After a few months Inglesant's imprisonment was much lighter; he was allowed abundance of food, and liberty to walk in the courtyards of the Tower, and was allowed to purchase any books he chose. He had received a sum of money from an unknown hand, which he afterwards found to have been that of Lady Cardiff, his brother's wife, and this enabled him to purchase several books and other conveniences. He remained in prison under these altered circumstances until the end of January 1650, when, one morning, his door opened, and without any announcement his brother was admitted to see him. Eustace was much altered; he was richly dressed, entirely in the French mode, his manner and appearance were altogether those of a favourite of the French Court, and he spoke English with a foreign accent. He greeted his brother with great warmth, and it need not be said that Johnny was delighted to see him.
Eustace told his brother at once that he was free, and showed him the warrant for his liberation.
"I was in Paris," he said, "on the eve of starting for England on affairs which I will explain to you in a moment, when 'votre ami' the Jesuit came to see me. He told me he understood I was going to England on my private affairs, but he thought possibly I might not object to do a little service for my brother;—you know his manner. He said if I would apply in certain quarters, which he named to me, I should find the way prepared, and no difficulties in obtaining your release. The words were true, and yesterday I received this warrant. As soon as it is convenient to you I shall be glad for you to leave this sombre place, as I want you to come with me to Oulton, to my wife,—my wife, who is indeed so perfectly English in all her manners, as I shall proceed to explain to you. Since you were at Oulton my wife has been growing worse and worse in health, and more and more eccentric and crotchety; every new remedy and every fresh religious notion she adopts at once. She has filled the house with quacks, of whom Van Helmont is chief, mountebanks, astrologers, and physicians,—a fine collection of beaux-esprits. The last time I was there I could not see her once, though I stayed a fortnight; she was in great misery, extremely ill, and said she was near her last. Since I have been in Paris I have been obliged to give up many of my suppers with the French King and Lords, from her letters saying she is at the point of death. She is ill at present, and no one has seen her these ten days; but I suppose it is much after the same sort; and she sends me word that Van Helmont has promised that she shall not be buried, but preserved by his art till I can come and see her. To crown all, she has lately become a Quaker, and in my family all the women about my wife, and most of the rest, are Quakers, and Mons. Van Helmont is governor of that flock,—an unpleasing sort of people, silent, sullen, and of reserved conversation, though I hear one of the maids is the prettiest girl in all the county. These and all that society have free access to my wife, but I believe Dr. More, the Platonist, who is a scholar and gentleman, if an enthusiast, though he was in the house all last summer, did not see her above once or twice. She has been urging me for months to search all over Europe for an eagle's stone, which she says is of great use in such diseases as hers; and when I, at great labour and expense, found her one, she sends back word that it is not one, but that some of her quacks were able to decipher it at once, and that it is a German stone, such as are commonly sold in London at five shillings apiece. I have grown learned in these stones, by which the fairies in our grandfather's time used to preserve the fruits from hail and storms. There is a salamander stone. This eagle stone is one made after a cabalistic art and under certain stars, and engraved with the sign of an eagle. I could prove their virtue to you," he continued laughing, "throughout all arts and sciences, as Divinity, Philosophy, Physic, Astrology, Physiognomy, Divination of Dreams, Painting, Sculpture, Music, and what not. This affair of the stone, and these reports of sickness and death, however, and doleful stories of coffins prepared by art, and of open graves, would not have brought me over, but for another circumstance of much greater moment. When I was in Italy and stayed some time at Venice, and was desirous of engaging in some of the intrigues and amusements of the city, I was recommended to an Italian, a young man, who made himself useful to several of the nobility, as a man who could introduce me to, and show me more of that kind of pleasure, than any one else. I found him all that had been represented to me, and a great deal more, for, not to tell you too long a story, he was an adept at every sort of intrigue, and was acquainted at any rate with every species of villany and vice that the Italians have conceived. The extent to which they carry these tastes of theirs cannot be described, and from them the wildest of the gallants of the rest of Europe start back amazed. To cut this short, I was very deeply engaged to him, and in return I held some secrets of his, which he would not even now have known. At last, upon some villanous proposal made by him, I drew upon him. We had been dining at one of the Casinos in St. Mark's Place, and I would have run him through the body, but the crowd of mountebanks, charlatans, and such stuff, interposed and saved him. I have often wished since I had. He threatened me highly, but as I was a foreigner and acquainted with most of the principal nobles, he could do me no harm. He endeavoured to have me assassinated more than once, and one Englishman was set upon and desperately wounded in mistake for me; but by advice I hired bravoes myself who baffled his plots, for I had the longest purse. I knew nothing of him afterwards until I heard that he had left Italy, a ruined and desperate man, whose life was sought by many; and the next thing I heard, not many weeks ago, was that he was at Oulton, having gained admission to my wife as a foreign physician who had some especial knowledge of her disease. She fancies herself much the better for his nostrums, and gives herself entirely to his directions, and I believe he professes Quakerism, or some sort of foreign mysticism allied to it, which has established him with the rest of her confidants. I no sooner heard this pleasing information than I resolved to come over to England at once, and at least drive away this villain from my family, even if I had no other way to do it than by running him through the body, as I might have done in Italy. I, however, sent a messenger to my wife to inform her that I was coming, and on my reaching London a few days ago, I found him waiting for me with a packet from Oulton. In a letter my wife desires me earnestly not to come to Oulton to see her, as she is assured by good hands that some imminent danger awaits me if I do, and she encloses this horoscope, which no doubt one of her astrologers has prepared for her. Now I have no doubt the Italian is at the bottom of all this, and that, at his instigation, the horoscope has been drawn out; yet I confess that it appears to me to have something about it that looks like the truth, something beyond what would be written at the instigation of an enemy. You can read it and judge for yourself. I have dabbled a little in astrology as in other arts."
John Inglesant took the paper from his brother and examined it carefully. At the top was an astrological scheme, or drawing of the heavens, taken at some moment when the intention of Eustace to come to Oulton had first become known to his wife. Beneath was the judgment of the adept, in the following words:—
"Saturn, the significator of the quesited, being in conjunction with Venus, I judge him to have gained by ladies to a considerable extent, to be much attached to them, greatly addicted to pleasure, and very fortunate where females are concerned, and to be a man of property. The significator being affected both by Mercury, lord of the eighth in the figure, and also by Mars, the lord of the quesited's eighth house, and the aspect of separation of the moon being bad,—namely, conjunction of Jupiter and square of Mercury, who is ill aspected to Jupiter, and is going to a square of the sun on the cusp of the mid-heaven,—I judge that the quesited is in imminent danger of death; and the lord of the third house being in the eighth, and the significator being combust, in conjunction with the lord of the eighth, and the hyleg afflicted by the evil planets, makes it more certain. His significator being in the eleventh house denotes that at the present time he is well situated and with some near friend (I should judge, as he is well aspected with the moon, the lady of the third house, a brother), and happy. Mars being in the ascendant, and the cusp of the first house wanting only three degrees of the place of the evil planet in a common sign, I judge the time of death to occur in three weeks' time, and that it will be caused by a sword or dagger wound, by which Mars kills. The danger lies to the south-west—south, because the quarter of the heaven where the lord of the ascendant is, is south-west, because the sign where he is, is west."
John Inglesant read this paper two or three times, and returned it to his brother with a smile. "I should not be greatly alarmed at it," said he; "that is not a true horoscope, or rather it is a true horoscope tampered with. The man who erected the scheme, I should say, was an honest man, though not a very clever astrologer. It has, however, as most schemes have, a glimmering of a truth not otherwise known (you and I being together, which no one at Oulton could have thought of, though you see he was wrong as to the time); but some other hand has been at work upon the judgment, and a very unskilful one. It contradicts itself. What is most important, however, is that the artist has no ground to take Saturn for your significator, which should be either the lord of the third house, the cusp of the third, or the planets therein, neither of which Saturn is. Besides, he takes the place of Fortune to be hyleg, for which he has no ground. He has taken Saturn as significator, as suiting what he knows of your character, and I think there is no doubt the Italian's hand is in this. Now I should rather say that Venus, the lady of the third, being significator and applying to a friendly trine of Jupiter, lord of the ascendant, and Saturn being retrograde, and Venus also casting a sextile to the cusp of the ascendant, is a very good argument that the querent should see the quesited speedily, and that in perfect health. I would have you think no more of this rubbish, with which a wicked man has tried to make the heavens themselves speak falsely."
"I did not know you were so good an astrologer, Johnny," said his brother.
"Father St. Clare taught it me among other things," said Inglesant; "and I have seen many strange answers that he has known himself; but it is shameful that the science should be made a tool of by designing men."
Eustace returned the papers to his pockets, and requested his brother again to prepare to leave the Tower at once. After taking leave of the Lieutenant, and feeing the warders, the two brothers departed in a coach in which Eustace had come to the Tower, and went to the lodgings of the latter in Holborn. Eustace furnished his brother with clothes until he could procure some for himself, and gave him money liberally, of which he seemed to have no stint. He wished his brother to come with him to all the places of resort in the city, but Johnny prudently declined. Indeed, the city was so quiet and dull, that few places of amusement remained. The theatres were entirely closed. Whitehall was sombre and nearly empty, and the public walks were filled only with the townspeople in staid and sober attire. The two brothers were therefore reduced to each other's society, and it seemed as though absence or a sense of danger united them with a warmth of affection which they had seldom before known.
To John Inglesant, who had always been devotedly attached to his brother, this display of affection was delightful, cut off as he had been so long from all sympathy and friendliness. Dressed in his brother's clothes, the likeness which had once been so striking returned again, and as they walked the streets people turned to look at them with surprise. The brothers felt in their hearts old feelings and thoughts returning, which had long been forgotten and had passed away; and to John Inglesant especially, always given to half melancholy musings and brooding over the past, all his happiest recollections seemed to concentrate themselves on his brother, the last human relation that seemed left to him, since he had, as he thought, lost the favour of all his friends, relations, and acquaintances in the world. Possibly a sense of a great misfortune made this sentiment more tender and acute, for, as we shall see, there were some things in his brother's position, and in the horoscope he had shown him, which Inglesant did not like. At present, however, his whole nature, so long crushed down and lacerated, seemed to expand and heal itself in the light of his brother's love and person, and to concentrate all its powers into one intense feeling, and to lose its own identity in this passion of brotherly regard.