The Coming of the King Part 57

Conversation like this I heard again and again during the next few months, and I judged from all that came to me from the outside world that it was true. Meanwhile the prison became more and more crowded with Nonconformists. Men, women, and even children were packed in this evil-smelling place, and as far as I could discover their only crime was that they desired to pray and to preach according to the dictates of their conscience.

Meanwhile, I learnt no more concerning Constance. I asked many questions, but no man could give me an answer except that the king regarded her with favour.

Not once did my father visit me, at the which I wondered greatly, for I knew that he loved me, and would not willingly allow me to remain here to die like a rat in a hole as I was like to do. One day, however, after I had been a long time here, my heart gave a great leap, for I heard his voice speaking to a gaoler, and shortly after we were alone together.

"I grieve much for you, Roland," he said presently, "and yet it is your own fault."

"My own fault, father?"

"Ay, your own fault."

"Why, what have I done?" I asked.

"You have opposed the king's will," he replied; "you have used your information like a fool."

"But perchance you do not know all that hath taken place," I said; "you do not know what the king would have had me do?"

"Ay, I have heard all. Not that the news hath long come to me, for I have only but lately arrived from France, where I have been at the behest of James of York. Had I known earlier I would have been to see you before, but I never dreamed that you would have been such a fool."

My heart grew cold at these words, for my father spoke, as I thought, strangely.

"I went away with a light heart," he went on, "for I believed that you had wit enough to make good use of whatever you should find out. I left you enough money for all needs, and I believed that when I came back I should find you in high favour with the king. Instead, I find that you have espoused the cause of the daughter of a regicide, that you have refused to obey the king's commands, and that you have acted like a fool in relation to the discovery which you made."

"What would you have had me do?" I asked.

"Do!" he replied. "Did I not tell you from your earliest childhood that no man would do aught for you, except that which would help forward his own plans? And did I not trust you to make a wise use of your knowledge? That is why I laid down no plan of action for you when we met at Dover. I said 'the boy hath all his wits, and will be able to act wisely when the right time comes,' Why, having once obtained the ear of the king, thou shouldst have gone to him after what thou didst find out, and thou shouldst have appeared before him as one anxious to serve him.

He would then, in his own interests, have rewarded thee with some fair demesne and a wealthy dame's hand. Instead, what dost thou do? Thou dost become the aider and abettor of this daughter of John Leslie, and when obedience to the king would have found his favour, thou didst like a fool refuse to do his bidding. Ay, and what happened then? The king, being desirous of keeping his marriage with Lucy Walters a secret, and knowing that thou wert a dangerous fool, clapped thee into prison."

"And you, father," I said, "what have you done?"

"I have done what I meant to do," he replied. "If the son is a fool there is no reason why the father should be. I have so managed the king, through His Grace of York that I have got my old lands back, so that in spite of thine own foolishness thou wilt no longer be a landless Rashcliffe. The king's marriage with Lucy Walters was not the only card I had to play, so when my time came I played it, and I took the trick too."

At this I was silent, for somehow I felt my father to be a different man.

"If ever a man had his chances you had," my father went on. "I had known for years that Katharine Harcomb had been trying to find out through Lucy Walters' mother where the old madman Walters was, and I knew that when she found out she would come and tell me."

"How did you know?" I asked.

"Because I had power over her. Because in her young days she had done that which, if I had chosen to make known, would have sent her to the gallows. Because I had made her promise that if ever she found out where old Solomon, as he called himself, was, she dared do no other than to tell me. She knew that he had got hold of the marriage contract; the question was, where the old man was hiding." And then my father told me a long story which I will not here set down, because it hath no real bearing on my history.

"You have disappointed me greatly," he went on presently. "You had a chance such as few men have, and you spoiled it; you have gained the king's enmity, and you have allowed yourself to be mewed up here in this stinking hole with a lot of psalm-singing Nonconformists. Besides, you have done no good by it all. The story hath come out, and the king hath taken an oath that he did never wed Lucy. Therefore your knowledge doth avail nothing."

"But I saw the contract," I cried.

"Ay, but the king hath taken his oath," he laughed.

"What, to a lie!" I said.

"The oath of Charles Stuart!" said my father. "What was his father's oath worth? What is the son's oath worth? But you have spoiled your chance. What matters whether the thing is a forgery or no? Now that the thing hath come to light it doth not matter. That is what angers me. The son in whom I trusted to have clever wits hath acted like a Puritan."

"And am I to remain in gaol?" I asked.

"As to that, no," he replied. "Now that the thing hath come to light nought matters. Had I come back earlier I had set you at liberty long ago. As soon as I discovered how matters stood I took steps to gain your freedom."

"Then I may leave this place?" I cried.

"Ay, be thankful that your father is not a fool. You can e'en return to your old home to-morrow."

"And know you aught of Mistress Constance Leslie?" I asked.

"Ay, I do," he replied.

"What? Tell me!" I cried.

My father turned and looked around him before speaking, as though he feared some one was listening.

CHAPTER XXVII

HOW I LEFT FLEET PRISON

"Tell me all you know concerning her," he said. I told him quickly, feverishly, for I was eager to hear what he knew. I noticed, however, that he paid but little heed to our meeting near Folkestone, nor to my account of my journey to Bedford to set her at liberty. But when I described our meeting with the king he was all attention.

"The blackguard," he said presently, between his teeth.

"Who?" I asked.

"Charles Stuart," he said; "but pay no heed to me. After all, the king is king."

"But where is Constance now?" I asked. "I have been told that her father was hanged at Tyburn. Where is she?"

"What is she to you?" asked my father.

"She is everything to me," I replied.

"You fancy you are in love with her?"

I did not reply, for my father spoke, I thought, scornfully.

"I will admit that the maid is a brave maid. It is not often one hears of such daring, such resolution," he said presently.

"Ay," I replied, my heart all aglow. "She took her sister's guilt upon her own shoulders. For months she defied all pursuers, and when at last she stood before the king, she refused to do his bidding, refused to betray her sister's hiding-place. But what happened to her afterwards?

Tell me, father, for pity's sake."

"You do not know? You have heard of nought that took place after the night when you behaved like a fool before the king, and were sent hither?"