Making inquiries, Harry found that
his father was living at a house in the college of
Brazenose, and thither he made his way. Not a
little surprised was the trooper, who was on guard
before the door, to recognize his master’s son
in one of the two lads who, in the clothes of apprentices
shrunk with water and stained with mud and travel,
presented themselves before him. Harry ascended
at once to Sir Henry’s room, and the latter
was delighted to see him again, for he had often feared
that be had acted rashly in sending him to London.
Harry briefly told his adventures, and introduced
his friend Jacob to his father.
Sir Henry immediately sent for a clothier,
and Harry was again made presentable; while a suit
of serviceable clothes adapted to the position of
a young gentleman of moderate means was obtained for
Jacob. Then, accompanied by his son, Sir Henry
went to the king’s chambers, and informed his
majesty of all that had happened. As, from the
reports which had reached the king of the temper of
the people of London, he had but small hope that anything
would come of the attempt that was being made, he
felt but little disappointed at hearing of the sudden
return of his emissary. Harry was again asked
in, and his majesty in a few words expressed to him
his satisfaction at the zeal and prudence which he
had shown, and at his safe return to court.
On leaving the king Harry awaited
anxiously what his father would determine concerning
his future, and was delighted when Sir Henry said,
“It is now a year once these troubles began,
Harry, and you have so far embarked upon them, that
I fear you would find it difficult to return to your
studies. You have proved yourself possessed of
qualities which will enable you to make your way in
the world, and I therefore think the time has come
when you can take your place in the ranks. I shall
ask of the king a commission for you as captain in
my regiment, and as one of my officers has been killed
you will take his place, and will have the command
of a troop.”
Harry was delighted at this intimation;
and the following day received the king’s commission.
A few days afterward he had again
to ride over to Furness Hall, which was now shut up,
to collect some rents, and as he returned through
Abingdon he saw Lucy Rippinghall walking in the streets.
Rather proud of his attire as a young cavalier in
full arms, Harry dismounted and courteously saluted
her.
“I should hardly have known
you, Master Furness,” she said. “You
look so fierce in your iron harness, and so gay with
your plumes and ribands. My brother would be
glad to see you. My father as you know, is away.
Will you not come in for a few minutes?”
Harry, after a few moments’
hesitation, assented. Ha longed to see his old
friend, and as the latter was still residing at Abingdon,
while he himself had already made his mark in the
royal cause, he did not fear that any misconstruction
could be placed upon his visit to the Puritan’s
abode. Herbert received him with a glad smile
of welcome.
“Ah, Harry,” he said,
“so you have fairly taken to man’s estate.
Of course, I think you have done wrong; but we need
not argue on that now. I am glad indeed to see
you. Lucy,” he said, “let supper be
served at once.”
It was a pleasant meal, and the old
friends chatted of their schooldays and boyish pastimes,
no allusion being made to the events of the day, save
that Herbert said, “I suppose that you know that
my father is now a captain in the force of the Commons,
and that I am doing my best to keep his business going
during his absence.”
“I had heard as much,”
Harry answered. “It is a heavy weight to
be placed on your shoulders, Herbert.”
“Yes,” he said, “I
am growing learned in wools, and happily the business
is not falling off in my hands.”
It was characteristic of the civil
war in England that during the whole time of its existence
the affairs of the country went on as usual.
Business was conducted, life and property were safe,
and the laws were enforced just as before. The
judges went their circuits undisturbed by the turmoil
of the times, acting under the authority alike of the
Great Seals of the King and Parliament. Thus
evildoers were repressed, crime put down, and the
laws of the land administered just as usual, and as
if no hostile armies were marching and fighting on
the fair fields of England. In most countries
during such troubled times, all laws have been at
an end, bands of robbers and disbanded soldiers have
pillaged and ruined the country, person and property
alike have been unsafe, private broils and enmities
have broken forth, and each man has carried his life
in his hand. Thus, even in Abingdon, standing
as it did halfway between the stronghold of the crown
at Oxford, and the Parliament army at Reading, things
remained quiet and tranquil. Its fairs and markets
were held as usual, and the course of business went
on unchecked.
On his return to Oxford Harry learned
that the king, with a portion of the army, was to
set out at once for Gloucester, to compel that city,
which had declared for the Commons, to open its gates.
With a force of thirteen thousand men the king moved
upon Gloucester. When he arrived outside its
walls, on the 10th of August, he sent a summons to
the town to surrender, offering pardon to the inhabitants,
and demanding an answer within two hours. Clarendon
has described how the answer was returned. “Within
less than the time described, together with a trumpeter,
returned two citizens from the town with lean, pale,
sharp, and bad visages, indeed, faces so strange
and unusual, and in such a garb and posture, that
at once made the most severe countenances merry, and
the most cheerful heart sad, for it was impossible
such ambassadors could bring less than a defiance.
The men, without any circumstance of duty or good
manners, in a pert, shrill, undismayed accent, said
that they brought an answer from the godly city of
Gloucester to the king, and were so ready to give
insolent and seditious answers to any questions, as
if their business were chiefly to provoke the king
to violate his own safe-conduct.” The answers
which these strange messengers brought was that the
inhabitants and soldiers kept the city for the use
of his majesty, but conceived themselves “only
bound to obey the commands of his majesty signified
by both houses of Parliament.” Setting
fire to the houses outside their walls, the men of
Gloucester prepared for a resolute resistance.
The walls were strong and well defended, and the king
did not possess artillery sufficient to make breaches
therein, and dreading the great loss which an assault
upon the walls would inflict upon his army, he determined
to starve the city into submission. The inhabitants,
although reduced to sore straits, yet relying upon
assistance coming to them, held out, and their hopes
were not disappointed, as Essex, at the head of a
great army, was sent from London to relieve the place.
Upon his approach, the king and his councilors, deciding
that a battle could not be fought with advantage,
drew off from the town, and gave up the siege.
Both armies now moved in the direction
of London; but Prince Rupert, hearing that a small
body of Parliament horse were besieging the house
of Sir James Strangford, an adherent of the crown,
took with him fifty horse, and rode away to raise
the siege, being ever fond of dashing exploits in
the fashion of the knights of old. The body which
he chose to accompany him was the troop commanded
by Harry Furness, whose gayety of manner and lightness
of heart had rendered him a favorite with the prince.
The besieged house was situated near Hereford; and
at the end of a long day’s march Prince Rupert,
coming in sight of the Roundheads, charged them with
such fury that they were overthrown with scarce any
resistance, and fled in all directions. Having
effected his object, the prince now rode to Worcester,
where he slept, and thence by a long day’s march
to a village where he again halted for the night.
An hour after his arrival, a messenger
came in from Lady Sidmouth, the wife of Sir Henry
Sidmouth, asking him to ride over and take up his
abode for the night at her house. Bidding Harry
accompany him, the prince rode off, leaving the troop
under the charge of Harry’s lieutenant, Jacob,
who had proved himself an active soldier, and had
been appointed to that rank at Gloucester. The
house was a massive structure of the reign of Henry
VIII.; but being built at a time when the castellated
abodes were going out of fashion, was not capable of
standing a siege, and had not indeed been put in any
posture of defense. Sir Henry was with the king,
and only a few retainers remained in the house.
Prince Rupert was received at the entrance by Lady
Sidmouth, who had at her side her daughter, a girl
of fourteen, whom Harry thought the most beautiful
creature he had ever seen. The prince alighted,
and doffing his broad plumed hat, kissed the lady’s
hand, and conducted her into the house again, Harry
doing the same to her daughter.
“You must pardon a rough reception,”
the lady said to the prince. “Had I had
notice of your coming, I would have endeavored to receive
you in a manner more befitting; but hearing from one
of my retainers, who happened to be in the village
when you arrived, of your coming, I thought that the
accommodation poor as it is would
be better than that which you could obtain there.”
Prince Rupert replied gayly, and in
a few minutes they were seated at supper. The
conversation was lightly kept up, when suddenly a tremendous
crash was heard, shouts of alarm were raised, and a
retainer rushed into the hall, saying that the place
was attacked by a force of Roundheads.
“Defense is hopeless,”
the lady said, as Prince Rupert and Harry drew their
swords. “There are but five or six old men
here, and the door appears to be already yielding.
There is a secret chamber here where you can defy
their search.”
Prince Rupert, dreading above all
things to be taken prisoner, and seeing that resistance
would be, as their hostess said, vain, followed her
into an adjoining room hung with arras. Lifting
this, she showed a large stone. Beneath it, on
the floor was a tile, in no way differing from the
others. She pressed it, and the stone, which was
but slight, turned on a hinge, and disclosed an iron
door. This she opened with a spring, showing
a small room within, with a ladder leading to another
above.
“Mount that,” she said.
“You will find in the chamber above a large
stone. Pull the ladder up with you and lower the
stone, which exactly fits into the opening. Even
should they discover this chamber, they will not suspect
that another lies above it.”
Prince Rupert, taking a light from
her hands, hastily mounted, followed by Harry, and
pulled the steps after him, just as they heard the
iron door close. It needed the united strength
of the prince and Harry to lift the stone, which was
a large one, with an iron ring in the center, and
to place it in the cavity. Having done this, they
looked round. The room was about eight feet long
by six wide, and lighted by a long narrow loophole
extending from the ground to the roof. They deemed
from its appearance that it was built in one of the
turrets of the building.
“That was a narrow escape, Master
Harry,” the prince said. “It would
have been right bad news for my royal uncle if I had
been caught here like a rat in a trap. I wonder
we heard nothing of a Roundhead force in this neighborhood.
I suppose that they must have been stationed at some
place further north, and that the news of our passing
reached them. I trust that they have no suspicion
that we are in the house; but I fear, from this sudden
attack upon an undefended building, that some spy from
the village must have taken word to them.”
Lady Sidmouth had just time to return
to the hall when the doors gave way, and a body of
Roundheads burst into the room. They had drawn
swords in their hands, and evidently expected an attack.
They looked round with surprise at seeing only Lady
Sidmouth and her daughter.
“Where is the malignant Rupert?”
the leader exclaimed. “We have sure news
that he rode, attended by an officer only, hither,
and that he was seen to enter your house.”
“If you want Prince Rupert,
you must find him,” the lady said calmly.
“I say not that he has not been here; but I tell
you that he is now beyond your reach.”
“He has not escaped,”
the officer said, “for the house is surrounded.
Now, madam, I insist upon your telling me where you
have hidden him.”
“I have already told you, sir,
that he is beyond your reach, and nothing that you
can do will wring any further explanation from me.”
The officer hesitated. For a
moment he advanced a step toward her, with a menacing
gesture. But, heated as the passions of men were,
no violence was done to women, and with a fierce exclamation
he ordered his troopers to search the house.
For a quarter of an hour they ransacked it high and
low, overturned every article of furniture, pulling
down the arras, and tapping the walls with the hilts
of their swords.
“Take these two ladies away,”
he said to his lieutenant, “and ride with them
at once to Storton. They will have to answer for
having harbored the prince.”
The ladies were immediately taken
off, placed on pillions behind two troopers, and carried
away to Storton. In the meantime the search went
on, and presently the hollow sound given by the slab
in the wall was noticed. The spring could not
be discovered, but crowbars and hammers being brought,
the slab of stone was presently shivered. The
discovery of the iron door behind it further heightened
their suspicion that the place of concealment was
found. The door, after a prolonged resistance,
was battered in. But the Roundheads were filled
with fury, on entering, to discover only a small,
bare cell, with no signs of occupation whatever.
The search was now prolonged in other directions; but,
becoming convinced that it was useless, and that the
place of concealment was too cunningly devised to
admit of discovery, the captain ordered the furniture
to be piled together, and setting light to it and
the arras in several places, withdrew his men from
the house, saying that if a rat would not come out
of his hole, he must be smoked in it.
The prince and Harry from their place
of concealment had heard the sound of blows against
the doors below.
“They have found the way we
have gone,” the prince said, “but I think
not that their scent is keen enough to trace us up
here. If they do so, we will sell our lives dearly,
for I will not be taken prisoner, and sooner or later
our troop will hear of the Roundheads’ attack,
and will come to our rescue.”
They heard the fall of the iron door,
and the exclamations and cries with which the Roundheads
broke into the room below. Then faintly they
heard the sound of voices, and muffled knocks, as they
tried the walls. Then all was silent again.
“The hounds are thrown off the
scent,” the prince said. “It will
need a clever huntsman to put them on it. What
will they do next, I wonder?”
Some time passed, and then Harry exclaimed:
“I perceive a smell of something burning, your
royal highness.”
“Peste! methinks I do also,”
the prince said. “I had not thought of
that. If these rascals have set fire to the place
we shall be roasted alive here.”
A slight wreath of smoke was seen
curling up through the crevice of the tightly-fitting
stone.
“We will leap out, and die sword
in hand,” the prince said; and seizing the ring,
he and Harry pulled at it. Ere they raised the
stone an inch, a volume of dense smoke poured up,
and they at once dropped it into its place again,
feeling that their retreat was cut off. The prince
put his sword in its scabbard.
“We must die, my lad,”
he said. “A strange death, too, to be roasted
in a trap. But after all, whether by that or
the thrust of a Roundhead sword makes little difference
in the end. I would fain have fallen in the field,
though.”
“Perhaps,” Harry suggested,
“the fire may not reach us here. The walls
are very thick, and the chamber below is empty.”
The prince shook his head.
“The heat of the fire in a house
like this will crack stone walls,” he said.
He then took off his cloak and threw
it over the stone, dressing it down tightly to prevent
the smoke from curling in. Through the loophole
they could now hear a roar, and crackling sounds,
and a sudden glow lit up the country.
“The flames are bursting through
the windows,” Harry said. “They will
bring our troop down ere long.”
“The troop will do us no good,”
Prince Rupert replied. “All the king’s
army could not rescue us. But at least it would
be a satisfaction before we die to see these crop-eared
knaves defeated.”
Minute after minute passed, and a
broad glare of light illumined the whole country round.
Through the slit they could see the Roundheads keeping
guard round the house in readiness to cut off any one
who might seek to make his escape, while at a short
distance off they had drawn up the main body of the
force. Presently, coming along the road at a rapid
trot, they saw a body of horse.
“There are our men,” the prince exclaimed.
The Roundheads had seen them too.
A trumpet was sounded, and the men on guard round
the house leaped to their horses, and joined the main
body, just as the Cavaliers charged upon them.
The Roundheads fought stoutly; but the charge of the
Cavaliers was irresistible. Furious at the sight
of the house in flames, and ignorant of the fate which
had befallen their prince and their master’s
son, they burst upon the Roundheads with a force which
the latter were unable to withstand. For four
or five minutes the fight continued, and then such
of the Roundheads as were able clapped spurs to their
horses and galloped off, hotly pursued by the Cavaliers.
The pursuit was a short one. Several of the Cavaliers
were gathered at the spot where the conflict had taken
place, and were, apparently, questioning a wounded
man. Then the trumpeter who was with them sounded
the recall, and in a few minutes the Royalist troops
came riding back. They could see Jacob pointing
to the burning building and gesticulating with his
arms. Then a party dashed up to the house, and
were lost to sight.
The prince and Harry both shouted
at the top of their voices, but the roar of the flames
and the crash of falling beams deadened the sound.
The heat had by this time become intense. They
had gradually divested themselves of their clothing,
and were bathed in perspiration.
“This heat is terrific,”
Prince Rupert said. “I did not think the
human frame could stand so great a heat. Methinks
that water would boil were it placed here.”
This was indeed the case the
human frame, as is now well known, being capable of
sustaining a heat considerably above that of boiling
water. The walls were now so hot that the hand
could not be borne upon them for an instant.
“My feet are burning!”
the prince exclaimed, “Reach down that ladder
from the wall.”
They laid the ladder on the ground
and stood upon it, thus avoiding any contact with
the hot stone.
“If this goes on,” Prince
Rupert said, with a laugh; “there will be nothing
but our swords left. We are melting away fast,
like candles before a fire. Truly I do not think
that there was so much water in a man as has floated
down from me during the last half-hour.”
Harry was so placed that he could
command a sight through the loophole, and he exclaimed,
“They are riding away!”
This was indeed the case. The
whole building was now one vast furnace, and having
from the first no hope that their friends, if there,
could have survived, they had, hearing that Lady Sidmouth
and her daughter had been taken to Storton, determined
to ride thither to take them from the hands of the
Roundheads, and to learn from them the fate of their
leaders.
Another two hours passed. The
heat was still tremendous, but they could not feel
that it was increasing. Once or twice they heard
terrific crashes, as portions of the wall fell.
They would long since have been roasted, were it not
for the cool air which flowed in through the long
loophole, and keeping up a circulation in the chamber,
lowered the temperature of the air within it.
At the end of the two hours Harry gave a shout.
“They are coming back.”
The light had now sunk to a quiet
red glow, so that beyond the fact that a party was
approaching, nothing could be seen. They rode,
however, directly toward the turret, and then, when
they halted, Harry saw the figures of two ladies who
were pointing toward the loophole. Harry now
stepped from the ladder on to the door and shouted
at the top of his voice through the loophole.
The reply came back in a joyous shout.
“We are being roasted alive,”
Harry cried. “Get ladders as quickly as
possible, with crowbars, and break down the wall.”
Men were seen to ride off in several
directions instantly, and for the first time a ray
of hope illumined, the minds of the prince and Harry
that they might be saved. Half an hour later long
ladders tied together were placed against the wall,
and Jacob speedily made his appearance at the loophole.
“All access is impossible from
the other side,” he said, “for the place
where the house stood is a red-hot furnace, Most of
the walls have fallen. We had no hope of finding
you alive.”
“We are roasting slowly,”
Harry cried. “In Heaven’s name bring
us some water.”
Soon a bottle of water was passed
in through the loophole, and then three or four ladders
being placed in position, the men outside began with
crowbars and pickaxes to enlarge the loophole sufficiently
for the prisoners to escape. It took three hours’
hard work, at the end of which time the aperture was
sufficiently wide to allow them to emerge, and utterly
exhausted and feeling, as the prince said, “baked
to a turn,” they made their way down the ladder,
being helped on either side by the men, for they themselves
were too exhausted to maintain their feet.