CHAPTER IV
THE DEAD CAVALIER
Lieutenant-general Cromwell pursued the King to within sight of Leicester, nine miles beyond Harborough, to which hamlet he returned with his troop towards the close of day.
The royalists, who had filled Harborough twenty-four hours before, were now scattered like dust before the wind; the house where the King and Queen had stayed the previous night was deserted, and this Cromwell and some of his officers took possession of, as the most commodious in the place.
The church, after being despoiled of painting, carving, coloured glass, and altar, was used partly as a stable and partly as a prison for the few captives the Parliamentarians had with them.
Cromwell watched this work completed, then rode across the fragments of broken tombs and shattered glass, flung out of the church, to the house where Charles Stewart had taken farewell of his wife the day before.
The furniture the Queen had used was still in its place; in the parlour where Cromwell entered with Ireton stood the clavichord open, as Henriette Marie had left it when she broke down over her French song; a glove and a scarf belonging to Margaret Lucas lay on the couch, the windows were wide on the beautiful garden which again sent up sweet scents to the evening air.
Cromwell noticed none of these things; he was not a man of exquisite senses; perfume and flowers, green trees and sunshine were as little to him as they could be to any healthy man, and as for delights of man's making, he abhorred them all as vanities, from pictures and music, fine dwellings and costly gardens, to ruffles and fringed breeches.
Ireton was, if anything, a man even stiffer and more rigid in his ideas. They both sat down to their supper in the delicate little room which had been some one's home, without the least regard to their surroundings, either the luxurious furniture or the fair garden giving forth sweets to the evening air.
Neither had changed their dusty, blood-stained leather and steel; Cromwell cast his beaver and gloves on to the satin couch, and Ireton flung his on to the polished floor.
A soldier brought in bread, meat, cheese, and beer from the inn; nothing more was to be had. Cromwell, who had not eaten since the night before, did not complain, but finished his food with a good appetite.