A few minutes passed in explanations between the two Cavaliers; but then they began to be somewhat impatient for the governor's return, as they were but too well aware that their situation was still full of danger and difficulty. Minute after minute passed, however, without his coming; and a considerable degree of noise in the house, the moving about of many feet, and a good deal of bustle and confusion, did not tend to quiet their apprehensions.
"By heaven, my lord!" cried Barecolt, at length, "I fear your lordship has gone farther than that worthy gentleman of old times who sacrificed himself for his friend; for I've a great notion that you have sacrificed me also for this good colonel, who was the original cause of all our mishap. I would have let him take his chance and get out as he could."
But, while the renowned captain was thus remonstrating, the door again opened and Sir John Hotham reappeared, followed by Colonel Ashburnham. "Quick, quick!" cried the governor, "you must lose no more time, but all get away together. Here is already a deputation to remonstrate, but I have shut the fellows up in a room above, and they shall wait long enough before they see me."
"But we must provide a horse for my good friend here," said Lord Beverley, who was shaking Ashburnham by the hand.
"That's all done, that's all done!" said Sir John Hotham: "his horse and yours are both waiting in the court, and a party of men to see you safe out of the town, and to ensure that you speak with no one as you go. We must treat you as enemies, my lord, though we could wish you were friends."
"But my horse!" cried the renowned Captain Barecolt: "I have left him at the inn."
This intelligence somewhat discomposed Sir John Hotham; but it was at length determined that Barecolt should have a fresh pass made out in his own name, and should be left with this security, to find his way out of Hull as best he might; and the whole party, issuing forth into the court, left Sir John Hotham to account for his conduct, in the matter of their liberation, to the partisans of the parliament in the town. In taking leave of him, also, we need only remind the reader that these very events, not long afterwards, brought his head to the block.
[CHAPTER XLIV.]
Parties of the royalist army were moving in every direction round Hull, and from time to time saker and falconet, and such other artillery as the garrison had been able to muster on the walls, were discharged at the adventurous Cavaliers who approached too near, when Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, having been permitted by the guard who had him in charge to gather his baggage hastily together at the "Swan," and to saddle his horse, issued forth from the gates, leaving behind him, in the hands of Mrs. White, in part payment of his bill, the horse on which Arrah Neil had ridden thither. Not that Mr. Dry had come unprovided with the needful means of meeting any expenses he might incur; far from it, for he was a wealthy man, and for many years had never known what even temporary want was; but he loved barter, and generally gained by; and though he was indeed obliged to dispose of the nag to the good landlady at a loss, yet this loss, as he contrived it, was less than would have been incurred by any other process.
However, when he stood without the gates and saw them closed behind him; when he beheld, wherever he turned, some body of horse or foot at the distance of less than a mile: and, more than all, when he heard a cannon boom over his head from above, the heart of Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, sank, and he felt a degree of trepidation he had never known in life before. What to do he could not tell; but after much deliberation he resolved to stay where he was till the royalist troops were withdrawn, calculating justly that they would not approach so near as to do him any harm, and that the troops within would not issue forth while the others were in sight.