“Why—no, sir; but—however, the young gentleman has had a lesson, and I do not care if I do loose his hands. Here, unfasten him. But I cannot permit him to be at large while you are in the house.”
“Very well, then, perhaps you will allow him to share my chamber. We have been separated for so many years, and it may be our last meeting.”
“So let it be. Since you are pleased to be conformable, sir, I am willing to oblige you,” answered the rebel, whose whole demeanour had curiously changed in the presence of one of such soldierly and gentleman-like bearing as Edmund, prisoner though he was. “Now, madam, to your own chamber. You will all meet to-morrow.”
“Good-night, mother,” said Edmund. “Sleep well; think this is but a dream, and only remember that your eldest son is in your own house.”
“Good-night, my brave boy,” said Lady Woodley, as she embraced him ardently. “A comfort, indeed, I have in knowing that with your father’s face you have his steadfast, loving, unselfish heart. We meet to-morrow. God’s blessing be upon you, my boy.”
And tenderly embracing the children she left the hall, followed by a soldier, who was to guard her door, and allow no one to enter. Edmund next kissed his sisters and little Charles, affectionately wishing them good-night, and assuring the sobbing Lucy of his pardon. Rose whispered to him to say something to comfort Deborah, who continued to weep piteously.
“Deborah,” he said, “I must thank you for your long faithful service to my mother in her poverty and distress. I am sure you knew not that you were doing me any harm.”
“Oh, sir,” cried poor Deborah, “Oh don’t speak so kind! I had rather stand up to be a mark for all the musketeers in the Parliament army than be where I am now.”
Edmund did not hear half what she said, for he and Walter were obliged to hasten upstairs to the chamber which was to be their prison for the night. Rose, at the same time, led away the children, poor little Charles almost asleep in the midst of the confusion.
Deborah’s troubles were not over yet; the captain called for supper, and seeing Walter’s basket of fish, ordered her to prepare them at once for him. Afraid to refuse, she took them down to the kitchen, and proceeded to her cookery, weeping and lamenting all the time.
“Oh, the sweet generous-hearted young gentleman! That I should have been the death of such as he, and he thanking me for my poor services! ’Tis little I could do, with my crooked temper, that plagues all I love the very best, and my long tongue! Oh that it had been bitten out at the root! I wish—I wish I was a mark for all the musketeers in the Parliament army this minute! And Diggory, the rogue! Oh, after having known him all my life, who would have thought of his turning informer? Why was not he killed in the great fight? It would have broke my heart less.”
And having set her fish to boil, Deborah sank on the chair, her apron over her head, and proceeded to rock herself backwards and forwards as before. She was startled by a touch, and a lumpish voice, attempted to be softened into an insinuating tone. “I say, Deb, don’t take on.”
She sprung up as if an adder had stung her, and jumped away from him. “Ha! is it you? Dost dare to speak to an honest girl?”
“Come, come, don’t be fractious, my pretty one,” said Diggory, in the amiable tones that had once gained her heart.
But now her retort was in a still sharper, more angry key. “Your’n, indeed! I’d rather stand up to be a mark for all the musketeers in the Parliament army, as poor Master Edmund is like to be, all along of you. O Diggory Stokes,” she added ruefully, “I’d not have believed it of you, if my own father had sworn it.”
“Hush, hush, Deb!” said Diggory, rather sheepishly, “they’ve done hanging the folk.”
“Don’t be for putting me off with such trash,” she returned, more passionately; “you’ve murdered him as much as if you had cut his throat, and pretty nigh Master Walter into the bargain; and you’ve broke my lady’s heart, you, as was born on her land and fed with her bread. And now you think to make up to me, do you?”
“Wasn’t it all along of you I did it? For your sake?”
“Well, and what would you be pleased to say next?” cried Deb, her voice rising in shrillness with her indignation.
“Patience, Deb,” said Diggory, showing a heavy leathern bag. “No more toiling in this ruinous old hall, with scanty scraps, hard words, and no wages; but a tidy little homestead, pig, cow, and horse, your own. See here, Deb,” and he held up a piece of money.
“Silver!” she exclaimed.
“Ay, ay,” said Diggory, grinning, and jingling the bag, “and there be plenty more where that came from.”
“It is the price of Master Edmund’s blood.”
“Don’t ye say that now, Deb; ’tis all for you!” he answered, thinking he was prevailing because she was less violent, too stupid to perceive the difference between her real indignation and perpetual scolding.
“So you still have the face to tell me so!” she burst out, still more vehemently. “I tell you, I’d rather serve my lady and Mistress Rose, if they had not a crust to give me, than roll in gold with a rogue like you. Get along with you, and best get out of the county, for not a boy in Dorset but will cry shame on you.”
“But Deb, Deb,” he still pleaded.
“You will have it, then!” And dealing him a hearty box on the ear, away ran Deborah. Down fell bag, money, and all, and Diggory stood gaping and astounded for a moment, then proceeded to grope after the coins on his hands and knees.
Suddenly a voice exclaimed, “How now, knave, stealing thy mistress’s goods?” and a tall, grim, steeple-hatted figure, armed with a formidable halberd, stood over him.
“Good master corporal,” he began, trembling; but the soldier would not hear him.
“Away with thee, son of iniquity or I will straightway lay mine halberd about thine ears. I bethink me that I saw thee at the fight of Worcester, on the part of the man Charles Stuart.” Here Diggory judged it prudent to slink away through the back door. “And so,” continued the Puritan corporal, as he swept the silver into his pouch, “and so the gains of iniquity fall into the hands of the righteous!”
In the meantime Edmund and Walter had been conducted up stairs to Walter’s bed-room, and there locked in, a sentinel standing outside the door. No sooner were they there than Walter swung himself round with a gesture of rage and despair. “The villains! the rogues! To be betrayed by such a wretch, who has eaten our bread all his life. O Edmund, Edmund!”
“It is a most unusual, as well as an unhappy chance,” returned Edmund. “Hitherto it has generally happened that servants have given remarkable proofs of fidelity. Of course this fellow can have no attachment for me; but I should have thought my mother’s gentle kindness must have won the love of all who came near her, both for herself and all belonging to her.”
A recollection crossed Walter: he stood for a few moments in silence, then suddenly exclaimed, “The surly rascal! I verily believe it was all spite at me, for—”
“For—” repeated Edmund.
“For rating him as he deserved,” answered Walter. “I wish I had given it to him more soundly, traitor as he is. No, no, after all,” added he, hesitating, “perhaps if I had been civiller—”
“I should guess you to be a little too prompt of tongue,” said Edmund, smiling.
“It is what my mother is always blaming me for,” said Walter; “but really, now, Edmund, doesn’t it savour of the crop-ear to be picking one’s words to every rogue in one’s way?”
“Nay, Walter, you should not ask me that question, just coming from France. There we hold that the best token, in our poverty, that we are cavaliers and gentlemen, is to be courteous to all, high and low. You should see our young King’s frank bright courtesy; and as to the little King Louis, he is the very pink of civility to every old poissarde in the streets.”
Walter coloured a little, and looked confused; then repeated, as if consoling himself, “He is a sullen, spiteful, good-for-nothing rogue, whom hanging is too good for.”
“Don’t let us spend our whole night in abusing him,” said Edmund; “I want to make the most of you, Walter, for this our last sight of each other.”
“O, Edmund! you don’t mean—they shall not—you shall escape. Oh! is there no way out of this room?” cried Walter, running round it like one distracted, and bouncing against the wainscot, as if he would shake it down.
“Hush! this is of no use, Walter,” said his brother. “The window is, I see, too high from the ground, and there is no escape.”
Walter stood regarding him with blank dismay.
“For one thing I am thankful to them,” continued Edmund; “I thought they might have shot me down before my mother’s door, and so filled the place with horror for her ever after. Now they have given me time for preparation, and she will grow accustomed to the thought of losing me.”
“Then you think there is no hope? O Edmund!”
“I see none. Sydney is unlikely to spare a friend of Prince Rupert’s.”
Walter squeezed his hands fast together. “And how—how can you? Don’t think me cowardly, Edmund, for that I will never be; never—”
“Never, I am sure,” repeated Edmund.
“But when that base Puritan threatened me just now—perhaps it was foolish to believe him—I could answer him freely enough; but when I thought of dying, then—”
“You have not stood face to face with death so often as I have, Walter,” said Edmund; “nor have you led so wandering and weary a life.”
“I thought I could lead any sort of life rather than die,” said Walter.
“Yes, our flesh will shrink and tremble at the thought of the Judge we must meet,” said Edmund; “but He is a gracious Judge, and He knows that it is rather than turn from our duty that we are exposed to death. We may have a good hope, sinners as we are in His sight, that He will grant us His mercy, and be with us when the time comes. But it is late, Walter, we ought to rest, to fit ourselves for what may come to-morrow.”
Edmund knelt in prayer, his young brother feeling meantime both sorrowful and humiliated, loving Edmund and admiring him heartily, following what he had said, grieving and rebelling at the fate prepared for him, and at the same time sensible of shame at having so far fallen short of all he had hoped to feel and to prove himself in the time of trial. He had been of very little use to Edmund; his rash interference had only done harm, and added to his mother’s distress; he had been nothing but a boy throughout, and instead of being a brave champion, he had been in such an agony of terror at an empty threat, that if the rebel captain had been in the room, he might almost, at one moment, have betrayed his brother. Poor Walter! how he felt what it was never to have learnt self-control!
The brothers arranged themselves for the night without undressing, both occupying Walter’s bed. They were both too anxious and excited to sleep, and Walter sat up after a time, listening more calmly to Edmund, who was giving him last messages for Prince Rupert and his other friends, should Walter ever meet them, and putting much in his charge, as now likely to become heir of Woodley Hall and Forest Lea, warning him earnestly to protect his mother and sisters, and be loyal to his King, avoiding all compromise with the enemies of the Church.
CHAPTER VII
Forest Lea that night was a house of sorrow: the mother and two sons were prisoners in their separate rooms, and the anxieties for the future were dreadful. Rose longed to see and help her mother, dreading the effect of such misery, to be borne in loneliness, by the weak frame, shattered by so many previous sufferings. How was she to undergo all that might yet be in store for her—imprisonment, ill-treatment, above all, the loss of her eldest son? For there was little hope for Edmund. As a friend and follower of Prince Rupert, he was a marked man; and besides, Algernon Sydney, the commander of the nearest body of forces, was known to be a good deal under the influence of the present owner of Woodley, who was likely to be glad to see the rightful heir removed from his path.
Rose perceived all this, and her heart failed her, but she had no time to pause on the thought. The children must be soothed and put to bed, and a hard matter it was to comfort poor little Lucy, perhaps the most of all to be pitied. She relieved herself by pouring out the whole confession to Rose, crying bitterly, while Eleanor hurried on distressing questions whether they would take mamma away, and what they would do to Edmund. Now it came back to Lucy, “O if I had but minded what mamma said about keeping my tongue in order; but now it is too late!”
Rose, after doing her best to comfort them, and listening as near to her mother’s door as she dared, to hear if she were weeping, went to her own room. It adjoined Walter’s, though the doors did not open into the same passage; and she shut that which closed in the long gallery, where her room and that of her sisters were, so that the Roundhead sentry might not be able to look down it.
As soon as she was in her own room, she threw herself on her knees, and prayed fervently for help and support in their dire distress. In the stillness, as she knelt, she heard an interchange of voices, which she knew must be those of her brothers in the next room. She went nearer to that side, and heard them more distinctly. She was even able to distinguish when Edmund spoke, and when Walter broke forth in impatient exclamations. A sudden thought struck her. She might be able to join in the conversation. There had once been a door between the two rooms, but it had long since been stopped up, and the recess of the doorway was occupied by a great oaken cupboard, in which were preserved all the old stores of rich farthingales of brocade, and velvet mantles, which had been heirlooms from one Dame of Mowbray to another, till poverty had caused them to be cut up and adapted into garments for the little Woodleys.
Rose looked anxiously at the carved doors of the old wardrobe. Had she the key? She felt in her pouch. Yes, she had not given it back to her mother since taking out the sheets for Mr. Enderby. She unlocked the folding doors, and, pushing aside some of the piles of old garments, saw a narrow line of light between the boards, and heard the tones almost as clearly as if she was in the same room.
Eager to tell Edmund how near she was, she stretched herself out, almost crept between the shelves, leant her head against the board on the opposite side, and was about to speak, when she found that it yielded in some degree to her touch. A gleam of hope darted across her, she drew back, fetched her light, tried with her hand, and found that the back of the cupboard was in fact a door, secured on her side by a wooden bolt, which there was no difficulty in undoing. Another push, and the door yielded below, but only so as to show that there must be another fastening above. Rose clambered up the shelves, and sought. Here it was! It was one of the secret communications that were by no means uncommon in old halls in those times of insecurity. Edmund might yet be saved! Trembling with the excess of her delight in her new-found hope, she forced out the second bolt, and pushed again. The door gave way, the light widened upon her, and she saw into the room! Edmund was lying on the bed, Walter sitting at his feet.
Both started as what had seemed to be part of the wainscoted wall opened, but Edmund prevented Walter’s exclamation by a sign to be silent, and the next moment Rose’s face was seen squeezing between the shelves.
“Edmund! Can you get through here?” she exclaimed in a low eager whisper.
Edmund was immediately by her side, kissing the flushed anxious forehead: “My gallant Rose!” he said.
“Oh, thank heaven! thank heaven! now you may be safe!” continued Rose, still in the same whisper. “I never knew this was a door till this moment. Heaven sent the discovery on purpose for your safety! Hush, Walter! Oh remember the soldier outside!” as Walter was about to break out into tumultuous tokens of gladness. “But can you get through, Edmund? Or perhaps we might move out some of the shelves.”
“That is easily done,” said Edmund; “but I know not. Even if I should escape, it would be only to fall into the hands of some fresh troop of enemies, and I cannot go and leave my mother to their mercy.”
“You could do nothing to save her,” said Rose, “and all that they may do to her would scarcely hurt her if she thought you were safe. O Edmund! think of her joy in finding you were escaped! the misery of her anxiety now!”
“Yet to leave her thus! You had not told me half the change in her! I know not how to go!” said Edmund.
“You must, you must!” said Rose and Walter, both at once. And Rose added, “Your death would kill her, I do believe!”
“Well, then; but I do not see my way even when I have squeezed between your shelves, my little sister. Every port is beset, and our hiding places here can no longer serve me.”
“Listen,” said Rose, “this is what my mother and I had planned before. The old clergyman of this parish, Dr. Bathurst, lives in a little house at Bosham, with his daughter, and maintains himself by teaching the wealthier boys of the town. Now, if you could ride to him to-night, he would be most glad to serve you, both as a cavalier, and for my mother’s sake. He would find some place of concealment, and watch for the time when you may attempt to cross the Channel.”
Edmund considered, and made her repeat her explanation. “Yes, that might answer,” he said at length; “I take you for my general, sweet Rose. But how am I to find your good doctor?”
“I think,” said Rose, after considering a little while, “that I had better go with you. I could ride behind you on your horse, if the rebels have not found him, and I know the town, and Dr. Bathurst’s lodging. I only cannot think what is to be done about Walter.”
“Never mind me,” said Walter, “they cannot hurt me.”
“Not if you will be prudent, and not provoke them,” said Edmund.
“Oh, I know!” cried Rose; “wear my gown and hood! these men have only seen us by candle-light, and will never find you out if you will only be careful.”
“I wear girl’s trumpery!” exclaimed Walter, in such indignation that Edmund smiled, saying, “If Rose’s wit went with her gown, you might be glad of it.”
“She is a good girl enough,” said Walter, “but as to my putting on her petticoat trash, that’s all nonsense.”
“Hear me this once, dear Walter,” pleaded Rose. “If there is a pursuit, and they fancy you and Edmund are gone together, it will quite mislead them to hear only of a groom riding before a young lady.”
“There is something in that,” said Walter, “but a pretty sort of lady I shall make!”
“Then you consent? Thank you, dear Walter. Now, will you help me into your room, and I’ll put two rolls of clothes to bed, that the captain may find his prisoners fast asleep to-morrow morning.”
Walter could hardly help laughing aloud with delight at the notion of the disappointment of the rebels. The next thing was to consider of Edmund’s equipment; Rose turned over her ancient hoards in vain, everything that was not too remarkable had been used for the needs of the family, and he must go in his present blood-stained buff coat, hoping to enter Bosham too early in the morning for gossips to be astir. Then she dressed Walter in her own clothes, not without his making many faces of disgust, especially when she fastened his long curled love-locks in a knot behind, tried to train little curls over the sides of his face, and drew her black silk hood forward so as to shade it. They were nearly of the same height and complexion, and Edmund pronounced that Walter made a very pretty girl, so like Rose that he should hardly have known them apart, which seemed to vex the boy more than all.
There had been a sort of merriment while this was doing, but when it was over, and the moment came when the brother and sister must set off, there was lingering, sorrow, and reluctance. Edmund felt severely the leaving his mother in the midst of peril, brought upon her for his sake, and his one brief sight of his home had made him cling the closer to it, and stirred up in double force the affections for mother, brothers, and sisters, which, though never extinct, had been comparatively dormant while he was engaged in stirring scenes abroad. Now that he had once more seen the gentle loving countenance of his mother, and felt her tender, tearful caress, known that noble-minded Rose, and had a glimpse of those pretty little sisters, there was such a yearning for them through his whole being, that it seemed to him as if he might as well die as continue to be cast up and down the world far from them.
Rose felt as if she was abandoning her mother by going from home at such a time, when perhaps she should find on her return that she had been carried away to prison. She could not bear to think of being missed on such a morning that was likely to ensue, but she well knew that the greatest good she could do would be to effect the rescue of her brother, and she could not hesitate a moment. She crowded charge after charge upon Walter, with many a message for her mother, promise to return as soon as possible, and entreaty for pardon for leaving her in such a strait; and Edmund added numerous like parting greetings, with counsel and entreaties that she would ask for Colonel Enderby’s interference, which might probably avail to save her from further imprisonment and sequestration.
“Good-bye, Walter. In three or four years, if matters are not righted before that, perhaps, if you can come to me, I may find employment for you in Prince Rupert’s fleet, or the Duke of York’s troop.”
“O Edmund, thanks! that would be—”
Walter had not time to finish, for Rose kissed him, left her love and duty to her mother with him, bade him remember he was a lady, and then holding Edmund by the hand, both with their shoes off, stole softly down the stairs in the dark.