Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845

"Again I understand you not," repeated Gerald, gazing wistfully in his face. "Oh speak, explain – my father – this is a mystery to me!"

"Not understand me!" echoed Lord Clynton with scorn – "convenient phrase! convenient memory! You understood not perhaps those letters I addressed you, those letters in which I implored you to forget the past, and offered you a loving welcome to my heart. But you could dictate a letter to your uncle, in which you could upbraid me for my past unkindness, and refuse to return. You understood not my urgent appeal to you to join the cause of truth and loyalty, and fight by your father's side. But you could dictate a second answer, worded with cold contempt, in which you could assert your rebellious right – degenerate boy! – to follow those principles you dared to my face to qualify as those of justice and religion."

"Letters!" repeated Gerald, astounded. "An appeal! I know of none – until my uncle's death I scarcely was aware I had a father to whom I owed a duty – I never heard that he followed another cause, but that which I was taught to believe the right."

"No letters! No appeal!" said his father, half in scornful mistrust, half in doubt.

"None – I protest to you, my father," replied the agitated youth. "Now – but only now – can I construe rightly the words my uncle uttered on his deathbed, which spoke of wrong he had done me and you."

"Can I believe all this?" said the passionate old cavalier, now evidently wavering in his wrath.

"As God lives," said Gerald; "that God whom I perhaps offend, that I thus call upon his name – that God who has said, 'Swear not at all.'" The old cavalier shrugged his shoulders at this evidence of the Puritanical education of his son. "I swear to you, that I know nothing of those matters."

Lord Clynton was evidently moved, although the rebellious spirit within still resisted the more affectionate promptings of his heart —

"Father, prove me," cried Gerald imploringly. "Let me live henceforth to serve you – let me die for you, if needs must be – let me save you from this prison – let me earn thy blessing – that blessing, which is my dearest treasure upon earth."

Gerald again bent down at the old man's feet. Lord Clynton still struggled with his feelings. There was still a contest in his heart between long-cherished anger, and newly-awakened confidence. Before either could again speak, the trampling of feet was once more heard along the vaulted passage. The agitated son rose quickly to his feet, and strove to repress his emotion. His father gave him one look; and that look he fondly construed into a look of kindness. In another moment the colonel entered the court, followed by two soldiers.

Gideon's poised leg fell to the ground; his eyes opened and stared out wonderfully. That troubled stare told, as if the eyes had had a tongue, that Go-to-bed Godlamb had been sleeping soundly on his post. Fortunately for the somnolent soldier, the sharp looks of Lazarus Seaman were not bent in his direction.

With a formal bow to his prisoner, Colonel Seaman informed him that the time allotted to him for exercise in the open air was past. With another formal inclination of the head, the old cavalier bowed to his jailer, and turned to mount the tower stair. He exchanged not another look with his son: but as he turned away, Gerald tried to read in his face a milder feeling.

"I will save him, or will die!" muttered Gerald to himself, as the party disappeared under the tower gateway. "I will force him to grant me that blessing he has refused me – I will earn it well;" and he determined in his mind that, come what might, he would find means to be appointed to the midnight watch.

Chapter III

"Trifles light as airAre, to the jealous, confirmation strong,As proofs of holy writ."Othello."Honest soldier,Who hath relieved you? —Bernardo hath my place."Hamlet.

Left alone upon his post in the inner court, Gerald resolved in his mind what could best be done for his father. Every thing was already in preparation for the prisoner's escape, but the success or failure of the whole enterprise turned solely upon the connivance or opposition of the sentinel upon duty at the hour when the escape was to be effected. Gerald did not doubt, however, that should he himself not have the good fortune to be chosen for the midnight watch, he would not find much difficulty in persuading the comrade to whom it should fall, to exchange it with him for a more commodious hour. He felt that there could be none who would not gladly accept his offer, and thus be left to enjoy their night's rest, instead of enduring the fatigues of a tedious night watch. Of his own safety, of the dishonour, the punishment that awaited him for abetting in the escape of a prisoner of such importance, he thought not a moment. All such considerations were lost in his hopes of rescuing his father. But still, in the vague uncertainty that hung over the events of that important night, in the impatience of his mind to arrive quickly at that awful hour – that hour which was to decide so much joy or misery for him – Gerald scarcely knew how to conceal his feverish agitation. He was aware, however, how necessary it was to avoid betraying any feelings that might excite the least suspicion; and he determined to appear as cold and as unconcerned as possible.

There was another also, although at this moment a secondary torment, which added to his trouble of mind. He was unable to disengage his thoughts entirely from those feelings of bitter and scorching jealousy, which various little indications of coquetry, displayed by the evidently coquettish little Puritan damsel, and certain marks of desire to seek her presence, and parade under her window, evinced by the hated Maywood, had planted in his heart – and in a jealous and impatient temperament like Gerald's, such seed, once sown, quickly grew up with rank luxuriance, and spread on every side, imbibing sustenance from every element that approached it, living, in want of better nourishment, upon the very air itself. Perhaps the sight of Mistress Mildred for a moment at her window, a passing word, or merely a kind smile, might have poured balm upon the ulcer of jealousy, soothed the pain and closed the wound – at least for the time. But during his long watch Gerald looked at that well-known window in vain. There was not a symptom of the fair girl's presence in her chamber, and Gerald's fertile imagination – the true imagination of the jealous lover – suggested to him a thousand doubts and fears of Mildred's truth, ingeniously invented self-tortures, weapons forged to be turned against himself – all mere vague conjectures, but assuming in his eyes all the solidity and reality of truth. If she were not in her chamber, he argued, where could she be? Perhaps with her father: and her father was dictating a despatch to that Mark Maywood, who served him sometimes as secretary; and Mildred was gazing on him with pleasure; and he was raising his eyes from time to time to hers – or perhaps she was in the other gardens or alleys about the house, and that Maywood was following her at a distance, not unobserved; or perhaps she passed close by him, and he muttered words of admiration or even of love, and she then listened with complacency; or perhaps the handsome young recruit whispered in her ear to ask her when he could see her pretty face again; and she smiled on him and said, that when his watch should be beneath her window she would come. Madness! Gerald would pursue his vision no further. But although the clouds of the vision rolled away, they left a dark chilling mist of suspicion upon his mind that he could not, perhaps did not strive to, shake off.

Relieved from his guard, Gerald returned to the guard-room – his mind in that agony of suspense and dread respecting his father, the disquietudes of which his jealous doubts scarcely diverted for a moment, and only rendered more hard to bear. On his way he again passed the detested Maywood. As he approached he evidently saw the young soldier crumple in his hand a paper he was reading, and hide it hastily about him. This was no fancy, he repeated to himself; this was reality. He had seen the look of confusion and trouble upon Maywood's face, the haste with which he hid that paper at his approach. There was no longer any doubt. His hated rival was in correspondence already with his faithless mistress; and the contents of that written paper, what could they be, if not an acquiescence in some demand, a rendezvous granted, a meeting at her window? With rage in his heart, Gerald again longed to spring upon his rival and tear that paper from his bosom. But again prudence prevailed over passion. He felt that the life of his father depended upon his caution – his father – his father, whom he alone perhaps could save, whose blessing was to be his recompense. Swearing to tear for ever from his heart the vain, coquettish, heartless girl upon whom his affections had been so ill disposed – for thus, in his passion, he qualified his lady-love – he crushed down within him the violence of his angry feelings, and determined to defer his revenge, defer it only, until those few hours should be passed, those hours which should witness his father's escape and ensure his father's safety – and then die willingly, if such should chance to be his fate, in securing his vengeance. Strange mixture of noble feelings and base passions! Where were now the stern, strictly religious principles of his uncle and instructor? The fierce nature of his hot blood prevailed for the time over the better culture of his education.

At length the hour arrived when the soldiers were mustered in the outer court, before the front of the mansion, and the names of those called over who were appointed to the different watches of the night. How anxiously and eagerly did Gerald's heart beat as the midnight watch in the tower-court was named! Was it by a gracious and happy chance upon himself that the lot would fall? The name was pronounced. It was not his own. The sentinel appointed to this post, the man upon whom depended the destiny of his father, was another. But still, in spite of the first pang of disappointment – for disappointment would arise within him, although the chances had been so greatly against him – hope again revived in his heart. The sentinel whose post he coveted, whom he had to seduce into an exchange, whose watch he was to contrive to take from him as a favour, was one of the most easy of the whole troop to deal with, the lazy, phlegmatic, somnolent Godlamb Gideon, he whose very nickname was an augury and a warrant of success, the wight yclept Go-to-bed Godlamb.

After waiting till the assembled soldiers had dispersed, and a proper time had elapsed before seeking Gideon, Gerald again returned to the outer court before the house, where he knew it was the habit of the indolent soldier to bask and doze upon a certain sheltered bench, in the last rays of the setting sun, absorbed, he himself would declare, in his devotions. And there, in truth, he found the man he sought. But, confusion! there was another by his side, and that other was the man who, among all, he would have the most avoided. It was Mark Maywood. He stood by the side of Gideon's reclining form, and was speaking with much earnestness to the phlegmatic soldier, whose widely-opened eyes seemed to express more animation than of wont. No time, however, was to be lost. The night was approaching, and it was necessary to come at once to an arrangement with the allotted sentinel of the midnight watch.

Overcoming his repugnance, and fully determined to act with caution, Gerald assumed an air of unconcern, and sauntered to the spot where sat Godlamb Gideon. After greeting sulkily the handsome young recruit, to whom Gerald's presence seemed in nowise pleasing, he commenced with affected indifference his attack upon the heavy soldier.

"You are ever zealous, friend, in the good work," he said.

"Yea, and of a truth these crumbs of comfort have a blessed and pleasant savour in my nostrils," replied Godlamb Gideon, pressing his book between his hands, turning up the whites of his eyes, and snuffing through his nose, as though that member were stuffed up by the pleasant savour of which he spoke.

"But have a care that your zeal be not overmuch," continued Gerald, "and that you faint not by the way from the heaviness of your burden. Methinks your cheek is already pale from exceeding watching and prayer."

"Verily I have fought the good fight, and I have run the good race, and peradventure the flesh faileth me," snorted the Puritan soldier.

"Your allotted post, then, falls heavy upon you" said Gerald, with an air of kind concern, "for you have the midnight watch, methinks. Indeed, I pity you, my good friend. Hear me. I will perform the duties of your part, and you shall rest this night from your labours; my mind is troubled, and I heed not the watching through the night. You will rise from your couch ready for new outpourings of spiritual thought, and refreshed" —

"As a giant refreshed with wine," interrupted Gideon with another snort: "yea, and so shall it be." Gerald's heart beat at what he considered an acceptance of his proposal; but Godlamb Gideon continued – "Thou art kind, and I thank thee no less that I refuse thy offer. Verily it would seem to be a gracious and an especial vouchsafing in my favour. For, behold, another hath released me from my task."

"Another!" cried Gerald with a tone of consternation that overcame his caution.

"Yea, this good youth hath proffered to relieve me of my heavy burden." Gideon pointed to Mark Maywood.

Gerald started with angry surprise. Maywood bit his lip, and turned his head aside.

"He has taken thy post!" said Gerald choking with rage.

Gideon nodded his heavy head.

The blood boiled in Gerald's veins and rushed into his cheek. He felt for a moment nearly suffocated with the violence of his passion. Since the young recruit had been anxious to obtain Gideon's weary post, there could be no doubt what was his purpose. There, and in the silence of the night, he would be able, under Mildred's window, to pour into her ear those words of love which he dared not openly profess. It was true, then, that Mildred had bid him try to obtain the post of sentinel in the inner court. That was their hour of rendezvous. Furious jealousy, joined to rage at losing that post, on which his father's whole fate depended, contributed to torture his mind. Not only would his detested rival find a favourable opportunity of holding converse with that faithless girl, but he would be there to prevent his father's escape – he, of all others – he, that fierce and violent Republican, that determined enemy of all adherents to the royal cause. If the vision of Maywood interchanging soft words with Mildred at her window tormented the unhappy lover, far more agonizing were the feelings that represented to him the stern young sentinel raising his musket upon his shoulder to arrest the escape of the old man – shooting him, perhaps, in his descent from the tower-window – bringing him bleeding to the earth. Horror! Convulsed with these accumulated feelings, he stood for a time speechless, struggling with his passions. When he looked again upon Maywood's face, that hated individual's eyes were bent on him with a stern but enquiring glance, and in evident discomposure. This very look was sufficient to confirm all the young lover's suspicions, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he could control his passion. He mastered himself, however, sufficiently to meet the glance of Maywood without giving vent to his wrath, and, turning to Gideon, he called him aside.

The indolent soldier evidently rose unwillingly, but he followed Gerald to a little distance, grumbling something about an "interruption to the inward outpourings of the spirit."

"Hark ye, Master Gideon," said Gerald, when they had got to some distance from Mark, "you must not do me wrong in this. I own that my request is not wholly disinterested. You know that I love our colonel's daughter, that I am affianced to her. Her chamber looks into that court, and at midnight" —

"Now, out on thee, Master Lyle," drawled Godlamb, with an hypocritical upturning of his eyes. "Wouldst thou make my watch a pretext for ungodly chambering and profane love passages?"

"How now, fellow!" exclaimed the young man in wrath. "What mean you by this insolence?" and he grasped Gideon's collar with violence. But immediately afterwards repenting of his excitement, he continued with a calm tone although still in some irritation, "This is mere fooling, Gideon. I know you as you are – I know you to be a thorough hypocrite."

"Nay, but of a truth" – exclaimed the pacific Godlamb very sulkily.

"Hear me," interrupted Gerald. "It is not as you think – that Maywood loves her too. He also would keep the watch at midnight, in the hope to see her at the window – by chance, man, by chance – no otherwise; but I would hinder this, and" —

"Nay, but Master Maywood hath my word," again began Gideon.

"Nay, but Master Gideon slept whilom upon his post," continued Gerald, mimicking him. "And if Master Gideon be reported to his colonel, Master Gideon will have a week's arrest upon bread and water; but Master Gideon may do what he listeth."

"For the love of heaven," exclaimed Gideon, forgetting his Puritanical mask in his alarm; "you would not report me, comrade? S'wounds, you would not serve a poor fellow so scurvy a trick?"

"Upon one condition, then," replied Gerald. "Retract your word to that man; give me up your post at midnight; and I will be as silent as the grave."

"Lord have mercy upon us! Thou art as the cruel taskmasters of the children of Israel; and thy heart is hardened even as was Pharaoh's," whined Godlamb, again resuming his canting tone. "But be it even as thou wilt."

Gerald triumphed; the midnight watch was his; and with it his father's safety and his father's blessing.

They returned to the spot where Maywood still stood observing them, Gideon following in the rear, muttering something about "the hand of the ungodly being upon him."

"Speak, Gideon," said Gerald as they approached, "and thank your comrade here for his kindly proffered barter of hours; since it is I who take your post, you will not need his well-meant and disinterested civilities."

There was something of a sneer on Gerald's lip as he pronounced these words, which probably augmented the feelings of anger that now evidently flushed the usually cold face of Maywood and darkened his brow; for the latter appeared to tremble with suppressed passion as he advanced upon his rival with the words —

"How now, you, Master what's-your-name? What warrants you to interfere thus ill advisedly in my concerns? If this man has given up to me, at the midnight hour, the watch over that offshoot of a rotten and corrupted stem of tyranny, is it for you to stand between me and my purpose?"

"Your purpose is doubtless of the best, and truest, and worthiest," replied Gerald, with another flickering sneer upon his lip. "But this watch is mine now, by Master Gideon's consent, and these hours of the night I intend to devote to the watching of those whose security may need my care."

Mark Maywood bit his lip, and clenched his hands together in a vain effort to suppress his violent irritation.

"Hoity toity! Here's a coil about an old inveterate Amalekite!" said Gideon, in a mixture of his natural and assumed phraseology, prudently withdrawing at the same time to some distance from the angry young men, as if afraid lest an appeal to himself should involve him in the quarrel.

"Hark ye, sirrah," cried Maywood angrily, "I am not about to resign the right this man has yielded to me at the caprice of the first foolish fellow who chooses to cross my path, without making him repent his uncalled-for interference. What is it to me, this post? but browbeaten by a bullying boy, I never will be."

"Nor will I yield to a base and treacherous hypocrite like thee, Mark Maywood," exclaimed his angry antagonist.

The hands of both the young men were instantly upon their rapiers.

"By the mass, what are ye about?" exclaimed Gideon in alarm. "Trifle not with the carnal weapon! Would ye have us all in arrest before we can look about us? Forbear, men of wrath!"

But the phlegmatic Gideon kept at a prudent distance.

At these words other considerations appeared suddenly to strike both the young men. In spite of their passion, both paused irresolute.

Gerald reflected that were he involved in a quarrel he would necessarily be prevented in any case, whether victorious over his adversary and then consigned to prison, or himself disabled, from forwarding his father's escape. His rival appeared actuated also by prudential motives, perhaps by the conscientious scruples of the party to which he belonged, perhaps by the thought of Mildred.

"This is truly ruffling and bawling like tavern hunters and drunkards," stammered Gerald, as if seeking an excuse for withdrawing from the fray. "But the time will come, Mark Maywood, when you shall not escape me."

"So be it, comrade," replied the other, again sheathing his half-drawn rapier. "I know you not; and can but barely divine your cause of enmity. But I will not fail you at the night-time. Till then let this suffice. The midnight watch is mine – mine by the first assent of yonder soldier to my proposal of exchange."

"No! Mine," again urged Gerald, "mine by his retractation of his prior consent, if such he gave."

"Come hither, comrade," cried Maywood to Gideon, who was suddenly absorbed once more in his devotions.

"Hear ye, Master Godlamb," said the other. But Go-to-bed Godlamb stirred not. He shrank from the appeal to himself.

"It is to me your post has been consigned, is it not so?" enquired the one.

"It is I who take it off your hands – speak," cried Gerald. "Remember, Gideon," he added with upraised finger.

"Speak, who is it?" said both at once. Gideon shuffled with his feet, and looked heavier and more embarrassed than ever; but as he caught sight of the warning finger, he absolutely shut his eyes in utter despair, and pointing at Gerald, with the words, "Verily, and of a truth, thou art the man," he hastened away as fast as his indolent nature would permit, "before he should fall into the toils of the angry Philistines," as he expressed it.

Gerald could not suppress a look of triumph. Whatever were Mark Maywood's feelings, he only expressed them by a dark scowl of disappointment, and then turned away without another word.

Chapter IV

"'What hour now?''I think it lacks of twelve,''No, it is struck – ''Indeed I heard it not.'"Hamlet.

The night had closed in – that night of so vital importance to his father's destiny – and Gerald sat alone in a small lower room, his heart beating high with hope, that he should contribute to his father's rescue.

He was lost in thought, when a firm hand laid on his shoulder roused him from his abstracted state. He turned his head, and saw, to his surprise, Mark Maywood by his side. The young man wore a calmer, clearer brow, although his usual cold, stern, almost determined expression still pervaded it.

"Comrade," said Maywood with much appearance of frankness in his manner, "I have spoken roughly without cause; I crave your pardon."

Gerald heard this unexpected address with great astonishment; and, before he answered, paused in much embarrassment.

"Let us be frank," continued Mark. "Had we been so before, much ill will and evil blood might have been spared. I have only divined your feelings from my own. You have not seen the pretty daughter of our colonel with admiration. Nor have I."

Gerald started with again rising wrath, but his rival interrupted him.

"Bear with me for a while," he continued, "and hear me out. You have been here long. I am but a new-comer. You have the prior claim. Perhaps she returns your love. Had I known of this before – and as it is I have but guessed it, on witnessing your anxiety to hold this watch in the court, beneath her window – I had withdrawn, as is my duty. And now, comrade, I return to offer you the sacrifice of my newborn admiration, and at the same time my friendship."

"What you say seems fair and straightforward, Master Maywood," said Gerald, overcome by the frank manner of the young soldier, "and I thank you for this generosity and truth. My suspicions, then, did not deceive me? You love her, and you sought to see her to-night?"