The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous. George Augustus Sala
like to drown myself.
"That's wrong, that's wicked," observed the Old Gentleman with a chuckle; "you mustn't drown yourself, because then you'd lose your chance of being hanged. Gregory has as much right to live as other folks."[H]
I did not in the least understand what he meant, but went on sobbing.
"I tell you what it is," pursued the Old Gentleman; "you mustn't stop here, because Gnawbit will skin you alive if you do. He's bound to do it; he's sworn to do it. He half-skinned Tibb; and was going to take off the other half, when Tibb drowned himself like a fool in this hole here. He was a fool, and should have followed my advice and run away. 'Tibb,' I said, 'you'll be skinned. Bear it, but run away. Here's a guinea. Run!' He was afraid that Gnawbit would catch him; and where is he now? Skinned, and drowned into the bargain. Don't you be a Fool. You Run while there's some skin left. Gnawbit's sworn to have it all, if you don't. Here's a guinea, and run away as fast as ever your legs can carry you."
He gave me a bright piece of gold and waved me off, as though I were to run away that very moment. I submissively said that I would run away after school was over, but asked him where I should run to.
"I'm sure I don't know," the Old Gentleman said somewhat peevishly. "That's not my business. A boy that has got legs with skin on 'em, and doesn't know where to run to, is a jackass.—Stop!" he continued, as if a bright idea had just struck him; "did you ever hear of the Blacks?"
"No sir," I answered.
"Stupid oaf! Do you know where Charlwood Chase is?"
"Yes, sir; my schoolfellows have been nutting there, and I have heard them speak of it."
"Then you make the best of your way to Charlwood Chase, and go a-nutting there till you find the Blacks; you can't miss them; they're everywhere. Run, you little Imp. See! the time's up, and here comes the boy who stole the juicy pear." And the boy coming up, munching the remains of one of Gnawbit's juiciest pears, my patron was wheeled away, and I have never seen him from that day to this.
That very night I ran away from Gnawbit's, and made my way towards Charlwood Chase to join the "Blacks," although who those "Blacks" were, and whereabouts in the Chase they lived, and what they did when they were there, I had no more definite idea than who the Emperor Prester John or the Man in the Moon might be.
CHAPTER THE SIXTH.
THE HISTORY OF MY GRANDFATHER, WHO WAS SO LONG KEPT A PRISONER IN ONE OF THE KING'S CASTLES IN THE EAST COUNTRY.
At the time when his Majesty Charles II. was so happily restored to the throne of these kingdoms, there was, and had been, confined for upwards of ten years, in one of his Majesty's Castles in the eastern part of this kingdom, a certain Prisoner. His Name was known to none, not even to the guards who kept watch over him, so to speak, night and day—not even to the gaoler, who had been told that he must answer with his Head for his safe custody, who had him always in a spying, fretful overlooking, and who slept every night with the keys of the Captive's cell under his pillow. The Castle where he lay in hold has been long since levelled to the earth, if, indeed, it ever had any earth to rest upon, and was not rather stayed upon some jutting fragment of Rock washed away at last by the ever-encroaching sea. Nay, of its exact situation I am not qualified to tell. I never saw the place, and my knowledge of it is confined to a bald hearsay, albeit of the Deeds that were done within its walls I can affirm the certitude with Truth. From such shadowy accounts as I have collected, the edifice would seem to have consisted but of a single tower or donjon-keep very strong and thick, and defying the lashings of the waves, almost as though it were some Pharos or other guide to mariners. It was surrounded by a low stone wall of prodigious weight of masonry, and was approached from the mainland by a drawbridge and barbican. But for many months of the year there was no mainland within half a mile of it, and the King's Castle could only be reached by boats. Men said that the Sun never shone there but for ten minutes before and ten minutes after a storm, and there were almost always storms lowering over or departing from that dismal place. The Castle was at least two miles from any human habitation; for the few fishermen's cabins, made of rotten boats, hogsheads nailed together, and the like, which had pitifully nestled under the lee of the Castle in old time, had been rigorously demolished to their last crazy timber when the Prisoner was brought there. At a respectful distance only, far in, and yet but a damp little islet in the midst of the fens, was permitted to linger on, in despised obscurity, a poor swamp of some twenty houses that might, 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 some tall ship's mainmast. The priest's wages were less than those of a London coal-porter. The poor man could get no tithes, for there were no tithes to give him. Three parts of his glebe were always under water, and he was forced to keep a little school for his maintenance, of which the scholars could pay him but scant fees, seeing 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 creatures met and drank and smoked, and sang their songs, contriving now and again to smuggle a few kegs of spirits from Holland, and baffle the riding-officers in a scamper through the fens. They were a simple folk, fond of telling Ghost-Stories, and with a firm belief in charms to cure them from the Ague. And, with an awe whose intensity was renewed each time the tale was told, they whispered among themselves as to that Prisoner of Fate up at the Castle yonder. What this man's Crime had been, none could tell. His misdeed was not, it was whispered, stated in the King's Warrant. The Governor was simply told to receive a certain Prisoner, who would 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 command, and indeed, received preferment, having the grade of a Colonel on the Irish establishment. But they did not fail to tell him, and with fresh instances of severity, that he would answer with 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 Time and Sorrow had alike agreed to grizzle. Strong lines marked his face, but age had not brought them there. His eye was dim, but more with watching and study than with the natural failing of vital forces.
So he had been in this grim place going on for twelve years, without a day's respite, without an hour's enlargement. True, he wore no fetters, and was treated with a grave 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 Gentleman, and to be subjected to no grovelling indignities or base usage. But the Order was (for a long time, and until another Prisoner, hereafter to be named, received a meed of Enlargement) 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 humbly submitted to him that the Prisoner might need spiritual consolation, and have solace to his soul by conferring with poor Parson Webfoot yonder—"it is useless," said that nobleman, "for your charge to see any black gown, under pretext that he would Repent; for, albeit though I know not his crime more than the babe unborn, I have it from his Majesty's own gracious 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 compassing the death of King Charles I.; and this coming, in some strange manner (through 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