CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
THE NIGHT OWL.
The conspiracy having been nipped in the bud, and the conspirators inprison, Bristol again breathed freely. The approaches to it were oncemore open, the thwarted Royalists having withdrawn to a distance; sothat Jerky Jack might have made the return trip to Gloucester with adespatch stuck in the band of his hat safe as it inside his wooden leg.
But swifter messengers traversed that road now, cleared of the enemy atboth ends, and on both sides of the river Severn.
He who had effected this clearance was Sir William Waller, jocularlystyled "William the Conqueror," from the succession of victories he hadlate achieved. Also was he known as the "Night Owl;" a sobriquet due tohis habit of making nocturnal expeditions that oft took the Royalists bysurprise. No Crophead he, but a Cavalier in the true sense; a veryPaladin--withal a Christian gentleman. He had separated from slow-goingLord General, and made one of his bold dashes down to the shiresbordering Wales; first relieving Gloucester, which was in a mannerbesieged by the Monmouthshire levies of Lord Herbert. The besiegerswere not only brushed off, but the main body of them either killed orcaptured; only a scant residue escaping to their fastnesses beyond theWye; whither the "Conqueror" followed, chastising them still further.
Returning across the Forest of Dean, he outwitted the Royalist troopsunder Prince Maurice; and, once were setting face westward, raidedthrough Herefordshire on to its chief city--which he captured, with aflock of foul birds that had been roosting there ever since itsabandonment by the Parliamentarians under the silly Stamford.
But the "Night Owl" himself was not the bird to remain long on perchanywhere; and, gathering up his captured game--a large bag, includingsome of Herefordshire's best blood, as the Scudamores, Conningsbys, andPyes--he rounded back to Gloucester, and on to Bristol.
Not to tarry here, either. Soon as he had disembarrassed himself of hiscaptive train--committed to the keeping of Fiennes--he was off againinto Somersetshire, there to measure swords with Maurice and the Marquisof Hertford. As he rode out through the Bath gate at the head of atroop of steel-clad cuirassiers--"Hesselrig's Lobsters"--the citizens ofBristol felt more confident of safety than ever since the strife began.For now they were assured against danger, outside as within. Internaltreason had been awed, the traitors cowed and crushed, by what hadbefallen the conspirators of March the Seventh. The two chiefs of them,Yeomans and Boucher, had been tried, found guilty, and sentenced todeath--a sentence soon afterwards carried into execution. Grand effortswere made to get them off; the King himself, by letter, threatening toretaliate upon the poor captives taken at Cirencester--such of them asremained unmurdered. Old Patrick, Earl of Forth, his Majesty'sLieutenant-General, was put forward as the writer of the barbarousepistle. But canny Scot and accomplished soldier as his lordship mightbe, in a polemical contest he was no match for the lawyer, Fiennes, whoflung the threat back in his teeth, saying:
"The men we have tried and condemned are not soldiers, but spies andconspirators. The prisoners you took at Cirencester are prisoners ofwar. I would have you observe the distinction. And know, too, that forevery hair of their heads that falls, I will hang ten of your curledCavaliers--make Bristol a shambles of them."
Though not Nathaniel Fiennes's exact words, they convey his meaning verynear. And he could and would have acted up to them, as the King and hiscounsellors knew. So, whether or not they deemed his argument rational,it was unanswerable, or at all events unanswered, by a counter-threat;and the Cirencester prisoners were spared execution, while the Bristolconspirators went to the scaffold.
Much has been made of the King's forbearance in this affair by those whodid not, or would not, comprehend the motive. It was pure fear, nothumanity--fear of a still more terrible retaliation. At that time theParliament held ten prisoners for one in the hands of the Royalists--menof such rank and quality, his Majesty dared not put their lives inperil, much less let them be sacrificed. He had his revenge in secret,however, since under his very nose at Oxford many of the haplesscaptives from Cirencester miserably perished, through the torturingtreatment of the Royal Provost-Marshal, Smith.
Finally, the "two State martyrs"--as Yeomans and Boucher have beenstyled by the Royalist writers--were strung up, protesting theirinnocence to the last, for all they were little believed. The evidenceadduced at their trial clearly proved intent to shed the blood of theirfellow-citizens; else why were they and their co-conspirators armed?Independent of this, their design of handing over Bristol to the rule ofPrince Rupert and his ruffians meant something more than the merespilling of blood in a street conflict--it involved the sack and pillageof peaceful homes, the violation of women, rapine and ruin in every way.It was only on getting the details of the trial that the Bristoliansbecame fully sensible of the danger they had so narrowly escaped;convinced then, as Captain Birch worded it, that they had been standingupon a mine.
Notwithstanding all these occurrences and circumstances running counterto the Royal cause, against which the tide seemed to have turned, withinMontserrat House--as the late Monsieur Lalande had named his dwelling--was no interruption of the festive scenes already alluded to. Itsguests were as numerous, its gaieties gay and frequent as ever. For, tospeak truth, the political _bias_ of the planter's widow, as that of herdaughter, was but skin deep. Hair had much to do with it; and, likeenough, had the Parliamentarian officers but worn theirs a littlelonger, submitted it to the curling tongs, and given themselves toswearing and swaggering, in a genteel Cavalier way, they would have beenmore welcome to the hospitality of her house.
Still not all of them were denied it; for not all were of the Roundheadtype. Among them were many gentlemen of high birth and best manners,some affecting as fine feathers as the Cavaliers themselves. For the"Self-denying Ordinance" had not yet been ordained, nor theParliamentary army moulded to the "new model."
In view of certain people sojourning in Montserrat House, it need scarcebe said that Sir Richard Walwyn and Eustace Trevor were visitors there.Even without reference to the predilections of Madame or Mademoiselle,they could not well be excluded. But there was no thought of excludingthem; both were unmistakably eligible, and one of them most welcome, forreasons that will presently appear. They had arrived in Bristol only ashort while antecedent to its state of semi-siege, the Powells havinglong preceded them thither. And now that the approaches were againopen, most of their time was spent keeping them so; the troop with the"big sergeant," and standard showing a crown impaled upon a sword, oncemore displaying its prowess in encounters with the Cavaliers. AfterRupert had disappeared from that particular scene, Prince Maurice, withhis _corps d'armee_, began to manoeuvre upon it, swinging roundsouthward into Somersetshire to unite his force with that of Hertford.To hang upon his skirts, and harass his outposts, was the work of SirRichard Walwyn; a duty which often carried him and his Foresters afarfrom the city, and kept them away weeks at a time.
He was just returning to it when Waller passed through. But, enteringby a different route and gate from that taken by the latter going out,he missed him. Like enough but for this he would have been commandedalong. For the "Conqueror" had carried off with him the _elite_ of thetroops quartered in Bristol, almost stripping it of a garrison, to theno small annoyance of Nathaniel Fiennes. Glad was the Governor that thetroop with the "big sergeant" had escaped such requisition--overjoyedhis eyes to see that banner, bearing the emblem of a crown with swordstuck through it once more waving before the Castle gate.