Goaler. You shall not now be stolen: you have locks upon
you: So graze as you find pasture.--Cymbeline, Act. V.
During the two or three minutes that the cavalry and their prisoner were waiting for an answer to the summons,--Bertram, who was relapsing at every instant into a dozy slumber and then as suddenly starting awake (probably in consequence of the abrupt stillness succeeding to the severe motion of a high-trotting horse), was suddenly awakened by the noise and stir of admission into the castle, which unfolded a succession of circumstances as grand and impressive as if they had been arranged by some great artist of scenical effect. From one of the towers which flanked the gates, a question was put and immediately answered by the foremost trooper: question and answer however were alike lost to Bertram and dispersed upon the stormy ravings of the wind. Soon after was heard the clank of bars and the creaking of the gates,--gates
That were plated with iron within and without Whence an army in battle array had march'd out.[[1]]
They were like the gates of a cathedral, and they began slowly to swing backward on their hinges. As they opened, the dimensions and outlines of their huge valves were defined by the light within; and, when they were fully open, a beautiful spectacle was exposed of a crowd of faces with flambeaus intermingled fluctuating on the further side of the court. The gateway and the main area of the court were now cleared for the entrance of the cavalry; and the great extent of the court was expressed by the remote distance at which the crowd seemed to stand. Then came the entrance of the dragoons, which was a superb expression of animal power. The ground continued to ascend even through the gateway and into the very court itself; and to the surprise of Bertram who had never until this day seen the magnificent cavalry of the English army, the leading trooper reined up tightly, and spurred his horse, who started off with the bounding ramp of a leopard through the archway. Bertram's horse was the sixtieth in the file; and, as the course of the road between him and the gates lay in a bold curve, he had the pleasure of watching this movement as it spread like a train of gun-powder, or like a race of sun-beams over a corn-field through the whole line a-head of him: it neared and neared: in a moment he himself was carried away and absorbed into the vortex: the whole train swept like a hurricane through the gloomy gateway into the spacious court flashing with unsteady lights, wheeled round with beautiful precision into line, halted, and dressed.
What followed passed as in a dream to Bertram: for he was by this time seriously ill; and would have fallen off horseback, if unsupported. The lights, the tumult, and his previous exhaustion, all contributed to confuse him: and, like one who rises from his bed in the delirium of a fever, he saw nothing but a turbulent vision of torches, men, horses' heads, glittering arms; windows that reverberated the uncertain gleams of the torches; and overhead an army of clouds driving before the wind; and here and there a pencil of moonlight that played upon the upper windows of an antique castle with a tremulous and dreamy light. To his bewildered senses the objects of sight were all blended and the sounds all dead and muffled: he distinguished faintly the voice of an officer giving the word of command: he heard as if from some great distance the word--"Dismount:" he felt himself lifted off horseback; and then he lost all consciousness of what passed until he found himself sitting in the arms of a soldier, and an old man in livery administering a cordial. On looking round, he perceived many others in the same dress, which he recognised as the Walladmor livery; and he now became aware that he was in Walladmor Castle.
"Is the Lord Lieutenant at home, Maxwell?" said the officer, addressing the old man who bore the office of warden in the castle.
"No, Sir Charles: he dines at Vaughan house--about twenty miles off. But he will return by midnight. And he left orders that the prisoner should be confined in the Falcon's tower."
Bertram here stood up, and signified that he was able to walk: upon which Sir Charles Davenant, the officer who had commanded the party of dragoons, directed the two constables to go before the prisoner and two dragoons behind--whilst the old warden showed the way.
Raising his head as they crossed the extensive court, Bertram saw amongst the vast range of windows three or four which were open and crowded by female heads as he inferred from the number of white caps. Under other circumstances he would have been apt to smile at such a spectacle as a pleasant expression of female curiosity: but at present, when he was taking his leave of social happiness--for how long a time his ignorance of the English laws would not allow him to guess, the sight was felt rather as a pathetic memento of the household charities under their tenderest aspect--and as suggesting the gentleness of female hands in painful contrast to the stern deportment of the agents of police and martial power by whom he was now surrounded. "Let all cynical women-haters," thought he, "be reduced for a month or two to my situation--and they will learn the blessed influences on human happiness of what they idly affect to despise." His own indiscretion however, as he could not disguise from himself, had reduced him to this situation: and however disturbed at the prospect before him he submitted with an air of cheerfulness and followed his guides with as firm a step as his bodily weakness would allow. Passing from the great court, at one corner, through a long and winding gateway feebly illuminated by two lanthorns, they found themselves at the edge of a deep abyss. It was apparently a chasm in the rock that had been turned to account by the original founder of the castle, as a natural and impassable moat; far beyond it rose a lofty wall pierced with loop-holes and belted with towers--that necessarily overlooked and commanded the whole outer works through which they had passed. At a signal from the old man a draw-bridge was dropped with a jarring sound over the chasm. Crossing this they entered a small court--surrounded by a large but shapeless pile of buildings, which gave little sign externally of much intercourse with the living world: here and there however from its small and lofty windows, sunk in the massy stonework, a dull light was seen to twinkle; and, as far as the lanthorn would allow him to see, Bertram observed every where the marks of hoary antiquity. At this point the officer quitted them, having first given his orders to the two dragoons in an under voice.