Chapter Twenty Seven.
A City of Refuge.
Of the Foresters who figure in our tale, Rob Wilde, Jerky Jack, and Winny were not the only ones who had found their way into Bristol. Most of Sir Richard Walwyn’s troopers were Foresters. But the master of Hollymead was himself there, with his daughters, their maid Gwenthian, and others of the family servants.
Why he had exchanged his Forest home for a residence in town—that, too, in a city under military occupation, threatened with siege and all its inconveniences—has been already in part explained. With the commencement of hostilities country life became unsafe, more especially for people of quality and those who had anything to lose. Parties of armed men penetrated into the most remote districts, demanding contributions and levying them—at first in the name of the King. Naturally, this aroused the spirit of retaliation, and dictated reprisals; so that in time both sides became more or less blamable for filibusterism. The weight of evidence, however, shows that, as a rule, the Parliamentarian officers did all in their power to restrain, while those of the Royalist army not only encouraged but gloried in it—themselves taking a hand. A Prince had set them the lesson, making robbery fashionable, and they were neither backward nor slow in profiting by it.
As a sample of the spirit in which the Cavaliers made war, thus wrote Sir John, afterwards Lord Byron—the same truculent ruffian already alluded to, commanding a body of the King’s horse—“I put them all to the sword, which I find to be the best way to proceed with these kind of people, for mercy to them is cruelty.”
The gallant defenders of Barthomley Church were “these kind of people,” whom this monster, ungrammatical as inhuman, had massacred to a man!
Fighting under such faith, no wonder the lex talionis soon displayed itself on both sides, and in bitterest, most relentless form. Not only had the main routes of travel become unsafe, but sequestered country roads; while the sanctity of private houses was invaded, and women subjected to insult, oft even to the disregarding of their honour. This was conspicuously the case in the districts where the Cavaliers had control, no decent woman daring to show herself abroad. Even high-born ladies feared encountering them, if having father or brother on the Parliamentary side. Some dames, however, who favoured their side, were bold and free enough with them; and a very incarnation of female shamelessness was the strumpet following of Rupert.
As known, Ambrose Powell had at first thought of fortifying Hollymead, and holding it with his servants, retainers, and such of the Foresters as he could rally around him; of whom he had reason to believe many would respond to his call. The haw-haw around the house was suggestive of his doing so—itself an outer line of defence, which could be easily strengthened. It but needed a parapet of gabions, or fascines, to render it unassailable, save in the face of a scathing fire. And he had the wherewith to deliver this, having long expected the coming storm, and stored up materials to meet it. One of the chambers of Hollymead House was a very armoury and ordnance room, full of the best weapons of the time, which his great wealth had enabled him to provide—muskets of the snap-hans fire, pistols, pikes, and halberds. They but wanted putting into hands capable of making efficient use of them.