THE COMMISSIONER OF THE CONVENTION.
At Kelso Harry procured changes of garments, attiring himself as a
Lowland farmer, and his companions as two drovers. They were, as before,
mounted; but the costume of English farmers could no longer have been
supported by any plausible story. They learned that upon the direct road
north they should find many bodies of Scotch troops, and therefore made
for the coast. Two days' riding brought them to the little port of
Ayton.
After taking their supper in the common room of the hostelry, there was
a stir outside, and three men, attired as Puritan preachers, entered the
room. Mine host received them with courtesy, but with none of the eager
welcome usually displayed to guests; for these gentry, although
feared--for their power was very great at the time--were by no means
loved, and their orders at a hostelry were not likely to swell the purse
of the host. Stalking to an unoccupied table next to that at which Harry
and his party were sitting, they took their seats and called for supper.
Harry made a sign to his companions to continue talking together, while
he listened attentively to the conversation of the men behind him. He
gathered from their talk that they were commissioners proceeding from
the Presbyterian Convention in London to discuss with that at Edinburgh
upon the points upon which they could come to an agreement for a common
basis of terms. Their talk turned principally upon doctrinal questions,
upon which Harry's ignorance was entire and absolute; but he saw at once
that it would do good service to the king if he could in some way
prevent these men continuing upon their journey, and so for a time
arrest the progress of the negotiations between the king's enemies in
England and Scotland, for at this time the preachers were the paramount
authorities in England. It was they who insisted upon terms, they who
swayed the councils of the nation, and it was not until Cromwell, after
overthrowing the king, overthrew the Parliament, which was for the main
part composed of their creatures, that the power of the preachers came
to an end. It would, of course, have been easy for Harry and his friends
to attack these men during their next day's journey, but this would have
involved the necessity of killing them--from which he shrank--for an
assault upon three godly men traveling on the high business of the
Convention to the Scottish capital would have caused such an outcry that
Harry could not hope to continue on his way without the certainty of
discovery and arrest.
Signing to his comrades to remain in their seats, he strolled off toward
the port, and there entered a public house, which, by its aspect, was
frequented by seafaring men. It was a small room that he entered, and
contained three or four fishermen, and one whom a certain superiority in
dress betokened to be the captain of a vessel. They were talking of the
war, and of the probability of the Scottish army taking part in it. The
fishermen were all of the popular party; but the captain, who seemed a
jovial fellow, shrugged his shoulders over the religious squabbles, and
said that, for his part, he wanted nothing but peace.
"Not," he said, "that the present times do not suit are rarely in
purse. Men are too busy now to look after the doings of every lugger
that passes along the coast, and never were French goods so plentiful or
so cheap. Moreover," he said, "I find that not unfrequently passengers
want to be carried to France or Holland. I ask no questions; I care not
whether they go on missions from the Royalists or from the Convention; I
take their money; I land them at their destination; no questions are
asked. So the times suit me bravely; but for all that I do not like to
think of Englishmen and Scotchmen arrayed against their fellows. I
cannot see that it matters one jot whether we are predestinate or not
predestinate, or whether it is a bishop who governs a certain church or
a presbyter. I say let each worship in his own way, and not concern
himself about his fellows. If men would but mind their own affairs in
religion as they do in business it would be better for us all."
Harry, as he drank the glass of beer he had ordered, had joined
occasionally in the conversation, not taking any part, but agreeing
chiefly with the sea-captain in his desire for peace.
"I too," he said, "have nothing to grumble at. My beasts fetch good
prices for the army, and save that there is a want of hands, I was never
doing better. Still I would gladly see peace established."
Presently the fishermen, having finished their liquor, retired, and the
captain, looking keenly at Harry, said, "Methinks, young sir, that you
are not precisely what you seem!"
"That is so," Harry replied; "I am on business here, It matters not on
which side, and it may be that we may strike a bargain together."
"Do you want to cross the channel?" the captain asked, laughing. "You
seem young to have put your head in a noose already."
"No," Harry said, "I do not want to cross myself; but I want to send
some others across. I suppose that if a passenger or two were placed on
board your ship, to be landed in Holland, you would not deem it
necessary to question them closely, or to ascertain whether they also
were anxious to arrive at that destination?"
"By no means," the captain replied. "Goods consigned to me will be
delivered at the port to which they are addressed, and I should consider
that with passengers as with goods, I must carry them to the port for
which their passage is taken."
"Good," Harry said; "if that is the case, methinks that when you
sail--and," he asked, breaking off, "when do you sail?"
"To-morrow morning, if the wind is fair," the captain answered. "But if
it would pay me better to stop for a few hours, I might do so."
"To-morrow night, if you will wait till then," Harry said, "I will place
three passengers on board, and will pay you your own sum to land them at
Flushing, or any other place across the water to which you may be bound.
I will take care that they will make no complaints whatever, or address
any remonstrance to you, until after you have fairly put to sea. And
then, naturally, you will feel yourself unable to alter the course of
your ship."
"But," the captain observed, "I must be assured that these passengers
who are so anxious to cross the water are not men whose absence might
cause any great bother. I am a simple man, earning my living as honestly
as the times will allow me to do, and I wish not to embroil myself with
the great parties of the State."
"There may be an inquiry," Harry replied; "but methinks it will soon
drop. They are three preachers of London, who are on their way to
dispute concerning points of religion with the divines in Scotland. The
result of their disputation may perchance be that an accord may be
arrived at between the divines of London and Edinburgh; and in that
case, I doubt not that the army now lying at Dundee would move south,
and that the civil war would therefore become more extended and cruel
than ever."
The captain laughed.
"I am not fond of blackbirds on board my ship," he said. "They are ever
of ill omen on the sea. But I will risk it for so good a cause. It is
their pestilent religious disputes which have stirred up the nations to
war, and I doubt not that even should some time elapse before these
gentlemen can again hold forth in England, there are plenty of others to
supply their place."
An agreement was speedily arrived at as to the terms of passage, for
Harry was well provided with money, having drawn at Kelso from an agent
devoted to the Royal cause, upon whom he had letters of credit.
The next morning early Harry went to a carter in the town, and hired a
cart for the day, leaving a deposit for its safe return at night. Then,
mounting their horses, the three Royalists rode off just as the
preachers were going forth from the inn. The latter continued their
course at the grave pace suitable to their calling and occupation,
conversing vigorously upon the points of doctrine which they intended to
urge upon their fellows at Edinburgh. Suddenly, just where the road
emerged from a wood on to a common, three men dashed out, and fell upon
them. The preachers roared lustily for mercy, and invoked the vengeance
of the Parliament upon those who ventured to interfere with them.
"We are charged," one said, "with a mission to the Convention at
Edinburgh, and it is as much as your heads are worth to interfere with
us."
"Natheless," Harry said, "we must even risk our heads. You must follow
us into the wood, or we shall be under the necessity of 'blowing out
your brains.'"
Much crestfallen, the preachers followed their captors into the wood.
There they were despoiled of their hats and doublets, tied securely by
cords, gagged, and placed, in spite of their remonstrances and
struggles, in three huge sacks.
At midnight the Annette was lying alongside the wharf at Ayton, when a
cart drove up. Three men alighted from it, and one hailed the captain,
who was standing on deck.
"I have brought the three parcels thou wottest of," he said. "They will
need each two strong men to carry them on board."
The captain, with two sailors, ascended to the quay.
"What have we here?" said one of the sailors; "there is some live
creature in this sack."
"It is a young calf," Harry said; "when you are well out to sea you can
give it air."
The men laughed, for having frequently had passengers to cross to the
Continent, they shrewdly guessed at the truth; and the captain had
already told them that the delay of a day would put some money into each
of their pockets. Having seen the three sacks deposited on the deck of
the ship, when the sails were immediately hoisted, and the Annette
glided away on her course seaward, the cart was driven round to the
house where it had been hired. The stipulated price was paid, the
deposit returned, and the hirer then departed.
Riding toward Edinburgh, Harry agreed with his comrades that as he, as
the apparent leader of the party, would be the more likely to be
suspected and arrested, it would be better for the documents of which
they were the carriers, as well as the papers found upon the persons of
the Puritans, to be intrusted to the charge of Jacob and William Long.
Harry charged them, in the event of anything happening to him, to pay no
heed to him whatever, but to separate from him and mix with the crowd,
and then to make their way, as best they might, to the Earl of Montrose.
"It matters nothing," he said, "my being arrested, They can prove
nothing against me, as I shall have no papers on my body, while it is
all-important that you should get off. The most that they can do to me
is to send me to London, and a term of imprisonment as a malignant is
the worst that will befall me."
The next day they entered the town by the Canongate, and were surprised
and amused at the busy scene passing there. Riding to an inn, they put
up their horses and dismounted. Harry purposed to remain there for three
or four days to learn the temper of the people.
The next morning he strolled out into the streets, followed at some
little distance by Jacob and William Long, He had not the least fear of
being recognized, and for the time gave himself up thoroughly to the
amusement of the moment. He had not proceeded far, however, when he ran
full tilt against a man in a black garb, who, gazing at him, at once
shouted out at the top of his voice, "Seize this man, he is a malignant
and a spy," and to his horror Harry discovered the small preacher with
whom he had twice already been at loggerheads, and who, it seems, had
been dispatched as a member of a previous commission by his party in
London.
In a moment a dozen sturdy hands seized him by his collar. Feeling the
utter uselessness of resistance, and being afraid that should he attempt
to struggle, his friends might be drawn into the matter, Harry quietly
proceeded along the street until he reached the city guardhouse, in a
cell of which he was thrust.
"One would think," he muttered to himself, "that little preacher is an
emissary of Satan himself. Go where I will, this lantern-jawed knave is
sure to crop up and I feel convinced that until I have split his skull I
shall have no safety. I thought I had freed myself of him forever when I
got out of London; and here, in the middle of the Scotch capital, he
turns up as sharpsighted and as venomous as ever."
An hour or two later Harry was removed under a guard to the city prison,
and in the evening the doors were opened and a guard appeared and
briefly ordered him to follow. Under the escort of four men he was led
through the streets to a large building, and then conducted to a room in
which a number of persons, some of them evidently of high rank, were
sitting. At the head of the table was a man of sinister aspect. He had
red hair and eyebrows, and a foxy, cunning face, and Harry guessed at
once that he was in the presence of the Earl of Argyll--a man who, even
more than the rest of his treacherous race, was hated and despised by
loyal Scotchmen. In all their history, a great portion of the Scottish
nobles were ever found ready to take English gold, and to plot against
their country. But the Argylls had borne a bad pre-eminence even among
these. They had hunted Wallace, had hounded down Bruce, and had ever
been prominent in fomenting dissensions in their country; the present
earl was probably the coldest and most treacherous of his race.
"We are told," he said sternly to the prisoner, "that you are a follower
of the man Charles; that you have been already engaged in plottings
among the good citizens of London, and we shrewdly suspect that your
presence here bodes no good to the state. What hast thou to say in thy
defense?"
"I do not know that I am charged with any offence," Harry said quietly.
"I am an English gentleman, who, wishing to avoid the disorders in his
own country, has traveled north for peace and quietness. If you have
aught to urge against me or any evidence to give, I shall be prepared to
confute it. As for the preacher, whose evidence has caused my arrest, he
hath simply a grudge against me for a boyish freak, from which he
suffered at the time when I made my escape from a guardroom in London,
and his accusation against me is solely the result of prejudice."
Harry had already, upon his arrival at the jail, been searched
thoroughly, having been stripped, and even the folds and linings of his
garments ripped open, to see that they contained no correspondence.
Knowing that nothing whatever could have been found against him, unless,
indeed, his followers had also fallen into the hands of the Roundheads,
Harry was able to assume a position of injured innocence.
"Your tone comports not with your condition," the Earl of Argyll said
harshly. "We have found means here to make men of sterner mold than
thine speak the truth, and in the interests of the state we shall not
hesitate to use them against you also. The torturer here hath
instruments which would tear you limb from limb, and, young sir, these
will not be spared unless that malapert tongue of thine gives us the
information we desire to learn."
"I decline to answer any questions beyond what I have already said,"
Harry replied firmly. "I tell you that I am an English gentleman
traveling here on my own private business, and it were foul wrong for me
to be seized and punished upon the suspicion of such a one as that man
there;" and he pointed contemptuously to the preacher.
"You will be brought up again in two days," the earl said, "and if by
that time you have not made up your mind to confess all, it will go hard
with you. Think not that the life of a varlet like you will weigh for
one moment in the scale with the safety of the nation, or that any
regard for what you may consider in England the usages of war will
prevail here."
He waved his hand, and Harry was conducted back to jail, feeling far
more uneasy than he had done, for he knew that in Scotland very
different manners prevailed to those which characterized the English. In
England, throughout the war, no unnecessary bloodshed took place, and up
to that time the only persons executed in cold blood had been the two
gentlemen convicted of endeavoring to corrupt the Parliament in favor of
the king. But in Scotland, where civil broils were constant, blood was
ever shed recklessly on both sides; houses were given to the flames;
men, women, and children slaughtered; lands laid waste; and all the
atrocities which civil war, heightened by religious bigotry, could
suggest, perpetrated.
Late that evening, the door of the prison opened, and a preacher was
shown into the room.
"I have come," he said in a nasal tone, "misguided young man, to pray
you to consider the wickedness of your ways. It is written that the
ungodly shall perish, and I would fain lead you from the errors of your
way before it is too late."
Harry had started as the speaker began; but he remained immovable until
the jailer closed the door.
"Jacob," he exclaimed, "how mad, how imprudent of you! I ordered you
specially, if I was arrested, to pay no heed, but to make your way
north."
"I know that you did," Jacob said. "But you see you yourself talked of
remaining for three days in Edinburgh. Therefore, I knew that there
could be no pressing need of my journey north; and hearing some
whispers of the intention of the lord president to extract from a
certain prisoner the news of a plot with which he was supposed to be
connected, I thought it even best to come and see you."
"But how have you obtained this garb?" Harry asked; "and how, above all,
have you managed to penetrate hither?"
"Truly," Jacob said, "I have undertaken a difficult task in thy behalf,
for I have to-night to enter into a disputation with many learned
divines, and I dread that more than running the risk of meeting the Earl
of Argyll, who, they say, has the face of a fox, and the heart of a
devil."
"What mean you?" Harry asked.
"After we saw you dragged off by the townsmen, on being denounced by
that little preacher whose hat I spoiled in St. Paul's churchyard, we
followed your orders, and made back to our hostelry. There William Long
and myself talked the matter over. In the first place, we took all the
papers and documents which were concealed about us, and lifting a board
in the room, hid them beneath it, so that in case of our arrest they
would be safe. As we took out the documents, the commission which we
borrowed from the preachers met our eyes, and it struck me that, armed
with this, we might be enabled to do you service. I therefore at once
purchased cloaks and hats fitting for us as worthy divines from London,
and then, riding a mile or two into the country, we changed our
garments, and entered the good city of Edinburgh as English divines. We
proceeded direct to the house of the chief presbyter, to whom the
letters of commission were addressed, and were received by him with open
arms. I trust that we played our part rarely, and, in truth, the
unctuousness and godliness of William Long passeth belief, and he plays
his part well. Looking as he does far older than I--although in these
days of clean-shaven faces I can make up rarely for thirty--he assumed
the leading part. The presbyter would fain have summoned a number of his
divines for a discussion this evening. But we, pleading fatigue, begged
him to allow us two days of rest. He has, however, invited a few of his
fellows, and we are to wrestle with them this evening in argument. How
we shall get out of it I know not, for my head is altogether in
ignorance of the points in issue. However, there was, among the
documents of the preachers, one setting forth the points in which the
practice of the sect in England and Scotland differed, with the heads of
the arguments to be used. We have looked through these, and, as well as
we could understand the jumble of hard words, have endeavored to master
the points at issue, so we shall to-night confine ourselves to a bare
exposition of facts, and shall put off answering the arguments of the
other side until the drawn battle, which will be fixed for the day after
to-morrow. By the way, we accounted for the absence of our colleague by
saying that he fell sick on the way."
"But what is the use of all this risk?" Harry asked, laughing at the
thought of his two followers discussing theology with the learned
divines of the Scotch Church.
"That, in truth," Jacob said, "I do not yet exactly see; but I trust
that to-morrow we shall have contrived some plan of getting you out of
this prison. I shall return at the same time to-morrow evening."
"How did you get in here?" he asked.
"I had an order from the chief presbyter for entry. Saying that I
believed I knew you, and that my words might have some effect in turning
you from the evil of your ways, I volunteered to exhort you, and shall
give such an account of my mission as will lead them to give me a pass
to see you again to-morrow night."
The following evening Jacob again called, this time accompanied by
William. They brought with them another dress similar to their own.
Their visit was an hour later than upon the preceding evening.
"I learned," Jacob said, "that the guard was changed at eight o'clock,
and it is upon this that the success of our scheme depends. William will
immediately leave, and as he has been seen to enter by the guards
without, and by those at the prison gate, he will pass out without
questioning. In half an hour a fresh guard will be placed at both these
points, and you and I will march out together, armed with permission for
two preachers to pass."
The scheme appeared a hopeful one, and William took his departure after
a few minutes, saying to the guards without that he went to fetch a book
of reference which he needed to convince the hard-hearted reprobate
within. He left the door partly ajar, and the guards without were
edified by catching snatches of a discourse of exceeding godliness and
unction, delivered by the preacher to the prisoner.
Presently a trampling without informed Harry and Jacob that the guard
was being changed, and half an hour later they opened the door, and
Jacob, standing for a moment as they went out, addressed a few words of
earnest exhortation to the prisoner supposed to be within, adjuring him
to bethink himself whether it was better to sacrifice his life in the
cause of a wicked king than to purchase his freedom by forsaking the
error of his ways, and turning to the true belief. Then, closing the
door after him, Jacob strode along, accompanied by Harry, to the
guardroom. They passed through the yard of the prison to the gate. There
Jacob produced his pass for the entrance and exit of two divines, and
the guard, suspecting no evil, at once suffered them to go forth.
William had already been to the inn where they stopped, and had told the
host that he was charged to examine the chamber where the persons who
abode there upon the previous day had stopped. There he had taken the
various documents from their hiding-place, and had made his way from the
city. Outside the gates he was joined by the others, and all, at a
speedy but still dignified pace, made their way to the spot where the
horses were concealed, in a little wood in a retired valley. Here they
changed their dress, and, making a bonfire of the garments which they
had taken off, mounted their horses, and rode for the north.