"The execution," answered Harrison, solemnly, dropping his right hand on his thigh, and turning in his saddle, till he faced directly towards his nephew riding beside him. "And, Dick, if it be so ordained, and the people of England do justice on their king, thou shalt stand by my side, and share in my service. Thou hast set thine hand to the plough, boy, and art a partaker in our great work. See thou look not back. Forget it not, thou art pledged to secure the just liberties of the people of God to live and to die for it."
"Ay, uncle," answered Dick, earnestly; and the hand of the older man reached across in the darkness, and the boy laid his in it in the solemn clasp and pledge of fidelity.
"Nevertheless," went on Major Harrison, his voice rising to deeper earnestness, "it may so fall out that it may go hardly with the people of God; we may yet have to suffer hard things; but bear in mind, Dick, we must be willing to receive hard things from the hands of our Father, as well as easy things. Shall not the Lord do with His own what pleaseth Him? Therefore be cheerful in the Lord your God; hold fast that you have, and be not afraid of suffering, for God will make hard and bitter things sweet to all those that trust in Him. If I had ten thousand lives I would freely and cheerfully lay them all down to witness in this matter. Many a time have I begged of the Lord that if He had any hard thing, any reproachful task, or contemptible service to be done by His people, that I should be employed in it, and blessed be God I have the assurance within me that He will put such a service upon me. But whether I die or live, do thou go forward, and do valiantly as the friend of Christ, and may the Almighty Father carry thee in His very bosom."
He ended as they drew rein before the farmhouse where they were to pass the night, and the boy, thrilled and awed, had no voice to answer, but the grasp of his uncle's hand, and the memory of his uncle's words remained with him, as a consecration of his new life as a soldier, and moulded his doings and beliefs for all his life after.
CHAPTER I.
VÆ VICTIS!
"'Is there any hope?'
To which an answer peal'd from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of Dawn."
TENNYSON, Vision of Sin.
It was October in the year 1660. The bonfires that had welcomed the Merry Monarch back to his father's throne were scarcely cold, the clamour of the joy-bells had hardly ceased, and London was still in a half-frightened, half-rapturous state of excitement. Everything was new; the better part of the people had never even seen a king, and now they had the daily sight of a live king, and a couple of royal dukes besides, walking about the streets and feeding ducks in the parks like ordinary human beings. The tension in men's minds suddenly gave way. To the winds with high-flown theories of government and religion, with ideals, and standards, and rules, and covenants! Let us all be comfortable, and hang any one who might trouble our holiday!
This popular fear of agitators who might disturb the rule of the Merry Monarch chimed in very well with the feelings of the old cavaliers, who felt that heavy amends were due to them for the sorrows and hardships of the last twenty years, and no doom could be too awful for the murderers who had laid sacrilegious hands upon the sacred person of the king. With relentless activity they hunted down the audacious rebels who had dared to send Charles the First to the scaffold, and few were so fortunate as to escape the fate decreed for a regicide.
Yet, full as London was of hopes and fears, of mad gaiety and black despair, the October day was as sweet and still as any day of any autumn; the late roses blossomed as of old in the gardens of the Strand, and vine-leaves wreathed the citizens' with their wonted coronals of ruby and gold.