The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous. George Augustus Sala
I need not say that oceans of Sympathy, or the accepted Tokens thereof, I mean Tears, ran out from the eyes of the Governor's Daughter 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 command, compassionating 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 himself to say that it should be granted without question; whereon quoth my Lord Francis, "I will not die with any suit in my mouth, save to the King of kings." On this, and on the story of the Locket, and of his first becoming acquainted with Arabella, of his sprightly disguise as a Teacher, with the young squire at Madam Desaguilier'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 two women were never tired of talking. And, indeed, if one calls to mind what vast Eloquence and wealth of words two loving hearts 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 Theme inexhaustible—so good and brave as had been its Object, now dead and cold in the bloody trench at Hampton yonder, and convert it into a perpetually welling spring 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 performances. But she never attempted either the effigies of her Lover or of the Protector, and confined herself to portraitures of the late martyred King, and of the Princes now unjustly kept from their inheritance.
It was during 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 time much less severe and even lax. Arabella was suffered to go out of her chamber, even at the very hours that the Prisoner above was wandering to and fro. The guards did not hinder their meeting; and, says Colonel Ferdinando Glover, one day to his daughter, "I should not wonder if, some of these days, Orders were to come down for me to set both my birds free from their cage. 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, who was 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 remembered the deed for which she was confined.
"Tush, girl," the Colonel makes answer, "'tis no Treason now to name such a thing. Oliver'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 more need to protect himself than these Kingdoms. And I think that if your father is to live on the King's wages, it had better be on the real King's than the false one."
"And do you think, father, that King Charles will come to his own again?" asks Ruth, in a flutter of delight; 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 seems me, that we shall have our prisoners here much longer. 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 may have raised the very Devil for aught I know."
"Do you think that he also tried to kill the Protector?" Ruth asks timidly, and just hazarding 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 storming. "Away, or I will lay my willow wand about thy shoulders. Is there nothing but 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 mind to his daughter; for away he hies to his chamber, and falls to reading Colonel Titus' famous book, Killing no Murder, and, looking anon on his Prisoner coming wandering down a winding staircase, says softly to himself, "He looks like one, for all his studious guise, who could do a Bold Deed at a pinch."
This Person, I should have said, wore, winter and summer, a plain black shag gown untrimmed, with camlet netherstocks, and a smooth band. And his Right Hand was always covered with a glove of Black Velvet.
By and by came, as I have related, the news of his Majesty's Restoration and fresh Strict Orders for the keeping of the Prisoner. But though he was not to see a clergyman—and for all that prohibition he saw more than one before he came out of Captivity—a certain Indulgence was now granted him. He was permitted to have free access to Mrs. Arabella Greenville, and to converse freely with her at all proper times and seasons.
But that I know the very noble nature of my Grandmother, and am prepared, old as I am, to defend her fame even to taking the heart's blood of the villain that maligned her, I might blush at having to record a fact which must needs be set down here. Ere six months had passed, there grew up between Mrs. Greenville and the Prisoner a very warm and close friendship, which in time ripened into the tenderest of attachments. That her love for her dear Frank ever wavered, or that she ever swerved for one moment in her reverence for his memory, I cannot and I will not believe; but she nevertheless looked with an exceeding favour upon the imprisoned man, and made no scruple of avowing her Flame to Ruth. This young person did in time confide the same to her father, who was much concerned thereat, he not knowing how far the allowance of any love-passages between two such strangely assorted suitors might tally with his duty towards the King and Government. Nor could he shut his eyes to the fact that the Prisoner regarded Mrs. Greenville first with a tender compassion (such as a father might have towards his child), next with an ardent sympathy, and finally—and that very speedily too—with a Feeling that had all the Signs and Portents of Love. These two unfortunate People were so shut out from the world, and so spiritually wedded by a common Misery and discomfort, that their mere earthly coming together could not be looked upon but as natural and reasonable; for Mrs. Greenville was the only woman upon whom the Prisoner could be expected to look—he being, beyond doubt, one of Gentle Degree, if not of Great and Noble Station, and therefore beyond aught but the caresses of a Patron with such a simple maid as Ruth Glover, whose father, although of some military rank, was, like most of the Captains who had served under the Commonwealth (witness Ireton, Harrison, Hacker, and many more) of exceeding mean extraction.
That love-vows were interchanged between this Bride and Bridegroom of Sorrow and a Dark Dungeon almost, I know not; but their liking for each other's society—he imparting to her some of his studies, and she playing music, with implements of which she was well provided, to him of an afternoon—had become so apparent both to the soldiers on guard and servants, even to the poor Invalid Matrosses wheezing and shivering in their buff-coats, that Colonel Glover, in a very flurry of uncertainty, sent post haste to Whitehall to know what he was to do—whether to chamber up Mrs. Greenville in her chamber, as of aforetime, or confine the Prisoner in one of the lower vaults in the body of the rock, with so many pounds weight of iron on his legs. For Colonel Glover was a man accustomed to use strong measures, whether with his family or with those he had custody over.
No answer came for many days; and the Governor had almost begun to think his message to be forgotten, when one summer evening (a.d. 1661) a troop of horse were seen galloping from the Village towards the Castle. The Drawbridge, which was on the ordinary kept slung, was now lowered; and the captain of the troop passing up to the barbican, gave Colonel Glover a sealed packet, and told him that he and his men would bivack at the bridge-foot (for the fens were passable at this season) until one who was expected at nightfall should come. Meat and drink were sent for, and the soldiers, dismounting, began to take tobacco and rail against the Castle in their brutal fashion—shame on them!—as an old mangy rat-trap.
Colonel Glover went up into his chamber in extreme disturbance. He had opened the packet and conned its contents; and having his daughter to him presently, and charging her, by her filial duty, to use discretion in all things that he should confide to her, tells her that his Majesty the King of England, France, and Ireland was coming to the Castle in a strictly Disguised habit that very evening.
There was barely time to make the slightest of preparations for this Glorious Guest; but what there was, and of the best of Meat, and Wine, and Plate,