Part 19 (1/2)
”Forsooth, worthy and honoured sir, I will speak with the precision I may. True it is, and of verity, that the breath of man, which is in his nostrils, goeth forth and returneth”-
”Hark you, sir,” said Colonel Everard, ”take care where you ramble in your correspondence with me. You have heard how at the great battle of Dunbar in Scotland, the General himself held a pistol to the head of Lieutenant Hewcreed, threatening to shoot him through the brain if he did not give up holding forth, and put his squadron in line to the front. Take care, sir.”
”Verily, the lieutenant then charged with an even and unbroken order,” said Tomkins, ”and bore a thousand plaids and bonnets over the beach before him into the sea. Neither shall I pretermit or postpone your honour's commands, but speedily obey them, and that without delay.”
”Go to, fellow; thou knowest what I would have,” said Everard; ”speak at once; I know thou canst if thou wilt. Trusty Tomkins is better known than he thinks for.”
”Worthy sir,” said Tomkins, in a much less periphrastic style, ”I will obey your wors.h.i.+p as far as the spirit will permit. Truly, it was not an hour since, when my wors.h.i.+pful master being at table with Master Bibbet and myself, not to mention the wors.h.i.+pful Master Bletson and Colonel Desborough, and behold there was a violent knocking at the gate, as of one in haste. Now, of a certainty, so much had our household been hara.s.sed with witches and spirits, and other objects of sound and sight, that the sentinels could not be brought to abide upon their posts without doors, and it was only by a provision of beef and strong liquors that we were able to maintain a guard of three men in the hall, who nevertheless ventured not to open the door, lest they should be surprised with some of the goblins wherewith their imaginations were overwhelmed. And they heard the knocking, which increased until it seemed that the door was well-nigh about to be beaten down. Worthy Master Bibbet was a little overcome with liquor, (as is his fas.h.i.+on, good man, about this time of the evening,) not that he is in the least given to ebriety, but simply, that since the Scottish campaign he hath had a perpetual ague, which obliges him so to nourish his frame against the damps of the night; wherefore, as it is well known to your honour that I discharge the office of a faithful servant, as well to Major-General Harrison, and the other Commissioners, as to my just and lawful master, Colonel Desborough”-
”I know all that.-And now that thou art trusted by both, I pray to Heaven thou mayest merit the trust,” said Colonel Everard.
”And devoutly do I pray,” said Tomkins, ”that your wors.h.i.+pful prayers may be answered with favour; for certainly to be, and to be called and ent.i.tled, Honest Joe, and Trusty Tomkins, is to me more than ever would be an Earl's t.i.tle, were such things to be granted anew in this regenerated government.”
”Well, go on-go on-or if thou dalliest much longer, I will make bold to dispute the article of your honesty. I like short tales, sir, and doubt what is told with a long unnecessary train of words.”
”Well, good sir, be not hasty. As I said before, the doors rattled till you would have thought the knocking was reiterated in every room of the Palace. The bell rung out for company, though we could not find that any one tolled the clapper, and the guards let off their firelocks, merely because they knew not what better to do. So, Master Bibbet being, as I said, unsusceptible of his duty, I went down with my poor rapier to the door, and demanded who was there; and I was answered in a voice, which, I must say, was much like another voice, that it was one wanting Major-General Harrison. So, as it was then late, I answered mildly, that General Harrison was betaking himself to his rest, and that any who wished to speak to him must return on the morrow morning, for that after nightfall the door of the Palace, being in the room of a garrison, would be opened to no one. So, the voice replied, and bid me open directly, without which he would blow the folding leaves of the door into the middle of the hall. And therewithal the noise recommenced, that we thought the house would have fallen; and I was in some measure constrained to open the door, even like a besieged garrison which can hold out no longer.”
”By my honour, and it was stoutly done of you, I must say,” said Wildrake,-who had been listening with much interest. ”I am a bold dare-devil enough, yet when I had two inches of oak plank between the actual fiend and me, hang him that would demolish the barrier between us, say I-I would as soon, when aboard, bore a hole in the s.h.i.+p, and let in the waves; for you know we always compare the devil to the deep sea.”
”Prithee, peace, Wildrake,” said Everard, ”and let him go on with his history.-Well, and what saw'st thou when the door was opened?-the great Devil with his horns and claws thou wilt say, no doubt.”
”No, sir, I will say nothing but what is true. When I undid the door, one man stood there, and he, to seeming, a man of no extraordinary appearance. He was wrapped in a taffeta cloak of a scarlet colour, and with a red lining. He seemed as if he might have been in his time a very handsome man, but there was something of paleness and sorrow in his face-a long love-lock and long hair he wore, even after the abomination of the cavaliers, and the unloveliness, as learned Master Prynne well termed it, of love-locks-a jewel in his ear-a blue scarf over his shoulder, like a military commander for the King, and a hat with a white plume, bearing a peculiar hatband.”
”Some unhappy officer of cavaliers, of whom so many are in hiding, and seeking shelter through the country,” briefly replied Everard.
”True, worthy sir-right as a judicious exposition. But there was something about this man (if he was a man) whom I, for one, could not look upon without trembling; nor the musketeers,-who were in the hall, without betraying much alarm, and swallowing, as they will themselves aver, the very bullets-which they had in their mouths for loading their carabines and muskets. Nay, the wolf and deer-dogs, that are the fiercest of their kind, fled from this visitor, and crept into holes and corners, moaning and wailing in a low and broken tone. He came into the middle of the hall, and still he seemed no more than an ordinary man, only somewhat fantastically dressed, in a doublet of black velvet pinked upon scarlet satin under his cloak, a jewel in his ear, with large roses in his shoes, and a kerchief in his hand, which he sometimes pressed against his left side.”
”Gracious Heavens!” said Wildrake, coming close up to Everard, and whispering in his ear, with accents which terror rendered tremulous, (a mood of mind most unusual to the daring man, who seemed now overcome by it)-”it must have been poor d.i.c.k Robison the player, in the very dress in which I have seen him play Philaster-ay, and drunk a jolly bottle with him after it at the Mermaid! I remember how many frolics we had together, and all his little fantastic fas.h.i.+ons. He served for his old master, Charles, in Mohun's troop, and was murdered by this butcher's dog, as I have heard, after surrender, at the battle of Naseby-field.”
”Hus.h.!.+ I have heard of the deed,” said Everard; ”for G.o.d's sake hear the man to an end.-Did this visitor speak to thee, my friend?”
”Yes, sir, in a pleasing tone of voice, but somewhat fanciful in the articulation, and like one who is speaking to an audience as from a bar or a pulpit, more than in the voice of ordinary men on ordinary matters. He desired to see Major-General Harrison.”
”He did!-and you,” said Everard, infected by the spirit of the time, which, as is well known, leaned to credulity upon all matters of supernatural agency,-”what did you do?”
”I went up to the parlour, and related that such a person enquired for him. He started when I told him, and eagerly desired to know the man's dress; but no sooner did I mention his dress, and the jewel in his ear, than he said, 'Begone! tell him I will not admit him to speech of me. Say that I defy him, and will make my defiance good at the great battle in the valley of Armageddon, when the voice of the angel shall call all fowls which fly under the face of heaven to feed on the flesh of the captain and the soldier, the warhorse and his rider. Say to the Evil One, I have power to appeal our conflict even till that day, and that in the front of that fearful day he will again meet with Harrison.' I went back with this answer to the stranger, and his face was writhed into such a deadly frown as a mere human brow hath seldom worn. 'Return to him,' he said, 'and say it is MY HOUR, and that if he come not instantly down to speak with me, I will mount the stairs to him. Say that I COMMAND him to descend, by the token, that, on the field of Naseby, he did not the work negligently.'”
”I have heard,” whispered Wildrake-who felt more and more strongly the contagion of superst.i.tion-”that these words were blasphemously used by Harrison when he shot my poor friend d.i.c.k.”
”What happened next?” said Everard. ”See that thou speakest the truth.”
”As gospel unexpounded by a steeple-man,” said the Independent; ”yet truly it is but little I have to say. I saw my master come down, with a blank, yet resolved air; and when he entered the hall and saw the stranger, he made a pause. The other waved on him as if to follow, and walked out at the portal. My worthy patron seemed as if he were about to follow, yet again paused, when this visitant, be he man or fiend, re-entered, and said, 'Obey thy doom.
'By pathless march by greenwood tree, It is thy weird to follow me- To follow me through the ghastly moonlight- To follow me through the shadows of night- To follow me, comrade, still art thou bound; I conjure thee by the unstaunch'd wound- I conjure thee by the last words I spoke When the body slept and the spirit awoke, In the very last pangs of the deadly stroke.'
”So saying, he stalked out, and my master followed him into the wood.-I followed also at a distance. But when I came up, my master was alone, and bearing himself as you now behold him.”
”Thou hast had a wonderful memory, friend,” said the Colonel, coldly, ”to remember these rhymes in a single recitation-there seems something of practice in all this.”
”A single recitation, my honoured sir?” exclaimed the Independent- ”alack, the rhyme is seldom out of my poor master's mouth, when, as sometimes haps, he is less triumphant in his wrestles with Satan. But it was the first time I ever heard it uttered by another; and, to say truth, he ever seems to repeat it unwillingly, as a child after his pedagogue, and as it was not indited by his own head, as the Psalmist saith.”
”It is singular,” said Everard;-”I have heard and read that the spirits of the slaughtered have strange power over the slayer; but I am astonished to have it insisted upon that there may be truth in such tales. Roger Wildrake-what art thou afraid of, man?-why dost thou s.h.i.+ft thy place thus?”