With Ring of Shield Part 29

How long I stood thus I know not; it did seem to be an age.

Presently I heard a distant footstep. Ashamed of my childish feeling of fear, I, that would stand alone and face a score of warriors and never quaver, as the sound of the feet approached, started to pace hurriedly the floor of my prison. As the causer of the sounds in the corridor reached my door he stopped, and I heard the key rattle, as he did insert it in the lock. I sat myself down upon my couch and tried, as best I could, to appear to be at mine ease when the jailer should enter.

He brought with him a lamp and a small table, for both of which I was glad.

He was a not-bad-natured, though coa.r.s.e-looking fellow of about some forty years; of rather more than middle height, and a girth and breadth of shoulder which bespoke not lack of bodily strength. A shock of yellow hair, mixed liberally with grey, stood out from beneath his cap of steel, like a wisp of straw.

After placing the articles that he had brought, upon the floor, he cast but one glance at me, and then turned on his heel and left me.

Presently he returned with my supper, which he placed upon the table much in the same manner as one would arrange the meal of swine.

"There, sir," said he, "thou hast nothing to complain of. That supper is fit for a King. And it's better than one King had whilst he lived in this very room."

"What! did the young King Edward occupy this room?"

"As for whether he occupied it or not, now that I know not; but he was kept in this same room until he went out feet first."

"Horrible!" I gasped.

"Horrible? Lord, sir! methinks that thou shouldst feel honoured by the thought of being let sleep in the same room where a royal King did sleep. I know that I would," he added, with a grim smile.

"And dost thou know who killed him?" I asked.

"Nay, nay, I said not nothing of his being killed," he replied, with a grin and a wise twist of his head, accompanied by the uplifting of the one of his shoulders until it touched his ear.

"Well then, of what distemper did he die?"

"Ha, ha!" he laughed, as though I had amused him vastly. "What distemper? Ha, ha, ha! Well upon my soul! ha, ha, ha!" he burst forth again.

His voice, when he laughed, was ample evidence that he had in his day consumed no small quant.i.ty of spirits of different sorts; for it sounded as though a goodly quant.i.ty of the liquids had remained in his throat, where it did some prodigious bubbling.

"The distempers that one gets when a prisoner here are most always of one kind. Ha, ha, ha! What distemper? Well upon my soul!" And still laughing at that which he no doubt imagined was wit, he went out and locked the door and I was again alone with my thoughts, which were no more cheerful than they had been previous to his visit.

That night my sleep, if such it may be called, was an almost endless succession of tormenting and extravagant dreams of terror, divided from each other by an awakening start of horror.

And so the weary days and nights of mine imprisonment dragged slowly on. Slowly, for the weight of sorrow and tormenting agony of uncertainty for the fate of the one I loved did impede their progress, as doth the heavy weight upon the poor snail's back cause it to drag its weary body so slowly along its slimy course.

My sole occupation, with which I tried to prevent my mind from brooding, was the reading of the different sad histories of those which writ down their thoughts, and fates to be, upon their--and now my--prison's walls. One of these, whose sadness and beautiful resignation--even though it hath no great poetic merit--most affected me, I now set down. The lines and words are imprinted on the pages of my memory with such a force as never can fade, so long as the old, worn book doth hold together. Here they are, my children; and much profit may be gathered from their calmness and resignation:--

"Somewhat musing, and more mourning, In remembering the unsteadfastness, This world being of such wheeling, Me contrarying, what can I guess?

"I fear, doubtless, remediless, Is now to seize my woful chance; For unkindness, withouten less, (lessening) And no redress, doth me avance.

"With displeasance, to my grievance, And no surance of remedy; Lo, in this trance, now in substance, Such is my dance, willing to die.

"Methinks, truly, bounden am I, And that greatly, to be content; Seeing plainly Fortune doth wry All contrary from mine intent

"My life was lent me to one intent; It is nigh spent. Welcome Fortune!

But I ne went (thought) thus to be shent, But she it meant, such is her won (wont)"[1]

Evidently the woeful writer of these lines had been condemned to death.

His bones had now lost their fleshly mantle, and forgotten he lay, far from those he loved. "How long ere I shall be in the same condition?"

thought I, as I stood before my secure-barred window and gazed at the rain, as it fell in one unceasing torrent.

"Verily the heavens do weep for the sufferings of poor England," I said aloud; for now I spoke unto myself as though I were another.

For I know not how many days, for in my sorrow I lost all track of time, the rain fell with unabated fury.

How I longed to hear how fared my gentle Hazel.

"h.e.l.l and furies!" would I cry, and grip at the same time the iron bars that stood like the gate of h.e.l.l betwixt me and my liberty. How relieving did it feel to my pent up hate to twist at an iron bar and imagine that it was Catesby's throat I held.

"Ha! thou accursed villain!" would I cry aloud, "thou now shalt know the fury of my vengeance!" Then would I strike the cruel metal with my bare and clenched fist, with such a force as did drive the tender skin back from the bone and leave a bleeding tear.

The days lengthened into weeks; and still no word from the outside world. No trial; no condemnation; no execution; and that which I then most distasted, no definite knowledge of what should be my fate.

But let me now imagine myself as a free man, outside the Tower's walls--the which I then saw no chance of my ever being--and let me now describe the strange and important events that there were happening.

The next day after my arrest the Duke of Buckingham left the court, as though in haste. He and Lord Stanley had been together in the apartments of the Duke until a late hour on the night of my arrest.

Whisperings there were to the effect that Buckingham had parted from the King in a spirit of animosity. Whether this were or were not the case I know not. However, the next news of Buckingham was of such a kind that it left no room for a doubt as to their then relations, no matter what they had been previous to the Duke's departure.

"Buckingham hath rebelled against King Richard: he is now raising an army in Wales. The Earl of Richmond is coming to his aid. More war and bloodshed for poor England." Such was the intelligence that now flew on from mouth to ear throughout the land. Had mine imprisoned ears but heard it then, how welcome had it been.

Catesby, who had on several occasions attempted to gain admittance to the Sanctuary, and had as many times met with refusal, was now obliged to attend to the affairs of state. Thus my fair Hazel was saved from his further molestation. Those days of tortuous anxiety to me could have been scarce less agonizing to her.

The Usurper, with that energy ever his chiefest characteristic, now raised an army to face the rebellious Duke.

Then did commence to fall those fearful rains, that never once did cease for days and nights I know not how many; but as I think, some ten days or two weeks.

The army of the Duke, thinking this unceasing rain was a message from Heaven forbidding them to thus rebel, deserted their leader, and each particular man did betake himself unto his separate home.

Then, as every congregation of people must have its Judas, the Duke was betrayed into the hands of the usurping tyrant, and there at Salisbury, where Richard had taken his post--for he thought that Richmond did intend joining Buckingham near this place--the Duke's head fell upon the block, and Richard was rid of one more great enemy.

Still did not Richmond land; so Richard and his army returned to London.

When Catesby, who had been with Richard in this expedition, came again to the Palace it did cause Harleston great anxiety; for he feared for the safety of the Lady Hazel. However, Catesby, to my friend's surprise, went not near the Sanctuary.

This was but the deceiving prologue to another history of suffering and reverses to us, that ever seemed bent on rending us asunder, whose hearts were bound together with such mighty bonds of love.

One evening as Frederick returned from a visit to the Sanctuary--where he had learned that Richmond had at last landed in Wales, and was even now on his way to London--on entering his room Michael handed him a sealed packet which proved to be an order for him to be prepared to march, at sunrise, in the ranks of Richard's army. This, however, was no surprise, as he had been expecting it for more than a week. He walked over to the table and laid the letter upon it.

"What is this, Michael?" he called, as his eyes fell upon another well sealed packet.

Michael, however, knew not from whence it came or how it got there.

"Michael," said Frederick, "thou knowest that I desire no one to be permitted to enter this room during mine absence. How is it, therefore, that this letter found its way here without thy knowledge?"