The sentinel stopped in his walk and stood for a moment by the battered sun-dial, listening. Faintly in the still night air came to him across the fields the beating of horses’ hoofs on the hard road. Striding athwart the broken lawn to an oaken door, he smote it with the butt of his pike, crying,—“Peace within there; the General is coming.” There was an instant hushing of the coarse song, then a laugh, and when some one in nasal tones raised the slow tune of a hymn the laughter became more uproarious, subsiding gradually, however, as voice after voice joined the drone. The sentinel now walked over to the main entrance, and said to some one within the hall,—“I think the General is coming.”
The watchman now resumed his promenade, but he shouldered his weapon and marched more like a man on guard. Several officers came out of the hall and stood listening on the broken sward. From the darkness emerged three horsemen, two following a leader, a thickset man, who came somewhat stiffly to the ground, as if fatigued with hard riding. To the one who sprang to the bridle he said curtly,—“See the horse well rubbed down, and in half an hour feed him with corn,” Then to his two followers, “Look to your horses first, and to yourselves afterward. Be ready in an hour.”
The chief officer now stepped forward and said:
“You will surely stop the night, Excellency? Everything is prepared.”
“No. Did my order to stay the execution of Wentworth reach you in time, Colonel Porlock?”
“Yes, Excellency. I would not have ventured to execute him without your sanction, although the death sentence was the unanimous finding of the court martial.”
“The sentence was just. It may yet be carried out, or it may prove that the Lord has other use for him. Lead the way within.”
General Cromwell gave no greeting to the different groups as he passed them, his heavy riding-boots swish-swashing against each other as he followed Colonel Porlock into the hall. He strode awkwardly, like a man more accustomed to a horse’s back than a tiled floor. The Colonel led him into the great dining-room, one end of which was occupied by the shattered window, while the other was crossed by a gallery, and above all, very dim in the feeble illumination of two candles and some smoky torches, could be distinguished the knobs and projections of a timbered roof.
The vast room was almost completely bare of furniture, with the exception of a high-backed carved chair, which doubtless belonged to it, and a stout oaken table taken from some other part of the house, replacing the long hospitable board that had witnessed many a festive gathering, but which had been used for firewood by the troopers. The General gazed about the ample apartment for a moment, as one who had never seen it before, estimating his bearings with the shrewd eye of a practised soldier; then he pushed the table until it stood lengthwise with the room, instead of across, as before; glanced at the gallery and table, as if making some computation regarding their relative positions, drew up the chair and seated himself, setting the two candles by the edge farthest from him.
“Has Captain Bent arrived with his prisoner?”