ON WHAT CONDITIONS?
In the morning I awoke with a lighter heart than I had known for a
long time. Benjamin was going to release our prisoners! I should go
to meet Robin at the gate of his prison. All would be well, except
that my father would never recover. We should return to the village
and everything would go on as before. Oh! poor fond wretch! how was
I deluded! and, oh! miserable day that ended with such shame and
sadness, yet began with so much hope.
Madam was already dressed. She was sitting at the window looking
into the churchyard. She had been crying. Alas! how many women in
Somersetshire were then weeping all day long!
'Madam,' I said, 'we now have hope. We must not weep and lament
any more. Oh! to have at last a little hope--when we have lived so
long in despair--it makes one breathe again. Benjamin will save our
prisoners for us. Oh! after all, it is Benjamin who will help us. We
did not use to love Benjamin, because he was rude and masterful and
wanted everything for himself and would never give up anything. Yet,
you see, he had, after all, a good heart.' Madam groaned. 'And he
cannot forget, though he followeth not his grandfather's opinions,
that he is his Honour's grandson--the son of his only daughter--and
your nephew, and first cousin to Robin, and second cousin once
removed to Humphrey and Barnaby; playfellows of old. Why, these are
ties which bind him as if with ropes! He needs must bestir himself
to save their lives. And since he says that he can save them, of
course he must have bestirred himself to some purpose. Weep no
more, dear Madam; your son will be restored to us! We shall be happy
again--thanks to Benjamin!'
'Child,' she replied, 'my heart is broken! It is broken, I say! Oh,
to be lying dead and at peace in yonder churchyard! Never before did
I think that it must be a happy thing to be dead and at rest, and to
feel nothing and to know nothing!'
'But, Madam, the dead are not in their graves. There lie only the
bodies. Their souls are above.'
'Then they still think and remember. Oh! can a time ever come when
things can be forgotten? Will the dead ever cease to reproach
themselves?'
She wrung her hands in an ecstasy of grief, though I knew not what
should move her so. Indeed, she was commonly a woman of sober and
contained disposition, entirely governed both in her temper and her
words. What was in her mind that she should accuse herself? Then,
while I was dressing, she went on talking, being still full of this
strong passion.
'I shall have my boy back again,' she said. 'Yes; he will come
back to me. And what will he say to me when I tell him all? Yet I
_must_ have him back. Oh! to think of the hangman tying the rope
about his neck'--she shuddered and trembled--'and afterwards the
cruel knife'--she clasped her hands and could not say the words--'I
see the comely limbs of my boy. Oh! the thought tears my heart--it
tears me through and through. I cannot think of anything else day
or night. And yet in the prison he is so patient and so cheerful. I
marvel that men can be so patient with this dreadful death before
them.' She broke out again into another passion of sobbing and
crying. Then she became calmer, and tried to speak of things less
dreadful.
'When first I visited my boy in prison,' she said, 'Humphrey came
humbly to ask my pardon. Poor lad! I have had hard thoughts of him.
It is certain that he was in the plot from the beginning. Yet had he
not gone so far, should we have sat down when the rising began? But
he doth still accuse himself of rashness and calls himself the cause
of all our misfortunes. He fell upon his knees, in the sight of all,
to ask forgiveness, saying that it was he and none other who had
brought ruin upon us all. Then Robin begged me to raise him up and
comfort him, which I did, putting aside my hard thoughts and telling
him that, being such stubborn Protestants, our lads could not choose
but join the Duke, whether he advised it or whether he did not. Nay,
I told him that Robin would have dragged him willy nilly. And so I
kissed him, and Robin took him by the hand and solemnly assured him
that his grandfather had no such thought in his mind.'
'Nay,' I said, 'my father and Barnaby would certainly have joined
the Duke, Humphrey or not. Never were any men more eager for
rebellion.'
'I have been to London,' she went on. ''Tis a long journey and I
effected nothing; for the mind of the King, I was assured, is harder
than the nether millstone. My brother-in-law, Philip Boscorel, went
with me, and I left him there. But I have no hope that he will be
able to help us, his old friends being much scattered and many of
them dead, and some hostile to the Court and in ill-favour. So I
returned, seeing that, if I could not save my son I could be with
him until he died. The day before yesterday he was tried--if you
call that a trial when hundreds together plead guilty and are all
alike sentenced to death.'
'Have you seen him since the trial?'
'I went to the prison as soon as they were brought back from Court.
Some of the people--for they were all condemned to death--every
one--were crying and lamenting. And there were many women among
them--their wives or their mothers--and these were shrieking and
wringing their hands; so that it was a terrible spectacle. But some
of the men called for drink, and began to carouse, so that they
might drown the thought of impending death. My dear, I never thought
to look upon a scene so full of horror. As for our own boys, Robin
was patient and even cheerful; and Humphrey, leading us to the most
quiet spot in that dreadful place, exhorted us to lose no time in
weeping or vain laments, but to cheer and console our hearts with
the thought that death--even violent death--is but a brief pang
and life is but a short passage, and that heaven awaits us beyond.
Humphrey should have been a godly minister, such is the natural
piety and goodness of his heart. So he spoke of the happy meeting in
that place of blessedness where earthly love would be purged of its
grossness, and our souls shall be so glorified that we shall each
admire the beauty and the excellence of the other. Then Robin talked
of thee, my dear, and sent thee a loving message bidding thee grieve
for him, but not without hope--and that a sure and certain hope--of
meeting again. There are other things he bade me tell thee; but now
I cannot!--oh, I must not!'
'Nay, Madam; but if they are words that he wished me to hear'----
'Why, they were of his constant love--and--no, I cannot tell them!'
'Well,' I said, 'fret not thy poor heart with thinking any more of
the prison; for Benjamin will surely save him, and then we shall
love Benjamin all our lives.'
'He will, perhaps, save him. And yet'----she turned her head--'Oh,
how can I tell _her_--we shall shed many more tears. How can I tell
_her_? How can I tell _her_?'
So she broke off again, but presently recovered and went on talking.
In time of great trouble the mind wanders backwards and forwards,
and though one talks still, it is disjointedly. So she went back to
the prison.
'The boys have been well, though the prison is full and the air
is foul. Yet there hath been as yet no fever, for which they are
thankful. They had no money, the soldiers who took them prisoners
having robbed them of their money, and indeed stripped them as
well to their shirts, telling them that shirts were good enough to
be hanged in. Yet the people of Exeter have treated the prisoners
with great humanity, bringing them daily food and drink, so that
there has been nothing lacking. The time, however, doth hang upon
hands in a place where there is nothing to do all day but to think
of the past and to dread the future. One poor prisoner I was told
had gone distracted with the terror of this thought. Child, every
day that I visited my son, while he talked with me, always cheerful
and smiling, my mind turned continually to the scaffold and the
gibbet.' Then she returned to the old subject from which she could
in no way escape. 'I saw the hangman, I saw my son hanging to the
shameful tree--oh! my son! my son!--till I could bear it no longer,
and would hurry away from the prison and walk about the town over
the fields--yea, all night long--to escape the dreadful thought.
Oh! to be blessed with such a son and to have him torn from my arms
for such a death! If he had been killed upon the field of battle
'twould have been easier to bear. But now he dies daily--he dies
a thousand deaths in my mind. My child!'--she turned again to the
churchyard--'the rooks are cawing in their nests; the sparrows and
the robins hop among the graves; the dead hear nothing; all their
troubles are over, all their sins are forgiven.'
I comforted her as well as I could. Indeed, I understood not at all
what she meant, thinking that perhaps all her trouble had caused
her to be in that frame of mind when a woman doth not know whether
to laugh or to cry. And then, taking my basket, I sallied forth to
provide the day's provisions for my prisoners.
'Barnaby,' I said, when he came to the wicket, 'I have good news for
thee.'
'What good news? That I am to be flogged once a year in every
market-town in Somersetshire, as will happen to young Tutchin?'
'No, no--not that kind of news, but freedom, Brother, hope for
freedom.'
He laughed. 'Who is to give us freedom?'
'Benjamin hath found a way for the enlargement of all.'
'Ben Boscorel? What! will he stir finger for the sake of anybody?
Then, Sis, if I remember Ben aright, there will be something for
himself. But if it is upon Ben that we are to rely we are truly well
sped. On Ben, quotha!'
'My Brother, he told me so himself.'
''Ware hawks, Sister. If Ben is a tone end of the rope and the
hangman at the other, I think I know who will be stronger. Well,
Child, believe Ben if thou wilt. Thy father looks strange this
morning. He opened his eyes and seemed to know me. I wonder if there
is a change. 'Tis wonderful how he lasts. There are six men sickened
since yesterday of the fever. Three of them brought in last week
are already dead. As for the singing that we used to hear, it is all
over, and if the men get drunk they are dumb drunk. Sir Christopher
looks but poorly this morning. I hope he will not take the fever. He
staggered when he arose, which is a bad sign.'
'Tell mother, Barnaby, what Benjamin hath undertaken to do.'
'Nay, that shall I not, because, look you, I believe it not. There
is some trick or lie at the bottom, unless Ben hath repented and
changed his disposition, which used to be two parts wolf, one part
bear, and the rest fox. If there were anything left it was serpent.
Well, Sister, I am no grumbler, but I expect this job to be over in
a fortnight or so, when they say the Wells Assizes will be held.
Then we shall all be swinging, and I only hope that we may carry
with us into the Court such a breath of jail fever as shall lay the
Judge himself upon his back and end his days. In the next world he
will meet the men whom he has sentenced, and it will fare worse for
him in their hands than with fifty thousand devils.'
So he took a drink of the beer, and departed within the prison. And
for many months I saw him no more.
On my way home I met Benjamin.
'Hath Madam told you yet of my conditions?' he asked eagerly.
'Not yet; she will doubtless tell me presently. Oh! what matter for
the conditions? It can only be something good for us, contrived by
your kind heart, Ben. I have told Barnaby, who will not believe in
our good fortune.'
'It is, indeed, something very good for you, Alice, as you will
find. Come with me and walk in the meadows beyond the reach of this
doleful place, where the air reeks with jail fever, and all day long
they are reading the Funeral Service.'
So he led me out upon the sloping sides of a hill, where we walked a
while upon the grass very pleasantly, my mind being now at rest.
'You have heard of nothing,' he said, 'of late, but of the Rebellion
and its consequences. Let us talk about London.'
So he discoursed concerning his own profession and his prospects,
which, he said, were better than those of any other young lawyer,
in his own opinion. 'For my practice,' he said, 'I already have one
which gives me an income far beyond my wants, which are simple. Give
me plain fare, and for the evening a bottle or two of good wine,
with tobacco, and friends who love a cheerful glass. I ask no more.
My course lies clear before me: I shall become a King's Counsel, I
shall be made a Judge; presently, I shall become Lord Chancellor.
What did I tell thee, Child, long ago? Well, that time has now
arrived.'
Still I was so foolish, being so happy, that I could not understand
what he meant.
'I am sure, Benjamin,' I said, 'that we at home shall ever rejoice
and be proud of your success. Nobody will be more happy to hear of
it than Robin and I.'
Here he turned very red and muttered something.
'You find your happiness in courts and clubs and London,' I went on;
'as for Robin and myself, we shall find ours in the peaceful place
which we have always decided to have.'
'What the Devil!' he cried, 'she will not tell you the conditions?
She came with me for no other purpose. I have borne with her company
all the way from Exeter for this only. Go back to her, and ask what
it is! Go back, I say, and make her tell! What! am I to take all
this trouble for nothing?'
His face became purple with sudden rage; his eyes grew swiftly
fierce, and he roared and bawled at me. Why, what had I said?
'Benjamin,' I cried, 'what is the matter? How have I angered you?'
'Go back!' he roared again. 'Tell her that if I presently come and
find thee still in ignorance 'twill be the worse for all! Tell her
that _I_ say it. 'Twill else be worse for all!'