In the retrospect of two hundred years’ alongside such names, how sounds the paltry title of “Carolus Rex?” Even then it was, day by day, losing its authoritative significance. A crisis was coming, as when men awake from a drunken dream—when the word “loyalty” only reminds them of liberties surreptitiously stolen, and rights too slackly surrendered; when “king” sounds synonymous with “tyrant;” and “patriot” assumes its proper meaning. Not, as the so-called “statesmen” of the present day—statesmen forsooth!—palterers with the people’s rights—smug trimmers of parliamentary majorities—bottle-holders—the very chicanes of statecraft—the “smush” of England’s manhood, with reputations destined to damnation, almost as soon as their puny breath becomes choked within their inglorious coffins!
Oh, the contrast between that day and this—the difference of its deeds, and its men!—distinct as glory from shame! That was the grandest throe ever felt by England’s heart in its aspirations after Liberty.
Let us hope it will not be the last. Let us hope that the boasted spirit of Great Britain—at this hour lower than it has ever been—will have a speedy resuscitation; and strike to the dust the demon of thraldom, in whatever form he may make himself manifest—in the old fashioned shape of serfdom, or its modern substitute the tax: for, though differing in tide, both are essentially the same.
Sir Marmaduke sate in his library, as we have said, a prey to uneasy thoughts. They were not tranquillised by the announcement, just then made by one of the domestics: that Captain Scarthe desired an interview with him.
“What business has he now?” was the mental interrogatory of the knight, when the request was conveyed to him.
“Something of more than ordinary import,” thought he, on glancing at the countenance of Scarthe, as the latter presented himself within the apartment.
Well might Sir Marmaduke give thought to the conjecture: for, in truth, was there upon the mind of his visitor something that might well merit the name of extraordinary; which, despite his habitual sang froid, did not fail to show itself upon his features. Upon them a guilty intention was as plainly expressed, as if the lines had been letters on the page of a printed book.
The knight knew not this intention by any overture hitherto made to him. He had his suspicions nevertheless, too truly pointing to the pretensions which Scarthe was about to put forward to the hand of his daughter. These had been sufficiently painful to him: now more so, when coupled with that other suspicion already harassing him: as to the power possessed by his soldier guest.
They might have been even more painful, had he known the extent of that power—real and assumed—with which the latter was endowed. At that moment Scarthe carried in his pocket signed “Carolus Rex,” an order for the knight’s arrest, and commitment to the Tower of London!
It signified little, that both the order and its signature were counterfeits. They would be equally efficacious for the purpose intended. Sir Marmaduke had not the means, nor would he be allowed the opportunity to test their genuineness.