“_Religious ideas and religious emotions, under the influence of the
Puritan habit of mind, seek to realise themselves, not in art, but,
without any intervening medium, in character, in conduct, in life. It is
thus that the gulf between sense and spirit is bridged; not in marble
or in colour is the invisible made visible, but in action public and
private--‘ye are the temples of the Holy Ghost.’”_--Professor E. Dowden.
It was something of a relief to Gabriel to see the well-known spires
and towers of Oxford, but he had lived through so much since his
undergraduate days that he felt like a returned ghost--aloof from
all his past interests, alone in a crowd, remorselessly stared at and
criticised by the inhabitants.
At the city gate they were halted while arrangements were made as to
their reception. Gabriel was thankful enough for the brief respite; for
Norton’s treatment at Marlborough had set up keen pain in his old wound,
while the thirty miles’ march from Devizes, bareheaded under a blazing
sun, had given him a racking headache.
The last time he had passed out of Oxford by this gateway, three years
before, he had been riding home to Herefordshire with Ned Harley, little
dreaming of the future that lay before them. He fell now to wondering
whether Ned had recovered from the wound he had got at Lansdown, and
whether the letter he had left with him had by this time reached his
father at Hereford.
Just then the sound of a mellow voice, with a mocking ring about it
which spoilt its pleasantness, roused him from his reverie.
“Well, Mr. Harford!” said Norton. “’Tis warm work, isn’t it? You seem
exhausted.”
Gabriel at once drew himself up with the undaunted look which had taken
Prince Rupert’s fancy. He glanced at the prisoner with the bandaged
head who leant heavily upon him, utterly spent with the march. The poor
fellow, Passey by name, was one of his own men, and had been wounded and
taken in the pursuit.
“This man is in far worse case,” he said. “But I know it is waste of
breath to ask mercy of you, sir.”
Norton laughed. “You know me better than the day we spoke together at
the gate of Wells. I told you I was not one to be baulked, and mark my
words, Mr. Harford, the rest of my prophecy will follow in due time. I
shall yet have the hanging of you.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Gabriel, stung into a bitter retort, “you seem
better fitted to play the part of a hangman, sir, than that of an
English gentleman.”
“Bravely said, Ecclesiastes! You have clearly studied under the most
virulent Puritan preachers of the day,” said Norton, regarding his
victim with an amused smile.
“Pardon me, sir,” said Gabriel, ashamed of his words, “I should have
held my tongue, for, truth to tell, on first sight of you at Gloucester,
I thought you----”
He broke off, puzzled by that same hint of a better nature which made
itself visible in his enemy’s face, as if in response to his unspoken
idea.
“You thought me as generous and good-hearted a man as ever you had
clapped eyes on,” said Norton, laughing. “They all do on occasion, but
quickly discover their mistake.”
He strolled away from the prisoners, and entering the alehouse hard by,
called for a cup of claret.
“A second,” he said, when he had drained it. “Here, Tarverfield, you
are always for pampering these rebels, take this to Mr. Harford, I’ll
warrant his throat is as dry as a lime-kiln.” The Captain was willing
enough to undertake the errand, and Norton saw the look of surprise on
the prisoner’s face when he heard who had sent the claret.
But the next minute an oath burst from the Colonel’s lips. “Curse the
fellow! doth he fancy himself at the Sacrament? He but tastes it and
passes it on to that wounded wretch beside him, and he again to his
neighbour.”
For the third time a twinge of shame dragged him for a little while
out of the slough of brutality which threatened to engulph him, and once
more there rose before him the vision of the dead wife he still loved,
though his profligacy had broken her heart and brought her to the grave.
The incident drove from Gabriel’s mind the despair he had felt since
passing the King. He insensibly learnt that in the most unlooked-for
ways good would manifest itself in those who seemed most uncongenial,
and thus with a brave heart went to meet the troubles that awaited him
in Oxford Castle.
Prince Rupert had very truly observed that the prisoners of war were not
pampered. The cruelties of Provost-Marshal Smith, the Governor, had
been revealed by the Lady Essex, who had been called into the House of
Commons some six months before, and had given evidence on her return
from Oxford of what the prisoners had to undergo. This had been fully
confirmed by Captain Wingate, who after months of imprisonment at Oxford
had obtained an exchange.
Still bound to Passey, Gabriel was ordered up to the highest room in one
of the towers of the Castle with four other officers and six of the
rank and file. The place seemed already full of men, and the exhausted
prisoners looked round blankly enough, wondering how they were to find
room in these wretched quarters.
The unhappy inmates, however, gave them a warm welcome, and it was
pitiful to see the way in which these half-famished men crowded round
them, eager to gain some news from the outer world.
“Where do you come from?” demanded a grey-haired prisoner, seizing upon
Gabriel.
“We lay at Marlborough last night, sir,” he replied, looking with
something like awe at the emaciated face of the speaker.
“Marlborough!” cried the prisoner, his eyes lighting up; “I was carried
off from Marlborough last winter.”
And he poured out question after question in the vain hope of gaining
news of his family.
“But may you not receive visitors?” asked Gabriel, knowing that even
criminals were not debarred from this privilege.
“We may see no one,” said the poor lawyer, for such he proved to
be. “Come, you are unbound now, sit here and I will tell you what to
expect.”
“With your permission, sir, I will first find some place for my
companion to lie; he is wounded, and well-nigh spent.”
“I should stow him in yonder corner, next to the man with the fever,”
said the lawyer, bitterly. “The air is so foul there that he’ll get a
few inches more space.”
Gabriel went to reconnoitre the ground, but was fairly beaten back by
the pestilent atmosphere.
“Any crowding is better than that,” he said. “Here, Passey, stretch
yourself by the wall; maybe they will give us food presently.”
“Not till to-morrow morning,” said the lawyer; “and then the
Provost-Marshal will not overfeed you, my friend. For though the
King allows sixpence a day for the prisoners--a fair enough sum--this
miserable governor of ours keeps for himself all but five farthings a
head.”
“And what doth that furnish?” asked Gabriel, beginning to understand the
lean and hungry looks of his companions.
“A pennyworth of bread, and a little can of a most vile mixture of beer
and water,” said the lawyer.
Gabriel reflected that by the next morning hunger and thirst would
probably be so keen that any diet would be endurable. To him the worst
trial at present was the sickening atmosphere of the overcrowded room,
which, to one accustomed to sleeping more often than not in the open
air, seemed on this hot July night well-nigh insufferable. In a space
measuring, perhaps, twenty feet square, some fifty prisoners were pent
up night and day.
“’Twas here that Mr. Franklyn, Member of Parliament for Marlborough,
died,” said the lawyer, in his melancholy voice, “and yonder man with
the fever will scarce recover, I think. But hark! there is the curfew
ringing, we shall have prayers before settling for the night.”
The prisoners all stood, and a short service, led by one of the captive
officers, was held. It was this habit which kept the place from becoming
the hell on earth which most prisons of the day were apt to become.
And that grand simplicity which is the strength of Puritanism made its
mighty influence felt, for all present, from the highest to the
lowest, held the same religious ideal, and were ready to die for their
conviction that each individual soul should have direct communion with
God.
Wearied by all that he had undergone in the last few days, Gabriel soon
slept with Falkland’s cloak wrapped about him, and though stretched on
the bare boards of the prison floor, his sleep was more profound and
restful than any that for many months had visited the careworn Secretary
of State.
It was sheer hunger that at last disturbed him, and feeling stiff and
miserable he raised himself, looking in a bewildered way round the
room. The moonlight shone in patches on the grim stone walls, and on the
strange spectacle of the prisoners lying in rows on the bare floor. The
dismal sound of clanking fetters echoed through the place, when some of
the men, who for attempted escape were heavily ironed, stirred in their
sleep. The man with the fever was muttering and groaning horribly.
A sudden wave of realisation swept over Gabriel. He was in prison, and
must starve and pine, and as likely as not die, in this horrible
place, no longer a free agent, but wholly at the mercy of tyrants. The
bitterness of death seemed already to overwhelm him.
“Let me out! Let me out!” moaned the sick man in his delirium “My house
is burning--my children--my wife! How can you do it, you fiends? Let me
go home, I say! Let me out!”
Gabriel roused himself from the despair into which he had fallen, and
picking his way cautiously across the forms of the sleeping prisoners,
sat down beside the man with the fever. There was still a little water
left in the earthenware mug near him, and, raising the poor fellow into
an easier posture, he held this to his parched lips.
“Where do you come from?” he asked.
“From Marlborough,” said the man, speaking rationally for a minute. “I
was one of the wealthiest of the burgesses; my name is Rawlyns.” Then
suddenly relapsing into his fevered ravings, “Let me out! Let me out!
They are burning my home.”
“I came from Marlborough yesterday, and there was no house burning,”
said Gabriel soothingly. “Come, be at rest, you’ll need all your
strength.”
His quiet words, and perhaps some subtle magnetism in his hands as he
smoothed back the sick man’s hair, certainly calmed the poor fellow. The
Hereford people always declared that Dr. Harford had what they called
“the healing touch,” and possibly Gabriel had inherited a similar power.
At any rate, the patient fell into a sound sleep, and his sore need had
done much to chase despair from the mind of his helper.
Noiselessly he stole back to his former place and once more lay down,
and as he mused over past and future there suddenly flashed into his
mind the perception that here and now in this distasteful present the
wish of his childhood had been granted. He had longed to be like his
hero Sir John Eliot, and to give his life for the country’s freedom;
and now, like Eliot, he was to languish in prison, debarred from air and
exercise and all that makes life sweet.
Gazing at the sharp contrasts of shadow and moonlight on the Castle
wall, an indescribable sense of strength and consolation came to him;
for he grasped the truth that, however the war ended, even if for awhile
utter defeat and ruin should overwhelm the cause, in the future Justice
was bound to triumph, being Divine, and every sacrifice honestly made
in her cause would prove to have been infinitely worth while, and would
hearten future generations to resist everything which threatened the
liberties so dearly bought.
Musing over Eliot’s imprisonment of nearly four years and his lonely
death, musing over the eleven years’ imprisonment of Valentine and
Strode, who still valiantly fought against the despotism of the King,
he fell asleep once more, and never woke until the surly gaoler, Aaron,
brought the day’s rations, when, as he had foreseen, desperate hunger
and thirst made the pennyworth of bread and the can of beer-and-water
welcome enough.
But the unutterable tedium of the long, hot day in the stifling room
seemed to him well-nigh unendurable, and when in the afternoon the
gaoler threw open the door and shouted his name, he felt that even if
the summons meant death he would hail it as a relief.
Without a word, Aaron fastened a pair of shackles round his ankles, and
signed to him to follow up the steps leading to the top of the tower.
“I shall await you below,” he said, pushing the prisoner through the
small opening on to the leads.
Gabriel drew in a deep breath of the fresh, sweet air. The tower was not
battlemented in the ordinary way, but the high wall surrounding it was
pierced on the north and south sides by openings. Standing by one
of these, he perceived the short and somewhat insignificant-looking
Secretary of State, and hurried forward with an eager exclamation of
pleasure.
Falkland, who had always been entirely free from the arrogance of manner
which characterised his class in those days, greeted the prisoner with
his usual simplicity, and with that gentle sweetness of expression which
was peculiarly his own.
“You must not hope much from my visit, Mr. Harford,” he said. “I have
tried my best to plead for you, but I fear you will not see your way
to accepting the conditions imposed. Prince Rupert, pleased with your
soldierly bearing yesterday, begged to have you in his troop, and His
Majesty deputed me to offer you his pardon on your consenting to serve
under the Prince.”
As he spoke he looked searchingly at the prisoner, and read in his
clear, undaunted eyes exactly what he had expected. The offer was
not even a temptation to him--to accept it would have been a sheer
impossibility.
“My lord,” said Gabriel, “for your kindness in remembering me amid all
your arduous work I thank you heartily; but for this offer--I feel sure
you did not expect me to accept it.”
“In truth I did not, and told His Majesty as much with a bluntness he
did not altogether like,” said Falkland. “Yet I can see that this prison
life proves a hard trial to one of your temperament.”
“’Tis hard for all of them,” said Gabriel. “Some of the poor fellows
have already been cooped up in the room for seven months, having been
taken at the siege of Marlborough, and they say the winter proved fatal
to many, for they were allowed neither light nor firing. Just now
the suffocating heat is the worst part of it, for the overcrowding is
terrible.”
He pulled himself up abruptly, not wishing to trouble his kindly visitor
with complaints, but Falkland could well imagine what a purgatory the
prison would prove to a man of refined tastes and of great natural
reserve.
“Have you written any letters?” he asked. “If so, I will gladly have
them sent for you. We must try to get you an exchange.”
“Paper and ink and books are all forbidden,” said Gabriel.
“There is literally nothing to do the livelong day, except, indeed, to
try to slaughter the vermin. One of our officers managed to smuggle in
his copy of Cromwell’s ‘Soldier’s Pocket Bible, but it is doubtful if he
will be able to keep it, for the gaoler is a very dragon.”
“I brought you a couple of books,” said Falkland. “You will find them in
the pockets of this coat, which you had best don here before the gaoler
sees you again. Whether you elected to stay in prison or to fight under
Prince Rupert I knew you would stand in need of a garment to replace the
one they robbed you of.”
“My lord----” faltered Gabriel, touched inexpressibly by the thoughtful
kindness which contrasted so sharply with the harshness he had lately
encountered, “I wish I could thank you as I would---- He broke off,
unable to find the words he wanted, and Falkland, with the smile that
since the opening of the war had scarcely been seen, took advantage of
the silence.
“Nay, no thanks,” he said. “But you shall do this for me, Mr. Harford;
you shall tell me something I am eager to know. With your General
hopelessly beaten and yourself a prisoner, made to suffer moral and
physical torture, how was it that we found you tied up to the pillar in
that church bearing the look of a conqueror? Of what were you thinking?”
“One does not think much in pain,” said Gabriel. “I believe I thought
most of Burton when he had his ears cut off.”
“Of Burton!” exclaimed Falkland, in astonishment; for, though he
disliked Archbishop Laud’s fussiness and disapproved of his system, he
held men like Burton, Bastwick and Prynne in yet greater abhorrence.
Himself liberal-minded and moderate, both extremes offended his taste.
It startled him to find that the prisoner, who was clearly not the type
of man to interest himself in dogmatic theology, should speak of the
ardent Puritan controversialist in such a way.
“What can have attracted you at such a time to Burton?” he asked.
“The words he used while he suffered,” said Gabriel, his colour rising a
little.
“What were they?” said Falkland, gently.
“‘Seeing I have so noble a Captain that hath gone before me with so
undaunted a spirit, shall I be ashamed of a pillory for Christ, who was
not ashamed of a cross for me?’” quoted Gabriel, his eyes fixed on the
gleaming river down below as it sped on its way to freedom and the sea.
Falkland watched in silence, coming nearer than he had ever done before
to a comprehension of the true power of Puritanism, its direct appeal to
the individual soul, the force, and simplicity, and strenuousness
with which it laid siege not to the intellect and fine taste of the
cultivated and learned few, but to the highest and noblest part in the
nature of the mass of men.
He sighed heavily, only too conscious of the cruel loneliness that must
always be the portion of those in his position during times of strife.
“Think yourself a happy man, Mr. Harford,” he said. “You believe in your
Cause.”
There was something in the sadness and isolation of the speaker that
strongly appealed to Gabriel; he knew how bitterly the Parliamentarians
condemned Falkland for forsaking his old allies, and he had learnt of
late to understand how intolerable to a high-minded and scrupulously
honourable man the office of Secretary of State to King Charles must be.
It was impossible to be in Falkland’s presence without realising that he
was, indeed, as commonly reported, “so severe an adorer of truth that he
could as easily have given himself leave to steal as to dissemble.” The
same deep admiration and love which he had learnt to feel for the
Bishop of Hereford stirred in his heart now, as he felt the strong but
indescribable influence of one who has the power of forming the highest
ideals, and the courage to strive for their attainment. There was,
moreover, already in Falkland’s dark eyes, the pathos which tells of
latent disease and an early death. He would strive for peace to the
last, but the long and seemingly hopeless struggle had broken his heart.
“My lord,” said Gabriel, with some hesitation, “there is a great favour
I would ask at your hands.”
“If I can in any way serve you,” said Falkland, “nothing would please
me more. But little enough seems permitted in Oxford Castle. Could you
conceal more books? If so, I will gladly bring you more, for books are
friends that bite no man’s meat or reputation.”
“It is that I cannot endure to think that Lord Harry Dalblane should
have my favourite horse, Harkaway. If he could be in your hands----”
“A doubtful blessing for the horse,” said Falkland, smiling as he noted
the eager, boyish face of his petitioner. “For I tell you frankly, Mr.
Harford, I ever ride where the danger is the hottest, and am in the
case of Job when he cried, ‘Wherefore is light given to him that is in
misery, and life unto the bitter in soul: which long for death but it
cometh not, and dig for it more than for hid treasures.’”
Gabriel was too thoroughly healthy in body and mind to grasp the full
import of the words; he thought the speaker only referred to that brief
and natural craving for freedom which assails everyone in the extremity
of pain, whether mental or physical. He himself had so quickly overcome
the craving at Hereford and at Edgehill that it never occurred to him
that one so immeasurably his superior could not also overcome it.
But the surgeon at Marlborough had surmised rightly enough; Falkland,
handicapped in the race by months of sleeplessness, could only see that
his present position was untenable, could only yearn to exchange the
prolonged and thankless suffering of one who metaphorically stands
between two fires, for a literal and brief riding forth alone between
the two armies, welcoming a bullet in the heart from Royalist or
Parliamentarian, since with both alike he was out of harmony.
“I shall be sending a messenger to the West to-morrow,” he said, after
a minute’s silence. “If you will give me your father’s address I will
myself write to him and tell him what has befallen you. Since you are
known to Sir Ralph Hopton and Sir William Waller, and since your
father and Sir Robert Harley are lifelong friends, it will assuredly be
possible in time to get you exchanged. And for your horse, I will speak
to Lord Harry about it ere he goes to the siege of Bristol. An you wish
it, I will myself ride Harkaway.”
So they parted, the prisoner to return to his stifling and noisome
quarters, the Secretary of State to the equally uncongenial atmosphere
of the Court and the presence of a King whose obstinacy and insincerity
made it hard, even for Falkland, who was noted for the sweet
graciousness of his manners, to refrain from sharp words and caustic
comments.