“Though for a time we see Whitehall
With cobwebs hung around the wall,
Yet Heaven shall make amends for all.
When the King shall enjoy his own again.”—
“Thou forgettest who are without,” said Colonel Everard.
“No—I remember who are within,” replied his friend. “I only sing to my
merry goblins, who will like me all the better for it. Tush, man, the
devils are my _bonos socios_, and when I see them, I will warrant they
prove such roaring boys as I knew when I served under Lunford and
Goring, fellows with long nails that nothing escaped, bottomless
stomachs, that nothing filled,—mad for pillaging, ranting, drinking,
and fighting,—sleeping rough on the trenches, and dying stubbornly in
their boots. Ah! those merry days are gone. Well, it is the fashion to
make a grave face on’t among cavaliers, and specially the parsons that
have lost their tithe-pigs; but I was fitted for the element of the
time, and never did or can desire merrier days than I had during that
same barbarous, bloody, and unnatural rebellion.”
“Thou wert ever a wild sea-bird, Roger, even according to your name;
liking the gale better than the calm, the boisterous ocean better than
the smooth lake, and your rough, wild struggle against the wind, than
daily food, ease and quiet.”
“Pshaw! a fig for your smooth lake, and your old woman to feed me with
brewer’s grains, and the poor drake obliged to come swattering whenever
she whistles! Everard, I like to feel the wind rustle against my
pinions,—now diving, now on the crest of the wave, now in ocean, now in
sky—that is the wild-drake’s joy, my grave one! And in the Civil War so
it went with us—down in one county, up in another, beaten to-day,
victorious tomorrow—now starving in some barren leaguer—now revelling
in a Presbyterian’s pantry—his cellars, his plate-chest, his old
judicial thumb-ring, his pretty serving-wench, all at command!”
“Hush, friend,” said Everard; “remember I hold that persuasion.” “More
the pity, Mark, more the pity,” said Wildrake; “but, as you say, it is
needless talking of it. Let us e’en go and see how your Presbyterian
pastor, Mr. Holdenough, has fared, and whether he has proved more able
to foil the foul Fiend than have you his disciple and auditor.”
They left the apartment accordingly, and were overwhelmed with the
various incoherent accounts of sentinels and others, all of whom had
seen or heard something extraordinary in the course of the night. It is
needless to describe particularly the various rumours which each
contributed to the common stock, with the greater alacrity that in such
cases there seems always to be a sort of disgrace in not having seen or
suffered as much as others.
The most moderate of the narrators only talked of sounds like the
mewing of a cat, or the growling of a dog, especially the squeaking of
a pig. They heard also as if it had been nails driven and saws used,
and the clashing of fetters, and the rustling of silk gowns, and the
notes of music, and in short all sorts of sounds which have nothing to
do with each other. Others swore they had smelt savours of various
kinds, chiefly bituminous, indicating a Satanic derivation; others did
not indeed swear, but protested, to visions of men in armour, horses
without heads, asses with horns, and cows with six legs, not to mention
black figures, whose cloven hoofs gave plain information what realm
they belonged to.
But these strongly-attested cases of nocturnal disturbances among the
sentinels had been so general as to prevent alarm and succour on any
particular point, so that those who were on duty called in vain on the
_corps-de-garde_, who were trembling on their own post; and an alert
enemy might have done complete execution on the whole garrison. But
amid this general _alerte_, no violence appeared to be meant, and
annoyance, not injury, seemed to have been the goblins’ object,
excepting in the case of one poor fellow, a trooper, who had followed
Harrison in half his battles, and now was sentinel in that very
vestibule upon which Everard had recommended them to mount a guard. He
had presented his carabine at something which came suddenly upon him,
when it was wrested out of his hands, and he himself knocked down with
the butt-end of it. His broken head, and the drenched bedding of
Desborough, upon whom a tub of ditch-water had been emptied during his
sleep, were the only pieces of real evidence to attest the disturbances
of the night.
The reports from Harrison’s apartment were, as delivered by the grave
Master Tomkins, that truly the General had passed the night
undisturbed, though there was still upon him a deep sleep, and a
folding of the hands to slumber; from which Everard argued that the
machinators had esteemed Harrison’s part of the reckoning sufficiently
paid off on the preceding evening.
He then proceeded to the apartment doubly garrisoned by the worshipful
Desborough, and the philosophical Bletson. They were both up and
dressing themselves; the former open-mouthed in his feeling of fear and
suffering. Indeed, no sooner had Everard entered, than the ducked and
dismayed Colonel made a dismal complaint of the way he had spent the
night, and murmured not a little against his worshipful kinsman for
imposing a task upon him which inferred so much annoyance.
“Could not his Excellency, my kinsman Noll,” he said, “have given his
poor relative and brother-in-law a sop somewhere else than out of this
Woodstock, which seems to be the devil’s own porridge-pot? I cannot sup
broth with the devil; I have no long spoon—not I. Could he not have
quartered me in some quiet corner, and given this haunted place to some
of his preachers and prayers, who know the Bible as well as the
muster-roll? whereas I know the four hoofs of a clean-going nag, or the
points of a team of oxen, better than all the books of Moses. But I
will give it over, at once and for ever; hopes of earthly gain shall
never make me run the risk of being carried away bodily by the devil,
besides being set upon my head one whole night, and soused with
ditch-water the next—No, no; I am too wise for that.”
Master Bletson had a different part to act. He complained of no
personal annoyances; on the contrary, he declared he should have slept
as well as ever he did in his life but for the abominable disturbances
around him, of men calling to arms every half hour, when so much as a
cat trotted by one of their posts—He would rather, he said, “have slept
among a whole sabaoth of witches, if such creatures could be found.”
“Then you think there are no such things as apparitions, Master
Bletson?” said Everard. “I used to be sceptical on the subject; but, on
my life, to-night has been a strange one.”
“Dreams, dreams, dreams, my simple Colonel,” said Bletson, though, his
pale face and shaking limbs belied the assumed courage with which he
spoke. “Old Chaucer, sir, hath told us the real moral on’t—He was an
old frequenter of the forest of Woodstock, here”—
“Chaser?” said Desborough; “some huntsman, belike, by his name. Does he
walk, like Hearne at Windsor?”
“Chaucer,” said Bletson, “my dear Desborough, is one of those wonderful
fellows, as Colonel Everard knows, who live many a hundred years after
they are buried, and whose words haunt our ears after their bones are
long mouldered in the dust.”
“Ay, ay! well,” answered Desborough, to whom this description of the
old poet was unintelligible—“I for one desire his room rather than his
company; one of your conjurors, I warrant him. But what says he to the
matter?”
“Only a slight spell, which I will take the freedom to repeat to
Colonel Everard,” said Bletson; “but which would be as bad as Greek to
thee, Desborough. Old Geoffrey lays the whole blame of our nocturnal
disturbance on superfluity of humours,
‘Which causen folk to dred in their dreams
Of arrowes, and of fire with red gleams,
Right as the humour of melancholy
Causeth many a man in sleep to cry
For fear of great bulls and bears black,
And others that black devils will them take.’”
While he was thus declaiming, Everard observed a book sticking out from
beneath the pillow of the bed lately occupied by the honourable member.
“Is that Chaucer?” he said, making to the volume; “I would like to look
at the passage”—
“Chaucer?” said Bletson, hastening to interfere; “no—that is Lucretius,
my darling Lucretius. I cannot let you see it; I have some private
marks.”
But by this time Everard had the book in his hand. “Lucretius?” he
said; “no, Master Bletson, this is not Lucretius, but a fitter
comforter in dread or in danger—Why should you be ashamed of it? Only,
Bletson, instead of resting your head, if you can but anchor your heart
upon this volume, it may serve you in better stead than Lucretius or
Chaucer either.”
“Why, what book is it?” said Bletson, his pale cheek colouring with the
shame of detection. “Oh! the Bible!” throwing it down contemptuously;
“some book of my fellow Gibeon’s; these Jews have been always
superstitious—ever since Juvenal’s time, thou knowest—
“‘Qualiacunque voles Judæi somnia vendunt.’
“He left me the old book for a spell, I warrant you; for ’tis a
well-meaning fool.”
“He would scarce have left the New Testament as well as the Old,” said
Everard. “Come, my dear Bletson, do not be ashamed of the wisest thing
you ever did in your life, supposing you took your Bible in an hour of
apprehension, with a view to profit by the contents.”
Bletson’s vanity was so much galled that it overcame his constitutional
cowardice. His little thin fingers quivered for eagerness, his neck and
cheeks were as red as scarlet, and his articulation was as thick and
vehement as—in short, as if he had been no philosopher.
“Master Everard,” he said, “you are a man of the sword, sir; and, sir,
you seem to suppose yourself entitled to say whatever comes into your
mind with respect to civilians, sir. But I would have you remember,
sir, that there are bounds beyond which human patience may be urged,
sir—and jests which no man of honour will endure, sir—and therefore I
expect an apology for your present language, Colonel Everard, and this
unmannerly jesting, sir—or you may chance to hear from me in a way that
will not please you.”
Everard could not help smiling at this explosion of valour, engendered
by irritated self-love.
“Look you, Master Bletson,” he said, “I have been a soldier, that is
true, but I was never a bloody-minded one; and, as a Christian, I am
unwilling to enlarge the kingdom of darkness by sending a new vassal
thither before his time. If Heaven gives you time to repent, I see no
reason why my hand should deprive you of it, which, were we to have a
rencontre, would be your fate in the thrust of a sword, or the pulling
of a trigger—I therefore prefer to apologise; and I call Desborough, if
he has recovered his wits, to bear evidence that I _do_ apologise for
having suspected you, who are completely the slave of your own vanity,
of any tendency, however slight, towards grace or good sense. And I
farther apologise for the time that I have wasted in endeavouring to
wash an Ethiopian white, or in recommending rational enquiry to a
self-willed atheist.”
Bletson, overjoyed at the turn the matter had taken—for the defiance
was scarce out of his mouth ere he began to tremble for the
consequences—answered with great eagerness and servility of
manner,—“Nay, dearest Colonel, say no more of it—an apology is all that
is necessary among men of honour—it neither leaves dishonour with him
who asks it, nor infers degradation on him who makes it.”
“Not such an apology as I have made, I trust,” said the Colonel.
“No, no—not in the least,” answered Bletson,—“one apology serves me
just as well as another, and Desborough will bear witness you have made
one, and that is all there can be said on the subject.”
“Master Desborough and you,” rejoined the Colonel, “will take care how
the matter is reported, I dare say; and I only recommend to both, that,
if mentioned at all, it may be told correctly.”
“Nay, nay, we will not mention it at all,” said Bletson, “we will
forget it from this moment. Only, never suppose me capable of
superstitious weakness. Had I been afraid of an apparent and real
danger—why such fear is natural to man—and I will not deny that the
mood of mind may have happened to me as well as to others. But to be
thought capable of resorting to spells, and sleeping with books under
my pillow to secure myself against ghosts,—on my word, it was enough to
provoke one to quarrel, for the moment, with his very best friend.—And
now, Colonel, what is to be done, and how is our duty to be executed at
this accursed place? If I should get such a wetting as Desborough’s,
why I should die of catarrh, though you see it hurts him no more than a
bucket of water thrown over a post-horse. You are, I presume, a brother
in our commission,—how are you of opinion we should proceed?”
“Why, in good time here comes Harrison,” said Everard, “and I will lay
my commission from the Lord-General before you all; which, as you see,
Colonel Desborough, commands you to desist from acting on your present
authority, and intimates his pleasure accordingly, that you withdraw
from this place.”
Desborough took the paper and examined the signature.—“It is Noll’s
signature sure enough,” said he, dropping his under jaw; “only, every
time of late he has made the _Oliver_ as large as a giant, while the
_Cromwell_ creeps after like a dwarf, as if the surname were like to
disappear one of these days altogether. But is his Excellency, our
kinsman, Noll Cromwell (since he has the surname yet) so unreasonable
as to think his relations and friends are to be set upon their heads
till they have the crick in their neck—drenched as if they had been
plunged in a horse-pond—frightened, day and night, by all sort of
devils, witches, and fairies, and get not a penny of smart-money?
Adzooks, (forgive me for swearing,) if that’s the case I had better
home to my farm, and mind team and herd, than dangle after such a
thankless person, though I _have_ wived his sister. She was poor enough
when I took her, for as high as Noll holds his head now.”
“It is not my purpose,” said Bletson, “to stir debate in this
honourable meeting; and no one will doubt the veneration and attachment
which I bear to our noble General, whom the current of events, and his
own matchless qualities of courage and constancy, have raised so high
in these deplorable days.—If I were to term him a direct and immediate
emanation of the _Animus Mundi_ itself—something which Nature had
produced in her proudest hour, while exerting herself, as is her law,
for the preservation of the creatures to whom she has given existence—
should scarce exhaust the ideas which I entertain of him. Always
protesting that I am by no means to be held as admitting, but merely as
granting for the sake of argument, the possible existence of that
species of emanation, or exhalation, from the _Animus Mundi_ , of which
I have made mention. I appeal to you, Colonel Desborough, who are his
Excellency’s relation—to you, Colonel Everard, who hold the dearer
title of his friend, whether I have overrated my zeal in his behalf?”
Everard bowed at this pause, but Desborough gave a more complete
authentication. “Nay, I can bear witness to that. I have seen when you
were willing to tie his points or brush his cloak, or the like—and to
be treated thus ungratefully—and gudgeoned of the opportunities which
had been given you”—
“It is not for that,” said Bletson, waving his hand gracefully. “You do
me wrong, Master Desborough—you do indeed, kind sir—although I know you
meant it not—No, sir—no partial consideration of private interest
prevailed on me to undertake this charge. It was conferred on me by the
Parliament of England, in whose name this war commenced, and by the
Council of State, who are the conservators of England’s liberty. And
the chance and serene hope of serving the country, the confidence that
I—and you, Master Desborough—and you, worthy General Harrison—
superior, as I am, to all selfish considerations—to which I am sure you
also, good Colonel Everard, would be superior, had you been named in
this Commission, as I would to Heaven you had—I say, the hope of
serving the country, with the aid of such respectable associates, one
and all of them—as well as you, Colonel Everard, supposing you to have
been of the number, induced me to accept of this opportunity, whereby I
might, gratuitously, with your assistance, render so much advantage to
our dear mother the Commonwealth of England.—Such was my hope—my
trust—my confidence. And now comes my Lord-General’s warrant to
dissolve the authority by which we are entitled to act. Gentlemen, I
ask this honourable meeting, (with all respect to his Excellency,)
whether his Commission be paramount to that from which he himself
directly holds his commission? No one will say so. I ask whether he has
climbed into the seat from which the late Man descended, or hath a
great seal, or means to proceed by prerogative in such a case? I cannot
see reason to believe it, and therefore I must resist such doctrine. I
am in your judgment, my brave and honourable colleagues; but, touching
my own poor opinion, I feel myself under the unhappy necessity of
proceeding in our commission, as if the interruption had not taken
place; with this addition, that the Board of Sequestrators should sit,
by day, at this same Lodge of Woodstock, but that, to reconcile the
minds of weak brethren, who may be afflicted by superstitious rumours,
as well as to avoid any practice on our persons by the malignants, who,
I am convinced, are busy in this neighbourhood, we should remove our
sittings after sunset to the George Inn, in the neighbouring borough.”
“Good Master Bletson,” replied Colonel Everard, “it is not for me to
reply to you; but you may know in what characters this army of England
and their General write their authority. I fear me the annotation on
this precept of the General, will be expressed by the march of a troop
of horse from Oxford to see it executed. I believe there are orders out
for that effect; and you know by late experience, that the soldier will
obey his General equally against King and Parliament.”
“That obedience is conditional,” said Harrison, starting fiercely up.
“Know’st thou not, Markham Everard, that I have followed the man
Cromwell as close as the bull-dog follows his master?—and so I will
yet;—but I am no spaniel, either to be beaten, or to have the food I
have earned snatched from me, as if I were a vile cur, whose wages are
a whipping, and free leave to wear my own skin. I looked, amongst the
three of us, that we might honestly, and piously, and with advantage to
the Commonwealth, have gained out of this commission three, or it may
be five thousand pounds. And does Cromwell imagine I will part with it
for a rough word? No man goeth a warfare on his own charges. He that
serves the altar must live by the altar—and the saints must have means
to provide them with good harness and fresh horses against the
unsealing and the pouring forth. Does Cromwell think I am so much of a
tame tiger as to permit him to rend from me at pleasure the miserable
dole he hath thrown me? Of a surety I will resist; and the men who are
here, being chiefly of my own regiment—men who wait, and who expect,
with lamps burning and loins girded, and each one his weapon bound upon
his thigh, will aid me to make this house good against every
assault—ay, even against Cromwell himself, until the latter
coming—Selah! Selah!”—
“And I,” said Desborough, “will levy troops and protect your
out-quarters, not choosing at present to close myself up in garrison”—
“And I,” said Bletson, “will do my part, and hie me to town and lay the
matter before Parliament, arising in my place for that effect.”
Everard was little moved by all these threats. The only formidable one,
indeed, was that of Harrison, whose enthusiasm, joined with his
courage, and obstinacy, and character among the fanatics of his own
principles, made him a dangerous enemy. Before trying any arguments
with the refractory Major-General, Everard endeavoured to moderate his
feelings, and threw something in about the late disturbances.
“Talk not to me of supernatural disturbances, young man—talk not to me
of enemies in the body or out of the body. Am I not the champion chosen
and commissioned to encounter and to conquer the great Dragon, and the
Beast which cometh out of the sea? Am I not to command the left wing,
and two regiments of the centre, when the Saints shall encounter with
the countless legions of Grog and Magog? I tell thee that my name is
written on the sea of glass mingled with fire, and that I will keep
this place of Woodstock against all mortal men, and against all devils,
whether in field or chamber, in the forest or in the meadow, even till
the Saints reign in the fulness of their glory.”
Everard saw it was then time to produce two or three lines under
Cromwell’s hand, which he had received from the General, subsequently
to the communication through Wildrake. The information they contained
was calculated to allay the disappointment of the Commissioners. This
document assigned as the reason of superseding the Woodstock
Commission, that he should probably propose to the Parliament to
require the assistance of General Harrison, Colonel Desborough, and
Master Bletson, the honourable member for Littlefaith, in a much
greater matter, namely, the disposing of the royal property, and
disparking of the King’s forest at Windsor. So soon as this idea was
started, all parties pricked up their ears; and their drooping, and
gloomy, and vindictive looks began to give place to courteous smiles,
and to a cheerfulness, which laughed in their eyes, and turned their
mustaches upwards.
Colonel Desborough acquitted his right honourable and excellent cousin
and kinsman of all species of unkindness; Master Bletson discovered,
that the interest of the state was trebly concerned in the good
administration of Windsor more than in that of Woodstock. As for
Harrison, he exclaimed, without disguise or hesitation, that the
gleaning of the grapes of Windsor was better than the vintage of
Woodstock. Thus speaking, the glance of his dark eye expressed as much
triumph in the proposed earthly advantage, as if it had not been,
according to his vain persuasion, to be shortly exchanged for his share
in the general reign of the Millennium. His delight, in short,
resembled the joy of an eagle, who preys upon a lamb in the evening
with not the less relish, because she descries in the distant landscape
an hundred thousand men about to join battle with daybreak, and to give
her an endless feast on the hearts and lifeblood of the valiant. Yet
though all agreed that they would be obedient to the General’s pleasure
in this matter, Bletson proposed, as a precautionary measure, in which
all agreed, that they should take up their abode for some time in the
town of Woodstock, to wait for their new commissions respecting
Windsor; and this upon the prudential consideration, that it was best
not to slip one knot until another was first tied.
Each Commissioner, therefore, wrote to Oliver individually, stating, in
his own way, the depth and height, length and breadth, of his
attachment to him. Each expressed himself resolved to obey the
General’s injunctions to the uttermost; but with the same scrupulous
devotion to the Parliament, each found himself at a loss how to lay
down the commission intrusted to them by that body, and therefore felt
bound in conscience to take up his residence at the borough of
Woodstock, that he might not seem to abandon the charge committed to
them, until they should be called to administrate the weightier matter
of Windsor, to which they expressed their willingness instantly to
devote themselves, according to his Excellency’s pleasure.
This was the general style of their letters, varied by the
characteristic flourishes of the writers. Desborough, for example, said
something about the religious duty of providing for one’s own
household, only he blundered the text. Bletson wrote long and big words
about the political obligation incumbent on every member of the
community, on every person, to sacrifice his time and talents to the
service of his country; while Harrison talked of the littleness of
present affairs, in comparison of the approaching tremendous change of
all things beneath the sun. But although the garnishing of the various
epistles was different, the result came to the same, that they were
determined at least to keep sight of Woodstock, until they were well
assured of some better and more profitable commission.
Everard also wrote a letter in the most grateful terms to Cromwell,
which would probably have been less warm had he known more distinctly
than his follower chose to tell him, the expectation under which the
wily General had granted his request. He acquainted his Excellency with
his purpose of continuing at Woodstock, partly to assure himself of the
motions of the three Commissioners, and to watch whether they did not
again enter upon the execution of the trust, which they had for the
present renounced,—and partly to see that some extraordinary
circumstances, which had taken place in the Lodge, and which would
doubtless transpire, were not followed by any explosion to the
disturbance of the public peace. He knew (as he expressed himself) that
his Excellency was so much the friend of order, that he would rather
disturbances or insurrections were prevented than punished; and he
conjured the General to repose confidence in his exertions for the
public service by every mode within his power; not aware, it will be
observed, in what peculiar sense his general pledge might be
interpreted.
These letters being made up into a packet, were forwarded to Windsor by
a trooper, detached on that errand.