"But this is an old gentleman," resumed Isabel, and pressed Barton's offered hand between both hers; "perhaps he is a father, and feels for two terrified girls, who never were among strangers before. Or, perhaps," returning the benevolent smile of Barton with one of playful archness, "he may find us such a troublesome charge, that he will be glad to get rid of us before we reach London."
"My pretty Eve," returned Barton; "I am proof to temptation. What I have undertaken to do I will perform."
"Yet possibly," said she, "you would just allow me to speak once more to that officer, your pupil. I only wish to remind him of his past promises."
"Rather," replied Barton, "to move him to make more, or perchance make him your prisoner. No, fair lady, I see too much of your puissance, to trust my noble pupil in your presence. Yet I would have you think as well of him as the cloudy aspect of present appearances will admit, for man oweth man candour; it is the current coin of social life, and they who do not traffic with it, must not expect a supply for their own wants."
Eustace fretted at this badinage, and thought Barton a miserable jester. He caught at the epithet "Noble," and asked if any one, lawfully entitled to it, would be so degenerate as to rebel against his King.
"I am one of those stern teachers," said Barton, "who see nobility only in virtuous actions and high attainments, but even in your sense of the word, my pupil has a right to the name, being lineally descended from those mighty Barons, who in early times enforced Kings to yield, and gave us the right we now enjoy of sitting under our own vine and eating the fruit of our own fig-tree. And remember, young cavalier, that all men's minds are not shaped in one mould, nor have corresponding habits cherished in them the same associations. We have all two characters; our friends look at the white side, and see our virtues; our foes at the black, and discern nothing but our faults. The same action of the King's may be so coloured by report, as to justify my pupil's enmity and your passionate loyalty. You have been trained to deem passive obedience a duty, while he has learned to think that an English nobleman ought to resist arbitrary power. We thought many of the King's proceedings were contrary to the laws of the realm; and, therefore, joined those who sought to abridge his prerogative. And now that we have buckled on armour, retreat is difficult; it is dangerous too; party is a high-mettled steed, when we are mounted we must hold out the whole race it pleases to run. But before we part for the night, I will propose one toast; it is your brave and virtuous Lord Falkland's, and in fact the prayer of every honest man among us—Peace, peace on any terms, rather than see England blushing with blood and with crimes!"
Isabel received a very favourable impression of the integrity and benevolence of Barton from this conversation, and formed a sort of undefined hope, respecting the result of their captivity, which induced her strenuously to reject all the plans which Eustace repeatedly formed for their emancipation. The most disheartening circumstance was, that they saw no more of Williams. They sometimes flattered themselves that he had regained his liberty, and would carry an account of their situation to Colonel Evellin. They observed, that Barton took no notice of his absence, and hoping that in the confusion which commonly occurs in conveying a multitude of prisoners he had been overlooked, they forbore to make any inquiries that might endanger his safety.
The country through which they passed in their journey toward London, afforded them a full view of the miseries and crimes incident to civil war. The fields, in many places, were without any trace of culture; in others, the harvest had been prematurely seized or purposely wasted, to cut off the enemy's resources. They saw beautiful woods wantonly felled; towns and villages partially burnt; the youthful part of the population either enrolled in one or other of the hostile armies, or secreting themselves to avoid being pressed into military service. The few labourers to be seen in the fields consisted of the aged, the sick, or those who were disabled; and these no longer exhibited the cheerful aspect of happy industry, but shewed sorrow in their faces, and wretchedness in their garb. In towns, the more respectable inhabitants were dressed in mourning, thus announcing, that the death of some relation gave them a deep private interest in the public sorrow. The unemployed manufacturers crowded the streets, eagerly perusing libellous pamphlets, or diurnal chronicles, disputing furiously on points which none could clearly explain or indeed comprehend, asking for news as if it were bread, and shewing by the lean ferocity of their faces, and the squalid negligence of their attire, that from unpitied poverty sprung all the virulent passions of rage, envy, revenge, and disobedience. By such as these, the detachment that escorted the prisoners were received with transport as friends and deliverers, who, when their glorious toils were completed, would transform the present season of woe into a golden age of luxurious enjoyment and unvaried ease; and as the rebel troops were well furnished with money, and supplied with every necessary out of the royal magazines, which were seized in the beginning of the contest, they were enabled to pay for all the articles of subsistence, and thus acquired a popularity which the strict discipline preserved by their officers tended to increase. Hence at every town they passed through, they were not only hailed with acclamations, but received an augmentation of force by the recruits who joined them, under a certainty of receiving pay and cloathing.
Beside the mortification of thus viewing the strength of a party whom they hoped to find weak, disjointed, and inefficient, our young captives had the misery of hearing the royal cause every where vilified, and the Sovereign's personal character traduced. Among the King's misfortunes his inability to pay his army, or to supply it with necessaries, was most injurious to his success. His forces were chiefly raised and kept together by the private fortunes and influence of loyal noblemen and gentry, many of whom, even members of the house of Peers, served as privates, receiving neither honour nor reward, except the generous satisfaction of conscious duty. The situation of those who ranged themselves on this side without funds for their own support, was most precarious, the King being compelled to tax the few places which preserved their allegiance with their entire maintenance. The weekly assessment laid upon the nation by the house of Commons being granted by the constitutional purse-bearer, took the name of a lawful impost; but every demand of His Majesty might be construed into an exaction. Fearful to indispose the minds of subjects, pecuniary levies were cautiously resorted to; hence the officers were compelled to connive at plunder, and the destitute soldier often had no other means to supply his imperious wants. For the same reasons discipline was relaxed; every man who had largely contributed to the King's cause felt himself independent of his authority. Obliged beyond all probable power of remuneration, the Prince saw himself surrounded by men who had forfeited their estates, renounced their comforts, and risked their lives to support a tottering throne. Yet still they were subject to human passions, and liable to have those passions heightened by the free manners of camps, while the unhappy circumstances of the cause for which they fought exonerated them from those strict restraints that are so peculiarly necessary in an army, where right must always be less respected than power, and where severe privations, and the frail tenure by which life is held, are ever urged as motives to a licentious enjoyment of the present hour. While from these causes such relaxed discipline prevailed in a royal garrison, as generally to indispose the neighbourhood to its politics, the parliamentary officers felt bound to each other by the common fears of guilt, knowing that success alone could preserve them from the penalties of treason. Their soldiers being well supplied with every thing, had no excuse for plundering; and all acts of violence were punished with severity by those who, though of small consideration in their original situations compared with the King's officers, yet still held a natural command over the lowest vulgar, of whom the parliamentary rank and file were composed.
To return to the woes which our young captives witnessed in their melancholy tour through the seat of civil war.—The houses of the nobility and gentry were either abandoned or converted into places of strength, fortified for the defence of the inhabitants. Occasionally they passed over what had recently been a field of battle. The newly-formed hillocks pointed out the number of the slain; broken weapons and torn habiliments still more indubitably identified the mournful history; or flocks of ravens and other carrion birds hovering over the slightly-covered relics of a noble war-horse, which had been unearthed by foxes, presented a more savage picture of carnage. Sometimes a pale wounded soldier, whose inability to serve prevented his being secured as a prisoner, or removed by his friends, was seen lingering upon the spot that had proved fatal to his hopes of glory, sustained by the compassion of the neighbourhood or asking alms of the traveller with whom he crept over the graves of his comrades, shewing where the charge was first made, pointing to the spot where the leader fell, and telling what decided the fortune of the day.