazing on the turf?'
'Certain sure, my lord,' answered Shafto.
'I am the thief, my lord,' said Dorothy, coming from the archway behind
him, leading her little horse. '--Good, my lord, let me keep Dick. He is
as useful as another--more useful than some.'
'How, cousin!' cried lord Charles, 'didst imagine I was sending off thy
genet to save the hay? No, no! An' thou hadst looked well at the other
horses, thou wouldst have seen they are such as we want for work--such
as may indeed save the hay, but after another fashion. I but mean to do
thy Dick a kindness, and give him a bite of grass with the rest.'
'Then you are turning them out into the fields, my lord?'
'Yes--at the little postern.'
'Is it safe, my lord, with the enemy so near?'
'It is my father's idea. I do not think there is any danger. There will
be no moon to-night.'
'May not the scouts ride the closer for that,' my lord?'
'Yes, but they will not see the better.'
'I hope, my lord, you will not think me presumptuous, but--please let me
keep my Dick inside the walls.'
'Do what thou wilt with thine own, cousin. I think thou art
over-fearful; but do as thou wilt, I say.'
Dorothy led Dick back to his stable, a little distressed that lord
Charles seemed to dislike her caution.
But she had a strong feeling of the risk of the thing, and after she
went to bed was so haunted by it that she could not sleep. After a
while, however, her thoughts took another direction:--Might not Richard
come to the siege? What if they should meet?--That his party had
triumphed, no whit altered the rights of the matter, and she was sure it
had not altered her feelings; yet her feelings were altered: she was no
longer so fiercely indignant against the puritans as heretofore! Was she
turning traitor? or losing the government of herself? or was the right
triumphing in her against her will? Was it St. Michael for the truth
conquering St. George for the old way of England? Had the king been a
tyrant indeed? and had the powers of heaven declared against him, and
were they now putting on their instruments to cut down the harvest of
wrong? Had not Richard been very sure of being in the right? But what
was that shaking--not of the walls, but the foundations? What was that
noise as of distant thunder? She sprang from her bed, caught up her
night-light, for now she never slept in the dark as heretofore, and
hurried to the watch-tower. From its top she saw, by the faint light of
the stars, vague forms careering over the fields. There was no cry
except an occasional neigh, and the thunder was from the feet of many
horses on the turf. The enemy was lifting the castle horses!
She flew to the chamber beneath, where, since the earl's departure, in
the stead of the cross-bow, a small minion gun had been placed by lord
Charles, with its muzzle in the round where the lines of the loop-hole
crossed. A piece of match lay beside it. She caught it up, lighted it at
her candle, and fired the gun. The tower shook with its roar and recoil.
She had fired the first gun of the siege: might it be a good omen!
In an instant the castle was alive. Warders came running from the
western gate. Dorothy had gone, and they could not tell who had fired
the gun, but there were no occasion to ask why it had been fired--for
where were the horses? They could hear, but no longer see them. There
was mounting in hot haste, and a hurried sally. Lord Charles flung
himself on little Dick's bare back, and flew to reconnoitre. Fifty of
the garrison were ready armed and mounted by the time he came back,
having discovered the route they were taking, and off they went at full
speed in pursuit. But, encumbered as they were at first with the driven
horses, the twenty men who had carried them off had such a start of
their pursuers that they reached the high road where they could not
stray, and drove them right before them to sir Trevor Williams at Usk.
'The fodder will last the longer,' said the marquis, with a sigh sent
after his eighty horses.
'Mistress Dorothy,' said lord Charles the next day, 'methinks thou art
as Cassandra in Troy. I shall tremble after this to do aught against thy
judgment.'
'My lord,' returned Dorothy, 'I have to ask your pardon for my
presumption, but it was borne in upon me, as Tom Fool says, that there
was danger in the thing. It was scarcely judgment on my part--rather a
womanish dread.'
'Go thou on to speak thy mind like Cassandra, cousin Dorothy, and let us
men despise it at our peril. I am humbled before thee,' said lord
Charles, with the generosity of his family.
'Truly, child,' said lady Glamorgan, 'the mantle of my husband hath
fallen upon thee!'
The next day sir Trevor Williams and his men sat down before the castle
with a small battery, and the siege was fairly begun. Dorothy, on the
top of the keep, watching them, but not understanding what they were
about in particulars, heard the sudden bellow of one of their cannon.
Two of the battlements beside her flew into one, and the stones of the
parapet between them stormed into the cistern. Had her presence been the
attraction to that thunderbolt? Often after this, while she watched the
engine below in the workshop, she would hear the dull thud of an iron
ball against the body of the tower; but although it knocked the parapet
into showers of stones, their artillery could not make the slightest
impression upon that.
The same night a sally was prepared. Rowland ran to lord Charles,
begging leave to go. But his lordship would not hear of it, telling him
to get well, and he should have enough of sallying before the siege was
over. The enemy were surprised, and lost a few men, but soon recovered
themselves and drove the royalists home, following them to the very
gates, whence the guns of the castle sent them back in their turn.
Many such sallies and skirmishes followed. Once and again there was but
time for the guard to open the gate, admit their own, and close it, ere
the enemy came thundering up--to be received with a volley and gallop
off. At first there was great excitement within the walls when a party
was out. Eager and anxious eyes followed them from every point of
vision. But at length they got used to it, as to all the ordinary
occurrences of siege.
By and by colonel Morgan appeared with additional forces, and made his
head-quarters to the south, at Llandenny. In two days more the castle
was surrounded, and they began to erect a larger battery on the east of
it, also to dig trenches and prepare for mining. The chief point of
attack was that side of the stone court which lay between the towers of
the kitchen and the library. Here then came the hottest of the siege,
and very soon that range of building gave show of affording an easy
passage by the time the outer works should be taken.
After the first ball, whose execution Dorothy had witnessed, there came
no more for some time. Sir Trevor waited until the second battery should
be begun and captain Hooper arrive, who was to be at the head of the
mining operations. Hence most of the inmates of the castle began to
imagine that a siege was not such an unpleasant thing after all. They
lacked nothing; the apple trees bloomed; the moon shone; the white horse
fed the fountain; the pigeons flew about the courts, and the peacock
strutted on the grass. But when they began digging their approaches and
mounting their guns on the east side, sir Trevor opened his battery on
the west, and the guns of the tower replied. The guns also from the
kitchen tower, and another between it and the library tower, played upon
the trenches, and the noise was tremendous. At first the inhabitants
were nearly deafened, and frequently failed to hear what was said; but
at length they grew hardened--so much so that they were often unaware of
the firing altogether, and began again to think a siege no great matter.
But when the guns of the eastern battery opened fire, and at the first
discharge a round shot, bringing with it a barrowful of stones, came
down the kitchen chimney, knocking the lid through the bottom of the
cook's stewpan, and scattering all the fire about the place; when the
roof of one of the turrets went clashing over the stones of the paved
court; when a spent shot struck the bars of the Great Mogul's cage, and
sent him furious, making them think what might happen, and wishing they
were sure of the politics of the wild beasts; when the stones and slates
flew about like sudden showers of hail; when every now and then a great
rumble told of a falling wall, and that side of the court was rapidly
turning to a heap of ruins; then were cries and screams, many more
however of terror than of injury, to be heard in the castle, and they
began to understand that it was not starvation, but something more
peremptory still, to which they were doomed to succumb. At times there
would fall a lull, perhaps for a few hours, perhaps but for a few
moments, to end in a sudden fury of firing on both sides, mingled with
shouts, the rattling of bullets, and the falling of stones, when the
women would rush to and fro screaming, and all would imagine the storm
was in the breach.
But the gloom of the marquis seemed to have vanished with the breaking
of the storm, as the outburst of the lightning takes the weight off head
and heart that has for days been gathering. True, when his house began
to fall, he would look for a moment grave at each successive rumble, but
the next he would smile and nod his head, as if all was just as he had
expected and would have it. One day when sir Toby Mathews and Dr. Bayly
happened both to be with him in his study, an ancient stack of chimneys
tumbled with tremendous uproar into the stone court. The two clergymen
started visibly, and then looked at each other with pallid faces. But
the marquis smiled, kept the silence for an instant, and then, in slow
solemn voice, said:
'Scimus enim quoniam si terrestris domus nomus nostra hujus habitationis
dissolvatur, quod aedificationem ex Deo habemus, domum non manufactam,
aeternam in coelis.'
The clergymen grasped each other by the hand, then turning bowed
together to the marquis, but the conversation was not resumed.
One evening in the drawing-room, after supper, the marquis, in good
spirits, and for him in good health, was talking more merrily than
usual. Lady Glamorgan stood near him in the window. The captain of the
garrison was giving a spirited description of a sally they had made the
night before upon colonel Morgan in his quarters at Llandenny, and sir
Rowland was vowing that come of it what might, leave or no leave, he
would ride the next time, when crash went something in the room, the
marquis put his hand to his head, and the countess fled in terror,
crying, 'O Lord! O Lord!' A bullet had come through the window, knocked
a little marble pillar belonging to it in fragments on the floor, and
glancing from it, struck the marquis on the side of the head. The
countess, finding herself unhurt, ran no farther than the door.
'I ask your pardon, my lord, for my rudeness,' she said, with trembling
voice, as she came slowly back. 'But indeed, ladies,' she added, 'I
thought the house was coming down.--You gentlemen, who know not what
fear is, I pray you to forgive me, for I was mortally frightened.'
'Daughter, you had reason to run away, when your father was knocked on
the head,' said the marquis.
He put his finger on the flattened bullet where it had fallen on the
table, and turning it round and round, was silent for a moment evidently
framing aright something he wanted to say. Then with the pretence that
the bullet had been flattened upon his head,
'Gentlemen,' he remarked, 'those who had a mind to flatter me were wont
to tell me that I had a good head in my younger days, but if I don't
flatter myself, I think I have a good head-piece in my old age, or else
it would not have been musket-proof.'
But although he took the thing thus quietly and indeed merrily, it
revealed to him that their usual apartments were no longer fit for the
ladies, and he gave orders therefore that the great rooms in the tower
should be prepared for them and the children.
Dorothy's capacity for work was not easily satisfied, but now for a time
she had plenty to do. In the midst of the roar from the batteries, and
the answering roar from towers and walls, the ladies betook themselves
to their stronger quarters: a thousand necessaries had to be carried
with them, and she, as a matter of course, it seemed, had to superintend
the removal. With many hands to make light work she soon finished,
however, and the family was lodged where no hostile shot could reach
them, although the frequent fall of portions of its battlemented summit
rendered even a peep beyond its impenetrable shell hazardous. Dorothy
would lie awake at night, where she slept in her mistress's room, and
listen--now to the baffled bullet as it fell from the scarce indented
wall, now to the roar of the artillery, sounding dull and far away
through the ten-foot thickness; and ever and again the words of the
ancient psalm would return upon her memory: 'Thou hast been a shelter
for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.'
She tended the fire-engine if possible yet more carefully than ever,
kept the cistern full, and the water lipping the edge of the moat, but
let no fountain flow except that from the mouth of the white horse. Her
great fear was lest a shot should fall into the reservoir and injure its
bottom, but its contriver had taken care that, even without the
protection of its watery armour, it should be indestructible.
The marquis would not leave his own rooms and the supervision they gave
him. The domestics were mostly lodged within the kitchen tower, which,
although in full exposure to the enemy's fire, had as yet proved able to
resist it. But all between that and the library tower was rapidly
becoming a chaos of stones and timber. Lord Glamorgan's secret chamber
was shot through and through; but Caspar, as soon as the direction and
force of the battery were known, had carried off his books and
instruments.