The King's Men Part 27

"That will do, Reynolds; you can go."

"Papa, I have a commission for you in England."

Reynolds's face fell. "Any--any message for my master, my lady?"

"No. Oh--stop--yes. You may tell him," said Maggie, with a heightened color, smiling, "you may tell him I am about to be married."

CHAPTER XV.

LOVE LAUGHS AT LOCKSMITHS.

In the centre of its wide waste of barren hills, huge granite outcroppings and swampy valleys, the gloomy prison of Dartmoor stood wrapped in mist one dismal morning in the March following the Royalist outbreak. Its two centuries of unloved existence in the midst of a wild land and fitful climate had seared every wall-tower and gateway with lines and patches of decay and discoloration. Originally built of brown stone, the years had deepened the tint almost to blackness in the larger stretches of outer wall and unwindowed gable.

On this morning the dark walls dripped with the weeping atmosphere, and the voice of the huge prison bell in the main yard sounded distant and strange like a storm-bell in a fog at sea.

Through the thick drizzle of the early morning the convicts were marched in gangs to their daily tasks, some to build new walls within the prison precincts, some to break stone in the round yard, encircled by enormous iron railings fifteen feet high, some to the great kitchen of the prison and to the different workshops. About one third of the prisoners marched outside the walls by the lower entrance, for the prison stands on a hill, at the foot of which stretches the most forsaken and grisly waste in all Dartmoor.

The task of the convicts for two hundred years had been the reclamation of this wide waste, which was called "The Farm." The French prisoners of war taken in the Napoleonic wars that ended with Waterloo had dug trenches to drain the waste. The American prisoners of the War of 1812 had laid roadways through the marsh. The Irish rebels of six generations had toiled in the tear-scalded footsteps of the French and American captives. And all the time the main or "stock" supply of English criminals, numbering usually about four hundred men, had spent their weary years in toiling and broiling at "The Farm."

Standing at the lower gate of the prison, from which a steep road descended to the marsh looking over "The Farm," it was hard to see anything like a fair return for such continued and patient labor. Deep trenches filled with claret-colored water drained innumerable patches of sickly vegetation. About a hundred stunted fruit trees and as many bedraggled haystacks were all that broke the surface line.

As the gangs of convicts, numbering about twenty each, marched out of the lower gate on this dull morning, they turned their eyes, each gang in the same surprised way as that which preceded, on a small group of men who were working just outside the prison wall.

To the left of the gate, on the sloping side of the hill, was a quadrangular s.p.a.ce of about thirty by twenty yards, round which was built a low wall of evidently great antiquity. The few courses of stones were huge granite boulders and slabs torn and rolled from the hillside.

There was no gateway or break in the square; to enter the inclosure one must climb over the wall, which was easy enough to do.

Inside the square was a rough heap of granite, a cairn, gray with lichens, in the centre of which stood, or rather leaned, a tall square block of granite, like a dolmen. So great was the age of this strange obelisk that the lichens had encrusted it to the top. The stone had once stood upright; but it now leaned toward the marsh, the cairn having slowly yielded on the lower side.

Around this ancient monument were working four men in the gray and black tweed of the convicts; and it was at their presence that the gangs had stared as they pa.s.sed.

One of these four men was young, one middle-aged, and two well down the hill of life, the oldest being a tall and emaciated old man of at least seventy years. They were four political prisoners--namely, Geoffrey Ripon, Featherstone, Sydney, and the old Duke of Bayswater. There was a warder in charge, who addressed them by numbers instead of names. He called Geoffrey "406;" Featherstone, "28;" Sydney, "No. 5," and the old Duke, "16." The prisoners recognized their numbers as quickly as free workmen would have answered to their names.

"No. 5," said the Warder, sharply, a bearded man, with the bearing of an old infantry soldier, "you must put more life into your work. You have been fooling around that stone for the last ten minutes."

"No. 5" raised himself from the bending posture in which he had been, and looked at the officer with a gentle reproach.

"It is a heavy stone, and I have been thinking how it can be moved,"

said "No. 5," and he smiled at the officer. He was not the Sydney of old, but a woe-begone creature, obviously sixty years of age, on whose thin frame the gray clothes hung in loose folds.

The officer thought "No. 5" was making fun of him, and he became angry.

"No use thinking," he shouted; "move the stone."

"No. 5" tried again, but his starveling strength could not shake a tenth of its weight.

"Here, you, 16," cried the officer to the old Duke; "bear a hand here.

Your mate says he can't move that stone."

"No. 16" and "No. 5" applied their united force to the stone, but it remained as before. The two poor old fellows regarded it with perplexity while furtively watching the officer. It was pitiful to see the expression of simulated mortification on their faces, which was meant to placate the Warder.

"Let me a.s.sist them," said Geoffrey to the officer, and he got a good "purchase" on the block and easily heaved it from its bed.

"No. 16," the old Duke, bowed his thanks, and "No. 5" pressed Geoffrey's hand. The officer, more rough than cruel, turned away to hide a smile at the courtesies of his charge. Soon after, he gave them instructions about the work, and left them, going down to "The Farm" to superintend the making of a new drain.

"This is heavy work, Duke," said Geoffrey to the old man; "but we ought to be thankful for the sentiment which sends us to do it instead of the criminals."

"I suppose so," said the Duke, in a desponding tone; "but it is not pleasant to think that after a century and a half the tomb of political prisoners in Dartmoor should be repaired by the hands of political prisoners."

"Not pleasant, but natural, Duke," said Mr. Sydney; "so long as there are principles, there must be men to suffer for them."

"Whose monument is this?" asked Featherstone; "I am all in the dark--tell me."

Geoffrey, who had been employed in the office of the Governor of the prison, and who had, on hearing this old monument was to be repaired, volunteered on behalf of the three others to do the work, now told the story of the old monument as he had learned it from the prison records which he had been transcribing.

"In the wars of the Great Napoleon," Geoffrey said, "the French prisoners captured by England were confined in hulks on the seacoast till the hulks overflowed. Then this prison was built, and filled with unfortunate Frenchmen. In 1812 the young Republic of America went to war with England, and hundreds of American captives were added to the Frenchmen. During the years of their confinement scores of these poor fellows died, and one day the Americans mutinied, and then other scores were shot down in the main yard. This field was the graveyard of those prisoners, and here the strangers slept for over half a century, till their bones were washed out of the hillside by the rain-storms. There happened to be in Dartmoor at that time a party of Irish rebels, and they asked permission to collect the bones and bury them securely. The Irishmen raised this cairn and obelisk to the Americans and Frenchmen, and now, after another hundred years, we are sent to repair their loving testimonial."

"It is an interesting story," said Featherstone.

"A sad story for old men," said the Duke.

"A brave story for boys," said Mr. Sydney; "I could lift this obelisk itself for sympathy."

They went on, working and chatting in low tones, till an exclamation from Sydney made them look up. Sydney was on top of the cairn, sc.r.a.ping the lichens from the obelisk. The moss was hard to cut, and had formed a crust, layer on layer, half an inch in thickness.

"What is it, my dear Sydney?" asked the Duke.

"An inscription!" cried Sydney, sc.r.a.ping away. "An inscription nearly a hundred years old. I have uncovered the year--see, 1867."

"Ay," said Geoffrey, "that was the year the Irish were here."

Featherstone had gone to Sydney's a.s.sistance, and with the aid of a sharp flint soon uncovered the whole inscription. It ran thus:

____________________________________________ | SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF THE | | | | FRENCH AND AMERICAN PRISONERS | | OF WAR, | | | | Who Died in Dartmoor Prison during the | | Years 1811-16. | | | | _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori._ | --------------------------------------------

Underneath were the words, "Erected 1867."

Very tender and true was the touch of nature that made these four prisoners, now looking at the ancient letters, akin with those who slept below, and with those who had so lovingly preserved their memory. The sudden uncovering of the inscription seemed to give a talismanic value to the words. The centuries cleared away like the mist from the moor, and the four Royalist prisoners saw the brave Americans carry their dead comrades to their English grave; they saw their set faces as they faced the armed guards and invited their own destruction; they saw the Frenchmen who had followed Napoleon from Egypt to Waterloo laid here by their younger fellows who still dreamt of future glory under their world-conquering Emperor. And when all this phastasma cleared away came another picture of the Celtic patriots raising the cairn and cutting the sweet old Roman words on the monolith.

"May they rest in peace!" said the old Duke, taking off his convict's cap.

"Amen!" said Sydney.

"How this day's work would have suited John Dacre," said Featherstone with a deep sigh; and the name brought tears to the eyes of the four prisoners, who went on with their labor in silence.