CHAPTER XI A WOMAN SCORNED
Colonel Holles retraced his steps to the City on foot. A hackney-coach, such as that in which he had driven almost in triumph to the Cockpit, was no longer for him; nor yet could he submit to the expense of going by water now that the unexpected was all that stood between himself and destitution.
And yet the unexpected was not quite all. An alternative existed, though a very desperate one. There was the rebellion in which Tucker had sought fruitlessly hitherto to engage him. The thought of it began to stir in his dejected mind, as leaden-footed he dragged himself towards Temple Bar through the almost stifling heat which was making itself felt in London at the end of that month of May. Temptation urged him now, nourished not only by the circumstance that in rebellion lay his last hope of escaping starvation, but also by hot resentment against an inclement and unjust government that drove able soldiers such as himself into the kennels, whilst befriending the worthless minions who pandered to the profligacy of a worthless prince. Vice, he told himself, was the only passport to service in this England of the restored Stuarts. Tucker and Rathbone were right. At least what they did was justified and hallowed by the country’s need of salvation from the moral leprosy that was fastening upon it, a disease more devastating and deadly than this plague upon which the republicans counted to arouse the nation to a sense of its position.
He counted the cost of failure; but he counted it derisively. His life would be claimed. That was the stake he set upon the board. But, considering that it was the only stake remaining him, why hesitate? What, after all, was this life of his worth that he should be tender of setting it upon a last throw with Fortune? Fortune favours boldness. Perhaps in the past he had not been bold enough.
Deep in his musings he had reached St. Clement Danes, when he was abruptly aroused by a voice, harsh and warningly commanding.
“Keep your distance, sir!”
Checking, he looked round to the right, whence the order came.
He beheld a man with a pike, who stood before a padlocked door that was smeared with a red cross a foot in length, above which also in red was heavily daubed the legend: LORD HAVE MERCY UPON US.