Volume I Part 5 (1/2)
The Castle was at least two miles from any human habitation; for the few fisherether, and the like, which had pitifully nestled under the lee of the Castle in old tiorously demolished to their last crazy tiht there At a respectful distance only, far in, and yet but a damp little islet in the er on, in despised obscurity, a poor swaht, half in derision and half in civility, be called a Village
It had a church without a steeple, but with a poor Stump like the blunted wreck of soes were less than those of a London coal-porter The poor ive hilebe were always under water, and he was forced to keep a little school for his maintenance, of which the scholars could pay hi that it was always a chance whether their parents were dead of the Ague, or Drowned Yet there was a tavern in the village, where these poor, shrinking, feverish creaturesnow and again to ss of spirits froh the fens
They were a si Ghost-Stories, and with a firue And, with an ahose intensity was renewed each ti themselves as to that Prisoner of Fate up at the Castle yonder What this man's Crime had been, none could tell His 's Warrant The Governor was simply told to receive a certain Prisoner, ould be delivered to him by a certain Officer, and that, at the peril of his life, he was to answer for his safe custody The Governor, whose name was Ferdinando Glover, had been a Captain of Horse in the late Protector Oliver's time; but, to the surprise of all men, he was not dismissed at his Majesty's Restoration, but was continued in his corade of a Colonel on the Irish establishment
But they did not fail to tell him, and with fresh instances of severity, that he would ansith his head for the safe keeping of his Prisoner
Of this strange Person it behoves me now to speak In the year 1660, he appeared to be about seven-and-thirty years of age, tall, shapely, well-knit in his limbs, which captivity had rather tended to make full of flesh than to waste away; for there were no yards, nor spacious outlying walls to this Castle; and but for a narrow ledge that ran along the surrounding border, and where he was but rarely suffered to walk, there was no means for him to take any exercise whatever He wore his own hair in full dark locks, which Ti lines ht the and study than with the natural failing of vital forces
So he had been in this gri on for twelve years, without a day's respite, without an hour's enlargerave and stately Consideration; but his bonds were not less galling, and the iron had not the less entered into his soul The Order was, that he was to be held as a Gentlenities or base usage But the Order was (for a long time, and until another Prisoner, hereafter to be naement) likewise as strict that, save his keepers, he should see no living soul ”And it is useless,” wrote a Great Lord to the Governor once, when it was huht need spiritual consolation, and have solace to his soul by conferring with poor Parson Webfoot yonder,--”it is useless,” said that nobleown, under pretext that he would Repent; for, albeit though I know not his crime racious word of mouth, that what he has done cannot be repented of; therefore you are again commanded to keep him close, and to let him have speech neither of parson nor of peasant” Which was duly done But Colonel Glover, not untouched by that curiosity inherent to mankind, as well as womankind, took pains to cast about whether this was not one who had a hand in co, in soh inquiries he had made in London), to the ears of Authority, he was distinctly told that his prisoner was not one of those bold bad ned that fatal Warrant:--the na now all well known, as having suffered or fled fro in hold, as Mr
Martyn was So Colonel Glover, being well assured that as done was for the King's honour, and for the well-being of his Estates, and that any other further searching or prying ht cost him his place, if they did not draw hiainst Misprision of Treason, forbore to vex himself or Authority further on uard his Prisoner with greater care than ever The Castle was garrisoned by but twelve men, and of these six were invalids and matrosses; but the other six were tall and sturdy veterans, who had been indeed of Oliver's Life-guard, and were now confirmed in their places, and with the pay, not of co's own order Their life was dreary enough, for they could hold but little coreybeards, drivellers, and kill-joys” But they had a guard-room to themselves, where they diced and drank, and told their ruffian stories, and sang their knavish catches, as is the manner, I suppose, for all soldiers to do in all countries, whether in camps or in cities But their duty ithal of the severest The invalids went snugly to bed at nine of the clock, or thereabouts, but the veritable ht, turn and turn about, and even when they slept took their repose on a bench, which was placed right across the Prisoner's door
Thisman--for surely no lot could be harder than his--to be thus, and in the very priaol, wherein for a long time he was even denied the cohtier Will and Sterner Fate than, it would seereat Distress with an unvarying nity With hi him as one that was as Clay in the hands of the Potter; but, not to the extent of one tetchy word or froward ht his i of those ere set over him cruel And this was not an abject stupor or dull indifference, such as I have nios of the Levant, who knew that they et sowith the World, and grinned contuaolers or the visitors who ca the's Prisoner there was a philosophic reserve and quietness that al was of that kind that a Just Man round, and that, howsoever his eneht to evade the conditions of his captivity or to plead for its being lightened The courtesies that were offered to hi such civilities, he took as his due; but he never craved a greater indulgence or went one step in word or in deed to obtain a surcease from his harsh and cruel lot
He would rise at six of the clock both in winter and sureat ardour to his private devotions and to good studies until eight, when his breakfast, a tankard of furht hiain be at his studies, and then have dinner of such ed to walk either on the narrow strip of masonry that encompassed his prison-house, and with a soldier with his firelock on hip following his every step, or else to wander up and down in the various chauard Noould tarry awhile in the guard-rooainst the soldier's table, his head resting very sadly against the chimney, and listen to their wild talk, which was, however, so as he abided there And anon he would come into the Governor's apartrave discourse on matters of history, and the lives of Worthy Captains, and soes of Scripture, but never upon anything that concerned the present day For, beyond the bounds of the place in which he was is of instant ? By permission, the Colonel had told him that Oliver was no more, and that Richard, his son, was made Protector in his stead Then, at the close of that weak and vain shadow of a Reign, and after the politic act of my Lord Duke of Albemarle (Gen Monk), who es'[I] to boot, at one stroke, the Prisoner was given to know that schisain Colonel Glover must needs tell him; for he was bidden to fire a salvo from the five pieces of artillery he had mounted, three on his outer wall, and two at the top of his donjon-keep, to say nothing of hoisting the Royal Standard, which now strea that bore the arlad,” the Prisoner said, when they told hiland happier than did his father before hi some company in his solitude, and when he was cheerfuller
It was about ht to the King's Castle; but it was not until close upon the Restoration of King Charles II that the two prisoners were peruest in this most dolorous place was a Woman, and that Woman was my Granduising the fact that, for many months after the failure of her attack on the Protector, the poor Lady had been as entirely distraught as was her fate after the death of the Lord Francis, and that to write her Life during this period would bethe chronicle of a continued Frenzy It werea scene--so well brought up as she had been, and respected by all the Quality,--but in pursuit of the determination hich I set out, to tell the Truth, and all the Truth, I as were of the hly demented state there could be no doubt So far, indeed, did the unhappy creature's Abandonment extend, that those ere about her could with difficulty persuade her to keep any Gars to force to a decorous carriage the gentle Lady who had once been the very soul and mirror of Modesty But in process of ties left her, and she became calm She was still beautiful, albeit her comeliness was now of a chastened and saddened order, and, save her eye, there was no light or sparkle in her face
When her health and mind were healed, so far as earthly skill could heal theiven out, I a House at Cae: but she had never been further than the house of one Dr E her distraction,--'s Castle in the East, and for a long ti not allowed even that scant exercise which was per waited upon and watched night and day by the Governor's Daughter, Mistress Ruth Glover, who at nights slept in a little closet adjoining ue, I suppose, like the rest of her sex,--and of our sex too, brother,--and she would not have been eighteen, of a lively Disposition, and continually in the society of a Lady of Birth and accoossiping to her concerning all that she knew of the sorry little world round about her It was not, however, reat moment, that Ruth had to tell my Grandmother She could but hold her in discourse of how the Invalid Matrosses had the rheuuard men in their room diced and drank and quarrelled, both over their dice and their drink; how the ru village had, fro the fens, become as web-footed as the wild-fowl they hunted; and how her Father, who had been for many years a as harsh and stern with her, and would not suffer her to read the roeant of the Guard had with him She may have had a little also to say about the Prisoner in the upper story of the Keep--how his chamber was all filled with folios and papers; how he studied and wrote and prayed; and during his two hours' daily liberty wandered sadly and in a silent manner about the Castle For this was all Mistress Ruth had to tell, and of the Prisoner's name, or of his Crime, she was, perforce, mum
These two Women nevertheless shaped all kinds of feverish Ro this unknown irl who--though little better than a waiting-woman--she had made, for want of a better bower-maiden, her Confidante I need not say that oceans of Sympathy, or the accepted Tokens thereof, I hter when she heard the History of the Lord Francis, of the words he spoke just before the musketeers fired their pieces at him, and of another noble speech he made two hours before he Suffered, when the Officer in co his youth and parts, told him that if he had any suit, short of life, to prefer to the Lord General, he would take upon hiranted without question; whereon quoth my Lord Francis, ”I will not die with any suit in s” On this, and on the story of the Locket, and of his first becouise as a Teacher, with the young squire at Madauilier's school at Hackney, of his Beauty and Virtues and fine manners and extraordinary proficiency in Arts and Letters and the Exercises of Chivalry,--of these and a thousand kindred things the to And, indeed, if one calls tohearts can distil from a Bit of Ribbon or a Torn Letter, it is not to be wondered at that Arabella and Ruth should find their Theood and brave as had been its Object, now dead and cold in the bloody trench at Ha of Mournful Remembrances
Arabella had taken to her old trick of Painting again, and in the first and second year of her removal to the Castle executed some very creditable perfories of her Lover or of the Protector, and confined herself to portraitures of the late , and of the Princes now unjustly kept fro the Protectorate of Richard Cromwell (that mere puppet-play of Power) that the watch kept on the prisoners in the King's Castle grew for a tio out of her chamber, even at the very hours that the Prisoner above andering to and fro The guards did not hinder their ; and, says Colonel Ferdinando Glover, one day to his daughter, ”I should not wonder if, some of these days, Orders were to coe That which Mrs
Greenville has done, you and I know full well, and I am almost sorry that she did not succeed”
”Oh, father!” cries Mistress Ruth, as of a very soft and tender nature, and abhorred the very idea of bloodshed; so that, loving Arabella as she did with all her heart, she could not help regarding her with a kind of Terror when she reirl,” the ColonelOliver's dead, and will eat no more bread; and I misliked him much at the end, for it is certain that he betrayed the Good Old Cause, and hankered after an earthly crown As for this young Popinjay, he will have do's wages, it had better be on the real King's than the false one”
”And do you think, father, that King Charles will coht; for Arabella had made her a very Royalist at heart
”I think what I think,” replies the Colonel, with his stern look; ”but whatever happens, it is not likely, it seeer That is to say:--Mrs Greenville, for what she hath done can scarcely be distasteful to those who loved not Oliver But for my other bird,--who can tell? He ht I know”
”Do you think that he also tried to kill the Protector?” Ruth asks ti a Surmise that had oft been mooted betwixt Arabella and herself
”Get thee to thy chamber, and about thy business, wench,” the Colonel says, quite stor ”Away, or I will laybut killing of Protectors, forsooth, for thy silly head to be filled with?” And yet I incline to think that Mr
Governor was not of a very different hter; for away he hies to his cha Colonel titus' fa anon on his Prisoner co staircase, says softly to hiuise, who could do a Bold Deed at a pinch”