CHAPTER I.

VÆ VICTIS!

"'Is there any hope?' To which an answer peal'd from that high land, But in a tongue no man could understand; And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn God made Himself an awful rose of Dawn." TENNYSON, _Vision of Sin._

It was October in the year 1660. The bonfires that had welcomed the Merry Monarch back to his father's throne were scarcely cold, the clamour of the joy-bells had hardly ceased, and London was still in a half-frightened, half-rapturous state of excitement. Everything was new; the better part of the people had never even seen a king, and now they had the daily sight of a live king, and a couple of royal dukes besides, walking about the streets and feeding ducks in the parks like ordinary human beings. The tension in men's minds suddenly gave way. To the winds with high-flown theories of government and religion, with ideals, and standards, and rules, and covenants! Let us all be comfortable, and hang any one who might trouble our holiday!

This popular fear of agitators who might disturb the rule of the Merry Monarch chimed in very well with the feelings of the old cavaliers, who felt that heavy amends were due to them for the sorrows and hardships of the last twenty years, and no doom could be too awful for the murderers who had laid sacrilegious hands upon the sacred person of the king. With relentless activity they hunted down the audacious rebels who had dared to send Charles the First to the scaffold, and few were so fortunate as to escape the fate decreed for a regicide.

Yet, full as London was of hopes and fears, of mad gaiety and black despair, the October day was as sweet and still as any day of any autumn; the late roses blossomed as of old in the gardens of the Strand, and vine-leaves wreathed the citizens' with their wonted coronals of ruby and gold.

An upper chamber above a mercer's shop in Watling Street was decked with all the pride of city housewifery; the pewter dishes on the sideboard shone like silver, and the marigolds and lavender in a great beaupot on the window-sill filled all the pleasant chamber with autumn fragrance. The room was that of wealthy people, and the rich silk gown and cobweb lawn of a lady who lay huddled up in the corner of a great settle were such as city matrons loved to wear. She was a plump and comely woman enough, but her soft brown hair was disordered, and her dainty cap awry; her eyes were closed, and her face white with the exhaustion of one who has wept till she can weep no more.

Near her stood the boy who had buckled on his sword eleven years before, to escort King Charles from Hurst Castle to his doom; a boy no longer, but a tall and handsome young man, with the bronzed complexion and alert eyes of one who has seen service.

He hesitated as he looked down at her; had she for an instant forgotten her sorrows in the sleep of exhaustion? But even as he paused, she opened her eyes and sprang to her feet, crying--

"What news, nephew--what news?"

"The worst," answered Dick, gloomily. "They are in haste to accomplish their work; he dies in two days' time."

She stared at him with dilated, half-comprehending eyes; he took her hands and drew her down gently to sit beside him on the settle. He paused, trying to steady his voice.

"It did not trouble him," he began; "indeed, General Harrison did seem to me to be as ready to break forth into thanksgiving as ever I have seen him on a battlefield when his enemies were put to flight. He bade me--my uncle bade me--say to you that to-day is as joyful to him as his marriage-day. He was borne up in a very ecstasy as it seemed to me, and when the judges railed on him for his share in the death of the king, he told them his conscience was clear, for in what he did, there was more from God than men are aware of. And when he said further that what was done, was done in the name of the parliament, which was the only lawful authority, for that the generality of the people in England, Scotland, and Ireland had owned it by obeying it, and foreign States by sending embassies to it, they were cut to the heart and desired to silence him."

Dick's voice failed suddenly; what use to torture the unhappy wife of the regicide with the story of his trial and condemnation? He could not convey to her the intrepid composure, the exulting pride with which Harrison justified the deed for which he was arraigned. Mrs. Harrison asked no question, she did not even answer his words; for a moment she doubted if she had heard him; but then she spoke: spoke with a calmness that startled him till he realized that she dreamt even yet that her husband might escape, and was too completely absorbed in devising schemes for his deliverance to have time to realize her own misery or measure her own powerlessness.

"Dick," she exclaimed, putting her hands to her temples, "I cannot think; I am half mazed without him, who always thought for me. Consider! I am very sure there are some we can move to help us! Count over your friends; there must be some one with a heart of flesh left in all England! General Monck loved you well once, though he wrote so wickedly counselling Oliver Cromwell to be very severe unto my beloved one when they threw him into prison at Portland. But what is a prison! A prison was ever to him the gate of heaven. Move but General Monck to have him cast once again into prison, and I will pray for him till my dying day! They say that blasphemer, Harry Marten, will but be imprisoned; why should my saint have a harder fate? Oh, let him but live, and though I never set eyes on him more, I shall be a happy woman!"

"Dearest madam," he said tenderly, "it is, indeed, of no avail to turn to Monck or to any in power. How can they forget that he of all men yet alive was most forward in the death of Charles Stuart; and he has but now justified his share in it. Whomsoever they let escape, they will never loose their hold on him. Not the new king himself could help us."

"Not even the king," she repeated dully; "nay, I know not if the king be merciful; but," she cried, suddenly starting up, "it hath come back to me; there is one near to the king who may be our advocate--Prince Rupert!"

Dick stared at her, aghast.

"Nay," she said, with a desperate smile, as she read the doubt in his face, "I am not distraught. God forgive me, I could well-nigh wish I were, so I might escape the knowledge of this misery. But, listen to me," she went on, with sudden self-control. "When Prince Rupert surrendered Bristol to the Parliament army, your uncle was among the officers who waited with General Cromwell at the port of the fort for his coming out, and waited on him to Sir Thomas Fairfax. And the prince had much discourse with Major Harrison, for so your uncle was then, and when he bade him farewell he gave him a gallant compliment, saying he never received such satisfaction in such unhappiness, and that if ever it were in his power he would repay it."

"But consider, madam, that was long years since. In good truth, 'tis madness to build any hope on such a compliment."

"Hope!" she shrieked. "I have no hope--no faith! I have nothing left in my bosom but despair! I am not worthy to be wife to a martyr. When he was with me I could be courageous with his courage, and catch the fashion of his heroic patience. Lacking him I lack all! Why did he not die when he was so sore wounded at Appleby! Cruel woman that I was to nurse him back to life for this!"

"But, dearest aunt, you saved him for many years of good service, and many valiant deeds."

"Ah, and I would have saved him yet again if he would but have listened to me. Do you mind, Dick," she went on, in a calmer tone, as her memory wandered back to happier days, "do you mind how I foresaw these evil times were at hand, and how I entreated him to flee? Do you mind, last spring, when that letter came from New England from excellent Master Perrient, how I prayed him to hearken to it?"

"Ay," answered Richard, humouring her quieter mood, "I mind well how he wrote, not knowing but that Richard Cromwell was yet Lord Protector, and how he said, if my dear uncle found no freedom for his religion in England, that there was a safe refuge in the Rhode Island Plantation, and the Lord's people there could serve him as their conscience did direct."

"And do you mind how Mr. Goffe, being then with us, said, 'He is a good man, and gives good counsel, and to my mind it were no hardship even to flee into the woods and dwell among the savage Indians, so we might have liberty to serve the Lord'!"

"Ay, and some folk say Mr. Goffe is indeed fled thither."

"Alas, alas! and did I not kneel and entreat my dearest husband to heed the words of those good men if he would not mine? How happy we might have been, even in a hut among the savages! And you, too, Dick," she said tenderly, "you would have liked well to follow Master Perrient's leading; and my dear husband was ready to have you go, seeing all he and Sir Gyles Perrient had set their minds upon for your happiness."

"Oh, think not of my matters," interrupted Richard, almost sharply. "How could I have left him? And how could we be urgent to him to fly when we could not know what extraordinary impulse one of his virtue or courage may have had on his mind? Forget not how he did answer to your entreaties, saying that he would not stir a foot, nor turn his back as though he repented he had been engaged in that great work, or were ashamed of the service of so glorious and great a God! We could not seek to change such a resolve."

"Ah, you are content to see him die! You men can satisfy your hearts with fine words, and so be that you can call it heroic or courageous, or so forth, you care naught, naught! That all comes of the evil men you fell among when you went north in the army of false General Monck. They it was who seduced you from the good old cause in which my dearest husband reared you up so faithfully. When you went to Scotland first, you and he were of one mind, one heart, but when you came hither again, your head was stuffed full of worldly wisdom and time-serving devices, talking of a Lord Protector instead of the glory of God, and hand and glove with that cruel Cromwell who did throw my saint into prison! Your heart was turned from those that reared you, and given to their enemies! And now you can stand by unmoved and see him you once loved haled to prison and death!"

"No, no, dearest madam," cried Dick, "you know in your own heart you do me injustice. What did it matter that in these latter days I did not share General Harrison's faith in the Fifth Monarchy being presently established, nor sit with him to hear Mr. Rogers' sermons? never did he find me backward in the day of battle, and that you, who tended my wounds, can yourself testify. 'Tis more than ten years back I swore to him to live and die for the just liberties of the people of England, and by God's help I have kept the vow. And as in the field, so at home, you know well, my love and reverence for him came little short of idolatry."

"Yes, yes," she murmured abstractedly; "who could fail to love him? so valiant and so goodly to look upon, so tender unto his friends, and to me his poor wife, and ever was the inward joy in his bosom breaking forth in praises to God--and yet"--turning wildly on Dick--"yet you will let him die! You are as hard as the nether millstone! Dick, do not shake your head, you must go! You must force Prince Rupert to hear you. He can--he shall be saved! Cruel! you will not refuse me!"--and she flung herself on her knees in agony.

"Madam, dearest aunt, this passion is indeed needless. I will do all you desire; but cherish not these wild hopes, they will but plunge you into deeper sorrow. Think rather that his passage to heaven, though sharp will be short; arm yourself with that confidence that already gives him a foretaste of the joys of the blessed."

Richard's eyes were raining tears as he raised the poor lady from the floor, but no persuasion could change the idea that was fixed in her mind.

"Go, go!" she cried, "there is no time to lose; inquire out the prince's lodging and make him hear you. Even the unjust judge was moved by importunity to pity a widow, and am not I in worse case than she?"

With a heavy heart Dick left the unhappy lady, and set out on what he knew was a hopeless errand. But this was not the first, nor the second, time that his love for his adopted mother had driven him to do what his feelings and common sense equally rebelled against, for the kind and rather foolish lady was but an echo of her husband's stronger nature; and Dick no longer followed General Harrison as his sole leader.

When the boy first left his father's house to become a member of his uncle's family, Harrison at once became the object of his youthful adoration. Handsome in person, gracious in manner, point device in dress, the brilliant officer lived in an ideal world, in which he believed all his companions were as simple-minded and heroic as himself. The sturdy independence he inherited from an ancestry of English tradesfolk and yeomen made him cherish the ideal of an English republic with religious fervour, while, whether leading a prayer meeting or heading a cavalry charge, his inspiring enthusiasm carried away all who were near him. No wonder that the boy saw with his eyes and heard with his ears and modelled himself as nearly as he could on the ideals of his hero; and when Colonel Harrison signed the warrant for the king's execution, the boy was as convinced a regicide as any of the judges whose names were written beside that of Harrison on the fatal parchment. Never a doubt nor a scruple entered Richard's mind, even on that memorable thirtieth of January, when on the scaffold at Whitehall the King--

"Bowed his comely head Down, as upon a bed."

The boy had learned his uncle's lessons too thoroughly to dream of pity or remorse.

It was a complete change when, with his head full of Utopian dreams, "more of an antique Roman" than an Englishman, Dick was sent off to serve under General Monck in the army that was to administer as well as to garrison Scotland. The boy came out of Plutarch into modern life, or out of Paradise into common day. His character was naturally more logical and less high strung than that of his hero; and as the stern realities of life claimed the attention of the young soldier, the ecstatic glories of his uncle's visions faded from his mind, his work absorbed and satisfied him, and he forgot to dream of ideal republics, or even of the Celestial City, in the practical interest of helping to conquer and to govern Scotland.

But when he returned home on flying visits, he found to his dismay that his uncle's visionary hopes were growing instead of fading; and from desiring a merely republican England, General Harrison had begun to dream of a theocracy as complete as that of the early Jews, and to look forward to the immediate inauguration of an earthly Reign of the Saints, under the sceptre of Christ Himself, as the Fifth and last of the great monarchies of the world. Although General Harrison's strong personal fascination and unselfish ardour still commanded his nephew's affection and even admiration, the young man's irreverent common sense could not help viewing these new Fifth Monarchy opinions held by his uncle and his uncle's friends as fitter for Bedlam than for the pulpit or the parliament house. But when the Restoration brought the king's men upper-most, and General Harrison was arrested and carried to the tower, all differences were forgotten, and Dick saw in his uncle the first martyr to die for his share in defending the liberties of England. He accompanied Harrison's heart-broken wife up to her childhood's home in London, and waited with her during the slow months that crept on to the inevitable end.

He had hoped that the consolations of her minister, or the calm of despair, might have brought to her some amount of resignation; but now this wild trust in the power of Prince Rupert had suddenly inspired the poor lady with a crazy vehemence. Even if he had not known her hopes were vain, his proud spirit would have rebelled against crying for mercy to a German soldier of fortune!

"It is worse than folly," he muttered; "it is disgrace to drag General Harrison's name in the dust with fruitless entreaties. We did the great deed, and we abide by the consequences. Even could we say we repented, there yet were no mercy to hope for; but we do not repent! Were it to do again, we should not flinch. The poor flesh may shrink----"

He stopped short, with the irrepressible agony of realization. Death was easy enough to face among the high enthusiasms of the battlefield; but here, in the city, where the busy world was eating and drinking and making money among these sordid surroundings, what radiance of a celestial city could flash from opened gates to support a victim through a torturing death? Could faith win a victory even here?