The Lions Whelp 48

The Lions Whelp 48

As he was thinking these things, Sir Thomas said, "You must make us wise

about events. We have had only the outlines of them, and we are going

into the midst of we know not what. As to the great plot, was it as

black as it was painted?"

 

"Like all the works of the devil, it grew blacker as it was pulled into

the light. It was soon an indisputable fact, that de Baas, Mazarin’s

envoy extraordinary in London, was head over heels in the shameful

business. I can tell you, de Baas had a most unpleasant hour with the

Protector; under Cromwell’s eyes and questions, he wilted away like a

snail under salt."

 

"What did Cromwell do to him?"

 

"Sent him back to King Louis and to Mazarin with a letter. _They_ have

done the punishing, I have no doubt. He would better have thrown himself

on Cromwell’s mercy than face Mazarin with his tale of being found out.

More like than not he is at this hour in the Bastile. No one will hear

any more of M. de Baas."

 

"Then you think Mazarin was really in the plot to assassinate?"

 

"No doubt of it; de Baas was only his creature. Both of them should be

rolled into their graves, with their faces downward."

 

"And King Louis the Fourteenth?"

 

"He knew all about the affair. Kings and Priests! Kings and Priests!

they would trick the world away, were it not that now and then some

brave yeoman were a match for them."

 

"And Prince Rupert?"

 

"Neck deep. That was fortunate, for he is a luckless blackguard, and

dooms all he touches."

 

"If a man is unfortunate, he is not therefore wicked, Doctor. These men

were plotting for what they believed a good end," said Matilda with some

temper.

 

"Good ends never need assassination, my lady; if evil is done, evil will

come from it."

 

"I think we ought to pity the men."

 

"Pity them, indeed! Not I! The scaffold and the halter is their just

reward."

 

"Forty, I heard, were arrested."

 

"Cromwell had only three brought to trial. Gerard was beheaded, Vowell

hung, Fox threw himself on Cromwell’s mercy and was pardoned."

 

"Was not that too much leniency?"

 

"No. Cromwell poked the fire to let them see he could do it; but he did

not want to burn every one. He has made known to England and to Europe,

and especially to France, his vigilance. He has escaped the death they

intended for him. He has proved to the Royalists, by Gerard’s and

Vowell’s execution, that he will not spare them because they are

Englishmen. Beyond this he will not go. It is enough. Most of the

forty were only tools. It is not Cromwell’s way to snap at the stick,

but at the cowardly hands that hold it."

 

"If he can reach them," muttered Matilda.

 

"Then, Sir Thomas, we have united Scotland to the Commonwealth.

Kingship is abolished there; vassalage and slavish feudal institutions

are swept away; heritors are freed from military service. Oh, ’tis a

grand union for the Scotch common people! I say nothing of the nobles;

no reparation has been made them—they don’t deserve any; they are always

invading England on one pretext or another. But they cannot now force

the poor heritors to throw down their spades and flails, and carry

spears for them. The men may sow their wheat and barley, and if it will

ripen in their cold, bleak country, they can bake and brew it, and eat

and drink it in peace."

 

"I do not believe Englishmen like this union, Doctor. I do not—it is all

in favour of Scotland. They have nothing to give us, and yet we must

share all our glory and all our gains with them. They do not deserve

it. They have done nothing for their own freedom, and we have made them

free. They have no commerce, and we must share ours with them. And

they are a proud, masterful people; they will not be mere buttons on the

coat-tails of our rulers. Union, indeed! It will be a cat and a dog

union."

 

"I know, Sir Thomas, that Englishmen feel to Scotchmen very much as a

scholar does to Latin—however well he knows it, it is not his mother

tongue. What we like, has nothing to do with the question. It is

England’s labour and duty and honour to give freedom to all over whom

her Red Cross floats; to share her strength and security with the weak

and the vassal, and her wine and her oil and her purple raiment with the

poverty-stricken. England must open her hands, and drop blessings upon

the deserving and the undeserving; yes, even where the slave does not

know he is a slave, she must make him free."

 

"And get kicked and reviled for it."

 

"To be sure—the rough side of the tongue, and the kick behind always;

but even slavish souls will find out what freedom means, if we give them

time."

 

"But, Doctor——"

 

"But me no buts, Sir Thomas. Are we not great enough to share our

greatness? I trow we are!"

 

"I confess, Doctor, that in spite of what you say, my patriotism dwells

between the Thames and the Tyne."

 

"Patriotism! ’Tis a word that gets more honour than it deserves. Half

the wars that have desolated this earth have come from race hatreds.

Patriotism has been at the bottom of the bloodiest scenes; every now and

then it threatens civilisation. If there were no Irish and no Scotch

and no French and no Dutch and no Spanish, we might hope for peace. I

think the time may come when the world will laugh at what we call our

’patriotism’ and our fencing ourselves from the rest of mankind with

fortresses and cannon."

 

"That time is not yet, Doctor Verity. When the leopard and the lamb lie

down together, perhaps. But all men are not brothers yet, and the

English flag must be kept flying."

 

"The day may come when there will be no flags; or at least only one

emblem for one great Commonwealth."

 

"Then the Millennium will have come, Doctor," said Sir Thomas.

 

"In the meantime we have Oliver Cromwell!" laughed Matilda, "and pray,

Doctor, what state does his Highness keep?"

 

"He keeps both in Hampton Court and Whitehall a magnificent state. That

it due to his office."

 

"I heard—but it is a preposterous scandal—that the Lady Frances is to

marry King Charles the Second," said Lady Jevery.

 

"A scandal indeed! Cromwell would not listen to the proposal. He loves

his daughter too well to put her in the power of Charles Stuart; and the

negotiation was definitely declined, on the ground of Charles Stuart’s

abominable debauchery."

 

"Imagine this thing!" cried Matilda striking her hands together.

"Imagine King Charles refused by Oliver Cromwell’s daughter!"

 

"It was hard for Charles to imagine it," replied the Doctor.

 

"I hear we have another Parliament," said Sir Thomas.

 

"Yes; a hazardous matter for Cromwell," answered the Doctor. "All

electors were free to vote, who had not borne arms against the

Parliament. Most of them are Episcopalians, who hate Cromwell; and

Presbyterians, who hate him still worse; and Republicans, who are sure

he wants to be a King; and Fifth Monarchy men and Anabaptists, who think

he has fallen from grace. Ludlow, Harrison, Rich, Carew, even

Joyce—once his close friends—have become his enemies since he was lifted

so far above them. And they have their revenge. Their desertion has

been a great grief to the Protector. ’I have been wounded in the house

of my friends,’ he said to me; and he had the saddest face that ever

mortal wore. Yet, it is a great Parliament, freely chosen, with thirty

members from Scotland, and thirty from Ireland."

 

"After Cromwell’s experience with the Irish," said Matilda, "I do wonder

that he made them equal with Scotland."

 

"I do wonder at it, also. John Verity would not have done it, not he!

But the Protector treads his shoes straight for friend or foe. He will

get no thanks from the Irish for fair dealing; that is not enough for

them; what they want is all for themselves, and nothing for any one

else; and if they got that, they would still cry for more."

 

At this point Matilda rose and went into an adjoining parlour, and

Cymlin followed her. Lady Jevery, reclining in her chair, closed her

eyes, and the Doctor and Sir Thomas continued their conversation on

Cromwell and on political events with unabated spirit until Lady Jevery,

suddenly bringing herself to attention, said—

 

"All this is very fine talk, indeed; but if this great Oliver has

ambassadors from every country seeking his friendship, if he has the

wily Mazarin at his disposal, why can he not find out something about

that poor Lord Neville? It was said when we were in Paris that Mazarin

knew every scoundrel in France, and knew also how to use them. Let him

find Neville through them. Has Colonel Ayrton returned, or is he also

missing?"

 

"He returned some time ago. He discovered nothing of importance. It is

certain that Neville left the Mazarin palace soon after noon on the

seventh of last November; that he went directly to the house in which he

had lodged, eat his dinner, paid his bill, and gave the woman a silver

Commonwealth crown for favour. She showed the piece to Ayrton, and said

further that, soon after eating, a gentleman called on Neville, that in

her presence Neville gave him some letters, and that after this

gentleman’s departure, Neville waited very impatiently for a horse which

he had bought that morning, and which did not arrive on time; that when

it did arrive, it was not the animal purchased, but that after some

disputing, Neville agreed to take the exchange. The horse dealer was a

gypsy, and Ayrton spent some time in finding him, and then in watching

him. For Ayrton judged—and I am sure rightly—that if the gypsy had

followed and slain and robbed Neville, he could not refrain himself from

wearing the broidered belt and sapphire ring of his victim. Besides

which, your jewels would have been given to the women of his camp. But

no sign of these things was found—kerchief, or chain or purse, or any

trifle that had belonged to the unfortunate young man.""Was there any trace of him after he left Paris?"