CHAPTER XX.
"FROM CHAIN TO CHAIN."
"Mr. Windsor," said the Duke of Bayswater to his host, as the two weresitting in the library of the latter's house in Boston, "I have receivedto-day a letter from our poor friend Sydney from my late residence,Dartmoor Prison. It is exceedingly interesting to me."
"Poor fellow," answered Mr. Windsor. "What a pity it was that we couldnot effect his escape with the rest of you. How does he bear up?"
"Ah! pretty well, pretty well," answered the Duke, rubbing hisgold-bowed spectacles with a white silk handkerchief. "But still, I mustsay that the poor fellow seems very down-hearted. Shall I read you hisletter?"
Mr. Windsor bowed assent, and the Duke adjusted his spectacles to hissharp aquiline nose, and read, in faltering tones:
"DARTMOOR PRISON, 198-.
"DEAR DUKE: I was delighted that you all made good escape on that eventful night of the fog. It is foolish to complain of fate, or rather of the life of free living, which made me have a tendency to rheumatic gout. As I sat on the edge of the canal and watched you then, as you suddenly disappeared over the hill, I cursed all French cooks and vintages, and my roystering old grandfather to boot. But I led the guard, who were hot on your scent, a devil's own dance when they found that the lock of the last bridge was filled with pebbles. But I am delighted that you others escaped; I could not bear to imagine you, dear Duke, whose magnificent hospitality I had enjoyed in days gone by, cramped in a narrow cell, or mopping up the corridors of this jail."
The Duke broke down completely as he remembered his life at Dartmoor,and Mr. Windsor looked out of the window to conceal the smile which thispicture of his venerable old friend brought to his mind. The Duke, aftervigorously rubbing his spectacles and clearing his throat, remarked:
"Excuse my stopping, Mr. Windsor, but poor Sydney's handwriting neverwas good. I remember I used to tell him, when he answered myinvitations, that I should have imagined that a fly dipped in ink hadcrawled over the paper." He laughed for a moment at his formermoss-encrusted and ducal witticism, and continued reading Sydney'sletter:
"However, I have become resigned. I was born under an unlucky star, and the uninvited bad fairy at my christening, after the others had given me beauty, riches, and wit, hopped in malevolently upon her crutch and shouted in a disagreeable falsetto: 'He shall have all these, to be sure, but he shall have a poor digestion and the gout!' and whirled away on the evening wind astride her broomstick."
Mr. Windsor laughed out loud; the Duke seemed annoyed at this, and,begging not to be interrupted again, continued his reading in a ratheroffended tone:
"Since your escape I have been under the strictest surveillance, and as I have recovered from my gout I have been set to work upon the ignoble task of breaking stone into small bits with a hammer. I am known as No. 5, and am called by no other name. Imagine me, who found it so difficult to look out for Number One, having to care for No. 5. Indeed, I should find it well-nigh impossible were it not for the assistance which I have from the warders and turnkeys, who look after me with a touching solicitude. No physician could have kept me to a regimen so suitable for my health as strictly as they. You remember how I used to enjoy lying abed in the morning. What a pleasure it was to wake up, to feel that the busy world was astir around you, and lie half awake, half asleep, stretching your toes into cool recesses of a soft, luxurious bed. But it made me idle, very idle. But now I must be off my hard cot, be dressed and have my cot made up by half-past five; then I breakfast off a piece of bread, washed down with a pint of unsweetened rye coffee innocent of milk, drunk _au naturel_ out of a tin pail. And how I miss my after-breakfast cigar and the _Times_, as I put my hands upon a fellow-convict's shoulder and march in slow procession to my task. The work of breaking a large piece of stone into smaller bits with a hammer is not an intellectual one; but it has got me into tolerable training; I have lost twenty pounds already, and am, as we used to say at the university, as 'hard as nails.' I am afraid that my old trousers, which my tailor used to let out year by year, would be a world too large for my shrunk shanks now. I dine at noon, as you remember, and for the first time in my life I do not dress for dinner; indeed, a white cravat and a dress coat would be inappropriate, when one sits down to bean porridge and boiled beef served in the same tin plate. But I have a good appetite after my pulverizing of the morning, and I am not compelled to set the table in a roar under duress. I am surprised what good things I think of now that I am not expected to and have no one to whom to say them. Jawkins would double my salary could he get me out. Rye coffee is a poor substitute for Chambertin, but it does not aggravate my gout. After dinner I return to my stone-breaking, and feel with delight my growing biceps muscle, and after my supper, which is monotonously like my breakfast, I tackle the tracts, which are left with me by kindly souls. They are of a class of literature which I have neglected since childhood, having, as you may remember, a leaning toward 'facetiae.' In fact, since my great-aunt's withdrawal to another world, where it may be hoped that the stones are more brittle and the coffee better, I have seen none. I cannot say that I have been comforted by the tracts, but I have been interested by them, and I spend the brief hours of leisure which are vouchsafed to me in annotating my editions. And yet, my dear Duke, unfortunate as my situation is, I would not exchange places with my old self, a hired jester at rich men's tables, selling myself for a dinner which I could not digest, nor with that wretched monarch, in whose cause we all suffered, who left his gallant gentleman to die for his cause while he pursued his selfish pleasures. If it were chance that I get out of here, I shall strive to earn my bread, in the appointed way, by the sweat of my brow, and to work with my fellow-men. Present my kindest regards to our good friend Mr. Windsor, who has dared so much for our sake, and believe me, my dear old friend,
"Yours faithfully,
"No. 5 (_ne_ JAMES SYDNEY)."
The Duke, when he had finished reading the letter, folded it carefully,and returned it into his pocket. His eyes were full of tears, and hisvoice broke as he read the quaint, pathetic words.
Mr. Windsor slapped his bony knee energetically, and arose from hischair.
"I must try to set the poor fellow free," he said energetically. "I donot believe that a forcible prison delivery would be successful again,when our former attempt is so fresh in the mind of the prison governor;but the presidential election in Great Britain and Ireland isapproaching, and if I judge the signs of the times aright, the Radicalsunder Bagshaw will enter the campaign heavily weighted. If theLiberal-Conservatives put up such a man as Richard Lincoln they willre-elect him, and if the administration is changed, diplomacy andentreaty may accomplish a general release of political prisoners. Thecause of the House of Hanover is so dead that, as Mother Goose says:
"'All the king's horses and all the king's men, Couldn't set Humpty Dumpty up again.'
By the way, I believe they call George King Humpty Dumpty in the comicpapers."
The Duke smiled ruefully; in his heart he despised the King, and faintlysaw that his class had lost their privileges, but he could not get usedto it. He knew that he was a broken old man, an exile from home, anddependent upon the kindness of Mr. Windsor; and he sighed deeply,wishing that he had died before the deluge which had gulfed all that washoly and precious to him.
Mr. Windsor saw that his thoughts were too sad and solemn for an alienintrusion, and left the old gentleman, still motionless, lookingvacantly at the wall. The old Duke saw no Mount Ararat rising from thetroubled waters; all that made life worth living for him had passedaway, and he lagged superfluous on the stage; a supernumerary with apasteboard
coronet; laughed at and ranted about in the pantomime atwhich the world had laughed, "King Humpty Dumpty."
That afternoon Maggie Windsor had gone for her usual walk upon theCharles River embankment, a fine esplanade stretching for seven milesalong the river-side. It was a beautiful day--one of those rare dayswhich gladden the drear northern spring and remind dwellers in Bostonthat they live under the same latitude under which Naples idles. A turnof the Gulf Stream and the descendants of the Puritans would lose thelast vestige of their inherited consciences and bask in the sun likehappy animals. But though the sky was violet, the bright sunlight wascold.
Maggie walked briskly along, by the water park, out by the great housesin Longwood, to the light bridge which swept over the river toCambridge. There were but few people walking on the embankment this coldday; a stream of carriages bright with glistening harness rolled by. Abarge, filled with a merry party, and drawn by four horses, arousedMaggie from her thoughts, which had been of Geoffrey. She had not seenhim since the evening of the King's drawing-room, when he had broken hissword before the monarch, and had returned his empty title to the dryfountain of honor. Her suspicions of him had died away long before shehad received his letter by Reynolds's hand. She had heard of the_emeute_ with an aching heart, and from her distant home in America shehad watched the proceedings of the trial eagerly. Her life had died awaywithin her when she read of the sentence of the prisoners, and knew thatthe man she loved was shut up from the world for fifteen years, like acommon felon. And he owed his liberty to her, and yet he did not knowit. He should have known it, by instinct, she thought. She had fanciedthat she knew the moment when he had made good his escape. Of a sudden,one day, during her father's absence in the yacht, the load from hersoul had rolled away. She felt that he was free, and speeding over thesea to meet her. Now that he was arrived in America, she had seen himbut once, and he had not spoken to her; he had bowed, with a stern, setface, and left the apartment. Had her cruel words there on the cliff byRipon village cut away his love for her? Then the message which she hadsent to him by his servant: "Tell your master that I am to be married."She had almost forgotten that. But his heart should have told him whatshe meant by that, she argued. "She was to be married, if only he wishedit." Why did he not come to her? Could it be possible that he thoughtshe was to marry another?
Such thoughts the rush and jingle of the great barge had interrupted.The barge rushed by, and looking up the strait she saw coming towardher, his form dark against the red sunset, Geoffrey Ripon.
He saw her at the same moment, and he took off his hat. She walked up tohim and offered him her hand.
"Miss Windsor, Maggie," he said as he grasped it.
"You received my message?" she asked, looking into his eyes.
"I did. Is it true?"
"I do not know," she answered, looking down at the river, which gleamedbelow rosy with the sunset; a happy omen. "It depends--"
"Upon what?" asked Geoffrey, eagerly.
"Upon you, Geoffrey," she answered. "Did you not know it?" And the sun,which just then disappeared over the Brookline hills, did not in hiscircuit of the world look upon a happier pair than these two lovers,clasped in each other's arms.
The King's Men: A Tale of To-morrow Page 20
