Chapter 26 - No Quarter! by Mayne Reid
A Despatch Cunningly Conveyed
The officers had separated into two groups, one on each side the Governor, as the odd trinity of personages was presented to him; these, as they came up, falling into line—Rob on the right, the woman left, and Jack central, as a pollard between two tall trees.
Not yet aware of his colonel being in the room, the sergeant, as introducer of the other pair, was about to make known their business—of which Winny after all had given him a hint—when Sir Richard stepped forward to interrogate them. The knight had received instructions for this, on account of his acquaintance with the party.
“Well, sergeant,” he said, after nodding recognition to Jack and his sister, “what may your Forest friends be wanting? I hope they haven’t got into any trouble with our soldiers, or the Bristol folk?”
“No, Sir Richard; nothin’ o’ that sort whatsoever. They ha’ just entered the city, comin’ frae Gloster, an’ wi’ a message from Colonel Massey to his honner here.” The speaker, by a look, indicated the head figure of the listening assemblage; then added, “They think it be somethin’ o’ very great consarn, seein’ how the Colonel ha’ told them not to lose a minnit in the deliverin’ o’t.”
At this all eyes turned eagerly upon the cadgers. A message from Massey, who commanded at Gloucester, and at such a crisis! It should mean something of importance.
“Perhaps your Excellency would prefer hearing it in private?” suggested Sir Richard, with a feint at withdrawing, imitated by the other officers.
“No, no!” rejoined the ci-devant lawyer, who, unlike his confraternity, was of aught but secretive habit. “Stay, gentlemen! Whatever it be, we’re all equally interested in it. Now, my worthy friends,” he continued, his glance alternating between the little man and big woman, “what is this matter with which Colonel Massey has entrusted you? You may speak out openly and without fear.”
The words of encouragement were superfluous. Neither Jerky Jack nor his sister were of the stuff to be affrighted, though they stood in the presence of Royalty itself. They had travelled too far, and seen too much of the world for that.
“It be wrote, yer honner.” The woman it was who spoke. “The thing be’s all put down on paper; an’ Jack—my brother, sir—ha’ got it on him, hid away, as there was a fear us might meet the Cavalières.”
“Well, you needn’t fear meeting them here. So let Jack produce it.”
Which Jack did, though not presto, on the instant. It took some time, with an amount of manipulation, before the secreted despatch could be laid open to the light. The cadger’s artificial leg had to be unstrapped and separated from what remained of the real one; then a cavity in the former, being uncorked, disclosed to view a roll of paper, bearing resemblance to a cartridge.
This, drawn forth by Jerky himself, was handed to Sir Richard, and passed on to the Governor; who, having directed the temporary withdrawal of the messenger party, unrolling it, read—
“Gloucester, March 7.—Report here of Rupert, with 8,000 men, on march for Bristol. Expected to arrive before your gates early in the night. Be careful to keep them shut. Sorry I can do nothing for you in the way of diversion. Myself pressed on Monmouthshire side. Brett and Lord John Somerset, with their Popish crew, have crossed the Forest, and are now threatening us from Highnam. But I’ll hold Gloucester at all hazards, as I know you will Bristol.
“Massey.”
“That will I!” cried Fiennes, in a fresh burst of enthusiasm, inspired by the last words of the despatch. “Hold and defend it to the death. We will, gentlemen!”
Needless to say, they all again echoed his resolve loudly and determinedly as before.
While their responses were still ringing through the room, the door was once more pushed open by a man who entered in haste, without announcement of usher, or introduction of any kind. The expression upon his features was sufficient apology for intrusion, but better the words that leaped from his lips, soon as he was inside:
“Your Excellency—gentlemen all—we’re standing upon a mine!”
“‘Standing upon a mine!’” echoed the Governor. “Explain yourself, Captain Birch!”
“Treason in our midst—a conspiracy—the conspirators met at this very moment.”
“Where?” demanded several voices. “I heard first of a party in the house of Robert Yeomans, and another at George Boucher’s. But I’ve since been told about more of them at Edward Dacre’s.”
“And they’re assembled now, you think?”
“I’m sure of it, your Excellency. Armed, too; ready for rising.”
In view of the contents of Massey’s despatch, now hastily communicated to the Volunteer captain, this seemed probable as intelligible. Rupert to assault from outside, aweing the loyal citizens by an attack, sudden as unexpected; the disloyal ones, these conspirators, to take advantage of it and act in concert—the programme beyond a doubt!
Withal, Langrish and one or two others were disposed to discredit it. For in that confidential council itself was a leaven of treason. Luckily not enough to control it; and when Fiennes put the question, “Shall we arrest these men?” a majority of voices declared promptly and decisively in the affirmative.
“Captain Birch!” said the Governor, once more turning to the young officer of Volunteers, “you hear our determination. I commit this matter to you, who best know the guilty parties, and the places. Take your own men, and whatever other force you think necessary. This gentleman will go with you as my authority for the requisition.”
He referred to an aide-de-camp by his side, who, after receiving some directions in undertone, parted from him, and, with Birch, hastily left the room.
Scarce were they outside, when another officer presented himself in the council-chamber; in haste also, and unannounced, on the plea of pressing matter. A Volunteer captain, too; for Bristol had already raised more than one company of these citizen soldiers. Captain Jeremiah Buck, it was—the “busy mercer,” as the Restoration writers contemptuously style him. But whatever he may have been otherwise, he was a busy soldier, too busy that night for Royalist likings, and brought further intelligence of the conspiracy, obtained from other sources—confirming that of Birch.
And, as the latter, he also received instant commands to proceed on the arrest of the conspirators. As there were several distinct “clatches” of them, more than one force was needed to catch them simultaneously.
So commissioned, off went Buck, to all appearance greatly elated, and possibly indulging himself in the thought of satisfying some private spite.
Whether or no, the door that had closed behind him was still vibrating to the clash, when one who needed no usher to announce him caught hold of its handle and pushed it open, with an alacrity which proclaimed him also the bearer of tidings that would not brook delay.
“What is it, Trevor?” asked Sir Richard Walwyn, advancing to meet his troop captain. “Why have you left your guard at the gate?”
“Because, Colonel,” panted out the young officer, “I’ve thought it better to come myself and make sure of the news reaching you in good time, as the Governor here.”
“What news?”
“Prince Rupert and the Royalist army reported outside the city. A countryman just come in says they are pitching tents on Durdham Down. And his report’s confirmed by what I’ve myself seen from the top of the gate tower.”
“What saw you, Captain Trevor?” asked the Governor, who, with the other officers, had been all the while anxiously listening.
“A glare of light, your Excellency; such as would proceed from the blaze of camp-fires.”
This was confirmation full, of Massey’s warning despatch, the conspiracy, everything. But, for better assurance of it, the Governor, with the assembled officers, rushed out of the council-chamber and up to the Castle donjon; there to see the horizon lit up with a yellowish glare which, as soldiers, they knew to be the reflection from bivouac fires. And a wide spread of them, the sky illumined all over Durdham Down, away to King’s Weston.
“Rupert it must be—he, and his plundering host!”
Captain Birch made quick work of the duty assigned to him. In less than twenty minutes after receiving the Governor’s commands, he stood before the door of Robert Yeomans’s house, demanding admission. He had the strength at his back to enforce it—his own Volunteers afoot, with a body of horse, lest the conspirators should escape by flight. And some of both, distributed round the house, already enfiladed it.
It was a large house, its owner being one of the wealthy citizens of Bristol. Forty men were within it, all armed, as the Volunteer officer had been told. At word of what was without they sprang to their arms, some of the more courageous counselling fight. But when they looked through the windows, saw that formidable array, and heard the stern summons “Surrender!” their hearts failed them, and they surrendered. Wisely, too. Had they resisted, instant death would have been their fate. For, among the men with Birch, were some fresh from the affair of Cirencester; themselves escaped, but leaving behind friends, relatives, even brothers, butchered in cold blood. Exasperated, maddened, by the memory of that slaughter—some of them with wounds still unhealed from it—Birch, who was moderate as brave, had a difficulty to restrain them from dealing out death to the malignants. The troopers who accompanied him, smarting under late reverses, would have gladly hailed the order to “fall on.” But the cowed conspirators submitted like sheep, and were marched off to the Castle, every man-jack of them; there to meet other batches brought in by Buck and the different officers who had been detailed for their arrest.
In houses here and there throughout the city, parties of them were found and picked up; all armed, waiting for a signal to sally forth and shed the blood of their fellow-citizens. This has been denied, but a letter from the barbarous Lord Byron to Prince Rupert puts the design beyond doubt. But for the vigilance of the merchant-soldier Birch, and the activity of the “busy mercer” Buck, that night the streets of Bristol would have run blood, and every house in it belonging to a Parliamentarian been sacked and plundered. For the head plunderer, Rupert—he who introduced the word to the English language—stood at that very hour on the top of King’s Weston hill, awaiting a triple signal—the bells of three churches to be rung—Saint John’s, for summoning the Royalist sailors; that of Saint Nicholas, to call out the butchers for butchers’ work congenial to them; while from the tower of Saint Michael’s he expected to hear a peal more especially meant for himself and his freebooters, as it were saying, “You may come on! The gates of Bristol are unbarred for you!”
But he heard it not. They who had been entrusted with the ringing of that fatal peal never rang it. Instead of bell ropes in their hands, they now had manacles around their wrists, and grim sentries standing guard over them.
Rupert waited, watched, and listened, till the break of day showed him the great seaport of the Severn still calm; its gates close shut; its walls and towers bristling with armed men, in attitudes that told them determined on its defence.
Thinking he had been made a fool of, and fearing further betrayal, he hastily beat retreat from Durdham Down to seek the pillage of some city more easy of being entered.
The rising sun saw his back turned upon Bristol; he and his Cavaliers venting loud curses—reviling their partisans inside, whose misleading correspondence had lured them to an expedition ludicrous as bootless.