RECROSSING THE CHANNEL, ISRAEL RETURNS TO THE SQUIRE’S ABODE—HIS
ADVENTURES THERE.
On the third day, as Israel was walking to and fro in his room, having
removed his courier’s boots, for fear of disturbing the Doctor, a quick
sharp rap at the door announced the American envoy. The man of wisdom
entered, with two small wads of paper in one hand, and several crackers
and a bit of cheese in the other. There was such an eloquent air of
instantaneous dispatch about him, that Israel involuntarily sprang to
his boots, and, with two vigorous jerks, hauled them on, and then
seizing his hat, like any bird, stood poised for his flight across the
channel.
“Well done, my honest friend,” said the Doctor; “you have the papers in
your heel, I suppose.”
“Ah,” exclaimed Israel, perceiving the mild irony; and in an instant
his boots were off again; when, without another word, the Doctor took
one boot, and Israel the other, and forthwith both parties proceeded to
secrete the documents.
“I think I could improve the design,” said the sage, as,
notwithstanding his haste, he critically eyed the screwing apparatus of
the boot. “The vacancy should have been in the standing part of the
heel, not in the lid. It should go with a spring, too, for better
dispatch. I’ll draw up a paper on false heels one of these days, and
send it to a private reading at the Institute. But no time for it now.
My honest friend, it is now half past ten o’clock. At half past eleven
the diligence starts from the Place-du-Carrousel for Calais. Make all
haste till you arrive at Brentford. I have a little provender here for
you to eat in the diligence, as you will not have time for a regular
meal. A day-and-night courier should never be without a cracker in his
pocket. You will probably leave Brentford in a day or two after your
arrival there. Be wary, now, my good friend; heed well, that, if you
are caught with these papers on British ground, you will involve both
yourself and our Brentford friends in fatal calamities. Kick no man’s
box, never mind whose, in the way. Mind your own box. You can’t be too
cautious, but don’t be too suspicious. God bless you, my honest friend.
Go!”
And, flinging the door open for his exit, the Doctor saw Israel dart
into the entry, vigorously spring down the stairs, and disappear with
all celerity across the court into the vaulted way.
The man of wisdom stood mildly motionless a moment, with a look of
sagacious, humane meditation on his face, as if pondering upon the
chances of the important enterprise: one which, perhaps, might in the
sequel affect the weal or woe of nations yet to come. Then suddenly
clapping his hand to his capacious coat-pocket, dragged out a bit of
cork with some hen’s feathers, and hurrying to his room, took out his
knife, and proceeded to whittle away at a shuttlecock of an original
scientific construction, which at some prior time he had promised to
send to the young Duchess D’Abrantes that very afternoon.
Safely reaching Calais, at night, Israel stepped almost from the
diligence into the packet, and, in a few moments, was cutting the
water. As on the diligence he took an outside and plebeian seat, so,
with the same secret motive of preserving unsuspected the character
assumed, he took a deck passage in the packet. It coming on to rain
violently, he stole down into the forecastle, dimly lit by a solitary
swinging lamp, where were two men industriously smoking, and filling
the narrow hole with soporific vapors. These induced strange drowsiness
in Israel, and he pondered how best he might indulge it, for a time,
without imperilling the precious documents in his custody.
But this pondering in such soporific vapors had the effect of those
mathematical devices whereby restless people cipher themselves to
sleep. His languid head fell to his breast. In another moment, he
drooped half-lengthwise upon a chest, his legs outstretched before him.
Presently he was awakened by some intermeddlement with his feet.
Starting to his elbow, he saw one of the two men in the act of slyly
slipping off his right boot, while the left one, already removed, lay
on the floor, all ready against the rascal’s retreat Had it not been
for the lesson learned on the Pont Neuf, Israel would instantly have
inferred that his secret mission was known, and the operator some
designed diplomatic knave or other, hired by the British Cabinet, thus
to lie in wait for him, fume him into slumber with tobacco, and then
rifle him of his momentous dispatches. But as it was, he recalled
Doctor Franklin’s prudent admonitions against the indulgence of
premature suspicions.
“Sir,” said Israel very civilly, “I will thank you for that boot which
lies on the floor, and, if you please, you can let the other stay where
it is.”
“Excuse me,” said the rascal, an accomplished, self-possessed
practitioner in his thievish art; “I thought your boots might be
pinching you, and only wished to ease you a little.”
“Much obliged to ye for your kindness, sir,” said Israel; “but they
don’t pinch me at all. I suppose, though, you think they wouldn’t pinch
_you_ either; your foot looks rather small. Were you going to try ’em
on, just to see how they fitted?”
“No,” said the fellow, with sanctimonious seriousness; “but with your
permission I should like to try them on, when we get to Dover. I
couldn’t try them well walking on this tipsy craft’s deck, you know.”
“No,” answered Israel, “and the beach at Dover ain’t very smooth
either. I guess, upon second thought, you had better not try ’em on at
all. Besides, I am a simple sort of a soul—eccentric they call me—and
don’t like my boots to go out of my sight. Ha! ha!”
“What are you laughing at?” said the fellow testily.
“Odd idea! I was just looking at those sad old patched boots there on
your feet, and thinking to myself what leaky fire-buckets they would be
to pass up a ladder on a burning building. It would hardly be fair now
to swop my new boots for those old fire-buckets, would it?”
“By plunko!” cried the fellow, willing now by a bold stroke to change
the subject, which was growing slightly annoying; “by plunko, I believe
we are getting nigh Dover. Let’s see.”
And so saying, he sprang up the ladder to the deck. Upon Israel
following, he found the little craft half becalmed, rolling on short
swells almost in the exact middle of the channel. It was just before
the break of the morning; the air clear and fine; the heavens spangled
with moistly twinkling stars. The French and English coasts lay
distinctly visible in the strange starlight, the white cliffs of Dover
resembling a long gabled block of marble houses. Both shores showed a
long straight row of lamps. Israel seemed standing in the middle of the
crossing of some wide stately street in London. Presently a breeze
sprang up, and ere long our adventurer disembarked at his destined
port, and directly posted on for Brentford.
The following afternoon, having gained unobserved admittance into the
house, according to preconcerted signals, he was sitting in Squire
Woodcock’s closet, pulling off his boots and delivering his dispatches.
Having looked over the compressed tissuey sheets, and read a line
particularly addressed to himself, the Squire, turning round upon
Israel, congratulated him upon his successful mission, placed some
refreshment before him, and apprised him that, owing to certain
suspicious symptoms in the neighborhood, he (Israel) must now remain
concealed in the house for a day or two, till an answer should be ready
for Paris.
It was a venerable mansion, as was somewhere previously stated, of a
wide and rambling disorderly spaciousness, built, for the most part, of
weather-stained old bricks, in the goodly style called Elizabethan. As
without, it was all dark russet bricks, so within, it was nothing but
tawny oak panels.
“Now, my good fellow,” said the Squire, “my wife has a number of
guests, who wander from room to room, having the freedom of the house.
So I shall have to put you very snugly away, to guard against any
chance of discovery.”
So saying, first locking the door, he touched a spring nigh the open
fire-place, whereupon one of the black sooty stone jambs of the chimney
started ajar, just like the marble gate of a tomb. Inserting one leg of
the heavy tongs in the crack, the Squire pried this cavernous gate wide
open.
“Why, Squire Woodcock, what is the matter with your chimney?” said
Israel.
“Quick, go in.”
“Am I to sweep the chimney?” demanded Israel; “I didn’t engage for
that.”
“Pooh, pooh, this is your hiding-place. Come, move in.”
“But where does it go to, Squire Woodcock? I don’t like the looks of
it.”
“Follow me. I’ll show you.”
Pushing his florid corpulence into the mysterious aperture, the elderly
Squire led the way up steep stairs of stone, hardly two feet in width,
till they reached a little closet, or rather cell, built into the
massive main wall of the mansion, and ventilated and dimly lit by two
little sloping slits, ingeniously concealed without, by their forming
the sculptured mouths of two griffins cut in a great stone tablet
decorating that external part of the dwelling. A mattress lay rolled up
in one corner, with a jug of water, a flask of wine, and a wooden
trencher containing cold roast beef and bread.
“And I am to be buried alive here?” said Israel, ruefully looking
round.
“But your resurrection will soon be at hand,” smiled the Squire; “two
days at the furthest.”
“Though to be sure I was a sort of prisoner in Paris, just as I seem
about to be made here,” said Israel, “yet Doctor Franklin put me in a
better jug than this, Squire Woodcock. It was set out with boquets and
a mirror, and other fine things. Besides, I could step out into the
entry whenever I wanted.”
“Ah, but, my hero, that was in France, and this is in England. There
you were in a friendly country: here you are in the enemy’s. If you
should be discovered in my house, and your connection with me became
known, do you know that it would go very hard with me; very hard
indeed?”
“Then, for your sake, I am willing to stay wherever you think best to
put me,” replied Israel.
“Well, then, you say you want boquets and a mirror. If those articles
will at all help to solace your seclusion, I will bring them to you.”
“They really would be company; the sight of my own face particularly.”
“Stay here, then. I will be back in ten minutes.”
In less than that time, the good old Squire returned, puffing and
panting, with a great bunch of flowers, and a small shaving-glass.
“There,” said he, putting them down; “now keep perfectly quiet; avoid
making any undue noise, and on no account descend the stairs, till I
come for you again.”
“But when will that be?” asked Israel.
“I will try to come twice each day while you are here. But there is no
knowing what may happen. If I should not visit you till I come to
liberate you—on the evening of the second day, or the morning of the
third—you must not be at all surprised, my good fellow. There is plenty
of food-and water to last you. But mind, on no account descend the
stone-stairs till I come for you.”
With that, bidding his guest adieu, he left him.
Israel stood glancing pensively around for a time. By and by, moving
the rolled mattress under the two air-slits, he mounted, to try if
aught were visible beyond. But nothing was to be seen but a very thin
slice of blue sky peeping through the lofty foliage of a great tree
planted near the side-portal of the mansion; an ancient tree, coeval
with the ancient dwelling it guarded.
Sitting down on the Mattress, Israel fell into a reverie.
“Poverty and liberty, or plenty and a prison, seem to be the two horns
of the constant dilemma of my life,” thought he. “Let’s look at the
prisoner.”
And taking up the shaving-glass, he surveyed his lineaments.
“What a pity I didn’t think to ask for razors and soap. I want shaving
very badly. I shaved last in France. How it would pass the time here.
Had I a comb now and a razor, I might shave and curl my hair, and keep
making a continual toilet all through the two days, and look spruce as
a robin when I get out. I’ll ask the Squire for the things this very
night when he drops in. Hark! ain’t that a sort of rumbling in the
wall? I hope there ain’t any oven next door; if so, I shall be scorched
out. Here I am, just like a rat in the wainscot. I wish there was a low
window to look out of. I wonder what Doctor Franklin is doing now, and
Paul Jones? Hark! there’s a bird singing in the leaves. Bell for
dinner, that.”
And for pastime, he applied himself to the beef and bread, and took a
draught of the wine and water.
At last night fell. He was left in utter darkness. No Squire.
After an anxious, sleepless night, he saw two long flecks of pale gray
light slanting into the cell from the slits, like two long spears. He
rose, rolled up his mattress, got upon the roll, and put his mouth to
one of the griffins’ months. He gave a low, just audible whistle,
directing it towards the foliage of the tree. Presently there was a
slight rustling among the leaves, then one solitary chirrup, and in
three minutes a whole chorus of melody burst upon his ear.
“I’ve waked the first bird,” said he to himself, with a smile, “and
he’s waked all the rest. Now then for breakfast. That over, I dare say
the Squire will drop in.”
But the breakfast was over, and the two flecks of pale light had
changed to golden beams, and the golden beams grew less and less
slanting, till they straightened themselves up out of sight altogether.
It was noon, and no Squire.
“He’s gone a-hunting before breakfast, and got belated,” thought
Israel.
The afternoon shadows lengthened. It was sunset; no Squire.
“He must be very busy trying some sheep-stealer in the hall,” mused
Israel. “I hope he won’t forget all about me till to-morrow.”
He waited and listened; and listened and waited.
Another restless night; no sleep; morning came. The second day passed
like the first, and the night. On the third morning the flowers lay
shrunken by his side. Drops of wet oozing through the air- slits, fell
dully on the stone floor. He heard the dreary beatings of the tree’s
leaves against the mouths of the griffins, bedashing them with the
spray of the rain-storm without. At intervals a burst of thunder rolled
over his head, and lightning flashing down through the slits, lit up
the cell with a greenish glare, followed by sharp splashings and
rattlings of the redoubled rain-storm.
“This is the morning of the third day,” murmured Israel to himself; “he
said he would at the furthest come to me on the morning of the third
day. This is it. Patience, he will be here yet. Morning lasts till
noon.”
But, owing to the murkiness of the day, it was very hard to tell when
noon came. Israel refused to credit that noon had come and gone, till
dusk set plainly in. Dreading he knew not what, he found himself buried
in the darkness of still another night. However patient and hopeful
hitherto, fortitude now presently left him. Suddenly, as if some
contagious fever had seized him, he was afflicted with strange
enchantments of misery, undreamed of till now.
He had eaten all the beef, but there was bread and water sufficient to
last, by economy, for two or three days to come. It was not the pang of
hunger then, but a nightmare originating in his mysterious
incarceration, which appalled him. All through the long hours of this
particular night, the sense of being masoned up in the wall, grew, and
grew, and grew upon him, till again and again he lifted himself
convulsively from the floor, as if vast blocks of stone had been laid
on him; as if he had been digging a deep well, and the stonework with
all the excavated earth had caved in upon him, where he burrowed ninety
feet beneath the clover. In the blind tomb of the midnight he stretched
his two arms sideways, and felt as if coffined at not being able to
extend them straight out, on opposite sides, for the narrowness of the
cell. He seated himself against one side of the wall, crosswise with
the cell, and pushed with his feet at the opposite wall. But still
mindful of his promise in this extremity, he uttered no cry. He mutely
raved in the darkness. The delirious sense of the absence of light was
soon added to his other delirium as to the contraction of space. The
lids of his eyes burst with impotent distension. Then he thought the
air itself was getting unbearable. He stood up at the griffin slits,
pressing his lips far into them till he moulded his lips there, to suck
the utmost of the open air possible.
And continually, to heighten his frenzy, there recurred to him again
and again what the Squire had told him as to the origin of the cell. It
seemed that this part of the old house, or rather this wall of it, was
extremely ancient, dating far beyond the era of Elizabeth, having once
formed portion of a religious retreat belonging to the Templars. The
domestic discipline of this order was rigid and merciless in the
extreme. In a side wall of their second storey chapel, horizontal and
on a level with the floor, they had an internal vacancy left, exactly
of the shape and average size of a coffin. In this place, from time to
time, inmates convicted of contumacy were confined; but, strange to
say, not till they were penitent. A small hole, of the girth of one’s
wrist, sunk like a telescope three feet through the masonry into the
cell, served at once for ventilation, and to push through food to the
prisoner. This hole opening into the chapel also enabled the poor
solitaire, as intended, to overhear the religious services at the
altar; and, without being present, take part in the same. It was deemed
a good sign of the state of the sufferer’s soul, if from the gloomy
recesses of the wall was heard the agonized groan of his dismal
response. This was regarded in the light of a penitent wail from the
dead, because the customs of the order ordained that when any inmate
should be first incarcerated in the wall, he should be committed to it
in the presence of all the brethren, the chief reading the burial
service as the live body was sepulchred. Sometimes several weeks
elapsed ere the disentombment, the penitent being then usually found
numb and congealed in all his extremities, like one newly stricken with
paralysis.
This coffin-cell of the Templars had been suffered to remain in the
demolition of the general edifice, to make way for the erection of the
new, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It was enlarged somewhat, and
altered, and additionally ventilated, to adapt it for a place of
concealment in times of civil dissension.
With this history ringing in his solitary brain, it may readily be
conceived what Israel’s feelings must have been. Here, in this very
darkness, centuries ago, hearts, human as his, had mildewed in despair;
limbs, robust as his own, had stiffened in immovable torpor.
At length, after what seemed all the prophetic days and years of
Daniel, morning broke. The benevolent light entered the cell, soothing
his frenzy, as if it had been some smiling human face—nay, the Squire
himself, come at last to redeem him from thrall. Soon his dumb ravings
entirely left him, and gradually, with a sane, calm mind, he revolved
all the circumstances of his condition.
He could not be mistaken; something fatal must have befallen his
friend. Israel remembered the Squire’s hinting that in case of the
discovery of his clandestine proceedings it would fare extremely hard
with him, Israel was forced to conclude that this same unhappy
discovery had been made; that owing to some untoward misadventure his
good friend had been carried off a State-prisoner to London; that prior
to his going the Squire had not apprised any member of his household
that he was about to leave behind him a prisoner in the wall; this
seemed evident from the circumstance that, thus far, no soul had
visited that prisoner. It could not be otherwise. Doubtless the Squire,
having no opportunity to converse in private with his relatives or
friends at the moment of his sudden arrest, had been forced to keep his
secret, for the present, for fear of involving Israel in still worse
calamities. But would he leave him to perish piecemeal in the wall? All
surmise was baffled in the unconjecturable possibilities of the case.
But some sort of action must speedily be determined upon. Israel would
not additionally endanger the Squire, but he could not in such
uncertainty consent to perish where he was. He resolved at all hazards
to escape, by stealth and noiselessly, if possible; by violence and
outcry, if indispensable.
Gliding out of the cell, he descended the stone stairs, and stood
before the interior of the jamb. He felt an immovable iron knob, but no
more. He groped about gently for some bolt or spring. When before he
had passed through the passage with his guide, he had omitted to notice
by what precise mechanism the jamb was to be opened from within, or
whether, indeed, it could at all be opened except from without.
He was about giving up the search in despair, after sweeping with his
two hands every spot of the wall-surface around him, when chancing to
turn his whole body a little to one side, he heard a creak, and saw a
thin lance of light. His foot had unconsciously pressed some spring
laid in the floor. The jamb was ajar. Pushing it open, he stood at
liberty, in the Squire’s closet.