The troop, on its return, was met by Cromwell himself at the gate to which we have so frequently alluded. His anxiety had not been often greater than on that occasion, and it was manifested by an impatience of manner that almost terrified the attendants who waited in his presence. He was accompanied by only two officers, and his first question was if "Colonel Jones had secured Dalton and the Jewess?" A reply in the affirmative evidently afforded him great relief and satisfaction; but the feeling was quickly succeeded by one of extreme anger when informed of the total destruction of the Fire-fly, which he had desired to preserve for his own special purpose. Yet, until the prisoners had been conducted into Cecil Place by the private entrance, as he had previously arranged, his displeasure only found vent in occasional exclamations. The house was alive with alarm and curiosity, but its inmates received little information to quiet or to satisfy their eager thirst for intelligence. As the soldiers passed the gates, lights floated through the dwelling, and the windows were crowded with inquisitive countenances; great, therefore, was the disappointment when they observed the party separate, and one portion of it take a private path, leading to the Protector's apartments, while the other proceeded round an angle of the building to the stables. Many of the domestics met them at the stable gates, but could learn nothing from those trusty soldiers, who perfectly understood, and invariably acted upon, their master's favourite motto, "safety in silence;"—still they could not rest, no one went to bed, for all were in expectation of—they knew not what.
The clock struck one; about five minutes afterwards Cromwell had closed the door of his chamber; the half-hour chimed. Constance was looking on her father, sleeping calmly in his chair, in a closet that opened into his favourite library. He had not been in bed for several nights, and, since his afflicting insanity, could seldom be prevailed on to enter his own room. After pausing a few minutes, while her lips appeared to move with the prayer her heart so fervently formed, she undid the bolt, quietly opened the door, then partially closed it, and left her wretched parent alone with his physician.
She could hear within the library, in which she now stood, the heavy breathings of the afflicted man. A large lamp was burning on the massive oak-table: it shed a cheerful light, but it was a light too cheerful for her troubled and feverish spirit—she sank upon a huge carved chair, and passed her small hand twice or thrice over her brow, where heavy drops had gathered; then drew towards her the large Bible that had been her mother's. On the first page, in the hand-writing of that beloved mother, was registered the day of her marriage, and underneath the births of her several children, with a short and thanksgiving prayer affixed to each; a little lower down came a mournful register, the dates and manner of her sons' deaths; but the Christian spirit that had taught her words and prayers of gratitude, had been with her in the time of trouble; the passages were penned in true humility and humble-mindedness, though the blisterings of many tears remained upon the paper.
Constantia turned over the leaves more carelessly than was her custom; but her eye dwelt upon one of the beautiful promises, given with so much natural poetry by the great Psalmist,—"I have been young, and now am old, yet saw I never the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." "Alas!" she thought, "I can derive only half consolation from such as this. One of my parents was indeed righteous; but, alas! what has the other been?" She bowed her head upon the book, and did not again raise it, until a soft hand touched her shoulder, and a light voice whispered "Constance!"
It was Lady Frances Cromwell.
"My dear Constantia! here's a situation! I never knew any thing so provoking, so tantalising! My father, they say, has taken as many as twenty prisoners, of one sort or another; and has caged them up in that purple-room with himself, examining into and searching out every secret—secrets I want so much to know. He has got the Buccaneer, they say."
"Who says so?" inquired Constance eagerly.
"Why, everybody. Maud says so. And I have been to the door at least ten times; but even the key-hole, I verily believe, is plugged. I am sure it is, for I tried hard to see through it."
"The crisis of my fate is indeed come," murmured Constantia. Then, after a pause, she was about to address her friend: "My dear Lady Frances—"
"Don't Lady Frances me," interrupted the young maiden, pettishly. "I hate to be Lady Frances. I should know more about every thing if I were a chamberlain's daughter."