John Enderby Part 4

The old man trembled with the fierceness of his emotions.

"I only am master here," he said, "and I should have died upon this threshold ere my Lord Rippingdale and the King's men had ever crossed it, but for you, an Enderby, who deserted me in the conflict--a coward who went over to the enemies of our house."

The young man's face twitched with a malignant anger. He suddenly started forward, and with a sidelong blow struck his father with the flat of his sword. A red ridge of bruised flesh instantly rose upon the old man's cheek and ear. He caught the arm of the chair by which he stood, staggering back as though he had received a mortal wound.

"No, no, no!" he said, his voice gulping with misery and horror.--"No, no! Kill me, if you will--I but cannot fight you. Oh, my G.o.d, my G.o.d!"

he gasped scarcely above a whisper. "Unnatural-unnatural!" He said no more, for, upon the instant, four men entered the room. They were of Cromwell's Ironsides. Young Enderby looked round swiftly, ready to fight, but he saw at once that he was trapped. The old man also laid his hand upon his sword, but he saw that the case was hopeless. He dropped into his chair and leaned his head upon his hands.

Two months went by. The battle of Dunbar was fought, and Charles had lost it. Among the prisoners was Garrett Enderby, who had escaped from his captors on the way from Enderby House to London, and had joined the Scottish army. He was now upon trial for his life. Cromwell's anger against him was violent. The other prisoners of war were treated as such, and were merely confined to prison, but young Enderby was charged with blasphemy and sedition, and with a.s.saulting one of Cromwell's officers--for on the very day that young Enderby made the a.s.sault, Cromwell's foreign commission for John Enderby was on its way to Lincolnshire.

Of the four men who had captured Garrett Enderby at Enderby House, three had been killed in battle, and the other had deserted. The father was thus the chief witness against his son. He was recalled from Portugal where he had been engaged upon Cromwell's business.

The young man's judges leaned forward expectantly as John Enderby took his place. The Protector himself sat among them.

"What is your name, sir?" asked Cromwell. "John Enderby, your Highness."

"It hath been said that you hold a t.i.tle given you by the man of sin."

"I have never taken a t.i.tle from any man, your Highness."

A look of satisfaction crossed the gloomy and puritanical faces of the officers of the court-martial. Other questions were put, and then came the vital points. To the first of these, as to whether young Enderby had uttered malignant and seditious libels against the Protector, the old man would answer nothing.

"What speech hath ever been between my son and myself," he said, "is between my son and myself only." A start of anger travelled round the circle of the court-martial. Young Enderby watched his father curiously and sullenly.

"Duty to country comes before all private feeling," said Cromwell. "I command you, sir, on peril of a charge of treason against yourself, to answer the question of the Court. 'If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off; if thy foot cause thee to stumble, heave it to the shambles.

The pernicious branch of the just tree shall be cloven and cast into the brush-heap.' You are an officer of this commonwealth, sir?" asked Cromwell, again.

"By your Highness's permission," he replied.

"Did your son strike you upon the face with the flat of his sword upon the night recorded in this charge against him?"

"What acts have pa.s.sed between my son and myself are between my son and myself only," replied Enderby, steadily. He did not look at his son, but presently the tears rolled down his cheeks, so that more than one of his judges who had sons of their own were themselves moved. But they took their cue from the Protector, and made no motion towards the old man's advantage. Once more Cromwell essayed to get Enderby's testimony, but, "I will not give witness against my son," was his constant and dogged reply. At last Cromwell rose in anger.

"We will have justice in this realm of England," said he, "though it turn the father against the son and the son against the father. Though the house be divided against itself yet the Lord's work shall be done."

Turning his blazing eyes upon John Enderby, he said: "Troublous and degenerate man, get gone from this country, and no more set foot in it on peril of your life. We recalled you from outlawry, believing you to be a true lover of your country, but we find you malignant, seditious and dangerous."

He turned towards the young man.

"You, sir, shall get you back to prison until other witnesses be found.

Although we know your guilt, we will be formal and just."

With an impatient nod to an officer beside him, he waved his hand towards father and son.

As he was about to leave the room, John Enderby stretched out a hand to him appealingly.

"Your Highness," said he, "I am an old man."

"Will you bear witness in this cause?" asked Cromwell, his frown softening a little.

"Your Highness, I have suffered unjustly; the lad is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. I cannot--"

With an angry wave of the hand Cromwell walked heavily from the room.

Some touch of shame came to the young man's cold heart, and he spoke to his father as the officers were about to lead him away.

"I have been wrong, I have misunderstood you, sir," he said, and he seemed about to hold out his hand. But it was too late. The old man turned on him, shaking his s.h.a.ggy head.

"Never, sir, while I live. The wrong to me is little. I can take my broken life into a foreign land and die dishonoured and forgotten. But my other child, my one dear child who has suffered year after year with me--for the wrong you have done her, I never, never, never will forgive you. Not for love of you have I spoken as I did to-day, but for the honour of the Enderbys and because you were the child of your mother."

Two days later at Southampton the old man boarded a little packet-boat bound for Havre.

III

The years went by again. At last all was changed in England. The monarchy was restored, and the land was smiling and content. One day there was a private reading in the Queen's chamber of the palace. The voice of the reader moved in pleasant yet vibrant modulations:

"The King was now come to a time when his enemies wickedly began to plot against him secretly and to oppose him in his purposes; which, in his own mind, were beneficent and magnanimous. From the shire where his labours had been most unselfish came the first malignant insult to his person and the first peril to his life, prefiguring the h.e.l.lish plots and violence which drove him to his august martyrdom--"

The King had entered quietly as the lady-in-waiting read this pa.s.sage to the Queen, and, attracted by her voice, continued to listen, signifying to the Queen, by a gesture, that she and her ladies were not to rise.

This was in the time when Charles was yet devoted to his Princess of Portugal, and while she was yet happy and undisturbed by rumours--or a.s.surances--of her Lord's wandering affections.

"And what shire was that?" asked the King at that point where the chronicler spoke of his royal father's "august martyrdom."

"The shire of Lincoln, your Majesty," said the young lady who read, flushing. Then she rose from her footstool at the Queen's feet, and made the King an elaborate courtesy.

Charles waved a gentle and playful gesture of dissent from her extreme formality, and, with a look of admiration, continued:

"My Lord Rippingdale should know somewhat of that 'first violence' of which you have read, Mistress Falkingham. He is of Lincolnshire."

"He knows all, your Majesty; he was present at that 'first violence.'"

"It would be amusing for Rippingdale to hear these records--my Lord Clarendon's, are they not? Ah--not in the formal copy of his work?

And by order of my Lord Rippingdale? Indeed! And wherefore, my Lord Rippingdale?"

"Shall I read on, your Majesty?" asked the young lady, with heightened colour, and a look of adventure and purpose in her eyes. Perhaps, too, there was a look of anger in them--not against the King, for there was a sort of eagerness or appealing in the glance she cast towards his Majesty.

The Queen lifted her eyes to the King half doubtfully, for the question seemed to her perilous, Charles being little inclined, as a rule, to listen to serious reading, though he was ever gay in conversation, and alert for witty badinage. His Majesty, however, seemed more than complaisant; he was even boyishly eager.

The young lady had been but a short time in the household, having come over with the Queen from Portugal, where she had been brought to the notice of the then Princess by her great coolness and bravery in rescuing a young lady of Lisbon from grave peril. She had told the Princess then that she was the daughter of an exiled English gentleman, and was in the care of her aunt, one Mistress Falkingham, while her father was gone on an expedition to Italy. The Princess, eager to learn English, engaged her, and she had remained in the palace till the Princess left for England. A year pa.s.sed, and then the Queen of England sent for her, and she had been brought close to the person of her Majesty.

At a motion from Charles, who sat upon a couch, idly tapping the buckles on his shoes with a gold-handled staff, the young lady placed herself again at the Queen's feet and continued reading:

"It was when the King was come to Boston town upon the business of the Fens and to confer sundry honours and inquire into the taxes, and for further purpose of visiting a good subject at Louth, who knew of the secret plans of Pym and Hampden, that this shameful violence befel our pious and ill.u.s.trious prince. With him was my Lord Rippingdale and--"