I cannot mount to Heaven beneath this ban,
Can Christian hope survive so far below
The level of the happiness of man?
Can angels’ wings in these dark waters grow?
A spirit voice replied, “From bearing right
Our sorest burthens comes fresh strength to bear!
And so we rise again towards the light,
And quit the sunless depths for upper air!
Meek patience is as diver’s breath to all
Who sink in sorrow’s sea, and many a ray
Comes gleaming downward from the Source of day,
To guide us reascending from our fall:
The rocks have bruised thee sore, but angels’ wings
Grow fast from bruises, hope from anguish springs.”
--A. Tennyson Turner.
With incredible slowness the summer months passed by in the stifling
atmosphere of the Saxon tower of Oxford Castle. Many times Gabriel
cheered himself by a resolute dwelling on the old motto written in
Elizabethan handwriting in the great family Bible at Hereford which had
belonged to his grandfather, “Hope helpeth heavie hartes, sayeth Henry
Harford.”
He remembered that the same motto appeared in neat printing characters
when the Bible had been handed down to his father, and had become
“Bridstock Harford, his Book.” Apparently the Harfords had always had
troubled times, but had known how to win their way through them, and he
tried desperately not to disgrace the family traditions of fortitude and
constancy.
It must, however, be owned that his surroundings were enough to
discourage the bravest heart. The youngest of about fifty men of various
ranks and different callings, but all of them prisoners of war, he found
his natural reserve and fastidiousness tried in a hundred galling ways.
While the miserably inadequate food and the total deprivation of the
exercise to which all his life e had been accustomed, not only affected
his health, but made it daily a greater effort to fight against the evil
tendencies of his own nature. Solomon, in the days of his wisdom, set
it on record that the man who could rule himself was greater than the
victorious general who captured a city, but the world still gives the
praise and glory to the military conqueror, and reserves sneers and hard
words for the man who hates and boldly fights evil--a reflection only
too apt to occur to people in moments of temptation.
Gabriel struggled on, however, through July and August and the greater
part of September, saved by hope, and always persuading himself that his
father would assuredly effect his exchange before another week of this
dreary life was ended. He dwelt often, too, on the thought that perhaps
his letter to Hilary after her mother’s death might reach her heart
and awaken his Princess Briar-Rose to love once more. Happily he never
dreamt that Norton had waylaid the messenger, and that the fragments of
the letter had been trodden down into the mud of Marshfield-street. Like
poor little Helena, he was for the time helped by an illusion.
On September the 23rd, while he was poring over the tiny volume of
Plato which Falkland had given him, his attention was drawn to a general
tolling of bells throughout the city, and when Aaron, the brutal gaoler
employed to look after the war prisoners by Provost-Marshal Smith
entered with the day’s rations, he was beset by eager questions.
“What hath chanced? Hath a battle been fought?” asked the prisoners, for
once failing to snatch without delay at the penny loaves dealt out to
them from a basket by Sandy, Aaron’s half-witted helper.
“A battle,” growled Aaron, setting down the buckets from which the cans
were refilled with beer and water. “Ay, to be sure, and a victory for
the king; but it has cost him my Lord Carnarvon, and my Lord Falkland,
and a host of other noblemen beside, all for the trouble of slaying
Puritan dogs like yourselves.”
Gabriel was well used to the taunt, but at the news of Falkland’s death
he turned pale.
“Did you say my Lord Falkland was slain?” he asked, hoping against hope
that his rescuer might only be wounded.
“Ay, to be sure, don’t you hear the bells tolling? He’s being borne
through Oxford to Great Tew this very moment, though for the matter of
that they ought to bury him at night with a stake through his heart at
the crossing of the roads, for they say ’twas sheer suicide--he rode
out alone betwixt the two armies! just the fool’s act one would look
for from a bookish coward, always trying to make peace! A pox on all
peace-loving cravens say I. Don’t stand staring at me like that, you
mongrel cur! What was my Lord Falkland to you?” and he emphasized the
question with a brutal kick.
All these weeks Gabriel had borne with patience and dignity the
galling words and petty cruelties practised by the gaoler, but in the
overwhelming shock of these grievous tidings his strength suddenly
deserted him. Stung to the quick by the man’s coarse attack on the dead
hero he turned upon him in fury.
“Don’t dare again to take on your foul lips a name you’re not worthy to
breathe,” he cried, with such passionate wrath and a look so threatening
that for a moment Aaron quailed.
But anger merely begot anger, and with a fierce laugh the gaoler eyed
his victim derisively.
“You will come before the Provost-Marshal for that, you numskull,” he
exclaimed, and amid a general silence he seized Gabriel by the arm, and
grimly escorted him from the room.
To be out of the close, crowded prison was for a minute the most intense
relief, and as he went down the steps Gabriel’s wrath cooled. Longingly
he looked about him with the keen eyes of one whose spare time was
chiefly employed in futile plans of escape.
Aaron took him across the courtyard to the Governor’s apartments,
where they found the redoubtable Smith busy with pen and ink and a
huge ledger. He glanced at them as they entered with an expression of
annoyance.
“What do you mean by bringing a prisoner into my presence without
leave?” he said; “I’ll not have them brought straight to my room from
that fever-den.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Aaron, saluting, “but it was a bad case of
insubordination.”
“Sir,” said Gabriel, “the only insubordination lay in this, that,
forgetting he was my gaoler, I forbade him to speak evil of my Lord
Falkland.”
“_Forbade!_” repeated the Provost-Marshal, raising his eyebrows. “You
are quite right, Aaron, these rebels must learn their place. You are
condemned, Mr. Harford, to thirty days in irons and to be flogged--the
number of the strokes not to exceed thirty.”
Gabriel bowed in silence; his lips closed in a hard line; a curious look
came into his eyes--the same look which had dawned there years ago
in the Archdeacon’s Court at Hereford, when he had heard his father
condemned. As Aaron in brutal triumph escorted him to the whipping-post,
he could hear the church-bells tolling drearily, and a sense of blank
despair filled his heart as he realised fully what a friend and helper
he had lost in Lord Falkland; but beneath that lay the deep, burning
sense of wrong--the fierce and bitter resentment of a personal wrong
which seemed to change his whole nature.
Many speculations were made by the prisoners as to the punishment that
would be meted out to him. He was absent for some time, and when Aaron
at length readmitted him the first thing that attracted everyone’s
attention was the ominous clanking of the irons. He seemed to cross the
room with some difficulty, but that was well understood by all who had
experienced the weight of the fetters. What no one did understand was
the extraordinary change which had come over his face and bearing.
“How long are you condemned to wear irons?” said the lawyer, making room
for him on the bench at his side.
“Thirty days,” said Gabriel, and his voice had deepened in a strange
way. The lawyer looked searchingly into the white, set face, and fierce
eyes of the speaker.
“Come, eat,” he said, kindly. “You have not yet dined. That brute Aaron
haled you away just as he had brought the food.”
But Gabriel waved aside the bread, for in truth the thought of eating
sickened him.
“You put yourself in the wrong, sir, by seeking to extenuate Lord
Falkland’s rash act,” said one of the officer who was a strait-laced
Presbyterian. “Ill fare those who are neither cold nor hot; had his
lordship not deserted his old friends and sought Court favour he might
now have been a useful and an honoured man. Aaron, though brutal, hath
the wit to see how worthless is the man who is true to neither party.”
Throughout this pompous speech the lawyer had furtively watched his
neighbour, and he was the only man in the room who was not startled
when Gabriel suddenly stood up, the colour all at once flushing his pale
face, his eyes blazing.
“Sir,” he said, angrily, “Lord Falkland never sought Court favour, he
loathed the Court, but from a sense of duty tried to save the country
by urging moderation on the King. All men know what sort of treatment he
received from the vile courtiers. Are we sunk so low that we cannot see
the virtues of a great man because in matters of State he opposes us?”
“I repeat,” said the Presbyterian, “that you were wrong to espouse the
cause of one who had thrown away his life. You should not have sought to
gloss over the sinfulness of his suicidal end. Aaron was right--he ought
not to have had funeral honours. Lord Falkland was a weak man and
sorely misguided, as was natural enough, for his religion was merely an
intellectual pursuit, and wholly unorthodox. Hell is now his portion.”
“Then I will have no more to do with what you call religion,” said
Gabriel, passionately. “It is these; accursed systems that are at the
root of all our misery--there’s not a pin to choose betwixt your bigotry
and the bigotry of the Archbishop. England is going to the dogs because
Churchmen wrangle over ceremonies and trappings, and Puritans squabble
over Holy Writ. You say my Lord Falkland is doomed to hell? Then if so
there was never One who called peacemakers blessed, or ordered us to
love our enemies and serve them. But he is not doomed. It is a lie! It
is this country that is in hell, with its blind bigots and its beasts
calling themselves men, and its blood and its boastful tyranny. ’Tis
I myself that am in hell, mad with the thirst for vengeance, longing to
kill with my own hands the brutes down yonder.”
Quite suddenly his voice faltered, he reeled backwards, and would have
fallen to the ground had not the room been crowded. As it was, he
fell against Passey, who, aghast at the wild words he had uttered, was
nevertheless mindful of Gabriel’s kindly help in the past, and allowed
the head of the unconscious prisoner to rest on his knee.
“A most blasphemous young man,” remarked the Presbyterian. “Strange that
one who hath hitherto been well reported among us and of modest bearing
should suddenly change in this unseemly fashion. He erred in saying he
was in hell while the day of grace is yet unspent, and he is permitted
to remain in our godly company; but there can be no doubt that he will
ultimately go there unless he speedily repents.”
There was a silence in the room. A good many of the prisoners felt that
there was some truth beneath the fierce words of the lieutenant which
was beyond their reach. Others had liked him, and were sorry to see such
an extraordinary change in him. It was a relief when the key was turned
in the lock and the door cautiously unbarred by Sandy. The half-witted
lad, a great, awkward-looking fellow of fifteen, came shambling in
guiltily, and locked the door after him.
“Aaron never saw me!” he whispered, grinning from ear to ear. Then,
catching sight of Gabriel on the floor, “What, he hath swooned at last?
Then belike he’ll be crying out a bit when he comes to himself. There
was no sport at all for us at the whipping-post, for he never once
shrieked for mercy, as some of ’em do. What’s the good of sport if you
don’t hear the prey squeak?”
“Did they dare to flog him for what he said to Aaron?” asked the lawyer,
his face darkening.
“Why, yes, gentlemen, to be sure; and as I’m telling you, ‘twas poor
sport, cursed poor sport. I’d as lief not have seen it. When they
unbound him he never spake a word, but just looked as though he could
have murdered Aaron, and he never seemed to heed at all when I did what
I could to staunch the blood.”
“’Tis this that hath changed him,” said Rawlyns, the Marlborough
burgess; and while the others drew off a little, discussing the matter
eagerly, he and Passey did the best they could for Gabriel, Sandy
supplying them with certain rough remedies which he had contrived to
smuggle up the tower steps during Aaron’s absence.
Strangely enough, the half-witted lad had more heart than his brutal
chief, and though, as he honestly admitted, he liked “to hear the vermin
squeak,” he was quick to respond to kindness, and retained a memory of a
few pleasant words Gabriel had once spoken to him. So little but curses
and blows had come to him throughout his wretched life that he was
always hoping to win again some sort of recognition from the young
lieutenant, and for the next few days it was pathetic to see the efforts
he made to extort something more from Gabriel than the curt thanks which
rewarded all his attempts at help. Gabriel did not, indeed, disguise
the fact that the mere sight of the idiot’s face, the mere touch of
his dirty and clumsy hands, repulsed him. Nor did he respond any
more graciously to the sympathy of his fellow-prisoners; the brutal
punishment had called out all the worst side of his nature, and for
days he lay in his corner, ill in body and mind, bereft of all hope for
himself and for the country, without faith in God or man, and, as he had
very truly said, “in hell.”
Every time Aaron entered the room his hatred of the man seemed to
increase, and the maddening sense of being wholly at the mercy of this
brutal tyrant grew upon him until it seemed to dominate everything else.
Even the nightly psalms and prayers of the prisoners became unendurable
to him; he turned his face to the wall and tried not to listen,
convinced in his mind that they were praying at him, and so wrapped
round in himself and his wrongs that it seemed impossible his character
should ever recover what it had lost.
At last one October evening, when the Presbyterian was saying a psalm,
a few of the familiar words entered his mind with a force and freshness
which compelled him, against his will, to turn his thoughts away from
his misery.
Through the old tower room there rang the verse: “The earth is the
Lord’s and the fulness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein.”
From his earliest childhood his father had taught him to see God in
nature, and the first light that came now to him in the outer darkness
was the truth which had really become part of his very being when, as a
little fellow, he rode with the doctor through the Herefordshire lanes,
learning to observe, and learning to love birds and insects and flowers.
God was in His creation and the world was not at the mercy of fate and
chance.
Yet it was not until this autumn evening that the breadth of the
assertion struck him, or that he in the least grasped the thought that
the grand climax, welcoming the entrance of the King of Glory, was
the prophecy of the entire ultimate triumph of the Lord strong
and mighty--the Conqueror in the battle of love against hate, of
righteousness against sin.
Sickened and utterly wearied with the stormy theological disputes of the
age, he reached now beyond the clamouring voices, and sought refuge in
the living realities wherein alone peace can be found.
Moreover, as he lay that evening in the dark prison room, for spite of
the cold and the short days the prisoners were allowed neither fire nor
light, there returned to him in helpful fashion the remembrance of the
last talk he had had with his friend Joscelyn Heyworth.
They had sat late together in their quarters at the “Nagg’s Head” in
Bath, and Joscelyn had told him of his visit to his old tutor Whichcote,
at North Cadbury, during which the recent death of Hampden had been the
chief topic, and in his bitterness of soul the young Captain had found
relief in telling an older and wiser man the despair he felt for the
country under its grievous loss. A memory returned to Gabriel of some
words of Whichcote’s as to heaven, which his friend had quoted, and he
fell to musing over them. “Heaven is first a temper and then a place;
and both heaven and hell have their foundations within us.” He knew only
too well that the last statement was true, knew it by the brutal thirst
for vengeance which was consuming him; by the hatred of his enemies
which had changed his whole character, by the harsh judgments
he silently passed on the failings and petty weaknesses of his
fellow-prisoners. But the tutor had said that heaven also had its
foundation within us, and the thought linked itself now to that
startling assertion that the world and they that dwell therein are
God’s, which had first lightened his gloom. Musing over it all, he
presently fell into a sounder and more refreshing sleep than any he had
of late known.
He was roused at last, not as had been usually the case, by the
discomfort of the heavy irons he wore, but by the soft, light brushing
of something across his forehead. In the light of the early morning he
saw a robin fluttering over him, and only one long shut up in a single
room, away from all the interests of outer life, could understand the
intense pleasure of the sight. In the sheer happiness of watching the
bird he forgot his aching limbs, and the blank despair which for so long
had clouded his mind was gone.
What was that quaint legend which he had once heard little Bridstock’s
Welsh nurse tell in the old nursery at Hereford? The robin had won his
red breast because, being the kindest of the birds, it flew every night
to hell with a drop of water wherewith to slake the thirst of those
tormented in the flame. The bird had been true to its nature when
it flew through the narrow unglazed window and came to the desolate
prisoner of war in Oxford Castle. And as, perched on one of the old
beams, it flooded the place with its blithe song, Gabriel escaped
altogether from the dreary prison. Once more he was in the wood in
Herefordshire, with the sunshine turning the brake fern into silver and
the carpet of russet leaves into gold, once more the sweetest eyes in
the world were lifted to his, once more the musical voice told him that
all things seemed more beautiful because of love, while the bird of hope
sang in the tree overhead.
Spite of all that had intervened, there was gladness in the remembrance,
for his love for Hilary was the most divine part of his nature, no
fleeting passion to be changed to bitterness by change in her. It was
that rare love which war, death or sickness may lay siege to, but which
is by its quality eternal.
And thus, through love, he gradually came back to life, and once more
the old family motto, “Hope helpeth heavie hartes,” strengthened him to
endure the sorrows of division and the countless horrors which the war
had brought in its train.
The robin did much to cheer all the prisoners. It became the pet and
plaything of everyone in the place; to listen to its blithe song, to
tame it, and to conceal it safely before the brutal Aaron entered, was
a daily occupation, and not a man in the place failed to provide it
with crumbs, so that the bird was ere long the one plump and prosperous
creature in the tower-room.
With November came a return of the gaol fever, the new fever as it was
called, one of the visitations which resulted from the privation and
unhealthy overcrowding among the unhappy prisoners. It spread throughout
England, sparing neither rich nor poor, and presented such unusual
symptoms that no doctor understood how to deal with it.
This, however, made little difference to the Oxford prisoners, for no
one troubled to think about doctoring them. It went to Gabriel’s
heart to see how they suffered, and his whole time was now given to a
desperate attempt to relieve the sick. Cure was out of the question,
for no medicine was to be had, and all through the month and on into
December men were stricken. Those with good constitutions pulled
through, the others raved in delirium for a few days, then died. It
became quite a usual occurrence to see Aaron and Sandy removing the
dead, and at length their numbers were reduced to thirty-nine.
“There’s a lot of waste space here,” remarked Aaron brutally, as
he dragged out the corpse of the Presbyterian who in September had
reprimanded Gabriel, but of late had been his best friend. “I shall have
to bring you some more prisoners to fill the gaps.”
“When once this hateful war is over,” thought Gabriel, “I will follow in
my father’s steps and be a physician. I will fight disease and pain, and
bring hope to heavy hearts. For of all terrible things the worst is to
watch men dying for want of proper aid.”
And then he fell to musing, as he had often done of late, on the strange
problem of war. It was easy to account for the extraordinary influence
which Falkland had had over him by the largeness of mind and the
passionate generosity of the dead hero. And now more and more as he
thought of his death, it seemed to him that Falkland was the forerunner
of a vast multitude who, in future generations, would band themselves
together and resolutely stand for peace, permitting only such force as
was needful for the protection of hearth and home, and the maintenance
of the just laws of their own country. As he recalled Prince Rupert’s
favourite saying, “We will have no law in England, save that of the
sword,” he could not but remember the words of One whom both Royalists
and Parliamentarians professed to obey, “They that take the sword shall
perish by the sword.”