_Aumerle_. --Give me leave that I may turn the key,
That no man enter till my tale be done.
_Boling_. Have thy desire.
_York_ (_without_). My liege, beware: look to thyself:
Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.
_Aum._ Stay thy revengeful hand;
Thou hast no cause to fear.--_Richard II._ Act. V.
Meantime Miss Walladmor exerted herself as earnestly for the secret
liberation of the prisoner as due regard to concealment would allow.
Her first application was made to Sir Charles Davenant: much would
depend, as she was well aware, on the dispositions of that officer
towards Captain Nicholas; and in the present case circumstances well
known to both forbade her relying with too much hope upon the natural
generosity of his disposition. Something however must be risked; and
she wrote a note to him requesting that he would meet her in the
library.
Sir Charles probably anticipated the subject of Miss Walladmor's
communication: for, though he hastened to know her commands, the
expression of his countenance showed none of that alacrity which might
naturally have been looked for in a military man not much beyond thirty
on receiving a summons to a private interview with the beautiful
heiress of Walladmor.
On entering the room he bowed, but without his usual freedom of manner;
and something like an air of chagrin was visible, as he begged to know
upon what subject he had been fortunate enough to be honored with Miss
Walladmor's commands. He spoke with extreme gravity; and Miss Walladmor
looked up to him in vain for any signs of encouragement. She trembled:
but not, as it seemed, from any feminine embarrassments: grief and
anxiety had quelled all lighter agitations; and she trembled only with
the anguish of suspense.
"Sir Charles," she said at length, "there was a time when you would not
have refused me any request which it was in your power to grant."
"Nor would now, Miss Walladmor: my life should be at your service, if
that would promote your happiness; any thing but----my honor."
"I am to understand then that you think your honor concerned in
refusing what I was going to have asked you: for I perceive that you
apprehend what it was."
"I will not affect, Miss Walladmor, to misapprehend what it is you
wish: the prisoner is committed to the soldiers under my command; and
you wish me to favor his escape."
Miss Walladmor bowed her assent.
"But, my dear Miss Walladmor, this is quite impossible: believe me, it
is: even if my duty as a military man did not forbid me to engage in
such an act, which in me would be held criminal in the highest degree,
I fear that it would be wholly thrown away: for this person, the
prisoner I mean, is perfectly mad. I beg your pardon, Miss Walladmor: I
did not mean to distress you: but what I meant to say was--that, if he
were liberated, actuated by such views as appear to govern him at
present, I fear that he would linger in this neighbourhood: he would
inevitably be recaptured: and I should have violated my duty as a
soldier without at all forwarding your wishes."
Perceiving that Miss Walladmor looked perplexed and agitated, and
incapable of speaking, Sir Charles went on:
"Much of his later conduct may not have reached your ears: many acts
attributed to him----"
"Sir Charles," interrupted Miss Walladmor, bursting into tears, "you
know well that those, who have once lost their footing in the world's
favor, and are become unfortunate, meet with but little tenderness or
justice in the constructions or reports of any thing they may do. Every
hand, it seems to me, is raised against a falling man. But, let the
unhappy prisoner have done what he may, you have yourself suggested an
apology for him: and you distress me far less when you advert to it,
than when you appear to forget it."
"I do not forget it, Miss Walladmor: believe me, I do not: neither will
it be forgotten in a court of justice. So much the less can it be
necessary that in such a cause you should put any thing to the hazard
of a false interpretation amongst censorious people, who are less
capable of appreciating your motives than myself."
"Oh, Sir Charles Davenant!" exclaimed Miss Walladmor, "do not allude to
such considerations: any other than myself they might become; but not
me, who have been indebted to him of whom we are speaking three times
for my own life."
The last words were almost inarticulate: her voice failed her from
strong emotion; and she wept audibly.
Sir Charles was moved and softened: the spectacle of a woman's
tears--of a woman so young, beautiful, and evidently unhappy,--her
supplicating countenance and attitude, and the pleading tones of her
low soft voice ("an excellent thing in woman!"), were more than his
gallantry could support. To such a pleader he had not the heart to say
that she must plead in vain: he put his hand to his forehead;
considered for a moment or two; and then said----
"My dear Miss Walladmor, I fear I am doing very wrong: what may be
quite right for you--may be wrong indeed in me: yet I cannot resist a
request of yours urged so persuasively; and I will go to the utmost
lengths I can in meeting your wishes; to go further might expose
them to the risk of discovery. Use any influence you please with the
soldier on guard: I will place only one at the prisoner's door, and
will endeavour to select such a one as may be most readily induced
to----forget his duty. The centinel at the gate will not challenge any
person leaving the castle: he is placed there only to prevent the
intrusion of suspicious persons from without. In short proceed as you
will; and depend upon my looking away from what passes--which is the best
kind of assistance that I can give to your intentions in this case,
without running the risk of defeating them."
Miss Walladmor smiled through her tears, and thanked him fervently: Sir
Charles bowed and departed.
Sir Charles Davenant was a man of ancient family and of great
expectations, but of very small patrimonial fortune: he had been a ward
of Sir Morgan Walladmor's; between whom and the Davenants there was
some distant relationship: and it was to the Walladmor interest,
supported by the Walladmor purse, that Sir Charles was originally
indebted for his commission upon entering the army and his subsequent
promotion. These were circumstances which could not be unknown to Miss
Walladmor: but she had been too delicate and too just to use them as
any arguments with Sir Charles upon the present occasion. So much the
more however was Sir Charles disposed to recollect them: and he now
exerted himself without delay to make such inquiries and arrangements
as might put things in train for accomplishing Miss Walladmor's design;
conscious as he was that every post might bring down orders from
government which would make any such design impracticable.
Miss Walladmor, on her part, found that it would be impossible to
pursue this design without the co-operation of her own maid; and for
that purpose it was necessary to admit this young person in some degree
to her confidence. To any woman of delicate and deep feelings this must
naturally have been under ordinary circumstances a painful necessity;
but the time was now past for scruples of that sort: and difficulties,
which would have appeared insuperable in a situation of free choice,
melted away before the extremities of the present case. Moreover, apart
from the pain of making such disclosures at all, there was no person to
whom Miss Walladmor would more willingly have made them than to her own
attendant; for Grace Evans was an amiable girl: had been bred up in
superstitious reverence for the whole house of Walladmor; and with
regard to Miss Walladmor in particular, who had been the benefactress
of her own family in all its members, her attachment was so unlimited
that she would have regarded nothing as wrong which her young mistress
thought right--nor have suffered any obstacles whatsoever to deter her
in the execution of that thing which she had once understood to be her
mistress's pleasure. In the present case however there was nothing that
could press heavily on her sense of duty; nor any need to appeal to her
affections against her natural sense of propriety. On the contrary both
were in perfect harmony. She had long known, in common with all the
country, the circumstances of Miss Walladmor's early meetings with
Edward Nicholas--and the attachment which had grown out of them. And it
is observable that to all women endowed with much depth and purity of
feeling, more particularly to women in humble life who inherit a sort
of superstition on that subject (and are besides less liable to have it
shaken by the vulgar ridicule of the world, and the half-sneering tone
with which all deep feelings are treated in the more refined classes of
society)--love, but especially unfortunate love, is regarded with a
sanctity of interest and pity such as they give to religion or to the
memory of the dead. In this point women of the lowest rank (as a body)
are much more worthy of respect and admiration than those above them,
in proportion to the rarity of the temptations which beset them for
diverting the natural course of their own affections--and to the less
worldly tone of the society[1] in which they move. Women however of all
classes manifest a purity and elevation of sentiment on this subject to
which the coarseness of the other sex rarely ascends.
Hence it was that Miss Walladmor found in her humble attendant a
sympathy more profound than she might possibly have met with in many of
her own rank. The tender hearted girl had long been deeply affected in
secret by the spectacle of early grief and unmerited calamity which had
clouded the youthful prospects of her mistress; she was delighted with
the honor of the confidence reposed in her: and she immediately set her
little head to work, which (to do her justice) was a very woman's head
for its fertility in plots and wiles, to consider of the best means for
accomplishing the deliverance of the prisoner. Political offences are
naturally no offences at all in the eyes of women: and independently of
the deeper interest which she took in the present case, she would at
any time with hearty good will have given her gratuitous assistance to
effect a general gaol delivery of all prisoners whatsoever whose
crimes, had relation chiefly to the Secretaries of State for the time
being.
A tap at the door, which came at this moment, served to abridge and to
guide her scheming. It was a servant with a note from Sir Charles
Davenant to the following effect:
"My dear Madam,
"I may possibly be under the necessity of leaving the castle this
evening for a few days on some business connected with my military
duties: and for that reason, as well as because it is on all accounts
adviseable that any attempt which is contemplated should be made
without much delay, I take the earliest opportunity of informing you
that Thomas Godber, a late servant on the Walladmor establishment, will
relieve guard at eight o'clock this night. He was, I believe, recently
a groom or helper in the castle stables: and he enlisted into one of
the two troops now quartered in the castle with the knowledge and
approbation of Sir Morgan. I know nothing of him more than this, and
that he bears the character amongst his fellow troopers of a
goodnatured young man. But I presume that, as a former servant of the
family, he shares in the general attachment which all about her
manifest for Miss Walladmor. On this account I have placed him on guard
in the only station which is of any importance. It will be necessary, I
must add, that he should go out of the way for a time after the escape
of the prisoner.
"Wishing, my dear Miss Walladmor, in secret that success to your
enterprize on this occasion--which, on all other occasions, I shall be
proud to wish you openly,--I remain, with the greatest regard,
"Your faithful and devoted servant,
"5 o'clock. "CHARLES DAVENANT."
This note relieved Miss Walladmor from much of her anxiety: for Thomas
Godber was not only deeply attached to the family, having been a
servant about the castle from his boyish days; but of late he had been
bound in a new tie of gratitude to Miss Walladmor by the sanction which
she had given to his future marriage with Grace, to whom Tom had long
been a zealous suitor. Grace was not less rejoiced on hearing of the
arrangement which Sir Charles had made; and answered for Tom's services
with the air of one who claimed more unlimited obedience from him, in
the character of lover, than his colonel or his sovereign could exact
of him in those of soldier and subject.
It was necessary, however, in so perilous a matter, that Miss Walladmor
should see and converse with Tom: throwing a large shawl therefore
about her person, and trusting herself to the guidance of Grace, who
led her by passages and staircases which she had never trod before,
Miss Walladmor descended to a sort of cloisters or piazza which opened
by arches upon one side of the great court of the castle. Here Grace
introduced her into a small parlour, usually occupied by one of the
upper female servants, who was likely to be absent at this time of the
evening for some hours; and, after she had seen her mistress seated and
secured from intrusion, she ran off to summon Tom. With him she was
already disposed to be somewhat displeased that he was not immediately
to be found; and, after she _had_ found him, lectured him all the way
for his temerity in presuming to be absent when Miss Walladmor
condescended to want him. Tom's intellectual faculties were not of the
most brilliant order: whether Tom had any latent and yet undiscovered
profundity which qualified him for philosophic speculations, we cannot
say: for the honor of the male sex, we heartily hope that he had some
bright endowment in his brain which was deeply concealed from all men
to balance his prodigious inferiority to Grace in all which was
revealed. Indeed Tom had no vanity on this subject: nobody could have a
lower opinion of his own wit than he had himself, nor a higher opinion
of Grace's. And on the present occasion, after once hinting that he
could not foresee that so very rare an event as a summons to "the
lady's" presence would occur precisely at half past five on this
particular evening, he hastily withdrew that absurd argument before
Grace's displeasure--and did not again resort to so weak a line of
justification; but took the wisest course for a man in his condition of
guilt by throwing himself on Grace's mercy. This was prudent: for Grace
was always reasonable and forgiving when people acknowledged their
crimes: and she now cheered Tom by an encouraging smile. Such
encouragement was quite necessary to Tom at this moment; there needed
no frowns from Grace for a man scared out of his wits already at the
prospect of an interview with Miss Walladmor; an honor which he had
never looked for; and he could not divine what was to be the subject of
conversation. Which of his virtues could it be that had procured him
this distinction? He knew of none that was likely to recommend him to
Miss Walladmor's notice. Which of his crimes then? These were certainly
easier for Tom to discover: but still he saw no probability that so
exalted a person as Miss Walladmor would interest herself in a poor
lad's sins, the most important part of which were scored at the public
house. Grace, to whom he applied for information, told him to do
whatever he was bid to do; to trouble his foolish head about nothing
else; and then he was sure to be right. And, so saying, she opened the
door and ushered him in to her mistress's presence.
Miss Walladmor, with her usual kindness, prefaced the special matter of
her application to Tom by making various inquiries about his mother and
his own temporary change of situation. Thus far Tom was able to meet
her questions with tolerable fluency, and no more embarrassment than
was inseparable from the novelty of his situation. But, when she
proceeded to question him about his knowledge of Captain Edward
Nicholas, Tom faultered and betrayed the greatest confusion. The truth
was that he knew him well, and was devotedly attached to his interests;
and with some reason; for the Captain had on one occasion with much
generosity protected him at the risk of his own life from the fury of a
smuggling crew who were on the point of shooting him for a supposed act
of treachery to their interests; in which, however, as was afterwards
discovered, Tom's mother had been the sole mover. In spite however of
this and other reasons for deep gratitude to Captain Nicholas, it so
frequently happened that the manifestation of this gratitude laid him
under the necessity of violating his duties as a servant of Sir Morgan
Walladmor, that he lived in perpetual fear of exposure; and never heard
the name of Edward Nicholas without some twinges of conscience, and
evident signs of embarrassment. It had recently become more dangerous
than ever to be suspected of any connexion with the Captain; and hence
it was that the standing fear, which weighed upon Tom's mind, at this
moment banished from his recollection that Miss Walladmor was not the
person (as all the country knew) to scan his conduct in this particular
(had it even been known to her) with any peculiar severity. He was
struck dumb with the belief that at length he was detected: and under
that feeling continued to stammer unintelligibly.
"Dull thing!" said Grace, "cannot you tell my mistress whether you know
the Captain or not?"
Certainly, Tom replied, he knew the Captain by sight.
"Well, and if my mistress wished you to open his prison door, I suppose
you would not pretend to make any objections."
Tom stared with all his eyes: and betrayed his feelings of reluctance
no less than of surprize. The fact was--he knew secretly that the
prisoner was not Captain Nicholas; and was unwilling to see any speedy
termination to a mistake which was at this moment the best protection
of his benefactor. He muttered therefore some absurdities about high
treason, the king, and the parliament.
"High treason!" said Grace, "Fiddle-de-dee! what signifies high
treason, in comparison with my mistress's orders?"
"But the king"--said Tom.
"The king. Sir!--don't lay your own wickedness to the king's door: the
king would be very well pleased to hear that you had done a little
treason yourself, if you told him that it was by a lady's orders. But
come, Sir, do as you are bid; or I shall remember."
And here Grace shook her fore-finger menacingly at Tom, and began to
lower upon him so gloomily, that Tom found himself running into the
pains and penalties of treason against higher powers than the king. He
hastened therefore by submission, in words and looks, to clear himself
of the guilt of rebellion, and avert the impending wrath of Grace;
assuring her that he would do whatsoever he was bid. Treason, or
misprision of treason, was now alike indifferent to Tom; and he was
perfectly penitent, and determined to wash out his sin by entire
obedience for the future.
Miss Walladmor then proceeded to give her instructions to Tom; but
suddenly she was interrupted by a tumultuous uproar of voices in the
great court. This was succeeded by a violent hurrying of feet from all
parts of the castle: and conscious that they were now exposed to
immediate intrusions, Grace suddenly dismissed Tom; whispered a word or
two in his ear; and then, snatching up the lamp and flinging the shawl
about her mistress, lighted her back as rapidly as possible to her own
apartments.
The interruption had arisen from Mr. Dulberry. That intense patriot was
incensed at the apprehension of a prisoner on political charges or
presumptions which he conceived to be in the highest degree honorable
to their object. Still more was he incensed that, instead of being
committed to the weak gaol of Dolgelly, from which it would have been
easy for a party of patriotic friends to deliver him, the prisoner had
been shut up in a fortress so secure as the Falcon's tower of
Walladmor, strengthened as it now was by two troops of dragoons. This
again was one of the worst features of the transaction: martial power
had usurped the functions of the civil authorities: and the
constitutional jealousy of all purists upon matters of Magna Charta
was, he conceived, summoned to the case.
He had accordingly walked up to the castle; and, upon being challenged
by the sentinel, had demanded to speak with Sir Morgan Walladmor: but,
as he accompanied this demand with a torrent of abuse against the
worthy baronet and much political jargon in relation to the prisoner,
the sentinel refused to let him pass, and assured him that he would
fire if he should attempt to advance. Mr. Dulberry retreated to a
station behind an angle of the castle which he conceived not to be
within musquet range; and there, stretching his head round the corner,
commenced a political lecture upon the Bill of Rights as affected by
the use of soldiers in riots; thence diverging to the "Manchester
massacres," "Londonderry's hussars," "hoofs of dragoons," and other
topics by no means calculated to win a favourable attention from his
present audience. Some of the dragoons were loitering about the gate:
others were soon attracted by the violence of Mr. Dulberry: and a party
of them, taking advantage of the dusk, slipped round into the rear of
the reformer--seized him and carried him off to the lamps under the
gateway. In the tumult Mr. Dulberry's white hat fell off; and a kick
from one of the soldiers sent it to the very edge of the rocky platform
before the gate--where this pure badge of a pure faith unfortunately
rolled over the precipice and dropped into the sea. Closer examination
of Mr. Dulberry's features revealed to the dragoons a face already
pretty familiar to them as one which, whenever they passed through
Machynleth, they had seen popping out from an upper window of the
Walladmor Arms, and fulminating all sorts of maledictions upon them,
their officers, and their profession. Consideration for his age would
not allow them to think of any severe vengeance: but, as they had
caught the old nuisance, they determined to retort his civilities in
a pleasant practical way, and to have a little sport before they parted
with him. Placing themselves therefore in a ring they sent round this
shining light of politics from hand to hand like the Grecian torch-bearers
of old.[2] Bursts of laughter arose from the dragoons and their comrades;
piercing invocations of the Habeas Corpus act from Mr. Dulberry: and the
tumult became so great that at length the old warden Maxwell sallied forth
to learn the cause. Putting his head out from a window of a turret, he
summoned the parties to attention by a speaking trumpet; and demanded to
know the occasion of this uproar. Mr. Dulberry stated his grievances; the
loss of his white hat, his violent circumrotation or gyration which
threatened to derange all his political ideas, and (what vexed him still
more) the violation in his person of Magna Charta. From his personal
grievances he passed to those of his party in general; citing a statute
enacted by the second parliament of Queen Elizabeth in the behalf of those
who professed "the Reformed Faith," which statute he applied to the benefit
of the modern Radical reformers in Manchester and elsewhere; and
contended that Sir Morgan, as a discountenancer and oppressor of all
the reforming party in his neighbourhood, was clearly upon that statute
liable to the penalties of high treason.
All present were scandalized at such language applied to Sir Morgan
Walladmor at his own castle gates. The whole household of the baronet
had now flocked to the spot: and Mr. Dulberry, perceiving by their
gestures that he had a second course of circumrotation or some severer
discipline to anticipate, for this once resolved to leave Magna Charta
to take care of itself--and took himself as fast as possible to his
heels. A general rush was now made by the servants and the dragoons to
the ramparts on the other side of the castle, a station from which, in
consequence of the winding line pursued by the road, they promised
themselves the gratification of snowballing the poor reformer for
nearly a quarter of a mile.
Whilst all the world was at these "high jinks" with Mr. Dulberry, a
stranger muffled up in a cloak had very early in the disturbance taken
advantage of the general confusion to pass the gate unobserved. He
appeared to be well acquainted with the plan of the castle, and pressed
on to one of the principal saloons, in which at this moment Sir Morgan
Walladmor was sitting alone. A slight rustling at the other end of the
room caused Sir M. to raise his head from the letters which lay before
him; and, seeing a dusky figure standing between two whole-length
portraits of his ancestors, he almost began to imagine that some one of
the house of Walladmor had returned from the grave to give him ghostly
admonition.
The stranger turned and locked the door; and then, without unmuffling
himself, advanced towards Sir Morgan; who, on his part, was struck with
some indistinct sense of awe as before a mysterious being--but kept his
seat without alarm. At a few paces from the table, the stranger paused;
and said--
"Sir Morgan Walladmor! I come to let you know that an innocent man is
confined under your sanction: the prisoner in the chambers of the
Falcon's tower is not the person you take him for."
"And is this your reason for pressing thus unceremoniously to my
presence?"
"It is."
"Then appear as a witness for the accused, and give your evidence
before the jury by whom he will be tried."
"Sir Morgan, I again assure you that your prisoner is not Captain
Edward Nicholas."
"Who then?"
"Let it suffice that he is not Captain Nicholas?"
"But who is it that I am required to believe? Who are you? What
vouchers, what security, do you offer for the truth of what you tell
me?"
"Security!--You would have security? You shall. Do you remember that
time, when the great Dutch ship was cruizing off the coast, and the
landing of the crew was nightly expected?"
"I remember it well; for at that time I had beset the coast with
faithful followers: political disturbances at Chester and Shrewsbury
concurred at that time to make such a descent on the coast a subject of
much alarm; and once or twice I watched myself all night through."
"True: and on the 29th of September you were lying upon your arms
behind Arthur's pillar. About midnight a man in the uniform of a
sea-fencible joined you: and you may remember some conversation you
had with him?"
Had Sir M. Walladmor been addicted to trembling, he would now have
trembled: with earnest gaze, and outstretched arms, he listened
without speaking to the stranger, who continued: "You talked together,
until the moon was setting; and then, when the work was done--Sir
Morgan--when the work was done, a shot was fired: and in the twinkling
of an eye up sprang the sea-fencible; and he cried aloud, as I do now,
Farewell! Sir Morgan Walladmor!" And so saying the stranger threw open
his cloak, discovering underneath a dirk and a brace of pistols; and at
the same time, with an impressive gesture, he raised his cap from his
head.
"It is Captain Nicholas!" exclaimed the baronet.
"At your service, Sir Morgan Walladmor. Do you now believe that your
prisoner is innocent?"
Sir Morgan here threatened to detain him: but Captain Nicholas
convinced him that he had taken his measures well, and was not likely
to be intercepted. "I have the command of the door," said he; "and your
household, Sir Morgan, at this moment is too much occupied with Mr.
Dulberry to have any ears for your summons." Then, in a lower and more
impressive voice, he added--
"Grey hairs I reverence: and to you in particular, least of all men, do
I hear malice: though oft, God knows, in my young days, old Sir, you
have cost me an ague-fit."
He folded his cloak; looked once again upon the old man; and with
an aspect, in which some defiance was blended with a deep sorrow
that could not be mistaken, he turned away slowly with the
words--"Farewell!--Gladly, Sir Morgan, I would offer you my hand: but
_that_ in this world is not to be: a Walladmor does not give his hand
to an outlaw!"
Sir Morgan was confounded: he looked on whilst the bold offender with
tranquil steps moved down the whole length of the saloon, opened the
folding doors, and vanished. Sir Morgan was still numbering the steps
of the departing visitor, as he descended the great stair-case: and the
last echo had reached his ear from the remote windings of the castle
chambers, whilst he was yet unresolved what course he should pursue.
FOOTNOTES TO "CHAPTER XVII.":
[Footnote 1: Less _worldly_, observe, good reader: let the immoralities
of such society be occasionally what they may, the affections speak a
far simpler and more natural language: and one remark is sufficient to
illustrate this. Love, as it is represented in comedy, is absolutely
unintelligible to the lower classes: in tragedy it first becomes
perfectly comprehensible to them.]
[Footnote 2: The [Greek: lampadephoroi].]