Ralph's parole was, of course, immediately given, and Churchill continued this liberal course of conduct as far as possible, from the knowledge that, the longer a trial is delayed, the more likely is a just if not a more lenient one to be obtained. He little knew at the time that the arch-fiend--compared with whom Kirke was indeed a lamb--was coming down with all speed to crush those whom military vengeance could not reach. Rumor, indeed, said that the well-known Jeffries would be sent into the West; but Churchill fancied wrongly that common decency would impel the court to withhold or restrain this unscrupulous perverter of the law.
The general's head-quarters had been moved to a considerable distance from East Zoyland; and he had invited Ralph and some of his own officers to a very plain and homely dinner, when, toward the close of the meal, a paper was presented to him, which he read attentively. No change of countenance took place; and he merely said to his trooper who brought in the paper, "Tell them to wait without."
When the dinner was over, however, and the guests were retiring, he beckoned Ralph to a window, and put the paper he had received into the young gentleman's hand. It was an order to deliver him up to a messenger who was charged to lodge him, without delay, in Dorchester jail.
"I fear I must obey it," said Churchill; "and now I will only add as a hint, that as soon as I have given you up, your parole to me is at an end. More than one man," he added, with a meaning smile, and no very unpleasant recollection, "has found safety and fortune by jumping out of window."
Ralph thanked him gravely; and the messenger and his two followers having been called in, the young gentleman was delivered into their hands.
I will not pretend that, had opportunity presented itself, Ralph would have neglected the hint which Lord Churchill had given him; but the messenger was shrewd and keen, the two officers watchful and severe, and, at the end of three days, Ralph Woodhall was lodged in Dorchester jail, and experienced for the first time the taste of real imprisonment. A low, miserable, damp cell was assigned to him; no food but bread and water, except what he paid for at enormous prices, was afforded to him by the jailer, and a light was refused him when night fell. It was not, indeed, intended that this course of treatment should be continued, as he had the means of paying for better accommodations; but it was what a jailer technically termed in those days "the taming of a bird," or, in other words, the preparation necessary to make him submit quietly to every imposition, however gross. Thus, in darkness, discomfort, and gloom, with memories and expectations equally painful, he passed his first night in the prison at Dorchester, where, for the present, we must leave him.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
It was still in the midst of summer, but London was yet crowded, although the Parliament had risen. The city was in great agitation, too; for news of a battle, and the defeat of Monmouth--the great Protestant leader, whom the Protestant Church had failed to support--the idol of the people, whom the people, or, at least, all those who were influential among them, had left to perish--had reached London on the preceding night by rapid post from the West. A general gloom hung over the metropolis in despite of the rejoicing of the court; and many a man began to regret, too late, that he had not mounted horse and buckled on his sword when every arm was needful, and every purse should have been opened to support the cause which fully one half of the nation had affected, at least, to advocate for many a long year. But a multitude of those whom timidity, doubts of his right, suspicion of his character, or disapproval of his conduct, had kept from joining the standard of the great insurgent, although truly attached to the cause of religious liberty, very soon had personal motives furnished to them for bitterly repenting that they had not thrown their weight into the scale, while there was a possibility of the balance being turned. The slightest suspicion of having held communication with Monmouth, or the smallest possible evidence of dissenting from the Episcopal Church on any side but popery, was treated as a high offense: rights, guarantees, statutes, were set at naught, and many hundreds were snatched from their homes and cast into prison without having committed any other crime than that of entertaining a conscientious objection to the government and the forms of the English Church.
Thus the gloom was increased through the city; nor was it diminished when men found that a sort of trade in accusations was once more about to commence; that the royal bounty was prepared to reward the informer; and that a multitude of harpies round the court were all ready to make a merchandise of clemency, as far as it could be wrung from the hard, cold heart of James the Second.
All was gloom, then, although bells were ringing, flags flying, and bonfires prepared, when a young gentleman, attended by two or three horsemen, rode quickly along what was then known as the Reading road, and entered the town without slackening his pace. He was impelled by even stronger motives than the reward which had hurried forth the earlier posts; and, though he took his way toward Whitehall, it was not at the gates of the royal palace he dismounted. In one of the streets in the vicinity of the court there was a large house, to which I have before led the reader; and in one of the rooms on the ground floor, at the moment the young stranger arrived before the door, sat old Lord Woodhall, reading a broad sheet which gave an account of the battle. He had been very much changed by the events of the last few weeks. He was no longer the stout, hale, robust country gentleman which he had previously appeared. He was shrunk and exceedingly thin, and old age was marked upon every feature of his face. He was tall and upright still, for the very fierce and angry feelings which consumed his corporeal frame served to give him an energy and a fire which sustained him with unnatural strength.