Woodstock; or, the Cavalier by Walter Scott (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📖

trapdoors and hatchways, panels and portcullises. Although Oliver was assisted by a sort of ground-plan, made out and transmitted by Joseph Tomkins, whose former employment in Dr. Rochecliffe’s service had made him fully acquainted with the place, it was found imperfect; and, moreover, the most serious obstacles to their progress occurred in the shape of strong doors, party-walls, and iron-grates—so that the party blundered on in the dark, uncertain whether they were not going farther from, rather than approaching, the extremity of the labyrinth. They were obliged to send for mechanics, with sledge-hammers and other instruments, to force one or two of those doors, which resisted all other means of undoing them. Labouring along in these dusky passages, where, from time to time, they were like to be choked by the dust which their acts of violence excited, the soldiers were obliged to be relieved oftener than once, and the bulky Corporal Grace-be-here himself puffed and blew like a grampus that has got into shoal water. Cromwell alone continued, with unabated zeal, to push on his researches—to encourage the soldiers, by the exhortations which they best understood, against fainting for lack of faith—and to secure, by sentinels at proper places, possession of the ground which they had already explored. His acute and observing eye detected, with a sneering smile, the cordage and machinery by which the bed of poor Desborough had been inverted, and several remains of the various disguises, as well as private modes of access, by which Desborough, Bletson, and Harrison, had been previously imposed upon. He pointed them out to Pearson, with no farther comment than was implied in the exclamation, “The simple fools!”

But his assistants began to lose heart and be discouraged, and required all his spirit to raise theirs. He then called their attention to voices which they seemed to hear before them, and urged these as evidence that they were moving on the track of some enemy of the Commonwealth, who, for the execution of his malignant plots, had retreated into these extraordinary fastnesses.

The spirits of the men became at last downcast, notwithstanding all this encouragement. They spoke to each other in whispers, of the devils of Woodstock, who might be all the while decoying them forward to a room said to exist in the Palace, where the floor, revolving on an axis, precipitated those who entered into a bottomless abyss. Humgudgeon hinted, that he had consulted the Scripture that morning by way of lot, and his fortune had been to alight on the passage, “Eutychus fell down from the third loft.” The energy and authority of Cromwell, however, and the refreshment of some food and strong waters, reconciled them to pursuing their task.

Nevertheless, with all their unwearied exertions, morning dawned on the search before they had reached Dr. Rochecliffe’s sitting apartment, into which, after all, they obtained entrance by a mode much more difficult than that which the Doctor himself employed. But here their ingenuity was long at fault. From the miscellaneous articles that were strewed around, and the preparations made for food and lodging, it seemed they had gained the very citadel of the labyrinth; but though various passages opened from it, they all terminated in places with which they were already acquainted, or communicated with the other parts of the house, where their own sentinels assured them none had passed. Cromwell remained long in deep uncertainty. Meantime he directed Pearson to take charge of the ciphers, and more important papers which lay on the table. “Though there is little there,” he said, “that I have not already known, by means of Trusty Tomkins—Honest Joseph—for an artful and thorough-paced agent, the like of thee is not left in England.”

After a considerable pause, during which he sounded with the pommel of his sword almost every stone in the building, and every plank on the floor, the General gave orders to bring the old knight and Dr. Rochecliffe to the spot, trusting that he might work out of them some explanation of the secrets of this apartment.

“So please your Excellency, to let me deal with him,” said Pearson, who was a true soldier of fortune, and had been a buccaneer in the West Indies, “I think that, by a whipcord twitched tight round their forehead, and twisted about with a pistol-but, I could make either the truth start from their lips, or the eyes from their head.”

“Out upon thee, Pearson!” said Cromwell, with abhorrence; “we have no warrant for such cruelty, neither as Englishmen nor Christians. We may slay malignants as we crush noxious animals, but to torture them is a deadly sin; for it is written, ‘He made them to be pitied of those who carried them captive.’ Nay, I recall the order even for their examination, trusting that wisdom will be granted us without it, to discover their most secret devices.”

There was a pause accordingly, during which an idea seized upon Cromwell’s imagination—“Bring me hither,” he said, “yonder stool;” and placing it beneath one of the windows, of which there were two so high in the wall as not to be accessible from the floor, he clambered up into the entrance of the window, which was six or seven feet deep, corresponding with the thickness of the wall. “Come up hither, Pearson,” said the General; “but ere thou comest, double the guard at the foot of the turret called Love’s Ladder, and bid them bring up the other petard—So now, come thou hither.”

The inferior officer, however brave in the field, was one of those whom a great height strikes with giddiness and sickness. He shrunk back from the view of the precipice, on the verge of which Cromwell was standing with complete indifference, till the General, catching the hand of his follower, pulled him forward as far as he would advance. “I think,” said the General, “I have found the clew, but by this light it is no easy one! See you, we stand in the portal near the top of Rosamond’s Tower; and yon turret, which rises opposite to our feet, is that which is called Love’s Ladder, from which the drawbridge reached that admitted the profligate Norman tyrant to the bower of his mistress.”

“True, my lord, but the drawbridge is gone,” said Pearson.

“Ay, Pearson,” replied the General; “but an active man might spring from the spot we stand upon to the battlements of yonder turret.”

“I do not think so, my lord,” said Pearson.

“What?” said Cromwell; “not if the avenger of blood were behind you, with his slaughter-weapon in his hand?”

“The fear of instant death might do much,” answered Pearson; “but when I look at that sheer depth on either side, and at the empty chasm between us and yonder turret, which is, I warrant you, twelve feet distant, I confess the truth, nothing short of the most imminent danger should induce me to try. Pah—the thought makes my head grow giddy!—I tremble to see your Highness stand there, balancing yourself as if you meditated a spring into the empty air. I repeat, I would scarce stand so near the verge as does your Highness, for the rescue of my life.”

“Ah, base and degenerate spirit!” said the General; “soul of mud and clay, wouldst thou not do it, and much more, for the possession of empire!—that is, peradventure,” continued he, changing his tone as one who has said too much, “shouldst thou be called on to do this, that thereby becoming a great man in the tribes of Israel, thou mightest redeem the captivity of Jerusalem—ay, and it may be, work some great work for the afflicted people of this land?”

“Your Highness may feel such calls,” said the officer; “but they are not for poor Gilbert Pearson, your faithful follower. You made a jest of me yesterday, when I tried to speak your language; and I am no more able to fulfil your designs than to use your mode of speech.”

“But, Pearson,” said Cromwell, “thou hast thrice, yea, four times, called me your Highness.”

“Did I, my lord? I was not sensible of it. I crave your pardon,” said the officer.

“Nay,” said Oliver, “there was no offence. I do indeed stand high, and I may perchance stand higher—though, alas, it were fitter for a simple soul like me to return to my plough and my husbandry. Nevertheless, I will not wrestle against the Supreme will, should I be called on to do yet more in that worthy cause. For surely he who hath been to our British Israel as a shield of help, and a sword of excellency, making her enemies be found liars unto her, will not give over the flock to those foolish shepherds of Westminster, who shear the sheep and feed them not, and who are in very deed hirelings, not shepherds.”

“I trust to see your lordship quoit them all down stairs,” answered Pearson. “But may I ask why we pursue this discourse even now, until we have secured the common enemy?”

“I will tarry no jot of time,” said the General; “fence the communication of Love’s Ladder, as it is called, below, as I take it for almost certain, that the party whom we have driven from fastness to fastness during the night, has at length sprung to the top of yonder battlements from the place where we now stand. Finding the turret is guarded below, the place he has chosen for his security will prove a rat-trap, from whence there is no returning.”

“There is a cask of gunpowder in this cabinet,” said Pearson; “were it not better, my lord, to mine the tower, if he will not render himself, and send the whole turret with its contents one hundred feet in the air?”

“Ah, silly man,” said Cromwell, striking him familiarly on the shoulder; “if thou hadst done this without telling me, it had been good service. But we will first summon the turret, and then think whether the petard will serve our turn—it is but mining at last.—Blow a summons there, down below.”

The trumpets rang at his bidding, till the old walls echoed from every recess and vaulted archway. Cromwell, as if he cared not to look upon the person whom he expected to appear, drew back, like a necromancer afraid of the spectre which he has evoked.

“He has come to the battlement,” said Pearson to his General.

“In what dress or appearance?” answered Cromwell, from within the chamber.

“A grey riding-suit, passmented with silver, russet walking-boots, a cut band, a grey hat and plume, black hair.”

“It is he, it is he!” said Cromwell; “and another crowning mercy is vouchsafed!”

Meantime, Pearson and young Lee exchanged defiance from their respective posts.

“Surrender,” said the former, “or we blow you up in your fastness.”

“I am come of too high a race to surrender to rebels,” said Albert, assuming the air with which, in such a condition, a king might have spoken. “I bear you to witness,” cried Cromwell, exultingly, “he hath refused quarter. Of a surety, his blood be on his head.—One of you bring down the barrel of powder. As he loves to soar high, we will add what can be taken from the soldiers’ bandoliers.—Come with me, Pearson; thou understandest this gear.—Corporal Grace-be-here, stand thou fast on the platform of the window where Captain Pearson and I stood but even now, and bend the point of thy partisan against any who shall attempt to pass. Thou art as strong as a bull; and I will back thee against despair itself.”

“But,” said the corporal, mounting reluctantly, “the place is as the pinnacle of the Temple; and it is written, that Eutychus fell down from the third loft and was taken up dead.”

“Because he slept upon his post,” answered Cromwell readily. “Beware thou of carelessness, and thus thy feet shall be kept from stumbling.— You four soldiers, remain here to support the corporal, if it be necessary; and you, as well as the corporal, will draw into the vaulted passage the minute the trumpets sound a retreat. It is as strong as a casemate, and you may lie there safe from the effects of the mine. Thou, Zerubbabel Robins, I know wilt be their lance-prisade.”[1]

[1] “Lance-prisade,” or “lance-brisade,” a private appointed to a small command—a sort of temporary corporal.

Robins bowed, and the General departed to join those who were without.

As he reached the door of the hall, the petard was heard to explode, and he saw that it had succeeded; for the soldiers rushed, brandishing their swords and pistols, in at the postern of the turret, whose gate had been successfully forced. A thrill of exultation, but not unmingled with horror shot across the veins of the ambitious soldier.

“Now—now!” he cried; “they are dealing with him!”

His expectations were deceived. Pearson and the others returned disappointed, and reported they had been stopt by a strong trap-door of grated iron, extended over the narrow stair; and they could see there was an