"High treason!" said Grace, "Fiddle-de-dee! what signifies high treason, in comparison with my mistress's orders?"
"But the king"--said Tom.
"The king. Sir!--don't lay your own wickedness to the king's door: the king would be very well pleased to hear that you had done a little treason yourself, if you told him that it was by a lady's orders. But come, Sir, do as you are bid; or I shall remember."
And here Grace shook her fore-finger menacingly at Tom, and began to lower upon him so gloomily, that Tom found himself running into the pains and penalties of treason against higher powers than the king. He hastened therefore by submission, in words and looks, to clear himself of the guilt of rebellion, and avert the impending wrath of Grace; assuring her that he would do whatsoever he was bid. Treason, or misprision of treason, was now alike indifferent to Tom; and he was perfectly penitent, and determined to wash out his sin by entire obedience for the future.
Miss Walladmor then proceeded to give her instructions to Tom; but suddenly she was interrupted by a tumultuous uproar of voices in the great court. This was succeeded by a violent hurrying of feet from all parts of the castle: and conscious that they were now exposed to immediate intrusions, Grace suddenly dismissed Tom; whispered a word or two in his ear; and then, snatching up the lamp and flinging the shawl about her mistress, lighted her back as rapidly as possible to her own apartments.
The interruption had arisen from Mr. Dulberry. That intense patriot was incensed at the apprehension of a prisoner on political charges or presumptions which he conceived to be in the highest degree honorable to their object. Still more was he incensed that, instead of being committed to the weak gaol of Dolgelly, from which it would have been easy for a party of patriotic friends to deliver him, the prisoner had been shut up in a fortress so secure as the Falcon's tower of Walladmor, strengthened as it now was by two troops of dragoons. This again was one of the worst features of the transaction: martial power had usurped the functions of the civil authorities: and the constitutional jealousy of all purists upon matters of Magna Charta was, he conceived, summoned to the case.
He had accordingly walked up to the castle; and, upon being challenged by the sentinel, had demanded to speak with Sir Morgan Walladmor: but, as he accompanied this demand with a torrent of abuse against the worthy baronet and much political jargon in relation to the prisoner, the sentinel refused to let him pass, and assured him that he would fire if he should attempt to advance. Mr. Dulberry retreated to a station behind an angle of the castle which he conceived not to be within musquet range; and there, stretching his head round the corner, commenced a political lecture upon the Bill of Rights as affected by the use of soldiers in riots; thence diverging to the "Manchester massacres," "Londonderry's hussars," "hoofs of dragoons," and other topics by no means calculated to win a favourable attention from his present audience. Some of the dragoons were loitering about the gate: others were soon attracted by the violence of Mr. Dulberry: and a party of them, taking advantage of the dusk, slipped round into the rear of the reformer--seized him and carried him off to the lamps under the gateway. In the tumult Mr. Dulberry's white hat fell off; and a kick from one of the soldiers sent it to the very edge of the rocky platform before the gate--where this pure badge of a pure faith unfortunately rolled over the precipice and dropped into the sea. Closer examination of Mr. Dulberry's features revealed to the dragoons a face already pretty familiar to them as one which, whenever they passed through Machynleth, they had seen popping out from an upper window of the Walladmor Arms, and fulminating all sorts of maledictions upon them, their officers, and their profession. Consideration for his age would not allow them to think of any severe vengeance: but, as they had caught the old nuisance, they determined to retort his civilities in a pleasant practical way, and to have a little sport before they parted with him. Placing themselves therefore in a ring they sent round this shining light of politics from hand to hand like the Grecian torch-bearers of old.[[2]] Bursts of laughter arose from the dragoons and their comrades; piercing invocations of the Habeas Corpus act from Mr. Dulberry: and the tumult became so great that at length the old warden Maxwell sallied forth to learn the cause. Putting his head out from a window of a turret, he summoned the parties to attention by a speaking trumpet; and demanded to know the occasion of this uproar. Mr. Dulberry stated his grievances; the loss of his white hat, his violent circumrotation or gyration which threatened to derange all his political ideas, and (what vexed him still more) the violation in his person of Magna Charta. From his personal grievances he passed to those of his party in general; citing a statute enacted by the second parliament of Queen Elizabeth in the behalf of those who professed "the Reformed Faith," which statute he applied to the benefit of the modern Radical reformers in Manchester and elsewhere; and contended that Sir Morgan, as a discountenancer and oppressor of all the reforming party in his neighbourhood, was clearly upon that statute liable to the penalties of high treason.
All present were scandalized at such language applied to Sir Morgan Walladmor at his own castle gates. The whole household of the baronet had now flocked to the spot: and Mr. Dulberry, perceiving by their gestures that he had a second course of circumrotation or some severer discipline to anticipate, for this once resolved to leave Magna Charta to take care of itself--and took himself as fast as possible to his heels. A general rush was now made by the servants and the dragoons to the ramparts on the other side of the castle, a station from which, in consequence of the winding line pursued by the road, they promised themselves the gratification of snowballing the poor reformer for nearly a quarter of a mile.
Whilst all the world was at these "high jinks" with Mr. Dulberry, a stranger muffled up in a cloak had very early in the disturbance taken advantage of the general confusion to pass the gate unobserved. He appeared to be well acquainted with the plan of the castle, and pressed on to one of the principal saloons, in which at this moment Sir Morgan Walladmor was sitting alone. A slight rustling at the other end of the room caused Sir M. to raise his head from the letters which lay before him; and, seeing a dusky figure standing between two whole-length portraits of his ancestors, he almost began to imagine that some one of the house of Walladmor had returned from the grave to give him ghostly admonition.
The stranger turned and locked the door; and then, without unmuffling himself, advanced towards Sir Morgan; who, on his part, was struck with some indistinct sense of awe as before a mysterious being--but kept his seat without alarm. At a few paces from the table, the stranger paused; and said--