CHAPTER XLIX.
SIEGE.
Things began to look threatening. Raglan's brooding disappointment andapprehension was like the electric overcharge of the earth, awaiting anddrawing to it the hovering cloud: the lightning and thunder of the warbegan at length to stoop upon the Yellow Tower of Gwent. When the monthof May arrived once more with its moonlight and apple-blossoms, thecloud came with it. The doings of the earl of Glamorgan in Ireland hadprobably hastened the vengeance of the parliament.
There was no longer any royal army. Most of the king's friends hadaccepted the terms offered them; and only a few of his garrisons,amongst the rest that of Raglan, held out--no longer, however, in suchtrim for defence as at first. The walls, it is true, were ratherstronger than before, the quantity of provisions was large, and thegarrison was sufficient; but their horses were now comparatively few,and, which was worse, the fodder in store was, in prospect of a longsiege, scanty. But the worst of all, indeed the only weak and thereforemiserable fact, was, that the spirit, I do not mean the courage, of thecastle was gone; its enthusiasm had grown sere; its inhabitants nolonger loved the king as they had loved him, and even stern-facedgeneral Duty cannot bring up his men to a hand-to-hand conflict with thesame elans as queen love.
The rumour of approaching troops kept gathering, and at every freshreport Scudamore's eyes shone.
'Sir Rowland,' said the governor one day, 'hast not had enough offighting yet for all thy lame shoulder?'
''Tis but my left shoulder, my lord,' answered Scudamore.
'Thou lookest for the siege as an' it were but a tussle and over--aflash and a roar. An' thou had to answer for the place like me--well!'
'Nay, my lord, I would fain show the roundheads what an honest house cando to hold out rogues.'
'Ay, but there's the rub!' returned lord Charles: 'will the house holdout the rogues? Bethink thee, Rowland, there is never a spot in it fitfor defence except the keep and the kitchen.'
'We can make sallies, my lord.'
'To be driven in again by ten times our number, and kept in while theyknock our walls about our ears! However, we will hold out while we can.Who knows what turn affairs may take?'
It was towards the end of April when the news reached Raglan that theking, desperate at length, had made his escape from beleaguered Oxford,and in the disguise of a serving man, betaken himself to theheadquarters of the Scots army, to find himself no king, no guest even,but a prisoner. He sought shelter and found captivity. The marquisdropped his chin on his chest and murmured, 'All is over.'
But the pang that shot to his heart awoke wounded loyalty: he had beenangry with his monarch, and justly, but he would fight for him still.
'See to the gates, Charles,' he cried, almost springing, spite of hisunwieldiness, from his chair. 'Tell Caspar to keep the powder-mill goingnight and day. Would to God my boy Ned were here! His majesty hathwronged me, but throned or prisoned he is my king still--the church mustcome down, Charles. The dead are for the living, and will not cry out.'For in St. Cadocus' church lay the tombs of his ancestors.
On deliberation it was resolved, however, that only the tower, whichcommanded some portions of the castle, should fall. To Dorothy it waslike taking down the standard of the Lord. She went with some of theladies to look a last look at the ancient structure, and saw mass aftermass fall silent from the top to clash hideous at the foot amidst thebroken tomb-stones. It was sad enough! but the destruction of thecottages around it, that the enemy might not have shelter there, wassadder still. The women wept and wailed; the men growled, and said whatwas Raglan to them that their houses should be pulled from over theirheads. The marquis offered compensation and shelter. All took the money,but few accepted the shelter, for the prospect of a siege was notattractive to any but such as were fond of fighting, of whom some wouldrather attack than defend.
The next day they heard that sir Trevor Williams was at Usk with astrong body of men. They knew colonel Birch was besieging Gutbridgecastle. Two days passed, and then colonel Kirk appeared to the north,and approached within two miles. The ladies began to look pale as oftenas they saw two persons talking together: there might be fresh news. Hisfather and his wife were not the only persons in the castle who keptsighing for Glamorgan. Every soul in it felt as if, not to say fanciedthat, his presence would have made it impregnable.
But a strange excitement seized upon Dorothy, which arose from a senseof trust and delegation, outwardly unauthorised. She had not thepresumption to give it form in words, even to Caspar, but she felt as ifthey two were the special servants of the absent power. Ceaselesslytherefore she kept open eyes, and saw and spoke and reminded andremedied where she could, so noiselessly, so unobtrusively, that nonewere offended, and all took heed of the things she brought before them.Indeed what she said came at length to be listened to almost as if ithad been a message from Glamorgan. But her chief business was still thefire-engine, whose machinery she anxiously watched--for if anythingshould happen to Caspar and then to the engine, what would become ofthem when driven into the tower?
Discipline, which of late had got very drowsy, was stirred up to freshlife. Watch grew strict. The garrison was drilled more regularly andcarefully, and the guard and sentinels relieved to the minute. Thearmoury was entirely overhauled, and every smith set to work to get thepoor remainder of its contents into good condition.
One evening lord Charles came to his father with the news that somescore of fresh horses had arrived.
'Have they brought provender with them, my lord?' asked the marquis.
'Alas, no, my lord, only teeth,' answered the governor.
'How stands the hay?'
'At low ebb, my lord. There is plenty of oats, however.'
'We hear to-day nothing of the roundheads: what say you to turning themout and letting them have a last bellyful of sweet grass under thewalls?'
'I say 'tis so good a plan, my lord, that I think we had better extendit, and let a few of the rest have a parting nibble.'
The marquis approved.
There was a postern in the outermost wall of the castle on the westernside, seldom used, commanded by the guns of the tower, and opening upona large field of grass, with nothing between but a ditch. It was justwide enough to let one horse through at a time, and by this the governorresolved to turn them out, and as soon as it was nearly dark, ordered afew thick oak planks to be laid across the ditch, one above another, fora bridge. The field was sufficiently fenced to keep them from straying,and with the first signs of dawn they would take them in again.
Dorothy, leaving the tower for the night, had reached the archway, whento her surprise she saw the figure of a huge horse move across the mouthof it, followed by another and another. Except Richard's mare on thateventful night she had never seen horse-kind there before. One afteranother, till she had counted some five-and-twenty, she saw pass, thenheard them cross the fountain court with heavy foot upon the tiles. Atlength, dark as it was, she recognised her own little Dick movingathwart the opening. She sprang forward, seized him by the halter, anddrew him in beside her. On and on they came, till she had countedeighty, and then the procession ceased.
Presently she heard the voice of lord Charles, as he crossed the halland came out into the court, saying,
'How many didst thou count, Shafto?'
'Seventy-nine, my lord,' answered the groom, coming from the directionof the gate.
'I counted eighty at the hall-door as they went in.'
'I am certain no more than seventy-nine went through the gate, my lord.'
'What can have become of the eightieth? He must have gone into thechapel, or up the archway, or he may be still in the hall. Art sure heis not grazing on the turf?'
'Certain sure, my lord,' answered Shafto.
'I am the thief, my lord,' said Dorothy, coming from the archway behindhim, leading her little horse. '--Good, my lord, let me keep Dick. He isas useful as another--more useful than some.'
'How, cousin!' cried lord Charles, 'didst
imagine I was sending off thygenet to save the hay? No, no! An' thou hadst looked well at the otherhorses, thou wouldst have seen they are such as we want for work--suchas may indeed save the hay, but after another fashion. I but mean to dothy Dick a kindness, and give him a bite of grass with the rest.'
'Then you are turning them out into the fields, my lord?'
'Yes--at the little postern.'
'Is it safe, my lord, with the enemy so near?'
'It is my father's idea. I do not think there is any danger. There willbe no moon to-night.'
'May not the scouts ride the closer for that,' my lord?'
'Yes, but they will not see the better.'
'I hope, my lord, you will not think me presumptuous, but--please let mekeep my Dick inside the walls.'
'Do what thou wilt with thine own, cousin. I think thou artover-fearful; but do as thou wilt, I say.'
Dorothy led Dick back to his stable, a little distressed that lordCharles seemed to dislike her caution.
But she had a strong feeling of the risk of the thing, and after shewent to bed was so haunted by it that she could not sleep. After awhile, however, her thoughts took another direction:--Might not Richardcome to the siege? What if they should meet?--That his party hadtriumphed, no whit altered the rights of the matter, and she was sure ithad not altered her feelings; yet her feelings were altered: she was nolonger so fiercely indignant against the puritans as heretofore! Was sheturning traitor? or losing the government of herself? or was the righttriumphing in her against her will? Was it St. Michael for the truthconquering St. George for the old way of England? Had the king been atyrant indeed? and had the powers of heaven declared against him, andwere they now putting on their instruments to cut down the harvest ofwrong? Had not Richard been very sure of being in the right? But whatwas that shaking--not of the walls, but the foundations? What was thatnoise as of distant thunder? She sprang from her bed, caught up hernight-light, for now she never slept in the dark as heretofore, andhurried to the watch-tower. From its top she saw, by the faint light ofthe stars, vague forms careering over the fields. There was no cryexcept an occasional neigh, and the thunder was from the feet of manyhorses on the turf. The enemy was lifting the castle horses!
She flew to the chamber beneath, where, since the earl's departure, inthe stead of the cross-bow, a small minion gun had been placed by lordCharles, with its muzzle in the round where the lines of the loop-holecrossed. A piece of match lay beside it. She caught it up, lighted it ather candle, and fired the gun. The tower shook with its roar and recoil.She had fired the first gun of the siege: might it be a good omen!
In an instant the castle was alive. Warders came running from thewestern gate. Dorothy had gone, and they could not tell who had firedthe gun, but there were no occasion to ask why it had been fired--forwhere were the horses? They could hear, but no longer see them. Therewas mounting in hot haste, and a hurried sally. Lord Charles flunghimself on little Dick's bare back, and flew to reconnoitre. Fifty ofthe garrison were ready armed and mounted by the time he came back,having discovered the route they were taking, and off they went at fullspeed in pursuit. But, encumbered as they were at first with the drivenhorses, the twenty men who had carried them off had such a start oftheir pursuers that they reached the high road where they could notstray, and drove them right before them to sir Trevor Williams at Usk.
'The fodder will last the longer,' said the marquis, with a sigh sentafter his eighty horses.
'Mistress Dorothy,' said lord Charles the next day, 'methinks thou artas Cassandra in Troy. I shall tremble after this to do aught against thyjudgment.'
'My lord,' returned Dorothy, 'I have to ask your pardon for mypresumption, but it was borne in upon me, as Tom Fool says, that therewas danger in the thing. It was scarcely judgment on my part--rather awomanish dread.'
'Go thou on to speak thy mind like Cassandra, cousin Dorothy, and let usmen despise it at our peril. I am humbled before thee,' said lordCharles, with the generosity of his family.
'Truly, child,' said lady Glamorgan, 'the mantle of my husband hathfallen upon thee!'
The next day sir Trevor Williams and his men sat down before the castlewith a small battery, and the siege was fairly begun. Dorothy, on thetop of the keep, watching them, but not understanding what they wereabout in particulars, heard the sudden bellow of one of their cannon.Two of the battlements beside her flew into one, and the stones of theparapet between them stormed into the cistern. Had her presence been theattraction to that thunderbolt? Often after this, while she watched theengine below in the workshop, she would hear the dull thud of an ironball against the body of the tower; but although it knocked the parapetinto showers of stones, their artillery could not make the slightestimpression upon that.
The same night a sally was prepared. Rowland ran to lord Charles,begging leave to go. But his lordship would not hear of it, telling himto get well, and he should have enough of sallying before the siege wasover. The enemy were surprised, and lost a few men, but soon recoveredthemselves and drove the royalists home, following them to the verygates, whence the guns of the castle sent them back in their turn.
Many such sallies and skirmishes followed. Once and again there was buttime for the guard to open the gate, admit their own, and close it, erethe enemy came thundering up--to be received with a volley and gallopoff. At first there was great excitement within the walls when a partywas out. Eager and anxious eyes followed them from every point ofvision. But at length they got used to it, as to all the ordinaryoccurrences of siege.
By and by colonel Morgan appeared with additional forces, and made hishead-quarters to the south, at Llandenny. In two days more the castlewas surrounded, and they began to erect a larger battery on the east ofit, also to dig trenches and prepare for mining. The chief point ofattack was that side of the stone court which lay between the towers ofthe kitchen and the library. Here then came the hottest of the siege,and very soon that range of building gave show of affording an easypassage by the time the outer works should be taken.
After the first ball, whose execution Dorothy had witnessed, there cameno more for some time. Sir Trevor waited until the second battery shouldbe begun and captain Hooper arrive, who was to be at the head of themining operations. Hence most of the inmates of the castle began toimagine that a siege was not such an unpleasant thing after all. Theylacked nothing; the apple trees bloomed; the moon shone; the white horsefed the fountain; the pigeons flew about the courts, and the peacockstrutted on the grass. But when they began digging their approaches andmounting their guns on the east side, sir Trevor opened his battery onthe west, and the guns of the tower replied. The guns also from thekitchen tower, and another between it and the library tower, played uponthe trenches, and the noise was tremendous. At first the inhabitantswere nearly deafened, and frequently failed to hear what was said; butat length they grew hardened--so much so that they were often unaware ofthe firing altogether, and began again to think a siege no great matter.But when the guns of the eastern battery opened fire, and at the firstdischarge a round shot, bringing with it a barrowful of stones, camedown the kitchen chimney, knocking the lid through the bottom of thecook's stewpan, and scattering all the fire about the place; when theroof of one of the turrets went clashing over the stones of the pavedcourt; when a spent shot struck the bars of the Great Mogul's cage, andsent him furious, making them think what might happen, and wishing theywere sure of the politics of the wild beasts; when the stones and slatesflew about like sudden showers of hail; when every now and then a greatrumble told of a falling wall, and that side of the court was rapidlyturning to a heap of ruins; then were cries and screams, many morehowever of terror than of injury, to be heard in the castle, and theybegan to understand that it was not starvation, but something moreperemptory still, to which they were doomed to succumb. At times therewould fall a lull, perhaps for a few hours, perhaps but for a fewmoments, to end in a sudden fury of firing on both sides, mingled withshouts, the rattling of bullets, and the
falling of stones, when thewomen would rush to and fro screaming, and all would imagine the stormwas in the breach.
But the gloom of the marquis seemed to have vanished with the breakingof the storm, as the outburst of the lightning takes the weight off headand heart that has for days been gathering. True, when his house beganto fall, he would look for a moment grave at each successive rumble, butthe next he would smile and nod his head, as if all was just as he hadexpected and would have it. One day when sir Toby Mathews and Dr. Baylyhappened both to be with him in his study, an ancient stack of chimneystumbled with tremendous uproar into the stone court. The two clergymenstarted visibly, and then looked at each other with pallid faces. Butthe marquis smiled, kept the silence for an instant, and then, in slowsolemn voice, said:
'Scimus enim quoniam si terrestris domus nomus nostra hujus habitationisdissolvatur, quod aedificationem ex Deo habemus, domum non manufactam,aeternam in coelis.'
The clergymen grasped each other by the hand, then turning bowedtogether to the marquis, but the conversation was not resumed.
One evening in the drawing-room, after supper, the marquis, in goodspirits, and for him in good health, was talking more merrily thanusual. Lady Glamorgan stood near him in the window. The captain of thegarrison was giving a spirited description of a sally they had made thenight before upon colonel Morgan in his quarters at Llandenny, and sirRowland was vowing that come of it what might, leave or no leave, hewould ride the next time, when crash went something in the room, themarquis put his hand to his head, and the countess fled in terror,crying, 'O Lord! O Lord!' A bullet had come through the window, knockeda little marble pillar belonging to it in fragments on the floor, andglancing from it, struck the marquis on the side of the head. Thecountess, finding herself unhurt, ran no farther than the door.
'I ask your pardon, my lord, for my rudeness,' she said, with tremblingvoice, as she came slowly back. 'But indeed, ladies,' she added, 'Ithought the house was coming down.--You gentlemen, who know not whatfear is, I pray you to forgive me, for I was mortally frightened.'
'Daughter, you had reason to run away, when your father was knocked onthe head,' said the marquis.
He put his finger on the flattened bullet where it had fallen on thetable, and turning it round and round, was silent for a moment evidentlyframing aright something he wanted to say. Then with the pretence thatthe bullet had been flattened upon his head,
'Gentlemen,' he remarked, 'those who had a mind to flatter me were wontto tell me that I had a good head in my younger days, but if I don'tflatter myself, I think I have a good head-piece in my old age, or elseit would not have been musket-proof.'
But although he took the thing thus quietly and indeed merrily, itrevealed to him that their usual apartments were no longer fit for theladies, and he gave orders therefore that the great rooms in the towershould be prepared for them and the children.
Dorothy's capacity for work was not easily satisfied, but now for a timeshe had plenty to do. In the midst of the roar from the batteries, andthe answering roar from towers and walls, the ladies betook themselvesto their stronger quarters: a thousand necessaries had to be carriedwith them, and she, as a matter of course, it seemed, had to superintendthe removal. With many hands to make light work she soon finished,however, and the family was lodged where no hostile shot could reachthem, although the frequent fall of portions of its battlemented summitrendered even a peep beyond its impenetrable shell hazardous. Dorothywould lie awake at night, where she slept in her mistress's room, andlisten--now to the baffled bullet as it fell from the scarce indentedwall, now to the roar of the artillery, sounding dull and far awaythrough the ten-foot thickness; and ever and again the words of theancient psalm would return upon her memory: 'Thou hast been a shelterfor me, and a strong tower from the enemy.'
She tended the fire-engine if possible yet more carefully than ever,kept the cistern full, and the water lipping the edge of the moat, butlet no fountain flow except that from the mouth of the white horse. Hergreat fear was lest a shot should fall into the reservoir and injure itsbottom, but its contriver had taken care that, even without theprotection of its watery armour, it should be indestructible.
The marquis would not leave his own rooms and the supervision they gavehim. The domestics were mostly lodged within the kitchen tower, which,although in full exposure to the enemy's fire, had as yet proved able toresist it. But all between that and the library tower was rapidlybecoming a chaos of stones and timber. Lord Glamorgan's secret chamberwas shot through and through; but Caspar, as soon as the direction andforce of the battery were known, had carried off his books andinstruments.