The hour appointed for execution had been long past, and it was about
five in the evening when the Protector summoned Pearson to his
presence. He went with fear and reluctance, uncertain how he might be
received. After remaining about a quarter of an hour, the aide-de-camp
returned to Victor Lee’s parlour, where he found the old soldier,
Zerubbabel Robins, in attendance for his return.
“How is Oliver?” said the old man, anxiously.
“Why, well,” answered Pearson, “and hath asked no questions of the
execution, but many concerning the reports we have been able to make
regarding the flight of the young Man, and is much moved at thinking he
must now be beyond pursuit. Also I gave him certain papers belonging to
the malignant Doctor Rochecliffe.”
“Then will I venture upon him,” said the adjutator; “so give me a
napkin that I may look like a sewer, and fetch up the food which I
directed should be in readiness.”
Two troopers attended accordingly with a ration of beef, such as was
distributed to the private soldiers, and dressed after their fashion—a
pewter pot of ale, a trencher with salt, black pepper, and a loaf of
ammunition bread. “Come with me,” he said to Pearson, “and fear
not—Noll loves an innocent jest.” He boldly entered the General’s
sleeping apartment, and said aloud, “Arise, thou that art called to be
a judge in Israel—let there be no more folding of the hands to sleep.
Lo, I come as a sign to thee; wherefore arise, eat, drink, and let thy
heart be glad within thee; for thou shalt eat with joy the food of him
that laboureth in the trenches, seeing that since thou wert commander
over the host, the poor sentinel hath had such provisions as I have now
placed for thine own refreshment.”
“Truly, brother Zerubbabel,” said Cromwell, accustomed to such acts of
enthusiasm among his followers, “we would wish that it were so; neither
is it our desire to sleep soft, nor feed more highly than the meanest
that ranks under our banners. Verily, thou hast chosen well for my
refreshment, and the smell of the food is savoury in my nostrils.”
He arose from the bed, on which he had lain down half dressed, and
wrapping his cloak around him, sate down by the bedside, and partook
heartily of the plain food which was prepared for him. While he was
eating, Cromwell commanded Pearson to finish his report—“You need not
desist for the presence of a worthy soldier, whose spirit is as my
spirit.”
“Nay, but,” interrupted Robins, “you are to know that Gilbert Pearson
hath not fully executed thy commands, touching a part of those
malignants, all of whom should have died at noon.”
“What execution—what malignants?” said Cromwell, laying down his knife
and fork.
“Those in the prison here at Woodstock,” answered Zerubbabel, “whom
your Excellency commanded should be executed at noon, as taken in the
fact of rebellion against the Commonwealth.”
“Wretch!” said Cromwell, starting up and addressing Pearson, “thou hast
not touched Mark Everard, in whom there was no guilt, for he was
deceived by him who passed between us—neither hast thou put forth thy
hand on the pragmatic Presbyterian minister, to have all those of their
classes cry sacrilege, and alienate them from us for ever?”
“If your Excellency wish them to live, they live—their life and death
are in the power of a word,” said Pearson.
“Enfranchise them; I must gain the Presbyterian interest over to us if
I can.”
“Rochecliffe, the arch-plotter,” said Pearson, “I thought to have
executed, but”—
“Barbarous man,” said Cromwell, “alike ungrateful and impolitic—wouldst
thou have destroyed our decoy-duck? This doctor is but like a well, a
shallow one indeed, but something deeper than the springs which
discharge their secret tribute into his keeping; then come I with a
pump, and suck it all up to the open air. Enlarge him, and let him have
money if he wants it. I know his haunts; he can go nowhere but our eye
will be upon him.—But you look at each other darkly, as if you had more
to say than you durst. I trust you have not done to death Sir Henry
Lee?”
“No. Yet the man,” replied Pearson, “is a confirmed malignant, and”—
“Ay, but he is also a noble relic of the ancient English Gentleman,”
said the General. “I would I knew how to win the favour of that race.
But we, Pearson, whose royal robes are the armour which we wear on our
bodies, and whose leading staves are our sceptres, are too newly set up
to draw the respect of the proud malignants, who cannot brook to submit
to less than royal lineage. Yet what can they see in the longest kingly
line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier? I
grudge that one man should be honoured and followed, because he is the
descendant of a victorious commander, while less honour and allegiance
is paid to another, who, in personal qualities, and in success, might
emulate the founder of his rival’s dynasty. Well, Sir Henry Lee lives,
and shall live for me. His son, indeed, hath deserved the death which
he has doubtless sustained.”
“My lord,” stammered Pearson, “since your Excellency has found I am
right in suspending your order in so many instances, I trust you will
not blame me in this also—I thought it best to await more special
orders.”
“Thou art in a mighty merciful humour this morning, Pearson,” said
Cromwell, not entirely satisfied.
“If your Excellency please, the halter is ready, and so is the
provost-marshal.”
“Nay, if such a bloody fellow as thou hast spared him, it would ill
become me to destroy him,” said the General. “But then, here is among
Rochecliffe’s papers the engagement of twenty desperadoes to take us
off—some example ought to be made.”
“My lord,” said Zerubbabel, “consider now how often this young man,
Albert Lee, hath been near you, nay, probably, quite close to your
Excellency, in these dark passages which he knew, and we did not. Had
he been of an assassin’s nature, it would have cost him but a
pistol-shot, and the light of Israel was extinguished. Nay, in the
unavoidable confusion which must have ensued, the sentinels quitting
their posts, he might have had a fair chance of escape.”
“Enough Zerubbabel; he lives,” said the General. “He shall remain in
custody for some time, however, and be then banished from England. The
other two are safe, of course; for you would not dream of considering
such paltry fellows as fit victims for my revenge.”
“One fellow, the under-keeper, called Joliffe, deserves death,
however,” said Pearson, “since he has frankly admitted that he slew
honest Joseph Tomkins.”
“He deserves a reward for saving us a labour,” said Cromwell; “that
Tomkins was a most double-hearted villain. I have found evidence among
these papers here, that if we had lost the fight at Worcester, we
should have had reason to regret that we had ever trusted Master
Tomkins—it was only our success which anticipated his treachery—write
us down debtor, not creditor, to Joceline, an you call him so, and to
his quarter-staff.”
“There remains the sacrilegious and graceless cavalier who attempted
your Excellency’s life last night,” said Pearson.
“Nay,” said the General, “that were stooping too low for revenge. His
sword had no more power than had he thrusted with a tobacco-pipe.
Eagles stoop not at mallards, or wild-drakes either.”
“Yet, sir,” said Pearson, “the fellow should be punished as a libeller.
The quantity of foul and pestilential abuse which we found in his
pockets makes me loth he should go altogether free—Please to look at
them, sir.”
“A most vile hand,” said Oliver, as he looked at a sheet or two of our
friend Wildrake’s poetical miscellanies—“The very handwriting seems to
be drunk, and the very poetry not sober—What have we here?
‘When I was a young lad,
My fortune was bad—
If e’er I do well, ’tis a wonder’—