# The Red Desolation

Extracted from Appleton's magazine, v.10 1907, pp. 110-119. Accompanying illustrations by Arthur Becher may be omitted. [# Merry Rockhurst]
THE RED DESOLATION
BEING THE LAST ADVENTURE OF VISCOUNT ROCKHURST, LORD CONSTABLE OF THE TOWER, SOMETIME FRIEND OF CHARLES II. AND NICKNAMED BY HIS MAJESTY "MERRY ROCKHURST"
By AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE Authors of "Incomparable Bellairs," "Rose of the world," "If Youth but Knew," etc.
I HAVE seen many terrible sights in my life, Master Chitterley, none so terrible this."
Thus old Martin Bracy, Sergeant Yeoman of the Tower of London. His companion flung up trembling hands for all response. As old as the sergeant, whose head had grown white in the king's service at home and abroad, but of less solid mettle, years had stricken him harder, and he had little breath to spare after his grievous ascent to the platform of the Beauchamp Tower. And, as the two now stood, side by side, looking down from the great height over the stricken city—the Lord Rockhurst's sergeant and his lifelong body servant—they might have served as types, one of green old age, the other of wintry senility.
The scene outspread below them was indeed such as to strike awe to the stoutest heart. It was the 5th of September, third day of the great fire; and nothing, it seemed, was like to arrest the spread of the red desolation until it had embraced the whole town. Under a canopy of black smoke, like some monster of nightmare, the fire crouched, spread, uncoiled itself; now it clapped ragged win of flame high into the sky, now grasped unexpected quarters as with a stealthily outreached claw. The wind ran lightly from the east, so that, in cruel contrast, the sky was fair blue over their heads.
"If hell itself had broken open," said Martin Bracy, "and were vomiting yonder, methinks it would scarce show us a more affrighting picture. Often these days, Master Chitterley, I have taken to minding me of the Cropheads' sayings: 'First the scourge of plague and thereafter (that is now) the scourge of fire!'"
Chitterley nodded his palsied head; his faded eyes looked out on the vision, that so impressed the soldier, with scarce a flicker of comprehension.
The sergeant's gaze was still roaming out to where the great heart of the city throbbed in agony. A dull explosion had rent the air; a belching column of while smoke, fringed with black, sprang up at the extremity of the fiery picture. The sergeant moved to the corner of the parapet to peer forth. "See yonder—our lads at work! Blowing up houses ahead of the fire. Aye, truly, Master Chitterley, I would his lordship had let me take the mining party to-day. But one would think—in all respect—there was a very devil in him since this outbreak began. 'Tis ever to the hottest, and the men must after him, though the flames be as greedy as hell's. And 'tis hard on a soldier," added the old sergeant with a philosophic sigh, "to be driven to burn before his time."
The other's clouded perception caught but the hint of danger to a beloved master.
"His lordship?" he cried, "and whither went he to-day, sergeant?"
"To Bishopsgate. See, where I point; where 'tis like looking upon a pit of fire."
Chitterley curved his withered hands over his eyes and strove to fix them in the direction indicated.
"God save him," he muttered.
"Amen!" echoed Bracy earnestly. "For he carries those white hairs of his whither he would scarce have ventured his raven locks. 'Tis beyond all reason. Aye, and Master Harry with him."
"My lord—Master Harry—" repeated Chitterley dreamily. "Do not mock me, sergeant, but there be days now when I scarce know them apart—remembering—or rather——"
"Aye, aye," interrupted the soldier, good-humored, yet impatient of the other's maundering, "I catch your meaning. Young Master Harry has grown marvelous quick a man these troublous times. 'Tis now his gallant father all over again as you and I knew him. And my Lord Constable is changed—damnably changed. An old man in one year! 'Tis the mind, Master Chitterley."
He tapped his forehead with the pipe which he had drawn from his pocket, nodded his head, and thereafter puffed a while in deep and sagacious meditation.
"Ah, it is trouble changes a man," pursued he presently. "And in sooth, poor soul," muttered he under his breath, "who should prove it better than yourself, who have been a doddering poor wight ever since yon fearful morning when Master Harry was like to die of his reopened wound and my lord to go mad—and plague in the very house? Aye, aye"—his voice waxed loud again—"'twas then the Lord Constable's hair began to turn white." He gave a little laugh, his teeth clinched on the pipe. "I was on guard, man, the day his Majesty returned to the city, and I was present at the first meeting between him and the Lord Constable. His Majesty did not know him!"
Chitterley turned troubled eyes upon him,
"His Majesty hath ever had great love for my lord," he protested,
"He did not know him," repeated Sergeant Bracy, scanning his word. "I was as near his Majesty as I am to you. 'What,' says the king, staring, 'this is never my Merry Rockhurst?' 'Always your Majesty's devoted servant,' said my lord, bowing that white head, 'but your Merry Rockhurst, never again.' 'Oh, damn!' says his Majesty. Ho, ho, ho! I heard him with these ears!"
There was no smile on old Chitterley's lips. It was a question whether he followed his more sturdy comrade's gossip or whether, in the dimness of his mind, he was only aware of the pity of many things. Bracy tapped him on the arm:
"A word in your ear, Master Chitterley. They say a lady was lost in the plague days, none knowing where or how she died. Is it true?"
Chitterley drew back and flung a cunning glance at the genial, inquisitive countenance. Old? None so old yet, or so foolish, that he would betray his master's secret.
"Aye, the plague! the plague!" he mumbled. "As you say, good sergeant, those were terrible times."
"Sho!" said the sergeant, knocked the ashes out of his pipe with an irritable tap, and turned his keen blue eyes out once more to the red westward glare. Even at that instant there rose from the gateway tower the blare of a trumpet, the roll of drums. The sounds caught up and repeated from different quarters. "God be praised!" said he, "'tis the party home again from the work!"
The Lord Constable halted on the first platform and flung from his head the hat with the singed plumes. His son looked at him in anxiety; he felt his father's hand press ever more heavily on his shoulder.
"A cup of wine for his lordship, and speedily," cried he.
Rockhurst staggered slightly and sank down upon a stone bench, then looked up at his son and smiled.
"But a passing giddiness—all thanks, good lad!" As he spoke the smile was succeeded by a heavy sigh. "'Tis as if the patience of God were worn out," he went on, as though speaking to himself, after a while, during which he had gazed wistfully at the distant conflagration. "Well for those who can say in their heart that no sin of theirs has cried aloud for vengeance!"
Harry Rockhurst took the cup from Chitterley's hands. "Drink, my lord," said he, "You need it. Human strength will not bear more of the work you have done to-day."
But ere he lifted the wine to his lips, his eye having fallen on Chitterley, Rockhurst beckoned him to his side. Full of secret importance the old servant hurried forward; and, sighing in his turn, Harry drew back.
"Didst go where I bade thee?" whispered the Lord Constable.
"Aye, my lord."
"No news?"
"No news, no news!"
Rockhurst fell into brooding, his gaze lost in the red of the wine. Rousing himself at last, he drank wearily, handed the empty cup to Chitterley, and, with a wave of the hand, dismissed him. Then he sat a while longer yet, watching his son. There were those who said my Lord Rockhurst's eyes could look at naught else, when his heir was by him. After a spell he rose and placed his hand on the young man's shoulder. The two looked affectionately into each other's eyes; sad men both, and deadly worn this evening hour after the fierce work of the day.
"Harry, it comes to me that not many days will be given us of company together."
"How, my lord, would you wish me from you again?"
"Nay—this time, Harry, 'twill be thy father that leaves thee."
The other started. Look and tone left no doubt of the meaning of the words.
"Ah, father," he cried with the irritability born of keen anxiety, "if you would but listen to me! Indeed you expose yourself unduly—"
"When death threatens from without, a man may smile at it; but when death knocks from within, Harry, thrice fool who does not hearken."
"Sir, you alarm me." Harry's voice shook. "Oh, I have been blind! These white hairs, this altered demeanor—they are signs of suffering—some hidden sickness?"
"Even so, lad. Sickness incurable! A secret pain that gives no rest, night nor day. Nay, nay, Harry, no physician can avail."
"Ah!" exclaimed the son in bitter accents, "now I understand much. 'Tis for physician or remedy that Chitterley journeys forth daily in such mystery. Methinks, my lord, that I might have proved as true to help, as wise to counsel as yonder old man. But it has always been your pleasure to treat me as a child."
Rockhurst fixed deep eyes of melancholy on the young man.
"My illness is not of the body, Harry, but of the mind. Yet the canker worketh, never ceasing, eateth from soul to flesh."
"You speak in riddles, sir."
"Alas! you shall read me my riddle soon enough. Hast ever heard (thou canst never have known it) of that sickness called—remorse? 'Tis uglier than the pestilence!"
At the look of sudden fear his son cast upon him the Lord Constable laughed—a laugh more sad than tears.
"Sit you down with me, Harry, and listen; for I have much to tell you, and it is borne in upon me that it must be told now."
The young man obeyed in silence; and for a moment or two neither spoke. The western sky before them had become an image of flaming immensity, almost beyond the power of realization. The glow of the sunset mingled with the glow of the fire and painted the volutes of smoke massed on the horizon with every shade of fierce magnificence and lurid threat.
"'Twould seem as if the whole town were doomed," muttered Rockhurst at last.
"The powers of hell let loose upon us," said his son gloomily.
"Say, rather, my son, the wrath of God! Look at me, lad! The last time, perchance, that you will look upon your father's face with love and reverence."
Words froze on the young man's lips. The Lord Constable folded his arms; his voice grew stern, ironic:
"You believe me—do you not?—a sober, godly gentleman, as true to his duty as Christian as he has been to his king as subject——"
"Indeed, my lord, I know you as such," quickly interrupted Harry, in deep offense.
"Aye, Harry, aye," laughed Rockhurst, "I had but one part to act toward thee, and it seems I did it well. I never let thee know but the father in me; the stern yet loving father." His voice suddenly broke on a note of tenderness. "Nay, never doubt that, whatever else you may come to doubt: I loved you well. You were my delight. My son, you've had a sore heart against me many a time for that I treated you, in sooth, as a child, kept you far from me, in the country; that I so sternly forbade you the town and the life of the court. Even now you have the plaint that you are excluded from my counsel. Well, such as I planned, I have made thee. Where I have failed in life, thou art strong. Thou hast kept thy manhood pure and clean, where thy father rioted, wasted——"
"Gracious heavens! my lord! What words are these?"
"Ah, 'tis not the sound man that praises the glory of health, but the sick. Not the sober Christian sees the full radiance of the jewel of purity, but the libertine. Ah—I never let thee guess that here, in this town, now dissolving in fire, I had won me the name of Rakehell Rockhurst."
With paling cheek and a starting eye, the son had listened. Now he winced as if his father had struck him,
"Rakehell Rockhurst—Rakehell! And I smote Lionel Ratcliffe on the mouth for daring to couple the name to yours—!" Then, on a fierce revulsion of feeling, he caught the pale hand close to him and kissed it passionately. "Wherefore tell me this? Father, as I have ever known you, so must I ever love and honor you."
"The Rakehell—" repeated the Lord Constable; and once more, out of the very pain of his avowal, came harshness into his tone "—that was my name, in men's mouths. His Majesty had another, a kinder one for me; he called me in jest his Merry Rockhurst. You have been reared in ripe veneration of the king's grace; yet, had you known life by my side (as once you yearned), you would have learned that the one name and the other meant, at Whitehall, the same thing. Rakehell—aye, I may have had black perdition in my heart many a time; yet believe this, Harry, that when, like Lucifer, I fell, I sinned, like Lucifer, with pride, arrogance, recklessness, what you will—never with baseness. Merry, my good liege called me. To find me so mad, yet see me wear so grave a face, it gave him a spur to laughter. Merry? Nay; he loved me, in chief, because in his sad heart he knew mine. Both sad hearts, sickened of life. Forever striving to find a blossom in the dust, a jest in the weary round, to taste of a fruit that was not ashes on the tongue. And there you have the secret of my life and his. Then came Diana."
"Ah, hush, my lord!" Harry rose from his seat, in violent agitation, and stood a second, pressing his hands against his breast. "With me, you know, wounds heal slowly," he went on, striving to speak calmly, "Do not touch upon that hurt, lest the bleeding begin afresh."
The father rose too, followed his son to the parapet, and again laying a hand upon his shoulder, compelled his attention. The splendor of the sunset pageant had faded, and with it all beauty from the sky. Only the glow, the gloom, the belching smoke remained.
"I knew her ere ever you did," said the Lord Constable, his eye fixed as upon an inner vision, fair and fresh and pure. "Aye, you never knew it. She spoke not of it again, nor did I: for you had come between us. She entered into my life one winter's night; and across the snow I set her again on her sheltered way, knowing what I was—and seeing what she was. But from the instant of our parting ('twas all in the snow, lad, and above us a sky of stars: scarce I touched her hand, not a word exchanged but a God be wi' ye)—from that instant she was never from my thoughts—she, the might-have-been, the one woman for me! Aye, you stare, your grave father! Your old father! I was a strong man, then, and life ran potent in my veins. Dost remember how I met her again, in the peacock walk at home, and you prating of your love for her, with beardless lip?"
"O father, father, father!" cried the poor lad. "For God's sake! You are all I have left!"
"Hush, look on these white hairs, sign among so many that life has done with me—nay, I know full well I am not old in years, scarce double thine own: but the vital spring is dying. Listen, Harry, you are a man; I have a trust to lay upon you. Since that terrible dawn, when, crying out 'Diana's dead!' you fell, bleeding of your old wound, into swoon upon swoon, and thereafter into mortal sickness, you know her name has never passed your lips nor mine. It was better in sooth you should believe her dead."
The young man caught at the parapet behind him for support; and the sweat broke on the father's brow, as he looked at him. There was a tense silence; then, fiercely, Harry Rockhurst said:
"Now, my lord, you must speak!"
The moment of agony had passed for Rockhurst. Already it seemed to him the things of life were receding so quickly that he looked on them from afar. Passion had gone from his voice as he spoke; only a mighty sadness was left.
"It was even to speak, Harry, that I kept thee by me here. Know then that until the night of Lady Chillingburgh's death—the night which found Diana without a shelter—in my daily intercourse with your promised bride, the father was ever stronger in me than the man. Aye, and when her brother fled from the plague-stricken house and there was none but me to protect her (for her kinsman Lionel was, as thou hast good cause to know, my poor wounded boy, no guardian for thy bride) 'twas as a father I cared for her all through the livelong night as we wandered, vainly seeking a refuge. I brought her at length to my house, and went forth to seek the means of conveying her home. That was even the very morning of your arrival. Alack, nor horse nor man could fugitive then find in the waste of the doomed city! I came back to her. Oh, my son, before you judge me, remember: men knew not what they did those terrible days. Question any who passed through them. Staid citizens became drunken reprobates, graybeards rioted horribly with the madness of youth, priests denied their God——"
"But Diana, Diana——"
"Aye, Diana! I deemed Fate itself had given her to me. The madness of the horror about me had turned my brain. Madness of my love for her, of my long self-denial! I would have wedded her, even that hour. But she—she had yielded her troth to thee. To thy father she gave her scorn! At that most cursed moment thy voice rose from the street—my son whom I deemed far away, in the heart of the country! I would have killed her rather than yield her. Remember I was mad. I thrust her from thy sight into an inner room. Ah, God, in that room!"
"In that room?"
"The plague lay in wait for her."
"The plague—"
"Unknown to me one lay there, a woman who had crept in, sick—to die!"
Harry gave a deep groan, covered his face with his hands, and fell upon the bench:
"Whilst I lay, raving, did she die of the plague, there, there, in your room? O my Diana!"
"My son, I know not. When I sought for her she was gone, vanished. The window was opened into the garden. The woman lay dead upon the bed."
Harry sprang to his feet, clapped his hands together in a sudden agony of joy, more dreadful at that moment than all his sorrow to the father's eyes.
"She escaped? She may be living yet! There is mercy in heaven!"
"No mercy for such as I—nor for thee, being my son. For my moment's madness, what retribution! Harry, this whole long year I have looked for her, night and day. There is not a corner of the town we have not scoured, old Chitterley and myself. Aye, that was the mystery you fretted not to share!"
Harry looked at his father speechlessly, with fierce dry eyes.
"Alas!" Rockhurst went on stonily, "she must even be dead, stricken by the contagion—fallen at the street corner perchance, swept into the common pit as so many others! And yet, if she were not dead— There is not a burning house I pass but I fear she may be in the flames. Food is as ashes, drink as gall upon my tongue. And now, with the presage of death upon me, I lay the hideous burden upon thee, my son, my innocent son."
He stretched his hand to his son. But, drawing back, the latter turned the red glance of hatred upon him:
"And you let me believe her dead that morning—that morning! I could have saved her!" He flung his arms in the air and shook them; a terrible menace on his face. "God!" he called, "God—!"
Rockhurst gave a loud cry:
"My son, do not curse your father!"
The young man's arms dropped by his side. He looked at the bent white head, at the countenance worn, wan, patient; then he cast himself on his father's breast, sobbing:
"God help us all!"
Father and son sat together over the supper table. The meal, such as it was, was over; each had made a pretense at eating, lest he add to the other's burden. In silence Harry Rockhurst's eyes ever sought his father, striving to reconcile the man he had known and reverenced above all manhood with the man who had harmed him to the shattering of his life. Yet he could now find nothing in his heart but a deeper tenderness. Nay, as he gazed at the noble silvered head, the countenance, beautiful, melancholy, diaphanous, it was with no jot of reverence abated, rather a kind of awe added to a climbing apprehension. His own words of that terrible moment of revelation rang in his ears, as a tolling bell: "Father, you are all I have left!" At last he rose and went restlessly to the open window. When he looked up there was the pure sky overhead with a star or two, very peaceful, and when he looked forth between the towers, there raged the flames, there hung the murk the blacker for the fire lurid below; it seemed an image of his own life. "At least here can be peace," he told himself.
The door opened behind. him, and he heard Chitterley's shuffling feet, and next the quavering voice; but, lost in his contemplation, he never turned his head.
"Harry!" came Lord Rockhurst's voice of a sudden. The young man leaped at its tone. Rockhurst thrust a crumpled sheet into his hand. "Read it, Harry! A messenger has brought it hotfoot and is gone as he came." As he spoke the Lord Constable strode to the door.
"Ho there!" he called to the sentinel in the passage. "Call out the guard! Have the assembly sounded!"
His voice rang out, clarion clear. Harry, holding the paper, stared, astounded; the old fire had come back to his father's eye, the old life to his step under the very whiteness of his locks his face looked young again.
"Read, lad, read!" ordered Rockhurst, "and be in readiness."
His step was already clanking down the stone stairs ere his son cast eye on the sheet. Then a great cry broke from the young man: "Diana! Diana!"
My lord [so ran the hasty writing on the note], the convent of St. Heleo's, Bishopsgate, within where my kinswoman, Madam Anastasia Bodingfield, has given me shelter so long, though none of her faith, is even now attacked by the mob; and we are in parlous danger. Send succor, as you still remember poor Diana!
From below was heard the roll of drum; then the tramp of feet and the clank of firelock. And over all the Lord Constable's voice:
"Steady, lads, and haste. We've urgent work to-night!"
Hurriedly Harry set out to join them. His knees trembled as he went. He thought, in the confusion of his mind: My father goeth like a young man again to the rescue, and I like an old one. What will happen between us when we see Diana again?
II
Ten frightened maiden ladies, of various ages and comeliness, were gathered round the mother abbess in the great stone refectory of St. Helen's House. The convent was outside the track of the fire thus far; yet they jostled one another like so many frightened children, each in the endeavor to get the closer to the large firm comfort of her presence. Adown the long table, between the platters of untouched food, burned the four candles in high brazen candlesticks, scantily illumining the room.
The atmosphere was oppressively close, for all the windows were shuttered and barred. And, save for the whimpering of some of the blue nuns, the mouthing prayerful whispers of others, there was a heavy stillness within, in contrast to the sounds that beat round the walls without: the voice of a mob in a fury. A husky roar it was, that grew and fell like the waves of the sea. Anon a deep shout or a shrill cry, a shot or a clang, pierced high; anon the thunder of blows at the main doors, echoing through the old house. As a knock angrier than the rest shook the very foundations, the women raised a wail. The abbess looked round upon them, a certain twist of humor belying the sternness of her face:
"Daughters! is this our faith? And are we not under her Majesty's special protection, and help sent for? To the chapel with ye and sing complines. Tut! Have I given permission to break the rules? 'Tis past the hour. Off with ye!"
She rose, hustling them with gestures of her great hanging sleeves, in good-humored yet irresistible authority. Not one attempted protest, though the smallest novice halted on the threshold to fling a supplicating look which begged piteously for the shelter of the motherly skirts. But the kind steel-gray eye was relentless; and, shivering, the neophyte pattered after her sisters.
Madam Anastasia watched them depart with a shrug of her ample shoulders. Then as she stood, in deep reflection, by the open door, hearkening to the increasing menace, there came the faint tinkle of the chapel bell, and thereafter the uplifted voices of her nuns, chanting, dismally enough, but yet sufficiently in unison. She nodded to herself, with a shrewd smile, and was about to gather her long blue skirts together, preparatory to a survey of the defenses, when there came the sound of steps along the flags and the figure of the convent guest moved into her view. The abbess's face brightened.
"Hither, child!" she beckoned, as Mistress Diana Harcourt, bowing her veiled head, was about to pass on to the chapel.
The young woman approached, flinging back the folds from her face. Against the black filmy frame her hair, even in the dimness of the corridor, took marvelous brightness as of copper and gold. Her countenance shone with a pearllike fairness; it was wan as by long vigils; sad were her eyes, as though from secret tears; but serenity enveloped her as fragrance does the rose.
Her kinswoman surveyed her an instant with favor. Then she plunged into her huge hanging pocket:
"This letter, flung in through a window, tied to a stone; I had nigh forgotten it! 'Tis addressed to you. Had you been of my flock, 'twas my duty to have read it."
Diana glanced at the superscription, announced coldly that it was from their kinsman, Lionel Ratcliffe, and proceeded to burst the seal. The color welled to her pale cheeks. She gave a cry of indignation as she read:
A man's patience is not eternal You have forbidden me sight of you, this month past. My offense—the constancy of my love! You will not, so you tell me, out of your papist cage. Yestereve our kinswoman threatened me that you would change your religion and take the vows. You have reckoned without me, without the anger of the people. 'Tis the cry that the papists have fired London: I care not, false or true. But no papist shall help to rob me of you! Here is my chance and I shall seize it. I saved you once, in spite of yourself; now, Diana, I shall save you again from yourself. Have no fear, though every stone in the walls that keep you from me be laid low, no harm shall come to you. I shall be there, and with friends. So you are warned; be wise, bid our obstinate old coz Anastasia yield you peacefully, unbar the doors, facilitate the search for the papers we come to seek, and I will even do still what may be done for her safety and that of all her silly pack.
If this findeth you open to reason, see that she hang a white cloth from the window over the porch—soon after unbarring the gate. And leave the rest to your faithful and ever-loving cousin,
Lionel Ratcliffe.
"And he of our blood! Shame!" cried the abbess with hot cheeks.
"Mother," said Diana, and her lip trembled in spite of her brave tone, "had you not best yield, even as he says? Alack! 'tis by bringing peril on you I repay your shelter!"
"Yield you up? A pretty thought! I would rather we all perished together 'neath the stones of the old house. Yield and facilitate forsooth! Nay, we will even hold the place bolt and bar. An our message have reached the Tower, 'twill go hard with us if the gates do not stand till succor comes. How, hand thee over, to yon infamous wretch who useth the extremity of the city, the blind folly of the mob, the helplessness of a poor house of gentlewomen to the furthering of his own base purposes! As for my threat that you would take the vows"—she gave a dry chuckle—"I've overshot the mark, it seems. I deemed to show thee as out of reach of his pursuit. Well, 'tis ill talking when so much is a-doing. Hark ye at that, tis the fiercest onslaught yet. Get thee to the chapel. I must to the outer hall."
"Nay," quoth Diana, "I go with you."
The two kinswomen looked at each other for a second with a mutual pride; then without further word they went together to the great outer hall, reverberating now to its vaulted roof as hammer strokes fell upon the iron-studded door. The stolid elderly red-headed porter came forth from a deep embrasure—where he had been philosophically, it seemed, listening to the progress of the attack—and with a hand on each arm drew them in their turn into the shelter out of reach of stone and shots.
"Will the door hold, think you, Bindon?" asked his reverend mistress briskly.
"Aye," quoth Bindon, "good iron, stout oak! So they lay not gunpowder."
"And so they do, what then?"
Bindon lifted his hand in slight, but expressive gesture. Then his small eye rolled from the old face to the young.
"Eh, but ye be two brave women—not a blanch, not a squeak!"
"Sho!" said the abbess with a tolerant smile. "And why should I fear death? Have I not been dead these forty years?"
"And why should I fear death" said Diana's young voice, "since life has naught left?"
"I hope you'll not be taken at your word, ladies," said Bindon, with the familiarity of long service. "Nay, look you, I'm none so ready myself! But," he went on, "I like not this pause without: there may be gunpowder in it And by your leave, I'll creep round to the lookout. Eh, 'tis time for the guards!"
As his burly figure had moved out of sight, Madam Anastasia turned with some asperity.
"Indeed, Mistress Harcourt, I marvel at you! Life nothing left for you, forsooth? Tut, tut! Is not the best part of it before you? What have you done with your good youth, answer me that—not even borne a soul to God's service?"
"Why, mother," Diana exclaimed, and the tears sprang to her eyes. "Do you know my history and chide me? Oh, I am dead, and this is my tomb. And truly, 'tis best so; since, when I lived in the world, I brought—God knows unwittingly—dire sorrow on two noble hearts that loved me."
The prioress thrust her hands impatiently up her big sleeves.
"Tush, child! Should'st have made thy choice boldly. And he whom you had left would be no worse off than now. This shilly-shally likes me not. In a convent and no nun! A lovely, free woman and no wife! Either wed or pray, say I. Nay, my dear, though I threatened your cousin with it, I have known it long; your vocation is not with us. With the blessing of God, I'll yet give the house a feast on the day of Mistress Harcourt's wedding with my Lord Rockhurst's son!"
The renewal of clamor without, the report of a musket, the shattering of a few more panes of glass in the high windows all but drowned the valiant woman's words. Yet Diana had caught the drift of them and clasped the stout shoulders in sudden embrace.
"Wedding! 'Tis more like we feast with death this day!"
"Why, then, 'tis the best feast of all," cried the abbess petulantly.
There came three measured, emphatic blows upon the door. Then, above the loud continuous howl of the mob, a ringing call:
"Stand back, there within, stand back for your lives! We now blow your door in. Stand back!"
"'Tis Cousin Lionel's voice," whispered Diana with white lips.
"Sho!" returned the old lady with great contempt. She caught Diana by the shoulder and dragged her to the entrance of the passage, where she paused panting, being somewhat weighty for such swift movements. Bindon, trailing a musket, clattered in their rear.
"Aye, truly," she said to him, "I begin to think this may be the end. Tut! Where lag those sluggard guards! Sho! Here now come my silly children! Well, well, Sister Magdalen, my pastoral staff! So we have visitors we shall receive in state."
She took the crook from the hands of the nun; then, waving back the community, terrified now even to speechlessness:
"Back to your stalls, daughters! Shame on you! Shall not the shepherd come when he pleases, and shall he find the sheep dispersed?" She rang her staff threateningly on the flags, and the fluttering bevy fled back to the chapel. "Sheep, indeed—poor things!" chuckled the abbess.
She was chuckling still when the thud of the explosion came. It seemed to lift the stone house about them, to make the solid flags heave under their feet. For one instant Diana deemed that they all had been blown in pieces as well as the convent, and, opening her eyes after a reeling moment, was considerably astonished to find herself whole and sound. Before her, in stout equilibrium, was the abbess, jubilantly chanting a psalm; beside her, Bindon on one knee, poising his firelock. The words he was breathing were not those of prayer.
There was a burst of wailing from the chapel within, and through the porch a wall of white smoke rolled up in swirls.
"They've made the breach; the door is down," said Bindon superfluously. Then the vapor parted, and three men were seen cautiously advancing; confusedly, beyond, in the ragged breach, Diana caught a glimpse of the street and a crowd of begrimed faces, in brutal exultation, brutal lust of destruction. Ravening as wild beasts behind bars, something yet held them back, she instinctively felt. The next instant, as she recognized Lionel, she knew whose power at once excited and restrained the mob: waving his sword he came, scarce a fold out of place in his handsome suit, plumed hat on his head, the red curls of his great wig hanging ordered on either side of the long, pale face. Their eyes met; she saw the gleam in his, and her heart turned sick. The two that strode behind him were dark-visaged, sinister enough, yet had something of the same air, as of men decorously carrying through a necessary act of violence.
Lionel Ratcliffe halted a pace in front of his old kinswoman and swept an ironical bow. There was no flinching of shame in him as he met the stern challenge of her eye.
"Out of my way, old fool," he cried. "I'm not here to deal with you. You've not chosen to take my warning: take your lot. My business is with my cousin here, whom you unlawfully detain. Diana, I have seen to your safety."
He made an almost imperceptible gesture of his hand as he concluded. The two men darted forward. Hideous confusion instantly sprang up. Diana remembered (and afterwards it was with tender laughter) seeing the mother abbess strike out right lustily with her pastoral staff; to such good purposes indeed, that Lionel's sword was snapped at mid-blade as he tried to parry her blow. At the same instant there was a deafening report in her ear; Bindon had loosed his musket. The foremost of Ratcliffe's attendants threw up his arms and fell forward. Then she felt herself grasped, and knew the hated touch.
"Diana, fool," Lionel was whispering fiercely, "'tis life or death! If you are seen to struggle now, you are lost, even as the others!"
Through Lionel's words she was aware of the wild-beast roar, execrating: "Kill the papists! Burn them!" was aware of the inviable bars broken down, of the rush. And next, even to her bewildered senses there came the feeling of a change, a halt. It was like a flood at full tide miraculously arrested. Shots followed each other in rapid succession outside; and other sounds now, a roll of drum, words of command, some cheer began to mingle with those hideous recurrent yells. The throng that struggled to pour in through the broken door recoiled. "The guards! the guards are on us!" was now the cry.
And with the curious unanimity of crowds general panic succeeded general fury. Above the torrential sound of feet on the pavement outside, a voice, clear yet panting, like the blast of a running trumpeter, rose ever nearer: "Make way, in the king's name!"
Then 'Diana heard the abbess's "Deo gratias," heard Lionel curse as his grasp relaxed; heard him curse again as he leaped forward, brandishing the stump of his sword, and, in vain frenzy, striving to stop the fugitives.
Harry Rockhurst was the first of the rescuers to dash through the gaping door. The Lord Constable had in truth reached the gateway before him, but had stood aside to let his son pass. Bareheaded, his black curls flying, his face set with the sternness of fierce intent, Diana for one delirious instant took the son for the father—the father as she had first met him in pride of noble strength, when she had loved him, unbidden. And as he sprang toward her, crying out in accents of unmeasurable joy; "Diana—safe!" she cast herself into his arms.
Now, even as he held her, she knew who it was, knew that there was youth in his pressure, an unhampered ecstasy of leaping blood. But yet she clung to him the closer, past and present so inextricably mingled in her thought that all she felt, all she cared to know, was that now, here, her heart had come home at last!
The inner circle of their joy lasted but the moment of a radiant bubble. About them the turmoil still raged. There was one, within a few yards, white-haired, grappling with a furious blood-stained ruffian. Diana clutched her lover's arm.
"Harry, Harry, save the old man!"
Harry turned, saw, and fired his pistol point-blank in the man's face. In the same instant, with a horror that stifled the cry of warning in her throat, Diana saw Lionel, with livid countenance of fury, advancing upon the young man, his broken sword drawn back like a dagger for the thrust. But even as she found voice, all was over: one whose love had been swifter than hers had flung himself between the steel and its aim. Then all was a swirl of confusion. She saw Harry draw his sword from Lionel's fallen body, fling it from him and rush with a deep cry of anguish to the tall, white-headed man who yet stood erect, smiling, but with a face of terrible pallor.
She looked again, and as if the blast of a mighty wind had torn the mists from her eyes, she knew him. The old man she had called him: it was Lord Rockhurst himself.
And now it became clear to her that he was wounded, and grievously. Though he still stood, he was supported on one side by his son; on the other by a gray-bearded yeoman who, seeing his leader struck, had worked his way to him with great strides, through the mob of soldiers and rioters struggling at the door.
"Sir," he was saying, "this is the weight of a dead man."
"Ah, no!" cried the son, "For God's sake look to the wound! O God!—the sword, to the very hilt!"
Rockhurst came back from his far smiling contemplation to forbid the hand that would have plucked the broken sword from his side.
"Touch it not yet, Sergeant Bracy. When you draw it, you draw my life with it."
"He's sped, Master Harry," whispered Bracy, and his face began to work.
Then Rockhurst failed in their arms, and they gently laid him down on the flags, but a few paces away from Lionel Ratcliffe's dead body. As in a dream Diana came and knelt by his side. Madam Anastasia was praying under her voice.
"O father," sobbed Harry, "the best, the dearest! Oh, my honored lord!"
The dying man, as with an effort, brought his far gaze to the two young faces bending in sorrow over him.
"It is well," he said, "very well. Diana, lay your hand in his. I would fain place it there myself, but I cannot, I cannot." His eye roamed as if seeking. Once again he smiled at Bracy's distraught countenance.
"Old comrade," he breathed, "pluck out the blade."
The Lord Constable had given his last command.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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