John Enderby Part 3

A moment afterwards Lord Rippingdale was placing his men to attack the house, disposing of some to secure a timber to batter in the door, and of some to make a.s.saults upon the rear of the building. Enderby had placed his men advantageously to resist attack, giving the defence of the rear of the house to his son. Mistress Felicity he had sent to an upper room in the care of her aunt.

Presently the King's men began the action, firing wherever a figure showed itself, and carrying a log to batter in the entrance door.

Enderby's men did good work, bringing down four of the besiegers at the first volley.

Those who carried the log hesitated for a moment, and Enderby called encouragingly to his men.

At this exciting moment, while calling to his men, he saw what struck him dumb--his son hurrying forward with a flag of truce to Lord Rippingdale! Instantly my lord commanded his men to retire.

"Great G.o.d!" said Sir John, with a groan, "my son--my only son--a traitor!" Turning to his men he bade them cease firing.

Throwing open the entrance doors, he stood upon the steps and waited for Lord Rippingdale.

"You see, Sir John Enderby, your son--" began my lord.

"It was to maintain my rights, and for my son's sake and my daughter's, that I resisted the command of the King," interrupted the distressed and dishonoured gentleman, "but now--"

"But now you yield?"

He inclined his head, then looking down to the place where his son stood, he said:

"My son--my only son!" And his eyes filled with tears.

His distress was so moving that even Rippingdale was constrained to say:

"He did it for your sake. His Majesty will--" With a gesture of despair Enderby turned and entered the house, and pa.s.sed into the library, where he found his daughter. Pale and tearful she threw herself into his arms.

At eleven o'clock that night as they sat in the same room, while Lord Rippingdale and his officers supped in the dining-room, Sir Richard Mowbray hurriedly entered.

"Come quickly," said he; "the way is clear--here by this window.

The sentinels are drunk. You will find horses by the gate of the grape-garden, and two of your serving-men mounted. They will take you to a hiding-place on the coast--I have instructed them."

As he talked he helped them through the window, and bade them good-bye hurriedly; but he did not let Mistress Felicity's hand drop till he had kissed it and wished her a whispered G.o.d-speed.

When they had gone he listened for a time, but hearing no sound of surprise or discovery, he returned to the supper room, where Garrett Enderby sat drinking with Lord Rippingdale and the cavaliers.

II

Seven years went by before John Enderby saw his son again or set foot in Enderby House. Escaping to Holland on a night when everything was taken from him save his honour and his daughter, he had lived there with Mistress Felicity, taking service in the army of the country.

Outlaw as he was, his estates given over to his son who now carried a knighthood bestowed by King Charles, he was still a loyal subject to the dynasty which had dishonoured him. When the King was beheaded at Whitehall he mourned and lamented the miserable crime with the best of his countrymen.

It was about this time that he journeyed into France, and there he stayed with his daughter two years. Mistress Falkingham, her aunt, was with her, and watched over her as carefully as when she was a child in Enderby House.

About this time, Cromwell, urged by solicitous friends of the outlaw, sent word to him to return to England, that he might employ him in foreign service, if he did not care to serve in England itself.

Cromwell's message was full of comforting reflections upon his sufferings and upon the injustice that had been done to him by the late King. For his daughter's sake, who had never been entirely happy out of England, Enderby returned, and was received with marked consideration by Cromwell at Whitehall.

"Your son, sir," said Cromwell, "hath been a follower of the man of sin.

He was of those notorious people who cried out against the work of G.o.d's servants when Charles paid the penalty of his treason at Whitehall. Of late I have received news that he is of those children of Belial who are intriguing to bring back the second Charles. Two days ago he was bidden to leave Enderby House. If he be found among those who join the Scotch army to fight for the Pretender, he shall bear the penalty of his offence."

"He has been ill advised, your Highness," said Enderby.

"He shall be advised better," was the stern reply. "We will have peace in England, and we will, by the help of the Lord's strong arm, rid this realm of these recalcitrant spirits. For you, sir, you shall return to your estate at Enderby, and we will use you abroad as opportunity shall occur. Your son has taken to himself the t.i.tle which the man of sin conferred upon you, to your undoing."

"Your Highness," replied Enderby, "I have but one desire, and that is peace. I have been outlawed from England so long, and my miseries have been so great, that I accept gladly what the justice of your Highness gives thus freely. But I must tell your Highness that I was no enemy of King Charles, and am no foe to his memory. The wrong was done by him to me, and not returned by me to him, and the issue is between our Maker and ourselves. But it is the pride of all Englishmen that England be well governed, and strong and important in the eyes of the nations; and all these things has your Highness achieved. I will serve my country honourably abroad, or rest peacefully here on my own estate, lifting no hand against your Highness, though I hold to the succession in the monarchy."

Cromwell looked at him steadily and frowningly for a minute, then presently, his face clearing, he said: "Your words, detached from your character, sir, would be traitorous; but as we stand, two gentlemen of England face to face, they seem to me like the words of an honest man, and I love honesty before all other, things. Get to your home, sir.

You must not budge from it until I send for you. Then, as proof of your fidelity to the ruler of your country, you shall go on whatever mission I send you."

"Your Highness, I will do what seems my duty in the hour of your summons."

"You shall do the will of the Lord," answered the Protector, and, bowing a farewell, turned upon his heel. Enderby looked after him a moment, then moved towards the door, and as he went out to mount his horse he muttered to himself:

"The will of the Lord as ordained by Oliver Cromwell--humph!"

Then he rode away up through Trafalgar Square and into the Tottenham Court Road, and so on out into the Shires until he came to Enderby House.

Outside all was as he had left it seven years before, though the hedges were not so well kept and the gra.s.s was longer before the house. An air of loneliness pervaded all the place. No one met him at the door. He rode round into the court-yard and called. A man-servant came out. From him he learned that four of Cromwell's soldiers were quartered in the house, that all the old servants, save two, were gone, and that his son had been expelled the place by Cromwell's order two days before. Inside the house there was less change. Boon companion of the boisterous cavaliers as his son had been, the young man's gay hours had been spent more away from Enderby House than in it.

When young Enderby was driven from his father's house by Cromwell, he determined to join the Scotch army which was expected soon to welcome Charles the Second from France. There he would be in contact with Lord Rippingdale and his Majesty. When Cromwell was driven from his place, great honours might await him. Hearing in London, however, that his father had returned, and was gone on to the estate, he turned his horse about and rode back again, travelling by night chiefly, and reached Enderby House four days after his father's arrival there.

He found his father seated alone at the dinner-table. Swinging wide open the door of the dining-room he strode in aggressively.

The old man stood up in his place at the table and his eyes brightened expectantly when he saw his son, for his brain was quickened by the thought that perhaps, after all his wrong-doing, the boy had come back to stand by him, a repentant prodigal. He was a man of warm and firm spirit, and now his breast heaved with his emotions. This boy had been the apple of his eye. Since the day of his birth he had looked for great things from him, and had seen in him the refined perpetuation of the st.u.r.dy race of the Enderbys. He counted himself but a rough sort of country gentleman, and the courtly face of his son had suggested the country gentleman cast in a finer mould. He was about to speak kindly as of old, but the young man, with clattering spurs, came up to the other end of the table, and with a dry insolence said:

"By whose invitation do you come here?"

The blood fled from the old man's heart. For a moment he felt sick, and his face turned white. He dropped his head a little and looked at his son steadily and mournfully.

"Shall a man need an invitation to his own house, my son?" he said at last.

The arrogant lips of the young man tightened; he tossed up his head.

"The house is mine. I am the master here. You are an outlaw."

"An outlaw no longer," answered the old man, "for the Protector has granted me again the home of which I was cruelly dispossessed."

"The Protector is a rebel!" returned the young man, and his knuckles rapped petulantly upon the table. "I stand for the King--for King Charles the Second. When you were dispossessed, his late martyred Majesty made me master of this estate and a knight also."

The old man's hands clinched, in the effort to rule himself to quietness.

"You are welcome to the knighthood which I have never accepted," said he; "but for these estates--" All at once a fierce anger possessed him, and the great shoulders heaved up and down with emotion--"but for these estates, sir, no law nor king can take them from me. I am John Enderby, the first son of a first son, the owner of these lands since the time my mother gave me birth. You, sir, are the first of our name that ever was a traitor to his house."

So intent were the two that they did not see or hear three men who drew aside the curtains at the end of the room and stood spying upon them--three of Cromwell's men. Young Enderby laughed sneeringly and answered:

"It was a King of England that gave Enderby Manor to the Enderbys. The King is the source of all estate and honour, and I am loyal to the King.

He is a traitor who spurns the King's honour and defies it. He is a traitor who links his fortunes with that vile, murderous upstart, that blethering hypocrite, Oliver Cromwell. I go to Scotland to join King Charles, and before three months are over his Majesty will have come into his own again and I also into my own here at Enderby."